Molly Lavik and Purdue Pete at 2008 Homecoming

By Kelsey Habig
Senior, PR

On homecoming weekend, Molly Lavik laughed with several Mass Communication students as they spoke of their experiences with Purdue's "Fast Track" news magazine show. She revealed that she spent her own undergraduate years in Purdue's Department of Communication creating public service announcements and casting a comedic campus television series called "Gorilla TV."

Twenty-three years later, she returned to campus to promote her latest, and more "grown-up" project, a series of digital "mentorographies" featuring entrepreneurs in the Green Revolution. Through these video biographies, she hopes to encourage the next generation to undertake socially responsible entrepreneurship ventures.

Mentorographies profile the philosophies behind successful capitalists such as Paul Orfaela, founder of Kinko's, and Nicolas Hayek, founder of The Swatch Group Ltd. Her latest project, the Green Rush project, profile those entrepreneurs involved in the green movement such as Michael Crooke, co-founder of Revolution Living; Steve Glenn, founder of LivingHomes; and David Zutler, founder of BIOTA Spring Water, the first bottling company to use biodegradable bottles made from cornstarch.

After graduation from Purdue, Lavik dabbled in hospitality management and marketing communication before taking a position with the Washington Software and Digital Media Alliance in Seattle. She later moved to Los Angeles and co-founded a media company focused on imparting the advice of successful entrepreneurs on aspiring young people.

With the foundation of a media company and two non-profit organizations under her belt, Lavik was offered a teaching position at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. There she co-authored a textbook for her entrepreneurial marketing class that made use of these mentorographies, a term she coined.

The goal of the projects was to allow students and business professionals to access the strategies that have allowed others to, on rare occasions, become highly successful.

Lavik hopes her projects can create societal wealth and help to develop socially conscious students. More examples of mentorographies can be found at either of Lavik's Web sites: www.Mentorography.com or www.StartupTime.com.

The latest task, centered on America's Green Revolution, will further a greater cause of creating a more eco-friendly world.

"We plan to chronicle the pioneers creating the companies and jobs of the future for the emerging green industry," said Lavik. "If people can stand on the shoulders of living legends, then they have the opportunity to save time, money and a whole lot of heartache in the process that accompanies starting a new venture."

Lavik additionally would like to see Mentorography Inc. inspire young adults to create socially-responsible media content. The company is currently producing "The Commuter Pod" webisode series. The company held a green-themed webisode writing contest in which people entered the next webisode storyline of "The Commuter Pod." The winning script was made into an episode.

The animated characters will be doing the "interviewing" of the real-life entrepreneurs in the Green Rush project.

"The hope is that this hybrid animation and real-life video type of content will give the Green Rush project an entertaining edge over traditional reality shot video," she said.

Lavik attributes much of her career prowess to lessons learned during her time as a Purdue student.

"My experience at Purdue was the start of my focus with imparting mentoring lessons as a unique method for accessing the keys to success," Lavik said.