Free Mind Entrepreneur Network
Fall 2022
Fellow: Julianna Kissinger
Team: Chris Kline, Jack Botto & Jess Smith
Community Partner
The Free Mind Entrepreneur Network is a web of professional individuals who are connected through the common experience of reintegration into the world from incarceration. Founded by Stacey Torrance in 2021, The Network was designed to connect one another in order to help those reintegrating to find employment and stabilization. Entrepreneurs can range from construction to culinary and even automotive. With two previous semesters with Beautiful Social prior to this current project, The Network is building a healthy pace with aims to continue.
Design Question
The team’s design question began as a continuation of the previous group's question, but reworked into a more efficient representation of Stacey’s goal. The group ultimately decided on “How can we adequately create video and photo content that is meaningful to its audience while also accurately telling the story of Free Minds Entrepreneur Network and their partnered entrepreneurs. Not only how can we create video and photo content but, how can we further tell the stories of these entrepreneurs by hitting on specific details in the interviews.” There was an emphasis on the latter part of the question, which shines a light on the stories that these individuals created, rather than only drawing attention to their sentencing.
Strategic Thinking
Our goal for our project has been to conduct well thought-out and prepared interviews that were in video format. We wanted to have multiple videos for Stacey that share what Free Minds does and what it has to offer to those involved. We created a system before each interview: find out who we were interviewing, do further research on them and their business, and lastly, prepare personalized interview questions. We ultimately wanted to ask people open-ended questions, not just ones with yes or no answers. Jess sifted through lots of websites to find the importance of open ended questions and how to ask ones that would create a story.
Co-Creation
Stacey is ultimately the expert to his own story and FMEN as he is the one that created it. Each student in our group brought their own skills to the table as well in order to work together and accomplish the goal. We needed to understand Stacey’s vision right out of the gate. While he originally wanted six or more videos, we had to tell him that would be a great challenge in the short amount of time we have. He was able to pick specific entrepreneurs that he wanted us to talk to, and we were able to bring their stories to life. By engaging in conversations with Stacey, researching each entrepreneur thoroughly before the interview, and making it a very comfortable place for all individuals, we were able to take the information we were given and make it all come to life.
Results
For the past 12 weeks, the overarching goal of the Beautiful Social Free Minds Euntrepenure Network team has been to create original video interviews of Stacy Torrance and the clients of the Free Minds network showcasing their stories and businesses to increase awareness and outreach into the Philadelphia community.
As a result, the team has created six new pieces of audio and video content for social media distribution. In this short time, the Beautiful Social team has increased the Free Minds Entrepreneur Network audio/visual content by over 300%. This content being, three video interviews ranging from 15 to 25 minutes that can be spliced into smaller, more digestible pieces of media. In addition to the three videos, the team has separated the audio to create podcast-style material to be distributed across platforms like Spotify and SoundCloud. With proper application, the new content created for the Free Minds Euntrepenure Network should increase overall traffic to their media platforms while also bringing a further sense of legitimacy to the organization.
Hear Their Stories
Stacey Torrance
founder of Free Mind Entrepreneur Network
Gerald Richards
Prime Time Contracting
Xeyah Martin
Realtor