It’s good to know you! If you are receiving this email, it’s because you are part of our Transparent Partners community.  You may be a current or former client, a friend or colleague from working with one of us at a brand, an agency, or a marketing technology company. We have known a good many of you over the course of years, and some of you we may have met recently at a conference, event, or otherwise through our networks.

One thing that I appreciate about my role at Transparent is the relationship orientation of our team and the way we work with clients like many of you.  I feel very fortunate to have a healthy network of colleagues that I’ve met through my career and the steady stream of new people that I’m meeting, working with and getting to know on a regular basis.

I suspect that none of you reading this are short on volume of connections and people you’ve worked with.  I’m sure that I have interacted with over 10K people in my career, and you are either in the same place or on the same trajectory.  For the average professional, though, this doesn’t translate to a healthy network of connectedness.  This article describes the phenomena of increasing loneliness in our work lives due to a variety of factors like working remotely and the crush of non-stop virtual meetings.  Foreseeable trends like the increasing power of AI will likely continue to make human connections at work even more challenging.

Why does this matter? Because over the long run, nothing is more valuable to our careers than our friends and colleagues. This is especially true if your role requires you to navigate ambiguity, make sense of incomplete information, and convince others to join along. Again, if you’re reading this, it’s likely that these are the kinds of things you are up to. In this environment, it can be most beneficial to get some outside perspective from others facing the same challenges.  For context, here is a taste of challenges we hear about from our clients every day:

  • Sift through 14,000+ MarTech vendors and pick just the right stack, then get multiple teams to use and get value out of it
  • Get your marketing and customer data in order so that you can personalize communications, but without ringing any privacy and consent alarm bells and creeping out your customers
  • Accurately measure the impact of your marketing investments even though the Wanamaker Problem (“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”) has never been solved and then enable real-time optimization
  • Understand AI, make use of it for your team productivity, get your data in order to leverage AI, and get AI embedded across your marketing ecosystem to gain competitive advantage
  • Do all of these things and more while managing changes in leadership and re-organizations

There is a productive path forward for all of these areas, and we can certainly help you directly to take these on and realize the value.  Most importantly though, please think of us as a network to other professionals seeking to tackle these challenges and hopefully bring some levity and pleasure in the process.

We invite you to engage with our larger network of Transparent Partners clients and connections to foster human connection as you push forward with large transformations, seek out smaller point solutions, or just want to soak up happenings in the industry.  Here are the major ways to get connected:

Transparently Speaking Events
Our dinner series, which began in Chicago, now regularly takes place in major US cities. We frequently collaborate with clients and vendors to host fireside chats addressing pressing topics. The only requirement is transparency and unbiased viewpoints!

In Vino Transperitas
We host small group virtual wine tastings that bring together non-competitive marketers to share best practices and challenges. The networking and laughter are as enjoyable as the wine!

Conferences
As the leader of the MarTech and data training COE for the ANA, Transparent Partners is almost always in attendance at ANA conferences. We also maintain a strong presence at industry events such as Cannes, the Ascendant Network, and Brand Insider Summits.

Career Networking
We often have clients looking for great people to bring to an open role.  We are also one of the first places people in our network contact when they are open to a new role.  If you need to fill a position or are looking for a new role, please reach out!

Thank you for being a part of our larger Transparent Partners community! Please reach out and engage with us and each other.  Enjoy the summer!