• by Jan Zlotnick , June 15, 2009

Thanks for not standing still in the face of "Oh." For being more than the digital sum of your leadership parts. Whatever your category, product or service, you've evolved quite elegantly, powerfully, from CEO 1.0 to CEO 2.0, and it has nothing to do with any social-networking or other technology prowess.

Even when you find yourself thinking, "Oh! so that's what we need ..." You Get IT, the big picture that is the bigger strategic objective. That's the leadership key to ever-changing technology: Knowing its purpose to your bottom line, NOT personally mastering it or indulging it for techno-indulgence sake -- you can hire the nano-experts for that, and Oh! how the experts, like the technology, will turn over every 10 minutes like beached bathing beauties.

So, in service to you, dear CEO, I humbly (but not too humbly) offer a bigger idea about what your Marketing Leader can and must be today:

• Hybrid, Big-Picture Marketing Pro who leads by example and inspires everyone involved to strive for Category-of-One work.

• Broad-stroke Idea Leader that rethinks beyond transient, evolving technology in this seismic, flavor-of-the-month media+digital landscape.

• Accomplished Brand Strategist and Creative ReThinker beyond the usual credentials -- bridging strategy to concept.

• Creative-Strategic Marketing Leader for the most remarkable place and group of people who share his/her values for The Work -- and for the work ethic that will get you there: To be the best, to be engaged, to be a rethinker every day in serving customers beyond the expected, which will serve and build the brand.

• Creative-Strategic Marketing Pro with an unfair advantage of experience in the ad agency sector, including high-level strategic-creative credentials. With a hands-on, behind-the-curtain knowledge and wisdom of how agencies, marketing consultants, vendors, work (and don't work), having been on the agency side, working campaigns from research and positioning to creative, media and production.

• Creative-Strategic Communications Pro who naturally, consistently engages in a different kind of marketing conversation for these times that demand nothing less.

Chances are HR will need to rethink this position and creatively re-calibrate the search radar beyond the outmoded resume requisites. Including the overwrought "Internet/Digital Experience," which just won't get you the big-picture/big-strategy answers that "Big Idea Experience" will get you, challenge after challenge.

But, once you do, you will be Oh! so much more greatly rewarded and less likely to be looking again at the usual CMO turnover cycle.

Good hunting ...

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