Lillian Axe (photo courtesy of Joshua Craig Photography)

Marketer and roller derby skater Donna Natosi (also known as Lillian Axe, right) leads a team of 20 people to engage roller derby fans and promote the Carolina Rollergirls. Axe recently shared:

• How she manages a small army of volunteer marketers to attract and engage fans
• How the Carolina Rollergirls league uses a mix of social media and public appearances to promote events
• How there’s no such thing as a typical roller derby fan in the Triangle

I interviewed Donna/Axe via phone and email. For more, follow the Carolina Rollergirls on Twitter, read the CRG blog, and go to this weekend’s roller derby bout at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, NC.

Profile: Donna Natosi, aka Lillian Axe

Director of Marketing for the Carolina Rollergirls League in Raleigh, NC
More info: @carolnarolrgrls, Facebook, LinkedIn, and CarolinaRollerGirls.com

Three Tryouts, and Some Bumps and Bruises Along the Way

Donna is the Director of Marketing for the Carolina Rollergirls, where she skates on the roller derby league’s Carolina Bootleggers and Debutante Brawlers teams. I asked what her marketing position involves, and how she got to where she is today. She replied:

I work with a committee of about 20 people to promote The Carolina Rollergirls. I learned about The Carolina Rollergirls through a press release sent to me at my last job.

About a year later, I changed jobs, which allowed me time to learn how to skate. Three tryouts, and several bumps & bruises later, I finally became part of the league.

Beth Row — the Director of Marketing at the time — learned of my TV news background and scooped me up as the media liaison. When the time came to elect a new marketing director, it only seemed natural for me to run for the position.

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Using Social Media and Public Appearances to Promote Events

I’ve been to several CRG games as a casual fan — bouts are fun and fast-paced. I asked Donna how she promotes events and engages with fans. She explained:

We promote our events through social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter), an e-newsletter called Rink Rash, public appearances, press releases to the news media, and flyers.

Additionally, we are our own street team. Occasionally you can find us skating around downtown Raleigh, handing out flyers before a bout. Skaters and volunteers promote the league any chance we get by word of mouth.

The Carolina Rollergirls are active in the community. On a recent weekend, the league participated in the Saint Augustine’s College homecoming parade, a Special Olympics skating event, and another volunteer event. With 50-some skaters, it’s easy for things to go viral, because the skaters all repost and share and email.

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Recruiting and Managing a Team of Motivated Volunteers

Lillian Axe (photo courtesy of Joshua Craig Photography)

Donna’s marketing team includes experienced graphic designers, event coordinators, and feet-on-the-ground people.

I observed that between committee members, skaters, and other volunteers, she has a small army of people at her disposal — people who’ll promote bouts and other CRG events for free. I asked about Donna’s advice for recruiting and managing highly-motivated people. She replied:

The Carolina Rollergirls are fortunate to have volunteers and skaters who love the sport and the league enough to want to spread the word.

My advice is to be appreciative and respectful of the people doing the work to promote. Have you ever heard of someone complaining about being thanked too much? Me, either.

Also, get out there and participate. I am a firm believer in leading by example. I attend as many events as I can in addition to my duties as the marketing director and as a skater.

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Seeing Is Believing: The Fan Experience

Roller derby is a unique experience. I asked Donna how she’d describe a roller derby bout to someone who hadn’t been before. She was coy:

A first time experience at a Carolina Rollergirls bout is an experience you have to see to believe. So go to a bout and see.

I’ve noticed that CRG fans are pretty eclectic. I asked Donna if there’s a “typical” fan. She replied:

Our fans are anything but typical. Young, old… white collar, blue collar, dog collar, and no collar… families, college students… you name it.

Some come to show support for a skater they know and others come to the bout because they are die hard derby fans

I asked Donna what’s new in 2011. She mentioned fans can expect even more bouts, with intraleague competitions at Dorton Arena, and family-friendly start times (3pm or 4pm instead of 6pm) :

Home teams are back for 2011! The Carolina Rollergirls are splitting up into three teams — The Debutante Brawlers, Tai-Chitahs, and Trauma Queens — to go skate to skate with one another for the coveted golden skate trophy.

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Marketing Career Advice: Think Like a Consumer

Given Donna’s background in TV news and marketing, I asked about her advice for people who are early in their marketing careers. She highlighted two key points:

Do and learn as much as you can get your hands on. The more you learn about each job as it pertains to promotions, the more valuable you become, and [the more you] understand the work that goes into it.

Think like a consumer (because you are one) and consider the audience you’re targeting.

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Conclusion

Thanks for sharing your experience and insights, Axe! And thanks to marketer Rosanne Smith for making the interview introduction.

Are you ready to check out your first (or next) roller derby bout? Buy your tickets for this Saturday’s bout at Dorton Arena in Raleigh, N.C. See you there!

Marketer Karl Sakas uses research, insights, and relationships to help his clients quickly find new ways to make more money. You can hire him through Coalmarch Productions, the marketing agency in Raleigh, North Carolina. This is the 17th in Karl’s regular series of interviews with marketing and business leaders.

Photos courtesy of Donna Natosi and Joshua Craig Photography.

Allison Najman

Marketer and world traveler Allison Najman is active in the Raleigh-Durham, NC marketing and social media community. In fact, she’s the first person I met “in real life” from Twitter. Allison recently shared:

• why today’s B2B marketing requires the same principles as B2C marketing
• the marketing career benefits of reading pop culture publications like Entertainment Weekly
• the pros and cons of doing marketing in three types of roles: client-side, agency, and independent consulting

I interviewed her last month in person and via email. For more insights, follow Allison on Twitter, read her articles on the Capstrat blog, and ask for a copy of her terrific travel tips presentation.

Allison Najman, MBA

Web Producer at Capstrat and Marketing Strategy Consultant in Durham, NC
More info: @mbagrrl, LinkedIn, and MBAgrrl.com

B2B = B2C, and the Blurring Between Work and Life

Allison has an unusual view on business-to-business versus business-to-consumer marketing. I asked her to elaborate. She explained:

I know this is controversial, but I believe there is no such thing as B2B or B2C marketing; it is all marketing to an individual.

There are two reasons for this. One, our work lives (for better or worse) are no longer contained 9-5 in an office. We work all hours, all days of the week in offices, our homes, coffee shops, etc. People no longer compartmentalize their workday and therefore marketing should not be compartmentalized either.

The second reason is that marketing and communications is only getting more targeted and more personalized and expectations are higher. It doesn’t matter to me if a company is typically a B2B company; I expect them appeal to me and interact with me the same way a typical B2C company would.

At the end of the day, marketers need to know who they are targeting and why, and it is always a person.

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How She Got Here, and What’s Changed Along the Way

I asked Allison how she got to where she is today, and about the biggest trends since she graduated from Appalachian State in 1998 and N.C. State‘s MBA program in 2006. She replied:

Wow… I am not sure there is room in your blog for the complete answer, but here’s a short version. I love design, but it never came particularly easy to me, no matter how hard I worked at it. I started my career as a web and graphic designer. However, after moving to Portland, Oregon in the late 90’s and meeting extremely talented people I eventually realized as much as a I love and appreciated design, I just didn’t have that special talent to be a great designer. So I reevaluated my strengths and what I enjoy and followed a path to marketing. Although I am not a designer myself, being in marketing I still get to interact with creative and talented people.

Obviously since 1998 the Internet has been the biggest trend, but I think beyond that is the ubiquitousness of high speed internet. High speed internet at home has really changed the way we do everything. I remember when people had to do their Amazon shopping at work because it was so slow with dial-up. In addition, the portability of technology has also changed the way we do almost everything.

I hate to be trite, but since 2006, you can’t ignore social media as being the biggest trend. Aside from the tools, I think social media has brought a paradigm shift in how companies interact with their customers that won’t be going away. Ten years from now, there will probably be very different tools for social media, but the mentality of social media will remain. To me, social media is comparable to the rise of the web in the 90’s. Today, no one can fathom not having a website; tomorrow no one will be able to fathom not interacting via social media.

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Keeping Up with the Trends: Pop Culture and Marketing

I asked Allison what she reads, follows, or attends to keep up with the latest trends. She shared:

On my “must” list: Consumerist, Entertainment Weekly, Mental Floss, Marketplace, Marketing Over Coffee, and Twitter. As a marketer, I think it’s really important to be on top of what’s going on in the greater world.

People might consider EW fluff, but it’s a great resource to keep up on pop culture. Honestly, because I don’t have kids and I can only watch so much TV, see so many movies and read so many books, it’s a great way to keep in touch with pop culture references. Without reading EW, I would have no idea about Justin Bieber, Jersey Shore, or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I always feel smarter after reading Mental Floss and listening to Marketplace.

As far as marketing reading, I love Twitter. Because it is through my personal circle of people I choose to follow, it inherently filters out the crap. It is such a great way to aggregate marketing articles from so many different sources. Almost everything I read from my Twitter feed, I probably would not have found on my own. To me, this is the value that Twitter provides.

I also love listening to Marketing Over Coffee. It’s a great podcast that I almost always come away from learning something I didn’t know before.

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Diverse Experience: Client-Side, Agency-Side, and Independent Consulting

Allison has an unusually diverse marketing background — she’s worked on the client side, she’s worked on the agency side, and she’s worked as an independent consultant. I asked her to highlight the pros and cons of each. She replied:

Maybe because the agency side is the newest to me, I am really enjoying working for an agency. I love that I get to work with a variety of industries and cultivate different strategies and tactics. It might also be because Capstrat is a great place to work.

Similar to working in an agency, I enjoyed being a consultant because I got to work with a variety of clients on a myriad of different projects. However, I consciously decided to pursue a full-time position because I missed being an office, as well as the camaraderie of a team. I also didn’t like the business development aspect of it. I was really lucky that almost all my clients came to me through word of mouth, but I realized that would probably last so long and that I would have to eventually actively pursue clients. The hours, flexibility, and dress code are great. Nothing beats working in your pajamas.

I have the most experience working in the client side. I find knowing a lot about one industry, product or target audience has pros and cons. On the one hand, you get to become a subject matter expert in a particular area, having very in-depth knowledge, but on the other, I find this gives you a bit of tunnel vision. I believe it’s important to have deep marketing experience but not necessarily in one particular industry.

I think it’s good when companies bring in someone that doesn’t have 20 years of specific industry experience to their marketing department because they bring a fresh perspective. It’s important for marketers to not get stale and complacent because they think they know their audience as well as they know themselves.

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Something Most People Might Not Know

I asked Allison what most people might not know about her. She replied:

I have been watching Jeopardy! every night ever since I could remember (much easier now with a DVR).

I love to travel. My life’s goal is to visit at least 25 percent of the world’s 192 countries. I am up to 21.

If someone just handed me money to start a business, I would start a shoe company for fashionable wide shoes (this still doesn’t seem to exist).

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Career Advice: Change and Authenticity

I asked Allison about her marketing career advice for someone who’s new to the field. She shared:

Don’t get too attached to a job, company or industry because in your 35+ year career it will probably change. Imagine if you started your marketing career in typewriters; where would you be today? As the world adapts and changes, you need to adapt with it.

Although some people are better at compartmentalizing work and non-work, I think it’s important as a marketer you believe in the company or product you are marketing. Your job as a marketer is to create demand and sales and if you don’t believe in the product or company, it’s much more difficult to market it.

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Conclusion

Thanks for sharing your experience and insights, Allison! Sounds like I need to pay more attention to Entertainment Weekly.

Marketing strategist and account manager Karl Sakas uses research, insights, and relationships to help companies quickly find new ways to make more money. He’s available for hire on a full-time or consulting basis from Raleigh, North Carolina. This is the 16th in his regular series of interviews with marketing and business leaders.

Photo courtesy of Allison Najman in Barcelona, Spain.

Laurie Ruettimann

Career advisor Laurie Ruettimann created a popular career advice blog and recently launched a new startup. She’s also a hilarious speaker. Laurie describes herself as “a failed Human Resources professional and a crazy cat lady.” She recently shared:

• why not everyone should become an entrepreneur
• when it might be a good idea to sleep in the parking lot at work
• how she was “raised by modern-day Amazons” in Chicago

I interviewed her last month via phone and email. For more insights, follow Laurie on Twitter, sign up for an upcoming career webinar, or visit New Media Services LLC, her career & HR media consulting company.

Laurie Ruettimann

Founder at New Media Services LLC in Raleigh, NC
More info: @lruettimann, LinkedIn, and TheCynicalGirl.com

Personal Branding: Substance over Style

Laurie has — perhaps inadvertently — become an expert in personal branding, but she’s critical of a lot of the personal branding advice that’s out there. I asked her to elaborate. She shared:

Most of the personal branding advice out there is awful. Gurus will focus on style and delivery. What happened to content? What happened to taking a stand?

Pick a side. It makes you more interesting.

And remember that in a fight between style and substance, pick substance.

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How She Got Here, and What’s Changed Along the Way

I asked Laurie how she got to where she is today, and about the biggest trends since she started working. She replied:

I’m not sure where I am. Somewhere between success and failure.

I got here through a weird combination of biology, chemistry, physics, birth order, and luck.

When I started working, people hated their jobs and thought they earned too little and their bosses earned too much. That hasn’t changed. The only thing that’s different is now they can confirm their suspicions on the internet.

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Keeping Up with the Trends: We’re Not All Entrepreneurs

I asked Laurie what she reads, follows, or attends to keep up with the latest trends. She responded:

Who can keep up with trends? We’re all just hamsters on the media wheel. It’s pointless to fight it.

I try to diversify my content. I’ll read everything from major newspapers to smaller blogs. I have several hundred feeds on my Google Reader — everything from HBR to Gawker to small websites about crazy & independent political beliefs.

I asked her what she sees as some of the biggest trends in the next 5-10 years. She replied:

In terms of career trends, advisors love to talk about ‘creating your own job’ and being an entrepreneur. That’s great, but how do you become an entrepreneur when you need health insurance and you are priced out of the market? What about retirement accounts and pensions?

Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. Most of us lack the education and the access to capital. Here are some tips to see if you qualify to own your own shop:

• If you can’t do math, you can’t run your own business.
• If you can’t afford to lose money, you can’t be independent.
• If you aren’t comfortable selling to customers, you are not an entrepreneur.

99% of us are not cut out to be our own bosses.

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Getting Out of a Bad Work Situation

I asked Laurie about her advice to someone who’s in a bad work situation but can’t afford to leave without a new job. She advised:

Let’s get some perspective, okay?

Unless you’re a coal miner or a long-distance bus driver, your job isn’t so bad.

My best advice is to use your job to get a new job. If you’re in a bad job situation, you shouldn’t care about your long-term career plans with that company. It shouldn’t matter to you if you get a stellar performance review because your goal is to be gone by the next performance review.

Do the minimum, skate by, and use your time to find a new job.

Side note: I know it’s hard to work for a boss who is a jerk. Most bosses suck. Learn math and be your own boss.

Laurie gave a funny presentation at Ignite Raleigh in March 2010. If you missed her talk — “Why My Cat Can Get a Job Before You” — here’s the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFxXUy9JHN8

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Going Beyond Your Job as the Source of Your Identity

Laurie has talked about how people tend to make their job their identity. Especially while so many people are unemployed or underemployed, I asked about her thoughts on a better approach. She shared:

I think people need therapy. I need it.

Your job can be an important piece of your identity, but if that’s all you have, you are missing out on life. Be a parent. Volunteer. Chillax with your friends. See a movie. Take long lunches. If you’re unemployed or underemployed, you have no long-term connection to a job. Develop other interests.

Some of the best naps I’ve ever taken were in my car in parking lots where I worked. My job sucked. I didn’t care if someone noticed that I took a long lunch. Catching up on my sleep was more important than the difference between a 3% merit increase and a 4% merit increase.

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Never Been Asked: Raised by Modern-Day Amazons

I asked Laurie about an interview question she’s never been asked. She responded:

I’m never asked about my family because many people read my blog or my tweets and assume that they know a little something about my life and my background.

I had a non-traditional upbringing. I was raised by modern-day Amazons. My parents divorced when I was seven. My mother, brother, and I moved in with my Grandmother. My Grandmother was a single mother. My mom had several sisters and they were all single mothers, too.

The moms in my family hustled like hell to make ends meet. They were a working-class tribe of women on the northwest side of Chicago. They were fierce. All that estrogen. All that drama. Schwoo. I have no idea how my brothers are so normal.

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Something People Might Not Know

I asked Laurie what most people might not know about her:

I like stickers. Secretly, I’m a kindergarten teacher.

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Conclusion

Thanks for sharing your experience and insights, Laurie! If you have a chance to hear Laurie speak, go — she’s funny and informative. If Laurie doesn’t currently moonlight as a standup comedian, she should consider it…

Marketing strategist and account manager Karl Sakas uses research, insights, and relationships to help companies quickly find new ways to make more money. He’s available for hire on a full-time or consulting basis from Raleigh, North Carolina. This is the 15th in his regular series of interviews with marketing and business leaders.

Photo courtesy of Laurie Ruettimann

Copywriter and video producer Sonja Jacob

Copywriter and video producer Sonja Jacob is the force behind the clever “Entrepreneurs Can Change the  World” video, which has gotten nearly 500,000 views on YouTube. The campaign for virtual phone provider Grasshopper received the “Viral Hall of Fame” award in 2009. Sonja shared:

• why going viral requires more than just a good video
• how she’s reinterpreting the agency model on a small scale
• the career benefits to being a marketing outsider

I interviewed her last month via phone and email. For more insights, follow Sonja on Twitter or visit her The Cultivated Word copywriting website.

Sonja Jacob

Founder and Chief Cultivator, The Cultivated Word in Boston, MA
More info: @tcwsonja, LinkedIn, and TheCultivatedWord.com

Making the Viral Video

Sonja wrote and produced the “Entrepreneurs Can Change the World” video in May 2009 for virtual phone system provider Grasshopper and the National Entrepreneurs’ Day petition. The video went viral, with nearly 500,000 views on YouTube as of August 2010. The campaign got coverage from the Wall Street Journal, Mashable, and more. Marketing Sherpa named the overall campaign to its Viral Hall of Fame in 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6MhAwQ64c0

I love how the video’s words flow perfectly, with music and kinetic typography. I asked Sonja how the project unfolded. She elaborated:

The Grasshopper “Entrepreneurs Can Change the World” project was the first video I ever produced, but in many ways, I’d been preparing for a creative project like it for a long time beforehand — I’d been writing for eighteen years, and started out writing poetry, so I understood timing and rhythm very well. I was also fascinated by the sheer power generated when you have a beautiful marriage of visuals and music.

Just like any other creative person, I have a zillion stories floating around in my head at any given time, so for the Grasshopper piece, it was just a matter of tapping into the right one. The other crucial factor in producing the video was that the Grasshopper folks wanted to take a risk. They didn’t want to blast out the same old hollow marketing message or “play it safe.” They gave me a license to be creative, maybe even stray slightly “off message,” and into an area that was emotional and real. In the end, their risk paid off and I had the creative flexibility to bring together something very honest and relatable.

I’d been writing website copy here and there for Grasshopper for about five years when one of the startup’s co-founders, Siamak Taghaddos, approached me about taking on a new kind of project — scriptwriting and direction for a short video advertisement. Neither Siamak nor I knew how this video would turn out, but when I completed it, we all knew we had something special on our hands.

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Advice: Creating and Promoting a Video to Go Viral

Based on her experience with the Grasshopper project, I asked Sonja for her advice about creating or promoting a video that’s likely to viral — as much as it’s possible to replicate, or to “make” something go viral. She explained:

I hate the term “go viral” because it implies that somehow “virality” is out of your hands as a marketer, and that’s a fallacy. The funny part about it is that I think it’s a fallacy some creatives and marketers actually propagate so that when you look at their work, you think it’s greater than it is; that somehow, among the detritus of the web, your creative work was shining through like a diamond in the rough. News flash: it’s not as romantic as that.

Getting noticed takes work, so the advice I would give to people about producing a video is not to be naïve about what it takes; to not just create a video, but then promote the hell out of it. Too many folks out there still believe that the proliferation of “viral videos” is because there are just so many ingenious videos out there — total garbage!

Most of the videos we all become aware of — the ones we say have “gone viral” — have massive promotional campaigns behind them, propelling them to social media sites and getting them to the front page of video sharing sites, and on Mashable, TechCrunch and so on.

That is to say that when you want a video to go viral,  it’s irresponsible to imagine that all you have to produce an awesome video. In addition to creating inspired and provocative work, you have to pursue the right marketing channels to spread the word about it and get it in front of the right people.

No one’s going to see your video if they don’t know it exists. That’s the bottom line. In the case of the Grasshopper video, people often don’t realize that it was a part of a massive guerilla marketing campaign the company executed brilliantly — they sent 5,000 chocolate covered grasshoppers in a custom-designed package (I wrote the copy on the packaging) and attached a tag to the wrapper with a URL to the video I produced. When the recipient received the FedEx package of grasshoppers, there was no note, no indication of why they received the parcel, so they were forced to go to the URL on the tag and watch the video I made. Brilliant! In addition to that effort, they had a variety of other promotional and seeding components.

Yes, it’s true the video was moving and spoke to a ton of people on a visceral level, but you always have to combine great creative work with outstanding strategy and execution.

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Creating Her Own Path: Launching a New Company

I asked Sonja how she got to where she is today. She shared:

I’ve been writing since I was ten years old: poetry, short stories, articles, newspapers I “published” myself using my used Apple II and a dot matrix printer. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been “creative,” and I’ve  loved words and ideas.

I always thought I’d be a writer, but when I got to college and took a sociology course, I fell in love with the subject. I was fascinated by sociological trends, movements and the world in general. I went to graduate school and got a master’s degree in sociology, but at the same time, I was also doing freelance website copywriting while working as a research assistant.

When I got my graduate degree, I went to work for a non-profit, which ironically, turned out to be pretty resistant to change. While the experience was a less than gratifying one, I continued freelancing while working there, and eventually decided I would leave to launch my own company. So, in May 2008, I launched The Cultivated Word.

Striking out on my own was scary at first. I had maybe two clients in total. But I started reaching out to business owners, networking, putting myself and my work out there, and finally, I started to gain momentum, referrals, and more work. The turning point for me was taking a huge risk and writing and producing the Grasshopper video, “Entrepreneurs Can Change the World.”

I loved the video medium and have always been fairly obsessed with what it takes to create a beautiful marriage of visuals and music. I’d never produced a video before and had to harness all of the moving parts, but since I’d been freelancing for Grasshopper since before their re-brand, they had a lot of faith in me and let me just source and produce the entire video.

Other than leaving my job to start my own small business, taking that calibrated risk was the best business decision I’ve made because it helped me expand my offerings as a creative services firm and proved to people I could walk the walk.

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Keeping Up with Trends: Cutting Through the Flood of Information

I asked Sonja about some of the biggest trends she’d seen since she started working. She replied:

I think everyone knows that the biggest trends we’ve seen in recent years have centered on social media and its explosive ability to engage huge online audiences in a short amount of time. However, I’m not as interested the biggest trends, but rather, the common themes uniting all of them, which are engagement and connection.

I think there are a lot of interesting trends that emerge from the rise of social media, but if you’re looking for the next big product or innovative concept, don’t look at the big trends, but instead, what’s driving them. Watch how people actually use products, not how they should use products.

I asked Sonja what she reads or follows to keep up with the latest trends. She responded:

It can be really hard to figure out what to read in a time where we’re all inundated with feeds from so many awesome blogs and websites. Before you start making a huge list of blogs you have to read on a daily basis, get on Twitter and start finding people you have something in common with. It doesn’t necessarily have to be people in your own industry — in fact, I’d warn against only following people from your own industry — but individuals with whom you share something, anything, in common. Follow the people that make you think, that engage with others, who are responsive, who stand for something.

Here are some of the blogs, site, and people I really enjoy following*:

• Creativity Unbound (from Edward Boches)
• Un-Marketing
• Read Write Web
• TNGG

*I read a little of everything, and so if I listed all of them here, the list would be ridiculously long! So this is a select group.

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Emerging Trends: Approachableness, Storytelling, and Bandwagons

I asked Sonja what she saw as some of the big trends in the next 5-10 years. She cited three:

Smaller is better. People really are starting to realize that massive, impersonal service can be a huge downfall for almost any kind of company. Instead of the smaller people trying to look big, it seems like we’re all starting to feel a bit more comfortable with having the tools the big guns have, but maintaining a much smaller (but much more loyal) customer base.

Stories over sales pitches. I think people are more aware of the hollow sales pitch now more than ever. People are trying to do more with less these days, and unless your work is spectacular, there just isn’t any room in the budget for fluff. So, people want to hear your story — as simply as possible — and not some ridiculous and empty sales pitch. That goes for the in-person sales meeting to the copy on your website. Be real, be honest, but be strategic.

Jumping on the bandwagon. This is a bad trend that may never go away, but it’s important to avoid it if you can. The perfect example of this is when companies big or small start listening to someone who tells them they “have to be on social media” and then they go and simultaneously create a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, a blog, and a channel on YouTube all in the same morning in the hopes that if they just start blasting information out there, someone will hear it. The truth is, not everyone needs a beefy social media presence. If you don’t have the time to write blog posts, then there’s no point in having a blog. If you don’t want to engage with others on Twitter, don’t sign up for it. Focus on doing what you do well, and if you have any resources left over, then consider social media. It’s not for everyone.

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Reinterpreting the Agency Model

Sonja shared that one of her goals is to reinterpret the agency model on a super-small scale. I asked her to elaborate. She explained:

I come at my creative and marketing work from a different perspective than most because I never wanted to be a marketer, and I still don’t think that I am one.

When I started The Cultivated Word, I wanted to take the best parts of the collaborative process, something that usually occurs only within an agency’s creative team, and bring it directly to the client, let them participate in it. That is to say that I wanted to strip away some of the façade that big agencies maintain so that I could interact more directly with clients and ultimately produce more authentic work.

This doesn’t mean we all sit around singing Kumbaya — I’m not here to coddle people — but it does mean that my clients get more direct interaction and a lot more influence on the creative work, which I think is ideal. After all, companies that want to communicate an authentic message about their product or service don’t want to sequester a creative team in a room and have them come up with a strategy that is so far removed from reality that it doesn’t speak to their customers.

My approach doesn’t always work with every client, which I’ve learned along the way. Sometimes clients want you to come up with an amazing concept without any input or direction at all — they send you some old copy decks and refer you to their website for “inspiration,” but don’t take the project seriously or provide you with any background information. This is usually a disappointing experience for everyone involved.

Instead, what I’m looking for in a project is a client who is enthusiastic and involved, excited about the creative work they produce and balancing it with clear cut objectives and goals. This is probably why I prefer working with entrepreneurs, start-ups and smaller businesses as a whole; they’re still connected enough to their product and service that they get excited about their offerings and transfer that excitement to you.

One of the things I set out to do when I started my company was find a way to get people thinking, questioning, and wrestling with issues. I don’t always get to do that with my work, but when I can, I really enjoy it. It doesn’t mean aligning yourself with a political agenda (I certainly do not), it’s just about getting people to think about something they’ve always taken for granted or get fired up about an issue, and then go do something about it.

We spend too much time playing it safe with our marketing, and the truly great campaigns are the ones that strip away the artifice and get us thinking about what we’re really doing (or not doing) to make our mark on the world.

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Career Advice: Stay an Outsider from Marketing

I asked Sonja about her career advice for someone who’s new to marketing. She replied:

My advice to someone who’s new to marketing would be to remain an outsider to the industry as long as you can. Don’t entrench yourself too deeply if you can help it. It’s important to know what’s going on in your field, but don’t lose yourself in the process because your perspective as an outsider is extremely valuable.

I read a great post about problem solving and creativity from Edward Boches the other day and it reaffirmed my strong belief that creativity is rampant only when you deconstruct the boundaries a little, and stay outside of your comfort zone. Problem-solving only happens when you open yourself up to as many different paradigms as possible.

Unfortunately, we live in a world of binaries and boundaries, but if you can avoid them and stay curious about a variety of different subjects, you’ll end up with a keener ability to identify the threads connecting so much of the social world.

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Beyond Writing and Producing

I asked if there’s something most people might not know about her. Sonja responded:

Besides culture, writing, and making videos, I’m truly passionate about music. I wish I could play an instrument and start a band to rock out with. It would be a band comprised of misfits and we would likely not fit into any one genre of music, but I would have to play the guitar. Other than that, I’m an open book.

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Life Advice: No One’s Going to Hand You the Keys

I asked Sonja if there’s anything she wanted to add. She replied:

I think I went overboard with the length of a few of my responses, so I’ll keep it simple here and offer some advice. George Bernard Shaw said that life isn’t about finding yourself, it is about creating yourself. That doesn’t mean becoming something you’re not. It means you’ve got to stop thinking about the day when someone hands you the keys to the kingdom and go out there and make your life happen.

When it comes to fulfilling your goals, don’t play by the rules. Articulate your dreams to others and let them help you achieve your goals. In return, be a good person and do good things to help others reach their dreams, too.

I think we’re all raised to expect that one day, sometime after college, there will be a day when someone or thing welcomes you to adulthood and you suddenly get the job of your dreams/get famous/rule the world/whatever your goal is. But I’ve found that for most people, these big achievements require small steps, and a lot of hard work. So stop waiting for someone to hand you the keys to kingdom and go out there and unlock the door yourself. Sounds cheesy, but it is true.

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Conclusion

Thanks for sharing your experience and insights, Sonja!

Marketing strategist and account manager Karl Sakas uses research, insights, and relationships to help companies quickly find new ways to make more money. He’s available for hire on a full-time or consulting basis from Raleigh, North Carolina. This is the 14th in his regular series of interviews with marketing experts and business leaders in N.C. and beyond.

Photo courtesy of Sonja Jacob

Speaker and author Seth Godin

Marketing guru Seth Godin created concepts like permission marketing, ideaviruses, and Purple Cows. He’s also a gifted self-marketer. I’ve been a fan of Seth’s work for over a decade. I did a mini-interview with Seth via email last week.

Since I’m sure he gets the same questions over and over again, I thought, What I can I do that’s unique? So I asked Seth, “What are your answers to three questions you’ve never been asked?” Here are his answers — and his questions.

Is there any truth to the rumors about Queen Latifah?

No.

What’s the single best way to get a great job in marketing?

Don’t. Marketing, unlike just about any other job, is something you can do by yourself. You can instantly start selling on eBay or writing a blog or inventing products or doing ads for non profits. So do these things. Do them a lot. If you get great at it, you’ll discover jobs find you.

Is marketing a right or a responsibility?

There’s no question about it: it’s a responsibility. If you’re going to use our airwaves, take away my peace and quiet, transport stuff all over the world, and engage in transactions that change people, sometimes forever, you better stop treating it like something you have a right to do, something that’s there for you to take. No, I think it’s a responsibility, which means you’re responsible for whatever impact you cause.

Conclusion

There you have it — celebrity news, marketing career advice, and corporate social responsibility in 155 words. Thanks, Seth!

If you haven’t discovered his insights yet, follow Seth’s pithy marketing blog, read his latest book, hire him as a speaker, or buy a ticket for his Road Trip.

Analytical marketer Karl Sakas uses creative systems to help clients quickly find new ways to make more money. This is the 13th in his regular series of interviews with marketing experts and business leaders.

Photo credit: Brian Bloom Photographs, via owner Seth Godin

Beck Tench is one of the most insightful people I know. You may know her from N.C.’s Museum of Life + Science, as a creative blogger at BeckTench.com, or as the organizer of a weekly ‘salon’ in Durham, North Carolina.

Her bio gives a good sense of her diverse background:

Beck Tench is a simplifier, illustrator, story teller and technologist. Formally trained as a graphics designer at the University of North Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, she has spent her career elbow deep in web work of all sorts — from the knowledge work of information architecture and design to the hands dirty work of writing code and testing user experiences. Currently, she serves as Director for Innovation and Digital Engagement at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC where she studies and experiments with how visitors and staff use technology to plan, enhance and share their everyday lives.

Beck’s also a catalyst — she and Phil Buckley inspired me to relaunch my blog earlier in 2010. I interviewed her last week via email. For more insights, follow her on Twitter or see her updates at BeckTench.com. While you’re at it, join the Museum — membership includes free reciprocal admission at 280+ science museums worldwide.

Beck Tench

Director for Innovation and Digital Engagement, Museum of Life + Science in Durham, NC
More info: @10ch, LinkedIn, and BeckTench.com

Winding Path: From a Job to a Career to a Calling

I noted that her work spans multiple areas, from web design to user experience to science education. I asked Beck how she got to where she is today, since graduating from UNC in 2001. She shared:

If we start in 2001 and chart the job security of web workers, I spy a trend that starts in the valley of a sine wave and peaks in 2003 and 2007. Not coincidentally, those two years mark major growth for me and my career.

In 2003 I took a position at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, marking a change in how I viewed my web work: I had a career, now, not just a job. At Duke I was the quintessential webmaster. It was not unusual for me to divide my time between designing in Photoshop, writing custom (i.e. bad) PHP code for our website, sending an HTML newsletter in Thunderbird, updating the SVN repository on our webserver, creating an event advertisement for display on screens around campus, and meeting with a professor to discuss navigation and content on his or her research group website.

After four years of working the web from stem to stern, I was eager to specialize. In 2007 I went to work for an agency as an information architect. I learned quickly that I’m “mission monogamous” and wasn’t fulfilled spreading my ideas and time between several clients. Not two months after joining the agency, I was looking for new opportunities.

A couple months into my search I stumbled onto a position for an “Online Community Manager” at the Museum of Life and Science. I was hungry for mission and freedom and the museum was overflowing with both. After brainstorming with the person who’d soon become my boss, we created a position that combined what they’d been looking for with my prior experience and I joined the museum as their “Director of Web Experience.”

As my work at the museum merged more with exhibit development, learning and engagement began to direct my work more than the number of followers we had on Twitter or visitors we had on our website. My title changed to “Director for Innovation and Digital Engagement,” marking a second change in how I view my work: now a calling, not just a career.

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Identifying and Solving the Important Problems

During her compelling “Becoming an Agent of Change in Your Organization” presentation, Beck asked the audience, “What are the most important problems in your field?” (and “Are you working on them? / Why not?”).

I asked Beck how she’d answer that herself. She noted, “Here are a couple problems that come to bed with me every night”:

One is how we manage ideas. From an institutional perspective, sharing an idea is a risk and needs to be rewarded. How do we reward the sharing of an idea without having to commit resources to making every idea happen? How do we document an idea so that it’s findable and translatable in a day/week/month/year? How does that documentation complement any given person’s ideation style (I draw my ideas, you write yours, she likes to talk things out)? How do we ensure that people feel productive and valuable when their job is to produce something as intangible as an idea?

Another is using science as a way of knowing about the world. We have been taught to view science as a pure, cold, controlled pursuit. What happens when you empower warm-bodied individuals, living complex lives with it? Where does intuition complement and complicate a scientific understanding of the world? How do I know who to trust when scientific claims can be completely contradictory? How do I isolate and measure something in my everyday life when it is influenced by countless other variables?

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Keeping Up with Trends: Reading & Experimenting

I asked Beck what she reads or follows to keep up with the latest trends. She said:

I’m paying a lot of attention to the Quantified Self movement and conducting a few personal experiments in that realm.

I’ve been a loyal follower of Merlin Mann since 2006 and continue to pick up everything he puts down. [ see 43 Folders and Kung Fu Grippe ]

Dave Gray opened a whole new world of visual thinking and creativity for me and continues to inspire. [ see Communication Nation ]

I also read paper: a couple of books every month, the Sunday NYT, (mostly museum) journal articles.

I asked what she saw as some of the major trends in the next 5-10 years. Beck responded:

As for trends, I’m looking forward to seeing what form factor personal computing takes and which forms of input and projection will seem rudimentary (mice? keyboards? glass screens?) in a decade’s time.

I also feel we are in a “Roaring Twenties” period with privacy and am curious to see how the public lives of private individuals morph over the next several years.

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Personal Branding: Sharing from the Stage

Between her blog, presentations and speaking engagements, illustrations, and weekly “office hours” salon in Durham, I’ve noticed that Beck has built a strong personal brand as a thought leader in several domains. I asked her advice about personal branding. She shared four points:

• Be kind to others and to yourself.
• Realize that you are on a stage with a microphone, speak accordingly.
• Share only that which you would share both at work and at home.
• If it gives you pause, pause.

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Tools: Sharing, Organizing & Communicating Ideas

I asked Beck what tools she uses to share, organize, and communicate her ideas. She elaborated:

My brain isn’t just in my skull, anymore. It’s in the sketchbook and iPhone that I have with me nearly everywhere I go. I sync Notational Velocity (which is what I’m using to write this, by way of QuickCursor and WriteRoom) to TaskPaper via SimpleText so that all of my writing is accessible via my iPhone. I also scan in my sketchbooks and import them into Evernote so that they’re on my iPhone as well (but that system doesn’t work as well as I’d like it to).

I couldn’t work without Gmail (as opposed to Entourage or Thunderbird or Mail) and I couldn’t Gmail without a slew of filters, Mailplane and Multiple Inboxes.

Flickr by way of Twitter and Facebook is my sharing platform of choice. I’ve been using Flickr nearly every day since 2004 and am surprised by the amount of loyalty I have to it.

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Career Advice: Technology, Design, and UX

I asked Beck’s advice for people starting out in technology, design, user experience (UX), or related fields. She recommended three things:

1. Tell your own, authentic story… and start right now. Reading an honest account of an enthusiastic pursuit to learn something is compelling and inspiring.
2. Create for stock and for flow. Figure out how much time you can invest and divide your efforts amongst smaller, less edited but more frequent creations (flow) and more thoughtful, higher fidelity ones (stock). I feed my flow with sketches, tweets and photo uploads. I feed my stock with more thoughtful pieces and art projects that take more planning and editing.
3. Fake it until you make it. Figure out who you want to be and act as that person would act. Publish for their followers, create with the confidence they’ve established. I’ve made tremendous change happen in my life and much of it started by playing pretend.

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Conclusion

Thanks for sharing your experience and insights, Beck! This is the 12th in my series of interviews with marketing experts and business leaders, in North Carolina and beyond. If there’s someone you’d like to learn from, let me know and I’ll try to feature them in a future interview.

Photo courtesy of Beck Tench

You may know marketing analytics entrepreneur Adam Covati as co-founder and CTO at social media metrics provider Argyle Social, or as the co-organizer of Web Analytics Wednesday in the N.C. Research Triangle.

But did you also know:

• there’s money to be made when marketers know the answer to “boxers or briefs?”
• Adam’s four stages of social media metrics?
• why he recommends working at smaller companies?

I interviewed Adam last month near his office in Durham, NC. He really seems to “get it.” For more insights, follow him on Twitter, read his articles on the Argyle Social blog, or sign up for the Argyle Social beta (I just did).

Adam Covati

Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Argyle Social in Durham, NC
More info: @covati, @argylesocial, LinkedIn, and AdamCovati.com

Smart Product Management: Getting Inside the Customer’s Head

Speaking with Adam, I was struck by how much he focused on understanding customers’ needs. His business philosophy is about solving problems, not about doing technology for technology’s sake.

By working for smaller companies that sold their services to bigger companies, he was exposed to a wide variety of perspectives. He started as a developer/programmer but then moved to marketing and product management. He mentioned a myth about marketers at large companies:

“A common misconception is that big companies can afford to hire very expensive people who are very good at things. I found that big companies hired the same people as everyone else does.

“At any level, marketers need solutions that are easy. They’re all really busy, they need stuff fast. They need to be able to point and click. They have a lot of data but most marketers don’t have the time to think about how to use it.

“At the bigger companies, you do have more resources and you can sometimes afford to have people focus on more detailed things. You can have someone who’s more technical. But [as a vendor], you’re never gonna be as successful if your products are very restrictive or very difficult to use.”

Adam described his philosophy at Argyle Social, including how he shows customers (and their bosses) how they’ll benefit from using his SaaS product:

“Keep things simple. Provide power but not at the sake of usability. Provide ‘proof points.’ Until you can prove ROI, you’re gonna have a hard time getting a real budget.

“[When I did email marketing,] we couldn’t get a particular client to spend $500 on an improved email template, but once [we proved that the CEO was getting $1 million a year in revenue from the emails alone], he saw that value and he said, ‘Yeah, all right, do it!’

“For a lot of people, they think social media is about conversations and interactions. And it is. But it’s not only about that, right? It’s not just an art form. You need to know that it’s providing value, too.

“Now, if you can’t prove an ROI, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do [social media]. But if you can start to try to prove that ROI, then maybe you can start to get more budget.”

Later, Adam highlighted the importance of having a product manager or another wears-many-hats liaison to translate between developers and customers (or marketers). After I joked about sounding like the guy on Office Space who “takes the specs from the customers to the engineers,” Adam said:

“It’s a very important skill to have and I think a lot of people underestimate that. Being in the area I’m in, I found that a lot of social media applications are built by tech guys who don’t have someone in between [them and the customer].

“There are a lot of tools out there [where] some guy was like ‘Oh, I can do that in Twitter. I can build something for Facebook.’ But it doesn’t meet a lot of needs. It does one very specific thing and it’s not very usable by marketers.”

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Profiting from the Marketing Data: Boxers or Briefs?

Adam shared an anecdote from several years ago, when he was advising a large retail manufacturer that sold a lot of underwear online:

“I was working with them on their email marketing. They had a ton of data about what their customers are buying on their website. And I said, ‘Well, do you know if people buy boxers or briefs?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah! Actually, we know their preference.’

“I was like, ‘Okay. So when you do your email marketing, why don’t you show boxers for guys who buy boxers and show briefs for guys who buy briefs?’

“It may be subtle but when you’re talking about sending out to 150 thousand, 400 thousand, 1 million people, it could be a lift.”

He mentioned how it’s important not to overwhelm clients with their data:

“I went in and I looked at the data they had. And it was awesome. It was kinda like being that kid on a playground. You know, I was like, ‘Oh, you can do sorts of stuff!’”

“We sat down for two hours and we came up with all sorts of stuff but the biggest thing I did before I went crazy is that we came up with a plan for them to do one change to their email every other week.”

Ultimately, he succeeded in making the clothing etailer more of a data-driven marketing organization:

“So it opened their eyes. Within a couple of months, they were really branching out and saying ‘How else can we customize?’ Because they slowly went there. They realized it wasn’t a lot more work.

“And that was a huge thing for me to realize: [marketers] are just really overworked like everybody else. They’ve got a lot of tools at their fingertips but they’re just trying to get their daily work done. [Marketers can’t] spend out a lot of time figuring out what they could do.”

Adam mentioned the importance of using numbers to prove that sales are coming from specific channels. When he cited the 40-person company where the CEO was running the $1 million email marketing program, I pointed out that they should have hired someone for $60,000 a year, so the CEO could focus on building the business. Adam said:

“The other side of it is until you could prove that they made a million, they couldn’t justify the purchase. We had to actually get them to implement conversion tracking. And then they saw that they were making a million. Then they could justify that purchase.”

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Adam Covati’s Four Stages of Social Media Tracking: From Zero to Systematic

I’ve noticed that the big challenge about social media marketing is that a lot of companies do it, but almost no one can measure the dollar impact. Argyle seems to solve the “prove it” part of the equation.

Adam outlined his four-step framework for how companies approach social media measurement:

1. “The first level is just ‘no idea.’ It’s just like, ‘Yeah, we do it because we think we have to.’ And there’s just a sense of urgency to do it. Marketers are understanding they need to be in the social space, but they don’t really know why so they’re there and doing something. But that also means they don’t have goals and they’re probably not really doing a lot of value. At stage one, you have no grounding.”
2. “The next level is that you’re at this ‘anecdotal stage’ where you kinda know what you’re trying to do and you may know that ‘Oh, yeah. We got that deal.’ or, ‘They found about us on Twitter.’ or, ‘When we tweeted a bunch about this thing, we saw sales go up.’ So once or twice you’ve seen something that kinda proves it, but you don’t really have any real proof. There are a lot of marketers at this stage. And that’s a good place to be because you know you’re effective, and you can go up from there.”
3. “The next stage is where you start to have some ‘proof points.’ This is where I’m starting to see more marketers but it’s still not a lot. I see some people maybe using bit.ly and they may say ‘Yeah. I got 100 clicks on this link. I got 400 clicks on that one.’ And you start to measure a little bit but there’s no real structure to it. That helps but it’s problematic ‘cause there’s a lot of burden on the marketer. Like everyone else, you’re overworked and you don’t have time. You end up with these crazy Excel spreadsheets and if you miss two or three things, you’re missing data points.”
4. “This led us to Argyle,  which is really a systematic approach to tracking. It’s really taking this level of analytic marketing that we find at applications like Bronto or Unica, for email marketing or pay-per-click. It’s very systematic and it’s all controlled. You can measure everything, but you don’t have to do all that work to measure. It all happens automatically when you use a good platform.”

Adam elaborated on the benefits of using a centralized analytics platform:

“Anything that goes through the engine, we track all those clicks. We know everything about the referrals, who’s clicking and when and where. And the idea is that, you may not be thinking about everything you wanna know right now. But you’ll already have all the data at your fingertips.

“When you use a platform, you can have everyone from the [CEO] to a customer service rep tweeting and posting on Facebook and so on. And they don’t have to worry about tracking. And one analytics person can log in and see what everybody’s doing.

“When you go to Google Analytics or you go to Omniture, whatever it is you’re using, you’ll have contextual data. [At Argyle] we’re fond of saying that Twitter or Facebook doesn’t drive traffic to your website. What drives traffic to your website is the content that you place on Twitter or the content you place on Facebook.”

Adam mentioned Argyle’s recent “Social Media Marketing Report,” which surveyed companies’ involvement in social media. When they asked about time and money invested, they found some surprising results:

“With Argyle, Eric and I pulled together a survey and we asked people about the budget they had for social media. A lot of people spent less than $500 a month, or $20 a month, or even $0 a month. But interestingly enough, most people ended up having at least half a person work on social media.

“A lot of people I talk to say, ‘We don’t spend any money on social media.’ ‘Well, how much time do you put?’ ‘I don’t know. We’ve got somebody spends an hour or two hours a day.’ That’s a piece of time! I mean it’s not 20% but have to include benefits and whatnot. You need to understand the [social media marketing] ROI on [staff time].”

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Changes in How People Perceive Entrepreneurship: From Insult to Frenzy to Normal

Adam graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2001. He noted that perceptions of entrepreneurship have changed substantially in the past 50 years:

“I think we’re all very biased by the world we live in. Fifty years ago, [saying someone was] an entrepreneur was an insult. It was like if you didn’t work for a big company like benefits and such, you were some fly-by-night kind of guy.”

It’s even changed a lot in 10 years. Going to college during the dot-com boom, Adam said there was a perception that startup employees were always on the verge of becoming millionaires or going broke in a week:

“There was this idea of startups being this hot place, with corporate race cars and ridiculous expense accounts — stuff like that. Everybody wanted to be in the start-up and that was the exciting thing to do.”

I remember that same buzz about dot-coms when I was in high school around that time. Today, Adam remarked, startups are small, scrappy companies, but there’s not necessarily the boom-bust dichotomy.

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Keeping Up with Trends: Diversify Your Sources

I asked Adam what he reads, follows, and attends to keep up with the latest trends. He mentioned Twitter has become a terrific aggregator and filter:

“I used to have a ton of blogs in [Google Reader], somewhere around 200 — a lot of which were industry blogs when I was in email marketing. Most of that is replaced now by TweetDeck. I have a couple of different columns running where it separates people into different interest groups. Mostly Twitter, though I did keep Facebook and LinkedIn. I usually have anywhere between three and five screens up.”

For in-person events, he mentioned organizing Web Analytics Wednesday with I-Kong Fu, and how he goes to TIMA events when he can. He remarked that many people resist going to networking events or otherwise connecting with new people:

“There are still a lot of people out there who don’t get out a lot. They don’t go to a lot of business type events. They think, ‘Oh, it’s boring.’ [But] your network is so powerful. It has been amazingly helpful to me. Friendships, fun, business connections, learning about things, and opening doors. For any kind of aspect, whether it’s a personal thing or a business thing, I found that it really helps.

“One thing I really love about Twitter — and social media in general — is that it lowers barriers. If you want to understand what’s going on, you want to stay in touch with people. Back in the days of when I was doing product management at Unica, we were kinda isolated. When you run a platform, when you have aspects of every tool, half the world is your competitor. Even for people I interacted with regularly, I had to call them or email them, and that’s a big barrier when everyone’s busy.

“With things like Twitter, I’m constantly putting stuff out there and if it’s relevant to you, it feels almost like I’m telling you personally. Especially if it’s someone where you’ve had even one personal interaction with, you have a little better connection with them. Now you’ve lowered the barrier because you’ve said something to maybe a hundred, maybe a thousand, however many people follow you. And it’s very quick and easy to react. ‘Cause you can’t spend more than 30 or 40 seconds responding because you’re limited to 140 characters yourself.

“The barrier is so much lower, that it encourages interaction so much more, that you build relationships. And these are people who may be in another town or the other side of the world. And you’re interacting with them on a frequency that is just so much higher and you’re aware of what’s going on in their life even if you’re only casually keeping up on Twitter or Facebook.”

He cited the value of Reddit as a source of interesting content and as a cross-medium sounding board, once he filters out the stranger submissions.

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Hiring and Motivating Teams: Seeking Passion

Adam shared his thoughts on hiring a team, including the importance of finding passion:

“[Fog Creek Software CEO and industry thought leader] Joel Spolsky covered it really well. He has that huge article on interviews. One of the things he said is when you interview someone, especially a programmer, they’re not always the best around people and so they may be a little nervous. But when you get them talking about something [they’re interested in], that nervousness is gone. This person has this passion about it that makes them forget about being nervous. And so, I look for that.

“I look for people who you can get into a conversation with and they start throwing out ideas. Someone who’s not afraid to challenge me. [In a recent Argyle interview], I started talking about some of the stuff we’re gonna be doing. [The candidate] started thinking about it and throwing out ideas. [I realized] when we give him a problem, he isn’t just going to come up with an answer. He’s going to think it through.

“I ask about previous projects, you know: ‘Oh, what’s something you worked on recently?’ That can be a little difficult, especially if they didn’t like what they did before. [But then I can ask], ‘Did you have a side project?’ I can see if they have passion about something.

“And the question is, do I think it can translate? Part of it is, do I think they’re gonna find this interesting? It’s not always easy to find that out.”

He talked about the benefit of hiring contractors for small initial projects, and about giving ‘homework assignments’ to prospective developers:

“I’m giving them something small, and I’ll see what kind of questions they’ll come back with. I’ll see what they produce and how they work. ‘Here’s a little programming project. Just write me a really simple blog. I’d like to see this, that, or the other.’ Of the people we end up hiring, they might have hacked this or that, but they really went to town on another aspect.

“Some people [complain that it’s] a lot of work for interviewing. I said, ‘Well, do you want to spend four years of your life working with this company? This will be your life.’ If you’re not willing to jump in up front and give it your all right up front, are you ever willing to?

“[Some] people really jumped in and did something really fun. Maybe they learned something new, or they’re excited to show you how it works. I was like, ‘This person got into it. They have that capacity.’ Now if they don’t get into it when they’re working a job, that’s my fault.”

He shared about motivating teams, especially when they’re stuck, or when marketing or customer service asks for something that’s difficult to implement:

“It’s my job to work with them that they can feel empowered. We start talking about solutions. It’s like ‘Alright guys, you’re smart, help me out with some ideas there.’ I’m not just gonna give you a list of things to do. Let’s do this together. And I’ve found that developers sometimes find the best solution to the problem once they feel a little more empowered, [instead of] just being dictated to.

“You want to solve this problem. You think it’s interesting. Oftentimes you spend your whole day coding, but a lot of developers don’t want to just code. They want to think about the problem and then come up with a solution and then make it happen. It’s about taking a story to the development team and having them figure out how to do it and how to implement things.”

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Career Advice: Pitch in at Small Companies

I noticed a theme to Adam’s career experience and anecdotes. By working at small companies, he could get involved in all sorts of things. He noted that it isn’t a match for everyone. But by pitching in, it sounds like he assembled the experience that positioned him perfectly to launch Argyle Social today.

“When you wear all those hats, you’ve been there and you’ve done everything. And you can get better [at understanding] how the pieces of the organization work together. When you do that, you can work a lot better with them. It really enabled me later to work with marketing, engineer, sales, and finance departments.”

He explained that when marketers or developers complained about sales people, he could say, “Well, have you been in a sales call when the software doesn’t work?” He continued:

“When you’re a small company, you’ll pitch in everywhere. It’s harder at a really big company to be like, ‘Oh, can I go on a sales call?’ or ‘Can I see what marketing’s doing?’ Or they’re like, ‘No!’”

“I found that the smaller companies are more willing to give people chances, if you really wanna move fast. I was leading a team of developers a year out of college, and the reason was because I’ve worked at start-ups so they’ve just thrown stuff at me.

“At bigger companies you tend to get these very specific tasks. It wasn’t like I could just go to my boss [at the smaller company] and be like, ‘Hey, how do I do this?’ They’re just like, ‘We need this. We need this.’  And I would say ‘Okay. I just need to figure it out.’

The early experience helped later, because he could say he’d done it before:

“That kind of attitude and atmosphere really helped me later on [at bigger companies], when someone asked for help and I could say, ‘Well, I’ve done a little bit of that. I can help.’”

He mentioned how doing something he’s passionate about makes the day fly by:

“I just love diving in and doing it. If there’s anything I can impart, it’s that I think there are too many people out there who need a job. It’s such a large part of their life and they’re not passionate about it. And I think that’s painful.

“In the middle of your career, it’s [important to] stop and ask yourself if you’re enjoying what you do. My day flies by. I’ll look at my computer and think, ‘Oh, it’s Friday.’ It seems like it’s always just Saturday because the weeks just fly by.

“I think if you’re not doing something you’re passionate about, that’s a lot of your life to spend working. [When] your job is more fulfilling, you accomplish more. You’re more successful. You just do something you enjoy. I think that there are just way too many people out there who have a passion and are afraid to do it. The people who work at Bronto are awesome. I love what I did there but I’m very happy that I’ve left to do this ‘cause the time goes by even faster.

“It’s kind of generic, it’s almost Hallmark-y to say it, but my business partner Eric and I just love what we’re doing and we try to reflect it in our product. That’s huge because I think people really like that. The people we talk to or give demos to or work with already, they can see that. And when they make feature suggestions and we get excited about that and say “Oh, that’s awesome!” and we implement the suggestions, they get excited about it, too. We make the product better because of it.”

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Conclusion

Thanks for sharing your experience and insights, Adam! I’m looking forward to exploring the Argyle Social beta program.

This is the 11th in my series of interviews with marketing experts and business leaders, in North Carolina and beyond. If you know someone I should speak with, let me know and I may be able to feature them in a future profile.

Photo courtesy of Adam Covati

You may know Jay Dolan as the force behind the insightful satire at The Anti-Social Media, or as an engaging speaker at Ignite Raleigh and RecruitCamp. He tells it like it is.

But did you also know:

• how he uses satire and criticism for the power of good, not evil?
• what he’d do differently if he were starting over today as a blogger?
• that he’s a trained opera singer?

I interviewed Jay this week via email about his blogging experience and his balanced approach to criticism. For more insights, follow him on Twitter or read his entertaining articles at TheAntiSocialMedia.com.

Jay Dolan

Founder and Editor at The Anti-Social Media in Raleigh, NC
More info: @JayDolan, @TheAntiMedia, LinkedIn, TheAntiSocialMedia.com, and JayDolan.net

The Anti-Social Media, and Using Criticism for the Power of Good

For those who aren’t familiar with his prolific satire and media criticism at TheAntiSocialMedia.com blog, I asked Jay to describe the platform and how it came about:

“The Anti-Social Media is a humorous social media satire and criticism blog. I focus a lot on how to use social media better, as well as why social media strategies and plans often go awry.

“The idea came about when I started attending a lot of social media events such as Triangle Tweetup and Social Media Club. I realized for as many of my friends who totally loved social media, there were just as many that absolutely hated it.

“I realized there needed to be a place where the people who hated it could vent, as well as for the people who loved it to realize what was driving people nuts.”

I find myself agreeing with most of Jay’s posts. I asked him to elaborate on using criticism for the power of good, not evil. Jay replied:

“It’s hard to be a good critic. You don’t want to be mean, but at the same time, you can’t let people get away with laziness, complacency, and sloppiness.

“There is a difference between quality content and stuff that is simply garbage. Just because you have one tweet in someone’s list of thousands doesn’t mean you should write like nobody watches.

“I almost never call out someone when criticizing them on my blog. If I see something horrendous, I will privately message someone, but otherwise I try to let people get the picture on their own.

“When I can, I change names and avoid links. I know my readers are smart enough to get what I am saying and apply it to themselves without me having to force it down their throats.”

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Personal Branding & Nurturing a Cult Following

Judging by posts, comments, and retweets, Jay has successfully grown his Anti-Social Media brand quickly (in a field that’s completely unrelated to his music degree from UNC). I asked his advice about personal branding:

“Always be yourself. You may be a slightly better version of yourself, but people want to see the genuine you. I really am a pessimistic, sarcastic person, I just take it to an insane level for my online writing.

“Always take the time to thank the people who spread what you put out there. If a reader can take the time to read what you’ve written or recorded and then share it, you can take the time to say thank you.

“Never be afraid to drop your own thoughts. It’s a great way to connect with other people and start a dialogue. If your opinion is wrong, don’t argue the point. Take the opportunity to connect and learn.

“There is no ‘and‘ in personal brand. You can really only have your personal brand be one thing. Trust me, I’ve tried. Think of the one thing you really want to be known for in the world, and start working towards that.”

I noted that he’s created something of a cult following. I asked Jay how it happened, and how he handles it:

“I’m a voice of dissent and anger in a world of ‘likes’ and retweets. Within the past four years, so much of online identity has moved from screen names to our given name. People don’t want to be known as angry, crass, or rude, and people are afraid to openly speak their opinion.

“I’m one of a few popular social media bloggers who does not work in any marketing, PR, or social media capacity. That gives me the liberty to say a lot more of what I want to without any negativity coming back to me or the company I work for.

“As for the cult following, I try to connect with every reader that comes to my blog and writes to me, whether via e-mail, Twitter, or leaving a comment. Because of that, I’ve built a strong following with the readers who do come to my site. If that’s a cult, then I need to start passing out the Kool-Aid.”

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Tools, Tracking, and Popular Posts

I asked what tools he uses to manage and track content at The Anti-Social Media. Jay replied:

“I blog using Tumblr. It’s one of the easiest, most useful tools for blogging, and it doesn’t take a lot of effort to set it up on a custom domain. It does lack a lot of the plug-in functionality of a larger platform like WordPress, and it’s truly awful for SEO purposes without a lot of tweaking, but it is good if you just need to get up and running.

“I mostly use Google Analytics and Feedburner to track which posts are popular, though I can usually get a good sense of what hits a nerve based on comments and retweets.”

I asked Jay about his most popular posts, and why he thinks they caught on:

“The most popular post by far I’ve written is “Stop Linking all Your Social Accounts.” I think that one touched a nerve because it is well-written, pretty funny, and had a good message behind it.

“Other popular posts include “How to be an Awesome Blogger” and recently “Why I don’t follow your brand on Twitter.”

“Those posts hit it off because I connect with a lot of bloggers and social media professionals online, and they find that type of information relevant and useful.”

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Blogging Advice & Lessons Learned

I asked Jay what he’s learned since launching The Anti-Social Media in November 2009:

“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to never give up. I constantly get burned out from blogging, tweeting, and searching for new post topics. It’s hard work on top of having a completely different job and a social life. Your online persona won’t be solidified from just one good post. You have to keep at it.

“Also, write everything down. I constantly jot notes constantly in a small notebook or on my phone. That way, even when I can’t start writing a post immediately, I have the major point and ideas available for later.”

If he were starting over, I asked if there’s anything he would have done differently. Jay replied:

“If I were to start out now, I wish I didn’t out myself as the person behind The Anti-Social Media from the get go. While I don’t want to criticize particular people, there are some things I think I could get away with and be a bit meaner about. There are certain buttons I want to push that I can’t push without burning a lot of bridges.

“Also, I’d probably consider adding a ‘retweet this’ button. I hate how they look, but I see how useful they are.”

I asked Jay for his advice to someone who wants to start sharing his or her opinion online:

“Praise publicly, criticize privately, and if you have to criticize publicly think twice before naming names. Don’t be afraid to be negative because not everything is always going to work out happily ever after. Also, real people aren’t always happy, and if you only portray positivity online, you’re lying to your audience.”

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What’s Next, and Beyond the Blog

I asked Jay what we can expect from The Anti-Social Media in the future:

“I just completed a full site redesign. It keeps the logo from the original site, but beyond that, it’s a whole new look. I will be moving the entire blog to WordPress soon. I love Tumblr, but I’m growing a bit too big for the platform, especially as I get more readers. I also hope to get into more video, but we’ll see, since there are only so many hours in the day.”

I asked Jay if there’s anything most people don’t know about him:

“Regardless of my garish and sarcastic persona online, I can be considerably shy in person. I said this before, but most people don’t realize I don’t work in social media, marketing, or PR. Also, I am a trained opera singer, and can speak three languages.”

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Conclusion

Thanks for sharing your experience and insights, Jay! We can all look forward to reading your entertaining insights at TheAntiSocialMedia.com.

This is the 10th in my series of interviews with marketing experts and business leaders, in North Carolina and beyond. If you know someone I should speak with, let me know and I may be able to feature them in a future profile.

Photo courtesy of Jay Dolan

Karen Albritton at Capstrat

You might know Karen Albritton as president of communications agency Capstrat, or as current president of the Triangle AMA.

But did you also know:

• the public health benefits from her most memorable project?
• what she sees as the top future trends in marketing?
• the open-ended question she asks every job candidate?

I interviewed Karen earlier this month via email. For more insights, follow her on Twitter or read her articles in the Capstrat blog.

Karen Albritton

President at Capstrat in Raleigh, NC
More info: @kalbritton, LinkedIn, Capstrat.com, and TriangleAMA.org

Marketing Trends: Past, Present, and Future

Since she started in marketing 26 years ago, I asked Karen about the biggest changes she’s seen:

“First, is the pace of our industry. In 1984 we weren’t using email and we were only beginning to use personal computers. In fact, we weren’t even using fax machines. Today our work happens much more rapidly. That creates opportunities to do more, collaborate more, and respond more quickly. It also means less time for reflection and for the craft of our business. But, there’s no use lamenting the change, because it’s here to stay. We have to adapt.

“Then an obvious change is technology. When I started out, there was debate over whether a fourth television network (Fox) would ever be able to compete with the Big 3. Look what’s happened since. Marketers need to remember new technology will continue to change our industry.

“More important than the changes are the things that stay the same. The importance of marketing in fueling business. The need to connect with consumers on an emotional level. The opportunities to use marketing not only to sell products but to change attitudes and behavior.”

I asked what she reads, follows, or attends to keep up with the latest trends. Karen replied:

“First, the folks around me are great sources of the latest information. My colleagues at Capstrat — along with my two teenage daughters — are great sources for trend information.

For business, the best sources for me are publications such as Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, and occasionally their podcasts. I also attend industry events and read industry newsletters and trade magazines.

For general trends and topics, I get a lot of information from Twitter, along with mass media like CNN and Time.”

As she finishes her term as president of the Triangle chapter of the American Marketing Association, I asked Karen what she sees as some of the biggest marketing trends in the next 5-10 years. She highlighted three points:

“Global. Marketers will have to understand and react to the world economy, global cultures, and shifting markets. There are some marketers who are doing that today, but most aren’t.

Mobile. Where information and marketing content is consumed will present new opportunities and challenges for marketers and for media channels.

Demographics. We still have to work our way through the retirement of the Baby Boomers, at least those who plan to or are able financially to retire. When I’m asked to describe Boomers, I always say “acquisitive.” As this workforce ages out of the workplace, look for the workplace to change, along with attitudes about work and money, and potentially about consumption.”

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Running the Company

With her role as President of Capstrat, I asked Karen how she’d describe her position, and how she got to where she is today, after graduating from UNC‘s journalism program in 1984:

“I oversee day-to-day operations at Capstrat. Essentially that means I need to make sure we have the team and resources in place to do whatever needs to get done for our clients and our agency to be successful. We have an incredible team at Capstrat and that’s what makes my job great.

“My career has far exceeded my expectations, so I’m not entirely sure how I got here. I believe it’s because I’ve been blessed with a number of mentors and coworkers who have taught me so much and continue to teach me.”

On her LinkedIn profile, one of her former employees (Andy Sumlin, while they were at FGI) noted, “Even to this day, sometimes I pause and ask myself, ‘How would Karen approach this situation?’”

That’s quite a compliment. I asked Karen what she thinks he was getting at:

“Oh heavens. Maybe he was saying that he’d do the opposite of what I’d do!

“Seriously though, what I think that really means is that Andy is asking what my mentors would do — people like Janice Hunter, Rick Myracle, Bob Doherty, James Protzman, Ken Eudy. Because those people are the source of all of whatever knowledge I was able to share with Andy. (BTW, Andy is an extremely bright and talented marketer and media expert in his own right.)”

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At Work

Looking back, I asked Karen about her most memorable project. She said:

“My most memorable project is the work Capstrat and the Health and Wellness Trust Fund have done over the past seven years to help convince teens not to use tobacco.

“When we started, not surprisingly, tobacco-use rates among North Carolina teens were above the national average. We had to develop communications that would not only be effective with teens but would also be mindful of the rich tobacco heritage of the state.

“Today, thanks to the work of the Health and Wellness Trust fund grantees and the advertising campaign, teen tobacco-use rates are now at historic lows — even below the national average.”

I asked whom she admired in business or elsewhere. Karen replied:

“One group of people I am in awe of currently is the new parents at Capstrat. We are in the midst of a baby boom here. I believe we will have had eight new babies in about a nine month period.

“These parents — men and women — continue to be major contributors to our clients while adapting to tremendous personal change and responsibility. I think and hope they’re doing a better job at balance than my generation did.“

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Career Advice

When she’s hiring at Capstrat, I asked Karen what question she asks every candidate, and why. She replied:

“I ask every prospective job candidate what they want to ask me. What someone asks says a lot about them.”

I asked Karen about her advice to people who are early in their marketing careers. She advised:

“Pace yourself. You have a long career and you cannot possibly know where the industry or your career will take you. Work hard at basic core skills and diversify your experience so you can prepare for an ever-changing landscape.”

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Outside of Work

I asked Karen what she does for fun outside of work. She said:

“Well, first, my work is fun. One of the best things about my job is that it affords me the opportunity to participate in organizations like the Triangle AMA, Wake Education Partnership, NCBIO, and others.

“Personally, I love spending time with my family. I enjoy volunteering at church. I like to read, cook, go to the beach.”

I asked Karen what most people might not know about her. She said, “I have the equivalent of a high school diploma in piano.”

Wrapping up, I asked Karen if she had anything else to share. She said:

“The Triangle has a great community of marketers. I feel blessed to be a part of it!”

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Conclusion

Thanks for sharing your career advice and marketing insights, Karen — it’s great to learn from your 26 years of experience!

This is the ninth in my series of interviews with marketing experts and business leaders, in North Carolina and beyond. If you know someone I should speak with, let me know and I may be able to feature them in a future profile.

Photo courtesy of Karen Albritton

Michael Hubbard

You might know Michael Hubbard as CEO and Media Director at online ad agency Media Two Interactive, or as one of the first beta testers for Google AdWords.

But did you also know:

• The question he asks every job candidate?
• What he would do differently if he were starting Media Two today?
• Where he sees the industry going next?

I interviewed Michael last week via email while he was traveling. For more insights, watch his video interview with Cord Silverstein, or attend Michael’s upcoming Search Engine Marketing panel at Triangle AMA on Thursday, June 17.

Michael Hubbard

CEO and Media Director at Media Two Interactive in Raleigh, NC
More info: @mediatwo, LinkedIn, and the MediaTwoPointOh Blog

Marketing Trends: Past, Present, and Future

Since he started in the industry 15 years ago, I asked Michael about the biggest changes he’s seen:

“Whether you ask me about 1995 or about five days ago, the answer is the same… So many things have changed that we stop keeping track of what changed in the past and focus more on what we’re evolving to in the future. In the digital industry, you have to be a forward thinker or you’ll be left behind.”

I asked what he reads, follows, or attends to keep up with the latest trends. Michael replied:

“I get a lot of my breaking news through social media, but I still rely on the good old-fashioned trade publications for more details, along with trade shows where I’m able to interact with peers. When I find items interesting enough, I’ll turn to the search engines for more — but there aren’t any one or two people or groups of people that I turn to for trends — it’s really more of an aggregate of everyone in the industry.”

I asked Michael what he sees as some of the biggest marketing trends in the next 5-10 years:

“This may come as a shock to most that know me as a media guy, but I see a huge digital push to make creative a bigger part of our industry. I know that we have the IAB pushing for more standard ad formats and sizes, but realistically, they represent the publishers in the industry — and the agencies need to go back to doing what they do best — which is creative thinking.

“If a user is on a website engaged with that content, why in our right mind would we want to extract them from that page and drop them into a sales cycle? Dream big. Let’s find out how to get them all of the content and interaction they need right on the same page. Rich media is a start, but there’s so much more that can and will be done.”

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Running the Company

With his title as CEO and Media Director, I asked Michael how he’d describe his position, and how he got to where he is today:

“Media Two is really a unique group of people, so being the CEO is not at all what you’d expect.  My biggest role as CEO really is finding the most talented people and bringing them under one roof, giving them the tools to do what they do best, and then diving in in a support role where needed.

“When I started Media Two, I really thought it would only be a 2-5 person consulting firm and my focus would get to be on analytics, numbers, data, and marketing research.  As we dug deeper though, there was such a huge opening in a fast-paced industry that our clients basically dictated our growth.

“It has pulled me more into the CEO role and less into the day-to-day, but I still hold the dual title of Media Director as well, which keeps my hands in all of the clients’ top level strategies.”

Aside from ‘hire Media Two!,’ I asked Michael for his advice to a company that’s trying to choose an interactive advertising agency:

“See through the bull shit. Media Two is not the perfect digital agency for everyone, and we know that, but for the ones we are a good fit for, we want you to be able to see our passion and knowledge in the space and know that it can and will translate into ROI for you.

“We want you to know that we didn’t just add the word ‘interactive‘ to our name a few years ago — we have been living and breathing digital media for 12+ years, and that means we will not be learning on your dime. Experience and expertise will win out every time.”

Considering he founded Media Two in 1998, I asked Michael what he might do differently if he were starting the company today:

“Begin with a sales team first… When you’re not VC-backed, you have to rely on growing your business organically and within budget. For the first 10 years, we relied on word-of-mouth referrals only. Had we brought on a sales team earlier, I have no doubt that our hiring capabilities would be ten-fold what they are right now (and we are actually hiring).”

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At Work

Looking back, I asked Michael what his most memorable project has been. He replied:

“Our first ever Microsoft project here at Media Two is really one of my most memorable projects for a number of reasons (other than the obvious that we got to work with Microsoft!).

“First, at the time it was deemed one of their most successful online campaigns for MSN Messenger ever, and our budget was rather minuscule.

“But the bigger portion to this equation was that the success was due to a lot of hard work aggregating smaller sites onto the media plan.  Most agencies don’t look at sites with less than a million unique visitors, but this plan had some sites on it that may have had only 25 uniques.

“It has molded a lot of the media thinking we do here at Media Two, to make sure we focus exclusively on content regardless of size.”

Earlier this year, Inc. magazine described a 2009 situation where two ad-serving companies complained to Michael. A new Media Two employee had criticized the companies on the Media Two corporate blog, and Michael stood behind his employee. I asked him to describe his approach to social media policy. Michael replied:

“We have a formal social media policy in place — but at a high level, social media is about common sense. Don’t say anything that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face, and you’ll never get in trouble (well, almost never).

“The other thing to keep in mind is that whether you’re tweeting, posting, liking, etc. as yourself, or as part of your company’s brand — it does not matter — you are still representing your company.

“There’s a great blog post about this at MediaTwoPointOh, if you’re interested in more conversation on the topic…”

I noted that Media Two was named the Small Company winner in the Triangle Business Journal‘s 2008 “Best Companies to Work For” list. Amazingly, the company reported zero full-time employee turnover during the publication’s four-year measurement period. I asked Michael why turnover was so low. He said:

“In a time when people are scaling back, we are holding onto our benefits packages that include full health insurance (not just 80%, but 100% employer-covered), dental insurance, disability, 401k, and much more.

“But I think more important than any of that is everyone that’s in here today is in it for a common goal:  We are all here to help our clients meet their ROI objectives, and everyone knows their role. This eliminates the need for micromanaging, and clients can get what they need without a lengthy chain of command.

“This basically creates a high-energy work environment that I think everyone in here actually enjoys coming into.”

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Career Advice

When he’s hiring at Media Two, I asked Michael what question he asks every candidate, and why. He replied:

“‘What are the 4 P’s of Marketing?’ We are in the digital space, but I think many people have forgotten that it’s just another medium to reach out to people via the principles of marketing.”

I asked Michael about his advice to people who are early in their marketing careers. He noted:

“Analytics and Social Media are two under-served and hot areas of expertise… Don’t just learn how to friend someone; figure out why friends chose the platform they did, who else uses it, and why. The more you understand all of the new technology and advancements, the more valuable you’ll become.

“And although search is in a backseat to social right now — get in and get search certified.  People who understand how marketing trickles down to search — and can in turn capitalize on it — are highly sought after at Media Two!”

I asked Michael what he does for fun outside of work. He said:

“There is nothing I love more than playing with my kids!”

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Conclusion

Thanks for sharing your advice, experience, and insights, Michael!

This is the eighth in my series of interviews with marketing experts and business leaders, in North Carolina and beyond. If you know someone I should speak with, let me know and I may be able to feature them in a future profile.

Photo credit: Michael Hubbard