We all know that content is king in marketing in these days. If you don't have great content, it really doesn't matter what cool channels you're using. But how do companies think about creating truly compelling content, especially if you're steeped in the world of traditional pitches, white papers, and promotions?

Scott Anderson, Vice President of Customer Communications for HP's Technology Solutions Group (which serves business customers) provided a great answer during a BtoB webinar today on how business technology buyers use media in the buying process.

According to Anderson, HP has made three major investments in content creation in the last two years:

• Build a new editorial team staffed especially by technology journalists, rather than marcom people. As he noted, journalists typically have both a more skeptical eye and better story telling skills 
• Organize a platform to enable HP's subject matter experts (engineers, consultants, etc.) to bring their own voices directly into the market (rather than being "translated" by the marcom staff) with blogs, forums, and other conversational contributions
• Create more opportunities for HP customers to share their own stories and ideas at events and online.

Has HP fully swept out the old and embraced the new? Of course not. You can easily find all manner of traditional features and functions promotional content from HP -- and not all of it is useless. According to buyer research presented by tech publisher CMP during today's webinar, many buyers do actually want to see the technical details, so long as it comes during the right phase in the buying process.

Most important, though, HP has taken three important steps forward in creating a more content-rich, content-driven, and conversational approach to the marketplace: Tell better stories, share expertise and knowledge in authentic ways, and help your customers talk to each other about the issues you care about most. Not a bad model.

The battle for power between content creators and content distributors has roiled huge swaths of the media, entertainment, telecommunications, and technology industries since the digital age began in earnest in the early 1990s.  Marketing and creative types typically claim that content always has and always will rule; the more techie-oriented among us generally give the nod to those who control distribution.

The rise of social media, where innovative software platforms almost overnight become their own media companies with users doing the content heavy lifting (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, Digg, etc.), ups the ante dramatically. In this context, BusinessWeek media columnist Jon Fine wonders if the debate is closed: "Millions of people tell stories now--on blogs, on MySpace, on Flickr--for free. There is a surfeit of storytelling. Millions of people do not sit around writing software for free. Advantage: programmers."

Reporting on the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Fine highlights the impressive innovation and equally impressive self-confidence among the tech-minded denizens of social media, but does leave himself some wriggle room in suggesting that the end of the commercial storytellers might not be quite upon us (of course, one would expect nothing less from someone making his living selling content).

From a B2B perspective, though, I wonder if the storyteller's fate is nearly so dire. It's one thing to write off large chunks of  consumer news media and entertainment in the face of freely published commentary and conversation. For business people, however, there is far less tolerance for amateur hour. Business people are as interested as anyone in the ideas, experiences, and insights of their peers; that's why well-organized live events and online business networks and communities are flourishing alongside their more trendy consumerist peers. But so too are professional custom publishing and thought leadership marketing, often tied directly to those events and communities.

The reality is that great content drives great conversation, and busy business folk have little time to prospect for the useful nuggets buried in the largely useless piles on most broad-based sites. Yes, there are great tools for search and filtering, but it's still a whole lot easier to rely on -- and pay for -- the professional version. More sophisticated platforms and distribution channels will always be useful, but, at least in the B2B world, they still mean little without powerful content (i.e., business stories) at the core. Count me as a strong optimist for the future of the storytellers. What about you?

Is nuclear power good for the environment? Now there's a conversation starter! And, indeed, it served quite well to power the conversation a few nights ago during the eighth annual 360 Summit at the New York Stock Exchange. Organized and sponsored by WF360 and NYSE Euronext, the summit brought together about 150 business executives for an evening of networking and conversation, topped off with the presentation of the 360 Leadership Award 2007 to Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of AREVA, the world's leading nuclear power company.

The award was an interesting one, especially given the evening's opening comments by WF360 CEO Susan Willett Bird on the importance of business leaders and companies focusing on the environmental bottom line. Lauvergeon made a strong pitch in her prepared remarks (delivered at the dinner by an AREVA deputy) about the value of CO2-free nuclear energy in a world driven to curtail global warming. But the audience included a number of skeptics, and certainly the nuclear power advocates within the environmental movement comprise only a small (although perhaps growing) minority.

The conversations sparked by the award illustrated perfectly the objective of the event: bring together a group of smart and interesting people, ply them with enough food and drink to loosen their lips, and prod them to talk about serious issues. Discussions at my table, which included leaders in finance, manufacturing, consulting, marketing, and international diplomacy, ranged from the state of public education to conflicts between Islam and the West to the globalization of capital investment (with just a few digressions into the second game of the World Series, the score of which a few of us were periodically checking on our Blackberries under the table).

Sparking high-powered conversation is what WF360 is all about, and the long list of corporate supporters for the event (including Bombay Sapphire, CA, Conde Naste Portfolio, Dior, HarperCollins, Harvard Business School, TBWA, and more) reflects the growing corporate understanding that the best marketing these days follows that same approach.

The key, as Bird also noted in her opening comments, is to focus on "conversations that matter." In case we were all tongue-tied at the Summit, she scattered a batch of conversation starter cards around the dinner tables, with quotes like these:

 "If your company is doing business in a developing country, what responsibilities does it have to support and promote basic human rights?"

"Why are inequitable salaries, a lack of female and minority representation on boards and within executive leadership, and class action suits related to sexual harassment or discriminatory practices all still realities?"

"Other than an innate competitive drive, and of course the desire to make the company profitable, what values are most important for the corporate leader of today? What principals should that individual hold dear?" 

Now those are some of the conversations I'd like to see more businesses sponsoring in the marketplace. 

Dell Inc. has not exactly gained rave reviews these last few years. Sliding earnings and market share, customer service nightmares, and serious accounting problems have given the company multiple black eyes -- all of which forced the return of founder Michael Dell as hands-on CEO this past January (he had stepped aside in 2004).

More recently, Dell has worked hard to fix its customer service problems, gaining some praise from industry watchers for increased investments in service and it's Direct2Dell corporate blog, which has opened a useful conversation channel with customers and users.  

At the same time, Dell has pushed hard on the environmental front, with substantial, award-winning efforts to support computer recycling, reduce carbon emissions, and become "the greenest technology company on earth."

Dell added yet more credibility to that environmental push, and a broader effort on corporate social responsibility, with this week's appointment of Gilbert Casellas as vice president of corporate responsibility. According to Dell, Casellas will lead a group that includes the company's global diversity, sustainability, and corporate philanthropy functions. Casellas has strong credentials for the role; he is former chairman of the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission (under President Bill Clinton), former co-chair of the U.S. Census Monitoring Board, and a member of the boards of directors of the Hispanic Federation and the Johnnetta B. Cole Global Diversity and Inclusion Institute.

Assuming that Casellas has the authority to deliver on the promise, which one hopes he does, the position holds great potential for furthering Dell's initiative to integrate broad economic, social, and environmental concerns into the center of corporate decision making. It's an admirable and wise goal, and one that we can only hope succeeds. Kudos to Dell for making the move.

Ho hum. Capitalizing on the popularity of its hit TV show "The Office," NBC has created an online community to deepen ties with viewers. Fans of the show can enter the Dunder Mifflin Infinity site, sign up for virtual jobs at the fictional paper company where the show is set, perform weekly tasks similar to those from each week's TV episode, get promotions, and earn ShruteBucks for both online work and contributing to the site (e.g., by creating profiles, adding photos, posting comments, or rating other content).

The site includes most of the latest social networking features, and, perhaps not surprisingly, has become a bit hit in its own right. Since launching last month, the site has attracted more than 800,000 unique visitors, with more than 100,000 registering for positions at the virtual company. Regional branches create local connections for participants; the branch in Long Beach, California is currently at the top of the heap with 3108 "employees." Participant-posted video, such as footage of the Denton, Texas, launch party, add to the rich media flavor.

At first glance, the initiative may seem like standard fare for these Web 2.0-crazed times. Company wants to strengthen relationships with its audience; company builds online community to let people talk with each other and generate useful content for the sponsor; everyone wins. It's no wonder that companies from autos to zoo supplies are rushing to launch similar networks and communities.

The challenge, of course, is generating enough interest in your site to inspire people to actually pay attention and spend precious time and energy actively participating. We've all seen commuities and forums with a lonely list of "discussion starters" but no additional comments. The reality is that online commuinty success is largely not about the features of the site; it's about a strong prior connection to the company, program, or idea. As Gartner analyst Andrew Frank notes, "You need an existing affinity around a property, and NBC definitely had that with 'The Office.'"

The lesson here is not to avoid entering the social networking fray unless you have a megahit TV show. Rather, it is to concentrate most on building the very tangible connections to your "viewers" (i.e., customers, partners, employees, etc.) that come with meaningful professional or personal contributions to their daily lives. In the world of the real office, actual ties support virtual ones, not the other way around.