Beyond Words | SparkToro

There is a general acknowledgment that systemic racism has yet to be properly addressed. A cultural shift in how we address race is overdue.

Institutions across the country are making public statements to do better, but we need to move the conversation Beyond Words.

Join us on Friday, August 14th at 11:30 am, for a “town-hall” style discussion with Rand Fishkin, CEO and Cofounder at SparkToro; founder and former CEO at Moz.

Sparktoro's Stance on Injustice:

SparkToro is in the business of aggregating data and helping people tell stories, solve problems, and identify opportunities in that data. To us, the data and stories about America’s treatment of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and all people of color tell a crystal clear narrative of ongoing discrimination. This discrimination stems from actions with clear, racist intent, and from unintended but equally harmful actions driven by ignorance and a desire to protect white America’s unearned wealth and comfort. 

Read the full statement on injustice here.

About the Guest: 

Rand Fishkin is cofounder & CEO of SparkToro. He has dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through his blogging, videos (WhiteBoard Fridays), keynote speaking engagements, and his book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. With SparkToro, Rand and his cofounder Casey Henry, assist organizations of all kinds to quickly and accurately identify where their audience spends time and pays attention, so marketing efforts can be better targeted and more effective. When Rand’s not working, he’s most likely to be in the company of his partner in marriage and (mostly petty) crime, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you feed him great pasta or great whiskey, he’ll give you the cheat code to rank #1 on Google.

Rand will answer questions from the community and discuss steps he and SparkToro are taking to address the systems of racial injustice.

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Upon registering for the event, you will be given the opportunity to submit your own question and indicate whether you would like to ask your question yourself or remain anonymous or have someone ask your question for you.

How the town hall works:

• Event attendees will be able to submit questions for the speaker at registration and indicate if they would like to ask the question themselves or not. Priority will be given to those asking the question themselves.
• 30 minutes before the event starts (11:30am), event attendees can join to hear a local community leader talk about the work they are doing to fight discrimination and how you can get involved.  You will also have the opportunity to vote on the first 10 unique questions submitted at registration by attendees.
• During the event, speaker will be asked 5 questions - 2 from the YP Media events team and 3 from the questions voted on by participants – either by us or the attendee who submitted the question.
• We encourage any additional comments or questions during the event. But please do so in the chat, as we will deliver them to the speaker after the event.
• Speaker is committing to a follow up response to the chat commentary (within a week) to ensure the voice of the community is heard.