Podcast appearances and mentions of jennifer brandel

Katsi Cook is a beacon in an array of quiet powerful worlds — a magnetic, joyous, loving presence. The public conversation we offer up here was part of a gathering where a fantastic group of young people had come to be nourished, to explore the depths of what community can mean, to become more grounded and whole. They've taken to sitting at the feet of this Mohawk wise woman, mother, and grandmother, and you will experience why.Katsi Cook is globally renowned in the field of midwifery. Her practice and teaching, based in ancient ancestral knowledge, have taken an esteemed place in research and advances in the science of environmental reproductive health. She is founder of the National Aboriginal Council of Midwives of Canada. Her work is at heart, she says, about the "reclamation of the transformative power of birth." And Katsi Cook is helping our world recover the natural human experience of cross-generational companionship and care. This conversation you'll hear between her and Krista, sitting in a room of mostly young people, was an exercise in the art of eldering — which Katsi Cook calls nothing more and nothing less than "generational wealth transmission."Katsi Cook is an Onkwehonweh traditional midwife, elder, and Executive Director of Spirit Aligned Leadership Program. She is a Wolf Clan member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation and resides at the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe in upstate New York. Her groundbreaking environmental research of Mohawk mother's milk revealed the intergenerational impact of industrial chemicals on the health and well-being of an entire community.  Katsi leads a movement of matrilineal awareness and rematriation in Native life. Her book discussed in this episode is Worlds Within Us: Wisdom and Resilience of Indigenous Women Elders.Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page at onbeing.org.  There you can find links that will provide context on other people mentioned in the show.Special thanks for the entire experience that brought On Being together with Katsi Cook:Reverend Don Chatfield, Tammy Saltus, and the All Souls Interfaith Gathering congregation; Megan Camp, Tre McCarney, and the team at Shelburne Farms; The Harris and Herzberber Families and High Acres Farms, Philo Ridge Farm, Spirit Aligned Leadership, Gedakina, Guaní Press, and the Akwesasne Freedom School.  Jennifer Brandel with Hearken; Mara Zepeda and MCK Keefrider with Linestone, Amelia Rose Barlow, Kristine Hill with Collective Wisdom, and Sara Jolena Wolcott with Sequoia Samanvaya, and audio engineer Abra Clawson.  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Wayfarer Foundation; Democracy Fund; and (m)otherboard who supported this Gathering, as well as: Aimee Arandia Østensen, Aly Perry, Amanda Herzberger, Andrew Berns, Ashley Henry, Chief Beverly Cook, Ben Von Wong, Bread and Butter Farm, Carson Linforth Bowley,  Casey Ryan, Charlotte Hardie, Christine Lai, Courtney Mulcahy, David Alder, Ethan Bond-Watts, Elizabeth Stewart, Eve Bradford, Grace Oedel, Hanna Satterlee, Heidi Webb, Jeff Herzberger, Jennifer Daniels, Jonathan Harris, John Stokes, Joey Borgogna, Josie Watson, José Barreiro, Judy Dow,  Katherine Elmer, Kathy Treat, Ken Miles, Liana Gillooly, Loretta Afraid of Bear Cook, Lynn van Housen, Mario Picayo, Michelle Dai Zotti, Paul & Eileen Growald, Raquel Picayo, Rob Anderson,  Speranza Foundation, Tom Cook, Tom Porter, Scott Thrift, Sherry Oakes-Jackson, Ssong Yang, Sue Dixon, Sydney Bolger, Vera Simon-Nobes, Waylon Cook, Wendy Bratt. ______Sign up for The Pause, a monthly Saturday morning companion for all things On Being, with a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, event invitations, recommendations, and reflections from Krista all year round.

Earth can sustain life for another 100 million years, but can we? This episode, we partner with Radiolab to take stock of the essential raw materials that enable us to live as we do here on Earth — everything from sand to copper to oil — and tally up how much we have left. Are we living with reckless abandon? And if so, is there even a way to stop? A simultaneously terrifying and delightful conversation about bird poop, daredevil drivers, and some staggering back-of-the-envelope math. Radiolab's original episode was produced and edited by Pat Walters and Soren Wheeler. Fact-checking by Natalie Middleton. The Planet Money edition of this episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Alex Goldmark and Jess Jiang. Special thanks to Jennifer Brandel.Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.Listen free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Music: NPR Source Audio - "Wir Rollen" Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's election season. The air crackles – a strange cocktail of anticipation and apprehension. We're drowning in pronouncements, predictions, and the ever-present din of commentary. But what if the key to navigating this volatile landscape isn't about shouting louder but listening deeper?On this episode of Mission Forward, we explore that very question with Jennifer Brandel, a process innovator and co-founder of Hearken. Hearken helps institutions truly hear their audiences. Brandel's background, spanning from NPR to the New York Times, gives her a unique vantage point. She's not just a theorist; she's wrestled with these challenges in both her professional and deeply personal life. Our host this week is our own Brian Fox, chief strategy officer at Mission Partners, a native at navigating volatile landscapes himself.Together, they unpack the surprising power of curiosity and deep listening, especially when the stakes are high. Think of a surgeon in the operating room: skilled hands guided by intense focus and precise observation. Or a negotiator: not bulldozing, but listening, seeking the subtle cues that can de-escalate a challenging conversation. In the chaotic aftermath of a natural disaster, it's the quiet acts of empathy and connection that rebuild shattered communities.So why, when it comes to the equally turbulent terrain of politics, do we so often resort to the verbal equivalent of a sledgehammer?Brandel and Fox share how we can move beyond the echo chambers and engage in meaningful dialogue, even – perhaps especially – with those with whom we vehemently disagree. They explore the difference between listening to respond and listening to understand. They shine a light on the subtle art of “looping,” a technique that can transform heated debates into opportunities for genuine connection, and reveal how organizational values, when they're more than just empty slogans, can serve as a compass in moments of uncertainty.This isn't just about surviving the election; it's about building a more resilient, empathetic, and ultimately, more democratic society. Join us as we uncover the hidden power of listening in a world that desperately needs to hear.Links & NotesHearkenAmanda Ripley's High ConflictSlate's How To Podcast (Two-Part Series with Jennifer Brandel)Monica Guzman's I Never Thought of It That WayBraver AngelsJohn Paul Lederach's Pocket Guide to Facing Down a Civil War (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward (01:14) - What to Say (04:38) - Curiosity and Depp Listening

Jennifer Brandel is a co-founder of Hearken, which she'll talk about extensively today, but she's also behind Zebra's Unite, Civic Exchange Chicago, Democracy SOS and WBEZ Chicago's Curious City. She joins Carrie Fox for a conversation on approaching the most challenging problems with an open and curious perspective in this rebroadcast from season 7. She is a serial entrepreneur and innovator who works between industries to address how to design better systems for listening, responding, and evolving with their stakeholders. She is a co-founder of Hearken, which she'll talk about extensively today, but she's also behind Zebra's Unite, Civic Exchange Chicago, Democracy SOS and WBEZ Chicago's Curious City. Now that we have her bona fides out of the way, here's the real reason Jennifer is special to us: there are so few people able to clearly create an environment that makes the complicated approachable, and the messiest of problems solvable. Even the problems we face today, problems many believe to be impossible.  “We're coming to a moment in which many more people are recognizing that collaborations and the interdependencies of sectors, of organizations, even departments within a company need to be in better and closer communication with one another. And the more we divide and silo ourselves and separate the work, it's at our peril. We're missing insights. We're missing opportunities to leverage one another's work. We're being less efficient. All of these things translate into the workplace of making our lives harder and also making us  keep doing things the same way over and over again, rather than evolving at the speed at which we could be.”How does she approach these intractable problems at Hearken? Curiously. She's an enthusiastic observer with inexhaustible energy to face hard things and try to make them better. If you've never heard of Jennifer or her work, we're thrilled and honored to be able to present her worldview to you on this show. Thank you to Jennifer for joining us on the show this week. (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward (03:40) - Introducing Jennifer Brandel (09:55) - Hearken (13:02) - Addressing Systems & Institutions (19:40) - Name and Ideal System (25:21) - Addressing Division (28:57) - Hearken's Next Steps

Jennifer Brandel is a serial entrepreneur and systems change worker. She's the founder of Curious City, Hearken, Civic Exchange Chicago, Zebras Unite and Election SOS.---What do you do to safely release your anger? Lemme know @ 844-935-BEST or ZAK@bestadvice.show---Finding Catharsis with Megan Stielstra---Support TBAS by becoming a patron!!!! - https://www.patreon.com/bestadviceshow---Call Zak with your advice @ 844-935-BEST---IG: @bestadviceshow & @muzacharyTWITTER: @muzacharybestadvice.show

Jennifer Brandel is a serial entrepreneur and innovator who works between industries to address how to design better systems for listening, responding, and evolving with their stakeholders. She is a co-founder of Hearken, which she'll talk about extensively today, but she's also behind Zebra's Unite, Civic Exchange Chicago, Democracy SOS and WBEZ Chicago's Curious City. Now that we have her bona fides out of the way, here's the real reason Jennifer is special to us: there are so few people able to clearly create an environment that makes the complicated approachable, and the messiest of problems solvable. Even the problems we face today, problems many believe to be impossible.  “We're coming to a moment in which many more people are recognizing that collaborations and the interdependencies of sectors, of organizations, even departments within a company need to be in better and closer communication with one another. And the more we divide and silo ourselves and separate the work, it's at our peril. We're missing insights. We're missing opportunities to leverage one another's work. We're being less efficient. All of these things translate into the workplace of making our lives harder and also making us  keep doing things the same way over and over again, rather than evolving at the speed at which we could be.”How does she approach these intractable problems at Hearken? Curiously. She's an enthusiastic observer with inexhaustible energy to face hard things and try to make them better. If you've never heard of Jennifer or her work, we're thrilled and honored to be able to present her worldview to you on this show. Thank you to Jennifer for joining us on the show this week. (00:00) - Welcome to Mission Forward (02:15) - Introducing Jennifer Brandel (08:31) - Hearken (11:38) - Addressing Systems & Institutions (18:16) - Name an Ideal System (23:57) - Addressing Division (27:33) - Hearken's Next Steps

In the spirit of our show, and our inquisitive listeners, we decided to ask some about ourselves and Curious City's humble beginnings, with founder Jennifer Brandel.

Today, May 31, 2022, is the last day to register for SuperCrowd22 to receive a free copy of Crowdfunding for Social Good. U.S. registrants receive an autographed copy; international registrants receive a digital copy.Devin: What do you see as your superpower that’s enabling you to do all this?Mara: I think the superpower that I guess I call on the most is probably listening.What is Zebras Unite?Mara Zepeda, one of the four co-founders of Zebras Unite, describes the business as “an international cooperative that is creating the capital, culture and community for the next economy.” [I recently joined the co-op.]One dynamic that makes the organization highly effective is connecting with both sides of the marketplace, entrepreneurs and investors.“You have the demand of entrepreneurs,” Mara says. “They are looking for other companies to do business with. They’re looking for service providers; they’re looking for vendors. They’re looking to sell their products or services. They are looking for best practices. They’re looking for education.”Mara explains how engagement with investors completes the picture:On the other hand, you have the supply of capital. And that's been the part that's been really interesting and exciting to us is there are capital providers that have come to us really from the beginning of the movement saying, look, we want to invest in zebra companies, but we need you to help us create the do the financial engineering to help to create capital products that meet the demand of the marketplace.The complete ecosystem makes membership valuable for everyone involved. “you have this incredibly mutualistic cycle of constant learning to be able to inform, creating new corporate structures, capital instruments, governance protocols and processes,” Mara says.Zebras Unite is achieving scale, with about 300 members and 30 chapters worldwide. It is structured as a multi-stakeholder cooperative, allowing for different rights and shares of profits and ownership. “The founders have put blood, sweat and tears into it. They can now receive more of an upside,” Mara says. Zebras.org, an affiliated nonprofit, has a 5 percent ownership stake and special rights for protecting the Zebras Unite mission.“Anyone who wishes to be a member-owner now can become a member-owner of the cooperative,” Mara says. Zebras have a different way of thinking. “The folks that we serve and the members we have are coming from an abundance mindset. It’s like power is infinite, and we’re interested in building power with our members and with the economy,” she says. “We’re not interested in this kind of scarcity winner takes all mindset.”That mindset is the essential element in founding Zebras Unite.Don’t miss another episode. Subscribe!Founding Zebras UniteMara grew up in Sedona, Arizona and Santa Fe, New Mexico, communities built around art and creativity. “I’m an artist myself,” Mara says. “But the medium that was most interesting to me has always been collective potential.”She has always thought deeply about the power of a group. “How do we work together to unleash creative, collective potential? How can we learn, learn from one another? How can we develop deep, authentic relationships? How can that work? Be in service to larger things, larger than ourselves?”Her insatiable appetite for knowledge helped her develop a career in journalism. “I was a reporter for National Public Radio, where I was focusing mostly on the economy.”She also founded venture-backed Switchboard, which later merged with Hearken, launched by Jennifer Brandel, another of the Zebras Unite founders who also had a background in journalism.Four women founded Zebras Unite. Mara says, “We wanted to grow our companies in a different way. We were interested in mutualism, cooperation, and shared prosperity.”In addition to Jen and Mara, the four included Aniyia Williams and Astrid Scholz.“We weren’t interested in the extractive growth-at-all-cost Silicon Valley model we see with billion-dollar unicorn companies,” Mara says.“That led us down this path of articulating what it was that we wanted to be and our manifesto in 2017: “Zebras Fix What Unicorns Break,” she says, describing a catalyzing event in the formation of Zebras Unite.“We began to sketch out this dichotomy between who benefits from unicorn companies and who benefits from zebra companies, which we were building,” Mara says. “Tens of thousands of people got back to us, and they said, what you’re describing is exactly what I’m building, and I’m facing the same challenges.”In all her work as a journalist, entrepreneur and leader, Mara uses her highly-honed listening skill, her superpower.How to Develop Listening As a Superpower“You could just spend years understanding listening,” Mara says. To make the point, she lists different applications of the skill. Consider listening:To yourselfTo othersTo the cultural momentTo one’s bodyThe four founders come from different backgrounds. “To build this organization over five years, we’ve had to go through a crucible of communication,” Mara says. “We’ve had times when the organization is practically fallen apart.”“We’ve had times when some of us have had to step back,” she continues. “We’ve had times where we’ve had to navigate conflict, and that requires actually learning, up-leveling your communication skill set. It requires everybody being committed to continuing to be in relationship.”For her part, Mara says, “As a child of divorce, like my first instinct is always just to like peace out. My instinct is I just want to leave.”Mara and her colleagues understood that too much was at stake to let conflicts ruin what they are doing. “The stakes are so high, and our dream is so shared and so beautiful,” she says.The team has created communication norms that have become vital as the team has grown to 12 on six different continents. They have made these communication norms a foundational part of the business.Mara provided some guidance for developing listening skills.Mirroring is a start. She says, “So you just asked me what are some tools that you would recommend to others about communication? It’s quite extraordinary. The delta between what just came out of your mouth and what I heard and how infrequent it is that we take the time to make sure that what we heard is actually what was said.”The Zebras Unite team also employs a tool that facilitates vulnerable conversations. They use the preamble “the story I’m telling myself is” when sharing difficult thoughts and feelings. For instance, “the story I’m telling myself is that you don’t appreciate anything that I’ve done, and you want me out of here, and you hate everything that I’ve ever contributed to this organization.”“We’ve also instituted safe words,” Mara says. “So when things get a little bit too heated, we’ll introduce safe words.”Another active tool she says the team uses is to employ a facilitator. “In my experience, it’s very difficult to be able to facilitate a difficult conversation.”Finally, Mara says, the team has created accountability pods so you can define your goals. “Then the accountability pod system makes it possible for you to constantly revisit what that plan is and talk out with your colleagues.” Then, you can talk about your progress, failure and adjustments with trusted advisors.By following Mara’s example and counsel, you can make listening a superpower that allows you to do more good. Get full access to Superpowers for Good at devinthorpe.substack.com/subscribe

At this week's Round Table, Jack, Jedd, and Madeline spoke with Jennifer Brandel, Co-founder & CEO of Hearken, a company that helps organizations around the world develop and operationalize participatory processes. Jennifer was "an intensely curious kid," and that curiosity has been her guiding principle all her life and what brought her into journalism. Jennifer envisions a shift from a model of readers as consumers to readers as partners, and from a model of journalism as autocracy to journalism as democracy. She is deeply concerned about what makes “a good story.” Currently, the perception is that conflict —two sides opposing each other—is what sells, which is damaging to democracy unto itself. In today's newsrooms, things are optimized for speed and efficiency and the reader is only involved after something is published. Jennifer's Hearken aims to involve the public in news coverage at all four stages—pitching, assigning, reporting, and editing. Journalists should see themselves more as stewards for the public: what does the reader want and need to know? This leads to dramatically different stories because the public asks questions that are far more expansive, like what will this city look like 50 years from now? Or What would it be like if our statues were reflective of women and the full population? We talked a lot about the pros and cons of technology in journalism. Jennifer reminded us that tech is like fire: it can be applied in ways that are positive and productive or damaging and destructive. The question she and the Hearken team ask themselves is how can we avoid extractive engagement, in which media is selling your attention and data to third parties and instead use tech to create a reinforcing feedback loop. Jennifer underscored that the introduction of tech into journalism provided great potential to get feedback from readers but was instead designed sub-optimally around comments and opinions, not authentic input into production. As she put it, “When you invite people to ask what they don't know rather than share their opinions, you open up a new model.” The irony is, it's not as if the public's ideas aren't good and won't help you meet metrics—quite the opposite! WHEN newsrooms listen to the public, consumption metrics are much higher but it is relatively rare. What gets in the way is capitalism: it is hard to finance investments in tech in a way that doesn't create negative repercussions down the line. We are particularly excited by Jennifer's work on The Citizens Agenda– a people-powered approach to journalism applied to elections that focuses on what do people voting need to know in order to be informed at the ballot box? The public actually has FAR more detailed and interesting questions than politicians tend to think and there is deep value in bringing the public into the process of elections, a cornerstone of democracy. Thank you for listening! Jennifer recommends the books The View From Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity –and wonders whether objectivity is either possible OR desirable! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

Jennifer Brandel is a serial entrepreneur and systems change worker. She's the founder of Curious City, Hearken, Civic Exchange Chicago, Zebras Unite and Election SOS. --- What do you do to safely release your anger? Lemme know @ 844-935-BEST or ZAK@bestadvice.show --- Finding Catharsis with Megan Stielstra --- IG: @bestadviceshow home: bestadvice.show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jennifer Brandel is Co-founder of Hearken, a people powered process and technology that enables organizations to better engage and collaborate with their stakeholders, as well as the Co-Founder of Zebras Unite, a network creating a more ethical, inclusive and collaborative ecosystem for mission-based startups. For her work in journalism and entrepreneurship, Jen won the prize for “Best Bootstrap Company” at SXSW and won the News Media Alliance Accelerator Prize. She received the Media Changemaker Prize by the Center for Collaborative Journalism, was named one of 30 World-Changing Women in Conscious Business, is a Columbia Sulzberger Fellow, an RSA Fellow, AND a member of the Guild of Future Architects and the National Civic Collaboratory. Jenn and I talk about building a values-based business, why process should come before product, alternatives to the unicorn model, so much more: How combining the philosophical underpinnings of business and working with the Bahai faith taught her an effective way to impact journalism and plant the seed for starting Hearken How changing the process of reporting fundamentally changed the dynamics and results of the newsroom Why and how Hearken preserved optionality as it has grown over the past five years, and the options that are opened by maintaining sole ownership The zebra company as her response to her disillusion with the silicon valley model and exponential growth and monopoly market Why engagement is a strategic business model, and how Hearken is thinking about a more relational engagement model that expands possibilities for peoples lives How Hearken approaches helping companies transform, and why they focus both on what is being left behind and what is newly being built How Hearken designed a system with different moments of feedback loops at major decision making moments and how they deliberately think about the dynamics they create for 1:1 and 1-to-many interactions References and resources: Zebras Unite You are more powerful than you think: A Citizen's Guide to Making Change Happen by Eric Liu Community Centered Journalism: Engaging People, Exploring Solutions, and Building Trust by Andrea Wenzel Design Justice Network Select highlights: "Just by tweaking the process of how news stories got made, we ended up creating a different sounding and differently consequential journalism. Other newsrooms started asking us about it, and I knew I would regret not trying to help others make it work, because I do think it is universally applicable process that makes the world a little bit better." "I feel like what we're trying to do is maintain the mission, and the money follows if you center the public. But the operations and the way the operating systems of news rooms have been set up is completely counter to this, so the work of doing this change while it might sound so simple on the surface is surprisingly more challenging because of the way they're optimized for speed, efficiency and distribution, not for listening, relevance and trust. So, there are a lot of changes that need to happen inside an organization first on a mental paradigm level, and then a workflow and tooling and schedule and business level. This tiny idea ends up changing a lot." "I ran into the tension of what seemed like the Silicon Valley pattern recognition and it felt inherently impossible to build the kind of company I wanted to in that value system in place and that structure. If I want to build a company that lasts a long time and has these kinds of structures, why am I focusing all my time on making a small group of people very wealthy who aren't who I'm trying to serve with this work? I was always pushing back on the 10x unicorn model, but I didn't have the language for what I wanted instead. "That was a tension that was hard, just the tradeoffs along the way of trying to find aligned financing and again hearing people say 'We'd invest in you if you only tweaked it this way or that way,' knowing that that would actually compromise our values. It's hard to walk away from money but we really have figured out that who you get the money from and what it's designed to do is so important, and it's better to say no if you have that option." "It was a real gold rush mentality, and folks really glommed onto one or two narratives of how you could strike it big. Then that just became everything that people were chasing, and then forgot the fact that our economy and country are built on these more steward-owned models in which family or generational companies are growing incrementally over time." "It all comes down to human nature. It's not something that is going to change. People are always going to be curious, they're always going to have questions, they're always going to need other people to help fact check and understand the complexity of any situation to make it digestible and easy to understand what to do. Those things are never going to change, and I feel positive about any system that's built on human nature fundamentals designed for the most productive version of ourselves, versus the most destructive tendencies that we have. And that's what I feel we have with our public powered process and tech." "I think it's all about discerning what are the dynamics that make for the best outcomes for everybody." "There's different network design built for different purposes and I think its really thinking through what's the most productive and what's going to yield the most positive responses for everybody." "The more people are involved, the more they get to see their voices mattering and shaping things and the change they want to see happening the more likely that are to support you and trust you. So many institutions don't have this connective tissue." "People first, going into process, and then product is the final layer. It's easy to start with product because it's tangible, where process is more abstract and requires more mental bandwidth. That's part of it, convincing people the process innovation, which is hard to wrap your head around, is so much more important than what products you're using."

This week on ‘The Stack’ we speak with Jennifer Brandel, founder of media consultancy Hearken, on the state of news in the US. Plus ‘Boys! Boys! Boys!’ a new title on queer and gay photography.

The spiritual side of start ups. Two journalists turned tech entrepreneurs, Jennifer Brandel and Mara Zepeda, explain how listening is key to preserving democracy. Their platform Hearken is helping organizations adopt a humble posture of learning. And through the Zebras Unite movement, they are building a community of businesses intent on growing in harmony with natural cycles, instead of just disrupting systems. Plus: Mara, who grew up in a Sufi community, explores how we can each create worlds through sacred sound; and Jennifer shares how principles she found in the Baha'i Faith inspired her goal to reframe the relationship between media institutions and the public. Learn more about: Jennifer Brandel https://jennyeverything.com/ Mara Zepeda http://www.marazepeda.com/ Hearken https://wearehearken.com/ Zebras Unite https://zebrasunite.coop/ Start ups and Sex https://medium.com/zebras-unite/sex-startups-53f2f63ded49 Jenn's WBEZ article about Baha'i elections https://www.wbez.org/stories/bahai-elections/c5a92dd7-5c2b-40ac-bc03-36a7d31de6d1 That scene in Risky Business with the Baha'i Temple https://youtu.be/kpHITx7yRio +++ Leave a Review! http://bit.ly/interfaithish Social: https://www.instagram.com/interfaithish/ https://www.facebook.com/interfaithish/ https://twitter.com/interfaithish Email: interfaithish@gmail.com Voicemail: 202-599-2953

In early 2017, frustrated by her own challenges in raising money on Sandhill Road, Astrid Scholz partnered with Jennifer Brandel and Mara Zepeda to author "Zebras Fix What Unicorns Break" -- an article that challenged the VC-dominated paradigm of startup capital, and championed the cultivation of zebras over unicorns. In this episode, Astrid shares her perspectives on the need for alternative models by which startups can raise capital, and explains what she means by a zebra.

Jennifer Brandel (CEO & Co-founder, Hearken) and Mara Zepeda (CEO & Co-founder, Switchboard) are longtime friends and founders of Zebras Unite. Zebras Unite is a founder-created and founder-led movement calling for a more ethical and inclusive movement to counter existing startup and venture capital culture. They believe creating an alternative to this status quo is a moral imperative. I spoke with Jennifer and Mara about what led them to start Zebras Unite, and the work they’re doing today to push their radical ideas forward.

Jennifer and Mara are one half, or two of four co-founders, of Zebras Unite. Spread across 6 continents, 40 chapters and an online community of 4000 founders, Zebras Unite is a global movement that aims to make startup and venture capital culture more ethical and inclusive. At our third Community Leadership Summit, which took place in early September 2019 in Copenhagen, we had the chance to sit down with Jennifer and Mara to find out how it all came about. We talk about: - The story of Zebras Unite: how a movement was born out of an essay on "sex and startups" and the need to change something - How the movement grew from four co-founders to a global community of 40 chapters and 4000 founders - The power of metaphors to change culture, self-organized dance parties and distributing power from the few to the many - A short manual on how anyone can start a movement to solve a problem they truly care about Here is episode #23 of the co-matter podcast with Jennifer Brandel and Mara Zepeda.

Jennifer Brandel of Hearken is pitching a new kind of business. She calls it a zebra: a company that’s driven by a mission — but still wants to make money. And Jennifer’s mission with Hearken is to help journalists do their jobs better. But can she and the investors get on the same page?  Today’s investors are Jillian Manus, Charles Hudson, Phil Nadel, Michael Hyatt, and Sarah Downey.

What happens to journalism when the public gets to choose the topics they’re curious about? “Public powered journalism” is the ongoing experiment the co-founder and CEO of Hearken Jennifer Brandel is working on to make journalism more responsive and useful to the public’s needs. Also check out Curious City https://curiouscity.wbez.org https://www.wearehearken.com  

Jennifer Brandel began her career in journalism in the early 2000s, reporting for numerous outlets including The New York Times and Vice, picking up awards along the way. In 2011 she founded the groundbreaking audience first series, Curious City at WBEZ in Chicago. Her company, Hearken, was awarded a spot in Matter.vc's accelerator and took home the prize for "Best Bootstrap Company" at SXSW 2016. Jennifer was awarded the 2016 Media Changemaker Prize from the Center for Collaborative Journalism and named one of 30 world-changing women in conscious business. Andrew Haeg is a veteran journalist and entrepreneur, correspondent for The Economist, founder of the mobile engagement platform GroundSource and co-founder of the Public Insight Network at American Public Media. He has focussed his career on using technology to help newsrooms better listen to their audiences and communities. As a result of this, he aims to make their journalism more reflective of and responsive to the people they serve. Andrew and Jennifer share their individual experiences as journalists who have come to learn the importance of deep listening. Andrew describes it as the difference between transactional listening and building connections. Rather than listening to take stories from sources, establishing real connections with people allows you to tell the stories of those who would otherwise be uninclined or unable to. Jennifer speaks to her training which preferenced efficiency and distribution over actual journalism. She was instructed to write stories before going out into the field, then finding quotes to back it up - confirming what she already knew, not discovering new things. This provides minimal ability to tell stories accurately, in fact, Jennifer attributes this way of working to a broken state of journalism globally. Are the stories essentially false, if they're confirming biases? Jennifer chose instead to take longer writing her stories, so she could listen deeper, even if it meant taking on other work to make ends meet. It's a harder way of working, Andrew describes, to listen properly. However, doing so creates richer stories, and connects communities of people to themselves and others, in a way that journalism based on transactional listening does not. Tune in to Learn How hungry people are to talk with journalists when they listen deeply How to collect feedback beyond a simple survey How to listen to the full person How listening ensures relevancy How to cultivate a deeply engaged audience How listening can be healing

Corey Haines, CoFounder & CTO of Hearken Corey was on a year-long sabbatical after helping his last company during an acquisition. A friend of his reached out about a founder looking to build a new product that would help make the media transparent, and Corey got hooked. After meeting with Jennifer Brandel in January, they flew out to San Fransisco for a media incubator called Matter. They made an agreement: 6 weeks, no questions, if it doesnt work then they will part ways. Find out how Corey leads his engineering team, the fundraising and why he got involved in this industry when he was previously working in such a different sector before cofounding with Jennifer. Special Guest: Corey Haines.

You go into a meeting with a big idea. You lay it all out there with everything you've got. And then...blank stares. On this reposted episode of our podcast, we explain what the hell just happened, and how to turn the whole thing around the next time. Radio rock star turned tech entrepreneur Jennifer Brandel reveals the secret to getting audiences to pay attention. Sometime you just gotta flip things upside down. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Podkast o pomenu tesnejšega sodelovanja z bralci, poslušalci in gledalci. Zakaj je za prihodnost medijev pomembno bolje poslušati občinstvo in zares tudi slišati, kaj so...

What Miranda July Can Teach (& Remind) Us About Making Media for the Public Admittedly, I over prepared for this interview. Beyond spending many evenings researching and thinking, I also hijacked every one of my hangouts with friends for months, turning brunches and walks into tactical conversations about July’s work and what makes it so compelling and unique. Along the way, it became clear that Miranda July’s work shares much in common with public media’s work. Here’s just a short list of the overlap. Both July and public media makers: * Produce audio / radio / video / films * Publish a newsletter * Make apps * Perform live shows * Sell branded bags for the super fans (July’s is not a tote bag for the farmer’s market, but it has quite a few compelling uses) * Toggle between nonfiction and fiction storytelling * Have a distinct sensibility, so much so that The Onion has had their fun with both July and public radio * Create deep intimacy and empathy with audiences All things were considered, which meant I had far too many questions for an hour’s worth of time. (Here’s what I had prepped for the interview, if you’re curious.) This also meant I surely missed a lot of opportunities to follow interesting threads that emerged, and go deep where my antenna sensed more to plumb, because there was just too much ground to cover. So rather than present a straight Q&A, here’s a distillation and expansion on some highlights of the conversation … a quasi-interview turned “classy listicle” (if that’s not an oxymoron). The accompanying audio is fairly different from what’s below, so feel free to give both your time. OK. On with it. Here are 9 key takeaways from my conversation with July — many of which I can’t help but think hold lessons and creative challenges and opportunities for public media. * Audio work teaches rigor * Make people feel the news * Lena Dunham is coming for your job * Comfort with vulnerability is a super power * Not taking risks? Red flag * Generosity over genius * The audience = wild cards, and that’s great * Audience engagement is an iterative process * What some of you asked her       Though Miranda July may be most well known as a filmmaker and author, her earliest work was in audio, creating radio plays in her early twenties. One early piece was called WSNO Radio Sno: Broadcasting From the Coldness of Your Heart in which she played the host and all of the callers. I wondered how she decided on audio as one of her earliest forms of expression. She explained that the term “radio plays” wasn’t intentional — it came about as a kind of shorthand way to explain the work. MJ: Really I wanted to be making movies and for some reason, it never occurred to me to just get as close to Hollywood or a professional filmmaker as possible. Instead, I would do things like what I called a “live movie,” which was aka a play, or a performance.

What Miranda July Can Teach (& Remind) Us About Making Media for the Public Admittedly, I over prepared for this interview. Beyond spending many evenings researching and thinking, I also hijacked every one of my hangouts with friends for months, turning brunches and walks into tactical conversations about July’s work and what makes it so compelling and unique. Along the way, it became clear that Miranda July’s work shares much in common with public media’s work. Here’s just a short list of the overlap. Both July and public media makers: * Produce audio / radio / video / films * Publish a newsletter * Make apps * Perform live shows * Sell branded bags for the super fans (July’s is not a tote bag for the farmer’s market, but it has quite a few compelling uses) * Toggle between nonfiction and fiction storytelling * Have a distinct sensibility, so much so that The Onion has had their fun with both July and public radio * Create deep intimacy and empathy with audiences All things were considered, which meant I had far too many questions for an hour’s worth of time. (Here’s what I had prepped for the interview, if you’re curious.) This also meant I surely missed a lot of opportunities to follow interesting threads that emerged, and go deep where my antenna sensed more to plumb, because there was just too much ground to cover. So rather than present a straight Q&A, here’s a distillation and expansion on some highlights of the conversation … a quasi-interview turned “classy listicle” (if that’s not an oxymoron). The accompanying audio is fairly different from what’s below, so feel free to give both your time. OK. On with it. Here are 9 key takeaways from my conversation with July — many of which I can’t help but think hold lessons and creative challenges and opportunities for public media. * Audio work teaches rigor * Make people feel the news * Lena Dunham is coming for your job * Comfort with vulnerability is a super power * Not taking risks? Red flag * Generosity over genius * The audience = wild cards, and that’s great * Audience engagement is an iterative process * What some of you asked her       Though Miranda July may be most well known as a filmmaker and author, her earliest work was in audio, creating radio plays in her early twenties. One early piece was called WSNO Radio Sno: Broadcasting From the Coldness of Your Heart in which she played the host and all of the callers. I wondered how she decided on audio as one of her earliest forms of expression. She explained that the term “radio plays” wasn’t intentional — it came about as a kind of shorthand way to explain the work. MJ: Really I wanted to be making movies and for some reason, it never occurred to me to just get as close to Hollywood or a professional filmmaker as possible. Instead, I would do things like what I called a “live movie,” which was aka a play, or a performance.

Few things are more frustrating than having your great idea be totally ignored. This week, Rachel and Suzanne invite Jennifer Brandel (radio guru and founder of Hearken) to discuss how listening breeds listening and the art of getting your message out there. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As PleasureTown grew, it began to attract a different breed of wanderer. No longer were those drawn to the settlement society's rough and grizzled outlaws and misfits. Dreamers, poets and artists had begun to flock to PleasureTown to carve out their homes. Angie was one such dreamer, and she harbored a power far greater than anyone could have imagined.

Jennifer Brandel is the Senior Producer of Curious City. "I don't think that soft or fluffy news should be given such a bad rap. When you have a question that ignites someone's curiosity and gets them interested in thinking about the world in a different way or considering things they haven't done before, that is important. If you can accomplish that in your stories, they're not fluffy — they're interesting."