Marc Sirkin's Mindnumbing Thoughts

This blog post is loosely transcribed from a talk I gave as part of a Future of Non-profits meet up hosted by my buddy  David Neff . I was asked to do no more than 5 minutes and came up with the following. I'm also posting my hand scribbled notes I used to plan the talk, may as well show you my doctor like scribble. The notes were written on my iPad mini using Penultimate in case you were wondering. And now... the talk... Hi everyone and good morning (In my head there is awesome music playing!). My name is Marc Sirkin and I'm currently a Director with PwC, focused on helping organizations transform their digital marketing and social media. I spent 10 years in the non-profit sector, with large health charities such as March of Dimes, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and Autism Speaks. Most recently, I've been volunteering and doing pro-bono work for much smaller organizations focused on mentoring and youth. Before I jump in, let me warn you, I'm extremely enam...

I don’t know about you, but somewhere along the line, my creative spark, the twinkle in my eye and the ability to see a great idea through a mess of bad ones got lost a blizzard of Kim Kardashian, snow-storm breaking news and too much time on the road. I felt like a creative zombie. A few weeks ago, I spotted a copy of  The Artist’s Way , by Julia Cameron on my bookshelf from years ago. It’s a 12-week “course” designed to help you rediscover your creativity. What the hell I figured. So I get started that day, some 4 weeks ago. Last week, Cameron drops a big bomb and says that it’s time to cold turkey on reading. Updated and translated from when it was first published, this now means no books, magazines, news, TV or social media . After a few minute freakout, I resolved to give it ago. After all isn’t giving up social media a thing these days? I had read about a few people doing this sort of experiment and had some good laughs at the...

Yes, after all these years, we're still talking, debating and waxing poetic about the power of community. That's because when you do it right, it works. I had the unique opportunity this week to develop a short talk focused on leveraging the power of community and ended up scripting a brand new talk that I wanted to share. I haven't blogged in ages, so I figured this would be a good way to try to make a comeback. I recorded myself doing the talk to practice, then had to deliver it 3x back to back to back for small "rotating" audiences of about 15 -20 people each. I can't share the client name, nor can I share any images (we had a scribe!) but I can share the core ideas and content. I'm going to blog this as if it was actually my talk minus my "Hi I'm Marc intro and background" and minus the wrap up part where I got super client specific. What remains is the guts of how companies can leverage the power of community. The topic of today...