97. Dennis Crowley, Medical Device M&A Executive
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Dennis Crowley started working for Tyco International in 1996 and spent five years in Europe, spending half his time in Paris and two and a half years in Brussels. This experience was enjoyable as it allowed him to work, sightsee, and travel around Europe. During his time in Europe, he had the opportunity to visit every country in Europe, including Spain, Italy, the UK, and France. He moved back to Florida, then lived in New England for 25 years before settling just south of Boston. Dennis worked in various divisions at Tyco until 2007, where he worked in their healthcare...
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96. Natalia Tsarkova, Media Entrepreneur and Filmmaker
The 92 Report
Show Notes: Title: Media Entrepreneur and Filmmaker Show notes: Natalia Tsarkova, a transfer student from Latvia, was the first student from the former Soviet bloc to apply to an American college. She was thrown into a completely different world and roles, but knew she wanted to create more contexts for others to transform their lives like she didher life. Growing up in Latvia, she watched pirated MTV videos and credits seeing Billy Jean for the first time for inspiring her to work in the media space. In 1993, she met a professor at the MIT Media Lab, who recognized her mixed...
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95. William Cheng, Hospitalist and Singer
The 92 Report
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94. Jeanne Simpson, Actor/Dancer/Choreographer/Director/Teacher
The 92 Report
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93. Joshua Brandon Holden, Math Professor and Author of The Mathematics of Secrets
The 92 Report
Joshua Brandon Holden, the author of The Mathematics of Secrets, Cryptography from Caesar Ciphers to Digital Encryption, graduated with a degree in pure math and went on to teach at the University of Massachusetts and Duke. He discovered that he was spending most of his time on teaching, so he sought jobs where they would reward teaching. He then worked at the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, where he did both teaching and research. Common Misconceptions about Cryptography Joshua discusses common misconceptions about cryptography and its connection to the internet. He explains that...
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92. Mark Jacobstein, Accidental Entrepreneur
The 92 Report
Mark Jacobstein resides in Stanford, California with his wife, two children, and his mother in law. Mark's career has primarily focused on entrepreneurial technology, primarily in health tech, biotech, molecular diagnostics, and digital health arenas. After Cambridge, he worked with Scott Murphy, a close friend and business partner. He moved to California in 2003 to start a technology company and has been there ever since. He lives on the Stanford campus, which allows his children to grow up on a college campus. Founding a Fantasy Sports Business Mark shares his journey from writing...
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91. Andreas Stavropoulos, Entering the Third Act
The 92 Report
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90. Shannon Frison, Marine and Judge
The 92 Report
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89. Anastasia Fernands, Patent Litigator
The 92 Report
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The 92 Report
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Title: Media Entrepreneur and Filmmaker
Show notes:
Natalia Tsarkova, a transfer student from Latvia, was the first student from the former Soviet bloc to apply to an American college. She was thrown into a completely different world and roles, but knew she wanted to create more contexts for others to transform their lives like she didher life. Growing up in Latvia, she watched pirated MTV videos and credits seeing Billy Jean for the first time for inspiring her to work in the media space. In 1993, she met a professor at the MIT Media Lab, who recognized her mixed background of mathematics, social studies, and filmmaking. She fell into the master's program at the MIT Media Lab, where she was educated on the new way of thinking about media and how to create more meaningful experiences through on-demand interactive media platforms.
Working in Video on Demand and Interactive Experiences
Natalia was eager to move to New York City and found a job with a startup in Soho. She was driven to explore the world of startups and entrepreneurs, which she didn’t know much about before. She created projects Barry Diller, Sony Music and was hired by the Beatles estate to create the first Beatles digital experience. She had the luxury of diving deep into the Beatles archives and creating unique digital content. Natalia worked with IMG, fashion, and sports, and was tasked with explaining the digital transformation to CEOs in management, helping them imagine new types of media experiences that were digital and on demand. Her journey from MIT to New York City was filled with excitement, partying, and meeting people from all walks of life. She was able to stay afloat as a consultant, working on projects that fascinated her and helped shape the future of digital media.
The Development of Transmedia
In 2001, Natalia met her husband, a French television music television producer, who was looking for a digital media expert. In 2003, they set up the first European video on demand platform, called Transmedia. Natalia convinced television producers that linear television was dead and that video on demand was the future. They built a business by packaging content from France television and other European producers and selling it to telcos in Belgium, Switzerland, and even France. With their large library of live musical content, they launched a video on demand platform called iConcerts, similar to Netflix but with only live music. This platform evolved into a hybrid high-definition TV/Video on Demand channel, licensed by operators in 128 countries between 2007 and 2010. The platform was successful, with collaborations with CCTV, an office in Singapore, Paris and Tokyo and partnerships with Senegalese musicians and Africa. Natalia explains how she became disillusioned a few years before it was sold.
Making a TV Documentary
Ever since Harvard, Natalia always did some form of documentary filmmaking. During summers, she rented a house in France and started filming the Gypsy Kings, a group that were popular in the 90s. Natalia showed the excerpts to a head of a European arts channel called Arte, who suggested she submit a the proposal for a full length film. The film was released in 2016 and received triple primetime ratings on the channel, and the Gypsy Kings loved it. This experience of original content storytelling and the idea of tribes, such as the Gypsy tribe, inspired her. She moved on to create a project called Tribo, designed to be a storytelling platform for groups to share their stories. Tribo has become more about digital storytelling and dynamic storytelling.
The Evolution of the Tribo Platform
Natalia discusses the concept of Tribo as a media platform for storytelling. Tribo was initially designed as an extension of live music festivals, but after two years of testing, it has been found to be particularly effective in private communities during COVID-19. Tribo aims to create a platform where stories that matter over time are told, such as collective storytelling. This can involve recording portraits of different people who are part of the organization, allowing everyone to post photos and videos during an event, and giving CEOs a space to motivate everyone. Natalia emphasizes the importance of engagement from employees, as most companies struggle with sharing their stories due to busy work and reluctance to share. By providing equal opportunities for sharing and having leaders interviewing people, Tribo can capture the heritage and legacy of the community.
Influential Harvard Professors and Courses
Natalia was particularly fond of the VES department, where she watched two movies a day, and had a close friendship with Robert Gardner, Director of the Film Study Center and Svetlana Boym, an expert on Soviet art and modern art. She mentions Liah Greenfield, her thesis advisor. She also worked for the Harvard Negotiation Project, created by Roger Fisher, a professor at HLS known as the ultimate expert on negotiation.. Her first job at Harvard was working at the Russian research center, where she was hired by Marshall Goldman, a big Soviet studies professor.
Timestamps:
05:12 How a Latvian student applied to Harvard despite obstacles
11:30 Moving to NYC, starting a business, and networking
14:00 Digital media, video on demand, and startup experience
21:03 Entrepreneurship, media, and filmmaking
24:15 Filmmaking, loss, and entrepreneurship
31:27 Using tech for collective storytelling in organizations
41:17 Grief, trauma, and resilience after loss
44:42 Filmmaking, Harvard experiences, and connections
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.
Website: Tribo.Live
Kings of the World: https://vimeo.com/197952008/d444b20c11
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nataliatsar/