Carl Stormer and His Organization Jazzcode

Illustration by Autumn Qiu

Carl Stormer is an extremely talented and dedicated Jazz Musician and Entrepreneur. Being 63 years old as of today, he has had tons of experience doing his job. During his years of college, his interests in music and business have begun to shine. By the end of his years in university, he obtained a masters degree in arts management from Columbia University, masters degree in music from the Manhattan School of Music, and a Bachelor of music degree from New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

A while after college however, he was poorly unemployed since the opportunities he had to find stable jobs with the degrees he obtained were minimal. So in hopes of being employed, he attempted to learn computer code and found a job at IBM where he was a database consultant at a Wall Street law firm. After a while, however, he did not enjoy the corporate life and his work schedule. He wanted to move on from that job and find another secure job that suited his interests more. To find what he truly enjoyed, he spent a huge amount of time playing his jazz instrument. Temporarily, he worked as a professional jazz musician in New York and Norway. Finally, he realized that music and business, his two biggest passions, can intertwine in many ways. Since he had experience in business before from working at IBM and being the Director of Marketing at Norwegian Airshuttle, he decided to create Jazzcode to maintain a living -his organization that connected jazz and business. 

Jazzcode was created in 2004. In it, Størmer specializes in improvisational collaboration and structured communication. From the year that he started Jazzcode to the present, Størmer has persevered to create podcasts about a wide range of topics to put under his website, https://www.jazzcode.com/contact/carl_stormer/ . One of these topics include Innovation. In his Innovation section, he mentions that him and his friend raised 5 million dollars and founded a company named StudentUniverse. Since Carl has built a strong relationship with his previous employer when working at IBM, his go-to-person for innovation, he mentions his story about innovation and how he had to undergo many adjustments over time from extreme changes in the external environment. He mentions the many hardships he overcame in order to survive in a market where most competitors ran out of funding before they managed to become profitable. Other topics he includes are attention management and learning strategies. 

Not only does he create his own podcasts, but he also offers training for high-performance teams in communication, innovation, and creativity in business and collaboration. Every one to three days, he holds workshops where experts are taught how to acquire, organize and transfer insight in a structured way.