How do you help a client integrate research into their thought leadership, and what are the benefits?   Enterprise software can be a complicated story to tell. To explore ways to humanize a complex brand or product, I've invited Denise Broady to share her expertise in research, thought leadership, and consulting. Denise is the Chief Marketing Officer at Appian Corporation, helping clients build apps and workflows with a low-code automation platform; combining people, technologies, and data in a single workflow to maximize resources and improve business results.  Our conversation begins with an active discussion of thought leadership's ability to help tell a complex, enterprise story in a way that humanizes your brand. Denise shares how the lens of a business user can be used to create greater impact, preferring a personal touch and layman's terms rather than complex, high-level terms that might not be understood by an audience. Often, marketers feel the need to go it alone and control all aspects of their content's delivery, but thought leadership doesn’t have to be a solo project. Denise shares how her co-sponsored research with The Economist is helping reach a global market, and how surveys on IT and business issues give her the information she needs to create thought leadership rooted in data  - and bring solutions to the problems her audiences face. Toward the end of our conversation, we examine ways to build a thought leadership team. Denise recounts a tale of starting with a task-force that grew as it brought on e dedicated people and found dedicated funding. Nobody approaches accounting as a part-time hobby, and thought leadership is no different. Without a dedicated team and reliable resources, thought leaders can't be expected to develop the reach and cadence needed to effect significant change. Three Key Takeaways: * Choose your words carefully when explaining complex thought leadership; it's critical that your audience understand, so speak in terms they will grasp easily. * Creating co-sponsored thought leadership can create content with wider reach and a deeper, more informed perspective. * Thought leaders coming from a marketing background can be tempted to use a marketing playbook –  but think before you jump! Understand where your content fits in the cycle, and how to deploy it.