Capstone - The Beginning of the End

I took this photo over Spring Break while hiking in Pacific Palisades.  At 512 steps, this staircase is supposedly the longest set in all of Los Angeles.  That meant, of course, that I had to climb them.  But why someone spray-painted "Tech" onto them, I'll never know. Or, perhaps, I really do.

I've mentioned earlier that I dove into all things digital a few years back because I wanted to stay on the cutting edge of where business is going. This inherent drive to stay ahead of the curve eventually landed me at St. Eds' dMBA program. My foray into both technology & this program has, at times, been an up hill climb. Nevertheless, these experiences have prepared me well for "Capstone".

"Capstone" is the final 7 week term of our program. During this time teams are assigned to companies to help them research, develop & execute a plan of action to solve a problem or launch a project. Its not an internship - its richer than that - we are knee deep in problems... & solutions.

We are a week into this new term... 1 unlike any other.  In addition to our Capstone (I have the best freakin' team ever in Kevin Kettler & Gabe Maldonado) I've picked up 2 clients of my own & am consulting with an international nonprofit org and start-up company.  I love the mix of these various organizations - they are all in very different industries & each has different levels of comfort with digital/social marketing & community building.  As such, I've been required to adjust my approach & presentation to not only each client, but to various members of my clients' teams.  For the eager & prepared, I'm jumping right into strategy & execution.  But for the more skeptical, like a dutiful business student, I'm presenting metrics to justify the ROI, generating buy-in from cynics & following up with designing & delivering training for employees.

Is it weird that I've used several pics of Travolta to illustrate my points on this blog?  No? I didn't think so.

This experience is a 360 view of digital/social media in practice. My clients, those who are in position of authority in their orgs, range from Gen X'ers to Baby Boomers.  From them its becoming clearer & clearer that we've spent the last 2 years in a bubble.  Now, its been a great bubble - but a bubble nonetheless.  Most of my cohort are Millennials so we've been in a bubble in which it is obvious that digital/social media are valuable tools.  But to some of my clients, these tools are strange & foreign. Capstone is about translating what we've been learning into practical business application. Said another way, we've been studying the individual pieces of the puzzle for 2 years - now is the time to put those pieces together.

View from LA's Giant Steps in Rustic Canyon

Capstone means I've traded in my jeans (classroom attire) for my Ann Taylor pencil skirts & suits (to meet with clients). And its awesome. I love returning to the "real" world and its incredibly rewarding to put these dMBA puzzle pieces together for clients... the view from the top of this climb is spectacular!

For more photos from my travels, follow me on Pinterest!

On the Eve of Year Two...

With the start of classes tomorrow, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what an amazing journey this last year has been!

Early on in the dMBA program I began researching Participant Media for a marketing class. I had long been a fan of their films (Food Inc., Charlie Wilson's War, North Country, etc.), but during my 1st year of the program I kept coming back to them again and again, fascinated by their business model. Their mission,"entertainment that inspires and compels social change" resonated deeply with me and my mission became to intern with them this summer.

To my great joy I was accepted as an intern in the Social Action department where I teamed with the staff and other interns to research, develop and execute social engagement campaigns (both online and offline) for PM's upcoming narratives and documentaries (see below). I had hoped to blog about my experience more, however, much of what I did each day was confidential so there really wasn't a way to share what I was doing and learning. Suffice it to say it was a rich and rewarding experience to not only work on these campaigns, but to also learn about the company as a whole. Laurie Luh, PM's Senior HR Director, organized weekly Brown Bag lunches where we had the opportunity to learn from representatives of different parts of the organization including Narrative & Documentary Development, TakePart, Legal and Finance & Business Operations.

After such a rich experience with my internship and so thoroughly enjoying the city itself, it wasn't easy to leave LA! But all I can think now, if the results of Year One have been so rewarding, I can't wait to see what's next!

The List, or, How I spent my Summer

AMAZING internship w/ Participant Media (titles included The Help, Contagion, Circumstance, Page One)

Yamashiro

Dolly Parton at the Hollywood Bowl

Horseback riding in Griffith Park (stampede included at no extra charge!)

The Doors at Whiskey a Go Go

Hollywood Farmers Market

Boxing at Freddy Roach's Wild Card Boxing Gym w/ Ray Beltran (USBA Lightweight Champ and Manny Pacquiao's sparring partner)

Dearly Departed Tours

The Grove & Farmers Market

Compton

Watts

Manhatten Beach

Venice Beach

Malibu Beach

Malibu Canyon

Topanga Canyon

Inn of the 7th Ray

Griffith Observatory

Runyon Canyon

Hollywood Blvd

Melrose

Sunset Blvd

Sunset Strip

Little Tokyo

China Town

The Metro (Red & Gold lines)

Thai Town

Mini riot on Hollywood Blvd

Dodger's game (they won!)

Watching Kermit the Frog & Miss Piggy film the newest Muppets film

The Go-Go's getting their star on the Walk of Fame

Martinis & chx potpie at Musso & Frank

Dinner at El Coyote on 8/8

Cigars & infinity pools

Lucky Strike bowling

Fashion District

Skid Row

Toy District

Jewelry District

Garden of Oz

Grease's Rydell HS

Muscle Beach

Miceli's

A $30 sandwich at The Ivey

Rodeo Dr.

Beverly Hills

La Brea tar pits

Ecclesia

Private tour of the SAG offices

LACMA

LA Film Fest

Jeff Skoll on Technology and Social Change

Last week I wrote about my experience of learning to converge digital tools with the entertainment industry. Here's a take on it from Participant Media's founder, Jeff Skoll with a big dose of social change mixed in:

A Minute with Jeff Skoll on

Technology and Global Social Change

High-Tech Goes All Hollywood

Before returning to school for my MBA, I spent several years working in the high-tech industry. Now, for those who know me, this was a surprising career move - technology was never my strong suit. But that is precisely why I made the move. I had grown frustrated by not understanding the realm of digital technology and so I was determined to jump in head first and learn. Fortunately, I found a great boss who saw how my previous work experience was useful to her IT department and gave me a shot.

So I became the technology coordinator and business analyst for a global software company and I had to work hard to understand what the heck my colleagues were even talking about - it was truly a foreign language to me! But my weakness turned into a strength as I became responsible for much of the corporate-wide communication from the IT department... I became, in effect, the department's "translator" and it was up to me to communicate about technology in terms that even a newbie like me could understand... I was quite the antithesis of Saturday Night Live's snarky "IT Guy".

The decision, to plunge into an area that had previously intimidated me, led to other jobs and offers and turned out to be one of the best career decisions I ever made. You see, it wasn't my goal to become the smartest IT person around, but rather to understand it well enough to translate it for traditional business users.

The value of this vision has been reinforced recently by two conversations I've had at my internship. The first was with Rob Avey, Senior Director, Business Operations of Take Part (the organization which manages Participant Media's digital footprint). Mr. Avey, who is an big-time expert, has been able to apply his extensive high-tech knowledge & experience in a new way - to shape and support the digital strategy of an entertainment company. It was exhilarating discussing with Mr. Avey how technology is changing the face of traditional business and to explore new applications in our ever increasingly digital world.

The 2nd conversation was with Chris Gebhardt, EVP & GM of TakePart, after I had the chance to sit in on a conference call with Warner Brothers. I got to speak with Mr. Gebhardt about the opportunities and challenges of the increasing use of digital tools and how they apply to the entertainment industry. It has been such a privilege to speak 1st hand with people at the fore of bridging the gap of traditional business and cutting edge technology!

So now I've come full circle and am reminded why I jumped into the high-tech world in the first place (other than just the sheer challenge of it) - to be that bridge between the digital and traditional worlds!

Recommended reads from Mr. Avey and Mr. Gebhardt:

This Business of Film: A Practical Guide to Achieving Success in the Film Industry

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You

The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective and Powerful Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Social Change

The Joy of Wandering

Wrapping up my 3rd week of interning at Participant Media means I'm nearly 1/2 way through my time in LA! I had planned to update the blog more while I'm here, but I've been so immersed in the experience that it has been challenging to put it to words!

One of my favorite things in the whole-wide-world is to be in a new city and simply wander around, noticing the details and soaking up its unique history and culture. The vastness of LA, with its pockets of cities and neighborhoods, is the perfect place to feed this joy of wandering. Similarly, my internship in the Social Action department has been a joy as it is allowing me to combine my varied experiences, interests and education all in one role.

What does a Social Action intern do exactly? We support the Social Action team, whose job it is to create and execute campaigns designed to engage audiences in the themes of Participant Media's films. For example, the documentary, Waiting for 'Superman', which explores the state of our current public school system, has a campaign giving people tools to get involved and impact the system at local and national levels.

Working in the Social Action department in just these 3 short weeks has allowed me to draw on my work experience in campaign development and community engagement. I'm also drawing on my undergrad degree in Sociology by employing research methods and statistics to identify or rule out social trends and themes. My quirky filmmaker habit of "interviewing" people I meet during my travels is paying off too. Tying it all together, of course, is learning from the Social Action team how to put into practice the business and digital strategies I've been studying for the past year.

And just when I thought this internship was the perfect intersection of my interests, it got even better! I've recently been assigned to design a digital campaign on a topic that's near and dear to my heart both professionally and personally. I can't say much more than that for now... stay tuned!

So, as the title of this post is the Joy of Wandering - let me wander back to the main point here - I'm overjoyed because I'm using the fruits of my wanderings among seemingly far-flung professional, educational and geographical explorations and have the opportunity to learn so much more at such an amazing company!

A Light Bulb Went Off in the Desert

That's Texas in my rearview mirror - and if you look closely, you can discern the spider that we seemed to have picked up somewhere in the desert.

The 1,400+ mile roadtrip from TX to CA was an amazing journey with my Mom where along the way we saw old friends, stopped off in Tombstone (where I got a "talking to" from the Marshall - which I guess wasn't too bad considering the reputation of the town), soaked up the iconic southwestern culture and had a misadventure with my car key (yay, Triple A!). It was a beautiful mother/daughter experience... despite my Mom freaking me out by repeatedly referring to us as Thelma & Louise. They wound up in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I wanted to make it to LA for my internship!

In between disagreeing over what music to play, Mom and I listened to the classic, Good to Great by Jim Collins. The findings of the author's research on what separates "good" organizations from "great" ones are compelling - and what I found most provocative were his thoughts on the use of technology by the "great" companies. In an age when social media is typically touted as a fool-proof method of marketing and networking, Collins' research is perhaps more important than ever. In Collins' interviews with leaders of "great" organizations he points out how little those leaders emphasize the use of technology. Now, that's not saying they don't use technology... of course they do. Collins, however, stresses that technology is an accelerator and not a creator of success.

Without proper analysis of the market, a sound business strategy and the discipline to stick with the strategy, technology becomes a tool in unskilled hands, yielding, at best, short-term gains. Collins uses the example of DrugStore.com and Walgreen's at the height of the Dot Com Boom. While the financial markets and analysts fell all over themselves regarding DrugStore.com, they practically had the obituary for Walgreen's written. I won't get into the details here - you should read them for yourself in chapter 7 of Good to Great - but Walgreen's emerged from their "slump" with a solid business strategy, trouncing the internet's wunderkind DrugStore.com, who has continued to flail since the Dot Com Bust.

Listening to Good to Great upon completing my first year of my MBA studies was perfect timing. Because the program has a focus on Digital Media Management, the book, like the program itself, reminds us that the tools of technology are critical accelerators, but are no replacement for a solid business foundation.

Making Movies That Matter

This video is a TED Talk from Jeff Skoll, founder and chairman of Participant Media, the company where I'll be interning this summer. Watching this video has me more excited than ever to work with them!

1st year of business school... DONE!

WOO - HOO!

As I celebrate completing this 1st year of the dMBA program, I can't help but think how this year has been like the 300-meter hurdle event I ran in high school, an event which requires both speed and endurance.

Like a sprint, this program has moved at a super-fast pace as we've completed 3 full courses every 7 weeks. To put that in perspective, in one 7 week term we:

• Digested 10 chapters of Finance,
• Designed and implemented a marketing research project (similar to one I did in undergrad that took 1 full semester) and,
• Covered the basics of the entire Adobe Creative Suite.

When each 7 weeks were up, however, it was on to the next set of classes, making this more than a sprint, but a test of endurance as well. And of course, there are the hurdles... you know, just those everyday things of life that we have to overcome to make it to the finish line.

Sometimes I think I'm a little crazy to have signed up for such an intense program... but us dMBA'ers, we're our own special breed :) So, congrats to my classmates on a job well done! Now a little R&R before I'm off to my amazing summer internship!

Who Said, "Grad School Isn't The Real World"? Part Deux

OMG - SO freaking excited! I am THRILLED to tell the world that I've landed the coolest internship this summer with Participant Media in Los Angeles! In addition to its upcoming features, The Help and Jodie Foster's The Beaver, Participant is most notably known for its Academy Award Winning/Nominated narratives and documentaries including Charlie Wilson's War, Good Night and Good Luck, North Country, Food Inc., An Inconvenient Truth and The Cove.

I will intern in the Social Action department, working with Kristen Irving, the Director of Campaign Development, to develop a social action campaign aligned with a soon-to-be announced major motion picture.

I've long been a fan of Participant's films, but its since starting the dMBA program, that I've begun to study their practice of creating social action campaigns in depth. In fact, it was in a Marketing class in our very 1st term that I began to research their business model. Since that time I've continued to follow them closely with the hopes of landing an internship there. So I'm happy to say, my hard work and persistence has paid off :)

As excited as I am about this opportunity, its taken me a couple of weeks to blog about it... "life has gotten in the way", as Professor Nair from HR likes to say. Almost immediately after accepting their offer, my Grandmother was admitted to ICU with pneumonia... and just a few days after that, she passed away. My Grandmother has been a very influential person in my life - so much so, that I've been filming her and working on a documentary, Grandmother Storyteller, about her for the past several years.

Losing her has been devastating. In the days between her passing and the funeral, all I could do was eat Lucky Charms and listen to the '60's gospel-meets-psychedelic-rock hit, "Spirit in the Sky." And oh yeah, see to the "minor details" of grad school (you caught the sarcasm, right?).

The timing of these 2 big events, coupled with the fact that hard work must still be completed, reminded me of something I noticed recently in my 100,000,000th viewing of the classic, "Rocky". You know the famous workout scene which culminates with Rocky triumphantly ascending the steps of the Philly Museum of Art? Its an iconic feel-good scene where Rocky is experiencing the pay-off of all his hard work. But here's the kicker - immediately after that, we cut to Rocky the night before the big fight - he's restless and agitated. He wanders the city and ends up in the Spectrum where he runs into the fight promoter whose comments completely shatter Rocky's fragile confidence. He goes home and tells Adrian he can't go through with the fight. After speaking with Adrian though, he realizes he must go on and his goal becomes to simply "go the distance" with the Champ.

What floors me about this is how quickly Rocky goes from his ultimate high, on the Art Museum steps, to his ultimate low. My own high and low hadn't yet happened, so at the time I was simply struck by the well-crafted writing and how it beautifully juxtaposes such tender human experiences at such extreme ends of the spectrum.

I'm getting back in the saddle now with school. It was hectic for a while - being at Grannie Annie's bedside in her last few days - giving and receiving support with my family - planning the funeral - somehow managing to pull myself together to give her eulogy. During all that, I didn't miss a deadline with school.

Sure, I thought about asking for a little wiggle room from my professors, but I didn't. Each round of classes is only 7 weeks so there is little room for wiggling - it just seemed easier to suck it up and do my homework in her hospital room while she slept rather than to put it off. Besides, I'd look up to occasionally catch her proudly watching me study - and she wouldn't have put up with me not, "going the distance". She was as tough as they come.

I'm off the Lucky Charms now and I'm back to focusing on this exciting opportunity with Participant. After all, it was Grannie Annie and her gift of storytelling who taught me about the powerful impact of a well-told story. With that I leave you with a quote about my Grandmother - one that succinctly explains her grand style of telling a story:

Its a Texas thing.

If you can't improve on a story, why tell it?