Building Communities of Cheerleaders, Ambassadors and Advocates

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Ever since my lung cancer experience, I've been on a journey to try to be more grateful. To me living a life of gratitude means appreciating everything more and expressing that to people that I care about. I'm far from perfect at doing this, but I try my best to express my gratitude to others, to let them know that when they do things to help me, it means a lot to me. This gratitude journey started with my wife Missi and our three boys after my lobectomy and follow up treatment. It also has led me to find interesting people in my work life. People that go out of their way to volunteer to help me even when they are super busy with things in their own lives. People like Keith Spiro. I've never met anyone quite like him. What is amazing about him is that he's one of those guys that has so much going on behind the scenes you don't even realize how talented he is until he literally just shows you. He's the one who named me the Research Evangelist. And he's the one who has been with me for the past 6 years as together we have created events in the biotech research community in Boston. His contribution to the success of Cannons Fighting Cancer and FRAXA Biotech Games go beyond sharing his marketing and communications strategy consulting. He is the one that has given me the confidence to be the Research Evangelist. And for that I am grateful.

 

I met Keith in December of 2014 after I met his son Jason while exploring a crowdfunding project for cancer research when I was at National Foundation for Cancer Research. Jason said "you have to meet my dad - you guys will totally hit it off." And we did. He helped with our first project together, a Play4theCure community event in collaboration with New Hampshire Youth Lacrosse (NHYLA). You can see from Keith's background that he is an accomplished executive with 30 plus years in sales and marketing at Xerox and Kendall Press, among many other interesting consulting and advisory roles he is currently involved with. But to me it was his role in helping me realize the power to make change by more effectively leveraging my own strengths and passion. And he is the master community builder. He's done it his whole career and the work he's done to help me is all behind the scenes. The first example was the day we met for lunch in the North End and I mentioned that I had been following the amazing work of Bob Urban, who at the time was the Global Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation in Cambridge. Keith said "you and Bob should meet. I know him well and I'll make the introduction." And within a few weeks there I was sitting with Bob Urban talking about research and the innovation community of greater Boston. Keith didn't realize at the time but this opened my eyes to all that was happening in Cambridge.


Keith Spiro has done so much to help me I could write a book (but then I'd give away all his secrets lol).  He encouraged me to use my voice (getting me hooked on Twitter), introduced me to the work of Seth Godin, Jeff Pulver, David Meerman-Scott, Guy Kawasaki and many more. And as the master of building community he knew that one day I would connect with all of these people, and I have. In fact, when he named me the Research Evangelist it was based on Guy's visionary leadership as an evangelist from his Apple Days to his current work at Canva. You will learn more about Keith's fascinating work when I interview him on my podcast. For now the important thing I want to share about him is that everything he has done and is currently doing to help me bring together the biotech community and raise awareness and funding for research is because of his shared commitment to support innovation. His passion is building communities of cheerleaders, ambassadors and advocates around important organizations and concepts; balancing global reach with local impact. He has a long track record of working in Cambridge and together we've made an impact - starting with $120,000 we raised for Dr. Daniel Haber's lab in 2016. I am grateful for so much Keith has done to help me.

#gratutude #trust #research




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