Aug 1Open Letter to President Biden: It’s regulators, not workers, who should clean up AMPTP’s messMr. President, Recently, representatives at several of the companies belonging to the Alliance of Motion Picture Television Producers (AMPTP) told the press that they will hold out on a deal with writers and actors until they start “losing their apartments.” …Strike4 min readStrike4 min read
Feb 15Committed Leadership with Michael BaptisteSometimes it’s possible to get a lifetime’s worth of education in just 30 minutes. Such was the case in our latest Inclusive Leadership Session with Michael Baptiste on Committed Leadership. Michael is the Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Metro Atlanta Chamber and he is responsible for…Inclusive Leadership4 min readInclusive Leadership4 min read
Jan 11Why Job Role Clarity Should be the Foundation of Your Innovation WorkThe #1 thing you can do for employee engagement and company innovation is simpler than you think. This past year at Film Forward we worked with over 30 enterprise clients to deliver our workplace capacity building program called Behaviors of Belonging which develops individuals, teams, and organizations to build more…Workplace6 min readWorkplace6 min read
Dec 1, 202210 Years of Building, a Thank YouBear with me, I am emotional today. 11:59am on December 1, 2012. My tiny Brooklyn apartment was filled with filmmakers who were taking a risk on a brand new crowdfunding platform called Seed&Spark. Their crowdfunding campaigns were about to become the “founding campaigns” on our brand new website, which was…Startup Lessons6 min readStartup Lessons6 min read
Apr 28, 2022No More Burning the Midnight OilOn May 2, 2022, Seed&Spark will transition to a 4-day work week. We’re joining a cohort of US-based companies that includes other community-based platforms like Kickstarter and OwnTrail who are all piloting this work schedule at the same time in association with 4 Day Week Global. This impacts our service-level…Work Life Balance6 min readWork Life Balance6 min read
Published inSeed&Spark: Sparking Conversation·Feb 8, 2022BIG NEWS for the creatorsLet’s cut to the chase: the last couple years have been brutal and we need as much good news as we can get. So that’s what we’re here to do, and you, Seed&Spark’s community of creators, made this good news happen. You all have shown profound resilience, creativity and courage…Crowdfunding3 min readCrowdfunding3 min read
Published inSeed&Spark: Sparking Conversation·May 13, 2021Let discomfort be your guide.White leaders: we are not supposed to feel comfortable as we pursue equity work in our organizations. To do this work is to dismantle some of the very structures that led us to be where we are. Over the last several months we’ve seen stories break of companies — nearly…Workplace5 min readWorkplace5 min read
Published inSeed&Spark: Sparking Conversation·Mar 29, 2021Entertainment doesn’t have an answer for this.I no longer believe the entertainment business has solutions for the problem we at Seed&Spark have long been interested in solving — helping films to shift culture. If you want them to shift culture, they can’t just shift perception, they have to shift behavior. …Film8 min readFilm8 min read
Published inSeed&Spark: Sparking Conversation·Apr 2, 2020The End of MentorshipRefrain: What was “right” before probably doesn’t make sense anymore. As we face down humanity’s biggest crisis in our lifetime(s), whose long-term implications we’re only just starting to understand — I’ve come to a destabilizing realization: There are no experts on how to lead right now. Building Seed&Spark for the…Strategy11 min readStrategy11 min read
Published inSeed&Spark: Sparking Conversation·Mar 12, 2020We must move forward — safelyIt has become very clear that the best path forward for all of us is to actively participate in mitigation of a global pandemic. The best plan for mitigation is social distancing. In the face of so much uncertainty about how distancing will affect our health and the health of…Filmmaking4 min readFilmmaking4 min read
