Lost a friend this week

Gerald Frisch died the other day. Jerry was the inventor of The Three Way Validation process.

Simply put, Jerry's process was developed long before technology would exist to accomplish what his system identified.

Jerry was committed to concepts like:

• No proposals. Only Action Plans.

• Helping CEOs discover if their intentions were really communicated and acted upon by managers, workers and associated communication strategies.

Jerry was in his early ninety's when he provoked me to attend several meetings with NYC hospital executives. He would leave these meetings with a clear notion of who was the real activist and who was the complacent buyer who would not act on anything valuable.

He started his career in the Armed Forces, went on to U.S. News and World Report and then formed his own company.

I learned a great deal from him. I will miss his difficult self and the challenges he gave me to keep up with his thinking.

Sal

A Great Deal is Being Missed in My Neighborhood

Today, several imperatives exist to create ethical, meaningful and profitable business

• Transparency of intentions and expectations. People need to understand what you are about and what’s in it for them, in order to engage during a stressful time.

• Statements like “added value” can be interpreted as bromides unless there is some visible example of what you are talking about

• In today’s networked environment, connecting to underlying issues and related community needs will support decisions to stimulate the buying of services. This must be understood as foundational and not theoretical.

Small businesses with BIG problems and Big businesses with many SMALL problems that will become enormous. Information, communication and transformation, using any media that creates a Network of useful change

In February, during The Ideas to Help NYC's Economy event sponsored by Crains, it was stated that re-vitalizing the economy of New York City is “dependent upon the development of small businesses…small business cannot make the mistakes of big business”. It’s true, we must support the small business community and we cannot afford the “big” mistakes.

There is however, a current and curious imbalance

Too many small businesses are closing, due to sudden and unusually high rent increases in areas like Greenwich Village. And, even before that terrible surprise occurs, these owners may not have had the finances or ability to have developed fundamental business plans.

In larger organizations, silos act like neighborhoods or fiefdoms, avoiding collaboration and resulting in lost ROI. A walk along Hudson Street in NYC, is an alarming example of businesses that are gone forever with a significant number of these properties abandoned for several years.

Interestingly, we now have a small army of experienced advisers who have no work. Included are business transformation, IT, financial services and web development experts. Small businesses represent neighborhoods in need. We are not connecting these work seeking experts with those neighborhood needs and the relationship to the larger economy.

Neighborhood degeneration is costly in every way

Financial, cultural and security issues are all at question. What’s missing and what I believe in offering, is a proven methodology based on rapid discovery with the ability to align intentions, strategy and results.

It’s not traditional or costly consulting. This approach helps to contemporize and accelerate the work of everyone who is involved. I am interested in getting business for myself and with my colleagues, by helping others find meaningful work, using a networked approach to help one another.

It's important today, to collect real data to dissect significant problems and provide actual communication steps that can be used immediately, to create measurable improvement.

Small businesses create conversations that define our commerce and culture

Today, I had several conversations with store owners who live for their family business. The conversations were deeply moving and totally relevant to the vitality of NYC's economy and life.

Sal