Let's dethrone content

If content is king, then it has no clothes on.

And, please, I'm a writer, not a content creator.

Yet so called "content marketing" consumed one-third of all business-to-business marketing spending in 2012, according to, wait for it, the Content Marketing Institute.

This factoid comes from Tom Stewart, chief marketing and knowledge officer of the management consulting firm Booz & Company. He should understand this business, if anyone does. He's a former editor of the Harvard Business Review. And his firm coined the term "thought leader."

Stewart describes content marketing thusly:

Content marketing takes thought leadership and puts it in play—cuts it up, makes ideas “snackable,” puts them “out there” so that someone (i.e., you) will be intrigued enough to want to learn more and, eventually, buy something.

It may be snackable, but it very often isn't nourishing. Stewart:

A lot of what you see is just sales material with understated typography. People surveyed by the Content Marketing Institute said that their biggest problem is producing enough content—nearly two-thirds cite this. The second-biggest problem these marketers face is creating content that “engages.” That sounds like people who don’t let the fact that they have little to say inhibit them from talking a lot.

Ah. There are good movies and bad, good novels and bad. And there is good business writing and bad. There is good TV and bad, but all the cable channels have to run something, so they do. And all the "content marketers" out there have to publish something.

Where is the rubicon? It's somewhere in that Bermuda Triangle of creation where a person who can type becomes a Writer with a capital W. It is the place where, as words are formed, ideas blossom from the ether. If we get away from the terms "content marketing" and "thought leadership" and get back to "thinking" and "writing" we may find it. (And, no, modifying "content" with "quality" only makes it worse.)

Good writing in any realm is a fresh idea expressed in a fresh way.

You know it when you read it.

Long live the king.

On being a thought leader: a game plan

I was drawn to this headline at Big Think: How To Live Forever. How could I not be?

It was a piece by Dr. Thorsten Pattburg, a German writer, linguist and cultural critic. The article was a sort of instruction manual for becoming a spiritual leader, one whose influence would last beyond his lifetime.

Thought leadership in the business world being my craft, I saw in Pattburg's piece guidance that would apply across disciplines. There is about his writing the possibility that he is being cynical: one might, we could infer, become a spiritual leader without being at all sincere.

Ignoring that possibility -- it may be just the journalist in me anyway -- here are a few of his suggestions:

Have a great idea. You need a plan, a system, a manifesto, a mission. Write it down. It can be a book, an unpublished manuscript, an essay, a drawing, a diary, a couple of poems, a draft for a constitution, or just a few lines of your thought. Something! Think about Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. Your idea will become the genius sitting on your shoulder and attending your actions; it's your guiding spirit, your talisman, and your protector. Having it will forever distract the critic's eye away from your over-the-top personality toward that genius.

Become historically aware. You must spiritually connect with historical events and famous people in history. You do so by comparing your idea with already existing ones, ideally from two thousand years ago, as if your thoughts were, say, the logical conclusion of the teachings of Confucius, Buddha, or Jesus Christ, etc. Your idea is universal and was previously known to other great men in history, so you are the obvious heir to the kingdom of thought.

Be a force of creation. To create is to know, they say. Great leaders are constantly creating new connections between themselves, their followers, and the movement to current domestic, economical, cultural, and political affairs. Everything is interconnected, that is the essence of all spirituality. In addition, just as companies like Google or Apple are putting out new software products and patents, so your spiritual enterprise, too, must constantly produce new consumer products, videos, articles, and new word-creations.

Manage your image. Most spiritual leaders adopt an iconic look and style and stick to that a life-time in order to remain universally recognizable. Now, how to get your image and your idea out to the people? The key is public relations. Many times people will write articles about you, some will publish your stuff, but in order to stay in control over your universal image you must produce in-house. Get a management team and agent(s); create your own newspaper, journal, show, magazine, and publishing house.

Sound familiar?

Thought leadership is like pornography

"Power is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

~ Margaret Thatcher

The real thing.

I've been writing and editing this stuff called thought leadership for years, and I'm tired of the term. In conversations with others who do this work, I've learned that they don't much like it, either.

To use the term about oneself seems immodest, even pretentious.

Dr. Liz Alexander, who advises people on the writing of thought leadership books, defines it thusly:

I consider true thought leaders -- not content curators, subject matter experts, or trusted advisors who frequently adopt the label -- as those who disrupt others’ habitual approaches to issues that concern organizations, industries, or society at large.

Thought leadership is like pornography -- I know it when I see it. Ideas are like toilets -- everybody has one. Only a few ideas change minds. It's true that there's nothing new under the sun; Aristotle's Rhetoric is still the bible on persuasion. Nevertheless, times and circumstances today aren't quite what they were yesterday, and, therefore, your thought can sprout in an entirely new petri dish.

That implies that there is some news value in your idea. You can't sit in your tower and suck your thumb. In that context, Alexander describes genuine thought leaders as:

advancing the marketplace of ideas by positing actionable, relevant, research-backed, new points of view.

The big thought leadership firms -- IBM, McKinsey, Booz Allen -- spend a lot of money on original survey research, from which they intuit the lay of the land and the path forward. Your reporting can involve anecdotal insights from your client work, which is just as valid. Whatever, you have to take your thumb out of your mouth and pound the pavement.

And, while we're on terminology, I confess I had to look up content curation. Oh, save me. I've been a content curator all my career! Wow, do I feel special. I may even be a thought leader.

Constructing thought leadership programs

Architectural and design firms are getting into the thought leadership business.

A survey of 144 architectural, engineering and construction firms worldwide found that  55 percent have some sort of a thought leadership, research or innovation program. More than half of these programs were started in the past five years.

Although it was not part of the survey, the matter of the slow economy came up in later interviews, suggesting that firms in this industry are using thought leadership is a means to survive the bad times. And it seems to be working. Amanda Walter writes:

More than 65 percent of firms with these programs can make a direct or indirect correlation between the thought leadership program and new work. Although not every firm can point to a specific example, Sera Architects in Portland actually received a cold call from Google telling them that they’d been watching their sustainability presentations for years and invited them to respond to an RFP.

Another interesting finding is that the companies in the survey are taking to new media more than old in their efforts.

With 63 percent of respondents communicating their efforts through social media and more than half of them sharing their content through blogs, this subset of firms seem to be adapting to the shift toward communicating in the new media at a faster rate than the industry as a whole. (According to the research in the 2012 book Social Media in Action: Comprehensive Guide for Architecture, Engineering and Environmental Consulting Firms, only 16 percent of firms reported that they were blogging.)

Here's a picture of the communications channels of those in the survey:

How consulting firms market themselves

Follow the eyeballs.

Consulting firms still rely mainly on their own seminars and speaking at industry events to make themselves known to potential clients. 

Following closely behind are online activities that didn't exist just a few years ago. A survey by The Bloom Group, Bliss PR and The Association of Management Consulting Firms revealed the next activities:

Search engine optimization is third, firm microsites – a pure social media channel – is fourth, and articles authored by consulting firms and published in third-party online channels are fifth. Webinars rank sixth in effectiveness. 

A group of social media activities rank in the middle of the pack: consulting firm pages on social networking sites, discussion forums on firm microsites and other online forums. The remaining social media activities, including Twitter and company blogs, fall toward the bottom of the ranking, just edging out print and online advertising. 

Many of the most effective activities that do not involve social media are nonetheless online and have only emerged in recent years: email newsletters, online video clips, eBooks and podcasts, to name a few. 

A number of traditional marketing activities continue to be important: articles in print publications, books by consultants, and meetings with journalists, for example. 

Clearly, consulting firms have big expectations for social media, the survey's authors write. 

Channels such as microsites and webinars (if they count) are already important components of the marketing mix. However, many others still get uncertain returns. We believe this is because many consulting firms have not yet figured out which channels are most important to them, how to get good returns from them, and how to integrate them into their overall marketing strategy. As firms gain more experience, some of these may disappear from firms’ portfolios, while others gain traction and are integrated into the mix.

I suppose this online shift reflects the growing online orientation of an ever-younger cohort of executives who make the decisions on hiring consultants. Not too long ago many of those decision makers were still having their assistants print out their email.

When consulting firms publish online

Thought followership.

Management consulting firms have been sharing their ideas online since the appearance of the World Wide Web. This trolling for new clients has had mixed results.

A survey of 50 firms by the Bloom Group and the Association of Management Consulting Firms found:

While consulting firms have no shortage of innovative insights, many of those ideas don't appear to make it to their websites. Half the respondents published 20 or fewer articles on their websites last year. Only 30% published more than 50 articles. And two-thirds of the content was written by consultants themselves; about one-third of consultants are averse to using ghostwriters.  

Many consulting firms generate few client inquiries from their online content. Half of consulting firms say their online publications generated 20 or fewer inquiries in 2012; only 14% generated more than 100 inquiries. Despite many consulting firms’ online publications being a source of sales leads, less than a third have automated the process of sending online viewer information to business developers, and only 21% say their salespeople actively use the information marketers give them about online viewers. For online content to spawn leads, it appears that quality trumps quantity. Consulting firms whose online publications generated the highest number of client inquiries in 2012 (a group we refer to as "leaders") actually produced less content per $1 million dollar in firm revenue than did the firms with the lowest number of inquiries.  

The online content of leaders was far more often based on primary research than was laggards' content. As a result, we surmise that the leaders' content was of higher quality. In addition, the marketing function in the leaders determined which content deserved extensive marketing campaigns; this was the case in only half the laggards, where consultants made that decision. As well, the leaders were much more open to allowing online viewers to post comments this year on their firm's website. And they relied more heavily on ghostwriters to publish content, rather than wait for consultants to carve out time to pen articles. 

One conclusion of the researchers: As consulting firms move the majority of their thought leadership content online, many cling to a publishing model that's a relic of the print era: hosting a monologue rather than a dialogue with the online viewers of their content. 

So you wanna write a book

Thought leader.

Who doesn't?

I've got a couple of my own sitting around here somewhere. Don't worry: I'll remember you if you somehow crash my publishing party in a Fifth Avenue penthouse.

And I work with executives who want to write books. The first step in our collaboration: I jam one of their hands in a meat grinder and turn the crank.

If they enjoy that, we continue.

What most of them think is that to become a "thought leader," or just to attract more business, a book is the first step. It's a credential. It's true, I guess. Nobody will read the book, but that's not the point.

When I first got into the writing business I was an idealist. I really believed that as a journalist I was going to save the world. (You can decide if I succeeded.) Now that I'm writing mostly about business I think some of that idealism is useful.

When I was an editor at Reader's Digest I came up with the term "sincerity of purpose." That means that you aren't cynical when you put words on paper, that you are genuinely trying to help people. If you have that spirit you won't deliver trite junk or untruths. You will only deliver what you'd want: the best. You thereby create real value, which people will pay for.

I think Guy Kawasaki, the former "chief evangelist" at Apple, has written 12 books, including one about how to publish a book, agrees.

He writes that any wannabe author should stand in a bookstore and look at all the books. Would yours stand out? Why on earth would a reader/buyer choose your book? What's in it for the reader? However, most would-be writers focus on themselves when answering why they want to write.

Answers to this question include: “It’s good for my visibility.” “To make money.” “It will help me get speaking gigs and consulting engagements.” “It’s good for my company.” “It will make me a thought leader.” Any of these reasons may be true for the author, but they are not relevant for readers.

Think about this: How often do you peruse Barnes & Noble or Amazon while wondering how you can help an author achieve his or her personal goals? Your answer, like mine, is probably “never.” I’m happy for authors to earn lots of royalties, but that’s not why I buy their books. I’d bet the same is true for you, too. Let’s examine the good and bad reasons to write a book.

The rest of his piece is good material for anyone who wants to write. I will leave you with this one thought: it's all about what the reader wants or needs. It's not about you.

Don't believe everything you read

You remember the classic business book, Good to Great by Jim Collins. Turns out that several years later many of the companies weren't so great after all. The same has been said of another classic, In Search of Excellence.

If you read books like these, or, as in my case, write them, it might be a good time to pause as you grab some reading matter for the beach. I think I paused awhile ago: I've got plenty of unread business books  here in my office on various "must read" piles. (I also have a thousand self-help books in the basement, and I'm still the schlep I was when I bought them.)

Why are we forever disappointed?

The simple answer is that it's not so easy to explain what's going on in a successful company. Or to duplicate it. As proof: the average life expectancy of companies in the S&P 500 has fallen from 75 in 1957 to 15 today.

So in reading and writing about business success a little humility and caution are in order.

Writer Sam McNerney offers several explanations for our belief that we can understand business success.

[One] phenomenon is what Yale Professor of Psychology Paul Bloom terms essentialism: “The notion that things have an underlying reality or true nature that one cannot observe directly and it is this hidden nature that really matters.” Essentialism explains why when kids lose a precious toy, they refuse an identical replacement; it explains why famous home run balls sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars; and it explains why a tape measure owned by JFK sold for over $48,000 dollars at an auction. In terms of objects or people, we have the intuition that each is constituted by an invisible essence. 

The same thing occurs when we think about a company. Business books including Jim Collins’ Built to Last and Good to Great are predicated on the idea that every company has a core identity – its essence - and the job of the business writer is to uncover that identity and excavate those so-called timeless universals. The byproduct is a heavy dose of halos that spawn the illusion of understanding; readers think they’ve captured the intricacies of the company when the opposite is true. To understand the nature of a business, we must discard the fact that such a thing exists.

About halos:

In The Halo Effect, Phil Rosenzweig discusses our tendency to assume universals out of particulars. That is, instead of considering behaviors separately, we incorporate them into a larger whole. It’s a time saver. A new acquaintance who makes a good joke is smart, the barista who compliments your outfit is nice, and the man who speaks loudly on his phone is rude. (The halo effect explains why it might sound strange to learn that Hitler was a vegetarian who never drank.) Research even demonstrates that we tend to perceive attractive people as kind and intelligent, even though a correlation does not exist.

Rosenzweig observes that business authors focus on halos and ignore details. For example, if a CEO is patient and open-minded, those traits (halos) are praised when the company does well (“his ability to listen and carefully weigh the pros and cons led to an increase in sales”) and criticized when the company does poorly (“his tendency to decide slowly led to the company missing out on many opportunities”).

There. How many business writers will tell you not to read their stuff?

Six questions for wannabe thought leaders

I work with several smart management consultants who are writing books to share their genuinely fresh ideas. They have the thoughts, and creating books is seen as the first step in becoming a leader in the marketplace of ideas.

It's not a wrong approach, because in the sausage-making of creating a book their ideas are tested and refined and made presentable.

However, there are some questions a potential thought leader should ask before picking up the pen to undertake a book or a blog or a website.

John Butman, author of Breaking Out: How to Build Influence in a World of Competing Ideas and founder of the content development firm Idea Platforms, Inc., offers some questions you should ask.

What is my purpose? People are driven to go public for all kinds of reasons, from the thirst for fame and fortune to the dream of leading a crusade. Those who gain genuine, long-lasting influence are the ones who want to create positive change for other people. So ask yourself: Why am I doing this? Idea entrepreneur Cesar Millan (he has built quite an empire around his ideas including books, tv shows, DVDs and merchandise) is a dog behavioralist ("the dog whisperer"), but his deeper motive is to reduce maltreatment of animals — and kids — in our society. The more you want to help others, the greater the influence you will have. 

How does my personal narrative convey the idea? For people to respond to an idea, it must evoke emotion. That's why idea entrepreneurs tell personal stories. Gandhi, who I consider a prototypical idea entrepreneur, spoke of being ejected from a first-class train compartment in South Africa because of his skin color. That incident was the genesis of his concept of non-violent resistance. If you can move people with an idea, they will embrace it on a gut level. 

How can people put my idea into practice? Ideas take root when we can use them in our everyday lives. Model the methods yourself and also enable people to adapt them to their own situations. Daniel Kahneman offers a complex theory of thinking but also gives practical guidance on how to make better decisions — as a result his latest book has received a great deal of attention. The more people use an idea, the more they will believe in it. 

Do I have enough supporting material? An idea has to be expressed in different ways for people to understand it as fully as possible, and in their individual way. You need to build out your idea with analysis, stories, facts and data, references, and examples. George Stalk, the strategy expert, has a rule of thumb for accumulation: gather enough material so you can talk about your idea for a full day — and keep your audience interested. The richer the understanding of an idea, the more meaning it will have for people. 

Who do I really want to reach? Surprisingly, many a would-be idea entrepreneur does not know who they want to speak to. Who will be most affected by your idea? Whose thinking and behavior do you most want to affect? Mireille Guiliano, author of French Women Don't Get Fat, wrote her book with the middle-aged, well-educated woman in mind. But she discovered that young mothers, teenage girls, aspiring women executives — even husbands and gay men — also responded to her ideas. The more diverse audiences you can reach, the broader your influence will be. 

How does my idea connect with a greater "thinking journey?" No idea is completely original. Most are improvements on an existing body of thought. All the most successful idea entrepreneurs stand on the shoulders of giants, and usually say so. In fact, it's important you don't try to own your idea. When you give as much of it away as you can, people will be more — not less — likely to credit you.

For some perspective, think of the people you consider genuine thought leaders, and try to answer these questions about them.

How to be a thought leader

Everybody wants to be one, and, if you define thought leadership loosely enough, most anyone can be one. But what does it take to play at the highest level, the Harvard Business Review level?

H. James Wilson, a senior researcher at Babson Executive Education, set out with others to answer this question. Here's his guide "for anyone — from bloggers, to academics, to strategy consultants — looking to produce world-class thought leadership."

Tune Your Idea to the Zeitgeist. 

Zeitgeist, German for "spirit of the time," is the complex interplay of economic, technological, political, and social forces that can determine which ideas will flop and which will fly in a particular moment. Again and again, we found that HBR writers learned to sync their ideas with the zeitgeist to deeply resonate with their savvy, connected readers. 

The zeitgeist doesn't have to be a vague and intangible notion, though it tends to remain so unless you intentionally look for it. Read widely and systematically scan sources, from new consulting reports to business headlines, to discern the zeitgeist. It can even be quantified. For example, a British study showed the precise ways in which management gurus in the 1980s U.K. effectively connected their ideas to the particular national moods aroused by Thatcher's economic policies. 

Similarly, scholars in the U.S. have found strong correlations between an idea's popularity and economic indicators such as trade deficits, consumer confidence, and unemployment rates. As the U.S. trade deficit with Japan grew through the 1980s, for example, influential thinkers increasingly focused on how managerial innovations used in Japanese firms might be imported and adapted in the U.S.

Pick an Apt Objective. 

Underneath the varied thickets of research and rhetorical styles, some universal truths persist. In particular, our research revealed that HBR's authors consistently took aim at one of three core business objectives: improved efficiency, greater effectiveness, or innovation of products and processes. 

Since these gurus were paying attention to the zeitgeist, they knew which of the three objectives to select in order to maximize the demand for their ideas in the reader's mind — and in the organizations where their ideas might be adopted. 

During difficult economic times, organizations often seek ideas on how to cut costs or perform operations more efficiently. In better times, companies are attracted to ideas that help them do their work more effectively. In transition periods, during big technological shifts or the ends of recessions, companies often turn their aspirations to growth through innovation.

More at the link.