I’ll admit I hadn’t heard of The Marcus Graham Project until yesterday. As it turned out, they sponsor a weekly live podcast and yesterday, Luke Sullivan was the guest. To make a long story short, I was live-tweeting a little bit during Luke’s appearance while watching football, and he noticed it and name-checked me right before the end of the live show. Kinda cool.
But the Marcus Graham Project is cooler than that.
Here’s a little about them from their website:
The Marcus Graham Project is a national network of diverse professionals that have purposed themselves in developing the next generation of thought leadership within the advertising, media and marketing industry.
Our mission is to identify, expose, mentor and train ethnically diverse men and women between the ages of 16 and 34 in all aspects of the media industry, including advertising, entertainment and marketing.
The vision of the Marcus Graham Project (MGP) is to provide long-term access to information, technology, financial and people resources that will strategically develop a viable pool of talent and leadership within the industry.
It’s a very worthy, and needed, program. They sponsor a summer-long boot camp for professionals, speak to students, and maintain an online community where ad industry people and aspiring professionals can network.
And if you’re wondering about the name, as the website states, “Marcus Graham is the name of the character that Eddie Murphy played in the 1992 movie Boomerang. His character was a “hot shot” advertising executive who by the end of the film traded his life as an insatiable ladies man to become a mentor of youth in the arts and media.”
You can also follow them on Twitter.
