Kirk Brown: [00:00:00] Welcome to Let’s Hear It.
Eric Brown: Let’s Hear It is a podcast for and about the field of foundation and nonprofit communications, produced by its two co-hosts, Eric Brown and Kirk Brown, no relation.
Kirk Brown: Well said, Eric, and I’m Kirk.
Eric Brown: And I’m Eric. Let’s Hear It is sponsored by the Prebys Foundation, a foundation creating an inclusive, equitable, and dynamic future for all San Diegans.
Check out their amazingly good podcast, Stop and Talk, hosted by Grant Oliphant and Crystal Page. You can find them at stopandtalkpodcast.com.
Kirk Brown: You can find Let’s Hear It on any podcast subscription platform.
Eric Brown: You can find us online at letshearitcast.com.
Kirk Brown: And if you like the show, please, please, please rate us on Apple Podcasts so that more people can find us.
Eric Brown: Let’s get onto the show. You’re gonna start us in the middle of a conversation, aren’t you?
Kirk Brown: I was just gonna start with wow.
Eric Brown: Wow?
Kirk Brown: Yeah, wow. Wow. This is a wow. This is a wow. That’s a, that’s
Eric Brown: a, that’s a palindrome.
Kirk Brown: We’ve got a wow. We- it’s, it’s so many things, but we’ve got a wow up ahead. I [00:01:00] was thinking a- listening to this interview that you’re about to do
By the way, you were just at a conference where people were talking about Let’s Hear It. I wanna ask you, did anybody who came up to talk with you about Let’s Hear It- Did one person say they missed Welcome In? Did one person? Did anybody stop you in the hallway and say, “You know-
Eric Brown: You know-…
Kirk Brown: you guys, stop doing Let’s- Welcome In.
It’s brutal” For,
Eric Brown: okay, for starters, I just got back from CommNet.
Kirk Brown: Yes.
Eric Brown: The communications network conference, as everyone knows. And-
Kirk Brown: An extraordinary conference, really glad to plug it on this podcast.
Eric Brown: It’s terrific… many people came up to me and said, “I listen to the podcast regularly. When I hear your voice, I’m picking up dog poop ’cause I walk my dog and listen to you.”
“Or I’m running and I’ve just pulled a muscle,” or something. But people seem to be listening to the show. And by the way, let me throw another little thing out there. Okay. If you’re listening, if you’re a regular listener of this show, I’m gonna just beg you to subscribe on one of the whatever- Mm.
Everything… podcatchers. Yeah. And rate it and review [00:02:00] it. Yes, please. I know you hear that on every podcast, but that actually helps. It does. And so if you would like more people to find this show, please make your voice heard. And Kirk and I thank you from the depths of what’s left of our little tiny souls.
Kirk Brown: We do thank you, but I wanna know, were you staring at their pupils closely? Because your pupils dilate when you lie. Uh- So were you staring closely when they were saying, “I listen”? Were you like, okay, was their heart racing a little bit? Did they start sweating- Well-… visibly, odd, you know, were their- No,
Eric Brown: I’d have, I’d have to look at
Kirk Brown: them
Eric Brown: pretty- Were
Kirk Brown: they blinking more deeply?
Eric Brown: with my, with my glasses. I can’t see up that close, so it was, it’d be very awkward. Okay, we’ll take your- I believe people were telling the truth.
Kirk Brown: We’ll take you at your word. Well, okay, so it, and this is why, by the way, Mr. Brown, because you have this incredible network of people that would come on this air and talk about their life experiences, and I don’t know, I don’t know that you have ever had a more comprehensive conversation about all the stuff that you care about, that I care about, that we care about, than what we’re about to hear.
And this covers everything from [00:03:00] the go-go days of ad agency life in New York City in the ’80s, to what it’s like to work for some of the largest, most respected organizations that do public facing, public interest communications. To critiques of philanthropy, of course, to some name-dropping about some of the coolest institutions in New York City, to what you should do with yourself when you decide to grow up, which I think is a project that we’re all still working on.
This is, really this is an incredible conversation, so set it up because there is so much to talk about. And also we gotta start with a big thank you to the person who’s coming on Let’s Hear It. Ruth is just incredibly gracious to spend time talking about her experience and wow, it’s impressive.
Eric Brown: Ruth Wooden is really one of my favorite people on planet Earth.
She is one of the kindest, smartest, most dynamic human beings I have ever had the privilege to meet, and I’m not just saying that. And she is an OG nonprofit communicator. She got her start in advertising and then she ran the Ad Council for the better [00:04:00] part of a decade. And I wanted to do this show because I just wanted to share Ruth with- Yeah.
my colleagues in communications because- Yeah… she is that special. And we had a far-ranging conversation about her career, her life, her many twists and turns in the road, which is a reminder to all of us that there is always something interesting right around the bend.
Kirk Brown: Oh my, yeah. This is somebody you wish you had on speed dial.
The absolute gravitas, the expertise, the just absolute complete expertise is so on display. So we’ll let Ruth put it in Ruth’s words. So this is Ruth Wooden on Let’s Hear It. We’ll listen and we’ll come back.
Eric Brown: I’ve known today’s guest for years, and every time we talk, I’m reminded that I’m in the presence of a communications OG.
Ruth Wooden has been doing public interest communications for more than 50 years, before the parents of many folks working in this field were born, [00:05:00] and she is nowhere close to slowing down. She spent years in advertising before running the Ad Council, where she was behind some of the most recognizable public service campaigns this country has ever produced.
She worked on a presidential campaign, ran Public Agenda, and then instead of coasting into retirement, like some of us would like to, she went back to school for a master’s degree in religious studies and built a program to help other people figure out how to have an encore career. Ruth continues to serve on more non-profit boards doing exceptional work than I can count.
She has spent her whole career thinking about how to get people to pay attention to issues that matter, and then to do something about it. We will get into all of that and more on today’s episode. Ruth Wooden, thank you so much for joining us on Let’s Hear It.
Ruth Wooden: My pleasure.
Eric Brown: I, I, honestly don’t know where to begin, but I’m gonna start with your career in advertising.
Now, obviously many folks think about Don Draper and three martini [00:06:00] lunches. What was your experience like back in advertising in the ’70s, I guess?
Ruth Wooden: Well, I started as a brand manager, actually, at Ralston Purina in St. Louis. I started as a marketing assistant. Okay. I went up the ladder. I became a group product manager.
I helped introduce Tender Vittles cat food.
Eric Brown: You sold cat food?
Ruth Wooden: I sold cat food and dog food. Ralston Purina was a very good company, and this was in the ’70s. I left St. Louis in ’78, moved to New York, and that’s when I went into the big ad agency game. I worked for N.W. Ayer, which is, which was the oldest ad agency
in the country. It’s now been morphed into, I think, Publicis or one of those big holding companies. But it had a reputation as a kind of classic ad agency. So during the viewing of Mad Men, I have to say, it was not all that far off. It was the tail end of it, yeah. But I was in the, I was in [00:07:00] account service, which was an odd place for women to be then.
Hmm. It, it, mostly the women in advertising, and there were a lot of great women in advertising, were in the creative side.
Eric Brown: Right, like my mom. She was a, she was a paste up artist, yeah.
Ruth Wooden: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right, you told me that. I had been a product manager, and I’d worked with a lot of ad agencies, so I loved being in advertising in my 30s.
Mm-hmm. And this was in the 1980s.
Eric Brown: Uh-huh.
Ruth Wooden: And we were kind of full of ourselves. And it was New York. I tell this story with so much embarrassment, but in those days, a woman who got to that level, we were all buying full-length mink coats.
Eric Brown: Oh.
Ruth Wooden: And we were all wearing them to work.
Eric Brown: Even in the summer. You know.
Just ’cause
Ruth Wooden: we could. Even, you know, not in the summer. But it was, you know, the ’80s in New York were kinda crazy, if you remember. Yeah,
Eric Brown: I seem to recall.
Ruth Wooden: So it was a flashy time. You know, I used to say of the mo- what… Jerry Della Femina was one of the characters in those days- Yeah… said that advertising was the most fun you could have with your clothes on.[00:08:00]
And I worked on a lot of, uh, monopolies. Okay. I worked on AT&T when it went through divestiture.
Eric Brown: Uh-huh.
Ruth Wooden: I went, I worked on Avon, which was kinda the only one in the direct selling cosmetic business. I worked on the US Army when it became a volunteer army. That happened in ’76, and I started working on it in ’78.
And, uh, De Beers. I ran the De Beers account.
Eric Brown: Oh, boy.
Ruth Wooden: In the, in The
Eric Brown: army, you got the diamonds. Oh, yeah.
Ruth Wooden: Yeah.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Ruth Wooden: But they were all unicorns in a way.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Ruth Wooden: But the advertising challenges were really interesting.
Eric Brown: Well, then you went to- Yeah… use your evil talents for good.
Ruth Wooden: Yes. Right?
Eric Brown: When you went to the Ad Council.
Ruth Wooden: Yeah. You know, I had been a volunteer on an Ad Council campaign when I was at N.W. Ayer. Worked on a campaign to prevent teenage alcoholism.
Eric Brown: Okay.
Ruth Wooden: And it was a great experience, and that got me kind of hooked in seeing how that could work. And then when the job came up at the Ad Council, I wasn’t what they [00:09:00] were looking for, but having had that experience, I knew that I was what they needed, actually.
Mm. They didn’t need another captain of industry. They needed A pretty seasoned, smart account type who knew how to deal with clients.
Eric Brown: Uh-huh.
Ruth Wooden: And so I applied for the job, and I managed to round up people to endorse me, including, uh, Lou Hagopian, who’s since passed away, was the head of N.W. Ayer.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Ruth Wooden: And I went to him and said, “I wanna leave here, and I want you to help me.” And, and he did. And I was always grateful to the support I got from him. And, and so I was at the Ad Council for 12 years.
Eric Brown: What was it like? I mean, Ad Council is one of the- Yeah… recognizable public service announcement, like the most recognizable public service- Yeah, yeah
announcement producer-
Ruth Wooden: Right,
Eric Brown: right… anywhere in the country. And, and an Ad Council ad could get almost, like, 100% penetration. Like, every single American has seen Smokey the Bear or something like that. And it was a consortium of ad agencies that you were working with. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That must have been [00:10:00] a very interesting job to have to wrangle the egos and also advocate for something that- Right, right
is kind of, you know, good.
Ruth Wooden: The, the thing that was probably the most compelling part, and it’s why I s- actually ended up migrating into the nonprofit, it- the clients were the most interesting part of that place. You know, and the clients could be government agencies like the Peace Corps or- Right
Department of Transportation or Department of Agriculture or whatever. But they could also be nonprofits. You know, they were the Red Cross, the Na- United Way. They had to be big enough to handle a national campaign, but we did, you know, the early days of child abuse prevention, domestic violence preve- not prevention, awareness.
Mm-hmm. These were issues that were not well understood, so that was really thrilling. And- I have to say, in those days I really got to kinda love my clients, ’cause I c- ’cause I could see how hard it was for them to achieve their mission with hardly any money. It was kind of on a [00:11:00] whim and a prayer.
Eric Brown: Mm-hmm.
Ruth Wooden: And that was very gratifying, I have to say. And it ki- it really started me on a nonprofit focus. It seemed really hard to go back, you know, to cigarettes and beer.
Eric Brown: Even cat food.
Ruth Wooden: after I had done colon cancer prevention and drunk driving prevention, you know. You get kinda hooked on that cause business, and advertising really can make a difference.
Good- Yeah… persuasive communications. And it’s, it’s harder than ever to do persuasive communications in the today’s media environment because you don’t have quite the same penetration on national media anymore. You gotta, it’s really gotta be tailored.
Eric Brown: Then you went to Public Agenda- Yeah… which is an organization that takes research and uses it to advance advocacy.
So it feels to me like you’re now making, you have made this shift-
Ruth Wooden: Yeah…
Eric Brown: into advocacy communications. Talk about those days.
Ruth Wooden: There was a little bit in the middle there. In ’99 I spent a year working for Bill Bradley when he was running presidential campaign.
Eric Brown: Oh, [00:12:00] yeah.
Ruth Wooden: You know, a, a long shot presidential campaign, ’cause he was running against the sitting vice president, Al Gore.
But he felt, you know, that was his, gonna be his time. If he was gonna do it, he was gonna do it then. And he had been involved in our advi- advisory committee at the Ad Council, so I knew him and- He asked me to put together a team of ad types to do some of the advertising, not all of it. We did the kind of what we call the personality advertising, not the, you know, blood and guts, you know, I, I stand- Yeah
against crime kind of thing. The, the story we, and then we had people like Bill Russell doing campaigns on his behalf in N- in New Hampshire when he was- Right… ’cause he was a Celtic. And then I, I worked for Porter Novelli, the PR firm in DC, on their public policy campaign. So there were campaigns for some of the medical societies and March of Dimes and things like that, that I did for a couple years, and then I came back to New York.
I never actually moved to Washington. I commuted on Monday morning-
Eric Brown: Uh-huh…
Ruth Wooden: with everybody from Congress, you know, on 6:00 [00:13:00] shuttle out of the old Marine Air terminal, and they, everybody knew everybody. It was like the, apparently there were, there are train cars from, you know, Trenton that come into New York like that in the morning.
Anyway, I did that, and then I would come back and work out of New, you know, work out of the New York office for a couple days a week. In, in 2003 I went to Public Agenda, which I had known well. We had done a lot of research with them when I was at the Ad Council. You know, I started in market research, so there was a, you know, that was not unusual.
I love marketing research. I always thought that in another life, a previous life, I was a forensic detective. I really like trying to understand the motivation of why people do what they do, and what in their background would guide me to understanding their motives or what their needs are. And so marketing research was always in my head.
Public Agenda, we did a lot of work around public education. We interviewed teachers, board members, students, fac- family, trying to understand what was happening, and that was a lot of ch- lot of change. That was the day when [00:14:00] charter schools came in. So there was a lot of concern about the teacher corps, you know, and we were the kind of truth tellers- Mm
of the teachers. They told us, you know, what was going on in the classroom, and we did our best to get that communicated to the policymakers.
Eric Brown: It seems to me that education policy is probably one of the hardest things to advocate for, ’cause n- we’re so fractured- Yeah… and different states do things differently.
Ruth Wooden: Yeah.
Eric Brown: How did you think about trying to create some kind of overarching narrative about education that could withstand the politics of-
Ruth Wooden: Yeah…
Eric Brown: 50 jurisdictions?
Ruth Wooden: I have to tell you, the thing that was the hardest to deal with was at that particular time, there were a lot of business leaders trashing the teachers.
Eric Brown: Mm.
Ruth Wooden: And, you know, I have said any number of times over my career, I don’t know how anybody becomes a teacher and withstands not only the job- But that kind of treatment. You know, they’ve been treated like widgets. They’ve been given [00:15:00] lots of kind of silly regulations of, you know, a good teacher who’s a creative teacher doesn’t have a lot of room anymore.
And I have family that been in teaching, and so I, you know, I, I was very proud of the work we did getting the voice of teachers out. I can remember, I will not tell you who the businessman was particularly- Yeah… ’cause you’d recognize the name, but I was on a panel with him, and he was carrying on about how we had to pay teachers differently, the, pay the good ones this way and the bad ones, kick them out kind of thing.
And I said, “Look, if they really were motivated that way, they’d come to work for you.” They would not be teaching if they weren’t motivated to work with other teachers to help a particular kid. I’ve got this student in fourth grade, I’m gonna hand him to you in fifth grade. I want you to take care of my student, and I don’t want you and I to be fighting over crumbs.
So I, I was always happy to articulate the teacher’s voice. And to this day, you know, I still think that we need to look at some of these models where [00:16:00] teachers, like in Finland, are paid $100,000, have more creativity allowance. But that, I don’t, I don’t know if that ship has sailed. Yeah.
Eric Brown: In the meantime, like when you’re waiting for your plane, it’s, they just like, “Okay, teachers and social workers, you can get on the plane first.”
Yeah.
Ruth Wooden: Yeah.
Eric Brown: Let’s, let’s just give them something nice.
Ruth Wooden: Yeah. All right, so- They work so, they work so hard. I u- I used to say, you know, I wanted to tell Bill Gates, it wasn’t Bill Gates by the way.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Ruth Wooden: But I wanted to tell him, “Go be a teacher for a month, and then stop this talk.”
Eric Brown: All right, so you’ve done advertising, and then as an advocate.
Can you talk about the, I don’t know what it is, the thread that goes through all of that work?
Ruth Wooden: You know, I would often ask to speak at some of these, like, independent sector and places like that. You know, where talking to the non-profit gang. And I love them, but I would say to them, you really think the problem is solved rationally.
Hmm. And the communications world is 95% of the time built on an emotional connection, [00:17:00] and it isn’t enough to say it, like didactically say it, and expect people to do what you want them to do. And you know, we know that better now in the communications world, because that’s how people now understand why algorithms work.
Right. You know, they appeal to the most dynamic part of our emotions. It w- but it’s always been so. I always say, what is getting in the way? Hmm. What is getting people stymied when they know what they should do? Yes. You know? It’s like, “Don’t drink and drive.” Of course you know that, but what gets in the way?
And sometimes they’re very silly things, and you know, the guys who d- Leo Burnett guys who came up with the safety belt campaign with the dummies, they were listening to the research, and they had been, they had seen the campaigns. They were all death and dying, you know, “Don’t put your seatbelt on, you’re gonna get killed.”
Hmm. And they were hearing, “It messes my dress.” “And it’s only, you know, two blocks to the grocery store.” And they were c- people were kind of embarrassed to say why they… And they took that and turned it into, you know, a [00:18:00] campaign that got attention, and arguably did the job with all the statistics we had on s- on seat belts.
Eric Brown: And that was the crash test dummies campaign?
Ruth Wooden: Yeah, the crash test dummies, yeah.
Eric Brown: Great campaign. We’ll link to it in the show notes, why not? Okay, after the break, we’re gonna talk about the transition, the next kind of stage in your life, so we’re gonna come-… right back with Ruth Wooden right after this.
You’re listening to Let’s Hear It, a podcast about foundation and non-profit communications hosted by Erik Brown and Kirk Brown. If you’re enjoying this episode, you may just be a rule breaker. Check out season three of Break Fake Rules with Glenn Galich, CEO of the Stupski Foundation, as he chats with inspiring leaders in philanthropy, government, media, and more about breaking the fake rules that don’t work so that we can build a future that does.
Eric Brown: Check them out wherever you get your podcasts. And now, back to the show.
Eric Brown: Welcome back. We’re talking with Ruth Wooden, one of the OG communications people, [00:19:00] and a dear friend, and someone I absolutely adore and respect. Oh. And I’m, I’m really enjoying this conversation.
Ruth Wooden: Likewise.
Eric Brown: So, so you retired from the, whatever, from advocacy and all that other stuff in 2011, if I understand that correctly.
Right.
Ruth Wooden: Right.
Eric Brown: Right. And, and then you went back to school and you got a master’s in religious studies at the Union Theological Seminary. Can you talk about that? That seems like a, a, a zag.
Ruth Wooden: Yeah. Well, you know, the truth is I had started working on retirement as an issue with Marc Freedman, when Marc established his little nonprofit to think about the longevity revolution.
It was c- then called Civic Ventures. This was in 2000, and I was still at the Ad Council, and he came to see me. We were introduced by a mutual friend, Mike Bailin, a wonderful Mike Bailin. And Marc asked if I would come on board to this little nonprofit as a board member, and I helped him do a lot of marketing research on what we were learning about retirement.
So I was already in the game about retirement in 2000. So 10 [00:20:00] years later, having done a lot of research, when it was my turn to retire, which was kind of with a weird experience, I can just say that in a minute, but I th- I wasn’t any more prepared than most people, even though I had done a lot of research about retirement.
And what I knew was that most of us don’t really… We retire actually earlier than we think we’re going to. Hmm. Something happens, and in my case, my mother got sick, and I was burned out from 2008 fundraising and trying to stay afloat, and I was in my early 60s and I said, “You know, I’m done.” And then my mom got sick and, you know, she had cancer and she lived with me, and so, you know, in the end, I, I announced I was gonna retire.
And I had thought I’d retire at 66 back in the days when that was full Social Security, but it was 64. So I was kind of not ready, and then one of those serendipitous things happened. When I announced I was retiring, I got a lot of coms- you know, comments, “What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?” And believe it or not, I got a, a call from Bill Moyers, [00:21:00] who I didn’t know that well.
I knew his wife well. Uh-huh. ‘Cause she was on the board of Public Agenda, and I, I knew Bill, but I, I didn’t ever expect to get a phone call from him.
Eric Brown: No.
Ruth Wooden: And he said, “I want you to meet the president of Union Theological. She wants you to maybe teach there.” I said, “Oh, I don’t wanna teach.” I r- I knew I didn’t wanna teach.
So we had lunch, and she said to me she wanted teaching or, you know, training on conflict resolution. And I said, “Well, that’s not a class. That’s a workshop, and I could do that for you.” To which she said, “Okay, I’ll arrange it, but I’m gonna keep it small and I’ll only put the people who are on an ordination track for ministry to take the class.”
To which I said, “Isn’t that everybody?” She said, “Oh, no.” I said, “Well, what do the other people do?” She said, “It’s about half our students.” Huh. So I went and looked up the course curriculum at Union Theological Seminary, which is a very progressive, non-denominational but Christian seminary. Has a lot of work with Buddhists and stuff, but, you know, its origins were Presbyterian originally.
And the coursework looked like stuff [00:22:00] I really wanted to study. a- and things I hadn’t taken, like ethics and philosophy and, you know, Kant and all those guys. But also a lot of history where religion really drove the history. So the first class that looked really interesting was 19th Century Theological American Liberalism.
Eric Brown: Of course.
Ruth Wooden: You know, it’s Thoreau and Emerson- Right… and later Darwin and Manifest Destiny. And I thought, “Oh, man, this sounds good.” Well, it was, and the professor’s, like, world-class. I ended up taking five of his classes. I had a crush on him. Yeah. And I just, I realized later that one of the things I tell people when they get ready to retire and transition is to live in the negative moment.
Some people call it the fertile void, the messy middle, and just see what kind of dreams you have m- and imageries and stuff. And I realized after the fact that I had this dream or imagery [00:23:00] of sitting in a circle. I was sitting in a circle, and I didn’t know what that was relating to, but I realized it was being one of many in a-
Eric Brown: Hmm
Ruth Wooden: environment like that. So I decided to just apply as a non-degree student. I did. I took a cla- I took the class, and then of course I had to take 20th Century American Theological Liberalism. Of
Eric Brown: course.
Ruth Wooden: And I got hooked, and I really loved being back in school. And I realized that was so energizing and so opening up- New language.
And, you know, seminary’s interesting, ’cause I was, at 65 years old, not even the oldest person in the room. Hmm. There were a lot of people going back to seminary, a lot of, you know, recovering lawyers.
Eric Brown: That’s right.
Ruth Wooden: A lot of recovering fundraisers. People who really had started a career that didn’t really fit anymore, and they were, k- you know, retooling.
And, you know, Union is a special place with special people. It’s nothing at all like advertising. [00:24:00] But I didn’t wanna hang around in advertising. I didn’t wanna, you know, go to the New York Ad Club lunches after I was retired, you know? I, I didn’t wanna do that. I hung around philanthropy still. You know, I was on a lot of boards, and I love-
Eric Brown: Yeah
Ruth Wooden: philanthropy. I have a, a love-hate with philanthropy. Yeah.
Eric Brown: Yes. We’re gonna get into that.
Ruth Wooden: It turned out to be a really good fit for me, and I, and I ended up designing this class called the Encore Transition Program, kinda stole it from Mark, about helping people discern what this time of life was like for them.
Most people keep thinking they’re gonna keep doing the same thing. You have to discern and discover, you know, what you really wanna do, and you’re, you’re in a different stage of life. I was no more ready than anybody else, but I read enough. I s- thought about it a lot. I designed a seminar around three core books at that time, and I’ve added books since then, and now we’re in the 10th year.
It’s a seminar that’s a semester-long program. Even during COVID we switched to Zoom, and now we do [00:25:00] Zoom. And I have people from all over. I’ve had people from Australia and Kenya take the class, so.
Eric Brown: Wow. So, so obviously you’ve got this whole new, I don’t know what I would call it, um, sense of perspective about-
Ruth Wooden: Yeah
Eric Brown: life, about communications, I imagine. Mm-hmm. And about what our purpose is. Mm-hmm. And you still sit on, uh, eleventy-seven boards.
Ruth Wooden: Well, quite a few. Not all at the same time.
Eric Brown: I’ve never seen someone on so m- as many boards as you. And you participate. Yeah. Like, it’s not a lot of board members they, their name is on a thing, and they never show up.
Ruth Wooden: I, I love board work. I really do.
Eric Brown: Now you have this incredibly rich and robust body of work- Yeah. Yeah… and a kind of a philosophical approach. How are you applying that to your board work and to the organizations that you are helping to advise even now?
Ruth Wooden: Yeah. I mean, one of the thing… I, I stopped counting at 25 boards and advisory committees that I’ve been on-
over the years. And it was kind of natural, because people got to know me from the Ad Council, and when we were not doing their campaign, they would come to me and… [00:26:00] But anyway. But, you know, I, I really try to help a board with its internal structures, and I always want to have a board that’s a mix of veterans and rookies.
Eric Brown: Hmm.
Ruth Wooden: And when I ran the Ad Council, our public agenda was the same thing. That the dynamic of older, younger, seasoned, brand new is the best way, I think, for organizations to meet their goals and to organize and st- and structure. It’s awkward because, you know, you don’t have a common song sheet all the time.
Right. But, so I, I like to work on nominating governance roles. I always get asked to do communications work, but I tend to defer a little bit more to the staff on that, because when you work for a big ad agency and your clients are the US government, you know, they got money. Right. I… Communications in the nonprofit world is actually a little bit more PR than advertising.
Those are two different things. PR [00:27:00] is third-hand endorsement, third-hand stories. Advertising can buy the time, and- Right… so it’s a mix of the medium and the message, whereas PR is harder. It’s much harder.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Ruth Wooden: And, and I did it at Porter Novelli, and I learned the difference, and you don’t really have clients as much as you have c- you know, campaigns, and they come and they go in PR.
That’s like a political campaign. Right. They’re, they’re usually, they’re different and they’re harder. I have a lot of respect for people who are really good, for example, at crisis communications.
Eric Brown: Yeah, yeah.
Ruth Wooden: You know, getting through that. There are, there are people who are really good at that. But this notion of the mix Of the, of the skills and the people is what I like to see, and kinda help guide.
I’ve been on more nominating committees than I care to think about, but-
Eric Brown: I’m guessing 25.
Ruth Wooden: And, and search committees. Is that- Oh my God, search committees. I just worked on the search committee for the new president at Union Theological Seminary, ’cause I’m on that board, and that was a hard search. It was replacing an 18-year, [00:28:00] very successful college president.
Who stays 18 years as a college president these days?
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Ruth Wooden: But she was, and was… So that search was hard. I’ve been on those that didn’t work, and what usually happens is it’s very hard to predict the conditions that a new president’s gonna walk into. You know, imagine, you know, becoming president of a, of a college in the middle of when COVID hit.
And some people, you… An adaptability of a, of a leader is the trick, I think, and some people adapt better than others, and you can’t really tell early on. That’s something I like to look for, you know.
Eric Brown: Well, speaking of adapting, and I’m gonna use a very thin little segue here, but in the couple of minutes that we have left, you talked about your love-hate relationship with philanthropy.
Ruth Wooden: Yeah.
Eric Brown: And you and I have had the conversation about whether h- philanthropy has adapted to the challenges of our time and increasing income inequality and the- Yeah… the, so many issues going on right now. It feels to me, and we’ve s- we’ve had this conversation, problems are huge, [00:29:00] the tools to solve them, not as huge.
And I have to tell you that I just met with a senior foundation executive who thinks that carving out the tax exemptions for large private foundations was a mistake. Mm-hmm. Like, his own industry.
Ruth Wooden: Yeah.
Eric Brown: Has philanthropy become an institution that has outlived its usefulness?
Ruth Wooden: I think it needs a lot of revamping, honestly, I do.
There’s so much money kind of trapped, and this whole business of tax exemptions and tax policy has actually not served philanthropy well. For example, I think it’s incredible that we don’t require spend down on the charitable funds, those kinds of funds. They should have to spend that in five years or s- there should- Yeah
sometime.
Eric Brown: The donor-advised funds?
Ruth Wooden: Yeah, the donor-advised funds.
Eric Brown: Yeah, yeah.
Ruth Wooden: And there’s more money there than anywhere now. You know, we’ve turned charitable giving into a kind of tax strategy, and that’s the kind of advice a lot of people get, is to start a foundation, you’ll be able to c- park it, and then you can do what you want with it.
But, you know, there’s a, a, a [00:30:00] moral question to me. Income inequality is a cancer right now, and, you know, it’s screaming so loud at us, and I just don’t hear the philanthropic voice that says, “This is our challenge.” Mm-hmm. And money isn’t so- gonna solve everything, for sure, but there’s any number of ways That money can build the building blocks to take that income inequality.
It’s just that to me right now is a sad story about philanthropy. I am impressed with the number of philanthropies that are spending down-
Eric Brown: Mm-hmm…
Ruth Wooden: trying to deal with scale, but I’m, I’m sorry that they’ve gotten so kinda caught up in small gestures, honestly.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Ruth Wooden: I look at what Ford led to kinda resuscitate Detroit.
Yep. I think it was a huge thing, and I have to say, that was telling show to me of what philanthropy could have [00:31:00] done. And I do believe that Ford led that with honor. Cleveland did the same thing-
Eric Brown: Yeah…
Ruth Wooden: in its moment. The Cleveland Foundation led that. Maybe it’s thinking more locally about philanthropy, and I used to think that was kind of inefficient, that it should be big national things.
I’m beginning to think that if we were focusing in a fully comprehensive way on all cylinders, but in a place-based philanthropy, I think we’d see more great stories that we could spread using communications-
Eric Brown: Right…
Ruth Wooden: that would get other areas to adopt. Things go in a kind of, what did Peter Drucker called it, the tipping point.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Ruth Wooden: You know, when 30% of the population does X, it jumps to 50 very quickly. I think that could happen if we had more good examples of philanthropy collaborating and monitoring and tracking in a doable space of either geographic space or target audience space. So [00:32:00] I’m hopeful the conditions are kinda ripe for a philanthropic revolution.
I… You know, there’s some good people in philanthropy that are beginning to talk like this, and you’re one of them.
Eric Brown: Aw, shucks.
Ruth Wooden: My old friend David Callahan’s doing the same thing on Inside Philanthropy. Yeah. You know? You know what? It’s easy to be a curmudgeon and to critique it-… and not, rather than have to do it.
I’ve been on a foundation board, I know.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Ruth Wooden: But you know, Mike Bailin didn’t sit around waiting for, you know, small bore stuff. He,
Eric Brown: former president of Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.
Ruth Wooden: Yeah. He, he, that was a, that was a really good experience. I learned a lot watching Mike.
Eric Brown: Well, you still have hope and energy and enthusiasm, and you are putting your shoulder to the wheel on all of these things, so that gives me hope.
I, I do think- Yeah… that we can get through this nutty, crazy time. Yeah, yeah. And I, I think more people should be listening to you, Ruth.
Ruth Wooden: Well, you know, I wanna say one thing. Next Tuesday-
Eric Brown: The, the, well, this won’t be out by next Tuesday, but-
Ruth Wooden: Okay. Okay. Tuesday, August 4th is my 80th birthday.
Eric Brown: [00:33:00] Ah.
Ruth Wooden: I was born in 1946 when my father came back from the war.
Nine months later, I was born. We are the very front of the, of the baby boom. Mm-hmm. Very front. Here come A lot of 80-year-olds. That brings all kinds of problems and opportunities, but we’ve never seen this before, and it’s giving me… I’m starting to think about a, a c- a line extension of my Encore class for 80 plus.
Eric Brown: Oh.
Ruth Wooden: Because it is different than 70 and 60, and I can feel it in me, and I trust my instincts that this is a different opportunity. And it’s the, uh, what do you call it? The destiny of demography. You can’t really turn it off. Yeah. And it’s, there’s a lot to come.
Eric Brown: Well, I was born in the l- the last two weeks of the baby boom.
Okay. So you and I are the, w- like almost the literal bookends- The, the bookends… of the- Yeah. Two weeks later it was, it was Generation X. Uh-
Ruth Wooden: Yeah.
Eric Brown: Ruth, thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you. It was fun. I adore you, and it’s been a wonderful conversation. I salute you for [00:34:00] everything you’ve done and everything you’re gonna do.
Ruth Wooden: I always, oh, I always like chatting with you, and
Kirk Brown: no, no,
Ruth Wooden: I’m gonna do less. You know, 80, 80 is gonna be a little quieter time. I think that’s… The, the clue to 80 is less but deeper.
Eric Brown: Ah.
Ruth Wooden: I think that’s what I’m learning in my research. That’s what people are wanting in their 80s. It’s a good time for philosophy and religion.
Maybe.
Eric Brown: Well, thank you again. Thank you. Happy birthday. Thank you. You’re the best. All right. You be well.
Kirk Brown: And we’re back. Oh my, where do you start? Has- honestly, have we had someone with a more interesting career on this podcast than Ruth’s?
Eric Brown: I
Kirk Brown: don’t- I mean, all the wrinkles, all of the… And by the way, we’re walking around New York City in our mink coats-
in the ’80s. You can absolutely see it. You can absolutely understand what that would be. It’s incredible. It’s so great. It’s so great.
Eric Brown: I don’t know that we’ve had someone with [00:35:00] that depth of experience. I mean, Ruth goes way back, way, way back.
Kirk Brown: Oh,
Eric Brown: man. And the fact is that, as she said, she just turned 80 years old this summer, and she has as much energy as anyone I know.
Yeah. And she’s still on 117 boards- Yeah… and incredibly vital. She continues to make an incredibly important contribution to non-profit organizations and the people they serve with as much energy, fervor, excitement, enthusiasm, joy, and love as anybody I know.
Kirk Brown: Yeah, and she, you know, comes out of advertising, comes out of market research, brings that depth of experience to the Ad Council, and Ruth is clearly adept and expert in the changing media landscape, and just, you know, drops a handful of things demonstrating that expertise as you guys go through your conversation.
But I do think it’s interesting to kind of step back and give people some perspective on how significant the Ad Council is and [00:36:00] remains. Yeah, yeah. But, but, you know, if you were in the United States of America, I think, would you say that 100% true, you encountered Ad Council content somehow along your journeys?
Yes. You may not have been aware of it, but their campaigns were that ubiquitous, and the messaging Literally, it’s almost like the soundtrack of our lives. It’s like you can be like, “Oh yeah, I remember that campaign.” Right. “I remember that campaign.” And that’s the Ad Council. So the fact that Ruth was there and was recruited there because she was somebody who could do that marriage between research, advocacy, work with clients, work with this board, just that alone makes a career, right?
So I mean- Yeah… just the Ad Council person part is incredible, and I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody. It’s such a mystery. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who was sort of on the inside of the Ad Council. It just seems like, wow, what goes on inside there? That, I don’t know. I love that part of that conversation.
Eric Brown: These were massive publicity campaigns for causes. Yeah. Yeah. And, and they’re still out [00:37:00] there, but at the time, you’re right, in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, before we had the ubiquity of information the way we do now, before we had all the social media, before we had any of that, so before we had the internet, you would see television ads and print ads for things like Smokey the Bear-
Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk, the- Yeah… crash test dummies, that kind of stuff. And that got, I believe, 100% penetration. Yeah. Which sounds very painful, but in fact-… it just means that everybody would see an Ad Council spot at some point, and my guess is that they would see them many times over, and they could probably measure that, and they made a difference.
And I just think that’s cool. And you’re right, the coordination between multiple ad agencies who are usually in competition with each other partnering with some large nonprofit organization, and perhaps their networks, to create a narrative around a, a particular [00:38:00] issue. That kind of stuff is, they just, it’s not as it used to be, and it’s so incredible what she did.
Kirk Brown: And it was social media before social media was a thing in the sense that- Yeah… the campaigns would be high impact, but they would also drive cultural conversations because guess what? That’s right. Since everybody is seeing it, now y- suddenly you’ve got perspectives coming forward saying, “Wait a minute, you’re talking about this nationally.
This is really important, but guess what? From where I’m sitting, I have these perspectives about it.” And when those perspectives were evidence-based and th- were thoughtful, they generated more conversation. So I think it’s sort of a both/and there, right? Yeah. It’s like not only were the campaigns really powerful, globally seen, impactful, but they also generated this follow-on discussion about, “Well, you know, if we’re gonna talk about that issue that way, maybe we should think, you know, these ways about it,” right?
Absolutely. So there was that second part that came through, and clearly you get from Ruth the sensibility of somebody who would be willing, more than willing, to be at the center of that conversation, right? And, and invite it all in, invite that all in.
Eric Brown: And because Ruth is who she is, she could navigate all these high-powered-
Kirk Brown: Yes[00:39:00]
Eric Brown: folks and keep them Working together in effective ways. And because she understands message, she understands strategy, she could help shape these campaigns in ways that probably few other people could.
Kirk Brown: As we go through these conversations, I keep bouncing back and forth between the how much of this is taught versus how much of this is learned.
And Ruth is this interesting amalgam of there’s clear discipline, there’s clear expertise, there’s clear grinding and research. And then I hear Ruth talk about it and I’m like, “Not teachable.” Not teachable. This is just Ruth. This is just, Ruth is so unbothered, you know what I mean? That’s right. Ruth is just has seen so much and has been around…
When you’ve been on 25 boards and you can still just be generally positive about that experience, you know what I mean? Not just dumpster diving into absolute cynicism. I don’t know, man. That is such a personal quality that came through. I just wanted Ruth to keep talking. I just want to hear the stories.
Maybe Ruth needs a podcast and it’s just [00:40:00] story time with Ruth Lady, ’cause we should all listen, we should just all listen to this.
Eric Brown: Turn on the microphone and talk for a while. And you’re right, this level of energy that she applies to these, to the very, very many boards that she sits on and continues to sit on boggles my mind.
I don’t know- Mm… how she does it. I- Wow. I’m kind of a j- generally speaking, a lousy board member and for the two boards I sit on.
Kirk Brown: But isn’t this incredible? So you guys are going, doing the back and forth, and she just drops this just beautiful nugget, you know, that communications in the nonprofit world is really more public relations than advertising- Yeah
’cause you don’t have the budgets, and she has so much respect for PR. Of course, given my background, I’m just like, she’s won me over completely at that moment ’cause she’s 100% right in my experience. And yet, at the same time, she’s also gone through this process where she’s brought her advertising sensibilities to this advocacy realm.
And how often do we need to hear this to this day? That problems are not solved [00:41:00] rationally. And you know what’s interesting? She says 95% of the time this is built on emotional connection. Do we all say that because we don’t believe 100% exists in nature? Because actually, do we ever?
Eric Brown: 35% of the geeks out there want to see the data, but everybody else wants to hear a story.
Maybe.
Kirk Brown: I don’t know, maybe even that. And then just again, these little drops, it’s like, yeah, and actually this is why algorithms work so effectively, right?
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Kirk Brown: Because we can hone the algorithm to grab your emotions and cause you to do things and think things and feel things, and you’re just along for the ride.
You’re not even aware that process is happening. That’s right. I just, I just love it. I can’t get… It’s great. I can’t get enough of it.
Eric Brown: And she does it with intuition and intelligence and rather than some dude now, whatever, vibe coding the code, ’cause they don’t even code the code anymore.
Kirk Brown: Yeah.
Eric Brown: This is all really kind of crazy because, I mean, let me go back Democratic politics could use Ruth
Kirk Brown: Oh, you think? Do you think?
Eric Brown: Oh [00:42:00] my God. To help make a point- That’s, that’s right… about how you engage people. Instead of, you know, coming out with a 99-page paper, you talk about things in ways they care about.
And this is what she has spent her career doing, is understanding how to connect with people. And in the old days was to sell them something, and in the new days is to persuade people, organizations, systems to do better or to do differently, and that’s-
Kirk Brown: And sh- That’s Ruth… and she cares. She still cares.
And by the way, Ruth, we respect your agency in deciding what you’re gonna do with your life, but maybe that, maybe that swan song career
Eric Brown: choice-
Kirk Brown: Oh, God. Here
Eric Brown: you go… maybe that swan song career- Here you go, Kirk,
Kirk Brown: telling
Eric Brown: people what to do.
Kirk Brown: Maybe you should be pounding down the doors of all these policymakers and being like, “Please, please, this is how people work.”
And so one place where that emotional sensibility came through is you talked about education policy. Yeah. And as somebody who’s worked in education policy a little bit, you’ve done it a lot, I’m the child of public school teachers. It’s really interesting hearing somebody, [00:43:00] again, who’s had so much access to this topic, so much access to research and data, just be like, “You know what?
I just wanna pause for a second. Can we stop badmouthing teachers? Can we actually start addressing how difficult that job is and how many things you need to do, and actually what kind of… You know, we’re trying to prepare our students for this new economy and give them all the skills that will help them thrive.
And our process for doing that is to put teachers into the tightest possible box we can-
Eric Brown: Right…
Kirk Brown: in terms of what they’re allowed to do and not do in their classes.” And so I thought she was headed to a major name drop that she walked away from in your interview, because she didn’t mention the big fish funder who’s been in a lot of that education stuff, who’s very famous, so I’m not gonna use his name.
But she did say she’s been on some sessions with business people talking about, you know, just you should pay teachers in this very outcomes-oriented way. And she’s like, “You know, actually, you- Stop that… that teacher’s not going to that job because that’s their values. Yes, you should pay more, but you should be unleashing their creativity.
That’s gonna create better outcomes for students.” Anyway, there’s a lot we could say about education policy, there’s a lot of people think about it all the time, but again, this notion of let’s stay [00:44:00] in the emotional center of what’s happening here and work from there. At least in some of the stuff I’ve seen tried in the educational communications space, there’s…
It, it’s, it’s such a human field and yet it struggles to do that. Because there’s so much evidence behind outcomes too, right? So all of a sudden it’s PhDs talking to PhDs, and you’ve lost everybody in the room.
Eric Brown: Right. That’s right. This is, I, I believe, why education policy, why education philanthropy is so hard to do.
Kirk Brown: Ugh. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Brown: Is… and different school districts, different communities, different states, different everythings kind of act differently. And to try and ram some one way of thinking through is kind of impossible. And education is one of the… It’s just one of these crazy challenging- areas. And most funders have found it extremely difficult to crack that nut.
Kirk Brown: But so then we have Ruth’s absolute expertise on display, and what [00:45:00] does she decide to do? She retires and decides to challenge herself.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Kirk Brown: And so she heads over to Union. And so this is a shout-out for New York City. Two of the most beloved institutions that nobody cares about in the world, Union Theological Seminary, The New School for Social Research.
Take a field trip, spend six months of your life, go to classes in these places. You will be changed forever. But Union Theological Seminary, just this tiny little speck of a place, but it’s produced so much thinking, brought so many people in, so many interesting people in. And of course, what happens? She takes these classes where history and religion come together, and religion is driving history, and it’s sort of, you can step back and be like, “Wow, maybe religion is the soundtrack of history.”
It’s always interesting to ask questions about that. So now Ruth is on this new thing, being like, “Hey, let’s start thinking about longevity. Let’s start thinking about what happens after you retire.” And man, you know, I love her story about this too. She’s 64. She’s not ready to retire. So for so many of us, that happens earlier than we think because something happens.
And I think this is this interesting thing about this later [00:46:00] phase of our lives we get into, it seems, where all of a sudden your life of agency that’s been full of all the choices you make, all of a sudden life starts happening to you again. And these little bits and pieces, all of a sudden you’re responding to the conditions that life is setting for you, as opposed to you shaping those conditions or believing you’re shaping them.
And so what does Ruth do? She comes up with this entirely new approach to how to help people think about what this next phase of their life could be. And I love how she’s saying, “I’m in seminary class at 65, and I’m not the, I’m not the oldest student in the classroom.”
Eric Brown: No,
Kirk Brown: Kirk- Right? And it’s-
Eric Brown: Yeah, that’s amazing.
So Kirk, it sounded like b- f- from that last little, you know, monologue that you had there, that you have something you wanna tell people.
Kirk Brown: No, nothing for me to say. But I do have-
Eric Brown: This is, that was not a personal statement you were making?
Kirk Brown: I, I do have a family- Nothing I need to worry
Eric Brown: about?
Kirk Brown: I have a family member, I have a family member who went through Union.
Oh. I have a family member who went to… Yes. Oh. I have first, I have first-person personal experience of what that place is like, and it’s, it’s incredible. No, [00:47:00] so if I could find six months to go hang out at Union, I would do it in a heartbeat. Ah. And I think everybody in America should do it. But what do you think about this notion of, like, getting to your 60s, 70s, your 80s, and being like, “You know what?
What’s next? What’s the choice I’m gonna make? How am I gonna shift gears?” And again, Ruth has this massive expertise and says, “That’s great, but actually now I wanna do something else. I wanna design an entire class that’s about how you create these transitions at this phase of your life.” And she’s been doing it for 10 years as a semester-long program.
I just think that’s, I think that’s such a cool thing to be doing at this phase of her career.
Eric Brown: Yes, and as someone who is, you know… I’ve, I’ve passed middle age. I, I’m on, I’m on the d- I don’t
Kirk Brown: believe it…
Eric Brown: I’m on the downslope
Kirk Brown: I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.
Eric Brown: I, I ought to start thinking about these things myself.
But that kind of energy. And again, this is one of those things that I encourage everybody out there to do, is to continue to ask yourself, where can I contribute? And for [00:48:00] our listeners, a lot of communications people out there, a lot of foundation people, nonprofits, strategy people who have a lot of experience in helping others, I think Ruth is this amazingly shining example of somebody who really gives back, who always- Yeah
gives back. And I mean, sometimes it’s the busier you are, the more you get done, you know, whatever. If you want something done, ask a busy person. But as people end up having more time in their lives, there are so many things that you can do to contribute, and she’s just this shining example for that.
Kirk Brown: So you concluded your conversation with the topic that I, I knew it was coming.
I knew it was coming when you got started. You talked about philanthropy.
Eric Brown: Right.
Kirk Brown: You talked about both of your relationships to philanthropy, and I almost lost my mind because- Oh… this was so well said. And, and we won’t go through the whole critique. You know, you c- you could carry people through as much as you would like.
But Ruth starts doing this reflection and being like, “You know-” Maybe we should have philanthropy that’s working more within specific geographic or target [00:49:00] audience spaces.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Kirk Brown: And then she does this quick math. She’s like, “You know, because once you get to 30%, you get to 50% pretty fast.”
Eric Brown: Mm-hmm.
Kirk Brown: And working within constrained geographies is a good way to understand that math.
We’re trying to get to that first 30%, that’s gonna get us to 50%. Once you’re at 50%, you’ve changed what? Everything. You’ve changed politics in America. And you and I share a little passion project of mine that I’ve- Yes… worked on for years that’s trying to work that math exactly. And can I tell you how difficult it is to get people who think globally-
Eric Brown: Right
Kirk Brown: who think that they are the biggest, you know, the biggest whatever at, at the party, to think, does it matter? Does it matter for small communities to get to 30%, to get to 50%, to then change everything? It is, it’s a blind spot in philanthropy today, I think that framework. I couldn’t believe how well-spoken Ruth was on that point, and I don’t think there’s an issue that we care about that you couldn’t run through that rubric of like, huh, I’m gonna think place-based or I’m gonna think target audience-based.
How do I build engagement, [00:50:00] activation, whatever it is, to that 30% that gets me to that 50% that then starts changing everything? I, I, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. I think it’s amazing.
Eric Brown: Well, this is where small foundations actually can make a huge difference.
Kirk Brown: Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Brown: Because a small foundation probably is not going to think about global philanthropy.
They’re not gonna think about these large systems changes. But what- Yeah… they can do and do understand is their community. And if you can begin to build the kinds of relationships inside a community that transcend, maybe transcend politics or whatever. They- Yeah… they go around it or they’re not driven by the politics.
I mean, I know that’s hard, but you can actually make a difference. And get enough of those communities thinking together, and now all of a sudden you’ve come up with a new way to get things done. You might have the chance to restore people’s trust in how a community functions, maybe even how governments can function.
And now all of a sudden you’re on a new way, and it is the antithesis of what we’re dealing with right now, where we have these [00:51:00] tribal factions, we have, uh, disinformation, which is much harder to spread when you’re talking to your neighbor. I mean, it is the opposite of what we see right now. And foundations and small nonprofit organizations that are in their communities can have huge effect on how you can bring about change.
And so this is where- Smaller philanthropy might even be better philanthropy
Kirk Brown: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, and it’s funny too because the last pitch I’d make there is that one of the key differences you’re pointing to there is that perception that we’re tribal, that we’re disinformation- Right
misinformation, all that kind of stuff, it’s being fed to us by the social media channels that are prospering because they’re feeding that to you. And those folks that are working from the community perspective first are not trapped by that prison. So they’re actually operating within real communities where they understand people don’t want to be trapped in the prison of that perceived, you know, differentiation, that perceived- Right
polarization. And it’s incredibly easy to get people to come together around things that they all care about because guess what? [00:52:00] They all care about them.
Eric Brown: Right.
Kirk Brown: Right? And they’re real. So, so that’s right. So it’s funny, even in this conversation that starts with, you know, advertising in the ’80s in New York City and winds its way through the new era of this new media, it brings us back to this place-based conversation that if you cannot get out of your ivory tower office, if you cannot actually sit in a room in a town in a conversation with real people who are not being mediated, curated to you through some other mechanism, you’re just not gonna get it.
And that’s not pollster work. That’s not focus group work. That is you actually getting out, walking around, having coffee with people. The old school is the new school and anyway, so we’ll get off our soapbox on that. But Ruth, again, just brings it to us so brilliantly, eloquently, wonderfully. Wow.
Ruth Wooden, thank you so much for coming on Let’s Hear It. That was incredible. Eric, that was an amazing conversation.
Eric Brown: It was, and I just encourage people to learn a little bit about Ruth because she has so much to teach us. And maybe take her class.
Kirk Brown: Mm.
Eric Brown: That’d be fun.
Kirk Brown: Take her class. Look for Ruth Wooden at Union Theological Seminary and take her [00:53:00] course.
And as she notes, people all around the world have found her- Yep… or they’re participating ’cause it’s online now, so please do. We’ll put a
Eric Brown: link in the show notes.
Kirk Brown: Incredible.
Eric Brown: Hey, if you noticed-
Kirk Brown: It’ll be in the show notes…
Eric Brown: the show notes, I’m trying to make the show notes better, so-
Kirk Brown: You’re doing well.
You do great work with that-… check ’em out… by the way. They’re like an incredible resource now. Yeah. It’s amazing. Hey, we’re getting there. It’s great. Well, well done, Mr. Brown. Thank you, Ruth Wooden, thank you, and to all of you who keep coming back and listening, thank you. We’ll see you next time on Let’s Hear It.
Okay, everybody, that’s it for this episode. Please let us know if you have any thoughts about what you heard today or people we should have on this show, and that definitely includes yourself. And we’d like to thank John Allee, the tuneful and inspiring composer of our theme music
Eric Brown: Our sponsor, the Lumina Foundation
Kirk Brown: And please check out Lumina’s terrific podcast, Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s Talent, and you can find that at luminafoundation.org.
Eric Brown: We certainly thank today’s guest, and of course, all of you
Kirk Brown: And most importantly, thank you, Mr. Brown.
Eric Brown: Oh, no, no, no, no. Thank you, Mr. Brown.
Kirk Brown: Okay, everybody. [00:54:00] Till next time