People have personal brands.
Your thought leadership insight has _____________.
Orgs have corporate brands.
What goes in the blank?
An idea’s brand isn’t the same as a person’s.
And it’s certainly not the same as the org.
Sure, the Venn diagram has some overlap.
Ideas come from individuals and orgs.
But they’re not the same.
Ideas that reach scale have a common characteristic.
The thought leadership stands on a strong brand of its own.
We call it a “platform.”
In part, a platform is how people talk about your insight
when you’re not in the room.
The easier it is for them to summarize your insight, the better.
If they can quickly describe its relevance to others —
they will help you take the idea to scale.
But if they don’t understand the idea —
or they can’t explain it simply —
they won’t talk about it at all.
If you rely on your personal brand
or your org’s brand to spread the insight,
you’ll find trouble.
When an idea lacks a good platform,
it clings to the brand of the individual or the org
who created it and promoted it.
If you want the idea to go somewhere,
it’s up to the individual or the org to chaperone it.
Much like a parent taking a tween everywhere.
And that gets *old* really fast.
So how do you get your ideas to go places
without you having to take them there?
How do you make ideas less reliant on you or your org?
The platform.
You can’t take an idea to scale on your own.
Doesn’t work.
🧠Sheer force of will won’t do it.
💵 Endless streams of money won’t do it.
You need other people to talk about your ideas.
And that requires a platform.
Your thought leadership spreads further/faster
when you’ve built a strong platform for the idea.
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I write about:
#ThoughtLeadership #OrgTL, #Brand and #Marketing