Laurel Rossi, Co-founder, Creative Spirit

James Kotecki of C Space Studio speaks with Laurel Rossi, Co-founder, Creative Spirit.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm James ko Techie. You're listening to the C
Space Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders
from CS HI. I'm James Kotechi, the host of the
C Space Studio here at c E S T, joining
us as Laurel Rossi, co founder Creative Spirit. Thank you

(00:23):
so much for being here today. Thank you for having
men really appreciate it. UM. First, can you just please
define for everyone what Creative Spirit is. Creative Spirit is
a nonprofit organization that uh I helped start in two
thousand seventeen. We get jobs for individuals young adults with intellectual,
developmental and learning disabilities, and they are unemployed around the

(00:44):
world UM at a rate of about So what kind
of jobs? What kind of companies? UM? How does how
is that working? Everyone who applies for a position of
Creative Spirit UM is an incredibly able young adult UM.
Sometimes they're looking for their first jobs. Sometimes they've been
through a lot of job interviews UM, and the roles

(01:07):
that they apply for are the same as the general
population by and large. UM. When you have an intellectual
or developmental or learning disability, UM, generally speaking, you are
quite able, but need some accommodations at work? Can you
define some of those accommodations that people might be working? So, UM,
we are placing lots of folks in tech q A positions,

(01:31):
and some are coders, some are receptionists. UM, really a
wide spectrum of jobs. And some of the accommodations are
as simple as tech accommodations around legibility. Some are just
the type of working environment you're in, and some are
having mentorship and coaching UM, something that we provide for
them in creative spirit. So tech, it sounds like, is

(01:52):
one of the ways that accommodations are made, but it's
not the only way. It's not the only way. UM.
One of the things that tech has done in general
has made employment incredibly possible, and in fact, tech has
made a lot of things possible, even trickling back to education. UM,
the way we educate young adults with disabilities and the
way we move them through the employment process is profoundly

(02:15):
different today because everything is accessible to them, and so
the tech factors big, but also the human factor. I
think the technology has made humanity quite transparent, right, what
we need more transparent, And so when we couple the
human aspect of coaching and mentorship with the technology, we
have a one to punch that's really really powerful. And

(02:38):
how much of your job, your organization's role is just
telling people that all this is possible. I imagine you
have a wide range of understanding of how much possibility
there is in this space that you deal with. It
is amazing. Well, I'm a marketer UM. I work at
omnicommet Organic and UM. One of the things that I'm
a lifelong marketer and one of the things I know

(02:59):
is representation is nine of the game. And we do
know that representation of those with these kinds of disabilities
in particular, some of them not quite not obvious UM,
others are obvious UM is really a big differentiator in
terms of just getting people into rules. UM. We when
we started, we got about twelve applicants the first hour

(03:24):
we launched UM, and fifty companies have signed on and
just that kind of awareness, you know, being a marketer
takes it a little bit easier to get the word
out there. The company has been fantastic. So why did
you start this organization? UM? A few years ago, a
little before two thousand seventeen, I was at uh An
a word show, judging in our industry, and I was

(03:44):
with a colleague from Job of five in Sydney and
he had hired one individual with down syndrome, and he
said that that opportunity changed the culture of the company.
And I have a daughter with the disability, so I
was very close to my heart. And when I started
to explore the options in the United States, I realized
that there really was nothing like it, that this was
a global problem that hadn't been tackled in the States,

(04:06):
and that with a huge stage in the marketing and
advertising industry, we had a great opportunity to really bring
this whole issue to light on your website. I know
there was language around when I was looking at it.
How having different voices actually boosts creativity. Can you share
some examples about how that takes place. Yeah, one of
the things that has been really wonderful is having all

(04:30):
different types of thinkers in the room in terms of
problem solving, and so our employees who are placed in corporations,
whether it's a tech company or an advertising agency or
a telecommunications company, um, are all contributing at the same
time to the dialogue. Sometimes it's specific around what it

(04:50):
means to be make the world more accessible and sometimes
it's not specific at all, it's just about being a
different kind of thinker. UM. It is unbelievably productive to
have these kinds of thinkers in creative brainstorming sessions as
an example. So it's not just on initiatives of accessibility
you're saying that participating in UM. I know that there's
some tons of companies that you work with. Is there

(05:12):
is there one moment of kind of aha that kind
of stands out to you that that you heard about recently? Um?
Uh one or two Yes, UM. We had recruited a
young man who had done an internship with us UM
and actually he had coded the Creative Spirit website, so
I knew exactly what he was capable of. And I've
seen the website. It looks great. Well, thank you, UM.

(05:34):
And we put him in a position a Verizon and
he was in the HR department and very excited about
doing the kind of development work that he was doing.
And after about seven months decided that he really wanted
to do some AI work. And so with with a
little bit of coaching and a ton of advocacy, he

(05:55):
got himself promoted, got himself an unbelievable new position, and
UM I think those kinds of stories of ability and
of self advocacy are the ones we're looking to really
prove to be true. We're speaking with Little Rossi, the
co founder of Creative Spirit. So you're a marketer, As
you said, what what works better as a marketing message
for encouraging companies to hire the folks that you're serving?

(06:17):
Is it do the right thing or is it do
this thing it's good for your business? UM, A couple
of things. One is I think all companies are really
engaged today in being purpose driven. Whether that's in service
of their employees, it's in service of their customers, it's
in service of their brand. UM. I would encourage everybody

(06:38):
to think deeply about how to really engage with all
those populations, the caregivers in their own employee populations who
are really struggling, sometimes with people in their own families
who have a disability. And I think that UM. One
of the things that we like to tell people is
it drives business. We know the top ten percent of companies,

(07:00):
high performing companies are engaged in DNI activity UM Diversity
and inclusion. At Diversity and Inclusion, we know it could
be a little bit circular at times UM in terms
of you know, is it the best performing companies who
are really thinking about these things or is it d
n I that's making them high performing. We'd like to
think it's the ladder. Uh. Are there ways that you
are fearful or wary of technology? Uh locking out people

(07:25):
with differences and disabilities? And are there are there concerns
that you have there that that you want to voice
at a conference like CPS. Yeah. One of the things
we really struggle with is UM when we want to
do this at scale and we are doing it UM
in a very traditional way today. We want to use
technology and the bias and recruiting technology is so overwhelming

(07:48):
that we are actually working on our own UM proprietary
way of approaching the problem with technology today. I'd love
to hear more about that. So what's the what's the
challenge and what are some of the solutions that you're
looking at. When our applicants UM actually apply through traditional
technology systems and most recruiting has done that way today, UM,
they are not the most likely candidates to be sought

(08:10):
out or put through the process. And so what we're
doing is working today with individual companies to improve that.
But in general, we are working across the boards to
use tech to change the recruitment process and have our
own technology solution. Basically, there's a recruitment screen, or maybe
certain algorithms have been coded in a certain ways. Certainly
bias credent coded in there, and they're just not able
to get through the screen as easily. Um. Other obstacles

(08:34):
that you see with companies as you as you as
you put people to work in these companies, or maybe
a way to reframe that question is best practices that
you see from companies who are doing as well. Yeah,
two things. One is UM, the thing we probably deal
with the most often is I have a real need
and a real desire to be a very inclusive company.
But how does disability fit into that? And I'd like

(08:58):
to think that we're getting to the point where technology
has helped us universally design the world. And so whether
I'm talking about people with color, people of color with
a disability, UM, people with the disability that are physical, etcetera.
I'd like to think that inclusivity really does mean total inclusivity.
And the one thing I've found is that disability inclusion

(09:21):
among people with intellectual disabilities just because they haven't been
living their most productive lives. They're the most impoverished population
on the planet. Is a very telegraphic way to be
totally inclusive. And do you find that government and regulatory
policies are also a factor in what you need to
succeed or are you kind of optimistic about the corporate
world being able to push this a good chunk of

(09:41):
the way. There is a real reason why we've gone
to the private sector for this. First of all, that's
where the jobs are. UM. Enterprises is where all the
training exists. It's where the foundational money exists to be
able to provide fair wage positions and integrated spots. UM.
The public sector is a little it different in that
there are a lot of incentives and disincentives to working.

(10:06):
So if I get so security benefits, is it really
pay for me to go out and get a fair
wage position. We're sending a mixed signal to the population. UM.
He talked earlier about brands wanting to have a purpose. UM,
what does that mean to you for a brand to
have a purpose? And the question I've asked other people
here in the C space studio is is it different
for a brand to have a purpose than a person
to have a purpose. UM. I you know, I keep

(10:28):
going back to technology. It's where my heart lives in
this space because it's what's making the work that we're
doing possible. UM. Humanity being served through organizations is really
the centerpiece of purpose, whether that's the employee population UM
in these companies or it's the consumers at the other

(10:48):
end of it. And I think the definition of purposes
are we authentically serving as many people as possible. So
final question, we're here at CS and we talk about
how technology is making a lot a lot of as possible.
Is there a to chnology that's not really in place
yet but you see on the horizon that you're excited
about as a way of further enabling the people that
you serve. I think that it's starting to be in place.

(11:11):
When I think about the connectivity of UH family caregiver
is an example, who is on their commute home, you know,
being a a centerpiece of the family, needing to prepare
dinner and needing to get homework done, needing to get
all those things done. And the predictability because of IOTE
among other things, and that connectivity making it work, belity

(11:32):
to know where people are in communicate with polutely is
going to make the family unit more productive and also
put caregivers in a much different place than they are today. Well,
Laurel Rossie of Creative Spirit, thank you so much for
joining us here. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it,
really appreciate it. This podcast is in partnership with the
I Heart Podcast Network.