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“Delve is an insight engine that transforms how brands understand their world.”
With every story, thread and meme battling for our attention, what do we focus on and care about? Communications pros Sean Garrett and Allison Braley—trusted by Twitter, Amazon, Meta, Slack, Bain Capital Ventures, and more—talk with those shifting the future of communications and who pays attention to what.
Sean 00:00
Welcome to Attention Shift. We unpack where communication and communications is headed. I'm Sean Garrett and supported by Delve, the top level context engine for comms. My co-host, Allison Braley, and I talk to industry experts about how we show up and get our message across in an era of limited time and shorten attention spans. Let's dive in.
Sean 00:28
Today's episode takes us into the critically important dynamic between comms and the CEO with none other than Shannon Braden, who led both marketing and communications at LinkedIn from 2010 to 2020 and had an amazing rapport with the CEO, Jeff Weiner. Shannon has done a lot of other things. Check out her bio, but honestly, her title LinkedIn was very seminal and really shaped a lot of things between the intersection between comms and marketing, but to the point of a lot of the episode, how to really get along with the CEO, how to make the most of it, how to get them to best understand comms, how to create short, quick ways to talk to each other, work on the fly, work strategically, and so on.
Allison 01:15
I've always really admired her career. That step up from running comms to running marketing at LinkedIn, and now she leads comms at Bessemer, and leads all a platform, ultimately, too. So just a really impressive career. And you know, obviously all the great talent should be at VC firms. But before we get into Shannon's tips on working with CEOs, let's talk about how two CEOs are going to work together. So for everyone in tech, you've seen this, I'm sure. But if you're not in tech, open AI just announced the acquisition of Johnny Ives’ company io, I think that's how you say it. And this will bring Johnny and his team into OpenAI to lead hardware. And so the price was kind of high to say the very least. A lot of people felt like that was sort of an all time record for an Acqui hire. But I sort of think is worth it for a generational talent like Johnny. But even more than that, from a comms perspective, a lot of people were kind of tickled, befuddled, bemused, whatever you want to say by the announcement itself, which featured a nine minute video in this Simon and Garfunkel style photo that felt like a little engagement photo adjacent. So what did you think about John? What did you think of that whole strategy?
Sean 02:25
I think the whole reason why people are talking about it is because, like, it kind of was bonkers on many levels. But it was, like, I think strategically bonkers, yeah, that makes sense. And so the video, basically, if you haven't seen it, it's about how Johnny and Sam basically meet in this very touristy cafe in North Beach, which I guarantee you, the two would never go there ever again, or has never… they've never been there before.
Allison 02:53
It's actually right by my office. And so Johnny, I think, might go there like he works.
Sean 02:58
Well, wouldn't he go to like, a cooler place?
Speaker 1 03:01
I don't know… He's, he's got his little he's got his taste, you know, maybe that, maybe that really speaks to his taste.
Sean 03:07
Okay, maybe he even suggested it. But anyways, the point of this being they do this whole thing where they're Johnny and Sam are basically like, walking to North Beach, and behind them, like, like, also, interestingly, are all these extras that they've hired that's like a movie. It's like, there's not so much, like, walking through San Francisco. The production value is crazy. And I've like, actually, like, gone deeper and like, there's like, people have looked at this. There's like, extras are used like, seven different times. So you have the same person with the same suitcase with the same jacket, like, in five different scenes that are like quick takes, which is also funny on its own. It adds to the story and the richness of this. So they finally get together in this North Beach cafe. They sit down and they have cappuccino or espresso, and they start talking to some random person who you don't know who they're talking to, about why they're coming together, and it's very easy to make fun of and I definitely was looking for ways to make fun of it as I was watching it, but if the purpose of it is to get people to Imagine what hardware might look like in a AI world, like, I think it did its job. It got me thinking, like, oh sure, yes. Well, we haven't had anything really new since the iPhone. Well, one of the guys in this room, like, helped create the iPhone, so it seems legitimate that they're talking about, like, some device that may exist in the future, regardless of what you could say about what Johnny Ive has done recently, what his firm has done, what have you. Even like, whether there's vaporware like all over the place here. It does get you to think, and it does get you to imagine. And I think like if, if you watched it and you felt that it's probably done it’s job.
Allison 05:00
Yeah, and on a tonality level, it also just feels like we live in an era where so many startups put out these meme based hype videos that are wink, wink, nod, nod, joke, joke. And it was… this video took itself incredibly seriously, for better or worse, and so I think it made it easy to make fun of, but it also is a good strategic choice, potentially, when you're spending that kind of money to acquire someone, to build something that you think is generational. And it's already clearly a company that takes itself seriously, like they talk about AGI all the time. And so to me, you know, as much as people wanted to poke fun at the tone, it felt on brand for OpenAI.
Sean 05:40
I honestly think they could have done way more of, like… you put way more easter eggs in there. Like, if I had done it, like, I would have put like random, like, Silicon Valley figures, or like Draymond Green, like, having a latte in the same cafe, and not ever say anything. And people are like, Wait, is that Draymond Green? Like, or, or whoever, right? And, or, like, little things in the background, or stuff that, like, just, you could have done a lot more. They obviously spent a ton of money on, like, the whole thing, I was thinking it to your point about, like being kind of straight, was very straight and very earnest. Like there was a level of, like, subversion that might have been fun, but I don't know that's probably just me. That's, like, my…
Allison 06:21
Yeah that’s… that's my taste, but I don't know if that's their taste, right?
Sean 06:25
Their taste says more about the direction of the force vector. Yeah, exactly which? Which was literally a quote from Sam Altman.
Allison 06:32
I was waiting for them to say, because since everybody commented on how high quality the video was, what if they were like, yeah, that's our new video model. None of that was real. Now that would have had me impressed, but maybe that happens later.
Sean 06:45
Well, that's what kind of made me wonder about, like, all those extras, yeah, hearing like, multiple times, like, what is happening here?
Allison 06:50
That would have been a great like, follow on announcement. Like, actually, that was pretty cheap, because we did it ourselves.
Sean 06:55
The lesson here, like, what's the lesson? I think the lesson is, like, I don't know. Don't be afraid to get weird. And do you know, this is obviously a very kind of go-directy type strategy. There wasn't a lot of substance in the announcement. It was about kind of the promise of these two personalities coming together. I kind of like to the people who are like, Oh, that was so lame as such. Like, like, weird a press release would have been lamer doing a press conference, like there's no content there to, like, even talk about really. So like, make it simple.
Allison 07:27
I’m all for being weird, as long as you're being yourself, right? And I felt like this was authentic to them in its weird way. And so that's why it worked.
Sean 07:36
I also kind of liked the San Francisco riff in it. Yeah, there was a whole thing about, like, a pain to San Francisco and, like, why they're there and what they owe the city and kind of the area. And, you know, I'm sure there's some good strategic reasons to do that beyond just like being true to them potentially, but I like things like that would not have felt natural like in a blog post.
Allison 07:56
Yeah, totally. I mean, you just can't feel the vibe and the energy between these two people. And so, yeah, in a blog post, you go like, Oh, they're going to be in totally separate divisions. How close are they really going to work together? This made it clear this is a really important strategy for them. And these two people respect each other, which maybe…
Sean 08:12
And they know each other's they know each other's families. The one, the one part I thought was kind of funny was… There's a lot of parts I thought were funny, but the one part that was funny was just like, how Sam said this. Like, you know, his relationship with Johnny was the first time he's connected with someone new in a long time.
Allison 08:29
That was an interesting Easter egg.
Sean 08:30
Yeah, yeah. That was an Easter egg. And was kind of like, man, like, you okay.
Allison 08:38
They gotta let you out more.
Sean 08:40
I know it's like, instead of therapy, spending 6 billion on a on an acqui-hire.
Allison 08:45
Yeah, well, we've got a couple of friends who work at OpenAI in comms, and that job certainly keeps them busy, but it's clear it's a company that believes in comms. They've sort of been to the circus. They've seen how badly comms can go and have come to really respect the function. What about when a CEO doesn't respect comms but still wants to hire someone? And so the examples I have on that are currently open RECs that I'm sort of inadvertently promoting, but are X—obviously formerly Twitter. Where Elon…
Sean 09:14
I haven't, haven't heard of it,
Allison 09:17
Yeah, where? Where have we ever heard of that company before? Sean, but that company is hiring a comms person. And this is a company where Elon famously says, I don't employ comms people, and sends poop emojis to journalists when they send him a message. And then deal, this is more inside baseball within tech, but deal is being sued by rippling for conducting corporate espionage, and the comms person quit, sort of implicitly, saying, This is above my pay grade, and I'm not getting involved in this. I don't support it. So now they need to replace him without commenting too much on those individual situations. Should comms people ever go into a situation like that? Is it ever a good idea? And if you find yourself in such a situation, like what do you do?
Sean 09:58
I mean… The answer is no, you should not.
Allison 10:02
Shortest question ever on Attention Shift.
Sean 10:06
But, but I mean, why? I mean, like, I mean just with X and Elon and just like, if you went through the history of people who worked in comms, really good people who worked in comms at Tesla, by the way, like, great people. Talk to them about their experience, right? And obviously, you know, I worked at Twitter a million years ago, totally different version of this and but if you talk to, I'm sure people who have even been in the comms orbit with Elon, I mean, with some exceptions, and I know who some of those exceptions potentially are, it's probably a very challenging environment. And I think, like, the key thing is, it's just the what you said at the top, Allison, it's about the value of comms, valuing the valuing the function, understanding what it does and why it does it. Not obviously, you know, in deals case, or in a lot of cases, like, we're not a lot, but in some cases, like, if you're ever asked to lie or deal with, like, something that's unethical. Like, why would you be there?
Allison 11:04
Yeah. It's not worth your personal reputation.
Sean 11:09
Listen, I totally get kind of the somewhat Machiavellian intent of, like, maybe being a crisis communications consultant for companies like this coming in, swooping in and basically managing, kind of like some high-level shit, and it's very lucrative, you can be somewhat like detached from it, but like working day to day in that organization? One, you're not gonna be valued. Two, there's a lot of better things to do with your time in life.
Allison 11:39
I do agree overall. I think there are people I know who excel at building relationships with really difficult people, and so if you're one of those people, and in the interview process, you feel like this is someone who's going to listen to me potentially, or at least give me a chance to be heard. And you see that window of opportunity there, and you feel like this is a place you want to make impact. Go for it, but recognize that the longevity in these roles is famously short, and make sure that you're well taken care of and well compensated. In the likely event it doesn't work out, look at both sides of the coin, and for me personally, I just don't want to work with people who don't respect what I have to say or hear my opinion. And if that's the case, I truly can't imagine a situation where you would take a job like that.
Sean 12:25
Well, I mean, it's kind of like the restaurant, like, you know, at the end of the corner, end of the street, that, like always is changing over. Like it lasts for six months and it goes away. It lasts like, you're like, why is someone putting all their life savings into like this restaurant, when I know it's going to shut down in eight months? And just like, this is a place that just the killer thing…
Allison 12:44
It's because some people are like, I'm different.
Sean 12:45
No. I'm gonna be the one who changes her. I'm special, yeah, because I can do it. But I just think, like, when you look at those roles where there's just been, like, lots of change over in that function, it almost unless something dramatic changes, like a change in the CEO, or wholesale change in the company, it's probably best to pass.
Allison 13:11
Yeah, yeah. And so on that point, there's really no roadmap for interviewing in those situations. You got to try to get to the bottom of whether someone respects you. But a recent story about roadmaps caught my eye in New York Mag’s Vulture, and it's about the playbook Hollywood PR has used for a zillion years and now has to throw away in the world of hot ones and Amelia Demoldenberg’s chicken shop dates and all of these kind of new media approaches to celebrity promotion circuits. And so I personally hate all playbooks in general. I think they're the devil. I mean, that's too broad. There are some that probably work, but it strips away all creativity in our profession. I'll rant about that another day, but I love this article because I think the same is true in every industry, and we can link to the article in the show notes, but the old way of doing things where you were like, first I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to do that, and then we're and then we're done—that's kind of over. And I think that's actually a really good thing for communicators. But a lot of communicators that were quoted in this article were sort of hand wringing. I missed the days when there were just like, there's these steps that I would follow.
Sean 14:17
So this is, like, literally, like, people who work for Timothee Chalamet, yeah, complaining that, complaining… And they're sad that they have to try.
Allison 14:29
We all have days like that. I'm having one of those today. But yeah.
Sean 14:33
To be clear, what we mean by trying is, like the old way was okay, like, we're gonna go talk to Conan O'Brien on a show. We're going to do a feature story, you know, a GQ interview, and then we're going to do Howard Stern, and then we're going to call it a day.
Allison 14:50
Yeah. And now you actually have to think about, like, is this niche podcast coming up enough in the world that they should go on it to meet the Chalamet? Obviously you should do Attention Shift, PS. But you actually have to think about what you need to do, and that's hard, but I also think that's the fun of the job, and when you take that away, and maybe that's what I like about startup comms, is there's a lot of figuring out what to do, and hasn't been done before, but, but clearly, some people really don't enjoy that part of the job.
Sean 15:17
Listen. Let's listen to your publicist, which is a term I hate, but like Timothee Chalamet, like is on what loves the Nix? Yeah, he loves soccer. He loves soccer. Like, I loved that example in the European soccer you know, if he should be like a niche NBA podcast.
Allison 15:38
Well, he did some sports calling that they talked about in the article, and that was great. Like, what a great use of him. And he's one of these people who seems to like, he judged his own look-alike competition. He's comfortable doing weird shit. I think where it gets hard is if you're doing, like, refines or something, and I'm making this up, maybe he's very cool, but he's like, I don't, I don't. I only want to do the old thing. What are you talking about, publicist? I hate this idea.
Sean 16:01
Yeah, that's fair. What do you do? Allison, what do you do?
Allison 16:04
Like before, it's like dealer X, get a client who listens to you and respects you. So, yeah, I don't know if we'll ever go back to having a set way of doing things the way we used to, but it feels like this blistering pace of change is here to stay. And one person who has experienced a lot of change in her career is Shannon Brayton, so we're going to hear from her now on her career path, LinkedIn, journey to becoming a content destination, and her relationship with her CEO at LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, including the three word phone call they once had. I'll let you guess what those three words were. Let's get into it.
Allison 16:40
Welcome, Shannon, I'm so glad you're here. We love having you on as you're a trusted friend of both of ours. Gonna cover a lot of topics today. One of the first ones we wanted to get into sort of goes back to your time at LinkedIn, where your career really grew from comms to broader marketing and brand. And was curious, how do you approach working with high-powered executives who don't sort of naturally get marketing and comms. I'm not assuming this is Jeff. I know you were his trusted partner there, and we'll get into that, but I'm sure in that job and in this one at Bessemer, you encounter people who sort of don't get our role. How do you approach educating people?
Shannon 17:15
Educate, educate, educate, and explain, explain, explain. I think that you pointed this out, Jeff actually, Jeff Weiner, who was the CEO of LinkedIn from 2008 until 2020 actually really understood marketing and comms like way better than most executives I've ever worked with. He just has, like, an innate understanding of the Zeitgeist and how to do this. But I encounter lots of executives now and in past roles where they really think that they understand what we do, but actually have no concept. And I find myself constantly having to try to explain we're doing this thing because of this. So trying to connect dots. Here's the perception that exists that we are trying to change. This is why this outlet matters. This is why this brand change we need to make, needs to happen, constantly trying to explain, beyond just educating, but really trying to tie the cause and the effect together so that people understand that they're spending time on something that actually matters. And I think correcting people too. I think when somebody comes and says to me, oh, TechCrunch matters so dramatically, it's like, well, let's talk more about why you think that, and what are you actually trying to achieve, and why are you doing that instead of this and really having a dialog with someone to try to understand why they think that that outlet matters so much. And it typically is like, well, my other founder friend told me that. Okay, well, let's talk more about that, right? So trying to, like, pull out the true nature of it.
Allison 18:47
What are we trying to accomplish, rather than what are the tactics? People like to jump straight to tactics in this world, quite a bit.
Shannon 18:50
Yes, very much so.
Sean 18:55
Obviously, if you're good at this job, you're a good listener, and I assume you also are good at pattern reading. I know you are. And so when someone says, you know the Tech Crunch word, or I want to go direct, or I want to do that. Like, how do you like, how do you quickly, kind of, like, assess, like, Oh, this is one of those leaders. This is one of those CEOs, and therefore I need to move into like, this tactic or this approach, like, what are the different like, arc types coming at you that you basically, like, have a game plan for?
Shannon 19:33
It's a great question, because, you know, in my current role as the CMO at Bessemer, I talk to startup founders all the time, and within five minutes, I can kind of figure out, okay, what bucket am I going to put this person into? The person who gets on the call and says to me, okay, let me tell you a little bit about my business, and then I would love to ask you some questions. Or they really want to understand where I'm coming from and why, as opposed to, well, my founder friend told me this, and so this is what I just want to happen. Or like, why aren't I on the cover of Wired? So I have some triggers when people are clearly actually not listening on their side. I love founders who come in and basically say, I don't totally get this space, and I'm really looking for your expertise. That archetype is a really great one to work with. Someone who really wants to learn and get better and actually doesn't jump to the tactics, but really tries to understand the strategy, and then works with me to figure out the tactics. The archetype of the person who comes to me with like, this is the thing that I want, and I don't care how we get there, but this is the outcome. That's a little bit of a trigger too, but I can usually walk the person back a little bit by asking questions and truly listening to try to understand. So I think those are kind of the two buckets. There's, of course, some people in between, there's a little bit of gray, but I find most people fall into those two camps, of like, help me get better, or I know everything.
Sean 20:52
There’s also the camp that is, I know everything about your job. And let me tell you about your job.
Shannon 21:00
Yes, my favorite are the people who took a class once on PR or marketing, and they really refer back to that, if it was 25 years ago, and assume that that taught them everything that they need to know. And we're also in an industry, as you two both know extremely well. It's changed dramatically, even in the last two years, the tactics and strategies that we used two years ago are totally different. So you can also kind of categorize people based on, are they modern and innovative about what's happening now, or are they still saying, you know, I really want to pitch my story to this one reporter who puts it on a wire because they wrote a press release. Right? We have those people too.
Sean 21:39
It's kind of ironic that, like, we live in the space where we're dealing with like these most future, forward founders possible, and especially if they've been around the block, and sometimes they start a company that's their third company. I mean, they literally are being paid money by venture firms like Bessemer or Bain to like, take us to the future, yet their perception of like our role is like, I need a press release.
Shannon 22:08
Yes. And I think sometimes if it's your second or third company, you draw on that, even if you founded it 10 years ago, and you're like, Well, you know, my last company, we had this happen, and it worked so well. We were on the Today Show, and we got this many downloads, and I'm like, no, that's from, like, the early 2000s you know? I mean, you have to, like, really re-educate that that doesn't really work anymore the way that it used to.
Sean 22:30
Yeah. Let's talk about your relationship with Jeff and LinkedIn. I mean, you've told the story a bunch, but I think it's worth repeating, because I think it's a it is a great exemplar of a relationship, both built over time, but one built on trust, and one built in, you know, the combination of communications and marketing being tied to a business strategy. Maybe I'll even ask like, Why do you think people ask you so many questions about your time at LinkedIn with Jeff and your role from running comms being CCO into a CMO, like, what about this is such a like, I guess a big deal for those in comms?
Shannon 23:09
I think it's really hard to build such a close relationship with a CEO when you're a head of comms, because you're naturally, kind of predisposed to be solving for different things sometimes, right? And I think there can be a lot of fractures that happen between heads of comms and leadership teams and CEOs, and so I think people ask me a lot about it, because it was sort of unusual that we had the close relationship that we did. That doesn't mean it was perfect, and it doesn't mean that we didn't have really long, sometimes tense altercations about certain things, but I think we always had such a mutual respect and trust for each other that we always got to the right outcome, but we really put in the time. And to Jeff's credit, I would say something I learned from him is, he's like the opposite of a keyboard coward. He would never put anything in an email that would be potentially misinterpreted. My phone rang multiple times a day, and we would hash it out in a matter of minutes. And I think a lot of people just stick to the keyboard right, or stick to Slack or stick to whatever they want. He and I spent all this time on the phone. In fact, my children, when they were super young, Jeff had like a I had a ring that was just for Jeff and my two year old used to say, Mom, Jeff is calling, because it was so common that we would pick the phone up and actually hash out whatever we needed to talk about or strategize on something that we needed to handle really quickly, and spending all that time together and really understanding how he thought, and then him understanding my pattern recognition and ability to do that, we ended up getting to a point… this is really funny. In 2019 we had a phone call that was three words, and we knew exactly what we were talking about. Some emails had come in. I picked up. I didn't even say hello. He's like, You got it? Yeah, hung up. We knew exactly what we were talking about before. I didn't even, we didn't, literally, it was a three word phone call, but that took time. It doesn't it doesn't happen naturally. It doesn't happen quickly. And some of it is just like, do you have chemistry with this person to in order to really build the trust? But I would say to spending the time in person for all of those people who work exclusively remotely and only emailing back and forth is a real recipe for disaster.
Allison 25:25
And do you think comms people and marketers as well can succeed without a great relationship with that leader? And are they severely hamstrung without it?
Shannon 25:35
I think it's really hard. I think it's really hard to last really a long time. And you know, the crazy stat on CMOs and tech, the average tenure is like 18 months or something. It's really, really light, right, compared to most other roles. And I think part of it is because sometimes the CEO and that person just don't have the chemistry or the relationship. And I think that it's really hard to succeed. I mean, I was so fortunate to last 10 years. But we put in our time to build the relationship. This was not like a natural these two people are going to become really close friends. I recently went to an event in London, and my friend, who is a COO, is part of a COO group. And there are 12 coos in this group of startups in California. And he told me that 11 of the 12, the question for their dinner was, what is the function you struggle with the most? And all 11, said their marketing person. Hmm. And so I went to London and had a conversation with 12 CEOs where we talked about why that is, why is it so hard to manage a marketer? And that was a really enlightening conversation too, because it was really common, the thread, which is, I don't totally always understand why they're doing what they're doing, and how they measure their ROI. That's like such a key thing across and I think CEOs get crazy over that. But going back to your point, Allison, if there's a relationship there, and you start to build the trust over time, there's less of a need to go: Why are you spending that $5? If I know that this is a smart and thoughtful and strategic person, I'm less inclined to feel like, oh, this is somebody I really need to micromanage.
Allison 27:18
Yeah, and at the beginning of those working relationships, do you feel like these CMOs and leaders of marketing should over communicate and obviously you mentioned be in person. What other tips do you have for people when they're trying to build this relationship? I imagine a lot of our listeners find themselves in that position of wanting the kind of relationship and growth that you had at LinkedIn.
Shannon 27:38
So, I think in person is really important. I think really understanding if this is somebody who wants you to push back on them, or wants you just to agree with them, and then feeling like, is that okay with you, depending on where they're at, right? Jeff was someone where I could really say I actually don't agree with you, and then we would talk about it. As I mentioned, it was like such a phone-heavy, dependent phone relationship, and we would just like hash it through. And I think there's a lot of leaders who won't want to get on the phone because they're scared or they're nervous, and so I think it's just like leaning into the way that the person operates best. Are they someone who really wants to hash something out? Are they someone who just wants to write back in an email yes or no. You know, are they an email person? Are they a Slack person? Are they a text person? Like trying to understand their mode of communication. So a 51 year old me is much more thoughtful about how I bring these things up, even though I always optimize around transparency, I'm not as emotional about it as I used to be. Getting older is such a gift.
Allison 28:36
I feel the same way. 30 year old Allison was guns blazing. At 44 year old Allison is is much more willing to think it through before I share that feedback.
Sean 28:45
This version of Sean Garrett just wants to take a nap.
Shannon 28:47
The 75 year old version of Sean Garrett.
Sean 28:51
That's right.
Shannon 28:52
Masquerading in a 55 year old's body.
Sean 28:54
Thank You. When you're counseling the CMO or CCO, and they're like, I just can't, I can't say these words to this person, because if I do say these words, it'll be a trigger for them, and actually, it may cause even more distrust, because they don't want to hear this. Is that a relationship worth salvaging?
Shannon 29:16
It depends if you really like the person. You think they're a high integrity person you share values with, the person it is worth working on. If you don't like the person at all, don't like what they stand for, are not aligned with them, think they're maybe doing something untoward, and don't think they're running the company well. It's probably not worth salvaging. But if all those other things align, and it's somebody you really do want to work with, and you're like, Why isn't this working? It is worth it to open the door and figure out what about our relationship is not clicking. And a lot of times I have conversations with people who are so petrified to say the words and so what we'll often do is talk about ways where you can do it, where it doesn't feel as harsh or abrupt or as Curt, but you are still able to get the person to open the door on the conversation in a way that doesn't hurt them or trigger them. Sean, it's a great word, because I think a lot of CEOs get triggered, and then when you figure out, okay, I know that actually sounds much better than what I was really going to say or what I was really thinking, and then you can actually have the conversation. Sometimes is just in the framing.
Sean 30:21
It's interesting too, because there's the framing and there's the kind of that person versus the CEO. But obviously there's a lot more people on a leadership team, and I think this role that we have is also evolving into one which has to be almost like a family therapy dynamic versus like a one on one therapy dynamic. And so we're also bringing in other people. We're also seeing kind of where maybe the CEO's relationship with the head of people is a little bit afraid, or the head of product, and we're wrangling all those things, and including our own potential issues. Is that something that also you have had to do a bunch of and how do you coach people through that?
Shannon 31:06
Yeah, 100% Absolutely. But I would also say too, one thing that Jeff was really adamant about is that the executive leadership team, the nine of us, did not go to him and say so and so did not copy me on this thing, and I'm having a problem with so and so. He really felt like the nine of us, if we had an issue with one of the other people, had to work it out with the person and not use him to be in the middle. He really felt like, if you're a senior enough and well-compensated enough person to sit on this leadership team, you can go work your thing out with your peer. So, you know, I think the first year I would go to him and say, like, oh, you know, I'm having a problem with this person. He'd be like, Okay, well, let me know how it goes when you go talk to the person. So he really put it, it was really incumbent upon us to go figure that out, unless it was like, something really terrible, right, like a behavior thing, or something like, and then you'd have to pull in other people. But in general, if it was like, Oh, we're not aligned on the product strategy, he'd be like, oh, we'll go talk to the product person and let me know how it went. He would be aware of it, but he would never get involved to try to sort it out between us. But I definitely played a role where I would sort of say, and by the way, that's very much Bessemer too, because we don't have a CEO at Bessemer, if you have an issue with another partner, it's really up to you to go to the other partner and have the conversation. We don't have somebody that you go to as an intermediary to say, like, this person did this thing. I really, and I've coached my team to do the same thing is to go to the person directly and try to sort it out, instead of constantly escalating. I just think that's such a bad habit, and it's an easy thing for companies to get into. What I feel badly when it happens for the CEO. The CEO does become the therapist, and then they're basically doing all the people-related stuff with their leadership team, and not driving the business. It really can weigh people down. So I really liked Jeff's model of that.
Sean 32:55
So, beyond just like the relationship stuff at LinkedIn, and, you know, with running different new funds at Bessemer, there's these big inflection points that you go through. And LinkedIn, you went through, like many, many big, huge inflection points. To your point around, like, Jeff's got a lot of things on his plate. You got a lot of things here. But who is responsible for kind of that executive alignment? And I mean, like, not just, you know, getting to getting along, but actually alignment towards certain goals that then transcends out to the entire company or the entire firm. Like, how do you think about alignment as part of either your job or somebody else's job, and the importance to marketing and communications?
Shannon 33:32
The exec leadership team that took the company public was, like, in my mind, one of the best exec leadership teams that ever existed in tech. I mean, I know that sounds like a little bit hyperbolic, but based on all the things I know about other exec teams at companies and startups, specifically, just because it's so new, I really felt so fortunate to be part of that team. But we had an exec team meeting every single Tuesday in person from 10 o'clock to one o'clock, and we essentially treated it as the nerve center of the company. We had very few people come in and present to that meeting. It was mostly the nine of us talking about the company, and Jeff had an amazing chief of staff who he still works with now, who kept us all aligned. So, you know, we definitely did the OKRs. We definitely did the QBRs. I'll throw some more acronyms in just to make this feel like a real tech call here, but we definitely would surface issues that had come up during the week during that meeting. So you would know that, okay, this didn't get solved on Thursday, but on Tuesday, I'm definitely going to bring this up. And so that nerve center of the company, I really do believe, is the thing that drove the company to the success it's currently having, and we never missed it. It was like religion in some way.
Sean 34:47
Do you recommend to your portfolio companies that they do similar things?
Shannon 34:49
I do, often. Yeah, and I think in our staff meeting is not enough. I think everybody dialed in on a bunch of boxes on Zoom is not enough. We also got together several times in person, like for off sites, where we would go deeper on certain topics, obviously, but the weekly cadence of an exec leadership team where all the big things get surfaced, all the employee things, all the comms things, all the strategy things, all the HR things, it all would get covered, I think, is a really great way to build a foundation for the leadership team alignment, but also a foundation for the company. People still call me. I mean, I've been gone from the company five and a half years. People still call and say, I really miss the old leadership team, because it was so obvious when we would do things together, how aligned we were, even if we weren't in perfect agreement, there was such respect between the nine of us.
Allison 35:41
Shannon, obviously LinkedIn today has become sort of the de facto content platform of choice for lots of people. How much were the seeds of that apparent when you were at LinkedIn, and how much of it has been a surprise?
Shannon 35:55
It’s a great question, and I will tell you, I think in 2010 when I started, I remember sitting in a meeting, and we were scrolling on LinkedIn as an exec team, and pretty much every post on LinkedIn was from a LinkedIn employee. And that was literally who was using it in any kind of meaningful way. Of course, everyone had profiles, but the feed and the engagement was so paltry I can't even explain it to you. Like it literally, we I remember clear as day, what conference room we were sitting in. And it was like, every like and comment and action was a LinkedIn employee. And that was 2010. And in 2025 I tell you, I look at it now and I'm like, this is insane. The ideas that we thought, Oh, my God, a CEO could use LinkedIn to communicate about a layoff and explain why. And we would talk about these things in 2012, 2013, 2014, in fact, Dan Roth, who runs the whole editorial team there, he and I used to do these series of small dinners in New York. I mean, it was really very grassroots, trying to get executives to understand why they should be on LinkedIn. And after every dinner, we think, like, do they even think that this is a thing? You know, we'd have, like, a great conversation and a great dinner, but nobody the next day was like, yes, sign me up. How do I like talk about my company, or how do I talk about my team, or how do I talk about a win or a loss, or the fact that it has turned into what it has where everybody is using it in such a key part of their professional life? Is definitely something we envisioned. It was certainly part of the vision back in, I'd say, as early as 2011, but it's pretty remarkable to see what it's turned into.
Sean 37:39
When you mentioned the Dan Roth thing, it makes me think, like that was just the classic case of show don't tell where LinkedIn actually kind of helped shape the future that it wanted to see by like, bringing in someone who could, like, you know, help CEOs have a platform there, and, like, kind of handhold people on the way in, and make it kind of like, seem like a cool like, almost like earned media opportunity, but then transcended into like, well, I want to do that too. What was kind of the strategy around that?
Shannon 38:10
It really started, I mean, bringing Dan on was obviously super key, because we knew that we needed eventually to have content, but we wanted it to always stay professional. And so we really thought about like, how do you build a professionally oriented social network, which, by the way, some people thought sounded like the most boring, stupid thing ever in the history of the world. I think the inflection point was probably 2013 and this was a bit of a brainchild between Dan and Jeff, actually, which was to bring on what we called the LinkedIn influencers. And we went and found the 100 most influential business people, Richard Branson, Jack Welch, there were a whole host of people in all these different industries, and brought them on to start producing content and writing, you know, on a weekly basis. We initially started with articles. Over time, it was like, hey, that's fine if you just want to do a post. But starting at that top of the pyramid, the people who really are admired in business, and then getting other people to see that they could use the platform in similar ways to share insights and thought leadership, etc. It was a game changer for the site, truly. I mean, and for the company. But I really think that that was the turning point when people realized, okay, I actually don't just need to have this profile. When I started in 2010 the feed was essentially Shannon connected to Sean. Allison, also knows Sean, but there was zero dot connecting in terms of why any of that mattered, and there was very little content. In fact, one of the objections we got on our road show for the IPO, were you. A ton of people telling us that I can't have a LinkedIn profile because then my boss is going to think I'm looking for a job. That was like an actual objection that we would hear really repeatedly, yes. And so we had to get over that hump. We had to get over the hump of, well, why do we need Facebook and LinkedIn? That was a huge question all the time. I don't understand, or you just lose out to this whole and so drawing that distinct line between personal and professional was such a key strategic decision. I remember clear as day again. It was maybe 10 weeks after I started, and Jeff was at Web 2.0 remember that conference in the city, and the John Battelle asked him, Why would I need a Facebook and a LinkedIn? And we had scripted this thing that Jeff was going to say two words for you: keg stand. And the audience was like, flummoxed. Like, What are you talking about? And Jeff was like, your keg stand pictures from college should be on Facebook. You don't want them on LinkedIn. And it was like, mic drop, because everyone started to understand, oh, actually, no, I do have two personas in life. I am going to have all this personal, fun breakfast and my kids on these pictures, but on LinkedIn, I'm going to keep it professional. And that really helped drive the differentiation that we were hearing often as an objection. So the virality, like, really started around that time too, of people adding their skills and adding people that were just professionally relevant, and realizing this is not a place to talk about what you had for breakfast.
Allison 41:12
Totally. Now obviously that shift was very successful. LinkedIn continues to evolve. If you were still leading marketing for LinkedIn today, what would you do?
Shannon 41:25
I have a very close friend who took that job, and she is loving it and doing an incredible job, and I think that they don't really need any advice from me. I think what I see now content wise, and how they've transitioned to video has been really critical. At one point, they tried to replicate stories, Instagram, stories on LinkedIn, and that did not work. People were not interested in here's my cubicle and here's a tour of my office. Like that really did not play very well. And I think they would admit that too. They ended up killing the product. So this is not me trashing LinkedIn products, but it was not successful. But the way that they've transitioned incorporating video into the feed, much like you'd experience an Instagram or a Tiktok, I think has been really, really successful.
Allison 42:07
I’ve tried to lean into creating video on LinkedIn, and there's this, like cringe hump you have to get over where you're filming yourself talking about something. Do you have any thoughts or tips on that some people have just told me, you know, just lean in.
Shannon 42:22
You know, I've seen a few that I'm like, God, that was beyond cringy. And then I've seen some where I'm like, that is so smart. Because there I've seen like, Ryan Rose Lansky, the CEO of LinkedIn, he'll get on and talk about, like, a product launch, and then the product manager will talk about how they came up with it, and the designer will talk about it. And it's so targeted for the people in your network who are also designers, who are like, oh, that's super insightful. It's the whole new way to tell your story about your thing, instead of what we laughed about earlier, a press release. Or having to, you know, risk your story by talking to the media. I mean, they've really done an incredible job I think making that transition. Now we've gone how many minutes now? No one has mentioned AI. Is this even a podcast? If we haven’t mentioned AI?
Sean 43:02
No, it's not a podcast.
Shannon 43:06
I don't know how that will play out, but I am still really close to a product manager there that showed me a demo the other day of basically the way that they can look at AI can actually look at your profile and tell you, here are the eight jobs also posted on LinkedIn that are going to be great for you. And here's how many people have applied. I mean, it is incredible what it could do. I think it could really end up changing recruiting if they run to it really quickly and figure out how to incorporate it. It's really, I think, going to be a game changer for them in that way. And job seekers too.
Allison 43:40
Yeah, the feed has gotten so much smarter too, it being like a heat seeking missile for the content that that you should see. So it's been like, if you feel like something is cringe, I've tried to remind myself it's probably reaching the right people, the people who will also think it's cringe aren't going to see it. So, uh, that’s good.
Shannon 43:57
Yes, great point. Yeah, the algorithm, I think, has continued to get a lot, a lot better.
Sean 44:02
I will ask one AI question related to your current role, Shannon, is when you're talking to founders who are asking, like, the inevitable questions about, How do I evolve my comms team? How do I build out this marketing function? How do I do X, Y and Z? Obviously, 10 years ago would be all about like, what people do I hire? What roles do they fit in? Now, are you also coaching them about well, you could do this with AI, you could buy this product, and you could hold off on hiring someone until this point. Are we there yet? Or are we getting there?
Shannon 44:35
I think we're getting there. I think I really firmly believe this. And I said this in another podcast in December, there's always going to be a human involved in what we do. I don't think you can ever 100% rely on AI to build the relationships with reporters or nail your brand. I mean, I think there's always going to be somebody involved, a human being with a heartbeat. Having said that, I saw a demo yesterday of an incredible product that essentially it's all AI based that would put together your speaker matrix, your award matrix, tailor a pitch for your company without a human involved at all. I think we are getting to the point where the really redundant and rote tasks performed by agencies will be replaced by AI. And I'm sorry to all my friends who work at agencies, but I do think if you don't embrace that, or figure out how to incorporate these tools into your pitches, pitches to companies (RFPs) not pitches to reporters, I think you're going to get really left behind.
Allison 45:36
A lot of those tasks, though, are tasks that we did when we were super junior at agencies, or at least I did that kind of like research-based task. What happens to junior comms people when they're starting out in their career?
Shannon 46:48
I think they need to understand what types of pitches work and what types of speaking engagements make sense, and do words even matter. They need to understand, like the strategy piece of it, but doing the research to put the matrix together. I think that can be all done by AI. I don't know what happens to them, necessarily, but I don't think they should abandon the reasons for doing all these things, but I don't think they actually have to do it in the way we used to have to do it.
Allison 46:14
Yeah, and we're talking now about early career people, but when I look at your career, one of the things I admire most is that you've transcended to a level where you're serving on boards. You're on the board of Quizlet, Vidyard, do you think more boards should include marketing and comms leaders? And how can marketing and comms leaders think about, you know, growing their career to where they can achieve a level that they have a board service obligation?
Shannon 46:48
Of course, I'm going to say yes. Clearly. I will say, though I do, I think it's hard for an independent board seat be given to someone who's strictly comms. I think my board seats came more because of my marketing background. Honestly, I think it's important, obviously, to have somebody who understands internal communications and ask the questions about so how are you planning to communicate this someone who actually knows this kind of stuff to a board, or here's an issue that could surface if this got out. Like I do a lot of that, but I actually think the boards I'm on, I've been most helpful from a marketing perspective. So I think comms people who want to serve on board should position themselves at companies that really heavily rely on and understand comms, or have been burned by a comms issue in the past, and want somebody who can prevent that from happening again, or somebody who's a really good compatriot to the CEO. I think there are things you can do to position yourself, but I also think the more you can kind of lean into and I've also done these things in marketing as well. I think it justifies that independent board seat more if you can have both roles kind of combined to one person only, because there's so few independent board seats, right? And I think it's hard to justify, well, I'm going to give it to a comms person instead of a CTO. So that's why I coach people to try to position themselves in a way that's more broad.
Sean 48:07
That's very cool. Shannon, first, I want to thank you for doing this with us. I'm going to ask you our last question, which is something we asked everybody. Given the name of this podcast, Attention Shift, what actually is capturing your attention right now? Where do you stop scrolling and start, you know, start reading or looking or watching?
Shannon 48:27
Would that be bad if I said, like, the What I Eat in a Day videos from people? No, I'm just kidding. What is getting my attention? It's not as much scrolling. And we did mention AI, so obviously, if I didn't say that somewhere in this podcast, like, should I even have these headphones on? I actually think that the media landscape and the change and the shift that's happening there is something we should all be paying deep attention to, and part of it is obviously related to what's going on in the administration. Part of it is shrinking budgets, reporters making transitions to I'm now an independent PR consultant. All these things are shifting really, really quickly, and I just don't know what it means for, where do we place these stories, and who tells these stories, and all the people who are go direct, like, what happens to agencies? I think this whole media landscape as we knew it five to seven years ago is going to look entirely different at the end of 2026. And that's capturing my attention, because I think we have to be really agile and thoughtful about “how do we continue to be relevant?”
Sean 49:32
Great question. Thank you, Shannon,
Shannon 49:34
Thank you so much for having me. I hope I've shifted your attention.
Allison 49:35
Consider it shifted. It was great.
Allison 49:47
Thank you for joining us today for Attention Shift for today's deep dive on communication strategy. Check out our sponsors, Delve, at Delve.news and Mike Worldwide at MW.com. Please like and subscribe to Attention Shift on Apple, Spotify, or your podcast platform of choice, and we'll see you in a couple weeks for our next episode.