Freedom Leads to Thriving Creativity

Intro

Hello, I'm Kerry guard and Welcome to Tea Time with tech marketing leaders.

Thank you for joining me welcome back to this episode where I get to speak with a lovely human. He's a joy. It's just so fun. Evan Kling comes on the show to discuss his journey. I don't generally get to talk to people early in their career. And this was awesome. It was awesome to have him on and to hear about how he got into marketing, and how he got into cybersecurity.

As we look at the market today, and how we've hired in the last 10 years or so. Collectively, as marketers, we've been trying to hire people who can hit the ground running, who can get done. And a lot of that tends to be people with many, many years of experience. And what happened in doing that is we basically left a generation behind. And now we're short workers, we're short, new marketers, we're short marketers in cybersecurity. There's a huge hole that we have to figure out how to fill.

And in developing those programmes, we have to find the right folks who add value to both the organisation as a brand as well as to the industry as a whole in the long run. And so it was really great to have Evan on and hear how he got involved. And to feel inspired to hire more Evans, and to for anybody who's listening, who's early in their career, can see marketing and the cybersecurity industry as an opportunity for them to jump on in.

What a great conversation I'm so grateful for everyone for joining me.

A little bit about Evan. Evan Kling spends his days making jokes and songs to rattle the funny bones of InfoSec professionals as digital content manager for vicarious he hopes one day to read the world disease with laughter as is the best medicine.

Ah, right. We need more Evans in this industry and what a joy and an right example of people we should be looking for to bring value and opportunity into, into our organisations. So yes, here is my conversation with Evan.

Transcript

Kerry: Hi, Evan, thank you for joining me on Tea Time with tech marketing leaders.

Evan: Hi, thanks. Thanks for having me.

Kerry: I'm excited to have you before we get to the heart of our story, which is your story? Why don't you kick it off for us and tell us what do you do? And then and how did you get there?

Evan: So yeah, right now I'm the Digital Content Manager at Vicarius it's a startup company and cybersecurity startup company. And I currently just in charge of mostly all of our, our our demand generation efforts and building an audience and establishing credibility within the industry and community as a whole. And so I'm very much focused on just eyeballs in traffic and getting as many just as many eyeballs as possible from all the different channels, the sources that we have to our website, and to get people interested in what we have to offer.

And so I've been here for about a little over two. So coming up on two and a half years, I started the summer of COVID. And so that that was kind of a it was kind of a surprise, it was a good nice surprise offer to job offer to get kind of at a really, you know, dismal time when the world was not looking great. So yeah, so then what kind of led me to where I'm at now, it was pretty much all it all came down to my first role out of school.

You know, I was looking for a job after graduating and, and just kind of applying to a bunch of different roles and not really honed in on anything specifically and I saw a job posting news for a Content Manager at cybersecurity startup and let's kind of read through and be like, yeah, that'd be I think that's kind of fits my A personality and I was hoping to do something in the creative sphere, I wasn't quite sure where I would fit or how that would take take form, but I knew I wanted to be involved on the creative side of things in marketing.

And so I got, I got hired there, and it was a really small startup out of Israel. And they were, like, really small team. And I kind of had no idea what I was really getting into, but I just, I'm like, Okay, I got an offer.

And let's, let's kind of hit the ground running and see what happens. And it was a lot of, you know, yeah, it's, it was very, very difficult experience, where I, yeah, a lot was thrown at me at once, and kind of their, their style of, of work or responsibilities and things like that, in the startup world is you can they kind of throw everything at you, and you have to, you know, kind of figure it out or like you're, they're kind of throwing like things up on the wall and like it, it's your job to be able to kind of manage and juggle all the kind of like in a kitchen, you know, like you're juggling multiple plates, or like you have the, I used to work in restaurants a little bit.

So it's, like, that's also a very chaotic atmosphere. But, you know, it's like, you might have something in the in the broiler and then something else you got something you know, like a stock pot that's simmering in the back and then you got someone else that needs to do the satay things, so there's a lot of jobs that you have to do at once. So that's, that's kind of what it was, is like the, the role wasn't really defined in any way, it's just there was if anything comes up, you have to learn it on your own and learn it quickly.

And to them the most, it's speed, speed is very, very important, it's things need to be turned around very quickly, because they just want to move and try to improve on the products from kind of like an iterate, like an iteration standpoint, it's getting something out there really quick and then finding out what works, what doesn't, but can we shift and you go to version two and then three, then four, then and so on until kind of progressively gets better.

Also, just kind of the startup life in general is your because you're kind of limited resources, you are responsible for spearheading a lot of different projects and doing things that maybe outside of your general domain of knowledge and but they but you know, there's it's also a it's a challenge as well to try to try to rise to the occasion and learn learn these things on the fly and learn what you can on the job and, and not being not being afraid to make mistakes.

It's a lot of wands, it's kind of that that Think or swim mentality and you know by but you also I also you know learned so many skills I use even now today in my role that was kind of forged in the iron when I when I was there so it's it's tough, it's it's hard but the audits it's kind of the the training you know, it was a very solid foundation learning the the kind of expectations and the demands and being able to deliver results and you know, they I mean, it's not really it's not really exclusive to them like most you know, every kind of business or they want you to hit the you know, the targets or the KPIs or whatever what have you so yeah, from that it was it was hard like I was wondering at some points if I was going to quit and I was definitely thinking about it at some points.

I eventually just kind of got over some of the hard parts and persevered through it but definitely had some some some struggles you know, like it's you're also it's kind of like you're fresh out of fresh out of school and like into the real world so to speak, you know, so the bubble kind of pops and then you're like, you know, like where what am I doing and then definitely for.

I guess for like forging the iron are forged in the fire sort of sort of thing where I feel much more confident and capable. Now because the experience there and then another another really important thing too is you know, I got my like my current job now that I got from from working at Def, you know, the first one out of school. It was company called Javelin networks.

And I saw when I got the call over over COVID It was it was an old colleague of mine that I worked with that javelin and And somebody they, it just speaks to the power of network and just making a good impression. You know, no matter no matter what job you're at, even if it's not ideal, or if it's not something you want to do, you know, long term, maybe 10 years, down the road, it's still very important is to remain, you know, just remain present in your day to day and, like, try to learn, and just work as hard as you can, because you don't know, what are the other kinds of doors or things open up later.

And, you know, also the, there's kind of a lot of writing on that, it's not to say that, that gives you make mistakes, or if you need to switch, then you're not setting yourself up for success later. But I do think there's, if you, you know, if you perform well and work hard and make the right connections with, you know, the your supervisors or just coworkers, and then they will want to help you out later down the road. So it can really set a really nice foundation for you, where you get plugged into a network, and you're, you know, if you know, reliable, trustworthy, and, you know, he gets the results done, then you're, you're kind of your head is in the ring, and that they'll they'll remember you and I think if you're memorable, and they can, they can depend on you and you're reliable, then, you know, you'll get offers coming coming to you. And that's, you know, that's what happened to me. So it was all, you know, again, based off of based off of that, so, yeah, it's definitely it helps a lot. I think, you know, what's the recommendation from, you know, whether, whether whatever the connection is, whether it's, you know, secondary or tertiary or so, you know, someone knows something. So if there's a recommendation from a friend, or from another person that they worked with, that's, that's really, that's very powerful, you know, and it's going to be kind of helping you get past like, the, you know, the other people that may be applying to jobs, or, you know, like, in this case, like, this wasn't even a job that was that was advertised, it wasn't even out there as paid, you know, someone that can help us with marketing. And then, you know, I, they, they interviewed me, because, like, yeah, we have, we have a guy that you should meet. So, yeah, save a lot of stress on the agenda. Because there's, you know, that whole applying to Job process and all that that can take a lot of time and, and energy, so certainly can. Yeah. Yeah, so that's kind of how I ended up to, yeah, where I'm at now.

Kerry: I feel like when we initially talk, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like there was a job you had between those two, or did you go right, from one startup to the other?

Yeah, that was I had a couple jobs in between the two.

Kerry: Yeah, did you work for a bigger company, in between?

I worked in, I worked in the service industry, like an attorney. That's, like in cafes and restaurants and stuff like that, I was kind of figuring out I was trying to, I still wasn't really sure, you know, it's kind of the whole, you know, I guess you're kind of lost and you're in your 20s or trying to fit trying to just, you know, put the pieces together and just figure out what where do you want to go and what do you want to do so I ended up just kind of, you know, working in there for for a little bit, but I'm glad I'm not not doing that anymore.

Kerry: It's the time it that's definitely the time to like figure it out. There's a couple things you said that I want to circle back on before we move on to my next question. You talked about being really creative. Like that's what sort of drew you to both of these jobs what is creative mean to you? Because I feel like in the marketing industry, creative generally means like, design work. So is that what it means to or what is creative mean in the sense of the work you're doing now?

So yeah, I I work with Yeah, I work with designers to buy what's more Yeah, that's a collaboration with them and so but I generally see myself on the on the IDEA Part of the other projects and just coming up with a lot of the concepts and maybe how I want you know, so for example, like for working on a video what kind of scenes I want and so sometimes I kind of play like this director role of, you know, typing out or like making storyboards and kind of going through and writing the whole idea and the concept and then they helped me they helped me with with this execution and you know, they're they bring their creativity to the to the table, which is more, you know, there are skills and expertise and design and you know, 3d animation programmes and other things like that. So, I, my strong suit is is. So definitely the idea generation and writing. I love writing, so I'll come up so copywriting would be another, like, I don't know, it's not it's not an ad agency, but we do run, you know, we do run ads on Google and LinkedIn, and we're just about to start, we're not on Twitter. And so we have some stuff. You know, so I'll come up with concepts about what I want, like we just did this one with a pharmacy. That was really clever. And it's like, it's performing really well, right now, as far as the, you know, the clicks and the conversions and all that. And, yeah, so like, to me, yeah, what does it just, it just been able to come up with projects on my on my own and things that I can spearhead on my own and maybe take some ideas and influences from, you know, multiple different sources and kind of put them together and be like, Yeah, this is kind of my vision. And I'm much so more I like to on the vision, the vision and strategy, strategy end of the creativity spectrum.

Kerry: I think that's so important to call out because creative isn't necessarily being like you produce this end thing from like, a drawing standpoint. And so I really love the differentiating of that, and sort of being that visionary on the side of the creativity. And even though you might not have the skill sets to actually do the technical work of making it come to life, you knew the right resources to bring in to help create this vision that you have almost like a director. I love that. Yeah. I still love that. There's something else you said that shocked me. You said, you know, you have to learn on your own quickly in that, you know, in in the first job that you had, what did you feel like you needed to learn very quickly? Like what skills did you leave that job with? That helped fuel this job? Was it just that creative, visionary side? Or was it more hands on technical what? Bowser that skills gap that that first job really gave you that foundation?

So yeah, nothing, nothing from nothing from really a technical standpoint, because I was more. Yeah, kind of project. Yeah, mostly like managing projects. So the biggest skill gap definitely, definitely was was learn how to manage was learn how to manage people. So the soft skills and being able to, yeah, cuz it's, it's, I didn't have like, I didn't have anything with with with ads, and it's, you know, be just haven't having the right things to guide into, and a shepherd and get the results that you want. And also the Give, give praise, and just how to give how to give feedback at the right at the right times, and as constructive feedback and things to make, make it make it better. Just yeah, you know, like, I think just being able to be, you know, manage and give, give clear directions about what, what you what you what you want, and what you need them to produce. And it was also Yeah, so that probably definitely the biggest one and then just just research research skills, too. And I think another thing that's kind of in my brain now that my go to is if you can think of, you know, try to find the answer on your own first before before asking other people and there is there's definitely not nothing wrong with you know, like, there's not there's no stupid questions and you know, there people are gonna be wanting to help you. But if you make an effort to, hey, I can find that answer on my own and, you know, it's kind of saves, you know, the people from from cars, they have things that they need to do as well. And I think another thing is business. Prior just prioritising the projects, that's that's pretty important too and being able to time everything and no, like okay, we have we have a longer you know, it's kind of again like the plate shuffling or do you have something on the longer term? Then you and being able to think that the timeline of different projects and say, Okay, this one can I can give, I can hand off this, this project brief to this person, so then they can get started, it may take them a month until I get until I am able to give them notes and then at that time and it'd be, you know, assigning this to somebody else and then working other tasks from there. So like, I think, I think Wayne, like weighing just the how important something a project is, and then estimating the timeline. So again, like kind of a lot of project management skills to get things done in in the right way.

Kerry: It kind of reminds me this is maybe a I feel like what do you leave college, at least when I left college, all of my projects through Drexel University was very much project based but individual So and, and as an only child, sort of reinforced by only child this where I came out of was not really, I don't say not a team player, I just worked really well on my own. I was a problem solver, I could figure out things well, without needing a lot of direction, I asked questions, but I was very much like, Give me something and I'll go do it. And I don't really need a lot of interference from people around me to like, I feel like that took me a really long time to learn. And it was to the point where I was so good at working alone, that everybody left me alone. I felt myself as an island through the first part of my career, which was totally a blessing and a curse. So I find it really interesting that you coming out of college felt very similar, where it was like, you had to learn a lot of these, what we call soft skills, which I still think is a terrible name for them, because they are the hardest skills on the face of the planet to learn.

There is an oxy or like, it's an oxymoron. Yeah, it's an oxymoron.

Kerry: They're not soft, like complicated. And you've got people that makes it even more complicated. And you have different cultures to it. And it's even more complicated. So kudos to you for being thrown into the, you know, from the frying pan to the fire, so to speak, and leaning into those, like leaning into figuring that out. And knowing that, okay, I have a lot of people that I needed to navigate here. And this is I can't power through like, I gotta learn the collaboration skills. But you touched on. So hats off to you, sir. I'm the last question I have for you. In terms of your story, before I move on, is do you talk we touched on this a little bit in our before we started talking, and I want to talk to him just a little bit here. We don't need to sit with it too long. But and I just mentioned it to like, when you layer in different types of culture, this is the second company you've worked for that is out of Israeli. And as more companies come out in terms of cybersecurity come out of that part of the world, which is credible, the innovation that they're managing to make happen right now. And even cooler that they're pulling, they're pulling in, you know, the US side of it to figure out like, how to go global, essentially, this is a company you chosen, I feel like you chose the second company. Like you did have somebody that sort of pulled you in, tapped on the shoulder and said, Hey, I think you'd be great here. But you still had to make the decision that you wanted to go back into a company within the assembler, which was really hard for you to hit the ground running initially. But now to come into your second sort of whirlwind. And I'm gonna real Israeli company, did that weigh on you in terms of making that choice of going back to that marketing job versus sort of those odd jobs you had? Or was that sort of just like, yeah, no problem? Not even a second thought?

Yeah, it was it was a combination of both. I also think the timing, the timing of it was was very bizarre, considering that of what you know, the of what happened in 2020. So I think but it's it is it is it is absolutely both because I didn't want to i There's no I wanted to find I needed to find something aside from service industry hospitality. I know. I didn't want to be in that. I wanted to be out of that as soon as I could. And it just it just so I mean, I consider it luck or fate or however however it is but Well, I mean, certainly not. I mean, losing my job at the time just wasn't good. Just like how everyone was, you know? The World shut down. But it was it was. So that happened. Yeah, in March, and then I was worried, you know, kind of everyone in the same predicament about, you know, what am I going to do? What's what's going to happen? And then I got this call out of the blue. So it was it, I kind of just had to it was kind of a no a no brainer in that. Like, okay, at least I have something like I didn't start full time right away, it was just there was a, there's a contract position where I just kind of have okay, like, let's, you know, let's try it out and see, you know how Civ fits you what you do, you know, is a good fit. We like what you're doing so that we can, you know, go from there. So. So I was like, I kind of have to, you know, it's like, I need a job and like, this is something that that's right here. And so but yeah, there was there was definitely some hesitation in like, do I really want to go through this? You know, this rodeo again. And but I still Yeah, there was a common a combination of both of both. And really early on it was it was, you know, I kind of had to work through that. And I had some some my own hurdles to kind of kind of work through and that eventually got to a better a better spot with it. And so yeah, and I think so yeah, to answer question. It was I say both combination to

Kerry: it seems like it was this blessing for you almost because you sort of knew the rodeo you were getting into.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Like I wasn't going to be really i Yeah, exactly. I wasn't, there wasn't going to be any. Any curveballs or any of that. Okay, I kind of I kind of know what, you know, I know that the lay of the land here. And I know what I'm getting myself into. So that's yeah, that's definitely right. And it was like, I was not gonna be hit with too many. Too many surprises. And I Okay, yeah, I can. I know, I know what it is. And I so. So that definitely, that definitely helped from that. And that first, the first position that I had,

Kerry: you been there for two and a half years, which is sort of amazing. It's basically to be at any company for that long these days. And so, you know, you mentioned that you sort of had to figure out those initial hurdles of getting your feet back under you, but what is it now like, what do you love about what you're doing now?

This is so much creative autonomy, and just that I have and the trust that's placed in me to make the right calls and to really lead the company forward in a way that's kind of Also unique to, to me, and then you know, the collective benefit as a company as a whole. So there's a good it's, I it's there, I'm not I don't have to really stifle I can, I can just I can be who I am, you know, I don't have to stifle anything or put on some kind of some type of some type of act or a facade, it's like, I am comfortable being myself and they, and I can just be who I am. So that's definitely the best part, you know, so I can come up with because I, I just, I love coming up with different project ideas and just different sort of things that we can do to help help build our audience and in a way that's still unique to me, so like, it's definitely just combining that individuality with you know, and then working together with with the team to like, I love all the people that I I work with, that's another huge benefit. Like I have relationships with people from we work with people all around the world. And it's, it's really fun just to work with them on things and to develop relationships with them as well, that's kind of, you know, outside the confines of, you know, like professional and personal relationships and you can always, you know, be with those people later on and other kind of initiatives that you're doing or other kind of projects and so, that's that's been something I yeah, I really love now like, I'm not really it's just like, it's just the freedom. I don't have too many controls in place. It's the only the only thing is budget. You know, sometimes I lose my stuff will Okay, that's we don't have we just can't get all the money to do that. It's never it's never like a an idea. No idea it never really gets shut down. You know, we we talk and we discuss and we were a lots lots of different insight and like okay what's what's it gonna? Or just talking about talking about the the idea but it's never just Oh, that's not you know it's never just given a No, it's It's always just comes down to do we have has we have enough money or not.

Kerry: And something you said in your story that I really love that I think plays nicely into this is around iteration. And it sounds like there's not a fear of failure. Like if you have a great idea, even though you might not know how it's gonna pan out a fan of money for it, that in within your company, you get to go figure it out and try it and learn from it and make it better over time. Like there's no fear of that's gonna flop and there's no point in that and don't even try it. Yeah, exactly the freedom that way.

Yeah, yeah. And it helps it helps to that we're, I find a lot of stuff that's, you know, does, I don't want to say cheap, but I mean, like I like I'm I'm trying to be resourceful, I guess is the right word with keeping, keeping in mind that we do want to keep our, like, our operating costs low. Like that's, that's something that we don't want a lot of overhead and a lot of expenditure, you know, like, try to try to spend the least amount that you can, and so, yeah, so and that way, it's like, not, you know, blowing through money doing stuff. And that's kind of, you know, not going to make, like a return. But yeah, it's helps a lot like that, that don't, there's no, you know, it's always as just a learning opportunity, and just what what can I how can I make it better, and then giving people the time to, so it's also a testament to the leadership to its being, you know, let someone cultivate their, their skill, and let them just work on creativity, because it's not a it's not like a, you know, like, like a mathematical equation where you can just, okay, let's solve it. And then we get this at the end, it's, it takes a lot, it takes a lot of time to kind of mould it. And, you know, you need, it just sounds like an overnight thing that you can that you can solve, like, it may take you a couple of months to figure out something or like an idea might come to you, and then you can work it out. So it's very, you know, fluid in that way. And that's takes, you know, it just kind of takes time for for, for it's a come on in the right way. So you kind of do have to have have, you know, people that, that appreciate that that process and just understand the creative, the creative process can can take a while for people. So

Kerry: can you give us an example of something you've done, either recently, or like a previous campaign that you absolutely love that sort of a example of all of these things we talked about, from your creativity to throw something up against the wall and see if it sticks to giving you a lot of leeway? And on a minimal budget? Do you have an example of that?

Yeah, yeah. So the, I would love to so we kind of had we started like this character, this, this Muppet character on Twitter. And I'm not even sure how the first I'm not even sure how the first the first idea for it happened. But it was basically just a recap of Yeah, like, kind of this this vulnerability that was trending on Twitter, because a lot of the InfoSec community lives on Twitter and they Share, They Share, like, their exploits are, you know, all their research and stuff is shared on there. So I'm like, yeah, it can be funny to do like a little it's like InfoSec news, like a little news update. And then he just kind of gives the report of, of, you know, what's going on like, what, like Microsoft released this, this patch or somebody, you know, this this phishing campaign happened to this person or this company and they like it ended up being like we got this guy retweeted a lot by a lot of like high profile, you know, people in there so they can, they just they thought it was it was really funny and perfectly matched or perfectly mixed together the kind of that edge AI the educational angle and also the amusement you know, it's like it's most it's both to inform and, and to amuse. So that's kind of what I what I kept in mind. And people really appreciate that because a lot of stuff in cybersecurity doesn't, it's kind of dry, and not very, not very, not very exciting to, you know, to watch or it's, it's like, there's definitely kind of a kind of a, there's, there's a lot of room for for something different. So that's kind of what I do with that. And then, so at first it was, yeah, just kind of him and then like I would, I would change the backgrounds, and then I would like revise some of the scripts. And then I started putting in like cutaways from, like, I love Family Guy is one of my favourite, one of my favourite shows. So they like, they're like, super, you know, they're classic for doing, you know, like Peter will like, or Brian or something will say some type of reference, and they then they do a cutaway to it, and then cut back. So I kind of took that as inspiration. And, you know, did similar things to in the scripts that I realised they're there. I mean, they're basically like, two minute long, like little skits of the, of this puppet explaining stuff. And that guy, just, like, pretty much any kind of joke I wanted to put in there. That was they, they didn't really, you know, check it in and like, that also kind of comes back to the self, yet the self. Yeah, like the self sufficiency or just the making, making the correct judgement calls on your own and, you know, somebody, especially if they place your trust in you to do it. And because because third, you know, and like, some, it's not, it's not really micromanage, you know, it's like, okay, we trust you to know, like, you're our guy, you're the puppet guy, like, let's see what you got. And let's see if it, what what the results are and what the audience thinks, and they're not going to go in and micromanage. So, you also kind of have that sad, you know, really no pressure to perform, but it's just making sure that it's, it's just good quality, you know, you like you can really make it the best that you can. So, yeah, then I've been doing that for we do it. We do one we do one every month for the Patch Tuesday update, and sometimes you do little offshoot ones, then they just got crazier and crazier than that because I'm, I try to inject humour as much as possible into

Kerry: culture, too. Yeah. Yeah, that's better right now. Um, quick question for you just off the cuff here. And you know, because of the times, with everything happening on Twitter, is your audience overly engaged? Are you thinking about other channels? With everything going on with Twitter and the mass exodus, so to speak, you have a tonne of content here. Are you going to keep on keeping on? Are you thinking about adding other? Seeing where your audience is going and joining them?

Yeah, well, I think we're just getting we're gonna, we'll keep on pumping it out. Until, you know, if it if decide, I mean, if it eventually shuts down, or whatever is gonna, who knows what's gonna happen or people? Yeah, people leave, but I know, a lot of them are going to Matt Macedon. And they have I don't I'm not really exactly sure how that operates. I know, it's kind of like you have your own server and you kind of your own niche communities. So I know a lot of people are a lot of them are going there. But it's kind of too early to see how it's gonna shake out. But we're actually we're trying to build a little community of our own not, you know, it's not like a social networking or social media site, per se, but we're in the process of building this just a community for people specifically to share vulnerability research. So we're hoping to get some of them to to sign up on it's called V. V society after we named it after. So another pop culture thing reference for Mr. Robot. It's a super popular show in the hacker community. So their group was F society. So that that's it. Yeah.

Kerry: Nice. I love that. I'm, I'm so grateful that you shared your story with us, because I think it's a really empowering one in regards to the cybersecurity community, how companies are growing, being able to join a start up being fearless and joining a startup outside of the United States and what that can mean And being a really positive impact there, I think, with everything that's going on, and with all the layoffs and with where people are going, startup is going to be the way. And so I'm so grateful that you joined me. Before we close out, I have two quick questions for you. One is, what's one challenge you're currently facing?

So yeah, I would say connecting. So I think there's two, I would say, it's kind of a two fold answer. One is going to be internal and internal. And then the other is kind of based off the work. So we're Yeah, it's it's, we're definitely find it challenging to build this that I mentioned earlier, the community that we're trying to build and learning. Just, you know, again, it's like trying to convince people to go there, then, like, it's adding value to them, once they're there, then what do they, you know, what kind of features do they want? Like, we're thinking about, like, how do we keep them engaged, and then, so the, and in trying to get this organic engagement, and just conversations happening in there, and like, we're so that that's a challenge that we're currently currently working on currently trying to figure out right now is like, this is also a new thing for me, as well, too, is like, this is a brand new project, and, you know, having done so it could, you know, again, try and try to see and what works and what doesn't, like you're gonna make a lot of mistakes, and, but, you know, as long as you Yeah, kind of kind of not keep, keep trying to at least move the ball forward in some way. And then the other thing is, so the, I've been here two and a half years, and we're pretty much all, you know, again, like we're spread out around the world and, and kind of the nature of a lot of companies operate. Nowadays, at least, at least, you know, startups and a lot of big corporations, they, I think a lot of them have the hybrid model now model now, where they're, you know, a couple of days in the office and couple out. But being strictly remote, it's, yeah, like finding ways to just connect with other other team members that work in different departments in the company, or they have different in different disciplines and just kind of syncing up with them and getting to know them a little bit more. It's pretty, it's pretty challenging to think how to win when you're not everyone's not in the physical space together, you know, it's like the, everything that we've had to face in the past, you know, two and a half years from the pandemic, but, you know, if you are, if you are a scattered team like that, it's it's, it's difficult to, you know, not feel isolated at times.

Kerry: It's so true, it's so true. Isolation is definitely a challenge in the remote environment and trying to find ways through that. I'm happy to riff with you on that more as we've been remote forever. I also love what you said in terms of like, the building a community is not just like, if you build it, they will come. And so and then no, they do cop, like, what do you do with that? So thank you for sharing this with us. I know you're not the only one experiencing those. And given your creativity, I'm sure you'll find your way through last question for you, Evan, because you're more than a marketer. And as we've seen through your story, which I'm so again, grateful that you shared, what's one hobby you've picked up in the last few years given? COVID? Have you done anything different or new because of the world the way the world is changed?

Yeah, so I started to get involved in circus arts. Yeah, or over the course of the pandemic, and I think that's probably it motivated me to to try something different and just, you know, hey, like not not kind of again, just get out of your comfort zone and just you know, let's try it out. So that's, I didn't know initially I there was a bunch of different things I was doing like I was at one point I was like doing fine trapeze and I was Yeah, I was so I ended up trying a lot of different different ones and now I kind of settled on trampoline and tramp ball so I just so much fun of being able to you get to kind of be acrobatic, but you're not like tumbling, you know, on the ground, which is like really, I tried that too. That's really hard. Especially like started as an adult. It's like you're, you're definitely working that way. As a kid, you're much more valuable. It's like you can learn all that stuff pretty easily. But yeah, it's it's, it's definitely a lot of fun. And yeah, I pretty much train it once once a week for, like, yeah, I've a training session once a week. And it's also Yeah, kind of getting over, you know, facing kind of gotta get over those fears a little bit.

Kerry: Yeah, I did the trap. In New York, they had a trapeze school on the river. And vendors took us there. And yeah, it was, it was such a high doing it, but man was it. Because you we, I mean, we only did it. We only tried it once each. And then the, the best parts, I got to do it again. So I didn't get started again. But you know, getting your legs over and flying upside down and the muscles to let you get yourself to crunch up to get a hold of that bar again. And I was there in my early 20s. I was a little orphan. But yeah, man was That was awesome. But it was a lot of work just for that one girl.

Yeah. And then the end like the bar too. And like the tip that it's it hurts your hands. And like to have that grip on it, and we'll just, like destroys your hands.

Kerry: Yeah. Yeah, it was so much fun, though. So yay, for you getting out of your comfort zone and try something new. That was awesome. COVID. You know, as my business coach likes to tell me, it's not happening to you. It's happening for you. And this definitely seems like a moment that has happened for you in more ways than one. So thank you for coming on and sharing your story.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks so much for having me. It was it was a pleasure. It was a lot of fun.

Outro

That was my conversation with Evan Kling.

Oh, right. Joy. Just pure joy. What an awesome human.

If you want to learn more about Evan and his journey, maybe you're looking to get into marketing and cyber yourself and you want to pick his brain on how you can do that. Maybe you're looking to hire more people like Evan and you'd like to understand this generation more, please, please reach out to us on LinkedIn and the link is in the show notes.

Thank you, Evan, thank you so much for joining me.

And thank you listeners. If you'd like this episode, please like subscribe and share.