"You're Only As Good As Your Last Hit!" Conversations with Media Executive Michelle James
I had the unique opportunity to interview Michelle James (MJ), the Vice President of Marketing at Fuse Media. Besides being a boss lady, I was interested in speaking with Michelle because of her colorful twenty year experience in the entertainment industry. She’s worked for ESSENCE, Bad Boy Entertainment, BET, and Time Inc. to name a few and many of which were executive roles. Consequently, parts of her career path I find important are the myriad roles she’s taken within the industry such as research, sales, business development, managerial roles, brand strategy, and of course, marketing.
In addition to being a marketing leader, she is the co-host of Cocktails and Cancer, a podcast described as, “Two best friends team up to share their journey after a cancer diagnosis to inspire, empower and make the word cancer a little less terrifying.” Her best friend, Danielle Brown (Dani) is also a media veteran whose work experience ranges from ESSENCE Communications to Johnson Publishing Company and many other companies.
Cocktails and Cancer Podcast
With Dani and MJ
Unlike most people who go through multiple jobs before they find their niche, Michelle found her passion for storytelling as a teenager. At the mere age of sixteen, she boldly walked into a local television station looking for an opportunity to get her foot in the door. She knew very little about TV outside of the Today Show but she did what most teenagers won’t do — she applied anyway. “You can do anything you put your mind to.” She remembers her mother’s words as she fills out an application. She got the job, of course.
Her first television-based job was as a character attendant, responsible for producing graphics for breaking news and ensuring the news anchor’s name appears on the screen. She also flexed her skills at local basketball games and worked behind the scenes wherever she could. By the time she graduated from high school, she was well acclimated to the inner workings of a TV network.
Michelle had a different type of hustle, a different type of vivacity for her career. She knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life. In her freshman year at Western Kentucky University, she did what most college students don’t do right away — she declared her major in broadcasting. Graduating from college is a huge accomplishment. But she didn’t cease the learning here. She was determined to learn the in-depth parts of media, to be an expert at it in fact. She went on to NYU for grad school and graduated with a Master’s in Print and Digital Media.
She learned a lot of gems throughout her education and career. I asked her to share her top gems and they were:
1) Never stop learning and be curious about your craft.
2) What makes a good marketer is one who can create a balanced marketing mix of traditional and new media.
The latter gem is pivotal to the success of marketers today. As a millennial, I feel that my generation oftentimes do not thrive in corporate or longtime media spaces because they miss the fundamental part of traditional marketing. Michelle recalls having a computer in her home as a child so she considers herself a hybrid between old and new. Therefore, she’s not for one or the other. She believes that a good marketer knows how old and new medium work together. In fact, she called it a talent if one is able to do that well. She emphasizes understanding traditional media because marketing is about storytelling. If you don’t understand all the platforms and ways in which to connect (old or new) failure is in your future. A lot of it. You end up “connecting in a disconnected way” as she eloquently put it.
Our conversation shifted to creativity. Hard workers are saturated. Everybody can work hard but not everyone is creative or innovative. I asked about her thoughts on Dan Pink’s book A Whole New Mind and how right brainers will rule the future. She found Pink’s ideas to be compelling but still thinks both right brainers and left brainers together will lead the future. One person to be the creative and the other to ensure the bottomline is being met. Business as usual.
According to Michelle, when she first started her career everyone was looking for “specialists”/experts or people who were knowledgeable about one particular thing. For example, digital communications specialist can mean lots of things — graphics, audience development, or sales. Jobs were looking to hire these people for their specific expertise. The second wave came when people began hiring what Michelle calls “generalists.” These are folks who know a little bit of everything — a jack of all trades. They can be efficient, in that they have general knowledge about a lot of things and can get things done effectively with that knowledge.
We are now in the generalist wave and the constant cycle of changing roles in media (especially digital) still persists. Today, companies are looking for people with different types of experiences from different places/industries. This is the reason why the “media is going through a renaissance” as Michelle says, a downsizing or even an elimination of media companies due to insufficient leaders who find it difficult to push the company forward because they lack diversity in experience. I agree companies need to be more impact focused (quality vs. quantity) and need to do a better job of hiring those who can be an “add-on” to the company as opposed to a “fit.”
Stability in the industry is always a concern I have. For years I was a digital freelance writer and have been published on many platforms. Seeing the layoffs of incredible writers and editors from major publications made me feel like I dodged an inevitable bullet. When I asked Michelle about stability in the media industry. Her response was nothing more than the raw truth. “There is no stability,” she responded. It hurt. But it’s the truth. The days of people working at companies or networks for 20 or 30 years is coming to an end because business models in the industry are changing. This is particularly important for aspiring digital marketers, managers or media executives to understand. This industry is not for those of us who plan to stay in one particular position for a long period of time. A media careers forces you to stay ahead of the curve and learn new things so that you are continuously valuable as trends shift. You’re only as good as your last hit!