Very few people trying to move up in the business world can avoid it: networking. Whether employee or employer, the ability to network is an essential skill to have. For African American women looking to break through the glass ceiling in public relations, the essential task of networking is a little easier with help from ColorComm.
“The goal is to bring like-minded individuals together with a real chance to get to know each other,” said Lauren Wesley Wilson, who founded ColorComm last year. “It’s about finding and being exposed to other things beyond your horizon.”
The 26-year-old first had the idea for the company after noticing that networking events were not only often awkward, but few and far between for African-American women. After attending one too many uneventful networking events, Wilson partnered with friend and communications specialist Amanda Miller Littlejohn to form a more natural networking experience.
Wilson now works on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. as a full-time communications director and runs ColorComm on the side.
The networking sessions that Wilson and Miller offer are invitation only, and the $50 fee for attending has only helped single out ladies who are more serious about the opportunity.
Attendance has grown to nearly 50 women, one reason being that the exclusive 90-minute networking sessions are always held at top restaurants in the Washington D.C. area. Slots for the forums fill up quickly as influential speakers are invited to address the audience on how to forge ahead in the communications field as well as appreciate and take care of the mind, spirit, and body.
“What I love about it is that everyone comes to the table and brings their experiences. The senior folks can learn from the more junior folks, and the junior folks can learn from the more senior. Everyone makes themselves accessible,” said Tara Jones, Vice-President of Communications at BET.
Jones was speaker for the inaugural ColorComm event, which took place in May of last year. “There’s a lack of women in the public relations industry,” said Jones. It’s an industry where we’re under-represented. Events like ColorComm help create opportunities for women…and a network of women to help support them in what they’re doing.” Women like Traci Blunt, also a past speaker, have continued to come back again and again not only to teach, but to learn as well.
”I find that on the corporate side it’s hard for women of color- and people of color in general, to break into public relations,” said Blunt, Senior Vice President at RLJ Companies. “ColorComm brings together the women of color from various sectors that are involved in communications, marketing and small business. It’s a little different because you bring all these different sectors together and people have an opportunity to exchange.”
The next ColorComm networking session for April 19 is sold out, but a later forum date of July 19 has been confirmed.
Women interested in attending a ColorComm networking session should e-mail ColorCommgroup@gmail.com.
