Ashley Faus's Recent LinkedIn Posts

I don't buy WiFi on planes, but it's not because I'm cheap... It's because it's the one time the barriers are juuuuust high enough to justify going offline. And airplane WiFi is glitchy enough often enough that no one expects you to be online when you're flying. On shorter flights, I sleep. I don't even bother pulling out my laptop to tweak just one more slide or draft just one more post, both ready to publish the minute I turn off airplane mode. I'm TERRIBLE about disconnecting. But the plane is one of the few places where I just sit (sitting still and quiet is not my favorite 😅). Plus, it's a good redundancy check for my team 🙌 If I can't be offline for a couple of hours, we've got bigger issues to address in terms of context, authority, and access across the team (namely, they need more of each if I'm that big of a blocker). I'm telling you: skip the WiFi on planes. (See you soon, B2BMX conference!)

🌶️ We should NOT be celebrating and rewarding "going above and beyond" 🌶️ How often have you seen this type of praise: "She worked long hours and into the night to make this happen..." "He spent the entire weekend handling this..." "The team pulled off the impossible..." My question is: What happened to force people to be heroes? Did you fail to staff the project appropriately? Did you impose a ridiculous deadline? Did you cut the budget to the bone? Because when heroism becomes the norm, that's a management failure, not a badge of honor. Yes, genuine crises happen, sometimes it's all-hands-on-deck for one final push, sometimes things go sideways. But if your team is constantly being asked to save the day, the problem isn't effort, it's planning and resourcing. The answer should never be burning out the team, over and over, instead of fixing the system. Recognize and compensate people when it happens? 100%. Celebrate it as a model to repeat? NOPE. Don't under-resource and over-burden your team... How I approach this as a manager: ✅️ Build trust with my team to raise capacity concerns by regularly talking about workload and timelines ✅️ Run retros after big projects to document what went well and find areas to improve before we tackle it next time ✅️ Push back on quick-turn requests that don't have a clear driver of urgency or ROI ✅️ Add buffer to timelines when possible to account for cross-functional dependencies or external factors ✅️ Guidance on PTO at regular intervals, with the expectation of down time after a big push for a deadline or event

Sometimes my theater world collides with my marketing world 💃 I'm hosting Teamwork in an AI Era, a virtual summit with Atlassian. Everyone is hustling to do more with AI, but how to we actually make it work across the organization? Leaders from Atlassian, Forrester, and NVIDIA will share how they're approaching adoption today and setting up the systems to scale. AND we're got Adam Grant, talking about how teams can stay creative, resilient, and connected even as AI and automation change the way we work! I'm a bit biased (ahem), but we've got great speakers and great content 😎 Wanna join us? I gotchu. Register for free: https://lnkd.in/g8eVAkdS?

I don't have many pre-speaking rituals, but a glitter face mask is a MUST! This one is the Prep to Party hydrating face mask. HIGHLY recommend picking it up at your local CVS (or ordering a whole case of 'em online, ha). If you're attending B2BMX, I'd love to see you in the audience for my morning keynote on human-centered marketing 😀

Roses are red Violets are blue Cancel that meeting And make it a Loom 💙

I can legit find connections between ANYTHING. A while back, the internet was quite disconcerted about Dove making soap and chocolate. Everyone thought it made no sense, surely it was because there's so many chemicals in each item, it was a poor attempt at expansion, etc. etc. Nah. I noted that Arm & Hammer managed to find a way to sell baking products AND cleaning products. Turns out, both share baking soda as a key ingredient. So, I set out to think about the shared ingredient(s) between soap and chocolate... It's cocoa butter. And this is how companies find completely new segments and use cases for their products 💃 If you're a PM or a PMM, run a little convergent thinking brainstorm! Try to force a connection between some element of your offering and literally anything you see sitting around you. It might be nothing... or it might be your next juggernaut 😀 Edit: Apparently these products are actually made by different companies, but I stand by my Venn diagram and now we need a whole post about brand hierarchy! (And now I low-key wanna play a game in the comments: what's a storyline, product offering, and/or channel you're struggling to connect? Maybe I can help!)

The journey has NEVER been linear, but apparently we're pretending that AI suddenly made this true 🤦‍♀️ NOPE. No one wakes up and declares, "I shall enter the Consideration stage today!" The linear funnel (and it's newer cousin, the looping decision journey) is all about a marketer trying to imply where someone is in a buying process or force them down a specific path with a single destination: BUY TODAY!!! Heck, even the name, "buyer's journey" assumes this person becomes a buyer, when in fact, 40%-60% of journeys end in no sale/no decision 🤦‍♀️ Pitfalls of the linear funnel: - Assumes the journey starts at "awareness", when in fact, the journey starts long before someone becomes aware of the problem, solution, your company, and/or your offering - Generally fails to recognize the difference between a user and an economic buyer, and struggles to acknowledge the complexity of a buying committee - Focuses on implicit intent vs. explicit intent, with marketing and sales teams attempting to guess at signals of buying readiness amid a sea of noise Instead, we need to treat the buyer's journey as a playground. Our job as marketers is to make that playground seamless, helpful, and impactful, no matter which path the audience takes. (Shout-out to Tyrona Heath for the picture from my keynote at B2BMX! Need help actually creating a journey that behaves like a playground? Grab a copy of my book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI".)

You've got the PERFECT product. The PERFECT production setup. A PERFECT script. Now you just need the perfect spokesperson... 😅 I've been on all sides of recording for the product launch announcement, case study, and thought leadership to frame the problem in a way that connects to the solution you sell. Wrote the script. Coached the speaker. Stood in front of the camera. And it's HARD to remember all the points when you're staring at that blinking red light! This is where my background as a singer and actor comes in handy 😎 Spoiler alert: the super secret silver bullet? Blocking! Which is just a fancy name for pairing words with movement. I've got a few easy tips to help you (or the spokesperson you're prepping...) show up and say the right thing 👇👇

Your team should NOT be running at 100% capacity 😬 If they are, you're probably one Slack message away from disaster... What happens if someone gets sick? Goes on vacation? Takes parental leave? Needs bereavement leave? Running at 100% capacity means there's 0% buffer for someone being out-of-office (especially unexpectedly, and especially for an extended period of time). What happens when leadership moves a project to the top of the priority list? When a deadline moves up? When more funding comes through? Running at 100% capacity means there's 0% buffer to handle new or expanded requests. What happens when the quality suffers? When the metrics start tanking? When steps get missed? Running at 100% capacity means there's 0% buffer to do proper QA, strategic analysis, or process improvements. What happens when employees work overtime? When promotions are frozen? When raises are low or non-existent? Running at 100% capacity means there's 0% for morale, quality of life, and recognition to actually keep the humans who handle all of this work happy, engaged, and productive. As a leader, some of the hardest decisions are about what NOT to do. Don't let your teams run at 100% capacity because you're unwilling or unable to make the hard decisions about what to remove to keep the humans AND the business happy, healthy, and sustainable.

It's been a busy few months and we're not slowing down 😎 If you're looking to learn about human-centered marketing and/or managing a team to deliver human-centered marketing, this is the epic resource list for you! 🎧 Podcasts with TopRank Marketing, Sound of INBOUND, and Innovabiz Pty Ltd Sound of INBOUND episode: https://lnkd.in/gcGYYr28 TopRank podcast: https://lnkd.in/gZgzhrCC Innovabiz podcast: https://lnkd.in/gaa8A_2N 🎤 Events with FullFunnel.io and Atlassian Fullfunnel.io summit: https://lnkd.in/g-iPVtVH Teamwork in an AI Era: https://lnkd.in/g8eVAkdS? 📖 Articles with Brandbeat by billups and Beam Content 💡 Brandbeat: https://lnkd.in/gadvzXTG Beam article: https://lnkd.in/gYrHC8Bt Shout-out to the hosts, organizers, and writers for these collabs, thanks for amplifying my work! Lee Odden, Amanda Jackson 🗺️ , Aaron Mazze, Kerri Linsenbigler, Jürgen Strauss, Andrei Zinkevich (And we're gonna low-key test the algorithm to see if allllll the links kill alllll the reach 😅)

"I'm still employed, but..." I've learned to start the sentence with my status when I share bad news, and the announcement of layoffs at Atlassian yesterday hit hard. To all my impacted teammates, I'm here to help if I can. Intros, resume feedback, or a listening ear. To the market: lots of talented and hard-working people are now open to work, and they would be a great addition to your team! If you want an intro to a former Atlassian, I'm happy to help make a connection. There's no "good" post to write or "right" words to say, but leading with empathy and a sincere offer to help is the best I can do.

What's the slightly unhinged thing you wish you could do to change your industry? THAT is your starting point for a unique perspective. Most people try to start with a big problem. More revenue! More metrics! More visibility! The problem is that EVERYONE wants those things 😬 But if you're actually close to the problem, you know there's a core element of the solution that you'd love to change... Here's the steps: What's something in your industry or craft that drives you crazy? What unhinged action would you take to resolve this issue? What's one small action you can take in that direction? Here's an example from my own work: Annoyance: Marketers treating every form-fill as a lead. Unhinged action: Never gate ANY content, no form-fills anywhere, ever! Small actions: Ungate a couple of demos videos and thought leadership assets. Update CTAs to match intent. Only "Contact Sales" results in a form. Reduce form field requirements for content delivered via email or calendar invite to only include name and email address. Allow personal email addresses, don't force a business email address. You can see how this turns into hooks ("you should ungate all your content", "your CTAs are killing your lead quality", etc.) and bigger pillars (long-form assets on why this matters, real-world examples, templates or prompts to improve, etc.). Need help turning your unique perspective into an audience journey that converts? Grab a copy of my book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI" 😀

The number one thing you MUST do on LinkedIn if you want to reap the benefits of spending time here: COMMENT! Comments continue to pop off on LinkedIn. Some of 'em get more reach than an original post! But all comments are not created equal... lookin' at you, AI bots 😬 I routinely see my comments reach thousand of views, multiple replies, and increase followers. Here's the mindset shift: 🗣️ Comments = Conversation Most of the guru advice around comments is to chase big creators to draft off their reach. But leaving a wimpy, "Great post! Agree! Love this!" reply is not gonna get you the benefits! Instead, the comments should start or continue conversations. You wouldn't walk around an in-person event just popping into conversations with 1-2 platitudes, so you shouldn't do that online. ACTUALLY engage with the OP and the people in the replies. 💡 Comments = Creativity Ever struggled to know what to post, with the blank box mocking you because you gotta say something? It. sucks. Handily, lots of other people have already said something, so you can just react to their thoughts! Spend some time curating your feed so that you're following people who share interesting content. When you're bored or stuck, comments help you kickstart your own thinking. Some prompts as you engage in the feed: --> I agree with this because... --> I disagree with this because... --> An example of this from my work... ✍️ Comments = Content A meaty comment should turn into a standalone post. When you add a unique perspective, examples, etc., you're giving enough value for people to actually dig in and converse. And that can become a post shared from your feed. How to do it: Screenshot the original post, use your comment as the body of the new post, at-mention the OP to give credit + drive engagement on your post Need an example? Check out the carousel 😎 Becca Chambers ✨posted about a grammar rule she didn't know. I responded with an additional example of the rule in action. Multiple people responded with additional questions and examples. Results: 16k impressions and counting, banter in the replies, and an additional stand-alone post!

Introducing the judging panel behind the Thought Leadership for Tomorrow Awards 2026. We're thrilled to welcome back Tyrona Heath, Global Director of Thought Leadership GTM at LinkedIn, as our Head Judge for 2026. With over 20 years of marketing experience spanning Google, IBM, and AAF, there's no one better to chair the panel. Joining her are three exceptional judges: Lisa Higgins, President & CEO of APQC, with over 30 years leading benchmarking and best practices work across the US, Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. Ashley Faus, Head of Lifecycle Marketing at Atlassian and author of Human-Centered Marketing. Rob Mitchell, Co-Founder of Exhibit B Partners and former Co-Founder and CEO of FT Longitude, part of the Financial Times Group. Together, they bring the depth, diversity, and industry authority this recognition deserves. And good news! Our submission deadline has been extended to March 27. Don't miss your chance to get your entry in front of this incredible panel. Enter here: https://lnkd.in/eTcgxeGB. #ThoughtLeadershipForTomorrow #TLFTAwards2026 #ThoughtLeadership

"In a world where it’s quick and easy to generate a lot of misinformation or disinformation, humans become the trusted source." I continue to come back to the foundation of trust. No matter the AI hype. No matter the AI reality. No matter the AI skepticism. Yes, AI is disruptive and trendy and can be useful. But ultimately, humans won't buy, use, or advocate for things they fundamentally don't trust. And most of the AI criticism is driven by a lack of trust. I talked with Demand Gen Report about this fundamental concept from my book and my forthcoming keynote at B2B Marketing Exchange. The interview covers: 🛝 A sneak peek of my Playground framework 📘 Storytelling in the age of AI 🤝 Shifts in social media Attend B2B Marketing Exchange: https://lnkd.in/eKngt7WT Read the interview: https://lnkd.in/etRyYXwr Buy my book: https://amzn.to/4k0eDB4

"Where's the line between personal and professional on LinkedIn?" "How can I show a little more of my personality in my posts?" "I'm more than just my job, but I can't post about hobbies!" I gotchu 😎 ↔ Consistent > Perfection There's no "right" balance of personal and professional. It's actually about CONSISTENCY. You train your audience to expect posts on specific topics, with a specific vibe and tone. Some people have built their entire strategy on being snarky, others on being empathetic, others on being analytical. If you're normally someone who posts with a positive tone and a hint o' humor, a crying or yelling post is jarring because it's so out of character. Lean into the voice and tone that feels like you, and you can incorporate more of the personal elements into your posts. 🔗 Think at the intersections Apparently, it's cringe to talk about what [unrelated experience] taught me about [professional endeavors]... but that's how humans process information! We love to spot a pattern, and our brains find connections all the time. So... lean into it! A few of the connections I make: - Baking: The concept of mise en place applies to your marketing and content strategy. Mise en place means "everything in its place", so you put out all your ingredients and tools before you bake. You need all your ingredients before you execute in marketing, including goals, audience, and budget requirements. - Fitness: Move away from mapping assets to the linear funnel, and use content depths instead. Conceptual, strategic, tactical. I demonstrate positioning + content depths with a hypothetical Muscle & Fitness magazine. - Musical theater: I perform in musicals, so I'm constantly stepping into the audience's shoes. I have to understand their motivation, their language, and their movement in every scene, which is a nice transferrable skill to marketing. 💬 Think in conversations If you were having a conversation in person, would it feel weird to mention that you went on a hike this weekend, or watched your kid's soccer game? In most cases, no! That would be perfectly normal! We are always our full selves, and we show different facets of ourself, depending on the context. The same applies to online spaces as well. It would be weird to walk around shouting about your latest quarterly earnings and then walking away from a table in person, yet we think that's the way to show up on LinkedIn? Think about the types of conversations you want to have here... that's what comments and DMs are for! The content you post is meant to help you build trust and rapport, NOT just to sell, so give people something besides a pitch to connect with. (PS - This banana cake with browned butter frosting was freaking tasty! If you're into baking and need the recipe, I gotchu!)

Marketers love to tear down landing page, ads, and emails by calling out word salad. But what if… The assets we’re critiquing aren’t actually FOR us? Sometimes the language is intentionally exclusive to separate the true ICP from the random people who see the content. And this is a GOOD thing! Jargon signals “you’re one of us”. When you truly speak the language of your audience, you build credibility, trust, and affinity. The “insider” language of specific slang, gestures, and acronyms tells the audience that you understand their goals, challenges, and solution needs. This goes beyond just prompting AI to give you a persona doc… you need to actually spend time in the community, talk with people, and understand the quirks. Before you can CONVERT your audience, you must CONVERSE with your audience.

So many companies are declaring "AI-first", but they're not actually equipping their employees to become AI-first. What DOESN'T work: ❌ Top-down mandates to just use AI ❌ Video trainings to be completed async ❌ Wholesale rip-and-replace of existing tools and processes Instead, companies need to bring people along on the journey. What works: ✅ Buffer in timelines to test new AI tools and workflows, with retros at the end to help the rest of the team use what works and avoid what doesn't. ✅ Managers show, don't tell. Teams who see their manager using AI regularly are 4x more likely to adopt AI themselves (Atlassian AI Collaboration Index report)! ✅ Hands-on workshops and group experimentation, no just on-demand documentation. I love the Atlassian Fix It Friday play for this! I share how I'm implementing these principles with Hard Skill Exchange 👇👇 Wanna dive deeper? I gotchu. HSE full report from smart practitioners: https://lnkd.in/ePmyzCiN Atlassian AI Collaboration Index: https://lnkd.in/eDf--X54 Atlassian Fix It Friday play: https://lnkd.in/e5AuJKV3 Buy my book on human-centered marketing: https://amzn.to/404UUae

People often call me a "nice" manager... but honestly? I'm kinda selfish 🤔 Here's 3 things managers do that seem generous, but are actually serving their career goals: 🚀 Championing you for a promotion They aren't just being a nice human by recognizing your work and recommending you for more senior roles and scope. Managers are evaluated on their ability to hire, build, and grow great talent. When members of their team get promoted, it directly contributes to the manager's proof-points of building a strong team that does impactful work. 👩‍⚖️ Sending you as a proxy to important meetings or high-visibility projects Managers are busy, and they don't want to be a bottleneck. If you're capable of making the decision and moving work forward, it frees up the manager to do higher-level work, which contributes to their overall growth trajectory. 🤝 Helping you make an internal move to another team Smart leaders want to keep great talent IN the organization, even if that means moving someone to another team to take an opportunity. But when you move, they've now got a partner they can trust, and a direct line into your part of the business. Basically? Smart managers know that a team with psychological safety and autonomy is a strong team. And a strong team makes a manager look good and grow in their own career. So... don't look for a "nice" manager. Look for a smart manager who knows how to do nice things, selfishly.

Tell me you’re driving through San Francisco without telling me you’re driving through San Francisco... I saw a billboard: "We are so back(end)", with a single, solid triangle. No company name. No URL. No pitch. What the HECK are you marketers doing!?! And then I wrote a whole LinkedIn post in my head about how billboards are either for broad awareness or market dominance (IYKYK in the Bay Area 🤷‍♀️), and this billboard achieved neither. But then it hit me... "Wait, is this for Vercel?" And y'all... I am not a developer, but I was right 💃 This is a billboard from Vercel. And even the marketers in Silicon Valley have their logo so embedded in the sub-conscious that we override our own judgy rant about how the complete lack of a name or URL means that this billboard is disconnected from our ever-sacred funnel and attribution 🤯 So yeah. This billboard is PEAK San Francisco. It's also apex tech marketer. (I generated this image with Nano Banana, 'cuz I couldn't take a picture while driving... so don't judge the team on the creative details. Also: devs know Vercel, and they're known for "cryptic" billboards that are meant for the insiders, so I DID realize immediately that I wasn't the ICP. This likely spurred the additional background brain blitz to figure out which company created the billboard.)

Marketer math is turning a random coincidence into a deadline and calling it a strategy. 52 reviews 52 days 52 weeks in market The napkin doesn't lie 😅 If you've read my book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI", an honest Amazon review would help me make sure the math is mathin'. (Pro-tip: You can still leave an Amazon review, even if you didn't purchase the book from Amazon 😉)

Sassy statements I make if you ask for my thoughts on thought leadership 👇👇 ❌ Thought leadership is NOT the best content ❌ Being contrarian does NOT make you a thought leader ❌ Executives are NOT the best thought leaders Here's why: ✅ The best content serves the needs of the audience. Sometimes, they want to buy something... so sales content is the best content. Sometimes, they want to use something... so adoption or enablement content is the best content. Sometimes, they're looking to learn something new, change their thinking, and take action in a new direction... so thought leadership content is the best content. ✅ Simply stating the opposite of whatever someone says doesn't automatically mean that you've shared a leading thought. Because true thought leadership is new, innovative, and often, disruptive, it might ruffle some feathers. But that's an outcome due to the friction of learning, growing, and changing a mindset, not a snarky response to the current best practices. ✅ Most execs are actually meant to do the exact opposite of what thought leadership is meant to do. They're meant to show that the company is growing at a steady and predictable pace, signaling to investors and customers that it's a solid investment. They're meant to attract great talent and partners, so they need to create a steady culture with incremental improvements and good change management. They're meant to lead the company, which means they rarely have time to test new ideas, codify the findings, and share that information in a way that helps others take action. Thought leadership content from a thought leader is a great tool in the marketing mix. But it's NOT the "only" or "best".

I'm a LinkedIn power user, but it took me waaaayyy too long to realize that... You can re-order your work experience 😅 When I published my book, I added "Kogan Page" to my work history. But then, it showed up as my current employer, and I started getting odd DMs and personalized ads referencing Kogan Page. I finally fiddled with it this morning and changed the order on my profile, easy peasy 🤦‍♀️ For my fellow authors, course instructors, advisors, and anyone else with multiple "current" employers, I hope this helps (or maybe you all know that and I'm just real late to the game)!

Can't rant if you can't breathe 😅 Meeting a different kind of nemesis this morning to vent... I'm about done with these arguments: ❌️ Marketers need to use AI to 10x output ❌️ Marketers need to speak the language of the CFO ❌️ Marketers need to learn to code I. can. NOT 🙄