805conversations

Ken Saxon, the President of Leading from Within, an organization dedicated to leadership development talked with Mark about the courage to lead.

There was a lot of ground covered in this conversation, including:

The Center for Courage and Renewal

What's Leadership:

Reflection: Listening to yourself

Relationships

Taking care of yourself

It starts by stopping

The difference between for-profit and non-profits

How you get the most out of people - secret shared is fantastic

Social entrepreneurialism

How you build a Board of Directors culture

Mark's note: the Four W's - Wealth, Wit, Work and Wisdom

What are the tests to be on a board?

The definition of a Generative Community

How to 'hold a space' for ideas, creativity and energy to blossom

"How do you know if you area leader?"

Class at Stanford - Interpersonal Dynamics

How very loud silences changed his life

Cox Communications Market Vice-President and host Mark Sylvester talk about the role of Cox in the community.

Here's just a bit of what you'll learn from this engaging conversation:

Public affairs as the face of the company

Cox is a 5th generation family owned company

The Cox Scholars Program - 5 students from local high schools receive awards

What is Cord-Cutting?

How Cox manages disruptive technologies while staying relevant

Santa Barbara: The most called city in the U.S, back in the day

"Contour" New product from Cox

Cox's role: Bringing connections to people

What if you're considering a role in public affairs

- It's not for everybody

It's a relationship world

You need the ability to pivot quickly

You must love getting involved in a 00 things

It's all about politics, public affairs, and communications

A peek into the future? What is synthetic DNA and how is it going to be used to store data?

TEDxSantaBarbara Executive Producer, Mark Sylvester, talks with 805conversations co-host Patrick Melroy about the upcoming event. This is the sixth TEDx event in town, the first three being TEDxAmericanRiviera and in the past two years, TEDxLive.

Here's just a bit of what you'll learn from this engaging conversation:

• What's TEDx and how's it different from TED

• The story of how TEDx got started

• Quick history of Chris Anderson's involvement with TED

•What do the letters TED stand for?

•Why we curate the TEDxSantaBarbara audience

•The TED Commandments, from the original owner of TED

•How our local TEDx talks contribute to the global TEDx movement

•How we coach the speakers to give the talk of their lives

•How to find a TEDx near you

•How TED and TEDx helps you make lifelong friends

If you're interested in TEDxSantaBarbara, go to http://TEDXSantaBarbara.com and register for weekly updates.

Sarah Fischbach is a professor of marketing at California Lutheran University. She and Mark talked about concerns relating to ethics and marketing. Sarah has done a lot of work in this area and loves working with students and presenting them with interesting tests that highlight the challenges of understanding your ethical boundaries as a marketer.

Topics included;

-Working at the University of Hawaii at Manoa

-Americorps

-How she went from Corporate Sales and Marketing to a Professor

-Her MBA in Marketing

-How she became fascinated with Ethics and ethical concerns

-Inducing reciprocity and where you cross the line when inducing it

-Native Advertising

-Ads that work

--They establish trust

--They're authentic

--They're relevant

-Experients she's run to test our theories (Love that she has a laboratory of students to work with)

-How to define your Target Market

--Brand Personas

--Psychographics

--Demographics

-Great resources to help you understand your market

--Neilson - Prizm

--Claritas

--Social Mention

-Why emotions are such an important part of marketing

-Brand Personology - new, interesting term gets discussed a lot

-How do you get people to say, " I can't live without your product?"

Marian Baker, one of the Top 50 Executive Coaches in America covered a lot of ground quickly in her conversation with Mark. Marian is a Chief Inspiration Officer and has a lot of ideas for what you could call her; our favorite was that she's a self-proclaimed Jedi Knight Trainer. She's established herself on the global stage, helping companies find Inspired Leadership through her Institute. You'll want to grab a copy of her book, Wake Up Inspired after listening to this episode.

"Old ways don't take us into the new future."

Topics included;

-What's the best title for her? Catalyst? Mission midwife? Jedi Knight trainer?

-What her Ideal Client looks like

-What it takes to get to a better life

-"I'm a bridge and a translator."

-The Inspiration Economy

-The description of the Wrecktangle (great visual)

-Why you want to follow successful people

-Her Daily Practice - Baby Steps

-What she means by her shorthand: IC (Inner Child, Inner Closet, Inner Champion)

-What the three most important parts of how we could be looking at ourselves

--Your inner child

--Your conscious adult

--Your absolute self

-What does fierce love want from me today?

-Drawing an Infinity sign - labeling the left side: Surrender and on the right, Co-Creativity, and how inspiration flows from one side to the other.

-Being called the Queen of Questions

Operational Excellence

Michael Teasdale, a member of the Advisory Council at California Lutheran University, covered a lot of ground in this informative talk with Mark. Michael spent most of his career in Healthcare and had a background in Theater, Communications and spends a lot of his time now with public service projects in Ventura County.

Always ask, Did I learn something?"

Topics included;

• Working at Baxter, in Paris and Wisconsin and at General Electric

• How you look at an organization's Operational Excellence;

• Who is their customer - what to they need or want

• What is the beginning and the end of the process

• Identify the Key Steps in the process

• Getting people to understand their role in the process and why this is critically important

• Are you asking the right questions?

• His life in the Theater - as a director, and how it influenced his business career

• The BING Theory - love this.

• Interesting difference between theater and other performance types

• The importance of communications in business

• His five years as a speaker coach

• His tips for speakers

• Know what you want to accomplish - what do you want the audience to say, do or think

• Understand your audience and ask, Why are they there?

• Why should they care?

Brian Chossek, the founder of Impact 7 Generations is an author, speaker, and actualizer who shared a lively conversation with Mark talking about Purpose. Listen as Brian talks about why the discussion of Purpose, or your Why is so vital to your personal and professional life.

"20% of executives don't have a strong grasp on their personal why."

Topics included;

• Your Purpose vs. Your Why - how are they different

• How to find your Why

• Discovering your aha moment - "When the Why appears."

• His Three Questions to help identify your WHY

-What are you good at?

-What is your passion?

-What can I get paid to do?

• The difference between your Personal Why and your Organizational Why

• How to integrate Values and Purpose into your Company or Organization

• Flipping the Filter

• How to develop a purpose-driven organization

• Finding your Center of Gravity

• Identifying and articulating your Purpose, Vision and Values

• Activating Purpose, Vision, and Value to achieve immediately measurable outcomes

• Utilizing a Purpose-driven approach to solving specific problems, rapidly innovate, problem solve and earn buy-in for change

You can find Brian's work at Impact 7 Generations. He writes, runs workshops and does executive coaching.

Steve Ainsley, now retired, was the Publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press and the co-founder of the Economic Community Project twenty years ago. He now serves as the Chair of Cottage Health's Board. He and Mark covered a wide range of topics including his thoughts about publishing, the Spotlight backstory, investigative journalism and others.

"Root out what's not right."

Topics included;

-His history working for the New York Times. Santa Barbara, Tampa and as Publisher of the Boston Globe (7 papers in total)

-The backstory of Spotlight, Steve came to the paper 2 years after the story broke.

-His thoughts on the role of Publisher v the Editor

-The watershed moment for Media

-How the business model changed, which changed the industry

-A deep dive into investigative journalism

-What's the highest award a paper can get? Is it worth it?

-The Misson of your local, community paper

-Where do millennials fit into this new publishing world?

-People do read the local paper (still)

-What if you want a career in journalism, what traits should you have?

--Innate curiosity

--A real desire to share what you've observed

--Get a charge by how much impact you make in the community

-The Economic Community Project - started in 1993

-Background and history of the project

-Slow-no growth citizenry and politics

-How you achieve success in community efforts - invite the contrarians

-His tenure at Cottage Health

-His take on Healthcare and the Mission of Cottage

-How you build partneships to manifest these large community agendas

Judy Hawkins, principal at Ruby Road Leadership and the facilitator of the Business Giving Roundtable had a lively talk with Mark Sylvester about giving back, the social sector and social enterprises.

Caught between Connection and Curiosity

Topics included;

-The Business Giving Roundtable, background and where it fits in the local non-profit scene

-How the BGR supports entrepreneurs

-How you build giving into the business model

-Trend: Women business owners think about giving back during the formation of their business.

-Giving back is how we are a part of the Community

-How the business world and the social sector are becoming more hybridized

-What the Partners for Excellence Conference is and how it's unique to the region

• What are the things that set this area apart?

- We have a connection to the natural world

- Our spirit oGenerosityty

- We're caught between connection and curiosity

-Why it's important to have a signature style

• What it means to have an entrepreneurial culture - and how you recognize it if you saw it:

- An interest in creativity

- A willingness to lead with intuition

- Thinking about being a part of the Community - a client community, your town

• Ways to Serve:

- Volunteer - serve on a local board

- Show up and pitch in at an event

- In-kind services from your business

- of course, cash.

Tom Reed, the Executive Director of the nearly 100-year-old Unity Shoppe, sat with Mark to talk about building relationships and how they've affected his life. Tom has a fascinating background and shared many of his life's' lessons during this conversation. The model for the Unity Shoppe is unique in the United States and one that's worth replicating in other communities.

Life is a paradox"

Topics included;

-Being a pilot in Vietnam

-Starting his career in Grass Valley - turns out Mark did a stint in Auburn CA as well

-How his military service prepared him for life - discipline and respect for authority

-How he spent the early part of his life pursuing success - money, material things - and how that turned out

-The Fire. Losing everything in a moment.

-Teaching himself how to build a house - and what happened next

-Three things that changed when he had his transformation

-- What's really important in life - what's the meaning for him

-- Not religion, but finding the spiritual aspect of life

-- How powerful 'no agenda' can be in building relationships

-What going to the National Prayer Breakfast did for him

-Being a Folk Singer, and the path that took him down

-Being vulnerable

-His CEO mentoring project

-Then comes the Unity Shoppe, he's been the Executive Director for 14 years

-What this organization means to the community.

-Many examples of how the Freedom to Choose model is so successful with the people Unity serves