“Dave, what is your thesis?”

Today, I had my first meeting with my thesis advisor Roger Mader, Senior Advisor at Velo and instructor of our Leadership & Ethics class. I chose Roger because of his values, inspiring dialogue, honesty, and no BS lectures. I also know he will keep me on track and drive me to do my best work over the next 3.5 months.

We met at Le Pain Quotidian in Tribeca to kickoff the semester and drink a lot of coffee. As I explained my thesis, he had some great suggestions for framing my arguments, namely using historical analogues. One suggestion was looking at the adoption of standards such as DC system advocated by Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla’s AC system. Another suggestion was to use examples of other disruptive communication technologies for similarites in bevahior change, giving us a “new normal”. The telegraph quickly popped into my head as an example: a technology that kickstarted the instant communication revolution.

We also discussed the idea of focusing on both production and consumption – limiting the damage of producers and changing the behavior of consumers. With more than enough caffine in my bloodstream, we set up a weekly meeting schedule and parted ways, me leaving exicted and energized to continue moving my thesis forward.