Podcasts about innovatorsbox

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Monica Kang, Founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox and Author of Rethink Creativity. Monica and I talk about some of the obstacles and opportunities around creativity. And how individuals and companies can benefit from enhancing their curiosity, creativity, and courage. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help the new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.Interview Transcript with Monica Kang, Founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox and Author of Rethink CreativityBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Monica Kang. She is Founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox and Author of Rethink Creativity. And also has a children's book called Have You Seen My Friends? So welcome to the show Monica.Monica Kang: Thank you for having me. Brian Ardinger: One of the things that we do in our Inside Outside community is ask our audience out there, who should we be talking to? And what are some of the interesting things that you're seeing out there? And somebody said, hey, you should talk to Monica. I think the first question I want to ask is probably a softball for you, but why does creativity matter. And why does it matter more today than ever before?Monica Kang: I'll start with maybe the notion of, I feel creativity is one of the words that we don't realize how much of a jargon it is. Because we use it so much. We say like, oh, you're creative. You're not creative. Or like, that was creative. That was innovative. We put in our marketing materials. We put in our campaigns. We put it in how we describe things.But if you really break it down, like, do people really understand or live the value that what it is. I think that was part of the reason why when you go back to why it's so important to talk about this is actually because of that. Because we use it all the time, but so many people don't realize the root and the nuances. And hence, don't realize this is jargon, that we're just keep throwing it around without the full intention. And so, I first fell into it because of that very situation. I was originally in nuclear weapons security. Government work. Wanted to be a diplomat all my life. That having grown up in DC and in the States, as well as in Korea and worked in Europe. And, you know, hey, I'm not comfortable with science and math. So, this sounds like the perfect path. And like, I love people and building relations. And so, I was good with a lot of things, but like creativity, wasn't really a thing that I would describe I was good at. Even though now looking back, I realize I had. And only until when I find myself really getting depressed and stuck in a dream job where I realized that I was finding myself literally crying to work, feeling upset, not knowing what to do in a job that I fell in love with. And I'm like, what is wrong with me? Like I'm solving a very important mission. Mission-driven. Preventing bad guys from having nuclear weapons. We're working in the government. It's really hard to get into this industry too. And yet feeling stuck. And what helped me gave the courage of, you know, walking to work instead of taking the bus to work. Getting curious about all these different surroundings. And realizing how one life decision can make a huge difference. Because now I felt so curious in the office got even more energetic. Even though the work description hasn't changed at all. It got me curious about understanding about, well, what happened. And people did ask me like Monica, whatever you're doing, you seem happier. And that's where I realized creativity was one of the key elements.I didn't know back then, but it was the mindset of simply doing something different. Finding the courage to take different things. Try different things. Ask different questions. Even organizing my process of the project differently because as I looked at the traffic in the fourth street every day, I'm like am I creating traffic in the way I do things unconsciously. Just like how there's always traffic here. Like at this time? What do I need to do differently? And getting curious about it. And that's where I learned that comment that I started the beginning. That question of creativity, innovation. There's so much history and research behind it. That I had no idea. And because we throw around the word and use it so much, that I misunderstood what it meant.And I didn't know that it was for everyone. I didn't know that something that we can all do more. And regardless of where we are, it expressed differently. And I think it's even more needed now because of the pandemic. Brian Ardinger: Oftentimes I think the perception of creativity is it's some kind of magic. Or it's something that other people do. Or, you know, some, other people can possess that, but I can't do that. So, this idea of creativity not being magic. That being every day and available to anybody to possess or use, talk about how you identified that little nugget and what are some of the tactical things that you do to bring out that magic. Monica Kang: So, I love that you said it. Because immediately one book that I'm remembering, it's about daily habits. And I was mindful because I'm like, wow. So, all these creative, innovative historical people around the world, like they had to work hard to be a better writer. What, like, they didn't just magically write that book. And like became a best seller. And like, no, they had to write every day. The musicians had to write music every day. And I'm like, wait, if that's how it is.Like I wonder in the traditional non art industry, how they do creative. Of course, same thing. I think of new ideas every day. They had to try new things every day. Get rejected every day. And I'm like, oh my gosh. I mean, even the story of how WD40 product came about. Are you familiar with the WD40 products? So, it's that spray, right. You know why that name is called WD40. Brian Ardinger: I do not. Monica Kang: The reason why they named WD40 for that product was not a coincidence. It means water displacement, right? 40. Which indicates that it took 40 times to perfect that formula. Brian Ardinger: Ah. I hadn't heard that story. Monica Kang: How often are we willing to try 40 times. Hear 40 nos. Before we get to that yes. Not a lot. And I think that brings a weight. Hence to that question of what can we do every day, is that it's building the routine. As I learned about these daily routines of all these famous people of what they've had to do every day. Learning about stories like WD40, that how many attempts that people had to try.And my day-to-day activity, that means that I need to just make it a routine of constant learning and trying new things. And so, one activity I always share as a recommendation is like, what's a five minute time that you can always block to do something different. Or to do something intentionally differently.So maybe it's that, okay, if you always commute somewhere, could you try a different commute, maybe at least two or three times when you're not in a rush hour. Maybe you take a different path. Maybe it's that you take the same commute, but you'll listen to different music. Or maybe you'll listen to different podcasts. Maybe you're going to listen to this one time and then another podcast. Maybe it's that you actually take a silent ride sometimes. Just like Pink. Even though that looks like a naive, like how is that going to make me more creative? By making that simple decision, you're letting your mind wander in different ways. And explore different things. Which gets into the practice of thinking differently. Which is the essence of creativity to get to innovation and all these new ideas.So, to get to that WD40 product, they probably had to do a lot of that, somewhat unorthodox, like somewhat unexpected things that led to that 40th idea and innovation. And so, the key of those different elements is that you have to make it a habit. And it has to also be celebrated and enjoyable, but that's why I shared the tip with like, find a routine in your day.That you can do easily. That it doesn't feel like I don't have time to do that. I don't have time. Think about your exercise. Think about your sleep hours. Hopefully everyone's sleeping well. Sleep routine, like things. When it's built-in routine, it's a little bit easier, but then you can commit and see the change over time.Brian Ardinger: I use a similar technique called Scheduling Your Senses. So, each week you think about what sense do I want to focus on? So, this week I'm going to focus on taste. And I'm going to really focus, you know, a particular time period on what I'm tasting. How does that make me feel? And so, each week you pick a different sense that you want to do, and, you know, it comes down to, like you said, changing your environment. And getting you out of the normal rut that you have. You mentioned one of the obstacles to creativity is this idea of fear. And you know, when you think about WD40, having to try 40 times. You know, I'm sure they didn't go into it saying, hey, we're going to fail 40 times. Or going in with the mindset of I'm scared that I'm going to have to try this 40 different times to get to a solution. Talk about fear and the role of creativity. And how we can overcome that fear. Because I think that's one of the major barriers to creativity. Monica Kang: I think fear is unavoidable. But I think some of the mis-notion we have is that everything always has to be fearful. And I think that's where we miss the chance to celebrate what that growth stage looks like.The act of doing something different, sometimes doesn't always have to be fearful. Me listening to a different podcast, not a fearful thing. But I'm learning new insights. Me focusing on different senses might not be fearful. As it gets to certain decision-making of like, oh, because now I focused on the taste, I realized the way we're cooking right now in this kitchen is actually not good.And I need to tell my boss about it. If the customers are unhappy. That's where the fear encourages decision is. And so, I think when we asked that question, I think we see innovation, creativity in this box of like, okay, we got to think of this new idea, and we have to present it. But actually, even before we get to that stage of fear, there's all these other elements that we built resilience and skills of thinking differently that got us there.And so, the tip that I often share is like first recognize that being creative is you got to pass the fear bridge. But when you're there, remember that, hey actually even the parts to get there, there was a lot of courage into that. And you might not have realized. It might just not have looked as scary as that bridge you're about to cross, that looks really scary. But it wasn't as easy as you thought. And actually, that street that you look back, if you turn around and literally look back at those moments, that became not as scary, because you actually built resilience. There's hemisphere of how much you can experiment has grown so much that it becomes less scary. And in fact, when you cross this bridge, now I'm going to have to tell my chef and my boss about this big, scary decision. Now, the next time you need to do that, it's no longer being as scary. So, our horizon of what we feel we can continue to do will change and evolve, which I think is the part that is so fun to realize that creativity innovation mindset, just like our physical health and muscle is not a static thing. It's going to continue to evolve. Right. Just because I exercise every day, doesn't mean that I'm healthy and I'm done. I can be even healthier. I can be more cautious and same thing with my creative thinking muscle. And think those are the nuances that we miss. Brian Ardinger: I like where you're going. You know, it's almost about how do you reframe the journey from if you think about a particular project and you think about this big project is going to make or break my career. Versus approaching it from the standpoint of like, hey, I'm going to try and experiment. Or I'm going to do this side project. And positioning it in such a way that it frames it differently so that the things that you do learn and that when you do fall down, which are inevitably going to happen. It changes the way you perceive that falling down as part of the journey rather than the journey and the outcome of the journey. Monica Kang: And one thing, Brian, if I can piggyback on that. I share this actually my book Rethink Creativity as well. That, you know, the thousand shades of fear, because one thing that I think is also key is just because I might not be scared of a certain decision, does that mean another person will feel the same way. And I think that's what's actually part of the fear. We need to talk more. And especially as leaders, many of those who's probably listening. You might actually already be here and listening to this episode because you're already pre actually pretty good with it. You're like, no, I've got a good handle of fear. What might be actually harder is actually encouraging your different people. Encouraging your different colleagues. Noticing that like wait, checking ourselves to let when that person says that that's a scary decision, am I actually empathizing and sitting with them. Or coming from the nose up and say, look, yeah, no, don't worry friend. You're going to be fine. That's not scary. And amplifying actually how we feel. And so, fear comes in different shapes, sizes, different times. Actually, the very thing that I might not be scared with one person could be the very thing I'm scared with another person or in another situation. And so it's ever changing.And so, by us having aware. Having fear simply means that we have the alertness. There's a reason why as human beings, we survive, right? We were fearful of the weather conditions. The animals attacking us. Got to protect ourselves. That's actually how we were able to thrive and still exist as an, you know, a being. So, fear isn't just always a bad thing. It's helping try to kick in to protect you. So, look out for these different cues. And I think especially as leaders, it's so key that we don't just simplify. Get rid of your fear. And like stop being fearful. Can we take the time to process it? We need to actually acknowledge all of that and actually ourselves too. Brian Ardinger: So, let's dig into that a little bit, you know. How do you design this creative workplace or workplace for all? You know, how does diversity affect creativity and how are you seeing some companies tackling that problem from an organizational perspective versus the individual perspective?Monica Kang: Well, let's first start with diversity. I think I'm really excited about going back to your very first question. Why so timely to be more creative. And I think the time is even better. We are now seeing more research. People are more aware. People want to learn. More honestly, as somebody who's specializing creative workplace building, it is an exciting time because more people are wanting to have those conversations and say help. I do want to do this. I don't know how. And so, I want to know that this is really timely because no matter what stage you are as a leader, wanting to do this. That you making a commitment and taking one step at a time is part of the thing that will help change the company. So even if that simple decision is that we're going to start doing some one-on-ones. Or we're going to start doing some team building activities at the very beginning and check-in. Actually, that might be the change in itself. That might actually be the kind of activity that your people are missing to feel the courage, to speak up. To feel psychological safety. Which is very key to ignite and creativity and opening up people's mind and feeling that what they can bring up. But if I come into the meeting room and I feel like, okay, Brian's going to be a little upset if I bring this up. Then it's one idea that I don't share. It's one problem. And Brian might be like, well, Monica might frown next time I share this, and he doesn't share one thing. Guess what? We're going to actually see, not only business consequences, but a lot of people, of course, who's going to be impacted because we stopped sharing.And so even that simple decision of like opening up could feel simple. Everyone is testing out right now. So, this good time, this is another example of the fear stopping you. Start with what you're comfortable with, which might be that simply, maybe let's read this article and talk about it. Or, hey, I learned this cool thing from this podcast that Brian and Monica were talking about. I'm inspired. Let's try this out. That could be the starting point. It doesn't always have to be like this big, humongous thing. That's going to lead to culture organization changing. So that's actually the very first tip I share with leaders to make it tangible relatable. And then two, as a result to know that this is a marathon. Yes, we want results as soon as possible for order something. I wanted to get the delivery, right. There was time and effort put in to make that process happen. And I love Simon Sinek's video, where he talks about the intensity versus consistency. He talks about the people development in the workplace. And the beautiful analogy he shares about is our brushing our tooth. If you asked me like, you know, what's the perfect formula to brush the tooth in life versus not to like prevent your mouth from having cavities. Like, I will not know the answer because, you know, maybe I skipped one day. Maybe I skipped three days. Like with that impact, is that the cause like, maybe, but we won't know. But it's the consistent that I brush my teeth every day that I keep my teeth healthy. Same thing on organizations. It's the simple moments of like, let's turn off their phones. Hey, Brian, how are you really doing. Like, oh, Monica actually, this is how I feel now that we've connected. We now open up. You know, Brian, I know we're done with the meeting, but I have this really question I want to ask you. Can I bring this up? I feel would really appreciate cause you just shared about, you know, how you feel. Now, okay. Brian, he's already right now, you're listening, but like he already stood up and like, oh, tell me more Monica. Right? The body language already brings up unconsciously. And I think he shares how it's the consistency that's key. And so again, the second tip I recommend for everyone is that no matter what, or the house solution you have for your culture and people development, the key is the consistency. Not just a one-time retreat of hurray and we're done. But what's the everyday routines that you want to embed.And so, when you even do a retreat or innovation workshop, or you invite a speaker, the question that I hope you always ask yourself, if this is what you're really committing to and what to do, because I know what you do, that's why you're listening to this episode. Think of something that you can do consistently.That is low hanging fruit. That is budget friendly, you know, got to be realistic, right? I'm not saying that you have to spend a lot of money, budget friendly. Implementable as well. And you might be surprised even in that five-minute activity in simply having rows of like no phones in the meeting. Log off. Something like that. So those are kind of tangible places I recommend.Brian Ardinger: That makes great sense. The last topic I want to talk about is the world of work is changing. Obviously. You've been in this space for pre pandemic and now through pandemic. What are some of the trends and things that you're seeing? What are some of the best practices, especially as we kind of move into this new hybrid environment that you're seeing when it comes to creativity.Monica Kang: So many, a particular point I want to highlight is actually generational. And I want to say this because when we see us wanting to express more creatively and we feel we can't. We like to figure out the cost. Right. And our consciousness is that, oh, it's because they're young. Oh, it's because they haven't worked in the company long enough.Oh, it's because they don't get my industry. There's always a, because of. I want to give the courage to recognize that instead of channeling that voice of why don't they get it the way I do. I wonder why they feel that way. I wonder why they say they don't want to get back to the office?I wonder why they say that? I feel fine. I can share all my ideas. I wonder why they say they don't feel comfortable sharing ideas? We got this fancy new office. We're doing all these breakout sessions. Instead of saying like, why are they not. Reframe that to I wonder why. And focus on the lens of listening and wanting to understand.Maybe they're going to share some stuff that you realize, whoa, like we were not ready for it. We don't know how to solve it. And that's okay too. It's not about always needed to have immediately all the answers, but let's problem solve this together. Thank you for sharing that. I had no idea that's how you feel.And part of this is them wanting to be acknowledged or appreciated and heard. And hey, ask them what they think is the best idea. They might actually have a really good idea that we completely missed out. And Brian to your question of what's changing is that more people are wanting to now finally try this. Which has always been important before. But not doing the consequence. Great resignation and even more has been greater. I think it's great that we're finally, hopefully seeing more workplaces where we make this the norm. That, of course we should understand what people want. And of course, this is hard because everyone wants something different. And sometimes we say what we want, but we don't really maybe need it.I might say I want ice cream, but maybe I shouldn't have ice cream today. Cause I already had my chocolate earlier. Right. Like we're people. It's going to be messy. But that's part of the beauty of it. Of feeling like we can bring out all our different insights. And sometimes the choice is that because we feel safe sometimes, I don't want to share out. And might just be like, okay, I just want to do work and that's it.And that's okay too. And I think part of it's like, what's the choice that you're going to make each day as a leader. As a creator. And as an innovator in your workplaces. Even if you're not in leadership for those who's listening like Monica, Brian, that's great, but what if I'm not a leader. You start with setting your boundaries. And where you want to start planting the seeds of where you can do this. So, I hope that gives an encouragement of a starting point. For More InformationBrian Ardinger: This has been fantastic. And I appreciate you giving these tactical tips that anybody within the organization can start making progress when it comes to creativity and innovation. So, I want to thank you for coming on Inside Outside Innovation. If people want to find out more about yourself or your books or your company, what's the best way to do that?Monica Kang: Find me in any of the platforms. I'm on most of the social media platforms, but you know, connect with me on LinkedIn at Monica H Kang. K A N G. And then also follow us at InnovatorsBox. I also recommend the book as well. I think you'll enjoy it. And if you go actually to my book's website, for both of them, we have a lot of free worksheets and tools. Also because of our mission to make creativity, culture, and leadership accessible, we have a lot of free resources and tools. Including some of these topics. So, if you can't find it just simply email me, let me know. And also in some tools in Korean and other languages as well, because we want to make this globally accessible. So, we also make music as well, because not everyone's a reader or workshop person. You can find us at InnovatorsBox studios, where we create music to inspire creativity. Brian Ardinger: Thanks, Monica. I really do appreciate you coming on the show and look forward to continuing the conversation in the years to come.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company.  For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.  

How does one approach creativity within a global context? How can the creative process help us and the future generations solve global problems, like climate change? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak with Monica Kang, Founder & CEO of InnovatorsBox, Author of Rethink Creativity & Have You Seen My Friends?, and Podcast Host of Dear Workplace and Curious Monica. She's a creative educator who's transforming today's workforce with the mission to build a workplace for all by rethinking creativity.    Listen in to learn how she reignited her love for her job and her life through a simple mindset shift, curiosity, and creativity, as well as how that led her to help others tap into their innate creativity through InnovatorsBox. You'll gain insight into the difference between voluntary change and forced change and how creativity and the creative process plays a role in solving complex global problems. Plus, Monica talks about the meaning behind her  books, how she approaches creativity within different cultures, and how you can start incorporating curiosity, creativity, and courage into your curriculum.   “When we embed creativity as a way of living, there's no limit to how we see and solve and approach.”  – Monica Kang Monica's Tips for Teachers and Parents: Before stressing about the curriculum, become aware of how you talk about creativity at home and in the classroom. We tend to embed this image of what curiosity, creativity, and courage are supposed to look like, so pay attention to where your kids think differently, identify the action of them being imaginative and creative, and encourage them to enjoy and explore that feeling courageously. If you're ready to build this into your curriculum, add that action part into your lessons to let them feel and experience curiosity, creativity, and courage.  Make curiosity, creativity, and courage FUN. If they're doing it for the grade, it's not fun. Be intentional about getting to know your kids/students and what's fun to them.   “The whole reason why I wanted to do this was I felt creativity was inaccessible. I felt, as somebody who was in a space that was traditionally not creative, that it wasn't for me and I know a lot of people that still feel that way.” - Monica Kang   Resources Mentioned: InnovatorsBox Rethink Creativity by Monica Kang Have You Seen My Friends? by Monica Kang Dear Workplace Podcast Curious Monica Podcast   Eager to bring more creativity into your home or classroom?  Access a variety of creativity resources and tools & listen to more episodes of The Fueling Creativity Podcast by visiting our website,  www.CreativityandEducation.com.   Subscribe to our monthly newsletter!   Have a question? Email Dr. Burnett and Dr. Worwood at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com!   You can also find The Fueling Creativity Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and PodBean! Make sure to rate, review, and share the podcast if you enjoy it!   About Monica Kang: Monica H. Kang is on the mission to build a workplace for all by rethinking creativity. She is the Founder & CEO of InnovatorsBox, Author of Rethink Creativity & Have You Seen My Friends, Podcast Host of Dear Workplace and Curious Monica. An internationally recognized expert in workplace creativity, she facilitates culture transformation, leadership development, and team building in a way that is fun, actionable, and relatable. Monica works with clients worldwide including Fortune 500 companies, higher education, government, and nonprofits. Prior to InnovatorsBox®, Monica was a nuclear nonproliferation policy expert. She holds an M.A. from SAIS Johns Hopkins University in Strategic Studies and International Economics and a B.A. from Boston University.   Connect with Monica Kang on LinkedIn   

In the final episode of Curious Monica Season 2, I reflect on all the conversations I've had this season to create a special advice column for innovators. The past few months have been about transition - transitioning into new workplace norms, new careers, and new ways of innovating. And my guests continued to remind me that greater purpose and intention are the heart of what we do. But what exactly does it mean to create and live for tomorrow? This episode summarizes some of the best answers to that question, and serves as an extra dose of inspiration (and curiosity) as the year closes. Thanks again to all my guests and the InnovatorsBox team for making Season 2 happen. See you in the New Year with Season 3! Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Find summary notes here.

After interviewing innovators from across the world in countless industries and in countless roles, one thing stuck out - we all have the power to design the life we want. It takes courage, intentionality, and trial and error but it's so key to have that protagonist mindset. And again, thank you so much again for joining us on this journey together. So are you ready for it? Here let's dive into the key insights from our guests from Season 2!  Subscribe today. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Find summary notes here.

I'm curious. What are you curious about lately? How can we transform what we're curious about into actionable intention? In this very special edition of Curious Monica, I invite you to pause and be mindful with me as I lead you through an interactive reflection on curiosity. Yes! Instead of the usual guest interviews, I'm going to share various resources we developed to create an immersive experience for you to use this time to reflect, pause, and be curious. My hope is that you'll walk away from this special episode with new questions, and use this time to reflect, pause and set your intentions as you are mapping out your 2022 goals and intentions. Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Find summary notes here

In these past years, while some of us were furloughed or let go, many others have also transitioned, got promoted, or resigned to start their dream jobs. In this episode, I want to dive deeper into the stories of people who have created their own jobs and opportunities both in organizations, and outside on their own, to see what we can learn as we continue to build our own careers and growth opportunities. I sat down with two friends - Ellie Kim and Youngmoo Kim - who carved their own path professionally and explored what challenges and “aha” moments they encountered, as well as what made them do what they did. Their stories and insights are valuable whether you're looking to start a new career, build a new opportunity where you are, or even want to build something of your own on the side! Subscribe today. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Find summary notes here.

Good writing and speeches inspire you, motivate you, and make you feel heard. That's powerful and a skill to hone! So, I was always curious. What would it be like to do this full time, and how does one decide to want to become a speaker or a writer? I mean do you start wanting to become a speaker to have a career as a speaker and writer? No, not necessarily. Having deep curiosity and drive to learn can be the start to how you find yourself as a speaker or a writer. In this episode I speak with authors, speakers, and workplace communicators Don Khouri and Saleema Vellani about their journey into this profession and how others can be successful at it too.  Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Find summary notes here.

Designing for inclusion - whether it's technology, a workflow, a product - is incredibly important as we move into the new normal of working. Creating a workplace for all is not an overnight journey, which is why constant care and development is there, but so is our workflow. In this episode, I dive deeper into the aspects of inclusive design with inclusivity experts Richard Reiman and Margaret Park. How do we design a workplace for all in what we create, how we serve, and what we do each day? Well, it doesn't happen overnight, but doing so will help you attract incredible customers, team members, and more that could've been overlooked.  Subscribe today. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Find summary notes here. Below are some helpful resources in your journey of inclusive design: Inclusive Design Toolkit  Video: RSA Short: Empathy  Rethinking Inclusive Design Beyond Technology  Disability Inclusion In the Digital Workspace, An Actionable Guide Imagination Video Books

The pandemic gave us all a taste of what it's like when health challenges derail our business models and careers. Some people have already had to overcome health challenges in order to succeed, and for the guests on this podcast today, we were able to transform their pain into inspiration for their lives and career changes. Being able to overcome challenges, especially health challenges, takes an incredible amount of resilience. And it takes creativity to be able to apply the lessons we've learned from those challenges into our careers. In this episode, we highlight the incredibly inspirational stories of Michelle de Matheu and D. Anthony Evans who pushed through their darkest health moments to find inspiration and a career. Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Find summary notes here.

Did you get a full night's rest last night? Are you eating well? When was the last time you took a true break away from your work? As we reach the end of the year and two years of working in the pandemic, these questions on wellbeing at the workplace are becoming even more important and timely. But it's one thing to know about how we take care of ourselves, it's another to think about our team. Our team has multiple people with different feelings, interests, communication styles, and needs. Where do you start with how you support them? How do we know what will work well? In this episode, I asked key leaders, Jacqueline Leeker and Bonnie Kim, how they take care of themselves and their team. And they reminded me how important the intention is, and gave some incredible, actionable tips on how to do better for ourselves and our team.  Subscribe today. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Find summary notes here. Some Resources: https://blog.innovatorsbox.com/rethink-series/ https://blog.innovatorsbox.com/how-to-get-deep-sleep-and-recharge-as-an-innovator/

Is it possible to do business and do good for society? At first, I wasn't sure but now as a social entrepreneur, and working with other friends who are also doing business for good, I know my answer will be, yes all the time! Still, how does one do it and what is their journey like doing business and doing something good for society? In this episode, I speak with social entrepreneurs Amy Malin and Rachel Svetanoff about their journey into a field of doing good for the better of the world and running a successful organization at the same time. And if you're new to the world of social entrepreneurship, tune in for some great first steps in getting started.  Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Find summary notes here.

No matter where you work, learning how to manage your time, projects, and workflows is such a key skill. I often attributed my early success in my business, InnovatorsBox, to having strong project management skills. And no, I'm not just talking about the PMP - project management professional certifications - as a way to manage projects. And yes, organization and project management skills are crucial even as an executive - probably even more so as an executive. In today's episode, I am not speaking with all certified project managers, but rather with a group of friends who have developed their own strategies around learning how to manage multiple projects, deadlines, and priorities effectively - Meet Saleema Vellani, Dr. Bob Nelson, and Jerry Won.  Subscribe today. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Find summary notes here.

Education is highly appreciated and respected yet a lot of teachers in school are underappreciated, underpaid, and very overworked. Why are the people who play such a key role in our lives and future are overworked and underpaid? And why do teachers start their career even if the work is demanding? It's because they deeply care. They care about the students, their journey, and the future they will build. In this episode I speak with educators Margaret Park and Ellie Kim on their experience with teaching, empowering the younger generations, and of course, innovating in the new normal.  Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Find summary notes here.

Imagine a good leader. What do you think of? Has that changed over time? For me growing up, it was the person who was the loudest, tallest, boldest, and oftentimes the most “masculine.” But this view of leadership is changing, and it's changing for the better. What does good leadership look like now? What is working and what isn't working in leadership culture? And how can anyone work towards being a better leader? In this episode I chat with Zina B. Sutch Ph.D and Patrick Malone Ph.D together about their research into leadership development and how it is changing for the better of ourselves and our employees. I also got a chance to talk with Phil Jung, who manages hundreds of employees, about how being a leader can take on several forms. Subscribe today. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Find summary notes here.

We've talked about the profession of coaching before, but what really makes a coach a great leader? Why is coaching an important skill for everyone? And what are some of the key characteristics of a good coach, no matter what field or location? As a coach myself I know that behind every great coach is someone who believed in them, a leader who held them accountable. In this episode I talk with three close friends, who are all coaches in different fields and from different countries, about what it's like dedicating a career to coaching others to become leaders as well. I found three, key characteristics in all of them. And these characteristics are essential to anyone listening in becoming a better leader in their life and work. Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Find summary notes here.

Are you happy? How often are you genuinely happy at work? What makes us really happy at work and why is understanding the science of happiness at work important for us as individuals and for organizations? Turns out not a lot of people can't quite put their finger on what happiness is, but it's because it's different for everyone. And research shows that happiness is not only great for team wellbeing, but leads to higher company success. In this episode I talk to Dr. Kathryn Owler and Amani Roberts about their journey to workplace happiness, but how you can harness happiness for yourself. Subscribe today. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Find summary notes here.

When was the last time you consumed something that was translated? Maybe it was a business report or Squid Game or even a video game! The translation industry makes things accessible, but it also helps businesses grow, reach new markets - and more! In this episode I speak with Marina Illari and Colleen Beres  of Terra Translations, a company who has been solving problems in this industry for over 25 years. What is it like to be in the translation business?  What is changing? And why shouldn't you compare online translation tools like Google Translate to a human translator?  Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Find summary notes here.

Hybrid connection is the name of the game lately. As I start to attend my first in-person friends' gathering and speaking events in two years, I'm having butterflies. While I love the ease that remote experiences have to offer, I do miss in-person connection. Hybrid and remote are here to stay so how do we use this time to really rethink about how we connect and share experiences together in a more meaningful way? In this episode, I speak with Amanda Ma and Mo Hamizan who are experts in connection to discuss how we can rethink hybrid events.  Subscribe today. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Find summary notes here.

Have you found yourself watching more films than usual these past few years? I know I have! Good movies make me cry, reflect, celebrate, laugh, and remind me how beautiful and meaningful life is. In this episode I dive into all the aspects of working in the film industry, especially for those whose voices are often underrepresented. Meet David Masami Moriya and Kelly Li who share their stories about why they entered in the industry, what they love about it, and how they're using their voice to amplify other voices in the process. Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Find summary notes here.

Authenticity at work - We want to be our 100% true selves but we also want to respectfully blend in and hear how this room and community work and engage before we do so. What's the right balance of being respectful to the environment versus feeling like I can't show who I am because of the environment? In this episode, we want to navigate these questions as we think about how we bring our full selves to work. Meet Mike Canter and Kristina Francis who share incredible insight into authenticity at work from both a leadership and team member perspective. Subscribe today. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Find summary notes here.

As a long-time children's books fan, I've always wondered, how does a children's book come together? How is it different from other books and why do authors write what they write? Whether you are looking to write your children's book, or a fan of children's books you're in for a treat. In this episode, I caught up with three friends who took different paths to bring their children's books to life. Meet Helena Ku Rhee, Heather Davis, and Tamara Haque who share their journey to being a children's book author. (P.S. I'm a new children's book author too. Check out my book “Have You Seen My Friends?: The Adventures of Creativity” now available. Discover more creativity-related resources at creativitywithmonica.com.) Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Find summary notes here.

People have said it! Enough is enough! We want to work at a workplace where we feel heard, appreciated, and understood. But why do we really leave or stay in jobs? What can both leaders and team members learn from these experiences? In this episode, I invited a few leaders and friends to get to the root of why they decided to stay in jobs despite challenges and why they left other jobs despite loving them. Thank you for your support in Season 1! Learn more about Colleen Beres, Marina Illari, Julian Saipe, and Cydni Burnett. Subscribe today. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Find summary notes here.

Is it too late to start my dream career? No! In the next few weeks, I'm excited to visit friends in different industries to learn how they fell in love with their jobs and industries. Whether you are already in your dream job or not, you can have a career that you love and enjoy growing in. Welcome back to Curious Monica where we learn how different innovators thrive at different jobs. Subscribe today. Curious Monica is hosted by Monica H. Kang and InnovatorsBox. Learn more about our candid conversations with thriving innovators at curiousmonica.com. Too busy to listen? Find the summary notes of all our episodes here.

It's been 2 years since the pandemic started. How are you really doing? What do you do if you are tired of all the changes? In the next few weeks, we'll dive deep into how the way we work, lead, and collaborate is changing. And we'll explore what we can do better to navigate these changes as innovators. I am so thrilled to once again welcome you back to Dear Workplace, Season 2. Subscribe today to get the latest updates when we drop another episode about a workplace trend, challenge, or change. Dear Workplace is hosted by Monica H. Kang at InnovatorsBox. Learn more about our podcast at dearworkplace.com. Don't have time to listen? Review the summary notes of all our episodes here.

Why do you do what you do? What do you live for? In today's episode, we went back through our 90+ conversations with innovators in Season 1 to learn more about why they live with intention and purpose. ‘What is your legacy?' is a good question to ask. Watch the full video at our InnovatorsBox YouTube channel.

What do you really want in your career and life? As we wrap up Season 1 and look back at our interviews with over 90 guests, it reminded me of the lesson professor Randy Pausch shared in his Last Lecture - never stop dreaming and working for it. What dream are you dreaming today, innovators? Learn more about us at curiousmonica.com. Sign up to InnovatorsBox's monthly newsletter here to get resources and insights on workplace creativity.

What helps people thrive at work no matter where they are? In today's special bonus episode, we reflect on all our 90+ interviews in Season 1 to compile a collection of advice for you. How can you find the courage to be your best self in this complex, stressful world? You start one day at a time. Watch the full video at our InnovatorsBox YouTube channel.

How do community builders become who they are? What motivates them to build communities, and how do they find the courage to continue to speak up in the face of disagreements? In this episode, we speak with Maggie Chui and Bryan Pham from Asian Hustle Network, Derrin Slack from ProActIndy, and Avani Parekh from Facebook. Learn more about us at curiousmonica.com and sign up to our monthly newsletter at InnovatorsBox!

Great music moves people. But what does it take to be a musician and build a career in music? Today we caught up with Serin Oh and Luke Helder to learn about their music careers and why at the end of the day, how you invest in yourself as a person really matters. From the music they make at InnovatorsBox Studios, to the music they make together as a team, you'll find a new charm and want to rethink how you show up each day. Thank you Serin and Luke for sharing your story! Learn more about us at curiousmonica.com. Sign up to InnovatorsBox's monthly newsletter here to get free resources.

What are some questions about the future of work we should be asking more? In this episode, we discuss whether we should plan for the future or not, and why thinking about these questions matter. Thank you for your support in Season 1! Learn more about us at dearworkplace.com and join InnovatorsBox's monthly newsletter here. We'll be back again with another season in October. Stay tuned!

Can you love your day job and your part-time business? Yes! In today's conversation I'm interviewing friends who love their day job, as well as their side businesses. How do they make time for what they do and how does working two jobs help them be who they want to be? When you hear their stories, you'll come to view part-time entrepreneurs with more respect and appreciation. Thank you to Ashley Sutton, Corey Ponder, and Shaun Applegate-Swanson for sharing your story with us. Learn more about us at curiousmonica.com. Sign up to InnovatorsBox's monthly newsletter here to get resources and insights on workplace creativity.

Welcome to Episode 92 of the Asian Hustle Network Podcast! We are very excited to have Monica Kang on this week's episode. We interview Asian entrepreneurs around the world to amplify their voices and empower Asians to pursue their dreams and goals. We believe that each person has a message and a unique story from their entrepreneurial journey that they can share with all of us. Check us out on Anchor, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Spotify, and more. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a positive 5-star review. This is our opportunity to use the voices of the Asian community and share these incredible stories with the world. We release a new episode every Wednesday, so stay tuned! Monica H. Kang is the Founder & CEO of InnovatorsBox®, the Author of Rethink Creativity: How to Innovate, Inspire, and Thrive at Work and the Host of two Podcasts—Dear Workplace and Curious Monica. She is an internationally recognized expert in workplace creativity who facilitates culture transformation, leadership development, and team building in a way that is fun, actionable, and relatable. Monica provides consulting, training, facilitation, and keynote speaking to clients worldwide including Fortune 500 companies, higher education institutions, government agencies, and nonprofits. She also supports organizations, professionals, and entrepreneurs through the InnovatorsBox® Academy and the programs she co-creates with her strategic partners including Adapt to Grow and Culture of Analytics. Monica's work has been recognized by The White House, Ashoka Changemakers, National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), and Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). Prior to founding InnovatorsBox®, Monica was a nuclear nonproliferation policy expert. She holds an M.A. from SAIS Johns Hopkins University in Strategic Studies and International Economics and a B.A. from Boston University. Please check out our Patreon at @asianhustlenetwork. We want AHN to continue to be meaningful and give back to the Asian community. If you enjoy our podcast and would like to contribute to our future, we hope you'll consider becoming a patron. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/asianhustlenetwork/support

The hunger for productivity and efficiency is always there in business, as time and resources feel finite. Yet, some people seem to always do more with less. How do they do it? In this episode, I speak with four friends who always do a lot, but with ease. How can we rethink optimization, agility and innovation? From marathon to 12-minute flow hacks, you'll want to try a few things after this episode. Thank you to Kendall Ratliffe, Samson Williams, Namju Cho, and David Ricciardi for sharing your stories with us. Learn more about us at dearworkplace.com. Sign up to InnovatorsBox's monthly newsletter here.

What is it like to run your business full time? With high risk and high reward, despite the never-ending challenges every day, there are always new businesses opening somewhere in the world. Why do people start their businesses, and what helps them be a good entrepreneur? In this episode, we visit all your questions on being a full-time founder. Thank you to Kevin Felix Chan, Nish Parikh, Hetal Parikh, Ariana Gómez, Dave Dellacato, Lumbie Mlambo, and Gary Hwang for sharing your stories as founders.  Learn more about us at curiousmonica.com. Join our monthly newsletter here by InnovatorsBox.

We're all asking more questions these days. Should we stay remote? Should we scale now? We speak about how there is no such thing as a stupid question, but are there at least some good questions we should be asking more? In this episode, we talked to three friends to learn about how we can ask better questions. Thanks to Joo-Seuk Maing, Cassandra Lane, and Daniel Friedman for sharing your insights with us. Learn more about us at dearworkplace.com.

From TacoBell's kiosk to design thinking workshops, innovation experts play a key role in finding new paths in familiar places. But how do they build a career in innovation, and what does it really mean to be creative in what they do? In this episode, I caught up with six friends who shared why they fell in love with innovation, honing their expertise, and empowering others to unleash their creativity. Join us to unlock your creativity too. Thank you, Leo Chan, Brian Gaab, Coonoor Behal, Van Lai-DuMone, Jeff Harry, and Rishi Gupta for sharing your stories about working in innovation. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

The pandemic accelerated the need for reskilling in the workplace, but what skills are really important for us and how do we determine that? What are skills that robots won't take away from us? In today's episode, I visited with eight friends to learn what skills they find important and why I encourage you to expand your learning of this too. Thanks to Kia Weatherspoon, Julie Sciullo, Kevin Felix Chan, Manal Kahi, Simon Shim, Jeff Harry, Laurel Mitchell, and Johnathan Chen for sharing your insights. Check out these conversations on reskilling our workforce and what the future skills will be by World Economic Forums, Mckinsey, and Harvard Business Review. Learn more about us at dearworkplace.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

Diversity and inclusion jobs have been on the rise as the world seeks a more inclusive workplace for all. But what do you do in this career? How do you become good at it? From understanding differences in diversity to being more inclusive to learning how to build psychological safety, we untangle all your questions about D&I and workplace belonging jobs in this episode. Thank you, Ashley T. Brundage and Abadesi Osunsade for sharing your stories. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

In the wake of the ‘Great Resignation' where 95% of employees are thinking of quitting or changing their career, how can you build a workplace for all to feel appreciated? All generations want and need something different. How can you design a workplace that makes all five generations feel included? Today, we discuss and explore the nuances of what you can do differently to create a workplace for all. Join us as we speak with Brandi Nicole Johnson, Abraham Kim, Kelly Cunningham, Blair Glencorse, and Van Lai-DuMone. Learn more about our show at dearworkplace.com.  Thanks for your support in advance! You can vote for us at Podcast Awards here until July 31, 2021. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

While some would not describe a career in law to be fun or creative, many who love this profession beg to differ. In this episode, I spoke with three friends who love being a lawyer to learn more about why they love what they do, how they started their careers, and how they stay creative. Whether it was learning how to practice law, writing a children's book or a novel, or building a niche in cryptocurrency, resilience, and patience was key to their growth. Thank you, Jessica Childress, Natashia Deón, and Maureen Murat for sharing your insights with us today. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

Innovation is born out of trying something new. It's risky. It can be uncomfortable. And it can be rewarding. How do you find the courage to do something new and innovate something meaningful? In this episode, we study what creativity and innovation is, how innovators from business to academia find the courage to innovate in the workplace, and how you can do it too. Thanks to our guests Brian Gaab, Terri Broussard Williams, Nish Parikh, and Emily Rosado for sharing your insights with us. Learn more at dearworkplace.com.  Thanks for your support in advance! You can vote for us at Podcast Awards here until July 31, 2021. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

In our first bonus episode, we are excited to share our full interview with the Meta Team- the first and only national, certified women-owned commercial roofing company in the United States. Meta was founded by five women who provide over 250 years of combined expertise and experience in the roofing industry. But as you can imagine, their journey both into roofing and now leading roofing was not easy- as diversity and inclusion are still lacking. Here is our full interview Monica Kang had with the five co-founders Candace Klein, Erica Jackson, Alicia Michael, Sherri Miles, and Kelly Braddy Van Winkle. Visit the MetaTeam's website to learn more about their work. Learn more about us at dearworkplace.com. Watch the full video interview at our Youtube channel here. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

What is therapy and what does it mean to be a therapist? - from the rise of mental wellbeing awareness to society's misconceptions of therapy. In this episode, I speak with Jeanie Chang and Ivy Kwong to share their journey of becoming therapists and why other leaders like Tiffany Gray and Minji Chang advocate for therapy. There will also be some great tips for your mind and body, aka free therapy and wellbeing tips! Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

Monica Kang, founder of the InnovatorsBox, wants to show you how to unlock your creative mindset to make your work more fun and more fulfilling. Show notes at lifeskillsthatmatter.com/show385 Lot of great lessons in our conversations including: + When you understand your Why, you attract people who are aligned with you. + Why she felt stuck in her dream career. + The very first steps she took to get herself unstuck to create work on her terms. + Why creativity is all about leaning into your curiosity. Ready to work for yourself? Learn the first 5 actions at lifeskillsthatmatter.com/getstarted Subscribe https://lifeskillsthatmatter.com/subscribe-podcast Podcast Archive https://lifeskillsthatmatter.com/podcast The post How To Unlock Your Creative Mindset With Monica Kang (385) appeared first on Life Skills That Matter.

Who we surround ourselves with at work matters. Not just because we could get new jobs, business opportunities, or recognition but because they could lead to friendships, innovation, partnerships, and finding new meaning in how you thrive. In this episode we study how to build more meaningful relationships at work, when relationships continue to change at work. Thanks to our guests: Meg Ugenti, Leo Chan, Alice Hu, Derrin Slack, and Meta Team, for sharing your insights. Learn more at dearworkplace.com.

From acting to filmmaking, what is it really like to work in entertainment? I had so many questions. How do you handle all the rejections? How do you develop a film? Why is representation hard to find? Luckily, a few friends were able to share their perspectives and wisdom including a voice actor, filmmaker, comedian, creative producer, and founder. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Thank you, Minji Chang, PK Paul Kim, Pierre Edwards, DeShuna Spencer, Joseph Juhn, Luke Helder, and Serin Oh for sharing your insights. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

If the way we work is changing so much, would how we lead change too? COVID has taught us a lot of new lessons and what we expect of leaders and how we lead has been impacted too. In this episode, we dive into what makes a good leader and how good leaders are made today and will be needed for the future workforce. Thank you, Brandi Nicole Johnson, Abraham Kim, Jadayah Spencer, Jennifer Shinkai, Monica Maglaris, and Blair Glencorse for your insights. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

Writing your story is a vulnerable and humbling process. I wanted to learn more. How do authors decide what to write? How does the publication process work? Where do they get inspiration? In this episode, we speak with friends who write books, publish books, and help others write books. Tune in to learn how you'll tell your stories. I spoke with some friends - Jenn T. Grace, Ashley T. Brundage, Ivy Kwong, Smiley Poswolsky, Dr. Stephanie Han - to learn more about the power of storytellers. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

How do you handle ambiguity and uncertainty? Change is inevitable yet getting comfortable with uncertainty takes practice. How can I get better with it and why does this matter as we think about the future of work? In this episode, we untangle why understanding how we feel about ambiguity may help us get comfortable with it. I spoke with some friends to learn more. Thank you to Sudebi Thakurata, Andrew Ngui, Alana Karen, and the Complexity Weekend Team (Daniel, JP, and Shaun) for sharing your insights. Learn more at dearworkplace.com.

Politics is a field in which everyone is watching you and everyone is impacted by what you do. As I look back at how diverse this field is, I'm also intrigued at how we still see a lack of diversity. In this episode, I spoke with two friends who shared why they love public policy and how they find opportunities for more women to see this as a possible career path. Thank you Jane Kim Coloseus and Nicole Horn for sharing your story. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

The importance of being authentic is limitless - it's liberating, truthful, and a key foundation of building trust. But showing up authentically at work is not always easy. How much sharing is oversharing? What makes certain workplaces emotionally safe or not? In this episode, we untangle what it means to be authentic, why it's hard, and what we can do differently to still show up authentically with courage. Hint: Self-reflection is a key element.  Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Learn more about our guests: Thank you, Dr. Stephanie Han, Probal Banerjee, Heather Murphy, and Eli Murphy for sharing your insights.

Where do you start? Yes, gender pay gaps, overlooked harassment incidents, or lack of representation across industries are all still crucial problems we should change. But it's also incredible to see more female youth programs, female entrepreneurs, and female leaders such as the U.S. Vice President. In this episode, we untangle the goods, bads, and unknown questions to reimagine how we can have a workplace that works for women too. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Thank you to Coonoor Behal, Alana Karen, Michelle Sttecase, Meg Ugenti, Cassandra Lane, and Natashia Deón for sharing your insights.

When we think of tech entrepreneurs, we often envision an engineer in Silicon Valley. But there are so many incredible tech entrepreneurs changing people's lives and social norms everywhere. In this episode, I speak with my friends who have used technology to change social norms, communities, and more as an entrepreneur. And no, you don't have to be from Silicon Valley to change the world. I spoke with five friends - DeShuna Spencer, Kimberly Moore, Marcus Bullock, Jonathan Chen, and Jan Wong - to learn more about what it means to be a tech entrepreneur today and build a future for tomorrow.  Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

Let's be honest. All of us want to be successful - professionally, personally, and in everything we do. Yet it's worth wondering if what we define as success is the very barrier to us succeeding? In this episode, we'll study how we redefine success may open up new doors of possibilities and growth both at work and in life that we may not have foreseen. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Thank you to Coonoor Behal, Kevin Felix Chan, Ariana Gomez, Jeff Harry, and Luke Helder for sharing your insights.

Coaching - what exactly is it and how do people get into this industry? The coaching industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world, yet many still feel misunderstood and undervalued - why? In this episode, I speak with my friends in coaching to learn how they got into the profession, why they care, and why they believe this to be one of the most crucial skills in our future. I spoke with six friends - Jennifer Hart, Vik Kapoor, Kasia Gurgal, KarFei Cheah, Julie Smith, and Sherry Ezhuthachan - to learn more about why they care for empowering others through coaching. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

A year of working from home forced us to ask some new questions about the purpose of a physical office - do we need it? and if so, what is the purpose of it if we can work from home? In this episode, we'll study how the purpose of the office space is changing and what will remain. Learn more at dearworkplace.com. Thank you to Andrew Ngui, Kendall Ratliffe, Jan Wong, and Kia Weatherspoon for sharing your insights.  

What do you want to be when you grow up? Where do you want to work? It's a question we get asked all the time, but how often do we pause to wonder why this matters? Welcome to our Reimagine series where Monica Kang shares bitesize power insights and actionable tips for innovators related to career development. In this first Reimagine episode, she shares insights on how to rethink career advice and what can help you find the courage to reframe uncertainty in transition. Learn more at curiousmonica.com. Join our newsletter from InnovatorsBox here.

01:55 - Corey’s Superpower: Empathy * Finding Voice: You Are Not a Statistic * What does it mean to support Black lives? * Authentic Self * Having Conversations Around Allyship * Owning Vulnerability 09:06 - Having People Hear Your Stories * “How are you doing?” * “Me Too” Movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement) – learned something about self and blind spots in the process and the feedback was helpful 13:01 - Allyship Best Practices * Growth Mindset * Trusted Sidekicks; Augmenting Journies * Invisible Knapsack: How to recognize your white privilege — and use it to fight inequality (https://www.ted.com/talks/peggy_mcintosh_how_to_recognize_your_white_privilege_and_use_it_to_fight_inequality/transcript?language=en) (Peggy McIntosh) 19:04 - Developing Empathy * Watch Hamilton! When it comes to leadership, Aaron Burr was right — “Talk less, smile more” (https://medium.com/@mkvolm/when-it-comes-to-leadership-aaron-burr-was-right-talk-less-smile-more-bf1e18dbac7a) (Being Able to Hear vs Being Able to Listen) * Deep Canvassing – How to talk someone out of bigotry: These scientists keep proving that reducing prejudice is possible. It’s just not easy. (https://www.vox.com/2020/1/29/21065620/broockman-kalla-deep-canvassing) * Google Assistant Research; Inclusive Design * Empathy Mapping (From UX Design) – Building For Everyone: Expand Your Market With Design Practices From Google's Product Inclusion Team (https://www.amazon.com/Building-Everyone-Practices-Googles-Inclusion/dp/1119646227) * Empathy Can Combat Mis/Disinformation * Fearing What We Don’t Understand: Nas - Hate Me Now ft. Puff Daddy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKSJN3WWR3E) (song) | Lyrics (https://www.google.com/search?q=nas+you+can+hate+me+now&oq=nas+you+can+hate+me+now&aqs=chrome..69i57j46j0l3j0i22i30.4277j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#wptab=s:H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgVuLRT9c3LDYwLalINit6xOjJLfDyxz1hKYdJa05eY7Ti4grOyC93zSvJLKkU0uFig7KUuASkUDRqMEjxcaGI8Oxi0ktJTUsszSmJL0lMsspOttLPLS3OTNYvSk3OL0rJzEuPT84pLS5JLbLKqSzKTC5exCqUkViSqpCbqpCXX64AEQQAMkDXN6IAAAA) * Active Processing (psychology) (https://study.com/academy/answer/what-is-active-processing-in-cognitive-psychology.html) 36:03 - Using Tech + Policy For Good * Educating & Empowering People Online * Company and Community Values * Pipeline Investment and Early Exposure * Diversifying the Tech Policy Space / Manifestos? * Algorithmic Justice League (https://www.ajl.org/) * Virility * Clubhouse Is Worth $1 Billion Off the Backs of Black Folks. Now What? (https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/clubhouse-is-worth-1-billion-off-the-backs-of-black-fo-1846190868) Reflections: Arty: Centering around empowerment + asking, “How ARE you?” with the intention of listening. Chanté: We can’t outsource empathy. Corey: How the model of technology has shifted away from interest-based to follower-based and influencing. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: ARTY: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Episode 230 of Greater Than Code. I am Artemis Starr and I'm here with my fabulous co-host, Chanté Thurmond. CHANTÉ: Hey, everyone and I had the great pleasure of introducing our guest of honor today, Corey Ponder. Welcome, Corey. COREY: Thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here. CHANTÉ: We're so glad to have you. If you don't mind, I'd love to read your bio so everyone knows who you are. COREY: Sounds great. CHANTÉ: Corey has over 10 years of work experience, he has had several roles across two industries and has also served in community organizations and nonprofits. At the core of each of these experiences is a passionate commitment to building community and developing people and programs. Corey most recently worked at Google serving as a senior policy advisor focused on privacy, advising product teams on best practices and approaches to inspire user trust. He also owns and manages his own business, em|PACT Strategies, a consulting firm that helps organizations build inclusive communities by prioritizing empathy as a skillset. Corey serves on boards of InnovatorsBox, a firm focused on creativity, and Youth Speaks, a nonprofit focused on youth arts and education. Great background. Corey, did we forget anything else? COREY: Well, I have to just because I am a lifetime SEC, Southeastern Conference, person, that I have to shout out Vanderbilt University, where I went for undergrad and then also, because I'm in California, I have to shout out University of California, Berkeley, where I went for my Master's in public policy. So those two things I would add. CHANTÉ: Those are great institutions for education. So good. Let's start off with the first question that we give everyone and that is: what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? COREY: Yes. I love this question. It gives me a chance to really nerd out. So I would say the first thing that comes up for me is empathy. When I think about empathy, I think about how superheroes, oftentimes exhibit qualities around being empathetic that we might look at as healing abilities, or the ability to regenerate themselves, or regenerate others, the stamina, or the fortitude, last, or survive in a space where there's a lot of things attacking them mentally and emotionally and able to persevere in spite of all of that. So I would say empathy is definitely the superpower that I have. I think when I step into spaces, I'm always thinking about what can I do to make other people feel more welcome, or feel more authentically themselves, which I feel like is the healing part. I feel like the regeneration piece is often me putting myself into positions where I don't like conflict, or seek it out, but I definitely feel like I put myself into spaces where I'm like, I want to support you and it might come at some risk to me, but I think I can bounce back from this. And then the stamina piece. I mean, none of this work, showing up for others even is not just a one-time thing and so, the consistency piece, I think, is something that I've really over time become more comfortable with just knowing that things might be protracted. People might need you for long periods of time and I'm here for it. CHANTÉ: So you said a few things here that really, I think, demonstrate the skillset for somebody who is in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space and I will bet that you probably didn't see that 10 years ago, or whenever you started down this journey. So if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to know how you got to this space now and I'll also add in, before you answer that question, that a lot of folks, BIPOC folks like us, we know what it's like to be othered. We know what it's like to be excluded. So I know for myself, I'm in the DEI space, but I'm just really curious. I did peek at your background, but just for folks who haven't or who don't have those quick fingers right now, they just want to hear your background, walk us through how you got here. COREY: Yeah, absolutely. So there are two inflection points. The first is I am a Black man so there are moments that I think about as a part of my growth as a Black boy and feeling like I had to grow up very fast to be taken seriously in whatever space that I was interested in to see the world from a perspective of hey, you really have to make sure that you're showing up and representing the person that you want to be because people will quickly ascribe something to you. This was a conversation that was permeating all around me so that when I got to college, there was an inflection point. The first one where I remember I was like, “I want to be a biologist and I might also go to medical school.” When I took lab for the first time, it was a moment where I realized like, oh man, despite all of the things that I have done, all of the things that are within my control, I studied hard. I was getting great grades. I was just woefully unprepared for that space of even just being in a lab and doing a titration. I was like, “What the heck is a titration? What is an Erlenmeyer flask?” I realized that in a lot of ways it was because I didn't have access to the resources, or the conversations, or nobody had even told me that I could do those things. I wasn't seen as somebody that could do those things and so it's like, I didn't know what I didn't know and I think that I really started doubting in many ways from that moment who I could be, what I felt like I needed to thrive in the spaces, what I felt like I was capable of in these spaces. It took me throughout college—great relationships and friendships, but also investment and resources around me to really find that voice that said, “Hey, actually, here's your story,” You're not this other narrative, this person that can't do it and you're not a statistic in a sense of a Black man that is x as opposed to a successful Black man. That was the first inflection point for me. Then I think the second was just having been at this point, maybe like 6, or 7 years working. I was at a moment at Facebook actually, where there was an increased conversation around what does it mean to support Black lives? Why are people talking about Black Lives Matter? In particular, during 2015, 2016, I forget specifically when, but Philando Castile and Alton Sterling were two Black men who were killed by police officers in different instances, in different cities, in different places, but within the same week. It was one of the first times that from a technology perspective, we were discussing this in an international way because it had been captured on Facebook Live. So there was this conversation around who are we as a part of this broader conversation? It was the second inflection point because it reminded me that was man, I am a Black man so even as I've done all of these things, I've been in careers, I've had these jobs and these opportunities where I've done things that I can be proud of, I'm still walking into this space the next day, after hearing about these instances and really feeling like I'm carrying something that I don't know how to speak to. I don't know how – I've never really talked to anybody about how it impacts the way that I am showing up in this space. So from there, I just made the commitment where I said, “I'm going to start trying to be more authentically myself. I'm going to start talking about all the parts of me that make me who I am.” I didn't have a plan for it; I just knew that I wanted to have those conversations. The interesting thing was I started having those conversations and people naturally, after I would talk to people, would say, “Well, what's next? What can I do to support you?” It really just made me think about the broader conversation around allyship. There's a broader conversation around what does it actually mean to show up for somebody and then I realized retroactively that there have been many examples, not only in my life, that people who have shown up for me that now I can pinpoint and look at as case studies, as data points, but also that I have naturally gravitated to doing that because of what I said earlier about the superpower of empathy. It has been something that I had always valued, even if I didn't know what it was, or what I was doing, or what it meant, but it was really important for me to see other people's stories because I knew how important it was for people to see mine. So those two inflection points really shaped how I viewed diversity, equity, and inclusion in my role, in the broader conversation. One, my own vulnerability with myself, but also two, how valuable it is to have people hear your story and validate who you are and your experience and how it's a part of a whole and how they see you. CHANTÉ: Yeah. ARTY: With stories like you mentioned being able to have this experience where you really understood what it meant to show up for someone. COREY: Yeah, absolutely. I'll give two stories. One was actually when someone showed up for me and I remember it was my boss actually shortly after the conversations, or at least what I mentioned earlier about Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. I just was having a really rough, it was a rough day. I mean, I was trying to show up business as usual was very much like, well, I have a job, I have meetings I have to go, and my boss asked me, “How are you doing?” That's a question you hear maybe a hundred times a day and it's also a question that feels like a rhetorical. I mean, you're supposed to say, “Good,” and keep it moving. I said that, but she really stopped me, told me like, “Hey, I'm asking because I really want to know and I have time. How are you doing?” I think just in that simple moment of making the space, creating an avenue for me to actually express a real truth, it just made me feel like wow, you didn't have to listen to my story. You didn't have to consider that I was something more than this a meeting I had to go to, or that I was more than this deliverable, or this project that I was working on. And you did. That meeting was, I, even years later, still to think about it because it was just like, wow, that meeting didn't have to happen that way. But I felt like this wasn't just my burden to bear after that question, or that conversation. The question that she asked and the conversation that followed. I think for me, showing up for others actually has been in this work—working through impact strategies and thinking through how do you actually show up as an ally. I've had a number of experiences. But in particular, there was one right around the decree, I would say the resurfacing of the Me Too movement and that conversation around sexual harassment in the workplace. There was an event, or a town hall, or an opportunity where I had a chance to really show up. I initially—and this is also a part of the failures piece—showed up to that very equally with the best of intentions and said, “Hey, what can I do to move this conversation forward?” Along the way, I remember realizing that oh man, in all of my eagerness to show up to this, I actually have silenced, or not included the voices that were probably most important to actually have this conversation. Women in particular, but also just thinking about in general, people who are survivors, or have been a victim of assault. So it was one of those moments where I took on feedback from people, some of my coworkers, colleagues, friends, I figured out a way to revamp the event, postponed the event so that I could do it the right way. And then I remember in the aftermath of that, seeing I learned something through that process about myself and also, the feedback that I received about the event afterwards was like, all right, this was a conversation where it really prompted people to think about a story that they haven’t thought about before—people who showed up to the event. Because I was helping organize it, showed up, and got something else out of it because I wasn't the only voice in the room. It was another moment where it was like, wow, this isn't necessarily my story, but I leaned in a little bit, or leaned in a lot in the beginning, learned a lot in the process about myself and even where my blind spots were within that entire process of learning in some ways helped tell a story that other people realized like, oh, wow, thanks for helping me see this narrative. CHANTÉ: That is so helpful. I feel like the times where I've had to show up as an ally and lean in to something that I didn't necessarily understand, really helped me to better articulate the needs I had as a Black identified woman, or as a Latino woman to say, “Hey, friend or colleague, you want to show up and help me. This is how you can help me,” Because I've learned from my own ouch moments like, oops, I shouldn't have done that and thankfully, somebody was gracious enough to share feedback in that moment, but many times, they're not. Do you have any best practices in terms of folks who want to show up, especially right now in this year, as an ally, they're very well-intentioned, well-meaning people, but they don't necessarily have somebody like an insider to give them the lay of the land, or to tell them where the real pain points are? COREY: Yeah, absolutely. Two things. The first thing is that to your point about the feedback, I think feedback is so critical and also, we have to recognize that for many communities, like you said, we're in the intersect. We are at the intersection of a lot of identities. I recognize that even though I am underrepresented as a Black person in many spaces, I also am in a privileged position because I'm a man. So I'm having to constantly examine those different nuances and intersections of my identity. Yet that also helps me understand that there's a lot of emotional labor in just showing up to be Black every day so, then sometimes, I might not have the energy, or might not have the capacity to give that feedback to somebody who was looking to be on their journey as an ally. The first thing that I would say is showing up for others is really, there's got to be a hunger, or a desire to actually grow and change. This idea of a growth mindset and it has to be separate from passively taking on the information, or the stories of others. I think once you have that, really having said, “I want to do this and I am motivated to do it.” Then I think the second thing is to go back to the superpower question from earlier, is I like to think about showing up for others as a trusted sidekick. So this model of thinking about you're not showing up to save the day, because that's also a lot of labor. Expecting to be the person to in the movie on a high note and be the person that walks down the aisle to get an award, or reward is not really the goal. But what it really is about is really understanding the stories of the people that you're playing in the same universe with and then figuring out what ways you can augment their journey. I think about three things that are a part of that, which is really those everyday moments. When I've had conversations through my work, oftentimes people are like, “Black lives matter. We need to March,” or “Gender equity. We need to dismantle capitalism.” It’s like, that is probably true and there are scholars out there that are speaking more deeply than I can ever speak to on that, but what about those moments that are outside of that? So you might say that Black lives matter,” and you might have the t-shirt, or you might step up in a forum and say, “Hey, I'm declaring that I believe in this cause,” but are you then actually including your coworker who was Black in the team lunches that happen every day that y'all just get together organically, but somehow that person is never on the organic chain? Or if you're thinking about gender equity and pay discrimination, that is a big thing, but also, are you actually making space and not taking up the room when you're in a meeting everyday being the person that has to get the last word, or are you making sure that everybody's opinions are on the table, including your women colleagues, or female colleagues are heard in the room? I think these are the everyday moments where we can show up as an ally. I think the second piece is thinking about these things that we have to confront about ourselves. It might be ugly or scary, but are necessary. We all have biases. We all are a product of certain privileges because we have identities that confer some amount of power to us and some type of favoritism to us. So if we're thinking about that, we have to really examine that how those show up and affect us. Peggy McIntosh wrote Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, where she did a lot of research in this space, where the idea is that we carry this around and even if we don't acknowledge it, it's still there. This idea of it might be invisible to us, but you can imagine walking into a room with a big knapsack on not realizing that every time you turn left or right, you're hitting somebody with your privilege. So I think it's important to acknowledge that we have that backpack on whether we realize it, or not and it's affecting people whether we accept it, or not. And then the third thing is taking that next step of we have the positionality. So if you're talking about supporting from your identity, or from your perspective, you have some ability to influence change. Again, even if it's at a micro level. Because I'm a man, I have some privilege in the communities and spaces that I hold. Because of I’m a man, people are going to see me a certain way so then what I talk about what I represent, what I say, what I'm willing to advocate for is going to hold a different weight, whether that's right or wrong, it's going to hold a different weight than if a woman were to ask, or advocate for the same thing. So then what can I do to use that privilege in support of what that community might actually be asking for, or want? That might take a little discomfort on my part, but I guarantee it is way less uncomfortable than underrepresented groups having to advocate for their right to be seen, or heard, or validated in spaces. So those would be three things, I think you could do in that journey. CHANTÉ: Those are awesome things. The one that really resonates for me, too is just the empathy part because I feel like that is a core skill that we're going to need for the future of work. Oftentimes, when I say that people ask me, “Well, how do I develop empathy?” I have my own answer there, but I'd love to hear yours. How do you think people can get better at working on that empathy muscle and if you have anything that's worked for you personally, or that you recommend more professionally that you've seen in the workplace? That'd be helpful. COREY: Yeah, absolutely. Two things. The first thing that came up for me is Hamilton. I feel like everybody has seen it now. If you haven't seen it, spoiler alert, there's a theme that goes throughout Hamilton where Ehrenberg says, “Talk less, listen more.” There's this idea that I feel like with empathy, we often think of it as just like, ”I have to be in touch with my feelings,” but actually what I think it is, is actually a skill, a tangible skill of can I actually listen to someone and I think there's a difference between being able to hear and being able to listen. So I think the first thing that I have done is like, how can I actually actively listen more effectively to the people around me? There's actually this research, I think 2014, 2015, it was focused on can we use empathy? Like, actually measure the effect of empathy on reducing, in this case, anti-trans gender opinions? I think the research was called “Durably reducing transphobia,” but essentially, what they did was it was an exercise around active listening. They used the political tool called deep canvassing to essentially equip these researchers to go into a home where people expressed, or had been exposed to anti-transgender views and they literally just listened to them. They processed actively with this person about why they believe what they believe and then through that process, they didn't actually rebut with facts, or say, “But actually, that's not true,” or “Did you know that that's actually not true?” What actually happened was people realized through their own act of processing that you know what, this is not actually about transgender. It's actually about safety. I can relate now. I can empathize because now that I've come full circle and have been able to tell my story about why I'm processed out loud, I realized that I do have something in common with the transgender community. They want to feel safe. This law makes them feel unsafe. I want to feel safe in bathrooms, but those two things don't have to compete with each other. We're all people that want to be safe. That that research for me really sticks out whenever I think of active listening. I think the second thing is I've talked a couple of times about storytelling; there's a part of this for me, that really is seeing people as these amazing figures in a story you just haven't read yet. I think when I practice empathy, it often is just me really taking an interest more deeply in the why somebody does what they do as opposed to what they are doing. This hearkens back to Simon Sinek, who was a leadership consultant, or coach, but he had that phrase in a TED Talk where he said, “People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” I think for me, that boils down to the core, how I think about if you want to cultivate empathy as a muscle, or a skill, it's really asking that question, “Why did they do that?” An actual tool that I often use in my work is something called empathy mapping, which is often used in UX design actually, in tech, to really think about human centered approaches to product design. But it lays out all of these ways about how do you think they would feel? How do you think they would see this? How do you think they would hear, or receive this message? And then it really gets you to ask this question about why would they react this way to what you're about to present, or why would they react to these set of circumstances in a certain way? CHANTÉ: One of the things that you're talking about here is the empathy mapping. I actually do this course, or this workshop with some collaborators around designing for inclusion and that is something that we really focus on. Have you seen that in practice well somewhere that you could illustrate, or show? I guess, we could provide an example, or a case study so folks know what you're talking about. COREY: Yeah. One of the things that this makes me think of is Google Assistant space, which is also a space that I spent some time in. But within the Google's Trust and Safety team, there was a focus on thinking about digital assistants and whether they had an inclusive voice when it came to gender, because there is a lot of research now that exists about voices and people perceive assistants to be female, but because of the voices. Companies are really doing a lot of that work now to think through what the implications are around that. But at the time, I remember in this work very early on, what I thought was interesting about this was just the steps that the Trust and Safety team went through to actually figure out if there was an issue here because you design a product, the product is meant to respond to queries. But soon, what they started finding was that maybe some of the queries that the digital assistant was getting were actually maybe more vulgar, or maybe more derogatory. So how does that break down? Does that break down like, is it just objectively that's how people talk to digital assistants? Well, no, and actually doing work and trying to reduce those offensive, or shocking, or risky experiences, what they found was that maybe this is actually offensive, or derogatory on the Google Assistant voices that present, or sound feminine. So now that we have done this research, how can we actually address that in the broader product? I think the Google Assistant then did things to try to make the voices more gender neutral, to provide more options so that there were a range of voices and then also, not necessarily default to the feminine voice, or not even call them feminine. I think they started calling them like Voice 1, Voice 2. So I think that that's one example of that I know, that I am aware of where when you're thinking about inclusion as it could be an objective truth that you're here to provide an answer to a problem. But often, that problem that you're solving might actually have many other subproblems within it. But the idea of inclusive design is important. It's an important lens for everybody to have honestly, on the product, because there are a range of things that might be happening that we're just not aware of. But certainly, the power of doing extensive UX research, or a deep dive on some of those things, I think is what helps augment and move us away from those types of snafus happening in our technologies. CHANTÉ: That was a beautiful example. Thank you. That sounds like a really cool project that you got to be a part of. Was there anything else that you learned from being on that project team that you can share? COREY: Yeah. Well, I should say, first off, this happened before I came into the team, but I think it was one of the things that I found very powerful about the team itself, doing the work and also, where they were centering people. I think that was one of the reasons why I've also been very interested in policy within tech, because it very much it's about centering and advocating for best practices for people and defining what users actually are. But I think for me, the lesson that I took from that just was again, that we all really have to be our advocates for this type of work and this type of change in the products and also, that a lot of this is sometimes not as complicated as we make it out to be. I think that it's really about priorities and what we value. What I appreciated about this team was just this idea of wow, you actually value not just the objective user, but the user in a sense of what context would they use this and how would this impact this community that we're trying to build this ecosystem? ARTY: So there's something you said earlier that really struck me when you were talking about this example with empathizing for these people that had been exposed to anti-transgender ideas and sitting down and listening. One thing that strikes me about that is just that as opposed to these people being a certain way, you framed things as these people were exposed to a certain kind of content that then they had this fear that came up in resonant to something that they were exposed to. I see those sorts of dynamics in other contexts. Would you mind elaborating a little more on that thought? COREY: Yeah. I definitely think that we are in – not that 2020, or certainly, the last 4 years since 2016 with President Trump, I don't think that that is unique. I think that it feels exacerbated because on top of that technology has been a lens through which we've seen almost an exponential growth in access to information. It may have outpaced the way in which we also keep up with the ways in which you are skeptically dissecting this information and analyzing it for truth and veracity. So I think that there's been a confluence of forces that have made it so that things like misinformation and disinformation are permeating and now, it is easily accessible. One of the things that I think about a lot in this space, as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion and why I think empathy is so important is that I feel like it can become very easy to go down this path because we're always looking for ways to validate our own experiences. So if there's one thing that we – an easy way to do it that is harmful, or damaging to others, is to validate by saying that, “Well, it can't be that over there.” I'm invalidating that to bolster the way that I see the world, or my experiences. What I really focus on from my work and why I think the empathy piece has been so powerful is that it's a reminder as we move through that cycle of how can you be more empathetic, that at the core of our human experience is this idea that we all do not like the feeling of being othered, or unseen. Even if for someone who feels like they are, whether you agree or disagree with this idea, I'm disaffected. I think this election cycle is a great example. A lot of people felt disaffected on both sides like, you're white middle-class, or you're Black and in poverty, or you're white and in poverty. You have all these sects of people that are like, “Ah, nobody's listening to me,” and that's reinforced because you're like, “Nobody has the experience that I have and nobody knows what it's like to feel othered like this.” But actually, the reality is, regardless of whether you understand what it means to be grow up white and poor, or Black and affluent, or Black and poor, or white and affluent, you all have this common experience where you have been othered at some point. Empathy says at the core of that human experience is something we all should be able to understand. So we're not necessarily focusing on what you went through so much as why did you have to go through it? I think that this disinformation, this misinformation feeds the – If we had more empathy, I think that would be the thing that would combat this because it would allow us to ask the right questions around maybe this is true, maybe this is not true. If I don't have the tools to actually assess whether it's true or real, what I can say is that I need to really think about the community that is centered in this story and understand how this would make them feel if this were true, how does it make them feel if this were not true. I think that that's where empathy and developing that as a skill could do a lot more work in this space where we're probably only going to see more honestly, content, or information where we have to vet where it comes from, whether it's real, who’s saying it and why they're saying it. ARTY: Yeah. I was thinking about how powerful it is just that even in listening to this context, as opposed to trying to correct it, what you did find was this commonality of, “Oh, we both have a desire to feel safe, it is part of the human experience,” and then with this disinformation, you've got this dynamic that really plays on fear. A lot of this information that's associated with fear reminds me of this TED Talk by Daryl Davis that I think Chanté, you're the one who actually had me listen to that. But specifically, that ignorance breeds fear breeds hate and then if we can go about empathizing and listening and building those connections and tackling the ignorance, that it can have a chain reaction effect on all of these other things. COREY: Yeah. This has made me randomly think of a song lyric by Nas, street prophet that he is, but his song with Puff Daddy, or P. Diddy, or whoever he was calling himself at the time called Hate Me Now. He said that line: people “fear what they don't understand, hate what they can't conquer. I guess, that's just a theory of man.” I was like, ah, this is making me think about that because I think so often, we are pushed into those lanes where the idea is to think that you have to conquer something. So it's like your safety, your capacity to do what you want to do in this world is won by subjugating, or by conquering something else, someone else and that's the only way that it can happen. And then also that fear piece; if I don't understand it, then it's not safe. So if I can't wrap my head around it, then I need to assume the worst and fear it. I think why empathy has been so powerful for me is one, because we don't often talk about it as something that we can actually cultivate. We often talk about it in a you either have it, or you don't, or it's a natural gift, or it isn't. I think it actually is something that can be cultivated and brought to bear, like in that research, where it’s like this was a community. I think the first time I did it, it was in South Florida, or maybe somewhere outside of Miami. I'm not actually sure of the specific locale, but this community had been subjected to all sorts of messaging around the transgender community, because it was meant to drive a particular position, or opinion on a bill around bathrooms and whether bathrooms could be used by people of the multiple genders, or you had to have separate men and women bathrooms. They were able to do through this research, they were able to find that not only were they able to shift people's perception around those issues—actually shift them positively in the direction of saying like, “Oh, actually I do support transgender rights in this conversation.” But that it was a statistically significant shift and it lasted for three months after that conversation when they did a check-in. So I think that it just really speaks to we don't have to fear what we don't understand. If you really just take the time to let people really work out their own narrative for themselves, they will often figure out that their own narratives are incongruent with how they actually are showing up in the space and it's not about telling them, “Your narrative is off,” like, “You're wrong.” I think that there's value in that, but if you're going to make the real change over time, in psychology, they call it act of processing. There's value in actually getting people to their own whatever it is, whatever reason they have for fearing what they don't understand to process that out loud in a way where they can actually be like, “I was heard and are realized that hearing myself is incongruent with how I actually like what I actually value.” So maybe coming to my own conclusions, I don't have to fear this, even though I don't understand all the parts of that experience CHANTÉ: That was really helpful, Corey and one of the thought bubbles—well, one of the many that popped up as you were responding to Arty's question was how do we then, because it sounds like there's a lot of value in anticipating, or using tech and policy for good in those moments. I'm just wondering, I know that you consult around this. So maybe take us down that avenue, because I think we're at this place where we've seen coming off of this last election, the power of the misinformation strategies and how we've partnered that with let's say, the Cambridge Analytica situation where they used data to underpin those fears and then really influenced a community, or a country to the space that they wanted them to be. How do we get ahead of that? What are some things we can do? Or what are some things maybe you're working on that are worth mentioning here today? COREY: Yeah. So those are very, very good questions, or good thoughts. I think that one thing that just thinking about even as you were saying with Cambridge Analytica, my first thought was just that we have existed in the technological space, in this information age where empowering people online, I feel like it has been separate from the using the data, or giving the data up in a way that, or using the data or giving the data up. By that I mean, essentially, we're using these products and tools, wouldn't have never really thought about it as a platform for change, or a platform to see the world we want to sees except for these little blips, or these moments where there are revolutions around like Arab Spring. That was driven, I believe on Facebook and then conversations again, around Black Lives Matter because of live video that we now have, we're able to capture the experiences in real time. So I think that the first thing that I would say is how can we actually educate people around being empowered online? You have a voice, but it's not just the voice to repeat what you have heard, but really to lend your own voice, your own vulnerability, your own story to what's happening in these forms. I think the second thing really is it comes down to the companies. I think that a lot of my conversations, when it comes to disinformation and misinformation, really comes back to values. Many companies, particularly ones that are community-focused and saying that our users are a part of an ecosystem, have to really ask themselves about what ecosystem are you actually trying to build? Because at a certain point, particularly if you are a private company, there are good ecosystems and there are destructive ecosystems. So it can't be a libertarian view of the technology is just a tool and it will all sort itself out. It actually has to be maybe more curated than that and that might not have been the initial approach of technology. Certainly, wasn't the approach to the world wide web either when it first started out. It was just like, anybody could create a geo site, anybody could do anything on the internet, but in some ways, I think that view of technology maybe has to change. It helps lends itself very well to innovation, but the challenge is that it creates a lot of loopholes for abuse. So then I think companies, as they start curating their experiences more, it has to be centered on very clear community values. What is your ideal world and your ideal state that you want to be contributing to as a part of this broader conversation around information and sharing data for the benefit of others? Most of these companies have that in their mission somewhere. They believe that they're doing a public good, even if they're also profiting in the process. Well, if that's true, then what values get you there and keep you there? So I think that that's how the disinformation and misinformation is allowed to persist, because there's just questions that you have to ask around are some things allowable within this ecosystem? Are we willing to take a hard line on some things for the benefit of the greater good? Then it’s also acknowledging that it is hard being in technology and now it's like, even if you're 99% effective at something, if you have a billion users, that's still millions of people, or millions of cases. You have to then also acknowledge that you're always working and it never will be good enough, but you can try to close that gap and be consistent on what you actually value and believe and that at least shows a bit of sincerity over time around what you're trying to do. CHANTÉ: I appreciate your take on that. One thing I might imagine to be true, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think from what I've seen is that the tech policy space is not Black enough. It is not; I don't see enough BIPOC folks. I don't see people really, outside of cis able-bodied white guys in that space. Is there anything that you recommend in terms of trying to change that so that in the future where we're going to have, for sure, undoubtedly more mixed-race people, just given the trends that we're on, how do we address that, or how do we curate for that? COREY: Yeah. I mean, so much of – it reminds me of the story I was telling about biology and going into lab is that I think so much of it is about really understanding the possibilities of what is actually out there and having someone tell you, or exposing you to what those possibilities are. Some of that is pipeline development. So I think we're many of these companies and also, just not even tech companies, but policy in general. This base is about how do you invest back in these communities, knowing that it might pay dividends in 10, or 15 years down the road to have this more diverse ecosystem of policy people, or practitioners, or technologists. Even if you're not developing them particularly for a job today, but down the road. I mean, I think some of that is pipeline investment and actually just telling people at a young age, “I see you, here's the three things you need to get started,” and then the sky's the limit. I know there are some programs around coding that have taken off where people go into the community and do that. It will be interesting to see how, if we were to look over time, whether that's really changing the overall dynamics of actual Black engineers, or BIPOC engineers, or a diverse representation of engineers. But I think that that would be the same for policy and the other thing that I would say is it would seem that many companies, in the tech space in particular, did not actually have – whether they should have, or shouldn’t have, they didn't necessarily have to focus on these types of questions for their growth and success in the early stages. So I think that that also meant that there just wasn't an investment in the broader, we need a policy team. Maybe there were people there to focus on policy and ask these questions. But I think as we continue to see the growth and the impact of companies on just everything like our economic systems, the way we behave, and the way we think about different issues. Now, it is really important to think not just about whether building this product is going to net an additional 100,000 users, at the expense of so many other things, will it affect the political conversation happening in this country? Will it affect the access to resources in this place? Now we're seeing the investment in those communities and spaces, for companies that are growing, or building now, I think it's about really investing in there early and make sure you have the right team and the right representation of the team to address the issues that you could foresee being a challenge, or being a space that your product will exist in. But I think policy is certainly one of many professional spaces where you do see underrepresentation really because of access, or knowledge about the opportunity. I'll just say, because this is a long, long way of saying, but I want to end with a personal story where it's just even for myself going into the technology space, I was always interested in policy, but really from the lens of how you can go directly into government as a civil servant and I try to push the machine, or move through the bureaucracy to actually make effective rules, or regulations that mattered, or meant something to different communities and I think government can still be that thing. There's a lot of challenges there, but it still can be that force. What I didn't realize was that this existed in the tech world, that these were conversations that were happening, that companies were having an influence on the way we legislate, or the way we behave, or the way we think about all sorts of issues that would “fit squarely” in the policy world. It was only through my kind of exploration, but also, connecting with people who had gone over to these companies, in these spaces and the privilege that I had of being able to go to different institutions, where I had access to people who could have these conversations with me, where I realized hey, I could be in this space. But it was something that I didn't even realize was a thing and would never have explored, otherwise. So I think that that also for me, recognizing that I had access to resources and tools that helped me even see it as a possibility and so, I think that has to be the thing that we're in the companies that anybody who has the privilege, or capacity to do so should be investing in. CHANTÉ: Yeah. ARTY: I feel like there's some things that we could do in terms of new precedent setting, that we could do as a broader tech community, that could help drive change of adopting cultural practices within the context of organizations and everything that flows from there. So one of the key threads you brought up was that it comes down to values and we ought to start with having a clear set of things that we want to value as a community and build as organizations and build around that. I started thinking back to you mentioned early days of the internet when anybody could do anything and spin stuff up on the internet and I think about some of the early tech interfaces and stuff we had and I feel like there was a lot more community and curation type things, too. We had message boards and I think about AOL days where you have little chatrooms that you join and stuff that were topic-focused. It seems like, as opposed to being these topic-focused finding each other kind of things by having similar shared interests, we've shifted to this follower type model where it's just about networking and connecting with the people and not necessarily being connected for any other purpose other than getting the most followers. So the purpose becomes the network and then the identity stuff is associated with how many followers you have and how many retweets you get. The dynamics of how we've framed identity dynamics and communication dynamics in tech has shifted quite dramatically. Tech has shifted the internet and then the people seem to have kind of shifted a mirror of the technology that we built. So I'm thinking if we take a step back and start with what you're saying in terms of community values and what a reflection of that would look like technology wise, but what if we started with a manifesto and some vision, even if it's rough vision, of what that might look like? Do you have any thoughts on, if you were to write some of those things down, what you would say? COREY: Yeah. This is making me – and I don't know them off the top of my head, but it's making me think of some of the AI ethics work, artificial intelligence work that several people are working on right now. I think of Dr. Ruha Benjamin, it was Dr. Tim McGraw, I think of a few other contemporaries of them, but there's actually, I think an Algorithmic Justice League where they are actually thinking of that. There's a manifesto of sorts, or a thing that we should be believing and that underpins the ethics that we should have as it relates to that technology. If I were to think of just a couple of things, the first would really be around the empowerment piece and I think I mentioned that before that we're promoting people to feel not just that they can speak, or be on a platform, or they can have access, but that they are empowered with the information, which in my mind, when I say empowered means that they can actually, it's a call to action. They believe that they can do more of the thing that they want to do. I think that is important because then it helps you actually center, it makes you actually have to question all of the communities that are on the platform and what you want them to actually be able to be called to do. Right now, not saying empowerment means that I feel like you're removed from the actual impact of what you are allowing to be shared, or allowing to be set on the platform. I think the second is while there are a lot of companies that would say they do this; it is important to call out safety and authenticity as maybe two and three. The idea is to really root in vulnerability, the idea is really to root in this idea of safety, psychological safety, but also physical, depending on whatever the product is. Because again, I think that those two things require you to then center the user and actually really think about well, what does it mean to actually build a safe community where most of all people feel safe psychologically and while also being their truest selves. Those were the three values, or the three areas where I feel like you would shape some type of principles around, but I also just want to say, I love your point because I do think that in some ways, the way in which we consume technology, or consume information now has really centered on this viral nature. I think in some ways, virality motivates the way that information is even propagated. Whereas before, when you're talking about these interests, it may have really been just genuinely about the interest and then it coalesced around that chatroom. But now virality, because that is the name of the game in so many ways, it almost requires people who have figured out the model of how to make things viral as opposed to people who have figured out something to say that is substantive, or something to say that is empowering to our broader community. Those two things are not always overlapping and so, you have people who will influence and then systems that might reinforce that influence when the influence is not necessarily earned on the merits of actually being empowering, or safe, or authentic dialogue. So I think you're absolutely spot on that like, the way that we consume has shifted to maybe wanting things to be viral and virality being almost the barometer of truth and value when that's not always the case. CHANTÉ: It makes me think that perhaps we've been focusing so much on the tech and the product space, that nobody is—I shouldn't say nobody—but we probably haven't focused enough on the actual consumer and making sure that we stand up resources, or a hub to inform them and make them smarter consumers. Because as we know, every click leads to a dollar, or every like leads to something. So I think we reinforce the system unknowingly. COREY: Yeah. CHANTÉ: I often feel this sort of pull, I don't know about you, but I've been watching versus on Instagram. Are you familiar with versus? COREY: Yes, yes. There have been some good ones. There also have been some duds, but yes. CHANTÉ: Duds, I know. Don't get me started, but #BlackTwitter, right? I'm like, “Oh wow.” So where I was getting excited and I was online early for the pandemic, but there was this part of me that just couldn't. I didn't want to get too attached, or too into it because I was like, “Man, look, we're on somebody else's platform making them money.” I know that there's some stuff being done to shift that and I see this a lot with the Black culture specifically, I feel like sometimes we're online and we're making this tech space, or this product really dope and nobody's there to protect us as consumers. I get really upset about that and I just want so badly to make sure that the consumers are educated, that they are informed and understanding how they should, or shouldn't be using their social capital. How they should, or shouldn't be supporting something that probably doesn't always have their best interests at heart. I don't know, it's not like there's one or two of us who have to be responsible, there's a whole – it's everyone's job. Do you of any collectives, or projects, or are you a part of anything that is aiming to do that? COREY: Yeah. Again, a really, really good point. That really resonates because, I'll just say before I answer the question, I've had that conversation around memes because I feel like memes are such a way that we communicate now as a part of popular culture, but I don't have the tools necessary to trace the lineage of the first meme, but I would bet again, going back to the virality of means that there was something that was also infused with Black youth culture in America that made memes popular and then made them more ubiquitous. So this idea of making technology cool is because there is a culture that is infused in again, making it cool. It's a tool that then you have a community, it feels empowered to do something a certain way, but then that empowerment is not protected. I would say that just in my experience in tech, I have seen companies that have made investments in this conversation on equity and well-being where really, the goal is to how do you work more closely with and partner with creators? How do you work more closely with users of the platform, either through research, or actually through direct partnerships to understand how the tool is actually being used and what are ways that actually supplement the way in which they are using it today? I know in the very, very beginning stages of Twitter, that was one reason why Twitter took off was because Twitter was just – I think it might've started, was it a 100 characters? I don't even know now is way more, maybe it started with the 140 characters, but other than just being that platform tweet 140 characters, everything else was community generated RTs, the idea of having a retweet button, these different features very early on were all things that had organically risen out from the community and they just listened. So I think in many ways, it was cool to see our product at that early stage just say we've created a tool where they were just going to see how people use it and then build on top of that. I think that that work's still happening. Companies should continue to invest in it, of course, but really listening to your creators and rather than saying, “Here's what we need you to fit, we are going to start doing that,” doing more of learning how you're using it is either about talking to you directly, or analyzing or examining it and really understanding what will matter to you and now we're augmenting that with this feature that we have listened to you and heard that you need. And then on the reverse side, proactively thinking about these are the issues that people are citing that they have, then make them feel unsafe, make them feel like they can actually have a voice on this platform and we are listening to that and we are actively going address that even if it's not going to necessarily net us an additional dollar spent, or an additional user earn. This is important because this is preventing you from using a platform to the fullest. So I've seen some things since I have been in the space, I think much of it is going to have to be a continued investment. I can't think of any one product, or any one area where I feel like it's like really landed. But I also think that that speaks to the broader point, which is that it's a journey and then as you continue to grow as companies, you're going to have more challenges. But also, I see opportunities because you're bringing more communities and more people onto the platform and as you scale, that has to be a part of the conversation. It's not just going to be a monolith, or one trigger response to a collective user, but actually many different types of users on your platform. CHANTÉ: No doubt. I’m trying to remember when it was specifically, it was probably three, four weeks ago when there was all this big announcement about Clubhouse, for example, going and people specifically felt some kind of way because here you had a situation where there was a bunch of Black users who were early on joining and you even had a Black man who was the representative of the icon and people were like, “Wait a minute. We're not being involved in this whole opportunity for more funding and what does that mean for us?” I listened in that week to a bunch of conversations and folks were incensed; they felt left out, they felt overlooked, taken advantage of. I think we've seen some action spur out of that, but it just reminded me of that moment that we have a lot of power collectively as a community. But you have to have times and spaces where people can organize and communicate that are not dependent upon somebody else's online community that looks free, but maybe it's not and my feeling is that it has to be a multi-stakeholder groups that are holding these technology companies and even the investor community accountable, but also at the same time, there's got to be people who are thinking about just consumer education and consumer engagement period, because we're only going to see more of this, not less of it. COREY: Yes, on multiple points. Having worked in privacy for some time as well doing policy work, that is something that comes up continually is that even as you build out more mechanisms to keep people's data safe, or you're like, “Hey, we actually are committed to the cause and this is all the work that we're going to do to protect your data,” the number of choices become unwieldy if you don't also have an education around all the things that a company can do with your data. So then it almost feels insincere if all of these things are offered without the education, or the continual reinforcement in different ways throughout their product, or their company's values. And then your point about Clubhouse. Actually, I remember reading that and I agree. Again, it really speaks to what I was saying about the meme piece where it’s like there is something that becomes really, really cool and it helps the technology take off and then it suddenly comes ubiquitous in this different way and it's like, “Whoa, wow, did we really think about the core experience?” How the course readings was shaped by a smaller community, but a very important one. But then the other thing I think about with Clubhouse, but I think a lot of apps are guilty of this in the US is, also just from a tech equity perspective, leaning into the iPhone development space in and of itself often, I feel like creates its own barriers around elitism and privilege. Not because iPhone, or Apple is uniquely trying to say, “Here's our image and here's who the customers are that we have.” But actually, that just even being on Clubhouse in and of itself, or iPhone only products often leave out an entire demographic of people when you think even in the US, I think 50 something percent of people are still are Android users and then you think globally, Android actually has a ridiculous market share of way more than Apple globally. So I was just what you're also thinking about the equity perspective and inclusion, I often think about that as well. Even at the outset, you're already narrowing the lens a little bit, and I get some of that as developmental challenges, but given all the success—I remember reading this article about Clubhouse and what they're worth, I'm like, “Wow, it's all of that.” It would seem like for me, the next step would be now invest in the development of an Android app in order to really see us reach that community, a broader community of which some of the people who help shape the core experience are representative sample of, but we could probably get so much more from this broader community. CHANTÉ: Yes like, I wish I had a lot of snap effects going right now. I agree with that, obviously. So thank you. ARTY: We're getting to the end of the show where we finish up with reflections. So the thing that—I mean, there's so many things in the show—I've been thinking about this idea of what it means to center around core values and community and what type of communities we want to build and everything that follows from those core values and especially this idea of centering around empowerment. I feel like that makes a lot of sense: centering around empowerment. If our goal in building these spaces is to empower people, then what are all the systems and policies and things that follow with that goal of empowerment in mind, how do we raise and lift up people, and create supportive spaces that do that? I think back to one of the things you said at the beginning around authenticity and the ability to, or this conversation that you had, where I think it was your manager, Corey, that asked you, “How are you?” which is normally this plain old question that you just reply with, “Oh, good.” There's an expectation that it's almost rhetorical like, we're just moving on and touching base and not really saying anything of substance. But there's something fundamentally different there with, “No, how are you?” and it's not about the words you're saying, it's about the intention to actually listen. The intention of giving someone the space to let their guard down, to be their authentic self, to tell you what's real. With this goal of empowerment, I feel like that's another aspect that's really important is being able to create spaces where we can drop our guard and be real. We can say what's really going on. In order to learn, we’ve got to be able to be ourselves, too and I feel like there's a lesson in the small in that of something that we can all make an effort to do when we interact with people to really ask them, “How are you really doing? What's really going on?” As opposed to trying to fix it, to change anything, to just listen, to really listen to what's going on with them, to finding those commonalities of, “Oh, I guess we all just want to be safe.” Seeing those things that are the same, as opposed to trying to fix, or change someone else, just focusing on listening and hearing where they're coming from. I feel like if we move toward those combination of things with that intention, with that goal in mind, with that being our why, that how we design the technology, how we design the policies that follow from that will help move us in the right direction. CHANTÉ: For me, I'm thinking a lot about this empathy piece, because it makes me pause and say, “While I prioritize it, I value it,” I just don't know how many hiring managers out there are actually looking for and building empathy into one of their core values that they're prioritizing on their hiring rubric. But as we move to this next fourth industrial revolution where we're automating and people are losing their jobs, we can't outsource empathy. So it's something that we definitely need to make sure we are working on individually and if you have children, I hope that people are thinking about ways that they can cultivate that early in young and teachers and educators, and especially folks who want to be a founder, or they want to be an investor. I think this is something that takes a community effort and I want to hear more people talking about empathy.

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“The creative mindset doesn’t stop at work. It’s something we live in, and something we integrate throughout our whole lives.”   WOW!! I just had the most eye-opening conversation with Monica Kang (@hi.mhk) CEO and Founder of InnovatorsBox

“The creative mindset doesn't stop at work. It's something we live in, and something we integrate throughout our whole lives.”   WOW!! I just had the most eye-opening conversation with Monica Kang (@hi.mhk) CEO and Founder of InnovatorsBox

In this episode of Movement Maker: The Podcast, Terri Broussard Williams interviews #FireStarter Monica Kang of “Find Your Fire”. Monica Kang is truly a social entrepreneur, she displays her expertise as she shares with Terri what it took to get to where she is today, and where she has been along the way. Monica’s #FireStarter journey is truly inspirational, she is a #FireStarter in more ways than one. Monica has learned from her job experience in the workforce and transitioning to becoming an entrepreneur that it's important to focus on living her life to the fullest and surrounding herself with other encouraging #FireStarters. These are things that have amplified Monica’s movement! Tune in and learn more about how Monica has found inspiration to continue her entrepreneurial #Firestarter journey during the most recent pandemic life changes. About The Host: Terri Broussard Williams believes that leaders turn moments into movements. She also believes that anyone can be a great leader. Terri explains that movements can be as big as passing a law, building a church, or starting a nonprofit. They can also be as small as giving to someone in need, showing kindness, or helping students at a school get gym equipment. This podcast is here to help you with the HOW and WHY people build movements. Terri breaks it down each time using the #FirestarterFormula which is: find your cause, build a community to help, communicate your vision, and work to see change. In each episode of this podcast, we’ll take a look at one of the four pillars of the #MovementMakerTribe including philanthropy, policy change, movement-building, and the movement from within. This edition of Movement Maker: The Podcast is a special fireside chat with firestarters, where Terri introduces you to the changemakers in “Find Your Fire.”  “Find Your Fire,” is Terri’s first book. It is a #1 Amazon New Release and Best Seller. Cosmopolitan Magazine list it as the #6 non-fiction book of 2020. Get your own copy of “Find Your Fire” here! Episode Notes: Moderator/Host: Terri Broussard Williams, Founder, Movement Maker Tribe + Social Impact Strategist, Lobbyist Very important guests: Monica Kang is a creative educator who is transforming today’s workforce through the power of creativity. As the Founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox®, Monica teaches creativity in a tangible, practical, and relatable way regardless of industry or job title. She has worked with clients worldwide including Fortune 500 companies, higher education, government, and nonprofits. Monica’s work has been awarded across numerous platforms, including The White House, Ashoka Changemakers, National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), and Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). She is also the author of Rethink Creativity: How to Innovate, Inspire, and Thrive at Work. Driven by her lifelong love of knowledge, she is also an adjunct professor at BAU International University where she teaches entrepreneurship and leadership. Prior to InnovatorsBox®, Monica was a nuclear nonproliferation policy expert in international affairs. She holds an M.A. from SAIS Johns Hopkins University in Strategic Studies and International Economics and a B.A. from Boston University. More at InnovatorsBox.com. Are you an organization that would like to collaborate with Monica? Click Here. Get your own copy of “Find Your Fire” here! After you listen, be sure to check out: Want your copy of “Find Your Fire” signed by the author? Click Here. The #MovementMakerTribe Facebook insider group, join us for all things #MovementMaker inspired. Follow the #MovementMakerTribe on Instagram. Get your #MovementMaker swag here! Sign up for some “Friday Fuel” - a newsletter providing weekly love letters meant to inspire the change-maker in all of us. Book Terri to speak. Contact Monica at monica@innovatorsbox.com Follow Innovators Box on Instagram Monica would love to connect with you via LinkedIn, don't be shy :) Subscribe to Movement Maker: The Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating or review!

In this episode, we're joined by Monica Kang, CEO & Founder of InnovatorsBox and the author of Rethink Creativity, to chat about all things creativity, innovation, and resilience. ---- Show notes & transcript: http://tiffanyyu.com/podcast/009 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/imtiffanyyu/message

This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, Karen interviews Monica Kang and discusses having the courage to be creative.  Monica Kang is the founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox where she is transforming today’s workforce through the power of creativity. She’s also the author of Rethink Creativity: How to Innovate, Inspire, and Thrive at Work. #GoodGirlsGetRich We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.   About the Episode: The COVID-19 pandemic has changed all of our lives. We’re learning a new way of interacting with others, our routines have been interrupted, and some of us have lost our jobs. Now is the time to be creative and reimagine who we are – and that takes courage. Being Creative Takes Courage Creativity takes courage. We as people get used to routines and ways of doing things that it actually limits what we can achieve. Taking the time to reimagine how we do things can be hard and scary. But welcoming creativity into your life can help you achieve more. How to Be Creative How can you be creative? Let’s start simple. Think about how you email co-workers and customers. Do you say a lot to get your point across? If so, think of ways you can simplify the communication and use as few emails as possible. The more creative you become in smaller aspects of your life, the easier it will become to be creative in bigger ways. Maybe you want to change your routine, change your perspective, or break from the mold and change how others perceive you. Creativity starts with just one step that can snowball into unlimited potential that you might not have realized you ever had.   Episode Spotlights: Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/119 Introducing this episode’s guest, Monica Kang (3:46) Monica’s journey (6:00) Creativity amid uncertainty (11:10) Examples of how to be creative (13:10) The importance of measuring your progress (14:06) Creativity takes prep-work (15:59) Building a reimagined future (19:37) The Eye of Curiosity (23:41) How to find out more about Monica (33:30)   Resources Mentioned In This Episode: Where you can find Monica Kang Website LinkedIn Twitter Facebook Instagram YouTube monica@innovatorsbox.com Her book Rethink Creativity Buy her Reimagine Cards Watch my video interview with Monica Kang Join the Free LinkedIn Workshop Sign up for the She’s LinkedUp Masterclass Book a mastermind session with Karen and receive a free consultation plan at karenyankovich.com/apply Join my free Facebook Group if you have any questions about today’s episode   Help Us Spread The Word! It would be awesome if you shared the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast with your fellow entrepreneurs on Twitter. Click here to tweet some love! If this episode has taught you just one thing, I would love if you could head on over to Apple Podcasts and SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW! And if you’re moved to, kindly leave us a rating and review. Maybe you’ll get a shout out on the show!   Ways to Subscribe to Good Girls Get Rich: Click here to subscribe via Apple Podcasts Click here to subscribe via PlayerFM You can also subscribe via Stitcher Good Girls Get Rich is also on Spotify Take a listen on Podcast Addict

Meet Monica Kang, Founder & CEO of Innovators Box, a global firm specializing in the science and strategy of workplace creativity whose proven, research-based, and interactive programs build teams and cultures that are productive, innovative, profitable, and limitless. She joins Jerry to share her story of life in the States and in Korea, her early career in government, and how it led her to build her own business around positivity and creativity.

Our second episode of Season Two of CKA's Korean American Perspectives podcast series features Monica Kang, Founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox, as well as a creativity expert and corporate culture influencer. Monica Kang is a creative educator transforming today’s workforce through the power of innovation. She believes that everybody has creativity— it just needs to be noticed, nurtured, and allowed to grow. Monica reminds us that exploring outside of what we know is crucial for chasing new ideas and experiences. In times of uncertainty, it’s ever more crucial for innovative thinkers to rise up and transform the world.

Pierre Vigilance, MD, MPH is a population health expert joining the premiere episode of RadioRev to talk about social determinants of health. In this episode, Pierre lays the foundation for the SDoH season and answers questions like: How should we be talking about SDoH? Is there a dedicated dictionary of terms and definitions for SDoH? What are the biggest barriers that healthcare needs to overcome to successfully address SDoH? To connect with Pierre: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pierrevigilance/ Junctional Thinking Podcast: https://junctionalthinking.simplecast.com/ Dr. Pierre Vigilance is a health executive with 20 years experience in community development, social determinants of health, people and operations management, population health strategy, and executive education from time spent working in the non-profit, government, and education sectors. He is a systems-level thinker who has established cross-sector partnerships to impact health and founded HealthUp as an advisory consultancy to assist organizations and companies dedicated to improving health and social outcomes in underserved communities. His client-partners range from community health and transportation agencies to municipal bodies considering “smart growth”, and an impact investment group focused on housing. He consistently makes use of human-centered design tools to gain a better perspective on the challenges faced by his clients and the people they serve. As the George Washington University School of Public Health’s (GWSPH) first Associate Dean for Practice from 2013 to July 2019 he led the school’s applied public health efforts. He continues to engage learners and serve in an advisory capacity to the school as an Adjunct Professor and is also an adjunct faculty member at the Institute for Emerging Health Professions at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Prior to his time in academia Dr. Vigilance was the Health Commissioner for the District of Columbia from 2008-2011, and from 2002-2008 he served communities in Baltimore as an Assistant Health Commissioner in Baltimore City and Director of the Department of Health in Baltimore County. His early career postgraduate career was spent in the non-profit sector work where he directed a new case-management based substance abuse program seated in a community development corporation. Dr. Vigilance is a member of the Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic Board of Directors; and as an Advisory Board Member of the Millennium Alliance a tech, business, and educational advisory firm. He is also an advisor to civic tech company Seam Social Labs, and the workplace creativity outfit, Innovators Box. He has served as a member of the Practice Committee for the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH); Board member for the non-profit, DC SCORES; and is an alumnus of the National Association of City & County Health Officials and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins, he currently resides in Philadelphia, PA.

How I Made the Leap to Starting My Own Business is part of The DC Entrepreneur Live Show which happened on Thursday, May 30 at 7 pm. On the show you'll hear from three different entrepreneurs in a panel discussion: Chad Hall, the founder and CEO of remodelmate, a marketplace for buying, selling, and managing home renovations online. Chad also worked in sales and growth at online daily deals company LivingSocial. Monica Kang, founder & CEO of InnovatorsBox® where she helps companies and leaders transform their organizations through the power of creativity. She's also the author of Rethink Creativity: How to Innovate, Inspire, and Thrive at Work. Andrew Dana, co-owner of DC's highly successful, Timber Pizza Co and buzzed about new sister restaurant, Call Your Mother (a Jew-ish deli.) From the "Boca Raton-meets-Brooklyn" interior at the deli to serving up delicious pies from their mobile wood-fired pizza truck, this native Washingtonian is bringing something new to the DC food scene. Special thanks to Alex Vidales @dcpodfest and Spaces co-working for helping produce the show. https://dcentrepreneur.brownpapertickets.comSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/georgeindc)

Enjoy one of our favorites from Season 10!Okay, you founded a company. Are you an innovator? Is your company innovative? Many of us think because we're in the 'startup ecosystem' we're practicing innovation by default. Monica Kang has a different viewpoint. She's the Founder of Innovators Box, an innovation consultancy, and author of the book "Rethink Creativity". As a first-generation American, she's been practicing innovation before she even realized it, having to learn two cultures at the same time. She's worked at the U.S. Department of State, and even the NSA as a --wait for it -- Nuclear Nonproliferation Strategist. In our conversation we dive into building innovative practices you can put into place today, so that, as your company grows and you hire employees, your company culture is one of innovation.Get episode updates, full show notes, and strategies to build your startup's hype by joining the Hypeman tribe at www.startuphypeman.com. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this week's episode of #CurryUpStartup, I interview Monica Kang who is unlocking creativity for all and transforming workplace innovation as the Founder &CEO of Innovators Box and Author of #RethinkCreativity.Connect with Monica:www.linkedin.com/in/monicakangtwitter.com/monicahkangtwitter.com/InnovatorsBoxwww.innovatorsbox.com/

Okay, you founded a company. Are you an innovator? Is your company innovative? Many of us think because we're in the 'startup ecosystem' we're practicing innovation by default. Monica Kang has a different viewpoint. She's the Founder of Innovators Box, an innovation consultancy, and author of the book "Rethink Creativity". As a first-generation American, she's been practicing innovation before she even realized it, having to learn two cultures at the same time. She's worked at the U.S. Department of State, and even the NSA as a --wait for it -- Nuclear Nonproliferation Strategist. In our conversation we dive into building innovative practices you can put into place today, so that, as your company grows and you hire employees, your company culture is one of innovation.Get episode updates, full show notes, and strategies to build your startup's hype by joining the Hypeman tribe at www.startuphypeman.com. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Monica Kang is this week's guest on DC Entrepreneur. Monica is the author of Rethink Creativity: How to Innovate, Inspire, and Thrive at Work. The book was born out of her own challenge of becoming 'unstuck' by changing up the daily routines and habits to which we are accustomed. Monica is also the Founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox where she helps companies and leaders transform their organizations through the power of creativity. Monica teaches entrepreneurship at BAU International. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/georgeindc)

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Monica Kang is an expert on creativity and passionate about solving the world’s big problems. She shares how to be more creative in her new book, Rethink Creativity. Interview with Monica Kang, the Founder & CEO of InnovatorsBox. The following is the pre-interview with Monica Kang. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above. What is the problem you solve and how do you solve it? Making creative thinking accessible and relatable for all. 87% of the global workforce believes that they cannot be creative and feel stuck at work. We want to change this narrative and show how you can live your full potential. Check out my free webinar where I share the secrets of successful nonprofit crowdfunding at http://crowdfundingforsocialgood.org.

Monica Kang is the Founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox and the Author of Rethink Creativity coming out in September. You can learn more about Monica here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicakang/ This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at http://authorsunite.com/. Thank you for listening to The Business Blast Podcast! Tyler --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/authorsunite/support

Monica Kang wanted to be a diplomat. So she earned a master's degree in strategic studies and international economics from Johns Hopkins and worked as a nuclear non-proliferation policy expert in Washington. But she wasn't happy. She realized creativity was the missing piece. After figuring out how to bring creatively into all aspects of her life, she founded InnovatorsBox to teach individuals and businesses to do the same. On this episode, hear Kang's pivot story and learn how creativity can change the way you approach life and work, no matter your job title.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/atribecalledyes)

Most people just don't think they are creative or can ever be creative. If that describes you, or if you want to learn how you pump up your creativity, then today's episode is definitely for you. Today I speak with Monica Kang from InnovatorsBox.

What if creativity took your team from good to great? What if it could transform your business? What if it could transform your life?  Monica H. Kang is an entrepreneur and innovator who is changing the way people think (and learn) about creativity.  Join us on Tuesday for this amazing live Q&A with Monica to find out about a different way to look at creativity, InnovatorsBox, and so much more. More About Monica Monica loves building bridges, relationships, and communities. She believes that change is possible when more people are able to understand and integrate into different worlds simultaneously. That integration is possible with creative thinking and an open mind. For Monica, those two worlds are entrepreneurship and public policy. Prior to InnovatorsBox®, Monica specialized in nuclear nonproliferation as contract support to the U.S. government and a non-resident Kelly Fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS. She has lived and worked abroad at the United Nations in Geneva and Chosun Newspaper in Seoul. She got her M.A. degree in Strategic Studies at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University and her B.A. at Boston University. To satisfy her love for entrepreneurship and creativity, she also sought out to be a StartingBloc Fellow and Mentor, Hive Fellow, Design Thinking in DC member, a Startup Weekend Organizer and Facilitator in DC. She is also in the process of being a certified coach and proud to be part of Coach Diversity Institute based on International Coach Federation standards. Her love for interactive experience, safe space, and vulnerability reflects deeply in the curriculum she builds at InnovatorsBox. Her joy is to create 'aha' moments for the attendees because the best learnings comes by 'being in the moment.' She is a strong believer of 'learning by doing' and focuses on creating a safe space for deep inner search and discovery.  In her spare time, she loves to travel, read, paint, and teach Korean. You'll often see her with a chai latte and chocolate croissant at a cafe. About Association Chat Association Chat (est. 2009) is an online community and weekly chat that takes place on Tuesdays at 2pm ET on https://www.crowdcast.io/kikilitalien. You can connect with the association community throughout the week on Twitter using the hashtag #assnchat or through the Facebook Group.   Find out more about Association Chat at http://associationchat.com/. (*"Cheekily" hashtagged from the beginning! #assnchat – yes, we know what it looks like and no, we aren't changing it.*) KiKi L'Italien serves as host for the chat with regular guests and quarterly live events along with creative collaborations with industry thought leaders.   How people can participate live and watch/listen later: Association Chat provides participants with the ability to register and ask questions live on the day of the event, but it will also be streaming on Facebook Live where people can watch and comment. There is usually a dedicated group of people registered on the actual Crowdcast platform for the episode to participate live (this number can fall in the range of 20-200+, it just depends on the speaker(s), topic, and pre-show marketing) and each show usually has over 1000 viewers on Facebook Live, with episodes later garnering 300-400+ views on the Facebook platform by itself. In addition to that, the episodes are later uploaded to the Association Chat Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and edited video to YouTube. These will be available Wednesday-Thursday of the same week as the live interview. The replay will be available at the same URL as the chat within minutes of the chat's end and the link will continue to take people to the replay once it's over. Website: http://associationchat.com/ Facebook Group (private): https://www.facebook.com/groups/AssociationChat/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/RWiKUrUWxcg iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/association-chat-podcast/id1221431539  Google Play: http://bit.ly/googleassnchat Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/association-chat-podcast Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/kiki-litalien Watch Live: https://www.crowdcast.io/kikilitalien If you want to promote this to anyone in your network, please use: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/rethinking-creativity  (with #assnchat)  

Monica Kang is the Founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox. Monica is a passionate community bridge builder, creative culture educator, and curious researcher. She enjoys finding impactful ways to integrate different worlds, such as entrepreneurship and public policy, to build a more multifaceted community. She founded InnovatorsBox to help professionals tap into their creative potential. Through workshops, coaching, and supportive community, she empowers professionals with confidence and insights in creativity to enhance professional and personal growth. She also continues to pursue her passion in politics and nuclear nonproliferation. In this episode, Monica used to worry about what other people thought of her. When she realized that she doesn't have to take situations personally and not let it affect her, that's when her confidence increased to be the woman she is today. Check out thetaoofselfconfidence.com for show notes of Monica's episode, Monica's website, resources, gifts and so much more.

Monica Kang is the founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox®, a company that offers creative educational workshops, services, and products for professionals to learn why creativity is critical, how to integrate and hone it in work and life. Before starting the company, she had a steady job specializing in nuclear nonproliferation … Continue reading The post How Creativity Can Help You Become A Happier and More Productive Entrepreneur appeared first on Founders Nextdoor.

Monica Kang knew early in life that she wanted to work in international affairs. Her upbringing in two countries compelled her to understand how people related to each other, and steered her towards her role working with the government. Monica worked for years in international affairs, and even though she loved her job, she still felt something was lacking. She saw that people weren't creatively fulfilled at their jobs and knew she wanted to help them. She knew she could fulfill that gap, so she started up Innovators Box. In this episode learn why you should think link an outsider, the importance of asking questions, and how self-awareness can improve your problem solving. Here are three things you can learn from Monica: Think Like an Outsider One of the things that has helped Monica build Innovators Box is the fact that she didn't have prior experience in business. Too often, when we are well versed in an industry, we have trouble thinking outside of the box. Instead of relying on tried and true advice, Monica was able to try new and innovative ideas. "The big part of the business element that has worked the most effectively, were the creative and new approaches that I took." That's why bringing in a fresh perspective into any industry can be helpful if you want to be different. When you don't know what's "right" and "wrong" you are able to think differently. So, the next time you want to bring creativity into your work, try looking at industries outside of your own. That curiosity can make a world of a difference. "It's critical to be willing to learn different domains because you're going to have that naive curiosity of wanting to understand and less fear of being judged because you really don't know." The Importance of Asking Questions Have you ever held back a question back you were afraid of looking dumb? Do you carefully consider seeking advice because you want people to think you are smart and have it all figured out? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you may want to reconsider the way you approach problems. Most successful people are not afraid to ask questions. In fact, they embrace it. Monica believes every business starts because someone was curious and asked a question. "Essentially all businesses started because of a challenge they wanted to solve and opportunities come out of it. Innovators are people who, when they see a problem, they see a challenge... and ask questions." Successful people are open minded and curious about the world around them. They are unafraid to ask questions. It is this trait that allows them to learn and grow. "When you start asking questions and have an open mind and you're willing to learn, you're permitting yourself to actually grow and expand your comfort zone, and always... find there is unlimited possibility." The Power of Self-Awareness One of the problems we all encounter is trying to disconnect from our digital lives. We are constantly bombarded with emails, text messages, and social media notifications, that it can be hard to detach ourselves from our screens. Monica believes this has affected the way we approach problems. They have gotten in the ways of responding when something goes wrong. "Sadly, we're so used to staring at screens... and along that point, we're so used to acting and responding when something happens, and not knowing what to do when something doesn't happen, that we forget to be actually thinking through what's happening and being fully aware." She believes that we need to take breaks and become more aware of our surroundings. Doing this will make us much more effective during challenging situations. "Notice all these details so that you are being more fully present and being aware. and when you do that more regularly, that really trickles down into everything else you do. And so when you do face challenging situations, instead of feeling like 'Ah, I don't know what to do,' you're like 'Hey, this is not great, what can I do? How do I feel about this? When do I want to tackle this?' And you start breaking it down." What can you do to bring presence into your daily life? Try taking a walk or a five minute break, and see how your thought process improves. "Just take a silent walk and let yourself go for a bit. And I think that initial practice of pausing and giving yourself space is important. That's would recommend the next time you're feeling this. And if you're feeling this right now, I recommend taking a five minute break. It's not going to change, make a difference, you actually feeling a little more rested and more centered is going to help you make the right decisions instead of you feeling stressed. And I think that's essential even as someone who's creative... who's trying to make important decisions." Read more shownotes from episode 62 with Monica Kang

Today, we're talking to Monica Kang, CEO of InnovatorsBox, about using creative thinking as a way to process the heaviness that some of the topics might bring about.  How do we deal with burnout? How do we initiate difficult conversations in our communities? How do we talk to someone that disagrees with us? Find all the answers to those questions in this episode.    Monica is a passionate community bridge builder, creative culture educator, and curious researcher. She enjoys finding impactful ways to integrate different worlds, such as entrepreneurship and public policy, to build a more multifaceted community. She founded InnovatorsBox to help professionals tap into their creative potential. Watch her work here:        http://www.innovatorsbox.com