Scott Brinker

I'm Scott Brinker, I'm often known as Chief MarTech, the chiefmartech.com blog on Twitter, program chair of the MarTech conference, and as of this month, also the VP of platform ecosystem here at HubSpot. After my writing on my blog for years, I've been really passionate about the ecosystem in MarTech, you know, and I think there's been so much opportunity for some of the larger players in this space to really develop stronger platforms that will help that ecosystem thrive. And so, you know, I've spent a lot of time commenting on what other companies were doing and hey, you could do this a little bit better and have you thought about doing it this way, you know, and so when one of these companies finally comes up and says, well, you're all right, you think it could be better, let's talk, how would this be better? I'm like, wow, that would be awesome, I'd love to do that. So here I am. Even though there wasn't a VP platform ecosystem, you know, this development of a platform approach, platform thinking, platform capabilities is something that's clearly been underway at HubSpot for a while. They've got a lot of great teams, they've got a lot of terrific Connect partners. Yeah, so it's definitely not, you know, a green field. I think it's really coming in to help amplify these efforts and just find ways that, again, you've got these three constituents. You've got HubSpot, you've got all of HubSpot's customers, right, you know, 30 some odd thousand customers around the world, but now you've got this other constituency of all these incredible innovators in that ecosystem. And so just finding ways to get these three groups to really have as much synergy as possible so that, you know, everyone moves forward with this. You know, it's a very broad mission, but I'm really excited to tackle it. You know, again, I'm just one of these crazy people who loves marketing technology. I love all the things that people are building in this space. And so the fact that someone's going to actually pay me, you know, to spend time on the day trying to figure out, you know, how can we do more of this? Wow, it's like a kid in a candy store. So I think two things are happening. One, the scope of marketing just continues to expand, right? I mean, there's so many new touch points. You know, we were talking a bit here at the conference around conversational interfaces, all this stuff, video, right? I mean, there's all this scope of what marketing touches continues to grow. So that's one of the reasons you see all this innovation happening in the ecosystem. But the other reason is we're just living in a software world. I mean, anyone, anyone now can build software and get it deployed on this, you know, cloud infrastructure. And so people who have ideas that before the barriers to getting that idea out to the world were quite high. Now they're incredibly low. And so this wonderful combination of the demand in marketing to find new ways to connect and engage with people and on the supply side for people who want to build stuff to have the option, the access to do that. I mean, that's an amazing time. So that's why just this incredible, you know, just growth that happens. And we can call it the more tech landscape, but in many ways it's bigger than that, right? It's starting to touch sales and customer service and all these things that get interrelated. So yeah, I think the opportunity here is, you know, for HubSpot going back to those three constituencies, customers, the ecosystem partners, you know, and the company itself, how do we, how do we really get the maximum alignment between the interests of these three groups? HubSpot's CTO said in his keynote yesterday, right? I mean, no one company can do it all. I mean, there's just too much happening in all these places. And it's almost like if you were trying to do it all, you do none of it well, you know? And so I think the real vision for platforms in this space for HubSpot and for others is to say, okay, what's the right foundational pieces to have? The things that really allow that maximum amount of community to revolve around it. And then how do you open that up in a way to make sure that all the people who have innovative ideas on top of that, that we make it really easy, not only for the developers to be able to plug these things in, but collectively we make it easier for customers to be able to tap into these capabilities. And you know, I don't know if we'll ever get quite to the place where it's like, you know, Apple's app store or something like that. Oh, one click and hey, there we go. You know, but I think that's what we should be striving for. That's what we should aspire for. Marketers, they're not interested in technology for technology's sake. They're interested in this technology for, you know, how does it help them reach and engage their customers better? And so the more we can do collectively, both on the platform side and in the ecosystem, to let marketers and salespeople and customer experience people keep their focus on that rather than the plumbing. If we can take care of the plumbing for them, that would be very helpful. It's challenging. I mean, you know, it's hard for me keeping track of, you know, that crazy landscape. And so I have a lot of empathy that for marketers, they need to understand this technology to be able to really do the best they can. But the danger you want to avoid is you don't want to get so sucked up in the technology that you lose sight of, OK, how are we creating a customer experience that really differentiates ourselves? It really speaks to our brand. You know, it's not just about the latest shiny object. It's, you know, looking at what are the capabilities we need to deliver that our customers expect? And so I think if you can keep that viewpoint, that helps. But this is actually one of the things I think platforms can help with. I think we should be able to do a better job of helping customers discover what are the right tools for what they're trying to accomplish, you know, because it's not about the entire crazy landscape. It's about, OK, for my particular business, the sorts of things I'm doing, these are the other pieces that I'm using. What are the options out there that would really be the best fit for me? I think if the platforms and the ecosystems can collaborate more in helping customers with that discovery and decisioning process, it'll be better for everyone. Yeah, see, I think this is like a great example. I mean, you guys know this is what you do for a living. I mean, there's so much innovation that can happen just in the context of video and video marketing automation. The opportunity in the ecosystem is to really let the people who specialize, you know, in particular channels, in particular, you know, capabilities of this have the best, you know, it's like that best of breed and the platform, the best of both worlds. So I think this is a really exciting time because, I mean, there's so much happening in video, you know, this ability to really think about integrating video, not just as something, you know, static, you know, but it's something that's really integrated into the experience we interact with it. I'm very excited about those capabilities being integrated into the HubSpot platform through these ecosystem partnerships. I mean, there's a richness to video that, you know, you're capturing that wonderful combination of language and visuals and story and narrative. I mean, right, we're a culture that, you know, loves movies and TV shows and, you know, plays. And to finally now have the technology be at a level where it's so democratized, you know, that any business can, you know, find ways to engage its audience through these narratives, these video narratives, these visual stories. Yeah, I mean, it's like, why wouldn't you do this? There's basically two things you have to start with in any new job. You have to find where the coffee machine is located and then you have to find where the restroom is located because there's like a virtuous cycle there that need to get those sorted out. I'm actually still working on those. I think it's a large building. But I think getting beyond that, you know, part of it is just starting out by really listening to the people who are currently in HubSpot's ecosystem. Again, you know, this is, you know, maybe a little bit of a new role for me, but this is something that HubSpot's already invested a fair amount in. You know, ecosystem partners like yourself have already been, you know, very deeply connected. You know, so, yeah, my first mission is to, you know, hear from you, you know, hear from everyone else in this ecosystem. You know, what's going well? What can we do better? You know, what are the ways to bring greater value to our mutual customers? Integration of conversations, you know, whether it's through on-site chat or chat bots or, you know, voice systems, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, you know, there's a really nice combination here, I think, particularly when you look at, you know, video and how much we've been, you know, moved by video based narratives in our culture. And the other half of that is the conversations we tend to have around those. And I think to now finally see both of those just becoming available to any business, you know, that wants to engage its audience that way. You know, we've got a lot to learn. I mean, we're still learning with video what's the best ways to really engage people. I think with conversations, same thing. This is kind of a new medium in the digital space. So very exciting to pioneer this road. One of the great things about my former company, Ion Interactive, was actually just recently acquired and it happened that things worked out a way that that happened at the same time, me making this move. And, you know, people have asked me why, why HubSpot? It was because, well, Ion's primary color and its logo was orange. And so I had all this orange wardrobe. I'm like, where can I find another company where this is still going to work? You know, and HubSpot was right there. So it worked out. I'm not saying that you should choose your marketing technology based on your favorite color. I'm just saying that I did. So again, it goes back to just I believe for such a long time that the opportunities for platforms in this space to really help make sense of that crazy landscape, to help bring, you know, a little bit, you know, Darmesh in his presentation yesterday, was talking about this idea of aligning vectors, you know, very nerdy subjects. I love this stuff. I'm going to be right at home here, you know, but in many ways, it's like the landscape has been all these vectors going in different directions. And I think by getting platforms in the larger ecosystem to cooperate, you know, at deeper and deeper levels, you start to align these vectors more for the the marketers and, you know, ultimately their customers. So, yeah, quite frankly, again, if I wasn't in this role, if HubSpot had hired someone else to do this role, I would still be psyched about this. I'm like, yes, you know, any time a company in this space, you know, is making investments in trying to bring a little bit more, yeah, alignment to that ecosystem. I think that's the fact that they invited me to do it. Again, kidding a candy store. No, part of it is so I love technology. I love marketing technology. But at the end of the day, that isn't really the story. You know, it isn't really about, you know, what particular tools are being connected or, you know, the architecture and putting them together. I mean, it's a piece, but it's a small piece. I mean, what's really transforming marketing is the way you see these teams that are integrating technical talent and marketing talent and rethinking what it means to to be a marketer in this world. And so almost all of the stories that we focus on on MarTech are really it's not about the tech. It's about the Mar. It's how do you how do you leverage that marketing on top of those technologies? So there were there were three pillars to the MarTech conference and to my blog. I have them up in the banner marketing, technology and management. And it really is actually that third pillar to me that is the most important because at the end of the day, these tools change the way we can work. In fact, to really get the value out of them, we have to we have to operate differently. We can't be in the same sort of, oh, we have this long yearly marketing plan and this very hierarchical organization. But then all these tools are designed to have these rapid feedback loops and this experimentation, this ability to, you know, agilely adapt to what we learn as people interact. I mean, to take advantage of that stuff, you have to rethink how marketing as an organization operates. And I think that's the greatest challenge, but I think that's also where the greatest opportunity is. So, yeah, those are the stories that get me very excited. I mean, this is a sort of organization you just couldn't have imagined five years ago. But now, right, you get these innovative companies that are operating all over the world. Yeah, it's only going to get more exciting from here. Good time to be doing this.