Some of the best gifts are those you don’t realize you need, but once opened, you immediately see how useful they can be.

Unsolicited advice doesn’t always fall into that welcome-gift category. But Andrew Davis’ Unsolicited Advice column in Chief Content Officer typically does. He gives an unsuspecting company the benefit of his keen insight into how marketers veer off course and suggests how to get back on track.

Andrew delivers his helpful perspective with a dose of humor and generous offers to help. We share it now in the hope the lessons bring you good cheer.
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It’s time for content marketers and content strategists to take back control of their visual content strategy.

That’s the message Buddy Scalera delivered in a Content Marketing World talk earlier this year. It’s a topic close to his heart. By day, Buddy works as a mild-mannered content strategist in the pharmaceutical industry. By night, he’s an avowed comics geek who consults for Marvel Comics and teaches and writes about visual content strategy.

But don’t worry. He’s not suggesting you upset your relationship with your creative services or visual design teams. He’s suggesting you wrest control of your visuals from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.”

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Want to be a better content marketer? Don’t overlook the importance of technology.

Need convincing? Consider this: CMI’s 2019 B2B research found that 67% of the most successful content marketers rated their organization’s content tech proficiency as expert or advanced. Only 5% of the least successful content marketers rate their organizations as expert or advanced in content tech proficiency.

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Did you catch Joe Pulizzi’s talk at Content Marketing World 2018? In it, he revealed the secrets of life and marketing (sorry if you missed it).

I won’t give everything away here, but I will let you in on one of the (no longer secret) secrets: Cut everything from your day that doesn’t get you to your goal.

“To be successful, we need to remove what’s in our way of doing the great things,” Joe says. “We have to clear away all the distractions.”

It’s great advice. And, as Joe notes, it serves people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett well.

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Content technology. Sometimes it feels like we can’t live with it. But we know we can’t work without it.

Consider this finding from CMI’s 2018 Content Management & Strategy Survey: 51% of the content professionals say their company lacks the right technology to manage content across their organization. And another 35% say they’re not using the technology they do have to its potential.

Only a sliver (14%) say they have the right technology and are using it to manage content across the organization.

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Quick: Think of some purpose-driven brands. I’ll wait.

I’ll bet a bunch of you thought of Patagonia.

The outdoor clothing and gear seller started by rock climber and adventurer Yvon Chouinard in 1973 weaves environmental activism into the very fabric – and even the bylaws – of the company.

You probably read about Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad that ran in The New York Times on Black Friday 2011. It asked people to focus on buying less – on the biggest shopping day of the year.
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Don’t be fooled by his moniker on HITRECORD, the collaborative production company he founded with his brother in 2004. Actor, director, writer, and producer Joseph Gordon-Levitt is anything but a regular Joe.

His acting career already spans three decades and includes a long list of popular and acclaimed TV shows and movies: 3rd Rock from the Sun, The Dark Knight Rises, Lincoln, Looper, Inception, Snowden, 500 Days of Summer …

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