Almost Introducing—the Floricane App

A few days ago, Guy Kawasaki tweeted about AppMakr, an online service that allows you to create your own iPhone application instantly. He also included a code that took the price from $199 to $49. Color me intrigued.

After spending some time hunting around for other app makers -- believe me, there aren't as many out there as you think, and none of them are inexpensive -- I threw my lot in with the folks at AppMakr. As I write this, the Floricane app for iPhones is in the approval queue at iTunes; it should be live before the end of the month.

One of the things I particularly like about AppMakr is that they seem to be focused on making the process easy and inexpensive. It doesn't hurt that they also released a solid product that does a few things well. Essentially, the Floricane app will be a reader with three content streams -- pulling the Floricane weblog, the monthly newsletter and the Twitter stream all into one place.

I don't pretend it will be all that useful for most people, but I hope it will be interesting to more than a handful.

AppMakr apps are limited to RSS feeds, which allows AppMakr to eliminate the hosting fees that are standard with many of the other app developers. Your data sits wherever you create it; your app simply pulls from your running feed. Right now, that means no "about" pages or screens with overviews of products and services. Not so much a problem for me.

What is also means is that the best AppMakr applications come from companies and individuals with good content. That's where I think Floricane has an edge. Between the weblog, the monthly newsletter and the Floricane Twitter stream, there is a wealth of information floating out there about our clients and our work.

As AppMakr makes more features available, I'll dig into those, as well. In the meantime, I'll revel in my early adopter moment as Richmond's only strategic planning firm with an iPhone application.

I'll let you know when it's approved and ready for download at iTunes.

Creating a Business Advisory Board

I've been spending some time this week thinking about the role my business advisory board has played in the first year of Floricane's existence as a business -- and what I might want to do differently with that group going forward.

At the end of January, I'll be speaking to members of theRichmond Chapter of the American Marketing Association about the concept of a business advisory board, some best practices and how Floricane's board helped me get through my first year.

It's not an understatement to say tha t the six people on my advisory board kept my business from collapsing last year.

I'm not sure where I first stumbled upon the idea of creating a small team to help my small business get focused -- maybe a magazine article I read early in the process of launching Floricane? But I didn't launch the business with an advisory council on my checklist. Its formation came much later in the evolution of the business.

I decided to start my own consulting business a few weeks after my job was terminated at Luck Stone Corporation, where I had spent 12 years building a broad range of skills in communications, strategy, project management and organizational development. At the time, it was pretty clear that I was on the front edge of a very large wave of layoffs sweeping the country, and the job openings were few and far between. Nikole and I made a decision to take the plunge just before Thanksgiving of 2008.

Several weeks later, I was having coffee with a long-time friend of mine, Sam Davis, a consultant for family-held businesses. Sam gave me several pieces of advice that morning, but there was one nugget that really landed with me.

"Start thinking now of where you want your business to be in five years," Sam told me. He went on to say that if I waited to plan for growth, it would be too late.

"if you're successful, at the end of your first year you'll be glad you planned for your growth," Sam said. "And if you're successful and you don't plan now, you'll be too busy to think about it later. If you're not successful, it won't matter anyway."

I immediately filed Sam's advice away as something I was too busy to consider.

And I was busy. I was scrambling, trying to network and develop a brand and a website and a visual identity. I was working for a small handful of clients, doing way too much pro bono work, and trying to figure out how to keep the ball constantly moving in a forward trajectory.

At the end of April, there was a lull. It was just enough of a lull that I got nervous, and a little lonely.

Although I'm an introvert by nature, I've learned that my best thinking comes when I can process outloud with someone, and when others are asking me questions that make me consider my own ideas from different perspectives. I began to think that a small group of advisors might provide some of that give-and-take. I also realized that I was becoming a bit less confident in my ability to actually run a business, and I hoped that an advisory group could help me be more effective in that arena.

I began to make a list of interesting people I knew. And then I started to think about who I really needed to keep me honest, and to challenge me.

My wife, Nikole, was top of the list. I knew that she needed to be part of the conversation for two reasons. First off, she had more of a stake in the success of the business than anyone else -- me included. As a stay-at-home mom, she was relying on me making good choices, and so was our daughter, Thea! But I also knew that Nikole's voice was important to have at the table, at least in part to ensure that the rest of the advisory group recognized that Floricane was as much about supporting my family as it was about building a business.

I also needed someone in the mix who knew me well -- someone who would call bullshit on me and keep me honest. That led me to invite Donald Jones and Stephanie Kirksey to the table. Donald is the Vice President of Information Technology at Luck Stone. More importantly, he was as good a friend as I'd made in my business life. He and I spent the better part of a decade coaching and mentoring each other. I trusted him and valued his instincts. Similarly, I trusted and valued Stephanie's perspectives, and knew that she would always see opportunity where I saw roadblocks. As the Vice President of the Greater Richmond Chamber, Stephanie has seen a lot of businesses come and ago, and she'd been among my top cheerleaders during the initial business launch.

I rounded out the group with my accountant, Tom Herr; Joe Ruiz, the husband of a good friend who'd started his own consultancy years ago; and Greg Moyer, the chief people officer at Snagajob. I knew the three of them less well, which I thought might help keep the group from becoming too chummy.

I'll fill in the rest of the story during my talk to the Richmond Chapter of the American Marketing Association on January 26, and provide some follow-up here. In addition to focusing on some best practices, I'll spend some time sharing a few train wreck moments from my own advisory board experience. I've invited my board to attend the January 26 session, and am hoping a few of them will chime in with their own observations!

New Client: Starting Strategic Work with Children, Incorporated

This week, I begin work with another strategic planning client -- Richmond-based Children Incorporated, which serves the needs of children around the globe, and in our own backyard. The 45-year-old nonprofit is often described as a hidden gem in Richmond, because it flies so quietly beneath the local radar -- and because it is so often confused with ChildFund (formerly the Christian Children's Fund). Interestingly enough, Children Incorporated was founded by the daughter of the founders of ChildFund.

More than 17,000 children around the world benefit from CI's good work -- including children in South Richmond, New Orleans, Detroit, Appalachia and the American Southwest, where CI works with the Native American population in five states.

The first few phases of work with CI fall into the broad categories of Discovery and Design. In addition to a lot of meetings and interviews with the internal project team, the organization's Board and some of of their project managers around the globe, I'll work on the development of an online survey to get feedback from as broad a pool of stakeholders as possible. I'll also be guiding a small internal team as they do some benchmarking work, focusing on best practice organizations in the areas of children's services and global development practices.

We're simulatenously laying the groundwork for a small group of staff and Board members to take a serious look at the organization's vision, mission and core values.

Out of all of this activity -- slated to run through March -- we'll design the rest of the strategic process, including clear outcomes for the whole initiative.

It's exciting to be partnering with yet another Richmond-based organization that is committed to making a difference in the lives of others. I'll be sure to keep the blog and the newsletter community updated as we move forward on this project.

New Look, Old Brand

When Richmond Magazine contacted me over Twitter -- after I tweeted about needing a new haircut, and an entirely new look -- and invited me to participate in one of their periodic fashion makeover exercises, I agreed without hesitation.

Partly because I really needed a new hai rcut, and billing was down in November. But mostly because I was curious.

Curiosity, and a willingness to invest myself in someone else's vision, are traits I appreciate in myself. I just don't often let them loose. The last significant release in that direction might have been my performance with the Starr Foster Dance Company in 2006.

Once we decided -- the editor at Richmond Magazine and I -- to focus on my everyday, client-facing style, things fell into place. Stylist Megan Marconyak and I chatted over the phone a few times, and suddenly we were getting together to pick out clothes. She shopped, I picked.

Here's how I described it at my Buttermilk & Molasses weblog:

Megan nailed it in our discussion when she said it sounded like I was looking for an answer to the space between kicking around in jeans (with the family, or on days when Floricane doesn't have me actually out in public) and in a suit (the less frequent ensemble worn for serious client meetings and presentations).

We chatted, exchanged a few emails and then she went shopping.

On Wednesday, I met Megan at Richmond Magazine to check out the clothes. She arrived with four different looks -- including a khaki pants/pastel shirt combo that immediately went into the "not that much of a makeover" pile.

We played around with the rest of the clothes before settling on what I'm now calling the "moderate makeover" look -- black boots, black cords, black suit jacket over a grey sweater, purple Oxford and purple/grey tie. The woman who told me months ago that my body structure and skin coloring demanded I look to the actor who plays House on TV as a fashion template would be proud. Apparently, I still need a cane.

We ended the day with my "before" photo -- scuffed boots, scuffed jeans, wrinkled button-down and shaggy hair. They told me to look sad and miserable, so I slouched a lot while the photog shot away.

The tragedy of it all is that I didn't get to keep any of the clothes. I did, however, come to realize that it doesn't take much to look good -- an iron, a good haircut, a bit of shoe polish.

I also learned that letting someone else understand and reframe my brand is not a bad way of doing business. Thanks, Megan.

(Check out the photos and the story behind the makeover at Richmond Magazine.)

Bearing New Fruit with the December Floricane Newsletter

The most exciting thing about the latest issue of the Floricane newsletter is the flurry of new business activity that popped up immediately after it hit the Internet. Not business driven by the newsletter, but irons that had been in the fire for a few weeks finally reaching the right temperature.

You can read all about what's new by subscribing to the enewsletter -- the next issue will be out late in January, and it's already thick with exciting news and stories. Or just follow along on the Floricane weblog.

In the meantime, the PDF of December newsletter is ready for your perusal.

SPOTLIGHT ON: Virginia Society of CPAs

Spotlight On is a new feature of the Floricane e-newsletter that specifically highlights recently completed client work. In this section, we will provide a brief overview and link to a simple case study that describes the work in greater detail.
 
CLIENT: Virginia Society of CPAs
 
CHALLENGE: Redefine the organization's process for setting goals; empower staff to work together more effectively; unify the organization's culture.
 
RESOLUTION: Guide the organization through the process of establishing "smart goals" that are attainable, aligned with growth, appropriately challenging, relevant to the organization, and measurable. Align these goals properly across the organization and at all levels -- from individual to individual...to organization...to manager...to team. Facilitate self-awareness study and exercises to identify individual learning styles and personal motivators.
 
BEARING NEW FRUIT? Yes. >> download the Virginia Society of CPAs Case Study

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

The stories we tell, or have told, about ourselves show up everywhere we go. I recently interviewed with the senior leadership team of an organization who had short-listed Floricane to handle their strategic planning process in 2010. Everything about the meeting felt positive, engaging, focused. Iknew that there were other consultants in the process, and that my most effective interviewing strategy was to simply be myself. An hour into the discussion, and all indications were that things were going well. They asked good questions -- about my philosophy and process, my background, the differences between strategic planning for corporations and non-profits, my expectations of my clients. As the conversation began to wind down, they asked if we could take a five minute break and regroup. I assumed they were going to huddle and generate a final handful of questions. While they were gone, I perused the framed news articles about the organization that lined the walls. After about 10 minutes, two of the team returned. "Can you grab your notebook and folder and come with us?" one of them asked. "Did you have a coat?" That's when my inner voice -- presumably the one who was called far too often to the principal's office in middle and high school -- kicked in. "Uh oh," the voice muttered silently. "They're escorting me out of the building." I frantically replayed the conversation of the past hour, wondering when I had been too candid, or too flip, or mildly inappropriate. We turned a corner, and they ushered me into an office where the executive director and the project manager waited. "Come on in and close the door," the executive director said. The principal's office in every sense of the word. I continued threading through the conversation, trying to figure out when I blew it. "We were planning to regroup on Friday to make a decision, but we'd like to go ahead and offer you the contract," the project manager said. We all carry stories and narratives around with us, unpacking them when we need to justify ourselves or deploy our defenses in the face of perceived attack. Apparently, one of my stories involves a default assumption that when someone of authority calls me, I'm in trouble. A former coworker and I used to joke about the feeling. She called it "getting caught shoplifting." I called it "going to the principal's office." Whatever the name, it's been with me a long time. I learned long ago that our stories and narratives once served a purpose, but that we tend to hold onto them far past their useful shelf life. It's not often that any of us slows down enough to honestly examine our inner dialogue, much less engage in the hard work of editing, revising or discarding those stories that no longer serve us. For me, rewriting the script is always a work in progress, and I've been revising and editing this particular story for some time now. When it pops back up, I quickly recognize it and invite it to move along. But I've also started developing new stories focused more on who I want to become and less on who I've been. Situations like this week's interview remind me just how important those new stories can be.

A Tale of Two Strategies

There is the process of creating, and then there is the process of doing. Work continues, both with the implementation of The James House's new strategic plan, and with the creation of a strategic plan for the Valentine Richmond History Center. Both projects require a very different sort of skillsand attention, which makes life challenging and fun. Hopefully for everyone involved. Over the next 45 days, I'll be holed up with markers, flip charts, pretzels -- and Lesley Bruno, the Richmond History Center's project manager for the strategic planning process. Lesley listens a lot, and she tak es notes. And then she asks a question that freezes my brain, or suggests a turn in our work that opens up a whole new direction. Our shared goal is to develop a plan that delivers some pragmatic, short-term guidance and some ambitious initiatives, both of which position the Richmond History Center to take advantage of future demographic, technological and cultural trends. During that same period, I'll be blocking out time with key members of The James House board and staff to quickly move on the implementation of the Hopewell-based non-profit's strategic plan we developed earlier this year. In addition to building significant board capacity, we'll be implementing a set of very ambitious goals related to development and fund-raising. Both projects are engaging me in extremely different ways: At the Richmond History Center, we're trying to thread two distinct needles. The first is short-term, focused and rooted in not overburdening an organization or staff that is at, or near, capacity. That means identifying manageable tactics that move the center forward without relying on additional resources. The second is more of a stretch -- helping the organization look several decades into the future to anticipate ways it will need to reinvent itself in order to continue to tell the story of our amazing city. At The James House, I will cycle through three different roles -- strategist, project manager and coach -- in order to achieve our goals. The first is empowering the board to strategically lead the organization forward. The second, to help the organization meet the growing challenges of women and children in the Tri-Cities who are affected by sexual and domestic violence. Turning our strategic ideas into a reality that serves these clients may well be some of the most important work I do in 2010. One thing I've discovered over the past year is that cookie cutters are useless tools in strategic planning and consulting. Having a loose process is a good thing, but assuming that every project can be forced through similar molds is inherently unfair to the client -- and to the consultant. Especially if the consultant is curious, open to learning and willing to work.