Last week I attended the opening of an impressive exhibition at our Birmingham Museum of Art titled “Monet to Matisse” which is on loan from The Brooklyn Museum. The artwork spoke for itself, and the bonus was hearing Joseph Curtain, of BofA. His comments centered on AI and how this technology might assist a company’s …
I’ve been privileged to be surrounded by a lot of high performers. We work in a task-oriented field, and many in project management excel at pushing through a checklist, all with quality control and customer relationships top-of-mind. These folks are the core of our company and are much appreciated. Most days, they make achieving our …
Over the years, we’ve done a lot to try to streamline our processes so we’re not wasting time on the information gathering trail. I’ve never put a name to the frustrating searching, or jumping from one platform to another to consolidate research, until I read this article from Construction Business Owner. They call it “Gray …
In construction, there is an old adage that it’s possible to be good, fast, or cheap. Pick two. This makes it particularly important to choose the right contractor, or for that matter, the right consultant, who can accommodate what’s important for success. Check these boxes: Years in business Types of work completed Quality of team …
Mentorship doesn’t always have to come from the more experienced generation to younger team members. There is room for us all to learn from each other. I’ve been reading a lot lately about intergenerational prejudice, or the likelihood of being stereotyped by the generation in which you were born. I am a Baby Boomer, who …
We have all gone through more in the last year than we would have ever imagined possible. If there is anything I have learned, it is to stay nimble and be thankful. There are things in life that one can prepare for, and others that require you to think on your feet. It seems like …
My FMI buddies always say that culture eats strategy for breakfast. I recently attended a workshop where the topic of corporate culture was addressed and compared to corporate climate, a subject that is perhaps equally important. Here’s the short version on both, a mash up of what was said that day and what I have learned …
Last week we were in Las Vegas to attend ICSC RECon, which I have always considered a family reunion of retail. It’s a chance to visit with longtime friends and make a few new ones each year. It seemed to me that this year’s conference had a definite emphasis on the “customer experience.” Stores are shifting towards being a bit more customized, and …
A break in, or a ransom letter. An invitation to the dark web. It sounds like a movie plot, but it played out here last month. A computer hacker waited until about 7:20 pm, when our office would likely be cleared out, and found an opening in our firewall, creating a username. He or she then virtually made their way through all our computers and locked …
This week I attended our annual ULI Chapter meeting here, where Anita Kramer of ULI’s Washington headquarters presented ULI’s “Emerging Trends in Real estate 2018,” a real estate lookahead produced jointly with PWC. They interview several thousand in the industry, gathering thoughts and opinions combined with data from the field. A few summary takeaways: The “What inning are we …
I am wondering: What if we approached our jobs and what we do every day a bit more like the Stoics? To summarize Wikipedia, these ancients thought that happiness comes from accepting our lot in life and consequently, enjoying what we do. (Well, at least most days.) To me, this means not allowing too much push …
This last week, I made my annual pilgrimage to the ICSC Recon convention in Las Vegas in support of our retail group. At any convention, I have always found one gets as much out of riding in a taxi or a visit to coffee shop as one gets on the convention floor. This year was …