New Space: NBC 12

NBC12.com - Richmond, VA News, Weather, Traffic

In case you missed it, NBC12 did an extended piece on the new collaborative business space we’re co-creating with the team at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. TD Publisher Tom Silvestri and I spent a sliver of our afternoon trying not to give the same answers to a series of questions about the new space and the objectives behind it.

Check out the video, and keep your eyes peeled for information on the process for prospective small business tenants to put their name in the hat for one of the coveted office/work spaces. The goal is to fill the 4,000-square-foot space with another 6-8 small businesses by the end of the year.

New Space: Week Three, Energy

If I needed proof that our new collaborative space in the Richmond Times-Dispatch Building was a good thing, it arrived one day late last week.

That’s when the place came alive in the most natural of ways, as our team and a series of guests and visitors created real, utterly palatable energy.

I had an early morning meeting with a former coworker, and one-time Floricane contributor, Beth Coakley. While Beth and I were meeting in the shared work area, Sam and Tina both arrived for the day and settled into their desks. As Beth and I wrapped, she wandered over to catch up with Tina while I went to greet my next meeting – my financial Seal Team coach, Jim Parker. As Jim and I met, Debra arrived for a meeting. There was a palatable buzz in the space as people went about their day – an unplanned, unorchestrated energy began to flow through the space.

In short order, others came and went – Sarah and I met, and then I hung out with Matthew Freeman of TMI Consulting. Jacob from Work It Richmond and Brian from @RTDNews both dropped by the space to chat briefly, as did Tom Silvestri and his finance sidekick, Raymond McDowell. And as the long day of collaborative ballet drew to a close, we welcomed a dozen friends and clients into the space for the last of our Summer of Self-Discovery workshops.

Everyone commented on the vibe, but the truth is that I had the pleasure of experiencing 12 full hours of it. The last place I felt such a constant stream of unrehearsed engagement over an extended period may have been during one of my three-day (and night) college newspaper publishing binges.

That’s not to say there is a lot of similarity between Floricane and the Commonwealth Times (though it is a bit ironic that I’m back in a newspaper environment after two decades). No, Floricane is a serious business – and that long day last week was evidence of that, as several dozen people rolled through to add emphasis to our belief that “the conversation is the change”.

I can’t wait to feel this new space when a half-dozen other businesses are working on conversations in this space.

Playground Perspective: Wet Feet

It's sometimes hard to stay engaged with a child when their need for explanation exceeds either a) your knowledge or b) your patience.

Welcome toanother chapter in the Book of Why.

I say book because I'm pretty sure we're only on Chapter Two, and that the storyline will get progressively complicated (and perhaps frustrating) as it proceeds. After all, Thea's only four-and-a-half. Right now her questions are pretty basic and straightforward.

It's fascinating to watch her nimble mind navigate and grow. Six months ago, she would be horrified when a single drop of water "ruined" her clothes. This morning, she danced in the rain on our patio in her pajamas, and then took me on a "mud puddle adventure splashing walk". We came home soaked and happy.

Along the walk, I entertained dozens of questions that have popped up in recent weeks. "Why is it raining, Dad?" "But where does it come from?" "But where do the clouds come from?" "But why is it raining, Dad?"

It really is that circular.

But her curiosity isn't limited to questions, and her quest for knowledge isn't a one-way conversation. Not long after her rain dance, and our puddle walk, we headed to the back trails of Bryan Park with our dog, Rilo. Thea called it our "thirty and one mile adventure nature hike". (We're still working on numbers.)

Along the way she asked about hawks, about sticks, about snakes, about the interstate, about the effect of rain on creeks and about Rilo's ability to ride a bike. ("But what about the dog we saw in the wheelchair, Dad? Rilo could do a doggy wheelchair.") She explained why she was running out of energy, why Rilo needed to be on her leash and why it would be a bad idea for the dog to get stung by a bee on our walk -- "She's special to me, Dad. And she might be sad if she gets stung."

Quite a departure from the toddler whose endless litany of "why" two years ago was probably just an evolutionary quest to build vocabulary. And quite exhausting. When you fight it.

Rolling with my daughter's flow, and appreciating her endless need for context and understanding, can be exhausting, no doubt. But it is also stimulating and important. And it is not so different from one of the biggest two-way challenges of so many of the organizations Floricane encounters.

I continue to be surprised at the number of people in management roles whose curiosity is so limited, and who fight the need of their employees for context and understanding. The struggle is often reinforced by employees who are afraid to ask "why" or who struggle to articulate their need for information. What's worse? When the answers -- the information, the context, the clarity -- live within the organization, and no one is asking any questions.

We suck the life out of our organizations when we lose the capacity for curiosity. We suck the life out of our relationships the same way.

Imagine how empty my life as a parent would be if my child had no questions. Imagine how empty her life would be if I exhibited no interest in her questions. Imagine if all of our conversations were one-way, or even worse, that we had no conversations at all.

Now imagine that your workplace was as rich, stimulating, non-stop and amusing as my walks with Thea. Go ahead, feed your curiosity.

Letter from John: Sitting Still

The worst thing to do when you're running a new business is to sit still.

A story.

When I started Floricane in November of 2008, I had just joined a steady flow of newly unemployed Americans -- more than a million a month, you may recall -- looking for work. A convergenceof factors led Nikole and me to decide to throw the dice and join the entrepreneurial ranks.

As a planner and an organizer, my initial impulse was to spend three or four months mapping out a business strategy before fully committing. And then a little voice in my head said, "Run. Run like h ell."

I'd ignored that voice in the past. In 2008, I chose to listen to its urgent advice. I ran.

By the time my severance from my previous employer ran out in July of 2009, I had two paying projects. With blisters already forming on my entrepreneurial feet, I doubled down and continued the marathon. Two turned into four, turned into eight.

Three summers later, and the race has changed. My friends at The Hodges Partnership (who entered the race six years before I did) like to tell me that success doesn't erase worry. You just worry about different things as you move forward.

Like the worries I carried around this past summer.

It was 126 degrees in June, and getting hotter. The Floricane team began our summer with a lead consultant out on maternity leave, a project manager out on extended leave, a planned move stalled by corporate acquisition, and a major proposal nixed by a technicality. (Read: I dropped the ball. Think: Eggs in one basket.) Even our family summer vacation plans went awry. No, I was not such a relaxed camper as we rolled through the summer.

The nice thing about writing this monthly missive is having the opportunity to reflect on the challenges, opportunities and possibilities of running a business. Also, I get to skip the icky parts. Like all of July.

Because now that August has arrived, we're actually anticipating what comes next. We're at mile 20 of our fourth marathon/year, and not only is the finish line visible but we're making plans for our next race/year.

We've settled into our exciting new space at the heart of the Richmond Times-Dispatch's novel entrepreneurial business hub at 300 East Franklin Street, and our team has been spending some time anticipating what lies ahead for Floricane.

Even as we help the RTD team finalize the selection process for eight small businesses, and build a collaborative culture in this new community, we're going to be extra busy with a host of other collaborations.

We're partnering with the Richmond Symphony and Maestro Steven Smith to roll out their amazing FIRST CHAIR program. The creative team at PUNCH is busy blowing our minds with designs for a stellar new brochure and website. And we're going to be showing up all over town this fall -- on our way to Floricane's 4th anniversary celebration. (Keep your eyes peeled for an invite later in October!)

Best of all, we'll be running at a full sprint with our clients -- old and new, businesses and nonprofits, looking for strategic planning and organizational change support. If there's one thing we're not doing as we move into our fourth year of changing the world, it's sitting still.

New Space: A Deluxe Apartment in the Sky…

When Richmond Times-Dispatch Publisher Tom Silvestri started a conversation with me last winter about his ideas for some real estate at 300 East Franklin Street, I was intrigued.

I’ve known Tom since my first career, which started at 300 East Grace Street. I was a young cub reporter – well, “City Desk intern” – at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and he was a business reporter. We reconnected while I was at Luck Stone – I was working on leadership and culture, and he was working on innovation and culture. We’ve since become friends, and collaborators.

I know Tom as a big thinker, eager and willing to stretch the conversation in new directions – even when he’s swimming upstream. Maybe especially when he’s swimming upstream.

Which is how an idea as unique as 1E (a temporary name, I promise) managed to get traction at a time when risk aversion was the coin of the realm at the TD’s then-parent company, Media General.

Yesterday, the Times-Dispatch announced the creation of a new collaborative workspace in their downtown building. The Floricane team will be working with Tom’s his team to take 4,000 square feet of space on the first floor of the building and create a dynamic community for 6-8 small businesses and entrepreneurs. That’s just Phase 1.

Our small team formally relocated this week, and we’ll be actively working with the Times-Dispatch to help them recruit and select another handful of businesses to fill out the space. On the Grace Street side of the building, we’ve carved out space for Floricane and other businesses, and wrapped it around 1,500 square feet of coworking space – big shared areas where the entrepreneurs and the Times-Dispatch can come together and work, connect and interact. We see it as a catalyzing space, and a social space – a space that is about collaboration and synergy.

It’s hard to live in Richmond and not have a love/hate relationship with the Times-Dispatch. In so many ways, the paper has been seen as emblematic of many of Richmond’s challenges. It’s also a mirror of what is right about Richmond, and its potential.

Last month’s sale of the Times-Dispatch from Media General to the new Berkshire Hathaway Media Group reframes the paper’s potential – and that of our community – on so many levels. And the creation of this new space for the business community reflects that.

It’s a big, fun surprise to be returning to the building that helped me find my voice as a writer 21 years ago. I’m looking forward to strengthening my voice in collaboration with other entrepreneurs and a team of journalists who are as committed to the #RVA community as Floricane.

One Planning Size Doesn’t Fit All

Artisanal planning. That’s going to be my new thing – designing strategic planning processes, or conversations, that really are home-spun, custom-fit and designed to meet the specific needs of the individual or organization in question.

Oh, wait. That’s what good strategic planning already is. Or should be.

I had coffee yesterday with a student from the strategic planning class I recently taught at Nonprofit Lear ning Point. Lynda is the relatively new executive director of a nonprofit serving local senior citizens, and her organization is small, living on a thread and pretty much driven by her force of will at the moment. While it has been around for a while, it has gone through multiple iterations, all of which have weakened it.

What Lynda, her small board and her struggling organization did not need right now was a six-month, complex process to strategically evaluate each aspect of the organization. There just isn’t the capacity for that depth of work right now.

What her organization needs is a stabilization plan. What Lynda needs are manageable goals that can quickly give her a motivating sense of progress. What her board needs is to grow.

Over coffee, we explored various options, even as we unspun some of the organization’s history and reoriented around what Linda really wanted and needed at this stage of her career and life. The idea of organizational stabilization and board growth became more attractive, because they had the potential to position the nonprofit – in the near-term – in a way that allowed Lynda to make a clearer personal choice about her commitment.

Lynda left with four or five specific action steps built around funding, partnerships, awareness building and client engagement. Each step felt manageable, and each was unique to where the organization currently finds itself.

Artisan planning, or good planning, simply means that every plan is built around the needs of your client. Cookie cutters, and big box approaches, may make your strategic shopping experience easier – they aren’t likely to make it more personal and satisfying. Not for you, and certainly not for your organization.

Just ask Lynda.

Details, Details

You want to know how to end a week on a bad note? Forget to sign the cover sheet of a Commonwealth of Virginia Request for Proposal (RFP) document. That’s what I did recently, and the state agency in question did exactly what they RFP said they would do – they eliminated us from the selection process.

The lesson was exactly the one I need as our team starts to reorient itself for growth – fast can be the enemy of good, and collaboration doesn't mean doing everything on your own.

Down several people this summer, I’m finding myself attempting to be everywhere at once, and to engage in business development, client and business management, and project management simultaneously. It’s challenging, and not an effective way to run a business. It’s also not the business our team has agreed to create – together.

The nice thing about the mistake – which would have equaled Floricane’s entire billings over the past four years – is that it was all mine. I’m the accountable person.

The other nice thing? We have a slam-dunk process in place to lead several thousand people through a values-based leadership program.

Interested? Give us a call. I promise to sign the cover sheet.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Solvency

A funny story.

I was at Luck Companies last week putting the wraps on the #RVA Leadership Lab that the Greater Richmond Chamber, Floricane and Luck Companies presented this year. I always get a little nervous visiting my old employer, but soon found myself standing at the bottom of a sweeping staircase reconnecting with old coworkers.

I was explaining to one how I’d been avoiding a phone call to Luck’s former Chief Financial Officer, who has been working with me this summer on Floricane’s financials and long-term business model.

“Pretty much I haven’t had the energy or the capacity the past few weeks to dig into the conversation Jim is going to make me have about the business,” I explained. Jim Parker, the retired CFO, is a no-nonsense, bottom-line guy. “So, I’ve been avoiding him as much as possible.”

Naturally, I turned mid-sentence – alerted by something in the eyes of my old coworker – to find Jim Parker standing right behind me. Like a Cylone.

The good news? Jim is leaving on an extended summer vacation and our next meeting happens in August. The bad news? No more putting him – or the serious work of running a business – off. Actually, that's good news, too.