Things You Can't Make Up

As a professional storyteller, I have hoarded an abundance of anecdotes throughout my career: anecdotes in which I’ve either been a player or a witness. And each one of them can begin with this preamble: “you can’t make this stuff up.” Here’s one from my years as a marketer of thin client solutions. With the company long gone through acquisition, perhaps now it’s safe to tell.

At Last! I've Graduated

While rifling through a stack of papers, I discovered this blast from my past (and a legacy of my cherished years at Arthur Andersen LLP in the 80's and 90's). Do you remember CI? Continuous Improvement holds a place of honor as a business approach; it's earned its chops in many of the world's greatest firms. But there's something about that line on my certificate "a process from which (s)he will never graduate" -- words written over 20 years ago now -- that got me thinking.

Teach Your White Papers to Walk

I've spent much of my career writing, beginning with advertising and direct response copy for print in the early years (including those wonderful, four-page direct mail letters that were so much fun to write), and transitioning to digital copy that empowers the writer to produce anything from highly constrained tweets (I think of them as ugly haiku) to point-of-view white papers. Now that digital publishing has broken the restraints of publication length, shoving production considerations into the back seat, communications have become much more message-driven. And that's a great thing.

The Growth of a Metaphor

I wrote a white paper last year to articulate my company's vision and capabilities in the identity and access management segment of the IT industry. (Now, Gartner and other folks are calling this category "Identity Governance and Administration," and I'm sure there are great reasons for doing so -- none of which I'll debate here.)

Demand Generation is Not Pretty

After the first few decades in the marketing profession, many of us will have tinkered with consultative work at some point. Often, it will happen along the sidelines of a steadily progressing corporate career. (Some call it “moonlighting” but I prefer the term “beer money,” which more suitably invokes the actual liquidity of such labors.) At other times, it’s the result of a deliberate shift from salaried to consultative roles: a shift that can be long- or short-term as desire and opportunities dictate.