How does a production company even work? Whether you live in an agency or not, it's so important to spend time understanding how your industry works. Especially right now as... well, hang on, is it working any more? Yeah yeah. Of course, it is. Meet JP (aka S Jason Prohaska). He is the Managing Director of MediaMonks in New York Fucking City. Great gentleman, great company. In this interview, we discuss: - Wrestling with ambiguity through scopes - Procurement and what's all that about? - Profit centers and cash money things - Agency culture - How projects happen at MediaMonks You can find JP on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjprohaska/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/sjprohaska Video: http://www.sweathead.co Mark on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/markpollard Email newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

Have you ever wanted to ask a recruiter... "Like, come on now, could you tell me what's really going on?" Well, I just did. And - BONUS - Erin Noel who's currently Director of Team Operations at Stink Studios was a strategist for 13 years before doing recruitment so she can speak to both sides. In this interview, we discuss: - How to honor yourself in your career - The 2 most common crossroads in a strategist's career - The art of compromise - Getting a job, keeping a job, and career twilights - Working with recruiters (and specific recruiters Erin recommends) You can find Erin on LinkedIn. Related article: Give Me That Strategy Job (Can you passion your way into a job?) https://mailchi.mp/mightyjungle/give-me-that-strategy-job Video: http://www.sweathead.co Mark on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/markpollard Email newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

Maura Tuohy is the Global Head of Social Content & Experiential Marketing at Mozilla (think the Firefox browser) in San Francisco. She has an MBA, she's studying law, she's worked in agencies and in brands, and she's done this in the USA as well as during a short stint in Australia. We discuss: - Mozilla and Firefox and being a not-for-profit tech company - How social media works at Mozilla - Working in the USA versus Australia - Working in agencies versus brand-side You can find Maura on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/mtuohy Video: http://www.sweathead.co Mark Pollard: http://www.twitter.com/markpollard Email newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

Mr Mark Cripps is CMO at The Economist in London. Mark grew up around advertising and direct marketing and then spent his career in agencies in roles that often involved working out how to help "digital" and all things data make sense to people who weren't as familiar as he. We discuss: - The evolution of data within agencies - Key data and direct marketing concepts (a great 101) - How The Economist thinks of the marketing discipline Mark Cripps: https://twitter.com/crippo The Economist: https://www.economist.com Video: http://www.sweathead.co And me: http://www.twitter.com/markpollard Email newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

Deb is a Shogun. A professor at the University of Oregon, she doesn't just teach, she doesn't just hold down a job, she gets people careers. She does this with how she teaches but she also takes a much deeper interest in students than any other professor I've met. In this chat, we talk: - What learning advertising is really learning - The role of portfolios - Which agencies students want to get it into and why - Finding meaning in strategy work - What advertising students look like in 2018 - What's up with Oregon? - And so much more. You can find the shogun here: https://twitter.com/debkmorrison Video: http://www.sweathead.co And me: http://www.twitter.com/markpollard

Group Think is a London-based strategy community that gets people together to think, drink, and discuss. They have 500+ members. Here's an interview with James Lees (strategist at Sword and Stone) and Arthur Perez (Head of marketing and brand strategy at Depop) from Group Think in which I share 9 or 10 generalizations of things I've been hearing to see how London feels about planning. Points I ask them to consider include: 1. Not many agencies are clear on why they exist 2. "Advertising" has become a dirty word 3. "Going upstream" - is it really a thing? 4. The strategy career is amazing but many agencies don't know how to make it work 5. The confusion of the job title sprawl For the video, visit http://www.sweathead.co Group Think: http://www.group-think.co.uk/ James: http://twitter.com/jameslees101 Arthur: http://twitter.com/arezpe You can find Mark at http://www.twitter.com/markpollard

Philosophy is dope. Sure, some of the books are dense and the words longer than a giraffe, but we all have philosophies and can improve our lives by learning how to debate them with ourselves. Meet Rob Estreitinho, senior strategist at VCCP in London, and maker of Salmon Theory, a newsletter about the philosophy of strategy. We discuss: - Having A Thing - not just a CV - What philosophy is - The philosophy of freelancing - The philosophy of expectations versus reality - Going full-time You can find Rob at https://twitter.com/restreitinho And his beautiful newsletter Salmon Theory at https://tinyletter.com/estreitinho For the video, visit http://www.sweathead.co You can find Mark at http://www.twitter.com/markpollard

Yo! It's Natalie Kim from We Are Next. After 10 years in the agency world with her last role being Director of Strategy at Firstborn, Natalie now runs We Are Next where she helps people new to the industry navigate how to get into it and thrive once they are there. We discuss: - Studying advertising in college - The most common question of new strategists - Informational interviews (what are they and what's the point?) - Recent strategy job trends - Patience You can find Natalie at http://www.twitter.com/natalieykim and http://www.we-are-next.com/ For the video, visit http://www.sweathead.co You can find Mark at http://www.twitter.com/markpollard