February 6, 2024 • 45 mins
Ezra Zimbler is a long time LinkedIn team member, currently based in Dublin who is driving some really great initiatives and customer facing teams. He's a diversity & equity champion within the halls of LinkedIn as well as without. This is definitely a topic of conversation in this episode, along with LinkedIn's efforts around building customer community and how the teams are structured around digital CS.
In this episode, you'll hear about:
- Ezra's background in sports management and his transition into CS
- His team’s focus on customer enablement
- Using digital motions to focus a CSMs time on having valuable conversation with customers instead of content creation & admin work
- Structure of CS around digital at LinkedIn using a ‘Programs’ team
- How LinkedIn structures around line of business and customer segment
- Implementation of inSided at LinkedIn to drive community and starting with a core group of customers for early feedback and into broader availability launch
- State of the CS Community in Dublin
- Ezras work in DEI and driving equity & diversity within LinkedIn and co-founding TransformHER to help break the double glass ceiling outside of LinkedIn
- Treating LinkedIn content as more of a library vs. a feed where you can search for historic content
Enjoy! I sure did!
Ezra's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ezimbler/
Customer Success Monthly Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7023248545004539904/
Customer Success Monthly YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CustomerSuccessMonthly/
Shoutouts:
- Dan Ennis
- Declan McKiernan - Programs at LinkedIn
- Andy Best - Community at LinkedIn
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The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
That, for us, has been the big impetus, I would
say, for our digital motion is,like you know, we have these
highly qualified individuals whodo amazing work with their
customers and we're making themspend time on admin and
newsletters and, like you know,training videos and webinars and
, like you know, things that arenot necessarily in their
wheelhouse and shouldn't thatnot, probably should not be in
(00:24):
their wheelhouse, and like, howdo we take that off their plate?
So, like you know, the reasonwe hired them to drive great
impact with our clients can cometo the forefront.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
And, once again, welcome to the digital customer
success podcast with me, alexTrokovich.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as I seek
out and interview leaders andpractitioners who are innovating
and building great scaled CSprograms.
My goal is to share what I'velearned and to bring you along
with me for the ride so that youget the insights that you need
to build and evolve your owndigital CS program.
(00:58):
If you'd like more info, wantto get in touch or sign up for
the latest updates, go todigitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started.
Hello and welcome to thedigital customer success podcast
.
It's great to have you back toepisode 37, I believe Yep
(01:22):
starting to lose count here andtoday's guest is Ezra Zimbler,
who has been at LinkedIn for avery long time, and it's always
great to have folks from kind oflarge companies that we all
kind of recognize on the show,because you get a little bit of
the inside juice as to you knowwhat's happening behind this,
(01:45):
behind the scenes, so to speak.
So today in our conversation,ezra spends a bit of time
talking about the structure ofCS at LinkedIn.
Also, we spent a fair amount oftime on his background, which
is actually in sports, socompletely different field.
Then we talk a little bit aboutcommunity and what LinkedIn is
(02:08):
doing to implement and grow acommunity in terms of their
customer outreach.
And then, finally, he has spenta lot of time working on equity
and diversity efforts, and soyou'll hear a little bit about
what he's been up to in thatregard.
It was a great conversation.
He's based in Dublin, so Iappreciate him dealing with the
(02:31):
time differences and all thatkind of stuff.
So please enjoy thisconversation with Ezra Zimbler,
because I sure did.
Well, mr Ezra Zimbler, what aheck of a last name.
Like.
Did you have some coolnicknames and stuff in high
school?
(02:52):
Nothing too crazy.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I had two of these in my name, so there definitely
was some Z action going on.
My parents call me Ez butthat's one never caught on which
I'm not upset about that.
One's not my favorite, but yeah.
I feel like Ezra's, uniqueenough and short enough that it
doesn't lend to need nicknames.
(03:13):
So, yeah, nothing too crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, for some reason in high school people started
well, actually I know the reason.
It's not very exciting, butpeople started calling me turkey
sandwich because for somereason I told somebody that my
last name rhymed with sandwich.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So I was like okay, I guess that'll be a thing.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Well, welcome to the podcast.
You know I super appreciateyour here and happy to talk with
you today about all thingsdigital and just CS in general
Very excited.
You know there's the obligatorykind of background question,
like you know where you camefrom, what you did, but we're
(04:06):
not going to go kind of directlythat route.
I do want to understand alittle bit more about what it
was like working for the KansasCity Chiefs and or the New York
Mets organizations and what gotyou into that and what got you
out of that.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
That's a good story.
I like that we're startingthere.
So, as we were just talkingabout, I'm a big sports fan.
Like most sports, mostlyAmerican, I'm starting to get
into the European sports alittle more and so when I was
growing up, huge baseball fanother sports as well, but
baseball has always kind of beenthe mainstay and I'm like, well
(04:45):
, you know sports.
Once I realized my athleticgifts were not going to get me
into the pros, it's like, okay,maybe my mind can get me into
pro sports.
There is this other path.
So when I was going to college Iwanted to be a sport management
major, which I ended up being.
So I went to the University ofMichigan for sports management,
(05:06):
you know, studied kind of thebusiness of sports with the idea
of that was going to be thecareer that I was going to go
down, did a number of like minorleague baseball, like random
internships during college.
As I graduated I went out toKansas City.
I was like trying to get a footin the door in the industry,
interned with the chiefs, whichwas.
(05:27):
It was an interestingexperience.
It's like sports is aninteresting culture, especially
on the business side, because,well, I would say, probably on
the player side as well, whereit's like there's a lot of
people who want these jobs andlike as like you know, if you're
not performing, or like youknow, you need to be performing,
so there's definitely that.
There's like the culture shiftand we can talk about this later
(05:47):
into tech was like a very, avery different type of
atmosphere.
I'm sure I interned for thechiefs.
I didn't really want to live inKansas City, like that was not
going to be my path, but for meI thought, you know, just out of
college you know a place tostart and kind of get a sense of
what that's going to be.
You know it was interesting.
It was an interestingexperience.
Like I was a customer serviceintern, like you know, working
(06:10):
at some of the booths inside thestadium.
I did the lost and found, likeyou know any random things.
You know we're doing mailers toseason ticket holders.
Like you know, classic internlevel work.
What interesting to see, likeyou know there's not like pro
sports has a decent sizedbusiness side but it's not huge.
So, like I do, like those kindof like you know smaller teams,
(06:31):
like you get to know most of thepeople, like a lot of the
people had been there, you knowfive, 10 years and you know
we're in it for the long haul.
So, like you know, I did likethat.
So it's cool.
What was the chiefs then moveback to New York.
So I'm originally from upstateNew York, was able to land a job
with the Mets.
I started off as part time liketry again, try to get a foot in
(06:53):
the door answering the Metsticket line.
So like, when you called intothe Mets, I was one of the
people picking up, trying tosell you some tickets.
I did that for for like myfirst season.
For like six months or so wasthe one person on my team to get
kept on into like a full timeticket sales role, which was
(07:15):
intense.
So I had to make 80 calls a day.
You're cold calling that fans.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
At this point, hated the Mets for two reasons why
they were terrible at baseball.
But, more importantly, they hadjust built a brand new stadium
and double the ticket prices.
So they used to have nicetickets.
Season tickets were right bythe field.
Now you're like way up in thisupper deck and like you're
paying the same amount.
It was also around the time ofthe Wilpons scandal, or not, the
(07:41):
made off scandal, which theWilpons may or may not have, you
know, been friends with.
So like the Mets were not inthe best space in like general,
so like you're basically callingold season ticket holders
they're not so happy, or likenew ticket sales, like you're
not that good, I don't want togo.
You know you're not sellingsingle game tickets, like you
(08:02):
have to sell these packs andgroups and whatnot, and I would
say that's not my style, likeI'm not an aggressive sales
person, it's YCS Much betterfits my personality.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
That sounds like something somebody would do for
like rejection therapy.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Like I would be very.
I got over my fear of rejectionpretty quickly.
Yeah, I'm sure.
So, yeah, I'm not going to gointo sports.
But I will say, by the end ofmy couple seasons with the Mets,
it was like this is not theplace for me.
Like, to be honest, like my loveof sports definitely decreased
as I was getting to the end ofthat Cause, like you know,
(08:41):
baseball season you work sixmonths straight, like games are
at nights, on the weekends, likeyou're supposed to be at the
stadium.
So like it's just not stop work.
Like it's not glamorous, it'snot fun, like there's some cool
perks, but, like you know, it isa huge dedication.
Your life does not have balanceand, like I was, like I don't
enjoy watching baseball anymorecause I'm like forced into doing
(09:03):
it.
So, for me, at the end, likeyou know, I had a random job
before LinkedIn doing someaccount management, but like it
was time of, like you know, Iwant to reignite my sports
passion and like make my littlemy job something else.
So that's where, for me, it waslike okay, this is time to now
(09:25):
move on into something else.
And, like you know, I stilllove sports, I love watching
sports, but I don't need to beworking it and doing it every
day.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, yeah, hence the transition.
And so now you're at LinkedInand you lead a CS function.
Can you describe a little bitmore about the team that you're
leading into?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You're based in Dublin, yes, so yes, about to
hit my nine year LinkedInanniversary.
I did my first half in New York.
Now I've been in Dublin aboutfour and a half as well, so,
yeah, so my team is talentinsights consultants and my team
specializes in talent insights,which is LinkedIn's data
visualization platform.
(10:06):
So really, the idea of talentinsights is to bring data and
insights to our clients in a waywhere they can self serve those
insights.
And my team it's all aboutenablement, so enabling
customers to be able to searchfor themselves, to know how to
use the data that's in theplatform to figure out different
(10:27):
use cases for them to bring itinto again mostly their
recruiting function.
Again, we do work with some L&Dfolks, some other use cases as
well, but I would say, like youknow, linkedin's main clients
are recruiters.
Our flagship product isrecruiter.
So, like again, that is a bigplace where talent insights
plays is like how do you buildyour talent pool, help work with
(10:50):
your hiring manager and thentake all those insights into
recruiter and start recruitingas efficiently as possible?
So that's where my team sitsnow.
Is we specialize?
We do kind of deeper levelconsultants.
We do have again those kind ofyou know, more broad CSMs who
will kind of do the basics fortalent insights, and then our
team comes in to go that leveldeeper, to kind of really drive
(11:14):
home some of those use cases.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Nice, yeah, cool, that's cool.
So you know this is obviouslyit's the Digital CS podcast and
I would be remiss if I didn'task you about your own kind of
opinion and thoughts on.
You know what Digital CS is andI think you know I love
speaking with folks that don'tnecessarily, you know, run a
(11:39):
digital program and whatnot,because you get the kind of
other insights into either theperception of Digital CS or just
in general, like theunderstanding of Digital CS
across various functions.
So I'd love from you, just likeyour 10 second elevator pitch,
if you had to tell somebody whatDigital CS would look like.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, so I came up with a definition this weekend.
Here's what I got for you.
It's only one line.
It's the infrastructure neededto allow your CSMs to spend as
much time as possible on highvalue activities with clients.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, spot on, yeah, totally.
And I love the fact that noneof it had to do with, like,
customer facing motions, right,because, like, there's a lot of
people who still think thatDigital CS is a segment and
still think that that's how youengage your, that's your tech
touch, right, but, yeah, you'respot on, like you know, using it
(12:37):
for the benefit of yourexisting team to make them more
sufficient to you know, keepthem in, and our focus right now
is really about spending timewith customers and, like you
can't expect that of your CSMswhen they have all these other
things that they should andcould be doing.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I think that for us, has been the big impetus, I
would say, for our digitalmotion is, like you know, we
have these highly qualifiedindividuals who do amazing work
with their customers and we'remaking them spend time on admin
and newsletters and, like youknow, training videos and
webinars and, like you know,things that are not necessarily
in their wheelhouse and shouldnot, probably should not be in
(13:15):
their wheelhouse and like, howdo we take that off their plate?
So, like you know, the reasonwe hired them to drive great
impact with our clients can cometo the forefront.
So I think that's like been.
The big thing for us is like howdo we get things out of our
CSMs way so they can drive themost value possible?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Right right.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And how does that fit into, like the kind of the
structure of CS at LinkedIn?
I'm guessing, you know, there'sprobably an ops function or
some separate kind of digitalfunction per se within the org
and then there's probably amyriad of various customer
success teams.
Can you give us kind of a layof the land?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So our digital function actually sits.
We call it programs and in ourprogram team there's a couple
different functions.
So, like there's, like you know,the learning center team or
like customer learning, who,like, is deeply focused on that.
You have your teams who are,like you know, we just they spun
out this community team.
So there's the team that isdeeply focused on that.
(14:19):
We have, like you know, theyengage with customer marketing.
So, like you know, some of thatis brought in and they've done
some great work around, like youknow, scaled outreach that
comes from the company insteadof the CSM.
So all of that, I would saydigital motion, sits within our
programs team, who also have,like our program managers, like
(14:40):
the enablement folks.
So like that, that or reallygoes deep, unlike, kind of to
the point exactly.
It's like how do we make CSM'slives easier and more focused on
customers in a number ofdifferent ways, whether it's
some of the digital motions,whether it's enablement, kind of
all of these different things,where it's, like you know, we
(15:01):
are trying to, you know, have amore streamlined customer
success approach.
So that's our programs team andyeah, they have been growing
pretty nicely over the last yearor two, I would say, as we've
started to go deeper and deeperinto this motion.
But yeah, so that's kind of itsown team with its own
(15:21):
leadership, but obviously theyall roll up into the same senior
leadership Great programs team.
So the team, the org I actuallysit in, is called Global
Services and it is ourspecialist team organization and
we specialize in a couple ways.
I would say, like the two mainways I think about it is either
(15:42):
like a point in time in the lifecycle or specific products, so
like we have implementationconsultants who obviously do
implementation early in the lifecycle.
We have solutions engineers whodo pre sales, a point in the
life cycle, and then we haveteams like my own who go deep on
a specific product.
We have like technicalconsultants who do like
integrations and like go deep inthose areas.
(16:05):
So that's my org we have.
We have like four main groupswithin within that org and then
we have our you know, I wouldsay you know bulk customer
success or where it's like thebiggest group people who are
customer success managers, andwe have a number of different
(16:25):
business lines at LinkedIn andCSMs are aligned to different
businesses.
So like the products you'resupporting and the clients
you're dealing with changepretty drastically depending on
which business line you're in.
So like the business line I'min is actually they combine two
business lines together aroundthis idea of talent talent
(16:47):
marketplace, which is, likefolks focused on hiring and
folks focused on learning.
But we do have different CSMsin each and within those, like
you, were broken down by segment, kind of what you're talking
about biggest customers to thentech touch, your favorite.
And then we also have a salessolutions business which does
(17:08):
sales navigator and focuses onsales, more sales customers, and
again they're broken down by,basically, size of spend.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
That's, that's cool and makes perfect sense.
And I'm assuming that theoutput of the programs team is
centralized in a way to wherethey did.
I'm guessing they try toconnect different you know from
CSM to you know consultant orwhatever it may be between you
(17:40):
know in the same business line,so to speak.
Is other.
Are there some some, someoutputs from that team that you
see, that that kind of help yourteam on a day to day basis?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, I would say like the from that team they do
a lot of select.
There's a lot of those programmanagers who will like make sure
that our teams are involved inany like new scale things.
I think, like you know, theLearning Center team is one that
we work very closely with.
I think you know they havehelped us a lot in terms of
making sure that you know we canbe scale as well.
Like you know, for our team wedon't want to be doing that kind
(18:13):
of point and click early daystraining where it's like really
need that Learning Centercontent.
I'm again I think we'll talkmore about the community as well
that we are just kind ofgetting launched at this moment
and I think you know I did along body of work to try to
influence them to include thetalent, insights, customers in
(18:33):
that kind of launch which wewere able to be successful with.
But I do think that is going tobe a really interesting play
for us.
Again, we're very early stageswith that.
But I think, especially for myteam, like one of the number one
requests we get from customersis like what are other customers
doing?
Again, it's like you know theproducts five years old but like
(18:54):
it's still pretty new to a lotof folks.
So I think, like you know, howare other people using it?
Was use case and like I thinkyou know why our team exists, is
like those things aren'tnecessarily obvious when you
just sign in and there's like aton of data that looks really
cool in front of your face andyou're like whoa, a lot of stuff
.
How do what do I do here?
So I think you know thecombination of the learning
(19:17):
content which, like we'vecurated, and then the community
content which is, like you know,best practice sharing, or at
least the hope is it'll get tobe a vibrant place where folks
will be sharing.
Like you know that that stuffis really foundational to the
job we do, so that we can gothat level deeper.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Let's talk about that a little bit.
I mean you, I think you guysyou told me you implemented
inside it, which is, you know,now part of Gainsight's
portfolio, has been for a whilenow and you know I'm curious
about, you know, the approach tothat implementation, how that's
gone, like what you guys are,how you guys are focusing on
(19:55):
community specifically.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, no, great question, and I'm a big fan of
this.
I think, like you know, we haveone of our program teams does
focus on community, so it'sgreat to be able to have folks
who are community experts to bethere to kind of support us
along this journey and reallytake the lead on a lot of these
things with us, like helping tothink about content and cadence
and whatnot.
So, yeah, so we decided, Ithink you know about a year ago,
(20:19):
I think in the green light,that this was happening about
this time, like I started mycampaign for our clients to be
in there.
So about the new year, westarted to like it got approved,
we ready to go.
We started with a foundingmembers kind of like VIP group
(20:40):
as to be our first crew in there, one to get their feedback of
like what they want fromcommunity, how they want to
think about this.
You know what, what sections weshould have, what themes we
should be poking around.
That was one of the big thingsof our team was like how do we
identify the right people andget them nominated into the
platform?
So we have like to.
(21:02):
There's two sides of thecommunity.
There's the hiring one, whichis where my group sits.
And then the learning one,where we targeted a bit of a
different audience but, like myteam was very involved and like
picking out and nominating these, nominating the customers, and
kind of getting them onboardedand excited.
And then, yes, our the programsteam did a lot of the
(21:23):
interviews, really understoodfrom them of what was going on,
and then we launched with justthem in the platform for a
number of months to see whatwould happen, to, like you know,
their feedback, to make sure itwas fully built out.
And then recently so within thelast month actually, no, I
(21:44):
think a few months ago we didour first like bigger tranche of
folks getting invited.
I think we went to like 7000 orso customers as like that kind
of in between phase betweenfounding and GA and like got
that group in there again seeingtheir activity, how they work
in there.
And then so LinkedIn's bigevent where they announced
(22:07):
things is called talent connect,which happened a couple weeks
ago, is very recent and we usethat occasion to kind of
announce more fully that we'venow gone general availability to
all.
Right now it's an Englishspeaking community.
We are working to get itlocalized as well, but we just
announced GA for for our Englishplatform Last one of these
(22:31):
weeks in October, so veryrecently, and yeah.
So now it's kind of let's seehow the masses engage with it,
but I think like right the GA isvery important because, like
now, this is where the hope is.
The community is really the hub,where it's like your content
comes out of there you know yourwebinars come out of there,
like all you, like your you canreach out to support team.
(22:54):
Through there you can go to thehelp center.
Through there you can talk withother peers.
So, like, getting to GA wasvery important because now
that's a place where, like, wecan just send any customer who
needs any support and it's like,hey, this is step one and then
you know, our team is there tobe step two and step three.
But I think you know this was abig milestone again.
(23:14):
I think you know we're stillgetting to that point of, like,
you know the team using it inthat way and I think you know
that's one thing we're going tobe pushing continually.
But, like, that's like the bighope is now that it is, you know
, widely available, we can nowbecome that, that support hub.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
That's cool, yeah, it's.
You know, the community aspectof just enabling customers is, I
think, often a little bitoverlooked because there are a
lot of subject matter expertsthat don't necessarily live
within LinkedIn.
Like I follow this guy I don'tknow if you know him, mark
(23:52):
Williams, he's Mr LinkedIn andhe has a podcast called LinkedIn
Formed, which is actuallyreally good.
It's a weekly show.
He's like on episode 400 orsomething like that.
Yeah it's been doing it for along time.
He's like a LinkedIn trainer orwhatever, and so he does this
weekly show.
You know, talks about newfeatures and you know the famous
(24:15):
algorithm changes and all thatkind of fun stuff and it's
interesting, but it'll be for meanyway.
Those kinds of shifts in, Iguess, attention centers around
a company such as LinkedIn oryou know other kind of more
(24:35):
widely known platforms.
You know what that will do.
The landscape of people likethat, that you know, are they
going to become more active in acommunity?
Are they going to, you know,get in there and get involved?
Are they not?
Like?
You know there's it's like abig social experiment, almost
100%, and I think I think 100%to your point.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Like that is, the deep power of some of these
communities is, like you know,we're experts, but, like I
probably shouldn't say this, butwe're like, more theoretical.
Like you know, my team is not arecruiter in there every day
using it for the purpose.
Like you know, we're using itto teach and to share and to
show, but like I do think that'slike the power of this is like,
and again, what our customersare asking for, which is like,
(25:18):
what are other customers doing?
What are some of those moreniche use cases that actually
might be really impactful fororganization.
Like you know, one of thethings I used to do so before I
started managing the team, I waspart of the team and I used to
do so I covered the UK market.
I would be in London from timeto time and I would do some of
these live events where you'dhave, you know, I have a panel
(25:40):
of, you know, a sales leaderinterviewing three power users
who are, like you know,fantastic at using the platform.
We're trying it in differentways.
We're in there every day andwe're like enabling their
organizations to use it as well,and those events always went
over so well and, like you know,everyone's like asking them
questions.
They're like yeah, exactly,they become the experts and like
(26:01):
.
That's the point where it'slike, yeah, if you feel like
you're the expert, like you know, it's a place you'll come back
to, like it's a good feeling oflike being someone who, like is
respected around this.
So, but I do think creatingthat takes time and effort and
thought, so it's like you can'tjust start and then it's like
that's going to happen.
No so that's where I think ourgoal now is like really create
(26:22):
those folks who feel connectedand like they are.
They are the leaders.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah sure, absolutely , absolutely.
Well, I started my my techcareer at Dell and I don't know
if you have the same experience,but invariably my family
members, because I worked inDell, even though they didn't
know you know what I did at Dell, but they thought all of a
(26:49):
sudden I was like I becamefamily tech support and it's
like you know I became theexpert on computers, which I was
not.
But I'm curious if you havethat same experience, maybe more
so, on the link like like howmany times a day or a week do
people ask you like how they canoptimize their LinkedIn profile
(27:13):
to, like you know, be better,be seen, and all like like, do
you get that a lot?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I get that.
I would say like I don't leadwith how I work at LinkedIn,
like if you ask me I will tellyou, but like that's not where
I'm meeting a lot of theseconversations.
Yeah, I will say for family,especially my immediate family,
linkedin did a really good thingwhere they used to have a bring
your parents to work day wherethey could come in and like see
what we actually did, which likeI think helped to show them
(27:40):
that like we're not tech doinglike you know, we're just on our
computers talking to people allday and not, like you know,
tech support or whatnot.
So I do think that helped.
Family wise, I will say everytime I visit my grandma, we do
need to do a.
She's like a power.
She has more connections than Ido.
She's like a power user.
So every time I visit her, I doI'll give her the rundown on,
(28:07):
you know help my profile andwhatnot so yeah, I get some of
it.
I would say I like I try not toopen myself up too much but I,
like you know for for mostpeople like I, am pretty open if
folks want to have a LinkedInconversation, like you know, I
got that.
I've got the the talk trackdown at this point.
Yeah, I'm sure I'm happy to doit.
(28:30):
So, but yeah, I would say Idon't get asked as much.
I would say a lot of my like,especially in Dublin, like a lot
of my friends, are LinkedInfolks, so they're they should
have the answer as much as Ishould.
Yeah, that's over here.
But yeah, you know, from timeto time and yes, though my mom
asking about how her cell phoneworks, I can sometimes write.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
That's exactly.
We've talked a couple times nowthat you, you are based in
Dublin and I also, you know I.
Just one thing that I reallyappreciate about you is how
active you are just in CS, inthe CS community in general, and
, and you know, you're involvedwith several organizations.
(29:13):
But I'm curious to get someinsight into what the CS
community of Dublin looks like,because it is a pretty night,
tightly knit, as as in otherplaces, or no, it's a nice
community, I would say myrejoice.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Actually, like, when I moved to Dublin, I like knew
no one.
I was like, okay, I should dosome networking, I should meet
people in general.
And so that's where I joinedthe customer success network and
like got involved with a lot oftheir events and like started
to meet the group in Dublin.
Because I would say, yeah, likeyou know, dublin is the tech
hub of Europe, like, especiallyfor us tech companies, due to
(29:50):
some favorable tax laws.
So Dublin has, you know, thatthe European headquarters for
most of the you know, big, bigcustomers there are big US
companies.
So, like you know, we haveabout 2000 people.
Google has like 8000 people.
Microsoft has, if you like, youknow there are, there are large
bases and you know most ofthese companies are, you know,
(30:11):
have sizable customer successdepartments.
I will say, like you know, andI've noticed this at LinkedIn as
well like the folks who areinvolved in the community, I do
think are more likely to bestartup again, not everyone.
There's definitely plenty ofLinkedIn and Microsoft and folks
who are in these, but I dothink a lot of the folks who
like really dive deep are atsome of the smaller companies
(30:32):
they like trying to navigatetheir way, and so it's been
great for me to like get abetter sense of Text scene here
of like you know, what are thosesmaller companies, what are
some, like the Dublin base,which you know, not not super
prevalent, but there'sdefinitely some.
So, yeah, I would say likeagain, especially with like
(30:54):
there being some of these flagflagship companies and people
move between them Prettyregularly.
Now like you know people know welike, if you, if you're here a
while and you work at a couplecompanies, like you do know a
Lot of people.
So, yes, I would say prettytight knit.
So, no, it's been a good, it'sbeen a good crew and, yeah, like
(31:14):
there's a lot of us, which isnice.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, that's super cool.
Well, one of the other thingsthat you you founded at LinkedIn
was transform her, which Iwhich it looking into it a
little bit more is is Isbasically, you know, helping
women of color in in high tech.
(31:37):
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat and what's behind that and
what you guys are Doing?
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Definitely.
So yeah, I'll give you a littlebackground, kind of a little
bit around.
We call it so at LinkedIn.
It's called dibs diversity,inclusion, belonging.
I know DI there's a lot ofdifferent acronym to use.
I'm gonna use dibs just becausethat's the one I'm used to.
So I would say I've been onprobably a five or six year dibs
journey for myself, really kindof understanding.
(32:02):
You know my privilege, my placein the world and how I can
impact other communities in apositive way.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
And I would say, like you know, yeah, link for
LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
It really became a thing about five or six years
ago where it like they spelledit out a little bit more.
I think the thing that reallyLike really hit home with me was
the idea of belonging, which islike you feel like you belong
and like, for me, like I Feltlike I belong to LinkedIn, like
it was a great feeling, I lovedit.
And when I got, when I startedto hear the stories of other
(32:37):
folks that did not have thatfeeling, where they were or at
LinkedIn, like you know, in anumber of situations, that was
like that's back because, likeyou know, I knew the power of
belonging as someone who wasfeeling it and it's like okay,
so how can I do some things tohelp that?
And so I had been very involvedin, like LinkedIn cultural
(32:58):
events when I was in New York.
So we have this thing called inday, where once a month
LinkedIn gives us the day togive back to ourselves, to the
company community, to the worlditself, community world.
I should know that better.
So I did that for a couple yearsin New York like more kind of
culturally focused internal.
And then LinkedIn has theseemployee resource groups, which
(33:21):
are really powerful ways fordifferent communities to come
together, for allies to show upthrough those communities and
truly support them in theworkplace.
So after I had been prettyinvolved in the culture stuff, I
realized like I wanted to makea deeper impact.
This idea of belonging was kindof coming into my view and so I
joined the black inclusiongroup, which is one of our
(33:42):
employee resource groups andkind of that started this
journey when I started, you know, volunteering with them,
putting out events, kind ofhelping them create programming,
with that mission of kind ofbringing the community closer
together.
After being on that team, maybesix months, a year or so, the
(34:03):
president of the group came tome and she's like we want, I
want to do something to like gobeyond the LinkedIn walls
because again, like, the RGs arepretty internally focused,
which again is really importantbut like let's think about
something, doing something toimpact the broader community.
And so that's where transformher was born, thinking about how
(34:25):
can we, you know, use communityand kind of that network effect
to connect Women of colorwithin the tech industry, to
help them to kind of learn fromeach other, to help them build
that network so that, you know,the double glass ceiling can
hopefully be broken.
So that's where it started andwe started in New York, so at
that point I was still New Yorkbased.
We had our first event, one ofmy most proud professional days.
(34:48):
Kind of seeing this Like thislabor of love that, like you
know, we put a lot into thisfirst one as like a proof of
concept, very little, like youknow, some support, but, like
you know, we had to do it.
Seeing it come together wasamazing.
We've since had a couple events.
We're actually in the momenttrying to figure out like what
the next iteration of it is.
But, yeah, it continues to be apassion for myself and my
(35:14):
co-founder, ty, to kind offigure out how that we can
continue to impact this groupand really build community.
So, yeah, it's been a greatjourney, have learned a ton and
I think like it has also beengreat experience for me myself
of like learning how to buildcommunity, how to put, like you
know we did, you know eventsthat were, you know, three 400
people deep, so, like you knowwhat it takes to kind of put on
(35:37):
some of these larger scalethings, um, so yeah, it's been a
been a really good journey.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
That's cool.
Well, you know, thank you fordoing that, because I mean it.
I think that in tech anyway andwe've talked about this in the
podcast before on previousepisodes but in CS, cs tends to
be a relatively more diversegroup of people than, say, other
parts of you know tech ororganizations in general.
(36:09):
But but to your point, in, intech there's, there's so much
more opportunity for improvement.
You know, and and and I thinkwe had, we had Ralphie English
on not long ago and the pointthat she made was you know it's,
it's not just women that haveto, you know, kind of get
(36:31):
together and, and, you know,collaborate and network.
It's.
You know it's as white men thatneed to be part of the equation
to and proliferate those thingsand make sure that you know we
hold ourselves accountable andhold others accountable and all
that.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
So yeah, that, for for my co-finder, like that is
her big mission, I would saythat I would say it's a little
different from a lot of folksthat I've seen who are like
trying to create these spaceswhere it's like we need to
invite allies.
The table like nothing changesif it continues to just be us
focused on this, talking aboutit.
We need to get the broadercommunity behind us, like in
(37:10):
network with us, in communitywith us.
So I've been, I'm always, I'malways impressed by her, like
continued commitment to thatideal of like yes, we could just
be focused, but it's like youwant to make sure and again, I
think, like there's always workto do to kind of expand that,
that allyship, but that has beena huge focus for her.
(37:30):
And I think, to your point,like very important and that is
why I tried to, you know, putmyself out there as well, to
like be an example for folks who, like you, know the work you
should be doing.
This is work that like isimportant and like is going to
make the world, hopefully, amore diverse place in the future
.
Also, I'll say I'm hoping youwill be lasting impacts and I
(37:55):
think you know we've madeprogress but like there's a long
way to go.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
A long way to go yeah , absolutely well, um, you know,
as, as we kind of round thingsdown, I've really enjoyed
speaking with you and gettingthe insight from the inside the
belly of the beast, so to speakbut I'd love to understand a
little bit more what's in yourcontent diet, and are there like
(38:19):
specific things that you'd wantto share with the community
that you're paying attention to?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I love it so, yes, I mean I'll have to start with
LinkedIn, like I will say, forcustomer success content like
LinkedIn.
I think I feel like it's beenthe last two, maybe three years
where, like the content hasexploded like it used to be.
You know a little there, but Ido feel like it has now.
Like you know, my feet is nowfull of customer success, which
(38:44):
I love, um, and like it makes itvery easy to not have to go to
that many other places.
Now, as I mentioned, like I'vejoined some of the communities,
a lot of them.
There's a lot of Slack groups,like you know, workplace groups,
like different, that where Isay is like another place to to
get content and like learn aboutwhat people are doing um, there
are quite a few um past guestsof this podcast who have
(39:06):
specifically just said I justpay attention, I just you know,
linkedin is my place.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
You know, because it's you're right.
The proliferation of of CS uminfo has exploded, for sure so
that, yeah, that's the hub, Iwould say for sure mm-hmm, yeah,
um, and I think another thingthat people don't really realize
is is it's it's kind of like alibrary, you know, I don't.
(39:32):
I think people tend to searchfor companies and people and you
know connections and all thatkind of stuff.
But I think sometimes, whenyou're tackling a problem, your
first go get is like go toGoogle or you'd go to wherever,
but go search for it, I think,because I guarantee you
somebody's written somethingabout it and this is something
(39:52):
that my boss actually gave methis idea a bit ago.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Um was around, like to your point, like making it
more of a library where it'slike you know your posts, you
know they stay around but, likeyou know, after a bit, like
there, you got to really scroll.
Yeah, to those points, andthat's actually why I decided to
go.
The newsletter format, umrecently was like, so it's all
like, oh, like my longerthoughts are kind of in one
(40:16):
place where you can kind of goback and read through them and
look through them, because I dothink, like you know your posts,
like you know, if you postregularly, like you know, yes,
the search is good, but like,like, who posted that?
What was it about?
I don't remember exactly, um,so I do feel like that's where
I've thought about, like youknow, how do I make it easy to
find things?
(40:37):
with the link, just like I likethe feature content like on your
profile.
I like because you can like putsome of the stuff you really
want people to find right there.
And then, yeah, the newsletterI like is yeah, it's all kind of
in one place.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah, yeah, I um, I remember back in the day I used
I wrote quite a few articles aswell and, um, they just kind of
they they're kind of you know,every once in a while they kind
of pop up here and there, whichis kind of interesting.
But yeah, the newsletterfeature is one that I have not
dug into at all.
Um, and I was uh to your, toyour point on the featured
(41:11):
content.
I always think it's funny whenpeople have like 20 pieces of
content in their featuredcontent.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
I'm like okay well, I don't think people scroll.
It's like people looking at thefirst four I like.
I never delete anything fromthere, so I probably have 10,
maybe but it's like I don'texpect anyone to look past what
the third or fourth one can yousee, yeah, prioritization hold
it 100%.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, that's cool.
Is there anyone um that you'dlike to give some kudos to?
That's doing cool stuff and indigital that you've?
Speaker 1 (41:46):
yes, so I would say I'm linked in the one guy who I
feel like I see the most digitalcontent from.
I think someone else, uh,mentioned him as well.
I was looking at the other guywho I think is.
Dan Ennis from Monday dot com.
Um, I feel like he's been on.
I know a couple people onMonday um, so fan of their work,
um, I think the people I wastalking about linked in like um.
So for my business line there'sa man named Declan McCurney who
(42:08):
leads our programs team um, soI would say you know not as
active on linked in um I'mcoming for you, declan
internally who, like you know, Ium I go to around some of this
stuff.
Um, he's like my, one of myfirst guys.
And then Andy Bass is a guy wholeads our community team um and
(42:30):
he's been a CSM.
He was a CSM at linked in formany years, so I've known him
for a long time but like it'sbeen great to see him kind of
lead that charge which a coupleother of his team um who have
been really great in terms ofhelping us think about that that
digital journey for our teamsthat's cool.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
That's cool.
Well, um, you yourself, youprovided a ton of value on
linked in.
I, like you know, I I went deepon your posts, uh, a little
little while ago and and it'snice to see you on my feed.
But, um, you know, where canpeople find you?
Obviously, on linked in, butengage with you what you know.
Is there some place that youwant to direct people to, to, to
(43:07):
and have more about?
Speaker 1 (43:08):
yeah, yeah, so linked in, I'd say, is my hub.
I have my newsletter customersuccess monthly.
Um that I post about monthlyI'm I'm trying to stay at that
cadence yeah, it's hard to do um, I just started a youtube
channel, but I do post most ofthe stuff from youtube.
It's more like kind of thatsimilar idea of having a library
of all the videos instead oflosing them in the feed.
(43:29):
I've now built a youtubechannel so I'm kind of like they
can all just be there, um, andkind of be in one place.
Um, also customers, that'smonthly.
I connected it with mynewsletter um, so I'd say those
are kind of the places where Iam I'm most active this day.
Um, I used to be the communitymanager for the customer success
network, so their workplace, um, community, is a place I've I
(43:50):
spent more time as well.
Um, so I'd say, yeah, those,those are the places you can
find me, or here in the linkedinoffice in uh in Dublin that's
right.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Yeah, it's a beautiful office.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
I come all the time.
The food is top notch yeah, Ican imagine.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Um, that's awesome.
You're making everybody elsejealous.
Um, ezra, thanks for joining.
I appreciate it.
It's been a great conversationand, uh, you know you're, you're
a.
You're a ray of sunshine in thesea of I don't know.
I don't know where I'm goingwith that.
I like the ray of sunshine, bro.
I'll take that you're a ray ofsunshine, period, doc.
(44:30):
Thank you for joining me forthis episode of the digital
customer success podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
It really helps us to grow andto provide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the digitalcustomer success definition word
map and get more details aboutthe show at
digitalcustomersuccesscom.
(44:50):
My name is Alex Turkovich.
Thanks again for joining andwe'll see you next time.
That, for us, has been the big impetus, I would
say, for our digital motion is,like you know, we have these
highly qualified individuals whodo amazing work with their
customers and we're making themspend time on admin and
newsletters and, like you know,training videos and webinars and
, like you know, things that arenot necessarily in their
wheelhouse and shouldn't thatnot, probably should not be in
(00:24):
their wheelhouse, and like, howdo we take that off their plate?
So, like you know, the reasonwe hired them to drive great
impact with our clients can cometo the forefront.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
And, once again, welcome to the digital customer
success podcast with me, alexTrokovich.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as I seek
out and interview leaders andpractitioners who are innovating
and building great scaled CSprograms.
My goal is to share what I'velearned and to bring you along
with me for the ride so that youget the insights that you need
to build and evolve your owndigital CS program.
(00:58):
If you'd like more info, wantto get in touch or sign up for
the latest updates, go todigitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started.
Hello and welcome to thedigital customer success podcast
.
It's great to have you back toepisode 37, I believe Yep
(01:22):
starting to lose count here andtoday's guest is Ezra Zimbler,
who has been at LinkedIn for avery long time, and it's always
great to have folks from kind oflarge companies that we all
kind of recognize on the show,because you get a little bit of
the inside juice as to you knowwhat's happening behind this,
(01:45):
behind the scenes, so to speak.
So today in our conversation,ezra spends a bit of time
talking about the structure ofCS at LinkedIn.
Also, we spent a fair amount oftime on his background, which
is actually in sports, socompletely different field.
Then we talk a little bit aboutcommunity and what LinkedIn is
(02:08):
doing to implement and grow acommunity in terms of their
customer outreach.
And then, finally, he has spenta lot of time working on equity
and diversity efforts, and soyou'll hear a little bit about
what he's been up to in thatregard.
It was a great conversation.
He's based in Dublin, so Iappreciate him dealing with the
(02:31):
time differences and all thatkind of stuff.
So please enjoy thisconversation with Ezra Zimbler,
because I sure did.
Well, mr Ezra Zimbler, what aheck of a last name.
Like.
Did you have some coolnicknames and stuff in high
school?
(02:52):
Nothing too crazy.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I had two of these in my name, so there definitely
was some Z action going on.
My parents call me Ez butthat's one never caught on which
I'm not upset about that.
One's not my favorite, but yeah.
I feel like Ezra's, uniqueenough and short enough that it
doesn't lend to need nicknames.
(03:13):
So, yeah, nothing too crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, for some reason in high school people started
well, actually I know the reason.
It's not very exciting, butpeople started calling me turkey
sandwich because for somereason I told somebody that my
last name rhymed with sandwich.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So I was like okay, I guess that'll be a thing.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Well, welcome to the podcast.
You know I super appreciateyour here and happy to talk with
you today about all thingsdigital and just CS in general
Very excited.
You know there's the obligatorykind of background question,
like you know where you camefrom, what you did, but we're
(04:06):
not going to go kind of directlythat route.
I do want to understand alittle bit more about what it
was like working for the KansasCity Chiefs and or the New York
Mets organizations and what gotyou into that and what got you
out of that.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
That's a good story.
I like that we're startingthere.
So, as we were just talkingabout, I'm a big sports fan.
Like most sports, mostlyAmerican, I'm starting to get
into the European sports alittle more and so when I was
growing up, huge baseball fanother sports as well, but
baseball has always kind of beenthe mainstay and I'm like, well
(04:45):
, you know sports.
Once I realized my athleticgifts were not going to get me
into the pros, it's like, okay,maybe my mind can get me into
pro sports.
There is this other path.
So when I was going to college Iwanted to be a sport management
major, which I ended up being.
So I went to the University ofMichigan for sports management,
(05:06):
you know, studied kind of thebusiness of sports with the idea
of that was going to be thecareer that I was going to go
down, did a number of like minorleague baseball, like random
internships during college.
As I graduated I went out toKansas City.
I was like trying to get a footin the door in the industry,
interned with the chiefs, whichwas.
(05:27):
It was an interestingexperience.
It's like sports is aninteresting culture, especially
on the business side, because,well, I would say, probably on
the player side as well, whereit's like there's a lot of
people who want these jobs andlike as like you know, if you're
not performing, or like youknow, you need to be performing,
so there's definitely that.
There's like the culture shiftand we can talk about this later
(05:47):
into tech was like a very, avery different type of
atmosphere.
I'm sure I interned for thechiefs.
I didn't really want to live inKansas City, like that was not
going to be my path, but for meI thought, you know, just out of
college you know a place tostart and kind of get a sense of
what that's going to be.
You know it was interesting.
It was an interestingexperience.
Like I was a customer serviceintern, like you know, working
(06:10):
at some of the booths inside thestadium.
I did the lost and found, likeyou know any random things.
You know we're doing mailers toseason ticket holders.
Like you know, classic internlevel work.
What interesting to see, likeyou know there's not like pro
sports has a decent sizedbusiness side but it's not huge.
So, like I do, like those kindof like you know smaller teams,
(06:31):
like you get to know most of thepeople, like a lot of the
people had been there, you knowfive, 10 years and you know
we're in it for the long haul.
So, like you know, I did likethat.
So it's cool.
What was the chiefs then moveback to New York.
So I'm originally from upstateNew York, was able to land a job
with the Mets.
I started off as part time liketry again, try to get a foot in
(06:53):
the door answering the Metsticket line.
So like, when you called intothe Mets, I was one of the
people picking up, trying tosell you some tickets.
I did that for for like myfirst season.
For like six months or so wasthe one person on my team to get
kept on into like a full timeticket sales role, which was
(07:15):
intense.
So I had to make 80 calls a day.
You're cold calling that fans.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
At this point, hated the Mets for two reasons why
they were terrible at baseball.
But, more importantly, they hadjust built a brand new stadium
and double the ticket prices.
So they used to have nicetickets.
Season tickets were right bythe field.
Now you're like way up in thisupper deck and like you're
paying the same amount.
It was also around the time ofthe Wilpons scandal, or not, the
(07:41):
made off scandal, which theWilpons may or may not have, you
know, been friends with.
So like the Mets were not inthe best space in like general,
so like you're basically callingold season ticket holders
they're not so happy, or likenew ticket sales, like you're
not that good, I don't want togo.
You know you're not sellingsingle game tickets, like you
(08:02):
have to sell these packs andgroups and whatnot, and I would
say that's not my style, likeI'm not an aggressive sales
person, it's YCS Much betterfits my personality.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
That sounds like something somebody would do for
like rejection therapy.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Like I would be very.
I got over my fear of rejectionpretty quickly.
Yeah, I'm sure.
So, yeah, I'm not going to gointo sports.
But I will say, by the end ofmy couple seasons with the Mets,
it was like this is not theplace for me.
Like, to be honest, like my loveof sports definitely decreased
as I was getting to the end ofthat Cause, like you know,
(08:41):
baseball season you work sixmonths straight, like games are
at nights, on the weekends, likeyou're supposed to be at the
stadium.
So like it's just not stop work.
Like it's not glamorous, it'snot fun, like there's some cool
perks, but, like you know, it isa huge dedication.
Your life does not have balanceand, like I was, like I don't
enjoy watching baseball anymorecause I'm like forced into doing
(09:03):
it.
So, for me, at the end, likeyou know, I had a random job
before LinkedIn doing someaccount management, but like it
was time of, like you know, Iwant to reignite my sports
passion and like make my littlemy job something else.
So that's where, for me, it waslike okay, this is time to now
(09:25):
move on into something else.
And, like you know, I stilllove sports, I love watching
sports, but I don't need to beworking it and doing it every
day.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, yeah, hence the transition.
And so now you're at LinkedInand you lead a CS function.
Can you describe a little bitmore about the team that you're
leading into?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You're based in Dublin, yes, so yes, about to
hit my nine year LinkedInanniversary.
I did my first half in New York.
Now I've been in Dublin aboutfour and a half as well, so,
yeah, so my team is talentinsights consultants and my team
specializes in talent insights,which is LinkedIn's data
visualization platform.
(10:06):
So really, the idea of talentinsights is to bring data and
insights to our clients in a waywhere they can self serve those
insights.
And my team it's all aboutenablement, so enabling
customers to be able to searchfor themselves, to know how to
use the data that's in theplatform to figure out different
(10:27):
use cases for them to bring itinto again mostly their
recruiting function.
Again, we do work with some L&Dfolks, some other use cases as
well, but I would say, like youknow, linkedin's main clients
are recruiters.
Our flagship product isrecruiter.
So, like again, that is a bigplace where talent insights
plays is like how do you buildyour talent pool, help work with
(10:50):
your hiring manager and thentake all those insights into
recruiter and start recruitingas efficiently as possible?
So that's where my team sitsnow.
Is we specialize?
We do kind of deeper levelconsultants.
We do have again those kind ofyou know, more broad CSMs who
will kind of do the basics fortalent insights, and then our
team comes in to go that leveldeeper, to kind of really drive
(11:14):
home some of those use cases.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Nice, yeah, cool, that's cool.
So you know this is obviouslyit's the Digital CS podcast and
I would be remiss if I didn'task you about your own kind of
opinion and thoughts on.
You know what Digital CS is andI think you know I love
speaking with folks that don'tnecessarily, you know, run a
(11:39):
digital program and whatnot,because you get the kind of
other insights into either theperception of Digital CS or just
in general, like theunderstanding of Digital CS
across various functions.
So I'd love from you, just likeyour 10 second elevator pitch,
if you had to tell somebody whatDigital CS would look like.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, so I came up with a definition this weekend.
Here's what I got for you.
It's only one line.
It's the infrastructure neededto allow your CSMs to spend as
much time as possible on highvalue activities with clients.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, spot on, yeah, totally.
And I love the fact that noneof it had to do with, like,
customer facing motions, right,because, like, there's a lot of
people who still think thatDigital CS is a segment and
still think that that's how youengage your, that's your tech
touch, right, but, yeah, you'respot on, like you know, using it
(12:37):
for the benefit of yourexisting team to make them more
sufficient to you know, keepthem in, and our focus right now
is really about spending timewith customers and, like you
can't expect that of your CSMswhen they have all these other
things that they should andcould be doing.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I think that for us, has been the big impetus, I
would say, for our digitalmotion is, like you know, we
have these highly qualifiedindividuals who do amazing work
with their customers and we'remaking them spend time on admin
and newsletters and, like youknow, training videos and
webinars and, like you know,things that are not necessarily
in their wheelhouse and shouldnot, probably should not be in
(13:15):
their wheelhouse and like, howdo we take that off their plate?
So, like you know, the reasonwe hired them to drive great
impact with our clients can cometo the forefront.
So I think that's like been.
The big thing for us is like howdo we get things out of our
CSMs way so they can drive themost value possible?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Right right.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And how does that fit into, like the kind of the
structure of CS at LinkedIn?
I'm guessing, you know, there'sprobably an ops function or
some separate kind of digitalfunction per se within the org
and then there's probably amyriad of various customer
success teams.
Can you give us kind of a layof the land?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So our digital function actually sits.
We call it programs and in ourprogram team there's a couple
different functions.
So, like there's, like you know,the learning center team or
like customer learning, who,like, is deeply focused on that.
You have your teams who are,like you know, we just they spun
out this community team.
So there's the team that isdeeply focused on that.
(14:19):
We have, like you know, theyengage with customer marketing.
So, like you know, some of thatis brought in and they've done
some great work around, like youknow, scaled outreach that
comes from the company insteadof the CSM.
So all of that, I would saydigital motion, sits within our
programs team, who also have,like our program managers, like
(14:40):
the enablement folks.
So like that, that or reallygoes deep, unlike, kind of to
the point exactly.
It's like how do we make CSM'slives easier and more focused on
customers in a number ofdifferent ways, whether it's
some of the digital motions,whether it's enablement, kind of
all of these different things,where it's, like you know, we
(15:01):
are trying to, you know, have amore streamlined customer
success approach.
So that's our programs team andyeah, they have been growing
pretty nicely over the last yearor two, I would say, as we've
started to go deeper and deeperinto this motion.
But yeah, so that's kind of itsown team with its own
(15:21):
leadership, but obviously theyall roll up into the same senior
leadership Great programs team.
So the team, the org I actuallysit in, is called Global
Services and it is ourspecialist team organization and
we specialize in a couple ways.
I would say, like the two mainways I think about it is either
(15:42):
like a point in time in the lifecycle or specific products, so
like we have implementationconsultants who obviously do
implementation early in the lifecycle.
We have solutions engineers whodo pre sales, a point in the
life cycle, and then we haveteams like my own who go deep on
a specific product.
We have like technicalconsultants who do like
integrations and like go deep inthose areas.
(16:05):
So that's my org we have.
We have like four main groupswithin within that org and then
we have our you know, I wouldsay you know bulk customer
success or where it's like thebiggest group people who are
customer success managers, andwe have a number of different
(16:25):
business lines at LinkedIn andCSMs are aligned to different
businesses.
So like the products you'resupporting and the clients
you're dealing with changepretty drastically depending on
which business line you're in.
So like the business line I'min is actually they combine two
business lines together aroundthis idea of talent talent
(16:47):
marketplace, which is, likefolks focused on hiring and
folks focused on learning.
But we do have different CSMsin each and within those, like
you, were broken down by segment, kind of what you're talking
about biggest customers to thentech touch, your favorite.
And then we also have a salessolutions business which does
(17:08):
sales navigator and focuses onsales, more sales customers, and
again they're broken down by,basically, size of spend.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
That's, that's cool and makes perfect sense.
And I'm assuming that theoutput of the programs team is
centralized in a way to wherethey did.
I'm guessing they try toconnect different you know from
CSM to you know consultant orwhatever it may be between you
(17:40):
know in the same business line,so to speak.
Is other.
Are there some some, someoutputs from that team that you
see, that that kind of help yourteam on a day to day basis?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, I would say like the from that team they do
a lot of select.
There's a lot of those programmanagers who will like make sure
that our teams are involved inany like new scale things.
I think, like you know, theLearning Center team is one that
we work very closely with.
I think you know they havehelped us a lot in terms of
making sure that you know we canbe scale as well.
Like you know, for our team wedon't want to be doing that kind
(18:13):
of point and click early daystraining where it's like really
need that Learning Centercontent.
I'm again I think we'll talkmore about the community as well
that we are just kind ofgetting launched at this moment
and I think you know I did along body of work to try to
influence them to include thetalent, insights, customers in
(18:33):
that kind of launch which wewere able to be successful with.
But I do think that is going tobe a really interesting play
for us.
Again, we're very early stageswith that.
But I think, especially for myteam, like one of the number one
requests we get from customersis like what are other customers
doing?
Again, it's like you know theproducts five years old but like
(18:54):
it's still pretty new to a lotof folks.
So I think, like you know, howare other people using it?
Was use case and like I thinkyou know why our team exists, is
like those things aren'tnecessarily obvious when you
just sign in and there's like aton of data that looks really
cool in front of your face andyou're like whoa, a lot of stuff
.
How do what do I do here?
So I think you know thecombination of the learning
(19:17):
content which, like we'vecurated, and then the community
content which is, like you know,best practice sharing, or at
least the hope is it'll get tobe a vibrant place where folks
will be sharing.
Like you know that that stuffis really foundational to the
job we do, so that we can gothat level deeper.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Let's talk about that a little bit.
I mean you, I think you guysyou told me you implemented
inside it, which is, you know,now part of Gainsight's
portfolio, has been for a whilenow and you know I'm curious
about, you know, the approach tothat implementation, how that's
gone, like what you guys are,how you guys are focusing on
(19:55):
community specifically.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, no, great question, and I'm a big fan of
this.
I think, like you know, we haveone of our program teams does
focus on community, so it'sgreat to be able to have folks
who are community experts to bethere to kind of support us
along this journey and reallytake the lead on a lot of these
things with us, like helping tothink about content and cadence
and whatnot.
So, yeah, so we decided, Ithink you know about a year ago,
(20:19):
I think in the green light,that this was happening about
this time, like I started mycampaign for our clients to be
in there.
So about the new year, westarted to like it got approved,
we ready to go.
We started with a foundingmembers kind of like VIP group
(20:40):
as to be our first crew in there, one to get their feedback of
like what they want fromcommunity, how they want to
think about this.
You know what, what sections weshould have, what themes we
should be poking around.
That was one of the big thingsof our team was like how do we
identify the right people andget them nominated into the
platform?
So we have like to.
(21:02):
There's two sides of thecommunity.
There's the hiring one, whichis where my group sits.
And then the learning one,where we targeted a bit of a
different audience but, like myteam was very involved and like
picking out and nominating these, nominating the customers, and
kind of getting them onboardedand excited.
And then, yes, our the programsteam did a lot of the
(21:23):
interviews, really understoodfrom them of what was going on,
and then we launched with justthem in the platform for a
number of months to see whatwould happen, to, like you know,
their feedback, to make sure itwas fully built out.
And then recently so within thelast month actually, no, I
(21:44):
think a few months ago we didour first like bigger tranche of
folks getting invited.
I think we went to like 7000 orso customers as like that kind
of in between phase betweenfounding and GA and like got
that group in there again seeingtheir activity, how they work
in there.
And then so LinkedIn's bigevent where they announced
(22:07):
things is called talent connect,which happened a couple weeks
ago, is very recent and we usethat occasion to kind of
announce more fully that we'venow gone general availability to
all.
Right now it's an Englishspeaking community.
We are working to get itlocalized as well, but we just
announced GA for for our Englishplatform Last one of these
(22:31):
weeks in October, so veryrecently, and yeah.
So now it's kind of let's seehow the masses engage with it,
but I think like right the GA isvery important because, like
now, this is where the hope is.
The community is really the hub,where it's like your content
comes out of there you know yourwebinars come out of there,
like all you, like your you canreach out to support team.
(22:54):
Through there you can go to thehelp center.
Through there you can talk withother peers.
So, like, getting to GA wasvery important because now
that's a place where, like, wecan just send any customer who
needs any support and it's like,hey, this is step one and then
you know, our team is there tobe step two and step three.
But I think you know this was abig milestone again.
(23:14):
I think you know we're stillgetting to that point of, like,
you know the team using it inthat way and I think you know
that's one thing we're going tobe pushing continually.
But, like, that's like the bighope is now that it is, you know
, widely available, we can nowbecome that, that support hub.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
That's cool, yeah, it's.
You know, the community aspectof just enabling customers is, I
think, often a little bitoverlooked because there are a
lot of subject matter expertsthat don't necessarily live
within LinkedIn.
Like I follow this guy I don'tknow if you know him, mark
(23:52):
Williams, he's Mr LinkedIn andhe has a podcast called LinkedIn
Formed, which is actuallyreally good.
It's a weekly show.
He's like on episode 400 orsomething like that.
Yeah it's been doing it for along time.
He's like a LinkedIn trainer orwhatever, and so he does this
weekly show.
You know, talks about newfeatures and you know the famous
(24:15):
algorithm changes and all thatkind of fun stuff and it's
interesting, but it'll be for meanyway.
Those kinds of shifts in, Iguess, attention centers around
a company such as LinkedIn oryou know other kind of more
(24:35):
widely known platforms.
You know what that will do.
The landscape of people likethat, that you know, are they
going to become more active in acommunity?
Are they going to, you know,get in there and get involved?
Are they not?
Like?
You know there's it's like abig social experiment, almost
100%, and I think I think 100%to your point.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Like that is, the deep power of some of these
communities is, like you know,we're experts, but, like I
probably shouldn't say this, butwe're like, more theoretical.
Like you know, my team is not arecruiter in there every day
using it for the purpose.
Like you know, we're using itto teach and to share and to
show, but like I do think that'slike the power of this is like,
and again, what our customersare asking for, which is like,
(25:18):
what are other customers doing?
What are some of those moreniche use cases that actually
might be really impactful fororganization.
Like you know, one of thethings I used to do so before I
started managing the team, I waspart of the team and I used to
do so I covered the UK market.
I would be in London from timeto time and I would do some of
these live events where you'dhave, you know, I have a panel
(25:40):
of, you know, a sales leaderinterviewing three power users
who are, like you know,fantastic at using the platform.
We're trying it in differentways.
We're in there every day andwe're like enabling their
organizations to use it as well,and those events always went
over so well and, like you know,everyone's like asking them
questions.
They're like yeah, exactly,they become the experts and like
(26:01):
.
That's the point where it'slike, yeah, if you feel like
you're the expert, like you know, it's a place you'll come back
to, like it's a good feeling oflike being someone who, like is
respected around this.
So, but I do think creatingthat takes time and effort and
thought, so it's like you can'tjust start and then it's like
that's going to happen.
No so that's where I think ourgoal now is like really create
(26:22):
those folks who feel connectedand like they are.
They are the leaders.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah sure, absolutely , absolutely.
Well, I started my my techcareer at Dell and I don't know
if you have the same experience,but invariably my family
members, because I worked inDell, even though they didn't
know you know what I did at Dell, but they thought all of a
(26:49):
sudden I was like I becamefamily tech support and it's
like you know I became theexpert on computers, which I was
not.
But I'm curious if you havethat same experience, maybe more
so, on the link like like howmany times a day or a week do
people ask you like how they canoptimize their LinkedIn profile
(27:13):
to, like you know, be better,be seen, and all like like, do
you get that a lot?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I get that.
I would say like I don't leadwith how I work at LinkedIn,
like if you ask me I will tellyou, but like that's not where
I'm meeting a lot of theseconversations.
Yeah, I will say for family,especially my immediate family,
linkedin did a really good thingwhere they used to have a bring
your parents to work day wherethey could come in and like see
what we actually did, which likeI think helped to show them
(27:40):
that like we're not tech doinglike you know, we're just on our
computers talking to people allday and not, like you know,
tech support or whatnot.
So I do think that helped.
Family wise, I will say everytime I visit my grandma, we do
need to do a.
She's like a power.
She has more connections than Ido.
She's like a power user.
So every time I visit her, I doI'll give her the rundown on,
(28:07):
you know help my profile andwhatnot so yeah, I get some of
it.
I would say I like I try not toopen myself up too much but I,
like you know for for mostpeople like I, am pretty open if
folks want to have a LinkedInconversation, like you know, I
got that.
I've got the the talk trackdown at this point.
Yeah, I'm sure I'm happy to doit.
(28:30):
So, but yeah, I would say Idon't get asked as much.
I would say a lot of my like,especially in Dublin, like a lot
of my friends, are LinkedInfolks, so they're they should
have the answer as much as Ishould.
Yeah, that's over here.
But yeah, you know, from timeto time and yes, though my mom
asking about how her cell phoneworks, I can sometimes write.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
That's exactly.
We've talked a couple times nowthat you, you are based in
Dublin and I also, you know I.
Just one thing that I reallyappreciate about you is how
active you are just in CS, inthe CS community in general, and
, and you know, you're involvedwith several organizations.
(29:13):
But I'm curious to get someinsight into what the CS
community of Dublin looks like,because it is a pretty night,
tightly knit, as as in otherplaces, or no, it's a nice
community, I would say myrejoice.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Actually, like, when I moved to Dublin, I like knew
no one.
I was like, okay, I should dosome networking, I should meet
people in general.
And so that's where I joinedthe customer success network and
like got involved with a lot oftheir events and like started
to meet the group in Dublin.
Because I would say, yeah, likeyou know, dublin is the tech
hub of Europe, like, especiallyfor us tech companies, due to
(29:50):
some favorable tax laws.
So Dublin has, you know, thatthe European headquarters for
most of the you know, big, bigcustomers there are big US
companies.
So, like you know, we haveabout 2000 people.
Google has like 8000 people.
Microsoft has, if you like, youknow there are, there are large
bases and you know most ofthese companies are, you know,
(30:11):
have sizable customer successdepartments.
I will say, like you know, andI've noticed this at LinkedIn as
well like the folks who areinvolved in the community, I do
think are more likely to bestartup again, not everyone.
There's definitely plenty ofLinkedIn and Microsoft and folks
who are in these, but I dothink a lot of the folks who
like really dive deep are atsome of the smaller companies
(30:32):
they like trying to navigatetheir way, and so it's been
great for me to like get abetter sense of Text scene here
of like you know, what are thosesmaller companies, what are
some, like the Dublin base,which you know, not not super
prevalent, but there'sdefinitely some.
So, yeah, I would say likeagain, especially with like
(30:54):
there being some of these flagflagship companies and people
move between them Prettyregularly.
Now like you know people know welike, if you, if you're here a
while and you work at a couplecompanies, like you do know a
Lot of people.
So, yes, I would say prettytight knit.
So, no, it's been a good, it'sbeen a good crew and, yeah, like
(31:14):
there's a lot of us, which isnice.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, that's super cool.
Well, one of the other thingsthat you you founded at LinkedIn
was transform her, which Iwhich it looking into it a
little bit more is is Isbasically, you know, helping
women of color in in high tech.
(31:37):
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat and what's behind that and
what you guys are Doing?
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Definitely.
So yeah, I'll give you a littlebackground, kind of a little
bit around.
We call it so at LinkedIn.
It's called dibs diversity,inclusion, belonging.
I know DI there's a lot ofdifferent acronym to use.
I'm gonna use dibs just becausethat's the one I'm used to.
So I would say I've been onprobably a five or six year dibs
journey for myself, really kindof understanding.
(32:02):
You know my privilege, my placein the world and how I can
impact other communities in apositive way.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
And I would say, like you know, yeah, link for
LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
It really became a thing about five or six years
ago where it like they spelledit out a little bit more.
I think the thing that reallyLike really hit home with me was
the idea of belonging, which islike you feel like you belong
and like, for me, like I Feltlike I belong to LinkedIn, like
it was a great feeling, I lovedit.
And when I got, when I startedto hear the stories of other
(32:37):
folks that did not have thatfeeling, where they were or at
LinkedIn, like you know, in anumber of situations, that was
like that's back because, likeyou know, I knew the power of
belonging as someone who wasfeeling it and it's like okay,
so how can I do some things tohelp that?
And so I had been very involvedin, like LinkedIn cultural
(32:58):
events when I was in New York.
So we have this thing called inday, where once a month
LinkedIn gives us the day togive back to ourselves, to the
company community, to the worlditself, community world.
I should know that better.
So I did that for a couple yearsin New York like more kind of
culturally focused internal.
And then LinkedIn has theseemployee resource groups, which
(33:21):
are really powerful ways fordifferent communities to come
together, for allies to show upthrough those communities and
truly support them in theworkplace.
So after I had been prettyinvolved in the culture stuff, I
realized like I wanted to makea deeper impact.
This idea of belonging was kindof coming into my view and so I
joined the black inclusiongroup, which is one of our
(33:42):
employee resource groups andkind of that started this
journey when I started, you know, volunteering with them,
putting out events, kind ofhelping them create programming,
with that mission of kind ofbringing the community closer
together.
After being on that team, maybesix months, a year or so, the
(34:03):
president of the group came tome and she's like we want, I
want to do something to like gobeyond the LinkedIn walls
because again, like, the RGs arepretty internally focused,
which again is really importantbut like let's think about
something, doing something toimpact the broader community.
And so that's where transformher was born, thinking about how
(34:25):
can we, you know, use communityand kind of that network effect
to connect Women of colorwithin the tech industry, to
help them to kind of learn fromeach other, to help them build
that network so that, you know,the double glass ceiling can
hopefully be broken.
So that's where it started andwe started in New York, so at
that point I was still New Yorkbased.
We had our first event, one ofmy most proud professional days.
(34:48):
Kind of seeing this Like thislabor of love that, like you
know, we put a lot into thisfirst one as like a proof of
concept, very little, like youknow, some support, but, like
you know, we had to do it.
Seeing it come together wasamazing.
We've since had a couple events.
We're actually in the momenttrying to figure out like what
the next iteration of it is.
But, yeah, it continues to be apassion for myself and my
(35:14):
co-founder, ty, to kind offigure out how that we can
continue to impact this groupand really build community.
So, yeah, it's been a greatjourney, have learned a ton and
I think like it has also beengreat experience for me myself
of like learning how to buildcommunity, how to put, like you
know we did, you know eventsthat were, you know, three 400
people deep, so, like you knowwhat it takes to kind of put on
(35:37):
some of these larger scalethings, um, so yeah, it's been a
been a really good journey.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
That's cool.
Well, you know, thank you fordoing that, because I mean it.
I think that in tech anyway andwe've talked about this in the
podcast before on previousepisodes but in CS, cs tends to
be a relatively more diversegroup of people than, say, other
parts of you know tech ororganizations in general.
(36:09):
But but to your point, in, intech there's, there's so much
more opportunity for improvement.
You know, and and and I thinkwe had, we had Ralphie English
on not long ago and the pointthat she made was you know it's,
it's not just women that haveto, you know, kind of get
(36:31):
together and, and, you know,collaborate and network.
It's.
You know it's as white men thatneed to be part of the equation
to and proliferate those thingsand make sure that you know we
hold ourselves accountable andhold others accountable and all
that.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
So yeah, that, for for my co-finder, like that is
her big mission, I would saythat I would say it's a little
different from a lot of folksthat I've seen who are like
trying to create these spaceswhere it's like we need to
invite allies.
The table like nothing changesif it continues to just be us
focused on this, talking aboutit.
We need to get the broadercommunity behind us, like in
(37:10):
network with us, in communitywith us.
So I've been, I'm always, I'malways impressed by her, like
continued commitment to thatideal of like yes, we could just
be focused, but it's like youwant to make sure and again, I
think, like there's always workto do to kind of expand that,
that allyship, but that has beena huge focus for her.
(37:30):
And I think, to your point,like very important and that is
why I tried to, you know, putmyself out there as well, to
like be an example for folks who, like you, know the work you
should be doing.
This is work that like isimportant and like is going to
make the world, hopefully, amore diverse place in the future
.
Also, I'll say I'm hoping youwill be lasting impacts and I
(37:55):
think you know we've madeprogress but like there's a long
way to go.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
A long way to go yeah , absolutely well, um, you know,
as, as we kind of round thingsdown, I've really enjoyed
speaking with you and gettingthe insight from the inside the
belly of the beast, so to speakbut I'd love to understand a
little bit more what's in yourcontent diet, and are there like
(38:19):
specific things that you'd wantto share with the community
that you're paying attention to?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I love it so, yes, I mean I'll have to start with
LinkedIn, like I will say, forcustomer success content like
LinkedIn.
I think I feel like it's beenthe last two, maybe three years
where, like the content hasexploded like it used to be.
You know a little there, but Ido feel like it has now.
Like you know, my feet is nowfull of customer success, which
(38:44):
I love, um, and like it makes itvery easy to not have to go to
that many other places.
Now, as I mentioned, like I'vejoined some of the communities,
a lot of them.
There's a lot of Slack groups,like you know, workplace groups,
like different, that where Isay is like another place to to
get content and like learn aboutwhat people are doing um, there
are quite a few um past guestsof this podcast who have
(39:06):
specifically just said I justpay attention, I just you know,
linkedin is my place.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
You know, because it's you're right.
The proliferation of of CS uminfo has exploded, for sure so
that, yeah, that's the hub, Iwould say for sure mm-hmm, yeah,
um, and I think another thingthat people don't really realize
is is it's it's kind of like alibrary, you know, I don't.
(39:32):
I think people tend to searchfor companies and people and you
know connections and all thatkind of stuff.
But I think sometimes, whenyou're tackling a problem, your
first go get is like go toGoogle or you'd go to wherever,
but go search for it, I think,because I guarantee you
somebody's written somethingabout it and this is something
(39:52):
that my boss actually gave methis idea a bit ago.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Um was around, like to your point, like making it
more of a library where it'slike you know your posts, you
know they stay around but, likeyou know, after a bit, like
there, you got to really scroll.
Yeah, to those points, andthat's actually why I decided to
go.
The newsletter format, umrecently was like, so it's all
like, oh, like my longerthoughts are kind of in one
(40:16):
place where you can kind of goback and read through them and
look through them, because I dothink, like you know your posts,
like you know, if you postregularly, like you know, yes,
the search is good, but like,like, who posted that?
What was it about?
I don't remember exactly, um,so I do feel like that's where
I've thought about, like youknow, how do I make it easy to
find things?
(40:37):
with the link, just like I likethe feature content like on your
profile.
I like because you can like putsome of the stuff you really
want people to find right there.
And then, yeah, the newsletterI like is yeah, it's all kind of
in one place.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah, yeah, I um, I remember back in the day I used
I wrote quite a few articles aswell and, um, they just kind of
they they're kind of you know,every once in a while they kind
of pop up here and there, whichis kind of interesting.
But yeah, the newsletterfeature is one that I have not
dug into at all.
Um, and I was uh to your, toyour point on the featured
(41:11):
content.
I always think it's funny whenpeople have like 20 pieces of
content in their featuredcontent.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
I'm like okay well, I don't think people scroll.
It's like people looking at thefirst four I like.
I never delete anything fromthere, so I probably have 10,
maybe but it's like I don'texpect anyone to look past what
the third or fourth one can yousee, yeah, prioritization hold
it 100%.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, that's cool.
Is there anyone um that you'dlike to give some kudos to?
That's doing cool stuff and indigital that you've?
Speaker 1 (41:46):
yes, so I would say I'm linked in the one guy who I
feel like I see the most digitalcontent from.
I think someone else, uh,mentioned him as well.
I was looking at the other guywho I think is.
Dan Ennis from Monday dot com.
Um, I feel like he's been on.
I know a couple people onMonday um, so fan of their work,
um, I think the people I wastalking about linked in like um.
So for my business line there'sa man named Declan McCurney who
(42:08):
leads our programs team um, soI would say you know not as
active on linked in um I'mcoming for you, declan
internally who, like you know, Ium I go to around some of this
stuff.
Um, he's like my, one of myfirst guys.
And then Andy Bass is a guy wholeads our community team um and
(42:30):
he's been a CSM.
He was a CSM at linked in formany years, so I've known him
for a long time but like it'sbeen great to see him kind of
lead that charge which a coupleother of his team um who have
been really great in terms ofhelping us think about that that
digital journey for our teamsthat's cool.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
That's cool.
Well, um, you yourself, youprovided a ton of value on
linked in.
I, like you know, I I went deepon your posts, uh, a little
little while ago and and it'snice to see you on my feed.
But, um, you know, where canpeople find you?
Obviously, on linked in, butengage with you what you know.
Is there some place that youwant to direct people to, to, to
(43:07):
and have more about?
Speaker 1 (43:08):
yeah, yeah, so linked in, I'd say, is my hub.
I have my newsletter customersuccess monthly.
Um that I post about monthlyI'm I'm trying to stay at that
cadence yeah, it's hard to do um, I just started a youtube
channel, but I do post most ofthe stuff from youtube.
It's more like kind of thatsimilar idea of having a library
of all the videos instead oflosing them in the feed.
(43:29):
I've now built a youtubechannel so I'm kind of like they
can all just be there, um, andkind of be in one place.
Um, also customers, that'smonthly.
I connected it with mynewsletter um, so I'd say those
are kind of the places where Iam I'm most active this day.
Um, I used to be the communitymanager for the customer success
network, so their workplace, um, community, is a place I've I
(43:50):
spent more time as well.
Um, so I'd say, yeah, those,those are the places you can
find me, or here in the linkedinoffice in uh in Dublin that's
right.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Yeah, it's a beautiful office.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
I come all the time.
The food is top notch yeah, Ican imagine.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Um, that's awesome.
You're making everybody elsejealous.
Um, ezra, thanks for joining.
I appreciate it.
It's been a great conversationand, uh, you know you're, you're
a.
You're a ray of sunshine in thesea of I don't know.
I don't know where I'm goingwith that.
I like the ray of sunshine, bro.
I'll take that you're a ray ofsunshine, period, doc.
(44:30):
Thank you for joining me forthis episode of the digital
customer success podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
It really helps us to grow andto provide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the digitalcustomer success definition word
map and get more details aboutthe show at
digitalcustomersuccesscom.
(44:50):
My name is Alex Turkovich.
Thanks again for joining andwe'll see you next time.
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