Every year I reflect on the books I read and how they influenced my thinking in various ways. This year, as I look at my list, I’m more struck by the books that I started and haven’t finished (yet). So, in addition to sharing the top five books I read and how they...
Blog
Using LinkedIn for Thought Leadership
I have always been skeptical of marketing tactics built for large companies translating into sales for my small business. So often, the recommended marketing strategies seem to be some version of “be everything everywhere all at once” (Great title for a film....
Unlocking the Power of the Mind Meld: Elevating Thought Leadership Through Collaboration
Here in Pocket PhD land, we love collaborating with our clients. In fact, it’s integral to our work. We couldn’t create the thought leadership strategies or write the content we do without collaboration. And in the ideal cases, we end up with a beautiful content mind...
Unlocking Creativity: The Transformative Power of Writing Retreats
I don’t often think of myself as someone who craves ritual. But I believe that to some extent, all human beings find ritual to be comforting (and I do have several daily rituals that keep me grounded—don’t talk to me before I’ve had my morning walk and don’t get...
From Thought Leader to Big Idea Expert
If there’s one buzzword I’d like to take back from the gatekeepers (whomever they are), it’s “thought leadership.” The term conjures up images of larger than life business gurus preaching to their superfans in packed arenas. And nine out of ten of those images...
The Art of Intrigue: Why Fascination Trumps Shock in Marketing
You know that I always encourage you to share ideas that are galvanizing, polarizing, and controversial. Naturally, the prospect of doing so can be intimidating, which is why I also want to create safe spaces for sharing such big, hairy, audacious ideas and having...
Why It’s Not About Your Writing. It’s About Ideation.
If you follow me closely, you may know that I’m working on a book about how to write a business book (for now, I’m calling it Unwritten: [a super clever, yet to be decided, subtitle]). In the book, I have a chapter on overcoming the obstacles to writing. What’s...
7 Lessons Learned from 7 Years as the Pocket PhD
The Pocket PhD just passed the seven-year mark. I’ve now been running this business for as long as I was a philosophy professor. I can’t believe that’s true, but sands through the hourglass tell no lies. A lot has changed since I started out as a scrappy freelance...
Find the People Who Think You’re Cool
As I was lacing up my leopard print Aldos and putting on my synthetic leather jacket today, I was thinking that I wanted to look cool (or at least, as cool as it’s possible for a 40-something woman to look—by the way, Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s new podcast is giving me...