How to Reinvent a Media and Publishing Career

In Chapter 13 of 17 in her 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, author and small business owner Rachel Lehmann-Haupt answers "What New Challenges Are You Facing in Your Media and Publishing Career?" Lehmann-Haupt finds traditional 30-year careers in media and publishing are going away. To succeed in media and publishing, she finds it critical to have a willingness to reinvent herself by building new skills and adapting to new publishing mediums. Further, Lehmann-Haupt gains career momentum by being more entrepreneurial in how she approaches her writing career.

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt is a writer, editor and multimedia content strategist. She is the owner of StoryMade, a storytelling studio that creates new media content solutions for businesses. Previously, she was a founding editor and multimedia producer at TED Books, designing TED Talk content for tablet computers. She is the author of "In Her Own Sweet Time", published in 2009. Lehmann-Haupt earned a BA from Kenyon College and a Masters in Journalism from UC-Berkeley. 

Bryan Law on How Getting an MBA Opens New Career Possibilities

In Chapter 9 of 23 in his 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, business strategist Bryan Law answers "How Did Getting an MBA Open New Possibilities in Your Career?" Law shares how going back to get his MBA helped him make a transition from HR consulting to strategy consulting. During his MBA he also meets Guerra Freitas, an Angolan who brought Law on to help build a university in Angola.

Bryan Law is a Principal in the Global Business Strategy Group at Google and a board member at Angola University. Previously, he was a manager at Monitor, a management consulting firm. He has worked in consulting roles at Watson Wyatt and Mercer. He earned an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Business and a BA from Georgetown University. 

Getting a Strategy Job at Google to Help Change the World

In Chapter 17 of 23 in his 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, business strategist Bryan Law answers "What Do You Enjoy Most About What You Do?" Through years working internationally in economic development and management consulting, Law finds his passion and his purpose is providing access to new information to help less fortunate individuals. He joins Google to build upon this through a private sector company committed to bringing information access to those in need.

Bryan Law is a Principal in the Global Business Strategy Group at Google and a board member at Angola University. Previously, he was a manager at Monitor, management consulting firm. He has worked in consulting roles at Watson Wyatt and Mercer. He earned an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Business and a BA from Georgetown University. 

Bryan Law on Leaving Consulting to Work at Google

In Chapter 18 of 23 in his 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, business strategist Bryan Law answers "What Informed Your Decision to Leave Consulting and Join the Google Global Strategy Team?" After years working in economic development as a management consultant, Law sees how lack of access to information hinders growth and development. In joining Google and working in global business strategy, Law sees an opportunity to contribute to Google's mission of making information more easily available for people all over the world.

Bryan Law is a Principal in the Global Business Strategy Group at Google and a board member at Angola University. Previously, he was a manager at Monitor, management consulting firm. He has worked in consulting roles at Watson Wyatt and Mercer. He earned an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Business and a BA from Georgetown University. 

How to Use a Journalism Degree to Teach Middle School

In Chapter 9 of 22 in his 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, education technology entrepreneur Adam Geller answers "Where Has Your Journalism Work Experience Been Most Useful in Your Education Career?" Geller finds his journalism degree is most useful on a day-to-day basis as a teacher. He finds the daily test of clearly communicating what he knows so his students can absorb the lessons similar to journalist work articulating information so an audience can internalize the information. As a science teacher, journalist training also helps Geller tailor teaching to learning styles to best engage students.

Adam Geller is founder and CEO of Edthena, a video platform enabling online teacher coaching, peer review, and group learning. He is a recent Education Ventures fellow at the Kauffman Foundation and the founder of Teach For Us, a network connecting Teach for America corps members and alumni. He earned a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a MA from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis.

How the Kauffman Foundation Prepares Entrepreneurs

In Chapter 10 of 22 in his 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, education technology entrepreneur Adam Geller answers "How Did Your Kauffman Foundation Fellowship Help Prepare You to Become an Entrepreneur?" Geller finds his Kauffman Foundation Fellowship program gave him time and space to jumpstart his business. Leaving teaching to start an education technology company, the Kauffman Fellowship allows Geller to go from part-time focus on the project to full-time while honing his product and business model.

Adam Geller is founder and CEO of Edthena, a video platform enabling online teacher coaching, peer review, and group learning. He is a recent Education Ventures fellow at the Kauffman Foundation and the founder of Teach For Us, a network connecting Teach for America corps members and alumni. He earned a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a MA from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis.

Geoff Hamm on Leaving Corporate Politics Behind to Join a Startup

In Chapter 11 of 20 in his 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, mobile business executive Geoff Hamm answers "What Did You Learn About Yourself by Leaving a Corporate Management Job to Join a Startup?" After over a decade working at large corporations, Hamm decides to leave corporate political situations behind for new challenges working at startups.

Geoff Hamm is a business development executive and VP Strategic Alliances at mobile marketing platform start-up Applovin in San Francisco, CA. Previous to Applovin, Hamm held senior sales management positions at Tapjoy, Scribd, Electronic Arts, Yahoo!, Orbitz, IAC and Excite where he built deep relationships with advertisers and brands. Hamm graduated from the University of Illinois.

Finding Meaningful Work in Elementary Education

In Chapter 2 of 22 in his 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, elementary charter school network CEO Preston Smith answers "What Makes Your Work Meaningful?" Smith shares how he gets fulfillment helping kids and families come together around a shared education purpose. Teaching elementary school creates lifetime bonds between Smith, his students and their families serve to constantly remind him of the bigger mission in his work long after he has left the classroom teaching for a CEO job.

Preston Smith is co-founder and CEO of Rocketship Education, the highest performing low-income school system in California. After graduating the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Smith joined Teach for America. After three years teaching 1st Grade, he founded a district school in San Jose and became its principal. Smith was selected as a member of the 2010 class of Aspen Institute New Schools Fellows.

Preston Smith on Starting a Grade School and Becoming Its Principal

In Chapter 5 of 22 in his 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, elementary charter school network CEO Preston Smith answers "What Made You Decide to Leave a High School Teaching Job and Become a School Principal?" After completing his second year teaching at Teach for America and going through CMAs - Corps Member Advisor - training and development, Smith runs into bureaucratic obstacles during his third year teaching. The challenge gets Smith more engaged in the local community and leads to him starting a new San Jose grade school that he leads as principal.

Preston Smith is co-founder and CEO of Rocketship Education, the highest performing low-income school system in California. After graduating the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Smith joined Teach for America. After three years teaching 1st Grade, he founded a district school in San Jose and became its principal. Smith was selected as a member of the 2010 class of Aspen Institute New Schools Fellows. 

Preston Smith on Going From Employee to Entrepreneur

In Chapter 7 of 22 in his 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, elementary charter school network CEO Preston Smith answers "How Did You Make the Leap From Being an Employee to Become an Entrepreneur?" Smith talks about pushing through a transition out of teaching elementary school to becoming an entrepreneur and starting a school. Seeing an unaddressed need for higher quality education, Smith embraces youthful energy to work through family and financial challenges to start a small school called LUCHA.

Preston Smith is co-founder and CEO of Rocketship Education, the highest performing low-income school system in California. After graduating the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Smith joined Teach for America. After three years teaching 1st Grade, he founded a district school in San Jose and became its principal. Smith was selected as a member of the 2010 class of Aspen Institute New Schools Fellows. 

Preston Smith on Leading and Motivating Executive Teams

In Chapter 17 of 22 in his 2014 Capture Your Flag interview, elementary charter school network CEO Preston Smith answers "How Are You Learning to Better Manage and Motivate Teams?" Smith shares how he now is learning to lead an executive team after leading more junior staff as a grade school principal. Smith finds leading executive team members means making sure to honor their respective strengths and experience, asking the right questions on the right topics, and knowing when to be  hands-off as a CEO.

Preston Smith is co-founder and CEO of Rocketship Education, the highest performing low-income school system in California. After graduating the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Smith joined Teach for America. After three years teaching 1st Grade, he founded a district school in San Jose and became its principal. Smith was selected as a member of the 2010 class of Aspen Institute New Schools Fellows. 

Simon Sinek on Why to Live a More Generous and Sincere Life

In Chapter 1 of 23 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, author and public speaker Simon Sinek answers "How Are Your Aspirations Changing As Your Experience Grows?" Sinek notes how early in his career his aspirations were about personal achievements and goals. With experience, Sinek shifts his focus to helping others grow and learn. He details why generosity and sincerity have been central elements in the transition and provides examples of why others should consider embracing them.  Simon Sinek teaches leaders and organizations how to inspire people. Sinek is the author of two books, "Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Come Together and Others Don't" and "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action". He is a public speaker, an adjunct professor at Columbia University and a Brandeis University graduate.

Transcript

Erik Michielsen: How are your aspirations changing as your experience grows?

Simon Sinek: Earlier in my career, my aspirations had to do with me. What can I achieve? What can I do? How much money can I make? That kind of thing. My aspirations have really changed into what can I do for other? How can I help people around me grow, and learn, and do more, and achieve more? And so, my aspirations have a lot less to do with me these days, which not unsurprisingly has been the greatest asset in my own career. It is not unusual to expect that when you give to others that others look after you. The reason to give to others is not so that they will look after you, it is an unintended by-product. There has to be sincerity in the giving, otherwise, it’s not sincere, is it? I mean taking someone out there for a round of golf because you wanna win their business is not sincerely wanting to build the relationship, and it’s just a protracted transaction. The only reason you’re taking them for golf or dinner is because you want something from them. It’s not actually relationship building. Relationship building is I’m taking you out for dinner because I actually wanna get to know you, and whether we do business or not together is irrelevant, that it has to be sincere.

Erik Michielsen: And how has that shown itself, in the actions that you’ve taken, the projects that you’ve taken on?

Simon Sinek: Well, two ways, I would say. The first way is when I have a meeting. I don’t come into a meeting wanting something from the person in the meeting. I will answer every question. We’ll have every discussion. I’m happy to give my ideas away. Someone told me a long time ago that people who are protective of their idea only have one idea. Well, I have a lot of other ideas. And not to mention the fact that when you’re an idea generator, and somebody’s not an idea generator, and they wanna steal your ideas, they have value in you because (chuckles) you can generate ideas. They see value in you. So I tend to not want anything from anybody when I come into a meeting. And it never occurred to me that I was doing that until somebody said, “Why are you so generous in your meetings?” And I was like, “I’m just answering all your questions.” And never would say, “Well, it’s gonna cost you,” or “Well, we’ll have to do a consulting engagement,” or hold anything back with the hope of. That’s one big thing. The other big thing is who I choose to work with. I wanna work with people who have similar values as I do, and so I’ve become more discerning as to who I work with, that people are devoted to other people. Those are the people I wanna work with. And people would sort of scoff at me and say, “Oh well, yeah, you can afford to do that now.” I’ve been doing this my whole life. When I was living paycheck to paycheck, I still did this, which hurt, but, for me, it was worth it, because “Do I wanna make money working with somebody I don’t wanna work with?”, which is then taking time away from finding somebody who I do wanna work with, and so it might have taken longer for me to sort of get the financial stability that I needed, but I certainly don’t regret it.

Erik Michielsen: I distinctly remember you talking about this back in 2003 with some of those old clients from your old company—.

Simon Sinek: Yeah. It was so hard, and I had a business partner back then who used to get very mad at me, like, “Why are we turning away business? We need the business.” And it’s because our values didn’t align. There’s an old Zen Buddhist saying which I love, which is, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” And so, when somebody treats you like dirt or like browbeats you to get a contract? Well, guess what’s gonna be like once you have the contract. So I pay great attention to sort of the courtship, and if the courtship is stressful, I don’t want any part of it, because that’s what the relationship will be like. It’s an indicator of what you’re gonna expect and it always is. Nobody ever says, “Well, I’m just like this now, and then I’ll be nice.” Like, “I’m only abusive while we’re dating, but once we get married, don’t worry, it’s gonna go away.” It doesn’t work that way.

Idan Cohen on How a Founder Job Role Changes as a Startup Grows

In Chapter 6 of 13 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, technology entrepreneur Idan Cohen answers "In What Ways Did Your Responsibilities Change in the Six Years of Growing Your Startup?" When he and his two co-founders started Boxee, they needed to team up and do everything. As the startup grows, the founders keep the vision and hire more professional and talented employees to execute on that vision.

Idan Cohen is a technology entrepreneur and product management leader at Samsung Electronics. He co-founded Boxee, which was acquired by Samsung in early 2013. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: In what ways did your responsibilities change in the six years growing your startup?

Idan Cohen: Well, starting a company and being three guys in a room, and the main difference, I think is just that you are doing everything. And as-- as things grow, and obviously, along six years, it changes a lot.

I think the main thing that changes is just that you can focus more on high-level strategy aspects of what you are doing and can have actually better professionals than you doing the things that you did before. And eventually I think that as an entrepreneur, that's what you bring to the table as the company grows, is you are the one who has the vision, and you set that vision, and you need to work with people in order to execute on it, but you can bring excellent people to help you execute it and people who are, frankly, more professional than you are. And that's great, like, this-- the feeling when you recruit someone who is better than you are, it's sometimes hard, like, at the beginning, before bringing him on, but then as he comes in and he does a better job, that's great. That's the best thing you can do.

And I think that's the second part of it is actually focusing on recruiting and bringing people in, just being able to identify those key members that you want in your team and bringing them over.

Idan Cohen on What It Feels Like When Others See You as a Leader

In Chapter 9 of 13 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, technology entrepreneur Idan Cohen answers "What Does It Mean to Be a Leader in What You Do?" Cohen shares what it felt like to realize that moment when others see you as a leader. He shares what it was like with his employees and what it meant for him to be mindful of that responsibility and what it was like as a startup going into meetings with industry giants who saw him and his team as leaders.

Idan Cohen is a technology entrepreneur and product management leader at Samsung Electronics. He co-founded Boxee, which was acquired by Samsung in early 2013. 

Transcript: 

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

Idan Cohen: One thing is reminding yourself sometimes that other people look at you as a leader and view your thoughts, opinions, knowledge as, you know-- look up to it and wait to hear what you have to say. So eventually for me, I think one thing is reminding yourself that you have that power and that actually that you have that knowledge, that you've managed to acquire some understanding of this specific domain that other people don't have and you can lay it back and you can form opinions and you can set the agenda. I just-- I find myself a lot of times just needing to remind myself of that.

Erik Michielsen: At Boxee, when did you realize that you were looked upon as a leader?

Idan Cohen: I think pretty early on, but the difference was that, you know, we were always viewed as a leader when it came to, like, being on the cutting-edge of the TV experience and understanding what the future of TV is going to be like, but we never managed to really penetrate, obviously, kind of the mass-market exposure. And so in a way, I think that was what was a little harder for me, understanding that even though other companies are 100, 1,000 times bigger than you, they're actually still looking at you, and definitely when they meet with you, then they are looking to see what you have to say.

And it was interesting. Like, you would go into meetings with people who are, you know, much more senior and run huge operations and have a lot of power, way more power, and you need that power, that control that they have, you need that. You need their help. And eventually, you sit in a meeting, and you see them kind of, you know, kind of just taking whatever you are saying and really drinking that and appreciating it. And then you understand that actually, you have that power over them, not the other way around.

Idan Cohen on Selling a Startup After Six Years in Business

In Chapter 10 of 13 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, technology entrepreneur Idan Cohen answers "What Was It Like to Sell the Company That You Co-founded?" On one hand, Cohen finds selling his company Boxee to Samsung a relief after six years grinding away in a startup life. Through the ups and downs he also finds going through the acquisition process a challenge, from managing uncertainty to managing expectations with employees.

Idan Cohen is a technology entrepreneur and product management leader at Samsung Electronics. He co-founded Boxee, which was acquired by Samsung in early 2013. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What was it like to sell the company that you cofounded?

Idan Cohen: I think that the main thing was relief. It was a lot of responsibility that you felt like, “phew, it's now, you know, someone else's.” I don't need to get-- you know, wake up tomorrow or go to sleep tonight and think about this, that, you know, and all of those things that just keep grinding you daily when you run your own business. And I think that was the most-- that was the feeling, the most significant feeling that I had.

Erik Michielsen: Did you expect to feel that way?

Idan Cohen: No, I don't think so. Maybe I know that now, but, yeah, I wasn't expecting exactly that kind of feeling. You know, the whole processes can be gut wrenching, and there's ups and downs, and also, around acquisition, it takes time, and there is a lot of uncertainty. And it's also not-- just not easy to keep the team aligned as you are going through this because, you know, they don't know what's happening, but everyone feels what's happening, and it's hard to keep everyone going and you know, working at the same pace.

Lauren Serota on What Gets Easier and What Gets Harder

In Chapter 4 of 21 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, creative director and educator Lauren Serota answers "What is Getting Easier and What is Getting Harder in Your Life?" Serota notes the challenge of taking on management responsibilities after getting promoted from her hands-on interaction design and design research role to an associate creative director job. Specifically, she finds challenging to not do the work and instead to delegate the work and empower those doing it. After teaching design for three years and getting public speaking experience, she finds it easier to think on her feet and adapt to different situations.

Lauren Serota works as an associate creative director at frog design. She is also a teacher at the Austin Center for Design (AC4D). Serota earned a bachelor's degree in industrial design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

Lauren Serota on the Give and Take of Learning and Teaching Design

In Chapter 6 of 21 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, creative director and educator Lauren Serota answers "How Are Your Responsibilities Changing As You Gain Work Experience?" After three years working at frog design, Serota finds she is ready to transition from learning from job experience to teaching others what she has learned on the job. This coincides with growing creative leader responsibilities at work, continuing teaching responsibilities at her school, and new ways to make an impact in the design community.

Lauren Serota works as an associate creative director at frog design. She is also a teacher at the Austin Center for Design (AC4D). Serota earned a bachelor's degree in industrial design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). 

Lauren Serota on Learning to Be a More Productive Communicator

In Chapter 11 of 21 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, creative director and educator Lauren Serota answers "At This Point in Your Life, Where Are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?" As she goes through a job transition from individual contributor to manager, Serota seeks feedback to be a better communicator and collaborator working with other leaders on the job. She finds this skill transferable to her personal relationships in addition to those at work.

Lauren Serota works as an associate creative director at frog design. She is also a teacher at the Austin Center for Design (AC4D). Serota earned a bachelor's degree in industrial design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).