Our Jam

Our jam is to share our marketing street knowledge to help ambitious CEOs, CMOs, marketing leaders and founders grow their start-up or established B2B businesses.

We call it “street knowledge” as it comes hard-earned from decades of experience of actually doing it, with a hat tip to bosses, mentors, clients, colleagues, and the occasional f’up that taught us these lessons.

We share this through our podcast, newsletter, and blog – and if you’d like to chat about anything we discuss, please get in touch.

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Street Knowledge

Podcast

Does the world need another f’in’ marketing podcast? Our host and 4xCMO Ian Truscott asked this in 2020, and the world said “no”, but he did it anyway.

The Death (or not) of DXP and the Death (or not) of Blogging Episode

September 19, 2026 · Rockstar CMO

This week, Mark Demeny, Senior Director, Product Marketing at OpenText, joins our host Ian Truscott in the Rockstar CMO studio to discuss the changes in content technology and where the industry is headed as the term DXP, or Digital eXperience Management, is being dropped, and how our enterprise marketing technology platforms need to work with AI. They then move on to the question many B2B tech marketing organizations ask: should product marketing sit under product or marketing? They discuss: The decline of the DXP category and its implications The importance of composable marketing technology and API-first approaches AI's impact on content creation, management, and governance The evolving roles within marketing teams, including product marketing and CPOs Then, Ian moves to our virtual bar, The Rose and Rockstar, and joins Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear, to explore some fresh research from Andy Crestodina at Orbit Media, following an annual survey of over a thousand content marketers. The headline number in the post was that, after consistent performance over several years, “The percentage of respondents who report 'strong results’ dropped to an all-time low of 14%” and Ian and Robert discuss what that means for content marketing. Does this mean the death of the corporate blog as traffic is down, or are we measuring the wrong things, and has the purpose of our content now changed? Enjoy! — The Links The people: Ian Truscott on LinkedIn Mark Demeney on LinkedIn Robert Rose on LinkedIn Mentioned this week: Mark’s last appearance - The Metaverse and Marketing Gifts Holiday Special Episode Mark’s website - Mark Demeny Digital Marketing Tips from Andy Crestodina - We asked 1,042 content marketers if their blog works. Just 14% said yes. This Old Marketing - Is Blogging Dead or Mostly Dead? (550) Rockstar CMO: The Beat Newsletter our weekly(ish) newsletter Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn Track List: We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license You can listen to this on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, and Spotify

The State of Content Operations and an Expensive Way to Be Stupid Episode

September 12, 2026 · Rockstar CMO

This week, Ian and Cathy McKnight, Chief Problem Solver at Seventh Bear, discuss some research that she’s just published covering the State of Content Operations in 2026. But first, they discuss Optimizely's recent retirement of the Digital Experience Platform (DXP) label, a prominent vendor in this category, but is the switch to an agent platform any better? They then dig into Cathy’s research and discuss five key points: Speed went up. ROI did not AI wins here. Falls flat there Three bottlenecks. None of them AI It was never the AI. Five reasons. None of them intelligence. Then Ian moves to our virtual bar, The Rose and Rockstar, and joins Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear, to ask about something he heard Dr. Margaret Heffernan on the Uncensored CMO say: “AI is a very expensive way to be stupid.” This leads them to explore the nuances of AI's impact on decision-making, industry knowledge, and marketing strategies. They discuss how AI can both enhance and hinder critical thinking, the importance of industry expertise, and the risks of over-reliance on technology. Enjoy! — The Links The people: Ian Truscott on LinkedIn Cathy McKnight on LinkedIn Robert Rose on LinkedIn Mentioned this week: Brice Dunwoodie’s LinkedIn Post about retiring DXP Optimizely Retires DXP Label, Bets Everything on Agent Platform State of Content Operations in 2026 Valuable Friction - Robert Rose Uncensored CMO - Dr Margaret Heffernan Robert’s article: Why AI Demands That Marketers Have Industry Expertise Robert’s newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com Rockstar CMO: The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM. Track List: We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify.

The Newish Rules of B2B Marketing and Newsjacking Dolly Episode

September 5, 2026 · Rockstar CMO

This week, former Forrester Research Director Jeff Clark is back in the studio and joins our host Ian Truscott to discuss a research project from the B2B CMO Project called The New Rules of B2B Marketing in 2026 - How the Best B2B CMOs Are Rewriting the Role. The B2B CMO Project, is a research and community initiative founded by Jon Miller (best known as the co-founder of Marketo) and Sydney Sloan (former CMO of Salesloft and G2) and the report is based on interviews with more than 50 B2B CMOs at companies including Zoom, Salesforce, Nutanix, Snowflake, PagerDuty, and Sprout Social. Jeff and Ian give it their 5 f’in’ things treatment, pulling their favorite points from the research, including: The credibility gap for marketing leaders AI as a new capability beyond GEO Prove marketing’s value in the language of the board Invest in brand as a strategic asset Building a marketing team for the next decade. Then, Ian moves to our virtual bar, The Rose and Rockstar, and joins Robert Rose, Chief Trouble Maker at Seventh Bear. They share their horror at an AdAge article that newsjacked Dolly Parton's passing with a very poor piece about what we marketers can learn from her. So Ian asks: if this is bad newsjacking, what is good newsjacking, and is it still an effective tool for content creators and marketers? Enjoy! — The Links The people: Ian Truscott on LinkedIn Jeff Clark on LinkedIn Robert Rose on LinkedIn Mentioned this week: The B2B CMO Imperative: 2026 Marketing Leadership Report The Beat Newsletter: Times Like These What Dolly Parton’s career can teach marketers about staying relevant (requires subscription) Robert’s latest Lens newsletter: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Robert discussing the Dolly Parton article on This Old Marketing Rockstar CMO: The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM. Track List: We’ll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license Foo Fighters - Times Like These (Official HD Video) You can listen to this on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, and Spotify.

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Blog

Contributions from our regular podcast guests and across the Rockstar CMO community.

Five Fails of a Broken Marketing Machine

January 15, 2026 · Jeff Clark

The Machine is the engine that makes your marketing plan and campaigns hum. What happens when the machine breaks down? Jeff shares 5 fails...

Get Your Buyers AMPED with our Customer Journey

January 23, 2025 · Ian Truscott

In a couple of podcast episodes, we’ve discussed buyers and customer journeys, pulling inspiration from various sources like Gartner, Forrester,…

The 5 Fundamentals of Good Budgeting for B2B Marketing

August 31, 2024 · Jeff Clark

Effective budget planning is critical for B2B marketing leaders, particularly in a highly competitive and ever-changing market. Jeff shares his 5 fundamentals.

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