Thought Leadership

“Thought leadership” is a hot concern right now – a lot of people want to be seen as trailblazers, and for good reason. If you’re a business leader, it’s good for you company’s brand and good for your own legacy to be recognized as someone who saw a better way forward.

Thought leadership is tricky, though. People have been predicting the future for millennia, and the results have always been … spotty. That we now live in a world saturated with more and more data helps. Sometimes. But data can also get in the way because so few people understand how to translate data into information, information into knowledge, and most critically, knowledge into wisdom.

More importantly, thought leadership of the best sort isn’t always about the future. Many times it’s about right now, about finding new and better ways to accomplish the routine. Ultimately, the best thought leadership simply arises from an always-on critical thinking faculty.

Perhaps nothing is more central to the wordSmith brand than critical thought. Here are some cases where that commitment opened doors to interesting, and perhaps transformative insight.