About

I’m coloring the world with a blue pencil.

My Gramps was a professor who specialized in education. He taught classes like Child Psychology, The Learner, and Child Growth and Development. And he taught my mom this lesson early in her teaching career:

My mom was teaching 3rd grade students to print. Some of the students were having trouble writing their letters, and she corrected their mistakes with a red pencil. “The papers looked like they were on fire when I was through,” she said. But the students weren’t improving their handwriting.

She asked her dad what to do. “Instead of marking incorrect letters with a red pencil, why don’t you use a blue pencil to circle the letters that were printed correctly?” he suggested.

The result? My mom’s students quickly improved their writing.

Not only was this an example of positive reinforcement my Gramps used in teaching childhood development. He lived his life using a blue pencil. He looked for the best in every person he met. (And by doing so, he made those around him feel extraordinary.)

I’ve carried this lesson with me since I first remember hearing my Gramps tell the story.

I’m trying to live life in a similar way. I’m coloring the world with a blue pencil.

 

This site is my life dossier.

I like to salsa dance, walk up mountains, eat real food, have potlucks with family + friends, pitter around Boulder, support good businesses, write poetry on corners of paper, belly laugh, start 3 books at once, and hug-squee. Believer in being nice. Lover of community. Feisty sometimes.

Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?

- Friedrich Nietzsche, 1888, Twilight of Idols

Every day, I craft my life’s work.

I’m a relationship-builder. I work at TechStars.

(Most recently, I’ve worked for KULA Causes and A Small Nation. Before that, I consulted via Swaggering Vernacular.)

A few side projects keep me busy.

I’m finishing a Master of Social Sciences degree at the University of Colorado Denver. I’m currently working on my thesis.

I co-founded, with James Moreau, the Colorado Community Manager Meetup group, one of the larger meetups for community managers in the country.

I’m Content Editor for The Community Manager, a website by and for community managers.

Blue pencil image via geezaweezer