Jon Kolko: Career Advice for Young Design Professionals

In Chapter 21 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, design educator Jon Kolko answers "How Can Young Design Professionals Better Prepare for Problem Solving Careers?"  Kolko notes how younger design professionals should first focus on finding subject matter you are passionate about in your work.  Second, he notes the importance of crafting a design process to create the work, honing it over time by reflecting on your work. 

Jon Kolko is the founder and director of the Austin School 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 can young design professionals better prepare for problem solving careers?

Jon Kolko: Design professionals are already prepared for it. Just by calling yourself a designer and doing design process, design methods, you're solving problems. You could hone all of that. 

And so, I think one of my best suggestions for younger designers is first to find topic areas that you're passionate about. And so, typically design education doesn’t focus on content. Design is not about content explicitly. It's a very malleable discipline but to young designers, I say find content that you're passionate about so that you can gain some kind of depth of impact and breadth of impact at once. And so, if you're passionate about sports equipment, great, good for you. If you're passionate about the homeless, great, good for you. But find some content subject matter that you're passionate about. But then, I would start to really craft a process. 

For me and for my students, it's the use of center design process, it's about design with rather than design for, and it's about immersing ethnography, insights, ideation, and launching companies. That’s the process that works for us. It doesn’t have to be the process that works for everybody but knowing what that process is is critical. And a lot of designers really sort of have a -- have it like throw it at the wall and see what sticks and that’s their process. 

And it comes to back to reflection and we spoke a little bit about that prior. It comes back to this idea of reflecting on your work and then going out of your way to improve method, improve the way that you approach things, and being able to articulate that process to other people. Again, knowledge through sharing, describing what your process is to people in a way that they get it.

Why Psychologist Chooses Design Career - Hammans Stallings

In Chapter 4 of 22 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, innovation strategist Hammans Stallings answers "What Inspires You to Work at the Intersection of Design and Psychology?"  Stallings finds psychology work making peoples lives more meaningful and products and services more useful is an intrinsic motivator.  After graduate school, Stallings looks for an opportunity to use his background and found design work a great outlet for his psychology passion.  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. 

Idan Cohen on How Photography Hobby Teaches Point of View

In Chapter 6 of 19 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Boxee co-founder and head of product Idan Cohen answers "What Role Does Photography Play in Your Life?"  Cohen begins by providing background on early photography experiences at school and with his father.  Even then, his photos were about his surroundings and random people.  Many years later while studying art and photography at university, Cohen finds value capturing memories and moments as trophies in the same ways hunters covet and display their kills. 

This is Idan Cohen's Year 1 Capture Your Flag interview.  Cohen is co-founder and head of product at Boxee Inc, an online video software company.  Previous to Boxee, Cohen held telecom software innovation and developer roles at Comverse.  He was a Captain in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and graduated from Tel Aviv University with a Bachelors of Science degree in Geophysics and Art.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What role does photography play in your life?

Idan Cohen: I was never really into photography, my father really loved photography and like I remember myself, so 1st grade, we went on the first kind of field trip with our class and he gave me one of his old cameras with a roll of film, and it’s funny, I still have that roll of film, and it’s very weird the photos that I took at that field trip. And I remember that I got back, and I think that my mother looked at those photos or my brother, it wasn’t my father, like my mother or my brother, and they said, this is completely useless. 

But then I look at it now, and it’s not useless at all, it’s like exactly what I was interested in, and it was—a lot of it was about people, other people, so it’s really weird because it’s this roll of film that’s just random people that was around me, it wasn’t even my classmates, it was just—it was in the zoo and it was people that were in the zoo. It was very weird. And then, about 20 years later, I was going—I was in university and I was studying art and I took this photography class, and I got a camera and I started getting back into it. 

It was a very active—it was photography history but for me, that was enough, I never learned technically how to take photos. So for me, photography is about coveting images, it’s about being really greedy with what I see around me and wanting to just have it for myself. So if I see an image that I like, I wanna have that. And it’s a way for me to freeze time, if it’s a beautiful girl, if it’s a beautiful situation, if it’s a kid that’s doing something that I’m excited about, if it’s just an ironic situation, I just wanna have that. 

And so I see it very much like the modern—that’s the modern version of hunters. Because, you know, hunters would go and they coveted these animals to put them on their walls as trophies, and for me, that’s these trophies of what I see with my eyes. And that’s how I see photography.

Idan Cohen on Developing a Passion for Building Products

In Chapter 8 of 19 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Boxee co-founder and head of product Idan Cohen answers "What is the Source of Your Passion for Building Things?"  Cohen references his joy creating beautiful products or useful devices.  He appreciates a holistic product design process and compares it to the 20th century Golden Age of furniture design. 

This is Idan Cohen's Year 1 Capture Your Flag interview.  Cohen is co-founder and head of product at Boxee Inc, an online video software company.  Previous to Boxee, Cohen held telecom software innovation and developer roles at Comverse.  He was a Captain in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and graduated from Tel Aviv University with a Bachelors of Science degree in Geophysics and Art.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What is the source of your passion for building things?

Idan Cohen: It’s basically creating beautiful useful devices or products that are also—I put a lot of emphasis to how the process—what is the process like. A lot of things can look very nice from, you know, from outside or from the surface, like I really appreciate for instance, Apple for actually engineering the inside of their computers, and making them look beautiful. 

It’s magnificent when you open, like the Mac mini which is probably the most negligent product Apple is doing, but it has this beautiful thing that when you open it and when you look inside it’s just beautifully laid out, and I’m sure that they have actual people that are in charge of making that look nice, so for me, it’s all about the whole process being, you know, holistic and very aesthetically pleasing. So at the end of the process, it’s about creating something that’s functional but you really enjoy the process. 

So I like working with materials, software is somewhat of a material designed in a lot of—you know, that’s pretty great how the last 5 years were not about the actual technology, but much more about the user experience and the design, because I think that the design is much more coming closer to kind of like the golden age of furniture probably in around like, you know, the previous century, which was much more creating beautiful things, and putting an emphasis on materials. So it’s somewhere between these—and that’s what I’m attracted to, I really, really—it’s not about software, it’s not about internet, it’s about products.

Idan Cohen on How Family Supports Creative Childhood Passions

In Chapter 9 of 19 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Boxee co-founder and head of product Idan Cohen answers "Where Has Your Family Been Most Supportive in Your Career Development?"  Cohen notes a common challenge in present day that his family does not understand his entrepreneurial product work; however, he shares experiences from his formative years where his parents encouraged Cohen to learn to use tools and pursue his passion for building and making objects.  This is Idan Cohen's Year 1 CYF interview.  Cohen is co-founder and head of product at Boxee Inc, an online video software company.  Previous to Boxee, Cohen held telecom software innovation and developer roles at Comverse.  He was a Captain in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and graduated from Tel Aviv University with a Bachelors of Science degree in Geophysics and Art.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: Where has your family been most supportive in your career development?

Idan Cohen: That’s a good question ‘cause I don’t think they understand what I do.  Maybe when I was writing more code then they could understand, I don’t think they did really always understand what products that were, you know, the result of that code, these days, I think that they don’t even understand, you know, what’s my role and kind of like how do I make things happen, and it’s a little bit sad, actually that they don’t understand that, ‘cause a lot of—I think that for a lot of people, what they do has a lot to do with kind of getting appreciation and getting the pride from their family. It has a lot to do with that.

So I kind of—it makes me a little bit sad that they don’t understand that. But on the other hand, I think that my family always pushed me to be a creator and a maker. So when I wanted a computer, when I was 6, my mother sent me to a summer camp to learn programming, and I got the computer only after that—those 2 months of learning how to write code. ‘Cause for her, you know, you—sure, this is a tool, you need to first learn how to use a tool and then you can do something with it. When I was about 10, then I went—in the steps of my brother, I went to an aero-modeling club, which is a very geeky thing, and we built model airplanes out of like wood and then more and more actually advanced technologies.

And that was for me great, it was working with my hands, for me, the way that I work with like an exact-o knife or you know, with just a—my ability to work with a knife is parallel to just—it’s like the extension my hand, and I think it’s just because this muscle memory of for years, just working with a knife and cutting things. And it’s so important to just get kids I think to create things and learn how to use tools, as a 12-year-old or 14-year-old I think, I started using a lathe to create metal pieces and for 5 years I was working part-time with someone just as an apprentice to learn how to work with metals. And for me, that was so important because today I see anything and I can—just I can know how it was machined and I can imagine how I can create something like that or I can aspire to create something like that.

And I think that’s—that was very important, so my family maybe doesn’t understand what I’m doing now but they definitely had a huge part in getting me there by just all the time giving me these tools of, you know, learn how to make things. And then you’ll get there, you’ll be able to create products or—and it’s so much more important than just being an accountant I think. Just being able to create physical objects.

How to Choose a College Major You Can Use All Your Life

In Chapter 11 of 19 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Boxee co-founder and head of product Idan Cohen answers "How Did You Choose What to Study at College and How Has It Remained Relevant as You Have Gotten Older?"  Cohen references his time at Tel Aviv University and his shift in studies from computer science (CS) to physics and art history.  He takes a physics class and loves it.  As the math gets more complex, Cohen complements the physics classes with art, photography, music and architecture classes.  He finds apprenticeship or on the job learning the best ways to learn techical skills and recommends using the college experience to build useful day to day life skills and tools. 

This is Idan Cohen's Year 1 Capture Your Flag interview.  Cohen is co-founder and head of product at Boxee Inc, an online video software company.  Previous to Boxee, Cohen held telecom software innovation and developer roles at Comverse.  He was a Captain in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and graduated from Tel Aviv University with a Bachelors of Science degree in Geophysics and Art.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How did you choose what to study at college and how has it remained relevant as you’ve gotten older?

Idan Cohen: So I chose to study physics and art history, and I got there in a pretty weird way, because I started off—I started off studying—I did one semester in CS, in Computer Science, and I just—I already knew how to program and it was a lot of math, and it was just like very theoretical programming, and I was just not interested and disengaged, and then I said, okay, I’ll switch to—I actually did a semester in chemistry, and I said, okay, this is also interesting but then I saw that actually what’s interesting for me is physics, then I did a semester in physics and I said, this is great. I enjoy it. It’s a little bit of like a manual for universe, you suddenly understand how things work, from very big things to very small things, to just this thing moving on the table and friction between the table and whatever, and gravity, I loved it. 

But I needed something a little bit more for the soul and as I saw the math getting more complex, I took art history in addition, and that was great because suddenly I was in the university, I was going to these very, you know, technical theoretical math and physics classes but then going and studying about art and photography and music and architecture, and it was awesome. 

Looking back at it, then I think it’s all just tools for life, and I think that that’s what most people should look at when they’re going to college, if you are going to go to college, I believe a lot in just apprenticeship, you know, a little bit like, we—like the path that I took, I mean going for instance into the army then having someone to learn from, how to code, or how to, you know, whatever we did there just—but someone that works with you, so you don’t need all of the theoretical knowledge but someone will help you get into it, and I really believe in that, just learning on the job. 

And on the other hand, there’s very few real professions that you can come out of academia with, so, you know, if you wanna be a medical doctor, probably you need to go there, although, as well, by the way, they learn a lot of theory and then they learn a lot on the job. If you wanna be an accountant or a lawyer, probably you need to go there ‘cause there’s a lot of theoretical material that you should learn. But then there’s so many things that just have nothing to do with sitting in class and studying. 

So if you are going to go there, just make sure you’re gonna study something that is very broad, very shallow, but is gonna give you tools—thinking tools that you can apply later in life. So from, you know, just understanding history or how things were made, and why, and being able to appreciate a work of art or, you know, physics, and just even though I probably forgot a lot of what I studied, and just being able to look at things and understand better how the—you know, what they’re made out of, and how exactly they function, I think that’s great, it’s just—it’s really useful day-to-day tools, and I wish that people would focus more about that. 

I think that when they go to college, they are so obsessed with what they’re gonna do in life, and we’re so privileged compared to our parents for instance, that probably we’re gonna—every 10 years, we’re gonna change what we’re doing, like there’s something about today’s environment that just allows us to do that, so don’t focus on that, just focus on what theoretical knowledge you can obtain now that will serve you through life, and not necessarily through the next 10 years.

Idan Cohen on How Critical Thinking Improves Product Design

In Chapter 12 of 19 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Boxee co-founder and head of product Idan Cohen answers "What Have Your Experiences Taught You About What Makes a Product Great?"  Cohen talks about the satisfaction that comes from playing with things in everyday life.  He references the importance of critical thinking in the problem solving and design process.  He emphasizes the importance, whether it is with an object or a person, of linking the criticism to a positive development pathway or objective. 

This is Idan Cohen's Year 1 Capture Your Flag interview.  Cohen is co-founder and head of product at Boxee Inc, an online video software company.  Previous to Boxee, Cohen held telecom software innovation and developer roles at Comverse.  He was a Captain in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and graduated from Tel Aviv University with a Bachelors of Science degree in Geophysics and Art.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What have your experiences taught you about what makes a product great?

Idan Cohen: I think that it’s just day-to-day life, when, you know, all day we play with things, and it’s just the feeling and, you know, it’s the frustration that we get through playing with them, or it’s the satisfaction we have after playing with them because they were so convenient or so simple or so beautiful, or so—I don’t know if I had specific experiences that helped me understand that better, but I think that we should all—it’s kind of like—I think that also it’s either you have it or not. There’s people who just get frustrated with things but don’t understand that it’s frustrating them and don’t understand—and don’t think all the time how can they fix that, and there’s these people who eventually end up making things with just, you know—they see the problems all the time, they’re very critical which is a good and bad character to have. 

It’s a little bit tiring to be very critical all the time. And I can be that but then that also teaches you, you know, every time you criticize something, just make sure you also think how can I do that better. And also when you—even if it’s about people and what they do, then if you criticize, just make sure to also figure out with them how that can be improved.

Career Advice From Don Quixote and Bruce Lee

In Chapter 2 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "What Has Your Passion for the Peforming Arts Taught You About the Power of Preparation?"  Goswami discusses how preparation and repetition enable a more full immersion in a creative place.  Bijoy Goswami is a writer, teacher, and community leader based in Austin, Texas.  He develops learning models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully.  Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software.  Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What has your passion for the performing arts taught you about the power of preparation?

Bijoy Goswami:  The importance of peace. Preparation is really important, you know, I find this to be true of lots of things. You know, performing arts is, you’ve gotta keep doing something over and over again so that you can get rid of all the practice and just be in the moment. So, this is this funny thing of these three stages, you know, of the journey.

Going back to that three-part process. If you just come in and you're kind of buffoon, you’re just kind of like, “Oh”, you know. A guy named Robert Johnson talks about Don Quixote as sort of that stage one, he shows up to the game and he’s just like, “What’s up?,” and you know he’s just, “I'm a warrior”, “No you're not. You know, you have no idea what you’re doing”, you know, and then sort of you get to that point where you take that but then you start getting to this point where you now have, you start developing your skills and capabilities, right? But then you’re still practicing; you're still working in a way that you’re following a rule set, okay? But if you keep going then what happens is you actually go back in this third place you become Don Quixote again but with all these knowledge behind you.

So, in Zen it’s like the beginner’s mind, right? So, the beginner’s mind is like, oh show up to, Bruce Lee we’ll talk about, you know, show up to the fight. Well, if you’ve not practiced today and you show to the fight, you’re gonna get your ass, you know, kicked but if you show to the fight and you have all the stuff behind you 10,000 hours, 20,000 hours then you can truly be in a creative space. You can now say, it’s all in you. It’s not that you're just keeps discarding it. It’s actually all there but you're calling upon, you know, as needed.

So, I think preparation, you know, is something you just have to – You’ve gotta do all the time and rehearsal for a play is kind of a mini example of what you do in life, you know, you spend those hours rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing so that you could come and you're not anymore thinking about the lines and the set and where am I moving and you’re just being, you're being Hamlet, you're being the character and you’re in that moment and you're going for it. So, preparation is that – is the difference between a bumbling fool and someone who’s a master.

How to Be More Creative by Changing Your Surroundings

In Chapter 5 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "How Has Changing Your Surroundings Made You More Creative?"  He notes how altering patterns and routines creates a more open-minded or curious mindset that fuels his creative thinking. 

Bijoy Goswami is a writer, teacher, and community leader based in Austin, Texas.  He develops learning models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully.  Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software.  Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How has changing your surroundings made you more creative?

Bijoy Goswami:  You know, you get into patterns, right? So, when I'm in Austin I'm in my pattern. I mean, there’s a set of things that I do and I think Austin is a very creative place because there’s so much serendipity that happens both from things like South By and other festivals, Fuse Box and things like that happen through the year and they sort of immerse you into these different environments but otherwise with those happening you’re kind of on a particular pattern.

I think you start to get grooved in, you know, things start to solidify and you don’t really think outside the box but when things like South By happens, it’s really interesting because it’s actually an experience layered on to the same environment all of a sudden I'm in a different mode, you know, and so it’s a very interesting thing because you’re not going toward something you’re more open to receiving things. So, your mindset is very different. You’re saying, oh, what’s new? What’s interesting? You’re looking up and around rather than forward and ahead. So, I think that’s what that does, I mean, in Austin our festivals do that.

For me, it’s whenever I travel that’s what happens. I mean, you know, I go to London or go to UK or I was in Oslo last year, I mean, it’s just always interesting because – and it’s also funny because you see the similarities of what makes culture the same but you also see all these differences and you’re like, oh, that’s really interesting and I can see where that came from and the weather influenced this and, you know. So, I think it just jogs you out of your routine, which is really cool.

How to Get into a Flow State of Productivity

In Chapter 6 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "When Do You Find Yourself Entering a Flow State of Productivity?"  He shares how flow only comes after an immersion process.  Once the immersion is under way, flow occurs and he is able to find a zone of productivity. 

Bijoy Goswami is a writer, teacher, and community leader based in Austin, Texas.  He develops learning models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully.  Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software.  Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  When do you find yourself entering a flow state of productivity?

Bijoy Goswami:  I think it’s a matter of taking enough time to do a task long enough that you get into it. So, what I found is a flow state occurs, you know, in any given moment, you need about an hour or two of ongoing work in that task and then you find yourself in a flow state.

So, there’s something about – There’s a settling in process and settling down process and then once you’re in that zone, you’re in that flow state but you can’t – I very rarely find myself starting in the flow state and so, you know, I’ll ramp up a task and start doing something and then as I’m doing it more then I’ll find myself in the flow state.

So, I mean, like, you know, South By is a great example like, you know, again you’ll start and you're like, oh, yeah South By and you have these festivals and there’s panels and, you know, and then you just start going, you start getting into it and by the first day or second day you're down the road and you’re just gonna stop by, you know that you’re in the process of it. So, I think it’s a really interesting thing, it did take some setup and then once you’ve setup then you can start to groove in.

How to Make Your Creative Work More Lasting

In Chapter 12 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "How Are You Learning to Make Your Work More Lasting?"  He notes how constant iteration helps him uncover deeper truths behind the models he creates in his writing.  He shares how each year offers additional perspective to build upon his core concepts and create something more truthful, lasting, and pervasive.  Bijoy Goswami is a writer, teacher, and community leader based in Austin, Texas.  He develops learning models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully.  Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software.  Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How are you learning to make your work more lasting?

Bijoy Goswami: I do two things. One is you have to keep working at it to make sure that it’s actually right at some level that it is – The longest that I've worked in terms of models is MRE (Maven, Relater, Evangelist) with The Human Fabric and so I started with that model probably in 2000 with my buddy Bruce when we started our company together in 2000 and then moved on from there and get some other things, 2005 I wrote Human Fabric with a friend, another friend David Wolpert and I wrote this book The Human Fabric which described the three energies and often times you’d say well great, that was the book and you’ve really done it and what I've found now in 2012 is that 2005 and 2000 were just the beginning like writing the book was just the beginning of the process. I've learned so much more about the MRE, about how those energies work in the intervening seven years and I would guess that in the next 7 or 20 or 30 or however long I get, I'll keep doing that. So, to me the thing is, you gotta – There’s something about your trying to tap in to something that’s actually true that it’s verifiable, you know. And the more true the thing is that you're finding out, the more lasting it is because that’s what, you know, pervades is truth.

So, you know, people say, you know, with evolution, oh evolution is just a theory. Well, there’s a complete misunderstanding of what a theory is, right? A theory is something that is articulated and has been attacked and evolution has been attacked for the last 200 years or however long it’s been and still has stood up. So, clearly something that Darwin found was a deep truth that actually is true about the way the universe and the world works.

So, when you confine something that is true in some deep sense I think by its definition it is gonna be lasting. So, that’s certainly one thing is you can’t just promote something that is, that’s just because you feel promoting it, I think that’s not necessarily going to last. So, you gotta find something that’s true and gotta be able to say, well, you know, this part that I said before is not true and so I'm gonna amend it, I'm gonna change it so that I can really articulate the deeper truth that I now know.

But I think the other piece of it is I do think that there’s sort of this deeper truth but there’s also your truth and so that may be the piece of it that’s really interesting. When you look at great artists, when you look at people like who’ve done something that we as a civilization back and go, Oh, my gosh. What is it? They express something uniquely. They found their way to, you know, do painting. They found their way to make a company. When you look at Apple, there’s no other company like Apple whenever you look inside that company, it’s like there’s not the 10 principles that Apple uses. They’re their principles.

So, there’s this interesting tension between things that are true at some fundamental level and things that are true for you. So, I completely, you know, disagree with the idea that the whole studies that go, here are the five things that works for everyone because what are the things that work for you. So, I think that’s what really also interesting is that what’s lasting is also what’s particular true and unique to the person, to the organization, to that place or whatever it is.

How to Be Less Judgmental and More Accepting

In Chapter 13 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "How Do You Create Hope and Dispel Fear When Introducing New Concepts and Ideas?"  Goswami stresses the importance of meeting someone where they are and not judging them for being wrong for where they are.  It is not a right versus wrong discussion.  Rather it is about acceptance and how to introduce new concepts into the conversation.  Bijoy Goswami is a writer, teacher, and community leader based in Austin, Texas.  He develops learning models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully.  Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software.  Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How do you create hope and dispel fear when introducing new concepts and ideas?

Bijoy Goswami:  You have to go back and meet someone where they are and if you meet someone where they are then they’re not wrong for being where they are, right?

So, one of my things is we’re all on this journey, we’re all on this journey of evolution and we’re some place and I was 12 at one point and I knew what I knew, now I'm 38 and be something. So, to me it’s if I can meet someone where they are, then there’s nothing wrong, they’re not wrong for being who they are. They’re not wrong for being where they are. They’re not wrong for holding the beliefs they do or whatever. Once that acceptance not just posing as it I actually do understand that then I can say okay. Well, what’s a concept or how can I then stimulate a new concept or how can I, you know, intervene in the system but if you meet someone where they are there’s no question of fear or its – Because the other piece of it is that even when you introduce something new you’re actually, you’re gonna co-create that with them, right?

Like this dialogue here, we’re creating a dialogue here. We’re both creating it together. Same thing there, so immediately they go, Oh, wow. It’s a give and take, it’s a 1 + 1, we’re going back and forth, alright? So, when I think about new concepts or any ideas I'm always listening for where are they gonna inform what I'm doing because I'm actually trying to advance it, it’s not a static thing. It’s an evolving thing. How are they gonna advance it from me, so how they can meet where I am, right?

Once it’s in a dialogue in that sense, a dialogue in which you’ve really met where they are in their path, I don’t think you have that sense of fear. You don’t have that sense of loathing or foreboding, it’s oh that’s great and we all know there’s something next. Whenever I’m in a moment, there’s a new moment. That’s just the way, that’s just the way things are.

How to Turn an Art Concept into an Art Project

In Chapter 14 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "How Do You Balance Experimentation and Commitment in the Projects You Pursue?"  Goswami frames each project in what evolutionary process.  He applies a bootstrap model for startup projects as a framework for the process of taking creative ideas from concept to project.  Bijoy Goswami is a writer, teacher, and community leader based in Austin, Texas.  He develops learning models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully.  Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software.  Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How do you balance experimentation and commitment in the projects that you pursue?

Bijoy Goswami: Experimentation, so I think of that as the evolutionary piece. Where is something in the evolutionary stage and so based on its evolution it needs different things. That’s really the biggest thing I learned from the Bootstrap map, the Bootstrap journey and all that, is yes there’s this particular of this Bootstrap process but if you abstract it out everything goes through an evolutionary cycle, everything is in some state of development.

So, if something is in an earlier stage then I'm going to do much more of, you know, getting feedback and trying lots of things and things like that. When something is in a stage where’s it’s moved out of this experimentation stage and it becomes something more solid and I'm trying to get it out, I'm gonna experiment less, I gonna to now, try to converge down on a way that works across the broad set. So, to me the big difference is where is something in its evolution and then based on its evolution like I was telling about the Orange Sunglass project at the Fusebox festival, which is really – At the end it’s very simple. I have a pair of orange sunglasses I hand them to you, you pick a photographer, you take my iPhone, you go out into the Fusebox space, you take as many picture as you want, be creative, come back, pick a picture, we upload it, we tag and we title the picture that’s the very streamlined process but the way but they way it started was I, I was taking the pictures and I put the sunglasses on someone else and then someone else said let me grab, you know, so in the experimentation stage, in the early stage of deciding what the project was it was like, what do you think about this and everyone had this three cents to put in.

Meanwhile I'm still curating trying to figure out okay lots of different options and ideas, some paths didn’t work then as we did maybe the 20th or 30th picture it found its groove. Now, I can just say, hey, you want to be part of the orange sunglass project, here’s out it works. Whereas before I'm like I'm trying to figure this out, what do you think, how does it, you know, so the modality changed as the thing evolved.

Why to Think Twice Before Killing Your Creative Project

In Chapter 15 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "How Do You Evaluate When to Continue a Project and When to Kill It?"  Goswami shares how he has learned to shelve creative projects for periods and, after letting them lie dormant for some time, pick them up and continue his work.  He shares a specific example of how this happened with his play and how it was turned into a short film years later. 

Bijoy Goswami is a writer, teacher, and community leader based in Austin, Texas.  He develops learning models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully.  Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software.  Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  How do you evaluate when to continue a project and when to kill it?

Bijoy Goswami:  So I rarely think I get to kill any project. It’s kind of interesting I find that no project is killed it’s always; it’s just going dormant. It’s like a project that goes into a long hibernated—hibernation and sleep and then just kind of sits there for a while and so when I find is if I have energy for something and somehow it starts to just pick back up again, I'm like oh, this project needs to be taken from wherever it is now to the next step and then it’ll finish that step and then it’s like okay well, there’s nothing else to do right now so let’s put it away.

We had the play festival called Frontera Festival in Austin and we put the play on and then we did it, actually our own performance if it, again, and it was sold out, we had a great time and then we were, we got back together said what do we wanna do next? We don’t really know. We don’t think there’s anything to do next so we just kinda put it away.

A few years later I meet up with another friend Neil who I met on a random basis and he end up putting me as the photographer and put me in a shoot for an ad and he said what are you working on? Well, I'm working on this thing, I had this whole project called—it was “Guru or Disciple? Yes!” This play and I think it would be a great short film and I know you kind of might interested in doing short film and he’s like yeah send that over. Sure enough he picks it up, he’s like, we love it. Let’s make the film.

So, Mystic Cab went from a play to a short film then it sat there for a while and you know, it’s a short, this 25 minute film and actually I've been thinking, okay it’s been a couple of years, it’s been a few years. Now, what’s the next thing for Mystic Cab? So, it’s part of this thing of putting things, you know, back on shelf bringing them back out, putting them back in the shelf and they just keep, they just keep going.

Fabian Pfortmüller on How an Entrepreneur Uses Storytelling to Succeed

In Chapter 6 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, community builder and entrepreneur Fabian Pfortmüller answers "How Are You Learning to Tell Stories That Others Can Embrace as Their Own?"  Pfortmüller shares why storytelling has been fundamental to his marketing messaging and then shares three elements he uses to build and engage a consumer audience.  Pfortmüller is co-founder of the young leader accelerator, Sandbox Network, and HOLSTEE, an apparel and design firm that sells meaningful products to mindful shoppers.  Pfortmüller graduated from Columbia University and its school of General Studies. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to tell stories that others can embrace as their own?

Fabian Pfotmüller: What I learned this year is storytelling is not just something you do for fun. It’s core. Being a good storyteller I think is being a good entrepreneur because at the end of the day as an entrepreneur you’re creating something that has not been there before and you have to sell it to people and people don’t wanna hear about products. They don’t wanna hear about features, they wanna hear stories and therefore storytelling is super key.

Now, when it comes to how to tell stories, I happen to work with one of the best storytellers on the planet, Mike Radparvar. He’s an incredible storyteller. I sometimes feel like I'm sitting in a bazaar and I'm listening to like an ancient storyteller that just creates a whole world but what it comes down to is someone who’s able to leave you with an emotion and who will leave you with a certain feeling much more than just explaining you something. I think that’s the key of storytelling.

And secondly, I realized also that there are amazing storytellers out there. That working with them just takes the story to a whole new level. So, we’ve been fortunate enough to work with amazing storytellers like you and also other videographers who retake in a core message and brought it to a whole new level for their visual language, for their way of putting the story together and stories don’t just happen, they have very very clear messages at the core, that you then build around that.

And the last thing I also learned about stories that they have to be very simple that people understand them. It’s one message that then gets conveyed. It’s not a huge story that you sometimes tell for 25 minutes that they get. It’s one message.

How to Cultivate and Mature Your Creative Process - Michael Margolis

In Chapter 11 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, educator and entrepreneur Michael Margolis answers "How is Your Creative Toolbox Changing?"  Margolis shares how he is shifting his creative inspiration from outside-in to inside-out.  He details how the stimulation is shifting from external to internal, specifically working with the experience, knowledge and tools gained to create and produce.  Michael Margolis is founder and president of Get Storied, an education and publishing platform dedicated to teaching the world how to think in narrative.  He earned a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Tufts University. 

The Rewards of Project Collaboration - Michael Margolis

In Chapter 13 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, educator and entrepreneur Michael Margolis answers "What Do You Find Most Rewarding About Collaborating With Others on Projects?"  He notes how and when magic happens when collaborating with others, citing David Logan's book, "The Power of Triads" as an example.  Margolis details how chemistry, role, and story each contribute to making a collaborative team effort more powerful.  Michael Margolis is founder and president of Get Storied, an education and publishing platform dedicated to teaching the world how to think in narrative.  He earned a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Tufts University. 

Facing Fear Fighting in a Golden Gloves Boxing Tournament

In Chapter 9 of 14 in his 2012 interview, real estate development executive Brett Goldman answers "What Did Participating in a Golden Gloves Boxing Tournament Teach You About Taking Risks and Setting Goals?"  Goldman talks about the year he trained for both the Golden Gloves and the New York City Marathon.  He compares and contrasts the two and shares how the boxing training and fight changed his life.  He shares how he learned to not be fearful of taking a punch and why preparation helped him become more confident once he stepped into the ring. 

Brett Goldman is a Real Estate Acquisitions Director at Triangle Equities in New York City.  He holds a BA in General Studies from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Real Estate Development from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What did participating in a Golden Gloves boxing tournament teach you about taking risks and setting goals?

Brett Goldman: It was funny because I did the Golden Gloves and the marathon in the same year, which are two kind of similar things in that training real hard for an eventual outcome. The Golden Gloves are different in that someone else is gonna hit you. Whereas in running, you're just running by yourself and it's all within your mind, but the reason why I did the Golden Gloves was because I wanted to know that someone could hit me and I could still stand up, or I could still stand up to it. I did lose, but I learned from it that I'm not scared to get hit and keep going at it. 

Erik Michielsen: What was it like when you stepped in the ring?

Brett Goldman: I was definitely scared but I knew I was prepared. And that's probably something I don't know if I ever knew I learned, or even sometimes still apply. But there's no doubt that preparation is a huge factor in confidence. I heard that the other day. I think it was Eli Manning that said it, but I wasn't that afraid when I walked in the ring actually. When -- Because I knew that I was strong and I was in the best shape that I’d been in. And the guy was gigantic, and had full body tattoos, but I wasn't really that scared and, you know, put that -- you know, put me up in a bar fight where that guy wants to start with me, and I probably would be scared. But at that point I wasn't scared. I also knew it was -- that it was gonna be a fair fight. And that I understood and knew how to box.