A weekend to remember (in photos)

Hello friends!

Quick reminder that my next book, The Culture Turnaround, is set to launch in early December, and Ripples Media (my publisher) will have a pre-sale sometime in November. With this book, I worked extremely hard to bring to life the ways I’ve worked at my companies to build an undeniable culture while writing what I hope is an engaging story.

Back to life, back to…

This past weekend we had our first in-person 48in48 event since the pandemic. For those that aren’t aware, 48in48 is a nonprofit I founded with Adam Walker in 2015 to help unlock skills-based volunteerism by putting on hackathon-style events where hundreds of volunteers build 48 nonprofit websites in 48 hours. (More on the origin story of 48in48.)

Over the pandemic, we had to make an extreme pivot and learn how to put on these events virtually. Imagine that for a minute. Organizing hundreds (we often get 300+ volunteers to our events) of people worldwide to build 48 nonprofit websites during a pandemic.

All praise goes to Sima Parekh, 48in48’s brilliant Executive Director, for leading the team through that pivot, bringing us to the other side with an entirely re-envisioned, global organization.

Which leads us to this past weekend when Cox hosted us once again in their stunning headquarters in Atlanta, where we had our first-ever hybrid event —100 people in-person and over 200 virtually around the world. The amazing volunteers of 48in48 built not 48 websites, but 50, over the weekend, and being there in person with the gang was just what I needed (even if I was hobbling around on crutches due to a tennis injury…getting old is fun.)

The photos!

Sima setting things up early on Friday.

My friend and fellow Bobby Kennedy fan (oh and also Atlanta City Council President), Doug Shipman, giving the opening keynote.

Adam, Carole Williams (the original ED for 48in48), and me. The OGs!

We always have a challenge for teams to come up with the most creative names and logos :)

Raj Choudhury, my college roommate and first business partner, AND 48in48 board member, came to hang out.

Kashi Sehgal, all around incredible human and also a 48in48 board member, moderated a terrific panel.

HoneyBaked Ham donated a delicious meal during the event :)

One of the volunteer teams celebrating the completion of their website.

The Point

Words can’t express how much joy I got from this past weekend. If you can believe it, this was our 27th event, having built ~1,200 websites for nonprofits since we launched seven years ago. That’s $30,000,000 in donated services to nonprofits around the world.

That’s pretty cool :)

I hope you’re happy,

Recent podcasts

I produce a podcast called Begin the Begin. I hope you'll consider subscribing. Here are the latest episodes:

• The unstoppable entrepreneur, Sanjay Parekh, on his latest venture: Occasional Wraps

• Talking modern womanhood with It All Media

• An interview with Michael McCathren of Chick-fil-A on his new book: 6Ps of Essential Innovation

• Barefoot Ted on running, health, and leading a purposeful life