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.

How to Apply Psychology Passion in Business Work - Hammans Stallings

In Chapter 3 of 22 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, innovation strategist Hammans Stallings answers "How Do You Apply Your Passion for Psychology in Your Business Career?"  Stallings' undergraduate education in economics and psychology help him learn how the world works.  For Stallings, his psychology passion helps him generate new approaches and ideas to better understand people and human behavior in a business environment.  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. 

Transcription: 

Erik Michielsen: How do you apply your passion for psychology in your business career?

Hammans Stallings: Psychology has been my -- my secret weapon of sorts, so if you go back to my -- my undergraduate where I spent time to studying economics and psychology, two fields that have not always kind of gotten along. And I spent a lot of time in kind of a state of cognitive dissonance where I was comparing and contrasting how the two fields thought about people and thought about explaining the world.

If you recall, I was very close to going to graduate school for psychology and I'd decided not to because I didn't quite yet know what I wanted to be or how I wanted to make an impact, so -- spent five to six years kind of in the wilderness wandering around before getting to come back to a role where I can work directly upon my background in psychology. That said, when you study those things, those ideas change kind of how you see the world and change how you frame up any situation, as well -- I spent a lot of time studying decision making, cognition and learning and memory.

So, it was always something that I could benefit directly from myself and so I can -- I could always understand that there were any heuristics and biases that might be kind of falling but from a less, say selfish introspective kind of use in psychology toward using them, using those tools and frames as a way to kind of understand other people. I find that business tends to -- to lack I would say, that kind of theoretical framework around people and tends to use one of oversimplification, say marketing is a field. It has people do a lot of self-reporting. We know from psychology that that's really quite bogus yet the entire subcategories in marketing really rely on that assumption being true and it's not. So, I would say that my passion for psychology allows me to -- to sort of see through that, and to see through the self-report and other kind of assumptions like that as bogus. To create new things that maybe are in better fitting with what I know about people.

So it means creating new tools. It means creating a new way of framing up how people are responding, and how they're using things. So, having a background and a passion in psychology for me means that I'm able to generate new things, generate new ideas, whereas, a lot of people I think accept the tools of their field as kind of a given and they don't understand the -- the limitations of those tools. So having a background in a field that, I'd say, should be like a lingua franca for -- for applied social science means that you could actually do cutting edge, you know, creating new tools and new perspectives on -- on people.

How Reading Passion Shapes Learning Style - Hammans Stallings

In Chapter 8 of 22 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, innovation strategist Hammans Stallings answers "Where Did Your Passion for Reading Originate?"  Stallings shares how he read for escape during summer camp as a kid.  As he grew up, he learned to read to get into the minds of people he would not necessarily have the chance to meet.  He finds great value in gaining insight into the thought process of those he reads about.  This is Hammans Stallings' Year 2 CYF interview.  Stallings is currently a Senior Strategist at frog design.  Previously he worked in business strategy at Dell and investment banking at Stephens.  He earned an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, a MS in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business and a BA in Economics and Psychology from the University of Virginia.

How to Make Learning a Lifetime Pursuit - Hammans Stallings

In Chapter 9 of 22 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, innovation strategist Hammans Stallings answers "What is Your Approach to Lifelong Learning?"  Stallings notes how he chooses to work in areas where new problems constantly appear.  This forces him to constantly learn new things so he is better prepared to resolve problems.  He references his work applying behavioral psychology for retail consumers to business model design.  This is Hammans Stallings' Year 2 CYF interview.  Stallings is currently a Senior Strategist at frog design.  Previously he worked in business strategy at Dell and investment banking at Stephens.  He earned an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, a MS in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business and a BA in Economics and Psychology from the University of Virginia. 

How to Improve How You Learn - Hammans Stallings

In Chapter 10 of 22 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, innovation strategist Hammans Stallings answers "How Are You Improving How You Learn?"  Stallings embraces tools such as his Amazon Kindle and blogs to manage the complexity of new information and knowledge sources.  He finds references in the back of books extremely useful researching and hyperlinking to reference material, especially in an all digital environment.  This helps him understand the formulating evidence, information and theory behind what he reads.  This is Hammans Stallings' Year 2 CYF interview.  Stallings is currently a Senior Strategist at frog design.  Previously he worked in business strategy at Dell and investment banking at Stephens.  He earned an MBA from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, a MS in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business and a BA in Economics and Psychology from the University of Virginia.

How to Apply Academic Theory in Business Work - Hammans Stallings

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

Research Skills for Problem Solving Careers - Hammans Stallings

In Chapter 20 of 22 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, innovation strategist Hammans Stallings answers "What is the Role of Research in the Problem Solving Process?"  Stallings notes two ways research plays into the process.  The first is researching to understand the problem itself and the various perspectives on that problem.  This helps him gain ownership of or personalize the problem.  The second is researching to learn how other people have thought about the problem in the past.  This gives Stallings references points.  Over time, Stallings improves his research skills by keeping reference materials close at hand.  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 the Army Teaches High Tech Job Skills

In Chapter 10 of 19 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Boxee co-founder and head of product Idan Cohen answers "How Has Your Military Training Been Most Useful in Developing Your Career?"  Cohen shares how he is recruited into the Israeli Army to help build reconnaissance satellites.  He learns physics and programming working with a senior team and, after transitioning into intelligence, learns life skills by managing teams. 

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 has your military training been most useful in developing your career?

Idan Cohen:  First of all, it was very important part of my career today because I went into the army and I was recruited to this very small group of kids, extremely smart and extremely weird, everyone else were smart, I was the only—I was probably the odd guy out. It was 6 girls and 2 guys, 2 boys and we were actually building the reconnaissance satellite, the Israeli Army’s reconnaissance satellite, which was just amazing like up to that point, there were engineers probably in their 40’s and 50’s, some of them from the Russian military industry and some of them actually were in NASA before and they were the ones building that satellite and then they decided that—actually maybe 18-year-olds with the right, you know, with the right guidance can do that as well, at least they can write code where needed and, you know, they can be guided into it. 

And they took us and for 6 months they taught us physics, which up to that point I didn’t know anything about physics, I didn’t learn that in high school, and they taught us how to write code, and we were writing kind of code for the satellite itself and code for the ground station. 

And that was extremely interesting, just being in this—in the company of these 40 and 50-year-olds, which were building something huge. And we were just these—a group of 8 and then the next generation was another 8 so we’re kind of 15 kids—it was really 15 kids with about 50—with about a group of 50 50-year-olds, all working on the same thing which was this huge thing that was costing millions and was going to go out in space. It was extremely interesting and for me that definitely got me into software much more ‘cause I had a few years in high school where I wasn’t really writing any code. And it was suddenly brought me back to an interest in actually creating software and how that can be—how can that bring me to create important things. 

And then later I went and I was an officer and I had another 2 years where I was actually doing much more of kind of like intelligence work which was also very interesting because it will suddenly being in charge of other people for the first time, so as a 20-year-old managing, you know, 10 or 15 other 18-year-olds and being their commander and taking care of their needs, and I think that there’s something—the most important thing about the army in Israel which is very different—it’s not—I’m not sure if I would like my kids to go there, or it will be a choice that they could make, but I think that what makes it so important in our people who come out of Israel, in our education and upbringing compared to people for instance who go to college, is just you get a lot of responsibility, as an 18-year-old, it’s not about, you know, someone’s paying for your college, and you can choose if you wanna study or you wanna drink your way through it, here it’s just—yes, you have to do that, but there’s a lot of responsibility with it, and if you’ll take that seriously, you can actually also maybe get, you know, some—you can get some skills and you can get experience, and it can help you for life. And I think that makes it very interesting, so that’s kind of what I came out with, like skills and experience for life.

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.

How High Schools Can Teach Entrepreneurship - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 13 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "How Can the Education System Better Prepare Entrepreneurs?"  Rubin details how middle and high schools should promote entrepreneurship curriculum that focuses on practice in addition to theory.  He compares entrepreneur skill development to that of a basketball player, highlighting LeBron James as an example of how practice shapes skills and how schools might use this concept in their curriculum planning.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How can the education system better prepare entrepreneurs?

Slava Rubin: Yeah, to me entrepreneurial thinking is just as important as teaching Math or Mandarin or Spanish or even coding. I think it’s a new language that kids should be learning. I think that an innovative idea is we should actually create a entrepreneurial class and add it to the curriculum where starting in 7th grade until you graduate high school or college every student had to run a business a year. See to me, when Lebron James was learning to play basketball, he didn’t just watch Michael Jordan on TV. He actually played every day with a basketball and we ask our students and our young people to be entrepreneurial with their thinking but we ask them to do with theory, which means without a basketball.

So, I would think that the best way to bring entrepreneurial thinking to our students, have them become innovative, have them – have the opportunity to go to the workplace or start something new very quickly and without as much fear and risk is give them the opportunity starting in 7th grade to be able to be entrepreneurs. This really goes back to kindergarten when your teacher taught you about what you aspire to be, she probably used words like lawyer and doctor and fireman and the word entrepreneur was never used and I think that needs to change.

Courtney Spence on Why to Teach Entrepreneurial Spirit in Schools

In Chapter 18 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "How Can the Education System Better Prepare Social Entrepreneurs?"  Spence differentiates between entrepreneurs who have started organizations from those with entrepreneurial spirit who want to create something new.  She shares how the education system - middle school, high school, and college included - should turn focus to teaching the entrepreneurial spirit and how to help students thrive in uncertain times.  Courtney Spence returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How can the education system better prepare social entrepreneurs?

Courtney Spence: Well, first of all, I think it’s really important to recognize the difference between someone who is an entrepreneur and someone who has the entrepreneurial spirit. So what I’m noticing with the team that we’re putting together with Students of the World, everybody is motivated by an entrepreneurial spirit. Everybody is excited by the big challenge and even the uncertainty and really is finding, you know, excitement and drive and motivation, not through what are they getting paid or where is their name gonna go on the collateral or on the website, it’s really through this idea of we’re creating something that wasn’t there before. Does that mean that everybody that’s a part of our organization is an entrepreneur? Not necessarily.

I think that an entrepreneur is someone that in that capacity can help set leadership and vision but the – everybody on our team has the entrepreneurial spirit. So I think there is an importance that is lacking in educational system, and this is middle school, high school, and college quite frankly, that helps to encourage that entrepreneurial spirit and that idea of thriving in uncertain times, I mean that’s I think the world is trended that way and I think we all recognize over the course of the last decade that uncertainty is the only certain thing we have, and the really successful individuals and organizations are gonna be ones that can thrive through in uncertainty and uncertain times, externally and internally.

And I think that our education system could do more to support whether it’s teenagers going through those uncertain years or whether it’s college students preparing them for when they leave college, those – there are some massive uncertain years that happen right after college and most people that I talk to say, “Well, no one told me that this was gonna happen.” So I think that really preparing individuals to find internally the strength and the courage to get him or her through those tough times, those uncertain times, will help to foster entrepreneurship in general.

Advice from Courtney Spence on Starting Career in Social Entrepreneurship

In Chapter 19 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "What is Your Advice to Aspiring Social Entrepreneurs on How to Start a Career?"  Spence details the importance of curiosity and cultivating it through research and conversations.  After gaining enough inputs Spence notes how aspiring social entrepreneurs will be better prepared to take action on the knowledge gained.  Courtney Spence returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What is your advice to aspiring social entrepreneurs and how to start a career?

Courtney Spence: One of the essential qualities of really great entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs – the essential characteristic is that of curiosity. I think that we are all curious human beings but I think entrepreneurs, in general, are -- tend to be more curious than others, and so really understanding how to cultivate that curiosity and how to encourage that curiosity, and I think the ways to do that are by reading, and by meeting with new people, and going to new places, and really – as you’re trying to incubate your idea, really seeking out advice from as many people as you can, from as many diverse fields as you can.

I mean if you’re gonna go create a non-profit, don’t just go talk to people that run non-profits, you know? That’s why I think, you know, South by Southwest is such a great conference and a time to be in Austin irregardless of whether or not you’re in tech or communications or music or film, I think that you come here and you’re emotionally and intellectually stimulated in so many different ways and if you are an entrepreneur, and you’re coming up with an idea or a plan to change the world, you need to be stimulated in a lot of different ways, and in ways that you’re not anticipating right now. Because if you only cultivate that one aspect of what you’re trying to do, you put blinders on and you limit not only what you could really go out and do but how effective you can be in your mission and what you’re trying to achieve.

So really cultivating that curiosity and really soaking up as much information and knowledge and reading and conversations, and then knowing when to stop. Because at some point you will find that everybody has an opinion and everybody is giving you advice and some people say go right and some people say go left, and some will say go up, and then others will say go down. You will always get conflicting advice, and at some point you have to know, okay, I’ve taken in a lot, I need to retreat and really reflect on the advice I’ve been given, on the articles that I’ve read, on the books I’ve been reading, and figure out where is the right direction for me to go with this idea, this organization or for myself.

Crafting a Personal Philosophy to Reach Your Full Potential

In Chapter 3 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "At This Moment in Your Life, Where Are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?"  Goswami shares his life model and where he finds himself in it as he continues his journey on understanding his place in the world and how he can realize his potential by living a certain way.  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:  At this moment in your life, where are you seeking advice and coaching?

Bijoy Goswami:  you know, I've been on this journey as you’ve been tracking for the last few years and it’s really been interesting, I've realized that, you know, even the last few years I've on a threshold of something very interesting which is, which is what I call Bijoyism or you know, Bijoyist like what is it to be me, you know. What is it to have my own complete philosophy, understanding of the world.

And what I realized is I would go to this sort of three-step process. The, you know, the stage one where you simply live according to other people’s rules. Stage two, you let go of what you’ve been given and then the third stage, you start to really live according to your own aesthetics and your own idea of what is you’re trying to create in the world. So, to me what’s really interesting is, I know a lot of friends who have done that in different aspects of their life, they might be, they might have broken the mold in entrepreneurship, they might have broken the mold in relationships or sexuality or whatever it is and for me it’s just interesting to step fully over that threshold now that all the different pieces have all gotten to this third stage, I feel like.

So, I think what is it to live that fully integrated stage three is really what I'm looking at and I think you have a lot of leadership in stage one, you have a lot of folks that – Stage one is broadly external. How do you create things in the external world, how do you make more money, how do become more powerful, how do you – You do all that. We have a lot of those leaders in that. You have Stage two, which is the spiritual journey broadly speaking. People who have gone in the inner world and I think you have less of the stage three, it is sort of like, it’s like, you know, the population is in this progression. So, I think people like, you know, I think it’s interesting because people like Steve Jobs I think are a stage three person. Where you examine his life, the biography is really great. You look at someone who’s really integrated, you know, spiritual, the material and then he’s creating, he’s just creating, you know.

So, I think it’s interesting because I think there are not as many guides for the stage three way of living and that’s what I'm beginning to curate. It’s like look at how do you – Is there a way to teach that? Is there a way to learn that? Is there a way to articulate it? Who is articulating it? Because most of the time it gets articulated in terms of the other two.

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 Leadership and Management Work Together

In Chapter 8 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "What is the Difference Between Effective Management and Leadership?"  Goswami discusses the duality of leadership and management and also how they differ.  He talks about management, as an externalized skill, can be learned and leadership, more internalized, is more difficult to teach.  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 is the difference between effective management and leadership?

Bijoy Goswami:  Management I think is about how you get from A to B, you know. What are the set of things that need to be accomplished from getting someone or a team or an organization from A to B. So, it’s about breaking things down to tasks about, you know, understanding what’s something—what’s involved, who’s on the team, what are people doing, that kind of thing. 

Leadership is providing the inspiration. The why. Why should we do those tasks? Why does it matter that we’re going from here to A to B. So, to me these are very linked. The duality of management and leadership is that they’re linked, intermingled but they’re very different. 

So, a lot of the times people might be very good at one and might not be as good at the other but leadership again I think is, is certainly the place where I get excited because I think management is, it can be learned very easily because it’s an externalize skill, you know, you kinda go okay, here’s some principles, here’s some ways of doing it. You know, I think a lot of times leadership is taught like management which I think is a mistake like “Leadership, there’s this 25 rules of leadership”, I don’t think it works that way. 

I think leadership is much more personal, it’s much more, you know, it comes from within. So, that is the hard thing is that in a way I don’t think leadership can be taught. You think you can be given a way to find out what your leadership is about, who you are as a leader. So, then maybe you can teach that like I work in leadership Austin in Austin, that’s a lot of what happens there is they go what is leadership to you? Whereas with management, I think you can really sit there and teach that and say here’s what management is.

How to Be a More Successful Teacher

In Chapter 10 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "What Steps Have You Taken to Become a Better Teacher?"  Goswami differentiates between teaching and lecturing.  He notes what he has learned about making sure the student generates something new after absorbing and learning the concepts or lessons. 

“I think the really key piece of teaching is that the student has to generate. They have to generate something. If they’re not generating something there’s no evidence of learning and there’s no way to know that they’re learning.”

— Bijoy Goswami

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 steps have you taken to become a better teacher?

Bijoy Goswami:  So, I think there’s a lot of pieces to that puzzle and it’s… teaching is a really complex thing. A lot of the times you think oh, teaching I will just get up there and pontificate and blab on that’s really not teaching that’s lecturing, that’s entertaining, that’s not teaching.

So, I think the really key piece of teaching is that the student has to generate. They have to generate something. If they’re not generating something there’s no evidence of learning and there’s no way to know that they’re learning. They’re actually aren’t learning.

So, you know, there’s a process but you got to get them choose into concept, you gotta get them multi-model because people are depending on modalities, some wanna hear it, some wanna see it, some wanna touch it that kind of thing but ultimately they gotta generate it and they gotta take the concept and do something with it, create something new with it. If you haven’t done that third step I think that’s when you haven’t really succeeded as a teacher.

So, that’s maybe the biggest thing I've learned is if they’re just passively sitting there, you know, taking in information and they aren’t actually processing it and then not spewing it out like you told them but actually combining it to create something new, that third part is the real test of learning and teaching.

How Context Improves Message Communication

In Chapter 11 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami answers "How Are You Learning to Adapt Your Message to Reach Different Audiences?"  Goswami firstly tries not to change the message and focus more on changing the message context to connect with different groups. 

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 adapt to your message to reach different audiences?

Bijoy Goswami:  Actually it’s funny. I think I've done that a lot where I’m actually doing the reverse right now, which is I'm trying to find the message that appeals to lots of audiences but have it be the same message.

If you were asking me tactically what I do with audiences, you know, it’s really to think about their context and think about where are they, what’s happening, what are they trying to achieve? If I'm speaking at conference I'm going, okay, what’s this conference? What’s the larger picture of what they’re trying to achieve? And how do I go to that flow? And I think that’s exactly what one ought do is really who’s coming before me? Who’s coming after me? Why are they asking me to be here, you know? And it’s not that the message doesn’t change but the context of the message changes.

So, I had a great example of that recently where people came back and said, wow, that was the best thing ever and I was still giving the core of my message but it was political context or an activist context versus an entrepreneurial context. I'm still taking entrepreneurial concepts and saying, here’s how you can maybe think about them here in this context.

So, I think that’s, that’s what you do there but I think it’s really interesting to think about how you actually put out something that again I think if you’re not in someone else’s context but you're trying to create a context, a container for something then it’s about one message that you can take out, and that’s I think a different problem.

How Father Inspires Son to Pursue Public Service Career - Ken Biberaj

In Chapter 1 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, New York City Council candidate and public relations executive Ken Biberaj answers "What is the Source of Your Passion for Public Service?"  Biberaj shares what he learned from his parents' immigration story, including his father's public service as a radio broadcaster for "Voice of America" in Albania.  This teaches Ken that public service matters and informed his education and career decisions to fulfill this intention.  Ken Biberaj is currently a 2013 Candidate for New York City Council for the West Side of Manhattan.  He is also a public relations executive for the Russian Tea Room restaurant at One Fifty Fifty Seven Corporation, a family business focused on real estate development, investment sales and retail leasing.  Previously he was Florida Research Director for the Kerry-Edwards for President Campaign. He holds a JD from New York Law School, a Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, and a BA in Political Science from American University.

Transcription: 

Erik Michielsen: What is the source of your passion for public service?

Ken Biberaj: Well, my parents emigrated from Albania and we ended up in the Bronx. And my dad worked 3 jobs while learning English. He was the oldest of 8 kids. He worked as a pizza man, a doorman, and a cab driver, and went to Columbia. And he got his PhD at Columbia and then came back to get a job for the government in DC at Voice of America. While he was there, he was the head of the Albanian service so he was on-air broadcasting into a communist country and we had no idea if anybody was ever listening to it.

As communism began to crumble in Albania, turned out that everybody was listening to my dad on the radio, so we kind of grew up seeing our father as somebody who had had such an impact on an entire country. So what he was able to do as just one person has always been a source of inspiration for me in understanding that public service matters. You can actually have a real impact on people’s lives.

And because of his work and you know, he’s my dad, and I’m the oldest of 4 kids, I always wanted to kind of emulate what he had done. So I went to American University in DC and tried to get involved locally there. Went on to the Harvard Kennedy School and then worked on a presidential campaign and all the while trying to do what I could to make my community better, but always in the back of my head understanding that we all kind of have an obligation to do public service.