To begin with, Happy New Year! I raise my virtual glass to each and every one of you, with the wish that 2012 turns out to be your best year ever.

As usual, it's the time of year for people to tee up their forecasts of things to come. Last month, our friends at RainToday.com asked me and other contributors to take a crack at answering these four questions:

• What do you expect in the New Year as it applies to professional services marketing?
• Are there any trends you see taking hold?
• Are there things you think firms should do in 2012?
• Do you have any advice for handling the still-challenging economy and buyer habits?

Here are my thoughts.

Maybe it's a cliché to say that we're awash in information. But it's hard to paint a true picture of today's world without that reference.

Think about it: More data was transmitted over the Internet in 2010 than in all previous years combined, according to researchers at Intel. It's a safe bet that the numbers didn't shrink in 2011.

Every minute, 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube; each day, 200 million tweets are sent out; and every month, more than 7 billion photos are uploaded to the Internet. More than 4 billion devices are connected to the Internet, and that number is expected to reach 15 billion in just a few years.

The mind-boggling stats have profound implications for professional services providers in 2012 (and beyond).

For starters, we have to re-double our efforts to remain effective information filters for our inundated clients. Also, clients will become increasingly dismissive of those who try to market services by publishing over-simplified stuff like, "The 7 Secrets of Servant Leadership" in 300 words or less.

Service providers who rely on thought leadership to generate business will have to ratchet up the quality of what they produce, and they must be able to distribute that content across the many channels clients will use.

Winners in 2012 will be both client advisers and publishers. They'll apply the same uncompromising standards to their publishing activities as they do to client service. They'll work tirelessly to put the "thought" into thought leadership.

They'll stress substance and depth in their marketing content, not volume. They'll be generous with their best ideas because they realize that's the way to get clients to notice. And they'll treat the communities they create through their publishing and marketing activities like clients--those they will listen to, serve, and eventually convert into buyers.

Here's a link to the answers from the rest of group to RainToday's forecasting questions.

Enjoy this month's issue, and send me an email if you have comments.

Michael W. McLaughlin, Editor
Author of Winning the Professional Services Sale and Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants
Principal, MindShare Consulting LLC

Atos, the French IT company, has banned the use of email within the company. It's just too much time-wasting noise, they concluded.

Looking for a searchable list of consulting firms? Recruiters at The Consulting Bench put together a comprehensive, indexed directory for US firms.

Wonder what's next for the consulting industry? Fiona Czerniawska, of SourceforConsulting.com, offers a 12-minute video summary of a new report, Planning for Growth in an Uncertain Market.

Do you have what it takes to make the "challenger" sale? You can find out with this online assessment of your sales skills. Last month, the authors of The Challenger Sale did a podcast interview with me.

Here are six lessons for intelligent project management.

Google+ brand pages are getting off the ground slowly.

Twitter also launched its version of brand pages.

HubSpot: The Top 10 Marketing Infographics of 2011.

Consultants at Vynamic kicked off their Grammy-themed Holiday Party with this video--an interesting twist on intros.

The chart above was a slide in an actual presentation. Looking at this slide, it would be easy to rant about PowerPoint abuses. Anyone who puts 26 bubbles and 25 arrows on a single slide and expects people to "get it," shouldn't be surprised if all eyes in the audience glaze over within 30 seconds.

Tempting though it may be to cram everything possible into a slide presentation, the result is bound to be counter-productive and boring. So ask yourself three questions before you finalize your next set of presentation slides:

Will I feel the need at any point to say to my audience, "I know this slide will be difficult to read for those of you in the back?" If a slide is tough to see from the back of the room, it's likely a problem for those in the front too. If there's a chance that people can't make out the content of any slide, redesign it until it's readable for everyone in the room. Once people have to start squinting at your slides, you lose their attention.

What is the point of focus? Your slides should reinforce and clarify your message. Look at them critically to see how each slide performs those important roles. Can your audience draw a connection between the concept you are explaining and the image you are displaying? If not, you're probably not connecting with your audience on any level.

Minds wander during presentations, so focus each slide on the most important idea you want to convey. Then, move on to the next idea and slide. You don't want your audience pondering the meaning of the bubble on "willingness to speculate" while you are talking about the bubble on "goals and values."

What can come off this slide? Before you finalize your presentation, reconsider the content of each slide. Decide which elements you could remove. If any slide, for example, contains words or images that are simply a reminder for you to say something, get rid of it. Find another way to remember what you need to emphasize in your presentation.

Stand back from your slides as if you were in the back of the room. How will each person in the audience experience that slide? Too many people put too much on their slides. Be aggressive. Dump anything that doesn't directly support your main ideas.

Our job is to enlighten, educate, influence, and be catalysts for action. That's a tall order, but it's even tougher if your presentation leaves clients confused, or worse, comatose.

According to Geneca's survey of 600 business executives, 75% of the respondents believe that projects are doomed to failure before the project starts. No, that statistic isn't a typo.

And it's probably not a coincidence that the expected project failure rate is as high as the actual rate for failures. With so many clients anticipating doom, it can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

To find out how to prevent gloom and doom from taking over your projects, read the article in The Guerrilla Consultant.

Each year, some of our articles, interviews, and podcasts are clear favorites for our readers. In case you missed these 2011 reader favorites, I thought I'd pass them along as we close out the year.

I'm sure you'll appreciate the ideas that these interviewees and authors share, and I thank them for their contributions.

Podcasts

Daniel Goleman: New Insights on Emotional Intelligence
Ann Handley: How to Make Your Content Rule
Peter Block: Flawless Consulting
Roger Courville: How to Deliver a Great Webinar
Daniel Burrus: Forecasting the Future

Interviews

William Bridges: Managing Transitions
Robert Sutton: The No Asshole Rule
James Kouzes: The Challenge of Leadership
John Kotter: How Change Is Changing
Daniel Pink: The Truth about Motivating People

Articles

Insurance Tips and Traps for Consultants, by Scott Simmonds
How to Grow and Sell a Consulting Firm, by Paul Collins
10 Really Good Reasons to Quit Your Job and Start Your Own Business, by Michael J. Katz
Running a Meeting: Ten Rookie Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, by Suzanne Bates

Anyone in a professional service business knows that content marketing has exploded in recent years, and the trend shows no sign of slowing. But which content marketing tactics work most effectively? How are organizations investing their time and money in content marketing?

To address these questions, the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs surveyed more than 1,000 people and published their second annual report, B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends.

Be sure to grab the report. It's full of interesting information and strategies that you should consider when making decisions about your marketing. Among the findings: The top three tools for effective content marketing are articles, social media, and blogs.

Our guest next month will be Andrew Sobel, author of All for One, Clients for Life, and Making Rain.

His new book, co-authored with Jerold Panas, is Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business, and Influence Others. The book highlights 35 engrossing conversations with CEOs, clients, and friends to illustrate the impact of thought-provoking, incisive questions.

I'll ask Sobel to delve into the theory and practice of asking "power" questions to get some ideas on questions you can use in your toughest client situations.

Look for the next issue of Management Consulting News on February 7, 2012.