Twenty Minute Collaborations with Gregg Potter

Annette Miller has lived in Madison since 1989 with her life partner, Mike, and three children they have raised together. Annette’s career spans decision-making roles across state and local government and as an executive in the private sector. She brings 25 years of strong professional policy and analytic skills, and a wide network of relationships, especially with Dane County’s diverse populations.  Her educational accomplishments include a Bachelor of Arts from UW- Madison in 1992 and Master’s in Social Innovation & Sustainability Leadership in 2017 from Edgewood College.

How do you find Annette?

Website: eqtbydesign.com 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eqtbydesign/

Resources from this episode:

Designed Alliance - https://coactive.com/blog/the-power-of-designing-your-alliances/

Adrienne Maree Brown - Holding Change

Twenty Minute Collaborations is focused on finding ways we can collaborate better together. Each guest shares a story about a time they had a common goal with others. Most stories describe moments we would never label as collaborations even though they are. From the stories, we find wonderful lessons how we can create more impactful collaborations. This journey with Gregg Potter will bring laughs, surprises, and connecting in a way we all need more of.

This week Gregg invited Nephresha Nephresha Singletary to share a story about an impromptu leadership position. Gregg and Nephresha hit some pretty large topics on inspiration, targeting a group to collaborate with, and ambiguite.

Nephresha Singletary is a Business & Career Coach, Founder of the Ambitious Women of Color Association, and Cooking Lesson Instructor.

Nephresha received her BA in Advertising from Pepperdine University, and has had over two decades of management and leadership experience.  She was in management with Starbucks Coffee Company for almost a decade before starting her own business teaching cooking lessons in 2014.

Her cooking lessons turned into becoming a personal chef and wellness coach.  As a way to expand her network she founded the Ambitious Women of Color Meetup group in 2018, which now has almost 1800 members.

This community expanded her passion for Women of Color being in more positions of power, influence, leadership, and wealth, so in March of 2021 she founded the Ambitious Women of Color Association, which is a community focused on business and professional networking.  Her coaching practice now focuses on Career and Business consulting as well.

In 2020 she retired from cheffing to be able to focus on her Three Pillars of Passion: Coaching, Ambitious Women of Color, and Cooking Lessons.

Follow and Find Nephresha:

awoca.org

Ambitious Women of Color Meetup

IG @nephresha

Cooking Lessons

Welcome to Twenty Minute Collaborations before it was a podcast.  When Gregg had this idea, it was still very much in the heart of the pandemic.  One day on his porch, he invited Jeff Burkhart to record.  This is their conversation with a lot of background noise. Please show grace for that.  The format was not decided so the questions are asked a little differently.  There is a story though. And it revolves around the importance of trust and how trust is created.  

Jeff is the Executive Director of the Literacy Network in Madison, WI.  He is genuine and transformational leader and a terrific fundraiser.  He has a loving partner and she adds to how adventurous and free thinking Jeff is. Jeff is a dog dad and a very talented musician. He has a new album coming out later in May, 2022. 

Follow Jeff: @jeffburkhart

Follow the Literacy Network: @litnetwork

Photo credit to the talented Hedi Lamarr Photography

We took a week off so Gregg could collect himself after a wild and impactful project in South Africa. This week he invited the phenomenal Mary Beth Collins on to share a story that happened to take 25 years to accomplish these very large goals. Mary Beth Collins has experience as a mom, executive director, attorney, teacher, writer, volunteer, family member, and friend. Her career is focused on the "third sector", including mission-based enterprises, community efforts, and civil society.  She is also a passionate connoisseur of and champion of "third places" which sustain human connections, enrichment, and expression. 

This episode dives deep into some great topics around collaboration when we don't always have the same goals as the other actors. In typical Gregg fashion, the show goes a little over to reveal the best lesson of the entire conversation. We hope you enjoy! 

Follow Mary Beth Collins:

Instagram- @mbcinwisco 

Twitter- @mbcwiscomiss36

If you're interested in joining us in South Africa this October, check out https://www.projectkinect.com/everything-lgbtq-interchange/.

What happens when Gregg does an interview at 11pm with someone nine hours behind? This hilarious conversation. That's what. And it goes well over time but we believe you will enjoy it.  This is a 30 minute conversation. This week Neena Viel joins Gregg on the podcast and shares a story of an Intentional Collaboration that did not have the desired outcome. You could say it was magical. 

Neena lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband and dog child.  She is an accomplished debater and orator. She is a soon to be published writer with a new novel coming out later this year.  She is currently the Development & Communications Director at Northwestern Education Access. Northwest Education Access provides comprehensive and individualized support to help low-income young people, ages 16-29, build their own path to higher education and beyond.

Find out more about Neena on LinkedIn. 

This week Gregg takes a pause from inviting any guests on and shares a little bit more about himself and what his goal of this show is.  It is a stream of consciousness that if you can keep in the conversation with him, has some great rewards.  He also touches on some of the bigger themes that have come up in previous episodes. The best part comes at the end when he realizes what the story he told really was... and uses sports terminology. We hope you enjoy this conversation between all of you listeners and Gregg.

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 Gregg does talk about the LGBTQ+ episode a bit and you can find more information about that at https://www.projectkinect.com/everything-lgbtq-interchange/.

To find Gregg on social media, look for @ggpotter.

What happens when two close friends don't follow the rules of telling a specific story? This episode.  Gregg has the talented and brilliant Sara Alvarado on this episode and they talk about OWN IT: Building Black Wealth. In discussing the process for how the program came to be, Sara and Gregg dive into some really important lessons about process and the beginning steps to an intentional collaboration. 

Sara Alvarado lives in Madison, WI where she runs the Alvarado Real Estate Group with her husband. She also has created other game changing organizations like Step Up: Equity Matters and Alez for Alzheimer's. She is a mom of two and a very handsome French Bulldog. 

You can learn more about Sara at https://saraalvarado.com/. 

Learn more about OWN IT: Building Black Wealth at https://ownitbbw.com/.

We recorded this episode as Twenty Minute Collaborations was just a concept.  It was brunch and Gregg was enjoying good food and yummy mimosas with two of his good friends.  We thought it would be fun to record a couple episodes but didn't know when we would release them. So, we are giving them to you now; both at the same time. This story about car trouble also deals with lake effect snow. We will not explain it to you. If you are dying to know, we imagine you know how to Google.  Alex and Dan  are very courageous with sharing their stories.

Alexander Miranda is a pediatric eye surgeon. There is probably a more scientific name for what he does because he primarily works on infants and toddlers.  You hear in the story that he is from Cleveland, Ohio. We did not tell you where Dan is from, but if you'd like to know, he is from Central, Illinois. They both live in Madison, Wisconsin. Alex is also a singer, love trivia, and, as you'll hear, is really great at puns.  

So much comes up in these two conversations. We hope you enjoy. 

We recorded this episode as Twenty Minute Collaborations was just a concept.  It was brunch and Gregg was enjoying good food and yummy mimosas with two of his good friends.  We thought it would be fun to record a couple episodes but didn't know when we would release them. So, we are giving them to you now; both at the same time. 

Part 1 is a story from Dan Lutz. Dan has a background in finance and spent a large portion of his professional career working in insurance.  When he turned 30, he wanted to change paths and find ways to create a larger positive impact. Dan became a team lead for AmeriCorps NCCC and that experience changes his entire trajectory. His story comes from his year with AmeriCorps. Dan now works in nonprofit fundraising for United Way. 

We hope you enjoy these episodes as much as we had recording them. It might help to grab a mimosa while listening.