Saturday, February 4, 2017

West Coast Swing / Upcoming Workshops / Felix Weiner in the New York Post

West Coast Swing
The rest of my West Coast swing ended late Thursday night when I flew back to North Carolina from Vancouver, British Columbia where I was working with a client.  It was the first time in a long time that I was in a city that I hadn’t been in before.  Other than a lot of cloudy days, I’ve never heard anyone say anything but good things about Vancouver.  Have you?  While there really wasn’t any time to see the city or take any side trips I was reminded that the Alaska cruises begin there.  I’ve never been on a cruise but for many years have wanted to take one of those cruises – simply because the photo on the ads looks so wonderfully inviting (see below).

This trip started in Laguna Beach, CA and took my partner Liz and I to Los Angeles and San Francisco.  We conducted workshop in all three places – both Women’s Leadership and Behavioral Presentation Coaching.  A major milestone was reached by us when we conducted our first in-house Behavioral Presentation Coaching Workshop for a public pension plan!

Over last weekend, taking a little break, I visited my old stomping grounds, Napa, CA, where I had lived from 1999 – 2012.  I had meetings with a few local real estate developers and then had a chance to visit with my old friend, Christophe Gerard.  I met Christophe many years ago when he was the head chef of a Napa restaurant my former wife and I used to frequent.  Recently, Christophe joined the team at the newly opened Restaurant at CIA Copia (Btw, CIA stands for Culinary Institute of America vs. Central Intelligence Agency). While I didn’t have time to eat there on this trip I know it’ll become a ‘go-to’ restaurant in Napa very shortly.
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Felix / Weiner Professional Development Workshops
We’ve been getting more and more great feedback from the attendees of our workshops.  While it’s very nice to get glowing commentary, it’s more important that people care enough to give us ideas on how we can improve our workshops – we take that to heart.  One request that has surfaced multiple times from women who have attended our Women’s Leadership Workshop: “It’s great that you’re giving women more insight into how they can develop more professional presence.  But what about the men?  Don’t they need to understand more about the challenges faced by women in a male-dominated industry like commercial real estate?”  The answer is a simple YES! 

We have run one ‘co-ed’ Senior Executive Workshop to date which was focused on “Unconscious Bias.”  With that experience under our belt (remind me to tell you about it one day) we have rolled our that program and will be posting dates soon.  We know that having women and men from the same company participate is a win-win; what we’re not certain about is whether that type of workshop would be beneficial if attended by people from different companies (Your thoughts are welcome and encouraged!).

On February 22 in New York City we are launching a workshop that I've had on my mind for more than 10 years:  Moderator and Panelist Coaching Workshop.  With more and more events embracing the 'Pay-to-Play' model for moderators (and panelists), the moderator may not have much experience (or training) in how to mange a panel so that the audience gets the best takeaways.  We'll be simulating panels in the workshop and having participants playing roles of both moderators and panelists.  In the test run it was both a lot of fun and we received excellent feedback on the value.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you
Liz and I are so grateful for all the firms that have lent us conference rooms for our open-enrollment workshops (some with absolutely spectacular views).  It’s truly a testament to the interest commercial real estate firms have in providing professional development programs for their team members.  I’ve watched this industry evolve for more than 30 years and, while the underlying principles of making money from commercial real estate have not changed, a lot has changed.  Just go to certain industry events these days and you’ll see more and more women and more and more younger professionals.  It’s great to see that so many folks have chosen the commercial real estate industry.  We are a fortunate lot – there are a great number of wonderfully smart, talented and friendly people in the global commercial real estate community and, you, those who have followed my adventures through this column, are a particularly special group!
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Felix / Weiner in the New York Post!
Thanks to my long-time friend, New York Post Commercial Real Estate columnist, Lois Weiss, for recently publishing an article in the Real Estate Board of New York insert.  It’s titled:  How To Own The Room During A Speech or Presentation.  It’s our first ‘feature’ story in print and we were pleasantly surprised when we learned it had been published.  Here’s the link to the article.
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Congratulations to my friends…
 Rob Bilse who has joined Patrizia Property Inc.
 Briana Succop who joined Abacus Capital Group

On the Road…

Feb 13 -15: New York
Feb 16 -17: Chapel Hill, NC; To be a judge in the UNC Kenan-Flagler Real Estate Development Case Competition
Feb 19: Asheville, NC: To see Umphrey’s McGee in concert
New York City,  Feb 24:  Women's Leadership Workshop
San Diego, CA: Mar 1-2: NAREIM's Executive Officers Meeting
Dallas, Texas, March 9 -10:  To conduct a private Women's Leadership Workshop
April 5 - 6: Los Angeles: PERE Global Investors Conference
May 11: London: PERE Europe
June 25 - 27: Newport, Rhode Island:  IMN U.S. Real Estate Opportunity and Private Fund Investing Forum (I'll be moderating my 'signature' panel: "A Day in the Life of an LP")

CBRE lent us their main conference room for our Women's Leadership Workshop in their spectacular Glendale, CA office
Cruise from Vancouver to Alaska (I'm going to go this year!)

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