by Elyse Kane
Today I want to talk about one of my favorite mentor interviews: Meet Your Mentor: Mark Beal. Mark Beal is a professor, author, marketer, and Gen Z researcher. Going into this podcast, I remember being super curious about what ‘Gen Z researcher’ meant. Since Mark also works with marketing and technology, the Gen Z researcher role, for him, involves researching how Gen Z intersects with these two fields. More often than not, the intersection happens with social media. Mark and I talked a lot about social media and how it is slowly becoming the forefront of advertising and marketing, and a lot of companies find themselves in need of people to run their social media. A lot of the time, this role goes to a Gen Z-er, because Gen Z has grown up with social media and is generally well versed with technology. If you want a more nuanced definition of what it means to be a Gen Z researcher, feel free to listen to our podcast and hear directly what Mark had to say. I will paste the link below.
In addition to marketing, technology, social media, and Gen Z, Mark also talked about his experience mentoring and his own mentors. It’s always really interesting to hear mentors talk about their experience being a mentor as well as being a mentee, so I try to prioritize this topic and usually leave some time at the end of the podcast to ask it.
When I say that this podcast with Mark Beal is one of my favorites, I mean it in the sense that I was relaxed and it was easy to talk to Mark throughout our episode—which are two big aspects of podcasting and being a good host that I’ve talked about in earlier blog posts. I would imagine part of this came from the fact that I am a part of Gen Z and am relatively knowledgeable about social media, so it was easier to converse with Mark about these topics than if I was interviewing an astrophysicist—which would still be incredible, I just wouldn’t have as much familiarity with the topic. Nonetheless, the podcast I recorded with Mark Beal was very enriching and if anyone has any interest in the various fields I’ve mentioned, I would highly recommend tuning in.
If you are curious about Gen Z researching and want to listen to the Mark Beal episode, here is the Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6zAcgHhOaIbRavkejhLFXE
If you are curious about the Meet Your Mentor podcast and want to learn more or listen to a different episode, here is the Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/show/0BbxTRTiEjYKIuaJ2ArfX9
Apple Podcasts link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mentor-project/id1486267030?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Spreaker link: https://www.spreaker.com/show/the-mentor-project
Remember, you want to scroll down until you see podcasts titled “Meet Your Mentor: Firstname Lastname.” You can also find my podcast on The Mentor Project website. Simply click “Explore” and then “TMP Podcast.”
