The 14th Annual Rosoff Awards, presented by the Ad Club, recognize companies that have meaningful diversity, mentoring, and inclusion programs and was held (fittingly) at the John F. Kennedy Library this week. In addition, $110,000 worth of scholarships were presented to eleven gifted and diverse high school students - “Rosoff Scholars” - who will be mentored by a sponsored company throughout their four years of college.

Given that the advertising industry has been challenged with increasing its diversity practices, I am proud of the Ad Club for leading the way. As Kathy Kiely, President of the Ad Club pointed out in her introduction of the Rosoff Awards, Boston has a rich history of Human Rights firsts and we are a city that is arguably one of the most tolerant places to live in America.

Our Keynote speaker, Harvard Business School professor David Thomas , author of “Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America” talked about applying business practices to diversity. In other words, diversity initiatives should not simply be an HR program, they should be woven through a company’s strategic business plan.

Some of Thomas’s thought provoking points included (paraphrased):

In order for an organization be diverse and support differences in the workplace, executive leadership needs to form relationships that are transformative.

We want a diverse workforce, but are not always willing to learn from our diverse employees.

With these points in mind, I challenge my fellow CEOs:

Get out of your comfort zone and get to know a business colleague or form a new business relationship with someone different - not the same people you see at every event. Learn from the experience. Shake things up.

Be inspired by the companies that were honored by the Rosoff Awards and other companies that work hard to support diversity, not only because it is the right thing to do, but a smart business decision in the long run. Use the Rosoff Awards as a model in your city.

Show support for programs like the Rosoff Awards through sponsorship, volunteering and mentoring - offer up what your company does best. Show your employees that these types of programs matter and encourage their participation (setting an example from the top down is the best way).

The Ad Club has stepped up its commitment to fostering diversity since the Rosoff Awards were founded 14 years ago. How can you do your part?

It was a star-studded group of social media mavens at Harvard, both on stage and in the audience. Presenters included Southwest Airlines Social Media Manager Christi Day (@christi5321), Rebel Industries Josh Levine (@jlevine), and Dominos Pizza Super-Francisee Ramon DeLeon (@Ramon_DeLeon). EMC’s Polly Pearson (@pollypearson) stressed the importance of community as an internal resource, allowing insight into cross-discipline initiatives. And Red Cross Social Media Director Wendy Harman (@wharman) stressed the importance of Twitter as a disaster management communication medium. A very interesting case on a regionally distributed brand personification strategy.

Key themes that reigned throughout the day: Listen to your user base, learn from them, and react accordingly. Perhaps the group was best summed up by the conference’s first Keynote Speaker Stanley Kirk Burrell (aka rapper, musician, and preacher MC Hammer) when he said: in this day and age, “perception has trumped reality, and if you’re allowing somebody else to control the perception of your brand, you’re in trouble.”

Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee), true entrepreneur, famed host of the widely popular Wine Library TV, and fearless leader of “Vayner Nation” hosted a high-octane question and answer session where he offered summit attendees a couple of key messages: “Sweat equity will define winners and losers,” and it is ON YOU to leverage the tools available to you.

The day closed with @garyvee offering to the audience a challenge when he said that “It blows my mind that we’re still debating whether THIS is going to stick. If you have eyeballs, you can make money. You can sell eyeballs. Period. End of story.” How you decide to do it is up to you. Inspiring words.

We found it interesting that all these brilliant innovators came together in the hallowed halls of the Harvard Faculty Club. Marketers and technologists talked about the future of business not at Harvard Business School but in the center of Harvard’s campus on the first floor of one of Harvard’s oldest buildings. Old meets new? Perhaps. But we saw it as a metaphor for how these trends in technology are changing us from the inside out.

Kudos to the Gravity Summit team for putting on a great day. Excellent presenters and good content. And those who couldn’t attend were treated to solid streaming coverage via cnn.com/live.

Some feedback to consider: We’d like to see more interaction between those presenting and the audience. Considering you have all of those social media mavens in a room, we’d love to see more audience participation. And while the day was rich with content, oddly there was too much reliance on PowerPoint as the platform.

A summary video by @needgraphics can be seen here: http://www.viddler.com/explore/KnowItUp/videos/21/.

Photo credits: @gradontripp, http://www.flickr.com/photos/goodguygrady/