Clay Hebert's Alternate MBA Application

As Bruce Wayne

My day job is being the Director of Marketing and Business Development at a large global consulting firm.

I'm always trying to act as a leader and change agent within a firm that talks "innovation" but walks "repeatable methodology" (and status quo). Lately, I've been sticking out like a sore thumb.

One story...

My firm was the king of Really Bad Powerpoint. So when I learned about improved presentation skills from Seth, Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte, I knew that I had a responsibility to improve the way we presented to our clients.

Initially, people were shocked because my new presentations weren't the typical format that our firm usually delivers. But then an interesting thing happened. I developed a presentation for my boss, a senior partner and the Global Pharmaceutical CRM practice lead.

He loved it. Our clients loved it. He presented at a conference and Merck asked him to come present it again on site. One Merck client even emailed, "Seth Godin would be proud".

Now, I present using these new methods at industry conferences and other executives are asking me to teach and help them.

I run regular calls for our practice and get emails from people that tell me their favorite part of the call is the last few slides called "Clay's Lifehacks, Tips, Tricks, Books and Links" where I devote ten minutes of the hour to teach some intelligent but change-resistant people how to use RSS, blogs, wikis, discuss productivity enhancers such as David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology, preach the benefits of Firefox or Jing or give a review of the latest books I've read.

As Batman

I look forward to the point each day (or night) when I can put away my work-issued PC and get out my personal MacBook Pro to work on projects that I'm passionate about.

I've just recently co-founded a new entrepreneurial venture with a great friend and colleague, Paul Pettengill. Paul and I crossed paths when he was at my firm and despite only working a few days on the same project, Paul and I developed a bond, mutual respect and working chemsitry that prompted us to form Cerebral Element LLC, the holding company for our plethora of nascent ideas.

Seth, you will receive an application from Paul as well and I can't think of anyone who would be better suited to this opportunity. I can't recommend Paul highly enough. If somehow you take both of us, buckle your seat belt.

Whether in my day job or my personal life, I love being able to inspire, help, encourage and empower those around me.

The company I work for was a great place to begin a career. I learned a lot about business and adding value for my clients.

Over the last nine and a half years, I have met and continue to meet many hard working, intelligent, and interesting people.

Right now, I do it because I love adding value to my clients and I get a deep personal satisfaction when I help my colleagues improve their productivity, expand their skills and allow them to 'teach it forward' to others.

Being a change agent within a huge firm is important and I love seeing the impact I have on our practice and our firm but it only fans my flames to reach further and help more people.

I know that the people chosen for this opportunity will be so dynamic, so passionate, so exceptional, that learning will happen constantly and the conversations will likely last for the rest of our lives.

Everyone involved will be a sponge and a firehose at the same time. I imagine the collective genius and interesting dialogue will be similar to that of a lunch with TED presenters but will last for six months instead of one hour.

I am hoping to learn bravery. If I get selected and move to New York for six months, I will have already started.

I am hoping to learn how to positively impact many others who are less fortunate than myself.

I am hoping to learn even better ways to find, develop and lead communities online.

I am hoping to learn when to hire and leverage good experts instead of learning another skill.

I am hoping to learn how to continually tune my feeds and inputs to best separate signal from noise because everyday, there is more new signal but MUCH more new noise.

I am hoping to learn new, compelling stories to tell and to improve my ability to tell them.

I want to be a Connector. Both in the
Malcolm Gladwell definition and the Seth Godin definition. They are far from mutually exclusive.

There is so much opportunity to start quickly, start small and make large impact changes on the world.

Organizations like Kiva are making large scale change happen with a simple ideas and a simple platform and business model.

Kiva changes lives by connecting people with the tools they need to succeed. It is completely "teach a man to fish" vs. the always less successful "give a man a fish". I hope to do the same.

I want to connect the disconnected to each other and create value for both sides.

I want to create products and experiences and stories that people remember.

Healing under the stars
In 2003, I purchased a small business. Actually, I purchased a ladder, some paint and a secret for $700. The secret is a simple technique that allows anyone to paint very realistic stars on the ceiling of any room, transforming an ordinary bedroom ceiling during the day into a starry sky at night.

I want to figure our how to build a Tribe, scale this idea and teach the secret to to enough people to paint the ceilings of every cancer ward in the United States.

I'm in a Dip
I also want to learn about managing a Dip that I'm currently in with Bloggley, a new company I'm trying to start. Inspired by the desire to better connect advertisers to people who want to be advertised to, Bloggley (currently in Alpha, Beta coming soon) is a platform for bloggers to build their own Tribes. A rough draft two minute video overview can be found here. If you're interested in Bloggley, contact me. If not, feel free to make fun of my voice.

I've never been in the Peace Corps. I've never taught English to schoolchildren in Africa. But I know I've made real change in the world through my 'thousand drips'.

Back around 1997, I developed skills that allowed me to help people create or improve their resumes and cover letters. Eleven years later, my hard drive now contains the 'before and after' resumes of over 40 friends and family members. Of course now I encourage the remarkable ones to start a blog, write a book or otherwise develop their reputation beyond a flat resume.

In 1998 - 1999, my final year of college, I made a triumphant return to the University of Minnesota dorms on the other side of the law. I was a resident assistant on a floor of 42 freshmen and sophomore men. The job required being a friend, father figure, cop and counselor, sometimes all in the same day. In the end, they taught me much more than I taught them.

In 2000, I got the opportunity to volunteer to read stories with underprivileged youth at the Minneapolis Downtown Open School. I was to take the most unruly child out of the classroom so that the others could learn without disruption. I felt I connected one on one with every child I worked with.

I learned enough HTML to build simple websites for my friends and their families.

I learned digital photography (thanks to some phenomenal books by Bryan Peterson) and love my role as the primary shutterbug for friends and family.

I love to cook and absorb every culinary nugget from Cook's Illustrated to Anthony Bourdain. Providing people with tasty and healthy meals gives me intense satisfaction. Helping my two year old niece build a Gingerbread house over Thanksgiving was the highlight of her month. Her proud smile was the highlight of mine.

This program is the opportunity I've been looking for to broaden my impact and make a more significant change in the world.

In 1989, I was picking classes for my upcoming freshman year in high school. To meet the two year language requirement I could choose one of the two classes everyone else was taking (Spanish or French) or I could take a newly offered class in Japanese. Relishing a challenge and happy to go against the grain, I chose to study Japanese. That choice altered the course of the next 10 years of my life.

For the next four years, my entire high school career, I was taught Japanese by the most wonderful, intelligent, energetic teacher anyone could hope to have. Her name was Peggy Hagmann. She was amazing.

(She went on to win the American Foreign Language Teacher of the Year award in 1995, presented by the Walt Disney Company and McDonald's.)

Her passion was contagious. She built a tribe of students that were passionate about learning Japanese language and culture. After four years of studying under Mrs. Hagmann, I was ready to major in International Business and minor in Japanese at the University of Minnesota.

Then came my Dip.

I knew Japanese at the U of M was going to be faster paced than in high school but I wasn't ready for how much faster. The classes were geared completely for Japanese majors. I figured four good years of high school would translate to two years at the university level. Try 20 weeks.

We had participation-based recitation everyday for two years and it was completely spoken in Japanese. Students dropped out daily. A semester and a half in, I was learning new kanji.

All the while, I was trying to be a college freshman and enjoy all the requisite irresponsibility.

The Japanese minor program required two years of language study. I was acing my general studies and business classes but was struggling to get C's in Japanese. Many a cold walk home I wanted to throw my Japanese textbooks over the Washington Street bridge and call it quits.

But I always thought back to Peggy Hagmann and her passion and dedication to all of her students. I didn't want to let her down.

The next year and a half was extremely tough and the C's brought down my GPA significantly, but I finished. I completed the Japanese minor to go with my business major (which had switched from International Business to Finance).

After I interviewed with my current firm, the recruiter told me that the Japanese minor had caught their eye and more than made up for the less than perfect GPA. They wanted someone who wasn't afraid of a challenge.

Fighting through my Japanese Dip in college helped me begin my current career.

A barback
A few years ago, I took a second job Thursday through Saturday nights as a barback (a bartender's lackey and the lowest end of the totem pole) so I could save up enough money for a down payment on my first house. During the day, I was impressing clients and authoring multi-million dollar proposals. At night, I was getting bossed around by 22 year old 'veteran' bartenders, filling ice and washing glasses for the hip, drunken masses at The News Room. It was hard, smelly, unrewarding work but I saved enough money for my down payment and bought my first house in early 2002.

A travel agent
One of the things I'm most proud of is the week long trip I organized for my two brothers and I to take my amazing 82 year old grandmother to travel throughout Ireland, spending time together and searching for a long lost relative that was the missing link in her 24 years of genealogy research. I'll never forget the trip or the amazing story about the day we found him. Within a year, we received a letter that he had passed away and I know how much meeting him had meant to my 'Gram'.

A runner
On August 31st, I ran in the Nike Human Race 10K on (almost) no training.

Inspired by the way Nike was able to connect over 500,000 runners worldwide through a combination of technology and passion, I immediately wanted to be part of that Tribe.

I had been traveling for work all month and only got one training run in two days before the race but on race day, I went to Mission Beach with my iPod and finished the 10K in an hour. Membership to the Tribe was granted. I was in.

An evangelist
When I come across anything I deem to be remarkable, I have a burning desire to tell people about it.

Whether it be via email, Twitter our blog at Cerebral Element, or my blog at Daily Sense,, I fervently pass on information, links, quotes, advice, books, tools and lifehacks that I feel others will find interesting and relevant.

Last week, I won the Coke Brand Fan Contest using a branding idea I submitted to Coca Cola based on the Tribes concept. You can see the summary of my idea here.

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential -- for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never."
- Soren Kierkegaard

I wish for someone to push me to realize my full potential.

My grandmother once told me that there is never a good reason to lie to anyone. Other than the desire to further one's political career, I have never found one.

I believe that details matter. I believe in the importance of excellent design.

I believe in underselling and overdelivering.

I believe in the power of Tribes and I want to lead some.

I believe if your service is remarkable that your product can be unremarkable but the opposite is not always true. When both the product and the service are remarkable, it's almost impossible for a Tribe not to develop.

I was 13 pages into Purple Cow when I went online and ordered the rest of your books. I've been an evangelist ever since and have always been excited to introduce your work and others' to remarkable people that I know.

I didn't tell a thousand people about this opportunity. It deserved a more focused campaign. Via email, our blog and Twitter, I told (at least) 98 remarkable people. And one extremely remarkable person.

When I heard you would be speaking on Tribes, I happily flew from San Diego to New York and sat in the second row.

I hope you give me the chance to fly across the country again.

Thanks, Seth.