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Q&A with David Spark, Content Marketer and Producer, Managing Editor at Spark Media Solutions

MEDIA 7 | November 7, 2019

David Spark, Content Marketer and Producer, Managing Editor at Spark Media Solutions is a veteran tech journalist and founder of Spark Media Solutions. He’s been the creative director, producer, voice, and face of many content marketing campaigns for a number of Fortune 1000 B2B tech companies.

MEDIA 7: What part of your background, personality, experience, or skill set makes you a particularly effective content marketing professional?
DAVID SPARK:
• Veteran technology journalist (worked across all media)
• Former advertising exec
• Former standup comedian and comedy writer

M7: What inspires you to come up with new ideas for blog posts, campaigns, tech, and media podcasts?
DS: Inspiration is dependent on the project, the output, and the medium. But in general, I’m inspired by finding a topic/question that the audience will eagerly want to answer. Two of our most popular examples:

CISO Series – This is a media channel we started in October 2018 that we tout as couples counseling for security practitioners and vendors. We have such a passionate audience that they’re submitting a steady flow of questions, commentary, and games for our two podcasts. The CISO Series has provided the forum for our audience to be inspired.

“Man on the street” videos – It’s our most popular video format. We’ve produced close to 200 of these and my goal with these videos is to come up with a question where the first reaction is to laugh and then an eagerness about responding. It could be a challenge question (e.g., “What would happen if you left your mobile phone at home for an entire day?”, or something completely inappropriate for the environment (e.g., asking “What’s Your Password?” at a security conference).


"This whole attitude of “let’s try it with one and see how it works out” is a failed strategy out of the gate."

M7: What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in the content marketing space since you first started in Chicago as a comedy writer for The Second City? 
DS: Not related to comedy, but the biggest change I’ve seen in content marketing was that the work moved in house. We started business in 2007 and most of my sales pitches were trying to explain the value of content marketing which at the time I referred to as brand journalism. By 2012 all of our current and past clients finally got it and stopped outsourcing the majority of their content marketing efforts. That forced us in 2013 to change our business model to specialize in certain industry sectors and be more product-focused. People now hire us because they want our style of production and access to our industry connections specifically in B2B tech and cybersecurity.

M7: As a Content Marketer & Managing Editor at Spark Media Solutions, how much content are you personally creating versus managing?
DS: I’m doing the majority of it, but I bring in audio editors, designers, video editors, and now I have a sponsored segment producer for the CISO Series. I’m constantly pitched, but no one ever actually pitches in our style. I reject all offers for guest posts. I’m extremely protective of my brand.


"The only way you create great content is you have to make a lot of bad content first."

M7: What are the most valuable lessons you’ve learned about content creation/management over the last few years?
DS: The only way you create great content is you have to make a lot of bad content first. Nobody is amazing out of the gate. This is especially true about video production. For those getting into video, I highly recommend producing home movies first. The reason is those first videos will be awful, but your audience (your family) will love the videos no matter how bad they are.

M7: Could you tell us more about your book, “Three Feet from Seven Figures: One-on-One Engagement Techniques to Qualify More Leads at Trade Shows”?
DS: A huge majority of the work we do is at trade shows where we see a lot of behavior that is far from optimal.
At big trade shows, companies are dropping six to seven figures to have a presence at the conference. The cost per hour to be on the floor is extraordinary. So much is spent on booth production, travel, and staffing, but it appears nothing is spent on training people on how to actually behave at a trade show. It pains me when I see booth staffers staring at their phones, turning their back to the floor, or getting in huddles and talking with fellow coworkers. All these behaviors scream, “We don’t want to talk with you, potential customer who is walking past us just three feet away.”
The book offers techniques on how to engage with random people as they walk by your booth and quickly qualify or disqualify them.
The engagement techniques from the book became very popular, so we built upon them and made them usable by anyone in a training program we created called “Business Networking Pickup Lines”.


"In the entire history of media, with the exception of feature movies, no media brand becomes successful with one magazine issue, one radio show, one article, or one of anything."

M7: How has Spark Media Solutions been experimenting with new approaches/content formats/platforms? Are there any campaigns/programs you can give as examples?
DS: Our survival is based on coming up with different media products and one of our core philosophies is “single effort/many units of content.” So if we’re hired to produce one video we’ll pitch more assets such as let’s turn it into highlights clips, transcripts, memes, photos, and more.
Here’s a good case study we did on a product we created called “Crowd-tooned”.
And here’s one of our most popular articles that speaks to our most popular production model: “21 Tips for Producing Funny ‘Man on the Street’ Videos”.

M7: What are the biggest mistakes you see new content marketers making consistently?
DS: Thinking you can be successful with one of anything. This whole attitude of “let’s try it with one and see how it works out” is a failed strategy out of the gate. In the entire history of media, with the exception of feature movies, no media brand becomes successful with one magazine issue, one radio show, one article, or one of anything. Why does a company that has no media experience whatsoever think they’re actually going to pull off what’s never happened in the history of media ever?


ABOUT SPARK MEDIA SOLUTIONS

Spark Media Solutions is a B2B content marketing agency for the tech industry. Content marketers that have perfected the model of building influencer relations through content. When dedicated to building an editorial voice, our clients have become the leading corporate media brand for their industry. We've worked with companies such as HP, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Juniper Networks, Symantec, Indycar, LinkedIn, Citrix, IDG, Dice, and many more. Our most popular service is live event reporting and production.

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Our 160,000 consultants embrace an open way of working, bringing a diverse set of voices, experiences and technologies like Hybrid Cloud and AI together to accelerate business transformation. Supported by IBM Garage, our proven co-creation method, we bring speed and scale to innovation with an enduring ecosystem of technology leaders to deliver solutions for some of the world’s most complex challenges. We collaborate closely, ideate freely, and apply breakthrough innovations that drive sustainable change and re-invent how business gets done. Find out more at IBM.com/consulting About Renault Group Renault Group is at the forefront of a mobility that is reinventing itself. Strengthened by its alliance with Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, and its unique expertise in electrification, Renault Group comprises 4 complementary brands - Renault, Dacia, Alpine and Mobilize - offering sustainable and innovative mobility solutions to its customers. 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SOFTWARE AND TECHNOLOGY

Shippeo Unveils Transportation Process Automation™, the Future of Transportation Visibility, to Boost Supply Chain Resilience

businesswire | June 05, 2023

Shippeo, a leading provider of superior multimodal shipment visibility, today unveiled Transportation Process Automation™ (TPA™), an innovation set to transform automation in supply chain management, at the Gartner® Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo™ 2023 conference in Barcelona, Spain. With Shippeo’s high-quality real-time transportation visibility data as its foundation, the innovation unlocks new ways of anticipating and mitigating risks, collaborating amongst teams, and automating end-to-end supply chain transportation processes, leading to greater levels of performance, resilience, and customer satisfaction. TPA™-powered solutions will be delivered with launch partners Google Cloud, e2open, IBM Consulting, Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, and 4flow, across all transportation modes and geographies. “For supply chains to thrive and be resilient in the increasingly complex, volatile and uncertain world we live in, transportation needs to be more agile than ever,” says Dr. Anand Medepalli, Chief Product Officer at Shippeo. “To be more agile means having the right information just in time to make decisions, but the problem is that such information either isn’t available or is siloed in other parts of the business. TPA™ bridges these data silos and orchestrates transportation processes all the way from planning through to payments. Underpinned by Shippeo’s high-quality visibility data, TPA™ provides supply chain organizations with a framework to reduce latency, optimize actions, thus allowing users to act on information and make decisions with unprecedented agility.” Renault Group at the forefront of the TPA™ revolution The new and revolutionary Supply Chain Control Tower, developed by global automotive leader Renault Group to manage their inbound logistics across their 35 plants worldwide is an example of how Shippeo’s real-time visibility data empowers new ways of anticipating and mitigating risks on a collaborative platform. Renault Group partnered with Shippeo and Google Cloud to build this cutting edge innovation. “Our Renault Group Supply Chain Control Tower, underpinned by Google Cloud’s AI technology and powered by Shippeo’s visibility data, is helping us be more efficient, cost-effective and provide more consistent service levels for our customers,” says Jean-François Salles, VP Supply Chain at Renault Group. “Take a typical disruption scenario for instance, where a plant is waiting for the delivery of parts, but the transport is delayed. Before, a late delivery meant missed delivery slots, high dwell times, penalties, unhappy customers, or even a production line halt. Now our supply chain control tower helps our production managers avoid all this with timely predictions and just-in-time recommendations to mitigate such disruptions.” The Renault Group Supply Chain Control Tower mitigates the disruption in two steps. First, for all the parts that are being transported, the system produces alerts if their estimated time of arrival is forecasted to happen after the parts shortage date and time in the plant. Second, the platform uses advanced AI and orchestration intelligence to recommend next best actions, with estimated cost data to help the users make the best decision to keep production lines moving. “This dramatically reduces stress levels for our staff, and takes away the anxiety around making a wrong decision,” continues Salles. “We have also reduced expedites, line stops, and unfinished vehicles by 50% since implementing the Supply Chain Control Tower.” Google Cloud’s Director of Global Strategic Industries, Transportation, Logistics and Supply Chain, Louisa Loran, sees the potential in combining the power of cloud and AI to bring efficiencies to global supply chains. “We look at supply chains through the lens of data, and bringing data silos together on a cloud-based platform is the first step to help organizations increase visibility and remove manual processes,” says Loran. “What’s so inspiring about working with Shippeo is their openness to collaboration, their respect of neutrality, and willingness to shape solutions together. This attitude is important in their ambitions to help leading companies automate transportation processes across not only organizations, but also with trading partners across the entire supply chain ecosystem.” Next generation capabilities rely on high quality transportation visibility data Shippeo Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Pierre Khoury, believes TPA™ is the next revolution in supply chain management. “The future is exciting, it’s only the beginning, and the possibilities are endless. This vision is only possible with a foundation of reliable and complete, high quality transportation visibility data, which continues to be our North Star. Technologies like control towers and digital twins need high quality visibility data to enable TPA™ and we are proud of supporting Renault Group in their control tower journey.” Shippeo continues to lead the industry with the highest scores in analyst reports and customer surveys for data quality, implementation, and integration tools. “Since our founding, we have been helping organizations get more value from transportation visibility and now with TPA™ we aim to fast track them to resilient supply chains,” continues Khoury. The TPA™ solution builds on Shippeo’s existing machine learning and workflow automation capabilities, that enable proactive carrier and customer communication, delay mitigation resolution and accelerated pre-invoicing. “We have been recently introducing workflow management, automation and advanced collaboration features in our platform,” continues Medepalli, “and over the coming releases, our customers will see us continue our momentum with increased automation capabilities in our platform.” Shippeo continues to be recognized by analysts and customers Shippeo was recently recognized in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Real-time Transportation Visibility Platforms. The company also has a 95% willingness to recommend rating on Gartner Peer Insights™, receiving the overall rating of 4.8/5*. “We could not be happier to see this level of recognition from our customers, reassuring us that we’re delivering the best value and meaningful innovation,” says Khoury, adding “TPA™ is such an innovation and we invite our customers and supply chain organizations to join us on this journey to Transportation Process Automation™, just as Renault Group and others have already done.” TPA™ launch partners TPA™ animates the supply chain ecosystem and, for this reason, Shippeo has joined forces with launch partners Google Cloud, e2open, Snowflake, IBM Consulting and 4flow, to bring joint TPA™-powered solutions to market. Google Cloud Google Cloud accelerates every organization’s ability to digitally transform its business. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google’s cutting-edge technology – all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems. 4flow 4flow is a leading global provider of supply chain consulting, software and fourth-party logistics (4PL) services. Their end-to-end solutions help customers optimize their supply chains to be prepared for the future. Kai Althoff, Chief Executive Officer: “For many years, we have been strongly driven by the vision of achieving greater agility in end-to-end supply chains and transportation networks. We are thrilled to deepen our partnership with Shippeo to bring TPA™ to market. This initiative will significantly improve the productivity of value chains.” e2open The e2open supply chain platform is helping the world’s largest companies transform the way they make, move, and sell goods and services. They offer an integrated, singular platform to help organizations manage their extended supply chain end-to-end and respond rapidly to challenges in real time. Pawan Joshi, Executive Vice President, Product Management & Strategy: “Transportation visibility is a very important ingredient in determining how operations at origin and destination should be ‘optimized.’ Shippeo’s emphasis on data quality and a rapidly growing carrier network is foundational to innovations such as TPA™ and we look forward to continuing our deep collaboration with Shippeo to bring breakthrough innovations for our clients.” Snowflake Snowflake enables organizations to mobilize their data with Snowflake’s Data Cloud. Customers use the Data Cloud to unite siloed data, discover and securely share data, and execute diverse analytic workloads. Snowflake recently launched its Manufacturing Data Cloud, enabling organizations to build a data foundation for their business, improve supply chain performance, and power smart manufacturing initiatives in today’s digital-industrial world. Tim Long, Global Head of Manufacturing at Snowflake: “Having recently launched our Manufacturing Data Cloud, which is aimed at improving supply chain performance and powering smart manufacturing, we see significant opportunity in better leveraging visibility data to improve supply chain processes. High-quality data, delivered at the right moment and cadence, is foundational to Shippeo’s exciting TPA™ vision. Snowflake’s Manufacturing Data Cloud will help Shippeo deliver on this vision by offering the performance, flexibility, and scalability needed to manage their data across the supply chain ecosystem securely.” IBM Consulting IBM Consulting helps organizations transform everything from business strategy and experience design to technology and operations. This includes building resilient, sustainable supply chains that prepare your business for the future of work, creating greater transparency and improving employee and customer experiences. IBM supply chain consultants apply technology, domain and industry expertise to help clients build resilient, agile and sustainable supply chains for the future. Hermann Adjou, Executive Partner in charge of the Supply Chain & Operations Practice in France: “IBM Consulting is at the forefront of data-led insights, process automation and intelligent workflows as key levers to build supply chain agility and resiliency. We are excited to collaborate with Shippeo to bring their capabilities to scale for our clients, helping them drive efficiency gains and transform the way they do business.” Discover TPA™ at Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo™ 2023 Join us on June 6th at the Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo™ 2023 conference in Barcelona, Spain to hear from Quynh-Nhu Neve, Supply Chain General Manager of Process Engineering for Parts Logistics at Renault Group, along with Dr. Anand Medepalli, Chief Product Officer at Shippeo, as they discuss TPA™ and Renault’s innovative visibility-powered control tower. About Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo conference delivers must-have insights, strategies and frameworks for chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) and supply chain leaders to think big and drive real impact within their organizations. Join a global community of CSCOs and supply chain executives in 2023. About Shippeo Shippeo is a global leader in real-time multimodal transportation visibility, helping major shippers and logistics service providers operate more resilient, sustainable, and customer-centric supply chains. This is made possible with highly accurate real-time operational visibility and Transport Process Automation™ to streamline transportation processes, reduce latency and improve operational efficiency. Their Multimodal Visibility Network integrates with more than 1,000 TMS, telematics and ELD systems, enabling Shippeo’s platform to provide instant access to real-time shipment tracking across all transport modes, in a single portal, through an intuitive user experience. A proprietary and industry-leading machine learning algorithm offers unmatched ETA accuracy, allowing supply chain companies to quickly anticipate problems, proactively alert customers, efficiently manage exceptions with collaborative workflows, and accurately measure CO2 and GHG emissions from supply chain transport. Hundreds of customers, including global brands like Ahold Delhaize, AkzoNobel, Amazon, Avery Dennison, Carrefour, Coca-Cola HBC, Jaguar Land Rover, Heineken, Kuehne+Nagel, L’Oréal, Renault Group, Sabic, Saint-Gobain, Siemens Energy and XPO Logistics, trust Shippeo to track more than 32 million shipments per year across 110 countries. About 4flow 4flow is a leading global provider of supply chain consulting, software and fourth party logistics (4PL) services. 4flow consulting offers one-stop management consulting, concept development, and implementation support for logistics and supply chain management. 4flow software develops state-of-the-art software for supply chain network and transportation optimization. As a neutral 4PL, 4flow management handles the continued planning, optimization, and operation of customers’ supply chain networks. 4flow research develops practical innovations and conducts supply chain research relevant to the industry. Learn more at www.4flow.com or on LinkedIn. About e2open E2open is the connected supply chain software platform that enables the world’s largest companies to transform the way they make, move, and sell goods and services. With the broadest cloud-native global platform purpose-built for modern supply chains, e2open connects more than 420,000 manufacturing, logistics, channel, and distribution partners as one multi-enterprise network tracking over 14 billion transactions annually. Our SaaS platform anticipates disruptions and opportunities to help companies improve efficiency, reduce waste, and operate sustainably. Moving as one.™ Learn More: www.e2open.com. E2open and “Moving as one.” are the registered trademarks of E2open, LLC. All other trademarks, registered trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. About IBM Consulting IBM Consulting is the catalyst for business transformation. With deep industry expertise spanning strategy, experience design, technology, and operations, we have become the trusted partner to over 3,000 of the world’s most innovative and valuable companies. Our 160,000 consultants embrace an open way of working, bringing a diverse set of voices, experiences and technologies like Hybrid Cloud and AI together to accelerate business transformation. Supported by IBM Garage, our proven co-creation method, we bring speed and scale to innovation with an enduring ecosystem of technology leaders to deliver solutions for some of the world’s most complex challenges. We collaborate closely, ideate freely, and apply breakthrough innovations that drive sustainable change and re-invent how business gets done. Find out more at IBM.com/consulting About Renault Group Renault Group is at the forefront of a mobility that is reinventing itself. Strengthened by its alliance with Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, and its unique expertise in electrification, Renault Group comprises 4 complementary brands - Renault, Dacia, Alpine and Mobilize - offering sustainable and innovative mobility solutions to its customers. Established in more than 130 countries, the Group has sold 2.1 million vehicles in 2022. It employs nearly 111,000 people who embody its Purpose every day, so that mobility brings people closer. Ready to pursue challenges both on the road and in competition, Renault Group is committed to an ambitious transformation that will generate value. This is centered on the development of new technologies and services, and a new range of even more competitive, balanced and electrified vehicles. In line with environmental challenges, the Group’s ambition is to achieve carbon neutrality in Europe by 2040.

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SUPPLY CHAIN

AFS Logistics recognized with two accolades for technology platform

businesswire | May 31, 2023

AFS Logistics a non-asset based, non-asset biased third party logistics (3PL) provider, announces it has been named a top 3PL technology company by Inbound Logistics magazine, with its AFSmart suite recognized as a best-in-class solution. AFSmart Audit, one of the tools that makes up the integrated AFSmart package, is also a CIO 100 award winner, named by CIO.com to its annual list of 100 innovative IT solutions that deliver business value. “Logistics operations face significant challenges, from constant disruptions and complicated pricing to lack of visibility and invoice overcharges,” says Nathan Johnson, Chief Information Officer, AFS Logistics. “AFSmart is the robust technology suite that logistics professionals need to handle logistics data with the level of speed required by today’s complex market.” The technology suite offers responsive controls, clear visuals and intuitive navigation and search functions for instant access to relevant data, presented through a unified, cohesive user experience. The AFSmart platform consists of several cloud-native tools designed to help logistics professionals automate their operations and more effectively manage their logistics networks across modes of transportation. AFSmartAudit (CIO 100 winner) – Freight audit and payment (FAP) processing solution that provides a comprehensive view of freight expenses across modes to uncover and resolve overpayments, billing errors and discrepancies, while identifying new opportunities to streamline processes. AFSmartTMS – Transportation management system (TMS) that allows users to stop wasting time searching for critical information and instead rely on an intuitive, state-of-the-art portal that fully integrates with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to manage everyday freight tasks in one location, from creating quotes and bill of lading documents to confirming shipment information and filing claims. AFSmartTrack – Provides full shipment visibility with real-time updates and analytics for all inbound and outbound freight, equipping users with the most informed perspective for critical logistics decisions. Users can get regular, daily reports with key metrics to help manage operations with greater efficiency. AFSmartClaim – Automates the creation, tracking and management of overage, shortage and damage (OS&D) claims for faster, easier resolutions and access to additional LTL coverage. Integration with AFSmartTMS allows for easy retrieval of key documents, information, contacts and more. AFSmartAnalytics – Provides easy access to a comprehensive range of critical metrics through standard or customized reports, including high-level aggregate data sets and transactional metrics to track lanes, carriers, accessorials, spend, service levels and more. About AFS Logistics AFS Logistics helps more than 1,800 companies across more than 35 countries drive sustained savings and operational improvements, while turning their logistics operations into competitive, customer-centric differentiators. As a non-asset based and non-asset biased 3PL, AFS provides a range of logistics services, featuring freight and parcel audit, parcel cost management, LTL cost management and transportation management, which includes freight brokerage and freight forwarding. Founded in 1982 and employing a team of more than 380 logistics teammates in eight major locations across the U.S. and Canada, AFS is regularly part of the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies.

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LOGISTICS

OneRail Launches Internship Program to Foster Next Generation of Supply Chain Professionals

businesswire | June 07, 2023

OneRail, a leading provider of solutions in last mile omnichannel fulfillment, is debuting its new paid internship program with the aim to provide real-world professional development and create more opportunities for undergraduate students from both local and out-of-state colleges and universities. OneRail is excited to welcome the inaugural cohort of 10 interns to its Orlando headquarters in SouthPark Center. Undergraduate students and/or recent graduates have been hired for a 10-week program in several departments, including operations, product, marketing, sales, software development and IT. “This internship program is not only integral to building our talent pipeline, but also delivers on our company’s core value of being a catalyst for transformation in the industry,” said OneRail Founder & CEO Bill Catania. “Individuals who are just starting their careers bring unique and fresh perspectives that will help us accomplish our mission of being customer centric and a trusted partner by providing value and smarter logistics for our customers and partners.” Each intern will be paired with their corresponding department leader to serve as a mentor throughout the program. OneRail is providing interns the opportunity to work on challenging projects, as well as developing their own personal growth goals and in-demand industry skills. Throughout the summer, interns will receive mentorship, become familiar with every aspect of OneRail’s business and network with industry leaders. In fact, a core component of the intern program is making a difference by serving the Orlando community. The summer intern cohort will engage in a group project where they set goals and plans that will ultimately benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities. OneRail would like to lift up the organization’s mission by raising funds to help local families. Company culture and recruitment continue to be a top priority at the startup, as the summer intern program arrives on the heels of OneRail being named among Inc. magazine’s Best Workplaces 2023, as well as being named No. 23 on Forbes’ 2023 list of America’s Best Startup Employers. OneRail was also ranked No. 48 on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. OneRail will also host Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 interns, with a focus on local hires in support of boosting the Orlando economy. Each of those programs will be 10 weeks. Those interested in a career at OneRail should visit the company’s careers page and stay connected with OneRail on LinkedIn. Future internship programs are slated for the fall and will be posted later this summer. About OneRail OneRail is a leading omnichannel fulfillment solution pairing best-in-class software with logistics as a service to provide Amazon-level dependability and speed to help businesses meet their delivery promise. With a real-time connected network of 12 million drivers, OneRail matches the right vehicle for the right delivery so brands lower expenses and increase capacity to rapidly scale their businesses. This people-plus-platform approach features a 24/7 USA-based exceptions team who maintain a 99% on-time delivery rate. OneRail was recently named on Inc. magazine’s Best Workplaces 2023, ranked No. 23 on Forbes’ list of America’s Best Startup Employers and No. 48 on the Inc. 5000.

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