Transcript Of The Introduction To My Florida A&M University Business School Heritage Day Forum Speech

Recently I was invited to speak during Heritage Day at Florida A&M University’s School Business. Though we had to trim our Forum speeches to 8-9 minutes (my original speech was 19 minutes and 32 seconds), I was able to keep the introduction intact:

Good afternoon fellow SBIans. I am Joey Womack, a Spring 2003 MBA graduate currently residing in Atlanta, GA, but originally from Mobile, AL. When I graduated 10 years ago, I never ever thought that I’d be up here on this stage for Heritage Day so thank you, Dean Friday-Stroud and SBI faulty for the invitation and opportunity. And this day is even more special because it was 11 years ago to the day that, as I was pulling out of my parking space in the SBI parking lot, that God whispered in my left ear “Do it.”, and I went home to work home on what would become digitalguestlist.com.

Today, I’m the founder of sf35, an organization for what we consider high-performance capacity multi-cultural entrepreneurs. We are attempting to become the thread between them advisors, customers, organizations that serve them, as well as brands and the media.

I’m extremely passionate about entrepreneurship. Why? One, I’m crazy. I truly believe that I can change the world. Specifically, I think that I can save minorities. But more importantly, entrepreneurship will lead to more jobs. i believe many of the jobs that were lost in the Great Recession of 2008-2009 aren’t coming back:  a lot are shipped overseas, but like the slogan from the venture capitalist firm Andreeson Horowitz goes “software is eating the world.” This thing we call the Internet is disrupting, and in some cases eliminating, entire industries.  

So what will the people that held these jobs do: (a) nothing (b) take lower-paying jobs or those below their skill level or© start their own companies and create jobs for not only themselves but others in their communities. 

And why am I so big on tech? (a) My background sits at the intersection of entertainment and technology. And (b) tech companies have created and adopted some of the best philosophies and methodologies to increase the chances of new company success. At sf35, we’re spreading “the Gospel” of these philosophies to non-tech entrepreneurs.

Recently, I got a chance to go to SXSW in Austin, TX. It’s like the Super Bowl for the tech industry. And I’d like to share a few short stories which highlight the themes I learned: (1) sharing equals caring and (2) move the needle aka getting stuff done.

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