Nicolet Gatewood, Executive Director at BLAC

Erik  0:00  

I want to welcome all of our listeners to another episode of Minority Report Podcast with Erik and Kerel. Each episode we talk with leaders in business, tech and media. And today joining us is Nicolet Gatewood, who's the Executive Director at BLAC. Let's jump in and get to know Nicolet. Nicolet, welcome. How are you?

Nicolet Gatewood  0:27  

I'm great. Thank you for having me.

Erik  0:29  

Absolutely. We're thrilled to chat with you and get to know you a little bit more. Nicolet, where are you joining us from today? Tell us where you're at?

Nicolet Gatewood  0:36  

Yeah, so I'm actually in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I'm new to the city. I moved here in November of last year. So a little over six months ago now. I've got to say though, I'm just getting used to the city because you know, winter on the East Coast is rough. And I'm a walker, actually, so I was looking for another, like, small city that's walker friendly, pedestrian friendly. I'm traditionally a New Yorker. I consider myself a New Yorker though. I've lived a lot of places, but I was looking for a new city to spread my wings in. And Philly has been great so far.

Erik  1:09  

That's great. Nicolet, where did you grow up? Tell us a little bit about like, where you grew up.

Nicolet Gatewood  1:14  

Yeah, it's a little complicated. (laughs) So I am Black and African American. I'm also mixed, so I grew up a number of places. So my parents, my mother's white, she's from Connecticut. My father's Black, he's from the south side of Chicago. And they met and I was born in Boston where they're both pursuing college degrees. Around the time I was four, they split, and they both relocated. So I grew up primarily between a small town, a tiny desert town in Arizona with my mother, and in Brooklyn, New York with my father. Also, with my dad, though, I'd spend time in Chicago with his family. And he has been a working musician since before I was born, so we spent a lot of time on the road, right? I'd go on tour with him as a small child. If he was on tour, I was on tour. And so I got to meet a lot of incredible people see a lot of incredible places. And then when I was about 18, I went to college in New York and stayed there until my early 30s. Spent a couple of years in Connecticut near my mother. And now I'm in Philly.

Erik  2:15  

Very cool. I'm curious. Arizona, Chicago, Brooklyn, all very different places. Can you give me an idea of what it was like to be a little girl growing up with a white mom in Arizona, and then also a little girl growing up with a black dad in Brooklyn and in Chicago? Tell us what life was like growing up.

Nicolet Gatewood  2:38  

Yeah, tremendously different experiences. So Arizona for me, I left there the moment I could. That's not to say it's not a beautiful place. It is and I appreciate it very much so as an adult. I will say that as a child, it was traumatic, racially, for me, my experiences.

Erik  2:56  

Tell us a little bit about that, please.

Nicolet Gatewood  2:58  

Yeah, I don't talk a whole lot about it, but to be completely honest, I believe that it shaped me. I grew up in a really small town, predominantly white, though there were a lot of Mexicans, Mexican-American folks, culture influences as well, as well as Native Americans. So I'm not actually the only biracial or multiracial person in my family. My cousins on my mother's side, maternally, are half Native American as well. So I grew up near the Gila River Indian Community and would participate in cultural celebrations there. So it exposed me to a lot of culture. Like I said, with my father, we were often on tour. And so when I was a small child, I toured with Harry Belafonte, for example. Hugh Masekela, who's a phenomenal South African jazz musician. And both of them were civil rights and staunch anti apartheid activists. So I think my exposure to such diverse cultures as a small child really instilled in me appreciation for all of them, and also kind of solidified for me, the intrinsic nature between art and activism, or art and cultural equity, racial progression and respect. And so I think that kind of fueled my personal interests and career paths. But to answer your question, there were not a lot of black people around in my town when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. And to add to that, I'm very light so I often ended up in positions where people if they didn't know me, they didn't necessarily know that I was black, so I got to see, behind the curtain, types of racism.

Erik  4:32  

I think that's a really interesting perspective. Also, I would love for you to sort of think a little bit too about what was it like for your dad, he's on tour, touring legends and then also those aspects of activism you know, right? And so if you think what it was like for your dad, having you go with him, and then also what was it like maybe for your mom, being in Arizona with you, and then also your other family members? You know, I'm fascinated by that. Tell me what you think it was like for your mom and what you think it was like for your dad.

Nicolet Gatewood  5:02  

Wow, you know, I'm not sure I've ever thought about this, and certainly not in a public platform. (laughs) You know, I sympathize and empathize a lot. So I think by the time I was born, they were older than their peers having children. But when you really think about it, they were 27, 28, I didn't have my life figured out at 28, or 38, for that matter. So to think about having a child and then divorcing, and then the additional responsibility actually, of having a mixed child, I think, and being separate from the other parent. So for my mother, who I love very much, and is still one of my best friends in the world, you know, there certainly was a learning curve for her about how to raise a black child. Talking about the hair and all that kinds of stuff, but just in, I will say I said this recently, I always respected her because she believed me. So when I would tell her about instances of overt racism or more subtle racism, she didn't ever question me and say, "Well, did they mean blah," she believed me because I knew better than her, right? Because I can feel this, it's not something she could necessarily feel. And she has allowed me since I was very small to teach her about things that she didn't know about. So I respect that about my mom tremendously. For my father, I think, I know the divorce and the separation was incredibly difficult, but he was a young man trying to make a career for himself following his passions, and certainly did the best he could with myself and my sisters. I'm actually the youngest of five girls.

Erik  6:32  

Five? Amazing.

Kerel  6:33  

Wow, awesome. Nicolet, tell us what's going on today at BLAC and let the audience know what you're up to there.

Nicolet Gatewood  6:42  

Yeah, so BLAC is an acronym for Building Leaders And Creators. We are a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to bring more black people into advertising, right? We all work in the industry or industry adjacent and we understand that for many, many-a decades, there's been a real problem with diversity and black representation specifically. So BLAC was founded in 2020, after the death of George Floyd and at that time, a number of smaller independent advertising agencies came together with the intention of producing something, right, to help themselves and, by and large the industry, kind of tackle this issue. So they gathered, I believe, weekly for a couple of months and decided to land on essentially an internship program, which is our primary program currently. So we're in the second year of our internship program. This year is a 12 week program and it's honestly the highlight of my professional career thus far. So why BLAC is a little bit different - so we're nonprofit, but it's really a community. So our interns, and there are about 59 this summer, are placed at 22 different independent agencies across the nation. Through the 12 week program, the first week, we train them with as much knowledge as we can possibly give them within five business days, right. So it's not a ton, but we try to introduce them to as much as we possibly can about advertising and agency life, different roles, specifics, and specifically, what it's like to be black in advertising, which we understand can be often a lonely experience, right? Being the only one in the room or in your agency, in your department. And so our interns come from a breadth of professional experiences and different backgrounds. So this year, for example, our youngest intern is actually 17, which by the way, we had no idea. (laughs) We learned about halfway into the interview process, he presented as a very mature 27 year old. He's so impressed - yeah, he's amazing - but he's so impressed the interviewing agency that they offered him a position. And there's a handful of older interns too, about my age, early 40s, and they have tremendous experience in another industry, right, that had different professions. And they're looking just to break into the door and bring their arsenal of tremendous skills into advertising and we're incredibly lucky to have them. So our interns, like I said, come from a breadth of different backgrounds. And we largely don't know that until we get to know them because our application process is super simple and intentionally. So when our interns are applying, when our candidates are applying really, we only ask them to submit a two-ish minute video showing or telling what makes them a creative thinker. So we're not collecting resume, we're not asking if they went to school, we don't know or really care if they have previous existing advertising experience. That's really not our goal. Our goal is to open the doors for as many creative fresh thinkers as we possibly can who would like to enter the industry. And I actually think that that, that freshness, right, they're not yet assimilated - and I don't mean this racially, I mean, like, industry wise, they're not yet assimilated into advertising ways of doing which brings fresh creative concepts, right, which is what we're always kind of looking for. So back to the structure of the 12 week program, intro week, then they work within their agencies for about seven weeks. At the end of those seven weeks, they come together as a national cohort and we put them into project teams and they respond to real world briefs from our sponsors. So different brands this year at Procter and Gamble, they actually pitch concepts to PNG and then the final week of a program is a job fair. So we match open to work interns and our 21 alumni with agencies and brands looking to hire them, essentially. Last year, we had over 70% job placement rate at the end of the program.

Kerel  10:41  

Wow, that's awesome, 70% job rate. If I got this, right, because usually, when you think of interns, you think of, you know, kids and college and junior year, senior year getting ready for their first job, but I think what you mentioned there, which I think is super important and interesting is, yes, those types of individuals are in the program, but also people that have years of professional experience looking to maybe make a career shift. Is that accurate?

Nicolet Gatewood  11:10  

Absolutely. When I looked at, we had, like, over 150 incredible applicants this year and when I reviewed them all, it actually just really made me quite angry about the state of the industry, right? We claim this diversity problem, quote, unquote, we can't find this talent. And the majority of the applicants I felt should be hired, right? They shouldn't be interns. So actually, one of the candidates in our interview process this year was actually just offered a job by the agency rather than an internship. She skipped that step altogether. So we have 59 interns instead of 60. Yeah, but they're ready. The majority of them are ready. And so it's just an opportunity problem, it's not a talent problem, a lot of times it's not an experience problem. We understand that advertising, largely is really a closed door industry and it fuels itself on referrals. That's just kind of the nature of the quick way agencies operate, right? Get a new client, you got to staff up immediately and you are referring folks that you've already worked with. And so in an industry that's predominantly white, and black folks represent less than 6%, we're just not being referred. That's something that might always exist in agencies, but we're trying to broaden the network of referrals, minimally, with the BLAC program.

Kerel  12:27  

Yeah. And I think putting race to the side for a second, I think, again, because Erik and I both are in the industry, too, I think that constant referral system is one of the reasons that really challenges our innovation, our ability to innovate in the industry, because to your point, we're not bringing in people with a different perspective, with a fresh perspective, from outside of the industry, the same folks over and over and over again. And I think that that has a lot to do with our lack of innovation as an industry sometimes as well.

Erik  12:46  

Amen.

Nicolet Gatewood  12:52  

Absolutely agree.

Erik  13:05  

Yep. I pulled together a couple of thoughts, Nicolet, that, you know, I think were interesting and I think you might think they were interesting too. Some thoughts that weren't necessarily your statements, but I want to ask you about sort of these feelings that come along with thinking about this and one of them, you had shared a little while ago, but I thought it was interesting about not having to have to check our authentic selves at the door when we come to work. You know, we were just talking about that process of just trying to find the work, then just being even considered for the work and an expanded thought there was that we shouldn't feel pressure to assimilate in order to be successful, you know, in the workplace. And our identities inform everything we do personally and professionally. Tell us, when you hear that, like, what does that sort of make you think about and feel?

Nicolet Gatewood  13:53  

Yeah, I think I said, those things, I'm not positive. (laughs) I believe them all. So actually, the reason I ended up here at BLAC, I saw two of their interns from last year participate in a panel. Interns on a panel at Small Agency Week, AdAge's conference. So I was, you know, sitting at my desk in Connecticut looking at the lineup and I saw BLAC and I was like "I think the spells black. I'm not sure what this is," but I tuned in because I was a Black Studies major, I like black stuff, I've worked in cultural equity for over a decade. And so I tuned in and two BLAC interns, at the time, were speaking about their experience during the first year of the program. And what I heard them say, like, truly moved me, gave me the chills, essentially like a physical reaction. I heard them talk about how they were taught by BLAC that they shouldn't feel any pressure to assimilate or code switch or change who they authentically were, felt most comfortable being showing up in a professional environment, right, in the advertising world. And that's so spoke to me because I still believe that but I don't think I'd ever heard it articulated in such a way - brave, bold, confident, young people at the time, I was truly impressed with them. To go back to those quotes, I don't think it's possible for any of us to navigate the world, and I mean, like, everything, without the lens of our identity and our lived experiences, right? So I definitely see everything that I look at through the lens of somebody who identifies as a black woman. With that said, my experiences certainly are not universal for all black women, right? I'm American, I benefit from the ridiculous structures of colorism, even textureism, right? I'm educated, like my experiences are different. But I will always be informed by my experiences as a child. The way that I look at the world will forever be informed by what I've been through, and how I identify, I believe, so, good and bad. I think it's absurd to expect that that can be turned off when one shows up to their desk or in their office.

Erik  16:13  

Yeah, no that makes sense. And I wanna ask you another one, too, not your words, this was a quote from someone else, but I think I have a feeling that maybe it impacted you or meant something to you, but I think it means something to a lot of people. And you talk with a lot of folks, too. I'm curious about your thoughts on this quote, "I think it's really beneficial for all of us not to feel like we have to swallow offenses or micro aggressions that are made towards us." Right? That's a very real thing. When you talk to other folks, or even through your own personal experience, what does that make you think about and feel? And have you gone through moments like that with microaggressions?

Nicolet Gatewood  16:54  

Sure, I think everybody does, right? Whether you're a woman, especially if you are, let's say, a member of the, even the word majority doesn't make any sense anymore, and is a microaggression, but if you're a member of the non dominant or empowered, like culture, I think we all encounter these things on a daily basis. I think there comes a moment in all of our lives when we decide that we can no longer swallow them. However, what we then, kind of, encounter is the internal weighing of "Do I say something now? Is it worth it? What might it cost me if I speak up against this now?" I personally think a lot of us also understand that when you call something out - so, micro or macro aggression, right - when you call somebody out on their behavior, you are initially met with resistance. And I do think that that is normal. I think all of us need to unlearn that, myself included. Especially for those of us who have good intentions, we misstep. And things change, you know, all of the time. And always for the better, generally speaking in terms of representation, equity, identity, but we all have to be open to constantly learning, receiving feedback if we've made this transgression, if that makes sense. And I do think that workplaces should be safe environments to call those things out, especially if employers are trying to build psychologically safe environments for people of color, for LGBTQ+ people, for gender diverse people, for people with disabilities, etc.

Kerel  18:36  

Do you think mainly because of, you know, the unfortunate events, mainly here in the US over the last couple of years and how much attention has been paid to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace and brands pledging hundreds of millions of dollars to supporting black owned businesses, BIPOC-owned businesses - have you seen a shift? Are you hopeful that things are going in the right direction? Obviously, we still have a lot of work to do, but I'm just curious to get your take on whether or not, like directionally, you think we're headed in the right direction? In the advertising industry specifically?

Nicolet Gatewood  19:20  

I would hope so. And I will say that I'm maybe foolishly optimistic here but it is become my life's work, right. I certainly am hopeful. I do see a lot of articulated intentions, which I think are positive. But, right, if we don't honor these pledges we all made two years ago, performative activism, it's insulting at this point. I do see that the intention has shifted. I do see that the industry is embarrassed, which I do think is a good thing. And the next steps are to actually make real change. And I was listening to an interview you all did with Katie Kern, and she said something that really stuck with me. She said, um, "You know, you often hear the excuse that we're looking for entry level talent, we just can't find it." That's absolutely absurd and obscene at this stage in the game. There are programs like MAIP that have been around for four generations. There are so many programs that have kind of developed in the last handful of years or more. BLAC is one of them, right, 100 Roses From Concrete, Marcus Gram Project, hit up your HBCUs. That's absurd. But we also know that the problem isn't really entry level talent, the majority of black folk in the industry are actually in entry level talent. So I don't know if you know, Pam Yang, from Agency DEI, but she has a quote which pops into my brain often, "It's not a pipeline problem. It's a progression problem," right? So if you're able to attract young, diverse talent, but you're losing them within three years, it's not a problem of the talent, it's a problem of your organization. So how are you supporting them, investing in them, allowing them to grow? Is this equitable and fair? Like these are systems, right, you have to transform your systems. And most importantly, the way to affect real change, as we all know, is leadership, right?

Kerel  21:21  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And Erik and I talk a lot about, our industry is really good at promoting new products, bringing new products to market and you should take a similar approach to your hiring and progression tactics, right? Like, if you bring a new product to market, and you see that that's not working, what do you do? You pull back, you huddle internally, you figure out what worked, what didn't work, and you pivot, and you go to market again. And you can do the same thing with hiring, you can do the same thing with developing talent within your organization, you already have the blueprint, you just need to put in the effort, quite frankly.

Nicolet Gatewood  21:59  

Absolutely. It needs to be intentional. And I think what speaks the most, which I don't actually understand why it has not been addressed or solved by the nation's leading creative talent it doesn't make any sense to me, but they need to believe that it's a business imperative, which it is, especially in an industry like advertising, right? We have to have our nose on culture and move with it. And you can't adequately be on top of that culture or speak to Americans properly unless you're doing this authentically. And these points of view come from the people you're trying to communicate with.

Kerel  22:34  

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. What excites you most about the future of BLAC?

Nicolet Gatewood  22:42  

Yeah, so, so much primarily, our current interns and our 21 alumni, they're some of the most fantastic, honestly, some of the most fantastic people I've ever met, like, just, they inspire me so much on a daily basis. So I'm really excited to see where they go and how they make change. Again, the acronym BLAC is Building Leaders And Creators. I really look forward to the next five or 10 years where they're leading agencies, are launching their own agencies, and hopefully, like really helping to change the direction of the industry. But BLAC, you know, has some pretty lofty goals. We're by and large a community. I think that's what kind of differentiates our program from the others, though they all do fantastic work, and we partner with many of them, we all have the same goal. But what I found so inspiring about BLAC when I joined in February was, really, the networks. So we have the interns and the alumni and their network in themselves, right, and they support each other, they stay in constant communication, they help each other out through things and when they're on the job market, they hook each other up, as they should. The agencies as well though, help each other. So there's 22 this year, and they're all in varying steps in their DEI journeys. And BLAC, this internship program, is one facet of what should be a very complex plan, right, to address issues that they may or may not have in the agency. But they very much support each other as well, which I find really inspiring. They help each other out through things, their community, they talk, they connect, we all connect weekly. And what I found most touching is how connected the agency community remains with the interns and alumni. Their commitment to them is much greater than the duration of the weeks they spent in agency. So I recently heard a story from one of our alumni. She reached out to me just for some advice, she was moving to California after she graduated, she's going to be looking at some gigs and so I put her in contact with some people that I knew in LA. But what actually ended up securing her job was a relationship she'd had with the agency she'd interned with through BLAC, and so they used their connections to get her in the door. Which I thought was fantastic because they're really invested in her, not her as an intern there, not her as a potential employee there; their investment was in her.

Erik  25:09  

That's great. Nicolet, I'm curious, you have a tremendous background already in DEI and also deeper than that sort of understanding cultural backgrounds and understanding so many really important things. And I'm curious about what you're reading today, like what's Nicolet following and reading and hearing and seeing and watching? What do you find that you're consuming to kind of stay informed?

Nicolet Gatewood  25:36  

Yeah, that's a hard one. I struggle with that on a daily basis. (laughs)

Erik  25:40  

Tell us about it. (laughs)

Nicolet Gatewood  25:40  

Just very limited time. To be honest, I rely on LinkedIn a lot. You know, I've curated my feed and there are a number of influential people I follow there. So, like, my niche right now is kind of, like, DEI space advertising. So I always recommend to folks including our agencies, or anyone wanting to learn more, but in like a passive way, right, delivered right to your inbox or in your newsfeed, I always recommend Nicole Cardoza's Anti- Racism Daily. I'm a big fan of Janice Gassam Asare and her columns on LinkedIn and in Forbes.

Kerel  25:53  

She has been a guest on the podcast. We love Janice.

Nicolet Gatewood  26:20  

I think she's fantastic. And on the Linky as the interns have dubbed LinkedIn. (laughs)  I just got hip to this, guys, so...

Erik  26:26  

The Linky. That's new for me. All right. (laughs)

Kerel  26:29  

Same same. (laughs)

Erik  26:33  

Thank you. Kerel and I just learned something new. (laughs)

Nicolet Gatewood  26:37  

No, they'll be excited. The interns heard me say it, I think out loud last week, and they're like "Nicolet said the linky!" (laughs) Linky, it's a thing now. Yeah, on the Linky I follow so many folks. Ash Ramirez is a fantastic one. [Name not verifiable], [Name not verifiable], Walt Geer, Sharon Hurley Hall and her sister Lisa Hall are fantastic. LinkedIn is a great place, really, just to curate the folks you want to hear from.

Erik  27:06  

That's great. What about sort of the original kind of LinkedIn, the OG LinkedIn? I'm talking about kind of like mentors and talking with folks that may share spread, you know, sort of be that LinkedIn before there was that?

Nicolet Gatewood  27:20  

Yeah.

Erik  27:21  

Who were some mentors for you? And also, how do you feel, you know, if you had mentors, not everyone does, but if you did, like, how's that influenced how you work with others? And maybe you mentor others?

Nicolet Gatewood  27:33  

Yeah. So I've been really extremely lucky in my life, I think, to have benefited from so many hands on mentors, and I've gone through a number of career changes. I ended up in advertising, about three and a half years ago. So this is a new industry for me. So I'd say my first mentors are really like, you know, my parents, in addition to everything, they taught me about life. Professionally, I think I gained from my mother, my work ethic, she's just one of the, she's the hardest worker I know. And from my father, I think I just gained the confidence or almost the audacity to just lead my life based on passion watching him do that. And so I've always done the same, right? I had no idea where degrees in black studies could lead me, yet, I've never had a job where it wasn't of critical importance to what it is that I did. That was just based on passion, what I was interested in. So that's refreshing to look back on my career and realize that it served me in that way. So my first dream really was to be an academic. So when I was in school, some of my earliest mentors were my professors. So Deborah Willis, major mentor of mine [Name not verifiable], as well. And then I worked in nonprofits for over a decade before advertising. So some of my former bosses are still my mentors, right? I kind of modeled myself after them. They taught me what I know about management and honestly mentoring. So can [Name not verifiable], is one of them. [Name not verifiable], [Name not verifiable], so many. And then in advertising. It's really the same, former bosses. So I worked for about three years prior to BLAC at a global ad agency called Haddad and partners and the CEO is a man named Ryan Cayer, who's the one who got me the job, right, he broke me into advertising. And we still talk on a monthly basis. I talked to him earlier today, he's still a mentor of mine. And my current boss, Chris Witherspoon is the CEO of DNA in Seattle. So, it's an agency in Seattle, and he's the chair of BLAC's board, mentor as well. And I learned so much from those two guys specifically, because they're really like hands off leaders who just encourage, essentially, and back you up and try to support you in whatever decision it is that you're making. And so I think what I've learned from all of those mentors, in terms of my mentoring style, is to be available, to be accessible, to be a resource and provide additional resources, always. And I thin, maybe the most valuable lessons that I've probably learned from my mentees within the past few years is to learn from them as much as you expect to teach them, right? Especially the younger folks. Gen Z has taught me so much about confidence, I think, especially in a professional setting. They're not afraid to ask for or demand what it is that they should be getting, or they're not afraid to call certain things out. They weren't really raised with the types of fear that some of us were raised with, if that makes any sense to you, like, in a professional setting, right? I was taught to be careful, especially because I was a black woman. Younger folks don't buy that bullshit. Pardon my French and I learned that from them.

Erik  27:49  

Say it. One more question. I love the idea of these independent agencies coming together, as you described and saying, "Hey, let's create BLAC. Let's create resources. Let's get behind this. Let's do something." Can you give a quick sort of shout out or just name some of the agencies and let's go by names, like throw the names out there.

Nicolet Gatewood  31:12  

All 22 of them? (laughs)

Erik  30:54  

As many as you want, as many as you want to say and we can provide a way to get in touch and learn more later. We'd love to hear some of the names.

Nicolet Gatewood  31:10  

Let me just start with some of the founding agencies. So DNA is a founding agency of BLAC. Their CEO is the chair of our board. Cornett in Lexington, Kentucky, founding agency. OKRP in Chicago, founding agency. Barrett SF in San Francisco, also a founding agency. I think I might have covered all of them. I mean, we have 22, right, so in New York, we have Barker, AB Partners, Fig, Noble People, so many others I can't think of. In Chicago we have OKRP, The Escape Pod, UpShot. In San Francisco we have Barrett SF, we have others...

Kerel  32:03  

We'll get a list from you and we'll make sure it's in the show notes so that, one, everyone gets the recognition that they deserve and no one feels left out. So we'll definitely get that from you.

Erik  32:13  

Thank you so much.

Nicolet Gatewood  32:16  

And to listeners, if you're interested in joining this community, if you'd like to take some BLAC interns in 2023, shoot me an email. If you'd like to meet our graduating interns and our open to work alumni, now's the time to reach out because we'll have a job fair at the end of this program. So the last week of July, you can meet all of them, and they're fantastic. Please just send me an email.

Kerel  32:39  

Awesome. All right, fun question I love asking every guest that we have on the podcast, which is to give us the top three apps on your phone. but you can't name email, calendar or text messaging because it's just way too boring.

Nicolet Gatewood  32:53  

Alright, can't name text, yeah, I've been ready for this one. Ok so, The Linky, LinkedIn. I'm not really a social media person, by the way. That's my only social media. The music app, iTunes music. All the time, right daughter of a musician. Music is a critical part of my life. And I wrote it down, what was it? Podcast, right? Gotta listen to Minority Report.

Erik  33:16  

Hey!

Kerel  33:17  

Yeah, love it! (laughs)

Erik  33:18  

Love it, love it. Well, thanks for being a part of Minority Report podcast. And, you know, our listeners often love to stay in touch and we want to provide ways to be able to learn more about all the great agencies you named and even more and also to find some of those interns and then also find folks who are ready to work right away. So what are some ways that our listeners and viewers can follow you, find you, and then also learn more?

Nicolet Gatewood  33:43  

Yeah, so to reach out to BLAC, please check our website. It's blacinternship.com. If you'd like to reach me directly, email is the best way - nicolet@blacinternship.com or hit me up on the Linky, Nicolet Gatewood. And follow BLAC on our social channels.

Erik  34:03  

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us Nicolet Gatewood. Thanks for hanging out with us at BLAC and everyone, thanks again for listening to another great episode and you can find us where you find all of your audio and video, find more episodes and just search for Minority Report podcast and look for the logo. Thanks again Nicolet. Thanks everyone.

‍