A Visit from Derek Young

On Oct 29, we had a visit from Derek Young. He is a very successful entrepreneur, being one of the founders of Exit 133 and the core runner of the Tacoma Runners.I thought Exit 133 was a very interesting swing at journalism. They strive to create dialogue on news between people; to create positive conversation, eliminating toxic environments of conversation that usually revolves with news; to enforce civil dialogue, without negative and hostile attitudes. I thought that it was great because when I think about the news, many will have different opinions on each news report. Political beliefs and social expectations by each person is different which will turn some dialogues into somewhat dialogues of opinions or sometimes people try to force their opinions on others. One of the most interesting things that came up in conversation was that Exit 133 tries to eliminate the yelling between people through banning quotes. They want people to listen and think about what others say, and not focus on a quote that could just distract people.

Derek also shared how he made his non-profit organization, Tacoma Runners events successful. He mentioned that they are a fast growing organization because of social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. They are now planning to have events abroad and I thought it was an exciting thought. It made me want to think about how I could help my club here in the University of Washington, Tacoma grow. I thought to myself, we have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and this year our club has grown twice its size since the previous year! Social media is a powerful tool if it is used properly. Also, he mentioned that he managed to get people to show up to a movie and fill the movie theater with people he mostly knew, it's crazy! After this visit, I definitely need to talk to my club's Public Relations officer to encourage using all of our social media accounts.