Episode Five: Agile Marketing Around the Globe with Michael Seaton and Thomas Hormaza Dow

Transcript of State of Agile Marketing in Canada with Michael Seaton, principal at Level C Digital and instructor at the University of Toronto, and Thomas Hormaza Dow managing partner at French Market in Canada, instructor at Concordia University.

00:00:27 John Cass 

Welcome to the deep dive into digital marketing with John Cass. I'm your host, John Cass here in Boston, Massachusetts today I'll be interviewing Michael Seaton, principal at Level C Digital and instructor at the University of Toronto, and Thomas Hormaza Dow managing partner at French Market in Canada, instructor at Concordia University. Today's podcast is a little different from my brand podcast. Instead of interviewing Michael and Thomas about their work as a marketer and using our gel, the focus is on the state of agile marketing in Canada. 

00:00:58 John Cass 

Michael and Tom. 

00:00:58 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

Thanks. 

Good Job. 

00:00:59 John Cass 

Well, it's great to have you on the podcast in preparing for this call. We talked a little bit about your journey to using agile marketing. And while the focus is on Canada, I think we should start with how you both got started with agile and marketing and what you do in agile marketing, you know and how you use it and in in teaching. And also with clients. 

00:01:20 Michael Seaton 

I'll go first. So thank you again for having us on and speaking about agile marketing. It's smaller and burgeoning community, so we're always happy to connect with the with the smart folks in the space. I want to start with why in terms of how to answer that question around how I got into it and what. 

To be doing it, I'm always passionate about helping marketers become better marketers, and at the individual and team level, most of my career has been on the client side and leading marketing teams from strategy to enter execution. I've worked in financial services not-for-profit and government services. So I've kind of seen everything from the executive to the front lines. 

And my background was originally in direct marketing database marketing CRM got into digital very early and when it was still called E marketing and agility just was a natural path. After spending enough time and seeing how marketing was expanding, it became a gravitational pull because it actually gave market. 

00:02:16 Michael Seaton 

Is the way to walk the talk and drive those outcomes that we've always talked about but been challenged to actually deliver and it's just to become even more so today in today's digital environment. So what do I do at my practice level C digital? I consult, I've stuck with my knitting to digital marketing strategy and management and I train and I consult and that's been going on for about 6 years. 

I've been teaching for about 15 years and agile marketing for me came into focus about four years ago. As it became apparent the skills and capabilities were just weren't there for modern marketing management and I fell in love with agile because the mindset and the practices, and of course the benefits and outcomes just seems so natural. So I created the first course in Canada on it, and I've been teaching it ever since. 

00:03:03 Michael Seaton 

Both in open enroll enrollment as well as training and coaching for private settings for clients. So that kind of I think that ties back to the why and just the ability to bring this to marketers because it works and it works. Really well. 

00:03:16 John Cass 

Well, that that's a great introduction, Michael. What about you? 

00:03:19 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

Yeah. For my part, whether it's in my marketing practice or my teaching, I I've been dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and companies through agility for as long as I can remember. I started off actually in technology in my early exposure to agility was in the 1990s as a project manager in research and development, a large telecommunications multinational, so I I saw, and I can admit that a lot of it was driven by waterfall models and I saw some of the challenges there and it was interesting also to see how progress. 

Probably those software departments were embracing agility, so I did experience the first-hand agile early agile transformation in in a multinational. The stand up meetings, you know, the war rooms for quick response.  

And then I was exposed to a lean environments because I worked in aerospace for about two years at Pratt & Whitney in the Quality Department and systems and they're very advanced in Kaizen continuous improvement. In fact, all of the aspects of lean manufacturing. So it was about 15 years ago that I decided to shift really from software and systems to pure marketing. But what I noticed is that the constant remains agile is applicable in both deals short shortly after switching, I was able to introduce and test agility for marketing in my team. When I ran the Quebec performance marketing branch of the giant agency group Group M is a top five mega agency they have a long list of Fortune 500 clients, so it's a great place to experiment with flexible planning and innovation.  

What probably changed for me in terms of agile marketing is with meeting Michael because I knew that he was giving the only course in Canada for agile marketing at university and it was. That was a wonderful discovery. 

In the meantime, what I've been doing is what I do now really is teach marketing at Concordia University in Montreal and colleges around Montreal. And I also run my own agency where I consult on agile and digital marketing since 2016. 

As a result, I would say the extra bonus of being involved with the teaching as well as in practice is that you get to meet entrepreneurs and startups each year. So that's definitely keeping me engaged and it also sustains my own personal continuous learning. So that's a nice Bonus.. 

00:05:40 John Cass 

 That's excellent, Tom. Good to hear the background and your journey with our Joel over the years, but tell me about the business culture and structure of business in Canada and how that impacts how open marketers and businesses are to the agile approach. 

00:05:59 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

Well, maybe it's good to put Canada in context. Canada is somewhat unique in two ways. So there's a duality in our businesses, in our culture. So first, we're not a land of large businesses where we have the 3000 large companies, whereas USA would have 43,000. 

And so Canada is really a country of small and medium sized businesses. The SMB's actually represent 99.8% of the companies in Canada. 

And the reason why I'm mentioning this is because there's a unique dynamic of startups and smaller businesses. So we see that duality of the large agility and the nimble agility of smaller businesses. And in terms of geography, what's interesting is that 58% of our businesses are in Ontario and Quebec where Michael and I live. So that's about two out of five in Ontario and one out of five in Quebec. 

So there's a dynamic that's occurring in business and unfortunately in Canada, three more than three out of five do not invest in in research and development. So we're sort of, you know, going along and our productivity is comparable to large nations, but we could do more in terms of innovation so that that's one duality that in a paradox that I'm observing. So for instance in Montreal, we'll see heavy investment in overflowing interest for artificial intelligence. Montreal is an international, if not the world's, hub for artificial intelligence research.  

But on the other hand, you'll see a majority of businesses still struggling with innovation. So this is where it's interesting to see the duality within our cultures.  

The good news is that this year the government is investing in innovation and research and development to drive digital adoption so I can tell you that the last budget announced  help for 160,000 businesses to transform their operations and that might be 13% of businesses, but it sort of paints a really positive picture of what this year and next year could look like as Canadian businesses approach a new agile or potential agile way of operating. 

00:08:14 Michael Seaton 

Sorry, go ahead, Tom. 

00:08:15 John Cass 

No, I was just going to comment that the pandemic has accelerated everything and and helped with that job. What Michael did you have something to add? 

00:08:25 Michael Seaton 

No, I just, I think that that was a great wrap up and I think the reason why Tom and I collaborate so well together is because we kind of see things from different views from both sides of you know the diversity of Canada in terms of our official languages and the markets that we serve. But I think generally you know from my view because I spent a lot of time on the corporate you know side is on the client side in, in larger corporations and I've kind of seen this in terms of Canada and where we're at a little bit different maybe than Tom has cast but it aligns that we have a legacy of kind of being the sales arm of US parents when it's a larger company and in our population base can fit nicely into the corner of California. So culturally I think we've been conservative as a business culture, yet you know, Tom said. I think I heard you say, Tom, maybe not as innovative, but I think we are. I think we punch above our weight class in that if you look at the blackberries of the world and the Shopify. 

00:09:19 Michael Seaton 

And we have a bit of a different business mentality here. It's more Japanese and sort of European where it's based on relationship versus transactions. And I think that's a part of our culture as well. But marketing and creativity, I think overall we've always been strong at as Canadians and ultimately I think this market and the market in Quebec and the market in the US and as well marketers are facing the same struggles.  

So you know to answer the question about how open marketers and businesses are to approach and adopt agile, I think it's well understood, but not like Agile is known, but not necessarily as well as understood as it could be. And the great quote by William Gibson, he's a futurist and author. He said the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed. And I think that sentiment is kind of accurate up here. 

00:10:07 John Cass 

So what is your assessment of the level of adoption of agile marketing and in that climate, by companies in Canada. 

00:10:17 Michael Seaton 

I'll take this one off the top. It's growing. We're seeing it kind of in, in financial services a lot telecom not-for-profit space seeing like new sort of it popping up in healthcare services as well, so you know, those are the types of companies that are adopting and I know one of the case studies in terms of a specific company, an insurance company up here in Canada that started off with it in creative services. They've now, you know, gone sort of enterprise wide with agile marketing at Sun Life. And so it's really been a success story and it's one of those case stories that everyone sort of looks at there's that kind of level of adoption and then others you know not. I won't talk about the frameworks or the ways that people are going about it, but I think that at least at this point. But I think that, you know, the adoption that we're seeing here because of our maybe more conservative business culture, it hasn't dripped down and it's a little bit, a little bit slower, but we're thinking about it and it is evolving quite rapidly. I think it's just a matter of spreading the word to more people and showing what it is as opposed to getting it out of the idea that agile is this buzzword that that really doesn't have an impact on business. 

00:11:27 John Cass 

Do you have anything to add on that, Tom? 

00:11:29 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

Yeah, yeah, I and I agree with Michael from my part. You know, when it comes to Quebec looking into Canada, the rest of Canada, it's what I'm observing is what I call a lot of agile curiosity in Canada.  

So we see interest for not only agile marketing, but HR and accounting. There's a few departments that are exploring the alternatives of becoming agile. And the companies I know in financial services, they're dedicated to build a solid foundation first. So working on the mindset and letting it slowly seep into all of the functions. So their focus is really business agility when it comes to agile marketing will often see people from IT or software development already exposed to agility. 

And some are making a move into marketing. So that's one of the recruiting mechanisms that we're seeing in the spread of agile marketing and these lateral changes are good because it fits with the current changes in marketing. It's becoming more and more technical. So of course it attracts internal candidates who already possess the strong, the Kanban and the agile skills. So that's what I'm seeing from my perspective. 

00:12:37 John Cass 

And can you tell me some more about some of the companies that have adopted agile marketing in Canada? 

00:12:43 Michael Seaton 

Well, instead of identifying the specific companies, I mean there's there's, you know, like I said, the industries, like financial services and telecom, so you've got Bell Canada, that's got pockets where it's popping up, Rogers Communications, a lot of the banks, I know CBC in Canada as well as Bank of Montreal as well. Scotia Bank, I mean every bank has kind of put it in, I think the interesting thing about banks and adoption is a few years ago, they all had agility and you know the mindset kind of training big consulting companies came in. Talk to everybody, all the departments. I think in that case, though they left and then it was left to the individual divisions or departments to take in the cable company term. The cable from the curb into the house. So I think each of the departments, each of the areas were kind of left to decide, should we go about doing this? How do we go about doing this and if it? 

You know, we had the core kind of idea or the notion of training of what agility is, but nobody actually came in and said OK, now your group, this is how you do it so and that. But we're starting to see more of that where the need for training and education and coaching is within those pockets that are starting to emerge out of marketing and they're seeing sort of the light at the end of the tunnel. 

And knowing that they just can't keep pace with what's going on today, so they know they need to change the change management for marketing is a known entity these days and growing. 

00:14:17 John Cass 

It's so interesting to hear about what you say, Michael, regarding financial companies and their adoption, I think you know, the 2008 crisis speed up Banks and financial companies interested in different methodologies and digital transformation, which I think is a, you know it's a it's a change agent for agile. So and we've seen that across other podcasts that I've done around the world. So it's really interesting to hear about the the in depth level on financial side. 

00:14:54 Michael Seaton 

Yeah, they are making strides, but I think, you know, they're extremely large companies. I worked at a bank for well over 10 years and started to digital marketing there. And banks are, you know, historically siloed. And I think this is really one fantastic way of sort of breaking down some of those barriers, the silos will always exist. It's just how wide can we open those doors and, you know, get the cross functionality and get people sitting around the same table and doing what we really should do. These are smart things. It's not like this is an equation, you know, a bitter pill to swallow. This is, this is the smart way to. You know, think and work and share. And once people find it, it does have that that like I call, I like to call it gravitational pull. It just makes sense. 

00:15:40 John Cass 

And Tom, do you have any other examples of companies that have adopted our job marketing in Canada? 

00:15:46 Thomas Hormaza Dow  

Yeah, but coming back to what Michael was saying that I think the banking sector was a natural fit. So we see TD we see, HSBC, with CBC for sure and it makes a lot more sense for them because they've been implementing and assimilating agility through their development of systems and enterprise resource planning tools and so on. So that would seem like a natural fit for agility to then go into marketing as well as sales. So we see those types of titles come popping up quite often at the moment we're seeing larger operations such as retailers like Best Buy, definitely and I want to point them out because I really loved one way that they were advertising roles in Vancouver at Best Buy. They were saying we're hoping that you understand that agility is not a bumper sticker on a car. And I thought that was really very interesting that you're seeing the focus of larger organizations really get the mindset through integrated within their operations and the correct definition is, is now coming up to the surface and the other players are really telecom players like Rogers Communications or Sky Global that I've mean and definitely insurance companies like Sun Life. 

00:17:11 John Cass 

That is an amusing example with Best Buy I think. I think it just shows you that they're they've really adopted the culture. That's kind of interesting. But gentlemen, I think you've done such a great job of giving an overview of what's going on across the industries there in Canada. 

00:17:15 Michael Seaton  

Yeah, yeah. 

00:17:17 Michael Seaton  

Was very good. 

00:17:28 John Cass 

Ada, but how are companies deploying agile? In Canada, you know what? What are the different types of adoption? Have you seen you know is it Scrum, Kanban, hybrid? What's what's the situation that you're seeing? 

00:17:39 Michael Seaton 

I have seen, you know, I think that the work that Agile Sherpas is doing is great. You know, the surveys that they're releasing, I think this year survey with Forrester, it's pretty much the same. I'm seeing a lot of that. I think when you go into a company where they have already a predisposition or they've been working with with scrum, let's say because they've got their, you know, in their development organization that tends to be where people. 

Use as a jump off point or a starting point. So I see a little bit more of that and I think maybe it's it's some of the folks that I've been working with, but it's definitely in line more over it's a hybrid approach. You know taking elements of of Kanban and elements of Scrum and and mixing them up. And you know something of note that I've seen and I think Tom, you touched on in a few moments ago, what is as you pay attention to the space and they see it in larger organizations. I was just speaking with someone last week who is in this mode, where they bring in Scrum Masters or people with PMP background into marketing without the marketing sort of domain knowledge, which I don't. I'd I'd rather teach a marketer how to do this stuff than then bring in. You know, there's a role for coaching and definitely monitoring and helping to consult in the process. But I think a marketer being trained in agile is sometimes better than seeing a scrum master being brought into marketing just for the cohesion and the knowledge that is needed to set it up. But you know, there's always a trade off and that's just one of the things I've seen in the market, actually a few more times more recently than not tend tends to be in larger organizations. 

00:19:12 John Cass 

That that's the point that always worries me, Michael, which is that on that point about teaching marketers agile, which is that if we don't have that marketer mindset. It's difficult to make the case within the marketing community just because methodology is something that's so new to, to marketers. So that's a that's a really interesting point. 

00:19:43 Michael Seaton 

Right. And just so much going on in our space, you know at the end of the day, we're resourceful, we're resilient as marketers. We can make this work, paying attention to the marketing space is something that I think is in the DNA of marketers. I'm not sure. 

You know, you'd have all the testing and experimenting and and kind of bright shiny object like ohh let's test that out and see if that works and provides value in in you know in in our communications in our our efforts and you know converting customers I think marketers know a little bit more of what they want to play with and experiment with. I've seen it work both ways but it tends to. Better you know when you have marketers driving the marketing bus. 

00:20:16 John Cass 

What about you, Tom? What have you seen? What? What do you think companies are actually deploying when they're thinking about the methodology for our? 

00:20:24 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

Job when they're thinking about the methodology, I believe and they really buy into it. I I believe that they my the feedback that I've been getting is that at 1st, at first glance it's very enticing. It's very tempting but it seems like a very big transformation. So the executives that that that I speak with, they will tell me that they want to look at the bigger picture, they want to look at business agility and to determine how it can all work together because. 

They don't only want the opportunities and the transformation, but they also want the economies of scale. So coming back to the earlier point, I think that's one of the reasons why we're seeing, if it is technical marketing, we're seeing some technical people shifting into those functions and it's also a reflection that over the last few years, or maybe the last decade in digital marketing, it was an easy position to access when you were dealing with the digital campaigns, for instance, and you didn't necessarily need to have a marketing person, but now we're also seeing the problem with the idea that we've  ramped up our entire departments with people that are not marketers but are fluent in, let's say, Facebook. Or they're fluent in Google ads so all of this to say that. I believe that the organizations are really looking at the mindset, the introduction and integrated view of agility, and they're also trying to ramp up the areas where the technical aspects can can help. Those people often are coming from IT and technical backgrounds, so therefore they have been exposed to aspects of agility and I am also in in full agreement with Michael. I think it's a, it's a question now of stepping back and looking at who needs. 

00:22:15 Michael Seaton  

Marketing. 

00:22:16 Michael Seaton  

College and then within the technical people who can cross pollinate and help out their colleagues. So I think that mixture in that blend over over the next few years is going to be very interesting. I think that's one of the deployment maybe not by default or maybe just a hybrid version of it, but that's going to occur. 

00:22:36 John Cass 

Right. 

00:22:37 Michael Seaton 

Yeah, definitely. And and one last point is it's really cracking the code of the mindset and the values and the principles it I I think what we also see is you know what everyone sees in this space. 

00:22:46 Michael Seaton 

Where we need a tool 1st and then we can go about doing it or you know it's not the right focus area. So it sort of starts a little bit backwards. So there's there's a little bit of course correction there as well. Once marketers kind of get the mindset and understand the shift that's needed, the tools don't tend to matter. It's figuring that piece out first and then the tools will come. 

00:23:07 John Cass 

Yeah, you know it it it is definitely the case that, you know, you have to understand what the process is and be able to use it. 

00:23:14 John Cass 

Tool is secondary, so in in Canada, what organizations are supporting our job marketing? I mean are you seeing any podcasts, organisations, blogs, etcetera? 

00:23:24 Michael Seaton 

I'm seeing it well, you know the reason why I started the course at University of Toronto is because there was nothing at that time. And I know a bunch of courses and the certification has popped up during that over the past year or so. 

So so you know, Tom and I have collaborated on the most recent version, which was a lot of fun. And, you know, this is is it's done at university as well as privately within organizations, you know, information sessions that are out there, lunch and learns. Just trying to spread the word. But in terms of organizations themselves, I think it's more at the grassroots level. 

In Canada and you know there's an agile community at large in Toronto that when I started showing up a few years ago, I was the only marketer and nobody in those groups had thought of applying it to marketing. 

00:24:07 Michael Seaton 

There's great grassroots groups like Tech Tio, which brings together the technology, data marketing folks within, you know, the on the event calendar. Unfortunately not physical events more recently, but we're hoping to get back to those soon. And then I think outside Canada, it's really it's people like yourself, John. 

00:24:27 Michael Seaton 

In your writings and I also want to call out the agile market community Rachel Chapman, Pam Ashby. Nadine Rochester. Just fantastic information that they keep putting out there and also there's one Michelle Lee Perez hosted hosts something called Agile Marketing Professionals and she had some great stuff and there's there's the books that have come out over the past year. Andrea Fry's book as well as Jim Ewel’s and originally I guess Scott Brinker's book, so I kind of look backwards to some of the the stuff that when I'm spreading the word that that stuff that I learned from. You know, but I'm constantly searching for new stuff. 

00:25:04 John Cass 

What about you, Tom? What are your thoughts on on that question about, you know, the the growing budgeting resources for people in Canada to to look? 

00:25:12 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

To yeah, I I think we are still in the early stages. So the that that community is is growing and enhancing as we go along. 

What we've relied on, I won't speak strictly for for for Michael, but but what I've been exposed to and and what Michael pointed out many times is there's a lot of information out there. So one of them, I, I just want to shout out to the Business Agility Institute, the journal is a very, very good way to actually see what's going out, what's going on internationally, another way that I I keep informed and we keep informed is that we actually reach out to agile marketing educators around the world, so we have contacts in Germany. One of them, you know them. Kevin is is is one of them in Italy, in Ireland. So there's dedicated professors and educators and we learn a lot through reading their research and discussing you know whenever we can together and one another aspect that that Michael and I got involved is we decided to actually engage in guest speaking at university and and produce lunch and learn sessions for corporations and other universities, so it helps to expose individuals to agile marketing and the agile mindset. So ultimately, the reason why we train and teach agile marketing is that we basically recognize that by spreading the word and knowledge we we help to grow and enhance the community whether it's in Canada or internationally. 

00:26:43 John Cass 

So we touched a little bit about education. So what's the state of training or education for agile marketing in Canada? I think that's a a particularly Germain question for you Michael, right.  

00:26:55 Michael Seaton 

Yeah. Listen, it's growing. I think as you know, there's through University of Toronto, that course, and I also offer it privately, it it is picking up that there's not that much else out there right now, Canadian specific that I've seen, I think University of British Columbia has something going on, but I think that's within their data sciences division. So I'm not sure how that works. It's more data and analytics. 

Tom. You know of other aside from you teaching it any other instances? 

00:27:25 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

Well, I mean I I want to point out that Michael is definitely the godfather of Agile marketing education in Canada, so it it can easily be said that six months ago there there was, there was only one course and it was Michael's course at the University of Toronto. And then I think it was late December or early January the University of British Columbia has a has a specific course for data science and and now we're pleased that this year we will have 3 universities in Canada that actually covered the topic of agile marketing. So it is gaining momentum. But the other aspect that probably Michael will agree to is recently I'm not speaking for you, Michael, but you were you were lecturing at the MBA program in Montreal, so I think the invitations and and the word is spreading. Professors in marketing are very interested in what we're doing. 

00:28:19 John Cass 

Well, you know, that's interesting. I'm just reflecting that. Maybe Canada might be ahead of the United States in this cause they haven't actually heard of too many universities that are that are teaching it. It's been more on the private commercial side. So uh, be interesting to see if there are in the any others in other parts of the world that that that are teaching so good to get that insight and perhaps we can everybody else in the rest of the community can learn from you as you as you grow your courses. 

00:28:53 Michael Seaton 

We're learning for the rest of the community and all this stuff that's out there through Jim and Andrea and DC Ackerman and and Scott Brinker, you know we we absorb all of it. And and our goal is to, you know, create the best course we can. And there was a lot of Labor involved in the last iteration. I think, you know, we're continually learning through this as well. So we're kind of practicing agile with our materials on agile as we go forward with it. 

00:29:15 John Cass 

So how are C-Suite leaders reacting to the adoption of our job? Marketing Canada is the more transparency in communication between the marketing department and C-Suite leaders. As you're talking with professionals and colleagues in the industry, what are the, what are they saying? What? What is the the agile mindset doing for that that thinking for C-Suite leaders? 

00:29:39 Michael Seaton 

You know, it is still a buzzword. Like I said earlier at the executive level in certain pockets, so it just needs to be demystified. And once people start to get it, they kind of get it. So there's pockets of understanding, but it's really, I guess, the proper context that's still needed it it. It gets easier as there are examples out there to use such as, you know we mentioned earlier in some of the companies that are using it or industries. 

Like I said earlier as well, awareness that change marketing or change management is needed in marketing is there, but there's uncertainty in how to go about it. So once we show the path ahead, it becomes a bit clearer. You know, I mentioned earlier that a lot of organization, through whatever strategy or HR, you know, imperative, there was a few years ago to sort of get you know everybody understanding what business agility is. I think that left left some gaps right as as the cable to the curb example I gave. So there's an awareness I think. And you know what happens is there tends to be more advocacy with, you know, people learning and internal education. And what I do know is that there is this wider sort of view happening with business agility in, in terms of the air cover that's needed for everything. 

And you know, once you start to point out the ways that it improves collaboration, communication, cross functional work and the value that we deliver, you know, it's hard to say no to and people then get interested in, well, how do I make that work? And that's where the, you know, you start to see eyes widening and. You know. More serious attention to the actual elements that make it work versus just trying to talk about it at a. 

00:31:18 John Cass 

Buzzword level and Tom, what about you? What have you seen from C-Suite leaders reacting to the adoption of our job marketing? 

00:31:25 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

So the executives I speak with are always looking at the bigger picture. As I mentioned before, and their focus is is really business agility. So marketing is A is A is a subset of that, but an important subset because there are large investments in Marketing and there is evidence that some executives are really going beyond the agile curiosity phase. They're taking steps forward with agility and naturally, much of the current efforts around deploying the right mindset in all the roles. I think that that's a big concern. So perhaps it explains the uptake on the on the tools. 

That are being introduced in terms of the actual communication, what we do observe, and I've been told this first hand, is that marketing departments gain better attention levels from the C-Suite if they take the lead in agility and properly address the business inter dependencies. And that's because then they're not just talking about marketing opportunities, but the actual economies of scale that the entire company can achieve. So that's what I'm. 

00:32:23 John Cass 

Seeing so digital transformation, you know many companies are focused on this sort of project and and agile is part of getting there. I think you know, can marketers use wider digital transformation as part of the process of adoption and and and what have you seen in in Canada? 

00:32:40 Michael Seaton 

I'll jump in because you know, in a couple of past roles as well as client work, I've worked on almost pure and applied digital transformation. I'm not just from the marketing side, but from, you know, the overall business sort of scope. Here's my view of marketing. I think we missed the mark in digital or sorry, we missed the mark in marketing. We got caught up with too many of the, you know, the bright shiny object that the technical bells and whistles. And I think we didn't connect that we, you know talked about vanity metrics and you know a lot of work but not really understanding what the outcomes of that work would be. So I think you know, if into Tom's point earlier, if we were able to connect digital transformation and have marketing kind of lead it at that larger business level showing how it's done and being able to you know marketing is that natural sort of collection point in the company where most departments, most areas will stop and say we need something. If we were able to demonstrate a little bit more of the value that we could provide and pull it together versus you know telling folks that oh we got 100 likes on Facebook this week for your post, I think we would have had a little bit more leadership and being able to sit at you know the big table and talk digital transformation across the company and what the needs are and how we can approach it versus just from the marketing perspective. So I think we got a little lost along the way and I think actually one of the things that agile marketing does is it helps us put us back there and speak the language that leaders want here. So I think in digital transformation it's it's never over you know just like.Your product is never is never finished. I think we still need to get at it and get more to the point of where marketing connects with the business versus what we know. Marketers kind of can gravitate to do, which is talk a lot about the marketing stuff. That doesn't really result in anything anyone else cares about other than marketers. 

00:34:31 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

Yeah, I I I love that point from from Michael and he's one of the first who made me observe that the marketing could have led the digital transformation, but in many cases it didn't. And it's recently that I've found a very interesting survey, an example of how agility is being introduced or impacting the marketing through accounting and financial decisions you may have seen this article on the on LinkedIn. It's from alocasia. It's based in British Columbia, Canada and they released a recent benchmark survey regarding priorities, budgeting and planning and marketing, and their survey and data demonstrates that many marketing teams may consider themselves best in class, but they're actually not best in class. The truth is that the number of companies budgeting and planning in an agile fashion is is low, so clearly there is evidence that marketing is not yet fully applying value number six of the Agile marketing manifesto, which is responding to change over following a plan and allocation, shows that because suggests that 20% of marketing plans are adjusted annually and 50% of plans are adjusted on a quarterly basis. So how can marketing state that they have flexible planning or that they are using adaptive and iterative campaigns? My thoughts on this is that the transformation really is is not just a question of the digital adoption but it's in combination with the business agility integration such as marketing, accounting, finance it and HR working closer together. So I think that's by carefully applying that combination. That's how we drive marketing, agility adoption and probably sustain it better. 

00:36:08 John Cass 

Yeah, you raised that point. These are good points and you raised that point about, you know, how marketing may have lost its way on digital transformation. I remember Brian Solis, who was an analyst actually communications or PR, but has also become a strategist and analyst in the community, talking 5-6 years ago about how CMO's should be the leader on digital transformation and he was actually doing surveys about that. But then over the years, it transformed more to CIO's. You know, I I wondered if it was something similar to what happened with social media, where PR came out with social media, but then marketers sort of took it over. But I think we, we lost a little bit. I wonder in in in part as as digital transformation you know really takes hold of companies. With AI and and an automation, if the CMO will take a and the marketing department will take a a bigger role because we're just getting back some, you know, beyond some of those initial technology investments for digital transformation. 

00:37:20 Michael Seaton 

I I you know, I look at it in this way from a transformation standpoint that all the big players out there identified, you know, whether it's culture or strategy or leadership, there's always a a box of new capabilities. And I think that, you know, agility unlocks so many other capabilities and there's no reason why marketing shouldn't have been there in establishing a, you know, a bigger a bigger slice of the pie within transformation. But and that's what I mean by we got lost along the way. We we got more interested in the platforms I think than the people in the processes behind them that make them work better. And that could show that we understood not just the the technology and how to reach our audience but also a lot of the other underpinnings that could make it more of a conveyor belt of business. You know activity that made sense versus just a lot of random stuff chaotically seemed to be going on in marketing and people shrugging their shoulders saying we're not sure what it's actually delivering, where's the ROI? So I I think that's that's you know we're evolving towards that and agility will take us there that much faster. 

00:38:19 John Cass 

And Tom, I was just thinking about that survey that you mentioned for British Columbia, showing that the adoption levels weren't all that great and it it got me to think back to my previous question about C-Suite leaders reacting to the adoption of our job market and the transparency communication between them and the marketing department and and the CMO, do you do you think that that as C-Suite leaders understand more the value of that transparency and understand more what marketing actually does that will will see greater transformation? And and greater adoption by market is because part of it is not just them adopting it, but the rest of the company and the stakeholders that are important to them, enabling them to do. 

00:39:06 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

So well, I I think there's two parts. The the the first part has to do with any responsible executive of course is looking at agility with some level of curiosity and and even maybe some excitement and the reason why I mentioned that marketing people must present agility, as a business, interdependencies and methods to seek out opportunities as well as producing economies of scale, because this way they are actually speaking the language of business. The language of C-Suite. So that's one aspect. And I think as CMO's, they're usually well versed in this of course, but as more people directory level for instance, mid management as they start to formulate business value and also benefits for customers that translate into business financial value. Then of course, all of that attention is going to bubble up. But the other aspect is I think we have to be mindful of how COVID is has changed the last year. So we can't really be surprised there. There have been some hesitations because of the circumstances and a good way to demonstrate. 

That is just to follow the money to understand the process of adoption and when I say follow the money, it's to it's to determine how the money is being used in the companies at the moment. So because of COVID, it's not surprising that we are in a capital expenditure moment instead of operational expenditures. So the way that we can tell that this is occurring is that we do observe more investments in equipment and tools to drive digital transformation for instance. But that's also why I expect that it will translate next year into people and training investments going back to the OpEx investments and that will include Agility and agile marketing. 

00:40:55 John Cass 

That's a really good point. That's a really good point. Yeah, you you might build the infrastructure and and especially over the last year, I think we've seen such an acceleration and and a greater understanding of why you need it. If you're going to be able to survive in the in this situation just because you've built the infrastructure doesn't mean that you people know what to do with it. So I think I think that's a good prediction for the future. So on that topic, what do you think is the future for agile marketing in Canada? 

00:41:26 Michael Seaton 

I would say it's extremely bright, it's it's growing every day I come across something new, someone else who's talking about it, I I would cast it this way that there General Eric Shinseki in the US Army said if you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less. And I think that's that's, you know, the sort of operating mode that we know change is needed and more people are waking up and seeing that it can actually be achieved and there's a path forward and it's called agility. It's called business agility, agile marketing and you know they're getting more curious to figure out, what it actually is and how they can use it, and that's just an amazing, you know, thing that's happened during the pandemic. It seems to have picked up that pace over the past year. It could be coinciding with, you know, more information coming out from the sources that we spoke of earlier. And just having that much more maturity. But I think it's super right. 

00:42:25 John Cass 

What about you, Tom? What do you think is the future for agile marketing in Canada? 

00:42:29 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

Well, I think it it it Michael is exactly right. And and I believe it's the environment and the circumstances that really slowed down, let's say what we were supposed to see in 2021. Was supposed to occur in 2020 and the reason why I state that with such conviction is that I've been tracking a little bit some of the the employment data for agility, both in the technical sector in the marketing sector. I don't have any hard data to go to go on. But what I do see is the intention for ramping up resources in agile marketing in the last quarter of 2021, so it it sort of fits with the hypothesis that that I'm building that, perhaps it is the investment in the infrastructure that needed to proceed that perhaps it's also a better understanding at a time for executives to digest, understand and and decide. But that points to a very bright future as Michael indicated. 

00:43:31 Michael Seaton 

Just one other thing, I think that's super important and and just skip my mind. But I was talking with it about it with someone the other day is we're starting to see that demographic shift happen. The boomers kind of finally stepping down and new new folks getting into, you know, positions of leadership and through that there are, you know new ways that folks are looking at things, new angles, they want to approach it with and it's not about the status quo traditional way of doing things that you know we're going on with predecessors for for many years. So I think that is also you're starting to see a little bit more of a demographic shift happening and very hopeful that you know new new blood and new thinking will will drive you know really sort of fever pitch for this stuff in the near future. 

00:44:14 John Cass 

Well, Michael, Tom, thank you so much for joining us on the the Agile Marketing podcast. We really appreciate it in the on the state of agile marketing in Canada. 

00:44:24 Michael Seaton 

Wonderful talking to you. Thank you so much, John. 

00:44:26 Thomas Hormaza Dow 

Thank you, John. Much appreciated. 

00:44:28 John Cass 

Thanks for joining us on the deep dive into agile marketing and the state of agile marketing in Canada with John Cass. My thanks to Michael and Tom and we'll see you next time. 

00:44:42 announcer 

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