Mark Graham on How Family Relationships Change With Age

In Chapter 4 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Are Your Family Relationships Changing as You Get Older?" Graham, who lives in New York City, talks about the challenges of not being close by to his parents and siblings, who are Michigan, and finding ways to better keep in touch.  He adds how getting married in the past year has given him a new family support system of in-laws. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are your family relationships changing as you get older?

Mark Graham: Family relationships have been a challenge. And by that I mean not through any sort of relationship crises or anything like that, but having distance away from my family. I live here in New York City now. My family is back in Michigan. My mother, my father, my brother, they all live out there, and so there are clearly challenges, you know, particularly as I’m in my first year of marriage right now, you know, it’s really important for Megan and myself to really continue to build and grow our relationship and really sort of solidify that foundation. And so consequently I haven’t had as much time to get back home and spend time with my immediate family back home. 

So that’s definitely been a real challenge and it’s something I’ll sort of candidly admit that I have not been really great at and something I want recognize and improve upon in the future to get home more, to call more, you know, to email and text more, like my mom just got an iPhone which is exciting, so I can text now instead of, you know, exclusively relying on the Sunday night phone conversations and things like that. 

So, you know, that’s been a real change in my life and, you know, I’ve also gained new family through the course of being married as well. My in-laws are here in the city. They’re up in Westchester, which is a 20-25 minute train ride north of the city. And it’s been fantastic to build a relationship with them and to have somebody here who’s close, who you can lean on. Not exactly in the same way that you lean on your family that you grew up with, but they’ve been an incredible support system through all of the rigors of getting married and going and moving and all of that fun stuff building a new life together. 

So relationships continue to change and continue to evolve and I want to continue to place emphasis on family, and particularly my family back in Michigan, getting to spend more time with them in the future is something I need to spend more time and focus on.

Mark Graham on What Gets Easier and What Gets Harder

In Chapter 5 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "What is Getting Easier and What is Getting Harder in Your Life?"  Graham notes that since his last Capture Your Flag interview, he was promoted from senior editor to managing editor.  With the promotion, Graham faces new responsibilities that are pushing him to break out of old habits.  Now three years into working at VH1, Graham finds he has a handle on how to work efficiently inside a large organization.  Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What is getting easier and what is getting harder in your life?

Mark Graham: I’ll start with the harder part. I’ll take part B first. I’ve—since my last interview here, Capture Your Flag, this is Year 3. In the last year, I got a promotion. I went from being a senior editor at VH1 to a managing editor at VH1. So one of the challenges and things that’s getting harder in my life is now that I have more people reporting up through me, staying on top of things and being organized is something that’s -- really I’m trying to learn a lot about. I’ve always been sort of a last-minute Louie kind of a fellow, you know, I really appreciate the pressure of deadlines and things like that, and so consequently I tend to do lots of things sort of at the last minute when it’s the 11th hour and the heat is on, like Glenn Frey used to say. 

So I’m learning to try to get more organized in my life and my approach, and so consequently dealing with personal responsibilities and professional responsibilities, and managing a team of people, that’s something that I’m—it’s a new challenge in my life and something I’m looking to get better at. 

What’s getting easier is I’m at little, about 3 years into my job at VH1 right now, so I’ve got a better grasp on how our organization operates, how people interface within the organization, how different departments work together, how to get the most out of different groups and to be able to communicate efficiently, and by having some time and some experience in the organization, I feel like I’ve got a better sense of things and there’s not as much learning process involved, it’s more about honing and refining rather than learning all of the steps. 

Mark Graham on How Getting Promoted Evolves Career Aspirations

In Chapter 6 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Are Your Aspirations Changing as Your Responsibilities Grow?"   Graham recalls why he joined VH1 and the creative opportunities the big company offered.  As a managing editor, Graham now gets to manage larger creative teams across different business areas. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are your aspirations changing as your responsibilities grow?

Mark Graham: My aspirations continue to be high. One of the reasons that I went to VH1 a couple of years ago is that I saw it as a place where—you know, obviously, VH1 is part of Viacom which is a massive organization and a place where I could really grow and learn new things and try new things out. And so, professionally, I still have lots of aspirations to grow and continue to basically learn, develop more skill sets, and to be able to grow  professionally, to continue to do more things, to be able to put more of a—more of a creative stamp on projects that I do. 

I feel like I’m in a really good place right now professionally. I recently was promoted and because of that I’ve gained some new responsibilities, and right now I feel like I’m still sort of feeling my way out in this and learning to deal with a larger team of people who I’m responsible for, making sure that they’re satisfied and they feel like they’re growing in their lives, professionally speaking. That’s been a new challenge for me, and something that I’ve really, really enjoyed, and, you know, candidly I need to continue to work on as well. So right now I feel like I’m in a place where I’d like to spend a little bit of time in this particular role, learning how to deal more with people on my team, building my way up through the organization, and continuing to grow in that sort of a facet.

Mark Graham on Getting Promoted to Managing Editor

In Chapter 7 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham "What Has It Meant for You to Get Promoted to Managing Editor at VH1?"  Graham talks about his recent promotion from senior editor and how his new role at the network ties into executing the network's digital strategy.  His VH1 role revolves around three pillars: 1) support VH1 television shows with online content; 2) bring pop culture levity to celebrity culture; 3) build out the VH1 music community. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What has it meant for you to get promoted to managing editor at VH1?

Mark Graham: It’s been a real challenge because I’m not narrowly focused on one specific area of entertainment coverage, I’m sort of spread out over 3 and helping our writers and teams of people who manage each of those sites really sort of laser in on coverage, things that people are talking about, ways to present content that are fun and interesting and sharable to people. I’ve held the managing editor title in different capacities before. I was a managing editor at a website called defamer.com where multiple writers reported in to me and I helped sort of set the editorial tone and framework. 

The cool thing about my new role as managing editor at VH1 is that it’s not just one particular channel that we’re covering—and by channel, I mean the channel of coverage not a channel on your television set. We have 3 primary what we call verticals that we’re—that I’m in charge of managing, one being our shows, so all of our content that appears on linear which is television, all of our shows, we support those digitally, whether that be, you know, recapping episodes, pulling out great information that happens in those episodes through animated gifs or things of that nature, video compilations, really sort of delving into that and helping make our readers feel like they’re actively engaged and building a community of people who are interested in our shows and talking about them on a deeper level other than just sort of passively watching them on TV. That’s one area that’s really exciting for me. 

Another one that we deal in is the celebrity-sphere, which is a very crowded marketplace. And what we’re trying to do with celebrities is really sort of leverage VH1’s strengths in terms of list making and bringing a real sort of fun sense of popular culture to celebrity coverage which sometimes sort of a stale feel, there’s lots of people who are covering celebrities they don’t always necessarily do it in a very interesting way. So we’re trying to bring some levity and fun into the celebrity-sphere. 

And the 3rd sort of area that I’m responsible for is music coverage. VH1 has a rich history in music, be that through original shows like VH1 Storytellers or Unplugged, or helping to launch new emerging artists through a franchise we have called You Oughta Know. You know, really helping to sort of build out our relationship with people particularly in the social space and getting to—getting them to interact with VH1 as a place that they know and they trust and brings them good recommendations and as for people who don’t necessarily have a lot of time in their lives to discover new music, we wanna help be a place to, you know, really bring that sort of communal experience back to music that is not happening as much because of the way people consume music these days through their iPods. There—you know, Top 40 radio is shrinking in terms of its relevance importance, we wanna be a voice that helps people discover new music. That’s been a real—it’s been a great challenge and a lot of fun, something that’s wholly different than my other experiences in the past. 

Mark Graham on Finding Meaningful Work in Digital Media

In Chapter 8 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "What Makes Your Work Meaningful?"  Graham notes he works in entertainment and how his goal is to make things fun for his audience.  The challenge is to help his team filter through a crowded pop culture landscape to deliver relevant, enjoyable information they cannot find elsewhere. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What makes your work meaningful?

Mark Graham: Great question. I take a lot of pride in the work that I do, in the work that my team puts out, you know, I’m covering light and fluffy topics, you know, I’m not a journalist who’s traveling to Afghanistan and doing hard journalism. We’re doing things that are fun and that are diversions to people during their workday who maybe are a little bit bored and need something fun to sort of give them a little jolt of energy at the job, so in terms of meaningfulness, what I look to do with the content that I create personally and that our team produces, is to make sure things are really fun for people. 

I like it when we create pieces of content that my friends talk about, that, you know, strangers on the internet comment on, that people you don’t know share and discover and pass on to new people, that’s always been a real thrill and sort of the reason why I’m in the area that I’m in right now. That’s always been a passion of mine, you know, helping people sort of filter through a really crowded pop culture landscape, and sort of help people who have limited time, sort of figure out where they should spend their time or not spend their time. Those are the things that—They’re light and fluffy—I don’t know if I would attach a word like meaningful to it, I’m just more in a place where I like things to be fun and it’s okay to be a little bit frivolous, but also delivering information that people want and that people can’t get in other places. 

Mark Graham on Embracing a Corporate Career Path

In Chapter 9 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Are You Learning to Work Across a Corporate Organizational Culture?"  Graham shares how he has learned to embrace working at large corporations, starting with his first two jobs at Borders and General Motors and continuing on to VH1.  Corporate job experience teaches Graham how to manage more effectively across large, diverse teams. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to work across a corporate organizational structure?

Mark Graham: Most people hate corporations but I sort of love corporations, and I think part of it is just that’s sort of the way that I was—that I’ve been raised in my professional career. My first job out of college, I worked for Borders. Rest in peace, Borders. No longer exists as a company, but I did work for a big organization and sort of learned in the marketing—in a marketing role, sort of learned how different areas of organizations interface and how projects get green-lit and budgeted and accomplished and realized. 

From there, I went and I worked at General Motors, another huge corporation. And so I think—and Viacom, again, that’s another huge corporation. For whatever reason, I enjoy it. I like being able to touch lots of different areas of a business, to interface with different people who have different skill sets, different goals, different needs. 

Now I’m on the editorial side but I used to work on the marketing side of the business. I sort of understand how the numbers work and how to really integrate people and understand different goals of different teams within the organization, and be able to navigate that way. So I think just having grown up in corporate environments, I just sort of get it, and I like it, I understand—I sort of understand how things work within those spaces, and it’s something that I feel very comfortable in.

Mark Graham on Leading and Managing Digital Media Teams

In Chapter 10 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Do Leadership and Management Differ in What You Do?"  Graham talks about his continuing process developing leadership and management skills working in digital media.  This ranges from managing by helping team members get positive work outcomes in a timely fashion and leading by using motivational and confidence building techniques. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How do leadership and management differ in what you do?

Mark Graham: I’m a relatively new manager. I’ve managed people in the past but it’s usually been teams of 3 or 4 people, and now I’m closer to the 10 person range and so it’s definitely been a learning experience to be able to communicate the goals that I have and the goals that I’m being handed down, and be able to transfer that information to specialized teams of people within an organization. So in terms of being a leader, things that I always try to do are—I’m a big fan of complimenting people on work that does well. 

In the web world, analytics are very easy to come by, you know exactly how many people read your story, you know exactly how many people commented on your story, you know exactly how many people shared the story, be it on Facebook or Twitter. And so really sort of throwing props, if you will, to people who have done stories that have resonated with people on our larger team, and really making sure when we have big team meetings that we give rounds of applause to people who’ve done the most popular stories of the week, and really be able to reassure them, you know, of the work they’re doing. 

And from a management perspective, that’s a little bit different, that’s more making sure the trains are running on time, making sure the people are getting their work done, and so there’s a little bit of—just sort of staying on top of things, that is definitely different than leadership, I see leadership as helping your team and helping build confidence in people about the work they’re doing and the work that our overall team is doing. Whereas management, at least to me, is just making sure that we’re getting the things done that we need to get done, and making sure that it gets done in a timely fashion.

Mark Graham on Growing into a New Manager Job Role

In Chapter 11 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "At This Moment in Your Life, Where Are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?"  Graham shares how he gets coaching support from his boss, VH1 editorial director Matt Muro, and Muro's boss, Dan Sacher, VH1 VP Media.  By meeting each week, they help Graham learn to manage, delegate, lead, and grow in his career. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: At this moment in your life, where are you seeking advice and coaching?

Mark Graham: It’s simply an active part of what I’m doing. In my new role as a managing editor, I now have a team of people, and I’m learning how to effectively manage them, effectively lead them, to motivate and to grow and to help continue to build our work up. So sort of as a result of that, I’ve been leaning very heavily on both my boss, his name is Matt Muro, he’s our editorial director at VH1, as well as his boss, his name is Dan Sacher, he’s our vice president of digital media, both for VH1 as well as for Logo. 

I really look up to both of those individuals. I think they’ve done excellent work in their career and they’re both at places that ultimately I’d like to be at some point in my career. You know, I’d like to, you know, continue to grow and learn, and they’ve both been very valuable and very helpful to me into helping me recognize things that I’m good at and things that I need to continue to work and improve on in my professional career. So both of those guys I lean very heavily on, you know, we meet on a weekly basis to make sure our goals are being met, we’re on track with certain programs. 

You know, a lot of our content is sort of churned out on a day-to-day basis reacting to things that are happening in the news but we also have longer term plans and initiatives that we’re working on that take, you know, months and months and months to get an idea that, you know, grows ultimately into a product that you can execute on the web. So, you know, really staying in close contact with both of those guys has been very important to me and they’ve both shown incredible support to me through my couple of years in the organization, and are people like I said that I look up to and that I lean on for help and guidance, and sort of, you know, recognizing that you can’t do it all. 

And, you know, one thing that they’ve really been great at helping me realize and understand is, is learning how to effectively delegate responsibilities. And helping me sort of understand and prioritize which things I should be taking out on my own and which things that I can sort of help generate the seed of an idea and then step a little it back and check in on it from time to time rather than, you know, running the ball the whole way through. So that’s something that I’m continuing to learn and grow. 

Candidly, I’ll admit that that’s something that I’m not great at right now. I’ve sort of gotten to this point in my career by seeing projects through very personally and spending lots and lots of time at the office and now that I have the amount of responsibility that I do, I can no longer do that. There just aren’t enough hours in the day for me to balance my professional life and my personal life together in a way that makes sense, so really sort of learning how to hand off responsibilities and to also be able to solicit feedback from my peers and also people that work for me. Really being in close contact with them, understanding ways that I can help them better, ways that they can help me better too, and really sort of understanding that, and understanding the dynamics of how people work in an organization, that’s been very important and I think I continue to learn that.

Mark Graham on How Reflecting at Work Improves Job Performance

In Chapter 12 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "What Role Has Reflection Played in Shaping Your Personal Growth?"  Working in digital media producing Internet content, Graham uses reflection to help his team grow and learn from its mistakes and successes.  Personally, Graham finds reflection valuable assessing achievements and reviewing how his personal relationships are growing over time. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What role has reflection played in shaping your personal growth?

Mark Graham: Reflection is certainly very important. One of the great things that I really love about producing content for the internet is that everything is very, very measurable. At the end of every month, I put together a report for our team to show our team’s performance over that month in terms of which stories were popular, which stories got shared a lot, which videos got viewed the most. You know, really helping sort of us learn from our successes and also taking a look at projects that we had high hopes for that maybe fell a little bit flatter than we had originally pegged them to. 

So reflection in that particular aspect is certainly very important to me on a professional level, understanding, learning from our mistakes, helping to continue to grow for the future using the analytical tools we have available to us to be able to help motivate the team, show them things that they did well, and like I said, things that we continue to learn on. 

And my personal life it’s very important as well, you know, opportunities like this to sort of look back over the last year of your career, things that you achieved, things that you hoped you’d achieve and maybe didn’t quite get there, I think that that’s very important as well and it’s—you know, as someone who is sort of is constantly chronicling in their life on the internet through blog posts and Twitter feeds, and Tumblr posts, and Facebook—things like that. It’s always fun for me to sort of go back every couple of months and sort of take stock of what’s happened in my life, be thankful, be appreciative for the blessings that I have, the friends that I have, the relationships that I’ve made, both personally and professionally, and you know, it’s really I think important to take time to savor that stuff. That’s not to say to dwell on it or spend extensive amounts of time looking back at the past but, you know, I’m a fan of nostalgia, and it’s always good to look back at successes you’ve had and things you’ve done well and use them as motivation for the future.

Mark Graham on How to Create Original Content for Established Brands

In Chapter 13 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Are You Learning to Create Original Content for an Established Media Brand?"  Graham talks about the roles audience research and advertiser relationships play into original content strategy and development at VH1. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to create original content for an established media brand?

Mark Graham: Well, when you’re creating content, the first thing you want to really sort of understand is, is who your audience is. Over the course of the last year and some change, VH1 has worked really closely with a market research organization, gone all over the country, found out what people like about VH1, what they don’t like about VH1, what they see VH1 as doing and what they see them as not doing. So sort of armed with that deeper level of information about who our customers are, we’ve been able to come up with content that’s not just for television. We have web-specific content that we’re looking to put together and break. Obviously, we like our convergent opportunities where we can deliver a consistent message through web, through social, through linear. But there’s also we realize that people do consume content, our audience does, through different means and different platforms and something that would work, say on the web, might not necessarily work on TV. 

Over the course of the last year, I worked closely with a couple of comedians here in Brooklyn on a web show that was sort of putting together the best viral video moments of the past week. That was a really interesting project and something that we, you know, experimented and tried out with specifically on the web, it did really well for us, we didn’t end up – we ended up doing 8 episodes of that which was a great learning experience for me. And so really I guess what we’re trying to do with original content for an established brand is really understand and be cognizant that, you know, just because we have a television channel that people have tuned into over the years, that’s not always necessarily gonna be the case, people’s taste are changing, and we really wanna make sure that we create content to reflect those changing tastes. And be able to put together packages that are interesting and fun and great for people to consume.

Erik Michielsen: How much exposure do you have on—to the business side and the whole advertising supported element of—

Mark Graham: Yeah. Obviously, without advertisers’ support, and without people tuning into our projects, we wouldn’t have projects to do. There’s our channel and then there’s our digital, and as we’re continuing to grow our digital, you know, one of the great ways to do that is to partner with advertisers who have goals that they wanna put together, and are also able to support digital programs for us, so I work really closely with our advertising sales team to understand which clients are looking to do specific things, if they have new campaigns coming out, if they have new brand messaging they’re interested in, how they’re looking to attach themselves to cool things like music, and celebrity, and interesting and fun ways that helps elevate their status with their customers, and also helps elevate ours, so, you know, working with advertisers is a great way for us to fund and support original content. And so really sort of helping to understand their goals, and what they’re looking to achieve, is a huge part of it. 

Before I landed at VH1, I was on the other side of this equation, I was—I worked in marketing on the client side, where we were working with agencies and media partners to promote our products, so I sort of have a good 360 understanding of the process now, which I think really helps us put together packages and frameworks for things that are going to be interesting for advertisers, and also interesting to our readers and consumers. Because it doesn’t matter if an advertiser loves something, if the audience is isn’t going to love it, you need to create content and create ideas and packages that are gonna work for both places, and that’s something that’s a huge focus of my job and of our organization, in really making sure that we create things that people read, and that advertisers like that continue to support future programs like that.

Mark Graham on Planning Digital Content Strategy Working in TV

In Chapter 14 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham "What Role Does Content Strategy Play in Your Work?"  Graham notes cable television remains the foundation of big media business, including his company VH1, and gets the majority of its audience and its advertising income from on-air programming.  He talks about working in strategic content planning and how the work is becoming progressively digital.  Graham offers examples of how media companies are packaging content for consumption across TV, mobile, desktop, laptop, and tablet platforms as consumer behavior trends mature into larger population segments.  From short-form music artist online video interviews to Spotify featured playlists to live streaming events over mobile, Graham paints a picture of the future of how digital media companies will evolve to meet its adapting consumer audience preferences. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What role does content strategy play in your work?

Mark Graham: It’s of a primary essence in everything that we do. And by that, what I mean by strategy is, VH1 is obviously as of right now a television network, primarily. That’s where advertisers pay us. That’s how we make our money. That’s where we have our largest viewership. But as the cable industry starts to change and evolve, VH1 is probably over the course of the next 5-10 years, will still be a TV station. Hopefully. But we’re also gonna be producing content for other devices in other places. Whether that be mobile, on your iPhone or your iPad, or streaming things on your laptop, people consume content differently based upon the device that they’re using to consume it. 

So when we’re putting together ideas for content, when talent is coming in, we discuss lots of different ways that we can package information for different types of audiences based upon how they’re gonna be consuming it. You know, sometimes it’s a print interview that will run a thousand words, that goes really in depth on certain matters with bands. Sometimes it’ll be little 30-second video clips that are, you know, really get to the point, really gets to the essence, something that’s newsy and timely and makes a good bite and something that’s funny and that people are gonna share. Sometimes it’s, you know, working with an artist catalog, you know, an established artist who’s come out with a new record taking a look back at their career and maybe putting together things like a Spotify playlist that showcases the ebbs and flow of their particular career and how they have sort of arrived at the point they’re at today. 

So we look at content not just in a very—we’re talking to this particular artist and it’s going to be an interview. As we’re developing the strategies for our interviews, we’re really cognizant of the ways we’re putting—we’re actually gonna package that and release that out to consumers at the end of the day.

Mark Graham on Doing Original News Reporting in a Digital Media Career

In Chapter 15 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Is News Reporting Becoming Increasingly Relevant in Your Career?"  Graham discusses his work covering the entertainment world and how working at VH1 gives him access to music and pop culture talent, which he is able to integrate into original news content.  This allows him and his team to enhance VH1 brand marketing and brand promotion.  He provides examples of interviewing Gym Class Heroes for VH1 Unplugged as well as doing interviews with Lana Del Rey, Maroon 5, and Rebecca Ferguson. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How is news reporting becoming increasingly relevant in your career?

Mark Graham: As everyone sort of knows there are literally thousands of websites, blogs, Twitter feeds, people and their Facebook pages, everyone is sort of a news source right now and disseminating. And the way that you can separate your coverage from other people’s coverage is to bring original reporting into the light, into the world. And so one of the advantages that we have at VH1 that a lot of other of our other competitors don’t necessarily have is the fact that we have access to talent, be they bands, musicians, actors, things of that importance, so because we have access to talent and because talent does drive a lot of conversation, you know, not only in terms of what people are interested in reading, but they’re also a disseminator of news sources. 

If you work together with a band, and put together an interview that you feel has met your objectives in terms of what information people are looking to get out, and also something that they are interested in promote—using to promote a project that they’re working on at the current time, that’s a really powerful way to get your story out past your normal core readership. So original reporting is super important and something that we have been focusing tons of time and effort on and something that I’ve personally been working really hard on building up my skills in that sort of arena over the course of—largely since the last time I did this last year, my Year 2 interview. 

This year I’ve interviewed a number of musicians, both sort of small, breaking artists as well as bigger names. You know, earlier this year, I got a chance to interview Lana Del Rey who is a new musician, that went really well. I talked to Maroon 5 at the Crosby Hotel last week, which was really great. I had sat down with Gym Class Heroes for a recent VH1 Unplugged Special, as well as some, you know, younger artists who people really haven’t heard of, there’s an artist named Rebecca Ferguson who is going to be our July and August You Oughta Know artist for VH1, and really sort of, you know, I’m sort of honing my skills in talking to these people about their work and their craft and what motivates them, and what drives them to create the art that they put out into the world, and the universe. And those are things that frankly a lot of other sites that we compete with don’t have that sort of access. 

And so being original and coming up with ideas to present content to them in a fun way, that they’re willing to play ball with, that we’re able to put together into fun interesting packages for people to consume largely in video online is hugely important and a major differentiator, and frankly, one of the only ways that we can get, that we can bring new readers into the fold. 

Mark Graham: How to Pitch and Execute a Music Marketing Campaign

In Chapter 16 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Have You Learned to Adapt When Things Have Not Worked Out as Planned?"  Graham notes the importance of timing, especially in the context of working across resources in a corporate media company.  By understanding timing, he learns not to get frustrated and to use perseverance to bring resources together to get a project off the ground.  He shares the story of a concept he came up with at VH1, "Song of the Summer", made initially as a trial, with Katy Perry accepting the award for her song "Last Friday Night", and the how we was able to transition the program into a six-figure plus marketing campaign concept adopted formally into VH1 programming. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielse: How have you learned to adapt when things have not worked out as planned?

Mark Graham: Things always work out as planned. No. Things don’t always work out as you plan them to. I think that more than anything else, at least for me, is learning not to get frustrated when things don’t necessarily work out. Sometimes you have great ideas and it’s just not the right time. The thing that I’m sort of learning the most about corporate life right now in this particular organization is the importance of timing. Really sort of having a keen understanding of different groups, where they’re at in certain processes, like for us to get big projects green-lit, which means that we can get budget and resources allocated to be able to tackle things, both from a staffing perspective, from a technology IT perspective, all the different pieces that you need to sort of coalesce to get a project off the ground. Timing is really, really important. 

And so making sure that, you know, I sort of keep a close eye on different people in our organization and keep in close contact with them to understand where they’re at in their timeframes, like for example, last summer I had an idea for a program called Song of the Summer, which would sort of track in a way that other places hadn’t done before, which song is the most popular song of that particular summertime, every summer has its song of the year, at barbecues, at parties, blasting out of car windows, and there are different places that track these things, there are your Billboards of the world, there are YouTubes of the world, there are Spotifys where people stream music, there are iTunes where people buy music. No one had really thought to put all of those pieces together into one sort of composite place. You know, different audiences consume music in different places and so there hadn’t really been a consensus of something like that and admittedly it’s sort of frivolous, but I think something that also people find interesting. 

So last year I put this idea together, we weren’t able to sell it but I did it anyway, I ran it through our entire summer, we ultimately ended up crowning Katy Perry’s Last Friday Night as the best song of last summer. We were able to get her to accept a trophy, do all this cool stuff, which was great, which ultimately became sort of our marketing materials, if you will, to be able to present this to an advertiser this year. And we were able to attach it to an advertiser this year, sell it for a nice 6-figure sales number and it became something that you know funded a lot of profit into our department. So, you know, last year, it didn’t—that particular project didn’t go my way but I sort of persevered, pushed through it, made sure during our couple of sales periods that, you know, our sales team knew that this idea existed, that we had proven success with it in the past and really sort of helping to frame it in a way for a certain couple of advertisers that we were really pushing it to in ways that made sense for them and their brand and really being able to come together. So things don’t always go your way but when you have an idea that you think is good, and that you can ultimately I think would resonate with people, understanding when to re-push things through, just because someone says no once doesn’t mean that that means no forever. So that’s sort of a way that I deal with things that—one example of something that didn’t go my way before, but ultimately ended up going the way and benefited our whole organization.

Mark Graham: How to Develop Passions In and Out of Work

In Chapter 17 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham answers "How Are You Learning to Apply Your Passions in New Ways?"  Graham notes that he is fortunate to spend most of his professional life pursuing his passions in his personal life such as television, music, film, and books.  He notes that as he gets more experience, he learns to separate work time from "me time" and enjoy the personal experiences instead of constantly chronicling them.  In the office, Graham puts a short-term priority on learning video editing skills such as Final Cut Pro so he may be more engaged with the video production teams working at VH1. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to apply your passions in new ways?

Mark Graham: I’ve got a lot of different passions. I’m a pop culture fiend. I love movies. I love music. I love TV. I love reading. Fortunately I’m in a position where I spend most of my professional life actively pursuing passions that I have in my personal life, which is really cool. I think one of the things that I’ve learned over—particularly over the last year and so, is that you do need to make time to create a little barrier between things that you’re passionate about and things that you do professionally, and by that I mean every time I used to go to a concert for example, I would always take notes during concerts and always write about things like that and I’ve sort of learned to pick things that are going to work for work and things that are more just sort of for “me time” to lay back, kick back, you know, drink a couple of root beers, enjoy the experience rather than sort of constantly chronicling it. I’m sending out tweets and Instagrams and taking notes and things like that, so I’ve really tried to focus this year on making sure that I do allow some sort of personal time for me in that way. 

And so the ways that I’m trying to apply passions in a new direction, you know, one of the things that I’m really trying to focus on over the course of the next year and some change, I haven’t gotten started on this yet but it’s one of the things that’s on my list of things to do this summer, I like to start learning how to do video editing. I think that that’s a skill set that is very important to someone who’s in my particular space, if you’re—the more trades that you can sort of do, the more relevant and useful you are to an organization. And also ways that you can help give better feedback and direction to people that you are working with. So as I’m spending more time working with video, with people who are operating cameras, and people who are sitting in editing base, and editing on Final Cut. You know, helping to understand their language, and the way that they work and the ways that we can help create a good product, end-product for a consumer, helping them get to that place is something that I’d definitely like to spend more time learning and developing.