Floricane LLC

WTVR Busts Me at the Venture Forum Fair!

This will mostly be funny to my friend Britten.

In June, I attended The Venture Forum Entrepreneur Fair at Capital One. Naturally, I was tweeting the event (capturing interesting tidbits on Twitter) and posted some droll, 140-character comments about diversity before posting more serious observations of the panel discussions.

Later in the morning, as Shawn Boyer of Snagajob was talking to a small group about the joys of starting your own business, The Venture Forum's Rich Reinecke slipped into the room and tapped my shoulder.

"Can I see you in the hallway?" he asked. "And bring your stuff with you."

Busted! I really thought I was getting tossed out! (Right, Britten?)

But, no. It turned out that WTVR Channel 6 was in the house, and wanted to interview someone who had lost their job and started a new business. Rich sent me their way.

Which is how I wound up with a brief cameo, talking about Floricane, Nikole and Thea:

John Sarvay started his own business January 1 after being laid off. He says, "My wife and I sat down yesterday for two hours and looked over our finances and we said what can we cut and how can we grow the business but we both feel really confident. We're enjoying this space, I'm spending more time with my daughter which is wonderful and we think we're going to stick it out."

You can read and watch the entire piece here.

Norfolk Examiner Focuses on Floricane

Back in April, I sat down with Sue Ayers to talk about Floricane and the joys and travails of starting a new business. Sue was a participant in the first NEXT STEPS program I ran with the Greater Richmond Chamber, and began writing extensively about people and events in Richmond as the "career expert" for the popular Norfolk website. Her article on Floricane ran in the Examiner in mid-May.

We chatted at length about how I found myself looking self-employment in the face last winter, resisted my impulse to develop a comprehensive game plan, and dove right into starting a new business.

His dynamic personality, curiosity and ability to offer sound insight makes people recognize that he will jump right in and work with them, not just sit on the sidelines and consult. And while working with the companies as part of the team, he can help them transform and develop new strategies that will keep them moving forward.

Once companies experience an economic downturn and realize that customers are no longer calling and no longer buying, they may typically act as if nothing is wrong or may just grit their teeth and hope for the best. Floricane helps these companies understand that there are other options and that times like these might be the best for internal change which can lead to wide-spread growth.

As Floricane grows and lives up to its name (which, by the way, means the fruit bearing branch of a blackberry bush), John Sarvay is surprised at how much fun it’s been to start and run a business like this.

You can check out the whole profile here or peruse all of Sue's articles (including a profile of my new facilitation partner Eleanor Rouse).

Next Steps Program Draws NBC12's Attention

Two weeks ago, Floricane launched the second round of the Next Steps program, a four-week series of workshops developed in conjunction with the Greater Richmond Chamber.

Our first session made the news -- repeatedly.

Rachel DePompa, the City Hall reporter for WWBT-TV12, dropped by the first session of the Next Steps program on June 15 and chatted with me, Brenda and several of the program participants.

Her producers then proceeded to go to town with the segment. There were four different treatments of the story that aired more than a dozen times on the local NBC News, Fox News and the CW News programs.

The Next Steps program is a space for displaced workers in the region to take a breath, craft a vision that is built around their personal values, andcreate a more centered space during their transition.

This round of the program is being co-facilitated by local coach Eleanor Rouse, and supported by Betty Ford and Brenda Lowry. We're currently discussing the logistics for future offerings of the program, an expanding it to anyone interesting in taking stock of their life.

View one of the NBC12 segments on Floricane's Next Steps programs here.

Floricane's Moving: A Deluxe Apartment

Early this morning, I met the Zeigler-Dacus team on East Cary Street for a photo shoot to capture our joint move across the street to a new, shared office space.

I didn't get the memo about dressing well, and showed up in jeans with Thea on my hip. As a result, I stand out a bit from the crowd in our "Abbey Road" moment, which probably works in my favor overall -- fits my distinctive brand.

I think Ben is going to be doctoring the photo anyway. Maybe he'll put me in George Harrison's denim suit.

In the meantime, I'll be spending the next week or two moving a few boxes, painting and figuring out how best to configure the Floricane suit at 107 East Cary Street. It's great to have my own space -- complete with several work stations and a small conference area.

The Revamped Next Steps Kicks Off June 15

There are countless people in the Richmond area caught in varying stages of this economic downturn -- thousands of them have lost their jobs in the blink of an eye at some point over the past year. NEXT STEPS emerged as an idea during a conversation Stephanie Kirksey at the Greater Richmond Chamber. It evolved when Stephanie and I sat down for 15 minutes in her office way back in November, and the Chamber sponsored the first round of this unique program over the winter.

On Monday, June 15, NEXT STEPS returns for a four-week engagement at St. Michael's Catholic Church, largely courtesy of the church's Job Assistance Ministry (JAM) which also emerged in November and now hosts more than a hundred displaced workers every Wednesday for networking discussions and workshops.

NEXT STEPS is a simple idea. It is rooted in the notion that people who have lost their jobs can benefit from two important spaces -- a space each week to focus on the immediate, and a space each week to dig deeply to explore the relationship between their personal values, their career aspirations and their job search. From the program description:

NEXT STEPS is a four-week program created to encourage job seekers to take a step back and align their career search with their personal values and vision, and their experiences, skills and competencies – before they take the "next step forward" in their careers.

Over the course of four Monday morning sessions -- June 15, 22, 29 and July 6 -- participants will work individually and in small groups to develop clarity on their next career move. Each session is scheduled to run from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 noon at St. Michael's Catholic Church on Springfield Road.

Your ticket purchase covers all four sessions.

Guest speakers, self-assessment tools, homework assignments and intensive in-class exercises and small group interactions will ensure that this four week program challenges participants to think differently about their career opportunities -- and about their lives.

I'll be co-facilitating the four-week program with Richmonder Eleanor Rouse, who does somatic coaching and workshops for women. Eleanor and I met during the first NEXT STEPS program, when she spoke to the 40 participants on crafting a personal vision. She's an outstanding counterbalance to the way I engage groups.

We'll also be joined by Betty-Allison Ford, who is going to help us keep a room of 80 people organized and focused for four weeks, and Sallie Nolte, who is working part-time to keep Floricane running smoothly from a logistical perspective.

While this round of the NEXT STEPS program is targeted primarily toward participants in St. Mike's JAM program, there are a handful of seats available to members of the general public who are unemployed and interested in taking stock of things. Find out more, or register for the program at the NEXT STEPS EventBrite page.

The Cult of Done Manifesto. Do It Already.

There are rare moments in the universe when people throw a few things onto a napkin and come up with a pretty solid road map for life. "The Cult of Done Manifesto" may not precisely fit the bill, but it does offer an excellent pathway for people who frequently find themselves paralyzed by doubt, or an unreasonable need to have everything buttoned down before they set sail.

Here are a few of my favorites from the manifesto:

• There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
  
  
• Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
  
  
• Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
  
  
• People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.

And there is now a Cult of Done Facebook group. Guess how long it took me to decide to join? Right, and now I'm done.

It's All in Your Mind - Perception Drives Everything

A few years ago, when I was studying with Charlie and Edie Seashore -- giants in group dynamics and organizational psychology -- Charlie said something that left my head reeling in sixteen different directions. I actually had him repeat it, and then spent the better part of a week pondering it.

The odd thing -- a few years and a lot of learning later -- is that it makes perfect sense to me now.

"You can't give me feedback, because I do not exist," Charlie said.

He explained, using the two of us as examples.

"When you are giving me feedback, there is no Charlie," he explained, "there is only the Charlie in John. And when I am receiving feedback, there is no John, there is only the John in Charlie."

Charles Jacobs just published an article on brain science at Change This that takes Charlie's idea a few steps forward.

There is no world, is essentially Jacobs' message. There is no world; there is only our idea of the world.

He uses his early retail experience of selling shoes to explain:

We don’t have direct knowledge of the physical world; we only have knowledge of our ideas of it. The world we know is not an objective record of the one that exists outside of us, but the version of it we create according to whatever else is going on in our minds at the time. We don’t live in the world of atoms; we live in the world of ideas.

In the world of ideas, it’s not what something is, but what we think it is that determines our response.

It’s not the physical shoe or how it fits that will necessarily encourage customers to buy it.

It’s how the shoe furthers their vision of what they want, how it meets their desire to be beautiful.

He goes on to explain why this matters when it comes to managing people, and why most managers have it all wrong.

It's not the reward that motivates the best employees, Jacobs says, it's the work itself.

Go check out "A Mind for Selling: How Brain Science Is Turning Management On Its Head".

Finding the Soul of the Community

The Knight Foundation's "Soul of the Community" initiative is all about discovering those key levers that help create and sustain emotionally connected communities of engaged citizens.

Sounds right up my alley, doesn't it?

The initiative is built around a three-year study conducted by Gallup that focuses on the emotional connections between citizens and their communities.

Sounds like something Richmond could spend some time exploring.

So much of the strategic and visionary work of the past several decades has been about tactical, concrete deliverables -- new ball fields and development opportunities, and problem solving crime and education and transportation.

Maybe it's time -- past time -- for the Richmond region to engage in a little emotional exploration about what it means to be a community.

One of the things that strikes me right off is how the Knight Foundation defines "community citizen engagement". It's pretty simple. Attitudinal Loyalty + Passion.

If there's one thing we lack around this region it is passion. If there is a second thing, it might be attitudinal loyalty.

Engaged citizens, the report says, are "highly loyal and connected to the community".

Guess what some of the correlations to highly engaged citizens are. Go ahead.

If you guessed higher-than-average population growth and much higher GDP growth, you'd be right.

But what really leaps out to me -- as I'm in the midst of too many discussions about how to help ratchet up the level of civic engagement across the region -- are the actual levers Knight identifies that can move the emotionally connected community numbers upward.

There's a handy chart below. To the left, in grey, are the outcomes that make for an emotionally connected community. To the right, in blue, are the levers.

Digging deeper, and the report suggests that improving perceptions are huge when it comes to driving engagement in an upward direction -- perceptions of leadership, economic outlook and openness.

Knight goes on to ask -- and answer -- an important question: So what can community leaders do to drive community citizen engagement?

The answer: Focus on key sub-groups -- particularly more marginalized groups like students (high school and college), unemployed and temporarily laid-off workers; and newer residents.

It should be required reading throughout the region, primarily because we're not delivering on much of what Knight says engaged communities do well.