“Gaining Insight” - Vladlena Mitskaniouk, Head of Global Digital Marketing and Analytics at Trend Micro

On this episode of Journey Map, we’re speaking with Vladlena Mitskaniouk, Head of Global Marketing and Analytics at Trend Micro. We talk about her days designing myspace profiles for bands, her love of data, and the importance of passing on knowledge.

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Transcript:

Welcome to Journey Map the audio experience that deconstructs the career paths taken by some of the world’s most interesting people.Today’s guest graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications from Carleton University here in Ottawa, from there she started as an Online Content Administrator for CLV group and eventually would get her Master’s degree in Communications from Carleton University as well. She has since become the Online Channel Coordinator at MD Financial Management and was quickly promoted through the ranks there, next to being Assistant Online Channel Manager, and then as its Digital Marketing Manager.

She then moved on to become Manager of Global Marketing Analytics and Operations, what a big title that is at Trend Micro and is now it’s Senior Manager of Global Digital Marketing and Analytics. Our guest today is a digital marketing expert if ever there was one and she joins us to discuss her journey on journey map today. She is Vladlena Mitskaniouk, Vladlena welcome to the show.

VM: Thank you so much for having me Dave.

DH: So we just had to take two or three attempts at nailing your last name for which I apologise in advance. I actually did the thing that I’m sure annoys people like yourself with a name like yours the most, which is that I raised the volume of my voice to see if it would somehow cover up my inability to hit the pronunciation correctly. Do you find that that is something that happens regularly or am I just a loser who butchered it?

VM: Honestly most people don’t even make an attempt to say the full name. The last name is usually just skipped. For the first name I get a lot of “Vladlinas” and then some people just skip and start calling me V.

DH: Well listen as an ice breaker I’ll tell you just this very quick story at least once a day via email somebody calls me Dale, actually it happens sometimes not via email as well but I guess it’s just taking my first name and last name and jamming them together. I won’t get into this whole backstory on it, but I once decided that the next person who shames me like this I will just call them some random names instead of their actual name. This person was actually coming in for a job interview with us and they came in and I’d been calling the Mark, I think their name is actually Adam, and they came in and they were legally blind. I’ve never felt more terrible. So now I just embraced life for what it is and I guess I’m Dale to a lot of people. Anyway on that note we are so fortunate to have you with us today, and you’ve had this interesting what I would say very fast paced career evolution. Is that how it feels to you? like I can go back and see that from graduating basically around 2009 every two years sometimes every year there’s an evolution to your career. So what has that been like in terms of managing it whether it’s emotionally , physically, or intellectually what’s that process been like for you over the last ten years?

VM: It’s been pretty incredible, I think it looks a little bit faster than it was a lot of the changes over the years we’re very natural progressions. Something I say to a lot of people who are newer in their career is if you see opportunities to do a certain task, to learn something new that you should just take it on. As you show your expertise in those areas those changes come really quickly as a result.

DH: So what are some of those areas that you’ve really tried to hone your skills and that have made the transition look much less chaotic than it looks on paper, I don’t mean chaotic less fast paced than it looks on paper?

VM: So as you mentioned my formal education is in communicationI’ve always had an interest in data and mathematics. I was very close to becoming an engineer and chose to go a different path. When I started in the workforce I kind of started more on the traditional digital marketing side doing some online project management, writing content, and managing social.The data side always called to me so taking additional courses, doing a lot of self taught activities, making sure I was on top of what’s going on in marketing analytics and just my interest there and pushing my out myself to know what’s happening kind of open up opportunities to take over roles in those areas within the organization I work for.

DH: Right so one of the things I didn’t get into in the introduction what I think is this really worth noting for you is that if I were to just go over the list of some of the certifications that you have obtained you’ve got your inbound certification from Hubspot, your email marketing certification from Hubspot, google analytics individual qualification, google ads search certification, google ads display certification, Marketo certified expert. That list just keeps going on and on and on we’re not going to say the rest of them. At each of those times where you’ve taken one of these certificates or certifications what did you kind of realize about either your career or the needs of the company you’re working for, or where the industry was headed? What’s the general theme for you know the inspiration to take the next one?

VM: A lot of them started out as learning opportunities. A lot of people assume that you take the certifications to improve your knowledge and to communicate them outwardly, and that is definitely a helpful way to leverage that up, but a lot of times the certifications as you go through them they teach you what you need to learn more about. Early in my career I started looking at these I was really identifying gaps in my own skills and being able to address them through that certification process. As I’ve gotten further along as you do some of them, the ones that stay in market , especially Google based ones, it’s really a great way to stay on top of your knowledge because you’re forced to refresh them every year if you want to keep them. Then the higher end ones are really it often a provided by vendors that unless you are using that vendor you can’t really get those certifications, and again I take those opportunities to make sure that through the certification process am I using this tool to its full extent are there opportunities to leverage it to a better just through the the process of learning more about the certification or course.

DH: Right now when you think about where you’re at now what are some tools, platform certifications with where you see your career in the industry heading you feel that you’ll need to pursue next?

VM: The only one that I’ve had on my horizon that I don’t currently have and I’ve considered looking into would be the tableau certifications. Obviously as I’ve gone on in my career I used some of these tools less on a day to day basis, it’s important understanding how your teams and your colleagues are leveraging these tools. Knowing what’s available in them understanding the world of possibilities is very important even as you get further into your senior leadership roles because it lets you understand the types of marketing, and the types of analysis you could even theoretically do by understanding the capabilities of those tools. Tableau is a tool I use very frequently but a certification that I haven’t pursued yet that is definitely on the horizon potentially.

DH: So to go back as early as you can recall, what is the first memory where you have an interest in either digital marketing or just marketing in general?

VM: So if we were to go really far back, one thing is I grew up in a household that was very tech oriented both my parents work in the tech industry.I remember I was probably eight maybe ten or eleven years old my father sitting me and my sister down and drawing out on a piece of paper and explaining how the internet works. From that moment I understood that internet technologies and their capabilities were so complex and so interesting that I knew that was the direction I wanted to go in. Shortly after I got my first computer, I taught myself basic HTML coding and then in the traditional sense of the early 2000s I started helping bands develop myspace profiles.

DH: Nice so funny enough I actually personally never got big into myspace. What are some of the lessons you learned in designing the myspace pages of various bands that you know you might still realize are applicable in this global marketing role you find yourself in today?

VM: I think the one thing that really came about in those early days whether it was myspace or geocities was the concept of online branding. You know companies and marketing teams often had their branding collateral but the look and feel of the colours and the fonts used really changed once more a companies went online so even the concept up for a band or you know minor site back in those days you know what is the tone you want to set?, how do you want to communicate yourself?, how do you align yourself with where you are in the industry?, and even then the concept of personas who is it that you’re targeting? and that is something that has not changed, only evolving further on making sure that you are relevant to the people you want to talk to you.

DH: Right if you could go back to yourself as you are toiling away designing these band pages if you could have the opportunity to say hey fifteen years in the future or so I’m taking a stab at your age right now, but if you say in the fifteen years into the future where you are going to wind up do you give yourself that information or do you think that there’s more benefit in just experiencing life as it comes at you?

VM: I think there’s more benefit in experiencing life as it comes at you, I think if you have too much of a specific goal you might actually lose opportunities to learn things in areas outside of where you end up that really helped influence you in the future. I don’t spend too much time designing web pages now there are some analysis and work with those teams, but early on that user experience certification I got has taught me so much more about marketing when it was really a product specific certification. I think there’d be a risk that you would lose the greater wealth of experience you have that influences your career and what you do.

DH: Right so in this career if you can imagine there is the timeline I went over in the introduction which is the functional timeline, but there’s also I’m assuming an emotional timeline that you could attach to it. Borrowing from the user journey mapping world, you know it’s funny I normally ask people what is the lowest point on that timeline but I’m going to ask you what’s the highest point on the timeline over the last ten or eleven years that you can reflect on?

VM: That’s a difficult question. I think coming to trend was definitely a very high highlight point in my career so far. It was a big change in my previous roles. I was mostly in B to C marketing working mostly on consumer facing collateral analysis, moving into a business to business role really changed my perspective on the industry and on how things are done. It was a challenge at first but a huge learning opportunity and something I’m so glad I had the opportunity to take with Trent.

DH: Great answer. Now if I were to extend that timeline out for another fifteen years what do you hope the high is going to look like in the next stage of your career?

VM: I think what I’d really like to focus on, it’s something I’m already trying to do is giving back and contributing to the education of other people in the field. I still have a lot to learn myself but seeing the uptake of education in this field as I mentioned earlier a lot of what I’ve done has been self taught from the technology in a marketing perspective. Now we’re starting to see courses come about, networking groups come about that support people new to the digital marketing industry. Now there’s resources available and I benefit from them greatly so one of things I’d like to look toward in the future is to give back more to those and to help others but that.

DH: Nice well you know it’s so funny like the old saying “those who can’t do teach” and as you know we run an education program in partnership with them one of the universities here in Ottawa and what I often say to people is that in 2020 and beyond it’s more like instead of “practice what you preach” it’s more like “preach what you practice” if you will. The idea that I think modern education is best delivered from people with depthful day to day industry knowledge, so you it’s refreshing to hear. I think a lot of people say like “at some point in my career I would love to get back” but I speak a lot of people and and I feel like oftentimes it’s from this like once I have accomplished the height of my career, say when they’re in their late forties, or early fifties, or something like that and then I’ll start giving back. From early conversations that you and I’ve had we want to do the same thing which is that you actually want to start doing that much, much sooner. Beyond the things you just said, what else do you think that teaching others can give to you, not just what you can give to them through that process?

VM: I find that a lot of the time when you are having those conversations with others newer to the industry it’s the questions they ask that somebody more senior or more experienced might not even think of asking that can drive a lot of really useful conversations and learnings. We obviously have our own kind of cognitive biases when we’re working through projects, working with new technologies, and having the use of somebody who hasn’t been entrenched in the digital marketing area of expertise yet it can provide some really useful insights.

DH: Yeah I can’t agree more I wasn’t trying to bait the answer but that’s definitely what I was hoping to hear in terms of a message to share with others. What is the Vladlena super power?

VM: Some might call it a super power, some might call it a flaw but as I said at heart I’m an analyst and we tend to be very detail oriented. So it’s one of those things that for some people it can be a huge hassle, but I think you know that the devil’s in the details. The other thing that I’m very fortunate for is that I pick up on tech very quickly and again I think that comes down to you know growing up in a tech household. I think what will be really interesting to see in the next ten to twenty years is how much this natural inclination to technology increases as its availability and how ubiquitous it is to everyday life will change that. Will we have more people coming into the workforce who are much more familiar with picking up, learning, and developing new technologies? That’s something I think we’ll see more change in the next few years.

DH: What a wonderful superpower to have. You know the joke which is not really a joke it’s not very much a reality for me that I say to people is that I’m kind of like a person twice my age in practice in that I think a flaw of mine is that I don’t embrace which I know this is gonna sound really odd especially given what I do for a living, but I find I really don’t embrace a lot of new stuff. I bill myself as an experienced designer not in our visual sense but in other ways, so I definitely enjoyed having an understanding and empathy for people who are using a tool even though I myself might not have all that much interest in using it. Other than just this natural curiosity you know maybe some of that is that napkin sketch your paper sketch of what the internet is which all my god I would love to see what that looks like just because of the infographic.What are some of the resources or tools beyond the certifications that you’ve mentioned, what are some of the resources, or tools, or blogs, or podcasts publications, or people that you follow to help you stay on trend with what you need to know for what’s coming next? whether that’s from a technology standpoint or just for much and industry knowledge evolution standpoint.

VM: I am a very big proponent of slack there are tons of industry slack boards, probably more than I could even counter find that are useful because they both have people posting information and sharing, similar to what you would get from a blog or from following people on linkedin but much more from the interactions and engagements you see on these boards. Very often there will be scenarios where you could spend days debugging something, investigating and getting nowhere and posting a question on some of them you’ll get an answer in half an hour. Myself again to try to engage and give back as much as I can to these communities. Regardless of if you’re an experienced marketer, a digital marketer, an analyst or if you specialize there is probably a slack board out there with people that are like minded and working on similar projects. Sometimes they’re even going just as a sounding board so I highly recommend looking into some slack boards if you’re in the industry and you want to learn there’s a couple great ones I can bring up online geniuses is very popular lots of people on the network, very responsive, and then if you’re more on the data side #measure is a great one to look at as well. Whether you’re a Google analytics user, tableau, or power bi there’s lots of people who are working on similar things available to share and to help.

DH: You know I think that’s a good place to stop for today with some of those amazing resources being provided for people. I do have one I guess one last question really quick as someone who identifies as very analytical and therefore I assume kind of considerate, specific, and measured in their approach to things. What is the process like for you preparing for an interview with no questions submitted in advance other than a loose idea of the general theme of the podcast. What’s the preparation process like for you?

VM: I will say I was a little nervous as I’m sure you could tell from my note seeing if there was any sort of structure. But I think it helps the conversation by being a bit more free flowing. I definitely listened to quite a few of the previous podcasts and was really just trying to think of my journey ahead of time, a little bit what got me here because I find that sometimes we’re not as retrospective as we should be when it comes to our careers. Anyway I appreciate the opportunity because it definitely gave me a chance to appreciate the things that I’ve had and the opportunities in my career and the people who helped me get to where I am.

DH: Well it was my pleasure to have you. I hope we can do this again sometime.In the next few years there’ll be updates to the journey and I really hope that you are able to find some opportunities to give back in the ways that you want to which I think is really great for yourself and for others and our industry in general. Again thank you so much for being on with us today! would include links where people can find you and more information about Trend Micro in the show notes.Thanks again so much, have a great day!

VM:Thank you Dave!