Web Ink Now

Content marketing in highly regulated industries

On the global speaking circuit, I frequently get pushback from audience members who work in highly regulated industries. They claim, erroneously, that laws like HIPAA and regulations like those from the SEC and the FDA forbid them from creating valuable content on the Web or engaging in social media.

Nonsense!

This is just a fear-based excuse perpetuated by lawyers in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and financial services industries who want to avoid risk at all cost.

Ignoring the data

The fear is particularly shortsighted when considering the data on how people make decisions related to their health. Last week I delivered a talk at the National Healthcare Marketing Summit and had an opportunity to meet many marketers who are happily reaching their audiences with valuable information because they live in reality not fear.

According to data presented at the conference by Tim McGuire from Greenville Hospital System, Bill Moschella of eVariant, and Anne Theis of Salem Health, 80% of Internet users look up health information online.

More than three out of four people use the Web to make healthcare decisions!

Yet 64% of hospital marketing departments devote less than 25% of their marketing budget to interactive. Even more telling is how hospital marketers spend their time. 83% of hospitals devote less than 30% of staff time to interactive media.

This is ridiculous.

The fearful lawyers say “no” to the 80% of customers and potential customers who use the Web to research health? Fear means that hospital marketers are busy making brochures and TV ads instead of creating Web content?

Can your organization afford such a disconnect?!

Learning from Chris Boyer and Inova Health System

For example, Chris Boyer, Director, Digital Communications and Marketing, Inova Health System is doing a terrific job. Inova is Northern Virginia's leading not-for-profit healthcare provider, serving more than 1 million people each year.

Under Chris' leadership, Inova is active on social sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Pinterest (and more). You can see all the social platforms on this page, which also has information on Inova's social media policies. In addition, Chris has a personal blog (as do others in the organization).

But it the content that Inova publishes to reach specific buyer personas that interests me the most. For example, there is a Life with Cancer site that contains valuable information for patients and their families.

In a world where others are fearful of creating content, Inova publishes videos like this one. Phil Gilbert's Story - Relief After Hip Replacement.

Content for Inova’s buyer personas

In the last two years, Chris has transformed the Inova organization to be more focused on creating relevant content. I asked a bunch of questions so that we can all learn from his efforts.

"We take a lot of time understanding who our viewers are and actually write different types of content for different types of users," Chris told me. "Patients are using our patient and visitor information so they're looking for specifics about how to make their stay easier and we write with them in mind. Other people view our services and all the different clinical stuff that we provide at Inova. They could either be referring physicians who want to research what we're doing here or there could be consumers who are actually shopping for healthcare and we want to provide them content that's appropriate for them. It is written so that they don't have read through pages and pages of clinical content to get to the crux of what they're looking for."

Hire journalists

Chris manages the digital marketing and communications team, including a handful of editors and web graphics professionals as well as several part-timers.

A full time social medial manager on the team focuses on social media channels, although there's a lot of content interaction and cross-publication efforts because the lines between social media and the website are blurring tremendously at Inova.

Long-time readers of this blog know that I frequently talk about hiring journalists to create content. Professional reporters and editors, more than marketers and PR people, are the best staffers for content sites because they understand how to tell a story and don't fall back on product pitching. That's exactly what Inova has done.

"The two main editors for our website are actually former journalists," Chris says. "So they have experience in terms of writing; of course, they started in traditional media. But in the last few years, they migrated over to focus exclusively on online journalism and communications."

Manage fear

I wanted to know how Chris has dealt with the whole "fear" thing. Why has he been successful in hiring journalists and creating content when so many other management teams and legal departments simply say: "no".

"Healthcare organizations typically are very conservative in how they market or communicate about their services," he says. The main concern of management was that a shift to content marketing would mean a shift away from what they thought were the key differentiators of Inova Health System in the market that attract the best physicians. "It took a long time for us to educate that the existing content is not being lost, we're just providing it to each audience in the appropriate places. There will be pages for consumers, pages for physicians that are looking to refer or be employed here. It took a while for them to be comfortable with that."

Measure success

What about the whole ROI thing? With a team of people, there are significant resources devoted to this effort. Is it paying off?

"We use tools like Vocus to measure effectiveness," Chris says. "But I also manage, as part of my larger responsibilities, our CRM team and our customer relationship management database. So I've been creating a social media strategy that is aligned with our customer relationship management database so I can actually measure downstream utilization and ROI of our social media activity."

Chris is a bit of a social media ROI rockstar and was even filmed at a Mayo Clinic conference singing his Social Media ROI Rag.

Chris has three specific areas that he measures:

• New patients. How many people become patients who first connected online either through content on the Website or social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.


• How much money can be saved by using online tools. For example the existing Inova nursing communications is a printed newsletter that goes out to all nursing staff and it costs $80,000 a year to produce. So converting over to a blog they means eliminating that expense while increasing readership.


• Long-term patient engagement and wellness. Chris measures patients (or potential patients) who get involved wellness programs. For example, Inova has email communications focused on how to have a healthy heart, how to eat well, and the like. He’s looking for people who stay healthy because of the information they consume and how that effects things like re-admittance rates.

Advice to the fearful

With all of his success, I wanted Chris to provide suggestions to people in other regulated businesses.

"Realize that you don't have to transform your entire organization all at once," he says. "I found a lot of success in focusing on areas where there are some obvious opportunities and used social communications in those areas. Try something and see how it's working. You're gaining valuable expertise and understanding about how to use the tools. Eventually in most organizations once you introduce social communications to your portfolio, very quickly you'll start to see how it will start to augment, if not replace, some of the current ways that you're communicating."

No excuses

As Chris shows, content marketing is alive and well in highly regulated industries.

Isn't it time for your organization to eliminate fear?

Public relations is not the same as media relations

Back in the day, the only way to easily communicate with your public was to use mainstream media and analysts as your mouthpieces. So the public relations department and the agencies they employed spent a great deal of effort convincing editors, reporters and analysts that your company was one worth talking up.

Prior to the Web, there wasn't an efficient way for organizations to communicate directly to the public.

What's the role of public relations in the new world of the web?

There has been an explosion of channels that organizations can reach their audience directly with valuable online content: videos, ebooks, white papers, photos, infographics, and more – and then have that information shared in social networks.

However, many PR professionals still operate as if their only conduit is mainstream media.

Apologies if you've heard this because I've talked about this many times in the past. But there are still many holdouts so I say it again.

Don't confuse the superset (public relations = reaching the public with your information) with the subset (media relations = using the media to tell your story) and therefore insist that PR is only about mainstream media.

What you need to realize is that these are different activities. Media relations is still valid as a way to get attention. Who doesn't want to be quoted in an important newspaper, magazine, or television broadcast?

Today there are so many other ways to communicate with your publics

If your organization operates this outdated way, my recommendation is to re-name your public relations department the media relations department to reflect what they really do.

In this new world, smart PR pros realize they have a tremendous opportunity if they can effectively communicate directly with the public. They are transforming themselves into content creators. However, most are still operating in the traditional press release and pitching mentality.

If you're an entrepreneur or executive, don't put your PR department in charge of content creation for your company (unless they understand completely the power of the new world).

We are the media: Amanda Palmer and the future of your business

UPDATE - May 29, 2012. This afternoon, Amanda's Kickstarter crossed the $1 million threshold, the first music project on Kickstarter to do so.

I met up with her just a few hours later and posted this Amanda Palmer freaks out to celebrate hitting $1 million on Kickstarter.

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On April 6, 2010 after a two year fight Amanda Palmer finally freed herself from her record deal with Roadrunner Records. For the seven years prior to her label divorce, anything she had written and recorded (either solo or with her band, The Dresden Dolls) has technically been owned and under the ultimate control of the label.

Amanda knew she could do better on her own

So after much planning, Amanda chose a 30-day Kickstarter to fund her new album: amanda palmer & the grand theft orchestra.

As I write this, within two days, more than 6,000 people have backed the project with an incredible $350,000. And there are 29 days to go. (Each time I refresh Amanda’s Kickstarter page, the total grows.)

One fan at a time

Amanda connects with her fans every day and has built a tremendous fan base. She's very active on social networks - 550,000+ Twitter followers at @AmandaPalmer for example. Her site is a great example of a content rich resource for fans and her blog is always a great read (often with hundreds of comments on a post).

Regular readers of this blog may recall that I’ve written about her before in these posts: How Amanda Palmer made $11,000 on Twitter in two hours (which contains my wide ranging video interview with Amanda) and Amanda Palmer divorces her record label.

Crowdsourcing a new record and a new band

Rather than going the traditional route and having a label fund her new record, Amanda is going directly to her fans via Kickstarter.

Amanda writes: "since i'm now without a giant label to front the gazillions of dollars that it always takes to manufacture and promote a record this big, i'm coming to you to gather funds so that i have the capital to put it out with a huge fucking bang. i think kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms like this are the BEST way to put out music right now - no label, no rules, no fuss, no muss. just us, the music, and the art. i'm also making sure EVERY PRODUCT sold through this kickstarter is unique to this campaign, to reward all of you who KNEW ME WHEN and were willing to support me from Day One."

There are packages starting at just $1 (a digital download of the album) to $10,000 (dinner with Amanda plus all sorts of extras). I dig the $5,000 level, which includes Amanda coming to your house for a party. The package I chose was a pledge of $300 and includes tickets to a VIP party and intimate show with Amanda and the band in Boston (there are similar options in other cities).

We are the media: Amanda Palmer and the future of music

In just a few days, Amanda has raised more money via her fans than she would have gotten from her label for producing her album. And she retains complete control. Who knows how much she might end up with at the end of the month?

To succeed at this technique, a musician has got to build a fan base one person at a time. Social media is a great way to connect before and after the live gig, but the personal connection is essential.

"Being a touring musician means meeting fans," Amanda told me. "I go out and meet fans after every gig. It's important to make contact in real life and not just online in social media like Twitter. If you don't meet fans in real life too, then you're a fraud. If you're not comfortable getting into the sweat with them and talking with people at shows, then how can you do it successfully online? I love connecting with fans. Speaking to people at the merchandise table after the show is great. I can stay there forever."

The future of your business

If you read this blog, you know that I am a huge live music fan. I see parallels to all kinds of businesses – including yours.

While your work may be completely different from that of a rock star, Amanda has something to teach you.

Your product comes first and must be created with passion. You’ve got to engage with your customers on a human level. Social networking can help you build your fan base. And if you do these things well, you can build a great company and a fantastic career.

Lindsey shows how to market to millennials and how to get a first job

UPDATE: Lindsey was hired full time at HubSpot on the Content Creation & Blogging team. She started work in mid-September, 2012. Congratulations Lindsey!

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Last month I wrote a post called Tough love for marketing and PR job seekers. In it I challenged you to prove you are a great marketer by showing, not telling. I said that you need to create content that will brand you as someone to hire. Now. Starting today.

I've delivered this advice to hundreds of people. Sadly for them, I know from experience that nearly all ignore this advice.

Lindsey Kirchoff, as I write this a graduating senior at Tufts University, is in the tiny minority. She eagerly took up the challenge and started a terrific blog How to Market to Me.

In her blog, Lindsey offers her opinions on how to market to millennials like her. She says: It's my opinion. It's about the advertisements that "get" me as a collegiate and twentysomething consumer. The companies that understand my values, participate in my humor and reach me when/where I’m most likely to need them. It's also about companies that don't do any of those things and how they can better reach me (and people like me) in the future.

Lindsey is currently on the hunt for a job at a mid-to-large marketing firm with a strong entry level program to help her really learn the industry. She says: "And I wouldn’t complain if I could relocate to somewhere sunny (I’m looking at you Austin, San Francisco and Nashville)."

If I was hiring new graduates, I'd jump to hire Lindsey before anyone else does.

After my speech at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in July, 2011, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of interns at Microsoft.

I provided the same advice I offered to Lindsey about getting a great first marketing job. Part of the discussion was filmed and I offer it here.

Direct link to the video here.

If you know someone looking for that first marketing or PR job, please share this post with them.

Disclosure: I got to know Lindsey because my book The New Rules of Marketing and PR is used at Tufts and I reached out to a professor there looking to hire an intern on a project for the Massachusetts Air and Space Museum. Lindsey has been working directly with me on that project.

Neil deGrasse Tyson as master communicator

I'm a big Neil deGrasse Tyson fanboy.

Partly that's because I'm an Apollo moon mission geek and collect artifacts from the Apollo program. (Pretty geeky, right?)

But mostly, I'm a fan because Dr. Tyson is such an awesome communicator. When I read his books and articles or watch him on television, I always take away something that I can apply to my own work as a marketer and communicator.

His bio says Neil deGrasse Tyson s an astrophysicist and the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. But he is so much more.

Neil deGrasse Tyson as master communicator

Dr. Tyson is so good at speaking and writing about the cosmos and why it is important for us to have an understanding of the wider world in which we live.

If you haven't heard him speak, check out Jon Stewart interviewing Dr. Tyson on The Daily Show on February 27, 2012.

In the clip, he explains how fear contributed to the development of America's space program in the late 1950s, thereby spurring economic growth. "We no longer advanced a space frontier," he says. "The Space Shuttle boldly went where hundreds have gone before." Watch the clip to see a master communicator at work.

By the way: An astrophysicist with 350,000+ followers on Twitter? What's up with that? Yep, that's @neiltyson

Space Chronicles

His newest book, just out, is Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier – a collection of essays and speech transcripts around the theme of space exploration and how America & NASA has not done much to inspire people in the past 40 years outside of some cool robotic missions and the Hubble telescope.

I read Space Chronicles in three sittings because it is that good.

In the book, he talks about how America boldly embarked on the most audacious scientific endeavor in history by sending humans to the moon. However after 9 lunar missions (6 that landed) we... stopped exploring! For 40 years we've only been to low earth orbit with manned missions.

Sure there have been some spectacular robotic missions such as Cassini to Saturn and the various Mars rovers. And the Hubble space telescope has delivered spectacular images. But humans haven't explored.

Dr. Tyson argues we're not inspiring our young people to study science and engineering and that’s a problem for the economy.

"Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, because his forty acres meet all his needs. Yet if our predecessors had felt that way, the farmer would instead be a cave dweller, chasing down his dinner with a stick and a rock."
- From Space Chronicles.

If you want to see how thought leadership is done by a master communicator, read and watch the work of Neil deGrasse Tyson. You don't need to agree with him nor be a space geek to learn from his style.

Quick aside – In high school my buddies and I would go to the Hayden Planetarium (after some appropriate preparations of course) to see evening productions of "Laser Floyd" – a cosmic mixture of loud Pink Floyd with colorful lasers projected on the planetarium dome. I've even got a ticket stub from 1978 to prove it. Neil is close to my age. He grew up in New York City. I wonder if he went too? Nah, probably not. He was studying while I was partying. But maybe?!

Image: from @neiltyson Twitter.

How to create and edit articles for Wikipedia

Wikipedia is among the top ten most visited sites on the Web. When there is a Wikipedia article on a topic that you search on, I'm sure you’ve noticed that article usually appears as one of the top few results, frequently in the number one position.

There's no doubt that Wikipedia is important.

However there are few people who understand the inner workings of Wikipedia and how the more than 3.8 million articles in the English language (and millions more in 282 other languages) are created.

Sure, Wikipedia is an open platform and anybody can create or edit an article. But it's more complicated than that. A lot more complicated.

I asked my friend Colin Warwick to help us out. Colin is a Product Marketing Manager at Agilent Technologies. He writes the popular Signal Integrity blog and tweets at @SignalIntegrity.

David: How did you get interested in contributing to Wikipedia?

Colin: "Around 2004, a colleague at MathWorks - Ned Gulley - gave a talk on the crowdsourcing phenomenon: What it was, why it was happening, and Wikipedia was his prime example. His point was the success of Wikipedia is surprising. How can a bunch of unmanaged volunteers compete with the resources of, say, Microsoft (who had Encarta at the time) or the venerable Britannica. There's that famous quote: 'The problem with Wikipedia is that it works in practice, but not in theory'."

David: So why does it work then?

Colin: "It's true that a naive application of a theory like the tragedy of the commons would predict failure. But in the case of Wikipedia we get the inverse outcome because the cost of a contribution is much less than its value over time. For example, it costs very little for a contributor to enter knowledge from their experience into the servers, and very little for Wikipedia to serve that information over and over again to readers, generating great value over time. Unlike the pasture of a physical commons, information isn't degraded much by use. So the value of Wikipedia increases over time attracting more readers, some of whom become contributors, forming a virtuous cycle."

David: So you got sucked into the vortex?

Colin: "Yes. I became intrigued and started to add little facts I found here and there. The interaction with other contributors was startling at first but I began to realize that in questioning my assumptions I was not only contributing but pushing my own understanding to a higher level."

David: Give us an example.

Colin: "In my work, I had to learn about a new technology we wanted to enter called ODB++. I started researching it and gathered and read a ton of web links. But I noticed there wasn't a Wikipedia article about it. So I started one."

David: Just like that?

Colin: "Just like that. The best way to start or add to a Wikipedia article is to gather good web links first. Web-based versions of newspaper and magazine articles. Books. In Wikipedia-speak, it's called reliable sources."

David: What about blog posts and other social media?

Colin: "Ironically for a user-generated content site, Wikipedia looks down on user-generated content. Blogs can be a reliable source if the blogger is notable for something other than blogging."

David: Interesting. I didn't know that before speaking with you. So what happened next?

Colin: "Other editors started contributing to the article as I was writing it. At first it was really irritating to have some unknown person editing 'my' article as I was writing."

David: Wasn't it your article?

Colin: "Technically, no. If you contribute to Wikipedia, you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the Creative Commons license. And they warn you 'If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here'."

David: That seems harsh. So what's the value for contributors on Wikipedia if that's the case?

Colin: "Well, once I got over the irritation, I began to see a benefit: I learnt whole new perspectives from the other contributors that I didn't even know existed. There's a discussion page behind every article where you can ask: 'Why did you delete what I wrote?' It's kind of addictive. Who's going to end up right or wrong or what compromise will be reached? You can see why Wikipedia contributors give each other virtual barnstars as a token of appreciation in at those moments. It's evocative of communal barn building in certain rural communities. I had my barn-building moment on that article!"

David: The article you wrote wasn't directly about your company. Many people want to know if they can create an article about their own company or its products and sevices. I'm asked that a lot. Can you do that?

Colin: "You can but it's very difficult to not run afoul of Wikipedia's conflict of interest rules, COI in wiki-speak. Other editors can smell marketing puffery a mile way and will delete it as advertising in a heartbeat. The only workaround is to put Wikipedia's goal of a neutral point of view (NPOV in wiki-speak) first, and then either proactively seek what's called a COI review, or simply let nature take its course. As with all articles, you have the best chance of your edits 'sticking' if you come armed with reliable sources: don't simply add your opinion."

David: Cool. Finally after many years of using Wikipedia I feel like I know a little about how it is put together and how someone in business can benefit from contributing. Hey Colin, you should write a book about all this stuff.

Some smart editor or publisher who is watching this blog should cut a deal with Colin to do a book.

Content Marketing and Brand Journalism at Boeing

Back in May, 2010 when Boeing embarked on a fledgling brand journalism program, I interviewed Todd Blecher, Communications Director, for a blog post I titled The Plane Truth: Brand journalism and the new Boeing site.

Since then, I've been using Boeing as an example of an organization that is creating great content but until yesterday I had never met Todd in person.

We both spoke at the Purina Digital Summit "Feeding the Beast" event in St. Louis. What a perfect tag-team: I talked about how companies can create excellent content and how journalists make excellent content creators (print journalists, photojournalists, and broadcast journalists) because they are skilled storytellers, then Todd outlined how he is doing it at Boeing. Todd and I are both looking forward to Purina taking up the ideas for their marketing programs.

Brakes on Fire!!

For a great example of the sort of content that Todd and his team create, check out this video Boeing 747-8F Performs Ultimate Rejected Take-off where a fully-loaded 747-8 Freighter with worn-out brakes attempted an aborted takeoff on a California runway. The rejected takeoff or maximum brake energy test is one of the most dramatic for a new airplane. The resulting video has 680,000 views as of this writing. The video is great because it is not a product pitch. Rather it is branded content that people want to consume and that shows Boeing in a great way.

"We publish content that supports business objectives and fosters positive opinions about Boeing," Todd told me. "We're not (directly) selling planes. We’re selling Boeing."

Todd understands that brand journalism is not a product pitch. It is not an advertorial. It is not an egotistical spewing of gobbledygook-laden corporate drivel.

Interestingly, many Boeing communicators were former reporters. Todd himself was a former real-time wire service journalist at Bloomberg News who now among other duties manages the @Boeing Twitter feed.

Effective brand journalism is about telling stories. Like newspapers, magazines, and television news reports, Boeing brand journalists publish their by-line with their reports. This shows that real people are behind the stories.

I also like that Boeing's reports end up serving as fodder for the media. They repurpose content all the time, promoting it via social media the Boeing site, on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. And they pitch their homegrown stories to the media.

Here's a quick discussion with Todd on how brand journalism is done at Boeing.

Direct link to Todd interview on YouTube.

Thanks Todd. Keep up the good work.

Thinking Right (and Left) about Content Marketing

As I evaluate Web marketing such as blogs and websites, one thing I look for is evidence of both left-brain and right-brain thinking in the creation of the content. This obsession might seem trivial, but I guess my right-brain outlook on life causes me to take a holistic view of content.

The right-/left-brain concept is widely credited to have developed from the thinking of American psychobiologist Roger Sperry in the late 1960s. Sperry's Nobel Prize-winning work opened whole fields of psychological and philosophical debate including the idea that there are two different sides of the brain, each controlling a "mode" of thinking.

What kind of thinker is your buyer?

Left-brain thinkers focus on the logical, rational, sequential, and analytical while right-brainers prefer more random, holistic, and free-associated approaches.

Psychologists say that left-brainers focus on words and numbers while right-brain people focus on visual images and patterns.

In our world of creating content for marketing purposes, one might say that left-brain people make logical deductions from information while right-brain thinkers prefer to make lateral associations from information.

What right brain / left brain means for content marketing

The best websites, blogs, and social pages (Facebook and G+ for example) include a combination of text content, images, video and charts. Your goal is to create a mix so that people who are visual have an infographic or photo and those who are analytical might have text and numerical charts.

But there are two problems.

1) Most ad agencies and design agencies are populated with people who are great at creating visual content but less good at writing and other left-brain content creation. This means that while sites offer visual cues and easy-to-access lateral information few deliver words and numbers in logical ways.

2) At the same time, left-brainers dominate the top ranks of many companies. Often the top marketing person is a left-brained MBA-type. Need proof? Just count the times "MBA required" is listed on the job description of marketing people at companies. How many liberal arts graduates do you see? Some, but they are greatly outnumbered.

One organization that does an excellent job delivering content for all types of people is Amazon. There are multiple ways to find content including search, by topic, and through "best of" lists. There are videos and images and graphics.

As marketers we need to include both right-brain and left-brain people in our content creation efforts.

Finally, a note to HR executives and headhunters: Please remove the""MBA required" label from marketing jobs—you'll have a better candidate pool if you don't exclude right-brain individuals.

Image: Shutterstock / Carla Castagno

The Power of Real-Time Marketing Takes Focus at DMA2011

Last month I delivered a presentation at the DMA annual conference. The theme of the entire #DMA2011 was "The Global Event for Real-Time Marketers" so it was fitting that I talked about the ideas in my book Real-Time Marketing & PR.

I give the DMA a great deal of credit for recognizing the real-time revolution early and adapting the organization to the new world of instant communication we live in today. I'm happy to see that next year's #DMA2012 is also focused on real-time marketing.

Fortunately my talk was filmed and you can see it here.

Direct link to the video on YouTube.

My talk was sponsored by SAS as part of the company's efforts to educate people about the importance of real-time customer analytics. In the video, you'll see Hillary Ashton from SAS introducing me.

The video was filmed and edited by the talented pros at Rewatchable. I've seen many videos of talks that are filmed from one camera angle or are otherwise predictable. Once you see this, I think you’ll agree with me that the way this is filmed and edited makes it far more interesting than the typical speaker video.

Thank you to the DMA, SAS, and Rewatchable for making this video available.

Cool event alert - Nature and Leadership Expedition to Panama

Early this year, I visited the jungles of Panama with Nathan Gray and Lider Sucre of Earth Train, staying at their beautiful Mamoni Valley Preserve campus.

During my visit, I was able to reflect on what the natural world can teach about leadership. I wrote about it in a post Biodiversity and business leadership, which includes a video interview with Nathan.

Nathan, Lider, and a group of talented artists and businesspeople are taking these ideas forward with an exciting one-week executive level leadership seminar-adventure in Panama. I'll be attending the week long event from January 28 to February 4, 2012 and there is space for just 8 others to join us.

The team is looking for accomplished and articulate executive-explorers to join the hiking and kayaking trip through the jungles of Panama. You will need to share our passion for enquiry and adventure, have an open mind, be physically fit, and have an enthusiastic desire to share your ideas with the group.

Together we will explore:

• The latest insights from Nature about social organization; cooperation and "coopetition;" social networking; and applying ecological tools in the business environment.


• The most effective ways of using natural environments as executive training and learning resources.


• How nature and the arts - especially music - stimulates creativity and develops pattern-recognition skills.

The guides and program leaders are an incredible collection of people from around the world. Learn more here.

We will be video documenting our time together, covering our kayak trip from the Continental Divide to the Kuna Caribbean coast.

If you're looking for a fantastic adventure that gets you about as far away from the office as possible, this is your chance to be a part of an expedition together with other leaders in the arts and business.

Photo above: Doug Bruce (shot in the Kuna village of Cangandi)