In today’s episode, we’re joined by Dan Morrison, Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins, who brings a wealth of experience and knowledge - from the head of global communications position at Pew Research Center, head of global media at OECD in Paris, speech writer at the state department, and even a financial journalist nominated for a Pulitzer at Bloomberg.
In this episode, we explore the power of thought leadership in building authority and the importance of crafting a consistent narrative that resonates over time. As a professor, Dan is passionate about shaping the next generation of critical thinkers and shares his optimistic view on how AI can enhance decision-making and foster deeper analysis.
Below is just a snippet of the conversation. For more episodes, check out the Spotify channel to listen or the YouTube channel. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Dan Gaynor: As I understand it, you've launched something new called StoryVenture. It's focused on being a copilot for thought leadership. Tell me a little bit about what StoryVenture is and how you're taking all these incredible lessons learned on a global scale in multiple organizations, within government, tech, and everything in between, into StoryVenture and what it hopes to achieve for your customers and clients.
Dan Morrison: So I'm doing a few things. I'm advising, I'm teaching. I also teach a strategic keeping in political communications and persuasion at Johns Hopkins University here. And StoryVenture is really, as many things are in one's career, a culmination of what you've already done. I sort of scratched my head and thought, how do I take the lessons that I've learned along the way and apply them to this?
In some of the lessons, for example, I mentioned IBM, thought leadership, the ability to create a North Star, right? The lessons I learned at the State Department were persuasion and trust. It was a pretty difficult moment in American diplomacy at Bloomberg, which was still kind of embryonic when I was there. So, how do you maneuver as a startup, as a newbie in an established ecosystem? At that time, I learned a lot about that at the OECD in Paris.
"[Data is] a big reveal. It's a mirror. Usually, when you hold up that mirror, on some days, it says you look great. On another day it says, you don't look so handsome today." - Dan Morrison.
I learned about how you nudge decision-makers and policymakers with data. You nudge them to do things that either they want to do but can't potentially do politically or didn't realize that they should do. That's the great thing about data, right? It's a big reveal. It's a mirror. Usually, when you hold up that mirror, you look at it, and on some days, it says you look great. You look terrific. On another day it says, you don't look so handsome today. I learned that at the OECD. In a place like Pew Research, you learn that when you reveal uncomfortable truths to people, to society, you can make a difference.
That was a place where I was reminded because it was involved with polling, that citizens can have two conflicting ideas in their brains at the same time. If you pull them on the same questions this week and possibly next week, you might get different answers. So I took all of those lessons so far, and I thought, what's a real thread through what I've been doing? And it's thought leadership.
"Thought leadership is one of the last beachheads for building trust." - Dan Morrison.
How do I define thought leadership, really? People define it differently, but for me, it's doing three things:
- 1. It's an explanation—a crystal clear explanation—of what you're selling, what you're trying to achieve in the world, and your vision.
- 2. It's teaching people something, and sometimes something larger than yourself, larger than your organization itself.
- 3. It's building authority and trust.
I came to the conclusion that in a really messy, noisy environment like ours right now, thought leadership is one of the last beachheads for building trust because you can go directly to your stakeholders, directly to your audiences, and bypass some of the traditional gatekeepers in many ways.
There are fewer and fewer journalists out there, and more and more companies are trying to appeal to them to write stories about them. And I just decided that look, you better tell your story, or somebody else will.
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Signal in the Noise is a podcast dedicated to helping today's business leaders navigate the complexities of decision-making by leveraging data and groundbreaking technology—first and foremost, artificial intelligence (AI). You can also watch the interview on our Signal AI YouTube channel here.