Celebrating Pride month, our guest is Graham Nolan, the co-founder, and co-chair of Do The WeRQ, an organization on a mission to increase queer creativity, representation, and share of voice within the advertising industry. Graham identifies some of the Pride campaigns that have caught his eye this month and reflects on why rainbow-washing seems less prevalent this year. We also discuss some of the greatest challenges faced by LGBTQIA+ people working in the industry.

Episode Transcript

Adrian Tennant: Coming up in this episode of IN CLEAR FOCUS:

Graham Nolan: For right now, we are still just listening to people, gathering their stories. Between the L and the G and the B and the T and the Q, there are so many different perspectives. And we want to make sure that we’re building them into our organization in the right way.

Adrian Tennant: You’re listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, fresh perspectives on the business of advertising produced weekly by Bigeye: a strategy-led, full-service creative agency, growing brands for clients globally. Hello, I’m your host, Adrian Tennant, Chief Strategy Officer. Thank you for joining us. Each year, consumer brands and many publicly traded companies celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community by sponsoring or participating in Pride events. While June sees many logos transformed into rainbow-colored versions, younger members of the community are likely to scrutinize companies’ actual records on LGBTQIA+ inclusive initiatives. This year’s Pride events are also taking place against a backdrop of censorship in public schools and libraries, including the banning of many books that relate to communities of color and LGBTQIA+ subjects. Making a return visit to IN CLEAR FOCUS, our guest this week is the co-founder of an organization that’s on a mission to increase queer creativity, representation, and share a voice within the advertising industry. Graham Nolan is a PR and communications consultant with over two decades of experience advancing meaningful brand conversations. He’s worked at Grey, Momentum Worldwide, and Starcom MediaVest Group. Graham’s many talents include writing, storytelling, and stand up comedy. He’s spoken on LGBTQIA+ culture and media behaviors at events including South by Southwest and New York Comic-Con. Graham is joining us again today from his home office in Austin, Texas. Graham, welcome back to IN CLEAR FOCUS!

Graham Nolan: Thank you for having me. It’s very nice to be back.

Adrian Tennant: Graham, you are the co-founder and co-chair of an organization called Do The WeRQ. For folks who didn’t hear our interview last year, could you explain Do The WeRQ’s mission?

Graham Nolan: Yeah, absolutely. So, Do The WeRQ is an LGBTQ+ advertising and marketing community. We’re a grassroots organization and platform for change geared towards this, very specific community, with a mission to increase queer creativity, representation, and share a voice in the business. So we bring people together from across the industry to build connections and experiences and to collaborate on cultural transformations that we hope will support the community, both in front of and behind the scenes of the work that we’re doing throughout the year. That’s one of the biggest parts of this: our consistent voice in this discussion, because as we know, it’s Pride month currently as we record. And, the conversation tends to disappear in July. I’m having a lot of conversations about the organization this month and just like state-of-the-uniony like, how do I see the nature of the organization? And I truly see it as living proof that inclusion is innovation. So we designed this very simple and relevant mission that endured through the turbulent times that we lived in during our launch period. And we know that we want to elevate queer creativity and share a voice in the business. And that mission enabled us to be found and for us to find people and for other people to make the mission their own. So we’re still a relatively young organization, but the fact is if you don’t really know yourself, it would’ve been easy. I think to just like spin out, like some people are coming to us and they’re just sort of like, “Should you be mentoring?” “Should you be a podcast?” “Should you be this?” All those things are fantastic. All those things are essential and necessary, but if we don’t know who we are, then we don’t know how to respond to those and how to team with people on those. So, you know, what we’ve had is, every new volunteer is unlocking a new possibility in support of that mission. Whether that’s a tool they want to create, a discussion, expertise, a network, a data set. But we meet people. We include their perspective. We celebrate their ideas, which is a nice position to be in. We elevate their work and that’s what advances the mission. Currently, our work includes public programming and discussion forums and we’re developing data resources that will make the case for equity, a monthly newsletter for intel sharing and talent recognition. We’re doing bespoke partner consultation and program development, and we’re also still working on the whole in-person live experience aspect of this, because it’s so core to our community. We’ve also been a responsive resource to anyone who just raises their hand to ask a question. There’s no one who asks a question about Do The WeRQ that I don’t have a conversation with. So, it’s cool to see that every new conversation opens a door. If you get people in the room and you know, if you give them your resources and you elevate them, then great things will happen. And it’s like, the nature of us is you want to be friends with us, cool. What do you want to do? Our network is behind you on it. And then we’re, you know, empowering people to create the things they want to create.

Adrian Tennant: Do The WeRQ launched right at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and all of the events you originally planned to be in person had to go virtual. What’s the programming looking like now, and for the remainder of 2022?

Graham Nolan: Okay. So I’m going to be that guy who like cites research, but then doesn’t know where it came from. It was funny, I specifically remember, it’s a very crystallized memory for me. I’m in my very small studio apartment, as we are two months into lockdown. I picked a very small apartment because I thought I would always be going out and now I’m trapped in a room and we’re like having this conversation all of a sudden about what are we doing? Because we know our mission and we’d wanted to start with the conference. That was the first thing that we wanted to do. And we had decided that we didn’t want to come out with a proclamation necessarily, and that a conference would be more about a listening forum. So that was going to be really important. And then someone brings up some sort of comprehensive study about the way that LGBTQ community is built on in-person spaces. That they are so endemic to the nature of our community. Which is so funny, because I’m 43. Around the time that I was considering coming out, it was such a digital experience. I couldn’t have imagined going to a parade, but chat rooms seemed like a safe place to start having some of these discussions. And so it was. We are in bars, we are in parades, we are at rallies. That’s the nature of us. But we needed our brave spaces to be safe spaces first. So experiences are still on the way and we’re going to innovate what those can be – those are definitely going to be an aspect of us where I think it feels less like an advertising organization and more like a movement. The way that we have adjusted is Kate Wolff, co-chair, and co-founder who is just one of my favorite people on this planet. She has really taken the reins with Arya Davachi who’s our head of programming and made sure that we can pivot and have like really cool conversations we are doing on Fishbowl. If anyone wants to subscribe to that app and listen to the shows that we’re doing there, we’re having a lot of conversations about the nature of LGBTQ workplace inclusion. Arya is the host of those and he is – chef’s kiss – fantastic! We’re also having periodic Town Halls where we are getting really in the weeds on advertising topics as well. So there’s a lot of programming that’s online. We’re making sure that it’s all going to be queued up for digital listening. You know, it’s really funny. When we talked to Tiffany R. Warren, the founder of ADCOLOR about the fact that we were going to do this at all, she was just like, “You have to be consistent. You have to be a presence. This can’t just, this has to be like a really steady thing.” And that’s why we really push towards the launch of our newsletter as a consistent cadence for spotlighting talent and getting things out there. And that actually links to a bunch of our digital programming as well. And we’re just doing general community-building and allowing organizations and individuals to support and lead programs that connect with our mission. So basically, we’ve got some partners who are like, “We want to have a session about this” and we may build that topic into programming that we have externally. We also have some people who are just like, “Look, we want to do this in-house first. We’re a large company. Not everything we do in DEI has to be for public relations.” That’s right. So we’re doing a lot of programming that’s internal for partners as well. In terms of other stuff that we’ve got brewing for the rest of the year, we’re still very big into looking into the data, to show where we stand and to determine where we can go. We always talk about how the 3 Percent Movement wears their metric on their sleeve. They knew that at the time of their founding, 3 percent of creative leadership in this industry was women. And so they knew what needle they had to move. And we still don’t know what needle we have to move, precisely. And we’re operating on instinct as best we can for right now, but that’s the lesson we’re all learning as marketers, right? It’s when you have the data though, that you’re either like really confident in your decisions or you find out that you were wrong the whole time. I think that for us, it’s going to be a discovery of what problems are most intense for us. We have so many problems. It’s like which ones to choose from. So we’re trying to inform ourselves that way so that all the programming that we do speaks to the most urgent issues among the community, you know, we’re still building digital platforms for doing that. We will do in-person events for that, as I mentioned, And I think that one of the interesting things is this has continually, a strategy thing, a listening thing that we’re still not anywhere near our proclamation. And maybe we’ll never get to that point. Some organizations come out of the gate with “This is the change that needs to happen.” And we’re very content to be in a place where for right now, we are still just listening to people, gathering their stories. Between the L and the G and the B and the T and the Q, there’s so many different perspectives. And we want to make sure that we’re building them into our organization in the right way.

Adrian Tennant: Adweek recently published its third annual Pride Stars issue. An accompanying article celebrates 22 LGBTQ+ change-makers, creating more inclusive spaces. Article contributors Colin Daniels and Chloe Harper-Gold describe the honoraries as quote, “Multifaceted people who remind us all that we don’t have to limit ourselves to one label or identity, and that we’re more than just a Stripe on a rainbow flag,” end quote. Graham, what’s your take on these kinds of annual Pride-related articles and the representation of LGBTQIA+ people in ad industry publications more generally?

Graham Nolan: I’m in a good mood today, I just had a lovely breakfast and talked about all things creativity with a friend of mine. I gotta say that the more these articles come out, the more the nature of them seems to be very celebratory. There’s the occasional marketer who got it wrong. And then everyone just does their think pieces about this. I’m seeing a lot of forgiveness to those discussions as well, though, Where it’s just let’s see where if they went wrong, like where did they go wrong? But this month, right now, so, you know, you’re seeing the coverage of the big idea and the celebrity aspect of all these campaigns. And then you’re immediately seeing the thing where it’s like, “And by the way we asked, and they are making a contribution of like $10,000, $500,000 to these organizations that matter.” So currently with the – and look, I am a realist about this stuff. My day job is public relations and I’m as critical of the media as I need to be for that work – but what I’m seeing is like a lot of a reason to be optimistic in terms of the coverage. I feel like there’s a great volume of it this year. We’re not relying on one or two marketers. We’re seeing it from like large scale companies and small scale companies in terms of you know, who’s stepping up to the community. The large companies are sort of like turning large ships in order to make sure they could be valuable. The nimble companies are the ones that are just if they were founded in the last couple of years, maybe sometimes their model was built to be this kind of company. So you get to see them live up to their purpose and grow upon the scale of impact that they can make. 

Adrian Tennant: Graham, you are a regular contributor to ad industry publications yourself. Reflecting on Pride month, you recently wrote for Adweek quote, “There are social problems in plain sight that changing your logo for a month doesn’t solve. To provide the most value to LGBTQ+ communities, brands must delve into the most uncomfortable parts of our lives and address our most ignored problems – and do it early,” end quote. Graham, can you unpack this for us? What are some of the most pressing challenges where brands could make an immediate impact?

Graham Nolan: This is where I want to introduce what sounds like a meandering idea, but I swear it’s connected, because I’ve been obsessing over it and we found a fun little phrasing for it amongst ourselves. I was talking a lot to Arielle Egozi who is a genius human being who is on our leadership team. We did a South by Southwest session. We were just having long conversations over dinner. And we were talking about the rainbow washing thing in the context of dating – that’s always like a good allegory for how we go all about this stuff. And it’s what is the nature of rainbow washing as an allegory to marketing? It’s that we’re on a dating site. We see your pictures. I get to see your opening quote. I get to see the song that represents you the most. It’s all words and pictures and words and pictures. And most of them are very romantic and you know, they’re all very lofty and so we can find that Mr. Right, we can be together. And then you get into the actual relationship and a lot of the time what goes wrong. And I swear, I will not confuse this in my therapy session! A lot of the time what goes wrong is that you go, “Oh wow, this is crazy. I fell in love with someone who probably wouldn’t even be my friend.” And in fact, when you break up, I think that a lot of people think that you should stay friends with your exes. I am from a different school on that, but I will say that I think that there’s this discovery for some people where they’re just like, “Oh wow like we were never even friends,” right? And so it’s funny. I lean on what we jokingly call the Michael Bolton principle of marketing. Do you know what song I’m referring to, of Mr. Bolton’s? The song is How Can We Be Lovers If We Can’t Be Friends? That is how I’ve started to see this whole process. I think of someone that I dated in the past, who got invited by friends to parties. And it was this specific day, he got invited to a party and his car needed to be jumped and his friends are asking him to come to this party and he’s like, well, I need my truck jumped. And he texts three or four different people that would be able to help him. And they’re just like, well, I’m already at the party, but hope you can make it. And I think that I was like, oh my God, that’s what’s happening with marketing, right? Like where it’s just like, you know, we’re going to have this ad and we’re going to have celebrities and we’re going to show you a party. And we’re going to show you this idealized world. And it’s but I can’t get to the party. I don’t have a ride. I don’t have, and that’s the nature of this stuff. It’s like, “Oh my God, thank you so much for showing us a campaign with an LGBTQ celebrity represented. And so I can see a bit of myself at a party that I can’t make it to because I can’t pay my rent. I have healthcare issues that are specific to my community.” So it’s just I’m obsessing over the idea that, brands, I want to love you. I know that there’s so many conversations like in the industry on the creative level about brands and whether they can be loved and whether brand love is something that can be given, You know,but we never talk about friendship, right? So we’re asking brands to stop funding politicians wielding policies that endangers trans youth, and then showing us ads with celebrities. If you don’t stop the funding, don’t make the ads. Like don’t romance me when you won’t support me. And that’s what the piece spoke to, right? And the funny thing is one of my biggest pet peeves in this industry is pain points. I have friends that do it. I’m not trying to shame those friends. I’m saying that you know what marketers really need are problems. They need problems to solve like we need problems to solve. The volume of anti LGBTQ bills boomed from 41 in 2018 to 238 in March 2022. We’ve got all these legal battles. 40% of transgender adults have attempted suicide in their lifetime compared to less than 5% of the general US population. So the piece asked the question, what are the most obvious currently ignored LGBTQ challenges where brands can make the most immediate impact. And we spelled out that health is a huge area. Parenthood is a huge area. Bi- and pan- representation in the media is such a huge area that gets so overlooked. for the purposes of the piece I had to go, what if X kind of brand could do Y thing? And actually most of my anecdotal sort of feedback I got from people was about those things. I’m saying dive into some of our real problems that are more pervasive across the community that are more inclusive of all the letters within our community. It’s the problems that are a creative wellspring. Like all problems are.

Adrian Tennant: Let’s take a short break. We’ll be right back after these messages.

Adrian Tennant: Each month, in partnership with our friends at Kogan Page, The Bigeye Book Club features interviews with authors who are experts in specific areas of marketing and consumer research. Our featured book for June is The Direct To Consumer Playbook: The Stories and Strategies of the Brands that Wrote the DTC Rules, by Mike Stevens. IN CLEAR FOCUS listeners can save 20 percent on a print or electronic version of the book with exclusive promo code BIGEYE20. This code is valid for all products and pre-orders and applies to Kogan Page’s free e-book offer. To order your copy of The Direct To Consumer Playbook, go to KoganPage.com – that’s K O G A N P A G E dot com.

Dana Cassell: I’m Dana Cassell, Bigeye’s Senior Strategist. Every week, IN CLEAR FOCUS addresses topics that impact our work as marketing professionals, often inspired by data points reported in consumer research studies. At Bigeye, we put audiences first. For every engagement, through our own research, we develop a deep understanding of our client’s prospects and customers – analyzing their attitudes, behaviors, and motivations. We distill this data into actionable insights to inspire creative brand-building and persuasive activation campaigns – with strategic, cost-efficient media placements. If you’d like to know more about how to put Bigeye’s audience-focused insights to work for your brand, please contact us. Email info@bigeyeagency.com.

Adrian Tennant: Welcome back. I’m talking with Graham Nolan, a PR and communications consultant, and the co-chair of Do The WeRQ, an organization that’s on a mission to increase queer creativity, representation, and share of voice within the advertising industry. Data from Pen America published earlier this month shows that Southern states have been exercising increasing control over book censorship. Graham, you are in Texas, the state which has the dubious honor of having the largest number of books banned, currently 713, from public schools and libraries. Now I’m in Florida, which has banned 204 books. Pen America has highlighted the disproportionate targeting of books by or about people whose identities and stories have traditionally been underrepresented in children’s and young adult literature, such as people of color, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. So this year’s pride celebrations are taking place against a backdrop, not only of censorship in schools and libraries but also initiatives such as Florida’s own Parental Rights in Education bill now better known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. We’ve discussed Lush Cosmetics’ response to this in a previous podcast. So Graham, do you have the sense that pride is more reflective of its roots this year in calling out systemic harassment and prejudice, which is what sparked the Stonewall riots originally over half a century ago?

Graham Nolan: I’ve had so many conversations lately about pride and why we need it and whether we need it. And I think that we do need it. I think that what it comes down to is if we lived somewhere in the multiverse where pride didn’t exist, that we would create it now. Right. So I think that flat out answers the question of what it is. And what we would create. Lots of people would have different opinions on that, right? And that plays into how we create it every year. It’s a cultural moment. There’s consistency to it, but we have to decide what pride still is. It’s a moment, we need a moment. So like, you know, to examine where we stand, it’s a space, we need spaces. That’s great. But then after that, you know, the most consistent thing is that it’s what any one person needs it to be. Pride is looked at through the eyes of everyone in the community and some people have never felt safe with it or never felt welcome in it and are making their own spaces, their own versions of it. And by the way, it’s really interesting to live in Texas where August is our pride here. So there’s nationwide celebrations in June and we’re down for those. And I think a lot of people in Austin here are saying like happy Pride Month, but also, in the meantime, there’s the resurgence of this party here called Queer Bomb here in Austin. It was just like, you know, uh, Pride got pretty gay focused on one letter. And, for those who don’t know queer is theoretically the label under which everything that is just not heteronormative falls. And bear in mind, just over two years ago, and I’m starting this conversation, people are just like, ” Can we, can we say that? Is that good? Have we taken that word back? Is it okay to say queer?” When it’s actually supposed to be like the most inclusive word? Right. All of this stuff has personal perspective to it. So we all have to decide what we want pride to be. and it’s, this is an interesting town to watch that unfold. Where I’m going to mention Nick Allen who’s one of our creative directors is her fascinating perspective on the ways in which Pride is becoming fractured, and fragmented, and the ways in which that is not inherently a good or a bad thing. It’s really interesting. And she could speak to this far more eloquently, but like, you know, basically the way she breaks it down, like activist Pride and corporate Pride. And activist Pride, I think is inherently the 365 one. So when we say, “Speak to us for the rest of the year”, that’s the one. That’s where we keep pushing for change. We continually have problems which beg creative solutions throughout the year. The fundamental problem with brands playing in that one is they don’t always know what to do in scenarios where they can’t be the main character. And LGBTQ people are the main character in the story of activist Pride. Right. So then you’ve got corporate Pride, June only, allows for stories where brands can, for that moment, be a prominent character. And as I mentioned, honestly, I think that they can make mistakes in doing so. I think that we’re being a little bit more forgiving. I see a place for cancel culture, but I’m not seeing a lot of brands that are being canceled anymore because of the way that they’re doing things in June. Right. I think of it as what is it? Is Brigadoon that musical? Brigadoon is the musical – the Scottish one. I forgot the actual name of it. I know Schmigadoon I know, Brigadoon – it’s a magical town that pops up every couple of years. You can cross this bridge and come in. And I’m like, Pride is that, right? It’s just like, every once in a while, there’s the bridge where it’s like, you can come in, check out our town, we’ll check you out. You don’t necessarily like fit into this magical world, but sometimes you do. And sometimes you’re in addition. And so I of think of it like that, where it’s like, you know, that’s where we have some room for some honest mistakes and things like that. But we do need – and we love guest stars – but we need more than guest stars. We need corporate pride because we have a stake in what these businesses do, right? It’s just as important that we have that bridge that we’re able to sort of like, “Okay, you’re going to come into our town and we’re also going to venture out into your world because you make money off of us. So we need to have an opinion on things as well.” So I think it’s really, I see corporate Pride as a nice opportunity for us both to do some sharing, and then to, tell them to essentially be our friends. And that, that sort of integrates into what they do on the daily.

Adrian Tennant: Since we spoke last year, there’s been a lot of industry interest in the metaverse with a number of high-profile brands, taking their first steps into these virtual spaces. For example, Glossy reported that as part of its Pride activations throughout June, the cosmetics brand NYX Professional Makeup is selling a series of NFT avatars at auction, which can be used on The Sandbox metaverse platform. The collection offers 36 skin shades, a nod to the wide variety of foundations it offers and avatars are available now. All proceeds from the NFT auction will go to the Los Angeles LGBT Center. And The Sandbox will also collaborate with the newly launched People of Crypto Lab or POC on The Valley of Belonging, which claims to be the first diversity, equity, and inclusivity hub in the metaverse. The new hub launched on the 24th of this month and will, quote: “Celebrate our differences, boldly affirming the importance of an equitable web3” end quote. So Graham, what’s your view of these Pride activations in the metaverse?

Graham Nolan: My gut reaction is that if we’re, if we’re not active as, if we as an LGBTQ community are not active in creating them, then we already have a serious problem. So we talked a little bit about that dynamic and that problem. And over the course of the week, I was talking to another friend about what’s happening in the metaverse and she brought some data to my attention. So I think it is Morning Consult data that showed that men are more interested in the metaverse than women at 46% and 28% interest respectively. So that’s a pretty significant gap. Then the same friend shows me these stats that say, it’s by share of internet users in the United States who have heard about the metaverse as of March 2022 by gender again. And then you’ve got these stats that show that in terms of who’s heard nothing at all about the metaverse 50% of women have heard nothing at all about the metaverse I guess. And 28% of men have heard nothing at all. In terms of, who’s heard a lot about the metaverse 17% of men have heard a lot about the metaverse and 5% of women have heard a lot about the metaverse. Those are some huge disparities. that points to just, you know, we just need visibility to even know that this is an opportunity for us. How much are we being invited to this? We’re 7.1% of the population, according to national numbers right now, knowing we are eventually probably going to be who knows the number keeps going up. We might be 10% of tomorrow’s society and tomorrow could be next week, or it could be in three years, or it could be in 10 years. But If this is a future space, if this is about like, you know, the future of tomorrow and knowing that maybe LGBTQ populations will get to 10% of the nation, are we 10% of the people building the metaverse right? I can’t speak to the specifics of metaverse activations. I haven’t played in it. I’m going to, I’m going to be real. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve spent a bunch of time in there. I’m very selective about the communities where I feel safe and where I want to play, but I’m keeping my eye on it from the outside perspective on it. I know it’s relevant. I know it’s a relevant part of the future, but I can tell you this. We as an LGBTQ community need a reason to be there because we have options about where we can spend our time. We have new experiences being created for and owned by queer people. And they’re addressing our needs effectively because they understand us. So ultimately the metaverse has growing competition for our attention and our involvement because there are other platforms out there that do cater to us. You should build with us. Because we are proven as a creative community and that we lead culture. So if you want this to be the space of tomorrow, you have to do this with the people who have very frequently created the culture of tomorrow.

Adrian Tennant: Graham, reflecting on this current Pride month, which brands do you think have done a really good job of engaging with LGBTQIA+ consumers authentically?

Graham Nolan: I’ve had a lot of conversations with Kate Wolff, co-chair of Do The WeRQ. She continually brings a lot of great work to my attention. Kate wrote a really good piece for Ad Age this month that was basically looking at some of the work that makes a difference and has the most meaningful impact. and a lot of it just speaks to commitment, whether it’s the longevity of commitment, whether it is just a very obvious truth of impact made on the community. And, I think around that time, we were talking about this campaign for CAN, which is a cannabis-based beverage. So basically there is this music video that CAN produced with a lot of celebrity cameos and a lot of LGBTQ talent from across the spectrum of LGBTQ celebrity. It’s really well done. The commitment here is understanding, they didn’t do the thing where they’re just like, “Oh, we want to represent L G and B and T and Q, but sorry, we only had room for three celebrities in this.” Like they made room for so many people. There’s so many messages there’s so much coded, like wink, this is our thing and I don’t get all of them. And I’m like, “Great!” Because they’re not all for me. But I also know that this is a party where I’m invited in terms of this video. I do know that for me, the moment where I was invited for was Sara Michelle Geller at the top of this thing, screaming gay rights. That was for me personally. But the whole thing is a reflection of so many different perspectives. And I think it’s a great connection to the brand. So I thought that came across as very authentic to me. We’ve outlived the phrase, “alternative lifestyle”. But the idea that like, we’re celebrating differences, great. And it’s a different kind of brand and there’s wonderfulness in difference is very authentic. 

Adrian Tennant: Graham, if IN CLEAR FOCUS listeners would like to learn more about you, your work, and Do The WeRQ, where can they find you?

Graham Nolan: I want to stress, there is no one who reaches out about Do The WeRQ that I do not get in touch with. I’ve structured my life in such a way that I can do my PR work, and leave plenty of time to schedule meetings with people who just want to do something and build something. And specifically, we’ve had more conversations with people who are just like, “Hey, you did this programming. I liked it. And I appreciated it, but this voice was missing.” And we have said, “let’s make your voice, that voice, if you are open to that. Right.” So message me on LinkedIn – it’s G R A H A M   N O L A N. You’re actually able to see it in the podcast link. So that may have been redundant! And then also, Graham Nolan at Gmail, you can email me, I’m happy to talk to people about what we can do here. Our website is under construction currently, but the one form that you could fill out there is at D O  T H E W E R Q .com sign up for our newsletter, which has a bunch of other connection opportunities and @DoTheWeRQ on Instagram and also Twitter, and also Facebook. Those are places you can connect with various members of our team to make your dreams for the community hopefully come true.

Adrian Tennant: Graham, thank you very much for being our guest again on IN CLEAR FOCUS!

Graham Nolan: Thank you for having me. I want to be like, you know, Paul Rudd shows up on Conan, and every time he does, he plays that weird clip from Mac and Me. Like, I just want to be … oh, you haven’t. Oh, it’s glorious. Search for that, everyone. But glad to be your recurring guest.

Adrian Tennant: Thanks to my guest this week, Graham Nolan, co-chair of Do The WeRQ. You’ll find a transcript with links to the resources we discussed today on the IN CLEAR FOCUS page at Bigeyeagency.com – just select “Podcast” from the menu. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider following us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, produced by Bigeye. I’ve been your host, Adrian Tennant. Until next week, goodbye.