This summer I drove across America in search of people have taken a risk to turn a passion into a career. From an export merchant turned baker in Chicago, to an electrical engineer turned pastor in Tulsa, I found stories that changed my perspective on both the benefits – and challenges – of entrusting in a motto I’ve long held dear, “behind every passion lies a business model.”
In a recent survey conducted by Manpower International, five out of six Americans intend to seek a new job in the coming year. If you are among those who’d like your new job to be rooted in a deep passion of yours, I hope the candid perspectives captured in this mini documentary may help you to make a more informed – and inspired – choice.
Amazon’s recent decision to pull Wikileaks from of its servers has sparked a heated debate. I think one of the main points that’s been confused is Amazon’s legal versus ethical obligations. Here’s my attempt to sort these out:
Legally the argument is simple. Amazon forbids the hosting of documents that a client does not “own or otherwise control all of the rights to.” Wikileaks did not (or so let’s hope) write the Department of State diplomatic cables and so they’ve clearly violated the Terms of Service (TOS) to which they agreed when they signed up for an account. A clear TOS violation. Suspend the account. End of story.
Ethically the argument falls into a gray area, and I think your opinion on the matter is intrinsically tied to the value you put on the cables. If you consider the cables nothing more than someone’s stolen personal property, then again Amazon is right not to be an accessory to theft. On the other hand, if you consider the cables as information that’s illuminating a greater social injustice, then the argument gets trickier.
Say, for example, a North Korean soldier leaks stolen government documents detailing a network of heretofore unknown hard labor camps, and posts these docs on Amazon’s server. Some would argue that for Amazon to take down his site out of respect for the property rights of the North Korean regime would be at best, ethically questionable and at worst, aiding and abetting a large social injustice.
Now whether you believe the Wikileaks documents illuminate any social injustice well, that opinion’s yours to form ;)
and as the frost passes
and greying blades of grass shed a thin coat of ice
and the red-brown of trees form a moving tapestry of color
my bus slices through a persian carpet countryside
a warm pocket of air in a cold, brisk Massachusetts morning
an apple cheeked face brushing away tears
as an icy wind cuts grooves into its hollow pores
I want to slowly drift into a Bossa Nova wonderland
Suspended by soft whispy clouds and propped up by the playful tune of fingers hitting black and white piano keys
A soothing male voice sings, exuding the energetic warmth of a grocer drifting into his seat
Thinking about the day with caipirinha in hand, occupying the space between work and the comfort of home
The smell of pastries and a light meal streaming steadily into my room
Surrounded by ivory-colored soft leather couches and the cool mist of a late spring evening floating onto my skin
This summer I’ll be heading to Los Angeles to practice storytelling. While not a traditional MBA internship, my friends and faculty at MIT Sloan have been super supportive, often connecting me with whoever they feel will be helpful on my journey. There is, however, one question that always crops up: Why storytelling? And what does this have to do with getting an MBA?
The seed for my journey was planted in 2005 when Christopher Adkins, my former professor at William and Mary, invited me to speak to his undergrads about potential career paths. As I thought about what to say, I remembered a recent article that I had read about Shotei Ibata, a Japanese calligrapher. As a young man, Shotei was advised not to go into calligraphy because it was super competitive, and prospects for earning a living were slim. Shotei nevertheless followed his passion, and in the process invented a completely new type of large format calligraphy (i.e. giant circles drawn with a 6 foot brush) that brought him worldwide acclaim and a steady stream of clients. As I relayed Shotei-sensei’s story to the undergrads, there are two lessons that I highlighted: First, passion is a competitive advantage. Second, behind every passion lies a business model (even if your passion is to draw circles).
So what is my passion? To answer this question, I sat down at my desk last Fall and I created a matrix. I plotted Creative, Business-Esque, Technical, and Intuitive on opposite ends of the X and Y-axes, respectively. Next, I took a deep breath, told myself to suspend all judgment and awareness of my work experience (e.g. an MBA with a consulting background), and started jotting down activities that I enjoyed. As I looked over my filled out sheet of paper, I felt a wave of joy: all of the opportunities looked exciting. As I mulled over the matrix over the next few days, another realization became clear: the more that the opportunity maxed out on the creative and intuitive ends of the spectrum, the more excited I was about it. The idea with the highest score? Storytelling. And thus my summer plans.
So what does storytelling have to do with my MBA? In short: I’m not sure. And that’s okay. In a 2005 commencement address at Stanford, Steve Jobs shared his story about dropping out of college and “dropping in” to activities that piqued his interest. One such activity was a local art class, where Jobs learned how to make beautiful typography. At the time he had no idea how this class would serve him, but as he was designing the Mac — the first computer with beautiful fonts — it all made sense. Jobs said, “It was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.” The essence of Jobs’ message is that there’s a lot of value in bringing together unlikely experiences, especially when they’re rooted in genuine interest. With this principle as my basis, I have faith that my storytelling internship will bring value to my MBA. In fact, some of the dots are already startingtoconnect.
So where do we go from here? Currently I’m working to raise funds to cover my expenses this summer, brainstorm potential storytelling frameworks, and build out my network in Los Angeles. If you suggestions on any of these, please drop me a line. Otherwise I will post updates on my new project website — www.mbastoryteller.com — as I continue my journey. Thank you to all of you who have supported me so far.
As read at the fantastic East Meets West slam poetry open mic. Inspired by the journey of a Ugandan student studying Electrical Engineering at MIT.
Kampala
Kampala
Baby powder lines the inside of her translucent latex gloves
As she slips them over her bare hands
Kampala
Kampala
Dry white particles burrow deep into her skin like dust
Kicked up in a game of tag on a worn school playground
Kampala
Kampala
“Naeeta”! she shouts
She stops.
Eyes popped open
A primed pair of lungs
The steel cabinet opposite her unable to absorb the brunt of her war cry
It shutters
And as it sheds the energy from its shelves
Down its legs
And finally into the floor.
It calms
And so does she
She slinks back to her lab bench
Her lungs tight from the arid recycled air in the laser testing lab
Eyes strained like a waterlogged grapefruit bobbing brightly in a lazy creek
She hones in on amplitudes and diodes and ignores the sweet memory of a breeze
Brushing by her legs as she walked through her garden
In Kampala
And so she is
And will be for the time to come
In a different place
Where moisture comes not from dark, rich earth
But from the tip of a steel showerhead after a long day in the lab
Where her head cools not from pulses of fresh air from the Rwenzori mountains
But from a dorm-issued pillow that adorns her twin bed
And as she slips under her sheets and rests her tired eyes
And as her skin begins to soften and her feet find the edge of her bed
She hears the light springs in her mattress shift under her weight
And in her mind she finds
Kampala
A big thanks to all those who helped to bring this week’s Bold Sell Competition to life, including our volunteers, judges, contestants, and the over 200 people who attended the event. Congrats also to our three winners: Slava Menn (MIT – 3rd place); Chika Ekeji (MIT – 2nd place); and William Collis (Harvard – 1st place).
If you’d like to play an active role in organizing next year’s competition, or would like to bring The Bold Sell to your school or organization, do let us know. For video of all our winners, click here.
In last Fall’s Basic Sales Training Workshop, renowned sales guru Jeff Hoffman described sales as based on the principle of “creating a sense of urgency where none exists.” That urgency, Jeff stated, is created by the seller and instilled in the buyer. Fair enough. As kids, however, we learned another important principle: “If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.” And so, on March 3rd, we put our finest orators on call and create for them an urgent condition. Cue the Bold Sell Competition.
In a first-ever collaboration between the MIT Sloan Sales Club and the Harvard Business School Public Speaking Club, our two schools join forces to test – and celebrate – our most creative, witty, and captivating MBAs. The premise is simple: 1 product, 6 slides, 7 minutes, and an eager audience packing Wong Auditorium. Your challenge? Sell a product like it’s the next coming of sliced bread. The catch? You don’t know what product you’re selling, nor do you know what’s on your slides, until you’re standing in front of your audience. And one more thing: your performance will be scored by sales execs from Cisco, AOL, Xerox, and Hubspot. Go.
The Bold Sell Competition will be held on Wednesday March 3rd at 7pm in MIT Sloan’s Wong Auditorium. Our goal is to laugh, listen, and celebrate those brave enough to step into the spotlight, so bring your friends and join us to cheer on our fellow MBAs (Admission is free).
Here’s to laughter, creativity, community, and sales. See you in Wong.
“Crowdsourcing” is defined as taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or organization, and outsourcing it to a group (or crowd) of people.
Crowdsourcing has given rise to a new breed of company. While historically companies served their customers in formal, one-way exchanges, crowdsourced companies are run by their customers, and serve as a conduit for their customers’ talent and ambition.
Crowdsourcing has given rise to companies whose entire business model is based on selling products dreamed up by their customers. For example, a company called Quirky lets customers submit home-grown product ideas which, if rated favorably by visitors to their website, are manufactured and sold. Following Quirky’s example, Threadless has introduced a similar model in the T-shirt space; Innocentive and IdeaBlob in the innovation space. Read: the only products these companies sell are the ones designed by their customers.
This phenomenon in not limited to web startups; traditional brick-and-mortar companies have also integrated crowdsourcing into their operations.
Starbucks has used crowdsourcing to change the way it runs its stores. Through the “My Starbucks Idea” website, Starbucks customers can create and prioritize the management decisions that Starbucks makes at a corporate level and rolls out through it coffeeshops.
Frito-Lay has used crowdsourcing to create TV ads for their products. In 2009 they crowdsourced the development of their SuperBowl ad for Doritos chips. The result? Not only was the ad televised to 95 million people, but in market surveys it ranked as the most memorable ad of the night.
So why should companies crowdsource?
For starters, I believe that companies that outsource can improve brand loyalty and lower costs. No doubt customers will think more highly of a company that not only hears their recommendations, but implements them (Starbucks). Doritos proved that crowdsourcing certain aspects of operations can lead to a product (advertisement) that is extremely cheap to make and very effective. Finally, Accenture recently reported that “68 percent of returns are products that work properly but do not meet customers’ expectations.” I believe that companies that open up the design process to their users are more likely to close this gap. And what is the impact on the bottom line? In 2009, $13.8 billion.
The philosophy of a company is actually sort of beautiful: a publicly owned entity in service of its stakeholders. In practice the difficulty of integrating potentially millions of stakeholders into the organization has made realizing this philosophy difficult, resulting in a disconnect (often public), between a company and its customers. Crowdsourcing enables a new reality, where companies are not only more responsive to customers, but in many cases are the customers themselves.
This week two Sloanies and I attended The Economist’s Media Convergence Forum in New York City. The purpose of this forum is understand the ongoing convergence between media, marketing, and technology. The panelists ranged from the founder of Twitter to the President of Sony Music. The topics ranged from media consumption trends among 12 year olds, to an excellent Oxford-style debate with Jeff Jarvis (What Would Google Do) on privacy and his prostate.
Here are the insights I found especially compelling:
On convergence in the music industry
- While digital distribution is killing off certain functions of the music industry (e.g. producing and distributing CDs), the industry itself continues to be viable. There will always be a need for an aggregator (i.e. major music label) that has the scale to help artists to negotiate favorable terms with large retailers (e.g. Apple’s iTunes store) and to launch synchronized global marketing campaigns. Thomas Hesse, President, Sony Music Entertainment Global Digital Business
On convergence in the journalism industry
- While consumers care less about where they get their news from (established news-houses such as NYT vs. internet newcomers such as Politico.com), they care more than ever that their news sources are trustworthy. “Trust is the new black.” Craig Newmark, Chairman, Craiglist
On convergence in the cable TV industry
- Misconception: A television show watched online will garner the same demographic as the same show on television. Reality: Putting a show online creates an entirely new audience. The average viewer of the News Hour on PBS is over 55. On the internet? Under 35 (and has never watched the show on TV). Paula Kerger, President, PBS
On a business model for Twitter
- Twitter’s goals are twofold: to increase revenue and to maintain or better the user experience. Most of the time, these goals oppose each other: for example, banner ads increase revenue, but they diminish the user experience. Twitter wants to emulate Google’s approach to monetization: Be patient, and develop an innovative, game-changing model (e.g. Adwords) that increases revenue while maintaining or improving the user experience. Jack Dorsey, Chairman, Twitter
On the future of the gaming industry
- Traditionally, great graphics have been the key differentiators for great games. Today, the quality of the game’s story is equally important. EA employs several academy-award winning screenwriters to create the storylines for their titles.
- It’s hard for to stay that modern kids have shorter attention spans, when they can focus for upwards of 100 hours on one game. Elizabeth Harz, Vice President, Electronic Arts
- There is a rise in “pass-back” applications, or applications on expensive smartphones that a parent loads on to the device and passes it to their kid in the backseat of the car. Michael Bellavia, President, Animax Entertainment
On the future of targeted advertising
- DEMO: YCD showed off their adscreens, which deliver an ad based on the gender and age of the person viewing it, as extrapolated from a snapshot of their face.
- DEMO: DecisionLab showed off a product which delivers an ad based on the emotional state of the person viewing it, as perceived through their visual expressions.
Finally, here is the Economist’s teaser video, chock-full with great factoids on media convergence:
