#frontierpress

[frontierdispatches]

My First 100 Days

Britt, one of our associate consultants, reflects on the importance of a strong onboarding experience at any size company.

I’ve worked at creative shops big and small, and the one thing that has been inconsistent from job to job is my onboarding process. It can be difficult to feel welcomed or confident as a new hire, especially one who's eager to impress a new team. I can say, honestly, that it felt a bit easier this time around as I joined The Frontier Project, which was a big relief. 

As I approach my own 100-day mark at a consultancy built upon making organizational change happen, I wanted to take a moment to reflect. In these 100 days, I have come to realize that the valuable training I’ve received and the specific resources that have been at my fingertips since before I started (as referenced below), could easily be integrated into the onboarding practices of any employer. Here’s how:

Day -15: A hand-written welcome note from our CEO, along with recommended reading, arrive in a beautifully wrapped package at my doorstep a mere two days after I formally accept the job offer. 

Day -5: An introductory email is sent to the entire Frontier team, updating them on my impending arrival and a warm pitch on why I'm the right fit for the job. LinkedIn invitations, welcome emails, and coffee dates ensue, making me feel like I’m a part of the team. (And I haven’t even started yet.)

Day 1: An employee onboarding breakfast (complete with rainbow bagels) takes place and 44 team members take an hour out of their busy schedule to get to know me. I receive my shiny new laptop from Jonathan, go on studio tour courtesy of Mila, sit down with Lauren so she can get to know me and write my bio, and settle in to listen to welcome podcasts from chairwoman, Ryann.

Night 1: I have difficulty falling asleep while wondering how this insanely intentional job fell into my lap.

Day 2: Now begins the nitty-gritty onboarding. I attend operations training with Lucy and Ned and unusually entertaining paperwork and benefits review with Kelsey. With an hour to spare, I start reading a Frontier favorite, The Power of Habit, before leaving the studio at 4 PM to join the team on a brewery bike tour for its monthly happy hour. (It was as hilarious as it sounds.)

Day 3: (Did you think this list would go all the way to Day 100? I’ll spare you.)

As the days went on, my training and onboarding became more intense and more time consuming. I was eager to get my hands dirty with client work but was told over and over again: “Be patient. Be observant. Keep learning right now.” I’m glad I listened. Between attending Frontier Academy workshops (open to all of our employees for professional development), internal skill-building sessions, and countless meetings with newfound mentors. I had a lot left to learn.

And because of that entire first month I had to scour our server, review process maps, meditate, and ask every question under the sun, I knew I was set up for success when I was hurled into my first client project. The confidence I felt was refreshing, and it was born in thanks to the time I was given to prepare, to the foundation created by our company to make sure new employees feel validated, heard, and invested in.

This small window of time where an organization can foster a relationship with their newest employee is crucial to increasing their loyalty to one another, and in turn, maintaining workforce retention and engagement. But for some reason, companies continue to forget just how important it is and employees continue to search for greener pastures.

Could the expense and effort that goes into an onboarding process as intensive as ours possibly be worth it to another company, no matter their size? Time and time again I would answer: absolutely yes.

Not only have I been groomed into a more self-sufficient, capable employee (in record time) – but a dedicated one as well. And The Frontier Project has been at the helm of helping new employees at other companies feel the same way. Take the custom onboarding app that our Press team is building, for example:

For a Fortune 100 company who prides themselves in their history but noticed a continual loss (and attraction) of millennial employees, our Press team took a storytelling-based approach through the creation of an interactive app, pictured above. This pocket navigator allows them to seamlessly embark on their journey, acclimate themselves, and explore all that their company has to offer them (their peers included) in a format that is convenient and enticing.

Feel like your company’s onboarding practice could use a refresh? If you’re ready to start a conversation, here’s what you need to know now:

> Your Guide // Britt, Associate Consultant > Contact // britt@thefrontierproject.com

[jasonashlock]

Evaporating eBooks

1000 James Patterson fans. Given 24 hours to read an advance digital copy of his new book. One day later,the books self-destruct, disappearing from Kindles and iPads forever.

The same technology that enables Patterson to pull off a gimmick enables some of our more innovative clients to drive engagement during pre-determined windows, and protect intellectual property from escaping their control.

For trade shows or seminars, pitch meetings or client tours, and even for employee training, evaporating ebooks offer companies an opportunity to deliver exclusive digital content to targeted audiences — and then take it back whenever they want. Now you see it; Now you don’t. Beats the pants off a password-protected PDF.

Sophisticated technology. Straight out of a spy novel and straight into your organization’s marketing toolkit. Want to try it? Let us know.

[engagelive]

We could listen to Jason Ashlock talk all day. As the founder of Frontier Press, the next-generation publishing unit of The Frontier Project, and a former NYC publisher, we're lucky to call Jason a colleague. 

In the early months of the global recession, when the publishing industry was anxious and contracting, Jason launched a literary firm from standing start. In a few years, it had become a known industry force. He packaged books for Hall of Fame athletes and Oscar-winning actors, for Pulitzer nominees and Grammy winners, for indie film stars and fledgling novelists. In the process, he honed his skills in narrative design and product development, and then pivoted to a new mission: break the book out of its ghetto. FrontierPress is how he’s chipping away at the wall.

Frequently speaking at industry conferences, Jason is an open book on stage. Frankly, the way he speaks is intoxicating. In this interview clip, find out what Jason is inspired by at the moment, what's on his playlist, and what he thinks YOU should be paying attention to in 2014.

[engagelive3]

Announcing, Frontier Press. A digital publishing engine that combines narrative intelligence with leading-edge technology to deliver innovative ideas in storytelling packages.

Applicable to every organization that has a story to tell, either internally or externally.

Contact the founding partner of Frontier Press, Jason Ashlock.

- BC

[frontierdispatches]

**This opening is now closed.**

Wildly creative. Obsessed with the little details. And (oh yeah) able to translate complex business ideas into intriguing, edgy, and visually representative materials.

If you just read a description of yourself, give us a shout. We’re looking for an amazingly talented graphic designer, and we want to meet you. Catch the full job description here, along with details on how to apply.  

[frontierdispatches]

Along with a few of our cutting-edge clients, Frontier Press is exploring a new frontier in niche publishing: internal corporate magazines. (Read the full story here.) In the coming year, they’ll produce two internal corporate magazines for two very different companies. 

Each magazine has a different intention, but the basics are the same: talk to employees, learn their stories, then share them far and wide.

[frontierdispatches]

Want Better Employee Engagement? Publish a Magazine.

Airline magazines used to be bad—really bad. You’d pick up a copy while sitting on the tarmac, leaf through a couple stories, lose interest immediately, and then shove the whole thing back inside the seat pocket in front of you.

But something is different now. Thumb through a copy of American Way, and you’ll fall into a number of well-written, captivating stories that are surprisingly good. (In a recent issue, for instance: an engrossing profile on Andy Hayler, who’s dined at every three-star Michelin restaurant, plus a nuanced travel piece on the Brazilian city of Manaus, with striking photography of the black-hued Rio Negro and tan-colored Solimoes River converging.)

And it’s not just airlines that are upping their game. Brands across the globe have taken on a new publishing role with gusto—and they’re doing it well. A flour company’s glossy spreads rival that of any other cooking magazine. An energy drink producer reinforces its thrill-seeking, boundary-busting brand with a newsstand-quality magazine. A double punch—the breakdown of traditional magazine channels and the rise of affordable desktop publishing tools—has opened the doors for brands to become publishers, targeting audiences in highly specific ways, positioning their experts as the experts on a given topic, and building immense brand loyalty along the way.

Jason, who heads up Frontier Press, has been at the forefront of this shift from traditional to brand publishing, and he’s gearing up for another major inflection point. Those same approaches that companies have co-opted to build massive crowds of highly engaged, loyal customers? 

They’re now trickling into companies, turning inward toward employees.

“The next evolutionary step in niche publishing is internal corporate magazines,” says Jason. “Your employee base is just as valuable as your customers. They’re your front line, the people making your product or service viable and available in the first place. Tapping into their loyalty and engagement is just as crucial as connecting with your customers.”

COMPETING FOR ATTENTION Until recently, internal corporation communications strategies have been (almost too literally) an inside joke, he says. There might be a clunky intranet that serves as more of an HR tool than anything else. Or a printed newsletter that’s crammed with photos from a recent golf fundraiser, bad fonts, and silly Clip Art.

If you’re not elevating your internal communications, you’re missing a huge opportunity, says Jason. “Many of the companies that Frontier works with have employees in the thousands. That’s an awful lot of people they could be connecting with in a meaningful way.”

Organizations do a lot of things well, he offers, but one of the worst things they do is force employees to subsume their identities to the organization.

“We assume that people become someone different when they step into the workplace, that they walk through a magic veil that automatically transforms them into an employee as they enter the corporate campus every morning,” Jason says. “Then at the end of the day, they pass through the veil once more, become human, go home, and have lives.”

This assumption leads us to believe people consume content—jokes, books, TV shows, internet videos—differently at work than they do at home, and that’s just not true. Their tastes don’t change.

“You can’t forget that you as an employer are also competing for the attention of our employees. If they’re drawn to People or US Weekly in their personal lives, why would they be drawn to your lackluster office publication on a Thursday afternoon?”

If we remember that the end users of our corporate magazines are real people, we’ll start building better platforms—ones that are playful, authentic, and alive.

WHERE THERE ARE PEOPLE, THERE ARE GREAT STORIES “I think the reason so many companies don’t seriously publish for themselves is because they don’t think they have interesting stories to tell. That’s a deep fallacy,” Jason says. “They assume because they work in, say, an industrial commodities business or an EPC company, their work isn’t sexy. They don’t think about their teams, whether it’s procurement or compliance, as interesting.”

But every company is made up of people, and people are drawn to stories about other people. So when you start telling the stories of your people, you’re showing employees that you see them and recognize they are important. That demonstrates something powerful: trust, respect, and, most importantly, care. When employees feel valued, they are more loyal to their company.

Besides fomenting employee loyalty, there’s another major perk to launching an internal company magazine: it sets the stage for more authentic engagement.

“I hear leaders wonder aloud why their entire employee base isn’t excited about their company’s new direction, initiative, or product,” Jason says. “But the truth is, your employees have no idea what initiatives are taking place unless you tell them. Most companies don’t.”

The native stories that companies would think are interesting, he says, tend to percolate near the top of the chain at the leadership or director level, usually in the worlds of research and development or innovation. But that’s maybe 10% of the entire company. The rest of the company is in the dark. By providing your employees with relevant information that will inform their work, says Jason, you’re welcoming your team into your vision and showing them the way forward, which naturally leads to an employee base that is more loyal to your company’s overall purpose.  

This is what publishing, especially internal publishing, can solve, and that’s what we do at Frontier Press. We borrow the best practices from the publishing world and put them to use inside organizations just like yours. We seek out interesting stories—of individuals and teams, passion projects and company-wide initiatives, projects and best practices—collate them in beautiful packages, then share them with your people.

The end product is a surprising, elegant, state-of-the art publication, but what we create isn’t revolutionary. Those best practices already exist. What we do is mobilize our team’s collective expertise around your company, and then transfer our know-how to your team.

“Our mission is to transform corporations into publishers,” Jason says. “At first, that does look like us becoming your guerilla publishing unit. But in the long term, we’ll help you develop the internal ability to do this on your own.”

In the coming year, the Press team will produce two internal corporate magazines for two very different companies. Each magazine has a different intention, but the basics are the same: talk to employees, learn their stories, then share them far and wide. See how we’re making it happen here.

***

If you’re ready to start a conversation about how an internal magazine can work for you, here’s what you need to know now:

> Your Guide // Jason, CEO of Frontier Press > Contact // jason@thefrontierproject.com

[frontierdispatches]

A Real-World Road Map for Organizational Change

We talk a lot about organizational transformation, but what does it look like in practice? And how can impact-hungry leaders like you navigate the rocky landscape of change and drive transformation?

When one of our clients, veteran human resources executive Chris Buhl, took the HR helm in North America for Kuehne + Nagel, a global freight forwarder with 69,000-plus employees in more than 100 countries, he walked in with one big question: How open was the company to the large-scale changes he hoped to lead? He'd mined Glass Door. He'd met with dozens of employees. He'd gotten to know the company and its long history. But still he wondered.

He soon discovered the company was fertile ground for new ideas that could lead to transformation, and three years later, that transformation is visible. But how exactly does that kind of change happen—and stick?

The answer, it turns out, is to start with a big, unexpected move—one we’re exploring in an in-depth case study that breaks down our partner-first process of bringing the most relevant tools and strategies to bear when clients need it most. It’s a case study in one company’s journey to organizational transformation. But it’s also a case study in how, as a portfolio, The Frontier Project makes it happen.

To make our client’s vision a reality, we pulled from across our team, starting with custom workshops and learning programs from Frontier Academy to train and engage. The rest supported what Frontier Academy started: keynotes from Frontier Live to inspire, videos and animation from Frontier Media to share the message of change far and wide, and specially-produced guidebooks from Frontier Press to support new behaviors learned.

And the transformation our client experienced? It speaks for itself. 

If you’re looking for similar transformation and change, start first by diving into the case study here. Then, reach out. We’d love to start a conversation around your organization’s potential.

> Your Guide // Ryan, Frontier Academy Facilitator  > Contact // rmauter@frontieracademy.com

[frontierdispatches]

Give Your Mind a Break, Courtesy of our Press Team

Our Frontier Press team is in the throes of producing a corporate magazine for one of our clients. The magazine, which gets shared internally, helps the company keep employees tuned into current events and trends shaping their market. As our team was putting together a roundup of inspiring news bites, books, and podcasts, they came across two websites worth bookmarking:

Letters of Note praises the written word by highlighting the art of correspondence. Everything from letters and postcards to telegrams and faxes are fair game on this archive, and perusing the collection is a creative way to give your mind space for reflection.

Pixel Thoughts, on the other hand, helps you meditate in one minute flat. All you have to do is type a nagging thought into the text box, then watch it float away and slowly disappear. (Efficient catharsis—who doesn’t love that?)

[frontierdispatches]

Our Picks for Fall Reads

Below, our team’s recommended reading, as seen in the fall edition of Dispatches. Want a copy? Let us know, and we’ll drop one in the mail.

If you want to think differently about yourself, your life, or your work, consider this premise: Don’t start with a book you think you should read. 

Pick up something unrelated to the problem, issue, or theory. Just as a building renovation can unearth a hidden pressed-tin ceiling that becomes a cornerstone of its future visual identity, a deep dive into unfamiliar territory can spark inspiration in surprising ways. Shift in worldviews—however modest—are unlikely to occur by the use of an expected approach.

So we did the same. Leaving our favorite reads on the shelf, we democratized this issue’s recommended reading and asked the wider Frontier Project team a question: Which books provoked, inspired, rattled, or stimulated lately? 

Herewith, a selection of their responses.

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble Every generation has its heroes: the soldier for the Greatest, the protester in the Sixties, the business executive in the Eighties. Now, it’s the entrepreneur, capturing our attention with tales of overnight Silicon Valley billionaires, grand "change-the-world" missions, and nap rooms in the office. But is startup life really so great? Author Dan Lyons says no. Laid off after 25 years as a writer with Newsweek, Lyons took a job at digital marketing company HubSpot, one of the many tech startups he had reported on. What ensued was one part comedy—late-night hookups in the company shower and a non-ironic push-up club—and one part tragedy, with abusive management and an epic separation from the company. It’s not all gossip, though. Lyons manages to embed a cautionary look at the broader dynamics of the start-up bubble, warning us against idealizing unprofitable companies that make code just long enough to get that IPO. A light, but important read.

—Matt, Lead Consultant with The Frontier Project

Sex Object: A Memoir As the founder of Feministing.com, author, and Guardian columnist, author Jessica Valenti has made a career out of crafting a powerful argument for modern feminism. Now she turns the spotlight on herself, giving a play-by-play of the unwelcome sexual gestures, catcalls, and advances she has received throughout her life. And there are a lot of them: flashers—and worse—on New York City buses, dirty-minded teachers, friends without boundaries. The writing is brash and shocking—but so is the subject matter. How is it that men get away with, and women put up with, so much? And while Valenti knows she is treading on dangerous grounds—“For a feminist, anger is forbidden. It gives your opposition too much ammunition”—she’s tired of playing the cool girl, of shielding herself with wit and bravado. Hoping for a different experience for her young daughter, she lays her life bare, acknowledging the pain, hate, guilt, embarrassment, and self-doubt associated with each instance of objectification, illuminating the cumulative impact that sexism can have over a lifetime. It’s not every woman’s story, but it is hers. And it’s worth knowing.

—Katherine, Senior Producer with Frontier Press

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War Grunt isn’t another book about the psychological toll of warfare or a treatise on leadership by some special forces colonel. It’s about science and innovation: the science of staying cool in Iraq, of protecting your eardrum from artillery blasts, of sleeping in a submarine, of staying calm as a medic under pressure. Author Mary Roach brings to light some of the most fascinating innovations currently in development, many of which have practical civilian applications: from surgical advances with far-reaching medical implications to earbuds that sense and block loud noise while allowing communication. She reverently examines the challenges that these devices and research seek to amend, and the men and women who face them, projecting an honest respect for the armed forces. A must read for any inquisitive mind, both for cool factor (who doesn’t love neat gadgets?) and for its fascinating glimpse at the innovation process involved.

—Nate, Facilitator with Frontier Academy

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and LifeThis one is from the archives. No other book quite captures the running (often incoherent) commentary trapped within a writer’s head as they sit down to practice their craft. Writing in an honest and open manner that feels like a chat over wine with an old friend, Author Anne Lamott vividly dissects a scribe’s experience, offering plenty of foolproof hacks to get over one’s fear of writing. Using humor and heartfelt empathy, she tackles a writer’s self-doubts to the ground, wrestles around with them to help us understand them, then coaches the writer to harness their fears to produce great work. It’s a quick read perfect for those pursuing the craft, yes, but also a helpful primer for business leaders looking to move away from corporate jargon and robotic, lifeless storytelling. 

—Lauren, Marketing and Communications Associate

[frontierdispatches]

Everything is Going to Change. It’s Just a Matter of Time.

Below, a letter from our chairwoman, Ryann, in the fall edition of Dispatches, imploring all of us to consider what would happen if we truly embraced change.

Every day, we navigate an ever-changing world. The seasons never cease to turn, whether natural, political, fashion, or otherwise. At The Frontier Project, we work with a lot of organizations that know they need to evolve to stay relevant in the marketplace, and people who want to grow to continue being successful in their organization.

But despite this reality, most of us are resistant to change. We get comfortable in our routines, and we build habits we feel we can’t undo. We like our lives just the way they are.

The problem is—and intellectually we understand this—everything is going to change. It’s just a matter of time.

Seems it would be much safer, and arguably more efficient, to view change as a positive instead of something we resist and fight until we can no longer deny it. And the best approach may be to actively seek change, to willingly reimagine what could be. To renovate.

The latest issue of Dispatches compiles incredible stories of things, places, and ideas that have been reinvented to bring out the immense beauty within. Without looking at them differently—without exploring them outside of their original context—this beauty would never have had a chance to shine through.

My challenge to you, reader, is to keep this question in the back of your mind as you reflect on these stories: What is the one thing in your life you cling to so tightly that you can’t let go?

Is it your house? Your job title? Your youth? Your health? Your relationship? Once you’ve arrived at that one thing, take out a journal or a piece of paper (or just scribble in the margins of this magazine) and ask yourself this: What would happen if that one thing were taken away from you?

Through this self-examination, I suspect you’ll realize that, yes, it would suck to lose that thing—but you would recover. You’ll also likely realize that as a result of this loss, opportunities for growth that otherwise wouldn’t be there would present themselves. And even if neither of those things ever happens, I can guarantee this exercise will have you appreciating that thing so much more than you did before.

Appreciation and gratitude are two hallmarks of resilient people—and resilient people fare much better in the face of change.

Want a copy of Dispatches to read more musings like this? Let us know (info@thefrontierproject.com), and we’ll drop one in the mail.

[frontierdispatches]

The Worthy Side Gig

Below, poet-by-pastime James Griffin makes a business case for investing time in one’s passion projects in a story written for our fall edition of Dispatches.

Did you know that Tom Hanks picks up lost items on the street and tweets about them in hopes that lost socks and gloves will be reunited with their owners?

How about the fact that Claudia Schiffer has amassed quite the collection of spiders and spider art? Enough, in fact, to fill every wall in a standard family-sized American home.

Or that Bob Barker passionately studied karate with Chuck Norris? Bob still holds the rank of black belt.

Nearly every week I hear about some wildly successful person’s unexpected hobbies or routines. Warren Buffet claims to spend nearly 80 percent of his work day reading. Richard Branson has broken kite-boarding records, all while overseeing the 400-plus businesses under the Virgin mast.

These kinds of facts encourage me in my own extracurricular pursuits. And why not? Here’s what we know: channeling our passions into non-work related activities actually increases our focus while we are at work. That maddening love for all things related to sports cars may carry work-related benefits.

So I ask myself: What are my passions that have nothing to do with work? One is that I write and memorize poetry.

I’m a consultant on oil and gas infrastructure development projects, but I used to teach high school literature and composition. My students regularly memorized poems like Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” or Whitman’s “O Captain, My Captain.” And whatever I assigned, I also did.

Memorizing poetry etches the words into the brain. And along with the words come images and ideas as well. It seems impossible to memorize a passage without also coming to grips with it personally.

The image of that “path not taken” borrows from my own memory to solidify itself in my mind. The speaker’s feelings of being lifted from the dumps by a friend’s love in Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 29” recall my own experiences with longing and healing.

To memorize is to relive. To recite is to confess.

For me, the next natural evolution was to start creating pieces of my own. I started writing in a journal, never showing those poor attempts to anyone. But soon enough my exhibitionist side wanted out. A friend got me on Instagram where I now publish shorter bits nearly every day.

My Insta followers consist mostly of Facebook friends and my mother, but it’s not about followers for me. Posting keeps me writing, just as performing keeps a musician practicing. The regularity forms habits of creativity and reflection.

So, does poetry help me at work? The answer is yes.

Memorizing poetry gives me new language by which to think about my world. While Yeats wasn’t prolific on the subject of pipelines, forming ideas from his phrasing does add to my own articulation of the world. Writing also has other obvious benefits: it reduces stress, helps clarify feelings in the moment, creates a fluid record of travels and insights, and keeps ideas fresh.

I don’t volunteer to recite poems in the office or on conference calls while waiting for the moderator. I also make sure not to get caught mumbling newly practiced lines under my breath while walking from office to office. I may not be a renowned arachnid collector or record-breaking billionaire, but my own passions serve me well both in and out of the office.

What are your passions?

Want a copy of Dispatches to read more thought-provoking pieces like this? Let us know (info@thefrontierproject.com), and we’ll drop one in the mail.

[frontierdispatches]

Quirk of Art: A Design Hotel 100 Years in the Making

Below, a sneak peek of one of our features in the upcoming fall edition of Dispatches, themed around renovation. Penned by Katherine, a senior producer for Frontier Press, this story covers one of our favorite Richmond spots. 

When Quirk Hotel opened just in time for the much-anticipated 2015 UCI Road World Championships last fall, Richmond experienced a collective rush of giddy excitement. The boutique hotel, a striking combination of modern design, traditional architecture, and laid-back luxury, felt fresh, unique—and totally necessary. Quirk Hotel’s co-owners, Ted and Katie Ukrop, bought and held the 1916 Italian Renaissance building, originally home to an upscale department store, for almost two decades, waiting for the right moment to convert it into its present-day art-driven destination.

“Over the course of the last decade, Richmond has gone through a revitalization, a renaissance if you will, with the expansion of Virginia Commonwealth University and the rise of amazing new restaurants, not to mention the growth of the art district on Broad Street,” says Ted Ukrop. “It seemed like the perfect time to open an independently run boutique hotel that would be a part of the evolution of Richmond—focusing on the city’s art, design, architecture, and artisanal food.”

Fronting the busy Broad Street corridor in Richmond’s Arts District, Quirk is one part boutique accommodations, one part fine dining, and one part community watering hole. With glowing write-ups in Travel & Leisure, The New York Times, and Conde Nast Traveler, the hotel has quickly become a must-visit for locals and travelers alike.

Crafting Quirk While the renovation of the building wasn’t without its challenges, the project had a lot going for it from the get-go:

Good bones With high ceilings, an open floor plan, and architectural details such as soaring arches, a groin vault ceiling, and ornamental ironwork staircase, the building had a strong foundation. “The building was very chic and modern for its time,” says Ed Pillsbury, senior architect with Richmond-based architectural firm 3north, which brought the Ukrops’ vision to life. “Our aim throughout the process was to highlight the elements and features of the space that had distinguished it 100 years ago.”

Clear vision The Ukrops envisioned the building as a hotel from the time they bought it in 1997. As they waited for the right time to launch the conversion, Katie Ukrop founded Quirk Gallery, an art gallery and boutique that established the personality and aesthetic of the future hotel. Feeding into Richmond’s unending appetite for foodie destinations, they lined up pedigreed chef David Dunlap (whose resume features Alain Ducasse’s Adour and The Inn at Little Washington) to helm Maple & Pine restaurant and incorporated a coffee bar and rooftop lounge into the plans.   

Respect for the building’s character Bringing the existing structure up to structural codes without sacrificing the historic details and spaces required thoughtfulness and an unwavering desire to preserve the building’s innate character. It also required an extra building. “To update the mechanical and electrical systems, we bought the building next door and built a major steel bracing system,” Pillbury says. “We also raised the second floor above the lobby in order to bring all of the new utilities—plumbing, HVAC, electrical—next door without interfering with the historic lobby space. Now that the project is complete, I don’t think you notice those changes at all, which counts as success for me.”

Meticulous attention to detail Anyone acquainted with Quirk Gallery knew its sister hotel was destined to boast a singular style. At once sleek and punchy, chic and whimsical, classical and contemporary, Quirk Hotel doesn’t disappoint. Muted shades of pink abound, from the walls of the hotel rooms to the lampshades in the lobby. Art is everywhere, much of it locally commissioned, and the coffee bar serves Quirk blend coffee from Blanchard’s, a local beanery. And, like the gallery, the hotel exhibits and supports local artists, including hosting artists-in-residence for one- to six-month stints.

Quirk Hotel also speaks more broadly to a growing desire to both preserve and provoke under a single roof, proving that these two allegiances—to what was and what could be—need not be adversarial. In fact, this tension births some of the most satisfying experiences of the New South, from cocktails to cuisine, architecture to art, design to decor. Thanks to the careful stewardship of its owners, Quirk Hotel stands confidently as a prime example of this balanced approach to renovation—as well as a stop-and-take-notice symbol of Richmond’s continued renaissance.

Want a copy of Dispatches to read more stories like this? Let us know (info@thefrontierproject.com), and we’ll drop one in the mail. 

[frontierdispatches]

Dispatches, Fall 2016

Our press team just wrapped up the latest issue of Dispatches. The stories within celebrate and illuminate a special kind of ingenuity: one that embraces constraints, and changes only what’s necessary to ensure the innovation we pursue is achievable, relevant, and sustainable. 

We tell these stories through the lens of renovation and the spirited souls who take it on with gusto: An entrepreneurial duo creates a hotel hotspot inside a decaying former department store. A veteran communications executive makes an argument for revising our condemnation of the “Yes Man.” A marketing innovation presents a striking case for how to combat extremism on a social web that’s stretched beyond our ability to police. A fast-talking design genius transforms rusting automobiles into bespoke luxury items. A technology journalist recalls the dozens of robots she’s met through her reporting, and reflects on how our own consciousness shifts when we encounter them.

If you’d like a copy, let us know (info@thefrontierproject.com), and we’ll drop one in the mail to you as soon as it cools from the printer shop. 

[frontierdispatches]

Transparency: Why it Matters and How We Use It

Every consulting company has a way they manage their client’s projects. Every company, period, has a way they manage projects. There are even firms that specialize in project management consulting, specifically. So it’s safe to say project management is more than a buzzword throughout the business world.

It’s no different for us—we have tools we use to make sure the work we’re undertaking for our clients gets done quickly and superbly. But there’s one tool we’re especially fond of, one we pride ourselves on using in an industry with so little of it.

Transparency.

Perhaps you hadn’t noticed yet, but we love the iterative process, the evolution of ideas becoming action, action transforming into results. We love trying and testing theories, seeing what works, then tweaking and trying again.

We think our iterative process works so well because we let our clients in on the secret. From the beginning, we grant our clients access to our project management platform, Teamwork. It’s an entire suite of online collaboration tools that keeps our team—and yours—informed at all stages of the project, including the very beginning. After a contract is signed, that’s when a lot of consulting firms go dark. They halt communication as the project team gets up to speed.

Not us. We give you the option to have full access right from the start by inviting you to join Teamwork, which offers you the chance to see goals and milestones set from the beginning, workstreams as they get built, and collateral as it gets created.

Some other perks of Teamwork you experience as one of our clients:

Task and milestone management, which gives you a better view into the progress of the project

Upload and share files of all kinds

View notebooks full of the research and resources to see how our team thinks

Comment on collateral our team has created

We consider it our call to be unlike other any other consulting firm. Radical transparency, especially in the early stages of your engagement with us, gives you the opportunity to know what you’re paying for. It gives your team peace of mind, so you know the investment you’ve made in our consulting is money well spent, and that it’s leading to real results and change for your company.

(Keep your eyes open for a follow-up post on what to expect in your first week of working with us.)

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Some Words on the Inevitability of Change

Our small but mighty Frontier Press team recently sponsored two scholarship students to attend the Richmond Young Writers summer writing program. While we were elated to support budding writers on their journey toward creative prowess, we were even more excited when the students shared their work with us.

Below, a poem written by 15-year-old Gbari. (Coincidentally, the overarching themes within her piece tie in nicely with the theme of our upcoming issue of Dispatches: renovation, and accepting that change is inevitable.)

The Day After I am the day after your birthday. After the cake, the ice cream, the friends and family, the gifts and laughs, I come in. I am an odd mix of joy and dread. You know that the next year of your life is here. Another chapter, a new beginning. Yesterday you celebrated it, today you'll wallow in fear because of it. I am the awakening from the sleeper's dream, the land to the swimmer's sea, and the ground to the pilot's sky. You enjoyed the event, now it's time to come back. You're afraid to come back. You're afraid to return to the stress of responsibility. But I cannot be avoided. So now it is time to wait, time to fight, time to run to the finish line and complete another lap around the calendar. You will inevitably meet me again. You won't stop running, because you can't. Not until your lungs stop breathing and your heart stops beating. We are combined, entwined, until death to us part, but that's not entirely true. When you enter eternal rest, whether it as a shell deep in the ground or as a collection of ash in an urn, wherever you might be, your birthday will still come around. You know what that means now, don't you? I am the day after your birthday, and while your life will stop, the clock will not. It’s high time you marked your calendar.

Knowing our support makes words like this come to life, it’s a no-brainer: Frontier Press is happy to bolster a community resource that helps young creatives find their voice. (That’s why you’ll find us at tonight’s fall scholarship fundraiser, The Metzgermorphosis. The evening promises “words, wine, and wizardry.”)