Gustavo Arruda is Global Director of Marketing at OpenSRS, a division of Tucows. With a strong background in digital marketing, Gustavo is responsible for the digital strategy for the storied technology company. He joins us from Toronto to discuss what it takes to work as a digital strategist in an International context.

Episode 11: The International Digital Strategist

AdWords strategy. Display strategy. Social strategy. Facebook strategy.
Are these in fact strategies or are they something else entirely? 
Let's start by defining what we mean by a digital strategy. I think this is necessary because in spite of the fact that it is a term that is overused; I believe there is a lack of understanding as to what constitutes a strategy.

Episode 1: Defining Digital Strategy

This episode we welcome Ahmed Elemam, a key member of the digital team at Westjet in Calgary to talk about a digital career as a passion project. Ahmed grew up with a passion for travel that in combination with his affinity for technology led him into a multi-disciplinary career in digital. We began by discussing his start in digital media.

Episode 6: Digital Strategy As A Passion Project

Jon Bernstein is an award-winning journalist, editor and digital strategist. He was deputy editor, then digital director at the New Statesman; multimedia editor at Channel 4 News; ran the Channel 4 FactCheck website during the 2005 general election; and was editor-in-chief of Directgov, working in the Cabinet Ofiice's eGovernment Unit. He began his career in journalism as a technolofy writer, working as a reporter for PC Week and news editor of Network News before moving on to become a founding member and editor-in-chief of business and technology website silicon.com. There he led editorial launches in London, Munich and Paris. In 2011 he was named Website Editor of the Year by the British Society of Magazine Editors for Newstatesman.com. He writes for Press Gazette and the Guardian Media Network. He joins us from London to discuss the role of the digital strategist in journalism.

Episode 18: The Role Of The Digital Strategist In Journalism

Ya-Yung Cheng, who goes by YY, is the Senior Director of Digital Marketing and Platforms at Sylvan Learning, the leading provider of K through 12 tutoring and supplemental services in North America. YY brings almost 20 years of marketing experience to the role, with positions at American Express, Ingenio and Yahoo along the way. YY is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and has an MBA from UC Berkeley. She joins us from Baltimore, Maryland to discuss the role of the digital strategist in integrated marketing.&nbsp;

Episode 23: The Digital Strategist In Integrated Marketing

In his book, Blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, &nbsp;Malcolm Gladwell argues that spontaneous decisions are as good as, or even better than, carefully planned and considered ones. Does this fly in the face of the role of the strategist?

Episode 63: Hypothesis Driven Strategy

Our parents graduated, entered the workforce in their twenties, and stayed with the same organization, often in a similar field for the entirety of their careers. They were also often able to comfortably afford their own homes in their early twenties, but hey, it was a different time. Everything has since changed. The security that previous generations experienced in their work no longer exists. We live in a time of anxiety and change like we have never seen before. Technology has disrupted countless industries, eliminating certainties and making a mockery of the idea of tenure. It has levelled the international playing field, meaning that there is as much opportunity for someone on the other side of the planet to compete for your job in a way that was once impossible. The World really has become flat. Periodic recessions are met with immediate layoffs regardless of the ability or contributions of the employee. And in our industry, skills and experience that were once highly regarded are today irrelevant. But it's not all doom and gloom. All this disruption has opened up previously unheard of opportunities and mobility for those that welcome new challenges. Today, we are not expected to work for the same employer for the entirety of our careers. Indeed, today we are likely to have multiple careers within our working lives. Given that, why would someone want to become a digital strategist mid-career? Let's start with the premise that it is an attractive role. Not only is it in high demand, with a lot of organizations actively hunting for a relatively small pool of talent, it is also a role that is closely associated with organizational revenue and profitability. As such, it is also a high profile role, which to many people is quite appealing.

Episode 68: Taking The Leap

To be called Machiavellian is to be considered unscrupulous, immoral and deceitful. This is a man that wrote that 'since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved', and 'if an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared'. Machiavelli did not see people as inherently good, but wrote that 'of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain'. But in spite of this jaundiced worldview, or maybe because of it, Machiavelli has been called the founder of modern political science and realpolitik, and I believe teaches 5 lessons that can benefit the strategist.

Episode 75: The Prince

Too often, when we think of our work in digital marketing, we consider it purely through the lens of the technology we are working with. In doing so, we forget the strategic frameworks that have been applied in planning for decades. How relevant are these frameworks to the work of the digital strategist, and how do they apply? To answer that question, let's look at one of the most interesting, Porter's 5 Forces.

Episode 78: Applying Porter's 5 Forces To Digital Strategy

When you're in the middle of the scrum, with a thousand requests coming at you at the same time, how do you prioritize? How do you deliver to expectations? How do you maintain the quality of your thinking and output? How do you stay sane?

Episode 95: The Things Left Undone

Overlooked, sidelined and dismissed, soft skills are considered less important than hard technical skills and experience. But as you grow your career, they become ever more important. What are soft skills, why are they not considered important when you first start your career, and why do they become more important as you grow?

Episode 96: Why Are Soft Skills So Hard?

The Ancient Greeks wrote that you should know thyself. But self awareness is a seemingly rare trait. We rush to talk, to get our opinion across without thinking about the impact on how we are perceived. Why is self awareness so important, why is it so rare, and how can we become more self aware?

Episode 97: Self Awareness Is A Beautiful Thing

Digital media is having a moment, one that if not aggressively addressed will turn into a full blown crisis of confidence. Procter &amp; Gamble CMO Marc Pritchard caused a sensation when he called on digital media providers to become transparent in the face of "crappy advertising accompanied by even crappier viewing experiences". Major advertisers, including the UK government, the Guardian and Havas have frozen all Google and YouTube advertising in the UK. What on earth is happening, how did we get here, and what is a digital strategist to do in this environment?

Episode 98: Strategy In The Age Of Media Crisis

Consensus can be a dirty word. It implies compromise. Compromise invites committee thinking. And committee thinking is associated with safe and uninteresting solutions. But without consensus, we can't deliver a digital strategy. How do we achieve consensus while remaining daring and innovative?

Episode 99: Building Consensus

Being a strategist is about delivering outcomes predicated on understanding and driving human behaviours and actions. It is about understanding who your audience is, how they think, what they want, and delivering a message that motivates them to take the actions you want. Yes, in order to do so, you need to understand how to align and manipulate digital tools to deliver the right experience to the right person at the right time. But at the heart of this is an understanding of people in all our glorious messiness.

Episode 100: The Truths We Hold To Be Self Evident

You sit in the eye of the storm, pulled in a hundred different directions. How do you stay focused on the right outcomes? How do you turn the chaos and energy to your advantage? You do it by remembering who you work for. You do it by being the client advocate.

Episode 101: The Client Advocate

We have previously discussed the emerging opportunities and threats presented by automation and artificial intelligence. Make no mistake, they are going to have a profound effect on our industry and society. But all is not lost. As we have previously outlined, the digital strategist is poised to thrive in this age of upheaval, and one of the key roles they will fulfill is the role of the integrator.

Episode 102: The Digital Strategist As Integrator

Why do people buy? They believe that what you are selling is going to fulfill their need. And that's the key word...believe. For them to believe this fact, they have to trust. And in an industry based on artifice, to instil trust, nothing matters more than authenticity.

Episode 103: Keeping It Real

“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies”. Jack Kerouac always had a way to capture a moment. And this is the moment, at the 2-year mark, to say goodbye.

Episode 104: Time To Say Goodbye

I tell stories.

Stories to connect businesses with people on the journey to purchase.

Stories to drive performance in digital media for enterprise brands.

Stories to motivate and inspire my team, my peers and my clients.

Stories to ensure executional excellence and delivery against objectives.

And best of all, stories to make my boys laugh.

Nasser Sahlool

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