How to Succeed with Content

I’m a political scientist. Like any part about the ideas industry, success is all about content. But what makes great content?

Three things:

1—Expertise. You have to be the master of the content that you produce. If you aren’t good at what you do, there’s not much point in trying to sell it to anyone. What’s nice about expertise is there aren’t any short cuts. I’ve always liked Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 hours rule”; by the time you’ve done something for that amount of time, if you have any talent for it, you should be good at it. 

2–Communicate. Once you know your stuff, you have to be able to market it. Understanding how to get a message out there—and understood—is critical. That means keeping it simple and not taking more of the audience’s time than you absolutely need to. Understand your consumers and what it is they are looking to get out of their interaction with you. On the basis of all that, mix up your presentation and delivery styles. Listen. Engage. And be entertaining. 

3–Network. There’s a power structure in any system, designed to make getting into the system a challenge, then keeping the benefits for the ones already in. Your job is to figure out what that structure is—who are the gatekeepers and how to break in. If you don’t know them, you know somebody who does. Or you at least know somebody who knows how to meet somebody who does…

Subject matter expertise is the bedrock, yes; otherwise you’re sunk. In my field, that means do the coursework, do the fieldwork, learn the language, read the books, do the research. But communication skills and networking are no less critical. If you’re not able to communicate effectively, you’ll miss your shot when talking to the folks that matter, and there are no guarantees you’ll get another one. And if you don’t have the network, having expertise and how to communicate it will make you the most entertaining person at dinner. But not much else. 

One thing I’ve found in my own field of political science—from both young people breaking in and practitioners who should (and usually do) know better--is a bias towards expertise. Master your field and boom, you’ve made it. It’s an expectation that’s created great bitterness in plenty of otherwise very exceptional people. Don’t make the same mistake—great content is a lot more than just knowing your stuff. 

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Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group, foreign affairs columnist at TIME and Global Research Professor at New York University. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.