A personal overview of the podcast focus and direction while seeking your topic suggestions, feedback, and guest recommendations. I provide my personal WHY this is so important to me and hope you will find inspiration and insights to grow as an LGBTQ professional, entrepreneur, and organization. Subscribe to the podcasts and join us on www.OutBuro.com
We’ll chat with LGBTQ entrepreneurs about their inspiration, strategy, startup journey, successes balanced with insights from lessons learned.
We will be exploring way to launch, grow and expand your business from many perspectives.
OutBüro – Be inspired. Let’s chat, share, learn, and grow together. In each episode, we’ll have casual and informative conversations with interesting LGBTQ professionals spanning a wide range of fields.
Non-profits are a huge part of our community so we will chat with non-profit leaders about their organizations, their focus, and goals, successes, operational effectiveness, needs, and challenges.
We’ll also talk with leaders in Diversity and Inclusion consultants on creating safe and welcoming workplaces from an outside best practices view as well as corporate HR and D&I directors highlighting Successes and opportunities in their workplace for LGBTQ employees along with customers and clients.
Wil also have chats community allies across many sectors who strive to work with and promote the values of diversity.
Sound interesting?
Let’s learn, grow, and empower each other.
Listen to the podcasts on OutBuro.com. Better yet subscribe via your favorite audio platform.
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Breaker
Castbox
Google Podcasts
Overcast
Pocket Casts
RadioPublic
If you have topic ideas, would like to recommend future guests or to become a guest on the show please visit OutBuro.com, under the More menu Select Contact Us and submit your topic request or potential guest information.
You also can do more than just listen.
Join the online LGBTQ professional an entrepreneur community at www.OutBuro.com.
- Add your profile.
Indicate if you are open to being a mentor or would like a mentor. Find each other via member search. - Indicate if you are an entrepreneur or would like to be. And so much more.
- Join or start a group – industry, topic, or geographically focused.
- Host your LGBTQ employee resource group there.
- Share great content you find from across the web, publish articles, upload your portfolio
to your profile to showcase your work. - Make new connections, reach out via the site’s messaging to explore new opportunities.
Rate current or former employers as an employee, contractor, or intern. - Rate organization even as a volunteer.
- tout how great they are to work for or areas they could improve on.
- Rate business or organization as a customer or client.
- Help build a full picture so prospective LGBTQ job seekers and consumers can make informed choices
You make the difference. Your voice matters. Be where you belong. OutBuro.com.
I look forward to your feedback as we take this journey together.
Dialog Transcript
The below was created through voice to text recognition. We will strive to edit for accuracy as time permits. It may not be perfect. It is being provided for the hearing impaired to still enjoy the interview.
OutBüro, let’s chat, share, learn, grow, and be inspired together. In each episode, we’ll have casual and informative conversations with interesting LGBTQ professionals will chat with LGBTQ entrepreneurs about their inspiration strategies, startup journey, successes and balanced with insights from lessons learned. We’ll also talk with leaders in diversity and inclusion and community allies across many sectors. Please subscribe to the podcast and join the online community at out bureau calm that’s o ut buro.com
Hi there, this is Dennis Velco with OutBüro – o u t b u r o .com.
I wanted to take a little bit of time just to carve out here in the first episode of out barrows new podcast, which I am super, super excited about and give you a little bit of information as to why and how and so forth because, you know the how and really the why of it rather, as you’ll tell all of the episodes coming forward will be completely unrehearsed and unscripted. And you know, that’s part of what makes each of us unique and interesting is, it’s not that we’re all perfect, but that, you know, we have our little stumbles and our struggles and so forth and in your professional career. You might have started off in one direction. And through happenstance, it’s taken you into a whole new field. And so we’re wanting to explore that, as well as all of the aspects of entrepreneurialism.
And we’ll be getting that to that here in just a moment, but some of the background on inspiration. So now nearly 12 years ago at this point, as you’ll see, the date on this podcast is May 27, 2020, literally 12 months ago, sorry, 10 to 12 years ago, I launched the very first group on LinkedIn that would there was no Create button. And for it, I actually had to contact LinkedIn in order to start the group and through the course of the dialogue, through an email exchange with their Support ticketing system and so forth.
They agreed to start the group after I had put forth you know, like a whole page Use Case as to why it was important and so forth. And they agreed, did not know who to go to in the LGBT community. And I was the one bringing this and I’ve, you know, said, Hey, you know, well, if you’ll assign me as the administrator and moderator to it, I’ll take it on. And you know, just like growing a business and or growing your career, it, there was no blueprint back then for growing a LinkedIn group. And that group has been and still remains the largest LGBTQ professional and entrepreneurial group on LinkedIn.
As of right now, there are over 46,300 Global members. And I’m so proud of that. It’s It’s hard. It’s flows, and so forth. And I’m still constantly learning from the group members, what’s effective, and so forth. And so this podcast is going to also be a great opportunity for me to learn and through the course of those 12 years. So far of doing that on LinkedIn, I have had so many incredible conversations with group members, people who have reached out to me or something in their profile intrigued me, and maybe I had initiated the introduction calls and so forth. And so you know, finally you know, I’ve been building the OutBüro – o u t b u r o .com site for now, we’ll just say longer, longer than I would like to admit right now. But, you know, again, as entrepreneurs, especially like me, it’s A bootstrap startup company of one at this particular moment, doing everything and so forth myself. You know, sometimes we, we have struggles in the sense of, you know, what’s important and what do we need to focus on? And how are we going to connect with our audience, our customers, our students, our employees, and so forth? There are just so many potential facets. And, you know, these conversations that I have had with individuals throughout the years and especially over the last 12 months have just been inspirational to me what people are doing with their careers and with their businesses, and so finally, came upon some tools that make it somewhat easy. If you’re seeing what this is initially hosted on is a FM makes it very easy to do podcasts and broadcast to many platforms. And eventually, as this grows, perhaps it might graduate to a different platform, but that’s part of the journey, right, is utilizing what you have in front of you, and understanding your why and managing that group on LinkedIn. Because it just had to be there Damn it right it just had to be there. That was part of my case to LinkedIn. You know, you’re the largest platform for professionals and you know, dang it, you threw me in a university group because that was on my profile and I really need to be in the LGBT group because it needs to exist and you know, some, whatever your passion is, is kind of at the heart of what I’d like to discover and in bringing on guests on to the show is have them share They’re wise, why do they do what they do? Why are they passionate about it? What are their successes? What are some lessons learned maybe some tidbits and golden nuggets that we all can grow from. And, you know, I forget who who said it. So, you know, please put in the comments or something where this quote comes from, but there’s a quote out there in the universe that, you know, a wise person learns from the mistakes and or the lessons of another. And so, hopefully, this podcast will will do that. It’ll also hopefully bring some visibility and light to the community. For example, one of our early guests was born and raised in India. And so I know that in the LinkedIn group, I have members from India And members from other countries where they’re not as free to be themselves as we are in some of our, you know, Rainbow and gay unicorn cities that we might live in throughout the Western world. So I see this as an opportunity. For myself, I’m already having those conversations, right? I’m already doing it. So might as well put it into a podcast form, so that more people than just myself are hearing those conversations, and we all can benefit from it. So let me get into just a little bit now that of course, you could do is probably completely unscripted, which hopefully and by design, most of the conversations you know, we’ll have bullet points of what you know, we want to cover but you know, 99% of it will be completely unscripted. And so then there is even one person I’m booking her early that in addition to being a mental health therapist, she is also a stand up comic. So I’m very much looking forward to all of these conversations and bringing them to you. So just as a bit of information, so hopefully you will stay tuned and you will subscribe which I’ll give you all the places where you can subscribe to this podcast here in just a few moments. Wanting to give you a brief overview, and that is the outro podcast is about being inspired. Reaching and communicating, chatting, sharing, learning and growing together, in each episode, will be striving to have very casual and informal, yet informative conversations with interesting LGBTQ professionals spanning a wide range of fields. As I like to say I unison People will say, Oh, well you’re focused on the professionals. You know, and well, what does that mean? To me? If you’re working, you’re a professional, right? Even if you’re a professional dog walker, or you know you have a cleaning business and so forth, I strive to and or maybe you are a professional rocket science scientist at NASA, wouldn’t that be an interesting conversation about them and their life as a potentially out or not out, scientist and so forth. So Anywho, that’s a bit about what we’re going to be striving to get to when it comes to professional is people who have had careers and are on their way to career and, but hopefully those who have made it to some level of success in their professional life, so that they can talk about, you know, how they made it and their journey as an LGBTQ community member within that profession. Okay, so for example, there are many professions where being LGBTQ, even, you know, in very, you know, LGBT friendly, some have supposedly countries and so forth, it’s still within those industries can be very difficult. So those are definitely the kinds of people that I would love to get onto this program to talk about, maybe you know, what they’re doing in their own profession, but you know, even maybe, perhaps, what are they doing, if it pertinent, within a professional association, an LGBT professional association to further and advance the profession. And while you happen to be LGBTQ, right, we’ll also be chatting with LGBTQ entrepreneurs, about their Why Why are they hitting this? You know, what sparked their interest? You know, what was their inspiration? Whatever that might have been? What are the kinds of strategies that they are applying to their business to, you know, do that, that startup to grow the business to get the funding that they need to capture the clients and the customers and so forth, their marketing strategies and all of that good stuff, you know, how are they dealing? How do they get angel investing and venture capitalists and so forth to invest in their business or, you know, that small business loan and so forth? You know, so what was their total? What was their startup journey, as well as you know, talking about their successes, and balancing that with the insights of lessons learned, every single entrepreneur out there has made, you know, countless mistakes and so forth that, you know, hindsight is 2020 and, you know, that they personally have learned from so this is going to be an opportunity Ready to delve into some of those lessons learned from their own personal mistakes and so forth and help bestow that information on to all of us. So that we hopefully can learn from that, and not make those same mistakes and grow our business is, you know, a bit wiser from them being so generous and sharing that and being vulnerable as well, you know, it’s not always great to share those vulnerabilities will be also exploring ways to again, launch and grow and expand your business, again, from the many perspectives of entrepreneurs and community, nonprofit leaders and so forth who have, you know, done that been there and so forth and have that wisdom to share. And, of course, you know, in all regards to that, so mentioning nonprofits, you know, it’s a huge part of the LGBT community. So You know, we’ll be chatting with nonprofit leaders about their organizations. How were they started? Why were they started? What do they focus on? What kinds of, you know, goals? Do they have, again, similar to the entrepreneurs on the for-profit side? What have been their successes, their operational effectiveness? You know, what are some of the systems and practices and so forth that they have implemented in order to achieve what they have achieved? How do they go about, you know, funding? Is that grants is that corporate sponsorships? How do they do that we’d all love to know? And also, you know, what are some of the needs that they have, giving it also the platform and talking about that has given them the opportunity to also, you know, ask all of the listeners and folks on the website and then the little LinkedIn group, you know, if need be for, you know, a funding raise, and so forth. So, we’re also going to be expanding, you’re going to see it is going to be very diverse, very diverse, because that’s what I love. And I hope you’ll love it too. And, you know, if it’s only focus focused on one sector, you know, like LGBT nonprofits, well, you know, with that might have, you know, listenership and viewership, you know, sure, if it’s only focused on LGBT entrepreneurs, Well, sure, you know, there’s going to be listeners and so forth. But, you know, I, I’m taking the approach because there’s, you know, 46, you know, almost 46 and a half thousand global members in the group and they’re just not all nonprofit professionals. They’re just not all government employee professionals. You know, they’re just not all fortune 1000 level employees or just not all small business owners. You know, it’s Everything and their students as well. So, you know, it just makes sense that the out bureau podcasts, try to respect the diversity of its group members and followers and, you know, hopefully from all of this, you know, effort the that diversity in all of its totality will just continue to grow. So, with that, we’re going to be also talking with leaders in diversity and inclusion, looking at it from both sides. So bringing on inclusion and diversity consultants who their business and or their for-profit business or their nonprofit organizations, work with corporations and employers, giving them best practices and guidance and so forth to become better based on Best Practices lead Also, I’m hoping to have diversity and inclusion directors and HR directors who their job within the employer is to be the spearhead for those programs within their organizations. You know, so what kinds of things have they seen that work and you know, I’m hoping to attract you know, early very well, just a courageous probably corporations who value diversity and inclusion and would like to come on to the out bureau podcast to talk about, you know what they’re doing. But you know, I’m also going to ask them to as best as they can without getting, you know, their hand slapped internally, you know, to talk about the challenges, you know, let’s be real. It’s not easy. Because as leaders in those corporations trying to instill workplace cultures and values when you have, you know, thousands and thousands of employees who all bring their own unconscious biases and so forth, you know, to the workplace, it’s a damn difficult job. So, you know, I want to give, you know, the props and, you know, the accolades to those people who are taking on those challenges, because we’ll, we’ll save a lot of those kinds of conversations for when I have those particular people on board. I could get on a small soapbox here and get derailed. So we’re, again, we’re looking to have the the, you know, the casual and informative conversations, also with community allies. You know, we want diversity and inclusion as LGBT. You know, so staff working for employers. We want to champion out LGBT diversity inclusion as a community and individuals and organizations. But that also means that we have to respect and value diversity and inclusion. And that also means, you know, our heterosexual allies, you know, hey, you know, if you’re heterosexual, and you know, you are a community ally, and you’re doing something amazing within your employer, within your business, within your community, for the LGBT community, I would love to have you on the show. And, you know, talk about that, and, you know, talk about again, why being part of that community means you know, so much to you. So does that sound interesting? Chirp Chirp oh geez, I can’t hear you. So that’s where you’re going to need to, you know, put comments on whatever platform you’re listening to. And let me know. So I hope that sounds interesting to you because it certainly is interesting to me or I would not be dedicating so much time to this. So if you have a topic or an idea, a question even perhaps, put comments within all of the different applications that you might be listening to, and or go to the OutBüro – o u t b u r o .com. And under the more menu, up at the top, you’re going to see the contact us. And so there you will be able to provide, you know, an idea for a topic or a question that you might have that you would like me to strive to work into a future episode to answer for you. I’d very much appreciate that. So if you have recommendations for future guests, right now I am currently working on just booking the GS about eight or so people that I already have lined up. So that will keep me busy for at least a week or two. But we’ll be striving to expand that out as I grow. So if you have recommendations, please let us know even if that’s recommended in yourself, no problem with that whatsoever.
Get involved!
Comments