A furry orange armchair, a pair of upcycled jeans, and a legion of prints and pottery donated by YeoPress and the Oberlin Pottery Co-op were among the works of art up for auction at the El Centro Volunteer Initiative Art Gala last Friday. Attendees of the free event, many dressed in the recommended cocktail attire, lined the perimeter of the Root Room, admiring the pieces and placing bids to help fund citizenship applications for Lorain County residents. The annual art auction originated with YeoPress, but in recent years ECVI has taken the reins, putting on the event with the aid of donations from YeoPress and the Pottery Co-op.

“Some of [the donations] are from professors,” College fourth-year and ECVI Co-Leader of Grant Writing and Fundraising Signe Meyer said. “We have some this year from librarians, one from a Dean of Student Life. We had a community member donate the other day. It’s a good mix of people. It is predominantly student art, but we accept art from whoeverʼs interested.”

As the night progressed and the closing of bidding drew near, the energy in the room heightened. Bidders discreetly guarded their desired works to outbid any challengers, and the Mexican banda drew a growing crowd to the dance floor. With its music and food, the gala provided a rare opportunity for Latine students to celebrate their culture alongside Lorain community members.

“Itʼs a fact that thereʼs Latine students in the Conservatory, but there is no band centered on Latinidad or anything like that,” College second-year and ECVI Co-Leader of Grant Writing and Fundraising Angelina Martinez said. “There isnʼt really Spanish music and Spanish bands [at Oberlin]. The reason we brought the banda is because we wanted that type of representation.”

Cultural connection is also a motivation for many of those involved with ECVI.

“Iʼm from Houston, Texas, and the community Iʼm from is all Black and Brown people, so coming [to Oberlin] was a definite culture shock,” Martinez said. “ECVI specifically goes out to a predominantly Latinx community to give citizenship and English classes, so one, [joining] was really important for me because it felt like home, and two, immigration is a personal issue for me and itʼs something that Iʼm really passionate about.”

Lorain’s Latine community has a notable history, with hundreds of men being recruited from Puerto Rico to work in the steel mill in the mid-20th century.

“We want people to be aware of that community, and to be able to have an opportunity to support them and to engage in really important local social justice and community-building work,” Meyer said.

To provide Oberlin students with that opportunity, ECVI works to benefit El Centro de Servicios Sociales.

“El Centro provides so many services, weʼre known as a one-stop organization here in Lorain County with a big reputation,” Executive Director of El Centro de Servicios Sociales Victor Leandry said. “We do English classes, first-homebuyer classes, we do summer camp, ballet classes, we have senior services, legal aid clinics — we do a lot. … Lorain County and Lorain City have the biggest Latino population per capita in Ohio, but we only have one organization thatʼs ours.”

El Centro is the organization for which ECVI is named, though ECVI is entirely student-led. It was students of El Centro’s citizenship test preparation classes whose applications the gala sought to raise funds for. This semester, ECVI-led citizenship classes have been attended by as many as nine participants in one session — a record for the organization.

“This semester, we have the largest number of citizenship students ever,” Meyer said. “Given that every test is $725 just for the application alone, weʼd love to fund at least three if not more, but itʼs super reliant on how many people show up, how much theyʼre willing to pay, how much theyʼre willing to donate to the organization.”

Meyer says they have met the aforementioned goal — out of 136 pieces, all but three were auctioned off, raising enough money to fund four citizenship applications. But regardless of the monetary proceeds from the gala, El Centro values the efforts and con- tributions of ECVI.

“They have organized a great group; they have a group that runs almost like a board of directors,” Leandry said. “Approximately six years ago, they started volunteering at El Centro, doing citizenship classes, [and] educating our immigrant community on how to pass their citizenship test. … They have very good success rates. Most of the people who take the class — in the 90 percent — pass the citizenship test.”

ECVI is not the only avenue through which Oberlin and El Centro have developed a relationship. Professor of Comparative American Studies Gina Pérez recently joined El Centro’s board of directors and has worked closely with the organization and the Lorain Historical Society to create the Latino Lorain History Project.

“We started our project three years ago to collect and capture the history of the Latino community [in Lorain], because it was not captured [anywhere],” Leandry said.

Pérez led students in her class in collecting oral histories from early members of the Latino community in Lorain.

“This year weʼre working on capturing the story of the Latino veterans in Ohio in Lorain to do an exhibit,” Leandry said. “Some of the students are from ECVI, and some are from [Pérez’s] class.”

Turnout at last weekʼs art gala was significantly greater than at the previous art auction. ECVI organizers were encouraged by the show of Oberlin support for El Centro’s cause.

“Itʼs refreshing to see, especially in todayʼs political environment, that people care about immigration issues,” Martinez said.

Perhaps ECVI’s success in marketing the art gala can be attributed in part to their collaboration with Oberlin artists.

“This college has such an expansive network of artists that also want to do social justice work, that want their work to be for good,” Meyer said.

For some student artists, donating their art might’ve been an opportunity to put disused creations to use, but it also provided inspiration.

“Sometimes it can be a little bit hard to find a reason to do art, so I think this is a really good way to use my art for something thatʼs really important,” College second-year and ECVI volunteer Camila Ciembroniewicz said.

At the end of the night, as auction winners claimed their spoils and evaluated how to transport the pieces home — the aforementioned neon armchair closing at a bid of $60 — and feelings of warmth and community lingered in the room.

“As much as Oberlin students want to take care of huge global issues, itʼs also important to take care of the local ones, and this event is a really cool way to be a part of that,” Meyer said.

• April 21, 2023
• Partner Marketing

This blog is a part of a series highlighting the perspectives of partner marketing executives across the globe. You’ll hear our guest writers’ experiences facing challenges in the partner ecosystem and their insights from their years of experience.

The typical preamble of a partnership agreement reads something like this: The parties agree to work together, develop joint solutions, enable joint sales and marketing and help each other gain entry into markets that provide incremental and new opportunities for business growth and customer success.

To fuel alliances and partnerships, it’s fundamentally important for two or more companies to develop joint messaging and content that empowers marketing departments to deliver awareness and demand generation activities. Joint messaging enables sellers to present a pitch to customers and prospects that resonates as a solution that comes from one company.

In my career I’ve seen many examples of partnerships with powerful joint messaging. For example, in the 2009-2010 timeframe VMware, Cisco and EMC created one of the first versions of a private cloud solution. The messaging creators developed a potent triumvirate that launched an entire industry around hyperconverged infrastructure. In 2016, AWS and VMware developed a powerful message for VMware customers to operate in the world’s most prominent cloud. In 2022, a very powerful relationship was ignited as NVIDIA and Deloitte collaborated to help enterprises easily build and operate AI and Metaverse services.

One approach to create joint messaging for a partner solution compares the compelling value proposition of a solution with priorities, trends and spending data from analyst and CIO surveys, like Oracle Cloud and VMware did for their combined solution. As a result, control, security and predictability were top of the list in 2021 analyst reports and videos.

I’m proud to be part of the Partner Marketing Visionaries community. On March 29, 2023, I had the opportunity to discuss my favorite topic – partner messaging with my industry colleagues Annie Martin (Microsoft), Lena Wiegering (Dataminr) and Tyillere Hansen (Slack). In the panel discussion, Messaging: The Art & Science of Building, they shared their expert opinions, perspectives and guidelines for developing joint messaging with alliances and partners. Here are some key takeaways from our conversation.

What do you think about when formulating the “together is better” message with a strategic alliance?

Annie Martin: “The first step should include definition from people involved in the partnership to define what ‘better’ means in ‘better together.’ Joint branding and messaging is more than just putting two logos together. We need to ask, what would compel a customer to work with us together? We need to articulate a joint-value message at the beginning of the partnership. Slowing down to define what better is sets us up for success.”

What is the typical process and approach for developing joint messaging?

Lena Wiegering: “The first discussion should involve product marketing teams from both partners and ask, ‘What type of partnership is this?’ In some scenarios, the partnership is an integrated solution. In other cases, it’s a partnership where a customer would buy two products together to create a solution. Gaining executive sponsorship and involving sales leadership is fundamentally important to developing strong partner messaging. Other elements include building deliverables and establishing a feedback loop for sales and marketing campaigns is part of the process. It’s not a one and done routine. Messaging needs to be adjusted and optimized over time.”

How is messaging documented and ultimately enforced with sales and marketing?

Tyillere Hansen: “Documenting a list of assets and how they will be used is a first step. Typically, a list of go-to-market assets includes creating modular slides that allows integration into pitch decks for sales and solution architects/engineers. Other assets include sales battlecards, customer solution briefs and website pages. Setting expectations up front with Sales and Marketing helps to enforce how messaging is used. The teams should understand how documents will reviewed. Defining expectations for a partner program needs to clarify how the joint-brand will be represented, considering how competitors will perceive the joint-brand, specifying when review cycles will occur, gaining support for legal and other teams to review the joint-messaging. If people understand all of these elements, then enforcement will not be a surprise.”

Annie, Lena and Tyillere also shared some best practices when creating joint-value messaging.

• Lena Wiegering: “Keeping messaging fresh and current is difficult. Define where the document repository resides and who will manage the messaging. Declare a feedback loop process to refine and update the messaging.”
• Annie Martin: “Implement a methodology to respond to market changes. Updating messaging is critically important. During the pandemic, I directed my team to adjust our partner messaging so that it was current.”
• Tyillere Hansen: “Customer feedback from events is valuable. At events, we can see, in real-time, how customers react on message and if it lands.”

At the end of the session, an interesting question from the audience was asked: “How does ChatGPT and Bard influence messaging development?” Annie said, “I’m so excited about it. This is going to save time, I can ask the deep questions, it can be a collation service so I can then add and my apply my thinking and personality.”

Tyillere has used ChatGPT to help create a script for a podcast, which provided topics ideas and saved hours of time. Of course, the process wasn’t perfect, and Tyillere clarified the ChatGPT output and refined it with points that the AI did not include. Lena said, “This technology helps to eliminate some of the initial work that is a slog. This capability allows people to focus energy on other things such as, measurement and optimization. I see a lot of benefit here.”

For more insights and best practices around creating effective joint messaging, watch Messaging: The Art & Science of Building. And once you’ve built out your partner messaging, watch Creating a Successful Marketing Plan with Partners to explore critical elements of a successful partner marketing plan.

partner marketing, partner marketing ecosystems

When describing students and their work, it’s easy to fall back on words like “aspiring,” “hopeful” or even “amateur.” There’s the impression that they won’t be prepared to make a significant contribution until sometime in the future. That it won’t happen until after they receive a degree and secure a job that kicks off their career path. While in school, a student is still incubating, awaiting the time when what they dream and do begins to change the world.

This is far from the case for the innovators enrolled in the Music History and Industry degree program at UCLA. These students are leading a revolution right here, right now. An event on Sunday, April 30 offers attendees the chance to experience first-hand the creativity and drive of the graduating seniors presenting capstone work.

“Drop the Needle: Remixing the Music Industry” will present a line-up of performances, music videos, podcasts, panel discussions, short films, and compelling discussions. Free and open to the public, the event will take place in Lani Hall from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

26 students are completing this capstone course as a requirement for their Music History and Industry undergraduate degree. The course empowered them not only to hone their passion project but also to sharpen skills to garner critical support for that project—generating marketing materials, building websites, taking advantage of social media, and navigating other ways to boost the project at hand and empower them well beyond graduation.

Lukas Castro describes his project as “a full immersion into the resources one needs as an aspiring ‘artistic’ or ‘creative’ entrepreneur. My goal is to provide independent artists and music students alike with the support they need to begin developing new approaches to self-promotion and pragmatic business models upon entering into the music industry.”

Quinn Campbell is prepared to talk about the all-important marketing and release plan that follows the creation of an album, punctuating the presentation with a screening of a music video. Brooke Maytorena’s presentation will span the process behind her first EP “I Don’t Remember,” from concept and demos to artwork and marketing, while Jonathan Tsai discusses the process behind his EP “Teenage Nightmare!”, followed by a performance of a track off the record. Katsura Uthus will offer a multimedia presentation about the EP “Bedroom Rock,” an aural exploration of the subject of mental illness.

With a focus on the technical side of music, Antonio Estrada’s company ProSoundly looks to transform the music production services market and innovate how music producers approach their craft. Estrada’s pitch reads, “We plan to increase the convenience and creativity of music making by offering music production packs, educational videos, mix/master services, original track production, and an AI synthesizer all on our website.” During the event on April 30, Estrada’s presentation will include audio and visual examples of the website’s products.

In perfect step with raging debates about AI, Tara Tempesta’s presentation will examine music creation by artificial intelligence and issues of copyright, asking, “What is the impact and how does legislation need to change?” 

These burgeoning creators are wise to the power of music to propel social justice. “Pink Is Power”, led by Lulu Dawson, is a female-fronted music festival furthering opportunities in the music industry, celebrating women’s contributions to music, arts, and culture with a full vendor fair and festival lineup. Annika Dudley’s Elevator Music is a diverse programming initiative aimed to allow diverse artists to be properly compensated for their work while providing free performance art to community members. 

“This programmatic initiative comes as a result of many of my experiences as a young musician growing up in Los Angeles,” Dudley posted on Instagram. “Through this journey, I hope to inspire new audiences, provide budding BIPOC and Queer artists with a platform, and elevate our community through sound, visuals, and more!” 

Samantha Heller’s Sam X Sam Productions is a not-for-profit production organization dedicated to creating community and opportunity for female, non-binary, and LGBTQ+ creatives within the music industry. “Through our Music for Movement benefit concert series, we aim to provide a platform for our female and gender-nonconforming artists while raising funds and awareness for women’s right to bodily autonomy,” Heller wrote.

Marlee Orr’s project is centered upon a live performance of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” as an exemplification of emotion underlying the Civil Rights Movement. Emmon Amid will perform tracks off “Generation Lost,” an EP based on lost stories and generational trauma among the Persian community following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Joshua Sung’s EP “Good Intentions with Bad Habits” reflects the perspective of Asian Americans, made in collaboration with other Asian American artists alongside him. Sung will also perform tracks from the EP.

The first student-run record label at UCLA comes out of this capstone as Cherry Pop Records. During the capstone event, Aliah Gaoteote will talk about the label’s mission to empower students with hands-on music industry experience working directly with local artists. Audience members will get a first listen of a song from the label’s debut release.

Radius Music Group (RMG) is a modern music management agency representing artists needing a team. “At Radius, we support our musicians by providing booking services, creative direction assistance, and project rollouts. Our goal is to continue to build our artists and the community around them and, for us, that starts in our home of Los Angeles,” said founder Kelsey Kelly, who will present a discussion with one of the agency’s artists.

Podcasts are becoming an increasingly significant piece of the music industry pie which students in the capstone are capitalizing on. Kryztyna Hernandez’s “The Cliffnotes Podcast” offers the opportunity to discuss personal music ideas and opinions. A sample of the podcast will be played for the Lani Hall audience after a presentation about the genesis of the project.

Film and music often go hand in hand. Remember Me, a documentary by Samantha Najemy (aka Sam Alon) and Annabelle Hendrickson, follows the latter as she takes on the LA music scene as an independent artist with important discussions about identity and sexism alongside other challenges of “making it” in the scene. A live performance by Hendrickson’s band will follow the screening.

The list above skims just the surface of an event rich with entrepreneurship, research, dedication, and passion. Visit the Drop the Needle website for the latest updates to the event line-up, including announcements about special guests, and learn more about the incredibly talented students behind the event. They’re gonna change the music industry one day.

Scratch that. They already are.