Hundreds of women + dozens of men = Women 2.0 PITCH, V-Day.
Incredible speakers. Inspiring entrepreneurs. Lots of new friends.
On multiple occasions, I was asked by female attendees if I now understood what its like to be the gender minority at tech events.
“No clue,” I said by the fifth time.
“Why?” they asked.
“Because you asked me how I’m doing.
We rarely ask.
You opened your circle when I approached.
We rarely notice.
How could I know what its like to be outnumbered 9 to 1 everyday,” I thought, ”at the most welcoming tech event ever?”
On January 8, 2011, in the horrific Tucson shooting, we lost one of our finest citizens in Christina Taylor-Green, the nine-year-old who had just been elected to student council.
Last month, around the one-year anniversary of that fateful day, I wrote a letter to her family, sharing a few stories and experiences I had rarely shared with anyone.
After receiving a kind email in response from Christina’s mom, I have decided to share portions of that letter with others. For maybe if enough of us believe in the world as it could be, the world that Christina had imagined, and maybe if we remember our ability to shape it, we will see brighter days ahead.
Dear CTG Memorial Foundation,
Christina inspires me.I believe there are few people who embody the community as so many of us wish it to be as Christina did.Christina reminded me of my ideal citizen: informed, kind, thoughtful, gracious, and forever focused on her family and on others, and the ties that bind us together.Sometimes, it seems the world forgets that we are all of one cloth.I don’t think of people as labels like Democrat or Republican or black or white. I try to see people on a plane of common humanity.I try to be my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. I try to promote a greater understanding in my life. Sometimes, I succeed. Sometimes, I don’t.And sometimes, I think I don’t, but later realize I did.I was once asked in a scholarship interview what I would say if I was in Namibia and a local person asked me to explain the difference between a Democrat and a Republican.I said I wouldn’t, at least at first.I said that I would focus on what it means to be an American, and what it means to be a human being - American and Namibian, together. I think the common bonds of humanity are more important than the divisions we choose to create, and more can be accomplished if we focus on our ties.The panel pressed me three times to change my response. “Is that what you would really say? You are this active in politics, and you can’t even offer one difference between the political parties?”It’s not that I couldn’t. It’s that, in the context described, I wouldn’t.Over the years, I’ve sometimes doubted that response.When I read about Christina and her steadfast belief in the ties that bind us together, she reminded me that my instincts were right. She reminded me of an important part of myself, as I try to be, and of the world, as it should be.Today and for many days to come, I remember Christina as a kindred spirit along the way.With love,Kevin
I saw Mitt Romney’s campaign logo for the first time today. I knew it looked familiar.
Seems others have seen a resemblance while brushing their teeth.
Originally published on the Alumn.us Blog:
Some of the deepest schisms in the U.S. between the haves and the haves-not stem from disparities in resources between schools and as a result of which schools our children attended.
These disparities are deeply rooted and seemingly intractable, and yet there is hope that they can be checked, reduced, or even eliminated - by us.
Let your perception of beauty and iridescence lead your way. Places and people who have answers for you will appear more luminous and attractive.
- Celestine Prophesy
Or, in the practical advice of DJ Turly, “Ask out people who are exceptionally beautiful to try to find out why you find them so beautiful.”
Lesson one of eight from my day with the DJ, aka Jenn Turliuk.
Jenn and I met at a Blackbox Mansion event about a month ago. She’s easy-going and even-tempered, but confident and direct. I liked her immediately.
I was impressed with the great people she’s been able to meet (Steve Blank, Dave McClure, Eric Ries, Reid Hoffman, and more). She just moved here in June. From Canada.
Assuming she did not just have some Canadian magic about her, I was curious to learn her approach for not only connecting with great people, but forming meaningful bonds.
After spending the better half of a day together last week in a type of “person shadow,” I thought I’d share key lessons from DJ Turly on engaging in the startup world. I haven’t tried all of these yet, so please share your experiences below.
This weekend, Mark Zuckerburg challenged attendees at YC’s Startup School to solve a problem.
As Mark indicated, what problem we select is less important than whether we are convinced that the problem needs solving and whether we are passionate enough to dedicate “at least the next five years” toward trying to solve it.
The idea of spending five years solving a problem is a refreshing departure from how most of us conceptualize our time. Even if we spent five years on one problem, we tend to think of our time as spent “working at X company” or “running Y startup” rather than addressing a real problem, much less actually solving a problem. [example]
Mark helped me realize that there is a difference between trying to build a company and trying to solve a problem.
If we are trying to solve a problem, we will make many mistakes and probably not succeed.
If we are trying to build a company, we will make many mistakes and probably not succeed, and even if we do “succeed” we probably will not really succeed, as we almost certainly did not solve an actual problem, unless our problem was how to build an entity to do donuts in the Wal-Mart parking lot, or whatever else it is that our company actually does.
Why not start by thinking about building a company as secondary and directly contingent on solving an actual problem? Could we start by solving a problem, and then build a company only if/when it makes sense for solving that problem even better?
This will be our approach for Alumn.us.
After 2.6 decades of experience, I have learned that it’s better to direct every ounce of our brain power toward figuring out how to solve a problem rather than how to build a company that may or may not actually solve a problem, but will almost undoubtedly create headaches and, if really ambitious, total busts (see Silicon Valley, cerca 2000).
Let’s say that we are focused on solving an actual problem. Awesome. After months of toiling, let’s say that cache of Einstein between our ears loads a 404 error message and we don’t know what to do next. Or maybe we know exactly what to do, but know we can’t do it ourselves.
So we bring another human being to our party as
Now we have our crazy sidekick(s)*, and we ask ourselves and this new person (if they are still around) what assumptions we have made about how we will solve a problem.
And we figure out how to test those assumptions.
BTW, go read The Lean Startup if you haven’t already. Don’t just buy it so Eric Ries can write “Kevin, Welcome to the Valley!” cause that would be a waste of $15.40 and $5,000 worth of deals on AppSumo.
Now that we know exactly how to test our assumptions, we set-up a few experiments and surveys. A master’s degree in Sociology from Cambridge can definitely come in handy here (trust me). We put forward our hypothesis, and we’re wrong.
We iterate, and we’re wrong again.
We become demotivated, waste a ridiculous amount of time tinkering with our Facebook fan page which has two fans (ourselves and the crazy sidekick mentioned above), and realize that those faulty tests were probably a better use of our time and society’s time.
So we experiment.
And experiment again.
And experiment some more.
At this point, we realize that setting up a few pilot cases might make sense. We take whatever lessons we learned from our experiments, and start doing.
Sustainability will be key someday, so we start thinking about how we might make a buck in the future directly or indirectly from the people whose problems are being solved by us. FYI, this will be especially challenging if we are running nonprofits.
Now we have an initial revenue model.
And maybe, just maybe, we are at the point where we start building a company to solve a problem that we cannot solve as effectively if we were “just” solving a problem.
I like to reflect on the fact that Mark Zuckerburg never intended to start Facebook the company. He intended to make online more social. He did this, and then built a company to make online even more social than before.
So we must ask ourselves: do we intend to start a company or to solve a problem?
My bet is on the crazy ones solving problems.
-
*The “(s)” in sidekick(s) stands for heaven forbid.
We compartmentalize ourselves as “employees at X company” or “founders of Y startup” rather than “awesome people trying to solve Z major problem.”
I think this is backwards. Companies should exist to solve problems. Otherwise they are probably creating more problems than they are solving.
For 20 to 30-somethings who didn’t start Facebook, I’d be more interested in hearing what problem you are trying to solve and your approach to solving it.
Here are two quick ideas for focusing on solving problems > companies immediately:
Charlie Munger just taught me how a core understanding of the social sciences can turn $2M into a $2 trillion company.
Women entrepreneurs in Oaxaca (article for The Hoop Fund) -
The Hoop Fund published an article I wrote with Elizabeth M. Rojo during my time as a Rotary scholar in Oaxaca, Mexico. In the piece, we discuss some of the challenges facing the industrious women tapete-weavers I worked with as a co-organizer and teacher of business classes through Fundación En Vía, a micro-lending nonprofit based Oaxaca.
Check it out!
College Compass tool free till Friday -
The US News & World Report College Compass is free for those who register before 9/16 (provided by Google). This is a nice opportunity for high school students to gain access to a powerful tool.
BetterGrads’ co-founder Erhardt Graeff wrote a helpful blog post this morning offering a few tips on how to use the US News college guide effectively: http://bettergrads.org/blog/2011/09/13/u-s-news-releases-2012-college-rankings/.
