Breitfelder GSP

The third in a series of stories deemed worth saving in The Social Spring project, Chicagoisms: Restoring Chicago’s Architecture Growth Story was republished for its growing importance as Chicago nears a late-cycle real estate development crossroad. After a 10-year gap due largely to the Great Recession, the Chicagoisms revival is at risk amidst increasing global uncertainty — from Fed monetary policy to the China trade war.

This open research note was originally published in April 2014 on Storify, a defunct blogging platform for journalistic story creation using social media — often live posts from face-to-face events.

The second in a series of stories deemed worth saving in The Social Spring project, The Alternatives Investor Education Imperative was republished for foreshadowing the 2019 investor education tipping point. This open research note was originally published June 14, 2013 on Storify, a defunct blogging platform for journalistic story creation using social media — often live posts from face-to-face events. 

Despite being nearly six years old, this research note on the Morningstar Investment Conference 2013 session Two Worlds Collide is more newsworthy than ever as it foresaw the forced rethink of hedge fund brands and imperative for investor education content marketing. Some alts managers answered this call to action to improve retention, and some clearly have not — as investors continue pulling money from hedge funds. Fund closures keep trending as well, for many of the same reasons outlined here in 2013. And low tech, product-focused marketing still plagues the industry — creating alpha opportunities for savvy client-focused marketers.

> Read now on Medium (5 minute read)

The first in a series of stories deemed worth saving in The Social Spring project, A Strategy is Not a Plan — It’s a Future-Tense Growth Story, was republished for its overview of Sir Lawrence Freedman’s eloquent, definitive 750-page tome Strategy: A History. The sum of which is that strategy is most successfully viewed as an adaptable story about the future to grow into — not a plan. This idea is at the heart of the growth story positioning method, a content-driven strategy methodology for building more engaging, agile investment brands.

This open research note was originally published in late 2013 on Storify, a defunct blogging platform for journalistic story creation using social media — often live posts from face-to-face events. 

A meditation on impermanence & adaptability, from our digital lives to “real”

The spring of 2018 marks a new beginning in my relationship with social media — maybe even media overall. A beloved social publishing platform, Storify, disappeared into the sunset last month — taking with it many of my social posts amassed and meaningfully woven into stories during the noisy rise of social networks like Twitter and Instagram. Although almost all of the most essential were saved for this project.

In the month or two before, the vaguely predictable betrayal by my bittersweet Facebook had already inspired a reckoning. But that’s been discussed ad naseum elsewhere, including the hearing rooms of Congress. Clearly it’s time for a big meditation on media, impermanence and adaptability — a calm analysis that will hopefully lead to a more agile style of social engagement.

[Photo by Elsa Ruiz/Asia Society]

Hedge funds and their high fees — often still 2% of assets and 20% of profits — are under fire. The 2016 SALT conference in Las Vegas didn’t sound like it was a good place to hide. As reported in the Journal, the hedge fund bash was a downer and the industry’s defense play is falling flat. Hedge fund marketers would be wise to take a bit more control of their narrative. Even Jim Chanos joined in the chorus that fees are too high for the value they actually deliver, and added that he’s “surprised they’ve stayed this high for this long.” 

According to WSJ analysis of data from HFR and Morningstar, a traditional mix of stocks and bonds bested hedge funds in 22 of 28 quarters since the bull market began in early 2009. The defensive message has been that such comparisons are unfair since hedge funds are meant to hedge — minimizing volatility by investing elsewhere. “But guess what happened when a flat market showed up?” Chanos playfully begged. “Everybody got killed. That’s the real problem.” 

Truth be told, the much dramatized $15 billion outflow in the first quarter [PDF] — the largest such event since 2009 — is a small drop in the big nearly $3 trillion bucket. But if hedge funds don’t start controlling their own destiny more with a stronger counternarrative and more tenacious thought leadership content, the leak could grow. 

Dan Loeb of Third Point made an attempt in his most recent quarterly newsletter [PDF] by making the case that the volatility earlier this year was an omen of things to come:

"We believe that the past few months of increasing complexity are here to stay and now is a more important time than ever to employ active portfolio management to take advantage of this volatility. There is no doubt that we are in the first innings of a washout in hedge funds and certain strategies. We believe we are well-positioned to seize the opportunities borne out of this chaos."  

Hedge fund content strategy has been slowly but surely making progress. After years of disappointing returns and increasing fee pressure, hedge fund marketers may want to study every management lesson available as the asset class becomes more institutional. Industry veteran Paul Tudor Jones, founder of $14B asset management firm Tudor Investment, recommends taking a page out of the journalism playbook to focus communications.

In an interview with Bloomberg GO, Jones made the case for more efficient content strategy to reduce risk: 

"Today, in business, time is money. When you’ve got hundreds of decisions to make every week — dozens every day — being able to see, think and understand what the issue is in the first couple of paragraphs is actually paramount to being efficient at what you do."

Jones recommends that his staff improve their communications and reports by taking a “journalism 101″ class focused on newspaper writing, as opposed to magazine writing. Companies save time and money when their executives write in a clear, logical way. Newspaper writing teaches journalists to use a hierarchical approach to a topic: 

"From the most important to the least important so that at any point in time you can chop off the paragraphs from the bottom all the way up and still have something that follows all the way through."

Jones literally tears up and throws away magazine-style memos and makes the writer take an online newspaper writing class. Magazine writing tends to use an overly narrative approach that’s more of a journey — with the climax at the end. Newspaper-style content strategy is also useful in general business problem solving: 

"If you can take the whole issue, distill it down into its most important parts — who, what, where, when, why and how in the first paragraph, and then the second most important part after that — you’ll be able to see the big picture and come up with the answer and be the most valuable employee wherever you work."

Last summer Nobel laureate Eugene Fama laughingly dismantled the active management narrative at the 2014 Morningstar ETF Conference in Chicago. The active manager next to me wasn't amused and jumped in during the Q&A — albeit not so well. This was a tough place for an active manager to counter such a formidable critic. Fama was clearly preaching to his choir and getting a lot of amens. Active marketers take heed — active management content strategy may no longer be optional. Where are the cheeky Famas and Bogles of active investment management to lead the counter narrative? Will the next downturn be active managements moment to shine & defend fees? Will active marketers and their thought leaders be ready? 

Open research notes on content strategy and related topics for the week to March 16, 2015 – from Fed rate rise patience and broader central bank content strategy overall to Russian propaganda 2.0.