About the June Stewart Leadership Series
Ep 06 June Stewart Leadership Series Podcast, October 14, 2020
Podcast with Erica Madden, owner & partner, bloom/former SID
If I Knew Then What I Know Now: Communications Thoughts & Strategies For Athletic Communicators Today
with host
Trip Durham, 2D Consulting, LLC
Trip Durham
Erica Madden
A former SID at Davidson College and Elon College, both in North Carolina, Erica Madden gained valuable experience when she began her athletic communications career as a student assistant at Indiana University. Transitioning into corporate and non-profit strategic communications, Madden is a storyteller, has increased philanthropic support for numerous organizations and says she “believes in the power of moments. I love to create experiences for clients, employees, friends and family that elevate and change them.”
In this podcast, Madden offers her perspectives on athletic communications and the strategic roles of SIDs as they embrace their responsibilities as we move through the pandemic and beyond. Madden’s message includes advice on “courageous communications,” how to be “ridiculously present” and to avoid “communications clutter.” And, the importance of the handwritten note.
She is owner and partner in bloom, a creative and communications firm in the Raleigh-Durham area.
Website: bloomandchange.com
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Podcast Length: 30:10
Highlights of the Podcast, hosted by Trip Durham, 2D Consulting LLC
1:49: What do I know now as a communications professional – that I have learned along the way - as it relates to telling stories strategic messaging and building relationships? Do we have three hours for this podcast? I’ve learned so much. To do a good job in the communications space, you first have to be a good listener. This is a missed aspect, something I did not pay attention to when younger … You become a better storyteller when you are a good listener. And you learn different skills like empathy and compassion. Being a good listener is a key part of being a good communicator and they go hand-in-hand.
When I started in communications, I focused so heavily on the external - the marketing, the messaging. Now I focus a lot more on the internal aspects – how people communicate with each other inside an organization (because if they don’t) - that’s where the breakdown starts. Often external stories will take care of themselves if people are doing a good job with internal spaces.
Internal is a lot harder than external communications. It’s lots harder to give people your opinion - it’s riskier and feels more scarier to have true conversations with people you work with. In my business, people bring me in thinking they have an external marketing problem, but when you peel back the layers, it’s a breakdown in communications in leadership – those are the elephants in the room. Start thinking about internal communications as important as external communications – it’s something I didn’t think much about when I started in sports information.
3:50: The art of storytelling: We are all telling our stories every day – telling them in our heads, in what products we buy, why we shop where we do. You have to help your audience find a place in your story, or try and weave your story into the stories in their heads. The stories we are telling in our head are much more powerful than the external stories we hear.
6:00: Career path: I’ve made quite a few stops in my career. I married a college basketball coach and I feel like we were everywhere – he was at Clemson, and I did work at Furman; there were always opportunities to paly a role at these schools. We moved a lot and I had to extend my communications skills and work into other areas, other businesses. That’s been a huge boost to my career.
7:20: Her long-time love of sports: I went to college specifically to be on ESPN! Was set on going to Notre Dame, even though I grew up a Pittsburgh sports fan. I loved Notre Dame and when we drove to my college visit to Notre Dame, my father said it was important we would visited lots of campuses along the way. Indiana had a good sports communications program and I walked on campus and fell in love. I traded big football for big basketball for sure!
I went to school thinking I’d be a member of the media, again wanting to work for ESPN. In my sophomore year, a friend told me about media relations and I went and got a job in the SID office. My first experience … was the press conference when Coach (Bobby) Knight got fired! Over time, I found the media was always searching for stories, and not always the good stories. That helped me transition away from wanting to be in the media and help the student-athletes, to learn to pitch more positive stories, and not search for the “junk” negative stories that I felt the media often did.
9:40: First big experiences as an SID: At Indiana, my boss’s wife had their first child during the basketball season, and I traveled as a senior as a basketball media relations contact. Mike Davis was our coach, we went to the Final Four and into the championship game against Maryland. Mike Davis also was our first black basketball coach, so there were lots of storylines around IU basketball. Lots of interesting things happened early on and led me to a SID career. I also traveled with the natonal power men’s soccer team and went right into traveling with the basketball team. I had a lot of great experiences as a young person, for sure.
10:44: As you’ve moved around a lot professionally, what are some lessons you’ve learned from that? Take what’s offered to you. Those experiences lofted me into a new place. If you want an opportunity, ask for it! Do the little things. I learned how to do graphic design by asking people, how do I do PhotoShop? How do I create my own graphics?
Moving around has its advantages. I have had to adapt quickly and to new people, quickly, to understand the new environments. I was able to take things from outside the sports information world. When I was hired by Elon to lead their athletic communications department I had lots of things to lean on. I brought things in from my other work environments and applied them. I became more of a generalist working in places that required strong communications.
13:05: What are the differences between working at public institutions and private institutions and what experiences did you take from each? I’ll be honest – it was hard to adjust to a smaller school environment, moving to the south in a small town with 1500 students. I did not know what to do with that. At Davidson, I was brought on for my soccer background, as I had gone to the men’s soccer final four two years in a row, and did the book for men’s basketball team. I also had to cover wrestling, which I never saw before. Luckily had a great boss and when I was questioning things, he said, why don’t you do basketball? This was jus before Steph Curry came to Davidson.
I was working with student-athletes who came to be student before athletes and they were a bit more thoughtful and had other goals besides pro sports. I appreciated telling their stories at the smaller mid-major. The advantage was telling their stories, but I had to
sell those stories. If you wanted something printed in the Charlotte market and you were at Davidson, it was hard. I learned the true value of relationships – to get something printed in Charlotte market, you had to have good relationships with reporters. Social media was just starting. We weren’t “our own media” yet. We had to rely on others talking about you. It was an initial shock to my system, but I had a great time working with Davidson basketball.
16:44: In 2015 you launched your own company (Bloom Strategic Communications, LLC, now bloom.) One of your tenets and principles is having “courageous communications – what is that and how does it factor into our challenging times right now and into the SID experience? I’ll start with quoting Brene Brown, a shame researcher and popular speaker and educator. She is one one of my favorites. Her first famous TED talk was on vulnerability. She says “clear is kind; unclear is unkind.” That sums up courageous communications. It’s hard to say the hard thing and speak your truth, but by doing so you are being clear with people … it is the kind and courageous way to be and it enables you both to move forward in some capacity- even if you agree to disagree.
If you are not clear, you cannot be productive.
Another great quote from Brene is “Paint done.” If you cannot tell people what the end result looks like, you need to be clear on what the end result will be. It’s a kind way to lead your team, teaching people how to have courageous communications across the board. You have to be willing to say hard things to be better humans and better professionals.
19:25: This year in CoVID-19, communications is: Different. So much communication comes from body language, eye contact. Now, words have become that much more powerful. Consider the people you have to be with all day, every day; communications inside our homes has changed, too. Recognize how we all communicate differently. It doesn’t mean one person is wrong; we just do it differently. If you have 10 staff members, they might all like to be communicated with in different ways; learn their styles and learn what motivates them because it helps them get the job done.
21:10: We know there are many strong personalities in college athletics. Communication pros have to learn to read and react. You use the term “be ridiculously present,” especially as we communicate virtually. What are the benefits of being “ridiculously present”? I am doing life well when I am ridiculously present. When I am multi-tasking, I don’t do this well, or when interrupted by a staff member, or when I let my mind wander away (from a conversation). It’s then that I know I have to check myself.
Let me explain this. I volunteer at The Little Pink Houses of Hope. Early on, we had weeklong retreats (and were not provided) with a lot of information on what would happen. As a type A personality, it made me uncomfortable. My first leader said – the main goal is for you to be present and love on these people, be completely present in their world. Put your work, your phone, aside.
Now, I’ve led seven or eight of these retreats – and some sort of magic happens when we are ridiculously present. We are so not used to that because there are distractions always around us. We always have a next tweet to post, the call to return, an Instagram post to set up, the desire to scroll …. (Being ridiculously present) is almost shocking to you. You catch your breath a little bit because people are paying such close attention. It helps you ask better questions when you are ridiculously present … and makes you a much more empathetic human because you are actually trying to listen well enough to walk in their shoes a little bit. That’s the only way, to be a good storyteller - if you really are listening closely and being present with people to see where they are coming from and what they are going through in the world right now.
25:00: Being intensely focused helps you find stories you might never have seen before because of all the other clutter that invades your thinking and your own space. Talk about “communications clutter.” That’s really true. This leads me to another comment about communications: When are you being that communications professional who is just contributing to the clutter? How do you know when you just need to be quiet because what you need to say is just another piece of content marketing, when there are a million pieces out there? When do you spend your time finding the uniqueness finding the right stories, determining what your audience is looking for from you?
So often, we make a plan without actually talking and listening to our audience and knowing what they care about. What is it that they are searching for from us, and what is it that they wish we would provide? If we are constantly involved in the clutter, then we are contributing to the clutter. Ask, how do we take a step back and not be just another contributor to the clutter?
26:23: Back to our main theme of if I knew then what I knew now. What advice would the older Erica tell younger Erica from the communications standpoint? I once wrote a blog called Dear Younger Me. One thing I wrote was the idea of being present, ridiculously so, and believe that you are in the right place to share your gift of presence.
Another was: learn to articulate your feelings emotions and heart desires to those you care about even when your thoughts are at odds with the other person.
Authenticity and vulnerable conversations ultimately lead to deep and meaningful partnerships. I think this is so soo soo incredible critical for folks working in sports information right now. You work really closely with people for long hours, long days, nights and weekends. These people are people you have to understand what their worlds are like and hopefully they have respect for what your world is like … It’s hard to hide your life in sports information – you have to figure out how to place balance and have tough conversations and share your true feelings so you don’t become bitter and regretful – that’s so important.
28:50: Final thoughts on the importance of writing to increase your skills and value and professionalism. Study grammar. Learn to write. Words are powerful tools! Man, if I could encourage young people today to write, and not just use emojis … Type out the word “you” once in a while instead of just using the “u” letter. Learn to write. I never met a red (editing) pen I didn’t like and all the people who’ve worked for me will tell you that’s true! I’ve had several people come back and say (about my editing their work, with a red pen) ’thank you for doing that because it made me better.’ They hated it at the time, but thanked me.
29:26: Final thoughts … on the art of writing a personal note. My final thought, which I’ve articulated many times, is to never miss an opportunity to write a handwritten thank you note.
We don’t tell people thanks in a heartfelt way enough. Thanks for a meeting, a lunch, a listening ear – it doesn’t have to be a physical gift - all these things are gifts. So make sure you tell people when you appreciate what they’ve done for you or how they’ve showed up for you – I think that’s really, really important.
About the June Stewart Leadership Series Podcast
CoSIDA debuted the June Stewart Leadership Series in the Fall of 2019 as part of our year-round professional development and continuing education program for our members.
This series adds to our existing professional development initiatives and is named in honor of the late June Stewart who served as CoSIDA's first female president during the 1990-91 academic year. Stewart was a longtime Vanderbilt University administrator and a pioneer for women in college athletics. The series was created in honor of Stewart's great leadership, her love and commitment to the profession and her legacy in giving back to CoSIDA.
This special June Stewart Series showcases noted speakers and experts who will address CoSIDA members on timely communications and leadership topics and issues.
Designed exclusively for CoSIDA members, this series of webinars and podcasts will offer perspectives on leadership and perspectives on managing and directing collegiate athletic communications.
Click here to read more about CoSIDA Hall of Famer
June Stewart.