Below is a slightly edited version of a post this week from the PartnerHacker team slack. I thought it worth sharing on the site for reader curiosity and future reference.
The other day, Jared called me out for publishing something here on PartnerHacker that's outside of our strategic focus.
The article was good content - content that needs to exist in the world - but I sort of half-heartedly pulled the trigger on publishing. I knew the content wasn't really our comparative advantage.
Jared's pushback helped remind me not to stray for our core vision, which is also our unique brand identity.
PartnerHacker is a place for high-level insights and first principles, tethered or hooked to breaking news or industry trends.
We are here to tell the story of the era of ecosystems. We want to bring some philosophy to the discussion about ecosystems and partnerships, while at the same time keeping it real, snappy, witty, and down-to-earth.
- We're not an academic paper mill pushing out buzzword bingo gobbledygook like, "An Intersectional Diagnosis of the Industrial Diaspora Through the Lens of a Dialectic Pedagogy".
- Nor are we a boring PR firm peddling fluff like, "Accenture to Offer New Badges for Extra Special Partners".
- Nor are we a SaaS company doing customer education and SEO with things like, "5 Ways to Use Our Software".
- Nor are we doing shallow, TMZ-like hot-takes in the vein of, "OMG You'll Never Believe What Will Taylor Just Posted About Chris Samila's Favorite Football Team".
Don't get me wrong. All of these content types have a purpose and (probably) need to exist. We don't look down on them. But we want to do something a bit different. We seek to have a unique perspective and voice in the conversation. It has some overlap with each of the above approaches, but differs from them as well.
Yes, we'll tap into some academic theories and relate them to our world. We'll highlight some industry announcements and connect it to broader trends and theses. We'll have some resources and content about how to win at partnerships and point to our sponsors. We'll get a little juicy with some "Top Leaders" lists and breaking news tidbits.
But we'll always strive to have a real voice that reflects our real perspective on this space, best articulated in the manifesto and on the PartnerUp podcast episodes.
That same kind of openness, humility, interestedness, and boldness that Jared embodies (and I attempt to embody) in PartnerUp convos should be the dominant voice in our own writing, and guide our editorial policy.
We are pretty laissez faire with guest authors, and don't try to force their voice into our own, but we do want to ensure the subject matter is the kind of stuff readers come to associate with PartnerHacker. Thought provoking. Interesting. More than news. More than how-tos. More than disconnected jargon. Always fun and never stuffy.
That's our North Star.
This is reflected in our Guest Op-ed Guidelines, but I wanted to add some additional context and flesh out what we aspire to.
We're always looking for great stories and content. (We even love little tidbits, stats, facts, quotes, and memes for the PhD email, so don't overthink it). If you have something, send it our way!
