Q&A Spotlight: Get to Know Our Guests
Jodi Schroll is a marketing leader with experience in healthcare, biotech, and pharma. She has the distinction of having cofounded an innovative biotech startup (bluDiagnostics) that was acquired by Amazon. Getting to work with her on that product (both pre- and post- acquisition) was a highlight for us.
What's a long standing myth about marketing that needs to be retired?
A longstanding myth that “great products sell themselves” should be retired. In today’s competitive markets, consumers are bombarded with messages that easily overwhelm their attention. And it is the rare product that can overcome the noise and spread virally to rise above the competition. Compounding this, many companies budget for products based on applying a “typical” percentage of revenue. While that can provide a ballpark comparable, it is not the way to maximize marketing success. Great marketing is a mix of several elements, including laser focused targeting by segment. Add clean messaging about the unique product benefits along with creative branding that gets attention and is memorable (or better yet is truly exciting). Great marketing starts with planning from the bottom up, building trust with an authentic voice and building brand awareness. Retiring this myth allows recognition that groundwork must be done, starting with customers, to develop a marketing plan that includes creativity and connection that clearly resonates.
What's a tool, book, or resource you've found invaluable recently?
I recently read “The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition”. While I chose this book for pleasure reading, it touched on many elements helpful for a startup. Shackleton took on a very challenging goal (to be the first expedition to cross on foot the Antarctic continent) with many uncontrollable forces that could influence the potential outcome. Shackleton led a crew of 27, keeping his eye on how they were coping and making sure everyone understood the current challenges and each one’s crucial role. When the stakes were highest (life or death), Shackleton took great risks to find ways to survive. It’s an incredible telling of the journey that could have ended tragically (twice) if they waited for someone to save them or if they gave up hope due to nature’s many cruel obstacles. Persistence, thoughtful leadership, and taking great calculated risks allowed Shackleton to save the expedition despite primitive supplies and equipment that were never meant to sustain them in the arctic for 20 months. It was very inspirational to me.
What's something people might not know about you?
I own a bonsai tree. It was given to me by my family for my birthday. They found a person selling his bonsai collection at age 93. He had started and nurtured hundreds of bonsai over his lifetime. At the time of my gift, the bonsai was 38 years old. It must stay outside all year, and in summer it must be watered daily. It requires grooming and fertilizing annually. Every several years it should be replanted in a slightly larger pot. It is an awesome responsibility to care for such a precious tree. I named my bonsai “Kibo” which translates to “hope”. It was a gift of love and peace, and I enjoy and admire it with gratitude daily.
Will R. is CTO at TalentSelect AI, where we’ve had the pleasure of working with him on projects involving, you guessed it, AI. Will is an occasional podcast host and perennial bibliophile: his zoom background is a beautiful, real swath of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
What's a misconception people have about the use of AI in your field?
Much of my professional focus over the past few years has been in HR Tech, specifically building AI-powered tools for talent assessment and hiring. I think one misconception people have is the assumption that the 'wild west' nature of AI adoption, which we’re seeing across many other industries, also applies to new hiring technologies, which couldn't be further from the truth.
Because hiring decisions directly affect people’s livelihoods, this industry operates within strict guidelines. First, there is existing employment law, including federal regulations such as Title VII, the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, and the EEOC's recent AI guidance, which all require that any selection tools – whether algorithmic or not – demonstrate job-related validity and avoid adverse impact. Some jurisdictions are adding even more oversight, such as New York City’s Local Law 144 bias-audit requirement.
Second, our industry has decades of professional standards from the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). These standards spell out how to collect data, build and validate assessments, and monitor them over time. In practice, that means an AI solution like the products I've been involved with go through validation studies, legal defensibility reviews, and third-party bias audits long before a recruiter ever logs in.
What’s a tool, book, or resource you’ve found invaluable recently?
This answer might not sound like any fun, but I’ve been investing a lot of my personal and professional development energies as of late on law, policy, and compliance education. This is more important and relevant in some industries than others, but as it relates to my areas of interest (such as AI, cybersecurity, and HR), fluency with legal and compliance issues is becoming increasingly important. And this is something I frequently advise other technology and product leaders to invest in as well. At the moment, the resource I've been finding especially interesting and helpful is a book called Cybersecurity Law by Jeff Kosseff.
What’s something people might not know about you?
I’m a bit of a book nerd in my personal life and even produce a weekend radio show about books and writers, which airs out of an NRP station in Texas. I was actually an English major as an undergraduate and only fell into tech by accident when I landed a job as a documentation writer for a data center company in my mid-twenties. I feel blessed for that accident and love what I do, but I still keep a foot in the literary world.
Tim Gill is a SEO powerhouse that we’ve known since the ‘10’s, when we all worked at Shopbop/Amazon. Nowadays, we are thrilled to have him helping us provide SEO services to our clients. Read our short interview with him for SEO tips and AI tools to try.
What’s a mistake you commonly see people make in SEO?
E-commerce SEO can be tricky, and many businesses make mistakes that hinder their website's visibility and performance. Focusing solely on high-volume keywords without considering what users are actually looking for (their search intent) can lead to irrelevant traffic and low conversion rates. Long-tail keywords (more specific phrases) often have lower competition and higher conversion rates. Neglecting these can limit your reach to a narrower audience. Too often people ignore internal linking. Internal links help search engines understand your website's structure and distribute authority among pages.
What’s a tool, book, or resource you’ve found invaluable recently?
I have really been diving into the application of AI in marketing and trying out new tools. Some are really fun and others are incredible productivity tools. Some of my favorites right now include NotebookLM, uberduck.ai, and napkin.ai, and Adobe Firefly. My kids have gotten a kick out of cloning my voice and making me say ridiculous things.
What’s something people might not know about you?
I really enjoy languages and words that move across cultures. When I was a teenager I would fall asleep listening to listen-and-learn language cassettes from the library. I can speak Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and tinker in German and Mandarin. My family does Duolingo in the car for fun. One of my current favorite tiktokers is @superangrygerman who explains German words in a very angry tone.