Interviewing Influencer Organizations

Through my projects, I have created a survey and completed research of an organization similar to MIT D-Lab. Currently, in my project, I am planning on interviewing 2-3 organizations to understand their marketing/outreach approach and share insights on how their methods can be applied to D-Lab. The organizations that I plan to interview are IDEO U, Endeva, and William Davidson Institute. I choose William Davidson Institute because they offer a great range of services (research, consulting, workshops, content sharing forum, and courses) which is beneficial to understand more through the marketing/outreach and thought leadership lens. I chose IDEO U because of IDEO’s reputation as a design firm and to understand IDEO U’s approach to education through its online learning platform. Lastly, I chose Endeva because I believe they can offer some insights into how they are thought leaders as a research and consulting institute, and their marketing/outreach strategies for their content.

So far I have interviewed  Christina Tewes-Gradl. founder and Director at Endeva and Kristin Kelterborn, a Senior Project Manager at William Davidson Institute. Here are some insights I learned during my interview:

For Endeva, their partnership approach means:

Look at other organizations that aligns what WDI so she will look at their mission, what they are offering, what are their recent projects are. She thinks about if they were with an organization, what they will partner together on. Sometimes, it isn’t clear what WDI can partner with an organization for, but they still contact and share best practices and lessons learned. She approaches partnership with an open-minded. They do so many things that it might not be clear what they can partner on with an organization for, but later opportunities come up.

This is important because having a strong method of not only creating and maintaining one network opens an organization to various opportunities for partnerships. I know that at D-Lab, their focus on content creation and their project more than maintaining a strong network.

An insight from WDI on their thought leadership:

They think of what is always next and then look for funding opportunities. Currently, they are working on system innovation: what it means, how it works and, developing methodologies, and driving content future of systems (food, mobility). They try to work on things that are thought-leading and try to bring interesting people around these topics. Their thought-leadership isn’t led by what they are trying to sell or responding to public tenors and caused by other companies. They drive their own agenda and work on topics that they want, and they find interesting.

Endeva’s insights on thought-leadership reveal how the organization doesn’t rely on external publication but being able to set its own agenda and create content around that. D-Lab is a small organization but does a wide range of work so being able to set agenda and focus on one topic might be difficult. However forward-thinking and having goals around their thought leadership is something that they can change in the future.

The next step in my project planning is making archetypes which are personas that will show how different organizations approach their outreach and influence!

Going through these interviews allowed me to develop my skills in communication and also leadership in project planning and execution. These are important skills that I can help in my future career and even at Colby during group projects. I also found that I enjoyed the outreach process of finding and interview candidates.