CONFERENCE RECAPS

On January 30, 2020 I attended the Museum of Public Relation’s 5th Annual Black PR history event. As the second speaker pointed out in her introduction, “Black PR pioneers are simply PR pioneers.” However, it was very worthwhile to hear about key, often unaddressed, PR professionals. I enjoyed learning about how active change comes about through social movements and the key role PR has in these movements. The first speaker, Cheryl Procter-Rogers, drew on first-hand experience to discuss the evolution of the Public Relations industry and who it is comprised of. Procter-Rogers is well accomplished and has been a part of, and witness to, much of the early integration and evolution of black professionals in PR. She spoke of the main requirements involved in creating effective PR; research, planning, execution and evaluation, arguing these can be applied to our lives as well. She shared that, early on in her career, she had not always acted with intention, but overtime came to see hers...

‏Anyone, in any creative enterprise, ultimately needs to be a creative technologist— whether a strategist, developer, executive.  This might be the most impressive words I’ve heard in 4A’s CreateTech Conference, which was made by 4A’s President + CEO Marla Kaplowitz in the Opening Remarks. ‏4A’s CreateTech Conference is a forum for technologists and creatives working in advertising. It made me rethink about the relationship between technology and creativity. ‏As a grad student from Creative Track, we have been focusing a lot on how to come up with a big idea, which is considered as the origin of a good campaign. There’s nothing wrong. When we got an exciting great idea and was trying to put it on ground making executions, most of time we still limit ourselves to consider the more traditional way, like print ads, video, podcast, etc, because they seem more rational and executable. There’s nothing wrong neither, at least so far. ‏But did we notice the fact that lots of cha...

One night as I was looking for conferences in the BIC new microsite, one of my classmates popped up in our group chat and recommended a conference opportunity taking place the following night, Wednesday, February 26, 2020.  I immediately looked it up. At first, I was intrigued by the modality, but then, I decided to give it a try because of the nature of the event, a game show called, What's the Big Idea?  The show explores what is a big idea in an unconventional and humorous way yet educationally and intellectually. The topic of the idea, big idea, serendipity, aha moment, eureka, has always fascinated me—the source of inspiration, spontaneously or by research. The insight behind an idea or big idea, I can go on and on about this topic. So, I decided to go to the game show, What's the Big Idea? As I was traveling from work to the show in the Lower East Side on the F-train, and building anticipation for what to expect to gain from the show, I began to wonder about the c...

‏Last week, the Fast Company hosted the fifth annual Innovation Festival. It was a four-day conference, and I was glad that I made it to one of the conference days. The Innovation Festival was an eye-opening event, and I had a great learning experience listening to various panels from the professionals of different industry. I attended four sessions that touched upon distinct subjects in the industry of digital media, campaign design, brand reinvention, and digital civility.     ‏Digital Civility and Kids ‏My favorite session among all would be the discussion about the child’s development and digital civility. The guest speakers were Tami Bhaumik, the VP of Digital Civility from Roblox, and Dr. Michale Rich, Founding Director of Harvard’s Center on Media and Child Health. I had several takeaways from this panel. With emerging technologies and digital devices, people now have a drastic change in lifestyle from decades ago, especially children. Growing up as a millennial...

Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but about the stories you tell. - Seth Godin From the beginning of time, stories have been the way humans have shared information. Our degree of knowledge and understanding is built upon our ability to retain and recall. And thanks to the Internet, and especially the explosion of smartphone use, video has become the storytelling medium of choice for the modern era. It is fast becoming the most powerful communication tool on earth. And when brands harness the power of video to define their audience and tell the meaningful stories that resonate, that’s how they can win and deliver results. The Video Strategy New York: World Forum Disrupt conference on October 18, 2019 in Brooklyn, New York was an opportunity to see and hear how brands were forging new ways with video to grow their audiences and their businesses. Video accounts for nearly 80% of all online traffic, and is the most effective way to spread a message and build a f...

The Innovation Festival was held at Caldwell Factory and the hub at Union West. Fast Company invited numbers of creative and innovative executives/Artists to speak about their works and inspiration. The topics varies from Art, Management, Finances, Technology, Health, etc. It was a great opportunity to hear the stories behind each industry and learn the insights of powerful leaders. I attended four panels on Nov.7th, which are WW: Legacy Brand Reinvention, The Future of Digital Media, the Importance of Digital Civility, and the Evolution of Campaign Design. During the panel of Legacy Brand Reinvention. Mindy Grossman (CEO of WW), who is a brilliance leader, talked about the meaning behind reformed weightwatchers. The wellness of human is no longer just about health, it goes beyond physical health and move towards the wellness of mind, body, nutrition, emotion, and community. We can also say, it is about the overall wellness of the human being. The successful stories of the reforme...

I attended the Fast Company Innovation Festival, which took place from Monday, November 4 to Friday, November 8. I attended the Tuesday session, which featured some very interesting talks. The first lecture I attended was titled How to Survive the Next Hundred Years , which featured Pam Fletcher, the head of global innovation at GM and Barbara Humpton, the CEO of Siemens USA. Their chemistry together led to a very interesting and lively discussion. The moderator framed the short discussion into the progress and goals their respective companies had towards innovation in the next hundred years. Pam Fletcher noted that one of GM’s core values was always putting the customer at the center and accelerating development of their electric cars. Barbara Humpton said, looking at Los Angeles, there’s an objective for better air quality. What does that mean? We need to look at electric vehicles. And to have electric vehicles, we need electric charging stations, and to have electric charging ...

HAATBP is a driving force in connecting diverse talent to recruiters and big agencies. Students who are interested in getting into the advertising world can get a chance to network, get their portfolio reviewed, attend workshops led by advertising professionals, and have a chance to show off your talents while pitching your skills and experience for the chance to get an interview with agency recruiters. At this multicultural networking fair, I registered for the opportunity to volunteer. I was tasked with assisting the portfolio review, guiding people to find reviewers to help them strengthen their portfolio to be more attractive for recruiters. It was great to see so many young people getting guided by professionals. I was helped by other fellow BIC freshmen students. During the moments that were not packed with busy steps, I was able to get more acquainted with my fellow colleagues. I shared some tips that could just maybe guide them in having a smooth workflow while they shared...

The One Club for Creativity’s HAATBP career fair and conference was a sprawling multi-stage event that promoted diversity in advertising and marketing spaces where there has historically been an imbalance of people of color. Students from all different backgrounds were able to participate in portfolio reviews with industry professionals and receive feedback on their creative online presence and resumes. All attending agencies, including R/GA, Mother, Mekanism and The Martin Agency had booths set up to talk to interested prospective job-seekers. Speaking at a panel comprised of only VaynerMedia executives, CEO Gary Vaynerchuk spoke of his agency’s attempt to bring in new voices. He talked about accountability for this diversity movement, and how it is a system that only works if it is implemented from the top-down. His colleagues echoed these statements, and emphasized the importance of bringing in talent that includes men and women of color. If VaynerMedia fails to do so in a year...

I attended Here Are All The Black People on October 30th 2019 hosted by The One Club for Creativity. The first conference was called Beyond The Business Case for Diversity led by CEO of Vayner Media, Gary Vaynerchuck and included a panel of four Vayner staff members: Lawrence Edmonson (SVP of Technology), Brittney King (Integrated Project Manager), Rick Sentine (Senior Account Executive) and Claude Silver, (Chief Heart Officer). This group discussed the hiring process at Vayner Media and their own personal experiences as a people of color in the ad industry. Gary Vaynerchuck began by stating that his company thrives on diversity in the hiring process and that diversity is part of their company culture because he’s made inclusivity a priority. Vaynerchuck asked speakers why each person feels that the ad industry is one of the most under-represented industries for black people, what the state of the industry is like now, and where they see it going. Brittney King said she felt t...

Last October 30th, 2019 I attended the 9th edition of the One Club’s Here Are All The Black People conference and recruiting event. The event consisted of a series of panels, talking about inclusivity in the advertising and marketing industry, a recruitment area were agencies and companies presented their job opportunities to attendants and a series of portfolio review with professionals from all fields around the industry. The event was held at the New World Stages in Midtown Manhattan, and it ran for the whole day from 9am to 6pm. The first talk of the day was Tariq Trotter, better known as Black Thought, he talked about how his interconnected career has to lead him into creating new creative spaces for minorities, and the importance of becoming a flagship for the creative minorities. After Tariq’s keynote, the panels started, the first one I attended was Challenging the Rules of Marketing presented by R/GA. There Carl Desir, Brandon Lee Heard, Marcela Madera and Kayla Wats...

For me as an international student diversity is a very important topic in my life. When I was in my country I was aware of what the meaning of diversity was and the importance of it, this is a big issue all around the world to be honest, and is very important to be informed about it, but in my country the diversity issues in the professional world are more related to the fact of being a man or a woman. Mexico is not a big multicultural country, I mean, of course there are a lot of people for other parts of the world, but its not very common to get to work with them or to meet them as it is in New York City specifically. So, for me the experience of being able to be surround with people from other cultures wasn’t an everyday thing. Today after 2 years of being living in New York, I had the opportunity to experience a diversity world. I have been able to learn so much from every single person I’ve met, who are from other countries and have different cultures, with so many ...