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Make It Happen Tipsheet

  • The Traditional Media Thought Leadership Test

    The Traditional Media Thought Leadership Test

    One of today's mistaken beliefs is that traditional media (e.g. TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines) have no value. While it is true that they have lost readers and viewers, and that without their audiences, that ad revenues have also continued to slide. For most people, traditional media still has both [More]

  • The Social Follower Thought Leadership Test

    The Social Follower Thought Leadership Test

    How you answer that question is a function of your age. If you asked your parents or grandparents, it would likely be 20-50 people, which would include their family, friends, and work colleagues. If you grew up in the 1970s to 1990s, it would be much larger -- maybe 500. [More]

  • The Speaker/Author Thought Leadership Test

    The Speaker/Author Thought Leadership Test

    While it is true that writing and speaking are both individual skills, this test isn't really a question of evaluating those skills. After all, sadly, "everyone" writes and speaks. The value of the test comes from two separate sources: 1) Third-party validation: To get a book published by a traditional [More]

  • The Activity Level Thought Leadership Test

    The Activity Level Thought Leadership Test

    The activity level test is simple: how "busy" is the thought leader? The more they are creating new intellectual property (books, blogs, podcasts, research, etc.), speaking at events, and engaged in conversations on social media, the higher they rank on this dimension. Sadly, one of the things that would-be thought [More]

  • The Fancy Title Thought Leadership Test (Seniority x Organization Size)

    The Fancy Title Thought Leadership Test (Seniority x Organization Size)

    Your title is an important signal to the marketplace. It describes your responsibilities as well as your scope of authority. But what is the connection to thought leadership? Unless the title is directly tied to your expertise ("Chief Science Officer", for example), there is absolutely no connection to thought leadership, [More]

  • How to do Issues and Trends Analysis

    How to do Issues and Trends Analysis

    This question is too often buried under vendors' promises of nirvana if only a new piece of software was installed. Or buried under consultants' promises of better efficiency or higher ROI. Instead, before the actual transformation exercise is even defined, this fundamental question must be answered: Where is the opportunity? [More]

  • Rebranding: Foiled by Human Nature

    Rebranding: Foiled by Human Nature

    While this is a perhaps too-basic question, and one that is clearly a set-up, there is one area of branding that is too often overlooked: human nature. On a recent cross-country road trip, I had the opportunity to stop in many small towns. And as I did, I felt I [More]

  • The Five Ages of Disruption

    The Five Ages of Disruption

    Iron Age: While historians will point out that there were in fact "many" ages (Stone age, Bronze age, Iron age) before, but broadly, this is when society learned to craft (and to use) tools and objects made from Stone, Bronze, and Iron. It changed how people lived their lives in [More]

  • Using Personas to Understand Trust

    Using Personas to Understand Trust

    Personas are usually built to understand the details (and motivations) of a particular segment. Experienced marketers know the typical persona questions: Who are they -- demographically and psychographically? What service or product features are important to them? What challenges do they have? Where are they located? How do we reach [More]

  • Big data, analytics, and competitive advantage

    Big data, analytics, and competitive advantage

    The profusion of systems has led to a bumper crop of data. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and all of the other social media sites track the beginning of the journey, while marketing automation tracks the latter part of it. CRM systems track prospect and client activity, while ERP systems track [More]

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