CEO Mentoring Moments with Deb Boelkes

 "CEO Mentoring Moments with Deb Boelkes" started out as a collaboration with a student, Elton Smith, a senior at Florida State College at Jacksonville working with me as an intern. The project which brough Elton Smith and I together has now come to fruition...and the results will be made available to the general public over 10 weeks, with one video released per week.

Upon reading my book, "The WOW Factor Workplace", Elton came back to me with the suggestion that we should be marketing this book to college students, to provide them with insights that could better prepare them to more confidently enter the workforce. Seeing where his passions were, in terms of an internship project, and since he seemed to know more about the college student audience than I did, I agreed to proceed down his suggested path.

Elton literally created his own internship assignment. He convinced me the best way to reach college students would be through short videos from which they could learn about (1) what happens in the C-Suite (a blind spot to most young people) and (2) how to land a position in a "best place to work" organization. We wouldn't directly market the book. Rather, we would provide helpful little success tips and let the viewer know about the book in the process.

Not working alone, Elton introduced me to other college students he believed could be instrumental in bringing his video production ideas to reality. The internship grew beyond what I had originally intended, but he did a terrific job at bringing together an amazingly creative and talented implementation team (the other two students are studying film production at Jacksonville University).

Working together, Elton's team created an implementation plan to produce a 10-part weekly series of 1-minute videos to be called CEO Mentoring Moments with Deb Boelkes. In each video, Elton plays the role of a college student asking his CEO/mentor a question about the work world.

To watch the series of videos, click here.