One of my advisory board members, Don McClung, founder of Digital River Media, made some workspace and technology suggestions recently that I have taken to heart.
It is time to create a dedicated home office for my writing and client input calls. Even meetings.
In my mind, it boils down to setting the tone. Establishing and building my personal brand as an entrepreneur. Refining where I do my own refining.
Where I write and what clients see while collaborating with me on content and communication programs intended to inform and influence their targeted audiences is overdue for an upgrade. Caring about that backdrop for video conferences is a sign of respect and at least a minor factor in the never-ending process of building relationships based on solid strategy, intended results, and earned trust.
Success Factor: Pre-work
I have often compared the essential preparation of painting to the equally crucial process of research for virtually any kind of writing. I have the patience and drive for both.
After several days of furniture relocation, storage sorting, trash decision-making, and drywall repair, I am priming the walls of the future home of FEND Communication.
It is not a stretch to say that my new space has been home to writing and creativity before my arrival.
The previous tenant, one of my twin sons, took most of his music gear to college a couple years ago (ecological engineering at The Ohio State University). Henry's band, A-Go-Go, has been invited to play on the Caamp stage at Wonderbus in Columbus later this month. The screeching that I remember barreling up our basement stairs a few years ago has become music to my ears.
The Music Continues
Finally, I will have a proper home (wall) for my long-framed, Shirley Horn-signed, Tri-C JazzFest poster from over a quarter century ago.
I wish I had a poster-sized photo of Shirley after that 1996 performance, making her way out of her dressing room to the meet-and-greet with just a few lucky fans. It would make a great complementary piece to my cherished poster. She was a good 15-20 yards away, backlit down a long and narrow, almost never-ending hallway. All I could see was a figure moving into view and toward me with one of those longer-than-standard cigarettes dangling from the corner of her mouth.
Unlike Henry's early music, Shirley's smoke had an elegance to its movement. It enveloped her and floated upward and outward in every direction. Like a perfectly tuned smoke machine. I can still remember spreading out the tightly rolled poster on the table between us, handing her my black marker, and complimenting her as she signed it with an added happy face. That was a Shirley thing.
She did it all with an elderly grace and honest caring in her eyes. Like she knew how big a deal it was to me. It had to be the last thing she wanted to do after giving everything she had on stage.
Shirley will surely be playing on my vintage stereo set-up (Sansui, Pioneer, EPI), while I am writing, once the FEND Communication office walls are ready for the both of us.
It is a matter of days.
Comments