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.
**
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.
**
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!
**
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.
**
Congratulations
to my friends…
On the Road…
Feb 10: London: Women’s Leadership Workshop
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
Feb 21: New York City: Behavioral Presentation Coaching Workshop
Feb 22: New York City: Moderator and Panelist CoachingWorkshop
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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