805conversations

My mentor, Tom Wolf, taught me how to see.

"I like to absorb when I walk around"

David Kafer, the force behind the Portrait Project 100K, met with Mark and Patrick to talk about the project and his passion for the people he photographs.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

How the Portrait Project began

His philosophy about photography, especially as it relates to people

The story of his first photo - not that long ago

His first photography trip, to Italy and how his mentor taught him to see

Working at SBCC as a photography tech, helping teach

Advice for photographers: Don't photograph for Likes

His passion for fitness photography

The various locations that he's set up his camera dnd the challenges

Tips for Photographers

- Shoot what's important to you

- Photograph a lot - your first 10,000 photos are practice

- Think about the importance of pre-production, before you shoot

What he's learning from people and their stories since the project started

Dream for him: A Portrait Truck so he can easily go on the road

Why it's important to him to have found a way to get people to open up (to the camera)

IN THE HEART OF THE PROGRESSIVE COMMUNITY

Elena Richardson, Director of Grantmaking, at the Fund for Santa Barbara, sat with Mark and Patrick to talk about the progressive movement in the region and the Fund’s role. We learned about the organization, her passion for philanthropy and activist causes.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

What she loves the most – working with the grantees

How they work hard at giving away 500K a year to most deserving organizations that are aligned with their Mission

The Fund was founded in 1980 and a bit of the history

What she does – it’s about grantmaking and providing technical assistance

Learn about the “Poetic Justice Project” as an example of the types of projects they support

Patrick educated Mark about Art and Activism – good to know!

What was an unlikely proposal that landed on her desk? Hint: it’s about bioaccumulation

Funding student-led work, like the Isla Vista Governance Project

The Youth Making Change project – sounds excellent

3 Tips for successful grants

– Use fewer words

– Have clear budgets (utilization of funds)

– Get feedback in advance

– bonus tip: go to an application workshop

– Resources for Grantees

We got to talking about David and Goliath battles, and there’s plenty of them in the Progressive community

Cool class: How to Lobby

How do you pay for these services you ask? Great answer – sliding scale. So if you have an idea you might just get a seed grant if you want to pursue a dream of social activism

Change. Not charity.

Clients don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Professor Harry Starn Jr, MS, CFA, CFP helped educate Mark and Patrick on how teaching Financial Planners has changed. He is the Director of Financial Planning Program at California Lutheran University. His audience is those seeking an MBA in Financial Planning.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

How to prepare Financial Planning professionals

What he means by Holistic Planning (It's an art and a science)

How important a planner is, especially after a transition event: marriage, birth of a child, death in the family

The role of a Financial Planner, including the metaphor of the CFP as the Quarterback in your financial life

One of the challenges for the planner is that they sell intangibles.

The importance of compliance

Why someone picks a career in Financial Planning. Hint: They like finance and they fell like they could help people

The importance of Story Telling and Financial Planning

Note from Mark. My biggest takeaway from the conversation was about privacy and security and how the Financial Planner is so much like your Doctor. One deals with fiscal health, the other, with physical health. There are more similarities between these two professions, once you start thinking about it - which I've done a lot of since this conversation.

Unite to Light - Megan Birney by 805connect

Lets Talk About It - A Legal Conversation - Stephen Miles by 805connect

"Treat me like your Doctor."

- Ray suggests you be honest. The more you can talk about the inner workings of your business, the more he can help.

Ray Clem, one of the members of Tolman & Wiker Insurance Services, sat with Mark and Patrick to put a human face and plain talk to the sometimes complex topic of business insurance.

What was refreshing is that Ray helped us both understand the nuances of the need for protection with an eye and ear towards keeping things uncomplicated. We got the sense that he's not bad at explaining.

Unfortunately, we end working with people on their worst day ever."

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

-A bit about how Ray got into his current role as a Business Insurance expert

What's the secret to projecting and predicting when and where you need coverage?

-Risk Management

-What's the best part of his job: Relationships. Note: We hear this a lot. Maybe we should do a special playlist about Relationships.

-You'll want to listen to the Lawnmower Story.

-We talked at length about Prevention, Financing, and Education

-Why Ray is so focused on helping businesses, protect their most valuable assets.

-There was a good discussion about Cyber-liability and Data-liability

-Ray did a great job representing our partner, Tolman & Wiker and made us rethink how we'll approach our next conversation.

Disclosure: introNetworks, the parent Company that produces 805conversations is a client of Tolman & Wiker, and they provide coverage for our various projects, TEDxSantaBarbara, and Kymberlee's company, Strategic Samurai - both mentioned on the show.

Theater lingo that the Show Director says before each cue. Example, "get ready for the red spotlight." "Ready?" "Take that go!"

Jill Seltzer, the new Managing Director of the Ensemble Theater at the New Vic met with Mark and Patrick to talk about the company and the venue. With Patricks' interest in the Arts and Mark's recent TEDx experience at the New Vic, this was a stimulating conversation for all of us.

My career makes sense looking back, but I didnt see it coming."

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

How Jill's career got her to Santa Barbara

Working at WBEZ - home of This American Life and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

The SAG/AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild) Foundation and how that helped her form some opinions

What's an Equity Actor

A nice, long discussion about the New Vic and its technical production capabilities

An excellent overview of the current productions for the 2016-2017 slate

Talking about millennials involved in Theater - including pre-millennials (what do we call them?)

How the 300 seat venue is ideal to create a sense of intimacy

How can local corporations take advantage of the site and the programming?

A bit about her background in theater in Chicago

She's a world-class fundraiser and gave us some tips she learned when she worked at the Prince Charitable Trusts

- Understand about the donor and their legacy and how important that is to them

- Remember that you are doing them a favor, turning their money into something that matters to them.

- It's all about what THEY care about, not what YOU need

Mark asked some questions about the Board's of Directors - good content here if you're in charge of one, want to be on one, or are on one now

The best part of her job: living her passion - being around people who love the theater.

"How to make your brand accessible and relevant."

Pia Dorer, Co-Founder, and Managing Partner at Orange Identity sat with Mark and Patrick to talk about brand strategy and design, her professional passions. Our conversation took an interesting turn as we talked about her concept of 'dating' being the first step in working with a brand. You create the story and core message; then these things together make the path much clearer as far as target markets, strategy and what types of communication methods and brand expression need to be integrated into a successful campaign.

Creating a compelling story that makes people want to keep turning the page and drawing them deeper in emotionally is what smart branding is all about.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

Working with the Impact Hub in Santa Barbara

Pia and her team worked closely with Mark on TEDxSantaBarbara to bring the theme of "What If" to life

Creating an agency that has 90% of its clients in the Santa Barbara area, while living north of Sydney, Australia

Working with a distributed team - challenges and opportunities

How she came to in Santa Barbara, then back to Sydney

Why she's so passionate about marketing and design

How she approaches new clients and the onboarding process. What she's looking for in new clients

- How well do they know their brand

- Her 20 question Questionnaire

- The Brand Disclosure survey (I want to take this after hearing about it

How the Brand Disclosure Survey is like speed dating, as influenced by eHarmony's in-depth profiling to best understand what and who you are

Why she loves the research side of Marketing

How to say no to a potential client where it's obvious you're not a good fit

The challenging conversation you must have about Budgets - and getting good at being able to accomplish it

Personas (We've talked a lot about them on the show) - Pia thinks of brands as unique personalities

Why she loves the collaborative approach to working with clients

If you do Public Relations, you'll want to hear her tips for getting your PR out more effectively

We're going to invite Pia back to talk about Speed Dating for Brands - as that is something she's thinking about a lot these days.

Creating a compelling story that makes people want to keep turning the page and drawing them deeper in emotionally is what smart branding is all about."

"I like the stories; I love the characters."

Adam benShea, is a lecturer at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a master at Brazilian Jiujitsu. He talked with Mark and Patrick about his fascination with stories. If the name sounds familiar to you, it is because we have had Adam's father, Noah, and sister, Jordan, on this show. This completes our benShea trifecta.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

Adam explains the difference between a professor and a lecturer. Thanks.

The title of this episode comes from his work in jujitsu - he explains what that means and why it's important to a life off the mat

His life works in Religious Studies

- Specifically Religion and Violence. This class is very popular and interesting to students

His fascination with patterns and repetition.

What's a Textualist?

He understands story architectures and talks at length about The Stage, The Actor, the Day and the Hero's Journey

He helps us understand American Christain Violence (while we are all focused on Islamic terrorism lately)

How current time relates to Ancient Time

How Hamas uses its bombing strategy to deliver 'messages.'

How he found his passion for learning - hint, it was a great teacher/mentor, Richard Hecht

One of his mantras that get explained and referred to a lot: "Everybody fights. Nobody quits." Attributed to his high school wrestling coach Mike Hart

When asked about watching sports he mentioned, "I'm not a great spectator."

Being aware of your cultural baggage

A story about stories with Noah as the example of how he appears in the Bible and the Kuran

"I don't teach theology"

An interesting sidebar on atheism

Didn't know about JewBu's - Jewish Buddhists until this show

His book that let him exercise his writing and entrepreneurial spirit: Jailhouse Strong

"Senseless is not senseless at all"

"How do we create meaning and value?"

Ravi Sawhney, the founder, and CEO of RKS Design has been contemplating the role of design in our lives for years. This episode with Mark and Patrick gets to some of the high points of his thinking in this area.

Note, this is the second pure Design episode we tackled. Check out Dane Howard if you're interested in more on this topic.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

-How he got started with Industrial Design - Note: it was a circuitous path, involving his mentor, the Dean at Cal State Northridge

-His experience with Shop Classes in High School - Note: we don't have shop classes anymore in our educational system

-His book, Predictable Magic, and its impact on advanced design thinking.

-Working at the Xerox think-tank early in his career

-When he first started thinking about interaction design

-Psycho-Aesthetics - time for buzzword bingo time on this one, look it up

"Design is a tool to take you on a journey

-We loved his explanation of Happy Storytellers

-Nice long sidebar about Ravi and Guitars and how his firm reinvented the Electric Guitar - Harvard Business Review did a Case Study of how they did the project

-When we asked what Ravi's next dragon is, he told us about how he challenges the Company to go out and find a big, hairy problem that's facing the nation and submit it for one of the pro-bono efforts the Company takes on. Hear how they intend to solve the Student Loan problem. It's a compelling idea.

"It's not how you feel about the design, it's how it makes you feel about yourself."