C.C. Chapman's Blog

Seth Godin shaped me as a marketer and continues to serve as a mentor and source of inspiration. 

So, when I saw that his daily blog post was titled “How to teach marke...

Every May, as classes wrap up, final grades are submitted, and graduation celebrations begin, you know the end of the academic year is approaching.

Each year is unique and full of challenges and surprises. This spring semester was an extra challenging one, with a new level of disengagement among students.

But, it was more full of joy on multiple levels for me.

First, I was chosen as the winner of the Class of 2026 Senior Faculty Appreciation Award. This is voted on by the senior class, and I’ve be...

2026 has arrived, and my winter break is coming to an end. 

Every December is a time of reflection for me as the work winds down, the holidays arrive, my birthday happens, and another year is put into the history books.

I still go through the three word exercise, but don’t always share it publicly anymore. I find the exercise more potent than the explanation, and we each need to find out what works best for us. Especially in these dark and dangerous times.

Last year, I chose to focus primarily on m...

This week marks fifteen years since our book, Content Rules, hit store shelves. 

From the moment Ann Handley and I first met to discuss working together, we were committed to writing a book that would not be outdated the moment it was printed. Instead of focusing on tools, we’d focus on mindsets and strategies that would stand the test of time.

It still gives me a giggle to think about how, within the year between the first edition and our paperback edition, Instagram launched, and we had to add a...

It is back to school season, and for me, that means I’ll be back on campus before I know it.

Last year, for my Graduate Capstone at ASU, I had to research and identify a communication challenge. Then, plan and create a detailed training module to help with the issue. The challenge I chose to focus on was helping first-year college students communicate better with their professors. 

I had hoped to give a version of this training, but it never came to be, so this year I committed to myself that I’d ...

After an interesting year and another challenging one ahead, I promised myself that I would approach my summer break a bit differently than I have in the past. I’m still not used to having a break this long, but I don’t want to waste the time either.

Wasting time is a concept that is difficult to define, as we all approach it differently. Idling well is something we can all learn to do better. Remember when we could get bored and let our minds wander instead of pulling out our phone and getting l...

One of my favorite extra pieces of work I do every summer is participating in Wheaton College’s summer orientation program for the incoming class of students. We answer their questions, talk to them about majors, and at the end of the day, help them register for their first semester classes.

At the beginning of the day, we’ve started hosting five to six minute MAPTalks around a theme to give them a little inspiration first thing in the morning. The theme was “abundance and reciprocity,” inspired...

Yesterday, I turned in my final grades for the semester. While there are still some final workshops, meetings, and celebrations in the coming days, another academic year has ended.

This one was full of learning for me. It was a weird cocktail of embracing and fighting reality while trying to always focus on what matters most to me. 

Anyone who has not been a Posse Mentor can not fully appreciate what this responsibility entails. Each mentor approaches it differently, but the ten st...

Yesterday, I discovered that as the calendars flipped to 2025, a college friend passed away in her sleep. She had been battling cancer, and a positive update she shared on Christmas Eve made me think that I should reach out to her since I was on winter break and we hadn’t spoken directly in a long time. Sadly, that conversation will never happen.

I’m reading 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, which is all about time management because our current life expectancy is roughly four thousand weeks. It's ...

2025 has arrived, and the significance of the days ahead weighs heavily on me (and probably many of you).

Looking back, this was another interesting year on earth for me. When you stop and think about it, aren’t they all?

The first half had me focused on finishing graduate school at ASU. It was the final semester of two of the most challenging years of my adult life, trying to juggle all the chainsaws that come with trying to do this as an adult. I will never forget the deep breath of the desert a...