I continue to be simultaneously impressed by the scale and quality of some public conversations in the Richmond region -- a Downtown Plan discussion that lasts 18 months, or the continued energy of the Times-Dispatch's Public Square events -- and dismayed by the conventional wisdom that keeps othersuch conversations from even hitting the public sphere. By my count, there are at least a dozen major organizations engaged in some form of pondering, organizing or recuperating from some civic engagement activity -- a charrette, a visioning process, public discussions about big issues or ideas. Fe w of them seem to ever go anywhere. This winter, frustrated by conversation after conversation with people whose jobs are to engage the public around civic matters, I sat across the table from one group of leaders and asked quite frankly, "Would one of you host a damned dinner party and invite the rest so that we can have one conversation about the Richmond region's future?" After some interesting discussion, one of them turned back to me and said, "Why don't you do it?"His rationale was that there are too many conferences, summits, visioning sessions and reports organized by the usual suspects -- the same group of corporate and political leaders. "Wouldn't it speak volumes if you, as a citizen of the region, simply invited a bunch of people together to talk about the future?" he added. I told him that I was trying to start a business, not another nonprofit organization. Two weeks ago, I hosted almost 150 people at a business launch party. The energy was high, and positive. Someone joked that I should hold launch parties every month -- just so people could catch up with each other. Last week, I got an email from a national organization called Conversaton Cafe, which organizes community conversations around the country. They invited me to organize a community conversation in Richmond as part of National Conversation Cafe Week, which kicks off March 23. Nothing like advance notice, I thought. Well, two plus two tends to equal something other than four these days, and the next thing I knew I was scheduling space for two community conversations under the working title of "A Grassroots Conversation About Richmond's Possibilities." The conversations are free and open to the public. Both are limited to 50 people each because of space constraints. One conversation will happen the morning of March 25 in Innsbrook. (Details and registration here.) The second will take place the evening of March 26 at the University of Richmond's new downtown building. (Details and registration here.) I can look at this convergence in one of two ways -- as yet another conversation happening in a vacuum, or as a different conversation altogether. I suppose it will all depend on how I facilitate. And who shows up.
Welcome to Our Newest Client—The James House
One of the first emails I received after leaving Luck Stone -- and in the midst of pondering my next steps -- was a lead on a year-long capacity building "Request for Qualifications" bid issued by a non-profit in the Hopewell area. TheJames House describes itself as being "the only accredited program helping people who have been affected by sexual and domestic violence in the Tri-Cities area—including the communities of Colonial Heights, Hopewell, Petersburg, Dinwiddie, Prince George, Surry, Enon, and Matoaca, Virginia, as well as the soldiers and their families in Fort Lee." It's CEO, Chana Ramsey, has been a driving force in its success over the years and it is ready to take another step toward securing its future of serving one of Central Virginia's growing corners. I didn't know what an RFQ was in November. I learned a lot over the past four months. This afternoon, I received word that The James House has awarded Floricane the contract to support it's future development.Exciting news, right? From a lot of perspectives. First off, the work itself. Nikole, my wife, spent a large swath of her professional career working in service to organizations focused on stopping sexual and domestic violence, and many of our friends work for nonprofits and governmental agencies doing this work. During my organizational development training at Georgetown, I partnered with a classmate to do work for Quin Rivers/Project Hope, which does similar work east of Richmond. My intention with Floricane has been to create space where the work we do enhances the health and civic fabric of our communities -- business, nonprofit, cultural, social. But I'm equally excited that I get to partner with two hugely talented individuals, who have agreed to sign onto the project. Anne Chamberlain is an executive coach and OD guru; I met Anne at Luck Stone, where she did some amazing work as a consultant for our human resource and information technology teams. She also helped Nikole make her own career transition several years ago. Kristen Kaplan is one of the founding partners behind what is now known as Hands On Greater Richmond, and has recently stepped out on her own -- bringing her expertise in project management, nonprofit organizations and strategy to the broader world. Anne will be providing coaching support for the project, and Kristen and I intend to partner closely through the whole effort. We'll get started in earnest in early April with the Discovery phase of this project -- meeting individually with board members, staff, community partners and hopefully some clients served by The James House. In the meantime, I'm pleased to introduce the Floricane community to our newest partner, The James House.
16 Steps in the Business Launch Process
A friend emailed me last night. Here was our exchange: She wrote: Here’s a question that I think I know the answer to… Did you do a business plan? And how did you know the steps to start your business? I replied: I thought about it. Then I guessed as I moved forward. And she asked: Where did you start? It was a good question, and one I hadn't thought about until last night. Below is my 16-point reply to her very pertinent question.My patented multi-step process: 1. Got laid off. 2. Spent a week interviewing for jobs. Determined I would lose significant ground -- dollars and experience. 3. Decided to start my own company. 4. Convinced myself the market needed exactly what I offered. 5. Went to the Chamber Small Business workshop and realized I already knew what they were telling me. 6. Decided not to waste my time with a business plan, but to just start building. 7. Found a really good accountant. 8. Came up with a name. 9. Had a designer create a logo/identity. 10. Had a developer start work on a website. 11. Networked my ass off and talked to hundreds of really smart people -- to learn, to think out loud with, to frame and reframe my business concept, to feel better about my incomeless time. 12. Got a piece of paid work. Felt even better about myself. Until I realized I was essentially going to earn 4% in two months over the first two months of the previous year. 13. Took three pro bono jobs because I realized I needed to exercise my muscles, mess up in front of audiences that weren't Luck Stone, and learn by staying engaged not by thinking about staying engaged. 14. Decided to throw a huge party and spend 40% of my business bank roll to create a gigantic networking/thank you space. 15. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. 16. Now moving into aggressive business development/sales mode. Reviewing my list this morning, it seems like a pretty solid approach. Of course, if you're my banker, you're probably a little worried now.
The Right People Are in the Room
In about five hours, I will be welcoming more than 200 close friends, business colleagues and supporters to a launch party for Floricane. I'm starting to get nervous. Right off the bat this morning, I received emails from about a half dozen of my favorite people indicating that they were not goingto be able to attend tonight for a variety of reasons. I spent about 30 minutes gnashing my teeth and questioning even throwing a party for a new business that has barely generated any revenue. I began to doubt myself, and in the process all of the other people who were going to attend. And then I stopped.I looked at the list of people who were attending -- my wife and our daughter, my mother, people I've known all of my life and people I've only met once. I considered the vastness of my network and its links to the local weblog community, to the business and educational and nonprofit communities, to the arts and cultural spokes of Richmond. I thought about a graphic facilitator I know and respect. Adore is probably not too strong of a word -- for her skill, and perspective and openness. Gretchen once told me that whenever she pulled people together, she always reminded herself to focus on who was there -- not on who was absent. "If you trust that the right people are in the room, you'll do good work," she said. "If you worry about who isn't there, you'll be less useful to those who are." And then I thought about the conversation Nikole and I had the Thursday before our wedding in the spring of 2005. We were having dinner, and I think she got a little nervous when I started the conversation with, "There are a few things we need to talk about." I shared with Nikole how nervous I was about the weekend, and how important it was for me to "show up" as genuinely, honestly and in-the-moment as possible. I asked for her support with three very specific things. First, I said, it is very easy for me to worry about what isn't happening or what is happening next. I could spend the entire weekend worrying about whether the caterer remembered to bring extra silverware, or that the flowers aren't centered on the tables. Help me stay in-the-moment, to stay present with you as we go through the weekend together, I asked her. Second, I said, it will be second nature for me to focus on what other people need and concern myself with making sure everyone is having a good time. I want people to enjoy themselves, and I trust that they will. This weekend, I said, it is important to me that I am focused on you, and on me, and on us. We are what matters. Third, I told her, it is hard for me to accept that several hundred people are coming together for us, to celebrate us and our love and our marriage. It's hard for me to accept love from others, and I usually spend my time dismissing it, or deflecting it, or reminding them how important they are. Help me this weekend simply accept the love and care and joy that everyone wants to give us, and to accept it without question or doubt. We talked about what each of the three requests really meant, and how Nikole could help me stay attentive to my intentions for the weekend, and how we'd keep our connection to each other strong through our entire weekend celebration. Our focus was on the relationship, the emotion and the connection. It was a wonderful weekend. That's how I shifted my thinking about tonight. It's going to be a wonderful celebration -- because the right people will be in the room, and because the focus will be on the relationships, the emotions and the connections. See you at 5:30.
Removing “How” from the Future
One of my favorite books focused on organizing ourselves in communities of people focused on future possibilities is "The Answer to How Is Yes" by Peter Block. Peter is a community organizer and one of the experts in the field of organizational development. I stumbled upon "The Answer to How Is Yes"a couple of years ago while working for an organization with strong engineering DNA, an organization that might sometimes be inclined to author its own book, "The Answer to How Is Stored in AutoCAD." Peter's notion is that how is an important way to begin some important questions, but when we start our inquiry with those questions we doom ourselves to recreate the past.
How? is most urgent whenever we look for a change, whenever we pursue a dream, a vision, or determine that the future needs to be different from the past. By invoking a How? question, we define the debate about the changes we have in mind and thereby create a set of boundaries on how we approach a task. This, in turn, influences how we approach the future and determines the kind of institutions we create and inhabit. I want to first identify six questions that are always reasonable, but when asked too soon and taken too literally may actually postpone the future and keep us encased in our present way of thinking.
The six questions that Peter suggests we set aside are: How do you do it? How long will it take? How much does it cost? How do you get those people to change? How do we measure it? How have other people done it successfully? When my former organization -- with its heavy engineering culture -- began to respool its DNA and recreate itself as an organization built around a new set of core values, one of the first stakes it put in the ground was a desire to be "the model of a values-driven enterprise." Not a model. The model. It made the engineers (both the actual engineers, as well as the engineer portions of everyone else's brain) nervous. So, we did what you do when the engineers get nervous. We set up a task force to define how we would know when we were "the model." The group came back and said that it had looked at different ways of measuring what a values-driven organization might be. And it had looked at metrics and scorecards and assessments. And, the group concluded, being the model of a values-based company was hard to measure. But they handed the organization a set of three measurement tools that stood the culture in good stead for more than five years:
- When we are supporting the success of others.
- When we are enhancing, repairing or building relationships.
- When we are using our core values to make business decisions.
All in all, easy stuff. If you're willing to stop asking yourself how you're going to measure your work and start leading with your heart. It begins, as most good work does, in the questions you choose to ask.
Nonprofits Eligible for Free PR Support
Operate a nonprofit organization in the Richmond area? Interested in a little public relations support at no charge? Of course you are. Which is why member of the Richmond Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America's (PRSA Richmond) public service committee are offering a Richmond-area nonprofit organization support in promoting a 2009 event, project or ongoing mission. Details follow below:
The committee members, made up of practicing marketing and public relations professionals, are volunteering their time and talents to assist with this one-time community service project. For consideration, the organization must be a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit that needs public relations assistance with a specific 2009 project/event. Organizations seeking public relations assistance must submit a one-page application explaining the scope and requirements of the project/event. Organizations are encouraged to submit supporting documents to further illustrate their needs. The application deadline is Wednesday, March 25, 2009. The selected organization will be notified by April 1, 2009. To download an application visit the PRSA Richmond Web site, http://www.prsarichmond.org or co,ntact Meredyth Thurston by calling (804) 237-1396 or by e-mail at mthurston@charlesryan.com. PRSA Richmond is a professional association serving Central Virginia public relations practitioners. The chapter and the national organization, PRSA, share the vision of bringing professionals together to enhance the practice, to provide an exchange of experiences and ideals, and to promote professional development. For more information, visit http://www.prsarichmond.org
Daydream Believers
Taking the time -- perhaps even making the time -- to daydream, to do nothing, to sit and doodle, to stare at the sun reflecting on the water. It's the sort of activity (or lack of activity) that our go-go business culture tends to push aside as unproductive.
It may be some of the mostvaluable time you'll ever have.The Boston Globe recently ran a wonderful piece on the power of daydreaming -- its place in our lives, and its role in business.
Although there are many anecdotal stories of breakthroughs resulting from daydreams - Einstein, for instance, was notorious for his wandering mind - daydreaming itself is usually cast in a negative light. Children in school are encouraged to stop daydreaming and "focus," and wandering minds are often cited as a leading cause of traffic accidents. In a culture obsessed with efficiency, daydreaming is derided as a lazy habit or a lack of discipline, the kind of thinking we rely on when we don't really want to think. It's a sign of procrastination, not productivity, something to be put away with your flip-flops and hammock as summer draws to a close.
In recent years, however, scientists have begun to see the act of daydreaming very differently. They've demonstrated that daydreaming is a fundamental feature of the human mind - so fundamental, in fact, that it's often referred to as our "default" mode of thought. Many scientists argue that daydreaming is a crucial tool for creativity, a thought process that allows the brain to make new associations and connections. Instead of focusing on our immediate surroundings - such as the message of a church sermon - the daydreaming mind is free to engage in abstract thought and imaginative ramblings...
"Daydreaming builds on this fundamental capacity people have for being able to project themselves into imaginary situations, like the future," Malia Mason, a neuroscientist at Columbia, says. "Without that skill, we'd be pretty limited creatures."
"The point is that it's not enough to just daydream," Schooler says. "Letting your mind drift off is the easy part. The hard part is maintaining enough awareness so that even when you start to daydream you can interrupt yourself and notice a creative insight."