Culture Catlysts
Culture Catalysts is our monthly speaker series featuring visionary strategists, artists, creators, and organizers who join us in conversation to share their approach to breaking through the noise, spotting trends, and creating real change.
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With the intention of creating space for shared learning, capacity building, and strengthening connections, we invite you to join our conversations to connect and learn more about the various ways we can more effectively and creatively approach cultural strategy.
Check out our most recent speakers below:
Eugene Healey | Independent Brand & Cultural Strategy Consultant
SOME TAKEAWAYS
Brand as Mosaic: The media and advertising landscape have shifted drastically! Embrace "hand to hand marketing" over "fire and forget marketing." Understand how to cooperate with and contribute to subcultures, rather than just co-opting trends.
One brand, Many Interpretations: Focus on building the brand idea instead of simply executing a communications strategy. Develop a strong, consistent brand strategy that can meaningfully connect to consumers or constituents via strong brand associations as the foundation, rather than relying solely on campaign-driven advertising.
Time to Drink from the Firehose: Adapt to the hyper-fragmentation of media consumption. Meet your audience in the cacophony of diverse digital channels and leverage participatory, user-generated content to build energy and momentum.
Curtis Lamar McKinnon | CEO & Co-Founder of Crowdfreak
Laura Stylez | Radio Personality & Co-Founder of EVSN Festival
SOME TAKEAWAYS
Know who you’re Talking to: To build successful collaborations, it's crucial to understand how your goals and audiences align with those of your partner. Organizations investing time in learning about the passions and values of those they engage with, and incorporating that understanding into their projects and messaging, will garner better results.
Move at the Speed of Trust: Building trust and strong relationships often comes from in-person interactions and consistent follow-up. The personal touch, such as face-to-face meetings and regular check-ins, can make partnerships more meaningful and long-lasting. This applies both for creators and influencers as well as organizations and community leaders.
Intention and Impact: Balancing passion with business needs is essential. Highly visible individuals often want to contribute to causes they care about but are, necessarily, weighing this kind of engagement against the time commitment and financial impact to their existing work and responsibilities. Acknowledging and respecting these realities, while maintaining transparency about budgets, fosters more sustainable collaborations.
Shakima Jackson-Martinez | Sr. Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at AnswerLab
SOME TAKEAWAYS
People over Data Points: When completing research, it’s easy to focus on pulling core pieces of information and data to drive insights. There’s a lot more information that can come to light when beginning research with an ethnographic approach.
DEI in Depth: Quality data can only be as good as the people collecting it. We’ve seen ebbs and flows of investment into DEI initiatives, but deeper infrastructure is what’s most needed. With less than 5% of BIPOC professionals in the design and research industry, it’s critical that we support people’s growth and development in the field at various touch points in their careers.
Research is Inherently Creative: Often research is lumped into academic culture, when in reality, designing prompts, inventing new ways to find the ‘why’ behind the ‘why,’ and staying curious is innately creative heart-work. When we begin investing in finding answers, we’re more often than not driven by a curiosity of how we can create a better humanity.
Ashwath Narayanan | Co-Founder & CEO of Social Currant
SOME TAKEAWAYS
Invest in Creators: Go beyond pay-to-play and take the time to build deeper relationships with creators. The more they can connect to the issue, the better the storytelling and dialog will be with their community.
Go Bigger than GOTV: Instead of focusing on major candidates, look to creators to contextualize and educate around specific issues or policies.
IRL Is It: Building audiences across different platforms is important for everyone, but connecting in person is also incredibly valuable. Don’t underestimate the potential of bringing people together to better nurture relationships, empower and inspire creators, and deepen community.
Rosalina Jowers | Marketing & Communications Specialist
Rachel Birnam | Cultural & Entertainment Partnerships Director, the National Domestic Workers Alliance
Lacy Lew Nguyen Wright | Social Innovations Manager, Endeavor
SOME TAKEAWAYS
The recent labor movements, particularly the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes, have brought class to the forefront of entertainment industry discussions. This shift has fostered a broader recognition of our diverse working-class heroes and promotes more inclusive storytelling that centers the varied experiences of working class individuals.
Gaming is evolving at an incredible pace and becoming an innovative way to tell impactful stories. By offering the ability to embody someone else's experience for extended periods, these immersive experiences engage younger audiences who prefer direct content consumption through platforms like TikTok.
Just create. Leverage today’s technology and tools (responsibly) to get your point of view out in the world. It’s easy to think of social impact storytelling as its own genre separate from other types of filmmaking or other genres of content, but it doesn't need to be branded or overly exclict for there to be social change in your storytelling. All art has a point of view.
Michael Tennant | Founder & CEO of Curiosity Lab
SOME TAKEAWAYS
Recognizing empathy as a tool extends beyond being compassionate towards others and requires looking inward. Collective power requires a community of connection and that begins with how we tap into our own emotions, nervous systems, and inner dynamics.
While connection and vulnerability can seem intimidating, we must recognize their ability to serve as a superpower in strengthening our collectivity. Tuning into how we connect internally and externally builds our authenticity, communication, and ability to be in community with one another.
For more tools, check out Michael’s digital course that gives an introduction to the Five Phases of Empathy model, his book The Power of Empathy, the conversation card game, Actually Curious, or try the free values exercise tool to identify your core values, and craft your purpose statement.
Melissa C. Potter | Executive Director, Content for Change at Paramount
SOME TAKEAWAYS
Impact is a Business Imperative. You can’t expect to build a successful business without building trust with your audience and to achieve this, you have to invest in their communities in meaningful ways.
You Can Start Small. Don’t wait on a big brand or budget to identify ways you can make an impact. Getting involved with your community and staying true to issues you’re passionate about is at the core of what drives sustainable impact.
The Right Response > Rapid Response. Change initiatives need to be more than a performative social post made in the moment. Slow down and act thoughtfully to create intentional change.
Charlene Polite Corley | Diverse Insights & Partnerships at Nielsen
SOME TAKEAWAYS
Where Did You Hear That? A lot of people are getting their news from social media. In 2024, the average person spends 81 hours a week with media, with 55% of that being consumption of video content. And while that might not surprise you, with a handful of quickly evolving elements like generative AI, we need to advocate standards and practices for reliable journalism.
The Intersectionality of It All: As media audiences become increasingly fragmented, folks will be rapidly dismissive if they don’t find the representation they’re looking for in content. Audiences are demanding authentic, diverse, and inclusive representation in the content they consume.