#151: Global marketing calendar for 2021, Clippy for inclusive language, best LGBTQ workplaces, and goats on your Zoom call?
What day is it?
FYI: It’s Thursday.
Then again, what even is Friday?
In this edition of the World’s Best Newsletter:
Resource: 2021 Twitter global calendar
How to be more inclusive in Microsoft Word
Add a goat to your next Zoom call
Ben & Jerry’s new Kaepernick Super Bowl campaign
Most LGBTQ-inclusive workplaces
Advice from the godmother of CX
Quote of the week: “I am worried we will forget”
1 - Resource: 2021 Twitter global calendar
I spent enough time in PR roles to appreciate the calendar-driven nature of what we do. Opportunities to engage with shared narratives are shaped by shared offbeat holidays like today’s National Thank A Mail Carrier Day.
Check out this great resource from Twitter - a 2021 global calendar for marketers.
Twitter is where people, businesses and brands come to share big moments and talk about it. Use this calendar to discover opportunities to connect with your audience year-round through relevant events, occasions, and trends.
From sports, to entertainment, to holidays, to business conferences, this is a super handy at-a-glance view of key dates this year. Bookmark it!
2 - How to be more inclusive in Microsoft Word
Did you know Microsoft Word has a feature that helps ensure inclusive language in professional communications? It’s like Clippy for inclusivity.
Here’s how to turn it on, via How-To Geek.
Now, when you write anything in Word, the grammar checker will pick up on non-inclusive languages, such as “whitelist” and “blacklist,” and suggest alternatives.
Kudos to Microsoft for recognizing the opportunity in this move:
If you think about the number of people who use Office in their daily lives, what’s unique about us is the massive scale and opportunity for impact. The burden is really on us to get this right.
3 - Add a goat to your next Zoom call
Cronkshaw Fold Farm in Lancashire, England now offers a way to “spice up your virtual meetings” by inviting… a goat.
It’s only £5 and “All proceeds go towards bulk buying loo roll.”
Lisa seems fun:
Thank you to Nancy Harhut, my favorite speaker on persuasive copywriting, for this gem.
4 - Ben & Jerry’s new Kaepernick Super Bowl campaign
Unapologetic activist brand Ben & Jerry’s (whose insights will be featured in my upcoming documentary and book) this week unveiled a new billboard and mural in Tampa ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl.
It highlights their partnership with Colin Kaepernick, NFL quarterback famous for kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial inequality and police brutality.
The partnership benefits Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp:
KYRC is all about helping youth see and understand their own beauty and power, while working to dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy.
It also includes a new flavor Change the Whirled (a caramel Non-Dairy sunflower butter base with fudge chips, graham cracker swirls and chocolate cookie swirls… social justice is delicious sometimes.)
This is just the latest example of Ben & Jerry’s ability to use its marketing and brand platform to further progressive causes and values.
5 - Most LGBTQ-inclusive workplaces
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation released its 2021 Corporate Equality Index, an annual benchmarking survey / report measuring how brands implement policies and practices to ensure workplace equality for the LGBTQ community, such as:
adoption of inclusive non-discrimination policies
equitable healthcare benefits for transgender employees
workplace protections around sexual orientation / gender identity or expression
The story here is the continued momentum:
… a record-breaking 767 businesses earned the CEI’s top score of 100, up from 686 last year—a single-year increase of almost 12 percent. In 2002, the first year of the CEI, only 13 companies achieved a top-score, demonstrating the incredible impact the CEI has had on the business world over its 19-year life.
Here is the true impact:
Those 767 companies represent 13 million employees nationally, and another 13 million globally.
Alphonso David, HRC President:
While the CEI cannot measure every facet of what makes a workspace inclusive, it does create a foundation upon which employees can feel more comfortable living and working as their true selves.
👏
6 - Advice from the godmother of CX
My conversation with Jeanne Bliss is now available via recap or on-demand viewing on SmarterCX.com.
She’s known as the godmother of customer experience and a chief architect of the modern CX movement.
“Experience is about memory, it’s about the human connection, and what glues you to a company. There’s joy in recognizing that our job is memory creation.”
Watch this on-demand episode of Experience TV or read the recap here.
In partnership with Oracle Customer Experience. Watch all episodes of Experience TV.
7 - Quote of the week: “I am worried we will forget”
Honestly if you click through no other link this week, don’t skip this one.
From the amazing Lyz Lenz’s new piece I Am Worried We Will Forget:
Our future is built upon how we perceive the past. And if we are so focused on forgetting the past pain, we'll just replicate it into the future over and over again.
And:
I am worried that we will forget all the lives that have been lost in this pandemic. I am worried we will forget the dead. Forget that they didn’t have to die. I am worried we will whitewash insurrection. And I am worried that we will mock people who bear witness to the pain of this year as weak. I am worried that we will make a silver lining out of blood.
Hard truths are hard. That’s the point. Facing them - and fixing them - requires remembering them, honestly.
Have a great rest of your week,
Katie
Twitter | LinkedIn | Website | Woke-Washed
Join us Monday evening, Feb 8th 7pm ET / 4pm PT
My friend and founder of social media agency Hitched with a Hashtag is hosting a free webinar Monday evening. We’ll talk about woke-washing, and how to navigate an age of social movements as a marketer.
Come for a low-key, high-impact talk on this very strange time.
Five spots remain - grab them here. (Free)
