Kate Beck [00:00:03]:
Welcome to the Timeless Vitality podcast where co-hosts Kate Beck and Amber Stitt explore the unique journeys, inspiring stories, and timeless wisdom of those who embody vitality and resilience.
Amber Stitt [00:00:17]:
Together we discover what it means to thrive well beyond 100, sharing insights that empower you to live with purpose and create a lasting legacy.
Kate Beck [00:00:27]:
Let's get started with today's episode. Welcome to Timeless Vitality. My name is Kate Beck. I'll be your host. And joining me, Amber Stitt, my co-host.
Amber Stitt [00:00:37]:
Welcome.
Kate Beck [00:00:38]:
Today we have Erskin Blunck. Erskin, tell us a little bit about yourself, your connection to Portland, and what brings you here today.
Erskin Blunck [00:00:47]:
So thank you, Kate. Thank you, Amber. So I would like to tell a little bit about how I came here. I was a student at Portland State during my studies. So I graduated from an MBA program in Portland, Oregon in the 90s and I really loved the time in Portland. And some many years later, after my PhD and after having worked in industry and in consulting for 7 years, I decided to become a professor for international management. And soon after I reconnected to Portland State University to see whether we could create something similar that I had experienced for our students so that they could reach out and learn something from other countries, from other regions.
Erskin Blunck [00:01:32]:
And that's maybe also a little bit of the theme about the topic today, that I want to share some of my experiences in a completely different environment. And you can see, or the audience can then see what they can learn from that, whether they have an outtake out of that for their environment. And that's exactly what I'm doing at the moment. I just come back from last night's PICMET conference, which is a technology innovation conference in Portland. I am full of impressions and I had a chance to talk there, as well, about this endeavor I've been making. So that's the whole thing brought together. And you might wonder why I'm in a musician's recording studio. This is on the way.
Erskin Blunck [00:02:14]:
I had a chance to get to know Greg Ostbo. He's, besides being a professional musician, a drummer. Despite all the guitars, he's a drummer by profession, but he's also a great marketing expert, marketing strategist. And we became best friends and we regularly visit each other to work together and do things. And this is what brought me here. And he helps facilitate that whole sit in.
Amber Stitt [00:02:39]:
Love a collaboration!
Kate Beck [00:02:41]:
Yes. And Erskin, tell us a little bit about your project, the project that you've started in your community back home.
Erskin Blunck [00:02:49]:
Yeah. So it's really hard to tell where to start and where to end. And sometimes you might help guiding me a little bit when I'm getting too broad. But we had the very simple goal to become the founder university for sustainable startups, basically. So we wanted to prosper an entrepreneurship environment at our university where it's not so common to go to entrepreneurship pathway. We have very attractive industry in our region. I'm coming from Stuttgart region in the southwest of Germany, which is a prospering, industrious region and most of our students are going to industry. So what had instilled me was with a colleague to really develop an ecosystem for startups and also not only startups to create jobs, but to solve societal challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, social issues, and so on with an aging society, I mean, you can name all those challenges.
Erskin Blunck [00:03:49]:
And this brought me in the idea of going into building an ecosystem and that's easy said, but not so easy to be done. I compare it a little bit like a triathlon altogether. Not only a marathon, but a triathlon, but it's for sure, it's not a sprint, it's a long term endeavor. So we started it basically with one thing that we saw that there's funding available from the German government, from the Ministry of Economy and we tried to gather that funding and that was quite significant. It was altogether close to $2 million, altogether quite significant money for the last four years. It will be ending by the end of this year. And this, when we applied for that, we already brought in the idea of creating communities which are helping to develop startups, become founder, to become entrepreneurial. And in the beginning we had a very vague idea what that means.
Erskin Blunck [00:04:50]:
So we thought it's all about networking, that's an important thing. And it will be one community which would be developing all together. And we were very lucky that when we had the funding available and there was a little bit of fine tuning of the funding, what would be paid and what not and so on with the funding institution. We managed to get in to learn about a consulting company and to get them in to better understand community development, so to say. And if you like, I can go a little bit more deeply into that challenge of developing communities.
Kate Beck [00:05:28]:
Yes. What is a big challenge that you've had to overcome, or be facing as you approached this?
Erskin Blunck [00:05:35]:
So what you have to really bear in mind, you are meeting a lot of people. It's very nice. Networking is very important in business life altogether. At the same time, often it leads to nothing. So you meet, you have good intentions that very nice evening and the next day you're rolled over by your daily work and you forget about it. So at this point, to get it to really getting rolling and have it permanently going on is very important. And here, by the help of that organization called Mycelium, and I don't know where they heard that term Mycelium, so it's about fungus, about mushrooms, basically. And it's not the mushroom itself.
Erskin Blunck [00:06:20]:
It's something that you have in the soil underneath under the mushrooms, sometimes you might wonder when you go to the forest that always at the same place the year after, there will be mushrooms again. And you don't see it from the outside. It's all under the soil. And this is the idea how communities are developing. And that's the name of the consulting company who helped us, a very small, almost NGO, so they do it really for the passion and not so much for the money. So what we really learned with them is to create communities around a clear purpose. That's very important.
Erskin Blunck [00:06:56]:
And they also helped us distinguish between a network and a community. So a network means no commitment at all. Everything is possible. You might meet again, you might work again together, you might follow up on it. But it could be that you meet very casually every other year and you don't see each other. And this is the starting point often. But the art is really to create out of such a network individual communities which are sharing their common ideas and are going around a certain shared purpose, having certain values which develop when they get to know each other a little bit more closely. And then it's about commitment.
Erskin Blunck [00:07:39]:
That's a very important term. We don't have that word in German, by the way, we use it as well as we haven't found one in German. And commitment means it's give and take. So it's the expectation that you are giving something that you're committing to be there at a certain point of time and to take over things if someone else is not available and cannot cover it. So that's some of the basic rules which we found were very important to start it. And I can later on explain a little bit to give some examples how that practically would look like.
Kate Beck [00:08:12]:
I'd love to hear an example. Amber, how about you?
Amber Stitt [00:08:15]:
I love that you're distinguishing between the two. Networking is not as much work and work in a good way. Like if you're really going to make a difference, it's really building out the community. So I'm happy to hear that.
Erskin Blunck [00:08:27]:
Yeah, so that's absolutely the case. And the first community we had really flourishing and created was a maker community. So people who are making things they are not talking too much, but they see a challenge and they solve it. They do it, whether it's something which is broken, to repair it, to organize, repair cafe, something like that, or whether they think Wi-Fi should be available in the community. They find out whether they have some equipment, someone wants to donate a little bit of equipment, and they make it work. And they are very technically interested, but often by a purpose. The people we got to know there were also very interested in making the world a better place. When it comes to the environment.
Erskin Blunck [00:09:11]:
The ecology was really a big concern about them, climate change and things like that. And they all came together in a situation where we had Covid in the very first weeks. The medical people, the doctors and the help people, aid people, they did not have protection environment, they didn't have masks. That was one thing. And the other one was they didn't have face shields. And those face shields, they figured out the makers that they could be printed with a 3D printer and laser cut it to make a foil to cover your face, basically. So they tried it out. There were more than 100 of those shields available like prototypes.
Erskin Blunck [00:09:50]:
They were testing and using them. It was successful in the end. They woke up something like 100 people who were printing day and night. My son was one of them. And it ended up producing 6,000 of those units within six weeks. And after six weeks they made themselves redundant in that they found a mold that it could be produced much more efficiently industrially. And then to come to the makers, to not distract too much around that interesting theme.
Erskin Blunck [00:10:21]:
It's really that we figured out that it would be great to do more things with such talented people at the age between 15 and 75. So it was stretching across all ages. And we were just starting our startup center, having a space there. We said we don't have engineers at our university. It would be great to have people with technical know-how to help us to have them on the ground. And we invited them to meet there regularly and to install a little workshop and environment where they could tinker around. And we had even a little bit of equipment we have built into our tender, something called a laser cutter. And they are meeting now on a regular basis, every twice a week, every Monday night, very crowded, and it's a crowd of 50 - 60 who are coming.
Erskin Blunck [00:11:09]:
And in the meantime they have created also under that whole thing, under a legal form. But that's much later after they have done a lot of accomplishments.
Amber Stitt [00:11:18]:
I mean, this is all ages working together in their talents, in their flow of what they're good at what they're great at. That's powerful.
Kate Beck [00:11:26]:
And mentoring the youth is mentoring the mentors and the mentors are mentoring the youth. It's creating community. That's why I was so excited to hear about it. It's like a work sharing space of collaboration, relationship building, and innovation.
Erskin Blunck [00:11:42]:
Absolutely. So for example, the older ones are learning how to repair a smartphone, whereas the younger ones are learning how to take out a few components of older 1980s, 1990s Hi-Fi audio device and that it could be repaired very easily altogether. So both sides are learning from each other and are respecting each other. That's also a community full of respect towards each other.
Amber Stitt [00:12:10]:
Wow.
Kate Beck [00:12:10]:
Well, that ties us into a very important question. What makes a community, or an individual timeless?
Erskin Blunck [00:12:17]:
Yeah, thanks for that question. When you take that practical example, there's one guy, Benny, who was really the driver behind it and he is someone you cannot say no to. He is winning people. He's asking you, "Why don't we do that together?" And people say, "Yes, we should do that. It makes a lot of sense." So he reaches out to people. However, he did not want to make this whole maker community to a "Benny Show", kind of. So he tried to keep it really equal, democratic, so that everybody decides about it and that if he's on travel, if he's not there, that it nevertheless is happening.
Erskin Blunck [00:12:56]:
So this is something he has been thinking of and we've been guiding them with the know-how that we gathered from that consulting company, so we were quick learners, so to say, we were guiding them through a process, how to organize that. It's based on several responsibilities, that something has a certain momentum, even if one or two persons who have created it are not so active anymore, or are temporarily not able to support it. And this is then based on values, that you're sharing the values, that you have clear purpose. They have been working and to make engineers and technicians to talk about values, it's not a natural thing. They rather want to tinker around with IT, but they figured out, yeah, sometimes we need to talk, we need to take notes about it, write it down, agree on something, make it really a little bit more solid. Yeah.
Kate Beck [00:13:48]:
Thinking outside of the box.
Amber Stitt [00:13:50]:
Like an orchestra of the minds and respect for all these generations. It's so amazing. Everyone's important in this project.
Erskin Blunck [00:13:58]:
It's also to give a couple more examples for communities. It's not always that straightforward. I mean, this is our blockbuster community, so to say, who has been self motivated. Another one which was developed on the side was something called Climate Task Force. It's the idea that we have in the European Union, at the union level, the green deal, to resolve to do something about climate change and to get away from purely fossil energy, towards more renewable energies. But this is only happening when you do it at a community level, at a municipality level, in your town. And this startup is a nonprofit organization who is really focusing on working with the local citizens, with the local companies, with the environment there, with the startups, in order to make it happen. And they got some funding for it.
Erskin Blunck [00:14:51]:
So they are funded and they have developed even bigger, even faster, and they are even copying it and scaling it to other neighborhoods that they are growing it and really making it visible nationwide altogether. And the third community, which was a little bit more difficult, was our core target group, which are the founders themselves. In that case, we had them meet, they were interested, but I would call it still a network. So it was exactly having the characteristics of what I call a network. They showed up the next week, other people were there. Three weeks later they might show up again, but then they were busy and they were not really in the mode of taking responsibility and giving and taking. And what helped us, I mean, for a while we said, it's not just not going to work. We had a female founder community a little bit more successful.
Erskin Blunck [00:15:43]:
Women are sometimes better in networking with each other and creating that community together than guys. However, also, this one did not take off completely, but what we did was last year in November, we had a chance to go for what we called a "Startup Safari". And we did not go to Africa or to Asia, but we went to the south of France. To this beautiful city of Nice. I don't know whether you know that at the coast at Cote d'Azur, as they call it. And we took along with us, it was our whole team. So we were 5 - 6 people from the startup center, but we took along with us 4 founders and talked to the local companies there, to the local university. And what happened as a side effect was that those 4 founders got to know each other very well over that week.
Erskin Blunck [00:16:32]:
And now I believe that we can create a founder community out of that coherence and that cohesion of those 4 people that they joined voluntarily into a teaching class about startups, even though they were done with their studies, they participated to test their business model again. They are always there when we need them for a pitch event, or as an example of our podcast, or whatever. And they are communicating regularly amongst each other. So sometimes you have to find creative, sidetracked sideways in order to develop. And then you find the sweet spot, what makes it happen altogether.
Amber Stitt [00:17:10]:
I think that's important because a lot of times we want these direct metrics to monetize production and sometimes you just have to be a little more patient is what it sounds like.
Erskin Blunck [00:17:20]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kate Beck [00:17:21]:
Be patient and follow up, show up, like make a plan and do that thing that you said you would do.
Erskin Blunck [00:17:27]:
And I mean I could tell also a little bit about the bigger picture. Again, zooming out a little bit what happened after the 4 years project to make that timeless, as well. I mean this is the biggest and most important thing for us that in the last one and a half years we knew that there will be no further funding of such a kind as we had. And we knew we have to find some kind of setup. And we had worked with lawyers and with a lot of people internally at the university, "What would be the right setup?" And the setup what we found now is that we have a center in the university and we founded two entities, created them, really legally founded them in April. One is a non profit and one is a limited (LLC), you would call it in America, which is for profit. But that's the sister, kind of daughter company where the profit is going into the nonprofit as well.
Erskin Blunck [00:18:19]:
And this is with the help of private public partnerships, so to say, that we found an alum who is owner of a company, a famous big company. Basically she's a co-owner from that family, it's family owned. And she gave her commitment to help us going through those starting years, the next year with her funding and she's the main "anchor investor" as we call her. And this is very impressive as she's not only committed to giving her money, but also she's very interested in our purpose for sustainable development, for prospering entrepreneurship and to be active in that ecosystem, in that environment. So that's a very novel development for us and we have been very happy to win a few people who have worked with Mohammad Yunus and the Grameen Creative Labs. And if you have followed it in the last few days, Mohammed Yunus was becoming the minister president, the governing person in Bangladesh, which is normally not his role. But they were in such a crisis that he volunteered to be there and the students on the streets really wanted to have them.
Erskin Blunck [00:19:30]:
So that's a very novel at the big picture. And I'm very proud that we have 3 people in our team who have worked with him and I had a chance to meet him here in Portland in 2012 to talk to him and he's one of those inspirations here. The loop is closing in a way back to Portland. That what I've learned in Portland, I bring in my environment, in my ecosystem back home in Germany.
Kate Beck [00:19:54]:
Erskin, thank you so much for sharing your story, for being so generous with your time, your limited time while you're in town. We just, we feel so fortunate to have you. What if someone in Portland, or Arizona, Amber is in Arizona, wanted to come see the Innovation Center? Is this possible, or is it invitation only? How do we keep up on the news? Like, where do we find you? Tell me more.
Erskin Blunck [00:20:19]:
Yeah, so one of our milestones is really to become truly international, but we are still on the way to it because entrepreneurship is in most cases a rather regional business to start with. Even though I've met a company recently who is having more than 99% of their business abroad and they are in their year three of their business. If they would have focused only on their home market, they would no longer exist. But you can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and on our website and we will be sharing the details on that. So Zukunft Gruenden is the organization and it spelled a little bit different with dots and without dots, depending on the different areas. And the website itself is www.hfwu.de/zug. That's the short abbreviation to find us on the website and that will be continuously be updated. But I think LinkedIn is the strongest you find the most.
Erskin Blunck [00:21:20]:
And you find myself, Erskin Blunck on the website. On LinkedIn I post quite a bit and I do it mostly in English, so that's more accessible and better to be done.
Amber Stitt [00:21:31]:
That's what I was curious about. Is LinkedIn probably the best? I know that we're connected. Erskin, it seems like anyone that's in your ecosystem tends to be in this network that then starts building a community. It's like you're having too much fun. So I think if anyone really has any takeaway, you gotta be connected to Erskin. There's some really cool stuff happening.
Erskin Blunck [00:21:50]:
I'm the ambassador.
Kate Beck [00:21:51]:
Yes, Erskin is the ambassador. Erskin is planting seeds of peace.
Amber Stitt [00:21:56]:
Yes.
Kate Beck [00:21:57]:
That are growing into prosperity.
Amber Stitt [00:21:59]:
And there's some trust trees probably being built on that soil that he's been talking about.
Kate Beck [00:22:05]:
Yes.
Amber Stitt [00:22:07]:
Well, it was a delight to have you today.
Erskin Blunck [00:22:10]:
Yeah, we had so much interaction between the US and Germany and that helped so much building creative ideas, whether we brought design thinking from Portland State to us 10 years ago and other things. So it's a mutual learning and I had a chance to meet the new dean of the business school the last days. So it will further develop, it will grow, I'm sure. And I had a chance now to talk to two very nice ladies for that recording, and I'm very happy that I had a chance to do that. Thanks a lot for that opportunity.
Amber Stitt [00:22:44]:
We're so grateful.
Kate Beck [00:22:45]:
Thank you, Erskin. Thank you for joining us on the Timeless Vitality podcast. We hope today's episode has inspired you to embrace the journey of thriving wise beyond 100.
Amber Stitt [00:22:55]:
Remember, your story is still unfolding, and every step you take adds to the timeless legacy you are creating. Until next time, stay vibrant, stay empowered, and continue living with purpose.
Kate Beck [00:23:07]:
We'll see you on the next episode!
