Kate Crane: Okay, I want to introduce to the podcast Brooks Miller. She is the executive vice president of creators at Edelman and United Entertainment Group Where she leads the creator strategy some of the world's most recognized brands? Before that she was building something remarkable at Twitter ⁓ Heading up creator content strategy before the ⁓ was cut when mr. Musk took over the company She's lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, and is now back in New York. She's made some big moves professionally and personally, often at the same time. also someone ⁓ had the privilege of knowing for ⁓ many moons since college. ⁓ been really fun to watch her career and watch her make these big steps. So welcome, Brooks. ⁓ Welcome to the first episode of Direction Over Perfection. This podcast exists for one reason, to help young adults stop waiting for the perfect plan and to start making real moves. guest on the show ⁓ a path that surprised them ⁓ everyone is better for it.
Brooks Miller: Thank you. It's always so strange to have someone like read you your bio. thank you for doing that. You didn't make it very painful. It was nice.
Kate Crane: Yeah, no, know it is. It's, you know, get ready for the compliments. So I want to dive into this conversation because there's so many steps and pivots when we talk about your career. Let's start with what you're doing today before we go back to the beginning. So what is your role today in your own words and what is your day to day look like?
Brooks Miller: Yes.
Kate Crane: Most of us were handed some version of a ladder. ⁓ to college, pick a major, get a keep climbing.
Brooks Miller: Yes.
Kate Crane: But the people I admire most did something different. They climbed sideways. They took the detour. They built careers that looked nothing like the plan and everything like them. That's what this show is about. So I'm excited to welcome today my friend Brooks Miller.
Brooks Miller: Yeah, so what's, and we will cover this because people actually know what creator marketing is now and they didn't know what it was when I first started doing it. But so I run the creator marketing department ⁓ Edelman ⁓ and parts of United Entertainment Group. Edelman's a huge PR firm. Actually, we'd probably call ourselves a comms firm, ⁓ but a legacy in PR, it's the privately owned PR company in the world. And we have a creator's department. So what that actually means is we pair internet creators slash influencers, if that's what you call them with brands. So if this isn't a client of ours, but if Coca-Cola wanted to work with someone who is really influential on Instagram, they would come to us. Who would it be? What are they going to do? What are they going to say? What kind of co-product are they going to promote? And we go find those people, broker those deals. brief them on the product, send them the Coca-Cola bottle and work on the actual creative with them and help them post it and then report on it. That's kind of like the rinse and repeat of what we do. And so I do that on a number of like our global clients at Edelman and then all the clients at United Entertainment Group, which is an agency within Edelman.
Kate Crane: That is so cool. I have so many questions around the business, but I'm going to like kind of try to rest back my business brain for a minute and just talk about the story. That's so fun. ⁓
Brooks Miller: It's Yeah. It is fun. It's really fun. I work with like a lot of really highly online, but like super creative people who've opened up their lives on social. It's really neat.
Kate Crane: So you're thinking about the entire cycle, or you're managing a team that's doing the whole cycle, or are you thinking mostly about the individual and the brand?
Brooks Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I mean, I've done this for a very long time. One of the oldest dinosaurs in the biz. used to run the actual campaign. like talk to the client, find the creator, tell them how much money we had or didn't have and all of those pieces. And now ⁓ manage teams that do that and ensure that we're winning new business. do a lot of new business pitching ⁓ then making sure that we have the right tools. ⁓ have the right, ⁓ information and we have the right. staffing and a lot of the more like logistical and managerial pieces.
Kate Crane: ⁓ And last, like, I just can't help myself. How big is your team right now?
Brooks Miller: Good, please. It's big. globally, we have almost 200 people. It's a lot. And I'm not the global head of creator. That's my boss. And he was my boss at Twitter. And I love him so much. But yeah, globally, we have like 200 people in the US. I'm not even going to pretend how many are in the US. The lion's share of them are in the US. We're all across the globe. We're in Latin America, in APAC, in EMEA, and Canada, and...
Kate Crane: What?
Brooks Miller: America and all around America. ⁓ So that's it's about 200 people. You know, it's really fun.
Kate Crane: I have so many questions. Okay, now I want to go back to the beginning. What was your first job, like high school or college or whatever? Like what was your first thing you did for monies?
Brooks Miller: Okay. It's so funny, don't know if you know this, did you know I was a child actor?
Kate Crane: No, I mean I knew the pageants, which sorry, spoiler for everybody else, so fun.
Brooks Miller: That's okay. It's part of the story. all tracks. No, I was a child actor. ⁓ mean, like in Dallas, so it wasn't like I was on Disney Channel. But ⁓ basically, my mom and dad are both really creative people. My dad's a musician, my mom's an actress. And I the performing arts bug big time. My sister is like an athlete who's now a doctor. ⁓ And was like, razzle dazzle.
Kate Crane: Whoa, wait, where?
Brooks Miller: But yeah, so I was a child actor. got an agent in Dallas, Texas, Ken Dawson Agency. I would go down like voiceovers and I'd book industrials, local commercials and local theater as a ⁓ My first were like, yeah, I was a child. Like getting a paycheck, it was wild.
Kate Crane: That was so great. I mean, I there was some production.
Brooks Miller: my biggest booking was senior year of high I booked an ABC family movie called The Initiation of on YouTube and went to Shreveport for a week ⁓ and shot there. ⁓
Kate Crane: Mmm.
Brooks Miller: and hated every second of it. And my parents were like, so you should not be an actor. I was like, I don't think I should be an actor either.
Kate Crane: Yeah. What did that teach you about and working and the of money? Did that start at an early age then?
Brooks Miller: Yes, yes. And my mom says that constantly that I still have my lunch money from third grade. It really taught me the value of earning money. it sparked, as sad as it is to say, a love to work. I love working and feeling like I'm making something and doing something. And then it's really interesting. I'm sure we'll get to this. Being an actor for so many years as a child, I had so many memories of auditioning. And then when I moved over into advertising, I realized that I was on the other side of the glass from the actors who were watching them audition. I was like, this is so bizarre. I just jumped seats in the same room. So it definitely felt like up a piece, but I loved learning how to work and like remembering my lines and showing up on time and like having my card with me and my resume and going in by myself and. learning all those skills was really cool at such a age.
Kate Crane: Okay, well, can't wait to make that arc of like the beginning to the other side, because there's so many stops on the screen. Yeah, totally. Okay, so, I mean, I know the answer to these questions, but for our listeners and our watchers, where do you go to school and what do you study?
Brooks Miller: Yeah, make this like cinematic, please. I went to the University of Texas at Austin, which is related to the acting thing. I will actually loop that back because every college I was going to go to other than UT, I auditioned for. So I was going to be an actor. And after this experience in Shreveport, not that it was like a bad experience. I was just like, oh, this isn't my passion. Like I got into USC acting program, NYU, and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. And I had gotten into Texas and I was like, I want to do that. I want to do big school, sorority, football, and then figure out my life from there. So I went to Texas the kind of like last minute decision, which I'm glad I made, and I ended up majoring in advertising because it felt very familiar. It was like, okay, this is creative, but I'll ⁓ have and a 401k and like a real job and get to work on a team and not be like sitting in a trailer hoping to get my next gig. it felt like kind of a perfect in-between.
Kate Crane: Yeah, that's so great. And then how did you, tell me about like internships before school. How did you get that first job out of school?
Brooks Miller: Yeah, it fun. God, it was funny. My husband and I were just talking about this because he was in the Texas program as well. I had like a number of random internships throughout college. I worked at the Texas basketball office. Who knew? I worked at Paper City Magazine, which is a small local magazine in Dallas. And all of those were through friends of friends and connections. And I was a camp counselor. did all types of stuff. Nanny. But my first big internship post college, because I graduated in 2010, so post bubble times, you were probably like 2008, so like super fun time to graduate. ⁓ Yay. So were the only way to get a job. ⁓ And I got internship at the Richards Group in Dallas, which is an advertising agency in Dallas. I think they go by TRG now.
Kate Crane: lay off Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: And I was really excited because it was like the agency. And I like interviewed and worked and found Rex and did all the things and got there. And I was like, this is not the right place for me. ⁓ no. I think something you don't realize when you're young like that is ⁓ ⁓ getting a degree in advertising. I'm going to go work at an ad agency. ⁓ don't think about the fact that there's so many different types of ad agencies, just like there's so many different types of financial institutions, so many different types of law firms. And
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: You it also as a person that has to be a fit and I got there and was like, this is not a fit for my personality. ⁓ no. And then I started at square one again and found an agency that like was really in line with what I wanted.
Kate Crane: I love that this is like an early data point of like, I feel like I learned as much or more from the places that I didn't like.
Brooks Miller: Thank you. You know, it's funny whenever I'm talking to someone about what they want to do next in career, I always ask them and they get nervous. Like, what do you hate about your job? What do you not like? Because the reality is most jobs are the same with just small incremental differences understanding what you don't like is actually so illuminating. It's like dating. It's like, well, I don't want to ever date a guy who
Kate Crane: Yes!
Brooks Miller: has mommy issues again, okay, great. Let's find people who don't have that.
Kate Crane: Yeah, and it can be big. It can be, don't like what I build. It can be small, like I have to be in person. Or if I'm in person, it's really important to me that I have a diverse set of people to work with or that there's people of my age. Or maybe you don't care about that, but like those tactics can really, really be important early in your career.
Brooks Miller: Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, and it doesn't change. Like you still are learning about what you do and don't like as your life shifts and as you get older for sure. Yeah, I got to Richard's Good Mother. This isn't for me.
Kate Crane: Okay, so how did you jump from Dallas to LA?
Brooks Miller: So had spent my ⁓ spring break, I'd had like a big bug to go to California. My parents met in California, fell in love, got married there. It was very like the promised land in a lot of ways. was never, which is ironic because now I live in New York and I'll never leave New York. But anyway, at the time I really wanted to live in California. ⁓ So break senior year, I went on an tour. My mom had some friends that like... loosely, loosely called a friend, called a friend, called a friend. And I went to one agency and then they helped me go to a different agency because his former assistant worked there and basically just like tried to, hit the pavement ⁓ in person talked to as many people as I possibly could. ⁓ luckily enough at ⁓ an agency called 72 and Sunny, which was this really small agency at the time, like maybe 70 people work there. An assistant worked there who ⁓ gave a little tour and I met a Texas alum. who worked at the agency, his name is Judson, we kept in contact. And remember walking into that place and being like, this is what I really like. Like everyone is young, but working really hard, creative, but esoteric. It feels fun, feels ⁓ exciting. Like there's special buzzing in here. And I was like, I really want to work there. and kept up with an alum. So used my network as much as possible and ended up getting an internship there.
Kate Crane: ⁓ my gosh, this is like the thing that I'm preaching right now is informational interviews. Just go explore and learn and talk and.
Brooks Miller: Really? I know. think you have to be willing to just make the connection and not have any other expectation other than the meeting. Cause who knows how something can turn into something to turn into something. yeah, informational interviews and then just like shooting your shot, know, putting yourself out there. It's embarrassing. embarrassing.
Kate Crane: It is, know, but like the worst case is that they say no. You know? ⁓ I think once you get comfortable with failure, and it's not even failure, that's just like a no. ⁓ like when, I'm gonna say especially as women, ⁓ feel like ⁓ or not, I don't think this is trained, I think this is like genetic. I could be totally making this up, but.
Brooks Miller: Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Crane: I feel like we want to have all the education and have the certification before we feel like we're qualified to go do a thing. And I think it translates to like, I don't want to ask unless I feel like 100 % qualified. And it's like, no, no, just.
Brooks Miller: 100%. Yeah. Yeah, it's actually really good advice. was watching a TikTok. This is not the topic, but I was watching a TikTok the other day that was like, it was an analytical look at all the men who have been entering these JFK Junior lookalike contests. And this woman will pause, it's basically like, women would never do that. First of all, these men don't look anything like just because you're tall and have brown hair, you don't look like JFK junior. Like, I'm so sorry to tell this to you. But she was just like, women, let this be a lesson. Like be a little more delusional. If you're 25 % there, you're there, you're 100 % there girl. And just like shoot your shot, do your thing. Because we got to take lessons from some of these men who are just delusional.
Kate Crane: No.
Brooks Miller: But then you know what, they're in the contest. Someone won the money.
Kate Crane: mean, lessons around the male ego and just having more of it, there's so much there. OK, so 72 and Sunny, what was your role there? then what caused you to move on? And where did you go?
Brooks Miller: Yes. I can tell you all the things. So at 72, I came as an account manager, which is a really great way to enter any sort of agency scenario because an account person, it's essentially, it's like the spine of several other different specialties, which is another reason why I ask people like, what do you not like? Because account does everything. They're in charge of the relationship between the agency and the clients. So usually you're mapped. to a specific client, was mapped to Blackberry initially, and then I did most of my work with Sonos, the speaker brand. And you're the relationship person. So a lot of times you're running interference between the brand, you we don't like this new print that we just did. You're relaying with fantastic interpersonal skills ⁓ to the that made the print ad. or troubleshooting it or looking at funding or looking at budgets or looking at timing and a lot of those things. You get a taste of a lot of different departments. So I started off as an account manager and I'm a pretty big people person so it was a good fit for me. And I was like a little baby intern and then I got turned into a contractor which was such a big deal, which is so exciting. And then I got a full-time job there and I worked there for three years. And it was actually just a really fantastic time to have been there at all. exponentially. tell a lot of people it was like boarding a rocket ship. won agency of the year and ad age. And then the next year in ad week, we got acquired. won Samsung and target and Activision, is like call of duty and like ⁓ huge, brands. And we from our little tiny office to three.
Kate Crane: Yeah, yeah.
Brooks Miller: offices, one international, about 300, 400 people that work there. And yeah, it was just like a crazy time to be there. So it was a very exciting time. I ultimately ended up falling in love with my husband. He was my boyfriend at the time. And we really wanted to live in San Francisco and they didn't have an agency there and there was no such thing as remote work. So I had to get a new job. He got a job at either Good Beer Venables, I can't remember, whatever.
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: ⁓ But he got a job in San Francisco, so I got a job in San Francisco and moved to a new agency and said sayonara. So it was kind of like the next chapter. I know, and it doesn't really happen as much anymore. So I wonder what would have been if we'd had remote work, but Elastri did not. So there you go.
Kate Crane: That's so tough. I know. Because you would have stayed otherwise.
Brooks Miller: Probably, yeah.
Kate Crane: Yeah. It's funny how those personal, I mean, I think it's important to me in these conversations to talk about how the personal relates. Cause it's not, I mean, you're a whole person. Like I moved to Denver with my then boyfriend, now husband. And I never have made my most important career move to DoorDash if he hadn't said, do you want to go to Denver? Like, yeah.
Brooks Miller: It was working. Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I remember it being feeling like a struggle, like I'm moving for a man. I'm changing my job and it all worked out the way it was supposed to. Yeah, because I also wanted to go. There you go.
Kate Crane: Yes. Yeah, yeah, just trust your gut. Yeah. Okay, so where were you in San Francisco?
Brooks Miller: I was at a place called Barrett SF, they've renamed to Barrett Hoffer now. And I was looking for, what I liked about 72 was like, it felt very DIY and entrepreneurial because I was starting with like a very small group of people. And I liked that. I liked that I knew where the copy machine ink was. And I knew the code to get into the this and that room and all of that. And I knew every person. wanted to do that. I found an agency called Barrett SF. was there. And funny enough, I studied Jamie Barrett, who was their founder, like in school. So I was like, and manager of mine referred me and I was like their 10th employee. ⁓ it was very much, were like building the desks together and I would type in the security code when I left the office and ⁓ out the trash and do all of that. ⁓
Kate Crane: I know, that's a-
Brooks Miller: It was really fun and I loved working there. ⁓ But what happens when you live in San Francisco is you become obsessed with tech. I was like, what is Apple? What is going on at Google? What's going on at YouTube? And I had always been super online. ⁓ I remember getting Twitter on my desktop and like tweeting from ⁓ dorm rooms. And had like MySpace and ⁓ Tumblr and Xpages and I was obsessed with bloggers at the time. And this is where people are like, ⁓ you're very old. All the bloggers that I loved, like I was obsessed with bloggers. looked at them every day the way I would like look at the news. They all started moving to this new app called Instagram that everyone was downloading. And right. This is
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm. Okay, what is this? I know. Okay, yeah.
Brooks Miller: And I had had Instagrams and so what's notable about it is like, then ⁓ media had been for people that you literally knew, your actual friends, your actual family. It wasn't really where you followed celebrities, it wasn't where you followed people you didn't know, like it was very much a social ⁓ a social media. ⁓ And had always existed, bloggers had also always done.
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: brand deals because that's how they monetize their blog outside of display for whatever reason, they didn't really move to Twitter in a huge impactful way. ⁓ was kind of doing brand content, but ⁓ because they use pre-roll ads. YouTube was definitely a pioneer in a lot of this. ⁓ when bloggers started moving to Instagram, I would see photos of you, your sister, my cap of friends, my parents, and see a branded
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: photo from someone I'd never met before telling me that like, you should buy this. And
Kate Crane: Yes, those early hands were so intentional. They looked like traditional hands and just, you
Brooks Miller: Yes, yes. We're like, this lip gloss is great. And ⁓ I remember being like, whoa, that is really cool. And at the same time, this called cord cutting was happening where people were trying to avoid ads. And I like, ⁓ I make ⁓ I literally ads and I'm trying to avoid them. And at the time, I've never bought. progressive insurance because of flow, but I sure as hell have bought this because my favorite blogger told me to. Woo, woo, woo, woo. Like this is, and I usually say it was like a quarter life crisis. So what I did is, like what you recommend to some of your clients is had so many coffee chats with so many people because I didn't have vocabulary to describe even when I was like attracted to. Like I was just like, what's happening? Like, what is this? Does anyone else see this? And luckily I had a friend, a Kappa with us at Texas who is at Twitter, Julia Robinson Cunningham. And she was at Twitter and she was like, we just bought a company that does what I think you're talking about. We didn't have the words influence marketing, creator marketing, we didn't have any of that. But she was like, they monetize famous people on Vine. Do you remember Vine?
Kate Crane: I mean, yes. ⁓ my goodness, yes.
Brooks Miller: Do you remember mine? And she was like, yeah, Twitter acquired them. You should interview for that team. They're hiring a bunch of people. I was like, ⁓ my God, like, yes, sign me up. So I ended up interviewing and it was perfect because they were tech and social and all these things I was really interested in. And they were working with, mean, I don't know if you'd know any Vine stars, like Lele Pons and like the Paul brothers doing HP laptops. And they were doing what I was interested in, but they had no background in advertising. They didn't know what FTC guidelines were. They didn't know that you couldn't have a Nike solution in the back of your branded content. Otherwise, Nike would sue you. They didn't understand really how to do scripting or contracts or pricing. And I was like, I know how to do that. I know how to do that. Will you hire me? So it ended up being perfect. And that's where like basically what I do now started a hundred million years ago.
Kate Crane: It's so great. I love that you were like, you have this passion, your interest, and you also know what your value is. Like you know, I can do this for you. I think there's so many people now that are like, well, my experience is X. I can go do these things. And it's like, okay, yes. But what do you do? What value can you create for the company?
Brooks Miller: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things where I'm like, I don't know if like we consciously were talking about that in the room at the time. ⁓ think it also might have been a vibes thing where they're like, you seem like you're down for kind of this gray ambiguous type of work. And you seem like you've done it before. Like, okay. But yes, did know.
Kate Crane: So is this you with hindsight saying, like, I can do these things? Or was that something that you were thinking about at the time?
Brooks Miller: I kind of was a little bit of both. I don't think I probably understood the value of it at the time as much as I do now in retrospect, but I definitely was like, oh, I know how to do this, you guys. Do we know what FTC is? I can help you. I got you. But yeah, it's fun.
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So how long were you at Twitter how did that arc, like what were those roles?
Brooks Miller: ⁓ yeah, for sure. So I got hired, we ⁓ on everything. yes, ⁓ was a big part of our because Twitter owned Vine. But, and and I'm on this newly acquired team on the first post acquisition hire. It was like really fun. were on this little team within this giant organism of Twitter, which is like 6,000 person company. ⁓ I'd never worked tech. I'd never had like free lunch and like all the cool things that you get, which was, it was just like a very cool. entry into this new kind of era. But we worked across fine, but we also a stipulation that we would work across ⁓ social media. So ⁓ did YouTube campaigns, did Snapchat campaigns when Snapchat came out, ⁓ then Instagram stories when they were created to compete with Snapchat. And ⁓ course, Twitter, of course, Facebook, some extent, Giphy even, like Musically, and then Musically turned into TikTok. literally worked on everything. So I did that as an individual for many years and then we ended up, he then became my husband, we moved to New York. I started managing the East Coast team of people who ran campaigns for clients, then the whole US team. And then yeah, I did that for seven and a half years. And then Elon Musk bought Twitter.
Kate Crane: I don't think I realized that when you were at Twitter, you were kind of like platform agnostic versus just Twitter.
Brooks Miller: Yes. Towards the end, it got more invested in Twitter specifically, and it's kind of a boring explanation, but we used to be just unlocked through budget and then we became unlocked through media. So then we became like ⁓ a tag along to, if you have a hundred million in media, you get like this coupon to use us. we became more attached to Twitter itself. ⁓ when I first started at Twitter, the wasn't very high, it was pretty low. So it wasn't as valuable to clients. Like it was more valuable that we could work across everything. So the stock got more healthy, ⁓ became more invested in Twitter. But yes, we were platform agnostic for a very long time. But yeah, then when Elon Musk bought Twitter, ⁓ really changed ⁓ trajectory of the, well, I mean the entire company. It's not even the same name. But cut 80 % of the employees, including our whole department, multiple departments like Select, All, Delete. So I found myself. five months postpartum. I was back for three weeks after having my son, got the axe and I was like, ⁓ wow, okay. So what's next?
Kate Crane: Yeah, did you take some time?
Brooks Miller: No, not really. was freaking out. I was have a newborn and a mortgage. What? If I'm completely honest, towards the end of my tenure at Twitter, ⁓ I started to get with the lack of platform agnosticness. ⁓ Because what was happening I first started working with creators,
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: No one knew what I was talking about. literally had decks that were like, they're household names. And then the now they're a handheld names. Like there, we were so much education, but if you fast forward seven and a half, almost a decade later, I mean, the creator economy becomes a real thing. And I was watching creators launch podcasts and Emma Chamberlain copy and like all sorts of really interesting things. And we'd have these really cool integrated ideas, but not be able to activate them because they didn't fit in a tweet. I was like, this is frustrating. So I was towards the end of my tenure. I was even interviewing during maternity leave of like where I should go somewhere next. Like I'm feeling like I've learned everything I need to learn on this platform. So it was a blessing in disguise, I was freaked out to be laid off and everyone gets, ⁓ people get laid off once in their life. If not multiple times.
Kate Crane: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Been there. think ⁓ so, scary and emotional when you're in it. It's like a breakup. There's a grieving process.
Brooks Miller: I know. Yeah. Yes, I don't even really get on Twitter anymore. I'm like better about it. And it feels so personal, even though was 6,000 people that got laid off the same day. I was like, but what about me? Said she's got to go. You know, it's like, couldn't be less personal.
Kate Crane: Yeah Yeah, totally. mean, I No. Do you have any tips for from a layoff?
Brooks Miller: Well, two things that I always recommend to people, this is more tactical, less emotional, is you forget to have a personal computer. Because a lot of these companies will provide you with a laptop and you're on that laptop eight hours a day and you are also multitasking maybe, I won't tell anyone. I didn't have a personal computing device at all. ⁓ entire life was on my work computer. So when it ⁓ off one day, which is what happened, it just didn't turn on anymore, is how I found out. It was really stressful because I was trying to like apply for jobs and generate a resume on my phone. Like this is crazy. So I always recommend that people get, even if it's a cheap Chromebook or second generation, whatever, get a personal computing device. Like you must have one.
Kate Crane: That's so interesting. wonder if that was like Musk or if that was, if it was like, you know, specific to the company. Um, because I've heard stories of like more recently ops where it's like, I can't log into my, I can't log into things, but like, yeah, but like the computer shut off is like a next level.
Brooks Miller: Yeah. Yeah, it started off Slack couldn't work, then email and work. It was crazy. One day it just didn't turn on anymore. It was nuts. Then I would also say the other thing is if you think you're getting laid off or if you just want to be laid off proof, back up your stuff. Because seven years is a long time. I'd gotten married by then. I had all these memories and photos of my computer and I would have lost all of them in a vacuum never to be seen again if I hadn't backed them up.
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: Just getting a cheap hard drive is huge in terms of making sure that you're way out of.
Kate Crane: Yeah, I'm not sponsored by Google, would love to be, but G Drive, my life is on G Drive.
Brooks Miller: Yeah, amazing to do that. But emotionally, it's just like a door closes, a windows open, you know, you'll find something new changes energy. good.
Kate Crane: Yeah. So, how long and then like, was the path to Edelman?
Brooks Miller: Yes, so I was interviewing a little bit. So okay, I a five month maternity leave, come back three weeks later, laid off like, oops, ⁓ to this again. But I did have a little bit of momentum because I had been interviewing and was such a like a huge news event. I did have a ⁓ huge influx people that came to try and help me, which was really kind. And I think general, that happens more than you think like You feel so defeated, but most people are so happy to help, like so happy to help. I had a lot of inbounds, which was really nice, a little stressful, but really nice. And a former boss of mine referred me to Edelman and it just so happened that my boss ⁓ became head of creator. So he was like, ⁓ I I was in the system weirdly enough and had And when he got the job, he called me and was like, Hey, Everyone here likes you a lot and I want to hire you. we do this? But the only thing is you have to move back to New York. And I was like, I would love to move back to New York. Let's go. ⁓ it worked. ⁓ yeah, I've moved. I've moved.
Kate Crane: Okay, wait, I missed the data for our listeners. Where does Austin fit in this?
Brooks Miller: Yes, so post pandemic. So we lived in New York, I can't remember the dates, but all the way through for about five years, all the way through the pandemic. Post pandemic, we, my husband and I were like, man, our family's really far away. All of our parents turned 70. My sister had a young baby and then had, was pregnant with her second. And we just felt really far away from family after years of not being able to really get on a plane and see anybody. That was hard. And then we started talking about starting our own family and we're both from Texas. And it just felt like, well, of course we can't have a family here. ⁓ one's ever had a kid in New York. if could cut to our street, it's like nothing about strollers, ⁓ but just, know what, know, you're, you know what you're have a bias towards what is familiar to you. ⁓ And to us, that was Texas, Texas, Texas. So my husband got a job. we wanted to move to Dallas, where we're from. But he got a job in Austin. And I was able to work remotely at Twitter. So we moved to Austin. while were in the process of moving, I got pregnant. Kind of as a surprise. We were going to get there and wait. And we there, ⁓ and it a good fit at all. But I was pregnant, and it was.
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: We hadn't bought a house and it was like a whole thing. So we just kind of camped out there for a while, but we knew it was not like, I think we took for granted city life and how much we loved walking and how nice it was to have public transportation. And it's so easy to build community when you're in a city. ⁓ And what we do is really far more valuable in New York. It's like trying to be an actor in Nashville. You just don't get paid as well. What we do is not as valued in Texas and therefore is not paid as
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: So we're like, ⁓ we don't want to be here. So when I got the opportunity to move back to New York, we're like, go. Sayonara. ⁓ we had like an 18 month olds and as soon as we sold our house, we were here. It was nuts. ⁓ okay. We're in the same building. ⁓ Yes. It's crazy. It's crazy. ⁓ yeah.
Kate Crane: Yeah. That's great. Did y'all go back to the same neighborhood or like different parts of town? No. That's so funny. Well, you knew what you wanted.
Brooks Miller: was telling people, I was like, listen, call me lame if you want to. But the lowest hanging fruit is the sweetest. I have an 18 month old, I moved to New York City, give me a break. I know my train station, I know my nail place, I know my bodega, I know my grocery store, like, I'm good. Not everything has to be an adventure. Right? I know you're like, you're so stressful. ⁓
Kate Crane: To hear you say that after all the things we just talked about. But fair, like make it easy on yourself.
Brooks Miller: If I was in a different phase of life, sure, would try, like, let's do a new neighborhood. Not this one, not this phase. No. he loves it. He loves it so much. He's like a New York boy. It's very sweet.
Kate Crane: Not with 18 month old. ⁓ my gosh. No, thank you. That's good. That's great. Okay, so we're already talking about geography, but how much of your career, just to wrap it up with a bow, is geography versus path and roll?
Brooks Miller: ⁓ yeah. like geography in terms of like where I want to live.
Kate Crane: Like drawing arc ⁓ and arc is kind of like a stegosaurus, right? Like ⁓ you've ⁓ lots like turns. But do you think that those turns ⁓ are, ⁓ many them were shaped by you wanna be somewhere or I have to be somewhere versus I'm coming here the fall or I wanna learn this new thing? ⁓
Brooks Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Eww. I will say like everything has been in service of career, every role and every move except for the move to Austin. And I don't think like don't value family at all. But I think in that move, I learned a lot about what makes me happy and that's like. feeling really energized by what I do every single day for eight hours a day. And I also learned a lot about how I like to live. ⁓ I would say it's like a combination of the two things, but I think I'm my happiest when I'm making decisions from a place of, are where my career is valued. Cause I care about my career a lot right now. And I think that'll change too. It changes a lot. It's very much a Goldilocks thing though, where it's like, you you try different jobs and decide what you don't like about them or what you do like about them.
Kate Crane: great. ⁓ Okay, ⁓ so I'm going to pivot us from like career convo to like the rest of Brooks. ⁓ What does life like outside of work? And are you when you're not at the...
Brooks Miller: Okay. I was like really, I was really laughing at this question because I have a famous bit where I hate hobbies. I'm like, do a lot every day. Stop asking me to have a hobby. ⁓ it not enough ⁓ have a social life and to stay healthy and to get eight hours of sleep? ⁓
Kate Crane: Okay, that's not so fair. I feel like I have to- No, no, think that's like, I, um, my answer to that question, like on a form is typically like, I cook and I work out. Sorry. I genuinely like cooking. It's like that is my quote unquote hobby, but yeah, I have to sustain myself.
Brooks Miller: Yeah, I have friends and I'm healthy. Yeah. Like I watch TV and movies. mean, like if if I was to be like truly like put my serious hat and like not be a jerk about it. Like I love pop culture. I read probably 15 books a year. I try to watch like all the shows that are on. I love movies like I want I went to an Oscars party last night. I love trying new restaurants. I love seeing theater. ⁓ my God, there's so much theater in New York. So like I guess that's a hobby, but it doesn't feel like it. It's allowed to be one.
Kate Crane: Yeah, so then that's the answer, right? It's not that you have like, quote unquote, air quotes, hobbies. It's like your passion is pop culture. And I feel like that's not a dirty word. You're like genuinely interested in it.
Brooks Miller: Yeah, culture. I guess so. I know. Yeah, like genuinely. I listen to like podcasts. Yeah, I love it all. But no, I don't run. I don't knit. I read. I guess you could say reading is a hobby. It makes me happy. It also helps me go to bed.
Kate Crane: Yeah. And like, yeah. me too. I ⁓ we can have a whole different conversation about reading. My reading ⁓ are trash. it's like... ⁓
Brooks Miller: Sadly. Yeah. If you don't think I've read Akitar, you got another thing coming. obviously have. ⁓ really good. ⁓
Kate Crane: Ding, ding, ding. That's what I thought. Okay, so we talked about your son a little bit and there's another baby on the way. It's exciting How has parenting shaped how you show up at work?
Brooks Miller: There is. was really intense at first. was, I used to be the kind of person who would work until it was done. And sometimes that would be five o'clock. that would be midnight and working on the weekends and like 72 and sunny, it was pretty intense for a first job in terms of like level setting, what is normal, because ⁓ I would there all night and watch the sunrise. I worked every weekend. Like it was very intense. I guess I'm more workaholic in ⁓ way, but you can't do that with a kid at all. So I have felt like the biggest change has been trying make ⁓ my nine to five because like I cannot sign on earlier than I was just kind of impossible with daycare. ⁓ I stay on later than five because of school as well, making it as efficient as possible. So like I don't screw around. I don't take meetings I don't need to take. I try to get help where I can. is really helpful with that and just being way more diligent about my time.
Kate Crane: Yeah, totally agree. I'm like, I'm much more efficient. No, it just has to happen. ⁓ And then how do you and your husband balance your careers and like this whole thing of your life together?
Brooks Miller: There's no other way to do it. Yeah. It's hard. I would say that's probably like the hardest part about being a parent is because we both have very busy demanding careers in similar industries. like he was on a shoot for two weeks in City and ⁓ don't near family, which is a conscious choice that we made. And so we really have had to be intentional about building a village, ⁓ both of friends, but then of helpers that we pay. This weekend, we wanted to go celebrate our 10 year anniversary and we had one of our son's favorite teachers from school spend the weekend with them. They just had a little romantic weekend. But I have to travel for clients all the time or work all the time constantly. So that has been the toughest, I would say about like parenting and working at the same time, especially when you have a partner who has an equally demanding job. And so you just live by your family calendar. talk all the time and make sure you have like an army of people that can help.
Kate Crane: How do you think about your undergraduate career today? like, big jump, like, so ⁓ have a degree in advertising, right?
Brooks Miller: I'm gonna you a hint. I know and I like kind of still work in it, which is cool. I feel like I'm like the only person that does that. Like no one else does that.
Kate Crane: Do you, think I might have just like missed my own perception. Like I assumed that you had just like, know, wandered and not wandered. It's like not the right term. You didn't wander into things, but like, I don't think I appreciated that you have an advertising degree and that you really went into advertising. ⁓ And you think that you still use some of those like things that you were taught in school today or?
Brooks Miller: No, but... Mmm. All the time. All the time. And we had mentioned this a little bit earlier. I was at an alumni function and they were fundraising for something for my high school. And the headmistress asked the people in the room, are any of you doing a job that existed when you were in high school? And I swear, maybe three people out of 100 raised their hand. And I was like, yeah, like what I do,
Kate Crane: Yeah, okay.
Brooks Miller: didn't exist not only in high school, it didn't exist in college and it kind of didn't exist when I first started working. So I think what's really cool about my undergrad degree is I definitely use it because greater marketing is a version of advertising. It's like foundational to what we do. So a lot of times like I'll look at a contract and I'm like, ⁓ I know what this term is because that's an advertising term that's being applied in a different way here or.
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: we will the way that we work with talent is very similar to the way actors are on set, which is something that I use like it all is of a piece and related because everything is just a version as we continue on and progress. So I use it a lot more than I even anticipated. And it's sometimes I sound like a dinosaur and like back in my day when we would print at a home and then we'd go to a press check and be like, what are you talking about? Like respectfully stop. But it is like the ancient texts of what I'm doing now. So I do find it helpful in a way. And it's I think it's illogical to think that every single degree is going to be super applicable to your ultimate career because careers are long and degrees are short.
Kate Crane: Yeah, well, it's actually like, it's a wonderful, this is not where I thought this trade of thought was going to go. I have students, parents, friends, that will say, well, my kid shouldn't do X degree because AI is going to make it irrelevant. And I just don't agree with that. And I can't see the future. But I like.
Brooks Miller: ⁓ interesting.
Kate Crane: coding. I'm going go out on a limb and say, I still think it's very important to have a computer science degree to understand the foundation of the code, even if you're not going to end up writing it. You should know the foundations, and maybe that's similar to what you're saying about advertising.
Brooks Miller: Yes, of course. Yeah, I think that's really true. And frankly, like, you should know the foundation of it in order to understand the application of it.
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brooks Miller: It reminds me, I took dance a long time when I was a kid and like, there's a reason you have to take ballet no matter what your major is. Like, I don't care if you're modern dancer, I don't care if you're a top dancer, you've got to take ballet. It's foundational. It informs every other decision because it is the origin.
Kate Crane: Yep. Yeah. you don't know what rules to break or you don't know the special rules.
Brooks Miller: Also, a computer science degree is amazing. Someone has to make the code to make the LLM work.
Kate Crane: I agree. have the same like crazy, still thing that I keep hearing that like there's so many degrees that, or there's so many like industries that are gonna go away from AI because of AI and I just like don't agree with that. There might not be as many people doing it. It doesn't mean. ⁓
Brooks Miller: I don't Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it might change entry level, like what that looks like. But a lot of it, again, this isn't a side, but a lot of our entry level jobs are more about how you can start applying AI in a way that's really good, as opposed to doing the work yourself, it's applying the tools better. And I think like it was probably really similar when everything moved to email and dot com boom. And it's like, well,
Kate Crane: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: This I'm sure it eliminated some jobs, but they're still entry level jobs. They just have to understand how to use these new formats better.
Kate Crane: Yeah, okay, perfect for you to the next question, which is kind of my last question, TBD. If you could have a coffee chat with Brooks from 2010, what would you tell her?
Brooks Miller: ⁓ great. I was concerned about making right choice and right ⁓ decision. There pressure from my parents to be financially independent. I wanted to be financially independent, but they were like, we are not paying for you after you get this diploma. I was like, Roger that. And it was a time. This country was in a literal depression. My biggest prospect was an internship that paid $1,200 a month in LA. Like, it stressful. And I think ultimately my gut won out on a lot of the swirl up here. But I would tell myself, like, you admire some of these people so much. These careers feel so cool and so unattainable to you. All of those people were just listening to their guts and making decisions according to their circumstances and their preferences and going for it. And like in retrospect, yeah, it makes a ton of sense, but at the time it doesn't make any sense at all. It didn't make sense for me to like go work at Twitter and invented new job that no one had ever heard of on Vine. Like what? all. didn't make any sense. I couldn't explain what I did to anyone in my life. And yet like it just ⁓
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: correct, and therefore it became correct. So like trusting in myself, think I would and give myself a little less pressure to do something correctly, ⁓ ⁓ it doesn't really exist.
Kate Crane: No, it doesn't. I love it.
Brooks Miller: And you can pivot. Like no career is a permanent sentence.
Kate Crane: Yeah, no, mean, like this is, are essentially like restating the mission of like what I, why this business, I'm, ⁓ I'm so passionate about it because ⁓ is no perfect next step. ⁓ You could, you might have like better ⁓ than bad decisions, but like nothing is perfect. You just have to move forward. And.
Brooks Miller: Yeah No. Yeah, and everything is data. It's just data. Even taking a coffee with someone is data on how did I feel about that conversation? What I learned today? What was my experience? that's so much more valuable than like being right. Whatever right means.
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm. Okay, I'm gonna move into some rapid fire questions and I'm going to admit that I love this concept so much, but I'm still trying to get to we are. So I'm just gonna riff and go with it. Okay, what's the first thing you do in the morning?
Brooks Miller: Okay. I'm bad at rabbit fire. Great. Check my phone. ⁓ off my alarm and check my phone.
Kate Crane: Same. What app is most used on your phone?
Brooks Miller: now, TikTok. It's bad. I say it's for work, but I get sucked in. Probably TikTok. TikTok and iMessage, which I know I'm ⁓ millennial. use iMessage, but sorry.
Kate Crane: What do other people use?
Brooks Miller: ⁓ do you know how old we are that we love iMessage? All the youths use Snap. I'm like, don't have a brain. My brain is too atrophied to remember. need, I can't disappear on me. Yeah, the youths message through Snap on FaceTime. They FaceTime like all day. Uh-huh.
Kate Crane: Die. Stop it. ⁓ my God, no, I can't. That is a little comical. No, never would we not to use iMessage. Okay, so what person or podcast or book has shaped you the most how you think about work?
Brooks Miller: I'm gonna die without it. Yes, the commitments of conscious leadership. You must read it. I refer to it all the time. Our head of sales at Twitter recommended it. ⁓ And is like the Bible to me. It's because not a leadership book that's about work. ⁓ It's about ⁓ and ⁓ stars how to approach and believe in people. ⁓
Kate Crane: Cool.
Brooks Miller: and it's the best. I refer to it constantly.
Kate Crane: That's great. What's the
Brooks Miller: the 15 commitments of unconscious leadership or conscious leadership.
Kate Crane: I'll link it whenever this person linked. ⁓ What is the best piece of advice you've gotten from a professional standpoint? Or personal, either.
Brooks Miller: Yeah, you should. It's great. that I had, if you were ever on my team, you'd probably make so much fun of me, because there's this one that I say all the time, which is nobody thinks about you as much as you think about you. It is, here's why I love it, because in different circumstances that means different things. In some circumstances, it really knocks you down a peg. It's like, can you just stop being so self-absorbed? Because no one's thinking about you, loser. Which, you know, helps. But then I also think in other circumstances, it is so freeing. Because a lot of like, at least what I do, it's creative. And creative is inherently really vulnerable. You're trying to express yourself.
Kate Crane: You
Brooks Miller: through words and images and it's up, it's subjective and it's up for interpretation. It's just very, very vulnerable. And a lot of times marketers and clients will get really in their heads about trying things. And especially in the internet world, like there's so much content out there. Just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what happens. And chanting like, nobody is thinking about this as much as you are is very freeing. It allows you to take bigger risks. It allows you to listen to your gut a little bit more and not worry again about like young Brooks at coffee with. old me now who is trying to do the right thing. There is no right thing. Just try it see what happens. So nobody thinks about you as much as you think about you.
Kate Crane: Yeah. I love it. What's the worst piece of advice you've gotten? And hopefully ignored, but like...
Brooks Miller: ⁓ my god, worst piece of advice. Oh, there was, I had like a coworker once who was very hung up on appropriate. Like, that's an inappropriate thing to say, that's an inappropriate thing to wear. And I was just like, there is so much bias in there. Like say what you mean, dude. Like the idea of appropriate. And if you find yourself in a place where everything is... you don't feel like you're appropriate for everyone else, like, jump ship. Because that's not you. I have a very specific personality, a very outgoing personality, not very, I'm like a real LinkedIn girly and like a buttoned up kind of a gal. ⁓ And I start hearing the word like appropriate being flung around, I'm like, ⁓ I'm not home. I'm not with my people. I need to be able to like fly my freak flag a little bit higher.
Kate Crane: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brooks Miller: But the appropriate police, it's like, get out of here.
Kate Crane: Yeah, appropriate to what guidelines and what rules, who cares?
Brooks Miller: Exactly. That's where it's just like there's biases in there. You have stuff about women, you have several appearances. It's racist. Like, get out. No, people show up as they are. So I was reacting with respect like come on.
Kate Crane: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Sorry. I like, I like, I love the question because you, I mean, everyone's, ick is different, but you learn something ⁓ productive that. Like I, ⁓ yeah. more about openness. The ant, the antithesis of that is just like, be, don't be appropriate, but like be open-minded, ⁓ but offensive.
Brooks Miller: Yucky, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Kate Crane: Okay, what is a win we can celebrate with you?
Brooks Miller: Well, I was very excited. Someone on our team at UEG won age Gen Z years to watch this on our team. ⁓ I submit the application, so I feel like extra excited about it, but she's just like the best. I'm so happy for her to be on that list. It's very cool. We can celebrate Giselle.
Kate Crane: That's it. That's so fun. I love it. mean, being excited for people and their growth, which sounds like there's a lot of there as well. It's great. ⁓ anything you're looking forward to in your life, in the moment.
Brooks Miller: Yes, it's the best. Yeah. I mean, I'm having a baby girl. I'm so pumped. I can't wait. There's like, surely professionals up, whatever, I'm excited. And I get like, we have a really good maternity leave. I have about five, maybe six. If I stack up some PTO against it, months bond and get to do it in New York and give my son a little sister and we'll have like the last piece of our little puzzle. It'll be wonderful. So that's what I'm excited for.
Kate Crane: That's so right. That's so, well, I'm excited for you. She's gonna be the most loved and have, just picturing like Pageant Brooks, Pageant It's gonna the most sparkles.
Brooks Miller: I will say like, I will say like, when we were having our son, was like, gender is a construct. This is ridiculous. ⁓ loves trucks, he loves dinosaurs. And this go around and like, we're gonna start getting some pink in this house. And my was like, what happened to gender as a construct? was like, listen, I've been ⁓ buying ugly for long enough.
Kate Crane: Bye. Girl colors are just so much better. The colors are better. Everything is better.
Brooks Miller: They're so much better. Like these poor men under shackles, like don't they want embroidery too? And a little ruffle? Cause it's great.
Kate Crane: I thought I would have, thought I ⁓ convinced I was always gonna have boys. ⁓ was a tomboy. didn't wear pink until I was in my ⁓ 30s. I was ⁓ such tomboy. ⁓ And ⁓ girls. now it's a pink house. My daughter left the house today, head to toe pink. I'm not kidding. Like, that's what she wanted to wear.
Brooks Miller: Really? There you go. It's so funny. They just come out how they come out.
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you, Brooks. This has been so wonderful. can we follow you? ⁓ us all your handles.
Brooks Miller: Uh-huh. Thank you. I was like, I'm not a LinkedIn girl. I post on LinkedIn a lot, but I am trying to post things that are real and not like this is what being hit by a car taught me about B2B marketing, ⁓
Kate Crane: I know it's funny. Well, I think, yeah, no, there's nothing. But there's like a new series that I've, is that a series y'all are doing?
Brooks Miller: It is. Yeah, we've been doing it's called interviews with an expert. Are you talking about where I am on an orange couch? Interviews with an expert. I basically just trick people throughout the office into sitting into a room with me and telling me how to do their jobs. It's great. But it has been really fun. It's been a fun way to like meet more people in the office and then like show off all the cool people in our office and what they work on and how smart they are.
Kate Crane: Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant, love it. Yeah, that's wonderful. Okay, anything else we should follow?
Brooks Miller: Bang. No, I mean my TikTok, sure. But like, send them to you. I think it's brooksydm on TikTok and then my full name on, on LinkedIn.
Kate Crane: Well, thank you. This has been so lovely and so happy to catch up.
Brooks Miller: This has been so great. It's so good to catch up with you.
Brooks Miller: Thank you. It's always so strange to have someone like read you your bio. thank you for doing that. You didn't make it very painful. It was nice.
Kate Crane: Yeah, no, know it is. It's, you know, get ready for the compliments. So I want to dive into this conversation because there's so many steps and pivots when we talk about your career. Let's start with what you're doing today before we go back to the beginning. So what is your role today in your own words and what is your day to day look like?
Brooks Miller: Yes.
Kate Crane: Most of us were handed some version of a ladder. ⁓ to college, pick a major, get a keep climbing.
Brooks Miller: Yes.
Kate Crane: But the people I admire most did something different. They climbed sideways. They took the detour. They built careers that looked nothing like the plan and everything like them. That's what this show is about. So I'm excited to welcome today my friend Brooks Miller.
Brooks Miller: Yeah, so what's, and we will cover this because people actually know what creator marketing is now and they didn't know what it was when I first started doing it. But so I run the creator marketing department ⁓ Edelman ⁓ and parts of United Entertainment Group. Edelman's a huge PR firm. Actually, we'd probably call ourselves a comms firm, ⁓ but a legacy in PR, it's the privately owned PR company in the world. And we have a creator's department. So what that actually means is we pair internet creators slash influencers, if that's what you call them with brands. So if this isn't a client of ours, but if Coca-Cola wanted to work with someone who is really influential on Instagram, they would come to us. Who would it be? What are they going to do? What are they going to say? What kind of co-product are they going to promote? And we go find those people, broker those deals. brief them on the product, send them the Coca-Cola bottle and work on the actual creative with them and help them post it and then report on it. That's kind of like the rinse and repeat of what we do. And so I do that on a number of like our global clients at Edelman and then all the clients at United Entertainment Group, which is an agency within Edelman.
Kate Crane: That is so cool. I have so many questions around the business, but I'm going to like kind of try to rest back my business brain for a minute and just talk about the story. That's so fun. ⁓
Brooks Miller: It's Yeah. It is fun. It's really fun. I work with like a lot of really highly online, but like super creative people who've opened up their lives on social. It's really neat.
Kate Crane: So you're thinking about the entire cycle, or you're managing a team that's doing the whole cycle, or are you thinking mostly about the individual and the brand?
Brooks Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I mean, I've done this for a very long time. One of the oldest dinosaurs in the biz. used to run the actual campaign. like talk to the client, find the creator, tell them how much money we had or didn't have and all of those pieces. And now ⁓ manage teams that do that and ensure that we're winning new business. do a lot of new business pitching ⁓ then making sure that we have the right tools. ⁓ have the right, ⁓ information and we have the right. staffing and a lot of the more like logistical and managerial pieces.
Kate Crane: ⁓ And last, like, I just can't help myself. How big is your team right now?
Brooks Miller: Good, please. It's big. globally, we have almost 200 people. It's a lot. And I'm not the global head of creator. That's my boss. And he was my boss at Twitter. And I love him so much. But yeah, globally, we have like 200 people in the US. I'm not even going to pretend how many are in the US. The lion's share of them are in the US. We're all across the globe. We're in Latin America, in APAC, in EMEA, and Canada, and...
Kate Crane: What?
Brooks Miller: America and all around America. ⁓ So that's it's about 200 people. You know, it's really fun.
Kate Crane: I have so many questions. Okay, now I want to go back to the beginning. What was your first job, like high school or college or whatever? Like what was your first thing you did for monies?
Brooks Miller: Okay. It's so funny, don't know if you know this, did you know I was a child actor?
Kate Crane: No, I mean I knew the pageants, which sorry, spoiler for everybody else, so fun.
Brooks Miller: That's okay. It's part of the story. all tracks. No, I was a child actor. ⁓ mean, like in Dallas, so it wasn't like I was on Disney Channel. But ⁓ basically, my mom and dad are both really creative people. My dad's a musician, my mom's an actress. And I the performing arts bug big time. My sister is like an athlete who's now a doctor. ⁓ And was like, razzle dazzle.
Kate Crane: Whoa, wait, where?
Brooks Miller: But yeah, so I was a child actor. got an agent in Dallas, Texas, Ken Dawson Agency. I would go down like voiceovers and I'd book industrials, local commercials and local theater as a ⁓ My first were like, yeah, I was a child. Like getting a paycheck, it was wild.
Kate Crane: That was so great. I mean, I there was some production.
Brooks Miller: my biggest booking was senior year of high I booked an ABC family movie called The Initiation of on YouTube and went to Shreveport for a week ⁓ and shot there. ⁓
Kate Crane: Mmm.
Brooks Miller: and hated every second of it. And my parents were like, so you should not be an actor. I was like, I don't think I should be an actor either.
Kate Crane: Yeah. What did that teach you about and working and the of money? Did that start at an early age then?
Brooks Miller: Yes, yes. And my mom says that constantly that I still have my lunch money from third grade. It really taught me the value of earning money. it sparked, as sad as it is to say, a love to work. I love working and feeling like I'm making something and doing something. And then it's really interesting. I'm sure we'll get to this. Being an actor for so many years as a child, I had so many memories of auditioning. And then when I moved over into advertising, I realized that I was on the other side of the glass from the actors who were watching them audition. I was like, this is so bizarre. I just jumped seats in the same room. So it definitely felt like up a piece, but I loved learning how to work and like remembering my lines and showing up on time and like having my card with me and my resume and going in by myself and. learning all those skills was really cool at such a age.
Kate Crane: Okay, well, can't wait to make that arc of like the beginning to the other side, because there's so many stops on the screen. Yeah, totally. Okay, so, I mean, I know the answer to these questions, but for our listeners and our watchers, where do you go to school and what do you study?
Brooks Miller: Yeah, make this like cinematic, please. I went to the University of Texas at Austin, which is related to the acting thing. I will actually loop that back because every college I was going to go to other than UT, I auditioned for. So I was going to be an actor. And after this experience in Shreveport, not that it was like a bad experience. I was just like, oh, this isn't my passion. Like I got into USC acting program, NYU, and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. And I had gotten into Texas and I was like, I want to do that. I want to do big school, sorority, football, and then figure out my life from there. So I went to Texas the kind of like last minute decision, which I'm glad I made, and I ended up majoring in advertising because it felt very familiar. It was like, okay, this is creative, but I'll ⁓ have and a 401k and like a real job and get to work on a team and not be like sitting in a trailer hoping to get my next gig. it felt like kind of a perfect in-between.
Kate Crane: Yeah, that's so great. And then how did you, tell me about like internships before school. How did you get that first job out of school?
Brooks Miller: Yeah, it fun. God, it was funny. My husband and I were just talking about this because he was in the Texas program as well. I had like a number of random internships throughout college. I worked at the Texas basketball office. Who knew? I worked at Paper City Magazine, which is a small local magazine in Dallas. And all of those were through friends of friends and connections. And I was a camp counselor. did all types of stuff. Nanny. But my first big internship post college, because I graduated in 2010, so post bubble times, you were probably like 2008, so like super fun time to graduate. ⁓ Yay. So were the only way to get a job. ⁓ And I got internship at the Richards Group in Dallas, which is an advertising agency in Dallas. I think they go by TRG now.
Kate Crane: lay off Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: And I was really excited because it was like the agency. And I like interviewed and worked and found Rex and did all the things and got there. And I was like, this is not the right place for me. ⁓ no. I think something you don't realize when you're young like that is ⁓ ⁓ getting a degree in advertising. I'm going to go work at an ad agency. ⁓ don't think about the fact that there's so many different types of ad agencies, just like there's so many different types of financial institutions, so many different types of law firms. And
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: You it also as a person that has to be a fit and I got there and was like, this is not a fit for my personality. ⁓ no. And then I started at square one again and found an agency that like was really in line with what I wanted.
Kate Crane: I love that this is like an early data point of like, I feel like I learned as much or more from the places that I didn't like.
Brooks Miller: Thank you. You know, it's funny whenever I'm talking to someone about what they want to do next in career, I always ask them and they get nervous. Like, what do you hate about your job? What do you not like? Because the reality is most jobs are the same with just small incremental differences understanding what you don't like is actually so illuminating. It's like dating. It's like, well, I don't want to ever date a guy who
Kate Crane: Yes!
Brooks Miller: has mommy issues again, okay, great. Let's find people who don't have that.
Kate Crane: Yeah, and it can be big. It can be, don't like what I build. It can be small, like I have to be in person. Or if I'm in person, it's really important to me that I have a diverse set of people to work with or that there's people of my age. Or maybe you don't care about that, but like those tactics can really, really be important early in your career.
Brooks Miller: Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, and it doesn't change. Like you still are learning about what you do and don't like as your life shifts and as you get older for sure. Yeah, I got to Richard's Good Mother. This isn't for me.
Kate Crane: Okay, so how did you jump from Dallas to LA?
Brooks Miller: So had spent my ⁓ spring break, I'd had like a big bug to go to California. My parents met in California, fell in love, got married there. It was very like the promised land in a lot of ways. was never, which is ironic because now I live in New York and I'll never leave New York. But anyway, at the time I really wanted to live in California. ⁓ So break senior year, I went on an tour. My mom had some friends that like... loosely, loosely called a friend, called a friend, called a friend. And I went to one agency and then they helped me go to a different agency because his former assistant worked there and basically just like tried to, hit the pavement ⁓ in person talked to as many people as I possibly could. ⁓ luckily enough at ⁓ an agency called 72 and Sunny, which was this really small agency at the time, like maybe 70 people work there. An assistant worked there who ⁓ gave a little tour and I met a Texas alum. who worked at the agency, his name is Judson, we kept in contact. And remember walking into that place and being like, this is what I really like. Like everyone is young, but working really hard, creative, but esoteric. It feels fun, feels ⁓ exciting. Like there's special buzzing in here. And I was like, I really want to work there. and kept up with an alum. So used my network as much as possible and ended up getting an internship there.
Kate Crane: ⁓ my gosh, this is like the thing that I'm preaching right now is informational interviews. Just go explore and learn and talk and.
Brooks Miller: Really? I know. think you have to be willing to just make the connection and not have any other expectation other than the meeting. Cause who knows how something can turn into something to turn into something. yeah, informational interviews and then just like shooting your shot, know, putting yourself out there. It's embarrassing. embarrassing.
Kate Crane: It is, know, but like the worst case is that they say no. You know? ⁓ I think once you get comfortable with failure, and it's not even failure, that's just like a no. ⁓ like when, I'm gonna say especially as women, ⁓ feel like ⁓ or not, I don't think this is trained, I think this is like genetic. I could be totally making this up, but.
Brooks Miller: Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Crane: I feel like we want to have all the education and have the certification before we feel like we're qualified to go do a thing. And I think it translates to like, I don't want to ask unless I feel like 100 % qualified. And it's like, no, no, just.
Brooks Miller: 100%. Yeah. Yeah, it's actually really good advice. was watching a TikTok. This is not the topic, but I was watching a TikTok the other day that was like, it was an analytical look at all the men who have been entering these JFK Junior lookalike contests. And this woman will pause, it's basically like, women would never do that. First of all, these men don't look anything like just because you're tall and have brown hair, you don't look like JFK junior. Like, I'm so sorry to tell this to you. But she was just like, women, let this be a lesson. Like be a little more delusional. If you're 25 % there, you're there, you're 100 % there girl. And just like shoot your shot, do your thing. Because we got to take lessons from some of these men who are just delusional.
Kate Crane: No.
Brooks Miller: But then you know what, they're in the contest. Someone won the money.
Kate Crane: mean, lessons around the male ego and just having more of it, there's so much there. OK, so 72 and Sunny, what was your role there? then what caused you to move on? And where did you go?
Brooks Miller: Yes. I can tell you all the things. So at 72, I came as an account manager, which is a really great way to enter any sort of agency scenario because an account person, it's essentially, it's like the spine of several other different specialties, which is another reason why I ask people like, what do you not like? Because account does everything. They're in charge of the relationship between the agency and the clients. So usually you're mapped. to a specific client, was mapped to Blackberry initially, and then I did most of my work with Sonos, the speaker brand. And you're the relationship person. So a lot of times you're running interference between the brand, you we don't like this new print that we just did. You're relaying with fantastic interpersonal skills ⁓ to the that made the print ad. or troubleshooting it or looking at funding or looking at budgets or looking at timing and a lot of those things. You get a taste of a lot of different departments. So I started off as an account manager and I'm a pretty big people person so it was a good fit for me. And I was like a little baby intern and then I got turned into a contractor which was such a big deal, which is so exciting. And then I got a full-time job there and I worked there for three years. And it was actually just a really fantastic time to have been there at all. exponentially. tell a lot of people it was like boarding a rocket ship. won agency of the year and ad age. And then the next year in ad week, we got acquired. won Samsung and target and Activision, is like call of duty and like ⁓ huge, brands. And we from our little tiny office to three.
Kate Crane: Yeah, yeah.
Brooks Miller: offices, one international, about 300, 400 people that work there. And yeah, it was just like a crazy time to be there. So it was a very exciting time. I ultimately ended up falling in love with my husband. He was my boyfriend at the time. And we really wanted to live in San Francisco and they didn't have an agency there and there was no such thing as remote work. So I had to get a new job. He got a job at either Good Beer Venables, I can't remember, whatever.
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: ⁓ But he got a job in San Francisco, so I got a job in San Francisco and moved to a new agency and said sayonara. So it was kind of like the next chapter. I know, and it doesn't really happen as much anymore. So I wonder what would have been if we'd had remote work, but Elastri did not. So there you go.
Kate Crane: That's so tough. I know. Because you would have stayed otherwise.
Brooks Miller: Probably, yeah.
Kate Crane: Yeah. It's funny how those personal, I mean, I think it's important to me in these conversations to talk about how the personal relates. Cause it's not, I mean, you're a whole person. Like I moved to Denver with my then boyfriend, now husband. And I never have made my most important career move to DoorDash if he hadn't said, do you want to go to Denver? Like, yeah.
Brooks Miller: It was working. Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I remember it being feeling like a struggle, like I'm moving for a man. I'm changing my job and it all worked out the way it was supposed to. Yeah, because I also wanted to go. There you go.
Kate Crane: Yes. Yeah, yeah, just trust your gut. Yeah. Okay, so where were you in San Francisco?
Brooks Miller: I was at a place called Barrett SF, they've renamed to Barrett Hoffer now. And I was looking for, what I liked about 72 was like, it felt very DIY and entrepreneurial because I was starting with like a very small group of people. And I liked that. I liked that I knew where the copy machine ink was. And I knew the code to get into the this and that room and all of that. And I knew every person. wanted to do that. I found an agency called Barrett SF. was there. And funny enough, I studied Jamie Barrett, who was their founder, like in school. So I was like, and manager of mine referred me and I was like their 10th employee. ⁓ it was very much, were like building the desks together and I would type in the security code when I left the office and ⁓ out the trash and do all of that. ⁓
Kate Crane: I know, that's a-
Brooks Miller: It was really fun and I loved working there. ⁓ But what happens when you live in San Francisco is you become obsessed with tech. I was like, what is Apple? What is going on at Google? What's going on at YouTube? And I had always been super online. ⁓ I remember getting Twitter on my desktop and like tweeting from ⁓ dorm rooms. And had like MySpace and ⁓ Tumblr and Xpages and I was obsessed with bloggers at the time. And this is where people are like, ⁓ you're very old. All the bloggers that I loved, like I was obsessed with bloggers. looked at them every day the way I would like look at the news. They all started moving to this new app called Instagram that everyone was downloading. And right. This is
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm. Okay, what is this? I know. Okay, yeah.
Brooks Miller: And I had had Instagrams and so what's notable about it is like, then ⁓ media had been for people that you literally knew, your actual friends, your actual family. It wasn't really where you followed celebrities, it wasn't where you followed people you didn't know, like it was very much a social ⁓ a social media. ⁓ And had always existed, bloggers had also always done.
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: brand deals because that's how they monetize their blog outside of display for whatever reason, they didn't really move to Twitter in a huge impactful way. ⁓ was kind of doing brand content, but ⁓ because they use pre-roll ads. YouTube was definitely a pioneer in a lot of this. ⁓ when bloggers started moving to Instagram, I would see photos of you, your sister, my cap of friends, my parents, and see a branded
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: photo from someone I'd never met before telling me that like, you should buy this. And
Kate Crane: Yes, those early hands were so intentional. They looked like traditional hands and just, you
Brooks Miller: Yes, yes. We're like, this lip gloss is great. And ⁓ I remember being like, whoa, that is really cool. And at the same time, this called cord cutting was happening where people were trying to avoid ads. And I like, ⁓ I make ⁓ I literally ads and I'm trying to avoid them. And at the time, I've never bought. progressive insurance because of flow, but I sure as hell have bought this because my favorite blogger told me to. Woo, woo, woo, woo. Like this is, and I usually say it was like a quarter life crisis. So what I did is, like what you recommend to some of your clients is had so many coffee chats with so many people because I didn't have vocabulary to describe even when I was like attracted to. Like I was just like, what's happening? Like, what is this? Does anyone else see this? And luckily I had a friend, a Kappa with us at Texas who is at Twitter, Julia Robinson Cunningham. And she was at Twitter and she was like, we just bought a company that does what I think you're talking about. We didn't have the words influence marketing, creator marketing, we didn't have any of that. But she was like, they monetize famous people on Vine. Do you remember Vine?
Kate Crane: I mean, yes. ⁓ my goodness, yes.
Brooks Miller: Do you remember mine? And she was like, yeah, Twitter acquired them. You should interview for that team. They're hiring a bunch of people. I was like, ⁓ my God, like, yes, sign me up. So I ended up interviewing and it was perfect because they were tech and social and all these things I was really interested in. And they were working with, mean, I don't know if you'd know any Vine stars, like Lele Pons and like the Paul brothers doing HP laptops. And they were doing what I was interested in, but they had no background in advertising. They didn't know what FTC guidelines were. They didn't know that you couldn't have a Nike solution in the back of your branded content. Otherwise, Nike would sue you. They didn't understand really how to do scripting or contracts or pricing. And I was like, I know how to do that. I know how to do that. Will you hire me? So it ended up being perfect. And that's where like basically what I do now started a hundred million years ago.
Kate Crane: It's so great. I love that you were like, you have this passion, your interest, and you also know what your value is. Like you know, I can do this for you. I think there's so many people now that are like, well, my experience is X. I can go do these things. And it's like, okay, yes. But what do you do? What value can you create for the company?
Brooks Miller: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things where I'm like, I don't know if like we consciously were talking about that in the room at the time. ⁓ think it also might have been a vibes thing where they're like, you seem like you're down for kind of this gray ambiguous type of work. And you seem like you've done it before. Like, okay. But yes, did know.
Kate Crane: So is this you with hindsight saying, like, I can do these things? Or was that something that you were thinking about at the time?
Brooks Miller: I kind of was a little bit of both. I don't think I probably understood the value of it at the time as much as I do now in retrospect, but I definitely was like, oh, I know how to do this, you guys. Do we know what FTC is? I can help you. I got you. But yeah, it's fun.
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So how long were you at Twitter how did that arc, like what were those roles?
Brooks Miller: ⁓ yeah, for sure. So I got hired, we ⁓ on everything. yes, ⁓ was a big part of our because Twitter owned Vine. But, and and I'm on this newly acquired team on the first post acquisition hire. It was like really fun. were on this little team within this giant organism of Twitter, which is like 6,000 person company. ⁓ I'd never worked tech. I'd never had like free lunch and like all the cool things that you get, which was, it was just like a very cool. entry into this new kind of era. But we worked across fine, but we also a stipulation that we would work across ⁓ social media. So ⁓ did YouTube campaigns, did Snapchat campaigns when Snapchat came out, ⁓ then Instagram stories when they were created to compete with Snapchat. And ⁓ course, Twitter, of course, Facebook, some extent, Giphy even, like Musically, and then Musically turned into TikTok. literally worked on everything. So I did that as an individual for many years and then we ended up, he then became my husband, we moved to New York. I started managing the East Coast team of people who ran campaigns for clients, then the whole US team. And then yeah, I did that for seven and a half years. And then Elon Musk bought Twitter.
Kate Crane: I don't think I realized that when you were at Twitter, you were kind of like platform agnostic versus just Twitter.
Brooks Miller: Yes. Towards the end, it got more invested in Twitter specifically, and it's kind of a boring explanation, but we used to be just unlocked through budget and then we became unlocked through media. So then we became like ⁓ a tag along to, if you have a hundred million in media, you get like this coupon to use us. we became more attached to Twitter itself. ⁓ when I first started at Twitter, the wasn't very high, it was pretty low. So it wasn't as valuable to clients. Like it was more valuable that we could work across everything. So the stock got more healthy, ⁓ became more invested in Twitter. But yes, we were platform agnostic for a very long time. But yeah, then when Elon Musk bought Twitter, ⁓ really changed ⁓ trajectory of the, well, I mean the entire company. It's not even the same name. But cut 80 % of the employees, including our whole department, multiple departments like Select, All, Delete. So I found myself. five months postpartum. I was back for three weeks after having my son, got the axe and I was like, ⁓ wow, okay. So what's next?
Kate Crane: Yeah, did you take some time?
Brooks Miller: No, not really. was freaking out. I was have a newborn and a mortgage. What? If I'm completely honest, towards the end of my tenure at Twitter, ⁓ I started to get with the lack of platform agnosticness. ⁓ Because what was happening I first started working with creators,
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: No one knew what I was talking about. literally had decks that were like, they're household names. And then the now they're a handheld names. Like there, we were so much education, but if you fast forward seven and a half, almost a decade later, I mean, the creator economy becomes a real thing. And I was watching creators launch podcasts and Emma Chamberlain copy and like all sorts of really interesting things. And we'd have these really cool integrated ideas, but not be able to activate them because they didn't fit in a tweet. I was like, this is frustrating. So I was towards the end of my tenure. I was even interviewing during maternity leave of like where I should go somewhere next. Like I'm feeling like I've learned everything I need to learn on this platform. So it was a blessing in disguise, I was freaked out to be laid off and everyone gets, ⁓ people get laid off once in their life. If not multiple times.
Kate Crane: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Been there. think ⁓ so, scary and emotional when you're in it. It's like a breakup. There's a grieving process.
Brooks Miller: I know. Yeah. Yes, I don't even really get on Twitter anymore. I'm like better about it. And it feels so personal, even though was 6,000 people that got laid off the same day. I was like, but what about me? Said she's got to go. You know, it's like, couldn't be less personal.
Kate Crane: Yeah Yeah, totally. mean, I No. Do you have any tips for from a layoff?
Brooks Miller: Well, two things that I always recommend to people, this is more tactical, less emotional, is you forget to have a personal computer. Because a lot of these companies will provide you with a laptop and you're on that laptop eight hours a day and you are also multitasking maybe, I won't tell anyone. I didn't have a personal computing device at all. ⁓ entire life was on my work computer. So when it ⁓ off one day, which is what happened, it just didn't turn on anymore, is how I found out. It was really stressful because I was trying to like apply for jobs and generate a resume on my phone. Like this is crazy. So I always recommend that people get, even if it's a cheap Chromebook or second generation, whatever, get a personal computing device. Like you must have one.
Kate Crane: That's so interesting. wonder if that was like Musk or if that was, if it was like, you know, specific to the company. Um, because I've heard stories of like more recently ops where it's like, I can't log into my, I can't log into things, but like, yeah, but like the computer shut off is like a next level.
Brooks Miller: Yeah. Yeah, it started off Slack couldn't work, then email and work. It was crazy. One day it just didn't turn on anymore. It was nuts. Then I would also say the other thing is if you think you're getting laid off or if you just want to be laid off proof, back up your stuff. Because seven years is a long time. I'd gotten married by then. I had all these memories and photos of my computer and I would have lost all of them in a vacuum never to be seen again if I hadn't backed them up.
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: Just getting a cheap hard drive is huge in terms of making sure that you're way out of.
Kate Crane: Yeah, I'm not sponsored by Google, would love to be, but G Drive, my life is on G Drive.
Brooks Miller: Yeah, amazing to do that. But emotionally, it's just like a door closes, a windows open, you know, you'll find something new changes energy. good.
Kate Crane: Yeah. So, how long and then like, was the path to Edelman?
Brooks Miller: Yes, so I was interviewing a little bit. So okay, I a five month maternity leave, come back three weeks later, laid off like, oops, ⁓ to this again. But I did have a little bit of momentum because I had been interviewing and was such a like a huge news event. I did have a ⁓ huge influx people that came to try and help me, which was really kind. And I think general, that happens more than you think like You feel so defeated, but most people are so happy to help, like so happy to help. I had a lot of inbounds, which was really nice, a little stressful, but really nice. And a former boss of mine referred me to Edelman and it just so happened that my boss ⁓ became head of creator. So he was like, ⁓ I I was in the system weirdly enough and had And when he got the job, he called me and was like, Hey, Everyone here likes you a lot and I want to hire you. we do this? But the only thing is you have to move back to New York. And I was like, I would love to move back to New York. Let's go. ⁓ it worked. ⁓ yeah, I've moved. I've moved.
Kate Crane: Okay, wait, I missed the data for our listeners. Where does Austin fit in this?
Brooks Miller: Yes, so post pandemic. So we lived in New York, I can't remember the dates, but all the way through for about five years, all the way through the pandemic. Post pandemic, we, my husband and I were like, man, our family's really far away. All of our parents turned 70. My sister had a young baby and then had, was pregnant with her second. And we just felt really far away from family after years of not being able to really get on a plane and see anybody. That was hard. And then we started talking about starting our own family and we're both from Texas. And it just felt like, well, of course we can't have a family here. ⁓ one's ever had a kid in New York. if could cut to our street, it's like nothing about strollers, ⁓ but just, know what, know, you're, you know what you're have a bias towards what is familiar to you. ⁓ And to us, that was Texas, Texas, Texas. So my husband got a job. we wanted to move to Dallas, where we're from. But he got a job in Austin. And I was able to work remotely at Twitter. So we moved to Austin. while were in the process of moving, I got pregnant. Kind of as a surprise. We were going to get there and wait. And we there, ⁓ and it a good fit at all. But I was pregnant, and it was.
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: We hadn't bought a house and it was like a whole thing. So we just kind of camped out there for a while, but we knew it was not like, I think we took for granted city life and how much we loved walking and how nice it was to have public transportation. And it's so easy to build community when you're in a city. ⁓ And what we do is really far more valuable in New York. It's like trying to be an actor in Nashville. You just don't get paid as well. What we do is not as valued in Texas and therefore is not paid as
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: So we're like, ⁓ we don't want to be here. So when I got the opportunity to move back to New York, we're like, go. Sayonara. ⁓ we had like an 18 month olds and as soon as we sold our house, we were here. It was nuts. ⁓ okay. We're in the same building. ⁓ Yes. It's crazy. It's crazy. ⁓ yeah.
Kate Crane: Yeah. That's great. Did y'all go back to the same neighborhood or like different parts of town? No. That's so funny. Well, you knew what you wanted.
Brooks Miller: was telling people, I was like, listen, call me lame if you want to. But the lowest hanging fruit is the sweetest. I have an 18 month old, I moved to New York City, give me a break. I know my train station, I know my nail place, I know my bodega, I know my grocery store, like, I'm good. Not everything has to be an adventure. Right? I know you're like, you're so stressful. ⁓
Kate Crane: To hear you say that after all the things we just talked about. But fair, like make it easy on yourself.
Brooks Miller: If I was in a different phase of life, sure, would try, like, let's do a new neighborhood. Not this one, not this phase. No. he loves it. He loves it so much. He's like a New York boy. It's very sweet.
Kate Crane: Not with 18 month old. ⁓ my gosh. No, thank you. That's good. That's great. Okay, so we're already talking about geography, but how much of your career, just to wrap it up with a bow, is geography versus path and roll?
Brooks Miller: ⁓ yeah. like geography in terms of like where I want to live.
Kate Crane: Like drawing arc ⁓ and arc is kind of like a stegosaurus, right? Like ⁓ you've ⁓ lots like turns. But do you think that those turns ⁓ are, ⁓ many them were shaped by you wanna be somewhere or I have to be somewhere versus I'm coming here the fall or I wanna learn this new thing? ⁓
Brooks Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Eww. I will say like everything has been in service of career, every role and every move except for the move to Austin. And I don't think like don't value family at all. But I think in that move, I learned a lot about what makes me happy and that's like. feeling really energized by what I do every single day for eight hours a day. And I also learned a lot about how I like to live. ⁓ I would say it's like a combination of the two things, but I think I'm my happiest when I'm making decisions from a place of, are where my career is valued. Cause I care about my career a lot right now. And I think that'll change too. It changes a lot. It's very much a Goldilocks thing though, where it's like, you you try different jobs and decide what you don't like about them or what you do like about them.
Kate Crane: great. ⁓ Okay, ⁓ so I'm going to pivot us from like career convo to like the rest of Brooks. ⁓ What does life like outside of work? And are you when you're not at the...
Brooks Miller: Okay. I was like really, I was really laughing at this question because I have a famous bit where I hate hobbies. I'm like, do a lot every day. Stop asking me to have a hobby. ⁓ it not enough ⁓ have a social life and to stay healthy and to get eight hours of sleep? ⁓
Kate Crane: Okay, that's not so fair. I feel like I have to- No, no, think that's like, I, um, my answer to that question, like on a form is typically like, I cook and I work out. Sorry. I genuinely like cooking. It's like that is my quote unquote hobby, but yeah, I have to sustain myself.
Brooks Miller: Yeah, I have friends and I'm healthy. Yeah. Like I watch TV and movies. mean, like if if I was to be like truly like put my serious hat and like not be a jerk about it. Like I love pop culture. I read probably 15 books a year. I try to watch like all the shows that are on. I love movies like I want I went to an Oscars party last night. I love trying new restaurants. I love seeing theater. ⁓ my God, there's so much theater in New York. So like I guess that's a hobby, but it doesn't feel like it. It's allowed to be one.
Kate Crane: Yeah, so then that's the answer, right? It's not that you have like, quote unquote, air quotes, hobbies. It's like your passion is pop culture. And I feel like that's not a dirty word. You're like genuinely interested in it.
Brooks Miller: Yeah, culture. I guess so. I know. Yeah, like genuinely. I listen to like podcasts. Yeah, I love it all. But no, I don't run. I don't knit. I read. I guess you could say reading is a hobby. It makes me happy. It also helps me go to bed.
Kate Crane: Yeah. And like, yeah. me too. I ⁓ we can have a whole different conversation about reading. My reading ⁓ are trash. it's like... ⁓
Brooks Miller: Sadly. Yeah. If you don't think I've read Akitar, you got another thing coming. obviously have. ⁓ really good. ⁓
Kate Crane: Ding, ding, ding. That's what I thought. Okay, so we talked about your son a little bit and there's another baby on the way. It's exciting How has parenting shaped how you show up at work?
Brooks Miller: There is. was really intense at first. was, I used to be the kind of person who would work until it was done. And sometimes that would be five o'clock. that would be midnight and working on the weekends and like 72 and sunny, it was pretty intense for a first job in terms of like level setting, what is normal, because ⁓ I would there all night and watch the sunrise. I worked every weekend. Like it was very intense. I guess I'm more workaholic in ⁓ way, but you can't do that with a kid at all. So I have felt like the biggest change has been trying make ⁓ my nine to five because like I cannot sign on earlier than I was just kind of impossible with daycare. ⁓ I stay on later than five because of school as well, making it as efficient as possible. So like I don't screw around. I don't take meetings I don't need to take. I try to get help where I can. is really helpful with that and just being way more diligent about my time.
Kate Crane: Yeah, totally agree. I'm like, I'm much more efficient. No, it just has to happen. ⁓ And then how do you and your husband balance your careers and like this whole thing of your life together?
Brooks Miller: There's no other way to do it. Yeah. It's hard. I would say that's probably like the hardest part about being a parent is because we both have very busy demanding careers in similar industries. like he was on a shoot for two weeks in City and ⁓ don't near family, which is a conscious choice that we made. And so we really have had to be intentional about building a village, ⁓ both of friends, but then of helpers that we pay. This weekend, we wanted to go celebrate our 10 year anniversary and we had one of our son's favorite teachers from school spend the weekend with them. They just had a little romantic weekend. But I have to travel for clients all the time or work all the time constantly. So that has been the toughest, I would say about like parenting and working at the same time, especially when you have a partner who has an equally demanding job. And so you just live by your family calendar. talk all the time and make sure you have like an army of people that can help.
Kate Crane: How do you think about your undergraduate career today? like, big jump, like, so ⁓ have a degree in advertising, right?
Brooks Miller: I'm gonna you a hint. I know and I like kind of still work in it, which is cool. I feel like I'm like the only person that does that. Like no one else does that.
Kate Crane: Do you, think I might have just like missed my own perception. Like I assumed that you had just like, know, wandered and not wandered. It's like not the right term. You didn't wander into things, but like, I don't think I appreciated that you have an advertising degree and that you really went into advertising. ⁓ And you think that you still use some of those like things that you were taught in school today or?
Brooks Miller: No, but... Mmm. All the time. All the time. And we had mentioned this a little bit earlier. I was at an alumni function and they were fundraising for something for my high school. And the headmistress asked the people in the room, are any of you doing a job that existed when you were in high school? And I swear, maybe three people out of 100 raised their hand. And I was like, yeah, like what I do,
Kate Crane: Yeah, okay.
Brooks Miller: didn't exist not only in high school, it didn't exist in college and it kind of didn't exist when I first started working. So I think what's really cool about my undergrad degree is I definitely use it because greater marketing is a version of advertising. It's like foundational to what we do. So a lot of times like I'll look at a contract and I'm like, ⁓ I know what this term is because that's an advertising term that's being applied in a different way here or.
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: we will the way that we work with talent is very similar to the way actors are on set, which is something that I use like it all is of a piece and related because everything is just a version as we continue on and progress. So I use it a lot more than I even anticipated. And it's sometimes I sound like a dinosaur and like back in my day when we would print at a home and then we'd go to a press check and be like, what are you talking about? Like respectfully stop. But it is like the ancient texts of what I'm doing now. So I do find it helpful in a way. And it's I think it's illogical to think that every single degree is going to be super applicable to your ultimate career because careers are long and degrees are short.
Kate Crane: Yeah, well, it's actually like, it's a wonderful, this is not where I thought this trade of thought was going to go. I have students, parents, friends, that will say, well, my kid shouldn't do X degree because AI is going to make it irrelevant. And I just don't agree with that. And I can't see the future. But I like.
Brooks Miller: ⁓ interesting.
Kate Crane: coding. I'm going go out on a limb and say, I still think it's very important to have a computer science degree to understand the foundation of the code, even if you're not going to end up writing it. You should know the foundations, and maybe that's similar to what you're saying about advertising.
Brooks Miller: Yes, of course. Yeah, I think that's really true. And frankly, like, you should know the foundation of it in order to understand the application of it.
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brooks Miller: It reminds me, I took dance a long time when I was a kid and like, there's a reason you have to take ballet no matter what your major is. Like, I don't care if you're modern dancer, I don't care if you're a top dancer, you've got to take ballet. It's foundational. It informs every other decision because it is the origin.
Kate Crane: Yep. Yeah. you don't know what rules to break or you don't know the special rules.
Brooks Miller: Also, a computer science degree is amazing. Someone has to make the code to make the LLM work.
Kate Crane: I agree. have the same like crazy, still thing that I keep hearing that like there's so many degrees that, or there's so many like industries that are gonna go away from AI because of AI and I just like don't agree with that. There might not be as many people doing it. It doesn't mean. ⁓
Brooks Miller: I don't Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it might change entry level, like what that looks like. But a lot of it, again, this isn't a side, but a lot of our entry level jobs are more about how you can start applying AI in a way that's really good, as opposed to doing the work yourself, it's applying the tools better. And I think like it was probably really similar when everything moved to email and dot com boom. And it's like, well,
Kate Crane: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Brooks Miller: This I'm sure it eliminated some jobs, but they're still entry level jobs. They just have to understand how to use these new formats better.
Kate Crane: Yeah, okay, perfect for you to the next question, which is kind of my last question, TBD. If you could have a coffee chat with Brooks from 2010, what would you tell her?
Brooks Miller: ⁓ great. I was concerned about making right choice and right ⁓ decision. There pressure from my parents to be financially independent. I wanted to be financially independent, but they were like, we are not paying for you after you get this diploma. I was like, Roger that. And it was a time. This country was in a literal depression. My biggest prospect was an internship that paid $1,200 a month in LA. Like, it stressful. And I think ultimately my gut won out on a lot of the swirl up here. But I would tell myself, like, you admire some of these people so much. These careers feel so cool and so unattainable to you. All of those people were just listening to their guts and making decisions according to their circumstances and their preferences and going for it. And like in retrospect, yeah, it makes a ton of sense, but at the time it doesn't make any sense at all. It didn't make sense for me to like go work at Twitter and invented new job that no one had ever heard of on Vine. Like what? all. didn't make any sense. I couldn't explain what I did to anyone in my life. And yet like it just ⁓
Kate Crane: Yeah.
Brooks Miller: correct, and therefore it became correct. So like trusting in myself, think I would and give myself a little less pressure to do something correctly, ⁓ ⁓ it doesn't really exist.
Kate Crane: No, it doesn't. I love it.
Brooks Miller: And you can pivot. Like no career is a permanent sentence.
Kate Crane: Yeah, no, mean, like this is, are essentially like restating the mission of like what I, why this business, I'm, ⁓ I'm so passionate about it because ⁓ is no perfect next step. ⁓ You could, you might have like better ⁓ than bad decisions, but like nothing is perfect. You just have to move forward. And.
Brooks Miller: Yeah No. Yeah, and everything is data. It's just data. Even taking a coffee with someone is data on how did I feel about that conversation? What I learned today? What was my experience? that's so much more valuable than like being right. Whatever right means.
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm. Okay, I'm gonna move into some rapid fire questions and I'm going to admit that I love this concept so much, but I'm still trying to get to we are. So I'm just gonna riff and go with it. Okay, what's the first thing you do in the morning?
Brooks Miller: Okay. I'm bad at rabbit fire. Great. Check my phone. ⁓ off my alarm and check my phone.
Kate Crane: Same. What app is most used on your phone?
Brooks Miller: now, TikTok. It's bad. I say it's for work, but I get sucked in. Probably TikTok. TikTok and iMessage, which I know I'm ⁓ millennial. use iMessage, but sorry.
Kate Crane: What do other people use?
Brooks Miller: ⁓ do you know how old we are that we love iMessage? All the youths use Snap. I'm like, don't have a brain. My brain is too atrophied to remember. need, I can't disappear on me. Yeah, the youths message through Snap on FaceTime. They FaceTime like all day. Uh-huh.
Kate Crane: Die. Stop it. ⁓ my God, no, I can't. That is a little comical. No, never would we not to use iMessage. Okay, so what person or podcast or book has shaped you the most how you think about work?
Brooks Miller: I'm gonna die without it. Yes, the commitments of conscious leadership. You must read it. I refer to it all the time. Our head of sales at Twitter recommended it. ⁓ And is like the Bible to me. It's because not a leadership book that's about work. ⁓ It's about ⁓ and ⁓ stars how to approach and believe in people. ⁓
Kate Crane: Cool.
Brooks Miller: and it's the best. I refer to it constantly.
Kate Crane: That's great. What's the
Brooks Miller: the 15 commitments of unconscious leadership or conscious leadership.
Kate Crane: I'll link it whenever this person linked. ⁓ What is the best piece of advice you've gotten from a professional standpoint? Or personal, either.
Brooks Miller: Yeah, you should. It's great. that I had, if you were ever on my team, you'd probably make so much fun of me, because there's this one that I say all the time, which is nobody thinks about you as much as you think about you. It is, here's why I love it, because in different circumstances that means different things. In some circumstances, it really knocks you down a peg. It's like, can you just stop being so self-absorbed? Because no one's thinking about you, loser. Which, you know, helps. But then I also think in other circumstances, it is so freeing. Because a lot of like, at least what I do, it's creative. And creative is inherently really vulnerable. You're trying to express yourself.
Kate Crane: You
Brooks Miller: through words and images and it's up, it's subjective and it's up for interpretation. It's just very, very vulnerable. And a lot of times marketers and clients will get really in their heads about trying things. And especially in the internet world, like there's so much content out there. Just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what happens. And chanting like, nobody is thinking about this as much as you are is very freeing. It allows you to take bigger risks. It allows you to listen to your gut a little bit more and not worry again about like young Brooks at coffee with. old me now who is trying to do the right thing. There is no right thing. Just try it see what happens. So nobody thinks about you as much as you think about you.
Kate Crane: Yeah. I love it. What's the worst piece of advice you've gotten? And hopefully ignored, but like...
Brooks Miller: ⁓ my god, worst piece of advice. Oh, there was, I had like a coworker once who was very hung up on appropriate. Like, that's an inappropriate thing to say, that's an inappropriate thing to wear. And I was just like, there is so much bias in there. Like say what you mean, dude. Like the idea of appropriate. And if you find yourself in a place where everything is... you don't feel like you're appropriate for everyone else, like, jump ship. Because that's not you. I have a very specific personality, a very outgoing personality, not very, I'm like a real LinkedIn girly and like a buttoned up kind of a gal. ⁓ And I start hearing the word like appropriate being flung around, I'm like, ⁓ I'm not home. I'm not with my people. I need to be able to like fly my freak flag a little bit higher.
Kate Crane: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brooks Miller: But the appropriate police, it's like, get out of here.
Kate Crane: Yeah, appropriate to what guidelines and what rules, who cares?
Brooks Miller: Exactly. That's where it's just like there's biases in there. You have stuff about women, you have several appearances. It's racist. Like, get out. No, people show up as they are. So I was reacting with respect like come on.
Kate Crane: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Sorry. I like, I like, I love the question because you, I mean, everyone's, ick is different, but you learn something ⁓ productive that. Like I, ⁓ yeah. more about openness. The ant, the antithesis of that is just like, be, don't be appropriate, but like be open-minded, ⁓ but offensive.
Brooks Miller: Yucky, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Kate Crane: Okay, what is a win we can celebrate with you?
Brooks Miller: Well, I was very excited. Someone on our team at UEG won age Gen Z years to watch this on our team. ⁓ I submit the application, so I feel like extra excited about it, but she's just like the best. I'm so happy for her to be on that list. It's very cool. We can celebrate Giselle.
Kate Crane: That's it. That's so fun. I love it. mean, being excited for people and their growth, which sounds like there's a lot of there as well. It's great. ⁓ anything you're looking forward to in your life, in the moment.
Brooks Miller: Yes, it's the best. Yeah. I mean, I'm having a baby girl. I'm so pumped. I can't wait. There's like, surely professionals up, whatever, I'm excited. And I get like, we have a really good maternity leave. I have about five, maybe six. If I stack up some PTO against it, months bond and get to do it in New York and give my son a little sister and we'll have like the last piece of our little puzzle. It'll be wonderful. So that's what I'm excited for.
Kate Crane: That's so right. That's so, well, I'm excited for you. She's gonna be the most loved and have, just picturing like Pageant Brooks, Pageant It's gonna the most sparkles.
Brooks Miller: I will say like, I will say like, when we were having our son, was like, gender is a construct. This is ridiculous. ⁓ loves trucks, he loves dinosaurs. And this go around and like, we're gonna start getting some pink in this house. And my was like, what happened to gender as a construct? was like, listen, I've been ⁓ buying ugly for long enough.
Kate Crane: Bye. Girl colors are just so much better. The colors are better. Everything is better.
Brooks Miller: They're so much better. Like these poor men under shackles, like don't they want embroidery too? And a little ruffle? Cause it's great.
Kate Crane: I thought I would have, thought I ⁓ convinced I was always gonna have boys. ⁓ was a tomboy. didn't wear pink until I was in my ⁓ 30s. I was ⁓ such tomboy. ⁓ And ⁓ girls. now it's a pink house. My daughter left the house today, head to toe pink. I'm not kidding. Like, that's what she wanted to wear.
Brooks Miller: Really? There you go. It's so funny. They just come out how they come out.
Kate Crane: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you, Brooks. This has been so wonderful. can we follow you? ⁓ us all your handles.
Brooks Miller: Uh-huh. Thank you. I was like, I'm not a LinkedIn girl. I post on LinkedIn a lot, but I am trying to post things that are real and not like this is what being hit by a car taught me about B2B marketing, ⁓
Kate Crane: I know it's funny. Well, I think, yeah, no, there's nothing. But there's like a new series that I've, is that a series y'all are doing?
Brooks Miller: It is. Yeah, we've been doing it's called interviews with an expert. Are you talking about where I am on an orange couch? Interviews with an expert. I basically just trick people throughout the office into sitting into a room with me and telling me how to do their jobs. It's great. But it has been really fun. It's been a fun way to like meet more people in the office and then like show off all the cool people in our office and what they work on and how smart they are.
Kate Crane: Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant, love it. Yeah, that's wonderful. Okay, anything else we should follow?
Brooks Miller: Bang. No, I mean my TikTok, sure. But like, send them to you. I think it's brooksydm on TikTok and then my full name on, on LinkedIn.
Kate Crane: Well, thank you. This has been so lovely and so happy to catch up.
Brooks Miller: This has been so great. It's so good to catch up with you.
