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When I began the thought leadership arm of my public relations business 12 months ago, I was convinced that the people wanting to become thought leaders would be established entrepreneurs, business owners and CEOs of corporations and community groups. It was with considerable surprise that I recently discovered while presenting a series of workshops that there in fact is another core group – people looking to test their business ideas before taking them to market. And, why not? Thought leadership is the perfect mechanism for presenting and testing the veracity of ideas, gauging interest and whetting the appetite of potential >>

  When I began the thought leadership arm of my public relations business 12 months ago, I was convinced that the people wanting to become thought leaders would be established entrepreneurs, business owners and CEOs of corporations. It was with considerable surprise that I recently discovered that there in fact is another core group – people looking to test their business ideas before taking them to market. And, why not? Thought leadership is the perfect mechanism for presenting and testing the veracity of ideas, gauging interest and whetting the appetite of potential investors without having to outlay a considerable fortune >>

Until recently, academics have reigned supreme as our thinkers and thought leaders. However, with our growing emphasis on the knowledge economy, more and more CEOs, senior executives and business people are stepping into this role or weighing up whether or not to get involved. Sadly many of those taking up the challenge are getting it wrong. Why? Because they continue to view thought leadership as ‘just another marketing strategy’ best left to their corporate affairs or marketing department. As a result they are missing out on a wonderful opportunity to personally build rapport and trust with their customers and business >>

In this fantastic article, Entrepreneur magazine addresses how individuals can rise above the clutter and commotion that is the online world and create thought leadership content that gets read, gets viewed and goes viral. A lot of what the article recommends, I am happy to say, is what I have been rabbiting on about in my blogs over the past six months or so. According to the article’s author, Remy Scalza, the FIVE keys to rising about the noise, are: Get personal. Don’t be afraid to open up about your life and the issues you’re passionate about. With 10 million >>

Writing a business book is absolutely fundamental to your thought leadership aspirations and is one of the best ways of rapidly establishing yourself as an acknowledged expert in your field. But where on earth do you get started? With the Xmas break looming and an opportunity to finally put pen to paper without the distractions of the daily grind, here are some great tips for getting started. Tip 1 – Know your purpose Understand exactly why you are writing a book. Here I'm asking you to be super-selfish and think about what you want to achieve from your hard work (because >>

Should I bother with traditional media when it comes to furthering my thought leadership ambitions, I hear you ask?  With the upsurge of social media, blogging, podcasting, videos and content marketing, hasn’t this communication channel outlived its usefulness? My answer is a categorical ‘No’. Publicity still remains one of the most effective tools in any thought leadership war chest. In fact given that it is increasingly harder to land a story, successfully securing coverage and becoming a regular media commentary is viewed as a critical milestone in any thought leadership journey. From my experience, each time a client of mine >>

LinkedIn is easily one of the most effective channels for positioning yourself and enhancing your reach as a thought leader. But rather than attempting to reinvent the wheel, I have dipped into the treasure trove of information provided by ChristineHueber.com who is without a doubt a true ‘Jedi Master’ of LinkedIn. Before I begin extracting their pearls of wisdom (along with a few of mine and those of my thought leadership business partner, Trudy Rankin,) a quick recap of what thought leadership is. According to Joel Kurtzman, the man who coined the term back in 1994, thought leaders are those whose >>

With the plethora of platforms now available to aspiring thought leaders, the question is where to begin your journey. Ask around (and other than the odd exception), the overwhelming response is: blogging is best. Safe haven to clarify your ‘thought leadership’ ideas I like to think of my blog as the jumping off point for all my thought leadership activity and a secure, non-threatening place to begin formulating my ideas. Only once I have completed my post, do I dip into other thought leadership platforms such as social media, publicity, podcasts, videos and so on. The idea of speaking into >>