In 2011, I have written 345 posts at this site, authored three full length articles, written and designed twelve issues of my premium newsletter, a 115-page eBook, and responded to several interviews for other sites.
I also delivered 5 keynote presentations, participated in a half dozen speaker panels, and another half dozen podcasts.
As part of my advisory board duties, I helped a group of International MBA students with marketing strategy and presentation polish, developed a landing page for IABC membership information and content for the site, and suggested topics and made connections for the local DMA association events.
All activities on top of client work, which included business and marketing plans, executive team coaching and connecting, content marketing executions to support integrated communications brand messaging in digital/social and analog (some people like to call it paid, earned, and owned media), measurement frameworks, and tailoring scope of work and contracts to help clients hire other providers (what and how much you need determines cost/time frame).
I was building capacity for 2012.
How to do what you do
Many of you are called upon to implement several of these activities as part of your job.
They are different kinds of executions that require experience in:
- Writing for the Web and for social
- Organizing copy in essay format for feature articles
- Supporting statements with story and data
- Identifying the needs of a growing audience
- Working with event organizers and other publishers to deliver appropriate examples
- Shifting from informative to entertaining
- Refreshing key facts and content anchors frequently
- Speaking clearly and plainly
- Looking behind corners
- Seeing the big picture
- Making the appropriate connections
- Understanding situational and contextual subtext
- Translating creative executions for each medium
- Knowing what to listen for as respects project requirements
- Planning efficiently to lead to effective outcomes
- Thinking with others in conversation
- Eliciting information to lead to novel insights
- Interpreting the appropriate data points
- Collaborating with other professionals whose first language is also not English
- Negotiating fair terms on both sides of the contract
- Shifting gears constantly between the needs of the audience and those of the message
- Deconstructing and reconstructing business models
- Learning various technologies and tools
- Assessing situations when encountering new challenges
- Reading the temperature in the room when negotiating
- Being grounded in most practice (or your 10,000 hours of deliberate practice)
What is on this list goes to how you trade/execute promises.
The kind of promises you make are shaped by the integrity and values that inform your process.
Which is why the way you think about how you produce content is crucial to its value and expiration date.
Do you hire professionals who can think about how they produce content that has shelf life? How do you build capacity?