CEO Communications Intelligence | Weekly

1. So, what is know-how?

2. Email is what I know and love. Gen Z wants to end that love.

3. Now circulation more important than advertising for newspapers

4. "Female athletes are looking for more"

5. Read: The Business of Expertise

Thought leadership is a fancy way of saying know-how

So what is know-how?

Simple.

What expertise, knowledge, insights, humanity, behind the scenes are you sharing and providing to your network, customers, and market space?

Adam Grant posted this on Twitter recently:

Creating knowledge without sharing it is elitism.

Sharing knowledge without creating it is marketing.

Creating knowledge to share it is thought leadership.

That is a pretty good explanation of thought leadership and know-how.

So, what idea are you holding back?

Let the idea go.

Show your know-how.

Email is what I know and love

So obviously, Gen Z wants to free me from what I know and love.

According to a 2020 study from the consulting firm Creative Strategies, there's a generational gap in work tools.

The survey found that for those 30 and above, email was among the top tools they used for collaboration.

For those under 30, Google Docs was the app workers associated most with collaboration, followed by Zoom and iMessage.

Plus, Gen Z sees email as a life stressor.

At any given time, going into one's email inbox is a crackerjack box, but without the cheap prize and caramel popcorn goodness.

An email inbox at any given time can be home to important work stuff, an invite to attend your uncle's retirement party, and a reminder to renew Netflix.

You can see why Gen Z wants to free me from email.

In a recent survey by Deloitte, 46 percent of Gen Z respondents reported feeling stressed all or most of the time in 2020, and 35 percent said they had taken time off work because of stress and anxiety.

CEOs will need to do a better job helping Gen Z manage email and various communications tools.

With the rise of one-stop, do everything super apps, this will be a challenge.

But seeing any communication tool as just that - a tool, coupled with recognizing that some tools are better for a specific job that needs to get done, will be essential for business productivity.

I recommend a twice-a-year communications tool audit to discuss with your core team to ensure everyone is using the best tool for the job and not fostering stress and less productivity.

Now circulation more important than advertising for newspapers

For the first time, newspapers made more money from circulation than from advertising.

Pew reports that according to an analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings of publicly traded newspaper companies, newspapers' top source of revenue is circulation.

One needs to go all the way back to the groovy 1960s to find a time when American newspapers had more annual revenue from advertising than from circulation.

But with ad revenue in a fall off a mountain type decline, circulation revenue has held steady and finally has become more critical in 2020.

The estimated total US daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) in 2020 was 24.3 million for weekdays and 25.8 million for Sundays, each down 6% from the previous year.

Interestingly, the estimated circulation peak of US daily newspapers happened at 63.1 million in 1973.

Quote of the week

"Female athletes are looking for more because, like most women, we're not just one thing in our lives."

-- Kyle Andrew, Athleta's chief brand officer, on how a growing number of top female athletes, including Simone Biles, have been striking more expansive sponsorship deals with smaller activewear brands, like Athleta and Lululemon, instead of traditional mega sponsors like Nike.

Read this book

The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth

-- David C. Baker

CEO Communications Intelligence is strategy and actionable how to ideas to help you succeed in today’s hyper-political business environment.