Latest / The Yield Doctor with James Deaker / Ramona Gonzales Lessons

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Ramona Gonzales Lessons · The Yield Doctor with James Deaker

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my guest today is Ramona Gonzalez Ramona
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has been in digital media for over 30
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years she has worked in small startups
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like rap and in large corporations like
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Microsoft more recently she has
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consulted to Industry trade groups like
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The IAB and the daa we're going to be
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talking today about her journey through
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the advertising space and focus on
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lessons learned that people just started
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out can learn from her experience Ramona
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I am so glad that you're able to join me
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today hi James I'm so happy to be with
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you I love your series it's been really
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really informational but also very
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entertaining excellent well thank you
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for the kind words um Ramona you and I
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met over 15 years ago and we were both
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at wrapped and then at Microsoft
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together but you started in the meteor
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industry way before that tell me how did
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you get into the industry and then how
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did you go from that to being the
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founding editor of Latina Magazine what
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what prompted that
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project
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well let me take a step back so I have a
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degree in journalism uh concentration in
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magazine editing and a a minor in
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women's studies so my first job out of
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college was Parenting Magazine it was I
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was very lucky because there's only two
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at the time two national mag magazines
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in San Francisco the other one being
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Mother Jones and then of course down in
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the bay Sunset magazine that all those
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all those wonderful Home and Garden
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magazines so I was very lucky I started
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there as an editorial assistant I um
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began my first few weeks there faxing
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yes that was before email we did get
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email at some point but faxing documents
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to Dr Benjamin Spock's wife Mary Morgan
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he became a contributor to the magazine
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um shortly before I joined uh Parenting
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Magazine and uh yeah so I met Dr
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Benjamin Spock who was you know helped
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my mother raise me and many other
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millions of children it was it was
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pretty wonderful um and I also was the
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toy editor there so I went to New York
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City every uh year for Toy Fair and um
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yeah it was it was such a wonderful full
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experience the Caliber Caliber of
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Excellence the highest of Standards um
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the pure talent and generosity of spirit
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taught me everything I
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needed to move to New York City and of
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you know and launch Latina Magazine uh
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so I was with parenting for four years
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and got you know a couple uh promotions
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in between you know during those four
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years and then um yes got the job at
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Latina Magazine I I I me I went to New
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York City I interviewed many different
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magazines um but Christy hurger
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contacted me after Marsha Gillespie the
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uh the editor-in-chief of Ms magazine
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who had met me the year previously or
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maybe that very year
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1995 and recommended me and so that's
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how I met Christy hurger who was the
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publisher of Latina and uh yeah move my
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life from San Francisco to New York City
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and uh was the first managing editor
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which is basically the number two there
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was no executive editor and I I like I
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said I had the best training um from
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Parenting Magazine
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to what I think of as my first startup
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really um we did our first issue out of
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essence essence magazines offices in
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Time
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Square uh JLo was was our first cover uh
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that was when she did the Selena
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movie and
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uh yeah I actually became really close
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friends with Tony Duran who was the
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photographer who did did all of the
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photo shoots Beauty fashion down to
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Miami we all went down to Miami for the
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first issue he did not shoot Jennifer
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Lopez for that cover but he ended up
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becoming one of
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her uh her main photographer of choice
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for many many many many years so he
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would call me on the phone come over I
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don't know what to do with all this and
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he would just have all this you know all
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the outtakes from like the last shoot
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that she did and he's like I don't know
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what to do with all this and so I'd go
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over there and calm him down and you
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know help him edit whatever shoot he was
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doing with her and I actually met her
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longtime manager Medina who's actually a
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very nice
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man so uh but yeah I I wore and juggled
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many hats and I I loved every minute of
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it it was I literally woke up and it was
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like couldn't get couldn't wait to get
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to
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work we we'll get in a minute to the
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question of you know how to think about
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managing your career later in your
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career but if you um cast your mind back
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to that stage when you just starting out
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if you had advice for either your
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younger self or for someone who's now
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coming out of a journalism program and
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just starting out what would that advice
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be or what are the the key sort of
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lessons learned from your
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career always think bigger right like
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when I was in J School my my goal was to
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be an editor at Vogue magazine now that
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was my younger self a little shallow
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perhaps
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but that's that's that was my aim um and
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it was very narrowly fixed I think that
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I pivoted pretty quickly and well after
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uh after Latina but I really thought of
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magazines as being the be all endall
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right and it's great to be passionate
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about what you went to college for right
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but just keep an open mind that you may
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not be doing what you set out to do
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even five years later much less 20 years
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later
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um I think
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personally if uh my younger self could
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go back and talk to my I mean my older
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self go back to talk to my younger self
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I would say consider a career in public
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office oh interesting and and why public
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office over the past three decades I'm a
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political Junkie
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um but I was also raised in a very
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heavily
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Democratic house with very uh social
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ideas in terms of making sure that your
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fellow man has the same opportunities as
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you do uh my father was the uh first of
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seven sons the only one who went to
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college got his Masters both my parents
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were teachers so it was a very academic
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household very political in this sense
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of
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um you know
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social programs like Social Security and
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Affordable Care Act like all of those
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things were a big part of
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um the way I was raised right
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colorblind right um no
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racism
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um emphasis on cultural things and
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languages and music and and museums
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so when I see what's happening now it
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just it makes my head explode and I feel
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that I didn't know at the time say when
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I was 18 or
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26 that a lot of the skill sets that I
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now have would be perfect for I don't
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want to be a politician I just want to
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be a lawmaker I just
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want so so let's bridge on that maybe
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not get into the broad
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Poli staying within media and
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particularly digital media it it's no
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secret that Latinas and Latinos are
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under represented in digital media at
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times I imagine it must be lonely uh I
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know there are networks within the the
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broader digital media space that sort of
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help support each other within the
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Latino and Latino Community um how do
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you think about your role within that
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community and what advice do you have
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for people who maybe have uh English as
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their second language maybe this native
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Spanish speakers how to frankly build a
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successful career within digital
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media well if you're a Latino Hispanic
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Spanish language speaking
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person you have way more opportunities
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than you did before because the first of
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all Latinos Hispanics however you want
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to designate
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them we are the largest growing
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population Spanish language is the
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second language of the United States and
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we
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as a
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group watch more streaming video we're
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on our devices we are basically more um
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apt to because again a lot of Hispanic
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families you have a lot of different
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Generations living in the same household
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so they're streaming they're doing this
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they're doing that and but yet we still
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have a dir of Latino actors
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producers just basically shows that are
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on
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mainstream that show the the the
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American Hispanic life uh of course
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there's exceptions for sure but um
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that's sort of where
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the dir is is happening but it's
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absolutely getting better I think
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that I having spent most of my career in
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New York City there's this built-in
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diversity right
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so I kind of go into situations
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completely colorblind I don't clock
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who's white who's Indian who's
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African-American
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I do clock every once in a
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while the ratio between men and women in
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a conference room because I've spent
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most of my career as being one of 10 or
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two of
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15 but again I didn't really clock it
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that much because I walked into that
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room um to do a job with really
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uh exceptional people and we had
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problems to solve and that's what I was
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focused on most mainly I never
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experienced racism in the job which was
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which was I was I guess I was lucky yeah
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but when what resources are available
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for the Latino community in terms of
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either online resources networking
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resources I've got to assume that there
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are materials and resources
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available I'm sure there is but again I
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would I would recommend not
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for for people who are Hispanic and
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Latino just get in with like-minded
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people right again it doesn't you don't
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have to be in an environment that's all
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brown people right because we're
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different there's Dominican Republican
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uh Republicans
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Dominican there's Puerto Ricans there's
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um Cubanos Mexicans um Spaniards Central
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American so we are a very diverse group
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of people that cannot be just placed in
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one Silo so forget about your skin color
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just be with likeminded people who you
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feel comfortable with who can support
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you and um inspire you um keep you
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accountable and just
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I mean isn't that what we all want to
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eventually get to where we do not think
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about how
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many black people are in the room or
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Hispanic people in the room or Asian
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people in the room so make your
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heritage
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less about yourself when you're in a
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professional environment right your
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perspective is a plus you're bringing
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that with you already right and um and
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that's where you can let your
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perspective
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shine brilliant I think we have to yeah
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I think we have to move away from
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because it gets us in trouble right now
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Dei is like it's being used against us
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so it's not complicated it's certainly
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definitely so complicated talk to me
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about the swing and D you and I had a
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conversation a few weeks ago go where we
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talked about how partly because of the
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changing political and climate part of
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it's just a natural swings of pendulums
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there was a lot of emphasis around Dei
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it seems to have taken a little bit of a
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backseat recently is that your
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experience I think it's taking a back
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seat because it's had it's been forced
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to take a back seat I mean with with I
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mean just this morning listening to the
14:25
news you know the Republicans are now SL
14:29
in kamla Harris as a Dei hire right and
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that does not give any Credence to her a
14:36
massive capabilities and professional
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successes as a a prosecutor and as the
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vice president so they're trying to
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minimize her by making Dei a negative
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thing okay um you know I spoke to Angie
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in a few months ago and we a lot of good
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feedback about her sort of tips and
15:01
tricks for running a job search and
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managing your
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career uh similar question to you as you
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sort of think about later stage career
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well actually for really anybody who
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might be listening to this the world
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continues to evolve particularly for
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those of us who are in media and in Tech
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and what we have to do to be successful
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in our careers also changes almost dayto
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day as you think about you know you know
15:30
what people should be doing to manage
15:32
their career what are the top sort of
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two or three things that spring to mind
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for
15:37
you well it's funny that you say that
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because I'm actually in the middle of a
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job search and I can tell you that it is
15:47
absolutely frustrating anxiety-provoking
15:51
depressing and
15:53
demoralizing and this is from someone
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who's had a great career so so far I've
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been Consulting you know for almost 15
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years now I've had great
16:04
projects um uh my love of Consulting
16:08
actually came from my time working with
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James in advisory services that he
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launched pretty much a couple days
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before I joined the company funny
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story I joined the company flew out to
16:22
San Francisco on a
16:24
Thursday met
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James James said can you do an hour
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Presentation tomorrow during lunch over
16:33
pizza for the company because we don't
16:36
really you're the only person who's come
16:38
from a publisher before can you do like
16:41
publishing one publisher digital
16:43
publishing oneon-one
16:46
tomorrow well you you know that I have
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no fear about either throwing myself
16:52
into that situation or apparently
16:54
throwing anyone else into that sitation
16:59
things worked out pretty well oh it was
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great I still have that deck it was
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fantastic I was like okay it was five
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o'clock I'm like I guess I'm going back
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to my hotel room and doing a deck no it
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was great it was it was the perfect way
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to to to start my my time at wrapped but
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um yeah
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so James and I went out and he had just
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started advisory services at wrapped and
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we did some great projects um with
17:28
shutter f starting their first
17:31
advertising uh operations and uh we did
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a we we went all around the country I
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think for Cox we did five cities in five
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days that was
17:44
insane um anyway let me go back to the
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the question yes so after 15 years of
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Consulting I'm considering going back
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into um one company role and
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it's been rough and I think it's been
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rough for many different reasons but one
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of the reasons why it's been rough is
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because
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my work experience is so diverse I've
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you know I started off as a as a a
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journalist then a Content person then a
18:20
technologist then a publisher and and
18:23
I've done a whole bunch of stuff in
18:25
between and then my industry uh or um
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digital industry organization work in
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terms of spearheading and managing a
18:37
whole bunch of working groups and task
18:38
forces and advisory boards for uh the
18:42
ifp uh ifp um IAB and the IAB Tech Lab
18:48
which I joined at the very outset and
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ran with Steve Sullivan and that was
18:54
also an amazing amazing
18:56
experience but back to the job hunt um I
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found this great program called never
19:05
sit your Alan it's a free support group
19:07
of peer job Seekers who meet on a weekly
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basis to help each other find the jobs
19:14
the next job that they will love and
19:17
it's because having peers can really
19:19
make all the difference in not feeling
19:21
alone and and navigating what is a very
19:25
emotional ride of a job search um
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um searching for a new job one that
19:31
you'll love is is frustrating like I
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said and anxiety-provoking but when you
19:38
support and are supported by other super
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highly accomplished people like yourself
19:44
it's a completely different experience
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the negative is replaced with the
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Positive you've got hope you have
19:50
motivation you have
19:52
accountability and um yeah I mean I've
19:56
just been I'm the moderator of my job
19:59
search Council which is where you do all
20:00
the work you know first you join a job
20:02
search Council you get to know each
20:05
other and then you really start working
20:07
on your through a series of different
20:10
exercises you work on your Market
20:13
candidate fit which
20:14
is thinking of that you're the product
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right and how do you fit in as a product
20:21
in the
20:22
marketplace and um so that's that's
20:26
called creating your Market candidate
20:28
fit which frankly that's the one area
20:31
that I'm having a little bit of trouble
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with because I'm such a generalist but a
20:35
specialist I love doing a lot of
20:37
different
20:39
things and working with in a lot of
20:42
different
20:44
uh areas and working with a lot of
20:48
different people and departments and
20:50
doing different things like when I was
20:51
with rap I was working with James I was
20:55
doing product development with the
20:57
product development team and I was a
20:58
sales engineer and doing demos of all of
21:01
our super complex Solutions and tools so
21:06
that was amazing I love that so it's
21:08
hard as someone who likes to do a lot of
21:10
things to do a a candidate Market fit
21:13
statement that has to be one sentence
21:16
and super super customized so
21:20
struggling but I guess I guess one
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question is different people have very
21:24
different approaches you you and I both
21:27
know people sort of gone about it they
21:30
they say they're doing a listening tour
21:32
they'll go out and basically have 50 or
21:34
100 cups of coffee with with different
21:36
people really just to sort of find out
21:39
what's out there other people tend to
21:41
have a very structured approach in terms
21:43
of you know it sounds like you know
21:46
creating profile of how you fit with
21:49
particular roles and and then proceeding
21:51
to go apply for those types of roles how
21:53
do you think about the range of
21:55
different ways in which someone can go
21:57
about a job search
21:59
well what I love about this never search
22:01
alone process is that yes one of the
22:05
main steps or stages or phases is
22:10
embarking on a listening tour like our
22:12
friend Andrew craft
22:15
is the the listenting tours are supposed
22:17
to help you get closer to your job
22:23
candidate Market fit I will but I like
22:26
that you brought up the fact that
22:27
there's different ways way to approach
22:29
even within this what I call a program
22:32
right and as moderator and I and I
22:35
attend the bi-weekly moderator uh Zoom
22:40
calls is and I told myself from the very
22:42
beginning it's like we don't have to do
22:44
things exactly like the book says right
22:48
we take what is valuable for
22:52
us and then we use that as a Launchpad
22:56
to get through all the different phases
22:58
and steps to that that we all agree are
23:02
valid and helpful
23:04
but we're nowhere near like the timeline
23:08
that is has been prescribed right um
23:12
within the book like within 10 days I
23:15
mean 10 weeks you're supposed to have
23:16
your listening tour done and we're like
23:18
we're on four months right
23:21
so but and and and again we we've had
23:25
some members uh leave and new members
23:29
come and it's summer so but yes it's
23:34
it's it's great to think of the the way
23:37
that they W the program helps you think
23:40
about yourself and then when you're with
23:41
these other people you get thing you get
23:46
so much insight into yourself and how
23:51
you could fit into the marketplace that
23:54
you hadn't even thought of before and
23:56
that's really valuable above and
23:59
Beyond just being there for each other
24:02
um listening to the frustrations of
24:04
being ghosted you know by a recruiter
24:07
who seemed really interested in putting
24:09
you together with a hiring manager and
24:11
then you know you show up for like this
24:14
literally happened with my my Council uh
24:17
last week
24:19
where uh someone literally showed up in
24:22
person for an interview and got ghosted
24:25
and then finally got hold of the person
24:28
he was supposed to be interviewing with
24:30
10 minutes after and the guy was like no
24:33
I want the full hour even though there
24:35
was 50 minutes left and it was his
24:38
fault so those are the kind of things
24:41
that you can bring you know to a call
24:45
and just spend five minutes just
24:49
venting and and you leave the call
24:52
feeling better about what happened and
24:55
feeling more invigorated and hey that's
24:57
that and just going to move forward so
25:00
those those are the things that are I
25:02
think emotionally like that's actually
25:04
how I start off every meeting is how did
25:08
how did you feel emotionally this week
25:11
yeah and then the other part of the
25:12
process which I love is called boss the
25:14
process um which is you know taking
25:17
charge of interviews and I've always
25:19
kind of been like that because I've
25:20
always interviewed I don't know I want
25:22
the job you sell me on the job um but a
25:26
lot of people don't think like that or
25:27
haven't thought like that so it's
25:29
bossing the
25:30
process but it's something that you also
25:33
said about uh James something that you
25:36
said that Tom said um that you can't
25:40
really
25:41
run a
25:43
profitable I'm paraphrasing crazy
25:47
without doing it with people and and
25:50
you're talking about Tom shave previous
25:53
uh CEO of rap and Crux and and now at
25:57
Super
25:59
I think you know a strong voice in the
26:01
community and he's very much said you
26:03
can't start your own business anymore it
26:06
takes a team and I think you know we're
26:09
seeing that through a lot of you know
26:12
everything in life but especially
26:13
finding and and creating new jobs but
26:16
even after you get the job s around but
26:19
after you get the job a lot of people
26:21
stay in their job search councils to
26:24
continue to help those who don't have a
26:26
job and those people who don't have a
26:29
job still help that person with getting
26:32
you know with with the few F first few
26:34
weeks of transitioning into a new job he
26:38
also has and again this is all for free
26:41
it's completely volunteer based but he
26:45
does have another company um the never
26:48
search alone guy
26:50
Phil
26:52
PHL um he phil.org he also has a company
26:57
called collaborative game and it's
26:59
leaders helping leaders so realtime
27:02
tactical and strategic help from
27:04
non-competing peers that will help you
27:07
make you know better faster decisions as
27:09
an executive and it's
27:12
it's from what I hear it's pretty
27:15
amazing so yeah once you get your job
27:18
it's not really over right you know you
27:21
you want to do your best at the job you
27:23
want to do the best for your people um
27:26
and sometimes you still need help doing
27:28
that yeah um Ramona thank you so much
27:32
for taking the time I'm going to go
27:33
ahead and make sure that I post with
27:35
this video your LinkedIn profile is
27:38
there any other sort of social forums
27:41
that where people should be finding you
27:43
or or how how what's the best way to get
27:45
hold of you through Linkedin yes
27:47
LinkedIn for sure um yes I have a lot of
27:51
other tips I'm more than happy to help
27:54
anybody out there it's especially with
27:56
the Oracle um
27:59
demise I guess of many of their their
28:02
different
28:03
um silos of things that were at all
28:07
adtech um I think there are a lot of
28:09
talented people out there who are like
28:11
ah what do I do now without doubt
28:14
without doubt uh and I will hold you to
28:17
the the promise that one day you and I
28:19
will do a short interview in in Spanish
28:22
together once uh you and I both brushed
28:24
up a bit on our Spanish I'd love to get
28:26
get a just a few questions in front of
28:29
we'll do this whole interview
28:32
again my Spanish is not that good but
28:35
thank you so much Herona good luck with
28:37
everything and thank you so much for
28:38
taking the time today my pleasure
28:41
anytime thank you so much