I am the founder of Dreamfish. A social entrepreneur, known as a maven around collaboration for sustainability, my life mission is to connect. I believe connection to each other, the environment, and ourselves is the key to thriving in a participatory world. How I foster connection depends. Pragmatic, geeky, optimistic third generation entrepreneur, and social science maven, I often am knee-deep in social software design and network development at Dreamfish, but also enjoy teaching, facilitating a group at Stanford, directing experimental performance with engineers, and large group design thinking with scientists in the wilderness. I have had a very lucky life. I haved worked in multiple industries, cultures and worlds, wealthy and poor, abled and disabled. I was raised Irish-American, German and Chinese. I started work young, first in my family's manufacturing company, then in Jewish theater in L.A., directing musical productions. In my 20's, I was in New York City, on the startup team of National Business Network. NBN was a trailblazer in advertising which aggregated over 100 grassroots B2B media buys, empowering grassroots media to compete with national media. Our team sold NBN to 3M, moved to California and formed Dow Harris, to consult on the turn from traditional media to networks. Living fast, I then slowed to find meaning and life purpose. I became immersed in East Asian practices, mentored by Wataru Ohashi. Working on systems and networks at the individual level, I taught somatics of relationship for groups, and then organizations. In 1994, I combined my two interests to found The Empowerment Place, a continuing education company, which served thousands of professional adults in mid-life transition, funded by a marketing network of small businesses. In the late 1990's, I faced my biggest challenge, a life-death encounter with chronic illness. This experience of disability with having been steeped in somatics led me to challenge mental models about the people side of the sustainability movement - how we engage diversity and enable all to participate in the economy. Since then, I have lived in San Francisco and Berlin, earned an MA in Organization Development and a PhD in Human and Organizational Systems at Fielding Graduate University. I facilitate for Stanford Graduate School of Business’, currently in Women in Management. I live in San Francisco with my German partner, Dietmar Brinkmann, and dog, Mimi von Ridges. In 2006, I founded Dreamfish to create a work coop for micro-entrepreneurs who want to realize their potential, and organize for a sustainable future. With Dreamfish, I am realizing my personal dream to support the livingness of life.

 

Tiffany Von Emmel's Blog