Musings of EIC Severine Ferrari
You might know me as the Editor in Chief/Publisher/Owner of Engagement 101. It sounds glamorous and some days it is, but it’s also a lot of hard work. As an entrepreneur, you have to stay very open to anything that might happen on a specific day while making sure your overall vision will be fulfilled. That includes sometimes performing tasks that an executive would dispatch to an intern or assistant, because… it needs to be done whether someone is showing up or not. You are on an eternal learning curve through trials, successes and errors with the amazing reward of never getting bored and truly being able to say “I love my job”.
Forget the Renaissance Man, it is the day and age of the Renaissance Woman. I actually truly believe that women make the best entrepreneurs. Why? Because we’ve learnt since childhood and through motherhood to balance and compromise, to meet more challenges daily than our male partners. We are the entrepreneurs of our own complicated lives. While some of us are taking over leading positions in the corporate world, many of us are creating successful new companies. In the near future, more of us will be able to embrace any job, corporate or entrepreneurial, in a creative and flexible way to stay competitive. Women will thrive in this new type of job force. They already do. I just did.
My boyfriend James Merendino is a super talented movie director and writer. I am not the only one to say it, he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. In 1999, he made a semi-autographical movie about his youth as an outcast in Salt Lake City called SLC Punk. With young actors who have now become household names . It was far from a success when it came out in theaters. Yet in time achieved cult status, as a coming of age story with a punk rock edge. People from all ages identify with the characters’ and watch the movie over and over again. They can quote it from beginning to end. Many have tattooed SLC punk quotes all over their body.
After seeing my beloved struggle in getting the sequel financed by Hollywood for a couple of years, I volunteered as a tribute. Social media has been and still is a very important tool for Engagement 101 to connect with its audience. I have accumulated a lot of knowledge on how to engage and satisfy a community on social media with interactive content and an authentic voice. So I suggested to him to do the same with the SLC Punk Community. It worked really well. There’s currently a very engaged community of 160,000+ fans. The movie was partially financed by these fans through an Indiegogo Campaign. We also produced a big punk rock concert that was filmed for the movie. Many fans came to be extras from the US, Canada and Europe. It helped raise more money. The fans have been engaged in the “making of an Indie movie process” through social media and have become the backbone of the project. Last but not the least, it is really hard now for Indie movies to get a theater release. With the support of the social community and the Tugg platform the movie has been shown in theaters in 30 cities across the US so far.
Punk’s Dead is out on VOD, HD downloads and DVD. It does have an amazing soundtrack including punk, goth and alternative iconic bands. It’s a very human and universal story about letting go of someone you’ve lost, accepting your child is not an adult anymore, the weight of the past and how more often than not you should just seize the day and have a little fun.
Click here for Amazon >>
Portrait by Kevin Luker. Group shot Fred Hayes/Getty Images
Severine Ferrari
