Thought Leader Life

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In this episode, Mitchell Levy and his co-host for the month of June, Todd Van Hoosear (@vanhoosear), Vice President for Public Relations and Stakeholder Engagement at HB Agency, share insights with #ThoughtLeader Scott Monty (@scottmonty), principal at Scott Monty Strategies, which focuses on corporate and individual brands. According to Mitchell, in today’s world, corporations need to support their employees’ individual brands, though this is something that some corporations have failed to understand. Scott agrees that such organizations are a little insecure, wanting to rein employees in, and don’t appreciate superstars building their own personal brands on the back of the org. But in fact, these organizations are missing a huge opportunity by not taking advantage of the employee’s natural proclivity to be social and share and engage with future customers and advocates on a regular basis. Because of the failure to appreciate the value of personal brands working within the corporate brand, these orgs could likely disappear.
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In this episode, Mitchell Levy introduces his co-host for the month of June, #ThoughtLeader Todd Van Hoosear (@vanhoosear), Vice President for Public Relations and Stakeholder Engagement at HB Agency. Having met for the first time at a conference, Mitchell and Todd are both excited to work together for this month’s #TLL interviews, which will focus on B2B – specifically on how to develop individual #ThoughtLeadership brands alongside the corporate brand. With many corporations still struggling with the concept of promoting the individual #ThoughtLeadership of their employee base, the question of how organizations can strike a balance between individual and corporate brands is extremely relevant, especially for B2B organizations. Mitchell has always believed that 100% of the employee base of any organization, big or small, should be #ThoughtLeaders. This is echoed by Todd, who as a lecturer at Boston University always tells his students that in today’s world, everyone is a spokesperson of the organization they work for, whether they realize it or not.
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In this episode, Mitchell Levy formally introduces this month’s co-host, Martin Jones, senior marketing manager at Cox Communications. In the show, we get an overview of this month’s spectacular discussions with amazing #ThoughtLeaders Raymon Ray, Ted Rubin, Joel Comm, and Steven Aldrich. This month, #TLL focuses on small business, specifically on small businesses marketing #ThoughtLeadership. From the interviews, small business owners will learn a great deal about new tools and technology and experimentation, as well as ways to be successful in today’s world.
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In this episode, Mitchell Levy @HappyAbout and his co-host for the month of May, Martin Jones @martinjonesaz of Cox Communications, talk with the AVP of GoDaddy, #ThoughtLeader Steven Aldrich @spaldrich, who shares some great new tools and tips for small businesses. The interview wraps up an amazing month for #TLL that focused on small businesses marketing #ThoughtLeadership, as it discusses the fundamental as well as the prospective set of tools and applications small businesses can use to be successful online. For Steve, small businesses today are fortunate to have mobile technology and the cloud allowing them to work wherever and whenever they want. Mitchell notes that having functionality at your fingertips works best for everyone, especially small business owners. Some new apps were mentioned during the discussion, including Martin’s favorite, IFTTT, and Feedly.com, where he gets his news feeds and content to share to his customers. Other exciting tools are Microsoft Office Delve, Google feeds, and ContentGems.
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In this episode, Mitchell and his co-host for the month of May, Martin Jones, share interesting insights with #ThoughtLeader Joel Comm (http://joelcomm.com) about ways for small businesses to find their space and become successful. Martin points out that many changes in communication technology are occuring, which small businesses can take advantage of. People today are so much more connected, and there are many opportunities to locally and globally reach out and share your message. Joel notes that it’s amazing how small the world has really become and how fast someone’s message can reach the other side of the world. So the real question is not about whether you are affected by these technological changes, but about what is possible. For Joel, there’s so many sandboxes to play in, and you just have to demolish the box that you should be thinking out of, climb over the brick wall hindering you, and #DoGoodStuff.
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In this episode, Mitchell Levy and this month’s co-host, Martin Jones, senior marketing manager at Cox Communications, continue their discussion on small business #ThoughtLeadership and how #ThoughtLeaders can become successful in their own space. Mitchell and Martin are joined by Mr. #RoR himself, #ThoughtLeader Ted Rubin, who shares brilliant insights on the Age of Influence and how to look people in the eye digitally. As an experienced marketing strategist, Martin discusses how large companies are now going local and how small businesses can take full advantage of their nimbleness. Ted emphasizes the need for large companies to scale and take on employee advocacy seriously, and mentions companies like IBM, Dell, and Cox Communications to be doing a great job in letting their employees build their personal brand.
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In this episode, Mitchell Levy and his co-host for the month of May, Martin Jones, interview #ThoughtLeader Ramon Ray, a small business evangelist at Infusionsoft, publisher of Smart Hustle Magazine, and a technology crusader. These gentlemen all relate their opinions based on the solid foundations they have from their respective fields of expertise, while still retaining a business perspective. The session starts with Mitchell’s observation that life has changed dramatically, especially for small businesses, in terms on how you can reach out to customers and future customers. Ramon Ray categorized his perspective into three areas: 1) customers expect small businesses to respond faster, 2) we’re on a road where privacy is no longer something we can assume as guaranteed, and 3) there is increased speed and efficiency, which he thinks may be both good and bad.
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In this episode, Mitchell Levy and his co-host for the month of April, Chris Kenton, interview #ThoughtLeader Carol Meyers, CMO of Rapid7, which engineers better security with simple, innovative solutions for IT security’s most critical challenges. Their security data and analytics solutions collect, contextualize, correlate, and analyze the security data necessary to dramatically reduce threat exposure and detect compromise in real-time. The session starts with Mitchell sharing his point of view on the dramatic changes he has observed in almost every aspect of the business, especially in channel management. We also hear from Carol, who has an extensive marketing and sales expertise and proven success in driving technology companies to growth.
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In this episode, Mitchell Levy and his co-host for the month of April, Chris Kenton, interview #ThoughtLeader Mike McDermott, SVP of Sales & Business Development at Primitive Logic, a business consulting and technology solutions firm focused on achieving superior business results for their clients. The session starts with Mitchell sharing his observations on the dramatic changes brought about with new technologies and their influence. He observes that what he learned in business school on the concept on the customer’s right that businesses make the customer happy is not happening in the real world, that there has been a complete transformation.
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In this episode, Mitchell Levy and his co-host for the month of April, Chris Kenton, interview #ThoughtLeader Sridhar Ramanathan, COO of Aventi Group. Mitchell and Sridhar met five or eight years ago, making this a great opportunity for them to reconnect. Sridhar has run a high technology marketing agency for many years, and he has been able to observe and witness a tremendous transformation in the business world, where what used to be big value added to integration and implementation has now led to a dramatic change in the channel. There is a great emphasis on making a sharp point on a value proposition for the channel partner, where their value and how they make money is really defined.
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