What did we learn from the events of 2011 that might help us work smarter in the year ahead? Several things happened, but the lessons boil down to just one: Know what your brand stands for to your core customers and you’ll do the right thing.

Clear strategic thinking is essential for any manager in any setting; unfortunately, most companies think they have a strategy when they don't. The author of this article worked with Michael Porter, the world's leading authority on competition and strategy, to develop a concise, practice-oriented guide to his work--and came away with 10 new insights.

There are no formulas for success, but there are patterns. Rather than understanding the underlying patterns, though, and being driven by purpose and passion, leaders are trying to gain complete assurance by analyzing data.

IBM just released its first Global CMO Study. In it, 71 percent of chief marketing officers reported being underprepared for the “Data Explosion.” What’s more, CMOs cite longevity as a challenge and transparency as key to success as reported on CMO.com. The irony is that today we have more data at our fingertips than ever before, yet feel starved for real information and true insight.

In my years of working with successful and not-so-successful CMOs, one of the differences has been their ability (or lack thereof) to define and demonstrate a vision of their role within the organization beyond the grind of daily demands, sales or other metrics. That vision tends to take on broader aspects of the corporate realm.

Every time someone at RIM decides to change careers, the move is taken as something bad for RIM. But the company's in a transition period, and changes are to be expected. Here are some recent RIM management change stories placed in a more positive light than you may be used to.

Good question, and it's one this author posted on Quora. What's interesting, he says, is the difference in opinions among respondents from the brand, technology, and agency worlds.

The lifeguard analogy strongly resonates with me about the need for a brand to have a Chief Content Officer.

Let me just try and summarize the article’s findings, and then give my take, which, admittedly, is a lot less scientific and based much more on observation and knowing hundreds of CMOs and heads of marketing personally.

A CIO study suggests both sides are coming together to understand which technologies and tools can best meet the needs of the customer.

At the end of the day, this CEO needs leads that scale. Furthermore, I'd argue that all CEOs need the same thing from their marketing team if they want to do something special with their business.

The new CMO has to be digitally savvy, but it’s more than that. The new CMO has to be Social. And I don’t just mean social media (that’s part of it) but they need to be truly social. They're going to be out talking to customers, not sitting in their office reading reports done by agencies.

Every marketer--whether B2B or B2C--must come to terms with the fact that there is no turning back now.

The great irony about the lack of buy-in from C-levels is the fact that the marketing department rarely tries to get the executives engaged in social media.

What a CMO wants and what a CMO needs may not be what a CMO can get (just yet).

His advertising, promotions, and customer service departments are top-notch, but Santa's lack of new technology adoption--HTML5, smartphones, and social networking, to name a few--could jeopardize his role as the ultimate icon of Christmas.

CMOs are often viewed as spenders within a corporation, not investors. But the impact of their contribution is not only critical, but likely accounts for new lines of business and ideas that generate billions in revenue. It is about time the CMO role and corporate perspective changes.

Making fire is a different set of skills than using fire--although they're clearly complementary.

In today’s world…not a whole heck of a lot….and that doesn’t bode well for the CIO of the future.

If you aren't proactively looking to understand how technologies can advance the possibilities of marketing — or you aren't developing technology competency within your marketing organization to deliver on the promise of those possibilities — you're kind of like an architect who believes that bricks and mortar are sufficient.

There’s much to learn from Branson’s business strategy and his willingness to break new ground in just about everything he does.

We can speak only in broad strokes here, so have a few grains of salt ready. Still, the big picture should be recognizable.

Perhaps CMOs would get a better seat at the executive table if they stood up for doing the right thing when nobody was looking.

In a recent speech, former Eastman Kodak CEO Jeffrey Hayzlett discussed ways marketers could be leaders and change agents in their organizations.