Let’s Know More
At Known, one of our core values is that We Never Stop Learning. Everything we do becomes an opportunity to grow and improve, and to share what we learn with our partners and clients.
In that spirit, last week we kicked off an internal speaker series called The More You Known. (See what we did there?)
The goals are simple: to educate and inform Knowners, to challenge our thinking and get inspired, and to grow culture and connection at Known.
Each month we’ll host one speaker from a curated list of industry leaders across creativity, innovation, science, culture, wellness, and technology. We’ll post a short article here for our friends to follow along.
Speakers are invited based on their industry renown, connection to Known, or a cultural moment we want to bring to our collective attention. Our inaugural speaker fits all of the above.
Going Off with Chelsea Sanders
It was a privilege to host our first guest speaker, Chelsea Sanders.
Chelsea is the producer of the award-winning podcast, ‘Go Off, Sis’, and VP of Brand Innovation & Partnerships for Refinery29’s Unbothered — a community made by and for Black young women, celebrating their voices, creativity, and power. She recently wrote this piece about the community’s complicated relationship with Black History Month for Refinery29.
Throughout the course of our interview, Chelsea — in her unique style that’s simultaneously kind, humorous, erudite, and down-to-earth — shared her own journey in leading Unbothered, the platform created to further Black women, and how brands can be accountable and genuine in their allyship.
What’s Now Known
For Chelsea and her team, the recognition that they were not seeing themselves in media and content, not seeing Black women celebrated in the world, was the spark that inspired them to create Unbothered. And over the past three years, the Unbothered team of Black women has been dedicated to shifting that reality.
Our mission with Unbothered is just to tell those stories and to be heard. One of the things we always say is to be able to move in this world as a Black woman, especially now, sometimes you just have to be Unbothered.
The idea behind Unbothered’s podcast, ‘Go Off, Sis’, was driven by a powerful insight:
The idea of Black women sounding off — the idea of them giving voice to their conversations, to their concerns. The ability for Black women to disagree, which we never get the chance to do because we always have to be on the same page — that is revolutionary to me.
When it comes to how brands can be more accountable, Chelsea believes in two guiding principles: first, that it’s important to meet your audience where they are:
When it comes to accountability, ask, if you don’t know — that’s fine. It’s okay to be wrong, it’s okay to be uncomfortable in these conversations. It’s okay to say, Hey audience, you might know more about this than me — let’s talk about that.
I’d rather you ask me. And that’s me as a consumer, that’s me as a Black woman, and that’s me as a Black woman who works with brands, and as an executive.
Second, make sure they’re represented when it comes to the decisions around the content that’s aiming to engage them.
It’s not just about what ends up on the shelves, or what ends up on the website, or what ends up on TV. Think about the people behind the screen that are layering in their perspective with the content. In order to tell the right story, you need to make sure that the right stakeholders and the storytellers are in the room.
As stated in her article, Black History Month has a different resonance for many in the Black community, where some may feel that Black History Month isn’t actually for them. As Chelsea told me:
I am, every day, aware of, cognizant of, and celebrating my Blackness. I do not need a calendar to do that.
She noted that what people may need a reminder of is that Black history is American history, and that the responsibility to internalize that rests with each of us:
You’re not doing me a service by learning Black history — you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t.
Her view on allyship was just as illuminating, identifying that:
Allyship is a lifelong process. It is not something that you learn by talking to one person and suddenly you’re an ally. Being an ally is an always-on job. It means being loud, it means when you are in the rooms that other people are not in that you advocate for them, whether or not they can hear you.
Chelsea opened and closed with this point, and it bears emphasis:
Black women are good for business.
It’s time for people to get on the train and recognize, not only are we buying things, but we are done borrowing things. We’re owning things right now, and I think there is such an opportunity to be able to share in that and give the platform for Black women to have ownership over their own voices, ownership over their own products, over their own journeys, over their homes.
It is most certainly our turn, and it’s our time, and we’re taking it — so get on board.
What an honor it was to host Chelsea Sanders. We appreciate her so much, and we’re inspired and energized as we root hard for her and the Unbothered team’s success!
The More You Known speaker series continues next month — watch for our next post in a few weeks.
