I’m thrilled to be joining the folks at Vocus for their Demand14 conference in Washington DC, June 5-6.  Im also excited about joining Christopher Penn of SHIFT Communications and Nichole Kelly of Social Media Explorer.

Content Marketing and What the Future Holds: We kicked off our discussion with a little Q&A over on the Vocus blog talking about Content Marketing and what it looks like as we move forward.  Check out the full post there about “content shock”; how to think about getting past that….

Visual Communications: One of my favorite, some of the discussions about visual communications and what that means marketers and communicators should think about going forward.

Dot Complicated or Not? You cant beat the 7 tips from Randi Zuckerberg for communicating in a dot complicated world.  She will keynote the conference.  And by the way, the 7 tips are fun and really not that complicated.  It starts with “begin with a story”….Ill let you read the rest.

Pure PR and the Future? And one more bonus read related to content and communications (although it also goes much further than just SEO) and why any PR professional should be buffing up all kinds of skills.  Here is a good one from Marketing Profs, “Why the Future of Digital Marketing is Pure PR”

But Here is the Downside: 

Are you Ready?   Looks Like Our Bosses Dont Think So?  These reports are scary!   Here are just three stats (without reading the whole slide):

•  74% of business executives say their company has a digital strategy
• but only 15% believe that their company has the skills and capabilities to execute on that strategy (Forrester)
• Over 90% of the companies stated that they did not have necessary skills in the areas of social media, mobile, internal social networks, process automation and performance monitoring and analysis. Despite the skills shortage, only 46% of companies are investing in developing digital skills (Cap Gemini, 2013)

Looks like the skills needed for the future are rare and few seem to have the confidence we are prepared or can build the skills.  Frankly, I believe there is a way to flip the skill equation and ensure your business has and builds the skills it needs.

Joining us in DC to take a look at what is needed will also be a great way to build your skills and think about the talent for your business

Special call out too to Geoff Livingston for the work and efforts he is putting in to make this an amazing conference. He is a good friend and person to know — as we link to him from here, everyday 🙂

Come join us in DC.