TiM CLUEEngagement Expert

The mission

We've never been more universally connected— and never more disconnected.

It's why I work from the center of the room: turning strangers into collaborators. Humor is the instrument. What people leave with is each other.

Portrait placeholder — Tim to supply final photo
Working-the-room placeholder — Tim to supply final photo

Me me me

Writer, speaker, comic, educator, instigator. 500+ rooms — boardrooms and classrooms. Opened for a former president and for Jerry Seinfeld, heard on XM/Sirius, wrote Leaving Iowa, nominated for Best New Play in the country. Left-handed, dyslexic, eventually the teacher I never had.

What I'm building now

Two things I can't stop thinking about. Both started the same way: something was missing in the room, so I built it.

For business

Funny Polling

Live shared humor that turns a room's honest answers into its best moment. Everyone answers, everyone sees it, everyone laughs at the same second — and suddenly a room of strangers knows something true about itself.

It went to the Notre Dame entrepreneurial competition and made the semifinals, which was equal parts thrilling and terrifying for a guy who came up telling jokes. I've been testing and refining it in real rooms ever since. Now I'm handing it to other people.

Want more

Where it stands

  • Notre Dame entrepreneurial competition — semifinalist
  • Tested and refined live, room after room
  • Now being handed to other hosts

Where it stands

  • Built in the classroom, not in a committee
  • Live now as its own free resource
  • Building partner schools nationwide

For schools

The New STEM Checklist

Social. Tools. Engaged. Minds. Same letters, honest reordering of what a classroom actually needs before any of the rest of it works.

The inspiration wasn't a study. It was watching great teachers hand kids better tools while nobody handed the teachers anything for the social side of the room. So it got built by a teacher standing in the room, not a committee sitting far from it. Next up: partners nationwide — schools willing to try it, push on it, and tell me where it bends.

See the checklist

What I believe

It's difficult to build leaders while standing above them, talking down.

The art of the prompt is wildly underestimated.

Nobody learns much from a stranger — a room that hasn't met itself can't hear you. Start there, and the room reveals itself. On good days, a few revelations too.