HuffPost: Top Business Speakers to See in 2018

I’ve finally earned recognition as a subject matter expert in nonsense.

HuffPost published its list of Top Business Speakers To Hire And See In 2018.   If there’s one thing we can be certain of this year, the current global economic environment will drive the need for more laughter, especially at marketing conferences and corporate events.  Lucky number seven.

On the list is my buddy Andrew Davis who holds a top 20 spot on Meetings & Conventions Magazine‘s List of Favorite Speakers, ranking just below President Bill Clinton and Anderson Cooper (*recount pending).  And CEO of Marketing Insider Group Michael Brenner, who was named a top CMO Influencer by Forbes Magazine.

It’s going to be a fun year for comedy and marketing.

Improv with the CIO

Our Voice of the Customer marketing team has been exploring creative approaches for our customer interview videos.  At a recent CIO conference we asked a few adventurous executives if they would be willing to try something a little more entertaining.

At any C-level executive event, there is a lot of pressure on the events team to make sure everything goes smoothly.   The agenda is managed very closely, so we only had about 15 minutes for these interviews.   Thankfully, it was one of those wonderful occasions where everything went our way.  Our amazing events team worked with the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel staff to get us access to film in one of the restaurants during the day before it opened for dinner.   All of the CIOs were fabulous!  We had created just enough structure to the scene to make it easy to improvise, and they all seemed to have a fun time and enjoy the experience.

Ann Handley shares more of the backstory in her post, Humor and B2B Marketing:  A Love Story.