Introducing the We Are Next Podcast
A resource for the next generation of advertising & how we got here
I’m tremendously excited to launch the We Are Next Podcast. It’s been a long time coming—a labor of learning, letdowns and love. To release it out into the world is both magical and terrifying.
(Listen on iTunes or Stitcher, peep the episode notes.)
I thought I’d mark the occasion with the origin story of We Are Next, and a few important moments that led to this one.
It started with a stack of notecards.
In 2015 as a Director of Strategy, I started guest lecturing at universities. Seeing ad students’ light-bulb moments and nods of understanding was a high I’d never felt before.
To hone my presentations, I passed out 3x5 notecards and asked a couple questions at the end of talks. I wanted to better understand how students felt about going into advertising and the hurdles they saw ahead of them.
“Not being badass enough. My impression of what the industry is like is all these amazingly talented, creative, witty people and I really hope that I won’t get eaten alive.”
“The fact that there are so many jobs that are not explained in depth or able to be experienced, and that they share so many characteristics — so how am I supposed to know how I fit in the ad world?”
“Developing skills for/finding positions where I fit currently and can continue to grow in. I feel underdeveloped, unsure about what function to aim for.”
It didn’t matter whether students attended a school with a killer ad program, or whether they had little to no access to relevant curriculum—most expressed elevated levels of anxiety and self-doubt when thinking about getting into advertising.
For an industry as ever-evolving and amorphous as advertising, it was clear something was missing for those just starting out.
The Weekly: the little email that could.
To make answers to FAQs from these lectures available to more people, I quietly started a weekly email, eloquently called The Weekly (a lazy last minute naming decision that just stuck). The first one went out to 25 people on October 31, 2016.
The concept was simple: actionable advice—a combination of real talk and reassurance—around a specific topic in 500 words or less. I wrote the first few, and started inviting collaborators and Guest Pros from the industry to contribute. The goal was (and still is) to gather perspectives from all over to create a more holistic view of what, how and why we do what we do.
The response to The Weekly was immediate and overwhelming. Our thousands of subscribers made up of students and junior talent not only confirm the need for practical and emotional guidance, but have also played a big role in growing We Are Next. (SO to our early subscribers—I truly couldn’t do this without you.)
Seeing the larger vision.
We Are Next was started as a resource that helps students and junior talent begin their advertising careers with confidence.
But it’s more than that. We Are Next content is free and open to all, no matter what school you attend or resources you have access to. In this way, it helps make mentorship and talent development more inclusive.
Improving the diversity of the advertising industry—diversity of gender, race, background and thought—doesn’t stop at increasing access to resources. Students and fresh talent need to see themselves in the industry so they know what to aim for and work towards.
We Are Next gives all voices of the industry the ability to provide thoughtful mentorship at scale to the next generation of advertising.
The effort to ensure that contributors represent different agencies, roles, levels and backgrounds is a key part of the vision today.
We’ll do it Live…ok, maybe not.
When it came to expanding We Are Next content, video was an obvious choice. I loved the idea of using Facebook Live to provide subscribers with real-time access to industry experts in a casual, inclusive setting.
The first episode of We Are Next Live streamed on February 24, 2017. Over the next two months, friends, friends of friends, and complete strangers in the industry agreed to sit down as guests. The first five episodes drew a total of 9.4K views—many of which occurred after the live recording ended.
Looking back, I shouldn’t be surprised. We skip, shift and save our way through TV and online videos, so expecting busy students to tune in at a specific time to watch 45 minutes of content at once was totally misguided.
I put Live on hiatus, and soon decided that long-form interviews should be delivered in audio form. I began poking around the world of podcasting, and transitioning scheduled Live interviews into audio recordings.
We Live, we learn.
Getting down to business.
The most common question I get is a) how We Are Next makes money, or b) how I’m able to work on it full-time. The short answer is, a) it doesn’t right now, and b) a combination of savings and a supportive husband with a full-time job.
But We Are Next is more than a side project, which tend to die when you have a 9–5 (or 9–7pm in advertising), no matter how much good will is behind it. I believe We Are Next has an important role to play in the industry, and fizzling out is not an option.
To hold myself accountable, I registered We Are Next as an LLC in May. I’m committing to building it as a business that’s sustainable for the next generation of talent, and as a source of support for myself and my family.
I never saw myself as an entrepreneur, but here I am. I face hurdles in the form of non-responses, skeptics and people who ghost on calls. I’m figuring out how to embrace trial and error, especially around monetization, while keeping the trust of subscribers sacred. To be brave when I feel like I don’t know what the eff I’m doing.
But I believe in We Are Next. And I absolutely love my job.
The We Are Next Podcast
It’s taken since May to get the podcast off the ground. I’m eternally grateful for the willingness and patience of industry guests I’ve already recorded in LA, in cities where I tag along on my husband’s business trips (Boulder, San Francisco, Singapore so far), and remotely via Skype.
With zero experience in audio anything, I’ve assembled a scrappy, portable recording set-up, watched enough YouTube videos to edit together episodes using Garageband, and figured out how to publish/host them. It’s far from perfect, and I’m sure some things will be tweaked along the way.
But I couldn’t be more proud to share the podcast with you as an expansion of We Are Next. To continue building this company to serve the next generation of advertising talent.
To our current and future subscribers and supporters—thank you for being the reason to push myself, to be brave, and for fueling the fire.
We got this.
Listen, subscribe & leave the podcast some love on iTunes. New episodes are released Tuesdays, and shorter Minisodes every other Friday.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, clap away. Want to help spread the word? Share this link with people who need it most — friends, professors, colleagues, mentors and mentees.
About WRNXT BTS
As a first time entrepreneur and chronic writer, I’ve been wanting to document the experience of building We Are Next. WRNXT BTS is an open account of the highs and lows of starting and growing a resource for the next generation of advertising talent.
