TNB, The National Bank, had made huge strides in technology while also keeping their core products moving forward at a conservative pace. This strategy served them well, but they realized to create true innovation — from organizational culture to the tech stack — even the location of the offices needed to change to attract a different kind of talent. The bank, however, still needed to remain at arm’s length. Finlabs, a wholly-owned subsidiary, was created to focus solely on the creation of new financial products and services with the plan to have half of those spin out into separate legal entities, and the other half to go back into the bank and enrich its current offerings.
The assignment was to develop a template for design projects. The client was a design firm of 35 people, and would have small teams of 2 to 5 people work projects, but there was no consistent process moving from business lead to contract through completion. A template would allow there to be a unified checklist, making sure a few tasks were always completed, no matter what the project, and it could also be a working document that the teams used to move towards completion. The first step in one of my organizational projects, after all of the contracts are signed, is scoping the project. This project was not only a complex beast of information, procedure, and people, but it also existed in a larger context, the design firm itself and branched off into HR, Sales, and Management.
As my coworking space gets larger, the space has been left open more often than I’d like. Some people suggested an alarm system or keyless entry system, some others suggested two membership tiers, a cheaper level without a key to the space, and a more expensive level with a key to the space–this would reduce the number of people with keys, hopefully increasing security. Aside from doors being left unlocked, there has been a growing concern of too many unknown/unvetted people around. The sense of security might be somehow related to a ratio of known versus unknown people in a space.
I got a grant from a local non-profit that allowed me to open a co-working space for one month. This grant included enough for rent, and that was about it. After one month, I had 12 people signed up and ready to go. After that landlord raised the rent by 50 percent, and after waiting to find a new space, I had 6 members left (it took 4 months to find a new home). This step isn’t that necessary, if you have people, get a space, if you don’t have people, don’t get a space. I started with only 6 people. If you built it, more will come.
Voluto was better before commonplace bought it. they had 49th parallels which were just better beans, even if they didn’t do the best job with them. I theorize that commonplace is not that good because everyone smokes and can’t taste food anyway. As far as rankings, here it is:
BETHEL PARK, PENNSYLVANIA, eight miles south of Pittsburgh, is a middle class suburb with an aging population. UPMC South Hills, an outpatient facility that was built in the 1990s, had grown to include cardiology, endocrine surgery, gastroenterology, neurosurgery, obstetrics and gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, primary care and internal medicine, urology, diagnostic imaging, lab services, physical therapy, and a walk-in clinic. More broadly, UPMC’s network was also expanding, opening and acquiring dozens of clinics and hospitals in the region.