Genuine Insights

Miami, where Global Tribes Meet

When you decide to take on a challenge as great as attempting to replicate one of the country’s leading gathering experiences (a TED conference) you really have to equip yourself with the right combination of scuba tanks, gear and dive buddies for the deep-dive experience that is the production of a TEDx event. This past week a group of amazing minds all based in Miami accomplished what many thought wasn’t possible for our great city.

Viewing the experience as a truly explorative journey, our quest was to celebrate not the obvious success of Miami’s cultural diversity but to experience the diversity of ideas and innovation that is being born in our back yards and rarely recognized. Basically, we wanted to “out” local genius and with the right due diligence, we identified eight fat brains who were willing to commit to the quest for excellence in content and delivery.

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Posted Nov 11, 2010 Tagged under: art and music, events, ideas and innovation, inspiration, networking, social media and technology

18 Geniuses X 3 days + a Ranch = Life-Changing Experience

What do you get when you gather 18 kick-ass entrepreneurs with one common interest—to change the world—and have them spend three intense days together on a Texas ranch without Internet access? I’ll tell you what you get:

Tears from a pilot, inspiration from an energy expert, scalability advice from a video producer, collaboration techniques from a master connector, encouragement from a serial entrepreneur, laughter from a China expert in storytelling, management tips from a sassy democracy guru, comfort from a gentle sky diver, etiquette tips from a political strategist, compassion from a gorgeous dentist, furious excitement from a leading Gen Y expert and transparency from them all.

On top of all that, you get an opportunity to see yourself clearly from the eyes of another and more introductions than you could ever dare to wish for.

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Posted Apr 13, 2010 Tagged under: entrepreneurship, fat brains, motivation, networking, relationships

Become a Master Connector

This week I connected a group of cultural modernists together in what seemed to be, at minimum, a good idea for my TEDxMIA efforts and what actually
transpired was two hours of collective stream-of-global-genius-consciousness. As everyone generously shared ideas, resources and perspectives in response to Stan Stalnaker’s 18-minute TED-style talk on the social impact of globalization, I sat in silence, feasting on the banquet of future-focused ideas being served at the boardroom table we sat at over breakfast.

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Posted Mar 21, 2010 Tagged under: business, networking, social media and technology

A Gathering of Shamans

You won’t believe the story I am about to tell. You may remember that three weeks ago, I wrote about the power of intuition (“Intuition, Your Personal Fortuneteller”) and vowed to live by it. Wow, how much has changed since then. So here goes the speed-dating version of what’s transpired.

Three weeks ago I read an article in O Magazine by life coach guru Martha Beck on inner genius (and as you all know I’ve been obsessed with the contemporized notion of genius for more than two years). And only eight days after reading and blogging about the article, I coincidentally found myself backstage as a volunteer at The Women’s Conference in California, standing next to Martha Beck herself. I could not believe that the stars had aligned (literally and figuratively) for me so fortuitously.

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Posted Nov 16, 2009 Tagged under: genius, inspiration, networking

Building your Audience One Person at a Time

Many of us are working towards building our audiences on a daily basis. Whether it’s obsessing over growing our Facebook friends, Twitter followers, blog readers, newsletter subscribers, LinkedIn connections or cultivating new network contacts, prospects, and clients, or even finding volunteer to pitch in on our causes, all of us are some way building audience. That’s because the definition of “audience” is broader than you think. The people in your audience are not just eyeballs or numbers, they’re members (or potential members) of your personal community, that valuable group of geniuses I’m always encouraging you to surround yourself with.

So whether you are recruiting folks to grow the congregation of your church, or growing support for your cause or charity or even looking for romance, in the spirit of sharing what works for me (!), here are a few tips on growing your audience effectively.

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Posted Oct 2, 2009 Tagged under: business, entrepreneurship, networking, social media and technology