In the Business of Community: “Where socioeconomic impact meets Business for the greater Good of Local, National, and International Community.” – Quanta D
For Ms. Em McMonagle and Chary Sathea, the importance of doing Business in fostering actual relationships is as pertinent as getting face-to-face, a bounce to the outside of Digital realms and into “real life” is the flair and foundation these gals have built The Cnnekt upon.
Prepare yourself, this Quanta D. interview with the Business Innovating Founders of The Cnnekt will allow you into their savvy, know-how, plenty of laughter, and the inspiration it takes to build upon faith and establish a solid Community, where everyone achieves some level of success.
Quanta D: And we’re off to another great edition of Quanta D. for Business Innovators Magazine and Radio. This is where we are showcasing ‘In the Business of Community.’ We have some ladies here today that are doing something that looks a little rare, a little unusual, just the way we like it and a little special. These connecting women are connecting People and creating Community. Fresh and new and they’re off to a great start. Welcome ladies to Quanta D. for Business Innovators Radio and the show ‘In the Business of Community.’
Q: How are you feeling on this fine New York City, extra hot day today?
A: The Cnnekt: Wow. We’re feeling great. Thank you so much for having us.
Quanta D: Oh absolutely, thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. With what you girls are working on, it’s really strange how we came across you, scouting of course, through one of the underground search engine sites online, that’s turned into, almost a little scary over the past few years. I remember the days where I could easily get a gig with no problem and didn’t have to worry about sleazy, slimy, whatever have you, going through the belly of the beast and trying to hit on me and send me really horrific graphic images.
But, we still, I will still have to praise the site, I will not give the name of it but I’ll still give it praise for having really great search engine rankings, and there are still some opportunities that are still good through there but you’ve got to keep sifting through them. We were scouting through the gigs section in hoping to come across our third brand that we chose to try and send an invite out to request an interview, and we happened upon you women so,
Q: Please introduce yourselves for the People?
A: The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: Sure. My name is Emily McMonagle and I am the Co-Founder of The Cnnekt.
A: The Cnnekt: Chary Sathea: My name is Chary Sathea and I am the Co-Founder of The Cnnekt.
Quanta D: Awesome, do you hear that? These girls? They’re so great. Ok,
Q: What exactly is The Cnnekt?
A: The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: The Cnnekt is an inclusive digital platform that brings together, connect actually, connecting women online and offline. Online through content and offline through events. So just to cover the event portion of what we do, every other month we host a happy hour where we invite our Readers and Writers to kind of connect offline and meet face to face, and build relationships, network but just in a more relaxed way. The other month we host more curated events so, we’ll do panels featuring women who are killing it in their careers, to political events, to protests and fighting back due to the current political climate. And then also we do Fitness events and Art Shows and basically, we’re covering all aspects of women in this beautiful city of New York and all of their different creative ventures, and then Chary will speak on content.
A: The Cnnekt: Chary Sathea: Our events also translate online. Our hoping is the reason why we want to bring the event aspect into real life is because we wanted to bring that online engagement to like, face-to-face interactions, but on our content side, first and foremost, we’re content driven. We are a compilation of personal essays and we have a thriving spotlight section, where we interview women across the country who do very notable and amazing things in their respective industries.
A: The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: Yeah, it’s all always fun learning about people and you know, like, having that opportunity for them to shine.
Quanta D: And shining you guys are doing, it looks so beautiful, very nice packaging Also, beautiful concept in The Cnnekt, with a ‘k’ and without an ‘o,’ really, really ingenious stuff here,
Q: So, Ladies? Let us know, how did The Cnnekt happen?
A: The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: Sure. So, Chary and I were both Freelance Writers in the city, and one of the same projects we shared was a website, which I will not mention the name but it is no longer present online. Chary once wrote a story that really hit home for me, it was about “how do women make friends in New York City?” and it’s tough, especially since we’re adults, you don’t meet people out and about and just ask for their number as if you did when you were a child. Especially in New York City, we’re all transplants, you know? Majority of us aren’t born and raised here, we don’t have a big family or friends up here, we’re all here for work but we’re here for inspiration. So, once Chary wrote that story, I reached out to her to meet up in person, little I see these days, but she was all for it. We met up at New York Fashion Week last year because our 9-5s were both in Fashion. We had this kind of similar event space happening so, we decided on New York Fashion Week and we hit it off, not only as friends but as Creatives.
So, Chary invited me to dinner and you know, the drinks were flowing, we were saying how much we missed writing and you know, it was a huge opportunity for us that this platform provided and it didn’t exist anymore. We had wished that we had met more people through there and we decided, hey, why don’t we recreate the site but make it better and that’s when the concept was born. We were struggling with the name so we kind of divided and conquered and wrote out, separately, our mission statements. One thing that we had in common was the word “connect,” and that was it. We knew it, there was no questions asked and here we are today at a year later, farther than we ever could have imagined and we have this huge Community of like-minded women but also, women who aren’t like-minded, at the same time. We really pride ourselves in inclusivity so, welcoming women of all shapes, sizes, beliefs, color, you know? How can we learn from each other and how can we grow together? And that is how The Cnnekt came about.
Quanta D: So,
Q: You girls actually, connected, and began a connection by heart and mind and soul, and in Business, and then you even extended that off into the concept?
A: The Cnnekt: (Laughs) Yeah.
Quanta D: It’s beautiful stuff that you girls have going on and it’s nice to hear your story. I’m sure anybody that listens to this will also connect with you, on various levels so, thank you so much for that and sharing such a beautiful story with how this all happened with The Cnnekt and you women so,
Q: What are some of the life skills and work experience that you each individually bring into The Cnnekt round-table?
A: The Cnnekt: Chary Sathea: Sure, well my background is in Public Relations and Communications and I’ve worked with various Agencies, starting in the Fashion Lifestyle space and then now branching-off into the Creative and Tech space. For me, I’ve always had a passion for writing, I’ve had a blog through Middle School, like when _______ was alive so, it just made sense to bring that passion and that skill-set into The Cnnekt. You know, we divide the work equally but definitely when it comes to the content, I have a lot to say (Laughs) about that. So, I’m avidly on the web and I’m always looking at what’s happening with other People and Publishing companies and Media spaces. I was involved a lot in High School, as a professional to produce events so, it just makes sense to be creative and have fun and do that with The Cnnekt.
A: The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: And then, while Chary really owns the Content side, my day-to-day is more on the Visual side so, I have a background in Visual, as far as the Fashion industry goes. I would say that my strong suit would be in Social Media and the packaging of our content Chary helps as well, but that’s definitely what I bring to the table. Also, Public Speaking. I feel like that is something, you know, Chary had mentioned High School, College, even in my professional career I lead very high-level walk-throughs of my work so I’m constantly being critiqued on my creative skill-set. It’s something that has really taught me lessons in you know, growing as a Person and taking feedback, changing it into positive energy and just really developing People Skills. So, while Chary handles content, I would say I handle more of the creative, and together we make the perfect team and package. (Laughs)
A: The Cnnekt: Chary Sathea: Ditto! (Laughs)
Quanta D: (Laughs) That sounds pretty perfect over here so,
Q: What about the Clients that you serve? Who are your ideal prospects for The Cnnekt?
A: The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: So, our ideal prospects are the everyday Feminists, and when we say Feminists we’re not biased to male or female. It’s just people who really believe in you know, equal rights, not that females are better than males or males are better than females, just equal rights. You know, we’re growing a Community of People and different People so, the everyday Feminists is definitely the Clientele that we are searching, somebody that has the same ethos. We attract People with an appetite for Life. We make sure that we have hustlers in our Community, we have go-getters, we have positive People who really believe in collaborations, as well.
We strongly believe that we work together more better together, versus using somebody else to benefit one party it’s working together and how can we collaborate to build our Communities and to successfully run our own businesses at the same time. That’s the People that we work with now and again, I’ll bring up the inclusivity that’s our number one favorite word that we have been using all the time so, all of that but in an inclusive way. Whether, you know, you are a hustler but you’re a hustler in a totally different aspect and you’ve never even written before, but if you have a story to tell and you really feel like now it’s time to change the world or change at least Person out theres’ Life, tell it. We’re inclusive we want to hear from you and we want to actually turn you into that hustler that go-getter. We want to make sure that you’re getting positive affirmations and you will continue to come and tell your story.
Quanta D: Wait, do you hear that, Men?
The Cnnekt: (Laughs)
Quanta D: Ok? Men are welcome, also, ok? This is not for the hardcore Feminists that scare People, from what it sounds. That was a beautiful definition and meaning because you know, People usually have other questions if things aren’t clarified so, thank you so much for clarifying on that and doing such a great job at it. Now, lets get into common problems that you girls find in your marketplace. Even though you do accept Men, I take it you are predominantly Women and this is predominantly a Women Entrepreneurs Professional Brand Network but again, Men are welcomed so don’t be afraid guys.
The Cnnekt: (Laughs)
Quanta D: Now,
Q. Name a common problem in the marketplace that you girls are finding that you’d like to bring attention to?
A: The Cnnekt: Chary Sathea: Yeah. I mean, that’s a really good question and there are so many ways that I can answer this but I guess, first and foremost because we are content-driven, I would say that you know, in the marketplace there’s a lot of saturated content. And I know, as a Reader, when I read things it’s like “oh, I’ve read this before,” or there’s something, there’s like this key element that is missing, and I think that’s what we’re actually really great at because, you know, we tell our stories like, in a raw authentic way. Emily and I always encourage our Writers and Contributors to always have no filter. Their all like, “can we, can I say this, you know, like drop the ‘F’ bomb?” I’m like, yeah! If you feel strong in that way, do it, we always encourage that, because we don’t want to censor any language that really can’t convey how this Writer actually feels.
In addition to that, being the saturated content and the lack of authenticity, it’s about the quality over quantity. We only produce 3 stories a week, 2 personal essays and Friday we run a Spotlight. That may be a lot to some, but that’s actually a little bit compared to like, the major players, right? We’re an underdog, but then, the pieces that we put out, they’re very mindful Personal Essays and Interviews so, I would like to say that we’re very curated in that sense, and then Emily has another part to share with that.
A: The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: Yeah, something that I always call out within the industry as well, is there is no face-to-face interaction. You want to submit a story to a major web site or publication? You’re going to get a generic email back, whether you’re declined or accepted. If you’re accepted, you’re going to get another generated email back and yes, it’s all in great that you were published but where is the praise? Where is the, you know, “Wow! You did a great job!’ or “Wow, I really related with that.” The one thing we really try to do is put that face-to-face. Although we are content-driven, take it off-line and build relationships with these people. There’s people who are giving their heart and soul to us, we want to give our hearts and souls back to them. It’s an online, digital world, it doesn’t need to be that way.
Quanta D: So, you gals also, like me, analog girls in a digital world? It’s interesting that you make mention of that because, yeah, with all of the greatness taking place within the inter-web space and with Digital and also what’s to come, there’s a feel for People becoming more disposable. And again, it is very interesting listening to you ladies speak on this. For one, I’m going to bring up the “authenticity,” which was something that we got, partly, a Best-Selling Authorship for through Amazon with our Group, some of our Group Members. It was the last chapter of Local Marketing Trendsetters Vol. 3, that was done last year, and I did the last chapter. It had to do with Branding Brilliance and that was a key component of Branding Brilliance, it was to bring back authenticity. Being authentic in who you are, what your message is, you know? Then you wouldn’t really have too much of any issue having to do with competition or, you know, because things will just fall right into place as they are supposed to, without all of this highly Technical stuff. Even the figurative stuff, I mean it is pretty technical, as well, and it’s all because People seem to forget, well, various brands and brand ownership, seems to forget to just remain authentic in the joy that you had first experienced in beginning your brand, even beginning of working on the concepts for it. So, I’d like to commend you on both of those things, it’s really sweet to hear that right now.
The Cnnekt: Well thank you.
Quanta D: And I’m pretty sure that that will do much more to help Others that listen to this so, thank you gals again for that. You girls did touch upon, how, how you do assists in solving this problem but can we expand a little on that? Especially being that I love what you both brought forth.
Q. Could you just expand a little more on how you can or how you do assists, you know, your Clients and the Community you serve, with solving this problem? What do you tell them to do? Please expand a little more?
A. The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: Absolutely, kind of to piggy-back off what you were saying, if we stay authentic and we stay true, we’ll all stand-out in our own way, there will be no competition because everybody brings something different to the table, right?
Quanta D: Exactly!
A. The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: Yeah! Everybody would really kind of stand-out in their own way so our advice to our current Clients, who we consider our Readers and Writers is continuing to take that engagement offline, again, it’s super unheard of. We’re real, we’re authentic, Chary also touched upon encouraging non-censored words, video. We’re touching upon video, say what you mean. You know, the solve for that is to keep the relationship alive, especially if you are taking it offline, don’t meet with those People once and then talk to those People once and then never again because they did something amazing for you and vice-versa so, keep that relationship going and you never know what could come out of it.
You’ll have your Writers coming back because they want to write more and share more stories because you’ve made them feel so comfortable. Your Readers are going to want to come back because you have that authentic content, and there’s somebody out there who’s going to relate to that story in some kind of way. If you’re really pushing out quality over quantity, you’re really going to touch upon so many different Reader heartstrings. You’re just going to really relate to somebody out there, whether it’s one person per story or whether it’s 15,000 people per story, it means something so, build that relationship and continue that relationship so both parties keep coming back. Now, you’ve also mentioned how to solve this problem and not just for Clients but others, as well?
Quanta D: Yes.
The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: We always have great ideas on that, so did you want to touch upon on that?
Quanta D: Well yes. Oh, please continue.
A. The Cnnekt: Chary Sathea: I guess I just want to add on, it will make sense, maybe, I don’t know, I’m kind of crazy sometimes but there’s a method to my madness. Emily mentioned really fostering that relationship and then really maintaining it. We think about this a lot because, at the end of the day, it’s all about relationship building for us. Relationship building in order to build a substantial Community and to have it evolve and keep growing. Those relationships will also lead to new relationship and then that’s how the growth happens, right? I think, for us, that when it comes to collaboration, we do put out this positive and passionate vibe out there that attracts our Community and that just pulls in other People who are willing to work with us and who really align with our ethos.
A. The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: Also, when we’re collaborating, obviously we want to respect other Partners’ thought-processes but we also do not accept going the generic route. If they say, “this is what we’re going to do,” and then we’ll follow-up with this email that we’ve always done or you know, we’ll put this flyer out and just change the wording. No, we will always push for our authenticity and we will always push on a more genuine process.
That’s how we really work with others, not just our Clients but People that we vibrate with, we really try to teach them how respectful it is to build these relationships because then they go on and when they go and do the same thing and change their ways, they see growth. On our end, we’re not like “Ugh! Now they have so many more followers than us!” We’re genuinely happy for them because that means they’re doing something for the better and for their passion-project, their business, whatever because that means they’re growing for the better and we had a part of it. Then we’ll just continue the relationship with them and we’re all just helping each other out in the long run.
Quanta D: Ok so, the book on Fostering Relationships should be coming-up soon.
The Cnnekt: Yeah! (Laughter)
Quanta D: I’m just kidding, but I’m trying to spark some more stuff into you women because this is really, really good. Again, it’s really nice to hear what you girls have to say. We’re coming to a close now,
Q. If there’s one more thing, in presently speaking to your Prospectives, future Clients, future Collaborators, future Team-Members, what would that be?
A. The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: Well, in my opinion, it would be don’t be afraid to share your story. If you are not Writer, we still want you, we still know that you have something to say.
A. The Cnneckt: Chary Sathea: I just want to snowball off that, too. I would like to say that our process of taking in a new Contributor is very unique in a sense where it’s like it’s a lot of, I don’t want to say hand-holding but it is a lot of guidance versus like throwing someone in the deep-end, like “Hey, pitch us your story.”
We definitely go through this vetting process, like you share your ideas with us and then you draft it out, we go over the edits together, all of us, whether it be in Google Docs or in real Life. We’ve sat down with new lead Writers before and then actually ask questions right there, like how can we dive more into this concept? As Writers, we know what it’s like to be a Freelance Writer and have an opportunity to showcase your work, and as a Writer that’s your Art and Art is so important to the both of us. We want to provide the same opportunity to our Feature Collaborators and Contributors so, this process that we hold dearly and makes us so unique is what we proud ourselves in. I think that goes into maintaining our relationships and I think that’s why our Contributors like to write for us again or share their story with us.
A. The Cnnekt: Emily Mcmonagle: So, future Clients, if you’re a Writer, if you’re not a Writer, reach out.
A: The Cnnekt: Chary Sathea: Holla!
A: The Cnnekt: Emily Mcmonagle: Hi! We want to hear from you. You can make a difference in the smallest or the biggest way. And just to touch upon it again, guys. We’re calling for you too, it doesn’t have to be how you protested in the women’s march, it could just be an everyday story. Just as you belong in our Community, you belong in everybody else’s Communities. It could just be something about what happened in your day, but as long as you have the same mindset as far as the quality that we do, and our same mission that all People are equal and inclusive, we want you.
Quanta D: Alright men, let’s get on board.
The Cnnekt: (Laughter)
Quanta D: Well, we’ve got one more, one more question for you women.
Q. What is the best way for the Folks to reach out to you?
A. The Cnnekt: Emily McMonagle: The very best way is email. We are attached to our phones 24/7.
