The Seth Godin Project, An Application

I strive for all my work to illuminate truths that would otherwise go unnoticed. In the last year I have made two pieces that were particularly effective at achieving this goal. In July I produced a story on the first large-scale effort to help Americans facing home foreclosure. The five-day event hosted by the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) helped restructure loans for over twenty thousand D.C. area residents. The event was called, "Help Save the Dream of Home Ownership." I received hundreds of responses from viewers who were outraged that the government was bailing out banks while failing to provide this kind of assistance to homeowners. Most rewarding was an email I received the next day from a viewer who was so moved by NACA's work that he sent them a check for $10,000.

Another instance of inspirational feedback happened on the campaign trail. The pundit-driven debate around race at the time focused myopically on the Bradley Effect and on candidates who tended to couch conversations about race in euphemisms. While on the trail in West Virginia I produced a story that attempted to confront the issue directly. The piece struck a cord, garnering over half a million hits and soliciting over 11,000 responses on our website, on YouTube, and through direct emails from people who yearned for a frank conversation about the taboo topic.

This craving to shed light for others in order to effect change has underscored all my endeavors, from working on congressional campaigns to running non-profit organizations.

Well, I'll use it of course. I'll use it in its infinitely applicable ways. I find that one rarely plays a single role when involved in growing new ideas. I not only produced for The Real News, but fundraised, analyzed our site traffic, worked with our marketing consultants, and managed our Washington Bureau.

Most broadly, I want to dive into new business ventures with the wherewithal to know which are cul-de-sacs and which will have manageable dips with worthwhile rewards. More specifically, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of marketing and business practices to become more effective in my other endeavors. I serve on the board of Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition and I am the Chairman of the Board of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Getting an MBA and learning fortune 500 business practices would give me a skill set that many people could bring to the table, but understanding marketing dynamics and developing new business practices with Seth Godin would offer me the unique means to transform the way these organizations do business.

While an undergraduate at Brown University, a campus only a mile from Rhode Island's capitol building, I set out with some friends to repeal the most harmful Drug War policies in the state. Over three years and after founding three organizations (two of which still thrive), we succeeded in passing key legislation to legalize medical marijuana and provide a state regulated distribution system, created a patient-caregiver cooperative, allocated an additional million dollars to addiction treatment during a budget crunch, and saved the state's drug court. I cannot take sole credit for these achievements; they were the accomplishments of a core group of us and a larger network of hundreds.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) served as the umbrella organization that inspired us and led to our activism. The student-run organization provided an environment to teach one another about the injustices of the drug war: the mass incarceration of 2.3 million Americans, the systemic racism perpetuated by unequal enforcement of drug laws, the devastation of farmland and the poisoning of drinking water in South America and Southern Asia in the name of interdiction, and the political interests that hold the War on Drugs in place despite prolonged failure and increased drug abuse. Once educated, students use the tools that SSDP provides to create change, inspiring leadership in people who never thought themselves to be leaders. What is most striking is the sense of purpose and pride that SSDP members draw from the movement and the organization.

After leading SSDP at Brown University and organizing our Northeast Regional Conference where former U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee gave his first address after leaving office, I joined the national organization's Board of Directors and was appointed Chairman. While on the Board, the organization has grown from 50 chapters in the United States, to over 110 chapters in four countries, including an autonomous sister organization in Canada. We've sparked dialogue on campuses and in newspapers across the globe, changed dozens of state, local, and campus laws, and overturned the federal policy of refusing financial aid to prospective college students with one or more drug related arrest. But I see the biggest change in the thousands of students who have been part of the movement - students who became leaders, who found their voices through studying the failed Drug War and by organizing their peers to help repeal its most corrosive policies.

The initial excitement of backpack journalism was intoxicating. After producing video news in a studio for five months, I spearheaded TRNN's emergence into the world of on-the-ground journalism. The thrill of jumping on a plane with a camera, lights, and editing equipment, landing in a city, and attacking my story with every waking minute soon gave way to the frustration of just skimming the surface of stories. After filing stories from New York and Washington D.C., I joined the primary campaign trail, hopping from state to state with my equipment in tow. After a couple of weeks the viewership stopped growing and after a couple of months the mental and physical exhaustion of 16-hour days and six-day-weeks was taking its toll. The stories were not getting to the public. Blogs and news sites posted my work, but buried it in places with little traffic. And, worst of all, the stories began to echo themselves. The electoral horse race, then candidates' platforms, then Iraq, then how their rhetoric compared with their voting record, and then back to the horse race--the formula wore thin and viewer fatigue due to the unprecedented length of the campaign season made finding freshness that much harder.

My boss suggested I return to Washington and cover Capitol Hill. I said no. Instead, I changed my coverage. Attending the candidates' press conferences and speaking engagements led to repetitions of the same analysis -- not to mention that thirty journalists were at every event. So, I stayed on the trail but left the candidates. I began interviewing local residents in towns along the way, getting intimate, honest responses to the sudden bombardment of campaign advertising that blazed through the primary trail three days ahead of the candidates. The change reflected feedback from The Real News viewers, who liked our analysis but wanted more insight into the reality on the ground. At the same time I lowered my production value, conducting more street interviews and spending less time fine-tuning edits and finding cover images. Each story provided a small insight into a slice of America, and together they depicted the stunning array of character and ideology in this nation. The change of topic mixed with the gritty feel of the stories struck a cord. Viewership doubled and then doubled again. Blogs began featuring my written stories instead of burying them. And eventually, one story from West Virginia went viral, picking up over half a million views to date. I had found an audience and a market in which I could be among the best.

These are formative years for the entire globe--technologically, economically, and spiritually. I wish for the societal transformation over these years to increase our communal insight into the problems of environmental degradation, global poverty, addiction (to screens, drugs, shopping, food, and all forms of modern over-consumption), and continued systemic racism. And I wish to take part in this transformation with a community of passionate friends in a way that keeps me up at night and wakes me up in the morning.

-I found myself uncharacteristically giddy and jumping for joy when I read your squidoo lens. I've been looking for a forum in which to digest my experiences of the past few years and no graduate school seemed wholly applicable. This program feels made for me.

-I have spread the word through my networks, creating a facebook group and sending an email to a 1k+ listserv of social entrepreneurs.

-Although I am currently based in LA, my brother lives in Brooklyn and has agreed to give me his extra room for the six month period. More fortuitously, I have a friend whose parents live in Hasting-On-Hudson and on nights when we work too late to make the long trek back to Brooklyn, they will take me in, feed me, and mock my taste in footwear.