Sarah Lubeck - San Diego Evangelist

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech Podcast where we discover cutting edge technology and the builders making it happen. I'm your host Neil Bloom, San Diego's Tech Ambassador and together we're going to uncover what technology San Diegans are creating.

With our own blend of local lifestyle.

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Welcome back to another episode. I am joined today with Sarah Lubeck, Director of Marketing Communications of the San Diego Regional edc. Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Sarah, why don't you tell us a little bit about what your role covers.

So San Diego Regional EDC or San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation. That's a mouthful. So we just call ourselves the EDC is all about really promoting San Diego's economic prosperity and regional competitive. Again, that's a mouthful. So essentially what we do is just tell the story of San Diego and help businesses kind of expand here. And recently if you think about what makes San Diego different, that really all comes down to talent. But we'll probably talk more about that a little bit later.

Yeah, we're gonna dive all into what you're up to, what the EDC is working on. StLife changing. But why don't we dig into a little more about Sarah. So tell us a little bit about where you grew up.

So I actually grew up in Phil, still an Eagles fan, so pretty happy about the recent super bowl win. It's been a long time coming and you know, I kind of found myself in San Diego about six or seven years ago was when I came out here. I can't actually remember the exact year. You know, it's kind of been the most life changing place I've ever lived and I'll leave that there.

Why was San Diego on your radar even initially?

So it actually, you know, I hate to say it this way but you know, honesty is kind of one of my faults. I always really liked surfing and if you've ever been to the Jersey shore, there's some great waves, but it's not exactly the type of water that you want to live and breathe every day. So I kind of. Long story short, I'd been Working at some papers. I've been doing some freelance writing. I'd work at some marketing agencies. I was working at one in New York. Something kind of happened where I wasn't offered an opportunity in San Diego, but they had a branch in San Diego, and eventually I just moved out here and I did get hired there. And that's kind of how it all started, but kind of happened really, really quickly.

Got it. So you were in marketing and copywriting and that kind of expertise before you got here?

Yes.

Okay. And initially, right away, that was what your expertise was in San Diego, copywriting?

Yeah, I actually started in journalism in Texas. Kind of bumped around a little. You know, it's popular in Philly. Kind of like how here you find a lot of people that go to la. I was in New York for a while, bounced around back and forth between the two, and then came on out to San Diego.

Really cool. So how did. How did the EDC get on your radar? What was that like?

So I've always been really interested in economics, kind of, you know, how things work and what's going on behind the scenes. And really, I was very fortunate. I had a mentor and an account supervisor that knew about the edc, had left my old company, knew my old boss, said, we're looking to start a marketing department from scratch, and we want to find someone that's kind of scrappy with agency experience and just wants to go on this adventure with us. And that was a little over five years ago.

Wow, it's been five years.

Yeah.

That's awesome, man. And I think we've known each other almost that.

Yeah. I think I met you kind of right around when you moved here via old school. Like, I don't remember what it was called. It was like that San Diego entrepreneurship network. They used to do it takelessons. And then. Yeah. Yeah.

I moved here in 2013, so five years ago to help start a company here when we got into Evo Nexus. So we probably. I'm sure we crossed paths then. Yeah, for sure. And we were working on the Go San Diego hashtag back then.

Yeah.

Was that kind of like your first citywide campaign?

That was really our first go around. You know, I think there's been a shift recently in marketing. I think we've talked about it where it used to be all about, you know, like, let's place billboards, and now it's really about telling authentic stories. And we looked around and realized that we had this awesome community, and it still rings true of people in San Diego. And we're just not leveraging them to promote the best version of ourselves. It wasn't really thought through or anything. And we just got everyone together in a room and it kind of happened organically. But the funny thing is you still see it today, five years ago, and no one's really actively promoting it. And I kind of think the coolest thing about it is no one really knows where it came from. And I think most successful campaigns, it sounds counterintuitive, but if they really are good at what they do, you shouldn't really know where it came from or who started it. It just happened.

Totally. I still see it in people's Twitter profiles.

Yeah.

Hashtag go San Diego. Like Ryan Cooter. Immediately I think of he still has it there.

Yeah, it works too. Why not, right?

Definitely. I mean, it's a great archive of information about San Diego.

Sometimes when we're looking for promotional news, I'll just go and search it. And the things that you can just crowdsource from the community are pretty incredible. I don't know if you were the one who told me that Google Analytics started in San Diego. It was urchin. And I just like those little cool nuggets that come from social that no one's really keeping track of anymore. But you just, you get these little things and it's always a fun coffee table talk.

It is another fun coffee table talk about San Diego companies that start here. Wikipedia started in San Diego.

You know, I found that out from your social the other day.

So I found it out from listening to another podcast. Pretty cool. So Jimmy Wales was based here, finishing a Ph.D. i believe.

I had no idea.

Uh huh. Pretty cool. But that kind of takes us into what you're up to now. I mean, I think obviously you're marketing for the city. You are like the chief evangelist of. Not the city, the county, the region. San Diego. What's that like? I mean, that's a big effort for sure.

Yeah, I mean, I would say my job is a little unique in the sense of, you know, if you run marketing communications for a company, your job is to promote your company. But my job is to really tell San Diego's story. I think the best way to do that is actually just illuminating the people that are already here. One of the things I love about San Diego is that there's a certain humility to people here without bashing anywhere else that you don't really find anywhere else. But sometimes that makes it harder to sit around. And we don't sit around and pound our chest and talk about how awesome we are all the time. So it's kind of finding the right way to do that. But it's my job to talk about how awesome San Diego is. So if I could have other people or people that started companies doing that, that's when the message really becomes authentic and that's when people really listen. Yeah.

I mean, you have so many products in a sense, right, that you are marketing. It's pretty cool. Do you have to coach a lot of people to be a little bit more boisterous about what they're up to because of that humility?

Yeah, I would say we do. But, you know, I think part of the ironic thing about this is, I mean, you had to twist my arm to even do this podcast. So it probably is something about, you know, there's just so many awesome people here. And I think there's really. I hate to say there's a culture of collaboration because it just sounds like a canned talking point, but, you know, whenever you go and you sit down and someone wants to talk about you, I feel like you're always like, ooh, have. Have you met this guy? He's awesome. Or have you met this girl doing this? He's awesome. So I feel like it's more like people just trying to pass the baton to other people rather than just talking about how awesome and how great they are. You do find the occasional person that does that, though, for sure.

Do you think that Paintsis is pretty different from the other tech hubs, the SFs, the La's, the New Yorks, or did they start like that, too and one thing led to another? They became, I don't know, put up on a pedestal.

Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that's interesting about San Diego, if I could give this city one gift, I think it would be that, you know, when you. I wouldn't say this is true about la. I would say more coming from the east coast, there's a certain sense of swagger where people project above their weight, or punch above their weight might be a better way to say that. And here, I mean, I think we're kind of just. We're chill and we're laid back and we still have some type of swagger, but it's in a different sense. So I think we have to find a way to really, you know, have swagger but also have humility. And, you know, there. There's a balance. But I think one of the things that's really cool about San Diego in general is that, I mean, I don't Think we need to be Silicon Valley and we don't need to be in New York, we don't need to be Seattle. I think we just really need to be the best version of ourselves. And it sounds, you know, really trite to say that. But think, you know, we've talked about the whole Silicon beach branding and Silicon Alley and no joke, I think I told you this. They call Nebraska Silicon Prairie, Silicon Slopes.

Utah Silicon Hills in Austin.

And you know, I'd like to think we're not Silicon anything. Well, maybe that's, you know, I get it.

We're not fake.

Exactly.

You know what's interesting though is that thinking about, you know, the swagger, the east coast, you're from the east coast, yet we're all from somewhere else. It feels like you're. And yet there's a culture of the region that we just kind of meld into no matter where we're from. Like, you could have moved to LA and maybe have had more of a swagger.

Exactly.

It's kind of like company culture. Right? I mean, you kind of, it's the greatest average of everyone involved. And that's kind of really cool that we have that culture and people just kind of not say that they fall in line with it. But people move here because they like that culture.

Exactly. It definitely attracts a certain type of person. And you know, I think we want to keep that going and just keep on feeding off that energy.

Yeah, for sure. What else do you find unique about individuals here? I mean, you obviously people pass the baton. They want to give everyone else the chance. Anything else you find unique, whether it's cross border collaboration or specific technologies that we own here better than other areas.

Yeah, I think we've again talked about this. I feel like we should have just had a recorder from all of our happy hours because we have this conversation. I think what San Diego does really, really well, and maybe this is part of the reason that we don't project ourselves is we create the fundamental technologies that kind of power the global economy. And that's not meant to be a talking point by any means, but you know, a lot of times we talk about Boston and like how they've commercialized all this genomics technology. A lot of the research from that comes from San Diego. You know, a lot of this blockchain stuff that you're seeing that other places are commercialized. A lot of these developers that really started and were passionate about the project, they were based in San Diego. So we almost developed the fundamental technology that helps the rest of the world do their job and we just no one really knows about it. And that's kind of what's cool about everything going on. And that's where we really got the brand life changing from when we looked around is that people here really have a way of influencing lives at the same time also changing the world. And again that was something that when we started doing our message testing I thought that was the tritest, cheapest, kind of like just most idealistic line ever. But as we started message testing and going to these companies and you know, you think Illumina is going to say that and you think all these other companies are, but when GoPro and these marketing agencies and everyone else tell you the reason I'm in San Diego is because before this brand we already had bought into this. We didn't just want to be another Silicon Valley hardware company. That's why we have an office in San Diego. We didn't want to just be this company in the Midwest with no culture. That's why we have an office in San Diego. That's kind of what starts making you think a little differently about the region.

That's pretty cool. So tell us more about the FC life changing event. I mean what was the genesis for starting a new kind of campaign and what's the launch look like?

So in I want to say 2015, I'm starting to feel old when I can't remember the years. San Diego had this opportunity to, to be part of this National Geographic documentary about world smart cities. And for the first time, instead of telling the story of how San Diego's a really beautiful region, they decided to tell the story of how San Diego's a really smart region and what we're doing to kind of change the world. We are governed by a board and some others and they came back to us. And after this video ran, and I think it ran in something like 400 million households around the world, we got a lot of inbound inquiries of people just looking to find out more about San Diego. They came to us and said, you know, there really has to be something more to this. We need to start telling our region story. The tourism authority, which we partner with all the time, they do a great job of promoting San Diego for tourism, but they have a budget of $33 million a year or more. I don't know the latest figures to do that. So we just said, you know, we think there's value in this and we think we could really raise this money privately. And, and many companies have come to the table. The first Step was developing a brand for San Diego. And no matter what, I think San Diego is always our brand. But we wanted to develop a campaign that companies thought they owned or companies did own and had ownership in and could say we helped develop this and this is a reflection of us around the table. So we pulled together a room of about 100 people in San Diego. These were, you know, marketing and HR people from around the globe and kind of started doing our message testing. We did survey work where we asked people about perceptions of San Diego. You know, sometimes you have to really hear the negative to be able to get the positive out of it. One of the crazy things for me, I think I've already told you this, was they asked masters and Ph.D. and I think actually it was anything above college educated in Boston and New York to draw San Diego on a map. And I think it was something about like 40 or 50% couldn't do it.

Really. I don't think I've heard that before.

It was kind of one of those things that, I mean, not that knowing your geography or knowing where somewhere else on the map, meaning you're knowing their identity, but it was still kind of, you know, we've got a lot of work to do. And also some good came out of it. I think from the outside looking in. San Diego's a lot different place than it was four years ago because of people like you, Neil, coming around the table and having these conversations. But a lot of times from the inside looking out, it's just really hard to see that. And it's hard to see that pace of change.

Interesting.

I think we're moving along.

That kind of gets to a point. Digging on the where is San Diego? I think in the Southern California region, we're often kind of looped into the LA greater economy. I often am in LA and we're considered like LA is to the border kind of thing. We see ourselves as a totally different sub region or region of our own. What's that? I mean, what do we have to do there? Or do we have to do? We just need to. I mean, is building our own brand gonna be enough? Or is there something that we do with LA that shows that we are kind of partner cities or partner regions?

You know, I don't think they're necessarily mutually exclusive. I know there are very polarizing views about Southern California culture and whether, you know, we should lump ourselves in with la. But I think in order to tell our story effectively, we should be using all the channels possible. So that means, yes, tapping on to LA and making sure that LA has great brand recognition globally. One of the funny things that we found, I think I told you this story three years ago. We had a delegation, I want to say they were a Japanese delegation come in and as they were leaving at the airport, they said to us, man, you know, San Diego, what the rest of the world thinks LA is like. We thought of this like Southern California, great environment, and we went to LA and we didn't find it there. And that's no disrespect to LA by any means, but they came to San Diego and they're like, this is what we thought LA was the whole time.

That's interesting.

Yeah. Another thing we found about San Diego versus LA in kind of when we were doing our message testing is, you know, my background's also a little bit in political campaigns. And if you look at San Diego as a political candidate, we have very low negatives, meaning that people don't really associate us negatively. But if you look at a city like la, they have high positives and high negatives. So it's very polarizing. Meaning that there's a lot that we can do with our brand. You know, I think San Diego to some extent doesn't quite know who it is. And that's not a bad thing. That means that everyone around the table has the ability to impact the brand.

Yeah, we kind of can write our own future as a region.

I think one of the other cool things that we can talk about with our region is, you know, when you come from like these legacy east coast cities like Boston, like Philly, you know, like New York, you show up at an event and people ask you where you work and who your grandfather was. Not literally, but here. I mean, if you come and you show up, it has something to do with our culture. You want to help, you're willing to roll up your sleeves. I think people always give you a chance and it's pretty incredible, it's pretty.

Cool that people here seem to give before they get. That's for sure. I mean, that's part of the passing baton piece. But it's really true. And it also the fact that they've come from other regions and have that, I mean, it's just something really unique that I think we're going to keep uncovering with the SD life changing piece.

Absolutely.

Tell us a little bit how companies can get involved in the life changing effort.

So San Diego life changing effort is really about attracting talent to San Diego. And one of the reasons we focused on talent is because we know California is in a very cost competitive place to do business. That's just the fact of a matter. We're not going to change that or move the needle very significantly. So if we could really work on attracting talent here, companies will follow suit. A lot of people think, you know, we've talked about this economic development is about going to other regions and having companies move to San Diego. And that's just not the case. 98% of our economic growth is going to come from focusing on startups and small businesses and helping them expand in the region and the reason they expand talent. So we have launched a campaign to help recruit talent to San Diego, basically just by filling in the blanks and giving them the information that they're missing. So if you check out sdlifechanging.org you can really find out what's it like to work in San Diego, what it's like to live in San Diego. And obviously we live in an awesome region and we can't ignore the lifestyle piece either. Although it's primarily really about work and jobs. And then the other really cool aspect of it is we know that we don't have the big budgets of other regions. But one of the things that we've already talked about, a reoccurring theme has been we have really, really awesome people and talent willing to help out. So it is completely free, you sign up for a login. But there's also a recruiting tool, toolkit that any company, any person can use where they could find facts about San Diego. If you're at a startup, images, relocation costs, B roll, anything you might want to use on your own startups channel to help recruit talent to the region.

That's awesome. I mean, you hear time and time again in the companies saying that hey, sure, we need to recruit for ourselves, but we really need to recruit for the region. This is exactly what you guys built so that we can San Diego. So they have the talent to want to come here, which from my background talent wants to come here. They just want to feel confident that there's a career to be made here, not just one job.

Exactly. We've talked about the second job problem a lot and I think the thing that's super incredible is we've had a few other regions reach out and say, how did you get competitors? Essentially because we're all competing for talent to work together to do this. And I never felt like that was a hard thing. I felt like immediately most of these companies understood that when you're looking to come to San Diego, you want to make sure that there's not just a job for you in two years if you come to work at Qualcomm, but that there's that next startup or there's a next step in your career, or else you're really not going to make that jump.

Yeah, that's true. It's pretty cool. Another unique aspect of cvo.

I mean, everything that we've talked about, I feel like all goes back to kind of the culture here, that people are really willing to help out one another. And how many times do people reach out to you asking, hey, do you know this guy? Hey, do you know this job lead or something like that? And I feel like through anyone's network you can usually find the right person to get to. It's pretty incredible. It is region of 3.3 to 4, depending on who's checking, a million people. And you still really feel like it's.

Small town for sure. Well, we can't ignore our culture here. I mean, our lifestyle here. We know. I mean, we have just as much fun while we're working. Why don't you tell us a little about some of the fun things that you like about San Diego in terms of lifestyle? Are you. You're a surfer. Sounds like into tacos, Have a favorite taco place.

Everyone's into tacos. Yeah. I'm very passionate about tacos, so we don't have to worry about that. There's. It depends on what type of tacos for the more. I take my tacos very seriously, as you might know. Yes, we all do. For the more street tacos, I mean, you can't beat going to Tijuana to get them. Or you can drive down to Chula, go to Tacos El Gordo if you really are missing those flavors. For the more seafoody tacos, I actually think Oscars give me a spicy shrimp taco if you're coming to meet with me. Ever any notes for anyone out there, and I'm a happy girl, so.

Got it. Yeah, Oscar's is great. And they've just expanded all over Segue.

I know it's kind of been crazy, but they still, you know, they changed the way they give out their sauces, which is a little bit of an issue at first, but, you know, they always are willing to give me extra.

Yeah. Now my fiance is really into their ceviche and yeah, we do some special trips just for the ceviche.

Exactly.

Oh, yeah. What about coffee places? We're becoming kind of our own little coffee scene here in town. Do you have a favorite coffee?

I Do. I'm almost as big of a fan of caffeine as I am of tacos. So I'm a big fan of moniker. If you guys haven't been. What Ryan Sisson has done just with the moniker brand in general has been pretty incredible. But he also makes some great coffee. Also. There's a small place in Mission Hills, Hardware Coffee, that Hardware. Heartwerk Hardware.

Cool.

That has great coffee. It's probably about the size of two of these offices, but cool. Good stuff.

Yeah. And who can not talk about San Diego and talk about beer? We're a beer town, that's for sure. We're the beer town. Do you have favorite beers or breweries?

I do. I'm a big fan of the classic San Diego ipa and I never realized what I missing until I go and I, you know, you travel to other countries or something like that and they look at you when you like IPAs like you're absolutely crazy. You know, I love the classic beers. Ruff Draft has some great beers. Mike Hess, I would be remiss. I know that you know about this, but, you know, I think by the time this will run. One of the amazing things is that Ballast Point actually has decided to partner with us for a special made in San Diego beer. They started in San Diego in 1996. They've grown in San Diego since then and now they employ almost 400 people locally. So I think they just wanted to find a way to give back to the region that has given them so much. So they. It's a special beer. You can only get it in San Diego, so check it out. I think they have a website Made in san diego or madeinsd.com not positive about that. So I'd have to check that for you.

We'll link it in the show notes for sure.

For sure. And I think one of the coolest things about the beer is they're donating a proceeds of the funds to a newly formed San Diego entrepreneurship fund at our foundation. It's not a fund in the typical sense like a VC fund, but it is looking to really provide capital and just provide a little bit of financing. And we're talking very micro financing to SMEs and small businesses just starting out, particularly in areas that have kind of been ignored by the typical VC funding scene. So that's really cool. I think it's pretty incredible that it's kind of one of those situations where it's all coming full circle.

Yeah. Big shout out to Valspoint. That's pretty cool for them to do that for sure. You know, this is a tacos and tech podcast. We got to talk a little tech. Because I know you're into tech.

Yeah.

Specifically blockchain now, I think is what you're into, but maybe tell me some other areas that you're into as well.

So I love just blockchain from a personal standpoint. I just think that when you look at the way money's been handled in the past, it's not so much about cryptos, it's about democratizing the way that society works, and it's really kind of resetting a playing field. I think the future of blockchain technology is. I mean, I don't need to say this. It already is. Like everything, you know, from genomics to travel, obviously banking, if you could think it. I think blockchain is going to be running it in five or 10 years. And I'm pretty excited just to look back and see that happen. From a tech perspective, one of the cool things about working at EDC is we get to dive deep into so many different areas and learn about them. For example, one of the areas that we focused on last year was really genomics. We wanted to understand what that area meant, and I think it's misunderstood, but it's really more focused on tech than it is on science now. I mean, if you look at the jobs they're hiring for, it's data analytics. I've just become very fascinating from it from a personal perspective as well. I also really. We've talked about this. I'm an SEO nerd and I. Not as much on the content marketing side, but I love the technical aspects of it. I think there's a lot of companies in San Diego that do a really great job understanding that as well.

For sure. Yeah. I think that's actually kind of. Most of our early marketing agencies were all just like SEO houses that just, like, owned it. Really understood it really well. Yeah, that's pretty cool to be surrounded by all those different technologies. For sure.

Exactly. And I think one of the cool things about a lot of the marketing agencies here, I'll give a shout out to them, is they're not just servicing clients, but they're creating technology. And a lot of times they don't really get enough credit. But if you go and look at some of the stuff that these places have actually created in the products, I feel like they're kind of selling themselves short sometimes by calling themselves an agency.

For sure. Yeah. They have full tech teams.

Exactly.

They're doing a lot in house. It's pretty cool. Well, Sarah, this has been awesome. Really enjoy any time I get with you for sure. And people can see everything that you're up to by your active Twitter feed, I believe. Right? Is that where you're most active?

Probably, yeah, that's. That's where I'm most active. In regards to San Diego tech, I think my handle is Lubeck. L U B E C K Definitely. I love talking San Diego tech. Or if you have a great taco or beer or caffeine spot, definitely send it my way. But we're always looking for stories of just incredible people that call this place home and feedback. I think we always have to be open to it on how we all could be doing our jobs better.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for all the work you do for all the San Diego companies from entrepreneurs, from business people, you know, to have someone doing your marketing for them, in a sense, it's pretty awesome and pretty neat. So thanks very much.

Likewise.

Right back at you and thanks everyone for listening.

Thanks for joining us on the Tacos and Tech podcast with Neil Blum. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. This has been a partnership with the San Diego Venture Group and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation's SD Life Changing Campaign. You can find Neal bloom on Twitter eelbloom and on LinkedIn. And join us next time when we have Jason Peng, serial entrepreneur and co founder of wyff. On the next podcast.

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