Phil McKenzie on How to Improve Virtual Team Communication

In Chapter 18 of 18 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Phil McKenzie answers "How Are You Learning to Communicate More Effectively?"  McKenzie finds he is able to communicate more effectively by communicating more frequently.  Managing a distributed team from over the world, McKenzie finds more regular communication that is visual and verbal helps keep his geographically dispersed virtual team on the same page. 

Philip L. McKenzie is the Founder and Global Curator of Influencer Conference, a global content platform that brings together tastemakers in the arts, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and technology to discuss the current and future state of influencer culture. Prior to that, he was Managing Partner of influencer marketing agency FREE DMC and an equities trader at Goldman, Sachs & Co.  He earned an MBA from Duke University and a BBA from Howard University.

Cathy Erway on How Aspirations Change as Experience Grows

In Chapter 12 of 17 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, writer and healthy food advocate Cathy Erway answers "How Are Your Aspirations Changing as Your Experience Grows?"  When she published her first book, Erway thought she would always be an author and travel the country speaking.  Over time she shifts her writing career aspirations to be more local and community driven around New York City. 

Cathy Erway is a Brooklyn-based author, part-time cook, freelance writer, radio host and teacher focused on healthy food advocacy.  Her first book, "The Art of Eating In" developed from her blog "Not Eating Out in New York".  She earned a BA in creative writing from Emerson College.

Andrew Epstein on How Structure Helps Manage and Motivate Teams

In Chapter 12 of 23 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, charter school CFO Andrew Epstein answers "How Are You Learning to Better Manage and Motivate Teams?"  Epstein finds it more challenging to motivate teams than to motivate individuals.  In an environment where roles are constantly shifting, Epstein tries to find a balance between flexibility and structure in role definition. 

Andrew Epstein is CFO of the Ascend Learning Charter School Network.  Previously, Epstein was a finance executive at Democracy Prep Public Schools and an operations executive at Universal Music Group's Island Def Jam Records.  He is a former Teach for America corps member and middle-school science teacher.  He holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Kyung B. Yoon on How Peer Advice Decreases Feelings of Isolation

In Chapter 10 of 17 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Kyung B. Yoon answers "At This Moment in Your Life, Where Are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?"  Yoon talks about feeling isolated and how reaching out to peers - in her case other non-profit directors - has helped her overcome that feeling.  The resulting conversations help her feel less alone and provide useful instruction on improving her non-profit management skills. 

Kyung B. Yoon is the executive director of the Korean American Community Foundation (KACF) in New York City.  An award-winning journalist and documentary film producer, Yoon earned an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in History and Political Science at Wellesley College.

Kyung B. Yoon on Building Capacity to Manage Non-Profit Growth

In Chapter 11 of 17 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Kyung B. Yoon answers "How Has Organizational Growth Changed How Your Non-Profit Raises and Distributes Funds?"  Yoon shares how her organization, KACF, has grown from an all-volunteer program that started by raising $60,000 to distribute to 5 community organizations.  As the non-profit has grown to $2 million in donations, Yoon has learned to build capacity by hiring full-time staff and investing in infrastructure to fortify resources that support grantee partners.  This helps KACF be a better steward for the community. 

Kyung B. Yoon is the executive director of the Korean American Community Foundation (KACF) in New York City.  An award-winning journalist and documentary film producer, Yoon earned an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in History and Political Science at Wellesley College.

Jullien Gordon on Why to Set New Year's Intentions and Not Goals

In Chapter 8 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, business coach Jullien Gordon answers "How Are You Helping Others Plan, Commit to, and Achieve New Year's Goals?"  Gordon shares how he helps people set their intentions by putting out his annual "New Year Guide."  He focuses not on the outcome or goal but the intention or the underlying initiative behind that goal or outcome.  Jullien Gordon is a high performance coach and consultant to organizations, individuals and teams who want to increase employee performance, motivation, engagement and retention.  He earned a BA from UCLA, an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a Masters of Education from Stanford University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are you helping others plan, commit to, and achieve New Year’s Resolution goals?

Jullien Gordon: So as you know, every year I put out the New Year Guide which is a tool to help people set their intentions. I have shifted my beliefs in a lot of ways from setting goals to really setting intentions. And the difference is that with a goal, a goal is usually connected to some sort of outcome. And while it’s okay to have a desired outcome, an intention is more about what’s behind the desired outcome. So for instance, a lot of people will set weight loss goals this year. “I wanna lose 30 pounds.” That’s the goal, right? And that’s connected to a certain outcome. If they don’t achieve that outcome, they feel that they failed.

Whereas an intention is I wanna be healthier. And one of the goals connected to being healthier may be to lose 30 pounds. And so I’m focused on helping people get clear on their intention, and then also knowing that when you do have a desired outcome that we don’t always control the outcomes as human beings. I can do everything that Shaun T tells me to do and P90X and still not get a body that looks like his, right? But if I’m connected to the outcome then I feel like I failed. But what I can control, the only thing that’s in our control is our effort. What I can tell Shaun T is that I showed up every single day for 90 days. And I did what I was supposed to. And that may not have gotten me to that kind of physique, but it may have gotten me somewhere along the direction of where I ultimately wanted to be.

And so, one, getting clear on the distinction between goals and intentions, and really focusing on intentions and making sure the intention is right which is your why behind the goal, and then also being clear about the distinction between effort and outcome and knowing that you only have full control over the effort, we don’t have full control over the outcome. And when you start with your why and make sure that the why is big enough, you know, Viktor Frankl says a man who knows his why can bear almost any how. And what I found is that when I’m clear on my intention or my why behind something, the how tends to manifest itself. When I look back at my goals from last year, I accomplished a lot of them in ways that I didn’t even anticipate it. They happen in their own way. But that’s because the intention was strong and they manifested themselves, they didn’t manifest themselves the way I thought they would but they manifested themselves nonetheless. And so really making those distinctions clear.

Anatole Faykin on How Reflection Informs Personal Growth

In Chapter 3 of 12 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "What Role Has Reflection Played in Shaping Your Personal Growth?"  Faykin finds it hard to realize and define his growth without reflecting.  He prefers not to reflect alone; rather he enjoys having a friend's company and talking through what has happened and how it informs his present and future state. 

Anatole Faykin is an entrepreneur currently working on a new startup as part of the Startup Chile incubator program in Santiago, Chile.  Previously, Faykin founded Tuanpin, a Shanghai, China-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011. He has worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startups. He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

Garren Katz on How to Be a Career Coach and Help Others Succeed

In Chapter 5 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, business and personal coach Garren Katz answers "What Does It Mean to Be a Career Coach?"   Katz notes the importance of being curious with clients, asking questions, and listening to identify challenge areas and work with his clients on creating plans to overcome them.  As his clients work toward their respective goals, Katz notes how he takes responsibility to hold clients accountable and work with them through breakdown moments. 

Garren Katz is a business and personal coach based in State College, PA and advises his national client base on small business management, entrepreneurship, relationships, and personal finances.  He is also an active angel investor in several business ventures.  He earned his BA from Western Michigan University. 

Stacie Bloom on Developing Manager Skills in a Science Career

In Chapter 2 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "How Are Your Responsibilities Changing As Your Career Evolves?"  Bloom notes how she is becoming more detached from the daily work and more involved managing the people doing the daily work.  Bloom now overseas organizational finances and sees this as a natural progression in her career.  Bloom shares how  her science career background supports her strategic, operational and financial management responsibilities plans running the organization. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How are your responsibilities changing as your career evolves?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I would say I’ve become more detached from the actual daily work of the place and more involved in the management of the people who are really doing the amazing work. I would say I’m more involved in managing the finances than I was in my last position where we had a whole department doing that and now that operation rolls up to me for the first time, so I would say you know as my career evolves, taking a higher level position overseeing the entire organization, which I don’t think is a unique position for someone whose career is evolving necessarily. 

Erik Michielsen:  How is your science career experience most useful in your current role? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I think that I couldn’t do my current role without my science career experience. And it’s a really—it’s been a very interesting evolution for me. So my position as executive director of the NYU Neuroscience Institute, in that role, I’m really overseeing the strategic financial and operational plans to actually run this, what my scientific experience gives me that makes it such a special position for me is just the ability to understand everything that’s going on there. So when we’re interviewing a potential faculty candidate, I fully understand the science, how that fits into the existing infrastructure of scientists and clinicians who we have and how that person can build bridges and really foster translational progress that will bring, you know, hopefully new therapies to neurological and psychiatric patients, so that scientific background, I think it gives me credibility, I hope it gives me credibility but certainly it gives me the ability to truly understand at the most molecular level all the work that we’re doing. 

Stacie Bloom: When to Step Back and Think About the Big Picture

In Chapter 8 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "When Are You at Your Best?"  Bloom notes how she benefits from taking a step back from the minutiae of daily live to get a strategic, big picture perspective and make decisions.  While she enjoys performing under pressure she notes the importance of gathering different insights to make the decision. She shares the experience of putting together the Neuroscience Institute for NYU Langone Medical Center. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  When are you at your best? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I think I’m at my best when I’m under pressure. I think I’m at my best when I have the opportunity to think strategically and take a step back and look at the full picture. I think you know it’s very easy in any job to get very wrapped up in the day-to-day minutiae and all of the little details, it’s not so often that you have the opportunity to just take a deep breath, take a step back, assess the overall picture and make very strategic and important decisions. And I think those are the times when I’m at my best. 

Erik Michielsen:  How have you come to realize that over time? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  You know, I think when I started this job as executive director of the NYU Neuroscience Institute, there wasn’t a lot going on at the very, very beginning. We had to lay out all these plans and that was the time that I was thinking most big picture strategically, and then as it was rolling out we were hiring people, I was putting together the administrative infrastructure, we started recruiting the faculty and life became more about, you know, how do we on board this person? Where are the fire exits? You know, I have to go through this checklist for human resources and train all of these people? How do I get them on payroll? What are their scientific areas of interest? How do I transfer their grants over? And I realized, wow, I’m gonna get really wrapped up in these daily details, at least once a week, I need to stop, and think back at why are we here? What’s our vision? What’s our mission? How are we accomplishing it? What are the steps that we’re making? What are our major accomplishments? What are our goals? And allow myself the opportunity to think that way and give myself the time to work like that.

Stacie Bloom on Reflection-Informed Personal Growth

In Chapter 12 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Role Has Reflection Played in Shaping Your Personal Growth?"  Bloom shares how reflection has become more important as she gets older.  Now in her 30s, Bloom uses reflection to set more clear priorities in her work and her relationships. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What role has reflection played in shaping your personal growth? 

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  I’ve become a much more sort of reflective person over time. I think, you know, I was in my 20’s, I was running around all the time, I was doing a million things, I didn’t really think about my actions, I just sort of lived for the moment. And now I realize I wanna create a legacy, and I wanna build a great Neuroscience Institute at NYU, I wanna help contribute to an effort that really will bring benefit to people’s lives, and in my own personal life. I want to have a successful relationship with my husband, and I wanna raise great kids. And a lot of that is looking into myself and my actions and my behaviors, and trying to make the best decisions that I can to make sure that I’m gonna be proud of my life.

Simon Sinek on What It Means to Be a Leader

In Chapter 9 of 16 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, author and public speaker Simon Sinek answers "What Does It Mean to Be a Leader in What You Do?"  Sinek notes being a leader means one thing and one thing only: you have followers.  He then shares how leaders create that following by articulating a vision, cause or purpose toward a future that does not yet exist.  He then puts this in perspective of his own leadership, helping his followers work toward waking up inspired to do what they love to do and achieve fulfillment by doing so.  Simon Sinek teaches leaders and organizations how to inspire people.  His goal is to "inspire people to do the things that inspire them" and help others find fulfillment in their work.  Sinek is the author of "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action".  He works regularly with the United States Military, United States Congress, and many organizations, agencies and entrepreneurs.  Sinek is an adjunct professor at Columbia University and an adjunct staff member at the think tank RAND Corporation.  Sinek earned a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Brandeis University.

Transcript

Erik Michielsen:  What does it mean to be a leader in what you do?

Simon Sinek:  To be a leader means one thing and one thing only. It means you have followers. That’s it. You know? It’s not about learning your style of leadership and how to adjust your style to fit the situation at hand, that’s management, right? Leaders only have one thing, they have followers.  A follower is somebody who raises their hand and volunteers to go where you’re going. They raise their hand and volunteer to go in the direction that you’re pointing. And so to lead others, means that you have a clear vision of a world that does not yet exist, a world that could exist, and by articulating that cause, that vision, that purpose, over and over and over again, it inspires people who believe what you believe, who want to see that world built, to join, to go with you, to figure out ways, you know? And so for me in my work, what leadership means, is articulating this world in which the vast majority of us wake up every single day, inspired to go to work, and come home every single day fulfilled by the work that we do. That doesn’t mean we have to like every day, you know, but we can love every day. You don’t like your children every day but you love your children every day, right? And so the more I talk about this world that does not yet exist, because right now the world we live in, the vast majority of people, 90%-plus don’t love what they do, they may like it but they don’t love it. When I talk about this world, it inspires others who believe what I believe and want to see this world built, join up and figure out in their own way how to advance that vision, so it becomes real. My role is to continue to pound the pavement and put that vision out there.

Simon Sinek on How to Improve Strategic Thinking

In Chapter 14 of 16 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, author and public speaker Simon Sinek answers "How Do You Make Strategic Thinking More Implementation Friendly?"  To Sinek it comes down to language and the importance of using words people understand.  When the language is simple, the directive becomes clear to everyone and can be more easily followed and implemented.  Simon Sinek teaches leaders and organizations how to inspire people.  His goal is to "inspire people to do the things that inspire them" and help others find fulfillment in their work.  Sinek is the author of "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action".  He works regularly with the United States Military, United States Congress, and many organizations, agencies and entrepreneurs.  Sinek is an adjunct professor at Columbia University and an adjunct staff member at the think tank RAND Corporation.  Sinek earned a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Brandeis University.

Transcript

Erik Michielsen:  How do you make strategic thinking more implementation friendly?

Simon Sinek:  Language.  Strategic thinking can be more implementation friendly when you use words that you understand. It’s amazing to me how often we read strategies that are incomprehensible. To be the pre-eminent supplier, you know, we’re gonna—I mean, what—I mean these are things that you can’t do. Based on what metric? We wanna be the best? That’s your strategy? Like that’s not a strategy. That’s nothing. We wanna be the—we wanna be ranked number one. What—revenues, profit, quality, customer satisfaction, loyalty, what? It’s complete nonsense, you know? And so the more specific a strategy can be, the clearer the language can be, the more implementable it can be.

I’m a great believer that if you speak like a scientist, only scientists will understand you, but if you speak like a truck driver, both truck drivers and scientists will understand you. And the amazing thing is if you actually speak like a scientist, even a lot of the scientists don’t understand you. The point is use very simple terminology that’s somebody who’s not in your industry who doesn’t know your business would understand what you’re trying to do. And if that’s the basis of the language that you choose to use that anyone can understand what you’re attempting to do and if you started someone tomorrow, they would be able to take the reins and go because it’s so crystal clear. That’s the standard that we need to use inside our own organizations. When the language is clear, when the language is specific, when the language is simple, it’s easy. It’s easy to implement. Right? Off the races you go, you know?

Jon Kolko on How Reflecting Benefits a Creative Career

In Chapter 6 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, design educator Jon Kolko answers "How Has Reflection Contributed to Your Leadership Development?"  Kolko begins by discussing how he has incorporated reflection into the curriculum experience for his design students.  He continues detailing is own reflective process and why it is important to have the inner dialogue before making bold, provocative statements. 

Jon Kolko the founder and director of the Austin Center for Design.  He has authored multiple books on design, including "Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving."  Previously he has held senior roles at venture accelerator Thinktiv and frog design and was a professor of Interactive and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).  Kolko earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How has reflection contributed to you leadership development?

Jon Kolko: It plays a huge role in the process of design sort of outside of my own personal experiences. We bake into the curriculum constant reflection from the students at Austin Center for Design. So a typical agile MVP or always in beta process is one where you do stuff and then you test it and then there has to be a moment where you stop and you go like, “What just happened?” And that is reflection and it’s incredibly easy to skip that and to simply impulsively respond to data rather than interpreting it. 

Reflection is a form of interpretation and so it's an assignment of meaning and it's going to be wrong sometimes. And so, it's easy to skip and simply use the data at face value which will also be wrong sometimes but it feels safer. I have found that the more interpretation and reflection that occurs, the more risky it is to build on that reflection but when you do build on it, the more likely it is to lead to large and magical, and powerful changes. 

And so we do a couple of things formally in our curriculum that drive toward reflection, like I have the students do a, it was called something much more academic and they changed to a peak of the week, so a p.o.w. every week. So they film themselves and they say, “What did you this week about entrepreneurship?” And, “What did you learn this week about entrepreneurship?” And simply saying it is often just enough to provoke that reflection. Actually, watching it is huge. For me, I think I'm overly contemplative because one, I have that constant just self-doubt that I'm not doing enough and I'm not doing as good as I could and I could always be doing more and then second, there's this idea that if I'm going to go out there and say large, provocative statements, damn it, I better be right. 

And I feel like I owe it at least to myself to have that sort of inner dialogue about saying things like problems worth solving and abandon your day job at a big corporation or consultancy and go work on poverty and nutrition. Those are aggressive statements even to me. And so I should really have thought deeply about what it is that I'm talking about. I do like to think of active reflection versus passive. Many designers that I know struggle with internal mood disorders and that’s a path and form of reflection. It's self-destructive and it doesn’t go anywhere. There's a form of active reflection through making where you can -- as simple as writing down your thoughts is a form of it but you can also diagram your thoughts and you can draw them, and you can create art and things like that. It's a much healthier form of reflection. And so, I try to personally lead to the second.

Jon Kolko on How to Make Design Strategy More Implementation Friendly

In Chapter 14 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, design educator Jon Kolko answers "How Do You Make Strategic Thinking More Implementation Friendly?"  Kolko references user experience or UX managers and how they work to make design thinking actionable or tractable.  He notes heuristics, gross principles, and best practices do not work, putting emphasis on the financial or quantitative metrics instead. 

Jon Kolko is the founder and director of the Austin Center for Design.  He has authored multiple books on design, including "Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving."  Previously he has held senior roles at venture accelerator Thinktiv and frog design and was a professor of Interactive and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).  Kolko earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How do you make strategic thinking more implementation-friendly?

Jon Kolko: That’s a good question. And it’s like the first question that anybody who’s sort of in a UX management role will ask when they learn design thinking or design strategy or any of these fancy buzz words is how do you make it actionable and tractable. And I think the answer has a lot to do with the way that you tie it directly to the wants and needs of the different stakeholders. And so, gross generalizations don’t work, heuristics don work, best practices don’t work. The things a designer does have to be buried in the minutia of details related to the stakeholders in order to get traction and buy-in. Typically, that means understanding numbers and finances and goals and metrics. And it's a lot of the stuff the designers typically sneer at and go like, “That’s not my wheelhouse. I don’t like it. It makes me uncomfortable,” but that’s how you take a design strategy and you create something that’s implementable,  and tractable. Equivalent in softwares, you can write abstractions, different requirements or wire frames but if you want it to be tractable then go write some code, erase all the little metaphors and middlemen and get to the heart of the thing you're trying to do and the same is true to service. So any time that you're designing, any time that your designing the design artifacts or abstractions, and they're super, super effective, those artifacts, but getting to the core of the thing is the way that you can make it tractable.

How to Apply Academic Theory in Business Work - Hammans Stallings

In Chapter 12 of 22 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, innovation strategist Hammans Stallings answers "How Do You Translate Academic Theory into the Language of Business?"  Stallings finds support in the communication skills of his frog design colleagues.  Specifically he uses visual and communication design tools to prototype ideas and theories to business and create a reaction and subsequent feedback loop.  He This is Hammans Stallings' Year 2 CYF interview.  Stallings is currently a Senior Strategist at frog design.  Previously he worked in business strategy at Dell and investment banking at Stephens.  He earned an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, a MS in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business and a BA in Economics and Psychology from the University of Virginia.

How to Refine Your Company Vision - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 7 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "How Are You Becoming Better at Articulating Your Vision?"  Rubin shares how gathering and using data, examples, and feedback have helped him refine his company's vision.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are you becoming better at articulating your vision?

Slava Rubin: A while back, I would say two years ago, we would try to know what our vision is but we didn’t have enough examples and enough data to prove out exactly what we’re thinking. I mean, now we’re able to more strongly use the data and the case studies to express our visions. So, we’re really looking to democratize fundraising. Indiegogo has the most diverse set of campaigns of any platform in the world. It’s really interesting since launching in January 2008, we now have over 300 competitors.

We’re very excited to know that this is such an exciting space and lots of others are following but for us it’s really about democratizing fundraising and ensuring that anybody has an equal opportunity at raising the capital they need. We provide them the tools to optimize the experience and the exposure to get more stranger-dollars than they ever could. So, it’s really about more examples and more feedback to refine your vision.

Courtney Spence on How to Use Story to Articulate Your Company Vision

In Chapter 2 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "How Are You Becoming Better At Articulating Your Vision?"  Spence uses story to explain her purpose.  She realizes her organization was spending too much time telling partner stories and needed to focus internally and tell its own story.  Courtney Spence returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are you becoming better at articulating your vision?

Courtney Spence: Well, I guess the last 6 months of 2011 were very internal months for us. What we recognized was we really had to work on our own story. We have been so busy telling the stories of others that we haven’t told our own. And when you have to tell your own story, you really have to dig deep, and what is your purpose?  And what is your mission? And what is your vision? What are you here really to do? What’s your big hairy audacious goal? You know, what can you be better at than anybody in the world? And what is your economic engine?

I mean it’s all the great lessons of Jim Collins, but what has been really nice is I’ve had a really great solid team to really sit down with over the course of the last few months and really figure out what is our vision? What is our mission? What is our purpose? And lots of debates over words and verbs and nouns and concepts, and it’s been a really intense process in some ways, especially for me because this is like my child, so I’d like to think we’re on our way to middle school so it’s the 12th year of Students of the World, so I’m very protective of it, but I’ve also recognized that I’ve been so entrenched in it that I have definitely needed other people to help me figure out what is it that we’re gonna really go do? What is our vision?

So for me, again, there’s been this change of similar to the TED talk experience of how do I talk about Students of the World, not in what we do but in what we believe? And there is so much more power and so much more opportunity to engage people when you talk about what you believe and what you stand for, as opposed to we do this really cool program, you should consider participating. And that switch has been a difficult one for me but super empowering and super encouraging, so.