Member Spotlight | Joey Sminchak
Posted by [email protected] on Oct. 9, 2023 / Subscribe 0
Joey started at Horner & Shifrin as a Marketing Coordinator almost nine years ago and now serves as a Marketing Manager. He has been a member of SMPS since 2018, and currently serves on the Programs Committee and produces the Wednesday Weekly email newsletter.
What led you to apply for the chapter’s Amplify Scholarship? When you applied, what were you hoping to gain from Amplify and the sessions? Have you attended a conference before?
I applied for the Chapter’s Amplify Scholarship this year because I attended last year, and it was such a fun and educational experience. That was my first time attending an SMPS conference, and it was so nice to be in rooms with like-minded individuals who understand the same struggles that many of us AEC marketers face on a daily basis.
After attending the conference, what do you feel you gained from the sessions? What was the most memorable session you attended? And why?
I love attending professional conferences because of the insight you get into how others operate at their firms. After attending the conference, I walked away with lots of ideas about how to generate content (both internal and external) for various media platforms. Some were things that I had thought about but hadn’t felt comfortable or compelled to execute until now. Others were things that I would never have dreamed of doing on my own!
In my opinion, the session that I attended that was most memorable was “Level Up Your Communications Strategy - Take a Holistic Approach,” presented by Ali Panditrao & Maria Rodgers of Ware Malcomb. Their focus was on how best to build a team of advocates within your firm, in order to ensure that you are able to get the right information at the right time. They emphasize that, as marketers, we are not simply the executors of ideas: we serve as advocates for and curators of effective communication.
What is the most important thing you believe you have gained since joining SMPS?
There are two very important things that SMPS has equipped me with, and those are confidence and connection. Having the confidence to know your own value is not something that comes easily to me (I know that statement may resonate with many of our fellow members) but having SMPS as a resource to back up your daily decision-making is a godsend. Coupled with the professional network of AEC marketers and business development professionals that I have developed during my membership, there’s nothing that I feel I can’t do with SMPS on my side.
What excites you about your work and the contributions you make to Horner & Shifrin every day?
I am excited to continue to help Horner & Shifrin grow, as I have for the past nine years! I work with some of the best technical staff in the profession, and I enjoy the process of highlighting their achievements, whether that’s on social media, our corporate website, in SOQs and proposals, or professional award submissions. I also hope to turn each of these into a chance for myself and my team to flex our creative muscles and keep things interesting for us.
What might someone be surprised to know about you?
I am an avid collector of World’s Fair and International Exposition ephemera! I was always a fan of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Expo here in St. Louis, but I fell in love with the broader idea of these events after reading “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson on vacation a few years ago, a historical non-fiction which tells the contemporaneous stories of Architect Daniel Burnham and serial killer HH Holmes during Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition.
What is something you love to do outside of work?
I love to watch movies and television shows. TV writing has always been at the top of my long list of alternative professions, and I very much enjoy a well-written story. I’m quite critical of the media I consume and will rip something to shreds even if I liked it, a skill that comes in quite handy when copy editing project approaches.
0 Comments