Why Albuquerque?
A good friend of mine asked me this question the other day. Some of my marketing team is in New Mexico. Some is outside of Chicago. Some of my operations team is in Arizona, Colorado and Florida (and out of these 10 people, I've only worked with 1 before).
There are two reasons for such a geographically diverse team. The main one forces me outside of my comfort zone and into the area of our market. You see, our company is focused on the SMB marketplace which defies easy demographics. But we did discover one truism: Our SMB market thinks locally and requires a local touch. And by having this spread out team it forces me to think about the local differences every day.
The second reason is these people are craftsmen (and women, to be PC) in their own right. If I insisted everyone reported to the same office, well, group think would set in. I get much more bang for the buck this way.
So today's question: Do you internally look and act like your market? Or are you comfortably settled into a your own walls be it in Silicon Valley, or Boston or New York or Chicago or Phoenix or _________?
Speaking as an Albuquerqueian (try typing that fast!), thanks for the post! We've got an ever-growing group of highly creative and smart people here in the quirky burque - one reason we keep showing up on all those Fortune, Forbes, etc. etc. Lists of top places to live and work.
We don't have the incredible density of activity of Silicon Valley - but we also don't have the insane traffic, the high cost of living and the gazillions of people, all striving and driving. As much as I love visiting San Fran and the Valley - I'm always happy to come home to the incredibly big sky, gorgeous mountains, wide-open vistas, funky Route 66...and easy driving.
Yours, The "CraftsWoman"
Posted by: Mary Schmidt | 03 July 2007 at 10:51 AM