Influencer Engagement, Part I: It’s Not About You
In my work coaching clients on how (and why) to use social media, I’ve found an interesting tendency: While people seem fairly confident they have industry wisdom to share, and believe they have insight to contribute to the existing conversation, the idea of developing their own “thought leadership” seems uncomfortable. As has often been [...]
Twitter Beckons, Business Leaders Go Missing
The long established brand emphasis on raising business-to-consumer awareness (B2C) has lead to neglect of the as-important opportunities in developing business-to-business (B2B) thought leadership. In a world where value-sharing and trust-building have become so crucial to communications, this oversight has left a hole of epic proportions. And, while the legal department may still have to [...]
Climate Action Means Business – My Next Step
The fantastic but perhaps little understood thing about social capital building through Twitter is that you truly DO develop what feels like a warm, supportive in-real-life style community – with each member looking out for one another. Like any other community (in churches or schools, for example…), it can then be pretty jarring when an [...]
Listen to Learn, Learn to Lead
How often do you hear a leader described in the media as a "good listener?" Not often. That may be because, both in theory and by tradition, descriptions of leadership still tend to focus more on the output (decisive! charismatic!) than the input. But, the best leadership in practice today gets noted for its calibration [...]
The Unheralded Beauty and Power of Social Capital
What drives you? This question emerges at key transition points in most career journeys. When that gets nailed down, the world opens up - and a person’s potential impact as a change agent is likely to explode. So, what has made the difference and brought an ever-increasing sense of purpose to my own work? The [...]
Leadership and Transparency 2015: The Social Media Imperative
By the time “trends” get mentioned in the new year forecast blog posts, they can be little more “old” than “news.” Though forward motion is always worth celebrating, change usually happens more slowly. Take, for example, the call for more transparency in business leadership. While today’s startups are more likely to intentionally bake this into [...]
Get On Social Media To Become the “Source”
“All things being equal” is quite an overused phrase, but there can still be gold in what follows it. Whether it’s a consumer’s evaluation of cleaning products or a way to differentiate potential business consultants, the reasons why one option is chosen over another is especially key in a world of choice gone wild. As [...]
Social Media and the Introverted Leader
The building conversation about introverts in the business world strikes a chord. Though few who have met me in person would guess it, I am one, with a capital "I." Interestingly (and fortunately), using social media has been key for finding the balance that lets me think, work and connect most productively. Thanks to this [...]
Why The C-Suite Needs a Chief Sustainability Officer
Does your corporation intend to be in business in another 100 years? Adding a Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) to your C-Suite may make the difference. But do enough CEOs understand the sustainability role and why it matters? It's not clear. A new report from The Weinreb Group, CSO Backstory II: The Evolution of the Chief [...]
Thought Leadership Development Through Twitter: My TriplePundit Interview
TriplePundit.com caught up with me at SXSWEco a few weeks ago, and asked about using Twitter for thought leadership development. Especially for the sake of moving the sustainable business cause, I love to talk about its power (as you'll see). What I hope comes across in this video is that Twitter (or social media, [...]
Who Narrates Business? The Gender Disparity of Social CEOs
Women may be leaning in, or at least talking a lot about what that means as business leaders, but they are not doing the greatest job getting their voices heard. Instead, men are still perceived to be narrating business. It follows that men have also taken the lead in using social media to build their [...]
Social Media IS Professional Development
Communications has a bad rap. Long (and wrongly) suffering a “soft skill” or lower priority taint, it – at the same time - is considered a key leadership strength. What? The disconnect has harmed the practice, and even seeing it as a “practice” or separate role has harmed the integration of communication into EVERYONE’s job. [...]