So what do you do exactly?
In a world where consulting and multitasking is becoming more and more the norm as businesses struggle to find ROI and keep up with changing demands, that question for anyone in the workforce has become more and more fluid, and is even more important when you think of how you define yourself vs having a job define you.
Two recent pieces point to this fluidity, not just in the workforce but also in the way stories are being told. A recent Ad Age piece talked about why many brands are getting rid of the Chief Marketing Officer role in lieu of a person, or people, who are not siloed just to traditional marketing. How that role grows and understands digital storytelling, brand engagement, strategy, sales and other disciplines, and builds to keep moving the business forward is not just what it once was, with creating one piece of a story and then either handing off or pulling in other pieces of an organization. In that vein, in 2017 we wrote about the role of the chief storyteller, a kind of hybrid that is not just sales, marketing or communications, but is someone who takes on a larger role making all the pieces of a brand fit together and making sure that the story is being communicated and executed correctly. We will see more of that in lieu of just “marketing” (keep in mind they are all just titles and we all need to have a better handle on LISTENING and learning about all the roles in a company, brand, team, league or platform are) or “Communications.” Holistic storytelling is key.
Then there was a piece in the New York Times on the shortening scope of big budget marketing in the entertainment space. Now it seems consumers in an “on demand” economy don’t want to know about films a year or 18 months out; they want to know when they can engage and take advantage of the content now; the longer they wait, the more attention they put elsewhere and frankly, the more averse they are to engaging or watching. Endless trailers get switched off, and the fast and loose of today wins out. Maybe there are some exceptions with a series, but for the most part the window is now down to target months and weeks, with advertising and engagement honed in on a core engagement audience, while the masses can come along with the buzz. Now this is not to say any property can’t share exclusive content as it becomes available; key clips, behind 
the scenes looks and engagement with talent way out can whet a whistle; just don’t overhype and certainly don’t let the content just be an ad or a trailer we can see over and over again. The traditional marketing, again, is going askew. (Ironically this is counter the path that teams have taken recently when releasing schedules for coming years; while the NFL and the NBA keep schedule releases tied to shorter periods of time…months…after careful planning and negotiations with media partners, MLB has gone the opposite way, releasing the schedule over a year in advance. The reason being baseball plays every day and it is a schedule groups can plan around during the summer months; the individual matchups are left to the micro, vs. the NFL or NBA where the individual matchups, as well as the team matchups, are super important to the sell on all levels).
Is all this evolution of titles…by the way another evolving one in sports which we wrote about last year is Director of Gaming and that continues to evolve like the storyteller role…literally an evolution of the workplace? For sure. But it speaks to the need for diversity of understanding of all aspects of business, especially storytelling in all forms. While specialists in some areas are always needed…who doesn’t have a good plumber or electrician on speed dial…the job of advanced roles that are not so silo’ed for all evolving businesses is fun. It presents a challenge for the veteran in a role, but in reality it creates much more opportunity for those interested in listening, learning and evolving. “That’s the way we have done it,” becomes rarer and rarer, and that’s not a bad thing at all.
The most important thing is to keep evolving, learning and adding new skills to fit with the times; utility players become more and more of a key role not just in sports, but in the big picture, and being the adaptable keeps us engaged and fresh.
What do I do? What do you need?
Let’s figure it out together.
