Monday, March 07, 2005
B2B Thought Leadership
B2B Lead Generation Blog: In defense of thought leadership
An interesting post from Brian Carroll's B2B Lead Generation Blog on the term 'thought leadership,' which is apparently the new 'world-class' for b2b marketers. He refers to a couple of blogs which whack away on the use of the term, here and here, and to a blog with some ideas on how to become a thought leader, here.
After reading these, I became a little uneasy, since one of my client magazines, Directors & Boards, uses the tag line "Thought Leadership in Governance Since 1976." Of course, D&B's tagline precisely defines what the magazine does.
Whether or not marketers can make their companies and executives into thought leaders, thought leadership is the definitive role of the b2b magazine, which should, at its best, cull the best in thinking in a marketplace, and present that thinking to the audience.
That requires an attitude on the part of the magazine and its staff--an attitude of self-confident market knowledge. And it also requires editors and writers who push beyond the puffy quote to drive to the real nuggets of thought-leadership from interviewees and profile subjects.
Directors & Boards is a journal--no freelance, and few staff-written features. The majority of the content is by corporate board members and senior corporate governance advisors. It's written by thought leaders.
Of course, this isn't an easy thing to pull off. Article writers sometimes want to sell themselves. Sometimes they're not natural writers. But the editor, Jim Kristie, does a masterful job of delivering clean, thoughtful copy that enhances the current of ideas in the boardroom.
And Directors & Boards carries a natural authority, since its bylines are the authorities in the field. It is a conversation among directors who care about corporate governance (sounds a bit like a printed blog).
Some of the thinking reflected in the links above is very true...marketers can't create thought leadership by delivering bland, sell-oriented white papers, or highly edited and smoothed authored pieces by their CEOs. But they can create thought leadership by taking a stand, being a bit controversial and setting as their primary goal the shaping of a market, rather than the direct selling of a product or service.
And that same thinking holds true for b2b magazine publishers and editors.
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An interesting post from Brian Carroll's B2B Lead Generation Blog on the term 'thought leadership,' which is apparently the new 'world-class' for b2b marketers. He refers to a couple of blogs which whack away on the use of the term, here and here, and to a blog with some ideas on how to become a thought leader, here.
After reading these, I became a little uneasy, since one of my client magazines, Directors & Boards, uses the tag line "Thought Leadership in Governance Since 1976." Of course, D&B's tagline precisely defines what the magazine does. Whether or not marketers can make their companies and executives into thought leaders, thought leadership is the definitive role of the b2b magazine, which should, at its best, cull the best in thinking in a marketplace, and present that thinking to the audience.
That requires an attitude on the part of the magazine and its staff--an attitude of self-confident market knowledge. And it also requires editors and writers who push beyond the puffy quote to drive to the real nuggets of thought-leadership from interviewees and profile subjects.
Directors & Boards is a journal--no freelance, and few staff-written features. The majority of the content is by corporate board members and senior corporate governance advisors. It's written by thought leaders.
Of course, this isn't an easy thing to pull off. Article writers sometimes want to sell themselves. Sometimes they're not natural writers. But the editor, Jim Kristie, does a masterful job of delivering clean, thoughtful copy that enhances the current of ideas in the boardroom.
And Directors & Boards carries a natural authority, since its bylines are the authorities in the field. It is a conversation among directors who care about corporate governance (sounds a bit like a printed blog).
Some of the thinking reflected in the links above is very true...marketers can't create thought leadership by delivering bland, sell-oriented white papers, or highly edited and smoothed authored pieces by their CEOs. But they can create thought leadership by taking a stand, being a bit controversial and setting as their primary goal the shaping of a market, rather than the direct selling of a product or service.
And that same thinking holds true for b2b magazine publishers and editors.
