Ops Cast

January Recap - What's Happening in Marketing Ops?

Michael Hartmann, Mike Rizzo and Naomi Liu Season 1 Episode 83

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!

In this episode of Ops Cast, we discuss what has been happening across the landscape of Marketing Operations. We all take a breath for a moment and realize just how crazy it has been.

Details about MOps-Apalooza and the journey the team at MarketingOps.com has been on is shared -- Most importantly, the scheduling difficulties for the agenda and what happens with "Summer Camp" are addressed. 

Bonus:
Tune in to this episode to hear our special guest "Mickey" (Mike did an impression and now it's out there in the world forever, sorry Mike no takebacks!)

Episode Brought to You By MO Pros 
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Michael Hartmann:

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of OpsCast, brought to you by Marketingops.com, powered by the MO Pros. I am your host, Michael Hartmann. Join today with my. Two compadres. Naomi Liu, Mike Rizzo in. I think this is our first one to record. Just the three of us in 23. I think so. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Do we, do we have a, I know last year was the year of the Mopro. Is it still the year of the Mopro? It feels like it should be

Naomi Liu:

the year of the No. Pro The No

Michael Hartmann:

Pro.

Mike Rizzo:

Well, LinkedIn categorized this year as the, you know, The head of Rev Ops, right? Mm-hmm. they're like fastest growing role. It's like, good

Michael Hartmann:

for you. That's really interesting. Yeah. Maybe we'll get into that a little bit

Mike Rizzo:

here. I, I've really felt like validated though, like I to, I can't remember who posted it, uh, first when it was on, like Good Morning America or some, some news channel that was

Michael Hartmann:

like featuring it or whatever, and most of those people had no idea what that was, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Without,

Naomi Liu:

Uh, but I think

the

Mike Rizzo:

comment back to me was like, do you feel seen? And I was like, kind of Mm-hmm.

Michael Hartmann:

That's great. Do you feel seen It's like a therapy session. Yeah. It was like, this is great. That's funny. The thing we talk about all the

Mike Rizzo:

time is like on a major news

Michael Hartmann:

outlet of some kind. Yeah. It's too bad. That didn't come out before. So our last guest was Lorena Morales and we were talking about rev ops and sort of her journey where she is. So it would've like, it would've been good to be able to tie those two together. Um, you know, because that was part of the discussion was like, how do. get better together with ops teams, and I think she's also got a unique perspective. Um, so we talk, I talked to her in late 2021, which is like, I couldn't believe it when I realized that. And it, and it was January of 23 when we talked to her again and she was talking about how things have changed and her perceptions have changed over that course of time. So, um, So,

Mike Rizzo:

yeah. Yep. Oh, well, timing, There's just been so much happening. Like that's what we were riffing on, right? We were all just trying to like, for a moment, coming up to this episode for all the listeners like I think to, to Hartmann's point, like we all jumped on this zoom that we're looking at each other on right now, and we all went, oh,

Naomi Liu:

So if you're all feeling like

Mike Rizzo:

that after this January, like yeah, we're all feeling the same way right now. Yeah, it's been rough, It has

Michael Hartmann:

been.

Mike Rizzo:

It's like, uh, it's, it's a whirlwind of a time that's for sure.

Michael Hartmann:

Yeah, I don't know. Uh, Naomi, it doesn't, you didn't really say, but is it felt like, like a different January than usual? Yeah,

Naomi Liu:

definitely. It's, it, there was, there's no, there was no like slow lead up and, you know, walk into the new year. It was just like, bam right

Michael Hartmann:

from the start. I'm usually pretty good about being able to sort of block, block off in my mind, you know, over the weekends and even this, like this January, I just have not been able to. Like, it just always felt like, oh, I gotta go do some, make some progress on something or the week's gonna be awful. Mm-hmm.

Mike Rizzo:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Isn't that tough? Like, and, and like, I know for a fact, you know, all of us here are not in this. Like, we don't necessarily subscribe to hustle culture. Like, please take your time off. Oh yeah. Please, please, please do that. But like, I feel you. It's definitely been, uh, every weekend or something is like in my brain space. And I think it was just two nights ago sitting there and like my, my eyes trailed off for a second.

Naomi Liu:

My wife was like, stop it.

Michael Hartmann:

So you could tell I was like going into thinking

Naomi Liu:

about some problem we needed to

Mike Rizzo:

solve for, right? Uh, I was like, oh boy, I should probably. Adult beverage or something and take a break.

Michael Hartmann:

Alright. I thought very seriously about doing that when we were coming onto here, but it would've been even early for happy hour for me. Yeah. So, yeah,

Naomi Liu:

it's two

Mike Rizzo:

o'clock Pacific, so I feel like I would've been like scolded,

Naomi Liu:

Yeah. At least you're not doing dry January. And then it's all compounded on top of each other. Mm-hmm.

Mike Rizzo:

Yeah. It's true. It's true. Even worse,

Michael Hartmann:

it, it feels like Jan, like especially this January would've been really tough to do dry January.

Naomi Liu:

Just like the struggle is

Mike Rizzo:

real. Yeah. I, I don't know. There's just like the lands, like the macro environment is wild. Yes. Like we, I, our tech sector is, the dogs are into it. They're barking. Um, but you know, like, I think, I think. I'm still optimistic about like the way that the year will shape up, um, despite its chaos and its really rocky start, but like I do have signals coming into the community, uh, around like hiring and sort of like trends in that nature. So, you know, I know there's been a lot happening in the world of layoffs. Yep. I think, I think the year will shape up. Nice.

Michael Hartmann:

you know? Yeah, I, I, I'm feeling pretty, I mean, I am too. Like, it's been a rough, uh, January for a number of reasons, but, you know, personal standpoint, feeling pretty, pretty good about where things are going into 23. And I, I was fortunate I had a call with somebody today and sort of a networking thing, and it was somebody who had just recently lost a job. Today got a, a verbal offer. So I was really excited. It had been only a few weeks, so hopefully that's a, a, a sign or a trend that we will see that, you know, these things won't last too long and cuz there's still, there are still people hiring just maybe not in the sectors that people, you know, think of when they first think of

Mike Rizzo:

it. Yeah. And I think, um, for all of this community, the marketing and rev op space, like you're, you're still really sought. Like a lot of organizations are gonna realize quite quickly that nobody knows what the heck is going on in the systems. Right? And, um, I had three or four people reach out to me directly as they were, you know, going through their, uh, career transition of some kind, right? A layoff, um, at that. And, uh, many of those folks are actually getting offers now for sometimes for really. Stronger role,

Michael Hartmann:

like in a, uh, that was the case of what I heard today. So, yeah.

Mike Rizzo:

So, you know, for those of you that are impacted in that, in that scenario as I have been, um, you know, just keep your head up. It's super. It's super rough and daunting and, uh, bit eye-opening when that happens. But they're things that none of us can control, but like this community is really, really great at supporting everybody. I know that. And if I can help or Naomi or Hartmann, I know we're all here for that. Absolutely. But we're working actively on that program right now, so we're building on an entire sort of ecosystem for what we call matchmaking, which I'm really excited about. Hmm. So I think by the time organizations finally realize how much pain they're in from

Michael Hartmann:

not being able to run marketing in. So you're saying this is like, this is like, this is like Bumble for marketing ops. Is that Yeah. Kinda No, we're, um,

Mike Rizzo:

if I, if I could summarize it a little, it's like, you know, this, this community, like this profess. First of all is, uh, a bit of a unicorn, right? Like it's, it's hard to find people that know this. We've all tried to hire for it. Uh, and sometimes you, you get stuck in what you don't know, right? Like, I don't know about you Naomi, but like how many times have you had recruiters or, or hiring managers in your world say like, oh, we, you know, we need somebody to do all these different things. And you're like, wait, that's, That's not at all what I should be doing in

Naomi Liu:

this function. Mm-hmm. well, that's like five different people's jobs. Yeah. you just described like five different people.

Mike Rizzo:

Mm-hmm. uh, And so the idea for us, you know, we started with our job description guides. We've got those on the site today. People download those actively. I've used those built right? Yeah. Yep. They're built by our community. We're pulling together our certification advisory board, and we're actively talking about what does it look like to be a certified professional in this space, agnostic of the tools you use. And then if we educate the market on sort of the boundaries of marketing operations, now how do we create an environment for the marketing ops professionals who are open to those opportunities or actively seeking them to be discovered? um, or discover those opportunities rather. Um, and so if I can create this sort of space, a safe space for you to be, uh, discovered for your talents, that's sort of what I'm looking for. Uh, and what we're really leaning in on is like the idea that you wanna obfuscate some of the inherent bias that comes in with some of the recruiting process today. And so I think that'll be something that's a little bit of extra special. You know, you shouldn't know really much about, you know, the individual before you first start looking at, you know, what are the qualities and the role, the actual job responsibilities, first and foremost, and does somebody already sort of fit into that, you know? category, so to speak, right? Are they really a marketing ops professional or what have you. And then from there are they opened opportunities and that kind of stuff. So I'm excited. That's great. Humble.

Michael Hartmann:

No, but like match maybe match.

Naomi Liu:

Yes. No match matchmaking. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann:

So yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I was just, what hit me, the other thing. maybe this could be the theme for 23, cuz I feel like one of the things that came up over and over in our recordings or episodes in 2022 and just continues to be a theme, is the importance of data and insights. Mm-hmm. and how marketing ops and rev ops folks. Sort of uniquely positioned to do it. I still believe there's a bit of a gap in terms of the skills and experience within the community to be able to do that in a lot of ways. Um, but it feels like that's an area where like there needs to be, I think, you know, if you're talking about certifications, right? I think that's an area that probably is one that, um, if, if people were, you know, throughout the community were honest, they probably would. that's an area that I feel like I could, I need to learn more about, particularly if it comes to things like getting the storytelling out of it. Right? So, uh, mm-hmm. what do you, what do y'all think?

Mike Rizzo:

Yeah, I, I, I tend to go a little too into the weeds, like I keep trying to uncover. The like, is that really the right data? Is that data really telling the truth? Uh, I, I definitely like questioned, well, how did that data even get there, So the ability to like try to pull back from that and then build a narrative around like, what's the question that you're trying to solve for? What's the answer you're looking for? And like, how do you find the data to advise that? uh, I think is super, super. I mean, we're seeing that with Synchry right now, like not to name drop a up and coming startup, but like they're doing a pretty good job of trying to drive home this message around like, you know, ops and data people, there's a super heavy overlap there. Um mm-hmm and both can learn from each other very actively. And there's a very strong chance that some of those data folks who maybe don't know the full operations side of things, cuz we've talked about this, like the three of us, right? Or, and maybe with other guests too, like, Um, you know, when a data person doesn't necessarily know the backstory of where that data came in or how it works, then it's like hard for them to do analysis. They have to be informed about that, right? And so they inevitably like need to get those details, and I think that's valuable, right? So if you can start learning their craft a little bit, um, and teach each other some things, I, I think that could definitely be a theme for 23 for sure. Yeah,

Michael Hartmann:

I was, yeah, I was just, I was just getting into, it made me remember Summer Camp 22. Yeah. And the, the session with that, um, Jessica Cow led like, it was so good. so good. I thought, I thought I was pretty good. I thought I was pretty good at this stuff until, until then I was humbled. Yeah. When

Mike Rizzo:

you like have to try to, so that for the listeners who, who didn't make it to camp, and want to know about that session. First of all, it is available on demand to anybody that's a pro member of the community. You can go check it out. It's on the website under our learning tab. Uh, but beyond that, the gist of it is, how do you describe sort of the outcome of an activity based on data to a cmo? And We happened to have a CMO in the room and everybody had to take a chance.

Naomi Liu:

like describing what it was that they were trying to

Mike Rizzo:

describe and, and the CMO had to say whether or not that was actually a valuable sort of, Um, description or, or she understood it, that kind of thing. It's really, really powerful. But yeah, I think, yeah. She's also, I, I know Jess is about to do another session on that, actually. Um, probably in and around the time that this episode airs, but

Naomi Liu:

Oh, great. She'll be coming back to

Mike Rizzo:

Mops, ALZA, uh, and she'll probably be involved in some way there. So hopefully we'll be able to have a similar. Learning environment.

Michael Hartmann:

So what's the, we should talk a bit

Naomi Liu:

more. Yeah, I was gonna say you should talk a bit more about Mozo. A nice little segue there. I see what you did.

Michael Hartmann:

I see what you did there. See, we're almost, we're kind of like professionals now on this, right?

Naomi Liu:

we're starting to figure out. You cue yourself up. Mike Yeah.

Mike Rizzo:

Well, I don't know. Uh, yeah, MOAP. Pza is, planning is underway. You want to talk about a rough January? Uh, I've had a, I've had a go. I traveled to Dallas to try to look at venues.

Naomi Liu:

Woohoo. San Diego

Mike Rizzo:

Yeah, Hartmann was really excited about that. Heather, too. Uh, she was like, sweet. That'd be great. Um, San Diego didn't pan out as I sort of made clear to some folks that were asking and have seen the landing page now. Um, I did end up coming home on my birthday. Visiting a spot in Anaheim right next to Disneyland that I really liked and they fought pretty hard for our business. So it's looking more like it's gonna be there. But I will tell you that, uh, planning an event, uh, of any size beyond 50 people is like a whole new ballgame. And, and it is, it is rot with challenges So we're trying to work through all the

Michael Hartmann:

details, but it is not for the faint of heart. No.

Mike Rizzo:

No, not at all. Um, and I would not be able to do it without some really incredible, like, experts that are actually helping to pull it all together. Um, that like this is their jam, right? Like they love the staging and the lighting and the, the tech prep and all that other stuff like, yep. No, not for me. Um, but from a content perspective, um, the. Speaker submissions are still open. Anybody who wants to potentially join us and speak at MOA Palooza, it's looking like it'll probably be the first week of November. Um, but please submit your speaker, uh, intent to speak or your, your desire to speak rather. Um, Naomi Cason and Jess will be, uh, helping us select the speakers. It'll be community led so you'll be able to learn from other practitioner. No pitch slapping allowed from our vendors Um, and yeah, we're, we're trying to pull together really good learning environment. Um, on a scale of, you know, 300 to 500, my target would be four to 500 attendees. Um, to be able to come together and talk shop about marketing ops for about, you know, three days. It's amazing. I'm

Naomi Liu:

excited. It'll be magical cuz you

Michael Hartmann:

know. Oh. Please.

Naomi Liu:

Really Do you want me to do the Mickey Mouse voice?

Michael Hartmann:

Sure. Why not? Oh boy. That's actually quite good, Mike. I,

Naomi Liu:

uh, someone's gonna

Mike Rizzo:

try to make me do that on stage and I won't be able to do it anyway.

Michael Hartmann:

Naomi Naomi's trying to figure out how to, how to work her computer. Naomi. No, we're gonna

Naomi Liu:

overlay that now onto everything

Michael Hartmann:

I was like, are we recording?

Mike Rizzo:

We better be careful cuz they might come after me now and be like, you can impersonate

Naomi Liu:

our primary. But then you'll just have to say, that's just how I normally speak. And then that's, you'll just have to, I just

Mike Rizzo:

do that in interject

Naomi Liu:

randomly. Right. Exactly.

Michael Hartmann:

So I, now, I'm, now I'm actually curious, like is that something that a skill, like a skill that you've honed for years or is this a thing since you've had kids?

Mike Rizzo:

No, I, I've been doing that voice for about 10 years probably. All right. They have it folks. I used to just do it as a joke with my friends and, and then it became like, it, it's, yeah, as an adult that can do a look voice. You, you can imagine the things, the types of

Naomi Liu:

scenarios you can be in that

Mike Rizzo:

can be very entertaining.

Michael Hartmann:

uh, yeah, for sure.

Mike Rizzo:

Uh, yeah. So I'm excited. Uh, MoSo. PaLiu is well under. um, and hopefully, you know, call for speakers, call for attendees, call for sponsors.

Michael Hartmann:

we need your help. We wanna make it happen. Yeah. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe we can crowdsource, uh, getting all of us there. Well, you'll be there, Mike. Uh, Naomi, you're gonna be there, right? I, she's, yep. Should be. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Well, I, I, my, I'm still a little up in the air, so maybe you're not Okay. Maybe I'm not. All right. So may maybe we do a live episode. How about that? Like,

Mike Rizzo:

Ooh. I, I think that'd be super fun. It's fun. I was talking to Sydney and Lauren. um, yesterday day before. Yeah. And they were like, Hey, maybe we could do, uh, a live podcast episode, not like OpsCast, but our show. And I was like, yeah. Go for it. Yeah. Nothing's stopping you. I think their show's called Pretty Funny Business. We're gonna have'em on the show soon.

Michael Hartmann:

It's uh, Sydnee, Mulligan and Lauren. Yeah, Lauren. You know, I can't pronounce it. Yeah, I don't say that last name.

Mike Rizzo:

Yeah. She's gonna text me later and be like, that was terrible.

Michael Hartmann:

and deserved. Um, that's okay. Um, let's doing great. Well,

Mike Rizzo:

I think we should live

Michael Hartmann:

episode. That'd be fun. Maybe we do it during happy.

Naomi Liu:

I would, I think that's a great idea

Michael Hartmann:

actually. Yeah. So you have take, take questions from the, take questions from the audience. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo:

Mm-hmm. That would actually be really

Michael Hartmann:

fun. And then if nobody asks questions, we act like a teacher, we're gonna call on'em. We could do that.

Mike Rizzo:

I think we could. I don't know. So we'll see. Um, there's a lot on the horizon this year. There's. You know, if you thought MOA Palooza was gonna be the, the only thing that I have to share with the community this year, you thought wrong there's, there's a lot more that I'm looking to bring, uh, bring to light with the team that's, that's working on it. So, um, I'm excited.

Michael Hartmann:

It's great. Um, what about, does that mean you didn't say anything about summer camp? I know.

Naomi Liu:

So

Mike Rizzo:

the fun, if anybody listens to this and they're thinking about mops of palooza and they're thinking about camp, uh, it is becoming more and more clear that camp is not going to be a thing this year, unfortunately.

Michael Hartmann:

Oh no.

Mike Rizzo:

Um, the way that hotels want to book rooms is not conducive to supporting a small event. On the front end of a larger event, they would rather it be on the back end. And I'm gonna be real with everybody. Like I doubt anyone wants to go to a big event and then go into a day and a half of deep learning, deep discussion content after that. Yeah. So, um,

Naomi Liu:

no, that sounds terrible actually. It's sounds horrible. That sounds horrible. Yeah, that's

Mike Rizzo:

exactly.

Naomi Liu:

My feeling on it too. I told every hotel,

Mike Rizzo:

I was like, it has to be before the big event. And they were like, no. And I was like,

Michael Hartmann:

oh, thanks for that. So. Well, I'm sure well, for those, those, those of us who've been to one of the summer camps, I think we'll, we'll, we'll support it when you wanna bring it back. So

Mike Rizzo:

it'll come back next year for sure. So the, the, the goal here is to do MOA in, in the fall this coming year, right? This year, right now. Uh, then we would shift MOA into the spring and we would do camp, uh, in the summer. And so we'd have two activations spring and summer moving forward. Um, and that would be the way that things sort of shake up moving, you know, into the future. Uh, if anybody did already look at like a camp pass, the, your camp pass is not actually lost. Um, there's something else special that we're gonna do for anyone that decided to take advantage of that early. Camp plus mops of Palooza Pass that's available on the site. Um, so I would encourage you to snag that if you, especially if you can get l and d budget, um, because there will be a really special networking activity that we pull together. Uh, and you can imagine if we're in and around the downtown Disney space, uh, it may involve some activities around there. So, um, I would encourage you to think about still grabbing one of those because we would bring everyone together for a special sort of professional networking activat. Awesome. Yeah. So damn, it's not

Naomi Liu:

lost.

Mike Rizzo:

and Hartmann,

Michael Hartmann:

you're gonna be there. I'll be there. Okay. Yeah.

Naomi Liu:

What I want is for you to wear Mickey er Rizzo and uh, do your Mickey voice. You know, I might have some handgun. Really? I get the Mickey gloves too, I think. Yeah, exactly

Michael Hartmann:

right. Oh my gosh. Like I'm, now I've got this vision of you with Mickey gloves on. Uh,

Mike Rizzo:

give it to Mickey.

Michael Hartmann:

I mean, Mikey, I mean yeah,

Naomi Liu:

Yeah. Oh man.

Mike Rizzo:

Oh, I just set myself up for so

Michael Hartmann:

many jokes later. Oh yeah. It's just, it's all coming. The rest of the year is messed up for

Naomi Liu:

me now. Yeah,

Michael Hartmann:

that's all. Any, any other sort of, uh, things that you guys have so far this year? Trends you're seeing?

Mike Rizzo:

I don't know. Trends wise, I don't know. I think the data piece is a good one. That

Michael Hartmann:

rev op stuff is interesting, although I still, I still, still, I still think there's a lot of confusion about what that means.

Mike Rizzo:

Yep. Yeah, and that's what I was gonna say too, like, great, that that happens to be the thing that's on the rise, but like, I'm not confident speaking of like being confident in the data like not confident that the, uh, actual underlying function is well defined and understood yet, and. and hey, that's what we're all here for. Right? Who better than all of the professionals out there to help shape it

Michael Hartmann:

correctly? Well, and I know there's another one that, um, another, I think hopefully, for me at least, I think it's, uh, I'm, I'm really curious to see if it becomes more of a trend is the idea of a marketing chief of staff.

Mike Rizzo:

I, I, I'm very excited about that. We actually, I was sitting with, I went to the sendo, so event. Um, a couple weeks ago and there was like, Sanger was there and Melissa McCreedy and, um, Stephanie from, from Valenti. Valenti. Mm-hmm. Um, we were all sitting around talking shop and, and that was one of the things we talked about was like this possibility of the, um, chief of staff type of role for marketing ops, but also that there needs to be sort of a shake up at the coo. like the COO function hasn't really been redefined or like rejiggered to be understood since the sort of evolution of tech, uh, started hitting right? Like the traditional COO when you go sort of dig into it or, or what have you, was certainly around ever since. Who knows long how long, right. Industrial era for sure. But when you start to bring in tech, should the COO role have a shake? Could it potentially be more tech oriented and understanding of the landscape of the go-to-market function and the requirements that are needed to be able to do that? I don't know. So I think it was a really good question. So it was, we were teetering back and forth between like this idea of chief of staff or some sort of C level and the group there was like, maybe it's coo I was like,

Michael Hartmann:

yeah. Interesting. Um, what

Mike Rizzo:

do you think Naomi? Coo.

Naomi Liu:

I mean, I, I, I would love that. That, I think that's amazing, right?

Mike Rizzo:

You could be a coo.

Naomi Liu:

Totally. I think so. I'd like to think so.

Michael Hartmann:

You guys think so? Totally. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I

Mike Rizzo:

mean, think about like contract negotiation

Naomi Liu:

technology. Oh my gosh,

Mike Rizzo:

yes. Go to market function like mm-hmm. people, man, like all of it, like finance. It.

Michael Hartmann:

Now you're speaking my language.

Naomi Liu:

Yeah, you're totally speaking my language. I'm picking up what you're putting down.

Mike Rizzo:

You could totally be I think it's a thing.

Michael Hartmann:

Yeah, absolutely. So, well, cool. Um, any other final thoughts? And this is, this has been a little bit of a catchall episode, so a, I think, I think, I think we are all like looking forward to like, hopefully February won't be quite like January. Yeah,

Naomi Liu:

but it's such a short month. true. Like, ah, Yeah. It's all right.

Mike Rizzo:

We'll get through it. It'll be good. No, it was good to catch up though, and think a little bit about what's going on in the landscape. Yeah. Hey, call for speakers or not speakers. Call for guests on the show. Yeah. Podcast

Naomi Liu:

guests. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann:

Definitely reach out to us. Come chat

Naomi Liu:

with

Michael Hartmann:

us.

Mike Rizzo:

Yeah,

Michael Hartmann:

we definitely want to chat with you. Otherwise you just, uh, have to listen to just us

Naomi Liu:

or you'll have to be

Mike Rizzo:

subject to an entire episode of Mickey Voice. Okay.

Naomi Liu:

Definitely people come on the show for sure. Okay. All right. We should wrap.

Michael Hartmann:

You want, you're gonna do a wrap? Is that what you said? No. In Mickey voice?

Mike Rizzo:

No. Oh my gosh. Good. No. Okay. Gracious. No,

Michael Hartmann:

I'm not gonna do rap either. I could. I could lip sync a wrap maybe, but I'm not gonna do a wrap. that's it. They did a rap at the

Naomi Liu:

Sendo event. Some people went upstage. I think Sanger wrote a rap

Mike Rizzo:

or something. It was great. I can only imagine you had to be there.

Michael Hartmann:

Were there any videos? I

Mike Rizzo:

think someone got a video. Yeah, I didn't

Michael Hartmann:

So did I. Have I ever told you the story about being in a flash mob? Sorry, this is totally, it is. It is marketing ops related because it was at, it was at an equa user conference. No pre preor. It was right before the Oracle acquisition actually. Yeah, there was, so the, and the, the reason I know it's that is because the salesperson that we, we bought from tried, like, she called me to get me to go, Hey, will you do this flash mob thing we're gonna do? One day? I was like, ah, fine, I'll do it. Really no interested in it. It was dancing. So that's the other thing. And then she didn't show up. I was like, it turns out she was, she had been selling to Oracle, right. Selling the product. And that turned around to Oracle, wanting to buy Equa. Mm. Um, and so she wasn't there, but Yep. It was actually a lot of fun. Totally. Would do it again. So we need, maybe we need to do a flash mob at, oh, see, I just gave it up. Can't do it now. I mean, but

Naomi Liu:

it's, it's just an idea at the,

Mike Rizzo:

so maybe someone will organize it secretly and we will have no idea. Maybe it'll be you. Hartmann. No,

Michael Hartmann:

won't be me. why?

Mike Rizzo:

Why was the flash mobs dancing so bad? Oh, Hartmann organized. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann:

I, I, I was a choreographer. I'm just kidding. No, it's totally true.

Naomi Liu:

The whole thing is just jazz hands, jazz, hands. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann:

So there you go. I could do that. I could do jazz hands or, uh, you know, the, the, uh, parade wave Oh my

Naomi Liu:

gosh.

Mike Rizzo:

I was like, what's he gonna say? Oh, a parade wave. Okay.

Michael Hartmann:

Yeah. No, it's, it is, it's pg. Maybe even G. Maybe G. All right. So in there I've just, uh, my things you didn't know about my Michael, um, icebreaker is now gone. I'm gonna have to come up with something. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo:

Uh, apparently there's a bunch of like little hidden secrets in this one. I think the episode will be like, Mickey joined to the show and Hartmann tells us about his dancing skills. Tune in Yeah. And Naomi's like, why am I on this show

Naomi Liu:

with this? Although there's gonna be

Mike Rizzo:

something. She's gonna come out and share something and we're gonna, oh my gosh, gauze.

Michael Hartmann:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, she's already, she what, what you, you've, you've given some away some secrets, like how to actually get a meeting with you. I know that so. Oh yeah.

Naomi Liu:

So I can give it all away, you know? Mm-hmm.

Michael Hartmann:

So. Alright. Well I think we are all ready for the, and so for our listeners and audience, it's a Friday afternoon, so I think we are all about done. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo:

I'm done. I actually have like two more calls. I have to go get on one, starting in three minutes. But you know,

Michael Hartmann:

All good. All good. All right. Thanks everyone for listening and, uh, continue to support us. As we mentioned earlier, we always are interested in hearing about new guests or, uh, or ideas for guests. Or if you wanna be a guest or reach out to us, we'd be happy to talk. Until next time, we will. Uh, we'll talk to you later. Bye. Bye everybody. Bye Ron.