Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions

Luminaria Productions LLC owns this blog.

It also owns Homewood Nation, the internet-based community news service headquartered at www.homewoodnation.com. For the first couple of years after its launch in April 2010, I made the mistake of identifying the website as Homewood Nation. But Homewood Nation includes a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter feed (you can use the green bar above to check out all of those elements).

I declared the intent a few years ago to build Luminaria into a company whose April 2017 IPO establishes its value at $1 billion. Not because I personally need the levels of money involved, but because I imagined that it would feel amazing to have the world say that I have created that much value.

I still think that that would feel amazing, but I've misbehaved badly enough so that I now need to either push the timeline back, or shrink the number.

I'll keep the number, because I like it, and shift the timeline as appears needed. Meanwhile, I must learn to work harder AND smarter AND more consistently at building a billion-dollar enterprise.

So what else is cooking in Luminaria's pot, besides ReVisions and Homewood Nation? Multiple projects in various stages of development...

A VIDEO GAME: PeaceBuilder: Homewood

A SCREENPLAY COLLECTION: QuickFlicks - a collection of short screenplays for fledgling filmmakers.

SHORT FILMS to be produced from the QuickFlicks scripts: "coda," "Message, Not In A Bottle," "No Dessert," and "End Run."

FEATURE FILM SCRIPTS: "The Nature of Love" - a dissatisfied wife falls for one of her husband's employees, not knowing that he intends to kill her family; "The Moses Effect" - a small town sheriff's life is turned upside down when a satellite-based system begins enforcing all of the laws on the books, including the most absurd ones.

A REALITY SHOW about the rehab of a building in Homewood - most likely 1015 N. Homewood Ave.

A NEWSLETTER for Homewood.

HNTV - A TELEVISION CHANNEL devoted to Homewood

HOMEWOOD NATION MERCHANDISE - branded apparel and gifts; a tablet computer (which may be manufactured/assembled in Homewood.)

A Homewood Nation hoodie could help you 
make it through the final brutal weeks of winter!

EVENTS:

• Building A 21st Century Journalism Enterprise - a discussion series for writers, editors, designers, photographers, videographers...basically, anyone interested in the possibilities and challenges of doing what the title says, with the tools now available.
• An event honoring writer John Edgar Wideman
• An event honoring Lou Scheimer, founder of Filmation, the animation company that produced "He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe."
• Communicating for Community - a discussion, or series of discussions, on enhancing communication within Homewood and enhancing Homewood's communication with the world (and wow, this is the first time I have said it that way - I like it!).

PUBLISHING, under the Greenhouse Publications banner:

• Book, working title, "Black Man In A Suit" - a collection of posts from "My Homewood"
• Book, "Homewood 2013" - a review of the year.
• Magazine, working title, "Homewood Quarterly Journal," (blech)
• Posters
• Other books

And that's the list of projects, each of which will require work by other people, and all of which together will require the work of lots of other people. The key to Luminaria's outrageous success, is, as I said in December, attracting and retaining great talent. And getting myself out of the way.

Do you see a possible place for yourself in this list? If so, drop a line to luminariaprod@gmail.com, and I will email you updates as they are issued.

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Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Building a Billion-Dollar Enterprise, 23: What happened in L.A.

In March, I wrote about traveling to Los Angeles to meet with a TV executive Joseph Collins about the possibility of creating programming for his network, Punch TV.

I had several ideas to pitch, including "The Laundry," a dramatic series; and a documentary about the rehabilitation of 1015 N. Homewood Avenue, a building at Race Street and Homewood Avenue that faces condemnation.

I did have face time with Mr. Collins, and the idea that I wound up describing was a reality show about the rehabilitation of 1015 N. Homewood Ave. - a project in which the building could be seen as a proxy for the neighborhood itself, and the process of rehabbing it a mini-representation of all the challenges involved in rebuilding a neighborhood.

He liked the idea and asked me to call him later so that we could discuss further.

The next day, I had lunch with my host, Andrew W. Thornhill, and a couple of friends of his, music producer Vaughn De Spenza  and architect/designer Joseph Alcasar Terrell. I told Mr. Terrell about the building rehab reality show idea and he offered his support and assistance.

I was already excited about the possibility of a deal with Punch TV. The possibility of having an an architect of Mr. Terrell's standing involved in the rehab of 1015 N. Homewood just felt like a huge bonus.

The path seemed to be clearing. My own thoughts seems to be clearing.

Then I came back to Pittsburgh. And you know what? I have to review a series of emails to understand what happened then. I did not fully understand it as it happened...

Stay tuned.

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 14 - Notes in preparation for a really big day

This is my schedule for tomorrow:

1. 10 am - meeting with Joe Ciotti
2. noon - lunch with Joshua Devine
3. 1 pm - meeting with Ashton Armstrong
4. 2 pm - meeting Karen Abrams, et al,

This day, all by itself, could move my life forward to significant degree. More than that, it could affect Homewood.

Meeting #1 - Joe Ciotti is a management consultant with the Small Business Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. We will talk about Luminaria Productions. I hope that we will agree on a schedule for regular meetings for at least 3-4 months. I have found regularly-scheduled meetings to be a huge help in living my life, and I believe that having a schedule with Joe Ciotti will help me to achieve breakthrough on completing my business plan for Luminaria, and on enchancing my doing of what I'm already doing.

Come to think of it, I may benefit most from intensity of scheduling - not once a month for 3-4 months, but once a week or more for 4-6 weeks.

I have been stuck on writing a business plan for two years. Which obviously means that I don't want to do it, for whatever reason(s). But since it's part of their process, I need to get it done.

I think the key is to convince myself that a business plan can be gigantically valuable and fun. With that feeling, I could write it in a day.

And it can be. It can be gigantically valuable and fun. How? By making it include, not only every single thing I want to do with this business, but everything I believe about business, period.

When I let myself think about business - not just a business, but business itself, I uncover a depth of feeling that almost invariably surprises me. There's God, and there's everything else. But in that "everything else," business rises close to the top among things that are good and noble.

Yeah, that's what I said: good and noble. Read it again if you have to. I consider the creation and exchange of value to be inherently good, however often or to what degree it may be twisted into bad.

I won't finish the business plan tonight. But I do want to give Joe enough to seduce him, to make him consider it worthwhile to meet with me on an accelerated schedule over the next 4-6 weeks. Because in 4-6 weeks, Luminaria Productions could be operating on a whole 'nother level. More about that in #4

Meeting #2
Joshua Devine recently graduated from Penn State with a degree in Energy, Environment and Community - or some alternate arrangement of those three words. When he saw the segment about the Save Race Street Committee on Rick Sebak's program, "25 Things I Like About Pittsburgh," on WQED, he tweeted me to ask if one had to live on Race Street to join the Committee. He attended our January meeting, and I hope to explore with him how he can be part of our life and bring his knowledge, energy and connections to our work. He could help the Committee to move up to a higher level.

Meeting #3
Ashton Armstrong is a neighborhood service associate with the Mayor's office, part of the staff for the ServePGH Initiative created by Mr. Ravenstahl's administration. This meeting is to talk about how the Save Race Street Committee might take advantage of two programs to work with vacant lots on our street - the Love Your Block program, and the Edible Gardens program. We have missed deadlines, because I have missed deadlines. In this meeting, I need to submit information late, plead for more grace, and if possible chart a corrective course with Ashton.

The greater part of my work relating to this is not to be done with her, but with myself, my fellow Committee members and with our neighbors. I need to remind myself of the importance of delegating and supervising. The better I get at those things, the more useful I will be, because I will be in less of a position to screw up the details. I need to keep very alert to the question, "Is this a task that I should NOT do?"

Success with Ashton, and then with my fellow Committee members and with our neighbors, will mean a more beautiful and prosperous street.

Meeting #4
Karen Abrams is community affairs specialist with the Urban Redevelopment Authority. Tomorrow I meet with her, planning and design specialist Emily Mitchell, real estate manager Susan Malys, and Jerome Jackson, executive director of Operation Better Block, Inc.

We are meeting to discuss my desire to acquire and redevelop this building, 1015 N. Homewood Avenue:

I moved to this house in July, 1986; 1015 N. Homewood was vacant then. I have long had a vague desire to do something with it. Over the past year, the desire has become more specific, but not specific enough to be a plan.

I want to make it the headquarters for Luminaria Productions.

About two weeks ago, I saw a gentleman from the City's Bureau of Building Inspection poking around it, and introduced myself to him as the chair of the Save Race Street Committee, and he told me, "We're tearing it down."

That surprised me, because over the past year, I have not only developed a more specific desire for the building, I have had conversations that I thought had positioned me to acquire the building from the URA (not that that was guaranteed, but that the conversations were making it possible). And the building - which has been condemned since 2005, and tax-delinquent perhaps as long - went through a Treasurer's sale in October, which I thought meant that the URA had taken title.

So I started talking to people, the last of them being Ms. Abrams. And she set up the meeting.

As of now, this is what I see at 1015 N. Homewood:

First floor: Luminaria Productions office, which includes a rentable meeting space. A bookstore, which includes a cafe.

Second, third floors: Apartments.

The entire building, including the decor in the halls of the second and third floors, has a movie theme. The bookstore's draw is that it has the most complete collection of film-related books in the city of Pittsburgh. Also movie memorabilia. And DVDs. And the cafe has a viewing area, and is home to meetings of the East End Film Nation (which doesn't exist yet, but you can guess what it is, right?).

That's what I have so far. Oh, and maybe, just maybe, offering discounted rents to film workers who live in the building.

And maybe making a documentary about the redevelopment of the building. Sponsored by Home Depot, and anybody else who might want consider it good PR to participate.

There's also a persistent notion of housing a video game academy: a place to teach young people how to create video games. That would require more program development than I have come close to imagining.

Anyway, tomorrow's meeting could end with everyone saying, "We don't think this is at all feasible. Good luck with doing whatever you want to do in some other building." Or it could end with, "We'll work with you, if you work with us." The latter would put Luminaria Productions, and ultimately Homewood, on a whole 'nother level. Especially in light of what's happening Wednesday and Thursday. 

But that is another blog post, because this one is too long already.