Dear Kat.

An open letter to the founder, motivator, organizer, and hell-raiser of the 3% Conference, Kat Gordon.

Dear Kat,

I’ve been trying to write this for six weeks now. After you stood on stage at the end of the 3% Conference in New York City, I wrote a bunch of things down in my notebook. Things that I hoped to say to you if we bumped into each other on the way out of the building or at an airport or anywhere, really. But I didn’t bump into you. I went to dinner with some colleagues (Spike Lee was there!) then we listened to Mike Birbiglia say funny stuff. I spent a day wandering around Brooklyn with a friend. I flew home. I got some sleep. And then we elected Donald Trump as our 45th president. (I’ll never be okay with typing that sentence.)

That’s where this letter stalled out. I haven’t known what to say. I haven’t known how to express the frustration, sadness, and (yeah…) resignation that has swallowed up everything I felt at the 3% Conference. I’m embarrassed about it, I suppose. The results of an election don’t change what happened during those few days in Manhattan. I should feel more resolve to make things better. I should be louder, brighter, faster, stronger. I just haven’t felt any of those things lately.

Sitting behind David ‘Shingy’ Shing makes it hard to see what’s going on.

So I’m trying again to tell you how your work, your vision and your movement have lifted me to another level. I’m more self-aware. I try harder. I speak up more often. So this letter is for you, about you. But I have to it admit that it’s also for me, about me. Selfish, I know. The truth is, I’m writing an open letter to you so that I (and anyone else who might be feeling the same way) remember what is true—and what is possible.

As part of the conference, you had each of us write a list, a personal What Am I Going To Do About It challenge. I wrote down six things:

1. Stop using the past as an excuse for our lack of progress.
2. Get mad. Yell at someone about our failures.
3. Bring men to the next 3% Conference.
4. Be more involved in the hiring/recruiting process.
5. Find a female mentor.
6. Be a better mentor to the women at Struck.

Seems easy, doesn’t it? Then why does it feel so hard? Why do I feel like any impact I might have on our small, independent agency is just going to be swallowed in a national tsunami of misogyny, sexual harassment and locker room talk? Is it time for the parable of the starfish? Do we save the things that can be saved and admit that there will be casualties? Do I just worry about the things I can fix and stop thinking about everything that’s broken?

The legends, Jeff Goodby and Susan Credle.

You don’t have to answer those questions. I already know what you’d say. You’d say that nothing has changed, that I was naive (and more than a bit ignorant) for not understanding that things were already broken for women, minorities and other underrepresented groups—especial in the creative/advertising industry. You’d probably say that our lists of things to do just need to be written in stone instead of pencil. And you’d say it all calmly, in a way that makes me feel like I’m not stupid for asking those questions and that, even/especially as a privileged, white, male executive—my contribution matters. It’s what I’ve always loved about the 3% Conference. I’m an outsider, but you’ve changed the dynamic. Instead of feeling irrelevant or unimportant, you’ve engaged with me in a way I probably don’t deserve, in a way that departs dramatically from the way most women are engaged in the agencies where they work. You’ve embraced me. You’ve empowered me. You’ve encouraged me. You’ve practiced exactly what you preach—even when it meant putting me on the Manbassadors stage to dig into biased social networks, echo chambers, and my failures as a human.

Hi, Kat.

And that’s why this letter is selfish. It’s a reminder that Kat Gordon believes in Matt Anderson. You’ve never said those words to me, but I’ve felt them in every email, every like, every retweet and every hello. This is why the 3% Conference is more than a conference. It’s why we talk about it as a movement, not an event. You saw something broken in the industry, and then you trusted us—all of us—to have the courage to fix it. That trust doesn’t change based on elected officials or red-state/blue-state splits. You didn’t start this thing with a provisional clause that allowed us all to jump ship when the water got choppy. You trusted us to change the ratio, no matter what else happens.

I get it now. The open letter is working. I’m remembering that we can do this. I have my list. Six things. I can do it. You always knew that I could. You always knew that we could.

Thanks, Kat.

Matt Anderson is the CEO/ECD at Struck. He’s also a husband, a father, a San Francisco Giants fan, a vinyl collector and a book reader.

You can find him on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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