I’m Dan Oshinsky, and I run Inbox Collective, an email consultancy. I'm here to share what I've learned about doing great work and building amazing teams.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the kinds of people I’d like to hire for Stry. I’ve been asking myself, Who’s going to join me on this startup adventure? Where am I going to find reporters willing to chase stories and travel and venture forth into a world where the only structure is the one we define for ourselves?
And lately, I’ve been thinking that I’ve got to find some treetop flyers.
See, back in Vietnam, the American military trained pilots to fly low-altitude, high-risk flights. But when those pilots returned from war, there wasn’t much need for someone with such a skill set.
So, the story goes, these pilots became treetop flyers: Smugglers, drug-runners, danger-seekers. They took risks that other pilots wouldn’t take; they flew places that other pilots wouldn’t fly.
They were outlaw pilots, and they were much in demand.
I’ve used a lot of words for the type of reporters I’ll need for Stry. I’ve referred to them as hobo journalists, as backpack journalists, as reporter vagabonds.
But what I’m really looking for are treetop flyers: Reporters with skills that no one else really values, reporters who aren’t afraid to fly a bit too close to the ground, reporters willing to go at it without a safety net, reporters for whom adventure is just something that happens when they show up at the office. Working for Stry isn’t going to be a glamorous job. It’s going to be a lot of work, and it’s going to require a hefty amount of improvisation. My reporters at Stry are going to have to deal with stress, strain and general chaos without spontaneously wigging out.
I need reporters willing to go to the Biloxis of the world, willing to dig where others aren’t digging, willing to crash and burn and get back out there the very next day to do it all over again. I’m looking for a new kind of a reporter.
Up front, I should say: I am not a great networker. Not yet. This goes back a long way, but the short version is: Sometime around the 6th grade, I realized that I was terrifyingly shy. Calling a friend to ask, “Hey, you wanna play basketball up at school?” was a Herculean ordeal. I remember riding the bus to school and hoping that it’d be late. It wasn’t that I wanted to miss class; I was more afraid of standing around before school with my own friends and trying to contribute to the conversation.
I was really, really shy, and people who know me now find it tough to believe that Dan Oshinsky — the guy who won’t shut up, the guy who won’t use four words where forty will do — was once quiet.
I eventually grew out of my shyness. I learned how to talk to people on the phone. I learned how to shake somebody’s hand and look them in the eye. I learned how to hide my awkwardness in awkward situations.
And the networking skills are coming along. But I’m discovering here at Missouri that the young j-schoolers on campus aren’t master networkers yet. In fact, some of them are rather worried about their networking skills.
They’re convinced that networking is some special skill that some people have and some people don’t. And they’re worried that they don’t have it.
That’s just not true. Everyone can be a great networker. Here’s the problem: Nobody’s ever given these students permission to be great networkers. And they’ve been waiting for permission.
So here’s what I know, guys. It’s four simple steps. Here’s your permission:
1. Show up.
Yes, this is a ‘duh’ kind of thing to say. But here at Mizzou, there are infinite networking opportunities: Meetups, speeches, brown bag lunches, even office hours. The first step is showing up.
The dirty secret is, most students don’t take advantage of opportunities like these. And they’re missing out.
Showing up is half the battle, the idiom goes. It was also, as Aaron Sorkin once wrote, Napoleon’s battle plan:
Casey: Technically, I have a plan.
Dan: What’s the plan?
Casey: It’s Napoleon’s plan.
Dan: Who’s Napoleon?
Casey: A 19th century French emperor.
Dan: You’re cracking wise with me now?
Casey: Yes.
Dan: Thanks.
Casey: He had a two-part plan.
Dan: What was it?
Casey: First we show up, then we see what happens.
Dan: That was his plan?
Casey: Yeah.
Dan: Against the Russian army?
Casey: Yeah.
Dan: First we show up, then we see what happens.
Casey: Yeah.
Dan: Almost hard to believe he lost.
And yeah, it didn’t work for Napoleon. But he was trying to defeat the Russians.
You’re just trying to make some new contacts in the journalism world.
So show up.
2. Get business cards. Get numbers. Hustle. If you’re at a busy event — say, a conference — you might get a lot of cards. So on the back of a card, write down something about the person. Something you want to remember about him/her, something you want to follow up on.
And if you’re not comfortable with business cards, use a cool mobile tool like Bump to exchange contact information.
3. Follow up. Buy them coffee. Lunch. No one turns down free food. I’m not kidding. If a student emails me and asks if they can buy me coffee, I will say yes. If they offer to buy me lunch, I will say yes. I will cancel important meetings and say yes. I have a journalism degree, and people with journalism degrees will do almost anything for free food.
Want access to smart, powerful people? Ask to buy them coffee. Ask to buy them lunch.
4. Keep following up. Send your contacts links. Friend them on Facebook and like their posts from time to time. Tweet at them every few weeks. It doesn’t have to be often. A little thing every so often is just enough to keep you top of mind.
Modern relationships are built one click at a time.
This isn’t a new experience for me. I’m not sure I believe that certain generations are defined by certain songwriters — Do my parents belong to Dylan? To John and Paul and George and Ringo? To Jimi? To Janis? To the Stones? — but I know that certain moments demand a voice. There are weeks when the right song hits me at the right time. I’ve lost months to Joe Purdy’s woes, to Steve Poltz’s quirks, to James McMurtry’s tales of Texas.
A lesser songwriter would lose his audience with stories like those. Not Snider’s crowds. They come for the stories.
That’s why I came.
But lately, I’ve been listening to Snider’s records. And I’m finding that Snider’s got the voice that speaks to what I’m going through now with Stry.
It’s been 15 months since I left my job to start Stry. Things keep changing. I keep learning.
But what has stayed constant is this: I am always on the verge of being completely, totally screwed. Stry is not making money. It does not have any other employees. The only thing keeping the Great and Good and Honorable Dream That Is Stry alive is me.
Mine is not the story of business success — not yet. So this moment demands a songwriter who’s been out there, trying, struggling, failing, laughing, scratching at the edges of success. Someone who’s taken risks. Someone who’s been both the next big thing and the has-been. Someone who’s been out there long enough to have perspective on how life goes, especially when it goes places you never wanted it to go.
Snider’s the songwriter who can explain all those stages: The empowerment, the discovery, the struggle, the success — and the failure. Oh, the failure.
Start here. I am sitting in my cubicle in San Antonio, thinking about something more, thinking about changing the world — couldn’t be that hard, right? — and there’s Todd Snider, singing:
You can’t talk to me like that boss I don’t care who you are If you don’t want to have to hang your own dry wall Don’t push me too far
Suddenly, I’ve left my job. I’m in an apartment in Biloxi, Miss., drafting up a mission statement for Stry. And I’m thinking:
Life ain’t easy getting through Everybody’s gonna make things tough on you But I can tell you right now If you dig what you do They will never get you down
And that’s keeping me going for a while.
And then Stry’s getting off the ground. I’m thinking a bit too ambitious. I’m thinking that selling this thing is going to be easier than I’d previously thought. I’m getting a bit greedy. And Snider’s singing:
Everybody wants the most they can possibly get For the least they could possibly do
I’m back in D.C. Selling it isn’t easy at all. I’m clueless. I’m learning. I’m trying. I’m failing. I’m floundering. I’m trying to find myself. And Snider’s singing:
Sometimes you rise above it Sometimes you sink below Somewhere in between believing in heaven And facing the devil you know
I start to find a way forward. I settle down a little bit. Maybe I start to settle for something a bit less than changing the world. I start to find myself. I start to wonder whether I’m ever going to get moving again. I start to doubt myself. And Snider sings:
A little out of place A little out of tune Sorta lost in space Racing the moon Climbing the walls Of this hurricane Still overall I can’t complain
Then the complication comes back around. More failing. More setbacks. More struggling. And Snider’s singing:
Some of this trouble just finds me No matter where I turn How do you know when it’s too late to learn?
And now it’s the present day. I’m thinking about the fact that a year ago today — Oct. 3, 2010 — at about this very hour, I was pulling into my driveway in D.C., my whole year ahead of me. No plan, no idea of the road before me. Just a dream and a website. And Snider’s singing:
Lookin’ back on where I was One year ago today Laughing at the shape I’m in now
And Mr. Snider: I know you’re right. I am looking back, and I cannot help but laugh. Oh, how little I knew then.
How little I know now.
I know haven’t gotten that far in the entrepreneurial process. No, I don’t know what lies ahead.
But I suspect that when I get there, I’ll find there’s a Todd Snider song that explains it perfectly.
Today is Rosh Hashanah, and I am in Columbia, Mo. The last time I was in Columbia for Rosh Hashanah, Barack Obama was just a Senator from Illinois, my Missouri Tigers were about to head to Lincoln, Neb., to play a conference game, and I was still a month away from signing up for something called Twitter. Now I’m back at Missouri as an RJI Fellow, and I dress decently and show up to work at 8 or 9 and leave at 5 or 6 or 7, and I have a corner office, and a staff that is on call to help me, and when I leave a voicemail for someone, that someone calls me back.
For the longest time, I’ve joked to my parents about being “a professional,” but for the first time in my adult life, I actually feel like one.
There is still much work to do, but it is hard not to take this moment to think back on all that has already happened this year. I am most grateful for the journey so far, and I look with wonder towards the journey that lies ahead.
There continue to be an incredible number of people who believe in me and believe in what I am doing, and it never ceases to amaze me how much that knowledge helps me through each day.
Four weeks ago today, I went in front of a group of students here at the University of Missouri and told them I wanted to buy them a beer and talk about journalism. And then I went in front of another class. And another. And another.
And told them, a few hundred in all: I wanted to buy them beer and talk about journalism.
The first thing that happened was, a whole bunch of students tweeted at me to tell me how excited they were about the idea.
The second thing that happened was, nobody came to drink with me.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve offered three so-called #BergChat sessions to students so far on Twitter. One student has taken me up on the offer.
So it’s time, I think, for a pivot.
What’s a pivot, you ask? Take it from Eric Ries, author of the soon-to-be-bestelling book, “The Lean Startup.” Says Ries, a pivot is:
“The idea that successful startups change directions but stay grounded in what they’ve learned. They keep one foot in the past and place one foot in a new possible future. “
And, okay, the #BergChat isn’t a startup; it’s just office hours at a bar. Still, the spirit of the pivot works here.
Now, the way I’ve been organizing these #BergChats is by sending out a tweet or three to my followers — among them, a multitude of j-schoolers. I’ve named the day/time for that week’s chat. And I’ve asked students to tweet back at me if they’d like to join me for a drink and conversation.
Except that I’ve forgotten a simple rule: College kids don’t operate on the same time schedule that I do. And that means I’m pitching this to an audience that isn’t actually listening at the moment I’m talking.
Hence the need for a pivot.
So here’s the new plan: The #BergChat is always open and available to you, the students. All you have to do is tweet at me something like:
Hey, @danoshinsky, got time for a #BergChat this week?
And assuming I’m in town, I’ll say yes, and we’ll set a time.
To recap: You tweet at me. We agree upon a time. And then said Beer/Shirley Temple is purchased, and we talk about whatever you want to talk about.
This is not a motivational blog post. I am not writing this to inspire you. I do not want you to read this and quit your job.
Is that clear?
Are you sure?
Positive?
Because I go to Mach 1 pretty quickly on these things. I get wound up and start running like Lombardi before the Ice Bowl, like a guy who’s got an Espresso drip running in one arm and the soundtrack to ‘The Natural’ blasting in the earbuds. I get wound up, and sometimes, the fortune cookie quotes start leaking out.
It’s all this one girl’s fault. I was having a beer with an MU student on Wednesday. J-school senior here on campus. Ambitious, talented, overworked. She wanted to know about me and my startup. And like any student worth her journalism degree, she had a good question for me:
Why are you doing what you’re doing?
And I didn’t answer it well enough. Lately, all the questions have been forward leaning: What are you doing now? What are you doing next?
But it’s been a while since someone asked me, straight up: Why are you doing what you’re doing?
I didn’t give her the full answer yesterday. So right now, I’d like to tell her, for starters:
I’m doing this because I can. Because there’s opportunity for something like Stry. Because it’s risky. Because I want to learn. Because I don’t have 2.5 kids and a wife and a job and a mortgage. Because I had the money to get it started, and maybe I’ll find the money to keep it going. Because I hated life in a cubicle. Because I’m too naive to know that failure is all but certain for a startup like this. Because I made it this far, and yeah, Red, maybe I can go a little farther. Because I think the phrase “You can be whatever you want to be” needs another case study. Because I want to do the work. Because I like doing the work. Because I like being busy, and not TPS Report busy or Conference Call With the Head of Whatchamacallit busy. Because this is the time I have, and this is what I have to work with, and because I’ve got people behind me who seem to think I can pull this off, and because so do I, and mostly:
Because I can.
There are not a lot of things I believe in completely — I’m not Crash Davis, alright? — but I believe this: In this life, you find things you love and people you love, and make room for both.
Right now, with Stry, I’ve got something I love. I wake up in the morning excited to get up. I know that sounds like some “Jerry Maguire” BS, but it’s true. I love coming to work. This company sinks or swims based on what I do. It’s on me. This thing goes as far as I can take it.
That’s terrifying and empowering and thrilling, and it’s my day-to-day existence. I love that.
And, yeah, the fortune cookie quotes start leaking out sometimes. But I don’t mind that. I had a yoga teacher in San Antonio who told me once, “Trying is doing.”
I asked her why, and she said, “Because Mizzou always does.”
And that’s thinking I used to be able to get behind. But lately, something’s changed.
See, when I showed up at this school, Mizzou wasn’t very good at sports. We lost. Always. And usually in rip-your-heart-out fashion.
But since I’ve been here: We’ve won far more than we’ve lost. We’ve beaten the #1 team in the country. Been ranked #1. Been to two Big 12 title games. Won a New Year’s Day bowl.
Longtime Mizzou fans forget this, though. Because in their minds, we’ve always been bad, and we always will be. Even when we’re winning. Even when we’re beating the #1 team in the country.
For them, past is present.
I don’t think like that anymore. I’ve rooted for a lot of bad teams. I’ve seen a Maryland football team get dominated by Ohio. Not Ohio State. OHIO University. I’ve seen teams like American and William & Mary beat my beloved Terps basketball team. I’ve seen the Redskins falter and falter. I’ve seen my Caps fall again and again.
My hometown of Washington, D.C., is closing in on Cleveland as America’s worst sports town. This is not a good thing.
But what I am certain of is this: It is the hard times that make the big wins that much sweeter. As a fan, we need losses like tonight’s. We need to be demolished sometimes.
Because one of these days, a win will come along that reminds us of why we watch in the first place. And it will be all the sweeter because of it.
I believe in the future of Missouri football. I believe there will be heartbreak, and I believe there will be greatness.
And I am damn sure that I will be out at a bar rooting hard for those Tigers every Saturday. I’ll be watching because I believe: Good things come this way.
I hope next Saturday brings better things for my Tigers. I really do.
The catchphrase at Stry last year was simple: Stry covers undercovered issues in undercovered areas. And any time I mentioned that line, I brought up another.
It’s from a conversation I had with a local when I was down in Biloxi last year, covering the aftermath of Katrina. We were talking about local issues, and she said:
“It’s five years after Katrina, Dan. We’ve still got problems. Why isn’t anyone talking to us about what we’re going through?”
Then came the pause, of course. There is always a pause.
“Is it because we’re from the South?”
And I told her: No. This is the kind of story that gets ignored everywhere. If it happened in Maine or Montana, it’d get forgotten, too, just like Katrina.
I bring that up because just now, I went walking through the lobby here at the Missouri School of Journalism. CNN was on one of the TVs. The governor of the state of Vermont was speaking. And the caption at the bottom of the screen read: “Vermont sees worst flooding since 1927.”
Now, I’d read about the flooding the day before. A lone paper up in the Catskills was trying to cover it. The big papers were completely silent. CNN, to their great credit, did get a reporter up on the scene.
But now it’s 24+ hours since the flooding began — and we’re talking about massive, historic flooding happening just hours from the biggest media market in the galaxy — and the coverage is just beginning to come in.
When I’m talking about undercovered issues in undercovered areas, the Catskills don’t always come to mind. But they’re exactly the kind of place I’m thinking of.
They’re exactly the kind of place I want Stry to cover.
I remember when I was but a wee undergrad. The year was 2009. A young man named Barack Obama had taken stewardship of our country. The economy was in the crapper. I drove around in a Chevy TrailBlazer with vanity plates.
Much has changed since then. (The Blazer no longer has vanity plates.) But one thing hasn’t:
At our alma mater, the University of Missouri, there exist two distinct sectors of our esteemed School of Journalism: the school itself, and the Reynolds Journalism Institute.[1. I should note here: Counsel has advised me to cease and desist referring to them as my personal Daddy Warbucks.] The J-school is doing some awesome stuff. So is RJI.
Problem is, we’re not always doing great stuff together.
Even though these clusters exist within the same damn building, there’s still a gap between the two. Young J-schoolers dare not venture into RJI. Us RJIers would rather not wander off into the J-school.[2. Except on occasions when there’s free food over in Walter Williams.]
Here’s the point: there’s some pretty incredible Journalism Stuff™[3. Trademark of Oshinsky, Inc., 2011.] going on in Columbia, MO, and there need not be a gap between RJI and the J-school.
So I’m launching a new thing this year: The #BergChat. It’s a weekly session in which I’ll invite anyone from the J-school community to sit down with me for 30 minutes to talk about… well, whatever you want. An idea you’ve got. A question you’ve been afraid to ask. A resume you’d like an extra pair of eyes on.
And while we’re chatting, I’ll buy you a beer.[4. For free. Free, as in: no purchase necessary. Cash value of said beer must be less than or equal to $5. The #BergChat will end immediately if the #BergChat-ee attempts to buy a Natural Light with his/her free beer. These are my terms.]
Now, the fine print:
1. Every #BergChat must take place at the World Famous Heidelberg Restaurant. It’s tricky to find, so here are the Google Maps directions from the J-school for those who’ve never been:
3. During said #BergChat, I will buy you a beer, or, if you’re not inclined/able, a drink of your choice.
4. To schedule a #BergChat, follow me on Twitter at @danoshinsky. Each week, I’ll be tweeting out times when I’ll be holding a #BergChat. I’ll open up a handful of half-hour slots. The first (pre-specified number) of folks to respond will be given a timeslot. All you have to do is show up and chat.
5. Each J-schooler gets exactly one #BergChat with me. After that, you’ll just have to stop by my office if you’d like to continue the conversation. Or agree to buy me lunch.[5. Hint: I’m a Noodles and Co. fan.]
6. The #BergChat can just be one-on-one, or it can be a group of students chatting. But I won’t take on a group that doesn’t fit in a Heidelberg booth. So essentially, it’s got to be a group of three or less.
Point is: I’m reaching out to you, the J-school population. It’s up to you to make the next step and get involved with what we’re doing at RJI.
This is the kind of thing that I shouldn’t go doing. It’s not nice of me to take an old man’s money.
And yet, that’s just what I intend to do.
The old man in question just happens to be my old man, Bill Oshinsky (he’s the little fella you see in the photo below). And he’s got it fixed into that bald skull of his that he can get into better shape than me.
So we’ve made this bet: We’re going to spend a year getting into shape. And on Aug. 1, 2012, we’ll rendezvous to decide who’s got the better belly. Winner gets $1,000. Loser pays.
I’m not going to waste valuable kilowhatevers here on danoshinsky.com with this sort of nonsense, so we’ve set up one of them Tumblrs for you to follow along. Check out bellychallenge.com for more.
