I was in New York last week and had a very intriguing conversation with a colleague about the state of CRE conversations on social media. He made a point to me about how everything has been oversaturated and it was the same things over and over without anything unique in between. This made me think…
Sometimes creating a baseline of current operations is harder than building a new operation.
I work with a lot of real estate organizations looking to move from a decentralized organization to more centralized control. One of the universal traits I have had to deal with is the fact that every organization has bad data at some level. Either headcount information doesn’t tie to buildings (or doesn’t exist at all)…
CRE equilibrium is a difficult – but important – measure.
Equilibrium is when the state of something is balanced. Corporate need for labor is aligned with the labor market. The cost of labor is aligned with what businesses want to pay for labor (sort of…). Total Cost of Occupancy is aligned with what businesses expect – and it doesn’t rise or fall too much beyond…
The return of Spring is a reminder to start the year fresh (again).
New Year’s Day is the natural time for most people to start the year off anew. But New Year’s Day is also still right in the middle of holiday season and no one is really around and in the groove yet. For me, the best time to get a fresh start is early April. A…
Juggling the responsibilities of Making and Managing.
This may go without saying but I found it to be surprising (albeit expected to a lesser degree). Managing is nothing like doing work. There’s lots of people all over the web that can further expand on it but here’s my two cents. I’ve been a Maker my entire career so far. Give me direction,…
Perfect post from @dukelong on CRE and politics. #thebuildingdoesnotcare
The Building Does Not Care. -Duke Long That really says everything about real estate. The market, the politics, the companies, the people – all of it can change but the buildings still won’t care. Go read his post on CRE and the Firestorm in Indiana.
Hierarchy in a meritocracy.
Hierarchy is the opposite of flexibility. It is impossible to move in unexpected lateral ways as an organization without some one being scared of it impacting their fiefdom. The moment all names fall into some box you are in a hierarchy with managers. No exceptions. Hierarchy brings a lot of advantages but it also causes…
The Natural Order is to Simplify over time.
Had an all-day session this week with a new team that we brought on board. It’s exciting because they are already pushing us in some new directions. But it is also interesting to see that they are doing some of the things we were doing 3 to 5 years ago when we were smaller and…
Handwritten notes hold value in an Evernote world.
Evernote, Onenote and other online organization systems are taking over task management. Yet I’ve found myself moving back to paper. I had given up hand written notes for about 3 years now. I’ve been drawn back. The reason is that turning off electronics in a meeting makes conversation easier. There are no distractions or even…
Writer’s block strikes again!
Its been about 3 weeks since I’ve been in a writing groove. Sorry for the belated and missing posts to those that visit regularly. To those who didn’t notice anything…..carry on. I’ve recently had a change in role which has definitely taken me from my comfort zone and which has forced a change in perspective….