I’m probably an anomaly as a reader of others’ newsletters and content marketing. So many of these publications arrive in my inbox that it’s quite the task to sort through them, read, digest and move on.

Much of the content is excellent. Some arrive daily, others weekly. Those with whom my connection feels like they’re way out circling with Pluto arrive but only monthly or quarterly. (“Hey! Remember me? You asked if I wanted to join your mailing list eons ago, but I hardly ever hear from you. Do you have anything to say?”) I digress…

Those that arrive daily are short and to the point. It’s rare their content doesn’t grab me right away. So I was surprised when I found my attention waning at Chris Brogan’s post about just doing the work. (NOTE: Chris Brogan is considered one of the leaders in modern marketing. Subscribe you like the linked post.) I could hear the “yadda, yadda, yadda” going on in my head until he mentioned a long-ago Disney mindmap.

This caught my attention for several reasons: I love Disney. Super-creative types always grab my attention. Also the mind-mapping comment made me stop, and the promise of an interesting visual element got my gray cells churning again.

Here’s the thing. If you take a look at Walt’s mindmap (which I can’t display because there are a number of copyrights clearly shown all over it, starting in 1937), it’s sheer gold. It’s a wonderful visual representation of how Walt saw all the various relationships between Walt Disney Co., his theme park, his comics and many other ventures. He saw, long before many others did, how cross-marketing between many related products and services would bolster the results in all his related companies and departments.

As Chris Brogan mentioned in the part after the Disney blurb, mapping out how your own products, services, and delivery venues relate to one another, feed off one another and promote one another will give you great insight as to how your company flows and how it can or should be perceived by your target market.

You may not draw like Walt (and he hired that out, too!), but you can draw out a simple map of how you want content and value to flow in and around your company. It’s a fast way to enlightenment. Here are some other examples if they give you inspiration.

How do you envision all the parts of your company working together or leveraging off one another?