Book Review – #Thought Leadership by Liz Alexander, PhD and  Craig Badings.

It was probably inevitable that someone would end up writing a book Twitter style.

Communications Professionals and Authors Craig Badings and Liz Alexander, have done just that.

Thought Leadership is their buzz and their new book #Thought Leadership is sub-titled ‘140 prompts for designing and executing an effective Thought Leadership Campaign’. In essence it’s a range of thoughts and prompts for the reader to savour and think about one at a time.

So, what is Thought Leadership?

The book offers

Thought leaders advance the marketplace of ideas by positing actionable, commercially relevant, research-backed, new points of view. They engage in “blue ocean strategy” thinking on behalf of themselves and their clients, as opposed to simply churning out product-focused, brand-centric white papers or curated content that shares or mimics others’ ideas.

While individual thought leaders are in plentiful supply, organizations continue to struggle to establish their thought leadership; it is for this reason that we decided to write this book. It will help you consider all the elements necessary to design and execute a successful thought leadership campaign.

The book manages to distill what could be 162 pages of industry jargon into easy to understand, thought-provoking statements. If you’re a self-employed small businessman or heading up a multi-million dollar communications budget, this book will be a useful addition to your reference library.

The world needs innovative thinking and strong leadership like never before, and this book can help the reader to unlock those creative thoughts and strategies so necessary to survive in the rapid-fire industry jungle.

The authors are both at the top of their respective professions. Badings is a director of one of Australia’s leading Public Relations companies and Alexander is a lecturer, author and consultant to a range of institutions in the USA on the subject.

#Thought Leadership is available from Amazon and direct from the authors.

Footnote:

Parts of the profits of this book are being donated to assist a young Cape Town girl, Jenna Lowe overcome the debilitating disease Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH). 

Jenna is a beautiful, bright and erudite teenage girl who recently turned 18. She is in  Matric and was recently (despite her illness) elected Deputy Head Girl of her school … Jenna has achieved much in her short life such as; becoming a published author at the tender age of 8, being invited to attend Bishop Desmond Tutu’s Youth Peace Summit, becoming SA’s Persuasive Speech Champion at the Individual Public Speaking Nationals this year, numerous academic awards throughout her schooling and much more!

But last year Jenna’ story changed – she was diagnosed with a very rare, incurable lung disease called Primary Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. The drugs and treatments needed to help Jenna and extend her longevity are extremely expensive and mostly they not available in South Africa and therefore have to be imported from Switzerland at great cost. Jenna’s family are doing all they can to pay for everything themselves, but with additional medical costs of over ZAR35 000 a month the necessity to fundraise can no longer be overlooked and Craig Badings is donating 50% of the proceeds from the Thought Leadership book to the Jenna Lowe Fund

If you wish to donate to the Jenna Lowe Fund or find out more information on how you can help, please contact gabi@upfrontmarketing.co.za.