Plain and simple, Maya Draisin is an industry rockstar, but instead of stacking platinum records, Draisin has made her mark by shaping some of the biggest brands in the world in her 17-year career in marketing. Currently, Maya Draisin is the Chief Brand Officer of Time Inc., having previously held leadership roles at Condé Nast and Wired. Since joining the media heavyweight in 2019, Draisin has been at the forefront of the new growth of this 100-year-old iconic brand. Through her strategic campaigns and team leadership, she enables all generations to experience media that is one-of-a-kind, timely, and evergreen.
During this year’s 2022 Smartsheet ENGAGE conference, we got the opportunity to pick Draisin’s brain about how a company with so many moving parts worldwide uses technology to work faster and smarter. Geekwire Studio’s Matt Lorch goes behind the headlines with Draisin to talk 100 years of Time Inc., how their team used Smartsheet to manage the quick-turn reporting on the death of Queen Elizabeth, and why collaboration leads to better outcomes. Here are some excerpts:
Matt Lorch: I’m curious about your experience here at ENGAGE. Any light bulb moments for you?
Maya Draisin: I love ENGAGE. I have to say my first day at Time was actually at ENGAGE three years ago, so it has a very special place in my heart, and I know it’s been hard not having it live. It’s amazing to feel this energy and also to see, and the crowd was incredible, love them. And then to see all of the progress that Smartsheet is making, they already have an incredible product. And then to stand up there and announce all these new features, which got all the claps, it’s incredible.
ML: I want to talk a little bit about technology and software. How do you see collaborative technology at Time, as you look to transform your brand and your business?
Draisin: Collaboration is such a key piece of how one works these days, especially in an organization like Time, we’re all over the world, so some of it is just about working with colleagues who are far from you, in Asia and London, all over the world. That’s huge, and technology enables us to keep things all in one place to keep communication consistent and in real-time.
ML: I’m curious about how you were first introduced to Smartsheet. How did that process play out?
Draisin: As in many organizations, you know, different people bring different tools that they find useful, and we actually also used it from one of my prior jobs. I was happy to see people using it at Smartsheet, and it’s really fun to see people learn additional features and put those to work.
ML: Can we go a bit deeper on that? I’m curious about how you utilize Smartsheet and how your team uses it in day-to-day operations.
Draisin: I gave one example this morning about the Queen’s recent passing. It’s amazing to see how it [Smartsheet] mobilizes the entire organization into telling that story. We use Smartsheet to pull together everything we’ve ever created about Queen Elizabeth into one place where people could go and figure out the best and the most iconic beautiful assets and how to share them across all our various channels, whether they’re photographs, articles, or videos.
ML: How were you collaborating before, and how has that changed with Smartsheet?
Draisin: We previously used a lot of Google Suite products. And then there were so many different collaboration tools that people used (I think for various reasons). You know, getting an organization to center in on a single tool (so you’re not like team over here is using “X” and team over here is using “Y”), let’s all use Smartsheet. That’s a process, but it [in the end] makes for a much more efficient organization.
ML: You guys [Time, Inc.] have a birthday coming up? Can we talk about this?
Draisin: Birthday? Thank you. We [Time Inc.] are turning a hundred next year.
ML: A hundred years? Congratulations! Happy birthday. As you look toward the future to the next hundred years, how do you keep your offerings relevant to a modern audience?
Draisin: It’s about bringing the things people love and count on the most, which is trusted storytelling for us. Telling stories and bringing those into the future in ways that surprise and delight.
ML: What advice would you give folks to create a better way of working within a big operation or organization? What advice would you give them on moving towards a better way of collaborating?
Draisin: The first thing is collaboration; it’s everything these days. And if you know, the days of being able to make autonomous decisions and have those be the best result, I think certainly in an organization like ours are long gone. The differing perspectives are what make things fantastic and complicated. It can seem to slow you down, it can seem to be a pain, but ultimately, the results are in a better product. It’s tools that can help you do that more efficiently and faster are everything.
