facilitate

Advisory services & support - in a unique way.

Rounding-out Cat-Strat’s MEDIA & Production units is Cat-Strat | facilitate
... strategic advisory services focused on leadership, communication, business-development, facilitation, citizen-engagement & more



Like our productions; Cat-Strat | facilitate services are often delivered in group settings and are highly facilitated




The result: Energized teams. Strategic thought. Actionable plans. Getting “unstuck”



CatalystStrategies (Cat-Strat’s long name) ...has been providing high-level strategic services since 2001.

Under the Cat-Strat brand (or otherwise) we have been associated with, have assisted, and/or have created a number of community-oriented efforts related to “strategy”, “conversation”, “connection”, “community”, “ideation”, and “visioning”

More specifically:

• Strategic visioning & corporate retreats

• Business Development process & planning

• Sales & Marketing Strategies

• Team & Leadership Development

• Ideation & Brainstorming

• Economic Development Discussion Facilitation

• Community & Citizen Engagement

• General facilitation, moderation and strategic meeting-management

“Convening” experts: For years, our passion and commitment continues to be in the area of bringing together separate groups & organizations around a common mission, strategy & synergy. In the case of a thing we created, called the ConnectionSeries, we did so via working-sessions of 100’s of people (per event)... We included numerous key organizations in NEOhio prior to the formation of TeamNEO, GCP and others.

Business background prior to founding Cat-Strat: The partners of Cat-Strat spent the ‘80s and ‘90s in Information Technology marketing, training, sales, sales-management & general management

Non-profit & for-profit experience as Cat-Strat: As you will see via our “Representative Activities & References” (beginning on page 20) we have a valuable blend of experiences with for-profits, non-profits, community organizations, associations, government(s) and higher-education.
Facilitation: Facilitation is “our thing”. We have refined numerous approaches & methods for high-potential facilitation and group-think management.

Well-connected: We’ve spend years connecting with multiple entities in NEOhio and helping them collaborate on a number of fronts.

Relevance: We are likely in the position to help make additional connections to organizations, individuals & resources.

Neutral Platform: Cat-Strat has no “agenda” nor institution to represent. We are in the unique position to facilitate the process via a completely unbiased approach.

Synchronistic: Cat-Strat is increasingly a production company providing programming, events, content, citizen-engagement services & more.

We also know that “fun” is important (even though it gets a bad-wrap and often sounds like “fluff”) Midst our serious & strategic approach, we consistently inject a sensible dose of energy, excitement, and yes, “fun”. In fact; we think it’s an essential ingredient when it comes to breaking down barriers, building trust, fostering engagement & energizing thought-processes.


Relevant Representative
References & Activities

Walt Rickli Studio. Interior and Exterior design firm in Burlington, Ontario. Strategic planning, business-development and marketing support.

CWRU/Weatherhead Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI). CatalystStrategies Client ~ 2004. Designed, Delivered & Facilitated the initial incarnation of “Tuesdays @ REI” which were weekly dialogs on economic development. There were a myriad of topics we managed including the role of Manufacturing, IT, Healthcare, Early Childhood, Race and more... and how those issues play within the realm of Economic Development. There were “place-making” exercises, guest speakers and strategy breakouts.

The ConnectionSeries
A grassroots effort created by C. James & S. James. The forums & events engaged 150 to 300 people per event. Seven (7) quarterly events + other adjunct events in total. Topics/themes:

CS1 - The Barriers & Enablers to Conducting Business in Cleveland. Featured panel; then Mayor Jane Campbell, Chief Development officer Tim Mueller, TeamWendy CEO Dan T. Moore, CWRU Tech Transfer’s Mark Coticchia, President Council’s Brian Hall, Athersys CEO Gil Van Bokkelen

CS-2 Business Community & City Hall Connection. “Meet City Hall”. A convening of Mayor Campbell’s cabinet including 10 breakouts by department

CS-3 Regional Business & Resident Attraction & Retention. A 285-person, 5-breakout strategy session. Public attendees + major institutions such as COSE, then Growth Association, City of Cleveland, The Cleveland Foundation... and many more. Resulted in ~ 100 volunteer participants after the event who co-created Community Action Teams (CATs)

CS-4 What’s working in NEOhio. CAT teams from above present their ideas and strategies via ~ 200 person public event.

CS-5 Work, Play, Live. Featured speakers; Tim Mueller (Chief Development Officer at the City at the time), Ed Morrison (REI at the time), Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones and others.

CS-6 Regional Visioning. What can the future hold? A discussion via a 125-person visualization experience utilizing photos, sketches & “dream-scape” boards.

CS-7 Mayoral primary candidates leadership “debate”. A leadership panel with the primary candidates. In partnership with The Club at Key Center. Designed & delivered by C. James & S. James. Moderated by C. James.

NEOSA (Northeast Ohio Software Association) [prior to its fold into COSE] CatalystStrategies Client 2001 & 2002. Assisted with overall strategy and positioning. Assisted with the deployment of certain events & forums. Developed Sponsorship program & packages. Sold Sponsorship packages on behalf of NEOSA. Sold ~ twice the sponsorship revenue in half the time as compared to the 6-months prior to the engagement. Jim Cookinham lead NEOSA at the time.

Magill Technology Group. CatalystStrategies Client 2001 & 2002. Assist with overall strategy + business-development. Doug Magill founder & president.

Cleveland Music School Settlement. CatalystStrategies Client ~ 2004. Multiple strategy & leadership session with CMSS’s leadership team & certain board members. During the time Daniel Windham as Executive Director.

TeamNEO. CatalystStrategies Client 2006. Team-building exercises & “FindingNEO treasure hunt” focused on “discovering the 13-county region”. Also included a certain degree of strategy & visioning.

Cuyahoga County. C. James as Member of CuyahogaNext Advisors (CNa) formerly the County’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Economic Development. Co-developed & lead Tax Policy Committee with Blue Ribbon Task Force co-member Kurt Treu, regional chairman Northeast and Central Ohio for U.S. Bancorp. ~ 2005.

Green Building Coalition. CatalystStrateiges Client 2005. Assisted with overall strategy, positioning & event planning. During the era of Elaine Barnes as Executive Director.

Rhein Chemie. 2005. Assisted with marketing & business-development processes. Hector Diaz-Stringel President, Rhein Chemie Corporation

The Club at Key Center. C. James as co-founder of The Club’s Community Relations Committee. Created Donor Advised Fund (The Club at Key Center Community Enrichment Fund) via the Cleveland Foundation. Board of Governor’s member 2002-2007. Board Chair 2006-2007. Lead board meetings and board retreat-meetings. Lead BreakfastSeries conversations 2006. C. James coordinated and facilitated dialogs with David Janus, President & CEO FirstMerit Bank Cleveland Region, Kurt Treu regional chairman US Bank, GLTF producing artistic director Charlie Fee, Plain Dealer theater critic Tony Brown, then World Trade Center Cleveland Executive Director David Yen, Margaret Wong of Margaret Wong & Associates, then Plain Dealer editor Doug Clifton and Brad Whitehead of the Fund for our Economic Future. The Club at Key Center is a private business club. Leadership at The Club included much involvement with dues & membership issues.

Council on Competitiveness. (Washington DC). 2003/2004. the CoC is commissioned by the Commerce Dept. CatalystStrategies worked with Randall Kempner, the leader of Regional Innovation @ the time. Assisted with their forum in Cleveland, Ohio & their messaging associated with it.

FirstMerit Bank. CatalystStrategies client 2006/2007. Team building, visioning & business-development. Strategic planning sessions. David Janus, regional president FirstMerit Bank.

JPMorgan Chase. CatalystStrategies client 2004/2005. Team building. Business-development strategy assistance & team retreat. Help merged teams work together (i.e., JPMorgan Chase / Bank One)

Weber Murphy Fox (architecture). 2006 Leadership, business-strategy & business-development assistance & retreat. Partner Doug Hoffman.

The Penfield House. 2007. Frank Lloyd Wright original. Assisted with non-profit formation, assembly of advisers... and development of the strategy for building Frank Lloyd Wright’s “last house” called “RiverRock” here in NEOhio. Worked with owner Paul Penfield, adviser Joe Shafran, and others.

Great Lakes Theater Festival. C. James Trustee 2005-2008. As Trustee; participated in numerous efforts around the organization’s strategy & subsequent re-birth of the Hanna Theater. C. James & S. James designed & facilitated the Board’s 2006 annual retreat.

EDI (pre JumpStart) Innovations Week. Conducted Innovation Ideation Workshop ~ 2002.

Learn-network.com - During its creation, C. James facilitated discussion session on behalf of this global student-attraction effort per the invitation of Margaret Wong & Mark Cho.

John Carroll University, Entrepreneurs Association, Muldoon Center for Entrepreneurship. Designed & delivered on behalf of Mark Hauserman (Director) facilitated discussion around the idea of “Coop-itition”; How business & industries can cooperate and collaborate midst an environment of competition.

Baldwin-Wallace College - Client of CatalystStrategies 2006. Worked on behalf of then Career Services Director Lisa Tomlin to help the Career Services team develop their mission, their value-proposition & develop cohesion within the the team.

Cat-Strat Convos:

Cat-Strat’s Community Conversations of varying formats. Designed, produced, delivered & moderated. Some are working-sessions & strategy-development oriented - others are inquisitive dialogs featuring guests and or topics of-the-day:

Film Tax Credit discussion; Film Commission Executive Director Ivan Schwarz, NEHST Studios CEO Larry Meistrich (NYE) & film-maker Jason Zone Fisher

Urban League of Greater Cleveland; Roundtable discussion with Johnathan Holifield, President & CEO

“What’s News!?” Facilitated discussion with Plain Dealer editor Susan Goldberg, Plain Dealer editor & John Butte then NewsChannel5 GM

[more than conventions] Center, ConventionCenter MedicalMart 7X24-use strategy-development event. 7500-square-foot “conference room table” + breakouts

“Build it, Bury it or Something in-Between” - Adam Wasserman of the Port Authority, Wendy Evans Joseph Architecture (NYC) and Christopher Diehl, Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative

“Roundtable with Timothy Rub”
Cleveland Museum of Art Executive Director
July 2009

“CoolTwitter Conference, Cleveland”
Co-Producer
Social Media; the Changing Landscape
August 2009
Cleveland, OH

“Government 2.5”
Social Media, Government & Democracy
Conference Co-producer; December 2009
Washington D.C.