Talk Data to Me

A few months ago, Steph asked Sam for a promotion. This was no easy task.

But why was it so difficult as a 23-year-old female to ask for a raise? More broadly Why are women still promoted less than men?

To figure that out, we talked to Kathy Garfield, CEO of Keller Companies--who rose to the top of a construction company owned by her grandfather who did not believe in female leadership and Lori Sokol, executive director of Women’s eNews, a news outlet devoted to women’s issues globally. The icing on the cake is a deliciously awkward recap of when Steph, our host, asked Sam, our other host, for a promotion.

Over the last decade the number of Martech companies has grown exponentially. There’s countless tools for hosting websites, hundreds for sending emails, systems for housing data, tools for visualizing data, and on and on and on. 

No one knows this better than today’s guest Scott Brinker, Founder of ChiefMartec blog and creator of the Martech supergraphic, a well-known visual that attempts to organize marketing technology by logos. 10 years ago the quaint graphic had 150 logos. Today’s version has over 8,000. 

With the martech industry growing exponetially--and companies, on average, using 75+ tools--we have to ask: How much tech is too much tech?

Being a brand ambassador ain’t what it used to be. Ten years ago, anyone could dress up to hand out products to people IRL. Today, brand ambassadorship exists predominantly online, driven by Instagram influencers and actors paid to pose with products in transactional sponsored #ads.

As brand ambassadorship has become increasingly digitized, the authenticity of advocacy has been called into question, leaving us to wonder: What even happened to brand ambassadors? Although the job seems more popular than ever, ZoomInfo data shows the title peaked in popularity in 2017 before suffering a sudden decline.

To find out how brand ambassadorship has evolved over the last 10 years we talked with Kristal Mallookis, the CEO and founder of Mustard Lane, a brand ambassador staffing agency that has built a community of thousands of brand ambassadors across the country.