How Music Education Applies in Product Design Career - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 3 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares how growing up around a family of musicians influenced his development as a creative professional. Hinkle learns to be more emotionally expressive in his music and later channels that approach in his programming and product design work. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

Joe Stump on How CTO Improves Public Speaking and Presentation Skills

In Chapter 13 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur and SimpleGeo Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Joe Stump shares how his public speaking and presentation skills are improving over time. As his college Interfraternity Council (IFC) president, Stump learns to overcome nervousness and butterflies. As Stump progressively becomes a thought leader, he finds value simplifying his presentation and slides. As his talks become less technical and more about future and innovation topics, including mobile location services, Stump uses more statistics to support his points. Stump is the co-founder and CTO at SimpleGeo (www.simplegeo.com), a San Francisco-based mobile location infrastructure services company. Previously Stump was Lead Architect at Digg. He programs in PHP, Python, Django and enjoys scaling websites. He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How has you approach to public speaking changing as you learn and grow as a though leader?

Joe Stump: I don’t get nervous anymore, obviously I’ve been speaking in front of a lot of people a lot, so that’s gotten a lot better.

Erik Michielsen: When did that stop?

Joe Stump:  Um… That actually stopped a while ago.  I did a lot of – I mean you were in B school and you know that everything is a group project and everything ends with a presentation.  And every class that I had I had group presentations or single presentations, I had to take speech in college because of business school as well and ended up on IFC as the IFC president, so I had to give like a speech in front of the whole Greek organizations on campus.  So, I think I got over a lot of that in college.  

The big thing that has changed as I’ve grown as a leader- well as I’ve attempted to grow as a leader in the tech space, is when I first started giving talks I felt that it was really important to put as much shit on a slide as humanly possible, right?  And it was literally like twelve-point font, all code, monotone, you know it looked terrible. Everybody is like “Ehhh” Everybody in the back is like, “I don’t even know what he’s talking about.”  And now if you look at my slides, they’re literally just like a funny picture background and one or two words, and that’s it.  

Everything that I talk about when I talk is off the cuff.  I don’t actually plan what I’m going to say other than I have my slides as an outline.  And the reason why I do that - a really good buddy of mine in New York, Eric Kassner, I use to when I was doing really heavy technical talks I would have him review my slides.  He’s a friendly nerd of mine.  And he was like, “Why are you putting all of this crap on slides?”  And I was like, “Well, I like to have something for them to read and I want to give them as much information as humanly possible and…”  

And he was like, “Dude.  You can bullshit about this stuff ad nauseum. You don’t need to worry about putting a bunch of crap on slides.” He’s like, “Get up there, be yourself and just talk as if you and I are having a conversation.”  That’s probably the best speaking advice that I’ve ever gotten.  And that’s – the biggest fundamental shift is I get up, I talk ad hoc, just from the cuff about what I know and what I’m passionate about and it either resonates with people or they think I’m an idiot, which is fine too.

Erik Michielsen: Now, how has that changed as you’ve talked less about tech and more about ideas and innovation?

Joe Stump:  I actually just recently learned a lesson on this one. Now that I’ve gotten away from more technical talks and getting into more of the “what does it all mean and where are we all going” kind of talks is that I use a lot more statistics and a lot more kind of metrics to get my message across.  Like one of the current things – there are a couple of things that I think are really interesting about mobile location kind of stuff.  

One is that there’s about 1.5, 1.8 billion people on Internet.  There are 5.8 billion mobile subscribers.  We have a four billion person gap that’s going to be closed – those four billion people will be on the Internet probably in the next year or two.  So, if we thought the Internet is growing quickly before, we haven’t seen anything because those mobile subscribers are just waiting for the Internet to come on to the network.  So, I use a lot of numbers to talk about that and to back that up.  

And recently a lesson that I learned from that was that I have sources for all that stuff but I don’t generally put them on slides, and I recently quoted a report from Africa that said that students in Uganda and Kenya spend fifty percent of their disposable income on mobile communications.  And this woman who was from Kenya got up and was like, “That is absolutely false!” Like she went off to me with the microphone in front of the whole thing and I’m like, “Clearly I need to cite my sources.”

How to Use Middle School Teaching Skills in Corporate Finance Job - Andrew Epstein

In Chapter 1 of 19 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, charter school executive Andrew Epstein shares how his 7th and 8th grade teaching experience has made him a more effective finance professional. His 7th and 8th graders teach Epstein the value of improvisation, focus, and composure in finance roles both at Island Def Jam and currently at Democracy Prep Public Schools. Epstein is currently Senior Director for Finance at Democracy Prep Public Schools in New York City. Previously, he was a finance executive at Universal Music Group's Island Def Jam Records and, previous to that, a schoolteacher in the Teach for America Corps program. He holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

How Red Carpet Celebrity Interviews Make Career More Meaningful - Mark Graham

In Chapter 16 of 19 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, editor and writer Mark Graham shares what he enjoys most about working red carpet events. Shortly after joining VH1, Graham gets his first red carpet experience at the Critics Choice Music Awards helping on-air correspondents cover the event. During the event Graham gets firsthand experience with nearly 25 celebrity interviews. Graham compares this personal connection with his experience interviewing celebrities on the phone over the course of his media career. Graham is currently a senior editor at MTV Networks. Previously he worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.

How Initiative Can Create Breakthrough Career Moments - Alayne Cotterill

In Chapter 4 of 13 in her 2010 interview with Capture Your Flag Host Erik Michielsen, wildlife biologist Alayne Cotterill details a breakthrough career moment - using initiative to move from an entry-level safari guide job into a national park animal search and capture team. Animal lover Cotterill accepts the opportunity and the adventure - flying across African national parks spotting rhinos - that comes with it. Ultimately, Cotterill builds upon this experience in her work across Africa with rhinos, elephants, lions and other large animals. Learn more about Alayne's work at http://www.lionconservation.org.

How Comedian Uses Improv to Enlist Audience Support - Matt Ruby

In Chapter 7 of 14 in his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, stand-up comedian Matt Ruby shares how he uses listening to create supportive, versus adversarial, audiences. A supportive audience disables any fear of failure and raises Ruby's willingness to improvise material and take risks. This approach wins him support as audiences appreciate Ruby's non-scripted effort that recognizes each audience is different than the last.

How Crowd Wisdom Informs Comedy Presentation - Matt Ruby

In Chapter 13 of 14 in his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, comedian Matt Ruby reflects on lessons learned over first four years performing stand-up and its impact on his style. From early characters, including Mortimer the Steel Baron, improv work, and clever one-liner jokes, Ruby traces transition to longer form, more genuine topics that carry a big payoff to win an audience. Ruby highlights collective audience wisdom and what he has learned about more effectively presenting ideas honestly and openly to engage a room and earn respect while honing his craft.

What Reignites a History Major's Passion for Playing Drums - Conrad Doucette

TakIn Chapter 9 of 13, Takka Takka drummer Conrad Doucette finds his big adult life decision moments happen last-minute, including his mid-20s decision to return to music. After playing in high school bands, Conrad chooses to be anonymous through college at a large school, The University of Michigan, setting aside drums to continue expand a childhood interest into a British history degree.  Years later, at friend's urging, he returns to music, filling in on drums for a friend's band and eventually joining Takka Takka.

How to Prepare for an HBO Job Interview - Caroline Giegerich

In Chapter 8 of 13, Caroline Giegerich shares how she landed a marketing job at HBO.  After a personal network introduction to the HBO job opportunity, Giegerich finds herself faced with answering "How Many Gas Stations Are There in Iowa?"