Leveraging Thought Leadership | Peter Winick & Bill Sherman | 301

Today our dueling hosts Peter Winick and Bill Sherman sit down together to give an overview of the thought leadership world.

They start with the topic of Organizational Thought Leadership, which TLL has had a heavy focus on. We examine why more and more companies are investing in dedicated thought leaders, how those companies are struggling to define what it means to them, where it falls in the company, and how to measure its success.

Peter and Bill discuss to find the right audience for both organizational and standalone thought leadership can be a challenge. The old method of broadcasting to as many people as you can isn't as effective anymore. They give us some insights into how narrowcasting small chunks of information can have a greater impact.

We wrap up our one on one discussing the transformations that have happened over the last year due to COVID-19. With most in-person events canceled people are missing the community aspect of conferences. How can you build a successful community online and have members become engaged and excited? The lack of travel to events has given many thought leaders far more free time which has caused creative renaissances, but when the world fully re-opens will that come to an end? How will thought leaders protect that time they've gained for deep thought and development?

Three Key Takeaways:

· If an organization is going to invest money into thought leadership they need to have a firm grasp on what that means to them and how to scale it through the organization and beyond.

· Measuring the success of thought leadership isn't a simple metric. It has to be measured over a long period of time and the precise ROI often cannot be calculated.

· The so many events being digital the barrier to entry has dropped. This allows thought leaders to attend more events and still save time and money.