A number of people have asked me for a copy of the speech, so here is the text of the speech as it was prepared, and a link to the video. Note: My talk begins at 29:42.

Who will you create?
A commencement address delivered for The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on May 13, 2013 by Andy Stoll

President Mason, Dean Djalali, members of the faculty, proud family members and graduates, most importantly congratulations and thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today.

I’d also like to thank a friend and mentor of mine, David Gould, a member of the faculty, without whom I would not be here today.

Graduates, I recently sat in your chair—in fact, it was that one…right there, 23 rows back. So I am deeply familiar with the questions that are going through your head.

As a 2003 graduate of The University of Iowa, I was very recently in your place, and I remember the questions that I had in my head:

What does the “real world” have in store for me?
Do I really need to get a job?
Will I find happiness?
Will Apartments Downtown give me back my deposit?

Unfortunately, I do not have answers to those questions….though I wouldn’t bet on getting back that deposit.

Only you can answer these questions, and today I will try to convince you that you have much more control over the answers than you realize.

Let me tell you what has happened to me, since I got up from that seat in row 23, just 10 years ago.

Two weeks after I walked out of this arena with my tassels and cap in hand. I contemplated those very questions, and in them discovered a very big shortcoming in my own life.

I was bright eyed. I was bushy tailed. I wanted to “change the world.”

But as I sat and contemplated those questions, following graduation, I realize that I wanted to change the world, but I had no freaking clue how the world actually worked.

What I didn’t know then, but I realize now, is that the weeks and months following graduation are a dangerous time. You move from being able to do anything to actually doing something, and in that act of deciding, doors are closed, sometimes for the wrong reasons.

The temptation is to get a job and start a career and find a person to marry and buy a house and adopt a dog because that is “what people do.”

As that predictable linear life path stared me in the face, in the days and months after my graduation, I must have had a hunch deep down, that there was more to this post-college life than that. I wasn’t ready to resign myself to what seemed the inevitable and decided to question my assumptions of what was even possible.

I thought about joining the Peace Corps, or going to graduate school in Europe, or maybe backpacking across Asia, but I soon realized that I couldn’t just pick one of those, so decided I would try them all. I would take a trip around-the-world.

The problem was that I didn’t have any money. In fact, I owed the federal government about $25,000 in student loans—which if you think about it, is a great reason to leave the country.

I decided I would take a normal job and I’d work for 3 years, plan, save money, and then go.

When you don’t know what to do with your life, often stepping back and trying new things, is a way to discover what you truly love, what you never want to do again and what you’d be willing to spend the rest of your life pursuing.

I realized that graduating did not have to signal the end of my exploration of who I wanted to be, but actually could just be the beginning.

So in 2006 I quit my job; and with just a backpack, a virgin passport and a one way ticket to China, I left. The goal was to go around the world for a year…four years later, I came back.

The purpose of the trip was simple, to see how people live in the world—to live like the locals. I worked in a dress factory in Bangkok. I lived in a Buddhist temple in Korea. I worked on a cattle ranch in Australia. I lived in a mud hut village in Zambia.

I spent 4 years traveling overland, for as cheap as possible, through 40 some countries. I met movie stars and slum dwellers, shaman and scientists, poets and entrepreneurs: and here is what I witnessed:

In 2008, our world went through a fundamental shift, not seen since The Great Depression. Our entire civilization pivoted and is now undergoing a massive reorganization, and you, the graduating class of 2013, will be the first and most well equipped to thrive in this new era.

We haven’t named it yet, because it’s just begun, but we will one day look back on these troubled times as the turning point that ushered in an era marked by the democratization of creativity. By which I mean: if you have an idea in your head of something you want to create: a business, a book, a new app, a nonprofit, a widget, a world changing idea, or a trip around-the-world, the barriers to entry have collapsed, and it has never been easier to make your ideas happen.

Social media, self-publishing, coworking, crowd funding, Etsy, Kickstarter, and 3D printing are ushering in an era that you are uniquely qualified to be the first, to explore and experiment in. Remember, none of those tools had been invented when I graduated and most of them did not exist on your first day of college.

The barriers to creation have collapsed and now, even within the limits of the possible, the possibilities are limitless. The question is: What will you create?

Many from you parent’s and grandparent’s generation probably will not get it. The world that lay before them at their graduation was different. Create anyway.

You will be the first graduating class in the history of the world who, as we come out of the darkness of this long recession, have the right know-how, world view, and the tools to help you be exactly who you want to be.

But this expansive opportunity today demands from you an answer to a question.

It’s a hard question to answer, but a dangerous question to ignore.

It’s a question whose answer can not be found in a textbook or Wikipedia:

The question is: Who do you want to be?

Not what do you want to do…but who do you want to be?

If the 1980s and 1990s brought on the globalization of corporations, that gave them access to unlimited resources and possibilities; then this century is ushering in the globalization of the individual, that gives YOU access to many of the same resources and possibilities to create what you want.

In my 4 year trip around the world, I felt and saw our civilization shift.

And here’s the secret: the people that I met along the way who were the happiest, were those who had created, crafted and built the life that they dreamed of. It is not always easy, but in 2013, it has never been easier.

My advice to you is this: Our society is undergoing a massive shift and the world we came from, was one fueled by consumption and the aspiration for material wealth. The values of this new world we are entering are built less on consumption and more on the opportunity to create.

If you wish to thrive and be happy, focus on consuming less and creating more.

Trust your crazy ideas, and remember: The American Dream will always be there for you, but your own dreams, if you listen, are much, much bigger.

Best of luck. On Iowa. And Go Hawks.

The space was opened in December of 2011 and designed to serve as a physical hub for the growing entrepreneurial community being fostered in the wake of the city’s recovery (and reinvention) post the 2008 floods that ravaged the region.  In addition to providing shared and private office space, Vault hosts meetups, pitch competitions, hackathons and a myriad of educational programs for entrepreneurs both Vault members and those within the greater community.

For more information on the space visit crvault.com.

Project: Vault Coworking & Collaboration Space
Role: Co-founder & Community Manager

A Man Obsessed won two 2011 EPPY Awards, which are among the most prestigious awards for online journalism, for Best Sport Video and Best Enterprise Feature on a website with 1+ million viewers (more info)

Project: A Man Obsessed (Outside The Lines on ESPN2 and ESPN.com)
Writer/Producer: Wayne Drehs/Arunima Dhar(TV)
Role: DP/Videography
Available: Broadcast/Online
Awards: 2011 EPPY Awards (Best Sports Video & Best Enterprise Feature)

The website is community-driven and allows individuals to upload basic bio, a photo and contact information into an ever growing directory of area creatives.  The site’s meteoric growth in its first few weeks of its launch far outpaced any expectations and convinced us that we had tapped into an unmet need.  The site is now used as a tool by the community to find like-minded collaborators, creative services and stories of interesting people doing interesting things in the region.

Browse the site at iccreatives.us.

Project: ICCReatives.us
Development/Design: Cramer Dev
Role: Producer
Available: Online

I was brought onto the project just before the expedition began and was asked to lead the rebranding of the project’s identity, as well as design a website for the endeavor that the non-technical members of the team could easily update (even with the limited internet of Central and South Asia).

I then spent two months on the road with Charlie and his team, producing and editing the creative content, producing video ‘webisodes,’ photographing the expedition, and maintaining the project’s web and social media presence (all while crossing Europe in the back of a truck).

The website drew 25,000 unique visitors in its first two months, with the average website visitor spending more than 5 minutes on the site. The expedition garnered news coverage from The BBC, USA Today, AOL News, Men’s Journal, The Sydney Morning Herald and ESPN among other major media outlets.

The project also has an education and global health component to inspire kids to try to change the world and to address the exceptionally high levels of maternal mortality in childbirth in Nepal.

Thank you to Charlie, Cate Wittmack and Brian Triplett for your work on the project and good luck Charlie as you continue across Asia.

You can learn more about the project at www.theworldtri.com.

Project: The World Tri
Role: Creative Director
Available: theworldtri.com

Logo & Identity

Video Webisodes

Website

My primary responsibility on this film was to devise and and execute a distribution and marketing strategy for the film.  With most of the movie industry’s major independent distributors going bankrupt or closing, the independent film industry’s climate was not well suited to release a small indy film like 16 To Life.  Despite the adversity, led by the film’s six ‘Best Feature’ awards won during a year on the film festival circuit, 16 To Life had an 11 markets theatrical release in the fall of 2010, including deals struck with Rave Motion Pictures and AMC Theaters, as well as international release in Canada, Europe and The Middle East.

The film was released on DVD in April 2012, reaching the #1 Comedy spot and the Top 10 Most Popular films on Hulu.com.

More at:  www.16tolifethemovie.org.

Project: 16 To Life
Director: Becky Smith
Role: Associate Producer
Available: Available on DVD, iTunes, Hulu, Netflix and Amazon
Awards: #1 Comedy Film on Hulu.com; Named ‘Best Picture’ at: Methodfest, Landlocked Film Festival, Kansas International Film Festival, Female Eye Film Festival, Iowa Motion Picture Awards, North Carolina International Film Festival, among other awards.

I was there to observe his annual eye project, that works to bring vision to some of the country’s poorest villagers, most of whom would never have access to, let alone be able to afford, such life changing procedures.  Beyond building a world-class eye clinic in the middle of the tropics, the project brings surgeons and ophthalmologist to the islands to check people’s vision, prescribe glasses and when necessary perform cataract and pterygium surgeries at no cost to the patients.  Beyond studying the operation and participating in everyday Fijian life, I spent time photographing participants and designed a booklet to assist in sharing the project’s story with potential supporters and donors.

Thank you to Geoffrey, his wife Joey and the rest of the Taveuni team for allowing me to participate in such an amazing program.

You can download a PDF version of the booklet I created here.

For further information on how you can support Geoffrey and his work, please contact The Rotary Club of Taveuni, PO Box 1 Matei, Taveuni Island, Fiji. phone: +679 888 0371, fax: +679 888 2371, debra[at]textilecentre.co.nz.

Hook Ya Crook has a similar formula: India’s biggest model-turned-actor John Abraham and famed comedy director David Dhawan team-up on this prison sports comedy, a sort of Bollywood remake of The Longest Yard.

Project Title: Hook Ya Crook
Director: David Dhawan
Role: sports production coordinator
Release Date: December 2010