Mark Harrison is the founder of the MH3 Collective, a group of ventures whose purpose is to connect people & ideas to create social impact. The Collective includes Humanity, T1, Sidekick, and SponsorshipX. In addition, he co-founded the Black Talent Initiative to support the Black community in professional workplaces and Park Street Education, a charity to remove all barriers to children’s education.
His community involvement includes being Board Chair of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Toronto and a Board Member of several organizations, including the CAMH Foundation, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences/The JUNO Awards, Ontario University Athletics, and Playmaker Capital.
Mark is a recipient of the Black Business and Professional Association’s Harry Jerome Award and the Association of Canadian Advertisers’ 2022 Gold Medal Award winner.
Mark is also CBC Metro Morning’s business columnist, where you can hear his regular takes on corporate and societal matters.
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What does the term Belonging mean to you, to your audiences and your stakeholders? In this talk, Mark Harrison shares his view that, while well-intentioned, many Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts (still) need to address the most significant pain points of minoritized groups. He suggests that issues and challenges of DEI efforts need a new north star – To Build Belonging. To do so, are internal strategic approaches allowing organizations to tackle the tensions of commercial priorities versus the cultural change sought by many? What is your role as a leader in crafting those approaches or ensuring they are commitments? Let’s take the time to understand how you can influence the pursuit of purpose in your organization with a better understanding of the potent recipe for Belonging.
Over the past ten years, Social Media has brought the concept of Community to the forefront of Marketing Strategy. This idea is one of the essential strategies any business needs to dominate. But the concept of Building Community for a brand is much more vital than being limited to being an online marketing tactic. It needs to be an overarching strategy for a company to cultivate and nurture. Building Community is an opportunity for a business to participate in the lives of its consumers. All enterprises need to understand their Community truly, and there are several questions that they can utilize to gain this knowledge. Once they know their Community better, a new world is open for them to inhabit, where the development and promotion of new products, services, and experiences will become more intrinsic and enriching.
A ridiculous snobbery exists around the notion of creativity in marketing. The terms thinking outside the box, big idea, never been done before, ownable, shareable, and unique are so overused they have become powerless expressions. The over-emphasis on breakthrough creativity results in excessive spending of energy and resources that overshadow the busy mechanisms of promoting and selling daily. Tactics provide a practical escape from the clutches of high-minded creativity. More importantly, creative tactics create rocket fuel for a brand to shine in the eyes of its consumers. Becoming Tactically Creative requires acquiring a different skill set than Idea Generators. Founded with an unrelenting focus on results, the creative development and execution of marketing tactics will contribute profitable results for any entity, business, or organization.
We hear it every day. Millennials value the accumulation of experiences over things. But what does that mean? More importantly, is it a phenomenon that is unique only to Millenials? What constitutes an experience? By studying how our consumers live today, we can see that there is a much broader application of the expression accumulation of experiences. Everyday life is a brand experience. An exploration of this refined definition reveals the opportunities for businesses, charities, government organizations, and community groups to reap significant rewards by altering their value proposition to be an indispensable part of daily life.
By 2027 there will be more freelancers, gig workers, and entrepreneurs in the United States than full-time workers. Entrepreneurship is the leading form of economic growth globally. It has taken many forms, most unimaginable a few decades ago and with it, there would be much more innovation and investment. Even established organizations seek to harness intrapreneurship, a form of entrepreneurship, as an approach and philosophy with their employees, particularly when growth and profits slow. Discovering the secret formula of successful entrepreneurship is the subject of significant study, pitting ideas vs. execution, investment vs. endorsement, and genius vs. muscle. In this talk, Mark Harrison, an entrepreneurism geek, will discuss what skills every entrepreneur needs to succeed and how you can ignite employees to have an entrepreneurial spirit within the workplace.