Podcasts about Cambridge City Council

Cambridge City Council is asking local people to feed into a new Framework for Change for North Cambridge. It wants to know where investment is needed, including older council housing […]

Last week, we attended the launch of Cambridge Tech Week. This week, we're sharing key highlights from the panel discussions, covering AI innovation, policy challenges, and collaboration.Some standout moments included:· Dr. Nik Johnson highlighted Cambridge's role as a global tech hub, stressing that AI should enhance, not replace, human creativity. · Michaela Eschbach reinforced how the city enables high-risk innovation in a low-risk environment.· Jessica Montgomery called for AI to prioritise real-world impact over hype, raising concerns about its influence on creative industries and accountability. · Professor Neil Lawrence warned that professionals are losing control over AI systems and urged businesses to reinvest AI-driven time savings into skills development.The event wrapped up with a panel discussion featuring leaders from Innovate Cambridge, Faculty AI, and Cambridge City Council. The key takeaway? AI development needs to be practical, ethical, and inclusive.Produced by Cambridge TV Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jimmy's Cambridge, the homelessness and rough sleeping charity has partnered with Cambridge City Council to train key staff members on Trauma Risk Management training. Julian finds out more from Natasha […]

Councilor Burhan Azeem argues the measure was a much-needed effort to allow for the development of more multi-family housing in the city.

WBZ NewsRadio's James Rojas reports. 

Residents are being encourage never to bin loose or hidden batteries as part of a national campaign being supported by Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council.  Julian Clover […]

Cambridge City Council has appointed a consultancy team from Architect’s Cartwright Pickard to lead what’s being described as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine Cambridge’s Market Square, Guildhall and Corn Exchange […]

Last month, Cambridge City Council voted to postpone implementation of an ambitious bike lane plan on three major city streets. City Councilors Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler and Joan Pickett join Radio Boston to discuss.

WBZ NewsRadio's James Rojas reports. 

Karl Kiefer joins Rob on the podcast to talk about his journey into local politics. Inspired by the amalgamation of Preston and Cambridge in 1973, Karl ran for and was elected to Cambridge City Council. He shares stories on community involvement, recreational facilities, and managing public funds and resources.

A poll by YouGov suggests big losses for the Conservatives at the General Election. The Lib Dems would take the reconstituted South Cambridgeshire seat, while current South Cambs' Conservative MP […]

A review finds that opportunities were missed to protect 10-month-old Finlay Boden - who was murdered by his parents during lockdown. We ask a leading child protection expert how much safer children are since the pandemic. Also on the programme: Is Scotland about to become the first UK nation to allow assisted dying? We speak to the MSP who's publishing a bill tomorrow. Cambridge City Council has ordered an "eyesore" sculpture of the late Prince Philip to be taken down. How do you stop dodgy art popping up in public spaces?

Cambridge 2030, in partnership with Cambridge City Council, is calling on Cambridgeshire businesses, non-profit organisations and charities to recycle their laptops when they are upgraded or replaced, by donating them […]

In Massachusetts, the Cambridge City Council has rejected a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Democracy Now!'s Hany Massoud filed this report from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In Massachusetts, the Cambridge City Council has rejected a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Democracy Now!'s Hany Massoud filed this report from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

This week on The Harvard Crimson's Newstalk, reporters Muskaan Arshad '25 and Julian J. Giordano '25 join host Frank S. Zhou '26 to discuss the racist, transphobic tweets that sparked a protest and left Cambridge City Council candidates under fire. Also in this episode, J. Sellers Hill '25 and Nia L. Orakwue '25 talk about mental health resources at Harvard and why barriers to student trust and understanding persist.

For the past decade, the government's preferred model of devolution has been to combined authorities with directly elected mayors. However, more than five years on from the election of the first metro mayors, there is ongoing resistance from councils to adopting this model. In this episode of The Local Authority, a podcast from Local Government Chronicle, we explore what is behind this resistance and how the model is working in those places where it already exists. Joining LGC editor Sarah Calkin this month is Professor Carolyn Wilkins, fellow at Birmingham Leadership Institute and former chief executive of Oldham MBC; Cllr Anna Smith (Lab), former leader of Cambridge City Council and deputy mayor of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority and Paul Swinney, director of policy and research at Centre for Cities. The episode is available for streaming on all platforms now. 

Matthew Parrott speaks to Akua Obeng-Frimpong, Senior Arts Development Officer at Cambridge City Council about the Christ's Lane Art Benches, designed to support artists who may otherwise not have access […]

What are Climate Change Disclosure Labels?Highlighting the link between a product's consumption and its carbon footprint could potentially alter harmful consumer behavior that contributes to climate change. Similar to how warning labels on cigarettes changed the smoking habits of some users, placing climate change disclosure labels on gas pumps could introduce discomfort that serves as an effective intervention that connects consumers to the dangerous reality of fossil fuels and illuminates the hidden costs of climate change. Labels for Increasing Public AwarenessAware of the profound disconnect regarding fossil fuels, where they come from and their impact on climate change, Toronto-based lawyer Robert Shirkey founded Our Horizon, a nonprofit working towards requiring climate change disclosures on gas pumps.According to Our Horizon, the first step to addressing a problem is facing it: Putting climate change disclosure labels on gas pumps would force consumers to face the carbon impact of their fossil fuel consumption. Increasing customer awareness might encourage them to reduce their carbon footprint by choosing public transit or being inspired to purchase an electric vehicle. Further, this increased awareness could affect other behaviors like how people choose to vote, or how local representatives voice support for sustainable policy measures such as public transit or climate legislation.  The disclosure labels could vary depending on the climate change impacts or concerns facing each individual jurisdiction. Coastal communities may prefer labels that directly pertain to sea level rise, whereas arid regions may find warnings related to drought to be more effective in altering consumer behavior. Either way, these labels are a low-cost, globally-scalable solution that both municipalities and community members can advocate for: municipalities can use licensing powers to require climate change labels on gas pumps; community members can voice their support to local representatives; and climate-focused policies in one region can inspire legislatures and citizens around the world. Applying the LabelsSome local governments have gone ahead with climate change disclosure labels. In 2020, the Cambridge City Council began requiring the labels on all gas pumps in the Massachusetts city, according to WHDH, a Boston area news station. Sweden has a similar rule in place.While many politicians support the idea, large fossil fuel companies have fought these labels nearly every step of the way. Opposed to disclosing the risks of fuel consumption, the industry instead preferred labels that specified gas-saving tips in Canada during Shirkey's lobbying efforts. About the guestRob Shirkey is a recognized authority on the subject of climate change risk disclosures for gas pumps, which are being implemented in some North American communities. He is a lawyer from Toronto, Canada, and has given lectures across North America, been featured in media all over the world, and received many awards for his work on climate change. You can learn more about Our Horizon and the campaign to place climate change labels on gas pumps here.  Further ReadingBrooks & Ebi, Climate Change Warning Labels on Gas Pumps: The Role of Public Opinion Formation in Climate Change Mitigation Policies, Global Challenges (2021).Where Are All the Climate Warning Labels on Gas Pumps?, Bloomberg (2022).

Concilio's Katie Brown is joined by Claire Flowers, Head of Housing Development Agency at Cambridge City Council to discuss how the public and private sector can work together on housing delivery.

Following the stabbing last weekend of teenager Jesse Nwokejiobi, Julian hears from Alice Gilderdale, executive councillor for Recovery, Employment and Community Safety on Cambridge City Council

This week Cambridge City Council voted to ban the practice of turning right on red. It's an effort to protect cyclists and pedestrians. The new policy is in line with Vision Zero, an international campaign the city adopted that aims to eliminate “all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.” What are your thoughts on banning right on red in your town?

This week Cambridge City Council voted to ban the practice of turning right on red. It's an effort to protect cyclists and pedestrians. The new policy is in line with Vision Zero, an international campaign the city adopted that aims to eliminate “all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.” What are your thoughts on banning right on red in your town?

This week Cambridge City Council voted to ban the practice of turning right on red. It's an effort to protect cyclists and pedestrians. The new policy is in line with Vision Zero, an international campaign the city adopted that aims to eliminate “all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.” What are your thoughts on banning right on red in your town?

Candidates criss-cross the Commonwealth, and the country, before tomorrow's elections. A man is stabbed to death in Harwich. The Cambridge City Council considers banning right on red city-wide. 5 minutes of news that will keep you in The Loop.

The Cambridge City Council is set to vote tonight on a proposal to ban drivers from turning right at a red light anywhere in the city. WBZ's Mike Macklin reports.

Sumbul Siddiqui is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 77th mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Siddiqui was elected mayor in 2020 by the Cambridge City Council, after serving in the body for 3 years, becoming the first Muslim mayor in Massachusetts history. Listen to Sumbul's journey. I recorded this epi a few weeks ago, before experimenting with video! It will be my last audio only interview, as I am totally sold on video. Sorry for the video free epi! Follow Sumbul on IG Follow Sumbul on Twitter The City of Cambridge, MA --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/laylool/message

The feud continues between Cambridge business owners and the Cambridge City Council over the city's 2020 Cycling Safety Ordinance that requires installation of separated bike lanes. As a result of the constructed bike lanes, local businesses have had some of their parking and loading zones removed, which they claim has had a huge negative impact on their businesses. Dan checked in with multiple Cambridge business owners about the ongoing lawsuit between Cambridge Streets For All and the City of Cambridge.

The Cambridge City Council passed the Cycling Safety Ordinance which requires the construction and installation of miles of separated bike lanes. A group of local restaurants, medical offices, and retail owners, called Cambridge Streets For All has decided to sue the city of Cambridge over the ordinance. The group believes the ordinance is causing them to miss out on business. Local bakery owner and Board Chair for Cambridge Streets For All, Lee Jenkins, joins Dan to discuss. We welcome proponents and opponents of Cambridge's ordinance to call in with your thoughts!

Cambridge City Council has revised its proposals for improvements to the Jesus Green ditch, amid concerns over the water vole population. Alex Collis, Executive Councillor for Open Spaces, spoke to […]

Porter Square is getting a makeover. The Cambridge City Council voted last Monday to move ahead with a plan to replace some parking along Massachusetts Avenue, including Porter Square, with protected bike lanes. but, as WTBU Correspondent Evan Jimenez reports, not everyone is happy with the changes.

Phil Rodgers joins Julian to look ahead to next months elections to Cambridge City Council.

Does the presence of bike lanes throughout Cambridge impact local businesses negatively or positively? That is what the Cambridge City Council aims to find out having just approved a study that looks into the business impacts of bike lanes in their area. Dan speaks to a couple local businesses in Cambridge about their thoughts on Cambridge's bike lane program.

Linda and Suzie meet Councillor Anna Smith who has just been elected the Leader of Cambridge City Council. Anna tells them about her work in education, and the powerful reason […]

Councillor Anna Smith is Leader of Cambridge City Council. This energetic fascinating woman talks about her time at Oxford, her work in education and how she got into politics. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We had a great chat with a truly amazing woman - Theo Skeadas. Theo is running for Cambridge City Council and we couldn't be happier to support her in everything she does. She has the mind, motivation, and outlook that Cambridge needs for true change. Visit her site below to learn even more about her: votetheo.com Download the free Boston Greeks app!

A social entrepreneur, speaker, author and activist, Nadya Okamoto is a fierce advocate for destigmatizing periods and mental health. At the age of 16, Nadya founded PERIOD (period.org), a non profit organization fighting to end period poverty and stigma. At age 19, Nadya was the youngest candidate in the race for a seat for Cambridge City Council, focusing her campaign on issues of affordable housing, education equity, and climate change. In 2017, Nadya was named as one of Teen Vogue's 21 Under 21. She was awarded the L'Oréal Women of Worth award at the annual Glamour Women of the Year ceremony in November 2019. In 2020, Nadya co-founded August, a lifestyle period brand with Nick Jain, the founder of JUV Consulting. The brand also built Ask August, a "judgement-free platform" that "makes it easier for Generation Z to navigate the process of menstruation." Author of, "Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement," Nadya was featured in multiple high-profile media interviews, landing on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list as well as others — that, amid the whirlwind, she did not realize she was "monopolizing" the movement.  

Today's WCMP News Update features garbage fires, COVID exposures, and the Cambridge City Council's tough decision. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wcmp-news/message

Julian hears about plans to extend the ban on evictions for another month and gets the city’s reaction from the Executive Councillor for Housing on Cambridge City Council, Richard Johnson.

Julian hears about Cambridge City Council’s Cambridge Canopy Project, designed to increase tree canopy cover in the city by 2%, from 17% to 19% by 2050. He speaks to Dr Matthew Ling who explains how you can help by planting a tree of your own.

Sumbul Siddiqui is the mayor of Cambridge, MA. Her family moved to Cambridge from Karachi, Pakistan when she was two years old. She studied public policy at Brown and law at Northwestern, before moving back to Massachusetts. She joined the Cambridge City Council, and was elected Mayor this past January -- just as the biggest crisis to ever hit American cities was making its way to the East Coast of the US. On this episode, Watson Visiting Professor and Faculty Fellow Geri Augusto talks with Mayor Siddiqui about health, housing, social justice, and the future of cities in the time of coronavirus.

In a move meant to protect undocumented immigrants from arrest, the Cambridge City Council has passed a law advising police to issue a summons to anyone found to be driving in the city without a license, rather than taking them into custody. WBZ NewsRadio's Suzanne Sausville reports.

Burhan Azeem is an MIT graduate renting in Cambridge who is currently running for City Council. We talk about his experience trying to connect MIT students to the voting process here, as well as what he's learned on the campaign trail about what it's like to rent in one of the most expensive cities in the country. Connect with Burhan via his campaign website (https://www.voteburhan.com/) or on Twitter (https://twitter.com/realBurhanAzeem). This is Burhan's first year as a candidate, and he'd like to remind you that the Voter registration deadline is October 16th!

“All schools need to be resourced to provide an inclusive environment and all schools needed to be required to do that, so that it doesn't all fall to some specific schools.” Loic Menzies is the Founder and Chief Executive of LKMco, an education and youth ‘think and action-tank' that believes society should ensure all children and young people receive the support they need to make a fulfilling transition to adulthood. Loic began working as an ambassador for young people as a teenager himself, when he was a youth worker for Cambridge City Council and a Young Advocate for the charity Changemakers. Shortly after his time at university, he transferred his knowledge of youth work practice into teaching, joining the senior leadership team of St. George's Roman Catholic School in North West London and becoming Head of History and Social Sciences. Loic was part of a period of significant transformation for the school which had unfortunately become of the UK's most notorious following the stabbing of its headteacher Philip Lawrence by a pupil in 1995. Following this incident, the school's struggle with the effects of gang culture, persistence absence and constant vandalism meant it was put into special measures by inspectors and was documented in the film Ahead of The Class, starring Julie Walters. However, by 2010 St. George's was recognised as one the most improved schools in the country and received a coveted Outstanding grade from Ofsted. On leaving teaching, Loic was inspired to use his experience to help shape the future of education and set up LKMco to draw together the different areas of the education and youth sector by linking practical work on the ground to high quality research and policy advocacy. Since then he has worked with organisations ranging from universities to alternative training providers, large corporates to start-up social enterprises and from academics to policy makers. Richard and Loic spoke in early April 2019, about the pressures in the education system, the difference between youth work and teaching and whether we will ever have a learning system in the UK that meets the needs of all children. --- Useful links: Loic's own company LKM Co https://www.lkmco.org/ Twitter @LKMCoHQ Cambridge City Council – Young People https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/children-and-young-people Teach First https://www.teachfirst.org.uk/ The murder of Philip Lawrence (Wiki) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Philip_Lawrence St George's Catholic School, Maida Vale https://www.stgeorgesrc.org/ Article about St George's 10 years after Philip Lawrence's murder, The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/class-of-2009-can-st-georges-ever-live-down-the-murder-of-its-headteacher-1796936.html Adam Muirhead's Possibility Club interview https://soundcloud.com/thepossibilityclub/adam-muirhead Mary Warnock obituary (The Guardian) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/21/lady-warnock-obituary --- If you are inspired by the conversation, please like, share and review. Did you agree? Do you think we should scrap the whole system and start again? Are the problems in education overhyped? Come and join the debate by joining The Possibility Club for free, find a community of thinkers and find out about our events and debates. You can also find lots of commentary, expertise and other interviews on the theme of The Future Of Education, Work and Health - at www.thepossibilityclub.org

Two participants in CCTV's Summer Media Institute, Toby Mallon and Liz Anderson interview City Councillors Alanna Mallon and Sumbul Siddiqui. The discussion about what it's like to be on the Cambridge City Council is preceded by talk about "Queer Eye." Recorded at Cambridge Community Television

We're live with guests, Ben Echevarria of The Welcome Project and Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, candidate for Cambridge City Council discussing Cambridge's battle over cannabis economic empowerment, housing, immigration and much more.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theyoungjurks/support

Cambridge battles for economic empowerment against well funded existing registered medical dispensaries, Sira Naturals and Revolutionary Clinics. The EE proposal passed the ordinance committee and will next be debated with public testimony before the entire Cambridge City Council. This podcast features interviews with Grant Smith, Chandra Batra on Cambridge, & Ed DeSousa of RiverRun Gardens. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theyoungjurks/support

The Young Jurks with Ben Simon for Cambridge City Council, Stephen Mandile for Uxbridge Selectmen and Marion McNabb of Cannabis Community Care and Research Network. Subscribe > midnightmass.substack.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theyoungjurks/support

In this weeks podcast, Sumbul and Alanna sat down with the Cambridge Historical Society to discuss digital engagement and how their podcast is changing the way, as local elected leaders, they engage with residents and keep them up to date on all of the Cambridge news! Listen as they discuss a broad range of topics; from how they got the idea for their podcast, who their mentors are (their moms!), what motivated them to run for Cambridge City Council and how they are trying to be more accessible to residents.

Episode 59. So... the mayor of Cambridge came up to the show. That was wicked dope. Shouts Out to Mayor McGovern for coming up onto the show and keeping his political agenda at bay to simplify the role of local politics for people in their twenties. Mayor McGovern was elected to Cambridge City Council in 2014, and was further elected to Mayor in 2017. For those who don't know: Cambridge is a chaotic city, it's one of the most densely populated cities in the country and harbors an eclectic mix of people. We had the chance to talk about: the role of the massive biotech boom in Kendall Square and the role it's played in the rapid gentrification of Cambridge. The long term homelessness problem in Cambridge (specifically in Central Square and Alewife). The actual leverage the mayor has in executing on political decisions, weed in Cambridge (his experience with it...), affordable housing in Cambridge, and opportunity for the arts in Cambridge. It was a really dope episode, and I hope everyone can make it through the 2 hours! Shouts out to Cambridge, and shouts out to Mayor McGovern and shouts out to Luis for getting it done. ----------------- WATCH THIS Podcast HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txl9DLY9pWA ------------------ The Official Score of the "Derek the Last Air Bender" was composed by Josh Schuback (@josh_schuback) & Designed by Jack Bigelow, (@jack.bigelow). Voiceover: Tim Blouin, @timblou8 The "GDP Jingle" heard in every podcast (Spotify, Podcasts, Soundcloud) was created by MyCompiledThoughts. https://soundcloud.com/mycompiledthou... ----------- Follow Mayor McGovern! Twitter: @Cambridge_Mayor Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarcMcGovern... Website: http://www.marcmcgovern.com/ Instagram: @marcgov Luis' Twitter: @LuisVasquez617 ---------- Follow GDP! Instagram: @goldendeerproductions YouTube: YouTube.com/GoldenDeerProductions Facebook: Facebook.com/GoldenDeerProductions Website: goldendeer.productions -------- Follow Conor Holway: Instagram: @godholway LinkedIn: linkedin.com/conorholway Twitter: @boachbonnie -------- Listen to Our Podcasts Here! iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-g…d1437829342?mt=2 Soundcloud: @goldendeerproductions Spotify: Search: "Golden Deer Productions" --------- This Episode was Recorded LIVE from the Best Studio in Boston, Phoenix Down Recording. IG: @phxdownstudios, @johnscottengineer Book Ya Session Right Here: phxdown.simplybook.me/sheduler/manage ----------- The Golden Hours Podcast is the biggest Podcast in Boston and the official podcast of Golden Deer Productions. The podcast is run by Conor Holway (a great guy), and we try to show love to anyone making moves in the city. Season 4 is the season of Derek the Airbender... only Derek can save the world from the Fire Deer, do you think he has the W or na??

Welcome to the periodcast! Yep, today’s show is all about menstruation—the good, the bad, and the get me a frickin’ heating pad already. So grab your period product of choice, and join us as we get comfortable talking about the politics of periods, what it’s like to talk about your cycle at work, and why we refuse to keep quiet about this super normal bodily function. Our guest is Nadya Okamoto, executive director of PERIOD, a nonprofit she founded in high school that’s dedicated to turning menstrual care from a taboo topic into a basic right. She’s also the author of the new book Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement, which comes out October 16. > Eighty percent of our congressional positions are held by men. And if people in power continue to be afraid to talk about periods and do not acknowledge it as an actual need, then where it counts, periods will continue to go unaddressed. So that’s why we need people who don’t menstruate and people who identify as men to be involved. > > — Nadya Okamoto , founder, PERIOD & author, Period Power We chat with Nadya about: How experiencing housing instability as a teen led her to see what happens when people can’t afford period products Why PERIOD is on a mission to make periods something we celebrate, not hide Why she ran for Cambridge City Council at the age of 19—and what she learned in the process What it’s like to be running (and scaling) an international nonprofit at the age of 20 Links on bloody links PERIOD Nadya’s Instagram On Nadya’s city council run Pre-order for Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement Also on the agenda: Bringing up menstruation on stage Monster post-pregnancy periods The unbearable gender-normativity of way too many period-tracking apps The magical properties of heating pads Stop calling us “girls” already And finally: if you’re eligible to vote in the U.S., time to check your registration—your state’s deadline might be coming up in the next couple weeks, and you don’t want to miss all the awesome women you could be voting for in the midterms this year. Sponsors This episode of NYG is brought to you by: Shopify, a leading global commerce platform that’s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit shopify.com/careers for more. Harvest, makers of awesome software to help you track your time, manage your projects, and get paid. Try it free, then use code NOYOUGO to get 50% off your first paid month. Transcript [Ad spot]   Sara Wachter-Boettcher This season of No, You Go is sponsored by Harvest—my favorite tool for tracking time, projects and payments. Today I used Harvest to send a couple invoice reminders and to run a quick report on year-to-date payments. It only took two minutes and now I feel totally on top of things, or at least on top of that one thing. Try it for yourself at getharvest.com and if you like it, make sure to enter the code NOYOUGO when you upgrade to a paid account. That will get you 50% off your first month. That’s getharvest.com, code NOYOUGO. [intro music plays for 12 seconds] Jenn Lukas Hey, welcome to No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. I’m Jenn Lukas. Katel LeDû I’m Katel LeDû. SWB And I’m Sara Wachter-Boettcher. And today’s show is all about periods. Not the ones at the end of a sentence—although I do really like to talk about punctuation—today we’re talking about menstruation. And it’s one of those super normal things that we just don’t talk about enough. We are joined today by someone who is working to change that. She is Nadya Okamoto and she’s the founder and executive director of Period—a non-profit she started with a friend in high school that is dedicated to turning menstrual care from a taboo topic into a basic right. She is awesome! And I have to say, I freaking love talking about periods. I seriously bring them up in almost every conference talk I give, which means I bring them up a couple times a month. KL That’s so awesome, and I have to personally say I’ve seen you do it twice recently and I’m [laughs] so excited you’re doing that. SWB Yeah, so I remember the first time I did it, I was actually really nervous about it. It was 2015 and at the time I wanted to talk about things like bias in tech products. And I realized that period tracking apps are a really great way to do that because there’s so many assumptions about gender and sexuality in them around things like pink and hearts and flowers, but also things like assumptions that you must be using this app because you’re trying to get pregnant or trying not to get pregnant. And so I decided it was important to talk about this on stage, both because I thought it was a good example and because I was just like, “people have periods, we should talk about them! ” And so after that talk—I will tell you—people loved it. People came up to me, tons of people—definitely mostly women—and they told me that it was so powerful to hear me up on a stage just acknowledging periods as something that exist like it was a totally normal thing because they felt like that wasn’t something they had been allowed to talk about. And I was just like “fuck it, I’m talking about periods every time I get on stage now!” [SWB and JL laugh] JL Yeah, I mean I knew about period tracking apps, but I never really used one until I heard it in one of your talks and then I was like “oh.” And then I actually started using it when I was trying to get pregnant again. And also after you have a baby, your period is so irregular, so I was also just trying to have any semblance [laughs] of like what my body was trying to do. So I started using one regularly and it just was really helpful. And I mean I do have to admit, I really, really love not having my period right now, [SWB laughs] but of course that’s really going to come back to haunt me after I give birth and I bleed for possibly up to six weeks, which is really pleasant let me tell you. KL Oh yeah, that just does not seem like the appropriate treat [Jenn laughs] after having given birth. JL People don’t really talk about that part. KL Yeah. JL It’s like you skip a period for nine months and then it’s like [laughing] “hey! remember me?” KL Your body’s like, “hey, what’s up!” [laughs] JL [laughing] Yeah! SWB It just sounds so tiresome because you’re already exhausted, you have a newborn and then when you’re on your period, you’re losing all that iron, that just wears you out all by itself. And so the combo sounds deadly. JL Yeah. KL Seriously. I tried a period tracking app for a little while because a couple years ago, I wound up being off the pill for a little bit. But when I went off the pill at that point, I realized that it was the first time in twenty years that I’d been off the pill. And when I started having a natural period—which was all over the place and hence the period tracking app—I felt kind of sad because I was like “oh.” Like I haven’t really understood what my body is doing for this whole time, so it was kind of cool to get back in touch with that, but I also felt lots of feelings about it. JL I had started the pill really early because I had really irregular periods so before sexual activity or anything like that. And I had really bad cramps and once you change that, your body is like…it reacts! KL Yeah. I had no idea what to expect and I feel like when I went to my doctor and I said, “okay, I’m going to do this, I’m going to go off the pill,” they just don’t really tell you a whole bunch of details. They’re like “okay, it may do this, it may do that [laughs]. You may get lots of periods, you might not get any! [laughs] And it’s sort of like, why don’t we know this? [4:55] SWB And I think part of it is everybody’s body is different and who knows what’s going to happen, but then part of it is that a lot of women’s health stuff is just so chronically understudied— KL Yeah SWB —that nobody’s done the research to figure out what tends to work or what tends to be a good way for people to do this. I also went off the pill to get an IUD and I had been on the pill for a very long time and I had not gone on the pill because of cramps and heavy periods, but I had cramps and heavy periods. And I remember being sixteen years old or something and getting like nine-day periods. [JL sighs loudly] I know that’s no six-week, post-pregnancy period, but it was still awful and it was just very, very draining. When I mentioned it being exhausting, like that would wear me out, and I’d just be craving spinach and steak—[laughing] because I’d like need this iron supplement [JL & KL laugh] and so I feel like being able to have access to a range of different ways to lessen the impact of the period on my life has been obviously really important for me. Like if I had to go through these massive nine-day periods to this day, I think that it would be harder for me to get the things done I want to get done in my life! JL Yeah, I mean, but that’s the thing, right? Like who do you talk to about this? It’s one of those things you didn’t talk about. You didn’t turn to your friend and be like “hey, are your periods nine days also?” SWB I know, I talked to my mom about it and her periods were also really heavy! [laughs] KL [laughing] Ohh! SWB But of course—what do you feel like you’re going to do about it? But of course going on the pill helped me a ton, but now looking back on that, I think like, well shit, we should all be talking about periods a lot more—which is, hence, why I get on stage and talk to hundreds of people about periods. Because they’re just periods, right? They’re just a normal thing that a huge percentage of people have and it’s totally fine to acknowledge they exist and to acknowledge the part about them that sucks and also the part about them that’s really cool. JL Yeah, I won’t ever forget the time that I worked at Lockheed Martin. As you can imagine, it’s very business [all three laugh] and I was sick one day and my manager was asking me if I was okay or something and I didn’t want to talk about it, I was just having really terrible cramps and I just didn’t want to talk about it. And what I would normally do in that situation is like make something up like, oh, I don’t know, I had food poisoning or a cold. And then I remember finally saying like, “I’ve got my period and have really bad cramps” and he was like “oh, okay.” And I remember feeling so free! KL That’s amazing. I want to start doing that more and just being like “you know what? [laughs] I’m really crampy and I’m really not up to doing this particular thing right now.” SWB Excuse me, I need a no bullshit day— KL [laughing] Exactly! SWB —because I can not handle any bullshit. KL Can we just like write each other notes to get out of stuff for period cramps and period nonsense? SWB [laughing] I mean yes, although a part of me is like, I would so abuse the privilege. JL I mean I don’t necessarily want to get out of it—right—I just want people to acknowledge that I’m coming from like— KL Totally. JL —they have the Myers-Briggs test and these color tests and I just want you to know that my personality right now is period. [SWB & KL laugh euphorically] SWB Completely! KL You are so right, you are so right. SWB Well I mean if you had some other issue like if you had a migraine, for example, you could tell your coworker “I’m sorry, I need to be in a dark space, I have a migraine.” I think having really bad cramps is similar, right? Where you’re like, “I’m sorry, I just have really bad cramps right now, and it’s hard for me to focus”—it’s a totally normal thing to say if we just let that be a normal thing to say. KL Yeah, you’re totally right. And I was just thinking that I still—there’s always one day whenever I get my period now where I want—like all day it would actually be ideal if I could sit there with a heating pad. And I do it for as much of the day as I possibly can, but it’s like yeah, if we could just say, “this is something I need to do to like actually get work done today,” so. JL [laughing] Yes. SWB So I think clearly we have a lot of thoughts about periods, but there is a lot more that we haven’t even gotten into about some of the politics of periods and how people get access to period products and who pays for those and I think we should hear from our expert on the topic. JL Yeah, definitely. _[music fades in, plays alone for five seconds, fades out] _ Interview: Nadya Okamoto KL Maybe you haven’t picked up on it yet, but we’re always looking for reasons to talk more about our periods. But why do we have to look for reasons? Why can’t we just talk about them? We are going to ask our guest today that exact question. Nadya Okamoto is an activist and entrepreneur and she was sixteen when she founded PERIOD, the menstrual movement—four years ago. She did it after realizing that menstrual products are not reliably available to those who need them the most and we have so many questions about Nadya’s journey and what’s next for her, and we cannot wait to dig in. So, Nadya, thank you so much for joining us on No, You Go. Nadya Okamoto Of course, thank you for having me. KL Well, let’s start with PERIOD. Tell us what it is and what y’all do. [9:56] NO So, PERIOD—we are a global youth-run NGO that provides and celebrates menstrual hygiene through service, education and abbacy. And we do that through a number of different ways. We do it through primarily the global distribution of menstrual products to menstruators in need and we mobilize young people all around the world through our campus chapter network to push forward social and systemic change around periods. So, as you were saying, we work to change the narrative around periods to be something that’s more positive and normalized, while also pushing for systemic change towards menstrual equity. So in the last about three years, we’ve addressed over 300,000 periods through product distribution and registered over 200 campus chapters at universities and high schools around the US and abroad. KL Was there a moment that made you decide this is something I need to do? NO Yeah, so my passion for periods comes from a really personal place. I started the organization when I was sixteen after my family experienced housing instability my freshman and sophomore year of high school. And during that time my commute to school was about two hours long each way and my bus stop was in old town Portland, Oregon, where there are like ten shelters in a two block radius. And at that bus stop was where I actually became sort of accidental friends with a lot of homeless women who were there trying to go to their local shelters or just trying to [laughs] pass the day. And I think I was really curious about their stories, especially at this time when my family was on paper legally homeless and through hearing their stories of hardship, but then also sort of collecting this anthology of their stories of using toilet paper, socks, brown paper, grocery bags, and cardboard to absorb their menstrual blood and take care of their period, that I essentially became obsessed with periods and would spend my free time learning that periods are the number one reason girls miss school in developing countries, are a leading cause of absenteeism in the States for girls in school and about the sort of systemic barriers like the tampon tax that exists here in the US still. And so it was really after becoming obsessed with it, learning a lot about the issue, realizing that there weren’t really any non-profits around that were doing what I thought needed to be done that I decided that as soon as my family got our feet back on the ground, that I would start my own organization. KL This is so interesting to me because I feel like very specifically you talk about period hygiene and it seems like it’s one of the tenets of PERIOD’s mission. So why is that aspect so important and why is it a focus for the education part of what you’re doing? NO I think we really operate off of the idea that it’s a fundamental human right to be able to discover and reach your full potential regardless of an actual need, right? So we support menstruators feeling clean, confident and capable regardless of whether or not they’re menstruating. And I think that the word hygiene is very controversial in this space because it implies that menstruation is inherently dirty and we’re not saying that menstruation is inherently dirty, but we’re saying that when people do not have access to period products and they’re menstruating, it can be an unclean experience that can one, cause infections, can cause discomfort. Because of the stigma around periods, the shame around free bleeding or the nervousness about bleeding through your clothes or just people finding out that you’re menstruating can cause someone to feel less confident about seeking and reaching their full potential while they’re on their period. And that’s something that we’re really fighting. KL Related to that—how do you see the taboo of talking about periods manifest itself most in terms of that stigma? For example, when we’re at work, there’s been a long history of just you’re kind of trying to scuttle to the bathroom and hide your tampons or your feminine products and that just feels really shamey. How do we get past that and just talk about it more? NO That’s something we’re really working on as well. So making sure that we’re pushing schools especially—but also workplaces—to hold period products, make them available and make it known that they’re available. Being able to have a workplace where you can say, “hi, for all menstruators in the office, we have free tampons and pads in the bathroom,” because like—treat it like toilet paper, it’s something that we all have to do and that happens to us and that’s a healthy part of life that we should really be supporting. I think a big part is one, making it clear that people deserve access to period products and creating a space where people if they’re having cramps, if they’re struggling with their period, can feel comfortable talking about it. KL Does everyone want to talk to you about their periods? NO Um, no, but I usually push them to do so. And I will tell you—I think as a young activist, I get so much excitement and pleasure when I meet someone who doesn’t want to talk to me about their period and I push them to. Like I think every, single person in our chapter network in our team sees it as sort of like an exciting challenge to make people think about periods and realize the need for the menstrual movement. And I think that’s why we’ve been so successful. That’s why we’ve been able to grow so fast and so big. We’re now the largest youth run NGO in women’s health in the world and a lot of that is due to being able to convince people that they need to care about the menstrual movement very effectively. SWB So you said that you oftentimes find yourself pushing people who don’t necessarily want to talk about periods to talk about them, how do you do that? And is there a time when you’ve done that where you feel like it really changed the conversation? [15:05] NO Of course. I mean, we do it every day. We’re constantly meeting people who don’t want to talk about periods or haven’t even thought about it before. You know, our tactic is really being able to frame the menstrual movement as a small part of the larger movement towards gender equality, right? So being able to talk to people and say ‘if you believe in gender equality and global development or breaking the cycle of poverty or you call yourself a feminist, you inherently have to join our army of what we call [laughing] ‘period warriors,” right? We’re a movement of people who are fighting to normalize the conversation of periods because we can throw stats at you about how periods hold people back from equal opportunities in education and employment and if you really support equal opportunity in every field and support our achieving gender equality, it is an integral part of progress to be able to accelerate the menstrual movement. And I think that we’ve also mastered being able to combat ways people might challenge us. You know, we often get ‘oh, I get what you’re saying, but what about climate change or sustainability, or what about equality in sports?’ Like anything like that. And regardless of what people throw at us, I think we’ve found ways to bring periods into the conversation. So for example, with sustainability, that’s the one I get a lot. How do you prioritize periods when we’re really talking about the Earth and I can say ‘well, you know, the average disposable pad or tampon can take up to five to eight centuries to decompose and people are using tens of thousands of products in their lifetime, how can we open up conversation for more sustainable use of period management?’ Right? So I think that there’s ways that we’ve been able to find avenues to bring people into the conversation regardless of how they’re coming into it and I think that that’s been a big way Period has grown our movement. SWB You know, there’s a couple things in there that really caught my attention. One of them is this idea that there’s this what-about-ism, right? With every time you bring up one issue, it’s like ‘well, that’s not the biggest thing we should be worried about right now.’ And that’s such a derailing tactic I think is oftentimes—even if it’s unintentional, I think so many times that ends up derailing conversations where it’s like, well, nothing gets better if we don’t talk about it, and so if you create the situation where it’s simply undiscussed, then there’s no way to actually improve things for anybody. We’ve had guests on before who have talked about things like racism in the workplace and how reluctant companies are to even say the word race or to even talk about black employees and say the word “black”—they can’t do it because they’ve been trained that somehow talking about race is the real racism. The result of that, is they can’t put their finger on the actual issues, like how can you actually affect specific gendered issues—in your example—if you can not talk about what they are as what they are? So I really love that message of like, “it’s just a fucking period, talk about periods!” NO Yeah, of course. I think a big part of it is—we will tell people like, “do you know that in 36 States, there’s a sales tax on period products because they’re considered luxury items, but Rogaine and Viagra aren’t?” And I think that we bring up the tampon tax a lot because I think it’s such a clear example of misogyny in the US that people don’t really think about and take for granted and we say ‘we need to talk about these issues’ and in the US, less than 20% of our congressional positions are held by women. So whether or not you get a period, whether or not you identify as man, woman or anything in between, we all need to be talking about periods. KL So, I think I read somewhere recently that you’re taking leave from your studies at Harvard to focus on scaling PERIOD and speaking more, which is amazing. So what does scaling mean for the organization—you know—now and kind of as you look forward? NO As an organization, we have full time staff now, which is still crazy for me to think about and as an organization, we’re constantly thinking about how we can push deeper impact in our focus cities. Right now we have offices in Portland and New York City and interns at both places and remotely. And we’re continuing to figure out how we’re going to scale. Right now our focus cities for 2018 were New York and Portland and Boston and we’ve really scaled up our distribution there. But it’s making sure that we’re supporting shelters and supporting legislation in those areas and really deepening our impact with chapters. KL So, related to that, what has it been like to be such a young entrepreneur, but an entrepreneur in general? NO I think every day is a challenge and I constantly struggle with imposter syndrome and feeling like I’m not doing my job well, [laughs] but I think that that sort of insecurity is definitely what keeps me working really hard. I think one of the biggest challenges on a personal level is maintaining self care and confidence because I think that—I run into all the time people telling me that I’m doing my job wrong, or I could be doing my job better, or people telling me they disagree with what I’m doing. And of course we get a lot of support, but as a perfectionist, [laughing] those are definitely the comments I remember. And I think also PERIOD the movement is growing so fast, which is so exciting, but our resources are not growing at an equal rate, so a big challenge for me has been teaching myself and then learning how to do non-profit development when I don’t have a degree in non-profit or business management. So it’s been very much learning as you go. And I think the reason we have been successful thus far is because I’ve sort of adopted this mentality of being completely unafraid to ask for help, Google questions and admit when I really don’t know what I’m doing. KL God, everyone loves to tell you how they think you should do something from the outside. I have also learned this and [laughs] I feel like it’s extremely frustrating. Is there anything that you kind of felt surprised to learn along the way? Like something that has made you grow? [20:25] NO I’ve been really pushed to think about gender when I work on this. Like gender is a social construct because when I started this organization I started it to help homeless women and I wasn’t even thinking about—to be completely honest—trans identity and experience with periods for trans people. And it’s been through working on this organization, being called out by trans people about the need to be more inclusive that PERIOD has sort of become one of the leading organizations in being gender inclusive and that’s very much because I think for me it was a surprising learning experience to be able to take a step back and realize that I am not the person to be leading those conversations, but we’re building a platform to have conversations like talking about gender as a social construct and people who don’t identify as women but also menstruate. SWB We’ve talked about trans issues on the show a lot of times—both with guests who are part of those communities, but also with each other, kind of talking about how we’ve learned and continue to learn, right? Like still have a lot to learn when it comes to questioning things about gender and it’s so useful to say the way that you came to this issue is via these homeless women that you got to know, but that you’ve realized that it is not limited to that and it’s not limited to women and that you were able to kind of hear that and make that part of what you do. And I think that’s so hard to do in the moment—it’s so easy to go to that place of defensiveness like, “ugh, I mean well though, like don’t they see that I mean well?” And to learn that skill of holding that feedback and processing it and then choosing to do something productive with it is great. Was there anything that you found helped you learn to do that well? NO My biggest inspirations and the people who keep me extremely grounded are my mom and my two younger sisters. I think that it was very much my sisters and my mom who taught me to listen and know when it’s my time to take lead and know when it’s my time to empower others. And I think from a really young age I have always thought about leadership as truly being able to empower others to be leaders themselves and I think that that’s something I carry really deeply within me as we grow PERIOD and we’re not just about recruiting volunteers, we’re about recruiting chapter leaders and people to lead activism in their own communities. KL So we heard that you’re now also releasing a book about periods. Can you tell us about that? NO Yeah, so a few months ago—actually like last, oh my gosh, like last year in 2017—I signed with Simon & Schuster, the book publisher, to write Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement. It’s my first book and it comes out October 16th and I’m very, very excited for it. KL Congratulations, that is amazing. [laughs] SWB I want to ask some questions about the book, but before we ask questions about the book, can we just say, like, hell yeah, that’s so great, congrats! It’s so much work to write a book and you mentioned like, “oh my gosh last year.” Even that—that’s moving pretty fast. Most books take so long— NO Oh, I wrote it in like a month! [laughs] SWB Wow! What was that like? NO It was crazy, I was constantly behind deadlines. I missed most of my deadlines and my literary agents are incredible and were really the ones who kept me on track and then thank goodness some higher power might have been watching out for me, [laughs] but I ended up getting stranded at the Tokyo airport for 30 hours coming back from a speaking gig in Singapore and wrote half the book in my extended layover. So I think that it was definitely a hectic process. I don’t think of myself as a great writer so it was definitely a challenge of believing in myself, but my tactic was just I would say the words as I would write and I just sort of thought of me explaining to a little sister—or someone I thought of as a little sister—about their period and how I think that they should think of their period and what they should know about it, what they should know about the menstrual movement. And I would just write down what I was saying out loud. And that was sort of my strategy with writing. SWB That’s so cool. Was your audience for it as you were working on it—were you really imagining that being sort of like the younger sister, the younger version of yourself—is it really meant for teen girls and young women? NO Yeah, so it’s young adult non-fiction. KL Well, I definitely want to read it regardless. [laughs] NO My dream is for this to be a manifesto for the fourth wave feminism. Of young people using social media to mobilize thinking about feminism in a very intersectional way. But I want this book to be super accessible to people of all ages and of all genders and of all menstruation or non-menstruation experiences. [24:50] KL This makes me think of how, you celebrate periods a lot and I think that is so important. Like on PERIOD.org’s website, the team’s bios have a stat and it’s essentially ‘menstruating since’ and I—for some reason I loved that so much because I thought about when I first got my period and I was like, hell yeah. I’ve been menstruating for a long time and that’s really fucking cool. And it’s just this little thing that starts to destigmatize—and again—celebrate our period. How do you advocate that people start to do that a little bit more? NO The whole book opens with my own personal story of my first period about how when I got it, it was a really scary experience. But when I told my mom, it was a really happy experience because she was so excited that I was a woman [laughs]. And I think that for me, I talk in the book about how this is something that tells us that our body is growing and working. Like framing periods as something that’s like about growth. There is so much we can know about our bodies from getting our period. Whether it’s knowing whether or not we’re pregnant or—you know—knowing how our blood health is. Like anything like that. I think being able to frame periods as like—this is something that first of all—makes human life possible, but also, is something that is positive in many ways. Like the experience might be hard, you might get cramps, but at the end of the day, getting your period is something that should be celebrated. KL Totally. SWB So Nadya, there’s one other thing I wanted to ask you about. So earlier, you were talking a bit about how you really want people who have periods to have more access to information, feel more comfortable talking about it, and I’m curious what your thoughts are about people who don’t have periods and what their role is in the period movement. NO I always use the example of US congress. The movement can make noise about how we need to make access to period products equitable, how we need to get rid of things like the tampon tax and how we need to change society and change systems to advance the menstrual movement. We can say that as much as possible, we can make people care. At the end of the day, in order to do that successfully, we need to engage both people who have periods and people who don’t have periods. For the most part, people who don’t have periods are men, and we still live in a world where almost 50% of our world identify as men and don’t get their period and still even in progressive countries—quote, unquote progressive countries like the US—80% of our congressional positions are held by men. And if people in power continue to be afraid to talk about periods and do not acknowledge it as an actual need, then where it counts, periods will continue to go unaddressed. So that’s why we need people who don’t menstruate and people who identify as men to be involved. SWB Yes and—I don’t think that any of our listeners are in Congress probably—I don’t know if they are, that would be great, but—you never know!—but I do know that we have at least a good chunk of listeners who are men. And so men, if you are out there listening, learn to talk about periods. It’s not that hard! KL Yeah, seriously. Well and speaking of Congress, I want to ask you about in addition to running an organization with increasing visibility, last year you ran for Cambridge City Council. What was that like? NO It was one of the most terrifying, exhausting, but of course meaningful experiences of my life. I was constantly feeling under scrutiny, but I really believed in what I was doing, I had an incredible team and I was really passionate about the platform that I was running on. KL So you didn’t win, but you were nineteen and if you had been elected, you would have been the youngest and first Asian-American female city councillor in the city’s history. That’s badass! NO Yes. Well and it was really exciting! Actually, one of the most surprising learnings I got out of it was learning to be proud of my racial and ethnic identity. I grew up feeling really ashamed of being Asian and it was actually running that I first experienced extreme hatred for being Asian, but also a whole new level of support for being Asian. Because I didn’t know, but Asians are the fastest growing minority population in the US, but more underrepresented at every level of government than any other racial or ethnic group and that’s the same for media and politics. And so I think that it was an incredible experience of learning to be okay with myself and who I am, but it also taught me to be completely unapologetic about myself because every way I turned, there was always someone telling me what I was doing wrong or what made me wrong. KL Right, yeah, absolutely. What made you decide to run in the first place? NO For me, it was really the passion about housing affordability. It was me going on runs, being able to see gentrification in the city and then just wanting to learn more, get more involved, ended up with an 80-page word document of what I thought city council could be doing better and then when I started hearing jokes of “oh if you have so many ideas, why don’t you run yourself?” I decided to look up what it took to run. I saw that you just needed to be 18 and I was 19, so I sort of thought, “okay, I’m qualified” and went for it. KL [laughs] I was reading a Teen Vogue article that you had been interviewed in earlier this year and you talked about campaigning and the toll it took on you. You were understandably tired and exhausted and you also say you felt alone at points and didn’t feel all that confident. That sounds really fucking hard. How did you work through that? [30:03] NO I mean, I think that it’s something that I still deal with—I still feel very alone at times, especially when things start to ramp up. I got really close with my mom actually. My mom and I have always been really close, but it was an experience where I wanted to talk to my mom a lot more and I think she was the one that I would always tell I was feeling tired when I was really feeling tired. I think that support was really meaningful for me. KL I get the sense from following you on Instagram because we follow you and you’re—you’re wonderful [laughs and NO laughs] that you’re always inspiring folks with your energy and your creativity and your drive. What do you do if you’re the one in need of inspiration? NO I watch a lot of videos of Beyoncé performing. [laughs] I watch a lot of videos of Sean Lew dancing and I follow some incredible people that I really look up to like Alli Webb, the founder of Drybar. Like Blair Imani and Phillip Picardi of Teen Vogue, Elaine Welteroth—I really use Instagram as a place to just be inspired by people and I think a lot of it is—or what I’m inspired by—is people who give their all to what they do and also give us insight into their world of self care too. So, being able to see Beyoncé performing, I’m just always in awe of how much she gives herself to every performance. Like I have friends who aren’t big fans of her or her music, but I’m like, okay, you can not watch a video of Beyoncé and say she doesn’t give it her all, right? No person gets up on stage on tour for two hours at a time and just goes that hard, you know? And I think that I very much use that as inspiration especially when I’m on speaking tour—obviously not performing for as big of crowds or as often—but I sort of take that mentality of no matter who I’m performing, even if I don’t know anyone in the audience or I don’t know what organization I’m actually speaking at, [laughs] I give it my all and I get up on stage each time thinking, like, there’s someone in the crowd who what I’m going to say could really mean a lot to them. KL Yeah! Hell yeah! I think we—we can all benefit from channeling some of that Beyoncé energy and that drive and just—I really feel like you can feel it. Whether you’re watching on YouTube video or there in concert, it’s like—it’s, yeah, it’s very cool. NO I completely agree. KL So one last question. What is next for you and PERIOD? NO Yeah, I’m not going back to school for this year so I think I’m just going to be growing a lot of it and then we have PeriodCon 2018, which is our global conference. That will be in December in New York City. So it’s doing Period, really working on those and also I guess getting ready for my book to come out! KL Well, that all sounds amazing and we will absolutely be following along with you. Thank you so much for joining us today. NO Thank you so much for having me! [music fades in, plays alone for five seconds, fades out] [Ad spot] KL Hey everyone. Let’s take a sec to talk about our favorite topic: careers. This week’s focus is interviewing. To help us, Shopify’s VP of UX, Lynsey Thornton, tells us what she looks for when she’s trying to grow her team. Lynsey? Lynsey Thornton So I care a lot about bringing people into the team who are passionate about the problems we’re solving for independent business owners and who aren’t afraid of challenging us to be better. So that’s what I look for when interviewing at Shopify. What’s different in your company, project or team because of you? And that doesn’t always have to be a big thing. Maybe you were the first person to bring customers into your project process. Or perhaps you were the one who took the initiative to update your companies job descriptions so they were more inclusive. Changing things for the better, even the little things, shows not only that you care, but that you can act. KL I love this tip. If you’re looking for a new role, show your potential employers how you grow and hey, maybe your new role could even be at Shopify. Check out Shopify.com/careers to see their latest roles. [music fades in, plays alone for five seconds, fades out] Vocab Swap KL So girls, should we do a vocab swap? SWB Bleughh, girls! [all three sigh and laugh] KL It’s—why. It’s so terrible. SWB I have been called a girl so much recently. In fact, Katel, me and you—we were at the beach a little while back in the summer with two other women and literally all of us were old enough to be president [KL laughs] and yet, our Airbnb host—as he was showing us around this house—kept calling us girls.’ And I don’t know, it feels so infantilizing to me. It feels like nails on a chalkboard, I hate it so much. And I have been called a girl at the airport, at a hotel, I was at a farm stand buying some fucking tomatoes—I feel like I’ve been called a girl so much in the past month and I am so over it. KL I know, I am too. I mean, I feel like it’s probably not—you know—everyone’s intention of the person who’s saying it to infantilize or shut things down, but that’s how I feel about it. And—it just seems so flagrant. Like when you’re addressing a group of men, you never think to say ‘well, boys.’ [35:11] JL Right? Speaking of vocab swaps, there’s plenty of things to say. Women, ladies. I’ve always been a really big fan of ladies because I just think it sounds classy as fuck. [laughs and KL laughs] Just like ‘yes, I’m a fucking lady.’ SWB And I know not everyone loves the word “lady” either, but I do think it’s definitely—for me—always, it’s always a better option than girl. KL Yeah. JL I used to work with this man and he was not my direct supervisor, but I would hear him talk to the women that he worked with and he would call them over and he’d be like “girls, girls, come over here”—to talk about their designs. Like he was in an episode of Mad Men! SWB Super gross. JL It was like, every time I’d hear it—“girls, girls”—I would just vomit in my mouth and I was like, “this is the worst—please stop belittling them!” SWB Yes! I’ve heard some push back about this like, “well, what are we supposed to call groups of women in a casual way like we would say ‘guys’? There’s no equivalent to ‘guys,’ so ‘girls’ is the equivalent to guys.” And the reality is there isn’t really a precise equivalent to the term “guys”—which has its own problematic backstory—but it turns out you don’t even necessarily have to replace “guys” or “girls” with anything else. Sometimes you can just say “hey, how are you all doing tonight?” or “hope you all have a fun weekend,” right? You don’t have to say “girls” or anything to fill that gap in there, because there’s really not a gap. I think it’s just this assumption that you have to add some kind of gendered statement in there and…turns out you don’t! KL Yeah, the guy who showed us around the beach house, he could have just said, “here’s where the keys are.” [all three laugh] Still works. JL It’s like magic! KL So this isn’t so much a vocab swap for us, but it’s something I really wish more men realized and—you know—so just men listening, everyone listening, just please think about it, y’all! Okay? [all three laugh] JL So, fuck yeah to that statement! But that’s not even our fuck yeah this week, is it? FYOTW KL Oh gosh, I think I’ve got something. I know we’ve been talking about this for a while, we even talked to someone who is running for office—Liz Fiedler—early on in our first season. But with the midterm elections coming up, there are just so many women running for office and it’s fucking amazing and I just thought we should take a moment to look at who is running and just—I think it’s amazing, it’s so cool to see so many people. SWB Well, there’s a few that we’ve talked about in the newsletter, so folks like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York or Stacey Abrams running for governor in Georgia. But there’s so many other people out there who we are just starting to research! KL Yeah, it’s not just the first time we’re seeing so many women, it’s like then—these people running are breaking through all these firsts in their own areas. Like Ilhan Omar in Minnesota—she, in 2016, she became the first Somali-American Muslim legislator in the US and now she’s running for Congress in Minnesota, which is just amazing. And there’s also Deb Haaland in New Mexico and she will be the first Native American woman in Congress if she wins. And she is currently favored to win. There’s a lot of women currently favored and I think that’s just so fucking cool. [38:28] SWB I have recently been following this organization that is called the Voter Participation Center. And what they so is quote increasing civic engagement among the rising American electorate. Which they mean unmarried women, people of color and millennials. And so I think that’s really cool because obviously those are groups that I care a lot about and I care about making sure younger people, people of color and women of all kinds are able to get out and vote. So, they’re looking at stuff like which states are closing polling locations or if states are enacting legislation that makes it more difficult for people to vote and they’re also doing things like keeping track of when different voter registration deadlines are. So, I was taking a look at their site because it’s a little complicated. There’s online registration deadlines and mail registration deadlines for different states and so they have kind of done all of the math for you so you don’t have to read the thing that says ‘within 28 days of this, this has to happen’ and instead you can just kind of get an update on when it needs to happen in every, single state. JL That is so helpful. KL I know, that’s really cool. SWB It is very helpful. And I looked at it and I wanted to give a shout out to them because a whole bunch of states have deadlines in just a few weeks like in early October. The earliest one I saw is October 7th. And so if you’re a US citizen and you want to vote and you’re not 100% sure that your registration is current, I think it’s definitely time to double check because this is the time of year when you want to make sure that you are going to be able to get in and vote. And also if you know people like college students, people who are often really busy in the fall, maybe aren’t paying attention to this, this is a great time to check in with them and make sure they’re registered too. KL Fuck yeah to women on the ballot and to all of us going to the polls. I hope everyone does. So if you don’t need this list, please share it. SWB Fuck yeah! JL And that’s it for this week’s episode of No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. NYG is recorded in our home city of Philadelphia and is produced by Steph Colbourn. Our theme music is by the Diaphone. Thanks to Nadya Okamoto for being our guest today. And if you like what you’ve been hearing, which I assume you do because you’ve made it this far, [laughs] please be sure to subscribe and rate us on wherever you listen to your podcasts because your support helps us reach more people and keeps us going. And we’ll be back next week with another great guest. See you then! [music fades in, plays alone for 32 seconds, fades out to end]  

What is the single most effective - and least expensive marketing channel - available to all businesses? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, BirdEye Head of Marketing Sam Mallikarjunan shares why your customers are your best marketing channel and how BirdEye is developing a platform designed to help businesses leverage trust - via customer evangelism - at scale.  From his year's spent as "the face of HubSpot" to teaching marketing at Harvard to taking over marketing for BirdEye, a martech SaaS startup, Sam has gathered fascinating insights into what it takes to build a high growth business and the role that marketing plays in that process. Listen to the podcast to hear Sam's thoughts on leveraging customers for your marketing and to learn more about his plans for marketing BirdEye. Transcript Kathleen Booth (host): Welcome back to The Inbound Success podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth and today, my guest is Sam Mallikarjunan, who is the Head of Marketing for BirdEye. Welcome, Sam. Sam Mallikarjunan (guest): Thanks for having me. Sam and I recording this episode Kathleen: I'm excited to speak with you. You told me that this is going to be your first podcast since joining BirdEye, so I'm really excited to dig in and learn a little bit more about it and share that with the audience, but also talk about some of the things you've learned throughout your career because you have a really interesting background with many years at HubSpot, and you're doing some teaching now. I have a lot of questions that I want to ask you! Sam: I'm looking forward to it. It's been a weird ride, so we can go in whatever direction you want. Kathleen: Great. Well, why don't we start by having you tell the audience a little bit about yourself, and your background, and how you wound up where you are today. Sam: Sure. So my name is Sam Mallikarjunan. If you can't pronounce it, you can Google anything even close to it and you'll generally find me. For seven years, I worked at HubSpot, which if your listeners don't know, is a software company based out of Boston. For the last three or so years, I was teaching the advanced digital marketing course at Harvard University. And then for all of last year, as we discussed before we started recording, I lived in a van, both teaching at Harvard, and then also I was HubSpot's full time speaker. So I spoke in 49 US states and about eight other countries last year on a range of topics: innovation, and innovation marketing management, et cetera, marketing strategy. (to learn more about Sam's adventures traveling the world and living in a van, check out the "Sam from the Van" Facebook page) So now, however, what people thought would never happen is happening. They used to joke that we could change my name to "Sam from HubSpot," so that people didn't have to say Mallikarjunan. But no, I have left. I have left and taken over as Head of Marketing at birdeye.com, which is based in Dallas. So I'm moving from Tampa to Dallas, and I'm really, really, really excited because it feels ... First of all, we share some board members with HubSpot, so it's kind of similar in that way. But second of all, it feels like HubSpot did back in the early days. So I'm very, very excited. Kathleen: Oh that's great. So true confession, both times I've heard you say, "I lived in a van," in my head what comes up is Chris Farley. And I want to say, "Was it down by the river?" Sam: Many times it was down by a river. We posted on Instagram, everybody got their joke, ha ha ha, very funny. Kathleen: I'm sure it's not the first time you've heard someone say that. I'm not super original in that. Sam: In fact, if you bust out, "Do you like green eggs and ham," based on my name, between those two jokes, you'll have hit about 50% of the recurring jokes that I've heard in my life. Kathleen: Oh, I didn't even think of that. Sam: Yeah. Kathleen: Alright. Well, fascinating kind of journey to where you are. Can you share what was it that prompted you to leave HubSpot after so many years? Because you were there for a long time, and I mean, when I hear what you've been doing - you were Head of Experimental Marketing, you were the full time speaker - I mean some of those gigs sound like dream jobs. What got you to move on? Sam: So here's the weird thing about dream jobs, is that once you do it long enough, it becomes work again. And then also, I had an enormous privilege being at HubSpot and getting to work with and under some incredible people. HubSpot was the same size when I joined it as BirdEye is now, but I always had Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, the two co-founders. I had Mike Volpe, the former CMO, Kipp Bodnar, the current CMO ... I always had them to fall back on, right? It was never ... There was always a limit to how much damage I could actually do to the long term success of the company. HubSpot's huge now. I think it crossed the five billion dollar market cap rate, 2300 employees and something like seven or eight global offices. It's absolutely huge and to be honest, I could have spent the rest of my life at HubSpot and been absolutely happy. But what I wanted to see is if I could do it if I didn't have Volpe, and Kipp, and everybody else to fall back on. Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: So now I'm the Head of Marketing for a company that's the size that HubSpot was when I joined it, and if I fail I have nobody to blame but myself. HubSpot's always had this role where if you have good trust with your manager you should be able to tell your manager when you think it's time to move on. So Kipp, and Dharmesh, and everybody always said that to me, "If you eventually want to leave the company, let us know and we'll help you find something awesome." And so I did, about six months ago I told them that, "Hey, I really want to try and do this on my own." So I had a freelancer make me a list of 144 different start-ups in the U.S., post-Series-B, pre-IPO, either MarTech SaaS, blockchain or AI. I shortlisted those into three categories of pretty cool, really cool, and insanely cool. And then I got introductions, and feedback, and everything else from my bosses, from the people on the Executive Team. From those 144, I chose BirdEye. Kathleen: That's amazing actually. I mean, it says a lot, first of all, for HubSpot's culture that they've created an environment where you can go and feel safe saying basically, "I'm mentally getting ready to leave." That's a scary proposition for anybody, but I think it's wonderful that that environment exists there.  Sam: It's good both ways, right? Because it's a good retention mechanism. So I have turned down two formal CMO offers in the last several years, and many, many more opportunities and it's because they've made me really snobby. I would look at it and I would be like, "I bet Brian, and Dharmesh, and Kipp, between us we could find something even better." So it was never a surprise to them, it always gave them an opportunity to move me internally. Almost every time you see a job in the last five years that I've moved internally at HubSpot on my LinkedIn profile it's because Sam was thinking about leaving, and we figured out a way to make it better for me to stay. And, obviously, it's good for the employee, right? Probably the most interesting opportunities in my professional career was a couple months ago. I'm literally sitting at breakfast with my boss, texting back and forth with my new boss negotiating comp. Most people hide the fact that they're looking for a new job from their boss? My boss helped me negotiate comp. Which is good, because I had never heard of things like single option triggers and stuff like that. Kathleen: Yeah. That's amazing and it's also really smart on the part of the employer because, especially if you're talking about key personnel. I mean, really in the technology space any personnel it seems like is key, but particularly someone like yourself who's been there so long. You're the kind of person who's hard to replace, and so having that ramp or that runway to know that you're ready for that departure as an employer is really great as well. Such an interesting process that you went through. What an incredible opportunity to get introductions - warm introductions - to all those companies. Now you have me dying to learn more about BirdEye because I want to know what it is about this company that made it the one, right? I feel like you were on The Bachelor and there are all these companies handing you roses and you chose this one. Sam: Yeah. So first off, you're right. They functionally got six month's notice, so it was a little sad actually, by the time I left they no longer needed me because they had a replacement. So I didn't have that ... you know. I don't know, it was both good and bad. Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: Yeah, so BirdEye. There was a couple of things I was looking for, right? One was I wanted to work for a company where solving the problem was meaningful. What I loved about HubSpot in the early days was inbound marketing felt right. You know? The way the world was was that you made money by pissing people off. I used to train ... Those annoying people in the mall who try and sell you cell phones? I used to train them, so that was my background. But it felt wrong. I was never happy about it, the work that I was doing. Inbound marketing felt right. You should be able to build a big, profitable business off of creating an experience that people love on the internet and in all of your market. What I love about BirdEye was that it felt right too, which is - the website we're still working on, clarifying our value propositions - but the way that I think about it is if you're a world class dentist, or a lawyer, or autobody repair shop, or whatever, you should not also have to be a world class internet marketing professional. You should be able to just be good at your job and empower your customers with a framework that's going to help you grow your business. Obviously the opposite is true, which is that if you ask your local mechanic how they feel about the local big dealerships, they're going to say the work is subpar and overpriced. Same thing if you asked most dentists, or lawyers, or whatever the small business is. So I loved that bit of it, where every day I come into work, my team comes into work, the better we do our jobs, the closer we are towards shifting the world of business the way that it should be. I also just like it too because I love things that are unfair advantages that really irritate large entrenched companies. So for a hundred years functionally, the business growth has been about, "Can my Sales and Marketing team beat up your Sales and Marketing team? Can we just sell better than you?" In this day and age, I think as we've seen with companies like United, right - great Sales and Marketing team at United - but if you piss off the customers there's no defense from that anymore. Kathleen: Oh yeah. Sam: Right? So it's not this marginal battle anymore. Companies like BirdEye came and flipped the table over and it says that, "My community of empowered community fans can just obliterate your Sales and Marketing team." That's what I loved about it. So it was the mission, it was the brand. I mean, it's a MarTech SaaS company with executives that I love and it's a very comfortable fit. But for me, I wanted to do what Brian and Dharmesh and Mike did for inbound marketing, which is create that movement. I wanted to do that for what I honestly think ... We haven't finished defining it yet, but this has got to be the next wave in growth, right? The only thing that matters about you is how empowered customers are that like you. Because you don't want the only empowered customers to be the ones that don't like you. Kathleen: You know, it really resonated because you talk about doctors, and dentists, and lawyers, and people like that. I owned an agency for 11 years and I had many of them as clients, and the best campaigns we did - in fact we won HubSpot's first ever Client Campaign of the Year award back in 2015 for work we did for a LASIK eye surgeon. The reason it was so successful is, it was kind of like what you're talking about mixed with a little dash of influencer marketing. We found a guy that happened to have a really strong Facebook presence, and out of nothing but dumb luck figured out that he wore glasses, would love to have LASIK. We paired him up with a doctor, they agreed to do the surgery at no cost if he would just blog and talk about his experience, good, bad, or otherwise, there was no requirement that it could only be positive. He had a great experience; he went and vlogged, and blogged, and just spoke to his audience about it and that campaign far and away crushed anything else we've ever done. Especially with things like healthcare and attorneys, you really trust your friends and those people in your network so much more than you trust an e-book, because we did plenty of those too. But it wasn't the e-book that killed it for us, it was this guy telling his story and personally endorsing the doctor and the procedure that was the lightening in a bottle. So I can totally see how that's so important. Sam: Yeah, now the question is, can you do that 100,000 times, right? Kathleen: Right? Sam: Especially for local marketing, there's not always local influencers who you go to to determine what dentist you go to. For dentists it's funny, it's the old joke, it's a cliché. It's, "What do you call the person who graduated last in their class in medical school? You call them doctor." Kathleen: Right. Sam: So the only way that I, as a patient, or whatever, can tell the difference between Dr. A and Dr. B is what their patients say about them online. And yeah, we trust them way more than what people say about themselves. I think the other thing that's changed is the passionate relationship we have with certain brands. It feels new. I don't have data on this, but it feels super new. I love using Uber as an example, because Uber in 2011 was banned by the state of Massachusetts for 23 hours. It's the fastest I've ever seen government move. And it's not because Uber had a bunch of lobbyists then like they do now, it's because ... We literally got a phone call from the mayor of Boston's office at the HubSpot office asking us to stop slamming them on Twitter. It was a decision by the governor's office, not the mayor's office, and we just didn't know that. Uber got hundreds of people to show up to the Cambridge City Council meeting, which is used to a dozen or so people showing up. When I see that and I see things like what happened with United, or I see things both good and bad, communities of customers rising to your defense, or communities of customers tearing you down, there's something there. Kathleen: Oh, it's incredibly powerful. I was going to say Uber is a study in and of itself of both dynamics, like how it can go well and how it can go not so well. You said a word that I think is so important, which is trust. You know, one of my colleagues at IMPACT is Marcus Sheridan. I've seen him speak numerous times and he has this one thing he always says that I find so powerful, which is that, "Every company is in the same business, whether you're Uber selling rides, or you're McDonald's selling hamburgers, or whether you're HubSpot selling software." When you boil it down, they're really selling trust, because if somebody can't trust you they're not going to buy from you. Just like my campaign, even though we had an influencer, it's really no different than if I go on Facebook and ask my friends. It's about who do I trust, who's opinion do I trust? So it sounds like what you're building is something that helps you leverage trust at scale. Sam: I like that, "Leverage trust at scale." Kathleen: There you go, you can put that on the website. Sam: When I teach at Harvard there's a metaphor I like to use, which is about how all economists, of which business is a subset, of which marketing is a subset, have physics envy, right? In physics, I can drop this pen a hundred times out of a hundred, and it's going to fall and hit the ground. I can stand in Harvard Square handing out a hundred $1 bills and at least 20 people will make the irrational decision, they'll call me a "chowda head" and keep walking, right? We work in a profession where it's not this simple, "If this, then that, zero in one binary value," marketing is a social science, economics and all of business is a social science and the definition of social science is, "A science about which we are very uncertain." Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: The most important variable, by far, is exactly what you said, which is that trust. That's what separates us from all of the other professional disciplines, is our dentists, or lawyers, right? Whatever, they know there's something objectively true that they can work against. We have to work in an environment where that's never the case, things are always changing. The one constant is it doesn't matter how compelling the argument is, or how cheap it is, or how cool it is, whatever, if there's no trust that's the deal breaker. Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: Fell out of your hand while I'm standing in the square. Kathleen: Yeah. So, I would love it if you could talk a little bit about how you see this playing out for companies, whether these are dental practices, law firms, any other type of company in terms of trying to leverage trust at scale. What does that really look like and how does that manifest in terms of a company's marketing? And you using that at all with BirdEye or planning to use it at all? Sam: Yeah, well first of all, you should always drink your own champagne, eat your own dog food, whatever metaphor you want to use, so we definitely are ... That's really important to us because people want to buy from a company that sells to people like them. So we're not done with this yet, but you'll notice that soon, if you come to the BirdEye website from one of our dental ad campaigns it's all going to show you reviews and stories of dentists versus lawyers, right? That would be very different. I will say one of the cool things, again, about how this is like HubSpot was in the early days is you remember how easy blogging was back in 2011? 2010? Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: I mean, it was great. If you had a blog, you were light years ahead of the curve, right? If you were blogging frequently, you would win your market, right? I had a toenail fungus remover company, I had knee scooters, I had mortgage companies, if you just did the work, you'd be fine and absolutely crush it. Now that's really hard, growing your traffic, your acquisition engine off of blogging is really, really hard because it's a very crowded space. The good thing about reputation marketing, reviews, and leveraging your customer base like that is almost universally everyone is really bad at it.  The large companies, like T-Mobile sends me an NPS survey, right, which is one way to begin the conversation about leaving a review, and whenever a company does it I always give them a zero because I know I'm not going to mess with their data that bad. I want to see if there's follow up. If I send you a zero ... If I send you a 10, right, yes, I'm absolutely going to recommend you, you should send me a link. Say, "Hey, here's an easy way to do that." Kathleen: Right. Sam: If I send you a zero, I would expect that a company would have that mentality of following up with me to find out way. Almost no one does. T-Mobile, Verizon... you know, as much as I hate to admit, even at HubSpot it was still a very basic implementation of no, somebody gave you a bad NPS score whether or not they'd get a follow up. You know, if you do it at all, you're going to be in good shape. Asking your customers for reviews is still innovative as weird as that sounds. We don't feel that way because we see everybody moving in this direction. You and I see lots of people are talking about this sort of thing, but the vast majority of businesses and the vast majority of markets don't even ask their customers for reviews. If their customers say something negative, they don't follow up, and if their customers say something positive they don't use that in any way. They don't put it in their email. They don't put it on their website, they don't put it in their ads, so the- Kathleen: Why do you think that is? Sam: Well, you know, the bell curve of adoption, right? So you've always got the people who are the innovators and the early adopters who are going to try everything just because it's new, and they're worried about being second place, and you know, we just haven't got there with some of the technologies and behaviors that are new. Stuff like Bird Eye is new. How important reviews are may not feel new, but it's relatively new to the world of business. It's not been around for 30 years. The underlying concepts have, but the websites - Yelp hasn't been around for 30 years sort of thing. The other thing is that, you know, if you've read 'The Innovator's Dilemma' by Clayton Christensen it's a really great book. I have a different concept of the innovator's dilemma, which is that it's really, really easy to be innovative when things are going well, because you have lots of breathing room. It's really, really easy to be innovative when things are going really poorly. So like, when I first applied to HubSpot I didn't apply. I built hiremeHubSpot.com and ran ads targeting people who worked at HubSpot to register for the free webinar on why you should hire me. It's because I was a college drop out with no previous experience, so you know, when you have no chance of success it's easy to be innovative. It's the middle area where things are going okay, but if you mess up they could go off the rails really quickly where it's hard to be innovative, and that's where most of the world of small business is right now. You know, if you're a dentist or a lawyer, auto repair shop, whatever, you're running on pretty thin margins. You're having to fight pretty hard to get your customers. You're already behind the curve, because you don't know the highly technical things, like local SEO and PPC. You generally don't have a sophisticated understanding of the marketing engine behind that, and you don't have the luxury to be innovative, so that's, again, one of the things I loved about Bird Eye was we try and take some of the hard work out of that and make it a little more attainable. Kathleen: So focusing on reviews for a second, because that seems like it's a big part of this, you know, you want to get a customer to review you, and I've worked with different companies and talked to them about this, and you know, some of the times it seems like they don't do it because they're just afraid to ask. Other times, they don't know how to ask, so can you talk about what is the right way to ask for a review? How do you navigate that process in a way that doesn't seem too pushy and doesn't seem like you're placing too much of a burden on the customer? Sam: I mean, so NPS, the net promoter score, is sort of an easy cheat, because it asks on a scale of zero to 10 how likely are you to refer us to a friend or colleague. If they give you a zero through six you should follow up immediately, right? Sevens and eights are passives, and nines and 10s are promoters. You would really only tell the people who would give you a nine or a 10, "Hey, that's awesome. I'm glad you were happy. Can you share your story with the world?" Then, everybody who's less than that you would put them into a service remediation process, right? Just send a text message to the business owner or whatever you want to do to follow up with this customer because they're unhappy. I definitely think you're right, which is that people are somewhat afraid of the answer, because it is, especially for small businesses, highly personal. This is ... I put my blood, my sweat, and my money, and my risk and everything into this business that I built, and then to actively solicit anybody to say anything negative about it is hard. It's a hard thing to do emotionally. There's a humility in that, which is that you've got to know that you're never going to be perfect, and as we say here it's not about being the best. It's about being the best at getting better. We have a tool that tells you all of the things that your customers hate in a market. You can look at it just by your company or you can look at it by your entire industry. Kathleen: Oh, that's really interesting. Like if you're a dentist, is it the anonymized aggregate feedback from all the dental- Sam: Yeah. Cool thing about our industry is most of the data set we're working with is public, so I call it our blue ocean finder for the business strategy nerds who are listening to the podcast, because you can literally plot what's important to my customers and which competitors are bad at that? You can adjust your strategy accordingly. Also, on the more micro level you can say what's important to my customers that I'm bad at? What's important to my customers that I'm good at? Then, you make the decision. Do I fix the things that I'm bad at or do I stop doing those things entirely, or what, right? The exact same process you'd follow going through a blue ocean strategy canvas. Yeah, it's about listening but not just about hearing, right? It's actually listening and making change based on that. Kathleen: And what industries do you currently have that for? Sam: So the really good ones for us so far, the people who have been willing to take a risk, are people like dentists and lawyers and auto body repair shops. We're working on our own buyer persona exercise right now, so you'll forgive me. I don't have a nice "Marketing Mary" to show you like we had at HubSpot. The key variables for us are people who their customers don't want to be their customer, so like divorce lawyer, collision repair shops, etc. People for whom differentiation is very difficult, like dentists. And then people for whom the consequences of the decision are extremely severe, right? Kathleen: Surgeons. Sam: Surgeons. Well, wedding venues, that sort of thing, right? You mess that up you can't get that back, right? Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: So those are generally the three psychographic categories of businesses that we're looking at right now. Kathleen: Interesting. So for example, if I were to go on and I wanted to get that industry-wide view of what customers are and are not happy with, could I get that right now for marketing agencies for example or is there a certain pick list I need to choose from? Sam: I don't know if we have marketing agency ... We should. We have advertising and media as one of our categories in our database, but we're a startup, so you know exactly what that means- Kathleen: Oh yeah. Sam: -which is that odds are all of the data exists. It's just a question of if anybody has asked that question before. That'd be a fun follow up to do for the podcast.  Kathleen: I mean, I have a feeling I know the answer, but you know, you can't assume. It would be interesting to look. I'd love to play around with that at some point, so if you ever want a beta tester for agencies, you know who to call. Sam: Absolutely. Yeah. Kathleen: I think that kind of competitive intelligence is really interesting, and one of the things you said really struck me, which is that it's not just about understanding how to change your messaging and your marketing. You could truly use that to make very fundamental decisions about your product offering, your service offering, what you want to do as a company, you know? Do we cut certain services because we're just never going to be great at it and it's a huge pain point? There are some really interesting potential in terms of how that data can be used. Sam: We haven't even begun to tap into this, but you're right. It's the lipstick on a pig. If you're changing your sales and marketing but not changing who you really are, in 2018 you're going to be found out, and you're going to be found out because your customers are going to sell you out hard. Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: They're going to hop on Google, Facebook, and everything else like that and tell people that your marketing does not match up with the customer experience. I will say man, you're getting me excited here, because it is super fascinating. You know, when we think about the world of disruptive innovation and - forgive me for the Harvard jargon terms here, right - but you think about things like the extendable core, which is what's the thing that a business should lean on to survive the disruption of its market? The classic example here is, like, hotels, right? Have you ever stayed in an Airbnb? Kathleen: Oh yeah. Sam: Yeah, have you ever attended a conference in an Airbnb? Kathleen: No. Sam: Yeah, right? So there's some things that Airbnb simply can't do without adopting the same cost structure. Turns out they're really important. So business travelers, there's a reason Airbnb's never really nailed business travel. It's because of the standardization. You can look at what is important to the customers who are leaving me and what is important to the customers who are staying around? You can look at some of those mappings, and you know, if I'm Marriott hotel group right now, I'm not actually worried about spending too much time solving for the destination vacation traveler, right? I'm really focused on events. I'm focused on business travel. I landed here in Palo Alto at 12:30 in the morning, didn't matter. I walked into the Sheraton. I know exactly what the lobby looks like even though I've never been to this hotel. That's what I value. I don't have to think about it. Kathleen: Yeah, yeah. Sam: So yeah, you're absolutely right. There's a lot of interesting data that can come from the fact that we now have the ability to listen to our customers at scale and make decisions. Kathleen: I'm always struck by how many companies have that information - like have it in their hands, not just have access to it, but have been given it - and don't do anything with it. Sam: Most of them. Kathleen: Yeah, it's kind of shocking actually. Sam: So this is going to sound super weird I guess, but I don't work at HubSpot anymore, so I'm allowed to say nice things about them. HubSpot was so humble by the way that we never felt comfortable bragging about ourselves. You know, in DC they have the beltway syndrome, right? Everybody in DC thinks everybody else in the world sees things the way people in DC do. At HubSpot we had "sprocket syndrome," which is we thought everybody in the world was just as sophisticated in their concepts of economics and growth and business as we were, which isn't true, right? You know, things are changing so fast. What was the Deloitte research? The average life span of a knowledge stock, a competitive piece of information like a knowledge that you own, is down to like five years. Whatever it is you own that you're basing your business on, much less your career on, you can expect to be a differentiator for something like five years as opposed to we literally used to name our families after what we did. You were Smith, you were a Wainright, you made wagons, whatever. Now, it's like you can't even name your company after what you do, right? Like you know, it's hard to even have a job title after what you do, because everything changes so fast. The mechanisms for perpetual learning and keeping up with all of that, I just don't think most professionals and definitely most businesses haven't figured out. Kathleen: Yeah, you know, it's so funny that you just said that about the pace of change, because as I was telling you before we started, I just came back from a two week vacation, and I'm going to fly my geek flag now. On vacation, I decided to read 'Becoming Steve Jobs'. There's probably a lot I could have read, but for some reason I was really into that. And you know, I lived through the whole evolution of Apple. I'm old enough that I was working pre-Apple, but yet I had forgotten how quickly all of that happened - how we went from we didn't even have personal computers to "wow, we have a laptop," to "oh my gosh, now we have a little music player and iTunes," and then "we have phones that are full screen and tablets." I mean, rereading it was really both exciting but also kind of frightening. I have an 11 year old, and all I could think was "wow, I just have no idea what the future holds for him when I read this book." It's true. When I think about any business, you know, my company that I used to own, we were EOS practitioners, the entrepreneurial operating system, and they talk about having your long term plan. I don't know how you could ever have more than a ... You could have a three year plan, but it's going to change dramatically, right? I don't even know how you could have a five year plan anymore. It used to be when I graduated from business school it was all about the rolling five year plan. I just think that would be a piece of fiction today if I created it. Sam: Yeah. There's somebody ... I don't remember who it is. They had this great graphic of the pace of change, and if you went back to 10,000 BC you could bring somebody forward in time to 5,000 BC before they saw something that fundamentally challenged their world view, and then 5,000 BC, okay, to 2,000 BC and then 2,000 BC to zero BC. You're starting to see some innovation. Zero BC to like 1,000 BC, very different world. 1000 BC to 1500 - hugely different world, and now if you brought somebody from the early 1900s to just 100 years later it's nuts. If you brought somebody even just from the 60s or the 70s- Kathleen: Totally. Sam: -right just with no context, they saw everything new, this is dark magic, right? It's incredible. That pace of change is accelerating, and the virtue of planning is being replaced by the virtue of adaptability. Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: It is not nearly as important to me. When I'm interviewing people, for example, it's not nearly as important to me for most roles whether or not you have deep domain experience. What matters to me is your ability to comprehend new concepts that you've never studied before and your ability to adapt to change, because you know, it's a cliché that the only constant is change, but that used to be true, and now it is not only true, it is the defining characteristic of what life is for all of us. If you can't be adaptable, if you can't wrap your mind around concepts that you've never even been presented with before, you're not going to survive - definitely not in the world of business. Kathleen: Yeah, and the other fascinating thing that came out of me reading that book was Steve Jobs talked about how there's a difference between people who are focused on improving what already exists - which he kind of looked at as the Microsoft model - and seeing what doesn't exist but what is fundamentally needed. That's what obviously he saw as the Apple model. It's a really interesting construct if you think about it, because if you're only working off of the existing reality and looking to improve it, you can only experience change so quickly, whereas if you kind of forget about the reality and are able to think about what's not here that should be, all of a sudden you get these leaps and bounds that start to happen. That's a tough ask for a lot of people though. I don't think there's a large percentage of people that are comfortable in that realm. Sam: Yeah, I mean, if you do what everyone else does you get what everyone else gets sort of thing, right? Again, it's one of the reasons I loved this company is, for a century it's sales and marketing versus sales and marketing team, and now it's we're flipping the table and doing something new. I think part of that is the way that we grow up, right? We grow up not learning how to think but learning what to think. It's this graded progression, right? It's still amazing to me when people come out of college and they come into their first role and there's all these stereotypes about them needing positive feedback. That's because that's how they were raised, right? Like "I do the thing, and then I get this" - it's an "If this then that" sort of world. Kathleen: Everyone gets a trophy. Sam: Yeah, I study ... Not everybody just getting a trophy, but it's even the high performers, the exceptionally good people were told that the way to be exceptionally good, okay, you study, you take the test, you get an A, and then the assumption was you get a job, which everybody who's graduated college in the last five years knows that's not true. You know, and now we live in a fundamentally different world where we have to take everybody who grew up in that universe and teach them something new. We also need to start teaching our kids and future generations it is not about knowing the thing. It's about knowing the way to think and knowing new ways to think and processing it that way. When I'm in an argument at a bar, it's not a question of whether or not I can figure out who was batting for the Red Sox in the 1986 World Cup or something like that. I can just ask my phone that. What matters way more is that I know that I should ask that question and why that question's important. Some of the stuff, it's not as clear. It's not this logical, linear progression. Kathleen: Yeah, man, that makes parenting sound more intimidating. Sam: It is. I don't have kids, but good luck, right? Kathleen: I'm not convinced I'm doing a great job, so ... No. It's a lot to think about, and it's pretty overwhelming, but love the philosophical bent that this conversation took, because this is all really important stuff, and it's easy to sink into just talking about tactics, because marketers love that, and it's easy to say, “Oh, give me a 10 point checklist of the things I should do to be successful,” but a lot of times the reality really is it's not a 10 point checklist, it's take a step back and think differently. Sam: For everyone listening to this, if you ever come across a blog article that says "here's exactly what you need to do," that means that it has been codified to the point, like "10 steps to do whatever," it has been codified to the point that everybody else in your industry knows it too. Right? This is why it's valuable, because it's hard. It's because it's not clearly defined. I can't just write a roadmap for you, I don't even have a name for this movement, yet. Right? What's my inbound marketing? We haven't figured that out yet, but I can tell you it's important, and you and I know intuitively we believe that it's important, and the people who are going to grow by leaps and bounds, 10-X, 100-X, are going to be people who work with people like you and me to figure that out, not the people who wait to, you know, AOL still makes what, 20 million a year, or something like that off of their dial up internet subscription? Those sorts of people are not going to be the ones who are going to figure this stuff out, and are going to make that big change. Kathleen: Unless everything old is new again, and dial up comes back just like record players did. Kidding. You have all these years of really interesting experience at HubSpot. I mean, you were with other companies before that. You've been in marketing roles for a very long time, you taught marketing at Harvard. You're coming into this role at BirdEye, I would love to just hear a little bit about what are you planning to do with BirdEye, what's in your roadmap that you think is going to really help you achieve the goals that you set out? BirdEye's Marketing Roadmap Sam: Yeah. This isn't like the cool thing to say, but what matters most is the fundamental mechanics, right? We have to execute consistently over time. We have to build a team that's aligned very closely with an inside sales team. That's why I'm moving to Dallas, by the way, that's where most of the sales team is, even though we have a Palo Alto office. I'm building the marketing team where the sales team is. We've got to measure the right things. We've got to train and empower folks. We got to build just the disciplined cadence. That sounds easy. That is not easy, right? Making sure that people are aligned. Making sure that people can execute. Making sure that the right people are on the bus, because there are some people at this company, and at all companies who help them get from zero dollars to the run rate they're at now. But the people who are going to help you get from $30 million dollars to $300 million dollars are not necessarily the same people, and the people who are going to help you get from $30 million to $300 billion dollars, are not necessarily the same people. Making that transition smooth, making sure that you're recruiting people who are good fits, that's all the basics, right? The next thing that I wanted to do is this is a community play. We have to build a movement here. We have to build something like inbound marketing. It was such a moment of pride for me, it was actually 2015 on Google Trends the phrase inbound marketing exceeded the phrase cold calling. Kathleen: Oh, that's awesome. Sam: We won. It was great. We need to figure that out. What that is on our end, and we need to... Again this is the innovators, the real innovator's dilemma, is things aren't going bad, but they're also, we're not like 10-Xing for no reason, so it's how do we make the time, and make sure that everybody on my team is carving out that bandwidth to do the things that for lack of a better term are end plus one, they're innovative. Right? How do we have a podcast that tells the story of peoples' favorite customers? So I used to host an AM talk radio show, AM/FM talk radio show about cigars, right? Kathleen: I was sniffing around online, and I saw on your LinkedIn profile that you once worked for a company called cheaphumidors.com, is that right? Do I have that right? Sam: Yeah. This was before that, but yeah. Kathleen: I totally wanted to ask you about that, but we'll do that in a separate conversation. Sam: This was before that, but every cigar lounge, like Cheap Humidors is another good example, but every cigar lounge in the country, I joke, has somebody named Rex who remembers Cuba before the revolution. He's usually a great guy to talk to, you can sit down and have great conversation, and what we are selling is that kernel, that relationship between the business owner and their favorite customer. That is just storytelling gold. Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: Right? We've really got to nail that. We've got to know the strategy better than everything else. On Cheap Humidors, by the way, don't judge me, because back then exact match domains were really important, so if you googled cheap humidors ... Kathleen: I was going to say it's probably a domain a lot of people would like to own. Sam: Yeah. Now, I mean, with RankBrain and everything it's more about the conceptual topic extraction from the search engines- Kathleen: Right. Sam: And stuff like that. You could call yourselves reallylowcosthumidors.com and somebody googles really low cost humidors they're not necessarily going to find you. Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: Marketing - it's hard. It used to be easy. Well, it used to be way easier. The problem is, is now we've got brilliant people, who their minds are working against yours, and you're really fighting, you know, at least if you're following the old sales and marketing team versus sales and marketing team you're following this optimization, this game of inches, sort of thing, and it's hard. I can't do seven eCommerce applications of LOLcats any more - it's one of my favorite articles I wrote. Kathleen: It's hard, but I've got to tell you, in some ways I think it's great for smaller businesses, because when it wasn't so hard, when you could game the search engines, you could basically buy your way to the top, and that favors people with deeper pockets. You could never compete against them. I feel like now, if you're willing to put in the elbow grease and really create awesome content, you have a shot, and that's a matter of time. Granted, time is always at a premium for everybody, but in some funny ways there's a little more of an even playing field than before, but I could be wrong about that. Sam: Not to sound too self promotional, but again there was a reason I chose to work for this company, all of the arch of history has bent - business history at least - has bent towards doing the right thing, being more profitable, right? You could never run a business model now based off of the horrible things that people used to do back in the day. The way they treated their workers, for example, much less the way they treated their customers, or their competitors. The cool thing is companies like Google - whether we like to admit it or not - have forced us to do better marketing. Doing the right thing is now good business. Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: And that feels great, right? Because when I talk about T-Mobile, I could do that sales pitch in Spanish, even though I don't speak Spanish, right? Because it didn't matter. I didn't care what you were going to say back to me, you were either going to sign it or you're going to walk away, so it didn't matter to me that I understood what I was saying. I didn't feel good about that, right? It was just the best way to make money at the time. Now, like creating a good value-added inbound experience is the best way to make money, and that's again what I love about this company, which is the best way to make money should be being good at your job, like serving customers well, and I think all of the weight and inertia of the history of business is driving us towards this point, where whether it's Google, whether it's Yelp, whether it's Facebook, or whatever, you're going to have to solve that bit, or you're never going to succeed in business. Kathleen's Two Questions Kathleen: I want to ask you my favorite two questions that I ask everybody, because I think you've given me the perfect segue into it, and we've talked about how to be successful in business these days you have to right by your customers. When you think about the world of companies, and brands, and even individual marketers out there, my usual question is, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well, but I'm going to put a little twist on that, and say, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well by virtue of how they are kind of nurturing, and building, and leveraging that trust with the customer? Sam: Yeah. HubSpot does a good job, that's way to softball of an answer. You know what I really love, and this is one of my favorite business models in the world, is Netflix, because Netflix has scaled the relationship. I've rented more than 900 movies through Netflix, and I do that because I know that every time I give them that information, they're going to listen and use that to make my experience better. If the internet is about bringing together some of these groups of people with similar interests, Netflix does that beautifully, because it figures out, "Hey, listen, like you like Star Trek, I like Star Trek - people may not put the two of us next together on a demographics sheet, but Netflix will put us back together." The more information we give it, the more valuable that relationship becomes. I actually couldn't leave Netflix now, like let's say you launched your own streaming service for a $1.00 a month, I still wouldn't leave Netflix, because there's so much value in the history of that relationship that I have. They're probably my favorite from the customer delight, and customer retention perspective. From the actual using your customers to grow, Apple is still amazing, because there's three things you can never talk about at a party or at an office. Right? Politics, religion, and PC versus MAC, because no one can have a rational conversation about that, and - Kathleen: Or jiffy versus giffy, at least in our office. Sam: Whoa, that's true. You start talking about MAC, and the MAC fans will just like, they're so passionate, they're so ravenous. Right? And Apple actually does a pretty good job of leveraging those evangelists. So do companies like Uber. You know Uber grew enormously fast, because I told everybody to take Uber, you know, companies that did not have that like Lyft, Lyft started about the same time, if not slightly before Uber, but what they never nailed was that customer evangelism piece, and so that's why Uber managed to outgrow them. Those are some companies that I think do it right. Kathleen: Yeah. Those are great recommendations. You also touched on the fact that marketing is changing so quickly, and that you look for people who are able to keep pace with that change, and are able to embrace, and quickly learn and understand new concepts. Given that pace of change, how do you personally stay up to date, and educate yourself on everything that's happening in the world of digital marketing? Sam: Yeah. That is a difficult question, which unfortunately has a difficult answer, which is that we are, especially in this day and age, like our own businesses. My fathers generation, my grandfathers generation, could expect to work for one company their entire life, get a pension, and move on. We have to think about ourselves as businesses. We're generally not going to stay with the same company for our entire lives and then get a pension, and whatever, which we define ourselves that way. We have to start thinking about disruptive innovation the same way they do. There's a few core characteristics of that. One, is get ridiculously good at defining the value you bring. We call this the "jobs to be done framework." Henry Ford had the most famous quote, if he'd ask his customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.. Obviously he didn't found the Ford Horse Breeding Corporation. He founded the Ford Motor Company. Kathleen: That goes back to the Steve Job's thing- Sam: Yeah. Kathleen: Find the thing that's missing. Sam: Right now, if I asked my boss what he wants me to do, he's going to say, “Drive more leads for the sales team.” That's not really what it is. Right? That's not the value that I bring. The value that I bring is the coaching, and unique perspective, et cetera, so I have focused not on the tactics of marketing, but I'm focusing, and I'm ridiculously good at coaching, and ridiculously good at strategy, not, and that's sort of self disruption. That self disruption is the next piece, so you define your value, you need to be really, really paranoid. The best companies, like HubSpot Labs, for example, are those who are continually investing in testing whether or not they can provide more value for their customers than the core model. So the free version of HubSpot, right? For example, we knew somebody was going to do that eventually, and it might as well be us and not some random nerd out of MIT's basement who does it, don't fight, it's uncomfortable, but don't fight the change. Lean into that change, and be very, very, like... get comfortable with change. The value that I'm adding to business right now is probably not going to be, as you said, the value that I'm adding to five years, it's going to be something different. We have to be comfortable with that. Now, the flip side of that is adopting this mindset of continuous learning, which is, I hate when people ask me for book recommendations, because very rarely do I feel you have to read the entire book to get the point. Kathleen: Yeah. Sam: And it's way more interesting to me to see specific blog articles, like send me the three most interesting blog articles that you've read in the last six months on recruiting marketers. You could probably do that, and that would take a shorter amount of my time, and add more value than you telling me to read random books on hiring. That self selection comes from joining communities, not from going and getting a degree, not from trying to read a book a day, or something like that, but from joining communities and asking those hard questions, and never being afraid to ask stupid questions. That is my greatest pet peeve. We saw this on inbound.org, so I ran Labs, which built inbound.org, HubSpot's community site, people never wanted to use our "Quora for Marketers" that we built because they were terrified of looking like they didn't already know the answer, those are the people who are going to find it very hard to have long successful careers. The fear of asking stupid questions is how company's are killed, the fear of asking stupid questions is also how careers are killed. Where to Find Sam (and BirdEye) Online Kathleen: Yeah. That's great advice. Wow. There is so much to think about, and this was really fun. I'm so glad I got to be the first person to talk to you about BirdEye, and excited to check it out myself, and hopefully learn a little bit more about what people do and do not like about marketing agencies. If somebody has a question, wants to followup with you, and learn more, what's the best way for them to connect with you online? Sam: Again, if you Google anything close to my name you will find my website, my Twitter, my LinkedIn. I answer every website inquiry, every tweet, every LinkedIn message. Before you do that, if you're going to ask me for an opinion on something my one favor that I would ask you go check out the BirdEye website, and try to do something. I'm not trying to get you to buy here, what I want you to do, though, is play around with it, see what things break, see what things are interesting to you, and then let's talk about that, too. We're a startup just like HubSpot was back in the day. A startup is a temporary organization in search of a repeatable business model, so I want feedback from you all now that I don't have Kip and Volpe and Dharmesh and Halligan, and everybody else to hide behind. Yeah. Definitely, please do that, and reach out to me if you want. I'd love to talk. Kathleen: All right. Awesome. I'm going to put all those links in the show notes, so that if people don't know how to spell your name they can just go to the show notes, click the link, and find it, but we'll also of course put links into BirdEye, so that they can go and try to find all the bugs, and expose the weaknesses, and then make that the platform for their conversation with you. Great. Thank you so much, Sam. I really appreciate it. If you are listening, and you found some value in today's conversation, I would really appreciate it if you consider giving the podcast a review on iTunes, or Stitcher, or whatever platform you chose to listen on, and if you know somebody doing kick ass inbound marketing work tweet me @workmommywork, because I would love to interview them. Thanks again, Sam. Sam: Thanks.

Julian Clover brings the overnight results from the Cambridge City Council elections. Matt Webb has reports from The Guildhall and political blogger Phil Rodgers reviews the outcome.

As a city council member in Cambridge, MA, Quinton Zondervan advocates passionately for sustainability, affordable housing, and clean transportation. He loves what he does and it shows. Listen in to hear Quinton’s take on innovating public policy, the yin and yang of policy and entrepreneurship, and how motivated young people can make a difference. Learn more about Quinton's work as Cambridge City Council Member at https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/citycouncil/citycouncilmembers/quintonzondervan

Held on December 7–8, 2017, the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative (RLPI) seeks to consider how religion is embedded in both constructive and antagonistic approaches to immigration, especially with respect to work undertaken by (or in collaboration with) governmental agencies. Shaun Casey, MDiv ’83, ThD ’98, gives the keynote address at the Religious Literacy and Government Symposium. Nadeem Mazen, Cambridge City Council member, and Diane L. Moore, director of the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School, respond. Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

In 2012 Cambridge City Council advertised for potential members for a new cohousing scheme on a plot of land within an existing development. Chris Wilson was struck by the idea of building a consensus based community and is now Chair of the K1 cohousing group. He talks to us about the processes they have gone through to get the scheme to its current stage. Check out the show notes for more information.

The Young Jurks, Saturdays, 6pm ET Live on WEMF Radio, 2/20/2016 episode hosted by Mike Crawford & Lauren Pespisa with Guest, Paul Rifkin charged for trespassing in protest of the Plymouth nuke power plant. Later in the show with Ellen Brown and Rhodes Pierre joining them, The Jurks discuss presidential politics, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Howie Carr, Bernie Sanders and also the recent Crawford DigBoston GOLDMAN SACKS story of patients protesting the opening day for Patriot Care's medical marijuana dispensary. The Jurks also promote Wicked Good Causes and a Cambridge City Council hearing for the Sage Cannabis medical marijuana dispensary.  https://www.facebook.com/events/1001714806562872/ http://wemfradio.com/2016/02/20/young-jurks-2-20-16/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theyoungjurks/support

As inhabitants and visitors of the city will know, in the heart of Cambridge there is a group of urban residents who are strangely out of place in a 21st century British city. Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of meeting these urban residents in the city centre for the first time, a group who are the pride of Cambridge. What makes them so strange? Well, they are a herd of free-roaming cows. In Summer 2021, Cambridge City Council have launched a ‘spectacular public art event' Cows About Cambridge in the city that has seen tens of sculptures placed across the city in a ‘trail,' encouraging people to rediscover the city after the isolation of the pandemic. In this PlaceCloud Essay, I am taking you to Cambridge's urban commons to meet some of these cows, both actual and artistic, exploring how the city is grappling with urban residents as both objects of pride and subjects of violence.