The Innovator’s Journey to Thought Leadership | Karen Hold | 412

Leveraging Thought Leadership

What does it take to become a game-changer in your industry? We are constantly bombarded with products and brands seeking our attention and money. How can thought leadership help your brand stand out? Today, we are joined by Karen Hold, the founder of Experience Labs and co-author of Experiencing Design: The Innovator's Journey. Karen’s mission is to build creative capacity in individuals, organizations, and cities, using the language of design thinking. The trick is to turn abstract thought into concrete ideas, and to visualize those ideas in a way that captures your audience's attention. Karen takes us back to the early days of her career, at Procter & Gamble, where her focus was on the Folgers Coffee brand. At the time, as Starbucks was starting to emerge, and Folgers needed a way to stand out in order to keep its share of the market. Karen shares how Folgers studied the Starbucks experience, and - due to flawed assessment - decided that the newcomer wasn't a threat to Folgers' market dominance. Fast-forward to 2022, and Starbucks has a major market share - a share that could have belonged to Folgers', if they'd determined the market need and used it to their own advantage. Determined not to miss the next big opportunity, Karen explains how she changed her thinking. As media changed and people's needs evolved, Karen realized that brands needed better tools to assess market needs - and step forward, staying ahead of the curve by visualizing the future and being ready for the next change. By preparing content with the right approach, you make sure that your thought leadership is there when the audience is ready to receive it. Karen shares even more insights in her book, and discusses the amazing experience she had working with Jeanne Liedtka and Jessica Eldridge to complete and publish her thought leadership. In addition, we learn about the digital tool for creating personal development plans that was recently launched as an add-on, giving even more value to the text and its content. Three Key Takeaways: * Don’t blindly follow data. Use your instinct, experiment, and create thought leadership that sees around corners and tries new things. * Ensure that your thought leadership is available in a variety of modalities. This allows you to connect with an audience, regardless of their preferred method of communication. * Adding development tools to a thought leadership book is a method to continue the research you’ve begun, and expand your insights.