Content Archives - JDB Engineering, Inc.

by Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM

I’ve been beyond excited to see a number of my co-workers step up and become bloggers for www.jdbengineeirng.com. There’s a vastly inaccurate perception among far too many technical professionals that they don’t have anything important to say (write). The reality is that they are oozing with knowledge, and things that they don’t deem important, much less consider thought leadership, may be exactly what their clients and prospects are looking for. Technical professionals in the A/E/C industry are Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), but it can sometimes be difficult for them to understand that most people don’t know what they know! Our clients and prospects may be SMEs in their own right – but typically at other subjects or in other industries. Otherwise, why would they need to hire us?

For some people, writing comes easy. But for far more people – particularly those in highly technical occupations, like within the A/E/C industry – writing a blog or an article can be an intimidating pursuit. Authoring a study or crafting specifications is one thing, but providing insight to the masses is another!

I recently shared the “Three Rs” with my colleagues. No, this is not a groundbreaking scientific formula, but rather three simple things that a beginning blogger (or accomplished blogger, for that matter), can do to easily develop meaningful content.

They are:

Research
Report
Repurpose

Content can come from myriad places, but for those struggling to come up with an idea to write about – or actually generate content around that idea – these R’s are a good place to start!

Research – There’s an unlimited world of content out there. All it takes a bit of research! In fact, I rely heavily on research when it comes to blogging and developing presentations. Research can make a Subject Matter Amateur look like a Subject Matter Expert.

For example, earlier this year I was invited by a friend to present about workforce trends. She’s an HR professional. I’m a marketing and BD guy. What could I possibly have to offer? Well, I love researching trends – our industry and beyond – and it is one of my favorite topics to present about. I had touched on a number of critical workforce trends over the years, and after I agreed to co-present, I dug deeper. I visited human resources websites and read workforce publications. I came up with a ton of trends, and after another meeting with my friend, had a whole bunch more! This research – which was undertaken for a specific presentation opportunity – became the basis for a series of blog posts for Engineering News-Record.

Think of all the things that you’ve researched recently. New products. Alternative delivery approaches. Trends. Industry-specific best practices. The latest code revisions. All of these make perfect content for blogs.

Report – Think like a reporter. Understand that there’s a lot of extremely intelligent SMEs out there, and use them to help develop content for your blog! Interview them – gain their insight, quote them in your blog, and everyone wins. Your interview subject gets to be viewed as the “outside expert” (or “inside expert,” if you are quoting a co-worker!). Your blog content will be elevated. And your readers will gain a greater understanding of the topic you are blogging about.

Using the example of the workforce presentation, when it came to writing my ENR blog, I felt it important to interview my friend and co-presenter. On one hand, she really is the Subject Matter Expert on workforce – she’s a successful workforce advisor for a living. On the other hand, we collaborated to develop and give the presentation, and she is a part owner of the content we generated. It was only fair to make sure she was an important part of the blog! So I quoted her liberally throughout the series of posts. She added great insight and helped to interpret the trends that I addressed.

Who do you know that you could interview? Co-workers? Vendors? Clients? Friends? Colleagues at professional societies? Community leaders? Social media connections? When you think about it, the list is endless. As an added benefit, when you quote someone in your blog, you earn goodwill, strengthen a relationship, and have someone else sharing your content. Be sure to include their picture, a link to their company or institution website, and a link to their LinkedIn profile or online bio – with their permission, of course!

Repurpose – This one is as simple as it sounds. Look around you – you are constantly generating content, whether you know it or not. Much of your job involves content creation – often for clients. In the example of the workforce blog, the research was originally conducted for a presentation for which I was co-presenter. I was subsequently invited to give a presentation with similar content – but needed to greatly expand it and present as a solo act.

When I create a PowerPoint presentation, I tend to be fairly liberal with the Notes section so that if I give the presentation again in the future, I’ll know what I was thinking when I originally created the slide deck. (I often use a large image with a few words on a slide, so it is important to populate the Notes to understand the content intent.) Such was the case with this second workforce presentation. A few weeks after delivering it, I was on a train and found myself with a lot of time at my disposal. So I pulled up the PowerPoint, copied the Notes content into a Word file, and began using that information to write a new blog post. In the process, I realized that I had far more content than was needed for a single blog, so I broke it into a series of posts – combining my repurposed content with quotes from my friend.

But repurposing doesn’t stop there. The content of the blog post you are currently reading actually came from an email I sent to several co-workers about, you guessed it, the Three R’s of blogging. I shared the same insight and anecdotes, and joked at the end that I was going to turn the email into a blog post! A few minutes after I sent that email, a coworker responded that he had just submitted a report to a client, and there were four or five paragraphs within the report that were education-focused – information that would make perfect content for a blog post!

Yes, this blog post is essentially a repurposed email. Consider everything you’ve researched and written over the past few years – what could be repurposed? Obviously, you cannot share proprietary information or violate Non-Disclosure Agreements, but there’s a lot of information that can be shared generically. Think about studies you’ve written. Presentations you’ve given – even within your own department or for a company lunch-and-learn. Content that you’ve shared with clients along the way – even as simple as the pros and cons of a certain type of system, delivery approach, or product/material. Or maybe, if you’re lucky, you have an email or two that could be used. You’ve already generated the content, now repurpose it for a blog post or two!

Information is all around us, and everyone has value to offer. However, it can be difficult to translate that value from the brain to the computer. Using the Three R’s formula – Research, Report, Repurpose – you can enhance your content, simplify the process, and provide more value for your readers.

You’ve reached the end of this post – more than 1250 words created by repurposing an email sent to a handful of people!

Need help with your content strategy or training for your staff? Check out jdbIQity’s services, or contact Scott Butcher.

Connect with Scott

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdbutcher
Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdbutcher

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Why Aren’t You Blogging? [Link to ENR.com post by Scott]
Those that Lead, Speak. And Write.

by Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM

For the past several years, “content marketing” has been the buzzword in the business world. We’ve all been told about the importance of blogs, ebooks, white papers, vlogs (video blogs), and more. And we’ve seen how some of the leading firms in our industry – of all sizes, by the way – have embraced digital technologies and utilized content as an effective marketing strategy. At the same time, we’ve seen firms that have struggled to create a useful website or any meaningful presence on social media.

I’m a huge fan of content marketing. But too many people have a narrow definition of “content.” To me, the industry thought leaders have been using content all along, well before the advent of the World Wide Web and Internet of Things (IoT)!

Public speaking was probably the original form of content marketing. Someone had an idea, and they stood in front of a group of people and shared their idea, hoping for buy-in. Somewhere along the way, a particularly innovative Neanderthal probably stood in front of a group of family members and suggested that the wooly mammoth would taste much better if they cooked it over a fire instead of eating it raw. That was content marketing! He had an idea (the concept of using fire to cook meat) and he shared his knowledge, hoping to persuade an audience. And imagine the demand that was created when other families learned about it and came knocking on his cave, asking for his expertise and offering to pay him in berries or pelts! Sounds suspiciously like content marketing to me!

Public speaking may have evolved since that time, but it is still an excellent way to share knowledge, build name recognition, and create demand. Client organizations, professional societies, service clubs, conferences, and trade shows are all looking for subject matter experts to share knowledge. This is as true today as it was before computers, smart phones, blogs, and social media!

Likewise, writing has always been a form of content marketing. Just ask Thomas Jefferson. A little-known piece he wrote entitled The Declaration of Independence is a masterpiece of content marketing, and was used throughout the thirteen original colonies – which were suddenly states of a new nation – as a call to arms to fight for independence. You might say that it went viral. Of course, those pesky editors are ever-present, as was the case here. But when your editors are John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, that’s not necessarily a bad thing! (And everyone needs an editor!)

Content marketing is not new. We just have a lot more channels at our disposal.

Why is this important? It seems to me that many A/E/C firms are resistant to content marketing. They think it is a waste of time. They think that no one wants to hear what they have to say, much less read what they have to write. So they avoid new marketing technologies, or even criticize their marketing professionals who want to help move their firms into the twenty-first century!

I recently had a conversation with a technical professional, who had a negative view of blogs. During the conversation, I shared an example of how a single blog on our website had outdrawn our home page over the past year! His response was that people who were finding us via that blog were not people we wanted, and that if he was researching the topic, he wouldn’t go to an engineering firm’s website. When I queried about the facts he used to arrive at this opinion, he had none.

And therein lies much of the problem with resistance to content marketing. Technical professionals in leadership positions too often fail to understand the audience for content, much less the value of meaningful, regularly updated information on your website. With this specific individual, I offered that because the blog was a home run, our firm was being looked at as a thought leader on the topic. And furthermore, that the traffic it was generating was exposing new, potential clients – or referrers – to our company. And finally, that the content was meant for consumption by clients and prospects looking to learn, not technical professionals that already have a far more advanced knowledge of the topic!

Firms need to reframe “content marketing.” It is not just a blog or a video. It is a presentation to a client organization. Or an article in a magazine or newsletter. And often, the idea that begins with a blog or survey or social media post leads to opportunities to write articles and speak at organizations and conferences!

Clients want to work with thought leaders. They want to work with design and construction professionals that they perceive to be a “cut above” the commoditized masses they see when they look at us. Thought leadership via content marketing is an excellent way to do this. It allows small firms to look like big firms. It allows you to create a competitive edge in the marketplace, and establish yourself or your co-workers as leaders in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry.

You don’t have to be the Neanderthal who invented grilling, nor the author of a document that created a new nation. Write or speak about what you know. Figure out how this information could be of value to a client or prospective client. And then look at the myriad content marketing channels available to you, online or offline, and focus on one or two. Your firm and your career will thank you!

Wondering how thought leadership can enhance your brand – company or personal? Check out jdbIQity’s offerings, or contact Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM.

A version of this article originally appeared in Professional Services Management Journal, July 2016.

Connect with Scott

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdbutcher
Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdbutcher