I collect, develop and share stories and strategies about transformation.

As a consultant and coach, author and speaker, filmmaker and musician, I leverage thirty years of experience to help people and businesses create transformation, culture and community.

From my half-decade helping launch Facebook’s Journalism Project globally, to my tenure transforming MTV News, to my award-winning PBS documentary, “Mister Rogers & Me,” my focus is the essential nature of our shared human experience.

I have designed immersive, in-person and virtual live events around the globe, including Facebook’s F8, and led live production for Elections, Oscar, Grammy and VMA.

I helped launch Facebook Media Central (the company’s first media partner center), Live and Paid Online Events.

I have dual degrees in Journalism and Creative Writing from Syracuse University, and was a Fellow at Columbia University's Sulzberger Leadership Program (now the Poynter Media Transformation Challenge).

This Week:

Ron Lieber

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I collect, develop and share stories and strategies about transformation.

As a consultant and coach, author and speaker, filmmaker and musician, I leverage thirty years of experience to help people and businesses create transformation, culture and community.

From my half-decade helping launch Facebook’s Journalism Project globally, to my tenure transforming MTV News, to my award-winning PBS documentary, “Mister Rogers & Me,” my focus is the essential nature of our shared human experience.

I have designed immersive, in-person and virtual live events around the globe, including Facebook’s F8, and led live production for Elections, Oscar, Grammy and VMA.

I helped launch Facebook Media Central (the company’s first media partner center), Live and Paid Online Events.

I have dual degrees in Journalism and Creative Writing from Syracuse University, and was a Fellow at Columbia University's Sulzberger Leadership Program (now the Poynter Media Transformation Challenge).

This Week:

Ron Lieber

Listen Now

Jan 18 2022

Ron Lieber: Intensely Curious

For the last two decades, I’ve turned to my friend, Ron Lieber, to help make sense of life’s “sweet and sour” (as Cameron Crowe once described it to me), those moments that are happy and sad at the same time. As a New York Times Columnist and Best Selling Author, Ron is always on the…
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Jan 11 2022

Brian Ives: Do What You Like

For more than thirty years, Brian Ives has kept the music news coming on Sirius Radio, Loudwire, CBS VH1 and MTV, where I met him more than twenty years ago. Brian currently runs digital content operations for Beasley Radio’s 40+ stations, and hosts a new podcast called, “How You Play Your Hand” about musicians and…
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Jan 4 2022

Martine McDonald: Being & Becoming

For a while there when we were making “Mister Rogers & Me” in the late aughts, it felt like a very visible project (at least to a certain community of stakeholders, boosters and fans); every stop, start, festival submission and rejection was chronicled on our website, and on social media. Certain voices really championed us.…
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Dec 29 2021

Thank You, 2021

Sweet Baby Jesus, what a year. I left Facebook. And I launched Essential Industries. I turned fifty. I took “Friends & Neighbors” weekly. I began writing a book. I recorded a new album in Muscle Shoals (due in 2022); remixed, remastered and reissued my “greatest hits” (listen here!); and played a few rock shows.  I tried to slow down, listen…
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Dec 22 2021

This Headline Contains Sunshine

It’s the winter solstice, the Dark Night of the Soul, our annual reminder that death is imminent, life is cyclical, and without darkness, there is no light. For years, this time of year has brought me down: the darkness, the cold, the forced cheer and rampant capitalism. Sad memories of Christmases past. But I long ago realized…
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Dec 17 2021

An “Essential” Conversation, Part II

Last week, I released a new collection of remixed, remastered and repackaged “greatest hits” (favorite songs, anyway) called “Essential (2001-2021).” It’s available everywhere you download and stream music. And this week on Friends & Neighbors, it’s the topic of the second part of my two part conversation with rock journalist, Brian Ives.  I’m writing a…
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