As the Senior Director of Global Talent Acquisition at Carbon Black, I’m continually looking to evolve our hiring practices. My current focus is on building a more diverse and inclusive organization. I'm passionate about the work involved in developing an inspiring culture and know the importance of diversity and inclusion (D&I) plays in this space. Starting a D&I program can feel overwhelming, especially if you're building it from scratch. As our work in this space continues to grow, we've learned a lot along the way. Here are some helpful tips to get you started.

How to Get Buy-In

Your D&I program will see more success if employees and candidates can see that your leadership team is passionate about it. Buy-in is crucial; otherwise, it will be seen as a buzzword or just a metric to hit. Diversity and inclusion need to be part of your company's DNA from the top down and vice versa.

We're fortunate at Carbon Black, as our CEO cares deeply about our people and wants to have greater representation across all teams. Our conversations started with the notion of bringing more women into leadership positions at CB, and very quickly, all execs were on board.

To implement this, we committed to ensuring we interviewed at least one diverse candidate for all of our senior-level roles, as well as expanded our reach by sourcing in more diverse candidate pools. Also, having our CEO be excited while signing The Parity Pledge showed our commitment from the top down.

As we started to dig and learn more about what we were doing, we identified and selected leaders in the organization who showed interest in doing more to drive change. Once we had support and collaboration with key leaders, we used an all-hands company meeting to announce the work we signed up to complete throughout the year. We also shared our data, illustrating the percentages of minorities we have within the company. Transparency is at the core of our belief system here at CB, and we believed sharing our stats was a critical piece of our journey. Our numbers weren’t terrible but showed we had a lot of work to do to have greater representation of minorities at our company.

How to Secure Budget

It can be challenging to secure funding when you're just starting, especially if you are pitching this after budgets for the year have been solidified. In our first year, we self-funded the majority of our initiatives. However, we also approached key leaders and asked for their financial support for a few specific events and outlined how their dollars would empower our employees. A great example of this is the way we funded a large group of our women to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration. This substantial investment was split across HR, Sales, and R&D, and everyone was aligned on the positive impact something of this scale would have on our people.

When it comes time for budget chats, be sure to get your voice heard. Try to coordinate with key leaders during annual budget reviews to ensure D&I is on their roadmap. For example, ask them to carve out a bit of their employee development budgets for diversity-specific events, workshops, conferences, etc. A little bit from everyone’s budget can add up, making a big impact.

How to Get Started

It takes a village. Even after the tough task of securing leadership buy-in and (hopefully) funds for your program, the work has only just begun. Building a workplace where diversity is embraced, and inclusion is organic won't happen if it's the company or HR giving a directive. It's not authentic, and it won't be a true component of your company culture. To make it a success, you need a team of people.

Ideally, you want to name someone who will be a dedicated program manager. This person will look into opportunities, manage requests, oversee the budget, tap others for assistance, plan, and execute. This person may have a full-time job doing something else, but if she/he is passionate about the work, it will be easy to find time to support it. Help them out by appointing a handful of others who can implement initiatives, too.

To ensure your program is resonating with your people, and to make sure you’re finding relevant opportunities, consider Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). These groups will be your on-the-ground folks who have a pulse on relevant diversity-focused events, causes, groups, and so on. This is something we’ve recently implemented at Carbon Black, starting with ERGs for women, LGBTQ, and blacks. These groups have been instrumental in helping us provide the right opportunities and support for our people.

To make things stick, it’s also beneficial to have advocates for your D&I program. This should include leadership, as well as vocal members of the company or passionate individual contributors. These advocates will keep things top of mind for employees.

How to Make the Most of your Resources

You likely have a small budget, especially when you're just starting out. To make the most of this, you need to figure out what your goals are if you haven't already. For example, Carbon Black's first focus was on women. We wanted to not only get in front of women to recruit them, but also support the women who were already working for us.

With that in mind, we had to think of how that translates regarding budget. For instance, if 50% is focused on external and 50% internal, how will that be allocated? For external, we invested a good chunk of funds on the Grace Hopper Celebration. This was a big win for us, as it helped us get brand recognition in front of a ton of women, and provided a great platform for our women to learn. With this eating a majority of our budget, we used the rest for ads, job boards (i.e., Career Contessa), and video shoots. For our internal program, we've held many on-site events where women could network, learn, and develop skills. We also invested in a women’s mentorship program and will be sending a number of our people to the Mass Conference for Women again. Hopefully, these examples will give you some ideas on how you can break down your budget.

The real challenge we've run into is knowing where to invest. There's a lot of noise surrounding diversity and inclusion, making it hard to sift out which opportunities are appropriate. We're seeing more job boards launching, more events springing up, and more diversity chapters looking for sponsors. It can all be overwhelming to manage.

When you’re approached with these opportunities, dig deep into what they are and compare them against your goals. Does it align? Will it yield the best results for the effort and costs? Do you have the resources, such as people, to invest? My suggestion is to set aside some contingency funds to trial out newer options. Some of these things are going to require you to test it out to know if it’s worthwhile, so make sure you factor this into your budget.

Building D&I will benefit your company in many ways. The real challenge is making the most impact with, potentially, minimal resources and keeping the momentum and excitement going. Hopefully, these tips can help you in the early stages of your program build-out and/or reevaluate an initiative already underway.

For the 56th episode of our podcast, I interviewed Jules Pieri, Co-Founder & CEO of The Grommet.

The Grommet is a community that has reshaped the way people discover, share, influence, and buy products online. The company’s mission is rooted in what they call “Citizen Commerce,” and they have helped launch many products that are now household names like Fitbit, SodaStream, OtterBox, S’well water bottles, and many more.

To kick off our interview, I ask Jules about “the shoes.” It is a story about Jules and how she was pounding the pavement in the early days of building The Grommet to the point where she wore out these shoes and they fell apart right before a meeting with potential investors. It is a legendary story of entrepreneurial grit and perseverance that is a common theme throughout not only Jules’ professional career but her whole life.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

• Jules’ background growing up in Detroit and the early foundation years.
• Her work on the iconic Reebok Pump sneaker.
• What she learned working very closely with legendary tech CEO, Meg Whitman.
• The details on The Grommet, a successful consumer marketplace that is now majority-owned by Ace Hardware.
• Her scrappy PR strategy, and how she has been able to get coverage in major publications like The New York Times, Fortune, Inc., and many others.
• Advice for entrepreneurs, especially women, who are raising venture capital.
• Plus, a lot more.

To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Soundcloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!

For the 56th episode of our podcast, I interviewed Eric Groves, Co-Founder & CEO at Alignable.

Alignable is a venture-backed social network for small business owners. The company has over 2.5 million small businesses on their platform across almost 30,000 communities.

Eric is also known for being a key part of the early team at Constant Contact that helped the company scale to an IPO. He joined when they had just 10 customers and $100 in revenue. Yes, you heard that right $100 in revenue.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

• His early career progression from larger organizations to internet companies like AltaVista, where he actually met the brother of Steve Wozniak.
• The details behind Constant Contact’s go-to-market strategy, plus the secret behind how they converted trial users to being paid customers at mind-numbing rates.
• All about Alignable, and their mission to transform the small business economy one small step at a time.
• How they are building the Alignable network at a national scale all organically where they are adding over 50,000 businesses a week with a zero acquisition cost.
• The one piece of advice he wishes he had when starting a company.
• Plus so much more.

Are you interested in joining this company? Click here for job openings at Alignable.

To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Soundcloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!

Bowdoin College is a private liberal arts college based in Brunswick, Maine. It is one of the many outstanding academic institutions in New England.

As a school specializing in liberal arts, it may come as a surprise how many of its alumni have gone on to incredibly successful careers in business, whether it is as an executive or an entrepreneur.

We compiled a list with some of these individuals that are "mostly" in the tech industry. These lists are never meant to be comprehensive, but more of a sampling.

One trend from the alumni at Bowdoin that we noticed is that several have built a successful career as investors. Not included in this slideshow, but certainly worth noting are: Bob White - Founding Partner at Bain Capital, Rick Ganong - Partner at Five Pine Partners, Steve Gormley - Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Great Hill, Drew Loucks - Principal at Great Hill, Harry George - Co-Founder & Managing General Partner at Solstice Capital, Henry Newman - Co-Founder & General Partner at Solstice Capital, Mike Farrell - Managing Director at Spectrum Equity, and Roshen Menon - Managing Partner at Guidepost.

A big thanks to Sean Marsh for helping us put this together.

Going through the pictures, there's bound to be at least one person that will make you go, "I didn't realize they went to Bowdoin?"

We spend nearly a third of our life at work, so if we aren’t having any fun there, it’s probably feeling a lot like...work. Yes, of course, we all want to give off the impression we take our role seriously, but there are some serious benefits to building some fun into your workday. Not only has it been proven to reduce stress, but it also helps in creating deeper connections with your co-workers and supporting a healthier culture. Who doesn’t want some of that?

So what actually makes work fun?  It’s certainly not one size fits all.  Whether your office throws epic Halloween parties, hosts Thirsty Thursdays or runs amazing trivia competitions, defining “fun” should be left up to what appeals to the masses.  In other words, you need to know your team and office well and choose wisely. This doesn’t mean every environment needs to invest in something like the famous Google slide to be recognized as embracing a fun atmosphere. Startups have made creating fun environments a necessity - in addition to excellent technology, talented people and tons of room for growth. Is your office squad in need a little more jolly? Read on for a few ideas to inspire.

START WITH YOUR WORKSPACE  

Many people enjoy adding some firsthand details to their personal work space to make it feel a little more “them.”  However, try upping the ante with a team theme to bring everyone a little closer together. Challenge yourselves with work appropriate fun like celebrity doppelgangers side by side photos, or decorations that reflect your team’s personality. It doesn’t matter what it is; you are just building camaraderie by bringing the team together to display a little bit of your playful sides.

GET OUT FROM BEHIND YOUR DESK

Ok, we are all busy.  But are you seriously so busy you need to eat your lunch at your desk every day?  Aside from being horrible for you, you are missing a prime opportunity to get out with your work posse and enjoy some of the perks (ping pong, anyone?) your company has to offer or even take a quick walk for a Starbucks or taco run.  Of course, I’m not suggesting that weaving these little breaks in is going to add fun like going to a comedy show might, but taking a few minutes out of a crazy day to enjoy the people around you is a huge perk many of us don’t take enough advantage of.

SQUAD GOALS

Numerous studies have been conducted about the benefits of having friends at work. Who wouldn’t love to be even more productive and engaged because you were able to invest a bit of time cultivating a fun work squad?  Of course, it’s wonderful to have a handful of people you can count on when you are having a rough day. It’s also pretty fantastic to connect with others you can laugh with, challenge you, and plain make work a whole lot more fun on a daily basis.  

GET YOUR LEADERS INVOLVED

Don’t assume just that because she’s your boss means she doesn’t want in on the good time.  Leaders, just like individual contributors and everyone in between, enjoy letting off some steam as well. Sharing a giggle with those senior leaders doesn’t just break down barriers; it can strengthen relationships too.  So go ahead: challenge your boss to a game of foosball, or invite them to cocktails after work with your team. You might be surprised that you all have a good time together.

Many of us entered the workforce subscribing to the conventional wisdom that work is supposed to be work, and if you attempt to have fun at work, you might be perceived as a slacker. Nonsense! Finding humor at work helps you build strong relationships, enhances engagement and fosters creativity. All that contributes to better productivity.  So go ahead...while you’re working your butt off today, find some time to LOL with your co-workers. You will all benefit.

Christina Luconi is Chief People Officer for Rapid7. Follow her on Twitter: @peopleinnovator

The general role of a board is to provide oversight, guidance, feedback, governance, and accountability. With board meetings, as with many things in life, you will get out what you put in – planning ahead thoughtfully and doing the prep work can lead to extremely valuable and productive board sessions. The inverse is also true and unfortunately, somewhat frequently the reality. We have worked with over 100 companies and attended thousands of board meetings – here is our take on how it is done best.

Set yourself up for Success

Lockdown board calendar early: Set the schedule for the entire coming year in November or December to lock down calendars. You want all members present and providing the maximum amount of lead time helps. The larger the board, the more critical this becomes.  Once the calendar is set, think about which major topic(s) you want to cover at each meeting.  This does not need to be set in stone as things often change in technology startups and you want to be nimble, but it helps makes sure you balance the key topics you cover and gives your team ample time to prepare.

Cadence: The appropriate frequency of meetings is not universal.  For the earliest stage companies, shorter monthly meetings are often useful as things can change very quickly. For companies in the early growth stage, we typically recommend four to six in-person meetings per year, interspersed with a few shorter board update calls in between.  Some companies also choose to use ad hoc/optional additional board sessions to go into depth on a specific and timely topic when needed.

Pre-Meeting Check-In: Check in with each board member at least 1 – 2 weeks ahead of the meeting.  This provides an opportunity to share any important updates or changes, good and bad, ahead of time, as well as see what is on their mind.  Even if you are already in frequent contact with a particular board member, make sure to discuss this with them ahead of the meeting. This also allows you to make changes or additions to your board deck prior to the meeting.

Post-Meeting Follow-Up: Always follow up on any requests that come out of a meeting (unanswered questions, specific analyses, etc.) and touch base with each board member, asking them for specific feedback on content, meeting and any areas of concern or improvement.  It is generally a good idea to try and set the agenda/outline for the next board meeting right after gathering all feedback from the one you just held.

Hold Members Accountable: Get materials out at least 2 days ahead of time (3 or 4 if possible) and set expectations that they are to be read ahead of time.  Do not waste valuable board time walking meticulously through all of the sent materials.  Review efficiently, address questions, and move on to the main topics for discussion.

Avoid Surprises: Perhaps this is already obvious from the Pre-Meeting Check-in, but make sure you let board members know about any major events or updates, good or bad, ahead of the meeting.  If people’s heads are reeling from a surprise, they will not be ready for a deep discussion and will likely be upset or embarrassed.

Casual Interactions: Allowing the board members and key team members to get to know each other in less formal settings has real value.  Pre-meeting dinners or lunches with no set agenda are great for this purpose, but if time is tight, even simple “ice-breakers” to start the meeting and have everyone take part in can help foster closer relationships.

Content

Always Set the Stage: Because things change quickly at young tech companies, it is wise to always use one page to remind the board of the vision and main mission as well as top goals for the business.  It may feel redundant to some, but it is important to make sure everyone remains on the same page.

Reporting Clarity & Consistency: Achieving a set of reporting and measurement dashboards that are focused on the meaningful business metrics and fundamentals is critical – cover marketing, sales/BD, support, product, and engineering, hiring and finance. These should be used by the management team for internal meetings, as well as for reporting to the board.  Try to limit to roughly a dozen pages of content. You want to be consistent from meeting to meeting so the board understands what each chart represents, but you should also work to iterate to ensure you are providing as much clarity and insight as possible, constantly seeking feedback.  As stated before, do not waste time going through each chart or graph in detail, but do give the board an opportunity to ask questions.

Focused Discussions: Outside of the standard updates limit major topics to one or two at most per board meeting.  Invite in the relevant senior team members to help lead these discussions.  Having an external expert or two present can also be valuable at times for industry perspective.  Share any reading materials or research ahead of time to make sure everyone shows up with same the base level of understanding.  The richest and most rewarding discussions come when the board can apply their experience and insight against comprehensive analysis and/or deep industry perspective.

Running the meeting

Who’s in the room?:  Ideally, all board members are present in person, and almost always the CFO. In addition, depending on the topics, it may be helpful to have counsel present, or at least listening in.  We advise against having the entire management team sit in for the full meeting. Instead, invite in the team members that are directly related to the presentation and key topics of the meeting. Some choose to only bring them in when needed. Either way works.

Interaction & Pace: Encourage or even prompt each board member to provide input and feedback on key questions and topics. This is not a time for passivity or quiet head nodding.  In your agenda, be thoughtful about allocating the proper amount of time to each section and stick to it.  With that said, it is important not to cut short valuable discussions.  Always leave some cushion in your time allocations, and insert a break or two that can be used for longer discussions if needed.

Non-Executive Board Session: When the main portion of the board meeting is complete, allow the non-executive board members, i.e. all those not employed by the company, to have a discussion amongst themselves.  This is important as it allows them to air their thoughts and opinions and reach some level of consensus on the proper feedback to the CEO.  The CEO can then come back in when signaled and discuss any feedback or other questions that arise.

Clearly, running a productive and valuable board meeting takes a lot of work, and it is always a bit easier when the business is going well, but it is often even more valuable, and helpful, when the company may be challenged. Challenging times provide the greatest opportunity for learning and insight that could lead to critical course correction. When things are going well, focus the topics on continuing to raise the bar, planning ahead, new product or service ideas, and driving further improvements across the business. The CEOs and teams that do board meetings best, look forward to them and get a ton out of them.

Matt Fates is a Partner with Ascent Venture Partners.  You can find this post, as well as additional content on their blog located here.  You can also follow Ascent Venture Partners on Twitter (@AscentVP) by clicking here.