MEDIASCAPE: Insights From Digital Changemakers
Join hosts Joseph Itaya and Anika Jackson as they dive into conversations with leaders and changemakers shaping the future of digital media. Each episode explores the frontier of multimedia, artificial intelligence, marketing, branding, and communication, spotlighting how emerging digital trends and technologies are transforming industries across the globe.
MEDIASCAPE is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. This online master’s program is designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
MEDIASCAPE: Insights From Digital Changemakers
How AI is Enhancing, Not Replacing, Human Creativity in Digital Marketing with Jason Brigham
What happens when your career path takes unexpected turns? For Jason Brigham, founder of a successful digital marketing agency, the journey from computer science to hospitality to digital leadership reveals powerful lessons about adaptability in an ever-changing landscape.
Brigham candidly shares the pivotal moments that shaped his professional evolution—from abandoning his initial computer science career track to pursue the more social, creative environment of hospitality, to eventually finding his sweet spot in digital marketing. These transitions weren't just about professional satisfaction but aligned with personal milestones like marriage and becoming a parent.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when exploring artificial intelligence's role in digital marketing. Contrary to popular fears, Brigham argues AI enhances rather than replaces human creativity: "It's never going to take over your creativity. It's never going to take over the insight and experience that you have." His practical advice on AI adoption emphasizes experimentation, knowledge-sharing, and maintaining critical thinking when evaluating AI outputs—valuable guidance for professionals at any career stage.
Perhaps most illuminating is Brigham's perspective on workplace culture post-pandemic. As his agency embraced a remote-first approach with hybrid options, he discovered something unexpected—many young professionals crave at least some in-person experience, fearing they'll miss crucial socialization and mentorship opportunities in a fully remote environment. This insight challenges common narratives about workplace preferences and highlights the importance of offering choice rather than one-size-fits-all solutions.
Ready to expand your digital marketing horizons? Listen now for Brigham's compelling call to think globally, embrace curiosity, and approach career development with an open mind to possibilities beyond traditional paths. Whether you're just starting your career or looking to navigate industry changes, this conversation offers both practical wisdom and inspirational perspectives.
This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
Welcome to Mediascape Insights from Digital Changemakers, a speaker series and podcast brought to you by USC Annenberg's Digital Media Management Program. Join us as we unlock the secrets to success in an increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2:I'm thrilled to have Jason Brigham on Mediascape Insights from Digital Changemakers. Jason, we were just talking and I said I have to push record right now because we're talking about how the world has changed so much and I'd love for you to share a little bit about your journey from computer science into working at the Marriott and then you know the way that your career came together to now having this amazing agency and the work that you do.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Yeah, no, it wasn't really the traditional linear path I suppose A lot of people take. You know, going to college and choosing a major and that leading into a career path. You know, at the time, as I was going to college was, I think, like many people, young people, somewhat uncertain. I wanted to go into something where I could find a career path immediately out of college and that was kind of my driving force behind what I chose to do and why I selected to be a computer science major.
Speaker 3:But once I graduated and I started to have to live, I guess, real life and adult life and whatnot, getting into the job market, I was fortunate enough to have opportunities. But as soon as I started in the kind of true career world and whatnot too, I found that it really wasn't my car, it wasn't the fit for me. Largely had to do with, you know, I was the youngest of my professional peers in my office and the type of work I was doing just wasn't very challenging and it didn't really give any opportunity for creativity. And I was 21 years old, I had recently moved from Vermont, small state of Vermont, to the big state of California and this new city in San Diego and new environment, the opportunity to meet new people. And so I had one of those kind of life moments where you say I don't know that I want to do this anymore. And like many people, many college students, the careers you choose typically are gig opportunities. So I worked in bars, I worked in restaurants, I managed both, and so I was very familiar with that environment. I was also familiar with the fact that many of the people in that environment are my age, they're my demographic, and so for me it was that kind of career path change where I was like I want to go somewhere where I can make friends, meet people in my new city, be in an environment that's fun and creative and collaborative, and get something in the start of my career that I was going to be enjoying and having fun with, and so that was the kind of pivot move.
Speaker 3:But then, as time went on and my life changed, my wife and I decided to get married. We also decided to start a family, and for as much fun as hospitality can be, the hours are incredibly demanding Nights, all of this A lot of those times where people normally have time off to spend with the family people in hospitality fortunately for us that you know aren't working in hospitality and can take advantage of that. You know they are working and I have an enormous amount of appreciation for everybody that's in the hospitality industry. I just want to say that to be clear. But that was another moment in my life where we had to.
Speaker 3:We decided that would be a change and I needed to reconsider my career, where I was going, and so I happened to find my way via my neighbor, into the digital marketing world and it was funny at the time she made the conversation. She's like well, you studied computers in college, digital marketing, you know all that and I was like not exactly the same thing, but I appreciate it. And if you believe that, I could probably sell someone in the organization to make them believe that and I was not that misleading in my representation myself, but it was something where I was like I'm you know I'm a tech and client and I'm enthusiastic. I you know, most of my life to live in an animal analog world, but I've firmly embraced the digital world. I'm enthusiastic. Most of my life I've lived in an analog world but I've firmly embraced the digital world.
Speaker 3:I'm excited for those opportunities and that began my journey within the digital marketing and advertising world and, through that initial step, went on and started another agency with partners and then eventually took over yet another agency that I actually was able to go through a successful M&A in 2019, right before the pandemic, which was good and bad timing and the whole world of business transactions especially when you're working in an industry that's relying upon people spending money on advertising and marketing to have an event like that that affected the entire world, was a big deal.
Speaker 3:But it was another moment and kind of a pivotal change in my life, of importance, of perseverance and taking care of people and making sure that you have enough belief in the people that are around you within our organization and an agency that you can overcome this challenge, and we're very fortunate to have overcome that challenge and came out relatively unscathed and was able to continue building in the subsequent years all the way through to where we are today, and so it's been a really exciting journey.
Speaker 3:I've been lucky that I've worked with amazing people along the way. The culture and the industry is just so creative and forward-thinking and progressive, and it's a really great environment for myself as a young person to get involved with and work with like-minded people, but also, as I've matured in the industry, to also continue to be learning and getting to new platforms and new social media channels, and now we have all these changes relative to privacy policy and analytics. That's shaking things up, and it's just such a dynamic and ever-evolving and changing industry that it's for someone who is passionate about learning and continuing to experience new things, it's a great place to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, tell us about the name behind your organization, how you choose the name and what are the areas of expertise that your team plays in when it comes to the digital ecosystem.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so it actually goes back to. It'd be a much longer story if I told the false story, but I'll just tell you the origin of the name. And so a friend of mine and we were looking to start a business and he's actually Indonesian by birth, and so the origin of the name was an Indonesian term. We actually dated it back to actually a Sanskrit that's loosely, you know says many solutions under a single thread, and so the idea behind it was that we wanted to be an organization that helps people solve unique problems, and that there wasn't necessarily a one size fits all or, you know, a blueprint that everybody had to follow. But they need help with their sales operations or they need help with their marketing or their digital strategy or their executive leadership or whatnot, too.
Speaker 3:We would be able to provide support to help them resolve those solutions, whether it be from our team or through the network of partners that we had built over the years of very capable, amazing people that can slot into that, that we had built over the years of very capable, amazing people that can slot into that, and so our whole mantra has always been you know, we're here to help.
Speaker 3:You know, and if you have challenges and sometimes your challenges are not as obvious. You know we can help uncover those things, but the intention is always to help find solutions in a creative way whenever possible. We've really started, you know, started looking at the types of brands and industries we work with and I've really started gearing ourselves toward really mission-driven organizations and that's not always necessarily in the traditional sense of nonprofits and things of that nature, however they are. But so much of the technology world has moved towards being very mission-driven, whether that be helping under-s, under service communities or finding better solutions that enable people to do things more effectively within finance, within housing and real estate. You know that's been a big thing is to hopefully be a little bit more altruistic in our motivations and not always be focused on revenue but focused on making a difference and hopefully, you know, affecting lives around the world for the better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amazing, and we've had many conversations not unrecorded, yeah, so I'm really excited to have this conversation with you and have us recording it to talk about these areas. I want to talk about something we were briefly touching on before we jumped on, which is something that is really important to both of on, which is something that is really important to both of us, which is AI pedagogy teaching people how to use AI, whether from the university perspective or the business perspective, and your own team. So we talk about that framing for your team. And then how does that work and correlate with what we need to make sure our students who are taking programs masters in digital media, digital social right what skill sets do they need to have in this new not really new, just new words and everybody knows about it right, aiml?
Speaker 3:world, but I think that's a really good point, though, too, is, while everybody knows about it, I don't know that we at least from my experience and working with a kind of a broad swath of individuals with the inside and outside of digital and whatnot too, everybody's aware of it. I don't know that everybody truly understands what it is, and there's AI and LLM and there's acronyms thrown around all the time and whatnot too, and it can create some confusion. But where I really help to, I guess, encourage people is the concept of adoption. It's just try it as an example and this is unrelated to my professional life, but I had a small group of dads that we have a workout program that we do every Saturday morning and, on a whim, I use ChatGPT to draft up some logos and some t-shirts that we're going to be made and whatnot too, and I'd share them with the on our groups group chat and several people were like, oh my God, you did these all yourself, and I was like I can't take any credit for it. I'm like this was all done by AI and that sparked the conversation about. Well, oh, I didn't know it could do that, and I think there are lies to that point. Like. A lot of people are aware of it, but they don't understand the function and how it can enable and that's the other part of it, too that I'm trying to help my team and young people in my community to recognize is that it's a tool that helps to enable things. It's never going to take over your creativity. It's never going to take over the insight and experience that you have. Just like any tool, it's about how you use it and how you put in the inputs and how you tailor those things and so. But, that being said, it is a means of which you can accelerate your work outputs. It's a means of which you can work through more complex things in a shorter amount of time, and particularly for applications within the industry.
Speaker 3:Every young person I've talked to in college and otherwise I'm giving them that advice Definitely take the time to learn it. Many, if not all the programs do have free options, and so there's not typically a cost for you to go and get the basic program with ChatGPT or Claude or whatever it might be. There are definitely the I guess not buyer beware, but the kind of cautionary tales that you have to also reinforce of like it's still learning. You know, it's still very young, it's in its infancy, and it's not always going to give you accurate output. So you do need a human person. You do need someone to fact check and spot check these things Never take credit for it as it being your own, because it's not and making sure that again, you can quickly learn and adapt things.
Speaker 3:I equate it to if you're traveling to a new city in the country and say you're going to Rome, italy, for the first time, you probably would go to Google and maybe do some searches best places to eat in Rome why wouldn't you do that with ChatGPT? Or could ChatG GPT also take into factors into consideration as to where you're staying, the trip map or the route that you're taking to other places, and that tool could actually potentially give you an itinerary that could help you find some of those best spots to go to. And so, again, it's just another tool in that arsenal of different things that you want to become familiar with in order to help breed efficiency. And then the other piece of advice I always give, too, is like talk about it with others. I've learned more about adopting and kind of adapting to this AI world by talking with other people and then providing me use cases. Well, I do it this way, or I use this prompt, or I always end my prompt in do you have any questions before I get started? And learning those things has enabled me to become more efficient in utilizing those tools.
Speaker 3:It's interesting in the academic side of things.
Speaker 3:My oldest daughter is actually a freshman, or just I shouldn't say she's no longer a freshman.
Speaker 3:She just completed her freshman year in college and it's been a big topic and was through their orientation all the way in each of the core syllabi about when and how is appropriate to use AI copywriting and for the most part it seems like people have all learned their lesson or maybe done that before and whatnot too.
Speaker 3:But I also think it created a little bit of a fear and a stigma in people saying, well, I don't want to touch that, I don't want to get caught using it, and I think that was a bit of a detractor because it is a tool of enablement. It is helping you to the very simplest things get over that hour of writer's block that you have, like, bring in a prompt and get some, you know, get some insight and have that guide you to getting going and cutting over that hump on that paper that you have to turn in, or using it to find citations from different articles that you can quickly and easily reference. There's practical applications of utilizing those tools within academia. That doesn't, you know, doesn't sway them into the wrong or bad uses, I guess, if you will not taking advantage of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, one use case I have is in the class I just finished teaching, which is DMM 510. And we talk about advertising, analytics, data analysis, measurement, and so the second week of class is MarTech how do you create a stack? So, instead of having them just go through and hypothesize, I said put this prompt into any llm of your choice, including martech bot, which is a fun little thing to work with, and ask for some different tools and how they would play. You know, based on your goals for your organization, which ones would make the most sense and why, and then create a little, you know, create a little chart, and let me know if you think these were, analyze it right. Was this correct? Is this what you would use, or are there other tools, and what other tools are you currently using in your business? That maybe there's overlap between what the recommendations were. You don't need all of them right To create a good tech stack, and so the critical thinking aspect, to me, is so important 100% and you ask them, you prompt that.
Speaker 3:Is there an iteration, iterate, iterate, iterate, take the next step, take the next step Don't be done and just say easy button, check done, iterate on that and force that challenge and whatnot too, and you'll find that I hope they'll find that they'll get even more insight in going through the experience and asking it to challenge itself and themselves to get to a better solution.
Speaker 2:Well, and, as you mentioned, the prompt engineering, so they learn how to create better prompts to actually get the answer they want for the industry they want, instead of just something generic.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Yep, well, and that's fascinating. Mari, a good friend of mine, is in the telecommunications industry and we were talking about that and that he did bring up just that point of the importance of iterating. And don't assume that the single prompt, because AI, in its nature, its first thing is to get you the answer as quickly as possible. So it combs all of the data, searches for the matching terms that meet your query and quickly returns them back to you, which is great in the idea of efficiency, right, but it isn't necessarily the answer you really were looking for. And so it is about.
Speaker 3:And where the critical thinking comes into play is okay, wait, that's not exactly what I was asking. Like, is that because the AI didn't understand me? Is it because maybe I misunderstood it? But I think that's a point where and I think this is important, you know, especially for people that are learning to that like then don't just stop, don't just assume like, oh well, it didn't work. You know there's got to be that iteration and that's where I think a lot of that.
Speaker 3:You know the concern where you know people say that ai is the death of critical or creative thinking. I'm like, I don't think that's at all the case, I bet. I think it. It should prompt you to think what's next and maybe I should ask in a different way, maybe it'll give me a different result. Okay, now that I know, I know that, like, let me ask those things again. And so it's back to those things. I think that knowledge sharing aspect of it and that can, like you know, here's what works for me, like what works for you has made such a difference, I think, and you know, at least in my interactions with my team, my peers, and just becoming more, and I get excited about it. So when I get a new tip, I'm like, oh gosh, I got to go home and try that or see what that does for me, type thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to your point as well, knowing which LLMs are better for which areas that you're exploring right.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Is it for complexity, because it has more up-to-date information and maybe has a little bit better research? Is it cloud, which I say and many people say is more human-sounding? Openai has a really great thing. Every single one has different things about it, and also I had the experience of when Google Cloud Services went down and I could not access my cloud and I was about to go to a big meeting. I had just done a whole bunch of prep work and I hadn't copied and pasted over yet. So then I was like, oh my gosh, do I have to recreate this? Let me remember exactly how I prompted go into my, because I do have backup projects in OpenAI. So I was like, all right, you know, but it makes you really think about the value of information and we can't lose our critical thinking.
Speaker 3:We have to still be able to know the information.
Speaker 2:You can't lose our critical thinking, exactly.
Speaker 3:We have to still be able to know the information.
Speaker 2:You can't just rely on the outputs.
Speaker 3:A hundred percent. Yeah, I had a very similar experience during that output and I was like everything's gone. And again you have that moment of like. I was so dependent or so reliant upon this piece of technology, having the storage be there and whatnot too that in the absence of it, do I go into panic or do I say, ok, take the stuff back. You know, again I'm going to make myself sound old.
Speaker 2:I graduated four years before you, by the way.
Speaker 3:Then I won't say it again, but I always make the joke with my daughters when it comes to directions and I was like we didn't have smartphones like Emily, and we barely had MapQuest. And they look at me when I say MapQuest, what's MapQuest? And we literally went online and printed out step-by-step instructions which. How more people did get into car accidents flipping through pages of MapQuest directions still boggles my mind.
Speaker 3:But again, that you know being so reliant on digital is actually, I think, a detriment. You know that you become so used to. I can just put the address into my Apple Maps or Google Maps and it'll give me, literally it'll hold my hand until I arrive at the front door of wherever I'm going to. But what if you forgot your phone? Or you know what if your service goes out? What do you do? And so do you have the ability to then quickly say, okay, I can figure this out. And whether that be for directions or whether that be for whatever it might be, you should have that ability to critically think how am I going to get myself out of that situation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I wanted to ask you about something when it comes to your business, and you argue that there's a growing demand for talent still in digital marketing, data analytics, e-commerce, when so much of what we hear is, oh no, those are the jobs that can be taken over with artificial intelligence and machine learning. So I'd love to just bring it on, because this is good news for our students 100%.
Speaker 3:Well, and I do think, particularly in the digital marketing, in the agency industry, it is still, and will still be for the very foreseeable future and beyond that, a very people-forward industry, like the IP in most agencies is its people. It's how they represent the brand, their knowledge and experience working alongside a business that actually provides them. I always tell my team I'm like you're just an extension of that marketing team. Just because your LinkedIn says you work for Guna and your client is Ripcord doesn't mean anything other than you're just an extension of that marketing team and part of that team. But I do think it's important to recognize the fact that, yes, ai is going to start and has in some instances helped to facilitate the production of some of these things, especially data and analytics and insights. But the ability to communicate the story of what that data means and the why and then, well, what's next? It's not there yet and I don't necessarily foresee that happening anytime soon that it replaces that person who is creative, can be critical in their thinking, has that ability and that presence to say directly to the C-suite or the CMO or their director of marketing like you know, this is what the data is showing us. We ran it through our different, you know, ai sets or data scraping and filtering. Here's the outputs, here's what it means and here's what we're going to do about it.
Speaker 3:That human element is not going to be replaced anytime soon, and we're still at a stage right now, at the early part of AI, where there's still that fact-checking Like you have to double-check the data and you can't just assume it is for what it is. I mean, that's been an issue. I mean data fidelity has been an issue as long as the internet's been around. And what's your source of truth and how accurate is that? And what's your source of truth and how accurate is that? And I think that's another factor as well, too is that there's so much of the configuration of analytics in order to effectively and properly track data.
Speaker 3:There are typically two points in regards to, well, what is your tech stack? Possibly three to five to 10, plus different sources of data that may also be vying for the same single source of truth and value. And so, taking all those things into consideration, that again, I have not seen any technology that's going to then replace that human being who can say, okay, like, I see the outputs and it's great that it helped produce a more consolidated picture of what the outputs, and it's great that it helped produce a more consolidated picture of what happened. But, like, let me kind of pull these. You know, let me pull these threads and see again how valid are these different things. And you know, it's giving credit to tv, where we're also sharing credit with meta and well, but at the end of the day, shopify is saying something different, like understanding that combination of the tech stack, the data and analytics sources, the fidelity of the data, and then having those outputs of a report still needs to have someone that can function critically in reviewing that information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic. I love your answer and I love the fact that there's still a need. But I would also say, if you have that AI advantage, you're going to be placed in a better position to win and get that role.
Speaker 2:So I also want to talk about remote work, because you went through an M&A right before the pandemic and right before we all realized how nice it is to have to work from home. So talk about that. How has it impacted the industry, you know? Are you a remote first company? Are you hybrid? What's your philosophy and why do you think that other organizations should also look towards your strategy?
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah. So we are remote first, but we do offer hybrid solutions. So we do have a joint office that is available for the team to take advantage of and it's in a co-working space, which I think is great, because co-working also has all the extra amenities that go along with most co-working spaces. And it was interesting because, having gone through the onset of the pandemic, everybody go home and experiencing what that was like for so many people who we were entirely in an office and I've only been in office for the majority of my professional career up until the pandemic.
Speaker 3:And if anybody had asked me, even in 2019, would I ever want to move towards a hybrid or a remote scenario, I would say I'm not opposed to it because I respect people having work-life balance and I understand my commute is 30 minutes. If someone's commute is 90 minutes and they don't want to come in a few days a week because they don't want to spend three hours in the car, I totally respect that. You know, at the end of the day, having that type of open, you know, kind of culture also gave the respect of like get your work done in the time that you know you need to do it, and like, if that's from eight to four, great. If that's from 10 to six, that's fine too, like at the end of the day, we just got to make sure we, you know, are accountable to ourselves, accountable to one another and getting those those things done. But anyway, and so the hardest part, I think, was so many people were accustomed to going to work every day that all of a sudden.
Speaker 3:This, this new thing, happened in a remote and there's obviously a lot of fear and anxiety just on a global scale beyond. You know, whether I'm working at home or not, that it was just a very difficult time in our culture for a lot of people. I mean, the agency world itself typically tends to skew a bit younger typically younger and single which was, I think, hard for a lot of my team that didn't necessarily have a family unit or roommates or someone else that they were home by themselves.
Speaker 3:They missed that socialization. And so as we came back into things and obviously a lot of the social distancing was still in place but socializing was becoming more common and you go back to work and things of that nature we kind of opened it up and didn't really make a hard and fast rule Like, hey, we're going to open the office again. No one is obligated to go in, so you don't have to if you don't want to, but it's open and it was. You know, we have key card access and things of that nature. So it wasn't, you know, we didn't have to worry about other personnel being in there and stuff like that. So I would say we had people go in, a handful of people go in like every couple of weeks or so, and that went on for a while and then we moved to, and so one of the kind of cool things that I think was a great opportunity, and why a hybrid and a remote model is great in this industry, is that our recruiting capabilities expanded drastically and all of a sudden we had team members outside of Southern California that were in Idaho, were in Texas, that were in Oregon and whatnot too, and so we had the opportunity to work with these people that we wouldn't have been even on our radar prior to this, that now were people that we could potentially work with. And how rad is that, where we get to meet new people in different walks of life and different experiences that are now being able to work and collaborate. So that was, I think, probably the coolest thing.
Speaker 3:And then, kind of fast forward, we were saying, like we kept doing the kind of polls of like who wants to go back in? And everyone was like, yeah, we'll go back in. Okay, who wants to go in once a week, every other week, once a month? Okay, and it was funny because you know we said, okay, fine, that's cool, we'll set up this co-working space. It's open, it's available. You're welcome to come in. If we have clients or we have to host someone, we have it available to us. But don't feel any obligation of going back over the last I would say year and a half, as we've gone and started building back more of our intern programs and speaking at more of the local universities and things of that nature.
Speaker 3:Every young person, every student, without fail. The question that they will ask is are you in-person or are you hybrid or are you completely remote and it's not a loaded question or it's not a rhetorical question. They just to know. But I would say the vast majority of the young people, in particular the students that are starting their careers, are wanting to be in, at a minimum, a hybrid environment. And at the time, because I would have these kind of open conversations about it, I was like, I mean, I'm like, yeah, it's cool, but you don't have to commute and, like you're, you have a lot more flexibility in your day, and if you want to throw a little laundry, and you can, and you can still get back to work. But without fail. Everybody was like, well, what about? Like the socialization aspect? What about like having an opportunity to sit down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 3:And I sadly realized that after the fact and after multiple conversations, that all of these people may have never been in an in-office environment at all, and so where I took it for granted and kind of thought, oh gosh, I'm glad I don't have to work, can you, you know, an hour, hour and a half of my day, that I get back in my life and flexibility is nice and I can kind of go in the office when it's convenient for me, and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:I don't know that I would genuinely want that if I was, you know, in my you know late teens, early twenties, thinking about my career path, because so much of what my experience was getting into this industry was being in that environment, was being in an office and, you know, being able to go over to someone's desk and like brainstorm and like, hey, I've got this like creative idea. What do you think if we're not to? And so I do see a lot of value, as you know, for our organization and for other agencies to have, at a minimum, you know, that option of having a hybrid or some, you know, in-person days because, especially in kind of the learning and the experiential and the socialization aspects, all the kind of cool things that help create that. You know that people value that you know I mentioned earlier about. You know what makes you know agencies so valuable to people like it's kind of a big deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's something we talk about at the university level. Often. Some people hate some professors hate teaching online. They want a classroom experience. I actually have found that virtual teaching. I have great relationships with my students. Many of them come back and ask me for advice, or they ask me for advice, guidance, referrals, recommendations, so many different things and so I feel like there is a way to do it. But you have to be in that mindset. But then I also do value. I had a friend in town from Houston last night and she's a friend and I work with her on a number of different things for one of her businesses PR and strategy and it was so great to be in the same room because we haven't been in the same room for over six years.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:All the work we've done together has been remote, but to be able to sit there across from the table and brainstorm over dinner, there was nothing like it.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Yep. So there's a happy medium somewhere in there.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Good to hear you work. And yeah, I think again, choice right. When you have choice, I mean that's a powerful thing, you know, and I think that's what I would say at the very minimum. You know, like our organization wants to be able to, our team to have that choice and not necessarily be stuck one way or the other. And I think that's kind of the biggest takeaway, at least in where we are, just in all industries is I think people tend to lean more well, I love the idea and I love being in person, I love sitting across from you and doing those sessions and planning things out, but I'd like to be able to have the choice that if I'm just not feeling like today's my day, where I want to, I just want to put my headphones in and my head down and do work like to be able to do that. And I think that's, you know, I think that's a great part of what helps breed a healthy culture is making sure that people have choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 100%. So, jason, what is that last piece of advice that you would leave our students with today?
Speaker 3:About you know what it means to be globally minded and to you know, aspire to lead people and whatnot and I've been. I've had a very fortunate that both of our daughters at the elementary school level went into the international baccalaureate program and one of the guiding principles is this kind of global thinking, being thinking about you are a global citizen, not just an American or Canadian or whatever whatever. Like you're a global citizen, not just an American or Canadian or whatever, whatever. Like you're a global citizen. And I think that's kind of where we've lost a lot of sight, and particularly where technology and the internet and communication, telecom, like we are a global society and the things that we do and how we represent ourselves and be vulnerable and be inquisitive and learn from other people.
Speaker 3:Like the very fortunate experience of being introduced to a gentleman who was a former Navy SEAL he's actually now pathing and looking to start his own consultancy and he was talking about his experience of going through the Stanford Executive Leadership Program, of which Harvard has one more and there's several of them and he reinforced the value of being present in part of a global community and meeting people from all walks of life and all over the world.
Speaker 3:And so my advice is to be inquisitive, think globally, want to learn from others, and because there's so much, I think that we we don't get a chance to experience by only focusing on our small bubble that if we open up our that aperture a bit further and get to see more in this world, that will live way more enriched and happier lives. And so yeah, and if you can find the means to do it, travel like if you can find them, because I think that's a great way to get those experiences Not everybody can do it and get it, but if that's just traveling, you know, from California, arizona Arizona is a little different than California Get to learn, get there by car Fantastic, and that's such a great thing to leave us with, because the students in this program are from all over the world, so it plays really well and I think that's something that we really try to bring to the classroom.
Speaker 2:So I teed it up perfectly.
Speaker 3:Hugely important and that's again, I think, where there's such a great opportunity is to reinforce that and then hopefully enable young people to continue to advocate that and share that with others. Because, again, regardless of where you get your news or information or media and all that thing but there's a lot of really wild things going on and I think that again, too many people have narrowed their aperture way too tight and forget that there's all of these beautiful things and amazing things that are around them, and so to have that opportunity, and especially in an environment like yours, it's a blessing and I would tell them to tell anybody that they can Keep doing that.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Of course we're going to link to your LinkedIn and to the Guna website. Last question Do you have internships or opportunities available? If any of my students want to reach out to you?
Speaker 3:I don't currently, but I would please encourage them to reach out if they have interest. As I mentioned before, many solutions on a single thread I have a number of great friends and colleagues in agency world in the SaaS industry that, if they have an interest in getting into media and or technology companies, I am more than happy to make introductions and invite people to take advantage of my network in any way they can. It's something I take great joy in doing, so please feel free to connect, Let me know what you're interested in and I will do my best to help.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Thank you so much. This has been a delightful conversation, as always.
Speaker 3:Always, and I can't appreciate it. Thank you so much for having and taking the time with me today. It's been so much fun. I always have fun with you, though, so that's not surprising at all.
Speaker 2:And thank you to everybody who's watching this episode or listening to it on your favorite platform. This is Mediascape Insights from Digital Changemakers. I'm your co-host, Annika Jackson, and we'll be back again with another amazing guest to share their story, their journey and some insights for you to make your career path a little smoother.
Speaker 1:To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital Media Management program, visit us on the web at dmmuscedu.
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