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Elliott Masie is on the move, setting the GPS satellites to dancing across the constellation.
Masie left his home in Saratoga Springs and landed in Florida to deliver a keynote address. Two days later, he was in Shanghai to give a speech to 3,000 people about how the Internet affects daily learning. Next week, he will return to the island of his youth and take his seat at Radio City Music Hall to watch the 73rd Annual Tony Awards unfold. Two of productions with which he has been involved– “The Prom,” and “The Cher Show” – have collectively been nominated for 10 awards.
“I like to do different things. The two things that drive me? Learning and curiosity,” says Masie, who moved in the mid-1990s to Saratoga Springs, where he built the 10,000 square foot Masie Center - a facility that serves as an international Learning lab and focused on how organizations can support learning and knowledge within the workforce.
“The Tony Awards are a fun, big deal and it’s an honor to be nominated. We’re excited and we’ll be there. Tuxes and gowns. And win or lose there’s a party afterwards,” says Masie, who with his wife, Cathy, has been involved in theater as a producing partner for several years.
“We’ve always been theater audience fans and along the way we thought: Oh, I wonder what it would be like to be involved in a production. We started modestly and it kept growing. We grew more intrigued. And what happens in life is you do one thing and you suddenly start to hear from others.”
Among their show credits are “Kinky Boots,” “An American in Paris,” and “SpongeBob The Broadway Musical.”
This year, “The Prom” has received seven Tony nominations, including Best Musical. The show tells the story of an Indiana high schooler barred from bringing her girlfriend to the prom —and the group of eccentric Broadway folk who infiltrate the town in an earnest, misguided attempt to fight the injustice, according to Playbill.
Masie has taken his turn as a producer meeting fans of the musical at the stage door following performances. “The reason ‘The Prom’ is so important to us is that every day there’s an LGBTQ kid who comes to the stage door to say ‘hi’ to one of our actors and who then whispers in their ear: ‘that’s my story too,’ and often they’ll say, ‘and I’m now telling my parents my reality.’”
By his own definition, Masie is a researcher, educator, analyst and speaker focused on the changing world of the workplace, learning and technology.
He is the editor of “Learning Trends by Elliott Masie,” an Internet newsletter read by over 52,000 business executives worldwide, the author of 12 books, and over the past 35 years estimates he has presented programs, courses and speeches to more than 2 million professionals around the world. With his wife, Cathy, he had presented annual learning conferences in Florida whose past keynote speakers have included Bill Clinton and Laura Bush, Colin Powell, Anderson Cooper and Michelle Obama, among others.
“At The Masie Center, we are a research and a learning organization that looks at how employees learn to their jobs, no matter what the job is. How are jobs changing? What new skills are employees needing to succeed in the world?” Masie explains. “We’re best known for having explored and advocated that the role of the Internet and of technology could be one of the things that could help people learn.”
Masie is credited in some circles as being among the earliest pioneers to use the term ‘eLearning.’ In the mid-1990s, at the Saratoga Springs City Center, he staged the first-ever conference in the world on elearning.
“At the center (in Saratoga Springs) we host seminars and sessions, so probably every month we’ll get 30 to 40 corporate leaders from around the world coming in.”
The $2 million facility is equipped with workstations, tablets and a platform network providing learning examples from organizations around the globe. There are dedicated rooms that function as virtual teaching studios and allow for audio, web-based and broadband video collaboration, as well as a wide range of mobile devices, video cameras and new and emerging robotic technologies.
“I feel very fortunate that we’ve been successful in different places and also been able to make a social difference, support things like Franklin Community Center,” he says.
Earlier this month, Cathy and Elliott Masie gifted a $50,000 donation to the Franklin Community Center to support the center, whose programs and services provide, among other things, a food pantry, a free after-school prevention program for city School District children, and affordable housing for low-income individuals, as well as assistance with furniture, clothing, and household needs.
Masie was one of the prominent voices raised against siting an emergency homeless shelter at the nearby Shelters of Saratoga properties on the west side, whose residential properties provide affordable housing options for those in need.
“We were one of the first new commercial buildings there when we built on the corner of Franklin and Washington and we did it knowing and being supportive of our neighbors being Shelters of Saratoga and Franklin Community Center, so we were excited about putting a business there,” Masie says. “It was an interesting and difficult moment when the proposal was made to put the Code Blue right there in that space. We’ve always supported the shelter, but that was not the best place to do it, for lots of reasons. Do you want to put a shelter that’s open to anybody right next to a place where there are some pretty strict and good rules with people in recovery and transition?” he asks. “At the end of the day what were excited about is that there are a lot of entities – including the shelter and churches and what we see going on with the Mercy House and for building some creative solutions and alternatives coming downstream. “
“What drives me is two words: learning and curiosity. I worry when I see folks who go into business on the assumption or the theory that they’re going to get rich. Some people do and some people don’t. But most of the people who have been really successful, they didn’t do it to get rich. They did it because they had a curiosity, a desire to change something, to solve a problem. I think curiosity and learning are the two key words. And you have to be a good business person and not give it away.”
His dream gig?
“There are really two things. The first is I would love to be a conductor on a railroad train. Someday I’m going to have to find a way to do it. I think that would be incredible. The bigger dream gig is to look at how you creatively solve problems that are in front of us which involves people having to cooperate, collaborate, communicate. Look at an alternative way of doing something; Is there a different way?
“I’m drawn to seek how we create things in a place where people can communicate and collaborate. Even if we disagree, we can listen to each other, we can resolve problems. I love addressing things that are complicated and complex. And I think the other piece is you want to help make the world a slightly better place.”
