Best of Spring 2022

Listen back through Spring 2022 with highlights from each episode! 

TJ Martin and Rich Sturchio celebrated Cramer’s 40 years in business. Jacqueline Wilson Cranford discussed how to include DE&I efforts not only in your organization, but also in your event planning. Kristen Wilson shared on how marketing and events teams can improve their collaborative work. Sarah Santos and Jill Petrie broke down the art behind explaining complicated science in the healthcare industry. 

Transcript

Elise Orlowski:

I'm Elise Orlowski, a senior video director here at Cramer.

Tripp Underwood:

And I'm Tripp Underwood, a creative director at Cramer.

Elise Orlowski:

And at Cramer, we work with so many incredibly fascinating people from all over multiple industries.

Tripp Underwood:

We have so many great conversations, many that are just too good to keep to ourselves. So now we're sharing them with the world.

Elise Orlowski:

Right here from Cramer Studious.

Tripp Underwood:

This is Pivot Points.

Elise Orlowski:

Cut.

Tripp Underwood:

All right. I guess you guys have both worked here for pretty much your entire adult lives, keep coming back. There's got to be something there. What do you see for the future? You're at different stages of your career. Been here the whole time. You've seen a lot of change. What are you thinking about for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years? What keeps you coming in every day and what do you hope to see the company grow into?

Rich Struchio:

Well, I can say this, I've been here for it's closing in on 40 years, which is-

Elise Orlowski:

Oh, wow.

Rich Struchio:

Really, that's a little scary, a little crazy.

Elise Orlowski:

It's your Cramer birthday.

Rich Struchio:

But for 40 years, I mean, I've come into work and I've always said it's important for me. I'm going to spend most of my life at a place. I want to love where I go. I want to love the people I work with and I want to love the values of that company. And that, I think, combined with the changes that we've gone through every day is exciting. I'm learning something new still to this day. I learn something new every day or try to learn something new. And now I'm at the phase of my career now where I'm trying to teach something new every day. And I think the combination of those two makes... It's really fulfilling and exciting. And I think my hope is that for the next 20 or 30 years, we will sort of keep this cycle going on of learning, of loving where you are and teaching all at the same time. So yeah, that's it for me.

Tripp Underwood:

Growing from within.

Elise Orlowski:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

TJ Martin:

Yeah. I mean, I would agree, Rich. I mean, I think certainly first and foremost, you want to walk into a building and work with people you're kind of excited about. I think that we've got to... We've, I think to our credit, we've done a great job with sort of the culture and the energy that's within the building and the people are great. So I think you certainly enjoy to work with them. We also talk about we're not on some quest to sort of be this big agency. I think that we're really trying to focus on being exceptional. And though we've been around for 40 years, I really feel like we're till pretty young at heart. And I think that our best days are really ahead of us.

TJ Martin:

And I think the exciting part is working... Seeing you've got great people and just also being, just seeing the opportunity that really is in front of us as a group, and as a company. That's going to be leading to success and development of people as well, but it's a bright future and it's fun to come into work every day. And it's great to be part of it. And certainly a guy like this next door, I can't say enough in regards to. No. And honestly, I mean, I can't say enough from regards to Rich...

Rich Struchio:

I hear you're calling me old.

TJ Martin:

Oh!

Rich Struchio:

That's what I'm hearing.

TJ Martin:

Yeah, I'm old, too. I'm old, too.

Tripp Underwood:

Talk to me a little bit about internal stakeholders and buy-in because that is also something you and I know well that there's a lot of very important stakeholders within the C-suite or C-suite adjacent that as you said, this is not a full-time job for them. So they might come in with some real strong opinions without knowing big picture stuff, or have big access to big picture stuff that the marketing teams don't know about yet. And there's a little disconnect there. Any advice that you could give people on how to make that process a little bit smoother, a little bit more efficient, shall we say?

Kristen Wilson:

I mean, I think it is about those conversations, right? If the events team or the event lead is talking to like me, for example, the lead for marketing, maybe we can strategize together. And if we kind of like rising tide lifts all boats, can a few of us who are big stakeholders and are active in the event and putting on the event together go to the executives and are aligned, right, that we think it's going to be Valentine's day this year...so how do we sell Valentine's day as the theme or we want to go really persona focused, so how do we do that? Because if it's just the event person talking in one ear and me talking in the other ear, and we're not aligned, we're not going to get that buy-in from the executives.

Tripp Underwood:

Yeah. And then it seems like a disjointed message to the executive, the devil and angel on the shoulder now and seeing these.

Kristen Wilson:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Tripp Underwood:

Not being able to make heads or tails at either.

Kristen Wilson:

Right.

Abbie Reynolds:

And I also think the timing of that message probably matters too, right? You can't just do it in October to your point when it's a full sprint. It's having that foresight to say, "Let's step back earlier."

Kristen Wilson:

Right. And I think if I look at, you know, the piece that I generally own, general session, let's say, I think this year we should do five general sessions instead of three. Well, if we have that conversation in October, the events team may have already worked with the user session team to say, "Nope, we have full three days of user sessions. You can't change general session." But if we, as a team, start that conversation in like July, July, still, maybe too late, we can really look at the event as a whole holistically, instead of everybody just bringing their little pieces to it.

Tripp Underwood:

Right.

Elise Orlowski:

I'm curious when looking at DE&I, how important would you say is there to recognize the difference between equity and the difference in inclusion? Because they're one and the same, but also very different. They work together, but also they're not the same thing.

Jacqueline Wilson Cranford:

Right? Absolutely. They're partners, but it's interesting when you're talking, it's like people say DE&I as if it's one thing, right?

Elise Orlowski:

Right, right.

Jacqueline Wilson Cranford:

We just kind of run it together, right, but it is important. So I really appreciate your asking that question because one of the things that I will start with with a client is defining diversity, equity and inclusion. So I know you ask about inclusion and equity. I want to add diversity into that, just to give a bigger picture, like what are all of these things and how distinguishable they are. So I start with diversity because years ago I was traveling around the world doing training and I would ask the question and whenever I got a response, it could be so many different things. So when we... Right? So when people think about diversity, they're really thinking about what are the many differences? Who's in the room, they're counting heads, right? Who's represented, which is something that you definitely need to think about, particularly when you're planning events, right?

Jacqueline Wilson Cranford:

And then we have to think about inclusion. So we might have a lot of differenced in our midst. We might have a lot of different people representing different identity groups, but what is the experience, the inclusion experience? And by that, I mean, when people feel included, it's, do I feel like I am respected? I'm expected to be here, I'm represented. I am heard, I'm integrated. I'm actually a part of what's going on here. Not just here counted as one of many people, right?

Elise Orlowski:

You're not just a number and a percentage, but you're really represented and included in the conversation.

Jacqueline Wilson Cranford:

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And then when we think about equity, one of my clients recently said, "Well, aren't they the same," right? To your question. Aren't equity and inclusion the same? And they really are not. So when I think about inclusion, I think about the experience as I just described. But when I think about equity, I think about what are the skills that each one of us need, particularly if we're in a leadership position, to make sure that we are noticing who's here, we are noticing how we can integrate them, right? Where do I meet them at the point of how do they enter our organization?

Jacqueline Wilson Cranford:

And it's not about how can I help them, but it's meeting people at the point of their need, noticing where they are and then meeting them there so that you can give them access, equitable access, to what's going on, what you've brought them into your organization to do. You're making sure that they have the tools to do what you've hired them to do.

Elise Orlowski:

Yeah.

Jacqueline Wilson Cranford:

And it's... Right? And it's important to think about mindset because often people are like, "I'm going to help these people, right? But instead if I am equitable, I'm thinking about everybody where they are. And I'm thinking about how I can facilitate their ability to do their job because they have the ability.

Elise Orlowski:

Yeah.

Jacqueline Wilson Cranford:

One of the... Right? Let me just give an example of how this really came home for me.

Tripp Underwood:

As somebody that has review processes for all the marketing I do, none are more dreaded than the healthcare or pharmaceutical review board, because you have doctors, you have lawyers, you have lawyers that are also doctors. You have grammaticians, I find often.

Jill Petrie:

Yes, true.

Tripp Underwood:

So talk to me a little bit about what goes into a review process for a healthcare client and how you approach that as two people that have worked in this field for a while? What are you thinking as you make? And then how are you pivoting as you're getting feedback from those boards?

Jill Petrie:

Right. Talk about being in your own head. I mean, you must feel like this, too. Every word that I write, I scrutinize. I scrutinize it. Is it medically accurate? Is it going to cause any legal issues that I can foresee? I can't always know. And then is it within the bounds of the regulatory environment that we're playing in? So I scrutinize everything.

Tripp Underwood:

And then when you're done, does it read well? Because if you checked all those boxes-

Jill Petrie:

And then when you're done-

Tripp Underwood:

... it might be like, "Oh, this is great if you're a robot. This is perfect."

Jill Petrie:

Exactly. So, and I feel like, again, having a really good, solid creative partner helps with that, of it's all there, now let's punch it up here or let's do, or maybe the give back happens more in a design and creative layer than it can in the content. You don't always have room to play in the content, but you might have places that you can help it be more readable, more interesting or just visually a little bit of a break.

Sarah Santos:

So I'll always, because Jill and I are such good friends, "Jill, can we say this instead of this?" And often if we can and it is better or makes sense in any kind of way at all, she says, "Sure," or "Actually, okay. I see what your problem is here. Let's rewrite it to this." And then there's just times where it's like, "We have to write that. We have to say that. We have to include all that information." And it's like, "Okay." Then we deal with that.

Jill Petrie:

Right.

Tripp Underwood:

The rules are the rules.

Sarah Santos:

But we want it to be... We have great respect for everybody that is, has their hand on our pamphlet or is watching a video or is reading our websites. And we want them to... We don't want to make them do any extra work than they need to do in their lives, be it a patient or a HCP or anyone in between. We want to give it to them as best we can.