Marketing, Mindfulness and Martinis Joanne Tombrakos

This week Joanne sits down with Junmian Sun, Managing Director of the Shorty Awards, an international competition that has been honoring innovative work in digital and social media by brands, agencies, nonprofits, and creators since 2008 when it first launched on Twitter, the social network now known as X.
Beyond The Shorty Awards, The Shorty Impact Awards, and The Elevate Creatives Fund their conversation meanders to the impact of GenAI on storytelling, unbreaking the internet, and bringing the social side back to social media plus more than one other thought-provoking idea!
This is an episode that will get you thinking!

Follow Junmian Sun on LinkedIn
More on The Shorty Awards here
More on The Shorty Impact Awards here
Listen to It’s No Fluke podcast
Vote for your favorite 16th Annual Shorty Awards Finalists through Tuesday, April 30th, 2024!
Watch Junmian at SXSW
 Plain English with Derek Thompson podcast
Home Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

Marketing, Mindfulness, and Martinis - an unfiltered look at what’s changing and what’s not - in business and life -  is hosted by Joanne Tombrakos.  Each week Joanne offers a mixture of diverse and real-life conversations with industry leaders navigating the changes in their business and their lives in these challenging and uncertain times and occasional rants from her on timely topics that she just can’t keep quiet about.
For more about Joanne, visit joannetombrakos.com
Crafting Your Pitch, A Storytelling Framework is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, and other online booksellers.
Learn more about Joanne's other books here.
Follow Joanne on Linkedin, Instagram and  Threads


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joannetombrakos.substack.com

From the day e-commerce became a thing, the death of brick and mortar was predicted. Joanne wasn’t convinced then and she’s not convinced now. Neither is her guest today.
Melissa Gonzalez is an award-winning strategist and brand storyteller, the author of The Pop Up Paradigm: How Brands Build Human Connection in a Digital Age, and the principal and founder of MG2 Design, a global architecture, design, strategy, and branding firm. Melissa has produced more than 150 brand experiences across the country for both DTC start-ups and established brands including Tempo, Nordstrom, and Burrow.
As you will learn from their conversation - brick and mortar retail is not dead - but it is changing. Stay tuned to see how Melissa and her firm help brands navigate that change.
More on Melissa Gonzalez here
More on MG2 here
Learn more about MG2’s latest advisory offering here
Get your copy of The Pop Up Paradigm: How Brands Build Human Connections in a Digital Age here.
Follow Melissa on LinkedIn and Instagram
Marketing, Mindfulness, and Martinis - an unfiltered look at what’s changing and what’s not - in business and life -  is hosted by Joanne Tombrakos.  Each week Joanne offers a mixture of diverse and real-life conversations with industry leaders navigating the changes in their business and their lives in these challenging and uncertain times and occasional rants from her on timely topics that she just can’t keep quiet about.
For more about Joanne, visit joannetombrakos.com
Crafting Your Pitch, A Storytelling Framework is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, and other online booksellers.
Learn more about Joanne's other books here.
Follow Joanne on Linkedin, Instagram and  Threads


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joannetombrakos.substack.com

Joanne’s guest today is award-winning journalist and writing coach, Estelle Erasmus who has written for over 150 publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post and has been editor-in-chief of five national consumer publications. Among other accomplishments Estelle is the author of the recently published, Writing to Get Noticed, Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published which was just awarded a 2023 Zibby Award for Best Book for a Writer.
If you are wondering what any of this has to do with marketing and business, it will soon become clear. While their areas of expertise differ, what Estelle talks about and teaches in regards to storytelling, creating content for publications and pitching ideas - mirrors everything Joanne teaches and talks about as well as a shared belief in what Estelle writes so beautifully, “Words can change lives.”


More on Estelle here
Follow Estelle on Substack, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn
Listen to Estelle’s podcast, Freelance Writing Direct
Get Estelle’s book, Writing to Get Noticed, Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published here
Opus Clip - AI-powered Video Repurposing
Marketing, Mindfulness, and Martinis - an unfiltered look at what’s changing and what’s not - in business and life -  is hosted by Joanne Tombrakos.  Each week Joanne offers a mixture of diverse and real-life conversations with industry leaders navigating the changes in their business and their lives in these challenging and uncertain times and occasional rants from her on timely topics that she just can’t keep quiet about.
For more about Joanne, visit joannetombrakos.com
Crafting Your Pitch, A Storytelling Framework is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, and other online booksellers.
Learn more about Joanne's other books here.
Follow Joanne on Linkedin, Instagram and  Threads


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joannetombrakos.substack.com

Not every prediction list is worth a conversation but when Joanne read the Red Sky Predictions for 2024 she knew this one was! So she reached out to Linda Descano, Executive Vice President from Havas Red to invite her back on the podcast to discuss what Havas Red calls 8 Predictions for Communicators on the Cutting Edge.
While Joanne and Linda don’t cover all eight (you can read the full report for that) they do cover, Truthtelling in Storytelling (#2), GenerativeIRL (#3), The Raging 20s (#5) and the MiniInfluencer(#7).
They also step back into 2023 for a bit to talk about why Havas Red chose chaos as their word of the year.
Tune in for a smart and engaging conversation!

Follow Linda Descano on LinkedIn
Follow Havas Red on LinkedIn
The full Red Sky 2024 Prediction Report
Chaos, the 2023 Word of the Year according to Havas Red
More about New York Women in Communications here
Episode #16, Wisdom from a Conversation Architect
Joanne’s favorite mini influencer, Baby Sam.

Marketing, Mindfulness, and Martinis - an unfiltered look at what’s changing and what’s not - in business and life -  is hosted by Joanne Tombrakos.  Each week Joanne offers a mixture of diverse and real-life conversations with industry leaders navigating the changes in their business and their lives in these challenging and uncertain times and occasional rants from her on timely topics that she just can’t keep quiet about.
For more about Joanne, visit joannetombrakos.com
Crafting Your Pitch, A Storytelling Framework is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, and other online booksellers.
Learn more about Joanne's other books here.
Follow Joanne on Linkedin, Instagram and  Threads


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joannetombrakos.substack.com

Joanne is in conversation today with Ann Crandall, Chief Operating Officer for Climb4Climate, a non-profit that raises money to support climate change organizations through stadium events.
Among other things they discuss what it’s like to be a part of both a start-up and a non-profit after a career in the private sector that included senior management positions at New York RoadRunners and the Big East Conference Basketball. They also talk about the power of working hard, managing chaos and the importance of staying curious.
Tune in for an inspiring and informative episode!

More about Ann Crandall here
Follow Ann on Instagram and LinkedIn
Learn more about Climb4Climate

Marketing, Mindfulness, and Martinis - an unfiltered look at what’s changing and what’s not - in business and life -  is hosted by Joanne Tombrakos.  Each week Joanne offers a mixture of diverse and real-life conversations with industry leaders navigating the changes in their business and their lives in these challenging and uncertain times and occasional rants from her on timely topics that she just can’t keep quiet about.
For more about Joanne, visit joannetombrakos.com
Crafting Your Pitch, A Storytelling Framework is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, and other online booksellers.
Learn more about Joanne's other books here.
Follow Joanne on Linkedin, Instagram and  Threads


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joannetombrakos.substack.com

After a brief break from the show, Joanne is back to catch up with an end-of-2023 recap, hibernation and news on her new book, Crafting Your Pitch, A Storytelling Framework.

Marketing, Mindfulness, and Martinis - an unfiltered look at what’s changing and what’s not - in business and life -  is hosted by Joanne Tombrakos.  Each week Joanne offers a mixture of diverse and real-life conversations with industry leaders navigating the changes in their business and their lives in these challenging and uncertain times with occasional rants from her on timely topics that she just can’t keep quiet about.
For more about Joanne, visit joannetombrakos.com
Crafting Your Pitch, A Storytelling Framework is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, and other online booksellers.
Learn more about Joanne's other books here.
Follow Joanne on Linkedin, Instagram and  Threads


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit joannetombrakos.substack.com