{"id":3769,"date":"2014-05-20T18:30:59","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T18:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/?p=3769"},"modified":"2014-05-20T18:31:39","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T18:31:39","slug":"join-the-conversation-at-the-ad-clubs-rosoff-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/join-the-conversation-at-the-ad-clubs-rosoff-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Join the Conversation at the Ad Club’s Rosoff Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Join the Conversation at the Ad Club’s Rosoff Awards<\/h1>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Caroline Lyle – BostInno<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The truth is, Sen. William “Mo” Cowan is a good public speaker. Since his brief tenure on Capitol Hill he\u2019s done a handful of speaking engagements–nonprofits, universities, high schools and a Martin Luther King Day event in Cohasset. At The Ad Club\u2019s Rosoff Awards on Tuesday he was funny and insightful. Maybe his style is a bit pedantic (using the word \u201cchary\u201d FTW), but Cowan backed up the $10 words with facts and examples on what hiring diverse talent means to the bottom line.<\/p>\n

The Rosoff Awards brings together two groups: Boston\u2019s advertising industry and people across sectors who work at making this city\u2019s business community more diverse. If Boston\u2019s various business news outlets are your only source of information, you might not know that either of these groups really exists.<\/p>\n

When I learned that as a media partner, we\u2019d signed up to publish a post on Cowan\u2019s remarks, I volunteered to write it.<\/p>\n

The unvarnished truth is, for BostInno–a publication that sits at the intersection of technology and education–it\u2019s not easy to put out a product that reflects the diverse, young readership we serve. Jeff Bussgang wrote yesterday that VC firms just. can\u2019t. figure. out. how to promote smart women into their partnerships. VCs are not alone.<\/p>\n

Maybe they suffer from the same problem as lawyers, who in a study by Chicago leadership coaching firm Nextion, caught more spelling errors in legal briefs if they thought the author was black.<\/p>\n

News media companies are far from exempt from the same problem. Many newsrooms–even the freshest ones–operate in monochrome, and most (nearly 80%) of the positions in our leadership ranks are filled by men. Streetwise Media and BostInno have as much work to do on this as any other organization.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m personally committed to that work. I hope I can continue to learn and get better at it. (We have jobs listed right now for business-savvy writers in Boston and Washington DC, by the way.)<\/p>\n

So, for all the Jeff Bussgangs and the Boston lawyers, for myself, and for anyone who is working to get more fresh perspectives into the room, here are my eight takeaways from Cowan\u2019s comments at The Ad Club\u2019s Rosoff Awards dinner–plus one little lagniappe on men\u2019s style.<\/p>\n

Diversity in hiring is a process. \u201cOur process…let us become familiar with the next generation of talent already in the pipeline,\u201d Cowan said. That process involved going out to \u201cdiverse communities,\u201d he said through an ML Strategies spokeswoman the next day. There, state staffers encouraged people to apply, followed up with them and tapped people within those communities to do outreach.<\/p>\n

Diversity is not a meaningful metric. \u201cThe dictionary says, to include means to comprise or to contain as part of a whole, and that\u2019s fairly straightforward,” Cowan said. “Diversity on the other hand is a slightly harder word to pin down. The dictionary merely says it is an instance of being composed of different qualities.\u201d<\/p>\n

A quota is not a goal. Make a goal of including different viewpoints, not counting heads.<\/p>\n

The strongest common ground is shared by people who are different. Don\u2019t miss it by seeking the company of people who are similar.<\/p>\n

Inclusion is good for the bottom line. Citing this research published in the Harvard Business Review last December, Cowan said companies with diverse leadership are 45% likelier to be growing market share, 70% likelier to be capturing new markets. \u201cIt is a fine day indeed when we know something that is morally right also is right for our bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Your company’s efforts don\u2019t matter unless inclusivity is your personal mission. \u201cIf your company has a diversity blue ribbon committee and no C-level executive sits on or chairs that committee, you are telling everyone inside and outside your company that diversity and inclusion are not core components of your business strategy. Do not kid yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Board positions serve as C-suite recruitment tools. If your board isn\u2019t inclusive, your company can\u2019t be inclusive.<\/p>\n

Collaborative tension is the essence of good government.<\/p>\n

The last lesson I learned from Sen. Mo is one that likely only a very narrow group can put directly into practice. It\u2019s this: Wearing a bowtie with a spread collar is OK. In fact, it looks pretty good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Join the Conversation at the Ad Club’s Rosoff Awards \u00a0 Caroline Lyle – BostInno The truth is, Sen. William “Mo” Cowan is a good public speaker. Since his brief tenure on Capitol Hill he\u2019s done a handful of speaking engagements–nonprofits, universities, high schools and a Martin Luther King Day event in Cohasset. At The Ad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2014\/05\/bostino.gif","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2014\/05\/bostino.gif","author_info":{"display_name":"The Ad Club","author_link":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/author\/theadclub\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.theadclub.org\/rosoff2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}