“I love every day, ” says Diana Gallo, this week's interviewee. How many of us can make that declaration and mean it? This week's interview is filled with many morsels to chew on, so get chewing!
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Diana Gallo: I’m very passionate about what I do which is a good thing. I am in the digital media space both interactive and social media. Outside of that, I love movies and music and I try to see as many films and attend as many concerts as I possibly can. While I am very independent and have difficulty asking for help which at times does work against me – and see career as very important, I love my boyfriend (who I live with) and respect and appreciate all his support. He, family and friends are very important to me. I love Toronto, though if I had to live anywhere else, New York City and London, England would be my choice, they are my two favourite cities, and would probably move in a heartbeat if the opportunity allowed it. My addictions would be coffee and magazines, I love reading magazines. I am a kid at heart and regardless of my age I try to keep that. I think people sometimes take things too seriously.
What’s a typical day like for you?
Diana Gallo: I get up pretty early, before 6:00 am, and my day starts with brewing coffee. I check my email, Facebook, Twitter and see what my day is going to look like, personal and at work. Most of the time when I am at work, I am in a lot of meetings, and when I am not in meetings, I am responding to emails and putting plans in place so we can execute campaigns. I work with a lot of people here at Cineplex and externally. I’m on Facebook and Twitter throughout the day as well, less personal because it’s a part of my job. I walk home, and when I get there at about 7:00, 7:30 pm, I make dinner and watch TV, more than I have in the past. I think that’s the fault of good programming, and in tandem I’m on the computer. It’s not overly exciting but when I can, I try to squeeze in a movie or a concert.
How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?
Diana Gallo: I motivate myself! It’s great when I accomplish something but I always want to do more. With my upbringing it was always about you doing, yeah you got a B but let’s strive for that A. So that becomes part of my every day, for good or for bad. I push myself more than anybody else. I don’t know if it’s my upbringing, but I love life. I see every day how short life can be for some people that I want to take advantage of every hour in the day. But I also motivate myself through the stories of other people, and what they do, and I see how excited I get. I don’t necessarily mean fictional people or people in books. They could also be friends, or colleagues.
If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?
Diana Gallo: I would put myself and my best interests first. When I was growing up I always wanted to help others and often forgot about myself. In doing so, sometimes you do damage to yourself and if you are not at 100 percent, physically, mentally, there is no way you can help others, so for me it’s about taking care of yourself. This is one thing that I’ve learned and I learned it the hard way. Another is to really trust your instincts and don’t let people walk all over you. If there is one thing that I would teach kids it would be that, and I don’t mean that you have to be rude to others, but you can’t let people step all over you.
What's the most important business or other discovery you've made in the past year?
Diana Gallo: In terms of business, I don’t know if it’s a real discovery but in the last year a lot of people have been saying that an executive team resists any kind of change within an organization. And while that may be true, I think sometimes it’s because of how they are communicated to. Is the information being presented in a way that’s relevant to them? What I’ve learned, and it doesn’t mean that I spoon feed them what they want to hear, but a lot of time it really is about education. Just because someone is a VP or CEO of a company doesn’t necessarily mean that they know or understand what it is you are trying to sell them on. Sometimes it’s going down to the basics and helping them to understand that, and I think a lot of people really appreciate that.
I don’t think that every CEO is stuck up and think that they know everything. The big thing for me was getting my point of view across, and saying this is the way I see it. This style has helped to break a lot of ice here at work, and we have been able to get projects through that normally wouldn’t get through. It’s really valuing the point of view of people who are not in say a VP or CEO position.
I think another discovery which is a bit of personal and business is that – and it only came after the fact – a long time ago, maybe in 2000, when I was working at Sympatico, at the time there were forums and chat rooms, and instant messaging was big and those were the things that I was working on and it wasn’t called social media or Web 2.0. I remember talking to someone about it at the time who was my best friend, and he was really putting it down and saying it was a fad. So I said maybe it was a fad, but somehow it’s lasted so many years. Last year I found out that they are in the social media space. And for me it’s, is this person being a hypocrite? I don’t know, but in terms of me and the discovery, it’s back to trust my instincts and keep grounded so if there is something that you believe in and you truly believe that it is something, then don’t stop believing in it because someone disagrees with you.
What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past five years?
Diana Gallo: In terms of entertainment, the biggest advance in the last year has been 3-D, the number of movies developed in that format, and the number of people going out to see a film in 3-D and praising it. There has been some negative comments but overall people get excited about seeing movies in 3-D and don’t necessarily mind paying the extra fee for it. 3-D, IMAX has been huge success for us for 2010 so far. We continuously promote the value of watching movies in 3-D and what you can get out of a 3-D film. That could include special promotions, such as giving movie goers a free upgrade. 3-D is here to stay because studios are producing more and more films in 3-D format. We work on that success and get people excited about seeing films in 3-D. Sometime the product is not great but the experience in seeing the film in 3-D can make up for that and that’s how you balance the two.
If we look at advances in entertainment and social media, I think a lot more entertainment companies have embraced social media last year than prior to. I think some of it happened because they had no choice because social media was happening a lot faster that the entertainment industry was going to embrace it, so I think they said, “We can’t catch up so let’s embrace it now and do the best we can.” That includes things like sticking your brand out in the social media space and word-of-mouth can kill it, and it’s proven. It has happened where bad word-of-mouth has resulted in poor opening box office numbers, when it was otherwise projected to have higher numbers. The impact of social media on entertainment and film format in entertainment, in theatre and at home has been the biggest advance in the last year.
What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?
Diana Gallo: For entertainment it’s the downloading of movies. The business that I am in is exhibitor, which is in theatre and the DVD side of things. So the biggest threat for both sides of the business is the downloading of movies. Personally I do not see it as a threat because it’s a way for people to become familiar with the movie then purchase it. To handle the downloading of movies, you have to accept that it’s going to happen and you can’t control or stop it. Instead what you have to do is offer people an experience they cannot get through downloaded products, knowing that there still will be people who download the product. This could be done by improving the in-theatre experience through the food they offer at the concession stand, the seat they sit on, and incentives to go to a theatre to watch a movie. With the DVD store you can also do things there to enhance the experience.
Another threat comes down to bad products, and as an exhibitor you can’t control what the product is going to be, that’s up to the studio, and unfortunately you’re their mercy. If you have a year filled with bad products, than can result in poor box office numbers at your theatre. We can’t control bad products, it is what it is, but what I can work on is the online component. Even if you have bad products you can still engage the movie goers online and in the theatres and you can talk about other products that are coming down the pipeline.
For social media the biggest threat is that you are putting your brand out there and you are relinquishing control of that brand. We put ourselves into this social media space. For us it means relinquishing control of our brand because people will talk about us whether we are there or not. What do you do? For me it’s really just talking to the end users and engaging with them. Sometimes they have something to say and you do not agree with them but that’s okay, so it’s a matter of welcoming all feedback. From the feedback we’ve been getting I can say without a doubt that our fans are very appreciative of that.
Another threat is privacy. How do you get people to not be overly concerned about privacy and remove themselves from social networks? You have to be authentic and transparent within these communities.
What’s unique about the service that you provide?
Diana Gallo: I came to Cineplex as someone who really understands the social media and digital online space so I’ve become the advocate at the company. It’s about setting the strategy for it, educating everybody here about the benefits of social media, how to use it and how to make it transparent. It’s about showing the different departments in the company how social media can work for them, so that what’s unique about my service because I’m the only one in this space.
What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?
Diana Gallo: The big one is not listening, so I think for some people it’s pushing information into the social media space and not listening to what the end user is saying, or any dialogue that’s happening. For us, it’s first and foremost about the dialogue and getting back to the end user, so if they raise a concern and we do not have an answer, we are honest with them and say we do not know but let me find someone who has an answer for you, so they understand that we’re looking into it. It may take a day or three days but there is someone who is listening. And whether they say good things or bad things, we’ll always respond and acknowledge the end user. So for instance, let’s say an end user catches an error on our website, we get back to them and give kudos for finding it. That’s something we do really well here and our end users are very important to us and we show them by engaging with them in the way they want to be engaged.
Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it.
Diana Gallo: A challenge was managing and mentoring someone who prior to being on my team was feeling they weren’t being heard, very devalued, unmotivated, and that their position was stagnant. How do you take someone from that place and quickly get them to where you need them to be because you need them as another resource?
I’m a big believer in being honest and frank with people so it was as simple as having a conversation outside the four walls and finding out what didn’t work before, how they wanted to be managed, what they wanted to do in the organization, and what they were looking for. It was about so this isn’t working, here are possible reasons why it isn’t working, and how are going to fix this.
I presented the situation as, if you ever have a problem, if there is anything that you are doubtful about, you have to tell me and there is no need to beat around the bush. If there is something that I’m doing wrong I want to hear criticisms because I’m here to better myself as well. The approach of being honest, upfront and understanding the person, how they work and need to grow works for me. I’m a big believer that each person needs to be managed differently depending on who they are, and how they perform best. Some people need to be micro-managed, others don’t, some people like clear cut directions, others need a couple bullet points and they can run with the project.
What lessons did you learn in the process?
Diana Gallo:
- Be honest with people.
- Understand the different dynamics within a corporation, and even within a team and work with it. It is about adapting, and you cannot be rigid and manage a team because not every person on a team is going to want to be managed the same way and you have to work around that.
Tell me about your big break and who gave you.
Diana Gallo: I don’t know that there was necessarily one person who gave me a big break. I worked very hard to get the jobs that I’ve had regardless of what level I was at in those jobs. It was full-time work to secure those jobs. In terms of getting into the social media space, that was a little bit through the Canadian Women in Communications in the sense that it opened up contacts that I reached out to and asked if I could have a 10 minutes meeting with them to understand what they really did. I was very selective of the people I reached out to, not necessarily because of who they were, but because of the areas that they worked in. I knew that I wanted to stay in the online space and sort of revisit where I started with forums and chat rooms. I didn’t know what the role was so I was going in blindly. Through these different people they helped to shape what the role would look like, and then from there I started doing searches based on that. I got my break at Alliance in the social media space 10 years after I started. I had a great interview, the dynamics were great. I was quite honest about what I wanted. I understood the space because of past experience and it happened fairly quickly.
Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?
Diana Gallo: I don’t know if this is considered a failure but there was a period when I was always in the online space. My first job wasn’t necessarily online, it was in entertainment but all the other jobs had some online component. There was an opportunity for me to do a producer/print role so I thought I’d try it because I’ve never done it before. That was a big mistake. While I learned a lot, I also learned that I didn’t want to do it for a long period of time. I wasn’t happy and it drove me to the ground and it ended up being a short stay as a result, which meant there was a period of time that I wasn’t working. But that was the best thing for me because it gave me the opportunity to discover where I belonged and wanted to be and that time was what I needed to land the role that I now have.
What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?
Diana Gallo: On a personal level, and I can only say this after the fact, the biggest disappointment was investing so much into a friendship, emotionally, financially and at a business level to only get to a point where it ended very badly. All the signs were there but I chose to ignore them. At the end I was very disappointed because there were a number of people along the way that I drifted away from because of this. It was hard to look at a bright side when you look back in retrospect and see all that you’ve done, the people you’ve hurt, and the business relationships it impacted along the way.
What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?
Diana Gallo: For the longest time I wanted to work in London, England. I felt like I needed to get myself there. I went there for vacation and partly to see if I could find a job, and I did. I went to the interview, the entire process, came back to Canada and they wanted me. But something happened and I had to say no. I was disheartened because for 10 years this was what I wanted to do. It was presented to me and I could do it but I couldn’t. It was tough for me to say no because I worked so hard to get that opportunity, but that meant that I had to stay in Toronto which was fine. On a more personal level I got to see my nephew being born here in Toronto, seeing him grow up, and it’s where I met my current boyfriend. There were good things that came out of it but immediately I was quite disappointed and it was the toughest decision that I ever had to make.
What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?
Diana Gallo: It’s two accomplishments combined into one. I think it was the role of creating two large communities, one on a broadcaster site and the other on an entertainment site at a time when there were no communities at all. It was sort of there but no business wanted to dive into it even remotely. Both communities ended up being very successful and they lasted for about a year, and that was only because of things outside of my control and other members involved in the project.
How did mentors influence your life?
Diana Gallo: It’s really about appreciating the value of what you love to do and what you’re passionate about. There is a part of your life where you do what you have to do to get to where you need to get to. Or you do what you have to do because of the bills that you have to pay, but there comes a time in your life when you no longer need to do that and it’s really about chasing after what you are passionate about. It makes the day go by faster and every day is a good day, even if you are having bad moments during that day. That’s one thing that mentors taught me, and I took it from the business into the personal realm and if you do what you’re passionate about it shapes you as a person and people can see that. For me it made me a better and more rounded person because I wasn’t disgruntled or pissed off about anything. Anytime I feel like I’m not passionate about what I do, mentors re-iterate that it’s time to leave.
What’s one core message you received from your mentors?
Diana Gallo: Be as passionate as you can about what you are doing, and if you ever get to that point where you’re no longer passionate, look for other opportunities. You do not want to have all that negativity that you experience during the day to impact you in the evening.
As an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?
Diana Gallo: It’s okay not to know the answer to something regardless of what position you’re in, and never stop or fear to ask questions.