Smarter PR: Data, AI & the Power of Relationships

Justin Levinson (00:10)‍

Hey everybody, welcome to the Agency Side podcast. I'm your host, Justin Levinson. And today I'm joined by Laura McDonald, who's a chief growth officer at Hotwire. Laura leads Hotwire's global growth, marketing, and innovation teams and works closely with major technology brands like Palo Alto Network, Samsung, Sony, Siemens, and eBay. She's also helping shape how agencies are using data measurement and generative AI to drive smarter decisions and stronger impact.

With a background in linguistics and computer science from the University of Cambridge, Laura brings a uniquely analytical lens to the growth and innovation in agency world. Let's dive right in. Great to be here, Laura. Yeah. Yeah. So the thing I'm always interested in, in the beginning of these conversations is to know a little bit about your origin story. So how did you get into this particular space?

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Laura Macdonald (00:47)

Great to meet you, Justin.

So it's actually quite a funny story. So at university, I was really into running events and doing all of that kind of good work. And so I was pretty active in the sports staff. And I was actually sat at dinner one night in college, got chatting to the guys sitting next to me. He actually ended up being a professional rugby player for one of the teams in London. And he had been playing for them for 10 years and you get what's called a testimonial year, but you often go and raise money for charities and things.

And then sitting at the dinner, we're getting on pretty well. And I was saying, I love running events and I'm trying to work out. was like second year of college, like work out what I want to do with my career. And he literally put a call in over that dinner to the company that was running his events program for the testimony. he is like, okay, I've got you an internship. You can go and do that, you know, for the summer. Right. That was, that was, you know, fun, just, you know, chatting to someone and go do that. was obviously going back many, many years. That was an unpaid internship, you know, back in the day when that sort of thing happened. But it was really, you know,

Also, I got to meet, you know, lot of, you know, sports stars. So they specialize in doing things for rugby and cricket, very British of thing. But England had at the time was just coming off the back of having won the world cup in rugby. ⁓ so it was, you know, pretty high profile. The internship was sort of less glamorous, I have to say, was mainly called calling kind of companies and asking them if they would like to buy a table at these kind of events, you know, that kind of work. So I was sort of becoming a little bit more disillusioned with.

events management, because it's a lot of cold calling and quite high stress, as you can imagine, you know, running up to these kind of big dinners and things and sort of a lot of long hours, but at the time not being paid. And then I was really very, very lucky in that one of the rugby stars that the company was supporting was Lawrence Laliya, who at the time was the England Rugby Captain. And he decided that summer that that was when he was going to retire. And for some reason, instead of his publicist or PR people or all those kinds of things.

you know, putting on an event, he asked the company I was working for at the time to do sort of a retirement drinks and thank all of the media that had supported him. If Google Lawrence Lallio, he'd had some interesting times. And so I think he had really appreciated the sort of the reporters and things who had supported him to becoming the captain and throughout. And so I got the job of calling up, you know, the sports editor at the Daily Telegraph and those kinds of publications and inviting them to, you know, Lawrence's retirement drinks.

And I have to say like cold calling reporters was delightful. I were like, they're the nicest people in the world. You know, isn't this really kind of like, so much nicer than cold calling kind of receptionists at big banks and stuff and trying to buy a table. And so I was like, maybe, public relations is the, is the career for me. Went back to, to university and then started applying to graduate programs and ended up getting onto the graduate program at Weber Shandwick. Probably one of the most well-known kind of PR agencies out there. Interesting what's

with them with the whole Omnicom IPG stuff right now. And then was, you know, from that sort of was really lucky to have amazing mentors, many of which have gone on to be incredibly successful. If that was sort of the start of how I got into public relations, but really sort of fell into it kind of by accident, but ended up, you know, having thick skin, love to talk, as you can probably tell. I'm being able to specialize, you know, having done computer science and linguistics, know, ending up specializing in technology PR felt like the right.

place to bring, I love tech and I love talking about tech. was not so much someone who was super into coding and particularly, know, 25 years ago, there weren't many people who looked like me doing that kind of, you know, work at college. Um, and so it really felt like all of my passions sort of came into one and sort of never really looked back after that.

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Justin Levinson (04:42)

Wow, that's amazing. And you currently live in, are you in LA based or in New York? Or San Francisco, go ahead. How'd you like San Francisco moving to the-

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Laura Macdonald (04:46)

San Francisco, actually.

Got

it. Been 10 years here now. We came out originally, so I have been with horror a really long time and they offered me the opportunity to come out and run the San Francisco office, so probably 10 and a half years ago now. so, you know, I had a, I was actually on maternity leave when that happened. And so it was like pretty, let's move my entire family and we're like, we'll come out for two to three years. And sort of 10 years later, we're still here. You know, pretty, I just, the vibrancy of the city, the

you know, the pace that everyone works at, you know, again, someone who loves tech, probably not a lot of people in the world.

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Justin Levinson (05:24)

100

% to me. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, so just for the folks who might not know, you know, we've kind of talked about what you guys do, but it'd be good to kind of get a rundown for folks who don't know what Hotwire does.

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Laura Macdonald (05:37)

Yeah,

so Hotwire is a global communications and marketing consultancy and very much focused on working with sort of, call them like preeminent technology and innovation brands. And it's sort of, know, thinking about it in that way, you know, throughout my career, you know, has been really focused on tech, but that could be working for Nike. We worked with Nike during the pandemic, for example, to really help them. How do they tell that sort of, you know, digital transformation that they're going in with the supply chain, with everything that was happening?

during the kind of pandemic. I think that sort of, you know, yes, technology is the heart of what we do, but that could be working with tech companies to tell their story to mainstream audiences, or could be working with kind of, you know, those sort of mainstream innovation kind of brands and tell their more technical stories. The other piece on the communications and marketing front. So HotWires, you know, 25 years this year, you know, really started out as you know, tech PR shop out of London, sort of has grown globally, but also has grown sort of sideways.

as well as starting about sort of four or five years ago, we started acquiring some digital marketing kind of performance marketing shots. so sort of about a year ago, just less than a year ago, we actually decided to take one of those brands that we'd acquired and take that one global. So Hotwire is sort of the parent company and then you have Hotwire, the sort of the communications focused.

firm and then ROI DNA, which is our sort of performance marketing firms and both operate globally working, you know, as I said, with sort of technology brands, really keeping that focus of communications. It's all about, you know, how you build in kind of reputation and kind of relationships, you know, with the sort of the stakeholders that are really important and then ROI DNA really about, yes, those relationships or relationships with kind of, you know, prospects and target audiences that drive through to that kind of revenue marketing kind of piece. So it's really interesting sitting across both sides.

cause a lot of the work I do on the innovation front, have that layer that supports both. our AI lab, for example, is developing, you know, GEO tools. And that's obviously crucially important. You know, everyone's talking about it in the comms front about what does that mean and making kind of media so much more important. But if you think about from a performance marketing and an SEO lens, that's also incredibly important. So it's, it's fun to be able to see both sides of the business and developing kind of those innovation.

kind of an AI tools that can support both sides where motivations might be different, but the actual underlying tech that can do for both is very similar.

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Justin Levinson (08:03)

Yeah, I love that. what within how wire what is like, as chief growth officer, what sort of like the scope of your girl, your role.

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Laura Macdonald (08:11)

So I have three to four parts of my role and perhaps, you know, a couple too many. So I look after all of them, you know, global marketing. have a phenomenal number two on that who leads all of our marketing efforts. But say this week, for example, we're at Davos. We did our third edition of our AI report in partnership with the Think Tank over in Germany. We had that as a breakfast event yesterday at Davos, really unveiling that report.

having kind of, know, cyber psychologists and clients like Indeed and Swisscom speaking on stage with us about what's happening with agentic organizations in the kind of future. And we're to be releasing that report, you know, more broadly, kind of shortly. like all of marketing's, how do we really drive forward, you know, the reputation of Hotwire and of ROI DNA kind of globally. so really kind of thinking through that. The other past is obviously, you know, attracting new business, you know.

you know, comms and marketing agencies need that to, to, to fuel. So I work with that across, you know, the global kind of viewpoint and obviously United States, you know, is a, is a big part of that. So really kind of how do we build our reputation? How do we attract more business ourselves? I still also work on clients. So I have, you know, client responsibilities for some of our kind of global kind of clients. And then the last part is that innovation piece. our sort of underlying sort of centers of excellence from.

our AI lab that we established last year, where we have, you know, a phenomenal leader of that based over in Singapore, but how are we, you know, actually developing our own solutions that our clients kind of want and how are we transforming how we work to take advantage of AI and really thinking through that kind of human and AI kind of piece. And then also our sort of data analytics measurement side of the house and bringing that together of how do we take.

you know, data analytics from a performance marketing lens, which has always been something that's been well-trapped and stuff. How do we apply those principles to the comm side, which perhaps traditionally hasn't been. Again, I have a phenomenal leader and Matt over there, if he sits on the board of AVEC, for example, and so really that sort of overseeing and making sure that those sort of innovations don't just sort of run, they're actually there in service of what our business needs and ultimately what our clients need as well. So those are sort of the four pieces that I really look after, which, and then I have.

teams that can go into the overall effect.

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Justin Levinson (10:26)

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Laura Macdonald (11:08)

I so. think you'd learn to have, you know, a tougher skin because of that. And I think, you I've been doing this for a very long time. That's how you so, you know, call pitch media when you're pitching media relations. So I said to my teams today that used to literally pick up a phone and sell it and we'd go into the office on a Sunday to do a Sunday for Monday. Sell-ins was fairly regular. think it teaches you to be tenacious as well, but also not to take things personally.

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Justin Levinson (11:35)

Yeah. Yeah. It's a, an easy gig. I've never actually cold called somebody in my, in my life. I've been a recruiter in the PR and creative agency space and I never, I've never made a cold call. I have a lot of friends that have done it, but I think I might, I might choke. I don't think I could do it.

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Laura Macdonald (11:49)

Yeah, I don't know how much of that happens anymore in the... Yeah. You know, with email, but you certainly get a lot of cold LinkedIn's, I have to say.

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Justin Levinson (11:57)

Totally.

I think, I think the strategy of today's cold call is different in terms of like your, the object is that you're, the person's not going to pick up, but you're going to leave a message and then you can follow up with an email saying that you left them a message. You're just one step on a, on a multi-channel campaign.

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Laura Macdonald (12:15)

I mean, I have to say I turned on screening on my iPhone and that makes you realize how many you get a day. Now you have the screening and it will give me my report of, and I'm probably on four to five a day. There's some very consistent vendors out there I have to say.

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Justin Levinson (12:29)

That's funny. Yeah. I mean, in terms of the calls that I make, I mean, I would say like at this point, at least 50 % of them, it's a, the call machine asking like who this is and why they're calling. And, before I get the person, which is just, ⁓ just wild. Yes.

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Laura Macdonald (12:42)

what I have. turned that on and it has been transformative I have to say because yeah.

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Justin Levinson (12:47)

I might have to flip that thing on. I was reading about you that some of the things that you like the most are like a lot of the high stakes situations. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that and maybe, I don't know you can share any high stakes situations that you've had to handle.

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Laura Macdonald (13:06)

I probably the ones that are the most interesting, probably can't necessarily talk about. I mean, I think there's, you high stakes and can mean many things. do like to work where there's a, you know, a pressing deadline kind of thing. So, you know, and I've certainly worked with clients through some of those situations. If you think about, you know, the pandemic and what was happening, you know, we worked on Peloton at the time and, you know, those were kind of some of those kind of...

You know, the highs and the lows of all of that, working with likes of Peloton and Zoom and those kinds of ones. also think high stakes is also just what our industry is going through kind of right now. think, you know, if think about the media industry is, is, you know, transforming faster than, you know, I think it has been in my sort of 20 plus years of doing this, of, you know, you know, the rise of.

know, sub stack and, know, all of that kind of stuff coming through and what's happening to traditional media outlets and how everyone needs to be an influencer nowadays. And so I think kind of constantly feeling like we're operating in a high stakes environment and that's sort of what we're doing for clients. So if you're about the industry, if you think about the consolidation that's happening within kind of marketing and comms and you know, the tech transformation with AI and how that's, you know, totally changing how all of us go to market and all of us.

you know, communicate with the clients and with, you know, media and with the direct audiences and things. I kind of feel like we're constantly operating in a high stakes and it's about trying to keep calm, but trying to keep driving forward at the same time. we cannot, standing still is going backwards. And so we've got to continue to have that almost sense of urgency, I think, as a business, you will do in a kind of crisis situation, but sort of.

making that the kind of new normal as well, I think is really important and something that I, I'm trying to drive, you know, my teams forward with, you know, and maybe this is very Silicon Valley of you, but like fail fast, right? We've got to try new things. We've got to show up differently because otherwise we're just going to end up in that kind of mix of everyone else with consolidation and our industry is transforming faster than ever.

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Justin Levinson (15:14)

Yeah, that is the truth. When you guys are doing integrated campaigns, sounds like you have like influencer marketing and all kinds of stuff going on in there. Um, maybe you could paint a picture of what that kind of looks like.

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Laura Macdonald (15:25)

Yeah. I mean, I think for us, if we think about the campaigns overall, and this is, you know, sort of the different touch points, I think certainly it used to be gut instinct a lot kind of stuff. And there's still value in that. There's a reason that those of us who doing a long time is still here. But I think really we have so much of our fingertips now in terms of, you know, being able to pull interesting data and insights and, and, you know, being able to visualize that, you know, really quickly and be like, actually here's a white space for you. So actually for every campaign that we've

you know, do what we do with a client starts from sort of, call it discover, you know, what is happening right now in that industry? How are they sharing up? How their peers showing up? How are their aspirational people? They want to be like, kind of showing up, you know, where are they sharing up? What are the topics of conversation? What are the topics that none of the kind of competitors and peer are earning up? So we spend quite a lot of time really trying to do the discover. And I think that's where AI has been able to, to, we used to spend a lot of time there now.

AI is able to be a tool for us where we can start to pull all of that information together and use AI to visualize that for us. So we, you know, we call it hardware ignite. We build these sort of, you know, sort of web pages, essentially that pull in a ton of insights and start to show you, okay, this is where the opportunities, you know, lie for, you know, whether that's an executive comms program or a creative campaign or everything. We could also take.

You know, then you take all of those insights, you develop that into campaign ideas, whether that's kind of creative ideas, you know, again, lining into that audience, what do they care about? What's going to get them excited, you know, using those insights or sort of more on that tactical, like, okay, you need to show off at these events. You need to, you know, talk about these things. And AI again can be super helpful there. Again, not new, but you know, adds agencies to me doing it. don't know how many PR agents are doing it. We're using a lot with synthetic personas. Like our clients have a ton of research, ton of insights into their audiences.

We build those into sort of these synthetic Plutonus and then we can, know, Hey, how would you react to this? Would this message resonate? You can like talk to them. Like if you were running a real life focus group. So that's been really fun to be able to put that into like our creative idea, our campaign planning. And then it goes into execution and execution is where probably it hasn't hugely changed. Like who you might be going after is different, whether that's, from an influencer point of view or media point of view, but the sort of

Ultimately, at end of the day, you know, from a comms lens anyway, we're really looking at, you know, with the stakeholders that can reach our audiences that we need to go and influence and we want them to talk about us. And yes, some of that might now be paid and some of that will still be earned. Some of that might be that gray hair in the middle, but really thinking through about who are the people that are going to take this out kind of for us to give us that endorsement or give our clients that endorsement that they need. And then the last piece that we again call.

particularly original names of these things, is actually how are you measuring all of that? How are you saying did these, you know, those messages that we thought were going to resonate, did they pull through? Did people engage with the content? You know, did, you know, that article, can they go on and, you know, take action? And I think, you know, from when I started my career, when we would literally physically, you know, cutting out articles from a newspaper and pasting them on, like this is how old I

You know, you know, we can now, you know, be, we'll do all of that. And the great thing about that is there could be one story that's just, that story just resonates and everyone wants to cover it kind of stuff. And you might've only done that in one market. Well, should be taking that to every kind of market kind of now in that story. But also there might be a story that we really liked, just isn't resonating right now. There might be other things in the world and something that's the case, right? There's so much going on right now. So let's not keep, you know, going and going and going. Let's just say like,

Let's just park that for now and move on. So measurement, but not just in a, is the reporting of it, but actually being able to use that to analyze what is, and is it working and how do you continue to optimize kind of programs? is this sort of high wheel effect really.

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Justin Levinson (19:20)

It sounds like that intake research part is a really important part that kind of lays the foundation of what you're doing. From what I understand what you're saying is you're getting some of those, some of that data or some of that research from, from using AI, but are you also doing research on your own? Like sending out like, don't know, like questionnaires or something to the public to get surveys and stuff, forget people to.

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Laura Macdonald (19:29)

Absolutely.

It's a mix of all of them. So we have access to tools. like GWI, for example, which, you know, obviously has a, you know, it's global work index has a lot of, you know, independent stuff. You know, some of our clients might have subscriptions to modern consult and those kinds of things. It would obviously be kind of, you know, third party research that we might commission, Harris poll and the like. And then, you know, also just, you know, other tools that really help us pass through. So we use Quid, for example, which is part of NetBase. And that's like, okay, and what are all the topics, you know,

surrounding a certain keyword that have been in the media, which are the ones that are bubbling up as those key storylines. And then being able to analyze within those like, okay, if you're this client, do your competitors show up and talk about this topic? This topic seems to be resonating really well with media, but actually none of your competitors are talking about it. So that might be one we want to talk in. So it's this mix of.

You know, external information that we might be doing ourselves, first party data that our clients may have, analysis from some of the tools that we use. And then also just, you know, where it's really good is it can go through and scrape things like earnings, transcripts and things and be like, what are the key themes that the competitors are talking about? that often will give you indications for the future and being able to pull all of that information into like, know, webpage that's like, okay, this is where you show up against your peers. These are the most resonating topics. This is the media that's talking about it the most.

And that's where we really see the AI. It's less on the actual go and do the research for us, but pulling in from multiple sources. Very, very quickly, obviously, and allow us to see that and visualize. we have brilliant planners and strategists who can go through that and question it and query it. But it allows us to get to those insights much faster to put campaign ideas, know, to move into the innovation phase.

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Justin Levinson (21:28)

It's amazing. it must like blow the mind of if you went back in time to talk to early PR agency owners and people that work within that ecosystem to tell them that there's all this data and analytics and there's these influencers and then there's experiential like events you could go to. Like it's really, it's really turned into quite an interesting thing.

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Laura Macdonald (21:45)

And it works for the marketing front as well. mean, the tool that Ignite is what we call it. It just collates everything kind of for us and builds it out nicely. Started on the ABM side. So account intelligence is something if you've ever worked in ABM, that's kind of the thing. And I remember when we started in that space sort of five years ago, you would, that would be desk research. People would like be going through it and putting these, you know, big dossiers together and it would, you know, all you could, you know, you'd, um, using

analyst, like a, you know, an IDC or a Gartner or stuff to put those kind of dossiers together. And that's sort of six weeks and, know, quite a junk of cash, you know, per account. And then by the time you've done that, let's be honest, people move on. And so that's kind of, you'll start with that static thing, but that, you know, company might change in a month's time and being able to evolve and things. so not that it's kind of, for us, it's not necessarily new things. It's just how do you get to those insights faster? See how

evolve them faster as well, because the world is evolving so quickly. Like we can't have something and set it out for the year. Like can't do annual planning anymore. You might have an annual vision and a mission of what you want to do and talk about, but you can't say, okay, today, this is the one place we need to be because who knows what's going to happen. could be a rise of a new media outlet like Semaphore that two, three years ago, you've never heard of. And now it's crucially important if you want to talk about kind of bigger kind of

topics and things. so just everything's shifting so quickly. Like that's where I think AI is driving that shift to everything move fast, but could also be your aid in allowing you to pull those insights, you know, fast as you can continue to optimize, you know, programs to be more effective as well.

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Justin Levinson (23:23)

Yeah. How, I guess, over time, like how do you build relationships? I mean, you must have to build relationships with media outlets as well as influencers and all these different people that make this work. How do relationships grow on those fronts? How do you find the influencers that are going to be the right people? How do you build the relationship with media outlets so they're going to see a press release or something from you and be interested in doing a feature?

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Laura Macdonald (23:47)

Yeah. mean, I think not to, it's just being a good humor, right? Like if you were trying to build a relationship with anybody, wouldn't, you know, it's, kind of what gets me sometimes about like going back to cold calls, like cold call and, know, they think we're hot wire the travel company, you know, rather than hot wire the comms agency. It's just like, understand who the people are, you know, and, we're in an ability, like, what does that mean your outlet cover? What does that reporter most interested in? You know,

How can we be of help and of service and a resource for them? Like we shouldn't be pushing stuff to those people. We should be building those relationships. And that often comes down, I think, to just being a good human at the end of the day, like helping them out, you know? And it should be a, you know, a two-way kind of relationship. If we're just, you know, spamming kind of with stuff, then we're the same as, you know, all of the things we like to talk about and hate on kind of stuff. And then I think there's, you know, there's people who are phenomenal at it, you know.

We can, we've hired people who are former producers and former reporters and stuff to kind of learn of what's going to be the best kind of way forward. ⁓ but I think just, you know, honestly, it comes back to, you know, don't spam, you know, try and be a resource, you know, be honest about what you have and you haven't and, and just be a human about the relationship as well. And I think that's where it becomes, you know, I think, you know, we would never

I don't think you'd ever do that and be successful kind of stuff. Like you might, if you have a, you know, well-known enough client, you might be stuff from the first time around, you know, it's not done in those relationships about being human and the stuff. And I think being open, I think the one thing that has changed a lot since I've been doing it is there is a sponsored, you know, you know, and, you know, like the amount of, you know, people that don't subscribe to the media outlet that you're trying to pitch kind of thing.

You know, like, this is how that person's getting paid at end of the day. If you're not subscribing to it, then, then you're part of a problem that's facing it. You know, subscribe to the, to the outlets, you know, be part of, you know, those sub stacks, you know, sponsor them, you know, if they, if you want to have someone come to your event, then pay them to come there. Even though, know, like a reporter or former client or whatever, like it's just respect for people, which is where I think it goes back to that human. Just like really respect them and

and the work that they're doing and the work that that media outlet is doing. that's really important, but it sounds really simple. doesn't sound like there's a magic secret source, but I think we all know that doesn't always happen because again, running really quickly, you know, pressure is always on, but I think just being a genuine human going when you have the right story. And if you don't have the right story, just see what else they're working on and how could you fit in rather than pushing something, you know, is going to be right. think it's really important.

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Justin Levinson (26:41)

Yeah. I mean, you guys are working with a lot of, you know, very high level clients. So it's not like, I'm sure you guys aren't, you know, using a cold email strategy to win in these clients, but I see even from running a podcast that I get a lot of PR agencies that will send me like a pitch for a leader at a creative agency. And it's totally been.

like marketed to many people. like a very like, it's way, it's overworded. It's like, you know, way much too much AI and it's like, I'm like, what, is this person? And then it just goes into my blocks. So I imagine like, even though that, that must kind of, you know, that sort of AI slop sort of like, you know, it, does kind of bombard people and you have to kind of stand out in a way that's, that's unique. And, and, being human is, is probably the, the way to do it. Yeah.

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Laura Macdonald (27:36)

I think being human is definitely the only way that it's going to ultimately create those longer lasting kind of relationships. And that's, and that's understanding what is needed on both sides to be successful. And as I said, we shouldn't rule anything out. Like might not be right for that moment, but how do you create that rapport? And I'm doing it. ⁓ and part of that is, you know, choosing when not to as well.

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Justin Levinson (27:59)

What's your favorite part of your job? you have a favorite?

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Laura Macdonald (28:02)

I had probably the variety of things that I get to do is probably the favorite part. I'm pretty fast paced, pretty action oriented if you probably got the speed that I'm talking at. I do have a bad habit of getting bored easily. So I think that's the really nice thing about having so many different parts to my job. I never want to move away from, you know, working with clients and, know, working through some of the client problems. I still love to be able to, you know, talk to some of my, you know, media friendlies and media contacts, you know, and do that kind of.

keeping my hands in the game, but equally it's really fascinating to see where our industry is going and how can we put technology to work for us and not be scared of that. And then learning from people who are so infinitely smarter than I am kind of stuff and constantly kind of pushing yourself. So I don't know if you follow Axios at all. So they put, I think it was in their Saturday newsletter, they've done a, they built a

survey in Claw to see like your AI readiness and how much you're ready to sort of partner with AI. And so I read that and I like immediately they're like, if you're interested in seeing this, like ping us and we'll send you the link. I obviously think that's me. And I was just like, you know, I was like, I was like developing and I was like, Oh, don't like being developing. So it's like things like that. feel like it's changing so quickly. There's always so much more to learn and to do and be able to continue to learn from.

When people who are smarter than I am or who are doing different things and come from different perspectives, that's probably the piece that I find the most interesting. And that's probably why I've stuck at Hotwire for so long, which is odd for someone who likes change and likes to move and likes to do new things to have been in a company for so long. But I think for me, that's why I've stayed at Hotwire so long, because you can continually push yourself and try new things and move to different countries and the company's there to sort of facilitate and support that versus, you know, trying to keep you in like...

You're really good at this and you've got to stay there.

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Justin Levinson (29:57)

Yeah, that's always good to be able to have that flexibility to do other things, not get stuck in the corner. I had a senior moment of what I was going to ask you, but ⁓ I can pivot to it. ⁓ I guess this is a good part of the show to kind of understand what you like to do outside of ⁓ working. Do you have any other hobbies or things you could share with us?

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Laura Macdonald (30:17)

Yes, again, not surprising, I'm pretty active. So we do a lot of in the winter, it's skiing. I'm lucky enough to live in San Francisco. So it's only a few hours drive up to Tahoe. was there yesterday, which was fun. I actually got my kids snowboarding, which was, I'm a skier. I did learn to snowboard many years ago and then they were interested. So they were snowboarding yesterday and they're soon going to be better than me at it. So that's, I might have to go back to learn, but I feel like I'm a little too old and much more likely to break myself now.

A other thing is one of my friends got me into half marathons. So I started training for that a couple of years ago and now we try and do them twice a year. So it becomes a bit of an excuse for a girls trip, I have to say. So you can use that. And then those are kind of the sort of the big active things. I have two kids and so ferrying them around, they're both very active themselves. They do a lot of sailing. And so that takes up quite a lot of my time is ferrying them to different places across the US to participate in that. So.

kind of those are probably the things that keep me kind of the busiest but basically any kind of action sport I would I would be quite into.

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Justin Levinson (31:24)

Also trying to see if I can make a comeback on the slopes. used to ski and I skied, then I snowboarded and then my knees have had some problems in my, in my old age here. So I'm wondering if I should, my, kids are taking skiing lessons. It's probably better that I go back to skiing because that's probably less.

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Laura Macdonald (31:43)

definitely

easier on your knees. I mean, you're more likely to twist your knee, but it's like, so that would be the one thing is you might want to wear braces. There's, um, there's a company called Stuck and a company called Braceland, which I would highly recommend looking at either of those. They're sort of like thermal, you know, under pants kind of stuff, but they have knee supports built in. Wow. They're pretty good if you have sort of, so knees, have to be careful to twist your knee on skiing, but it won't be as hard on your knees as like snowboarding.

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Justin Levinson (31:51)

Yeah.

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Laura Macdonald (32:12)

I would say my daughter, she's only 10, but today she was in quite a lot of pain from having learned to snowball yesterday, just from that kind of not used to those kind of actions because she's only ever seen.

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Justin Levinson (32:23)

Yeah, I remember when the first time I was snowboarding, like, my butt hurts so badly. Like, it was just for like days. It was so, so much pain. Because it's like you do, you fall on your butt like every like second. It's so, ⁓ it's really,

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Laura Macdonald (32:36)

This was actually, she kept, I can talk about skiing and that kind of stuff forever. the Winter Olympics, don't get me on that topic because I'm very excited for that. But she kept going on with her toe edge. So she was actually more, she was, we were practicing on the heel and as soon as she flipped her toe edge, she just like straight down on her and her wrists. So that was all our muscles today, I think from pushing herself back up was what she was complaining about on this walk to school this morning.

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Justin Levinson (33:00)

Yeah, it's a thing. I'm here in Vermont right now. it's like winter sports is really the only thing you can do to like survive because February is going to be like, it's like the abyss. It's so dark and cold. ⁓ but you, grew up in, in London, right? So you're probably used to the cold weather and the clouds.

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Laura Macdonald (33:17)

to

say, we were actually talking about on the way home last night from Tahoe about there's not, there needs to be more snow. You know, the West has had a pretty rough start for you. not as bad as like Colorado or Utah. It's not been the best snow start, but we were talking about it with the kids on the way home of like, know, the alternative is this beautiful sunshine, you know, pretty much every day. And that is not how I grew up in, yeah, in the, in the UK where you rain probably more days than you don't.

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Justin Levinson (33:46)

Yeah. It's something to get used to. I've been here for a minute and I still quite haven't gotten used to the cold weather.

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Laura Macdonald (33:47)

You've even got snow this week.

Yeah, I think I would have a very hard time living anywhere else now. Once you get used to California weather, and I'm in Norcal, so it's not like it's, you know, like the sunshine you get every day down in LA and things, but it's still tough to go back, I think, once you've experienced, you know, 300 days a year of sunshine.

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Justin Levinson (34:12)

Yeah, a hundred percent. Well, Laura, thanks so much for being on here today and offering some value to the community and telling us about your story. a really wonderful time chatting with you and thanks for being there. Laura, well, you take it easy. Thank you so much.

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Laura Macdonald (34:21)

It's really fun.

Thank you. Bye.