March 26, 2021 • 36 mins
Adlandia, we continue to highlight independent agencies and founders. In this episode you’ll meet Rakia Reynolds, Executive Officer & Founder of multimedia strategic communications agency. Skai Blue Media focuses on supporting people, product, and places and is working with some of the biggest brands and talent in the industry.
Rakia shares her thoughts on moving from the Year of Words to the Year(s) of the Works and what intentionality with language looks and sounds like. She gives us perspective on the role of talent, communities, and why marketers should consider the impact of nano influencers and meeting them at the kitchen table. Rakia also shares additional projects she's working on to drive the industry forward - including building an AI communications platform and a community to support women in the industry.
Plus, Alexa and Laura talk about the intersection of content, channel and commerce in the form of everything from creators to shareholders to open-source briefs.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
What's up. I'm Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome
back to ed Landia. Got a great show. Rakia Reynolds,
executive officer and founder of sky Blue Media's here before
we get to Rakia, Laura and I, as you guys know,
talk all the time about random threads and philosophies. So
(00:28):
this morning you sent me the IKEA catalog. Ikea did
an audio catalog, all the whole catalog, like four hours,
four hours, a marathon of audio. The point to me,
and the thing that we were talking about is that
now commerce is kind of unbound. It should have no
boundaries at this point, and that's really where we're getting to.
(00:50):
And it's interesting, like if you think about commerce not
having any boundaries of format, the fact that you could
buy anything anywhere and that you should have the ability
to do that as a as a consumer, it's really exciting.
And then what conversely does that do to advertising? Is
it a podcast? Is it an audio instruction manual? It's
(01:12):
like an audio catalog from the standpoint of it's trying
to story tell and help you visualize rooms in the catalog,
like what they would actually be showing in the catalog.
But I think the big point is this idea that
you should be able to buy from audio content. Content
should be commerce period, full stop well and also new
(01:35):
and interesting ways to literate or build on and keep
a consumer engaged. Right, what's really exciting is creation. Commerce,
an asset, right, or artifact or thing that's created are
coming together in a way that I don't think we've
ever experienced, not something that's been accessible like this. What
(01:58):
does the world look like where campaigns become open sourced.
Let's just say I Ka puts that for our catalog down,
and you and I have the ability to come in
and say, actually we should drop a meditation here, and
then you can submit that back to a brand, not
in the form of social media feedback, truly having the
(02:20):
opportunity and open source campaign to be able as a fan, consumer, etcetera,
to contribute, influence, contribute. I don't want to just be
a fan of your company or your brand or your product.
I want to own a part of it. In a
different way. I want to own part of that. I
p that fiduciary relationship means we have a completely entirely
(02:42):
different relationship that we haven't even been able to imagine
with our consumer that we trust them enough if they
are fans to represent that brand, shareholders in the business, yes,
and create on it. But at the end of the day,
that all comes back to community. You're talking about trust
in the consumer. Yes, how well do you know your community? Yes?
(03:03):
And the thing Laura, totally and the thing that has
been on my mind. A lot of brand owners, a
lot of brand stewards not even gonna call them marketers
because it's beyond the marketing organization or the marketing role,
talk about having community, that they've built a community or
that they're part of a community. And that may be true,
but more often than not, brands and people at brands
(03:28):
are talking about their community as buyers, as buyers transaction
transaction I have, we have we have people that like us,
we have people that buy us, they like this product.
We have this community of buyers and that they're like
community of buyers. That's a sales force breadsheet. We're going
to talk to for Kia about this, but I think
(03:50):
that it behooves us to start to really unpack, like
what makes up a community. I think that right now
is a really good time for marketers to be thoughtful
about some of the new structure and new kind of
points of power, as I would say, that are coming
to life in the world. There's an army of natural
(04:12):
born marketers who are rising, and they know how to
sell and probably in some cases are better product marketers
and brand marketers then marketers. You've got a major institutionalized companies,
you know, big corporates, and so if you think about that,
(04:35):
it starts to become depending on where you stand, is
either really exciting or maybe a little bit scary. We'll
be right back and we are back on the mic
with Rikiya Reynolds, founder and executive officer of sky Blue Media.
(05:00):
Sky Blue is a multimedia strategic communications firm focus on people,
products and places. Rikia, we have waited so long to
say this. Welcome to Atlantia. Welcome Rikia. Oh my gosh,
thank you so much, y'all. This is such a long
time coming, Like for real, I'm excited to be here.
You're just celebrating your tenure anniversary, recently named to Forbes
(05:23):
one thousand like last week. Congratulationslations to you, thank you,
thank you. Working with some of the biggest talent and
brands in the industry. Tell us about the origin story
of how sky Blue came to be. Oh, I love
you know, I love a good origin story. I like
to call it the story behind the glory. Um. I
(05:45):
recently actually on Instagram recently recap the last decade because
we're in our celebratory tenth year at sky Blue Media.
So I broke it down into sort of business growth
stages or the stages of business, so like zero to
three and then four to six and what did that
look like? Um, So, I will say the story behind
(06:07):
this glory is that I started sky Blue Media. I
was a former TV producer. I worked in magazines. I
had a five year stint in working in higher education
for a large university, working on I was actually pursuing
my degree in counseling psychology, working with students who were
suffering from you know, going to college and what it meant.
(06:30):
So I was advising a lot of students as as
a counselor. So I worked for five years in higher education,
then went onto TV, then went onto magazines. And working
in TV, y'all, it was more than an emotional roller
coaster because in the world of TV, you're on, you're off,
your you have a hiatus, you go dark and I
(06:50):
was like, I can't keep doing this. But one day
they called us into the office and I was like,
oh my gosh, this is so exciting. They were like, okay,
we're having a special meeting and they said special, but
I took it as like they're giving us like something exciting.
They brought us in they had envelopes for everyone, and
I was like, oh my gosh, bring getting a bonus
right when I needed this bonus. It was like super exciting.
(07:13):
And so we opened the bonus and it was like
an additional check and I was like, oh my gosh,
like we've done such a great job. I was working
on all of these shows and they were like, okay,
so this is the last check for everyone. We're laying
everybody off. And I was like, oh, I'm sorry, this
is not a work bonus that we're getting. So I
was I was pregnant with our second child, my husband
(07:35):
was just finishing greadful. I mean, when I tell you,
I was like trying to figure out like are we
gonna have old meal for dinner or tuna fish sandwiches
for dinner? Like it was it was that like my
friends are like we like to say, like a struggle sandwich.
It was like a struggle sandwich. And so at that
point I was like, I don't really have anything to lose.
I've always been a risk taker. Why don't I sort
(07:56):
of jump off this cliff of entrepreneurship, start my own company,
take all of the things that I've learned from, you know,
from TV and magazines and counseling, psychology and studying all
of these amazing people, and sort of disrupt the traditional
model of public relations. And then I started my own
agency taking all of the things that I had learned
(08:17):
in TV, you know, producing traditional pr psychology, and then
formed my own digital communications multimedia coms agency like you
just imagined it forward. And what I think is interesting
what you told us off Mike, and I want to
actually ask you about, is that you don't call yourself
a CEO. You can call yourself a chief, which is
(08:41):
probably aligned to your philosophy and your ethos and your values.
Tell us why you don't call yourself a CEO? Right, So,
I think we need to analyze words more. We need
to look at the etymology of words, We need to
look at the origin of words. And there are a
lot of culture vultures out there, people appropriating. There's so
(09:02):
much miseducation, and so when I get to the point
where I feel like I am educated completely, fully and
amazingly or acutely aware of my surroundings and the words
and why we use them, then I may incorporate them
back into my lexicon. But for now, with the foundation
that I have been taught, with the history that I
(09:23):
was taught as a child and then as a and
as an adolescent and as an adult, I don't think
that I was educated to the point where I should
be using any of the language that was delivered to me.
We're very intentional with what we say, Like we don't
say things like oh, that's tone deaf. Instead of saying
like that's tone deaf, we may say, well, it lacks
the nuance needed to inform the conversation, so we won't
(09:48):
say or it's a blind spot. Will say, hey, you
know what, let's make sure that we cover all parameters.
So for us, it's really about the intentionality of words.
I've actually had a client that is of the deaf
and heart of hearing community, So in terms of being
informed and sometimes for folks, there's I think that there
(10:09):
is like personal empathy and collective empathy, and once we
get to a space of collective empathy where we can
like put our thoughts aside and really be intentional. Um.
I noticed that on calls I will take a little
bit of time or process my thoughts, But with words,
I really tried to slow it down to say, why
(10:30):
are we using these words? What will it mean to
someone else, and how will it impact someone who may
hear this or experience this later on down the line.
So we typically will look at all of our words,
but no chief, no chief in this executive officer over here.
As you were introducing sky Blue at the top of
(10:51):
the conversation, you said you were going back through chapters
right where there are points along the way that shaped
or evolved the way you approached your work. Yeah. I
think there were two pivotal moments in my sort of
sky Blue media career or history. One was sort of midpoint,
(11:12):
maybe three or four years in. I was faced with
so many different challenges where I was not hiring people,
I wasn't hiring the right people, and so I had
the wrong people surrounding me. I had someone steal mail,
steal money, all of these things. It was like a
compounded stressor for me, and what I learned was how
(11:36):
to respond to things during a crisis because I was
in a constant crisis. Constant I mean with employees, with news,
with all of these things that were just happening to me.
It was a compounded stress moment. So for me, it
was a pivotal moment to learn how to maneuver through
chaos and crisis. And then I will say sort of
(11:59):
bad us forward when we really started at the beginning
of my career, people because I'm a black woman, would say,
we want you to work on all of our black marketing,
or we want you to work on this, or we
want you to work on that. And it became like
this multicultural marketing way of bringing us into companies like, oh,
you know, larger corporations would be like and I would say,
(12:21):
you don't just bring someone in because of the way
they look. It's their expertise. Let me build this a
little more. So it's not just you know, the black market,
but it's the indigenous cultures market. It is the Latin
X market, it is the l g B t q
i A market, it is the Asian American and Pacific
Islanders market. So I started doing a lot of research,
(12:43):
bringing in people that had their PhD in sociology, bringing
in people that were experts in their field to do
think tanks, workshops, professional development to inform our teams in
order to effectively communicate. And then we started bringing those
folks in as consultants to have brand extensions to our
work because I don't think that everyone out there should
(13:05):
be doing the work that they're doing because they're not
an expert in their field. Just because you did one
project or um, you have one case study, I don't
think that you should. You know, you can be doing
the work. I think when people become seasoned in their fields,
that's when you can put it on your website. That's
when you should say this is you know what we do.
(13:25):
So I think for me getting into the space of
like research and expertise and really sort of refining what
are offerings are and were we were able to go
beyond the lens of marketing, public relations, social media, and
digital media. I think there have been all of these
pivotal learning moments in my career. UM and then the
(13:49):
work that we get to do, and then the people
that I've sort of surrounded myself with and the folks
that are running the company in a way that I
never thought would run. You talk about and Laura's told
me about this, but I want to get into it more. People, products, places.
That's what you do well, and that's how you think
(14:09):
about your business. Can you explain that a bit more? Yeah,
I love you know, like alliteration, and and I have
to when I'm remembering things. But on the people's side, um,
I think really early on and Laura knows this, really
early on, we were able to work with Ashley Graham
for the first five years of her business and build
her brand and you know, work with her on what
(14:32):
she or her presence in how she was entering the world.
So from a people's standpoint, we worked with Serena Williams
on her apparel brand for HSN and then when she
went independently, we still, you know, we still have the
honor to work with people such as you know, icons
like Serena Williams. We work with people such as m
(14:52):
Night Shamalan, and people such as Marley Dais who started
hashtag one thousand black girl books, social activists like Alicia Garza,
authors like Glenn and Doyle and love You a gi Ye.
So like, you know, we look from a people standpoint,
We've got some amazing people that we get to work
with on and I'm honored and privileged that we get
(15:13):
to learn from them and work with them. On the
product side. That p is getting to work with larger
tech companies like Dell. UM we work with soft Bank,
we work with Airbnb, UM, and I'm like forgetting a
couple of folks, but I'll just leave it at that.
And then on the place space, I think you leave
it like soft Bank Airbnb, you pretty much got it
(15:34):
locked up. You're good. And let me be specific, the
soft Bank SB Opportunity Fund, that's what we work on UM.
And then yeah, on the places space. So just I
worked with cities like Memphis and their storytelling. Cities like
Philadelphia hired us, you know years ago on o hey,
we have all of this research, how do we distill
(15:55):
this and make it into a great story. So cities
from a place ending standpoint have hired us on storytelling
for them. What are the signments, projects, opportunities, challenges people
are calling with right now? And then what you project
over the next you know, twelve to eighteen months. What
are the areas within comms um that we really need
(16:18):
to be thinking about as an industry and just sort
of trends and signals you're picking up based on your conversations. Yeah,
I think I would say a lot of people call
on us now, and I want to be clear, all
of our clients have been with us for years. We
we don't typically take on projects, and I always tell folks,
you know, we're in it for the long term, in
the long run. You know, some of our clients have
(16:40):
been on our board for five years because we don't
believe in you know, coming in for a sixty day
project or a six month project. I think right now
we've actually had to say no to a lot of
companies because they are calling us. They see our clients
perfectly position in the marketplace on what to say and
(17:01):
how to say it. So it's one of the things
that it pains me sometimes because I'm like, if we had,
you know, a larger team, or if I wanted to
take on more clients, that would help said corporation or
help dead person. But we've closed the door, you know,
sadly enough to to a lot of folks just saying hey,
(17:22):
we are we're not taking on any more clients. And
so what we did start to do was we created
this monthly tool kit on effective communications. So every month
we put out this tool kid, like, here's what you
should be saying, here's how you should say it. Here
the words that you should refrain from. And we we
give it to companies that were unable to work with
(17:43):
right now due to our capacity um so that they
can use it as an internal learning tool with their
comms and marketing teams. What's been the reaction to them
and are there things that you know, you're you're seeing
clients maybe not be aware of and saying like, this
is something I'm to be implementing as a result. Oh goodness,
I mean so many you know, they're you know, large
(18:05):
corporations that have come to us and said, hey, we
didn't know that we should be you know, considering or
looking at Indigenous People's Day instead of Thanksgiving, or you know,
not being super overt with our messages around July fourth
because not all black people were free and you know,
this is how we are looking at Juneteenth, or this
(18:28):
is how we're looking at the word feminist, because typically
the word feminist is assist, gendered, white woman and not
inclusive of all communities, or this is how we're thinking
of the world. I mean, there's there's so many. So
we put one out for Women's History Month and said,
this is how people are going to be acknowledging it.
Make sure you are careful around this language. Not every
(18:51):
woman looks at, you know, sort of Women's Month in
this way because not all folks were included. So when
you look from a lens of historical irrelevance going back,
you have to really really go back and say where
did it start? What is the origin? Right we talked
about origin, what is the origin story? And how did
this come about? And did it include all people? And
(19:13):
if it didn't include all people, let's sort of remix
the vocabulary a little bit and say this is how
we're going to be approaching it now. Not all companies
have to do that. I mean not all companies serve
all communities. I mean, I can't speak for everyone, but
I would think that where we are in one, you know,
we should be more on the gender list side because
(19:35):
of the way that you know, folks identify. We should
be thinking about every single word that we're putting on
an email because you don't know how it will impact
someone I think we're beyond diversity and inclusion and we're
at the space of belonging and mattering. Do people feel
like they belong in your space? Like, do they feel
(19:56):
like they should be there? I think I read a
great research a poor a while ago and it said
that not belonging, not feeling like you belong inside of
a company or space is akin to physical pain. So
pay attention to the people that call out of work.
It's not and it is akin to physical pain. So
(20:17):
I think we just have to be It just goes
back to that intentionality. I have a question, Rikia, like
we're in this time where we're in massive social upheaval.
Still millions and millions of people just in this country
out of jobs, you know, health crisis like we've never
seen in the history of the world, in the history
of the world and the history of the I mean
(20:38):
think about right. My daughter by the way side now
asked me the other night, um what I did when
I was a little kid during the virus and I said, oh, honey,
we don't have the virus. And I had a moment
like I was like, WHOA. So I guess the question
to come back to is we're in unprecedented times like
everyone has said too much and instead of brands going
(21:02):
backwards in terms of kind of reverting into fear and
non communication, not talking about things, not addressing things, not
kind of driving their reputation forward and their perspective for it.
How do they imagine it forward like you did in
your own career. How do you both be bold and
(21:24):
empathetic at a time like this. I do think in
my field, in the world of communications, I think folks
need to pause and hit the breaks. Um they're people, are,
you know, scrambling and trying their best. I see it
and it's like, Wow, you'all are really trying. Let's get
(21:46):
the right people in and that's good. You know, was
the year of words and beyond should be the year
and years of the works? What is the work that
you're doing so you set all those things in T twenty,
What is the work that you're putting in, you know,
in one What does it look like? What councils have
(22:07):
you formed? What does it look like in terms of
your employee hiring, your employee resource groups, the comms people
that you've brought on, the marketing people. Who are the
people that really do have the seat at the table.
Who are the decision makers? Who is scanning your language?
Who is helping you to inform your decisions. If I'm
(22:28):
sitting here typing an email to you in Google automates
and finishes it, am I really going to be intentional?
Am I really gonna go and click more keys? Or
am I gonna scroll that little arrow over, finish the
sentence and put a period? Most of the time scroll
it over and put a period. Can you tell us
about some of the other projects, including the AI platform
(22:49):
that you're working on. And I'm actually building an ethical
intelligence platform as a product of all of the work
that we've done in the equity and communications space with
sky Blue Media UH to help marketers and communicators make
more informed decisions when they're writing and marketing. So that
will launch sometime later this year. Who are you building that?
(23:10):
So girl, listen, I'm actually building my advisory board now.
So are brought on two advisors who are advising me.
And I just secured my first angel investment, so I
know I'm not supposed to thank you, But he is
the vs knees okay, Like he's invested in a lot
of companies. When I pitched him over the phone without
(23:33):
a deck. He was like, Rakia, the world needs this.
I don't make investments like this. I've not done this
in three years, but this is what the world needs.
And then with a media company, a big media entity, um,
I am building a community of women who are not
quite forty yet but not they can't be on the
(23:54):
under thirty list. I noticed in the market space, we
have all of these like milestones lists right like it's
I'm on the under thirty lists, I'm on the over
fifty list, But what about the people that are right
in between, like I'm i might not be forty, I'm
thirty seven, I'm getting there, or I might be a
little over forty. And so I found that that there
(24:17):
was a good market space and place for people that
were in this forty issue. There they you know, they
figured it out. However, they still have questions. They still
need a community. There's someone's mentor, but they need a mentor.
They've sponsored people, they've done all the things, but they
still need someone to do all the things for them.
(24:38):
So I think in the world of micro communities and
the trend of micro communities, where it's the kitchen table
is where we need to be focusing. What do you
think the future of talent is when you start to
actually invest in micro communities. I think in terms of
talent as it relates to community, there are folks that
(24:59):
will crumble because they've not built the community before they
needed the community. And so people are scrambling now to
make sure that they've built some sort of community and
they built it when they needed the community. So build
communities before you need the community. Built community because you
want community, because you value community, because you want to
(25:19):
foster community. Don't build the community as you need it.
What would be your advice to just get started in
that capacity? So if there are creators listening or brands
who want to build community, how do you get started?
So I think there are a couple of ways to
answer that, but I would start with folks that are
in the nano influencer space. A SOS very early on
(25:42):
started working with nano influencers, and they were working with
like really nano influencers, folks that had like five hundred
and six hundred followers on Instagram. And they did that
because they saw the spike in the engagement, because their
communities really trusted them. So I tend to look at
folks is lower followings because I do know that it's
(26:02):
in organic following, So looking at their messages, how they're posting,
how their people are commenting. You could have someone that
has a thousand followers and they get three hundred likes
or engagements, and I know we don't measure it on that,
but just sort of for an optics standpoint, I sort
of like will go in just to just kind of look,
and then you could have someone with like ten thousand
(26:24):
followers with three hundred likes, and you can easily sort
of deduce that these folks don't have a really engaged audience,
or they have fake followers, or their people don't really
care what they're posting. And you have to understand because
of algorithmic changes frequently and the rug can be pulled
out of under your foot at any given time. Build
a trusted community that and that's really that's really just it.
(26:48):
Build a trusted community. Asked the people, like, if you're in,
if you're into you know, sort of influencer and you
want to build a community, ask your people why they
are following you? Post a photo? Why are you following me?
Someone might say to me, I might think that people
are following me because of business. Hey, rich kid, we're
following you because you give business advice. And they don't
(27:09):
give two shakes a ship about my business advice. They
might just say we follow you because we like your
blue glasses. And when you post yourself wearing different color sneakers,
so then it's like, oh, they like what I'm wearing,
So I need to serve the audience. Can we talk
about story creation? How do you think about building from
(27:33):
ground zero? The story and the story are like the
strategic story of a brand, a person, a place, a product.
How does your team do that differently? I think it
for us starting the stories, it depends on the person.
There's no cut, copy and paste answer to that. But
I think what we like to do is start from
(27:55):
the beginning. We're huge fans of like historically, what does
this mean? I like to break things down. I also
like to understand the way that our brains work. Our
brains work in stories. Everything is the beginning, middle, and end.
There's a one to three, there's an ABC. So how
do you do that with the storytelling? What is the beginning?
(28:16):
What do you want to say? How do you want
to attract people? Why do they care um. We used
to say in the office all of the time. You know,
there's no new news. If you don't have any new news,
you don't need to tell a story. Or you know,
all marketers will say, what is that they're there. We
firmly believe in that. Like, if you want to go
out to market with the story and you want to,
(28:38):
you know, proclaim it to the world, make sure you
have it. They're there. Make sure you know your why
before you start to tell other folks. Make sure make
sure you understand the importance of the impact that you're
going to sort of extend out to the world. I
think all of us are rushing to tell a story
because we're like, we want to get a message out.
We or for people that are influencers, we want to
(29:00):
get followers, we want we want to attract people. But
do you believe your own story? Do you believe it? Like,
do you believe it? Can you nurture that one story?
You don't have to talk just to talk, you know,
save it for you know, save it for something else,
for the group chat, and save it for the group chat.
Hype your girls up in your group Chad, do it?
(29:21):
Don't know WhatsApp that's why, that's why I am. I
love the idea of people in micro communities because the
conversations are a little more closed off in their slag channels,
you know, their slag groups. You know, I have a
list of what'sapp groups that I'm involved in, or telegram
groups or um now you know people are taking it
(29:42):
off of What's happen and starting their own apps. What
is the most effective channel for creators or talent today?
But I think you work with what works best for you,
and it goes back to meeting your audience where they
are and how they're consuming media. It's not how you
want to tell your story, it's how are people receiving
your story, consuming your story and relating to your story. Okay, Rikia,
(30:07):
before you go, we need to do our game. I'm
gonna be really intentional about our words. What would you
get rid of in the world could be anything. What
would you buy, what would you acquire? And what would
you do yourself? What I would get rid of is clutter.
I keep a lot of stuff, y'all. So that's my
first thing. My husband would be so proud. Um. I
(30:28):
would get rid of a lot of stuff in my closet,
things that this girl cannot fit in anymore. I fit
into anymore and still dreams to fit into. Let girl,
you are not a six. Throw the clothes out. Forty
ish was for ish and four ish is about seven
sizes away. Yeah, I'm girl, you are not going to
be a six again. And stop dreaming. Get in that
(30:50):
good tin and you're gonna be Okay, what would you buy?
I would love to acquire other companies. They're right at
the cusp of doing the things that they're supposed to
do in the right way, so that we could work
with him on doing the right things in the way
that they should do them for the future. Give us
an example. I can't do that because I am trying to.
I'm actually trying to acquire a few companies. Okay, but
(31:14):
you'll you'll come back and tell us once acquire Yes, okay,
And what would you do yourself that you're not already doing.
I'm a good vacation lady, Like I mean tears y'all
because I don't get to go on vacation. Um, but
is that like a thing like you're all saying, like
what would I do? I would go on at vacation.
(31:36):
I would go on some sort of sort of vacation
to recharge and center myself at least every other month.
What's the first place we're going somewhere? Oh my gosh,
I would love to go to mad I do want
to do I'm in I like my families from the Islands,
so I'd love to just do something like I'd love
to go to St. Thomas. Um. I need the sand
(31:58):
and the water, like that's who I am. But then
I want to do I want to do a camping trip.
I'm afraid of the woods, Like I don't like snakes,
I don't like any of that kind of stuff. But
I want to like get myself to do like a
camping trip, just to say, Rickia, you did the camping trip. Um.
I want to go to the desert. I want to
(32:18):
tree in a lake. Yes, I want to go to
Joshua Tree. We have so many things to do. We'll
do that. I'm like, I just want to go to
dinner with the both of you, but I'll do it
any of those places. I love that. We were like
what would you do yourself? And it became what are
we gonna do? You just tell us where we go?
Where are we going? Rickia? Because we'll be there, Rickia Reynolds.
(32:41):
If people want to get in touch with you, learn
more about sky Blue, do business with you. How do
they get in touch with you? Um, you can just
follow me on Instagram, Rickia Reynolds, because that's the easiest
place to find me at Rikia Reynolds are a k
I A Reynolds like the rep love it Rickia. Rickia,
you are like a breath of fresh air. And uh wow,
(33:07):
I hope the industry gets a lot more of you.
And I'm so excited about your ethical language AI technology.
Just one last parting thought, what about an eyewear line, Rickia.
You know what someone said that before, I would love
I've been wearing glasses since the kindergarten, so it's a
no brain to be continued, Rickia Reynold, Sky Media. Okay,
(33:36):
so big, thank you Rickia Reynolds for coming by Atlandia.
So many important things for us to consider and think
about as marketers and communicators. I love what she said
that before was the year of words, not works, and
now we are moving into works, which is really the
(33:57):
call to action to the industry. More of out what
are you gonna what are you gonna do? Not just
say I think that it is more important not just
as people, but as people who are building companies, building agencies,
building brands, building products that we are intentional in the
(34:22):
language that we use. And what I love that she
said that I think can be easily passed by it was, UM,
the trend that I'm all in for is micro or
nano influencers at the kitchen table. And the point there
was these are intimate conversations. The more brands and marketers
(34:46):
take some time and maybe even take some budget to
really invest in the works into communities and doing it
in a meaningful, truly meaningful way to those communities. UM,
there's some exciting things that will come out of that.
And I think real long term partnership can come out
(35:08):
of that, UM where potentially these are co collaborators in
your product, in your brand. Well. And as I think
about coming back to the top of this episode and
talking about shareholder, really thinking about sitting around a table
having influence because you have expertise, you have understanding, your
your thought leader in what it is that you're bringing
(35:29):
to the table that is what shape's decisions. This is
a really interesting provocation to think about as marketers is
it really about one to a million, or is about
one to four? And I think we'll find that it's
one to four over and over and over and over
and over again. Laura hit it with the list of
(35:49):
all of our friends and family I heart who have
been so good to us and helped us get back
on air. Big thank you to Bob Connal, Carter, Andy,
Eric Gayle Val, Michael Jen. We appreciate you. Thank you
so much for this opportunity. We'll see in two weeks.
M
What's up. I'm Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome
back to ed Landia. Got a great show. Rakia Reynolds,
executive officer and founder of sky Blue Media's here before
we get to Rakia, Laura and I, as you guys know,
talk all the time about random threads and philosophies. So
(00:28):
this morning you sent me the IKEA catalog. Ikea did
an audio catalog, all the whole catalog, like four hours,
four hours, a marathon of audio. The point to me,
and the thing that we were talking about is that
now commerce is kind of unbound. It should have no
boundaries at this point, and that's really where we're getting to.
(00:50):
And it's interesting, like if you think about commerce not
having any boundaries of format, the fact that you could
buy anything anywhere and that you should have the ability
to do that as a as a consumer, it's really exciting.
And then what conversely does that do to advertising? Is
it a podcast? Is it an audio instruction manual? It's
(01:12):
like an audio catalog from the standpoint of it's trying
to story tell and help you visualize rooms in the catalog,
like what they would actually be showing in the catalog.
But I think the big point is this idea that
you should be able to buy from audio content. Content
should be commerce period, full stop well and also new
(01:35):
and interesting ways to literate or build on and keep
a consumer engaged. Right, what's really exciting is creation. Commerce,
an asset, right, or artifact or thing that's created are
coming together in a way that I don't think we've
ever experienced, not something that's been accessible like this. What
(01:58):
does the world look like where campaigns become open sourced.
Let's just say I Ka puts that for our catalog down,
and you and I have the ability to come in
and say, actually we should drop a meditation here, and
then you can submit that back to a brand, not
in the form of social media feedback, truly having the
(02:20):
opportunity and open source campaign to be able as a fan, consumer, etcetera,
to contribute, influence, contribute. I don't want to just be
a fan of your company or your brand or your product.
I want to own a part of it. In a
different way. I want to own part of that. I
p that fiduciary relationship means we have a completely entirely
(02:42):
different relationship that we haven't even been able to imagine
with our consumer that we trust them enough if they
are fans to represent that brand, shareholders in the business, yes,
and create on it. But at the end of the day,
that all comes back to community. You're talking about trust
in the consumer. Yes, how well do you know your community? Yes?
(03:03):
And the thing Laura, totally and the thing that has
been on my mind. A lot of brand owners, a
lot of brand stewards not even gonna call them marketers
because it's beyond the marketing organization or the marketing role,
talk about having community, that they've built a community or
that they're part of a community. And that may be true,
but more often than not, brands and people at brands
(03:28):
are talking about their community as buyers, as buyers transaction
transaction I have, we have we have people that like us,
we have people that buy us, they like this product.
We have this community of buyers and that they're like
community of buyers. That's a sales force breadsheet. We're going
to talk to for Kia about this, but I think
(03:50):
that it behooves us to start to really unpack, like
what makes up a community. I think that right now
is a really good time for marketers to be thoughtful
about some of the new structure and new kind of
points of power, as I would say, that are coming
to life in the world. There's an army of natural
(04:12):
born marketers who are rising, and they know how to
sell and probably in some cases are better product marketers
and brand marketers then marketers. You've got a major institutionalized companies,
you know, big corporates, and so if you think about that,
(04:35):
it starts to become depending on where you stand, is
either really exciting or maybe a little bit scary. We'll
be right back and we are back on the mic
with Rikiya Reynolds, founder and executive officer of sky Blue Media.
(05:00):
Sky Blue is a multimedia strategic communications firm focus on people,
products and places. Rikia, we have waited so long to
say this. Welcome to Atlantia. Welcome Rikia. Oh my gosh,
thank you so much, y'all. This is such a long
time coming, Like for real, I'm excited to be here.
You're just celebrating your tenure anniversary, recently named to Forbes
(05:23):
one thousand like last week. Congratulationslations to you, thank you,
thank you. Working with some of the biggest talent and
brands in the industry. Tell us about the origin story
of how sky Blue came to be. Oh, I love
you know, I love a good origin story. I like
to call it the story behind the glory. Um. I
(05:45):
recently actually on Instagram recently recap the last decade because
we're in our celebratory tenth year at sky Blue Media.
So I broke it down into sort of business growth
stages or the stages of business, so like zero to
three and then four to six and what did that
look like? Um, So, I will say the story behind
(06:07):
this glory is that I started sky Blue Media. I
was a former TV producer. I worked in magazines. I
had a five year stint in working in higher education
for a large university, working on I was actually pursuing
my degree in counseling psychology, working with students who were
suffering from you know, going to college and what it meant.
(06:30):
So I was advising a lot of students as as
a counselor. So I worked for five years in higher education,
then went onto TV, then went onto magazines. And working
in TV, y'all, it was more than an emotional roller
coaster because in the world of TV, you're on, you're off,
your you have a hiatus, you go dark and I
(06:50):
was like, I can't keep doing this. But one day
they called us into the office and I was like,
oh my gosh, this is so exciting. They were like, okay,
we're having a special meeting and they said special, but
I took it as like they're giving us like something exciting.
They brought us in they had envelopes for everyone, and
I was like, oh my gosh, bring getting a bonus
right when I needed this bonus. It was like super exciting.
(07:13):
And so we opened the bonus and it was like
an additional check and I was like, oh my gosh,
like we've done such a great job. I was working
on all of these shows and they were like, okay,
so this is the last check for everyone. We're laying
everybody off. And I was like, oh, I'm sorry, this
is not a work bonus that we're getting. So I
was I was pregnant with our second child, my husband
(07:35):
was just finishing greadful. I mean, when I tell you,
I was like trying to figure out like are we
gonna have old meal for dinner or tuna fish sandwiches
for dinner? Like it was it was that like my
friends are like we like to say, like a struggle sandwich.
It was like a struggle sandwich. And so at that
point I was like, I don't really have anything to lose.
I've always been a risk taker. Why don't I sort
(07:56):
of jump off this cliff of entrepreneurship, start my own company,
take all of the things that I've learned from, you know,
from TV and magazines and counseling, psychology and studying all
of these amazing people, and sort of disrupt the traditional
model of public relations. And then I started my own
agency taking all of the things that I had learned
(08:17):
in TV, you know, producing traditional pr psychology, and then
formed my own digital communications multimedia coms agency like you
just imagined it forward. And what I think is interesting
what you told us off Mike, and I want to
actually ask you about, is that you don't call yourself
a CEO. You can call yourself a chief, which is
(08:41):
probably aligned to your philosophy and your ethos and your values.
Tell us why you don't call yourself a CEO? Right, So,
I think we need to analyze words more. We need
to look at the etymology of words, We need to
look at the origin of words. And there are a
lot of culture vultures out there, people appropriating. There's so
(09:02):
much miseducation, and so when I get to the point
where I feel like I am educated completely, fully and
amazingly or acutely aware of my surroundings and the words
and why we use them, then I may incorporate them
back into my lexicon. But for now, with the foundation
that I have been taught, with the history that I
(09:23):
was taught as a child and then as a and
as an adolescent and as an adult, I don't think
that I was educated to the point where I should
be using any of the language that was delivered to me.
We're very intentional with what we say, Like we don't
say things like oh, that's tone deaf. Instead of saying
like that's tone deaf, we may say, well, it lacks
the nuance needed to inform the conversation, so we won't
(09:48):
say or it's a blind spot. Will say, hey, you
know what, let's make sure that we cover all parameters.
So for us, it's really about the intentionality of words.
I've actually had a client that is of the deaf
and heart of hearing community, So in terms of being
informed and sometimes for folks, there's I think that there
(10:09):
is like personal empathy and collective empathy, and once we
get to a space of collective empathy where we can
like put our thoughts aside and really be intentional. Um.
I noticed that on calls I will take a little
bit of time or process my thoughts, But with words,
I really tried to slow it down to say, why
(10:30):
are we using these words? What will it mean to
someone else, and how will it impact someone who may
hear this or experience this later on down the line.
So we typically will look at all of our words,
but no chief, no chief in this executive officer over here.
As you were introducing sky Blue at the top of
(10:51):
the conversation, you said you were going back through chapters
right where there are points along the way that shaped
or evolved the way you approached your work. Yeah. I
think there were two pivotal moments in my sort of
sky Blue media career or history. One was sort of midpoint,
(11:12):
maybe three or four years in. I was faced with
so many different challenges where I was not hiring people,
I wasn't hiring the right people, and so I had
the wrong people surrounding me. I had someone steal mail,
steal money, all of these things. It was like a
compounded stressor for me, and what I learned was how
(11:36):
to respond to things during a crisis because I was
in a constant crisis. Constant I mean with employees, with news,
with all of these things that were just happening to me.
It was a compounded stress moment. So for me, it
was a pivotal moment to learn how to maneuver through
chaos and crisis. And then I will say sort of
(11:59):
bad us forward when we really started at the beginning
of my career, people because I'm a black woman, would say,
we want you to work on all of our black marketing,
or we want you to work on this, or we
want you to work on that. And it became like
this multicultural marketing way of bringing us into companies like, oh,
you know, larger corporations would be like and I would say,
(12:21):
you don't just bring someone in because of the way
they look. It's their expertise. Let me build this a
little more. So it's not just you know, the black market,
but it's the indigenous cultures market. It is the Latin
X market, it is the l g B t q
i A market, it is the Asian American and Pacific
Islanders market. So I started doing a lot of research,
(12:43):
bringing in people that had their PhD in sociology, bringing
in people that were experts in their field to do
think tanks, workshops, professional development to inform our teams in
order to effectively communicate. And then we started bringing those
folks in as consultants to have brand extensions to our
work because I don't think that everyone out there should
(13:05):
be doing the work that they're doing because they're not
an expert in their field. Just because you did one
project or um, you have one case study, I don't
think that you should. You know, you can be doing
the work. I think when people become seasoned in their fields,
that's when you can put it on your website. That's
when you should say this is you know what we do.
(13:25):
So I think for me getting into the space of
like research and expertise and really sort of refining what
are offerings are and were we were able to go
beyond the lens of marketing, public relations, social media, and
digital media. I think there have been all of these
pivotal learning moments in my career. UM and then the
(13:49):
work that we get to do, and then the people
that I've sort of surrounded myself with and the folks
that are running the company in a way that I
never thought would run. You talk about and Laura's told
me about this, but I want to get into it more. People, products, places.
That's what you do well, and that's how you think
(14:09):
about your business. Can you explain that a bit more? Yeah,
I love you know, like alliteration, and and I have
to when I'm remembering things. But on the people's side, um,
I think really early on and Laura knows this, really
early on, we were able to work with Ashley Graham
for the first five years of her business and build
her brand and you know, work with her on what
(14:32):
she or her presence in how she was entering the world.
So from a people's standpoint, we worked with Serena Williams
on her apparel brand for HSN and then when she
went independently, we still, you know, we still have the
honor to work with people such as you know, icons
like Serena Williams. We work with people such as m
(14:52):
Night Shamalan, and people such as Marley Dais who started
hashtag one thousand black girl books, social activists like Alicia Garza,
authors like Glenn and Doyle and love You a gi Ye.
So like, you know, we look from a people standpoint,
We've got some amazing people that we get to work
with on and I'm honored and privileged that we get
(15:13):
to learn from them and work with them. On the
product side. That p is getting to work with larger
tech companies like Dell. UM we work with soft Bank,
we work with Airbnb, UM, and I'm like forgetting a
couple of folks, but I'll just leave it at that.
And then on the place space, I think you leave
it like soft Bank Airbnb, you pretty much got it
(15:34):
locked up. You're good. And let me be specific, the
soft Bank SB Opportunity Fund, that's what we work on UM.
And then yeah, on the places space. So just I
worked with cities like Memphis and their storytelling. Cities like
Philadelphia hired us, you know years ago on o hey,
we have all of this research, how do we distill
(15:55):
this and make it into a great story. So cities
from a place ending standpoint have hired us on storytelling
for them. What are the signments, projects, opportunities, challenges people
are calling with right now? And then what you project
over the next you know, twelve to eighteen months. What
are the areas within comms um that we really need
(16:18):
to be thinking about as an industry and just sort
of trends and signals you're picking up based on your conversations. Yeah,
I think I would say a lot of people call
on us now, and I want to be clear, all
of our clients have been with us for years. We
we don't typically take on projects, and I always tell folks,
you know, we're in it for the long term, in
the long run. You know, some of our clients have
(16:40):
been on our board for five years because we don't
believe in you know, coming in for a sixty day
project or a six month project. I think right now
we've actually had to say no to a lot of
companies because they are calling us. They see our clients
perfectly position in the marketplace on what to say and
(17:01):
how to say it. So it's one of the things
that it pains me sometimes because I'm like, if we had,
you know, a larger team, or if I wanted to
take on more clients, that would help said corporation or
help dead person. But we've closed the door, you know,
sadly enough to to a lot of folks just saying hey,
(17:22):
we are we're not taking on any more clients. And
so what we did start to do was we created
this monthly tool kit on effective communications. So every month
we put out this tool kid, like, here's what you
should be saying, here's how you should say it. Here
the words that you should refrain from. And we we
give it to companies that were unable to work with
(17:43):
right now due to our capacity um so that they
can use it as an internal learning tool with their
comms and marketing teams. What's been the reaction to them
and are there things that you know, you're you're seeing
clients maybe not be aware of and saying like, this
is something I'm to be implementing as a result. Oh goodness,
I mean so many you know, they're you know, large
(18:05):
corporations that have come to us and said, hey, we
didn't know that we should be you know, considering or
looking at Indigenous People's Day instead of Thanksgiving, or you know,
not being super overt with our messages around July fourth
because not all black people were free and you know,
this is how we are looking at Juneteenth, or this
(18:28):
is how we're looking at the word feminist, because typically
the word feminist is assist, gendered, white woman and not
inclusive of all communities, or this is how we're thinking
of the world. I mean, there's there's so many. So
we put one out for Women's History Month and said,
this is how people are going to be acknowledging it.
Make sure you are careful around this language. Not every
(18:51):
woman looks at, you know, sort of Women's Month in
this way because not all folks were included. So when
you look from a lens of historical irrelevance going back,
you have to really really go back and say where
did it start? What is the origin? Right we talked
about origin, what is the origin story? And how did
this come about? And did it include all people? And
(19:13):
if it didn't include all people, let's sort of remix
the vocabulary a little bit and say this is how
we're going to be approaching it now. Not all companies
have to do that. I mean not all companies serve
all communities. I mean, I can't speak for everyone, but
I would think that where we are in one, you know,
we should be more on the gender list side because
(19:35):
of the way that you know, folks identify. We should
be thinking about every single word that we're putting on
an email because you don't know how it will impact
someone I think we're beyond diversity and inclusion and we're
at the space of belonging and mattering. Do people feel
like they belong in your space? Like, do they feel
(19:56):
like they should be there? I think I read a
great research a poor a while ago and it said
that not belonging, not feeling like you belong inside of
a company or space is akin to physical pain. So
pay attention to the people that call out of work.
It's not and it is akin to physical pain. So
(20:17):
I think we just have to be It just goes
back to that intentionality. I have a question, Rikia, like
we're in this time where we're in massive social upheaval.
Still millions and millions of people just in this country
out of jobs, you know, health crisis like we've never
seen in the history of the world, in the history
of the world and the history of the I mean
(20:38):
think about right. My daughter by the way side now
asked me the other night, um what I did when
I was a little kid during the virus and I said, oh, honey,
we don't have the virus. And I had a moment
like I was like, WHOA. So I guess the question
to come back to is we're in unprecedented times like
everyone has said too much and instead of brands going
(21:02):
backwards in terms of kind of reverting into fear and
non communication, not talking about things, not addressing things, not
kind of driving their reputation forward and their perspective for it.
How do they imagine it forward like you did in
your own career. How do you both be bold and
(21:24):
empathetic at a time like this. I do think in
my field, in the world of communications, I think folks
need to pause and hit the breaks. Um they're people, are,
you know, scrambling and trying their best. I see it
and it's like, Wow, you'all are really trying. Let's get
(21:46):
the right people in and that's good. You know, was
the year of words and beyond should be the year
and years of the works? What is the work that
you're doing so you set all those things in T twenty,
What is the work that you're putting in, you know,
in one What does it look like? What councils have
(22:07):
you formed? What does it look like in terms of
your employee hiring, your employee resource groups, the comms people
that you've brought on, the marketing people. Who are the
people that really do have the seat at the table.
Who are the decision makers? Who is scanning your language?
Who is helping you to inform your decisions. If I'm
(22:28):
sitting here typing an email to you in Google automates
and finishes it, am I really going to be intentional?
Am I really gonna go and click more keys? Or
am I gonna scroll that little arrow over, finish the
sentence and put a period? Most of the time scroll
it over and put a period. Can you tell us
about some of the other projects, including the AI platform
(22:49):
that you're working on. And I'm actually building an ethical
intelligence platform as a product of all of the work
that we've done in the equity and communications space with
sky Blue Media UH to help marketers and communicators make
more informed decisions when they're writing and marketing. So that
will launch sometime later this year. Who are you building that?
(23:10):
So girl, listen, I'm actually building my advisory board now.
So are brought on two advisors who are advising me.
And I just secured my first angel investment, so I
know I'm not supposed to thank you, But he is
the vs knees okay, Like he's invested in a lot
of companies. When I pitched him over the phone without
(23:33):
a deck. He was like, Rakia, the world needs this.
I don't make investments like this. I've not done this
in three years, but this is what the world needs.
And then with a media company, a big media entity, um,
I am building a community of women who are not
quite forty yet but not they can't be on the
(23:54):
under thirty list. I noticed in the market space, we
have all of these like milestones lists right like it's
I'm on the under thirty lists, I'm on the over
fifty list, But what about the people that are right
in between, like I'm i might not be forty, I'm
thirty seven, I'm getting there, or I might be a
little over forty. And so I found that that there
(24:17):
was a good market space and place for people that
were in this forty issue. There they you know, they
figured it out. However, they still have questions. They still
need a community. There's someone's mentor, but they need a mentor.
They've sponsored people, they've done all the things, but they
still need someone to do all the things for them.
(24:38):
So I think in the world of micro communities and
the trend of micro communities, where it's the kitchen table
is where we need to be focusing. What do you
think the future of talent is when you start to
actually invest in micro communities. I think in terms of
talent as it relates to community, there are folks that
(24:59):
will crumble because they've not built the community before they
needed the community. And so people are scrambling now to
make sure that they've built some sort of community and
they built it when they needed the community. So build
communities before you need the community. Built community because you
want community, because you value community, because you want to
(25:19):
foster community. Don't build the community as you need it.
What would be your advice to just get started in
that capacity? So if there are creators listening or brands
who want to build community, how do you get started?
So I think there are a couple of ways to
answer that, but I would start with folks that are
in the nano influencer space. A SOS very early on
(25:42):
started working with nano influencers, and they were working with
like really nano influencers, folks that had like five hundred
and six hundred followers on Instagram. And they did that
because they saw the spike in the engagement, because their
communities really trusted them. So I tend to look at
folks is lower followings because I do know that it's
(26:02):
in organic following, So looking at their messages, how they're posting,
how their people are commenting. You could have someone that
has a thousand followers and they get three hundred likes
or engagements, and I know we don't measure it on that,
but just sort of for an optics standpoint, I sort
of like will go in just to just kind of look,
and then you could have someone with like ten thousand
(26:24):
followers with three hundred likes, and you can easily sort
of deduce that these folks don't have a really engaged audience,
or they have fake followers, or their people don't really
care what they're posting. And you have to understand because
of algorithmic changes frequently and the rug can be pulled
out of under your foot at any given time. Build
a trusted community that and that's really that's really just it.
(26:48):
Build a trusted community. Asked the people, like, if you're in,
if you're into you know, sort of influencer and you
want to build a community, ask your people why they
are following you? Post a photo? Why are you following me?
Someone might say to me, I might think that people
are following me because of business. Hey, rich kid, we're
following you because you give business advice. And they don't
(27:09):
give two shakes a ship about my business advice. They
might just say we follow you because we like your
blue glasses. And when you post yourself wearing different color sneakers,
so then it's like, oh, they like what I'm wearing,
So I need to serve the audience. Can we talk
about story creation? How do you think about building from
(27:33):
ground zero? The story and the story are like the
strategic story of a brand, a person, a place, a product.
How does your team do that differently? I think it
for us starting the stories, it depends on the person.
There's no cut, copy and paste answer to that. But
I think what we like to do is start from
(27:55):
the beginning. We're huge fans of like historically, what does
this mean? I like to break things down. I also
like to understand the way that our brains work. Our
brains work in stories. Everything is the beginning, middle, and end.
There's a one to three, there's an ABC. So how
do you do that with the storytelling? What is the beginning?
(28:16):
What do you want to say? How do you want
to attract people? Why do they care um. We used
to say in the office all of the time. You know,
there's no new news. If you don't have any new news,
you don't need to tell a story. Or you know,
all marketers will say, what is that they're there. We
firmly believe in that. Like, if you want to go
out to market with the story and you want to,
(28:38):
you know, proclaim it to the world, make sure you
have it. They're there. Make sure you know your why
before you start to tell other folks. Make sure make
sure you understand the importance of the impact that you're
going to sort of extend out to the world. I
think all of us are rushing to tell a story
because we're like, we want to get a message out.
We or for people that are influencers, we want to
(29:00):
get followers, we want we want to attract people. But
do you believe your own story? Do you believe it? Like,
do you believe it? Can you nurture that one story?
You don't have to talk just to talk, you know,
save it for you know, save it for something else,
for the group chat, and save it for the group chat.
Hype your girls up in your group Chad, do it?
(29:21):
Don't know WhatsApp that's why, that's why I am. I
love the idea of people in micro communities because the
conversations are a little more closed off in their slag channels,
you know, their slag groups. You know, I have a
list of what'sapp groups that I'm involved in, or telegram
groups or um now you know people are taking it
(29:42):
off of What's happen and starting their own apps. What
is the most effective channel for creators or talent today?
But I think you work with what works best for you,
and it goes back to meeting your audience where they
are and how they're consuming media. It's not how you
want to tell your story, it's how are people receiving
your story, consuming your story and relating to your story. Okay, Rikia,
(30:07):
before you go, we need to do our game. I'm
gonna be really intentional about our words. What would you
get rid of in the world could be anything. What
would you buy, what would you acquire? And what would
you do yourself? What I would get rid of is clutter.
I keep a lot of stuff, y'all. So that's my
first thing. My husband would be so proud. Um. I
(30:28):
would get rid of a lot of stuff in my closet,
things that this girl cannot fit in anymore. I fit
into anymore and still dreams to fit into. Let girl,
you are not a six. Throw the clothes out. Forty
ish was for ish and four ish is about seven
sizes away. Yeah, I'm girl, you are not going to
be a six again. And stop dreaming. Get in that
(30:50):
good tin and you're gonna be Okay, what would you buy?
I would love to acquire other companies. They're right at
the cusp of doing the things that they're supposed to
do in the right way, so that we could work
with him on doing the right things in the way
that they should do them for the future. Give us
an example. I can't do that because I am trying to.
I'm actually trying to acquire a few companies. Okay, but
(31:14):
you'll you'll come back and tell us once acquire Yes, okay,
And what would you do yourself that you're not already doing.
I'm a good vacation lady, Like I mean tears y'all
because I don't get to go on vacation. Um, but
is that like a thing like you're all saying, like
what would I do? I would go on at vacation.
(31:36):
I would go on some sort of sort of vacation
to recharge and center myself at least every other month.
What's the first place we're going somewhere? Oh my gosh,
I would love to go to mad I do want
to do I'm in I like my families from the Islands,
so I'd love to just do something like I'd love
to go to St. Thomas. Um. I need the sand
(31:58):
and the water, like that's who I am. But then
I want to do I want to do a camping trip.
I'm afraid of the woods, Like I don't like snakes,
I don't like any of that kind of stuff. But
I want to like get myself to do like a
camping trip, just to say, Rickia, you did the camping trip. Um.
I want to go to the desert. I want to
(32:18):
tree in a lake. Yes, I want to go to
Joshua Tree. We have so many things to do. We'll
do that. I'm like, I just want to go to
dinner with the both of you, but I'll do it
any of those places. I love that. We were like
what would you do yourself? And it became what are
we gonna do? You just tell us where we go?
Where are we going? Rickia? Because we'll be there, Rickia Reynolds.
(32:41):
If people want to get in touch with you, learn
more about sky Blue, do business with you. How do
they get in touch with you? Um, you can just
follow me on Instagram, Rickia Reynolds, because that's the easiest
place to find me at Rikia Reynolds are a k
I A Reynolds like the rep love it Rickia. Rickia,
you are like a breath of fresh air. And uh wow,
(33:07):
I hope the industry gets a lot more of you.
And I'm so excited about your ethical language AI technology.
Just one last parting thought, what about an eyewear line, Rickia.
You know what someone said that before, I would love
I've been wearing glasses since the kindergarten, so it's a
no brain to be continued, Rickia Reynold, Sky Media. Okay,
(33:36):
so big, thank you Rickia Reynolds for coming by Atlandia.
So many important things for us to consider and think
about as marketers and communicators. I love what she said
that before was the year of words, not works, and
now we are moving into works, which is really the
(33:57):
call to action to the industry. More of out what
are you gonna what are you gonna do? Not just
say I think that it is more important not just
as people, but as people who are building companies, building agencies,
building brands, building products that we are intentional in the
(34:22):
language that we use. And what I love that she
said that I think can be easily passed by it was, UM,
the trend that I'm all in for is micro or
nano influencers at the kitchen table. And the point there
was these are intimate conversations. The more brands and marketers
(34:46):
take some time and maybe even take some budget to
really invest in the works into communities and doing it
in a meaningful, truly meaningful way to those communities. UM,
there's some exciting things that will come out of that.
And I think real long term partnership can come out
(35:08):
of that, UM where potentially these are co collaborators in
your product, in your brand. Well. And as I think
about coming back to the top of this episode and
talking about shareholder, really thinking about sitting around a table
having influence because you have expertise, you have understanding, your
your thought leader in what it is that you're bringing
(35:29):
to the table that is what shape's decisions. This is
a really interesting provocation to think about as marketers is
it really about one to a million, or is about
one to four? And I think we'll find that it's
one to four over and over and over and over
and over again. Laura hit it with the list of
(35:49):
all of our friends and family I heart who have
been so good to us and helped us get back
on air. Big thank you to Bob Connal, Carter, Andy,
Eric Gayle Val, Michael Jen. We appreciate you. Thank you
so much for this opportunity. We'll see in two weeks.
M
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