There’s been a lot of talk about the death of think tanks. People love this phrase. I’m not sure that think tanks are anywhere close to dying. That doesn’t mean that they won’t slowly lose market share to people like McKinsey who can do exactly the same thing — they’ve got the brainpower in-house. They’ve also got the communications skill. McKinsey, and all the others like them, are fantastic communicators. Think tanks won’t die overnight, but the industry will slowly erode if it doesn’t start adopting 21st century communications techniques.