Levi Baer

Consultant, entrepreneur, community connector, and social scholar. This is a blog of my works in progress.

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http://birthdaybaer.tumblr.com/

Each year at my birthday party I ask all the guests to pose for a series of portraits. Then I take all those portraits and put them together, grouped by the similar faces everyone makes.  Every year we always do a “smiling” and “plain” then select two new ones.

We went big for my 30th birthday on Halloween weekend 2014. 

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In the meantime, I'm staying busy with.... My consulting company: Bold Bee Consulting. We builds strong teams comprised of happy, productive, and loyal employees. We're using games and interactive experiences to change the way businesses do professional development. We're also blogging regularly, talking about topics that affect your daily work life.  Coffee and Conversation: An amazing community of entrepreneurs and collaborators, meeting bi-weekly in Logan Square. 

Building apps! I'm diving into the app development game, trying to bring some games and training tools to life. I'm always looking for developers, designers, and other people to collaboration. 

Productivity / Career Coaching - Having been approached about this recently, I'm building programs and sessions I can offer. 

Speaking engagements! Really excited to be presenting at the February Idea Potluck from Mac & Cheese Productions and talking on Entrepreneurship at a DePaul class in January. Always looking for more!

Stay in touch, yo!

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Feeling confined and restricted at work isn’t just a problem for millennials who typically seek greater flexibility than other sectors of the workforce. Everyone can be adversely affected by an abundance of unnecessary rules and over the top hierarchy. Some structure is good, of course; properly defined and communicated organizational guidelines can give all levels of staff the framework for appropriate behavior. What about when the rules feel a little too constricting? There are moments when people feel like policies and procedures not only hamper individuality and expression, but ultimately stunt creativity, happiness, and productivity. If a person spends a significant portion of the day mumbling under their breath due to frustration towards a rule regarding food storage in the break room fridge, they’re probably not getting as much work done as they could. It’s even possible some of that lost work time is spent browsing job postings while dreaming of an office with no fridge restrictions. Usually though, it takes too much effort to chase after grass-is-greener job opportunities and people tend to stick around while finding ways to push back against confining rules and cultural norms. When this sort of resistance is done with enough subtlety to not incur any major backlash it is called being a tempered radical. Being a tempered radical means rocking the boat enough to make waves, but not enough to tip the boat over. In the workplace, it gives employees a way to express their individuality, and to some degree, a means of protest. For example, if an office had a policy banning traditional ethnic clothing, an employee may act as a tempered radical by wearing just a scarf or headband that technically breaks the rule, but doesn’t draw enough attention to warrant punishment. When carried out appropriately, acting as a tempered radical has its benefits: * It allows employees to feel like they are autonomous and have free will in the workplace, which leads to satisfaction and retention. * It usually doesn’t cause enough disruption to negatively affect the productivity of the workplace. If the action isn’t seen as an issue, there is no time wasted on meetings, discipline, and new policies. * It can create community among staff who share in an action or issue. * Most importantly, it can lead to long term changes in the workplace. As organizations become increasingly used to a number of small deviances from the norm, policies and cultural practices will likely be adjusted to accommodate the behavior. Big changes can occur over time from small steps! Rather than create some made up examples for this post, I polled my social network for ways they have been tempered radicals in a work environment. I received a slew of responses from millennials, baby-boomers, and those in between. You will see that sometimes a tempered radical will act for their own personal health and well-being, while other times it actually creates positive and productive change in the workplace. Wearing a unique ear piercing at a large and traditional company. Breaking a culture of silent acceptance by posing questions to management about organizational decisions that affect staff. Altering the company dress code by advocating against business casual. Changing the culture of meetings by being early, standing, checking email at appropriate times, requesting agendas, and advocating for fewer meetings comprised of only the necessary attendees. Pushing the boundaries of meeting procedures by eating during meetings and breaking hierarchy by sitting at the table with senior staff. Addressing physicians by their first name. Promoting calm environments by hosting tea parties. Countering traditional business appearance through casual clothes, an alternative hairstyle, and tattoos. Wearing a unique hair color to a professional conference. Keeping a nontraditional hairstyle among a group of more traditional employees. Addressing board members by first name. Jump starting an ongoing staff potluck event in an office typically lacking in socialization. Promoting work/life balance by requesting and receiving sabbaticals and remote work arrangements. Wearing bright colors in a space where grey, blue, and black are the norm. We’d love to hear how have you been a tempered radical in your workplace. Leave a comment or send us a message with your story!  

My most recent Bold Bee Blog post is about finding ways to stay true to your ideals at work, even if they don't exactly mesh with the company rules. 

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This week on the Bold Bee blog, Jami wrote a GREAT post on how small businesses can take on positive characteristics of larger orgs.

http://www.boldbeeconsulting.com/blog/2014/10/28/the-agility-of-david-with-the-strength-of-goliath

Mr. Gladwell reminds us that smaller organizations have a lot of benefits that larger organizations simply cannot have.  Small organizations have agility and flexibility that larger organizations cannot.  They also provide employees learning opportunities and potential networking opportunities that larger organizations cannot offer.

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Last week my blog post on our Bold Bee Consulting website was about the Abilene Paradox, which describes a situation in which a group of people go forward with something that no one in the group favors.  I describe why and talk about some fairly simple ways to avoid it at www.boldbeeconsulting.com/blog.

We can see the Abilene Paradox at work in the workplace as well. For example a board of executives grasping for new revenue generators can decide to invest in a new project in which no one feels confident. Additionally, an office might throw a holiday party because it's viewed as something they're supposed to do even though no one there actually wants the party. On a smaller scale, we have probably all been in meetings that end with action items that don't seemed to be tied to any real objectives. And of course meetings just for the sake of meetings are a common culprit and time waster.  

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Partners: ishi vest, Glass House Shirtmakers, and Gardeeneers, all my friends and all a part of our entrepreneur group Coffee and Conversation, were at the Chicago Green Festival this last weekend.  ishi and Glass House shared a booth, slinging their wares and together gave a talk on taking the eco out of ecofashion.  

The Gardeneers also gave a talk and then went on to WIN A $5,000 grant, winning a vote by attendees of the festival.  Amazing!

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The Fall Game Day for Game Night Chicago and Cat & Mouse Game Store was awesome! We played a bunch of cool games in their new West Loop store location in Chicago.  

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On Saturday October 4, DePaul University's Coleman Entrepreneurship Center hosted an event called Small Business Startup. This workshop brought together entrepreneur experts and newcomers to share stories and advice. The keynote address was given by Leo Friedman, who has started multiple companies. He gave a great talk that focused on getting out there and doing it. After Leo's address, participants were able to choose three of six possible breakout sessions with leaders from varying industries. Below are my notes from the keynote and the three breakout sessions the two of us from Bold Bee Consulting attended. Keynote: Leo Friedman - iPromo "There's nothing romantic about being an entrepreneur". It's about homing in on what you do well and selling that, rather than selling everything. Repeitition - screw up, adjust, do it again. "Can't learn to be an entrepreneur before doing it." Get started and go learn as you go. Merge your in and out of office self; be authentic. Why would you want to be someone else while you're at work? Sales: Take away the customer's/client's ability to say no. The client needs to be more thankful that you exist than the other way around. Ask yourself why are they thankful you exist. You will get copied, expect it. Do it better than your imitators. Alex Campbell - Marketing Marketing is 80% listening -Your clients have all the answers -Find their pain points and connec them to your solutions Ask questions and understand what they want "Why do you buy our product?" Passion is marketing -Clients look at the person doing the pitch Ask three questions at client meetings: 1. How are we doing? (on a 1-10 scale) 2. What's going on in your world? 3. What are you hearing from our competitors? Give your client/contact person the tools and materials to get them promoted. Make them look good. Dr. Anne Beall - Beall Research Others will want to partner with you if you're doing something good. Don't partner with people that will slow you down and/or drag you down. The market will tell you what they want. LISTEN to it. No one will ever care as much as you do about your company. Having a real business address and physical office can make a big difference for establishing legitimacy. Make the jump to working out of your garage/basement/home office when you have enough savings to pay for a year of rent at the new space. Have the confidence in your expertise to tell potential clients the problem isn't what they initially think it is. Books: Strategic Market Research. Research the Hidden Communications Around You When hiring more people to your business: Bringing in talented people is good, but creates more hands-on management time and responsibility. Fit to your group can be just as important as skills (which many people have), if not more important. Create an organizational culture that is a relationship, not just a transaction (service for salary). It can still be a business relationship, but build trust and commitment as a work "family". Ashley Groves - Social Media Three components to social media work 1) Testing 2) Measuring 3) Learning Testing Do people want your product? Find individuals to test with through social media; LinkedIn, send out surveys made via Google Forms or Survey Monkey. Target in on your niche w/specified advertising, such as facebook ads. Dribble: A site for people to comment on the design/UX of websites and give real feedback. Also usertesting.com Give early adopters VIP access. Don't put all the buttons for sharing, that's too cluttered/sloppy. Instead narrow it down to the most effective platforms for your product/service. Piggybacking: finding potential costumers on other sites and stealing them away.

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New website www.birthdaybaer.tumblr.com collects many years worth of portraits taken at my birthday parties.   Everyone makes the same four poses every year and similar poses get put into one giant grid. 

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More all day board gaming coming at you courtesy of our community Game Night Chicago and our favorite Cat & Mouse Game Store.  We're happy to help celebrate the opening of Cat & Mouse's new location in the West Loop, 1112 W. Madison St. Game Night Chicago will be there in force to play some old faves, try new games, and win some prizes. 

I love organizing gaming events and very happy to be working again with Linda at her crew, they've been nothing but great!

https://www.facebook.com/events/401015613383331/

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Insight for sale now on www.boldbeeconsulting.com/products!

I made a game that our consulting company, Bold Bee Consulting uses in much of our work.  It plays best with groups of 3-8 and takes less than an hour.  It allows teams to identify the interests and strengths of its members and build strategies that make the most of those interests.  Simultaneously, it can also be used to identify skill gaps within a team, which can be useful for on-boarding or role adjustment. 

You can buy the deck of cards to use yourself, or have us come in and facilitate a session.

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Partners:

Thursday night "indiepreneur" talk.  Two amazing folks who I admire for their work ethic and zest for life are giving a talk on "entrepreneurship, start-up culture, & the rise of the Indiepreneur."

Speakers: Harishi Patel of Ishi Vests and Janice Bond. 

Thursday October 16, 7pm. Gallery Oni 2150 S Canalport Ave, 4C-7

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Partners: THREE openings/parties Friday Oct 17 for companies I know and support.  

I Paint My Mind, which promotes arts culture and is run by my friend Evan, is celebrating one year in their space in the Green Exchange with a new opening called This is the Place.  https://www.facebook.com/events/1464281710510390

Nomadic Bloom studio, a studio-boutique is holding an opening party at Zhou B Art Center. Includes the new clothing line by Free HealthCARE, my friend Brook's yoga/movement clothing company.  https://www.facebook.com/events/781275761936285/

Labrabbit Optics, run by my friend Coyote who can't stop won't stop winning best Eye Glass Store in Chicago EVERY year, is having it's 4th anniversary party. https://www.facebook.com/events/534823949985969/

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We had a great #CoffeeandConversation on Saturday October 4.  

Had some really interesting discussions about sexism and gender roles in media and print, due to this terrible article I can't believe was published by Men's Fitness: http://www.mensfitness.com/women/sex-tips/5-ways-to-get-her-naked-faster

The next C&C is this weekend, Saturday Oct 18 at Letizia's in Logan Square.  https://www.facebook.com/events/731946276900191/

Updates at www.facebook.com/dontgoogleit

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The next Coffee & Conversation is Saturday, Oct. 4 at Letizia's in Logan Square!

https://www.facebook.com/events/539304396171707/

Coffee & Conversation is a Chicago-based collective of entrepreneurial minded people, anywhere along the start-up spectrum, who share resources, ideas, feedback, and support.  "Don't Google it" has become a mantra for this group that values the potential discoveries that result from face to face communication, relationship building, and exchanges across disciplines.  C&C holds public gatherings every other week on Saturday mornings in Logan Square. Attendees are welcome to work, talk, and socialize as much as they see fitting! Let's see what we can do together!

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My lastest blog post for Bold Bee takes a look at transformational leadership.  It's been a while since I write my undergrad senior paper on the topic and it was fun to dive back into it!

http://www.boldbeeconsulting.com/blog/2014/9/29/transformational-leadership-making-great-leaders

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The next C&C is Saturday, September 20 at a NEW LOCATION!  Coffee & Conversation is a Chicago-based collective of entrepreneurial minded people, anywhere along the start-up spectrum, who share resources, ideas, feedback, and support.  "Don't Google it" has become a mantra for this group that values the potential discoveries that result from face to face communication, relationship building, and exchanges across disciplines.  C&C holds public gatherings every other week on Saturday mornings in Logan Square. Attendees are welcome to work, talk, and share as much as they see fit. Saturday, Sept 20, 2014 10:00am-Noonish (or later) NEW SPOT: Letizia's Fiore - 2456 N California Ave Let's see what we can do together! C&C Page: www.facebook.com/dontgoogleit