It’s that time of year. Despite the humid August weather, the kids are prepping to head back to class. And so are many of us as the fall conference season kicks off. For marketing pros, digital and social leaders, and content strategists, there are lots of intriguing options over the next few months.
To name a few:
- Confab Intensives (Aug 31- Sep 2) Offer three days of hands-on workshops that promise to help you up your content strategy game. Focus is on editorial, UX, CMS, workflow and governance.
- Social Media Strategies Summit takes their show on the road – to Atlanta next week (Aug 19-20), San Francisco (Sep 23-24) and Boston (Oct 21-22) – emphasizing how to connect the dots between social and conversion.
- Ann Handley and team also head to Boston with Marketing Profs’ B2B Marketing Forum (Oct 21-23). With an expanded program to 54 sessions, on-demand access to sessions ensures you don’t miss anything.
My colleague Jenny and I are opting to join 2500+ folks at Content Marketing World in Cleveland this Sept 8-11. In checking out the agenda, it’s like staring down the course catalog as a freshman – I’m a little overwhelmed but excited about trying to build my schedule from the 150 sessions cutting across 25 tracks.
A few sessions on my ‘don’t miss’ list so far:
- How to Get Started with an Intelligent Content Approach. (Ann Rockley & Charles Cooper). Founder of the Intelligent Content Conference (now a CMI property), Rockley and colleague Cooper will demystify what it takes to adopt this discipline.
- Visual Storytelling at Scale (Katrina Craigwell). How to make a complex B2B story more engaging and approachable is a constant challenge. But the eye-catching part of this session title for me is ‘at scale’. Interested to learn how GE uses visual content to connect with audiences worldwide around science and technology.
- How to Enable Your Content with Marketing Technology (Scott Brinker). Speaking of overwhelming – there’s the ever-growing marketing tech stack. Realizing business value from enabling technology requires new staff skills. I want to hear more about onboarding these Marketing Technologists.
- The New Normal for Content Architecture – Start Slow or Die Fast (Cleve Gibbon). The focus here is adopting a sustainable approach to content that starts slow, demonstrates value, then grows. (Rinse and repeat). Most interesting to me is applying that slow and steady model to introducing personalization.
- How Insane Honesty Can Take Your B2B Story to the Next Level (Doug Kessler). Sounds like Kessler is taking authenticity to a whole new level in this one. Gotta be honest – it’s worth a listen.
With five slots open each day, the schedule’s about half full. There are still topics that hit on the latest thinking on personas, connecting the dots between sales and marketing and performance ROI. Hard choices will be made. But we’re looking forward to the post-conference ‘inspiration high’ that comes from a couple of intense days and great conversation kicking back ‘after class.’
Principal
Engaging your customers is at the heart of successful marketing programs. For more than 20 years, Cheryl has been building and executing content and thought leadership strategies designed to do just that. She is excited to be applying that well-honed skill to a help companies like Microsoft, Cisco, 3M, Intel, Capital One and Barclaycard tap into their stakeholder communities and build sophisticated content strategies.
Her experience base spans a range of industries – from technology and financial services to retail, travel, consumer products and healthcare. Cheryl has served as an integral member of her clients’ marketing teams, providing counsel on marketing and brand strategy, thought leadership, media relations, product introductions, and event management.
Prior to joining ComBlu, Cheryl spent 10 years leading corporate marketing for large, complex organizations.