Being a classical musician, Joel trained all his life to perform in opera orchestras, and symphony orchestras and traveled quite a lot around the world. He worked in Russia, Austria, and the US. He also became a journalist writing about art, music & culture and was introduced to the world of media and communications.

Check out his story:

Transcript (auto-generated)

0:01we have all this qualitative data that takes a lot of time.

0:05So I think ai is going to play, a really key role in helping marketers and public relations professionals sort through all of this and be able to start finding trends and commonalities much quicker.

0:30My background in my educational journey has nothing to do with marketing and public relations or communications.

0:37not in the traditional sense, I actually come from a performing arts background.

0:40I’m a classical musician, and I trained all my life to perform in opera orchestras in in, in symphony orchestras and actually traveled quite a lot around the world tour all over.

0:50Russia had a, had a job in Austria, in a few positions here in the United States.

0:55You know, so, so my, my job as an artist was, was very simple.

1:00was to take information that was codified by other people and give it life, give it meaning and communicated to others.

1:07So the job of a, of a musician often when you’re performing is to really collaborate with others, and present something that’s going to be transformational for the audience who is in front of you, whether that happens to be a recording or happens to be a, a live, a live performance.

1:26One of the most amazing things is, you know, I was touring places where I just didn’t know the language, I don’t speak Russian, I don’t speak Armenian.

1:35I don’t speak a lot of these places I was in, but we could communicate through the love of music and I knew that there was, there was magic in that there was there was magic and, being able to translate information in a way that created an emotional connection with somebody else that began this journey of using the sort of data points.

1:56Music, music score is is a collection of data.

1:58It’s a collection of information, right?

2:00it’s limited your job is to interpret it and to do something with it.

2:04So it started my curiosity of How, how this information about one is codified, how it’s interpreted and how it’s delivered went through a variety of different stages in my life.

2:15One of them was as a journalist because I had a background in in in arts and music that I could write about the subject that I understood the the cultural implications of what it means to be an artist in in the 20th and 21st century, especially in the United States and and actually around the world because of my travels.

2:34And that led into an understanding of how to activate media channels to create community around passions.

2:42Right?

2:43So again, looking at data, looking at what people were interested in what the engagement rates were like, what people were responding to the connections that I made simply because I was, you know, putting out things that were of importance to me, which led to sort of this interesting evolution.

3:01And instead of doing it for a publication or for the arts then transitioning into growing a public relations agency that really connects clients with audiences.

3:12That matters that matter most to them.

3:14, it’s, there are two things that seem that are very disconnected, right?

3:19Performing arts, classical music and in marketing and public relations.

3:23But in essence once you distill both disciplines to its to their core, which is about communications, which is about connection and creating a sense of belonging that the disciplines are actually universal.

3:42When you go to music school and when you, when you study, things like music history and music theory and the life of the composer, what life was like in, you know, 19th century Italy or 18th century Russia and what, what the context through which this information was being provided to you.

4:00You realize that a music score of notes is incomplete, right?

4:05You have the notes, you have the time, you give an idea of how fast it goes, how loud you play, how soft you play.

4:12Do you play notes that are long or that are short?

4:15But then there’s a lot more to it that you need to be informed about.

4:19So you have information that’s very concrete.

4:22That’s a note I need to play it long.

4:23Short, loud, soft, higher low.

4:26But then there’s a context, right?

4:28This was written at a time where these things were going on or you know, they may have been a war.

4:34They may have been like these things around there that give more meaning to what you’re looking at.

4:39So the data is there a music score is data, but it also needs to be interpreted, right?

4:48And it’s it’s one of the magic I think of of interpretation that you can have different people looking at the same thing and derive different lessons from it, right, derive different meaning from it.

5:00So just as data is also really important is the knowledge of how this data fits into the context of what you’re looking at in order to make informed decisions as to how to best then deliver to the public that matters like for me, music was What’s my story, right?

5:18What is the story that I want to tell?

5:20That’s gonna get people to remember it to connect with it and to have some sort of meaning in marketing and public relations is exactly the same thing, right?

5:29Data tells probably about 50% of the story the context and the understanding of human sentiment, human nature, human trends.

5:39What’s happening in the cultural Zegas gives the rest.

5:46Some people think of it as very creative fields and in a way they are like you need to connect the dots.

5:52But everything begins with that foundation of data, right?

5:55And if if at our job is to engage Publix, right, engage the different publics of our client, whether it happens to be internal employees, internal communities, external communities, government, government media, whoever is important to our particular clients, understanding them is at the root of the success of every campaign and whether understanding them means where they live, what they think, you know, what their life is.

6:26It’s all rooted in a combination of understanding both qualitative and quantitative data, right?

6:31And how they’re responding to these things.

6:33So we are then able to better create campaigns to start with a foundation.

6:41So you’re not best practices have have their place and all marketing and public relations, but we also want to make sure that we’re not making assumptions, right?

6:52So those that foundation begins by looking at the data that we have in addition to looking at the data that we need to source.

7:00, so everything for us starts with a foundation of looking at both, what’s happening with the organization, what’s happening by looking at the data that they have and looking at the data that’s available.

7:11Both primary and secondary sources are critical to really understanding how to set our clients for success.

7:22Oh, there’s always a challenge with data, right?

7:25there’s there’s sometimes we see one or two extremes.

7:29One is that we have too much, right?

7:31And we don’t know what to look at or what’s relevant.

7:35so I think the data collection exercise size is important to think about what data you’re collecting in order for it to be actionable later down the road.

7:46You know, there’s a saying that around the industry analysis paralysis where you see so much and you don’t know how to get started because you just have too much information.

7:56, so that’s that’s always been a challenge to understand.

7:59What is it that we’re looking at?

8:02So we can assess the right outcome and the right goals for each particular campaign in each particular client or we don’t have the right the right data available, right?

8:12So often the kinds of things that I have is things that are available from the client side.

8:19So it’s it’s it’s a little easier to look at things like social listening data, right?

8:25Or what’s happening on their website through google analytics or doing a sentiment analysis between what’s covered in media.

8:32you know, there’s a wonderful platform that gives us idea of share voice and those kinds of things.

8:38But what’s sometimes it’s difficult is the con the customer sentiment data, right?

8:47And how to qualitative data is so much more difficult to analyze and quantitative so to really understand the emotional facet of the end users frame of mind.

9:02it’s always a little bit more of a challenge, right?

9:05Because there’s there’s more left out to interpretation than than numbers.

9:10You can’t argue with math, you can’t argue with science, you can’t argue with that but it is up to interpretation.

9:15There’s a little bit more of a gray area on qualitative that gives the opportunity for more for more departures and tangents of interpretation, it depends if I’m thinking if I put my marketing hat on or my public relations hat.

9:36Right.

9:37so if I’m thinking marketing, I am tying everything to the objectives that are set up by the client and those usually are conversions.

9:47Right.

9:48I’m thinking very much conversions.

9:50I’m thinking, all right.

9:51So what are those conversions is that, you know, e book downloads?

9:55Are they sales?

9:56Are they leads?

9:57Are they donors for my nonprofit clients?

10:00What is it, how, how do they descend in a very traditional marketing marketing funnel approach.

10:06Right.

10:06Where are my people at the top of the funnel, general awareness consideration conversion?

10:11How many people are going through this process?

10:14So I’m looking at hard numbers, right.

10:17I’m looking at things like churn rates.

10:19I’m looking at the KPI S, could be, you know, visits to the website, click through raids.

10:25I’m looking at bounce rates, any dropouts, anything that might, can help us re engage.

10:34I’m with a marketing hat, I’m really looking at conversions as the end goal.

10:38Now some have my hat on as a public relations professional.

10:43That becomes a lot more difficult, right?

10:44Because public relations is really about maintaining, for me, it’s about maintaining a reputation, right?

10:53It’s about reputation management and we look at everything through, this is a result really of our, what our clients are doing and what they say, but really is about resonance with the consumer with their target audiences.

11:06So it becomes about measuring what others say about the organization.

11:11You know, there’s a famous quote about brand and brand reputation.

11:15, you know, it’s what people say when you’re not in the room.

11:19Well, how do you listen to that?

11:20Right?

11:21So that becomes a whole different challenge of, of influencing influencing behavior and understanding sentiment.

11:29so some of the measurement that will do for that is definitely more on the focus group side and surveys and, and looking at a trends over time, you know, what are maybe keywords that are being talked about in social media is a training conversation going positive has shifted in a certain way.

11:47Are we seeing conversation shifted to align with, you know, the brand values and the stories and the emotions that we’re putting through in these campaigns that are aimed at something very different, right?

12:00Public relations when, when a brand’s reputation is enhanced.

12:05All business functions become easier, including marketing, including sales.

12:10It’s just a little harder to be able to identify the true north, the true measurement of success other than looking like a holistic view of all these indicators.

12:23Marketing is one of them, right?

12:25Marketing is just one conversions is one the other things that there’s a lot more political data in there.

12:32and it’s, it’s a little bit trickier to, to gather, but they’re, they’re tools available that help us tell that story.

12:39But again, we have to sift through it to really understand what it means in the context of everything that’s going on, Social listening is certainly one that’s where we take a look at right at the beginning, right?

12:56And understand.

12:57What are the, what are the big key words?

12:58What are the conversations?

12:59What is general sentiment?

13:01Where does it, where does it sit where we set up?

13:03Also benchmarks against our clients concept?

13:08Right, What are the competitors?

13:09Where is that language?

13:11Where can we create areas where we’re creating a little bit of, you know, the Blue Ocean, an area where they create an uncontested space where they’re known specifically for a particular value product or service.

13:23So we start working with them by setting up benchmarks there.

13:27, certainly surveys are a big, big part of this.

13:31So ongoing, maybe quarterly or depending on the cadence of the work that we’re doing for them.

13:36You know?

13:37Quarterly surveys, monthly surveys, help us really understand where the conversation is going to really assess.

13:44What are the emotional triggers that people have when they’re thinking about a brand?

13:47And are they aligning with the pillars that we’ve set up that are also align with corporate values.

13:55Right?

13:56So, so we’re setting those kinds of elements and of course, so that share voice is really important, you know, earned media continues to be, especially now earned anything in the urn space.

14:10People trust people that are closest to them that are not associated with the brand.

14:14so influencer relations, influencer marketing continues to be like a really important part.

14:20Word of mouth endorsements are huge.

14:23Now when I say influencer relations influencer marketing, I think there’s more of a there’s more trust paid to smaller influencers, niche influencers, not in the sense that they’re, you know, they don’t have a career as an influencer, they just happen to be because of who they are and what they, how they serve their communities.

14:42So it’s paying attention to what’s happening in that space as well.

14:46those are the kinds of things that we’re looking at and we’re leveraging those numbers to really understand the benchmark that we started with and how the shifting based on the strategies and tactics that we implemented for our clients.

15:04I think anybody who’s entering this profession needs to understand that learning is a key component of being in this business, right?

15:17We in school, and I’m a professor of marketing and communications at, at a university here and I have to every before, every single lecture go over everything for the past year, like even if it’s the same curriculum that I taught the year before because everything changes at the, you know, the drop of a hat and to stay ahead both on what’s happening in the media channel side, like what’s what’s happening there and what’s happening with the consumers and how both are interacting with one another.

15:50It’s always going to be the secret sauce that will enable you to be most effective for your clients and for yourself, you have to go in this with an attitude of learning and an attitude of experimentation, right?

16:07That often you have some of the answers, but you don’t have all the answers Because the answers are going to change, right?

16:14So what you did yesterday might not work today or tomorrow, but maybe something that happened 10 years ago, it’s now and now works right, because consumer sentiment may have changed, there may have been current events is making people think about different things.

16:28I think something that has become really evident in the past three years is that, You know, this world of communications 12 pr we need ourselves and our clients to set them up to be of service to the communities that they’re they’re trying to attract.

16:50It’s it’s become The differentiator between one brand and another.

16:56So, understanding at the root the motivations of the in consumer and again, those change is going to be key.

17:05So, I think, I think if you go in this with an attitude that you’re always a student of the discipline and you never have all the answers and be comfortable with that right to always be in this constant evolution of developing your mind, your knowledge and often that only happens if you allow yourself experimentation and forgive yourself and all yourself to fail, right?

17:31Like failure also has the opportunity to give you insights of what didn’t work.

17:37So you can actually work on what what could possibly work.

17:40Collaboration is also incredibly important, right?

17:42When we’re when we’re working on strategies with my team, I need minds from every single type of discipline.

17:50, so going into this profession with an attitude of learning and an attitude of collaboration and teamwork, I think it’s going to serve people really well.

18:04Actually, whether you’re new in this business or whether you’re a seasoned professional, it’s always good to remind yourself.