Building an Entrepreneur

It’s official! We are now an educational consulting company, The PolyMath Group.  The company is focused on my book, workshops and speaking engagements.  The paperwork was not challenging nor was coming up with a name. For years I have worked to become a PolyMath. “Learning much” is my goal and something I believe everyone should work toward.

This will go down in as the hottest recorded day in Seattle history.  While many hung out on boats and the beaches I was “grindin” (pop culture term used to demonstrate hard work).

I had the opportunity to meet with Cal Uomoto a local area business man, lecturer and family man. Cal has taught at the University level in business as well as conducted workshops on a wide array of topics. In our discussion he helped me scale down:

Who are my primary audiences: high school, community college and University level

What type of format will the workshops take place in: between 30-50 students, in groups of of 3-5 students.

The follow up from this meeting should be an exciting one as our next workshop is set for August 14th. Go time!

See…… I am now on a first name bases with Bob Mc Mullen the president of the Association of Washington State Principles.  We had dinner Tuesday evening and discussed my book and new possibilities to look at regarding workshops and events centered around education.   Bob was realistically optimistic about ways to get the book out in the Seattle area.  We also discussed Race, Culture and how things have shifted in his years in education in the Northwest and the new challenges that have been presented to students and educators.

I got a few action items( I love action items) from the meeting and have already put them in motion. Time for me to work even harder as my goals are starting to  become more scalable and realistic.  I recently had a friend tell me that patience is a virtue , I quickly responded back with TIME WAITS FOR NO MAN.

There is a great feeling in entrepreneurship when you can feel people buying off on what you are working on.  For example I received great support from my friends for writing The Only Black Student in the form of compliments and being promoters of the book.  However, you really feel the love when people are willing to work with you on the projects.  Putting in man hours to see stuff happen, to see an idea turn into a project and then a marketable product.

In my latest adventure the student workshop has a pretty good outline with questions that I believe will allow students;  to engage in conversation about college easily.  This progression is similar to any idea in that it must not become stagnant once I have decided it is “finished.” Instead the challenging part will be in consistently adding to the workshop and in a disciplined manor keep improving upon it.  My central theme however is an easy one; get students engaged and involved. Now that I have a good core of people that are interested in developing workshops with me its now time to just go out an market ourselves. Really get out there and show the value gained for not just students of color but the overall environment on campus.

In the hopefully not so distant future I will be able to travel the world and write about entrepreneurship, technology and culture. Until then I think Chikodi Chima a blogger originally from Seattle does a great job of keeping me in the loop.  Brazil is on my must visit list right after my trip to Iceland (that’s right! I said ICELAND)   His Blog TechTrotter is a great read as he discusses the below:

• Brazil
• Entrepreneurship
• Innovation
• Music
• Rio de Janeiro
• Ruby on Rails
• Sao Paulo
• Social Media
• Society
• Travel planning
• Uncategorized
• Video

For all my friends who are interested in entrepreneurship Guy Kawasaki has a great speech about a book he published called art of the start, warning it is 40 minutes long.  The upside it is its entertaining and very honest about his own experiences and gives great advice.

Check out the link to an article about building your personal brand on Skelliewag. A great deal of questions to ask yourself as you pursue entrepreneurship and create ideas and products that are beyond you.

Click here for link

This week I will be working on my first workshop for the Office of Minority Affairs at the University of Washington.  I will get the opportunity to talk to incoming freshman about my book as well as experiences I had at “the dub.” I am excited to see what each student pulls from the book in our group discussion.

Big Thanks to Jon for redesigning my website.  This is an exciting day.