You can’t throw a rock these days and not hit a media site capitalizing on some primer on defining Web 3.0 (or Web3), NFTs, metaverses, and what it all means to marketers.Continue Reading

Which part of a tightrope walk takes the most courage?

Most people believe it’s the first step out on the rope. But the tightrope walker who narrates one of the short stories in the collection Vigilantes of Love says that’s not the case:

“The hardest was the step after the first. That’s where you gained or lost your balance. That’s where it becomes a walk or a fall. After the second step, there is no going back.”

The same holds when developing an innovative content strategy – the second step is the hardest.Continue Reading

How many times have you heard advice on becoming a great storyteller?

And how many times have you wished that advice translated more easily to content marketing?

You’re not alone. I often get questions about how to transform marketing content into great stories.

Earlier this week, I talked with a team of content marketers who feel passionate about creating engaging content marketing for the medical device company where they work.

But they told me that they struggle to create compelling customer stories that include the details their product marketing colleagues request. The product team routinely sends four-slide decks filled with product features and technical specifications they want to see in the content.Continue Reading

If we can measure it, it must be important. So, is our job to just determine how accurately we can get that number?

Not at all. If any measurement is to mean anything, the first task is to agree on what equals success. It’s one of the unspoken secrets in all of marketing measurement. Agreement on measurement is much more important than the accuracy of the measurement itself.Continue Reading

“It’s time to make the donuts.”

This phrase from a 1981 Dunkin’ Donuts ad campaign has become part of our workplace culture. People use it to talk about preparing to do something repetitive, grueling, or meaningless.

But that’s a misreading of the original message.

The ad featured Fred the Baker, who woke up very early every morning, struggled out of bed, and repeated his mantra, “Time to make the donuts.” By the end of the ads, Fred greeted his customers with a big smile, proud of his work.

“It’s time to make the donuts” wasn’t a lament about doing the same menial task day after day.

It conveyed Fred’s commitment to creating something special day after day.

The tension between creating content that feels special and constructing useful (but menial) content resonates with so many content practitioners. Without an adequate balance between the two, content creators may lose interest in their roles.Continue Reading

We spend a lot of time at CMI thinking about the purpose of content in business. It sounds funny. The purpose of content in business?

When we start work with a company on putting a functional plan around their content, a senior leader in the business (usually somebody in finance or operations) often says, “Isn’t that word content too big? Doesn’t that mean everything we do?”

“Yup. It does,” I reply, followed by an awkward moment of silence.

Without realizing it, they’ve unconsciously made the argument of why it is valuable to sort out the function of content in their company.Continue Reading

Content strategy is a wicked problem.

Don’t worry. I didn’t adopt Bostonian lingo.

A wicked problem is hard to solve because of “incomplete, contradictory, or changing requirements that can be difficult to recognize.”

I like information researcher Jeff Conklin’s description of wicked problems as those “not understood until after the formulation of a solution.”

I see wicked problems a lot in content strategy. One of the toughest is recognizing why you need to change when you can’t see how things are broken.Continue Reading

If you ask an actor or screenwriter about their career goals, they’ll almost all say, “But what I really want to do is direct.” Or so goes the Hollywood trope.

Ironically, the director participates the least in the creative work. A director’s role isn’t to write, act, play music, edit, or even point a camera. The director’s job is to direct the individual artists’ contributions to the film product.

Yes, some directors do double duty by writing or acting in their films or shows. But the director’s function remains clear: Guide, enable, and manage a team of storytellers to efficiently produce powerfully engaging work.Continue Reading