Cover Letter: I am who I am

Hiring Manager

Role: VP, Strategy/Innovation/Communication/Creativity

Dear Hiring Manager,

I’m an Innovative and dynamic strategist adept at managing change and transforming conflict into opportunity. Skilled leader and movement builder with 25 years of experience building strong teams, with a background in nonprofit and for-profit management, big organizing, and tech, arts, media and educational leadership.

As a communications professional and leader, I exhort my teams to do three things: research, as granularly as possible, what our audience needs and how our audience sees itself; link the connection of A, what we want to do, to B, what our audience thinks they want to do; and, finally, define and carefully use words that fit our audience, that both generate passion and exercise reason.

My passion is to bring creative solutions for ways to better understand the major issues and challenges facing society today, and provide real-world evidence over emotional “wishful” comprehension. The problem with assumptions without good data, of course, is that they typically include blind spots via logical fallacies and an inaccurate picture of the complexity and totality of the issue.

As an investigative journalist, especially having begun as a playwright and a psychologist, I enjoy putting myself in the minds of my audience, the tribe I want to reach, and explaining to them, in so many different kinds of ways, through videos, events, blogs and essays, speaking engagements, thought-leadership, print and online content, what the truth of the situation is, all the players, all the motivations.  

As a passionate researcher, the first step in my process is always discovery. I’m a practiced listener and data-gatherer. I don’t make assumptions and I always have beginner’s mind. My data- gathering leads to hypotheses about my intended audience, and then next, experimentation with messaging leads to honing and refining content, using creativity and data, heart, mind and soul, creating an upward spiral of engagement, feedback and satisfied teams and clients.

I was raised on a diet of critical thought and analysis. In my family, our dinner table conversations revolved around global politics and history. Foreign Affairs magazine, Archaeology Digest, The Jerusalem Post, People Magazine (mom), and our local paper were always well-stocked in a large basket on the 1st floor bathroom.

With this kind of intellectual diet, I grew to become a systems thinker, always looking at how the flap of a butterfly’s wings over in China, potentially turned into a tornado in Louisville, where I was raised. I observed the immense draw of power, the constant, heated battle between the few and the many, the forces for tyranny and corruption, the ones who won’t back down, who risk their lives to rise up and say no, at whatever personal cost, no. This insight would figure prominently later in my life and dramatically alter its course.

I saw how decisions and choices, beliefs and battles set in motion thousands of years ago continue to impact the present, limiting, inspiring, enslaving us and sometimes, setting us free.

I’ve successfully accomplished and excel at all of the tasks for this role described in your job offering. You can see some of my analysis and innovation papers here, and here, with many more in my online newsletter.  I am also a passionate and influential advocate for social, racial and gender equity, justice and inclusion.

I consume news like the Blue Whale eats krill (small fish). These whales swim through the ocean with open mouths and strain the krill in huge volumes of ocean water through their baleen plates, which hang from the roof of the mouth and work like a sieve.

That’s how I am with news, opinion pieces, political analyses, biographies, history, even gossip on occasion:  working with a global organization would be like feeding a starving person, satisfying, empowering and thrilling.

Sincerely,

Jodi Schiller

Jodi’s Leadership Case Studies:

Executive Producer of a Theater Company that HAD to Sell Out All Our Shows

From January 2009 to December 201, I was the founder and executive producer for a theater company devoted to telling women’s stories called the Drama Mamas, devoted to telling women’s stories onstage.

As the executive producer and often the director as well, for every show, I led a huge team of diverse designers and creatives: costume, stage, lighting, composers, sound, props, choreographers, dancers and, of course, the actors themselves. We prided ourselves on producing new plays.  I would also often be working with the playwright in conjunction with the actors during rehearsals to hone and refine the script.

Although we had some grant money and donations, the company was primarily self-funded, and theater is expensive to make, especially in San Francisco. So to stay financially afloat, it was crucial that we sold out or almost sold out every show. I became an expert in guerilla marketing, learning to leverage the power of design and compelling copywriting to build online and print assets driving sold out audiences and expanding membership throughout the four years that we flourished.

Wow, was this experience a fast, hard, thrilling lesson in growing audiences through creating excellent, compelling products and through top-notch brand and content strategy. One of my friends put it like this, “Jodi, it’s like you keep throwing yourself into the deep end of the pool and have to learn how to swim every time.”

ARVR Women And Allies

In 2015 I started an advocacy organization for women in augmented and virtual reality in San Francisco called ARVR Women and Allies. At our first meeting, this group of bold female entrepreneurs, product managers, and creatives told me that one of their top priorities was learning more about how to create the tech. Based on this, I lined up teachers, a space (Unity in San Francisco), and an inaugural class of 15 women. In January of 2016, we had our first 6 week-long class. The school continued for 3 years after this under the leadership team I established. Also: active Facebook Page; monthly educational Meetups; first Job Fair in San Francisco; mentoring and networking; amplifying voices through conferences and conference speaker referrals; creating scholarships for people of color; connecting to funders and funding opportunities.

Spatial Computing Board at IEEE—External/Internal Communications

I worked for IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) for five years tasked with advancing technology for humanity, to develop standards and promote the spatial computing industry to the world and develop talking points to sell the future of computing to the world. I spearheaded my way into the burgeoning industry of spatial computing, and through using my brand content and strategy skills developed along the way, became a major figure on the conference platforms, including CES, grew an organization from zero to 3k members, and was an in-demand consultant to Fortune 500 companies.

New Reality Arts

Founder of a software development firm and marketing consultant for spatial computing. Launched several AR and VR products, including a VR platform for the Metaverse. Consulted with fortune 500 leaders on how to incorporate spatial computing in their marketing and for future product development.