Think Multicultural

I just finished the day at the Urban Media Symposium at the University of Texas. Despite some gloomy weather in Austin, it was a terrific event.

The panelists were generally very knowledgeable and all seemed excited to be there, which was nice. Nobody was falling asleep at the microphone. They also had a good mix of academic and industry types, and none of the presentations seemed to be just one long product pitch from a sponsor, which you get at a lot of these conferences. I hope that comes from good planning and not from a lack of sponsors.

One panel got into a discussion of the job market at multicultural agencies. The general message was that agencies are having a tough time finding smart, diverse candidates and that it’s a really good time to fit that description. The one student on the panel had just chosen an offer at a big general market agency over one from a smaller multicultural shop in order to get the big name on the resume and not get pigeonholed early. So it seems the niche shops will have to keep raiding the big guys for good talent.

So congratulations to the Austin Ad Federation and UT for the first of hopefully a long line of great events.