The Role of Communication in Education and Beyond: A Conversation with Ilana Kurizki

Ilana Kurizki:

Help other people build their voice. As a communicator, you're skilled at writing and speaking, but not everyone who has an incredible vision and a wonderful idea is as comfortable conveying that.

Elana Leoni:

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education!

This week, I sat down with Ilana Kurizki ( Koo Riz Kee ), the Vice President of Communications at BrainPOP, a 25-year-old EdTech brand that reaches millions of learners worldwide.

First off, Ilana shares my name..well kind of.. Her first name is spelled with an “I” and mine is with an “E” but regardless I felt like I found my EdTech doppleganger. Illana leads with her heart. She’s passionate, strategic, and takes time to reflect and give back as much as possible. Illana has spent almost 14 years at BrainPop within different communications roles and we talk about so many valuable things within communications and marketing such as how you make the case for comms, what role should it play internally and externally, and best practices like how to integrate it within the entire company (and not let it be a siloed effort).

Make sure to stick around to the end when Illana shares some really great nuggets of wisdom to anyone starting in comms or thinking about communications as a profession. To top it off, we get into an inspiring conversation about how to integrate educator voice into your day-to-day.

This conversation is such a breath of fresh air that made me smile and head nod throughout the entire conversation. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Welcome to the show, Ilana. I am so excited to have you on All Things Marketing and Education. This has been a bit of a long time coming. When I got introduced to you, you were someone that always I wanted to talk to, because you've had such a depth and breadth to your career in edtech. So I am excited. Welcome to the show.

Ilana Kurizki:

Thank you for having me.

Elana Leoni:

Awesome. So you are a little bit of an interesting guest, and interesting is, I always try to find people that are a bit different than what we've had on the show in the past. We like to talk about all things marketing and education, and that beautiful intersection, but you have a great seat around PR and comms and impact and what it's like to have a seat internally at one of the biggest brands in edtech.

So I want to kind of pick your brain around that, because that is such an interesting angle. And for the audience listening today, we have a couple of podcasts you must listen to if you're interested in comms, in edtech. One of our most popular podcasts ever is Thomas Rodgers from Whiteboard Advisors. We'll put those in the show notes. We also have Katie Test Davis from Forthright Advising, and she does a beautiful job of talking about the art of storytelling and how you can weave that in naturally into your organization.

So let's get started on internal. I'm so excited about this. So why don't we get started into the nooks and crannies of your role? So let's just start with, what do you do now at BrainPOP?

Ilana Kurizki:

I would describe my role as a mix of storytelling and brand building and executive thought partnership. So it's funny, I sometimes joke, my daughter gave me a great little moniker. She calls me an exposer. And that actually came out of a school project that she did where she had to write a short bio of what her mom does, and she said, "My mom works at BrainPOP. She's the exposer for the company." And exposer is someone who tells people about a company, and she likes to talk to teachers a lot, which is true.

I found that very insightful, because when you distill what communications really is on the external side, you're exposing the outside world to all of the dimensions of your brand, your organization, so your mission, your vision, your values, your product, the people behind the work that you do. And when you talk about internal communications, you're focusing on how you expose the people, the employees, the colleagues that work with you to what they need to know about the organization in order to do their jobs. What are the strategies? What are the operational plan? How do you give people a sense of connection and belonging and empowerment and engagement and continuous learning? So there's that dual exposing factor that comes into play.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And to pause there, I think sometimes people go, "Communications? Oh, that's PR. That's just pitching to media outlets." And what you're talking about is this beautiful duality of, "Yes, I have a position, a senior position within an edtech brand, but my role is equally split of making sure that the public, our users, our buyers know about us and our beautiful story. But also, how do we keep everyone informed internally?" And I don't feel like we talk about that as much, maybe because it's not as sexy or something. I don't know, but it's so valuable. Right?

Ilana Kurizki:

It's so valuable. It's also really important, the more you grow as an organization... And when I say grow, I mean grow in size, grow in terms of what you are doing, like your activity in the outside world, because the internal alignment has to happen before you take your message to the outside world. If everybody is speaking a different language, it's difficult to build a consistent brand story.

And even more importantly, you want your people to feel empowered, that they can talk about the work that they do, that they can feel proud of it and excited. And when you have a strong internal communications function, you really are ensuring that everyone's moving in the same direction towards the goals of the business.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. That's well said. Because you mentioned when the organization grows in that sentence, how has your specific role evolved over time? When you started at BrainPOP, how many people were working there?

Ilana Kurizki:

I want to say it was probably less than half, significantly less than half.

Elana Leoni:

Wow. Okay. So how has your role evolved over time? Were you just kind of starting out, "I'm doing external comms at first"?

Ilana Kurizki:

I had a very interesting journey. There's always been a thread of communications in my work, but I actually started out as the right hand to our founding CEO, Dr. Avraham Kadar. And so, my work encompassed a lot of corporate communications and project management, relationship building, and I had quite an evolution in the organization, really an intrapreneurial sort of journey.

But in the last, going on five years, when our new CEO, our current CEO, Scott Kirkpatrick, joined BrainPOP, he tasked me with the role of building out the first full-service communications function at BrainPOP. So that was an incredible challenge, a really wonderful sort of pinnacle to a lot of the things that I had been doing in a lot of places where I saw opportunities for growth.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. That's interesting. And I want to just double-click on the intrapreneur word you used, because a lot of you listening might think, "Gosh, I need to move around in order to figure out edtech and get the most experience." Edtech moves so quickly. One, our industry, our audience, our expertise, whether it be comms, social media, all of that is moving all of the time, that you don't necessarily need to jump around to get so much experience, because I bet you, if you looked at where you were at 14 years ago, you were doing something completely different from what you're at now, and the organization was completely different.

Ilana Kurizki:

Completely different. And I think sometimes that's the benefit of working at a startup or kind of an earlier-stage organization where there's sort of the upside and the downside. Right? You maybe have fewer hands on deck, but you also can spot opportunities and say, "We have a gap there. We don't necessarily have a person filling that niche, but there's a need." And if you have receptive leaders, which I think is key, that really has to be a huge part of the equation, that leaders are willing to give you opportunities. They see your passion. They see your talents. They see your ability to contribute to where the company is going.

Elana Leoni:

Yes. And later on, we are going to be talking about how to make your case, how to really think about the ROI, and make sure you have a seat at that table, because sometimes if people don't understand what you do, they don't know how to value it. They don't know how to measure success, and they don't even know the definition.

So we're going to talk into that. I'm excited about it. But this is a little bit more of a theoretical question, so getting into the real nooks and crannies around comms. But I'd love your take on what is the relationship between communications and other leaders and departments within the organization. Right? So how do you interact with the executive team, with marketing, with all of these other things?

And you talked about the benefit of them being all on the same page and empowering them, but how do you see yourself collaborating, and what's your ideal way for you to empower all of the different departments that are all working towards the same goals?

Ilana Kurizki:

So it's interesting. For a period of time, the communications function was housed within the marketing department, which was a really important period, because it allowed me to build really strong, symbiotic relationships with colleagues in that department. Communications and marketing have to really work in lockstep. There's so much overlap, and there's so much essential work that's done together.

So that was hugely important. Currently, my department sits within our office of the CEO. So it's further upstream, I would say, which I think is really important. And that's not to say that there isn't extensive collaboration still with marketing. There absolutely is. Multiple times a day, I'm collaborating with colleagues in marketing, and sometimes that looks like consulting and advising on different aspects of the work, and sometimes it's operational and executional.

But I believe that in order for the communications function to really zoom out and have a holistic perspective on the needs, opportunities, challenges, potential blind spots of the organization, the further upstream and the more you have a seat at the table as a comms leader, the better you can serve the organization, the better you can see where dots need to be connected, the better you can help your executives.

Tthat goes for everyone, from product to marketing, to sales, to the people, leadership, HR, across the board. And I strongly believe that every organization should have a chief communications officer. Whatever you call that role, you need someone who is really driven by the sense of ownership and responsibility that it takes to look at a brand holistically, to be proactive, to protect the brand, to innovate, and to also integrate a lot of the different voices across the organization and help to surface that for the executive team.

Elana Leoni:

I'd just be curious around... because you've been at the brand for so long. When I first met you, I was like, "Gosh, your perspective is so unique." I don't meet many people. I mean, there sure are longevities within one edtech brand, but your brand grew so rapidly as well and is so teacher-oriented. So you're really in the hot seat, and you get the opportunity to really adjust your messaging and positioning, probably like no other. And I'm wondering, where did you start with your branding and positioning, and where has it evolved, and how did you get those inputs in there?

Ilana Kurizki:

So I might start from what a lot of people associate with BrainPOP, when they hear the word BrainPOP. So you might think of the movie, the animated movie and the characters. And that's, of course, a core experience that students have, and that is at the heart of the experience. But there is so much evolution that has happened on the product level, which has also informed the narrative that we tell about BrainPOP.

I think when you think about a brand, I like to look at a brand as a promise, which means, every touchpoint and every experience that you have when you come into contact with that brand, what holds true? And for us, it's about BrainPOP being the highlight of a student's day. It's about the long-lasting impact of that student and that learning experience and how they carry that with them. It's about being a trusted partner to the educators that we serve.

When I think about our mission, which is to empower kids to shape the world around them and within them, how do you empower kids? How do you empower anyone with knowledge, with engaging them in knowledge? So that's where we started. And actually, our founder, he's a pediatric immunologist, and he developed BrainPOP as a way to really demystify the mysteries of life, complex ideas for kids.

That's always at the heart. Right? So when we have a movie, we are building background knowledge on a topic. And as BrainPOP has evolved in terms of the product and the offering, it's now an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge and to extend what they're doing. They can build their own BrainPOP movies. They can do coding projects. We have newer product offerings. We have a new product called BrainPOP Science, which is for middle school.

It's a different experience. It's built on inquiry, and there's engineering projects. And so, students are able to really lead their own learning process in science. And we've also really evolved in terms of giving teachers even deeper and more actionable insights in terms of how students are performing and where they need more practice.

When you think about the story, I think about it as chapters in a book. Right? So we're adding new chapters to this book, but we're still true to the heart of the narrative, and we are bringing in new voices and new proof points and new visual expressions of that brand over time. It's interesting, because one of my favorite things to do is to have conversations with people who use BrainPOP and, increasingly, people who grew up using BrainPOP.

I think when you look at the growth of a brand, to be able to see it grow with kids, and also to grow with educators and administrators, because you have to kind of continue to evolve to meet the ever-evolving needs of that community. So I think we've continued to do that. We've continued to make that a priority, and it's really about elevating all of those dynamic aspects of the brand that people may know less.

Elana Leoni:

When you first started with that messaging, I was like, "Gosh, that's a great foundation for you to build on." And when you talked about the book unfolding, it's really true of, "Gosh, it made me smile hearing your messaging," because it evoked emotion, and it really got at the center of what you're trying to do, where like, "Let's be the highlight of someone's day. Let's empower kids to really believe in themselves and learn in a way that's fun and just doesn't feel like a chore, and it is approachable and all of those things."

So I loved how you were able to say, "Let's start with the foundation." But I know this, as edtech evolves too, is like, "Okay. Now, we have more data. Now, teachers' needs are changing. Now, administrators' needs are changing." How can we fold that in? Or to your analogy, how do we add those chapters to your book? And that's so beautiful.

Ilana Kurizki:

Thank you. It's funny, I see BrainPOP through the eyes of a person who works at the company, but also through the eyes of my daughter, who's almost 10. And she's been using BrainPOP for as long as I can remember. And sometimes she'll come to me and say a fact or some interesting bit of information, and I'm wondering, "Where did she learn that?"

In many cases, it's BrainPOP is a go-to. It's not a chore. It's something that is fun and engaging, but also meaningful and has depth. And so, I think that seeing her use the product has also given me an interesting perspective on it.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. It's like having your own little user tester all the time, right?

Ilana Kurizki:

Yes.

Elana Leoni:

You mentioned that you get to talk to teachers. So let's jump in. I wanted to definitely talk to you about your listening tours, because one of the things we can't emphasize enough in this podcast and all of my guests talk about is really making sure that you're talking consistently to your users, to your buyers, to the people that influence the purchases, to the ecosystem, the community of like, "What are the parents experiencing?" All of those things.

So when we were prepping for this show, you're like, "Well, I think I should talk about my listening tours." And I'm like, "Let's do it." I also think that something like listening tours can be approachable for whether you're an edtech startup or you're a big company too. So I always look for those. Maybe it's the Edutopia in me of being in that organization for eight years.

We always looked for things that no matter where you are and what your resources were, you could look at it and say, "Oh, I can do this part of it. I can adapt it." And that's what I look for. So let's talk a little bit about your listening tours, how you started them, maybe a little bit of step-by-step for those people that want to look at your recipe, and why? What are the benefits you've seen?

Ilana Kurizki:

This really is one of my favorite things to do, and the reason is that I believe in this role, and really in any role, you have to constantly be listening and learning. My rationale for this listening tour approach, which is not anything I invented, it's something that anyone can do in any organization, whether you're just starting out or whether you're already a veteran at the organization for many years.

We all have a story. We just need someone to invite us to share it. And this is true whether you are... We'll talk about the educator community. This is as true of your colleagues as it is of your customers, of educators, of administrators. Everyone brings knowledge and perspective and wisdom, and most of that is just living inside their heads, because they do it every day. And to them, it's probably quite obvious, right? This expertise is just something that they activate, but it may not be as obvious to the outside world, and there are some gems there.

I think that's where being a partner and a pioneer really comes into play within your organization. I approach these conversations from a place of curiosity. My goal is, as I said earlier, to listen. I want to build a foundation where we have a relationship so that when someone has this conversation with me, they know that I will then approach them if there are any interesting external opportunities for storytelling.

By the same token, it's an open door for them to come to me if they have an idea that they want to share so that we're able to find one another. And with colleagues, I might ask a question as simple as, "What does your department do every day? What are you working on that's exciting? What are you hearing from customers if it's a customer-facing role? What drives you in your work?"

I try to come with no real agenda, really the only agenda being curiosity. I want to just hear how people express themselves, what excites them, what lights them up. With educators, I might ask, "Tell me about a day in your classroom. Tell me about a challenge that you have. Tell me about what success looks like." And I want to really just take it all in.

There are actually some incredible moments that I've had with colleagues and with educators where I've just sat there and said, "That's it. What you just said, that's the story." So I think when you can say to people, "I think that would make a great story. I would love to help you tell it. I would love to help you hone your voice and find a place to serve that up to the outside world," that gives them a way, a vehicle to educate others. It also gives them a way to showcase the great work that they're doing, which many people may not have a chance to do.

I look at it as a gift that you are giving each other in that respect. And you mentioned parents. Sometimes I will look at comments on our company's social media pages, and somebody will say something just incredibly insightful or very moving. Sometimes it's a homeschooling parent. Sometimes it's an educator, and I'll reach out and say, "I loved what you wrote. I'm just curious. I'd love to learn more."

Many, many people take me up on that. And sometimes there's an immediate opportunity. Sometimes there isn't. But it's a great way to sort of build a connection with the community that you serve to really more deeply understand their needs and their challenges and their pain points, and then also for you to come back ideally with opportunities for them to showcase that.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And for those of you that are thinking about, "Gosh, that was great that she provided those questions," I want you to think about what those questions had in common and what they were missing. She didn't comment and say, "Hey, what do you think about this specific feature? What's wrong? Pick it apart." It's more of, "How do I understand you as a human? What are you dealing with? What are your challenges? What are your goals?"

And then you might fold in, naturally, BrainPOP and really see that role it plays, but it's not overly pointed. And what I found working in evaluation and edtech and specifically working with educators is, you do need to build that trust. You need to make a comfortable environment for them to actually speak their mind on, "Hey, this feature doesn't really fit my needs," or whatever it may be, because educators are just so darn nice. They're such nice humans, and sometimes they'll sugarcoat things, and they're used to a lot of things not being perfect. So they'll say, "Here's what I do," or "Here's how I use it instead." And even that insight is really helpful to see how someone does a workaround and how they actually use your product.

But I wanted to point that out, because in education, you always have to think about the different stakeholders involved and what their life is like day-to-day, what are the challenges that... because knowing the environment in which they operate is equally important as the little features and the feedback. And we're not talking about specific focus groups where you pay people to do that. Ilana is going in and talking to them and getting to know them as human beings. There's relationship as well.

Ilana Kurizki:

That really lights me up. I have to say, if I'm having a day where I'm feeling sort of not as motivated as the day before, kind of low energy, and I get on the phone with an educator for half an hour, and by the end of it, I'm just smiling from ear to ear, and I've opened a door and someone feels seen. And I think that that's part of it too. I mentioned earlier we all have a story and we just need someone to ask us to share it, but we also all want to feel seen. We're going about our day-to-day and doing so many things, and sometimes what is not seen are the things that are most exciting to you, that you really just want to give the world a window into that.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And you and I might have parallel things that fuel us and give us joy. Some of my best joy is when I can really empower voices and tell them, "Yes, you have a beautiful story to tell. Your story is very unique. It's very inspiring. And just because you can't see it because, traditionally, your position might be isolated or you might be in a position where people don't see you as much, let me see you. Let me highlight your voice as much as possible." And doing that at Edutopia, making sure that brands do that now collectively in social media as much as possible within our firm, that's what lights me up. And I saw your face light up when you talked about it.

Ilana Kurizki:

Yup.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. So those are a little bit about listening tours. You can tell it's just very simple. It's just picking up the phone and making time for it, because there's so many assumptions that we have in the day that we hold, and if we're not close to the source, we are going to be just moving in a path that might be not directly aligned with our audience's challenges, hopes, and dreams.

Ilana Kurizki:

I will also add, Elana, one other thing, and I think about this a lot when I talk with educators and homeschooling parents. I try to be very clear that I don't need them to prepare anything, and that's part of the reason why I keep the questions very, very low-stakes, because I've had teachers ask me, "Do I need to put anything together?" And I say, "No, I really just want to have an informal conversation. I just want to hear what you have to say."

I think there's a bit of a relief there, because we know how busy educators are. They don't need one more thing on their plate. So when you make an ask, whether it's of a customer or a colleague, just trying to be as conscious as possible of the lift, and making it a positive experience for them.

Elana Leoni:

Yup. So I mentioned we're going to talk about ROI. I think sometimes it annoys me that we do have to talk about ROI in positions that really bring so much value to the organization. But where I like to step back is just based on people not understanding in the beginning. So it's an opportunity to educate. But for organizations that are evolving in their communication needs, and you evolved within one organization, how did you kind of make the case for the growth and the emphasis for communication in this organization?

Ilana Kurizki:

I was fortunate that I didn't really have to make the case. I think there was a natural understanding from both CEOs that I've worked with that we'd gotten to a point in the organization where we wanted to be even more intentional about the stories that we were telling, and start to look at different channels and ways to tell that story, because we knew we had so much incredible material to share that had never been shared.

I will say, even on a very basic level, there are so many people that actually don't know who the voices are behind some of the characters. And we have a great social media team, and on a couple of occasions, they've highlighted our chief creative officer and our chief product officer. And there's this unbelievable windfall of excitement on social media when people see, "Oh, wow, I didn't know that."

There are a lot of best-kept secrets that we don't want to keep secret anymore, that we really just want to share those stories more widely with the world, and then that opens up an opportunity for people to see, "Oh, you're open to telling stories." So there's a push and a pull that happens, that people can then approach you and say, "Oh, they have what to say. There's some thought leadership there. There's some real industry understanding and some real interesting connections that they've made with their community that they can then educate others."

On the internal side, there's a real importance as you grow as an organization, as I said earlier, to really ensure that there's a smooth flow of information, that people really have a sense of what success looks like, that people feel that there's a strong kind of cultural glue at the organization. And communications is critical for that. I mean, communications infuses everything that we do.

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Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And just hearing you speak around where the messaging was foundationally and where it's grown, and how you're tightly weaving in things like impact and different use cases, and now, how do you use it for this or that? It's so important. And I liken it to, there's a lot of edtech out there that you might ebb and flow or pivot per se and say, "We're all about combating absenteeism, because that's the best word, topic." Right?

And then they move and say, "No, we're really about student engagement." Keeping your message core is so critical, and making sure that you are differentiated, and it aligns with what you said your job internally, is like, "Let's make sure it's empowering our entire team, and we're talking about it the same way too." So for those of you thinking of, "Well, gosh, I want to switch up my messaging again," I want you to hear this story and say, what's your foundational message that you can build upon using and listening to educators as much as possible?

Ilana Kurizki:

Yes. And brand building is a team sport, and we have people in the organization that have been there much longer than I have. Our chief creative officer is employee number one. And so, we have real historians within the organization. So it's an incredible privilege to be able to go back to people and kind of look at how the brand started, how the brand evolved, and sort of benchmark against that, and pull out some of these incredible stories that have not been surfaced. So I would just say, as you're thinking about communications, it's always important to build a brand together.

Elana Leoni:

And speaking of building a brand together, I know that BrainPOP is celebrating your 25th anniversary. Oh my gosh, a quarter of a century. And in edtech, that is even longer, when we see all the ebb and flows. But as you think about this milestone, how are you balancing evolving this brand? And we talked a little bit about that, but preserving its core identity. And we've talked a little bit, but I'd love for you to get into a little bit more of the details as you think about the 25th anniversary.

Ilana Kurizki:

Yeah. It's funny, we had a kickoff this week on social media announcing the anniversary, and it went viral, and people were just incredibly excited about it. And a large part of that is identifying with the characters and feeling a certain affinity to the brand in that way. I think it really goes back to what we talked about of staying true to your mission, and what is it that your greatest value is to the outside world?

And that value may be augmented. You may need to kind of build that out to continue meeting different market needs. Right? You may need to go deeper into evaluation and assessment, and you may need to go deeper into all sorts of different aspects of what it is that you do, but always coming back to what lights people up and what gets the job done. So in this case, what engages students, what makes learning more meaningful, more differentiated, giving students more agency, and then for educators, what makes their job easier, what enables them to deliver standards-based instruction and to showcase the impact that they're making to their administrators, and to continue making the case for why a product that they've had and loved for so long is still so essential to them.

I think the more that you can do when you build a brand, it's not just saying, "I do this well, and I do that well, and I'm so great, and I have a beautiful logo, and I have great imagery and all that." It's, what can you do for the people that you serve? That is really, when you come down to it, thinking about a brand as a promise, as we talked about, this idea that, "Here's what I can expect, and I'm always coming back to you and I'm feeling like there's a familiarity, but there's something fresh. There's something new and exciting that I'm encountering with the brand every time." And that can come out in your messaging, and that can come out in new product iterations, and that can come out in so many different forms.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And as you were talking, I'm like, "I need to point this out to my audience," because it was nuanced, but see how she flipped the script a little bit? She flipped it and said, "I am not that person that goes to a cocktail party and it's like, 'BrainPOP. BrainPOP's awesome. It's all about me.'" Actually, no one cares about your product. They care about how your product might help them with their challenges, and you've flipped it on this human-centered approach.

That is the true test of a real marketer/communications person, is really, "How do I get the spotlight away from the actual product?" And really say, "How do I highlight you and your journey and your growth? And hey, guess what? You might be using our product to do it."

Ilana Kurizki:

Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Elana Leoni:

Great. So I know we've asked you a ton of questions. I know everyone, from educators who are thinking about, "Hey, what is communications? How it might fit in my role, how my skill sets might contribute to being a communications professional down the road in edtech." That was super helpful, and all the things that you said also as it relates to edtech professionals. Maybe you're a startup that hasn't quite yet invested in communications. Maybe you are more of a junior communications person and trying to level up.

Everything you said, I'm like, "Yes. Yes, underline." We will provide a transcript in the show notes as well for those of you that like to read and highlight. But I am wondering, what are the pieces of advice you have for our listeners around communication, and maybe just lessons learned or what advice you would give to these aspiring communication leaders on how do you get them to really move forward in their journey, find their power, find their purpose?

Ilana Kurizki:

There are so many lessons. And this is actually very top of mind, because I just volunteered at my daughter's Career Day at her elementary school a few months back, and I shared a number of the reflections and lessons that I had learned. And I'll backtrack a little bit by saying that I've always been a writer in some form or fashion for as long as I can remember I've been writing.

When I was in elementary school, I had an English teacher who submitted some poetry that I wrote to a national competition, which I won and ended up getting a letter from the poet laureate at the time. And that was an incredible moment in and of itself. But reading her letter, those beautiful words, I understood really keenly the power of words to create an emotional resonance, to express big ideas, to kind of take a lot of what you're feeling inside and thinking about and really crystallize it and refine it and present it in a certain way.

It took me time to really understand, how do you apply that creative passion and that creative instinct to something that is a career? Right? And when I was in college, I had this dream to become a magazine editor, and I would intern every summer at every magazine that I could get a job at. I didn't eventually pursue magazine journalism post-college. I had tried other fields, PR, marketing, business development, and I sort of slowly expanded my perspective on what it was possible to do with communications to be strategic in your communication.

And that's important for communications professionals. Don't think about this the way that some people think about a liberal arts degree, like, "What can you do with it?" You can do everything with communications, talking about the LinkedIn top skill that we just mentioned earlier. So I think it's important for folks rising in their career to understand that no career will be linear. There's no dotted line that you'll follow, and that's okay.

I've learned how important it is to go through that process of self-discovery to understand where your passions meet a market need. When I met the founder of BrainPOP, I had no professional experience in education. Everything I learned about education, I learned at BrainPOP, I learned from the people that I worked with, I learned from the teachers that I talked to, I learned from parents.

At any job, you may start out a little bit more behind the scenes, or you may be kind of quiet in the beginning because you're taking it all in. But be patient with yourself, and give yourself grace. At the same time, as you understand that you're ambitious and that you're hungry, just stay a little bit humble and optimistic.

Another related lesson is the importance of giving yourself permission, and this idea that you will see opportunities in an organization, as we talked about before, where there's a gap. And you may be able to jump in and, in a very specific way, highlight your skills and highlight how you're able to meet a need, and then build awareness among the leadership of that organization that you're both interested and capable. And in the process, you build your confidence. We build confidence by doing step by step by step.

The other major lesson I would say, and this has just been an interesting one that I've learned as somebody who's worked with many executives over the years, help other people build their voice. As a communicator, you're skilled at writing and speaking and doing all sorts of things to varying degrees, but not everyone who has an incredible vision and a wonderful idea is as comfortable conveying that.

So, if you can help other people distill and package those big ideas externally, internally, communicate urgent messages in the right way, communicate difficult messages in the right way, people will start to see you as a value creator. They'll start to see you as a partner. And the more you do that over time, the more people begin to seek you out and just appreciate the work that you do to be able to support them and support the organization.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And even from the beginning of this podcast, you said it's a team. It's a team sport, and marketing in general. I would say that you need to make sure you're bringing people up with you, not only because it may help our hearts soar, like you and me, we light up talking about mentors and how we've really seen people grow and be seen. It really helps make sure that you're not siloed. No one will survive if you're like, "Oh, that's Ilana's job. She's the only one doing that in the entire organization." Everything will fail.

Ilana Kurizki:

Absolutely. That is so important, and I can't actually overemphasize that enough. I've built some incredible relationships across the organization. I've been very intentional about it, but it's not just because of me. There are people that are incredibly open to collaboration. And so, when I approach someone and say, "Hey, I'd love to pitch you for a podcast," or "Hey, we should work on an op-ed together," or "I'd love to interview you for the blog," I mean, 99 times out of 100, it's a yes. And if it's a no, it's like, "I can't do it this week, but I'll do it next week."

And I think that in a case where you might be in an organization where you may get some more nos or some more conditional yeses, a great way to proceed there is to... You're coming with an offer. Right? You're coming to someone and saying, "A, I want to learn from you. B, I want to share your knowledge externally, but also, C, let me help you. Let me help you get there."

And so, it's not putting all of the onus on them. And then I think that helping them sort of manage the time to kind of carve that out, and helping the organization share its message, they're also building their own personal brand. They're building their external awareness. And so, I see that as a double bottom line, and I think that's very compelling to people.

Elana Leoni:

Yeah. And I am just consistently head-nodding over here, like, "Yes, she's speaking my language. Yes." We could talk about communications for so, so long. I appreciate all of the nuggets of wisdom that you've shared with our audience so far. For those of you that are interested in learning about BrainPOP and Ilana, we'll put all of her contact information in the show notes as well. You can catch her on LinkedIn.

But before we go, I want to ask one question. It's a closing fun question that we ask a lot of our guests. And not really related to education, even though I feel like people in this position in edtech, we wear our heart on our sleeves, and we might need this a little more than others. What are the things that you do after maybe even a rewarding day, but it's a long, hard day? And I always say sometimes to my listeners, is like, "You'll see me just staring at a wall. Don't talk to me." How do you fill your cup? What are the things that energize you and bring you back to like, "Yes, I can tackle it again"?

Ilana Kurizki:

The notion of filling up your cup is very on point, because for me, it's as simple as sitting in my car with a great latte and a wonderful podcast, and just kind of embracing that moment of quiet. And when I say quiet, obviously the podcast is playing, but I mean internal quiet. I'm able to sort of reconnect with myself.

And I really think, as a mom of two young kids, the beauty of that is really just some me time. I will go to the gym and sort of reconnect with my body, and that also makes me feel a little bit more centered. Sometimes it's going for a walk outside. I live in Florida. And so, my neighbors are peacocks and iguanas. And just kind of taking a walk outside and sort of seeing nature and feeling refreshed, and looking up beyond my computer screen is really all it takes. It's interesting how, with time, your needs become a little different, but that really does fill me up.

Elana Leoni:

Well, and maybe you have deeper appreciation for them too, being a parent of young kids too, of, "How do I get that silence? How do I appreciate these moments in life with nature?" We've got my latte. We've got my podcast. And maybe as a bonus, are there a couple podcasts that you like to listen to?

Ilana Kurizki:

I enjoy a mix. I enjoy some podcasts that are focused on parenting and some that are focused on culture, and some that are more focused on world events, and some that are focused on education. I tend to do some searches based on people that I want to hear from, so I'll just kind of put the name in the search. But yeah, it's a mix. I try to step outside of the zone in which I work. In addition to listening to podcasts about education, I want to sort of immerse myself in something that maybe enabled me to kind of just zone out a little bit from the day-to-day, and also reconnect with some of the other aspects of life and culture.

Elana Leoni:

Makes sense. Well, thank you so much, Ilana, for coming on the show. I know so many people will find this valuable, and I'm always the one, as the host, going, "Rewind." There were so many moments in here, I was like, "Genius. So well said." And I wish that I had this advice when I started my career. So I really hope that we get some comments and saying, "Yes, this gave me the confidence to do X, Y, and Z," because it was so spot on.

And I just appreciate your service to such a powerful brand in education for so long. It's really commendable. When I met you, I was like, "Gosh, immediately, you have to be on the show." Well, thank you for being such a wonderful guest. Everyone, we will put her contact information in the show notes. Have a great rest of the day, everyone, and enjoy.

Ilana Kurizki:

Thank you for having me. This was a pleasure.

Elana Leoni:

Thanks again for listening to All Things Marketing and Education. If you like what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can find more episodes at leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast. You can also continue the conversation with us on Twitter, @LeoniGroup, or on LinkedIn. And don't forget, if you enjoyed today's show, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave a review. We're so appreciative of every single subscriber and review we get, and it helps us reach even more people that need help. So we'll see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.