Let's Talk Jobs

In this episode, Troy Petersen, Jesse Ratner and I discuss our career horror stories and the lessons they've learned from them. We share personal experiences of making mistakes in our professional lives, such as sending inappropriate emails or disclosing confidential information while under the influence. The conversation highlights the importance of taking responsibility for mistakes, having a mitigation plan, and learning from past experiences. We also touch on the role of fear in decision-making and the significance of framing mistakes in a way that preserves credibility and fosters growth. Overall, the discussion emphasizes the value of transparency, proactive communication, and data-driven analysis in managing and recovering from career mishaps. The episode concludes with a teaser for the next episode topic: dealing with difficult managers.

What goes into building your brand? How do you define or articulate your company's values and positioning. And then, how do you take that vision and make it come alive through digital design? In this episode, we're joined by John & Jane agency and we walk through practical examples of how to progress through the brand creative process from Research, to Strategy, to Identity to Design.

What happens when GenAI comes for your job as a writer? So much attention has been put on OpenAI's ChatGPT-4, Google Gemini, Claude, Meta LLama 2, and Amazon's new multimodal chain of thought LLM. While their capability of generating content is truly advancing the artificial landscape, there are things that it can't replicate — things that human's bring to the table like emotion, ethics, and compassion. So how do you utilize it in a way to increase your efficacy and stave off being replaced? In this episode, we're joined by Jesse Ratner, a content marketer, creative director, and writer. We discuss how the landscape is changing and how companies are or are not embracing generative AI.

In this episode of Let's Talk Jobs, we're joined by Jonathon Harrelson, an active live streamer on Twitch, YouTube, runs a podcast, and is a blog writer. We go into depth into on how to set up a studio, what equipment you should consider purchasing and breaks it down by price-to-value, and software he uses for video editing. He then goes into depth on how to do a live broadcast on Twitch, and helps us understand how to look at performance data and optimize your video to increase engagement. He also talks about the value of SEO to drive more traffic to your video which benefits platforms like Instagram and YouTube. For monetization, on-demand videos is where you want to go, and he breaks down why that is the case.

Whoever said starting a podcast was easy, was wrong and it's easy to get hung up on things. For some, it's figuring out a sustainable passion and point of view that generates enough content to captivate your audience. The task of setting up a studio or knowing what equipment to purchase can also be daunting. Editing a video also can feel scary. And oh yes, do you host it alone? Share the burden of hosting with someone else? Or do you bring guests on the show... and how do you secure them? Today we're joined by Andrew Kappel, podcast creator of "How the Deal was Done | Deal Stories Podcast". We started our podcasting adventures at the same time, and we share about our experiences, things we learned along the way, and tips to building a successful content creator career.

In 2020, the pandemic impacted the world economy and four years later, companies are still trying to recover. Unfortunately, a lot of small and medium-sized businesses did not survive. In this episode, I'm joined by André Oliveira, Founder and CEO of Pixelmatters. We have a open and transparent discussion about how he started his agency, and what surviving the economy looks like. We also talk about what clients are facing today, and how that impacts small businesses.

Career growth is rarely linear, especially in business — It's a series of micro and macro decisions. Some of these choices are the right ones. Sometimes things happen by luck, and sometimes opportunity strikes because of a relationship you've built. To create more opportunity, some choose to pursue a business degree with the hopes of gaining new skills, new connections, or breaking into a new job field or industry. Post graduation, it's not uncommon for someone to go into consulting. But where do you go from there and how do you take control of your options? Today we are joined by Michael Chen, a product manager at Asana who started his career as a consultant. He then ventured into product marketing at LinkedIn, and eventually evolved his career into his core passion, product management. The path was a windy one, and he shares some great insights about lessons he learned along the way. Background Music Credits: Registered Royalty-Free: https://elements.envato.com/background-music-GL3RS9Z

In this episode we talk about how to be a ghost writer and content marketer. Ghost writers have the ability to take someone's ideas and vision, and put it into words. They're able to turn it into content that preserves the authentic voice of the originator in a way that engages the desired audience. In this episode, we sit down with Troy Petersen who talks about how to write a compelling story, how to break through into this challenging and rewarding field, and tips to succeeding as a content marketer.

In 1982, Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol brand took a major hit. A product tampering incident with cyanide resulted in the deaths of 7 people. J&J's response set the bar for crisis comms and became the gold standard for corporate responsibility. A career as a PR or Comms professional is both challenging and rewarding. It's a broad field where many people can find their niche: Media Relations, Corporate Communications, Crisis Communication, Digital and Social Media, Event Planning, Public Affairs, Community Relations, Employee Relations/Internal Communications, Brand Management, Marketing Communication and International/Global PR. In this episode, PR Exec Alex Lin-Goldsmith tells you everything you need to know to get started or grow a career as a PR or Comms professional.

Digital Accessibility is the practice to ensure that everyone, including people with disabilities, can access and use digital content (like a website). Often times we think just in terms of color contrast and font legibility. It goes much more beyond that. Screen-reading hardware devices need to be able to read your content. Your site needs to be navigable by keyboard (without a mouse). Your page markup matters. Just to name a few. However, did you know that there are law firms out there who explicitly go after companies that don't meet all the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) guidelines and sue them for accessibility negligence? It's predatory for sure, but it happens more often than you realize. And even if you manage to resolve one lawsuit, it doesn't protect you from a follow-up with another law firm. In today's episode, joined by Zack Poelwijk, Director of Client Success at ABILITY Digital Accessibility Co. We walk through WCAG in detail so you know how to make your website accessible friendly to all, and how the courts handle lawsuits related to digital accessibility.