Biznik Blog

Yes, that’s right - the Biznik team is up to 6 employees now, if you include Lara and I, and I’m delighted to announce today that Leif Hansen is officially on the team. We’ve known Leif for a long time, after meeting him at a Biznik event (of course). And we’ve been admiring his energetic, affable style and deep first-hand knowledge of social media ever since. After he hit a home run at BizJam last year, we started talking about how we could work more closely with him to grow Biznik.

Leif’s new role at Biznik is officially called “community catalyst.” The title underscores the importance of community on Biznik, and the fact that we’d hire an employee dedicated to building community tells you how much we intend to value community going forward. But, what exactly is a community catalyst, anyway? Let’s find out directly from Leif, whom I interviewed recently for this post…

Q: So Leif. We’re excited to be working with you. Why are you excited to be working with Biznik?

Well, in short, Biznik rocks. Even if I wasn’t on staff, I’d continue to help support Biznik as much as possible. But let me think about the specifics… First of all, I like how Biznik understands the importance of harnessing the power of dynamic new social media tools while also emphasizing the importance of connecting in real-time. Anyone who knows me knows how important these two values are to me -that’s why I’ve recently pioneered workshops on this topic that ended up receiving some surprisingly good national attention (Today Show, etc.)

Why do you think you received so much press around that workshop?

It seems like this issue of finding balance with technology is touching a cultural nerve. Without the tech, one is out of touch with the current thrust of our culture. Without real-time connection, one misses out on the depth and richness of relationships. If the need for dual engagement is true on a personal level, its even more so for business. To create a dynamic business community we need both online and offline interaction. I see that Biznik, through its evolving powerful online features and its local live events, is committed to supporting independent business owners on both levels.

That leads me to another thing that I think is so cool about Biznik. Over this past couple of years, I’ve been trying to identify my unique passions and find ways to express them in service to others while making a living. As any indie business owner knows, it can be tough and lonely at times. Besides the frequent feelings of isolation, Indie business folk like us need a supportive community that believes in us and our vision and wants to see us become more successful. The Biznik community rocks at that.

A few months ago, I created a ‘life vision statement’ (=what life looks like when my ‘life mission’ is fulfilled) that was something like “People feel safe enough to risk following their core passions, and yet remain respectfully interested and supportive of the passions of others”. That’s the kind of world I want to live in! I’ve seen that when people are true to their core, LIFE happens (creativity, freedom, authenticity, love, excitement, a sense of purpose and wonder, and even ’serendipity/luck’ seems to increase). And when I think about it, my ‘life vision’ is very much in harmony with what Biznik is trying to nurture: A network of creative independent individual owners who are successfully following their vocational passions, while respectfully supporting and receiving the support of others on the same journey. Cool vision!

Lastly, when I look at heart of what I’ve been doing with both my businesses (in short, “extending and enriching people’s online and offline community”, more later) I’m excited to take much of this energy and focus it to help Biznik grow. I’m a natural evangelist for the people, ideas and organizations I believe in. And, though it feels a bit awkward to say, I also seem to have a natural gift for helping groups to deepen –mostly through my being hopelessly transparent/vulnerable, through having a playful spirit, and through a core sense of ‘wonderosity’ at life. So I guess you could say that, as Community Catalyst, my goal is to help “extend and enrich” the Biznik community.

Tell me what you’ve been doing in your business for the past few years that led you up to now.

I currently have two businesses, Spark Social Media & Spark Northwest. SSM handles the tech side of me, SNW is for my work in ‘the real world’. See, its those dual emphases again. Honestly, a lot of what I’ve been doing these past two years is trying to figure out how all my different projects and passions are tied together. Specifically though, with SSM I’ve been doing social media consulting and some online development, and for SNW I’ve been facilitating personal and organizational transformative experiences (team-building, playformation, collaborative brainstorming, etc.). I’ve also been focusing on a couple of topical workshops: Soul Tech, which I’ve mentioned already; working with my partner Jay Kimball of 8020Vision on a powerful workshop aimed at corporate and government clients who recognize that upcoming changes in our world are going to dramatic alter “business as usual”; and lastly, Playformation events, which some Bizniks got a taste of last year - the heart of which is “the transformative power of play”.

Yes, one of the things that I really noticed about your workshop at Bizjam this year was the interactivity of your presentation - you had the audience up on their feet and doing things almost the whole time. Where did you learn how to do that?

I think the way I emphasize interactivity, often in playful ways, started back with my involvement in summer camps -both as camper and as counselor. The freedom to be oneself, to be goofy, to have fun, was unforgettable and made a deep impression on me. Since those days, I’ve always wished that ‘everyday life’ could have similar qualities as summer camp (the fun kind, I should qualify, for those who had bad camp experiences.)

Another primary influence has been my involvement in the ‘improv acting’ world -as student and as teacher/facilitator. I’m actually leaving this week for a four-day long improv intensive workshop in SF. I’ve found that the principles and practices from the improv world powerfully apply to our everyday lives and to business. I was happy to find out last year that there is actually an entire network of facilitators and trainers who feel the same as I do (The Applied Improv Network) and found a ‘home’ amongst them at their annual conference last year in Banff. Ironically, I ended up creating a social networking site for this very ‘real-time, interactive’ group and, proving our earlier point of the importance of connecting online and offline, it has helped this international network to be even more successful. I could go on forever about how improv principles like ‘Yes, and…” and “Just show up” can help one’s business, but that will have to come out in another future Biznik event!

Lastly, I think my training as a communication major, a theology student, a group leader, a dad, and a proclivity to be somewhat of a cultural ‘provocateur’, add to my style-choice of high interactivity. Honestly, I have also simply found that I end up remembering and changing very little when my learning experience is simply books, power-point presentations, and skimming info online. Truth sems to want to be embodied and played with.

Q: As someone who has been running your own business for the past two years, what do you think is the biggest challenge faced by small business owners in growing their business?

I imagine every business owner has unique challenges so I can’t really say what the ‘biggest’ is, but I would make a strong wager that my own biggest challenge, feeling isolated, is one of the primary challenges and causes for so many small businesses failing. While it truly is sooo cool to start your own business and to “do it your way”, that doesn’t need to mean that one has to do everything alone.

I think Biznik is proving that one can maintain their core creative vocational vision while connecting to others for support, learning resources and the power of networking. What an awesome business to be a part of! I’m excited to be a part of the Biznik team, be it for short term or long term.