Where's the Thought in Thought Leadership?

Thought leadership is to leadership as fast food is to food.

While the stuff served daily through most B2B marketers' Tweets, videos, blog posts and e-books looks tasty and can be consumed quickly, it isn't particularly satisfying. Or good for you.

Although there are thousands of exceptions, most B2B marketers rush out junk, contributing to the deafening "content shock" Mark Schaefer describes.

Plainly, simply, thought leadership shouldn't be advertising. It's supposed to be content that's authentic and that articulates leading-edge thinking, not your marketing department's  social media strategy.

And thought leadership shouldn't be about media. It's supposed to focus on thought, not LinkedIn or Meerkat or Snapchat.

B2B marketers are hacking the system when they publish non-nutritional content, however carefully it's dressed to resemble food for thought.

Ironically, every B2B marketer could contribute thought leadership, if only she trusted the few thoughtful individuals inside her organization—and they trusted themselves. Sadly, neither do.

"Thought leaders focus on crafting ideas, not audience reaction and reach," says digital marketer Walter Adamson in Firebrand. 

He's 100% right. Thought leaders don't lean on vapid videos and tricked up infographics to entreat customers. They rely instead, TEDishly, on "ideas worth sharing."

"Being a thought leader means putting your own personal thoughts out there in whatever form appeals to you," Adamson says. "It’s not about the medium. It’s about the message and it’s about filling in the white spaces which teams of content producers don’t even know exist."

Entering Adjacencies and Bringing It All Back Home

"Entering adjacencies has become the growth strategy du jour," Ken Favaro says in Strategy+Business.

Some companies aren't good at it (remember Harley-Davidson's Men's Colognes or United' Airlines' TED?); others excel (Apple's iPhone and Disney's Cruise Line are examples).

The danger in entering adjacencies is “averaging down,” Favoro says. You may subsist in two markets, but you won't be exceptional in either.

Do people face the same danger when they stray from their core competence?

"We often stop surprising ourselves (and the market) not because we're no good anymore, but because we are good," Seth Godin says. "So good that we avoid opportunities that bring possibility."

Opening yourself to possibility may very well court danger:

• The New York Times lambasted an exhibit of Bob Dylan's paintings."The color is muddy, the brushwork scratchily dutiful, the images static and postcard-ish. The work is dead on the wall."
  

• In its review of Jon Stewart's feature film Rosewater, NPR said, "Stewart shows no signs that he can handle such tonally complex material."
  

• Paul Simon's Broadway musical The Capeman opened to universally poor reviews and ran for less two months. The New York Times said, "The show registers as one solemn, hopelessly confused drone."
  

• Hans von Bülow called one of Friedrich Nietzsche's musical compositions “the most undelightful and the most antimusical draft on musical paper that I have faced in a long time.”

Compared to the artists' other work, these missteps fairly stink (a lot like Harley-Davidson Cologne). But they prove the artists aren't afraid to change, take risks, or be a bit incompetent.

"Competent people have a predictable, reliable process for solving a particular set of problems," Godin says. "They solve a problem the same way, every time. That's what makes them reliable. That's what makes them competent."

But competent people hate change—even though change opens possibilities of fresh perspectives, disruptions and breakthroughs—because it threatens their reputations.

For people, entering adjacencies—opening to possibility and taking a flyer—is a lot like foreign travel. 

It may very well bring you back home to what you do, not just competently, but masterfully.

A case in point: Before he directed the drama Interiors, Woody Allen spent a decade mastering popular low-comedy films like Take the Money and Run and Sleepers. While loathed by critics (The New Yorker called it an "achievement of suffocating emptiness"), Interiors was immediately followed by 38 years of award-winning comedies.

Smile While You're Making It

Fiction's where I go when I've OD'ed on reality.

"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures," Emerson said.

And it's often "the best way to capture reality," Jack Grebski says in Entrepreneur. 

Grebski lists his must-see films for entrepreneurs, and the lesson each one teaches:

• Catch Me If You Can (a lesson in "the good ol’ hustle to reach success")

• Lord of War (a lesson in "ambition, tenacity, and ability to tolerate risk)

• Wall Street (a lesson in "how easy it is to get carried away with the glamorous lifestyle that accompanies wealth")

• Rogue Trader (a lesson in "how money drives all sorts of maniacal behavior")

• Twelve Angry Men (a lesson in "the psychology of group behavior")

• Office Space (a lesson in "leadership, team-building techniques, and career development")

• The Godfather (a lesson in "why understanding competition is non-negotiable")

• The Usual Suspects (a lesson in "leadership consolidation, power and influence, and long-term business strategy")

• How To Get Ahead In Advertising (a lesson in "creative problem solving")

• The Devil Wears Prada (a lesson in "how to work your way up the corporate ladder")

• Thank You For Smoking (a lesson in "how to sell just about any product")

• Glengarry Glen Ross (a lesson in "competition and manipulation")

• The Merchant of Venice (a lesson in "business partnerships, risk assessment and mercantile law")

• Dr. Strangelove (a lesson in "leadership and loyalty")

• Erin Brockovich (a lesson in "the importance of sticking to one’s scruples even in the face of obstacles")

• The Rainmaker (a lesson in "the power of determination and social responsibility")

I'm sure you can add to Grebski's list, if you think about it.

My must-watch film for entrepreneurs is Oh, Lucky Man!, a rompish retelling of Voltaire's Candide set in the UK in 1973, and a lesson in the vagaries and hypocrisies of the climb to riches.

Oh, Lucky Man! is worth the watch just to spot a 28-year-old Dame Helen Mirren.

What's your fav?

Events: Working in a Coal Mine

This week I asked a savvy agency head, Cary Hatch, if B2B marketers were really as deep down into F2F as many event-industry people claim.

Her response: "Yes, they're into events, for the sales. Events are the currency of business today."

B2B agency head Gary Slack has told me that, with the exception of digital, his own clients devote more dollars to events than any other channel.

That exuberance is confirmed by Outsells' research analyst Michael Balsam: “Digital is still king, but events play a large role when you need to touch and feel things as part of the sales process."

And according to content agency Brafton's Molly Buccini, three of four B2B marketers boosted their event spend this year.

"When it comes to bridging the gap between digital and traditional marketing activities, events are an easy way to combine forces," she says.

Something's amiss, however—despite the spend-fest. As B2B marketers continue to sink more into events, they plan and execute them without objectives, strategy, or cognizance of corporate goals.

They've done so forever, as B2B marketing research analyst Julian Archer notes: "We at SiriusDecisions currently see a familiar pattern of too much emphasis being placed upon the activity of an event and not enough on outcome."

I ask, as the lyric to "Working in a Coal Mine" does, how long can this go on?

The Dirty Job You'll Have to Do, If You Want Your Marketing to Work. OMG, It's Disgusting!

Five percent of the people think; 10% of the people think they think; and the other 85% would rather die than think.”

―Thomas A. Edison

Copywriters are needed in this world for the same reason pig farmers are: thinking is a dirty job.

"Everyone wants to just cut and paste, not think," says copywriter Gary Bencivenga.

But thinking separates the first-rate writer from the herd.

In fact, Bencivenga calls learning to think one of "three greatest copywriting lessons" he's ever learned.

To write clearly and convincingly, you have to mull. To mull, you have to understand the job requirements:

• Mulling demands quiet. "To discover what will work, and then be able to write clearly and persuasively about it, you must be able to think clearly," Bencivenga says. "And to think clearly, you first have to be able to relax, so that all the monkey chatter inside your head quiets down and you can have an ongoing dialogue with yourself—a series of pleasant, quiet conversations about what makes sense for this market at this time with this product."

• Mulling needs the subconscious. Generating workable options works; sleeping on them works charms. "After you’ve had an ongoing conversation with yourself, sleep on it and then, each morning, let your subconscious speak its mind," Bencivenga says. He also suggests writing early in the day and keeping a notepad, pen and flashlight on your nightstand.

• Mulling wants to be fed. "Food for thought" is more than a metaphor. Persuasive copy requires the writer to be an insatiable sponge for information. "View the abundant knowledge you lack not as a threat but as an infinite supply of new abundance for yourself—rocket fuel for your rise in our profession," Bencivenga says.