Now that’s a big huddle.

Last Friday night, my wife and I were with my son and his girlfriend in Brooklyn at a way too cool-for-us boomers' Lebanese restaurant. As the mezzes pounced on our table, a text from a colleague called my attention to a mildly absurd milestone:

25,000 followers on LinkedIn.

For context, the largest documented huddle of emperor penguins is around 4,000. So either I’ve assembled six Antarctic mega-colonies… or I’ve spent far too many Saturdays typing into the LinkedIn void about B2B marketing.

Probably the latter.

On one hand, this is a big so what. Followers don’t fix messy org charts. They don’t clean up pipeline math. And they definitely don’t stop CMOs from getting blamed for things they don’t control.

If they did, we’d all be out of jobs.

On the other hand, it’s kind of cool.

Because I know who many of you are.

You’re the CMOs and marketing leaders who actually enjoy debating positioning.

• Who appreciates the distinction and oh so powerful coupling of brand and demand.
• Who recognizes that not everything you can measure matters.
• Who reads a post about frustrations with PE firms and thinks, “Finally, someone said it.”
• Who geek out on B2B marketing not because it’s glamorous, but because it’s hard.

This “huddle” didn’t form because of hot takes or growth hacks. It formed because a lot of us are trying to do serious work in increasingly noisy conditions. We’re comparing notes. Sharing scars. Calling out nonsense. And occasionally laughing at ourselves when things don’t go as planned.

Which, let’s be honest, is often.

So thank you.

+ For reading.

+ For sharing.

+ For commenting.

+ For disagreeing thoughtfully.

+ For sending DMs that start with, “I thought I was the only one.”

I’ll keep showing up (almost) every week with a rant, a story from the huddle, and the occasional penguin metaphor because, yeah, it’s on brand.

After all, 25,000 is a big number. But it’s still just a huddle.

And huddles work best when everyone leans in.

Written by Drew Neisser