August 12, 2011

this morning, for the first time in a long, long time, i sat down to write this little story to you, stared at the blank page, and wondered what i could write that would be of interest to you.

i’m not qualified to write about the craziness of the stock market (although my opinion is that, just like so many things, over-reaction is rampant in the world).

as you know, with an occasional slip-up, i’ve stayed away from politics (also not qualified to comment).

and, as many of my european real estate industry friends are off on ‘real’ holidays (i.e. at least two weeks during the summer and when you get a ‘gone fishing’ email reply, saying they will not be checking email, you know they mean it.

but, the commercial real estate business chugs along, just like the little engine that could, working it’s way up a steep hill and trying to find itself again.

RCA published a release this week on the subject of Development Land deals.


• Sales of developable land increased by 64% year-over-year in H1'11 to $3.2 billion. Though that's still below growth for other property sectors, increasing volume in this sector indicates some loosening of what has seemed a near moratorium on development.
• As in the broader market, investors have focused on multifamily and CBD sites in primary markets. Prices for land have fallen farther than for all other property types, and lenders are still achieving lower recovery rates on average for land than in other sectors. Nonetheless, well-located land has achieved close to peak-era pricing as well as recovery rates that are closer to the average rates for other property types.

to me, this is not unexpected.  developers have always been the real risk takers in our industry.  through exhaustive market research (sometimes) they determine that a piece of property has potential.  when they’re right, it’s a big win.  when they’re wrong, well, it’s a problem.  real estate has always been a game of deep pockets, deep enough to ride out the storms that affect absorption of houses, apartments, office, retail and industrial space, what have you.  and with a renewed optimism about things, it’s not surprising that development sites are hot again. and, if you were trained, like i was, that the upside is made on the buy, prices like these are probably very tempting.  who is lending money for development sites i’m not sure about but there are more pockets of money these days than the traditional sources, deep or otherwise, which have a higher threshold of risk (although there will come a day of reckoning when they’ll have to face their investors…either with a check, a bill or the news that they had to give the property back).



there is one thing that i would like to share with you today:  in the summer of 2008, when i was thinking about the next step in my career, i read a bunch and summarized of books.  these days i've been thinking about me waking up one day, just after my 106th birthday, and feeling, ‘i shoulda done this or i shoulda done that or i shoulda…..’ i’m sure some of you know those feelings.  so here are a few things from some of the stuff i've read (and in some cases been re-reading) that have struck me this week:


• it’s human nature for people to take precisely as much interest in you as they believe you’re taking in them.  there is no stronger way to build relationships than taking a genuine interest in other human beings and allowing them to share their stories.
• everyone should start at ground zero.  they should ask, ‘is this viable anymore?  is this what the world wants?”
• having a vision is not enough; if you fail to envision the potential of your creation, it will be left for others to exploit.  what you need is a vision and the ability to develop a strategy to achieve it.
• “if a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed.”  thomas wolfe
• “what you can do or think you can do, begin it.  for boldness has magic, power and genius in it.” goethe
• "if you let them, things just happen in the right way, at the right time.  at least they do when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, “this isn’t supposed to be happening this way, “ and trying hard to make it happen some other way.  if you’re in tune with The Way Things Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time.  later on, you can look back and say, “oh, now I understand.  that had to happen so those could happen and those had to happen in order for this to happen….”  then you realize that even if you’d tried to make it all turn out perfectly, you couldn’t have done better and if you’d really tried, you would have made a mess of the whole thing.” the tao of pooh
here are the tour dates for a good friend (and the guitarist in my ‘band’) ernie hendrickson.  if he is coming to a place near you i encourage you to check him out.  i also guarantee that you will enjoy it.  ernie is the real deal!


Friday, August 26th
Cafe Carpe
Ft. Atkinson, WI
Saturday, August 20th
FarmFest
Kinsman, IL
Thursday, September 1st
The Lemon Grove Cafe
Youngstown, OH
Friday, September 2nd
South Park Tavern
Dayton, OH
Thursday, September 8th
Tiger Room at Calhoun Street Spirits
Fort Wayne, IN
Saturday, September 10th
The Living Room
New York, NY
Sunday, September 11th
Felicia's Atomic Lounge
Ithaca, NY
Monday, September 12th
Bullfrog Brewery
Williamsport, PA
Friday, September 23rd
Six Strings Club
Bloomington, IL
Friday, September 30th
Redstone Room
Davenport, IA
Saturday, October 1st
Cheesefest!
Shullsburg, WI
Saturday, October 1st
The Wheel Inn
Shullsburg, WI
Thursday, October 20th
Anderson Fair
Houston, TX
Friday, October 21
The Bugle Boy
La Grange , TX

Congratulations to my friend Lynn Kehoe who joined another friend, Ed Schwartz at ORG Real Property as a consultant and a member of the investment committee.

on the road….
aug 11-aug. 14:  northern california
aug. 15-19:  new york
aug. 22-sept. 9:  northern california
sept. 12-16:  new york
sept. 20-21: amsterdam to moderate a panel at the PERE Global Forum
oct. 4-6:  las vegas to be a panelist at CBRE’s Americas Summit on “The Commercial Real Estate Industry of the Future: A 5-10 Year Outlook.”  (Oh no, that crystal ball thing again!) Thanks to asieh mansour, CBRE’s head of research Americas for inviting me to join ray torto of CBRE and geof dohrmann of IREI in this discussion.
oct. 17-19:  chicago to attend the PREA fall meeting
nov. 2-5: washington, dc to attend the CRE Annual convention
nov. 9-10: new york to moderate a panel at the PERE forum








These are my views and not that of my employer.

what's going on?; coulda, shoulda, woulda

this morning, for the first time in a long, long time, i sat down to write this little story to you, stared at the blank page, and wondered what i could write that would be of interest to you.

i’m not qualified to write about the craziness of the stock market (although my opinion is that, just like so many things, over-reaction is rampant in the world).

as you know, with an occasional slip-up, i’ve stayed away from politics (also not qualified to comment).

and, as many of my european real estate industry friends are off on ‘real’ holidays (i.e. at least two weeks during the summer and when you get a ‘gone fishing’ email reply, saying they will not be checking email, you know they mean it.

but, the commercial real estate business chugs along, just like the little engine that could, working it’s way up a steep hill and trying to find itself again. 

RCA published a release this week on the subject of Development Land deals.

• Sales of developable land increased by 64% year-over-year in H1'11 to $3.2 billion. Though that's still below growth for other property sectors, increasing volume in this sector indicates some loosening of what has seemed a near moratorium on development.
• As in the broader market, investors have focused on multifamily and CBD sites in primary markets. Prices for land have fallen farther than for all other property types, and lenders are still achieving lower recovery rates on average for land than in other sectors. Nonetheless, well-located land has achieved close to peak-era pricing as well as recovery rates that are closer to the average rates for other property types.

to me, this is not unexpected.  developers have always been the real risk takers in our industry.  through exhaustive market research (sometimes) they determine that a piece of property has potential.  when they’re right, it’s a big win.  when they’re wrong, well, it’s a problem.  real estate has always been a game of deep pockets, deep enough to ride out the storms that affect absorption of houses, apartments, office, retail and industrial space, what have you.  and with a renewed optimism about things, it’s not surprising that development sites are hot again. and, if you were trained, like i was, that the upside is made on the buy, prices like these are probably very tempting.  who is lending money for development sites i’m not sure about but there are more pockets of money these days than the traditional sources, deep or otherwise, which have a higher threshold of risk (although there will come a day of reckoning when they’ll have to face their investors…either with a check, a bill or the news that they had to give the property back). 

there is one thing that i would like to share with you today:  in the summer of 2008, when i was thinking about the next step in my career, i read a bunch and summarized of books.  these days i've been thinking about me waking up one day, just after my 106^th birthday, and feeling, ‘i shoulda done this or i shoulda done that or i shoulda…..’ i’m sure some of you know those feelings.  so here are a few things from some of the stuff i've read (and in some cases been re-reading) that have struck me this week:

• it’s human nature for people to take precisely as much interest in you as they believe you’re taking in them.  there is no stronger way to build relationships than taking a genuine interest in other human beings and allowing them to share their stories.
• everyone should start at ground zero.  they should ask, ‘is this viable anymore?  is this what the world wants?”
• having a vision is not enough; if you fail to envision the potential of your creation, it will be left for others to exploit.  what you need is a vision and the ability to develop a strategy to achieve it.
• “if a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed.”  thomas wolfe
• “what you can do or think you can do, begin it.  for boldness has magic, power and genius in it.” goethe
• "if you let them, things just happen in the right way, at the right time.  at least they do when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, “this isn’t supposed to be happening this way, “ and trying hard to make it happen some other way.  if you’re in tune with The Way Things Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time.  later on, you can look back and say, “oh, now I understand.  that had to happen so those could happen and those had to happen in order for this to happen….”  then you realize that even if you’d tried to make it all turn out perfectly, you couldn’t have done better and if you’d really tried, you would have made a mess of the whole thing.” the tao of pooh 

here are the tour dates for a good friend (and the guitarist in my ‘band’) ernie hendrickson.  if he is coming to a place near you i encourage you to check him out.  i also guarantee that you will enjoy it.  ernie is the real deal!

Friday, August 26th

Cafe Carpe
Ft. Atkinson, WI

Saturday, August 20th

FarmFest
Kinsman, IL

Thursday, September 1st

The Lemon Grove Cafe
Youngstown, OH

Friday, September 2nd

South Park Tavern
Dayton, OH

Thursday, September 8th

Tiger Room at Calhoun Street Spirits
Fort Wayne, IN

Saturday, September 10th

The Living Room
New York, NY

Sunday, September 11th

Felicia's Atomic Lounge
Ithaca, NY

Monday, September 12th

Bullfrog Brewery
Williamsport, PA

Friday, September 23rd

Six Strings Club
Bloomington, IL

Friday, September 30th

Redstone Room
Davenport, IA

Saturday, October 1st

Cheesefest! 
Shullsburg, WI

Saturday, October 1st

The Wheel Inn
Shullsburg, WI

Thursday, October 20th

Anderson Fair
Houston, TX

Friday, October 21

The Bugle Boy
La Grange , TX

Congratulations to my friend Lynn Kehoe who joined another friend, Ed Schwartz at ORG Real Property as a consultant and a member of the investment committee.

on the road….

aug 11-aug. 14:  northern california
aug. 15-19:  new york

aug. 22-sept. 9:  northern california
sept. 12-16:  new york
sept. 20-21: amsterdam to moderate a panel at the PERE Global Forum

oct. 4-6:  las vegas to be a panelist at CBRE’s Americas Summit on “The Commercial Real Estate Industry of the Future: A 5-10 Year Outlook.”  (Oh no, that crystal ball thing again!) Thanks to asieh mansour, CBRE’s head of research Americas for inviting me to join ray torto of CBRE and geof dohrmann of IREI in this discussion. 

oct. 17-19:  chicago to attend the PREA fall meeting

nov. 2-5: washington, dc to attend the CRE Annual convention 

nov. 9-10: new york to moderate a panel at the PERE forum

These are my views and not that of my employer.

ceo's and bono, industry events, networking

in a harvard business school case, “bono and U2”, professor nancy koehn discusses business lessons to be earned from the famous band.

key concepts include:

• ·     take stock of how you are using your funds, your authority and your people.
• ·     a leader’s mission and purpose isn’t static; it evolves.
• ·     the mission of the ceo should be related to the organizations performance.
• ·     who you are and what you stand for as an organization have great relevance to the people who buy your product (or service)

“in the bigger picture, U2’s journey reflects our own moment here in the early 21^st century.  U2’s appeal has always been about our common humanity and the yearning we all experience to follow a higher path. people are looking for the light and U2’s music has spoken to that since the band started.”

“any ceo who thinks his or her job is primarily about maximizing shareholder value is living in the past.  the game of what kind of capitalism will define this century has changed very quickly and dramatically.  creative capitalism, conscious capitalism, stakeholder capitalism, call it what you will.  the larger social footprint and role of business are here to stay.”

it’s a very interesting piece which i’ll be happy to send you.  and, while it’s written towards ceo’s of companies, when you think about it, we are all our own ceo’s of ourselves and the way we choose to live our lives matters to us, if to nobody else.  we have those choices to make.  i have made it my mission to try to bring the world closer together, one person at a time.  one of the wonderful byproducts of all the travel I’ve done is getting to meet people and understanding them better and hopefully leaving them with a little better understanding of americans.  we're talking about people here, not countries, not religions as we are all the same....human beings.  from the time very early one morning that I talked with a paris policeman who was guarding the palace of the president of france right after we invaded iraq and americans were ‘personna non gratt’ in france and we agreed that we did not hate each other, we just hated what america had done to meeting people in liberia and bringing back the challenges that they face, these experiences have been really meaningful to me.

like many of you, i’ve been planning what industry events to attend this fall and winter.  and as you can see by my schedule below, i’ve made some decisions already.  but it got me thinking:  what are my expectations from attending a conference?  are they met?  exceeded?  what is it that you’re not getting that you’d like to?  after all, attending almost any conference (and some in particular) is expensive and time consuming and when you combine those you’d like to leave a conference feeling that not only was it worth spending your time and money but that you would recommend it to a friend. 

if you have some time, i’d really appreciate you sending me your thoughts, perhaps wish list,  when you say, “ I wish there was an event which provided this (whatever this is to you).”  thanks.

thanks to drew genova of cbre in washington, dc who sent me an article called “secrets to better networking.”  the suggestions come from a book called “never make the first offer” by donald dell, founder of the proserv sports agency.

1.  make friends.  create opportunities to get to know people out of the office, out of the normal parameters of the business relationship and outside mutual comfort zones.

2.  make friends of their friends.

·    3.  find mentors.

·    4.  give advice (carefully)

·    5.  don’t keep score.

·    6.  massage your network. send personal notes.

·    7.  show no fear.

·    8.  do good works. charitable endeavors

i’ve built a wonderful network of people which is now global.  this column is read (or at least received J by people all over the world.  i consider it both a privilege and a responsibility and have always treated the people i know with respect and consideration.  my connectivity has never been calculated.  i just love people and love helping people.  i realized, not all that long ago, when I was trying to identify what made a good day for me, it was when i was able to help someone, not necessarily in a big way.  it feels good.  i endorse some of the points that dell makes above but a couple of things i’d add is ‘be yourself’, ‘be natural’, 'don't take people for granted' and 'don't abuse your network.'   

YouTube find of the week

On the road….

aug 5-aug. 14:  northern california
aug. 15-19:  new york
aug. 29-sept. 9:  vacation
sept. 12-16:  new york
sept. 20-21: amsterdam to moderate a panel at the PERE Global Forum

oct. 4-6:  las vegas to be a panelist at CBRE’s Americas Summit on “The Commercial Real Estate Industry of the Future: A 5-10 Year Outlook.”  (Oh no, that crystal ball thing again!) Thanks to asieh mansour, CBRE’s head of research Americas for inviting me to join ray torto of CBRE and geof dohrmann of IREI in this discussion. 

oct. 17-19:  chicago to attend the PREA fall meeting

nov. 2-5: washington, dc to attend the CRE Annual convention 

nov. 9-10: new york to moderate a panel at the PERE forum

these are my views and not that of my employer.

RCA mid-year reports; “above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.”

one of you guys wrote me last week asking why i hadn’t mentioned RCA’s Mid-Year Reviews.  i think it was because i can’t believe we are this far into 2011 already.  but now that i’ve overcome that, here are some take-aways from the RCA reports:

Sales Surge at Mid-Year:  Extend and Pretend Kicked Down the Road
Investment volume surged to $55.6b in Q2, a 117% increase from a year earlier
and totaling just shy of the year-end spike in transactions recorded in Q4’10. The acceleration in sales cut across all property types but was led by retail property sales of $15.2b. Prices were generally stable or improved over the quarter, but the dichotomy in pricing between the favored major markets and all others persisted, with some closing of the gap noted in the apartment and retail sectors.
New offerings also surged in Q2 and totaled $76.2b as improving prices have encouraged many more investors to list properties for sale. The volume of offerings in Q2 jumped 79% from a year earlier, the highest yoy gain since 2005, a point marking the end of the previous post recessionary period and the beginning of the pre-crisis property boom. Most property types should readily absorb this new supply of offerings, except the industrial sector, where offerings exceed closings by more than 2:1.

before sharing more of RCA’s mid-year commentary i have one comment to make:

the FDIC is doing a disservice to the industry, the American economy and the American people by allowing banks to extend loan maturities.  they are trying to do something different than the RTC did and for which the RTC came under significant criticism.  but, if the hope, and i can’t see it as anything more than hope, is that they’ll continue to allow this until the real estate market ‘picks up’, well, i’d like to know when in their crystal ball they see that coming.  oh, wait a minute, i seem to recall reading somewhere :  it’s going to be march 24^th 2012.  sorry, but these assets should be cleared now.  will banks take losses?  sure.  but the positive contribution that this will make to the industry will be a good thing.  i know from talking with people on this that there is a lot of dissenting opinion and i fall back on ‘who knows?’ just a thought…now on with the RCA stuff:

1. Hotels:  the hotel market continues to move smartly forward, with sales in Q2 of $4.7b providing the fifth consecutive quarter where volume increased by more than 150% year-over-year (yoy).
2. Industrial:  with $6.6b of significant sales in Q2, the industrial property market had its second most active quarter since Q4’10, and enjoyed a 64% gain year-over-year (yoy) from the same quarter last year.  the growth was fairly even across both sub-types, with flex boosted by the big-ticket sale of huge showrooms in Las Vegas and North Carolina.
3. Retail:  the second quarter marked a breakout point for retail properties, with $15.2b in sales volume bending the growth curve skyward to 337% year-over-year (yoy), the highest of any property type. More strip centers changed hand in Q2 than in all of 2010 in the wake of the Blackstone/Centro deal. even excluding that benchmark transaction, yoy gain in Q2 was a respectable 75%, an acceleration from Q1. volume in the mall & other subtype rose 66% in Q2 from the year-earlier quarter. cap rates overall were relatively unchanged in Q2 and are at slightly lower levels than at the beginning of the year.
4. Apartments:  with nearly $14.0b in volume, the sales trajectory for apartments was phenomenal, turning in the most active quarter since Q4’10. transaction volume surged 132% on a year-over-year (yoy) basis, a strong acceleration over Q1’s 72% increase. pricing has been stable, with average cap rates steady in Q2 and down only slightly from the beginning of 2011, while average pricing has remained near $100,000 per unit.
5. Office:  with sales of significant properties reaching $14.0b in Q2’11, the office sector enjoyed its second best quarter since the financial crisis. Q2 office volume was up 50% year-over-year (yoy), a slower increase than the overall market, yet the sector was the first to witness a spike in activity beginning this time last year. sales of CBD properties, at $7.8b in Q2, were up 66% yoy buoyed by DC and Manhattan, which accounted for more than half of total volume. cap rates fell slightly nationwide but are only marginally below levels recorded at the beginning of the year. 

i was interviewed this week for the 2012 edition of a well-known industry report.  i knew that i had left my own crystal ball somewhere in my house (or maybe the FDIC had borrowed it) but try as i might i couldn’t find it so i had to wing it.  actually, the questions i was asked got me thinking about what i’ve seen, what i’ve heard and what i believe....about the overall economy, about capital markets, about property types, about debt, about whether the situation with the banks (i refuse to write E&P) will end up being good or not, etc.  this was no ‘puffy’ interview.  and i too will have to wait to see what some of my industry colleagues had to say and what they were thinking in the middle of the summer of 2011 about our vision for 2012.  fortunately, the interviews are confidential and there are no attributable quotes....that’s a relief!

have you ever wondered why someone comes into your life at a certain time?  or why you hear a song that means so much to you just at the time you needed to hear it.  or when something arrives in your mailbox and it says things that you’ve been thinking or that you read at another time in your life but the day it appears is the day that you needed reinforcement?  well, that happened to me this week when an email called “Zen Habits” arrived.
a guy named scott dinsmore of Liveyourlegend.com wrote this special guest post on Zen Habits. maybe some of it has meaning for you too.  

1. surround yourself with passionate people.
2. create space. If you don’t give big ideas room, they’ll never show up.
3. help someone in a way only you can.
4. keep a journal of what inspires and excites you.
5. challenge the norm.
6. scare yourself – live outside your comfort zone.
7. find the right reasons. you can’t control what happens but you can control your reaction to it. what challenges have come up today? How could you reframe them? the juiciest possibilities often have the best disguises. notice them.
8. learn something new.
9. the point is to constantly fuel something that interests you.

“above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.” Hardy D. Jackson

enjoy your weekend.

On the road....
july 29-aug. 14:  northern california
aug. 15-19:  new york
aug. 29-sept. 9:  vacation
sept. 12-16:  new york
sept. 20-21: amsterdam to moderate a panel at the PERE Global Forum

oct. 4-6:  las vegas to moderate a panel at CBRE’s Americas Summit on “The Commercial Real Estate Industry of the Future: A 5-10 Year Outlook.”  (Oh no, that crystal ball thing again!) Thanks to asieh mansour, CBRE’s head of research Americas for inviting me to join ray torto of CBRE and geof dohrmann of IREI in this discussion. 

oct. 17-19:  chicago to attend the PREA fall meeting

nov. 2-5: washington, dc to attend the CRE Annual convention 

nov. 9-10: new york to moderate a panel at the PERE forum

“Life is all about trying-trying new things, not being afraid to try...."

Photo: "Building castles in the sand."  

These are my views and not that of my employer. 

food for thought and building your own digital cookbook....

it’s a sweltering summer throughout most of the country (it'll be 101 in new york today!) but business goes on.  years ago, many saw the summer as slow-down time, people are on vacations, leaving early (at least on fridays) and so it became sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  but i firmly believe that business is almost as intense during the summer as it is during the rest of the year.  yes, people take vacations when you’d really like them to be waiting for your call or answering your email.  but that doesn’t mean that things come to a standstill....it’s that things require more patience, which, is truly a virtue.

a very interesting report was published this week by egon zehnder international and mckinsey & company.  the title:  return on leadership.  a few morsels:

• nothing matters more than customer impact
• understanding the evolving needs of customers in detail
• customer orientation is a key leadership competency necessary for improvement (along with people development and change leadership)
• there is no standard skill for success but...
• the organic revenue growth a company achieves by capitalizing on market growth of existing segments requires
• outstanding, consistent execution across the organization and, often, across the globe which is driven by...

• a strong cadre of senior managers (e.g. not the top team) who excel at business and people leadership
• the senior management of companies with top-quartile portfolio momentum growth excelled in three key leadership competencies...
• developing organizational capability
• a systematic focus on developing critical skills throughout the organization
• team leadership
• the ability to focus, align and build high-performing teams
• change leadership
• the ability to drive large-scale, coordinated change across the entire organization
• to summarize:
• competencies for successful growth strategies require:
• customer impact:  continually takes action to add value to the customer
• market insight:  looks beyond current context
• results orientation:  drives uncompromisingly for higher performance
• change leadership:  advocates change
• team leadership:  actively involves team
• collaboration and influencing:  motivates others to work with self
• strategic orientation:  defines strategy for own area

perfect for a busy friday travel day:  top 10 pet peeves of usa today's frequent business travelers (i’ve added some of my own comments in bold type).  btw, don’t most of these relate to simple common courtesy and common sense?

1.      loud cell phone conversations. (i put earplugs in as soon as i board to try to control my own environment as much as possible).

2.      people who disobey the rules and try to carry on too many bags or carry too much liquid through security.

3.      people who play music so loudly, even with earplugs or headphones, that others can hear it.

4.      disrespect that passengers show to flight attendants and gate personnel.

5.      parents who don't try to control their children. (rampant problem.  neither flight attendants, nor teachers for that matter, are responsible for either teaching their children manners or disciplining them.  that’s a parental job).

6.      people who think the "turn-off-all-electronics" message is not for them.  (these people did things behind the teachers’ back as well).

7.      passengers who carry on and eat messy or smelly food. (smelly is the problem).

8.      people who board with multiple or oversize bags and fill the bins in the front of the cabin when they're seated in the rear. (just plain rude but i know many flight attendants watch for this).

9.      reclining a seat in a tight coach cabin. (these people are just plain scum.)

10.      Leaving a window shade open when everyone else has closed theirs and is trying to sleep.

build your own a la carte digital cookbook! on tuesday, cookstr launched its first collection of ibooks recipes on apple's ibookstore, presenting renowned chef and cookbook author rozanne gold's 1-2-3 collection.  fifteen years ago, gold started a revolution around the idea of simplicity in cooking. today, her exciting three-ingredient recipes, available for the first time digitally, are breaking new ground in a format designed for in-kitchen use. each recipe is 140 words or less.  there are 250 recipes ($9.99), which can also be purchased separately by theme ($3.99 for 50 recipes) or chapter ($0.99 for 10 recipes). this is extremely cool and, in the spirit of full transparency, I know rozanne and her husband, the highly sought after international restaurant consultant, michael whiteman.  but this is just one great use of technology and could even get me to start cooking!

and, just a little more food for thought for the weekend.  a friend suggested I read the book “how life imitates chess.”  i went through the book last saturday and pulled some stuff out that i’d like to share with you:

• you need to be able to identify your mistakes and analyze why you made them.
• “the man who knows how will always have a job.  the man who also knows why will always be his boss.’  ralph waldo emerson
• having a vision is not enough; if you fail to envision the potential of your creation, it will be left for others to exploit.  what you need is a vision and the ability to develop a strategy to achieve it.
• don’t spend so much time worrying about the other guy that you lose sight of your own goals and your own performance.
• how much more affective would you become if, at the end of each day, you asked yourself what lessons you had taken away for tomorrow?
• “if a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed.” thomas wolfe
• dedicate yourself to making the time, finding a space in which you can think and learn and finding new ideas with which to shock your adversaries. (note:  i was out to lunch this week with a good friend at a chinese restaurant in new york that has really smartly priced lunch specials in a very nice setting.  the fortune in his cookie was, “always do right-this will gratify some and astonish the rest.”  pretty heavy for lunch i’d say).
• “what you can do or think you can do, begin it.  for boldness has magic, power and genius in it.” goethe (i first saw this quote when i was a consultant to herb kohler at kohler company.  i think it’s one of the most powerful things i’ve ever read.  the challenge is to do it!).

on the road....

july 25-aug. 14:  northern california
aug. 15-19:  new york
aug. 29-sept. 9:  vacation
sept. 12-16:  new york
sept. 20-21: amsterdam to moderate a panel at the PERE Global Forum
nov. 2-5: washington, dc to attend the CRE Annual convention
nov. 9-10: new york to moderate a panel at the PERE forum





these are my views and not that of my employer.