We Need More Women Working In Adtech

Hey are you reading this? Good. Promote disenfranchised people. And listen to them. Use your privilege for good. And take this amazing advice from Twila Dang.Key Links:Twila Dang of Matriarch Digital MediaArticle: https://soundsprofitable.com/update/we-need-more-women-working-adtech-----How are you promoting diversity? How are you helping out your peers and employees?___Credits:Hosted by Bryan Barletta of Sounds Profitable - [email protected]Audio engineering by Ian PowellExecutive produced by Evo Terra of Simpler MediaSpecial thanks to James Cridland of PodnewsPodcast hosting and dynamic insertion wizardry by WhooshkaaSounds Profitable Theme written by Tim CameronJoin the feed at https://soundsprofitable.supercast.tech/
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SPEp22Bryan: Diversity equality, inclusion and mentorship. That's what we're talking about this week on Sounds Profitable with me, Bryan Barletta.this episode of Sounds Profitable is brought to you by pod sites, podcast, attribution, go to pod sites.com for more info.I know that you're listening to Sounds Profitable because podcast ad tech is important to you, but it's important to me that you are kept up to date on the latest news from the entire podcast industry to help with that. Here's what happened last week. No matter when you're listening from James Cridlin at pod news.As a white heterosis man, I am deeply aware of how privileged I am. So I'm willing to do anything in my power to try and use this platform, to make this podcasting ad tech place more inclusive and better. And right now we're not doing that great Twila. Dang was kind enough to write an article for Sounds Profitable on the topic and on the step she thinks work to make this space more welcoming I'll link to the article.She was also kind enough to come by and talk with me about her article, which is what today's episode is about. What's the yeah. Dive into it. So, you know, thank you so much for being here and, uh, you know, it was so awesome that I met you. We met through like a lentigo Williams and, uh, podcasting seriously, and we kinda hit it off right away.Like I loved how you were talking about the podcasting space. Yeah. We were finding, looking for an opportunity to kind of dive in more. And I thought it was such a perfect idea in March for women's history month to focus on like women in the podcasting and podcast ad tech space. So, you know, first off I want to say thank you so much.For writing, probably my favorite guests article don't tell any of the other,Twila: keep it a secret. I keep it a secret, but no, I mean, you don't have to thank me for that. I was, that was fun to getBryan: to do. Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean like the, the big thing that I want to kick off is that I am aggressively a, a bald bearded, right?Uh, kind of hard to avoid that. Uh, not really a lot for me to change. So I am, but I realized that like, especially through conversations with you, I realized how much privilege I had in everything. Right. The, the biggest thing that you talked to me through was how I got to where I was, was literally.Somebody didn't want to do a role. I was definitely not qualified for it. I asked for access to it and they just gave it to me. And because I did that, I kept having the opportunity to ask for more and more and more, even as I messed up, I've absolutely caused millions of dollars in ad damage. Anybody who who's successful in podcast advertising.Or, or advertising in general, you know, wait for that moment, count those failures. Cause they're fun. But you brought up the best thing you said. Have you ever been asked by an unqualified junior woman and this Orion qualified woman in general for the specific tasks, they didn't have the technical background on it, or there was a specific reason prior to the conversation that they didn't have the logins for.Have you ever been asked by them for more permissions and what did you say. I've absolutely said no. And it was like heartbreaking for me to realize like, oh, I have been aTwila: roadblock. Well, and the thing is that's I think most of us don't realize that that's how the system is designed. I mean, it's not, it's not intended for.It's designed to work sort of in lock step into bad ways. One, we have this entire structure and it doesn't just exist here in audio and in podcasting, but in a lot of professional structures where women are taught that they're not supposed to be asking for things that they're supposed to let the work speak for it.That they're supposed to be happy for any opportunity that they get. We're never taught any, you know, the simple things like negotiation or how to get the support you need for projects. We're just handed things and we go figure it out because we don't want to upset anybody. Then there's a second system that's in place that sort of interlocks with this.That is a traditional system of how people get ahead in business, which is through personal networks, whisper networks. The ways that those networks are inner, you know, are impacted by biases that already exist. You know, honestly, dudes meet old dudes, they get to be friends with other dudes. They look out for other dudes.And then when a woman shows up, they say, oh, well, that's great that that woman is here, but she doesn't know what this dude knows. And then she doesn't get an opportunity to have that discussion. So, I mean, it's frustrating that those two things sort of interact.Bryan: I think you're super right about all those, those examples.I mean, like I'm only where I am, because I have asked for more and I've had resistance, but I've been able to overpower it. I haven't been pushed down about it. I've been pushed back against, right. You're super right. That the women are, I mean, the default assumption for. I like, I'm not even qualified to talk about all these things, but I think about how many times I've watched people dismiss the same behavior I've had or the same people, baby behavior other people have had other men have had just because it's a women you're right.Like we, we say those things and we attribute it based on that. And that's, it super sucks. The idea that like, we can like two guys connect over something and a woman wants to come and add to it. And the response is like, oh, well she doesn't know as much. You gotta flip that mindset right now today, everybody.And you're going to be like, am I the reason am I part of the reason she's not able to know as much? What does it hurt from bringing her to the table so that she can know as much? There's never the amount of people who are just like afraid. They're like, well, what happens if I don't get it? Speaking gigs are good to do as many things because I make way for other people, listen, if that happened cool with rubber band effect, we deserve it, but it's never going to happen because those people are going to talk about how awesome and how helpful you were.Twila: Right? Isn't that the way? Isn't that the funny thing though? Cause I think that's what people, I think that's really what trips a lot of us up the most is that idea of scarcity that there's only so many slots. There's only so much stuff where we've all men and women. We've all been taught. You know, we're crabs in a barrel and that we gotta fight our way out and that if somebody else has come behind you, you got to kick them back down.Cause they might pass you by. And then you're going to be stuffed again the entire way that I've built my business model. It was honestly an absolute opposite response to every work experience I ever had. And every manager I ever had, any person that ever told me, I wasn't, I couldn't have a sh it shouldn't be, or this is not something that you can aspire to.I just flipped that on its head in my company. If you come and you work with me and you say you want to try to do something, okay, then let's look at your. And let's figure out how to get you to do that thing. If you need somebody to believe in you first, I believe in you first, again, all the way down to the no apologies for life policy.You know, my policy do not apologize when life happens, because that is something that gets held against women all the time and professional environments, simple things like, oh, I was running late cause I dropped my kid off or, oh, my dog was barking or, oh, I'm sorry. I was completely late for this appointment the morning.I don't make women do that at my company. Do not apologize when life happens, because life is going to continue to happen. All we ever have to do is acknowledge we have to fix something or bring something back online, and then we do it. And sometimes it isn't even about that. It's, we've been trained to feel guilty about everything.So if we can just let go of that and say, You don't have to apologize just cause you're two minutes late to a zoom call. It's a zoom call. Yeah, it's fine. You don't have to apologize if you have to get off of the call earlier, if you need to, if you need another day for something, I always tell everybody, just talk to me first.Talk to me because I want everyone to feel as comfortable as possible because I really want us to be able to have the same ability to build that muscle of confidence, that muscle of capability, that those. Building those muscles brings you to that like fearless point where you can say, Hey, I have an idea.Hey, I want to try something. Hey, I want us. Tried to do this a little bit differently here, which are things we can never get to if we can't get past the first level of, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't know. I don't want to bother anybody.Bryan: You're sort of spot on with that. I mean, I think what's funny as I hear that, like Sounds Profitable was built because I did not feel that I've ever been appropriately trained by a manager to grow into being a manager and what you just said, and there's this wave of people like yourself, who.Aren't the right people to become managers, but instead of becoming managers at a bigger company and changing that culture, they're doing their own thing, which is awesome. Let's disrupt it. Let's break it down. Things don't need to be as big and as centralized, we can divvy up work to smaller companies.We can take piecemeal and it doesn't every, not every company has to become Google. Not everything has to default to these big giants.Twila: So, you know, it's funny, I've always been sort of, of two minds. Um, I love my company. I love being able to have, you know, the say and the control over what I do and how I do it, but I also, you know, I sidebar you.We all know I have a day job. I work in American public media. What I think has real value. There is the thing that impacts the entire industry. We need pipelines everywhere, because if you come work for me and my little company, and we do things in a different way, and from outside, people can say, oh, look at the little quirky company, letting those women do the things they want to do.Yeah. That's great. You know, it builds these very strong multi-faceted skill sets and the women that work for us. But if they can't take that. And go somewhere else or pursue an opportunity anywhere and have a pipeline to go into that's an appropriate. Then it doesn't, it doesn't help the whole. Right.Then you just, but that'sBryan: gotta be, that's so hard, right? Like, I mean, the reason why we faults these norms and defaults is because they make it easy for people to skirt by, right. Like management and, and across all of workforces right now are losing their minds at how, uh, at like how this work from home movement, didn't collapse, everything.And we've got articles coming out, pushing back to like, But he's a bigger company is like, we need people back in the office, mostly because we're realizing that. Sometimes management wasn't doing enough. It wasn't managing it. Wasn't growing people. It wasn't figuring that out. So there's so many things that we're falling short on, on that middle level to grow these people.This is one more thing. How do we, how does the whole workforce. The world worked for us. Get better at that.Twila: Um, honestly, first of all, we need to start putting more women in leadership positions because women have more, they have more empathy and direct experience on how to balance life and work. I think we need to really start listening to what people are asking for, because I think in all structures of leadership, we talk at people and not talk to them.We've already seen the pandemic, did one thing for us in particular, it showed us we could do this another. It absolutely showed us. We can do this another way. So now the, now the biggest piece of that is for any of us who are in any kind of leadership role to step into that and say, okay, Hey, I am going to try, I'm going to do this differently.I might not be able to do all of this, but I'm going to do this. Now's the time for us to actually be having conversations with each other, across our companies, across our platforms, across our networks, across our organizations and businesses, and start saying, Hey, let's start looking at real best practices here.I mean, I know for a fact that that. Uh, you know, I'm doing with my company and my fellow business owners that I have relationships with that are creatives. And even those that aren't creatives, we're all now building business structure differently. And a lot of us are doing work with, you know, collaborative work with larger companies and larger corporations.And we're seeing what each other is doing. We're talking about what each other is doing. I'm seeing a lot of what I'm talking about. Play itself out at the corporation. And how they're trying to develop and be really thoughtful about new ways to approach this work and approach, um, creating these environments.And I can guarantee you, we're not going to get everything because folks are always slow to move and adults, you know, get really set and regimented in their ways. But. We have a couple of things working for us. One, we have these, you know, new workforces coming in every day and deciding, I mean really, and truly deciding they don't have to do it the old way.So we're going to have to adapt to them because they're going to become our majority workforce. I mean, look at, look at the quote unquote crisis we're having with hourly wage workers right now who just aren't coming back to these places because the way the wages aren't enough and they've been to a pandemic and that can put, they're not gonna put themselves through this anymore.We have to really start thinking. You know, it's, it's that idea sometimes of, you know, are you going to get on getting on the boat or you stand on shore? You know, we got to get on the boat, everybody's got to get on the boat. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm 47. If I can adapt to some of this, if I can make changes, if I can help engineer my business to be more supportive of the women who work for me.You can do this too. It's not nearly as hard as we think. It's just a matter of deciding I'm going to actually be a part of forward momentum and not exactly what you said earlier. I'm not going to be something that blocks it.Bryan: It's the, the wage worker thing is so interesting to me and I love it. I like I've been working since I was 14.I'm 35 now. I worked at McDonald's for too many years and I just, I probably quit like three or four times. And I was like shamed into going back. Right. I was like, it's not enough money for what I'm doing. It's it's grueling and being treated really poorly. I don't like it. And it was just like, you have to work, you have to go back, you have to do that.And I'm just at least like the middle-aged group here where these people are, the younger kids are deciding they don't want to work for you. And they're deciding that $15 minimum wage should be like the minimum we're backing them. We're not, we're not talking down to them. We're not telling them to second.Guess it we're just like, Hey, things are already shit. And if you're used to it and you can keep rolling and you're, you're fine. Like then, then do it like stand up where you can, but like, you need to understand where you're standing and we got your back. It, it feels so cool. What,Twila: and look how that's starting to play out in media.Look at, look at these. I mean, I said, I think I said on Twitter, not too long ago, like, yo, these kids don't need film school. They don't need anything because they've got all these apps and they have figured out things that friends of mine who have gone to like film school and gone for post-secondary education and media.It took them years to learn it. And these kids like take three months on Tik TOK and they're like editing like a highly skilled Hollywood editor. Right? They've they've now got these new skill sets. They've now got the access, the open access to people all around the world, their peers and contemporaries around the world.They're now making decisions about entrepreneurship and, and decisions about nature of work in nature of living that we just don't, you know, We already got passed by, by some of this. Some of, some of the most important work I do is making sure I'm talking to those people, those young people and making sure that they at least have the, the benefit and the value of like, Hey, I've I've I have knowledge.I can't tell you how to edit, like in 30 seconds on a tech talk video, but I can tell you, or talk to you about. You know, this awkwardness that you feel about approaching an adult about, you know, like you've got the skills that you don't know how to go ask for money from somebody, you know, or you did this really beautiful work.And then you went out on, in, on Facebook and says something stupid, you know, about a competitor brand. Like some of these are life skills and some of these are soft skills that, Hey, I've got four to seven years of soft skills under my belt. I, and it's not even about, you know, respectability politics. It's really just about being able to say, Hey, I want you to win.So let's talk about. Let's talk or let's come ask me the questions. Like I have two interns right now. I have an intern at my company and an intern at American public media. And one of the things we've scheduled every week is a call one hour. It's just a call about whatever they do. Ask me about, it's not a let's check on your job performance.So let's see. We will have plenty of time. Once a week. I want them to ask me any question. They need to ask me whether it's, Hey, you talked about this term and I don't actually understand what that means. Or we were in this meeting and I was confused or I tried to do this thing and I couldn't figure it out.Or I'm, I don't really know how I'm going to get a media job. If this doesn't work out any question they have, there's no limit because I want them to have a skill, a toolbox to be able to walk away.Bryan: Now, if you're a direct peer asked for that hour from you, would you make time for it? Yes, I do it all the time.And that's the biggest thing is that like, do I, I guess two things here, one is focusing on the fact that some of these things have passed us, right. Even at 35, even at 47, like we might not be able to fix it for our generation, our, or two generations. Yeah. But. We definitely can't help more. The next right.Everything was progress. And if we can put all that effort and attention and helping who are coming up, it helps everybody. Right. I, I got, I got a son, I got another kid on the way. And sometimes I could him. It was just like, Hey buddy, we fucked up the last 400 years. Sorry, it's going to be way different from you.And I'm going to teach you a world where it's not about being here. And it's not about guns and it's not about violence, and it's not about the bullshit that I was taught. Like, you need to be taught this better world and your mom's going to help way more than I am to get you situated in it, because it was still so ingrained and I'm still learning my way out of it.But the other thing is, is that some people in the older generations will. Be able to succeed, but they need to ask their peers. They need to see the people or who are doing it or on the way to doing it and say, Hey, can we collaborate? Hey, can I learn from you? There's no. It's not a single ladder up,Twila: right.It's not all lateral now. Exactly. Lateral now, I think, cause I'm a big proponent of like, okay, everybody can like, we're all in this together. We should all be working together. Um, and even now in understanding that, cause I do give a lot of my time away in terms of quote unquote for free. Cause I have consultancy, but yeah.Give people time. Yeah. Even in some of that, I'm trying to teach people like, okay, you can do these things. You can have these things, you can get help with these things. You can, um, you know, I, I encourage people to like, I'm like, Hey, go meet each other. We're on a clubhouse. You should be following each other on co-op house should be supporting each other's work by going to listen to it.You know, sometimes just letting somebody know you've got like. I, I, I see you out here and this is great. I think this is, you know, thanks for making this or I'm I really enjoyed it. I mean, I'm infamous on social media for like shouted capital saying, this is my friend, you guys. Cause they did something great and I just want more people to see it.Um, but I also truly have seen in real action people sort of grow into, um, Something that they were afraid to try to do. And whether that was because I, they, you know, I helped them or we had a conversation and something was enlightening for both of us, you know, or somebody makes a third-party connect to somebody else.That's how these that's how industries change. That's how organizations change and grow. So, and I, I truly believe everybody can benefit from it. Everybody really can benefit from it, but sometimes it just has to be, um, you know, who's going to make the, who's going to make the first move. I mean, oftentimes I just know I'm not afraid to do.So I tell people, call me, you know, ask me my DMS are open. Yeah.Bryan: That is, that is the biggest skill that I hope everybody learns. And I mean, like when I say everybody, I absolutely am prioritizing talking about the, the disenfranchised groups. Right. 'cause like, guys, like you got it easy. Right? Like if you're not figuring it out, if you're not growing on those aspects there, it's okay to ask peers and help there.But yeah. If you need that help make sure you make room for other people, but for everybody else, like ask, ask a question, raise your hand, talk to somebody, reach out to whoever it is. It doesn't matter how many followers they have on Twitter. It doesn't matter how successful their podcast. Send them an email, right.Don't send them, don't send them like your homework and be like, Hey, can you give me these 14 steps to like, solve this problem?Twila: But let's talk about that for real, for a second. Cause that's one of the things I'm trying to learn to do in a more subtle way. Um, or at least in a, in a less like, um, assertive way.Yeah. Okay. I'm okay with you asking, but you need to really be able to delineate between asking a question and asking for consultancy, because there's a difference between I need some advice or I'd like to talk to somebody, um, there, then the infamous, like, can I pick your brain, pick your brain or the even more infamous.I answered a question for you. And then you came back with eight. With real detail that you just like, want me to tell you what to do? There's a, I'm like, y'all, everybody's got to still work though. Right. And I think if someone, if someone gives you advice on, okay, so here's the place that you can go to get information or here's, I'll talk to, I'll give you a little bit of skillset or I'll give you a little bit of help here and I want to be supportive, but I also need you to go, like, try to do something like you can't um, yeah.I'm not an instruction manual. Yeah. And sometimes people get so. Um, and, uh, and afraid that they just keep collecting, collecting, collecting information. They don't act. Um, and I know I was infamous for it for years. Um, it took me 10 years to become brave enough to start my business. And so what I tell people is, okay, try something, get it wrong.Cause here's the thing you're, don't overestimate how many people are watching when you get it wrong. Nobody's watching it. So do it, get it wrong, fix it, pivot, tweak it a little bit. Try it again, keep trying it. And then at some point you'll feel really, really good about it. And when you feel good about it, trust me.That's all of a sudden you'll start noticing people. People feel good about it too, cause they're noticing it, but there really are. As you, as we start to develop these, you know, these networks and these conversations and these, you know, relationships with each other, there are still, I think, as adults, I think there are still respectful boundaries and I think social takes away.So many of those boundaries that we just start thinking, oh, okay. Twyla and your DMS. I'm like, yeah, I don't actually know. So let's establish ourselves as a people who are getting to know each other. Hey, ask, like I never go into someone DM without saying, can I ask you, would you feel comfortable talking about this?And then, and then once we've talked a little there, I say, would you be uncomfortable talking about this in real life? In the email or on a zoom call or something, because we really don't know each other. At the end of the day, you see me like, like boy band post and talk about my podcast. You don't, I don't know.You don't know me. And I would never want to make an assumption that that little bit of time we've spent in shared social space means I'm entitled to anything. I want you to feel safe and comfortable talking toBryan: me. I think that one of the best space to ask it, like plays on that too, is, is plays into the fact of elevating the person you're asking, right.Finding something that Twyla shared is like, I think one of the first ways we met is like, there's something that you, you wrote. And I shared it and I added commentary and it was just like, like I'm so excited to hopefully interact more with him. Yeah. And it,Twila: and it was genuine because I get a little bit of that too, though.Like the people, since it's like the Instagram thing where somebody will see your posts and they'll put a bunch of emojis on it and be like, oh, Hey girl. And then there'll be in your, like, in your DMS, like two days later with like a 75 paragraph thread about their ambitions and what you can do for him, for them.And I'm like, that's. That's not what we're talking about here. Like, I think theBryan: entry point is less about, um, who the person, like, if I'm asking somebody for, for guidance, what should be your first step, right. If you're you're getting in there, you're not asking for help or, or advice you're, you're asking for like high level directional guidance, where can I learn more about this?What do you recommend for like, for like a MIS? Is this the direction? If I want it to be immediate? Is this it's less about your story. It's less about your 14 questions to solve your problem. That first interaction is I respect everything you do. You're in the direction I want to be. This is where I am.Could you point me to a book, to aTwila: resource, to equipment in the right direction? Yeah,Bryan: that I can learn more and I'll, I'll be super real if somebody reaches out to me and was just like, Hey, I'd love to schedule some consulting time to learn directly from you and ask that I'll just be like, cool, man.Let's put on 15 minutes and figure it out what it is from there. Because if they're first step forward is I respect you and your time, I'm just like, I'm a sucker me. Don't apply that to him. ITwila: know, I know. Trust me, but no, my assistant says all the time. I need you to not say yes to any more meetings this week.And I'm like, well, does that too long? It's just this. And she'll be like, no, I just need you to not say yes to anything else this week. So, I mean, I, and I know that cause, and the thing is most of the time, people like me wanting. Like we do. I'm, it's why, it's why I'm always on clubhouse. That's why I'm always on Twitter and DNS answering questions.People were so generous with their time and energy to help me. I do want to be able to pay that forward at genuinely do what I also want is for us to what I also want us to continue to have conversations in public spaces so that sometimes these questions, because a lot of times these questions aren't technical and they're not like you need actual directionality it's I don't think I am.And so they'll, you know, they'll say I was thinking about, I was hoping one day too, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You're capable right now. Trust me. I still don't edit very effectively. Everybody loves me at work. They just do, but I am very good at the things I'm really, really, yeah. Can I do a rough edit for you?Yeah, but what I can do even better for you is listen to someone's voice in the middle of a recording and stop them at the exact moment that I need them to pick up their volume, slow down their cadence, or rewrite a sentence because it doesn't sound like the way they talk. I know that that's a skill set.I'm now going to try to teach that skill set to other people. I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk to my producer friends when they ask those questions. When my interns are coming in, I'm going to teach them. Uh, anytime we hired a host, we teach them to think like producers that is expansion for everybody that doesn't.And sometimes I get asked to like, or are you worried that you're teaching all these people, like basically your secret sauce and then nobody will need you cause they can all do it. And I go, okay. If they can all do it, then I'll have more collaborators and we'll all continue to work together. It'll get bigger.Bryan: It'll get better. One of the biggest pieces of it criticism I got when I started Sounds Profitable, as they're like, you're just telling everybody how to do it. I was like, cool. There are two results. One is that person becomes an expert. They blow me out of the water. And then someone says, where did you learn that?And they point to me and I get to feel awesome. Sounds profitable when, out of business tomorrow, because everybody became super educated in podcast ad tech, and nobody needed my insight into it. I would feel very bad for a little bit. I would try and figure out what I'm going to do next. And I think I'd be fine, but I have a little bit of pride that I helped develop that right.That I helped create experts. Far surpass me. You should always want to hire and train and educate people who are going to be better than you. Right? That's like, if you don't, then we're going to stagnate. Everything gets smaller and smaller and smaller. And number two is I left. I leave a Bryan shape hole in everything, and I'm sure you leave a Twyla shape hole and everything.Is that like, yeah, sure. They can follow your directions, but is it the same or do they actually have the time to do it? And if they don't, they just call you up and just, just like crate sweet, free consult. Like I just got free advertising. I got a new club.Twila: Right. And everybody has something. I tell people all the time, listen, a skillset is a skillset.How your life experience, how you're, how you conduct yourself in the everyday, how your thought process is, how your imagination works, are all going to make these things just slightly different. Right. They're just slightly different. And I've seen that happen again and again, where I've sat down with. You know, potential friends in the industry who are now actually my friends in the industry.And we've said, Hey, let's, let's trade best practices. What do you need to know? Like, I usually, if you meet me by the time we finished talking, I say some variation of, well, now that you know me, you know, my network. So if you need help, if you need questions, if you need to get connected, somebody, if I can do that for you, I'm happy to do that for you.And I've watched people like. Take stuff that I know, or even things I've said are good ideas. We haven't even applied yet at my company I've taken, I've watched and take them and go do really cool things, but it would have never turned out like that. If it was me doing it. Cause it wasn't my experience in my imagination and my geographic location that would have brought that out.They just happened to take a set of skills. That to me should be universal skills for all of us doing this type of. And they applied it to the life that they live and they came up with something great that I now get to participate in and they now get to benefit it. That's what we should be asking.That's what we should be doing for everybody. I think this idea. The is not big enough for everybody is such crap. And I'm like, y'all, we can all eat that. I say all the time, I was like, yo, we can all eat. I am not starving on my little patch of land in the world. My friends are not starving in their little patches of land.Are we all making the money? We wish we were making? Not yet. We're getting. But we're all here. And, you know, the fact that we all made it through a pandemic and we still have our businesses, we still have our careers where we're actively working in, you know, we're, you know, quote unquote booked and busy.That's amazing. Right. But it's a reflection. I think it's a true reflection of what we did during quarantine, which was. We didn't hide and we, and we stepped up and helped each other. However we could, whether it was just a phone call to say, Hey, how you doing? Are you okay to, you know, Hey, do you need to be connected to an editor or, Hey, can you help me look at my stuff?Because this marketing thing is not working. And I don't like, I need more help here. We just all helped in whatever little way we could to get each other over. It was like any port in a storm, and now we're getting past the storm and we're all still here and now we can, and now we can get back to, you know, like four more minutes.Um, that's what we should be aiming for all the time.Bryan: I'm right there with you. I think that anytime someone says like, uh, that's not how we do it. This is the way we do it, or it can't be done. We tried and failed. Like stop listening to that person immediately stop listening to that person. Write that down as a goal to rub that in their face quietly or publicly later, it is my biggest pet peeve.That's my, like, you know, like my make fly, uh, issue there and, and just move on that person doesn't want to help you grow. They're they're a roadblock to you. You've learned all you can move on. Um, but. This pandemic has taught us a lot, and I want everybody to keep on their front of their mind that while it did normalize a lot of things like dogs barking in the background and people needing a few extra minutes, women were hit hardest.Yes. Right. And marginalized communities and ethnicities were absolutely hit hardest and people with disabilities. And so like while yeah, I've absolutely taken my fair share of calls. Right there with me screaming in the background. And I've had to jump off of things early. That is, that is a trivial in the impact to the, all of the other people in the space who have lost their jobs, lost their forward momentum.Aren't able to return back to the workforce and all of that. Right. Make room for these people make time for these people, elevate them. You are not, if you elevate enough other people and other diverse people that don't look like you, that you become irrelevant. Right. People don't forget the people that helpTwila: them.Exactly.Bryan: They just don't. So like there's no world where I pass up on 10 conferences because I'm just like, I can't be another, you know, white guy on the stage there. So here's a fantastic person to take my place. Like here's someone I highly recommend and I think is super smart. And then I offer that person like, Hey, it might not align up perfectly, but what if I just like, can I be a resource to you?Can I help you? Can I help answer? It works out. It benefits you, everybody grows. There's there's always another conference. There's always another time to talk. There's always more work. You just gotta be open to it. You got to flex. Yeah.Twila: Well, and the thing is given what we know and given what we've seen happen so far, I said, I've been trying to brace a lot of women.I know for the. The next it's not even right now. That's the hardest, the next 18 months are going to be hard because a lot of the artificial props and protections that state and federal services that have been provided to us are going to disappear completely. And then we're going to have to adapt to, you know, what happens when everybody decides to go back.To work in buildings in the fall. I know, I know, say this whole, like return to work thing anymore. We never stopped working. That's all crap. Yeah. So the idea that you're going to return to buildings and all of the dynamics that go into that for people who've already lost income or loss position, or had to give up position.Ask them to try to re-engage I think that's, we have to start being more thoughtful of this. If you have the opportunity to have people work remotely, don't put that pressure on people to come back into an office. If you have the ability to, you know, for projects, you know, if you have a, a long-term project, you want someone to work on and you disqualify them because they don't have a laptop or they don't have pro tools.And that's something that's not difficult for you to provide, provide it. Don't do this. Make make it so that we can pull in and include and build up a reserve of really talented people who will be fiercely loyal, who will be hardworking, who will be, um, assets, you know, to any environment that you bring them in.We have to stop discounting and drawing this weird line in the sand between this is work and this is like personal, and this is, we already know that those things don't exist anymore. And the pandemic absolutely crashed them all together so you can make it so that we can. We, so many of these organizations can make it easier for their employees or potential employees to do this work.I even want people to start B to B. A little bit more imaginative about what long-term work and short-term work looks, you know, it looks like a lot of times people like me when I was at home with my kids, I couldn't take on a full-time responsibility, but I did want to keep my foot in the professional pool.I did want to be doing work that was meaningful. Offering project work offering, you know, short-term projects or closed ended projects, um, offering the opportunity to do something that might be part time can be significant because it allows people to earn income. And it also allows them to keep a professional foot in place, offering our colleagues and friends who are disabled.Better and more equal access to work is super important. The pandemic show that everything we've ever said about not being able to accommodate a disabled person is crap. A hundred percent. You can accommodate what you know, you can accommodate workplace conditions. You can accommodate remote. You can accommodate.All sorts of connectivity and equipment and things like that. All these things that popped up, we all started using for convenience at home. So we'd be more comfortable. These are all things that could have been offered for our disabled colleagues from day one. We need to make sure we're bringing everybody in.I have a, I have a colleague and she, the best piece of advice she gave me. She's a mentor of mine and I use it everywhere and I applied to everything now because it blew my doors off. When she said it. She said, who she asked me, who's the most vulnerable people in your organization. And I never thought about it.And I was like, um, I'm in it, honestly, at this point, the host, because they were the only ones who weren't there, the aluminium weren't getting paid. And she said, you need to learn how to protect the most vulnerable person at any in your organization. Because if you protect the most vulnerable, the people at the bottom of the chain, everyone else is protected by police.Because you've now created a safety net that looks out for everyone. We need to do that everywhere. We just need, we it's, there's no question anymore. We need to do that everywhere in our personal lives and our professional lives and our educational environments, we need to protect the most vulnerable until we do.We won't really have true answers to all of these questions.Bryan: Yeah. And the middle management and the leadership are the ones that ultimately need to be taking those steps. But don't disqualify that if you're a peer, if you are the same level as someone who is that role, normal person, you can't. Help them, this isn't doing their job for them.These people are not looking for you to pick up slack or anything like that, or they're just don't shit on them. Don't throw them under the bus, be their peer offer, help offer guidance, offer like your insight into things to collaborate on projects. Right?Twila: Offer suggestions. Sometimes it's as simple as you know, like a lot of times, like, I, I, I essentially work in a management position.In my management position, I know with, I have to know what the budget is. So I have to know what the ancillary is or the overages on our budget. If you know what the overage is on your budget, you know, how fiscal years work and you know who your colleagues are, who's on the team. Then you can also be completely cognizant as a manager, as someone in management to go to a supervisor and say, Hey, we have this much ancillary money at leftover.We'd like to do this. Like we've already had discussions about being able to extend our intern because. Uh, we'll we'll have budget for it. So then yeah, let's extend the intern and give her more of an opportunity and more protection and more of a safety net while she's trying to build a professional career.That's important. That's a simple thing to do by looking at doing the math, looking at my budget and going back to my supervisor and saying, so if it works out by the end of August, can we keep her for another three to six months? And they can say yes, if there's budget and then I can already say, I already did the math.We've got budget, right. It's not hard to do that. And it's not hard to get out of that silo of just looking out for you and yours. Right? I understand that we've all been taught as American. The American way is looking out for you and your family and working your job and minding your business. We've got to get a little bit more collaborative.We've got to get back to connected to community and understanding that community is wider than your friends and family. The people that you work with, it's the colleagues, it's the people that share your identity. It's the people that live in your geographic area. There are things that you can do that are so simple to make the environment that you're a part of and it's around you better.I mean, my goal at the end, at the beginning of every day is I'm going to make it as good a day as possible. I'm going to, I'm going to do the most good I can do today. And at the end of the day, I have to be able to. I tried my very best to do the most good today and then go to sleep and start over and do it again.It's not hard. Yeah. It'sBryan: you can integrate a real easy, I you're such a wealth of knowledge. And, uh, you know, as you said, setting boundaries, I think this is a great way to wrap this up for me when I w when people want to engage. If you listen to a sound's profitable podcast, if you listen to, uh, or you read the newsletter and you have a question about.Uh, released messaged me reply back to the email, send a tweet, talk about it, about the specific thing that we created on let's create something new together. Another question, let's answer something let's explore and make that cooler. But for Twila Twila, you, you mentioned clubhouse specifically. If someone wants to engage with the content that you're putting out, if something wants, someone wants to learn more from you and ask more about the things that you're putting out there, where can they find that?Where can they engage? Uh,Twila: well, the easiest way is through the website. I have a website for our company. It's called matriarch digital media, and the website is matriarch D m.com. Um, if you're looking for me specifically, I'm Twyla Dang everywhere. Cause I'm vain. And I get my name on every social media platform.So if you just look for Twila, Dang, T w I L a D a N G I'm everywhere. My DMS are always open. You can always engage with me. I'm happy to have discussions and, um, Can't possibly end this call without making sure to point out that, um, to be, uh, yeah. I'm, I guess I'm talking to the audience in general. Um, Bryan puts his money where his mouth is.Um, we've known each other for a very short amount of time. Uh, but I have, in that time I have known him. He has. Beyond generous with his knowledge beyond generous with making, helping me get connected to information that I needed to help my business in the immediate, um, and has always been, uh, you know, truly an open and an open port when I needed to come ask a question or ask for a piece of advice or just have a discussion about something that I'm curious about.Um, he's absolutely walking the walk and, and not just talking.Bryan: That, that means a lot. I, every, I definitely see places where I can improve and I'm constantly working on it. And that's the biggest thing that I can pass on to anybody else trying who looks like me, uh, to do better is the realize that you're never going to be perfect.You can always do better the next day and you can always help people. And it really means a lot to hear that I'm so excited and I'm even more excited that, uh, that you're going to be writing some moreTwila: for us. Yeah. I'm working on it. I was, I, I it's, it's actually my calendar. I actually worked on a draft.I'm so proud of myself.Bryan: Well, thank you so much for being here. I'm positive. We'll have you back in the future. Well, thankTwila: you for that.Bryan: stick around for some special bonus content. At the end of the episode, I've teamed up with Evo Tara to give you a minute long strategic thought that is guaranteed to shift your perspective on the present and future of podcast. As we all work to make podcasting better Twila dang for coming on to help expand on her article, we need more women working in ad tech.If you liked what you heard and want to connect, you can find me Bryan Barletta on LinkedIn, way less formerly on Twitter as high five RPG. And of course you can email me, Bryan, at sounds profitable.com spelled either. The most important part about sounds profitable is providing you with more resources and making sure that I can answer your questions.So check out the link to YAPA in the episode description and leave me a message. And with your permission, I'll answer it live on the show. The sound's profitable podcasts and all the cool ad tech bells and whistles you've experienced for thanks to our host and sponsor. everything you've heard since the conversation ended was uniquely created to target you using their dynamic ad insertion.If any of the call-outs were wrong, let us know this sounds profitable podcast would not be possible without the help and support of Evo, Terra, James Cridland and Ian Powell. Thank you all for your help and support. .