The Idea, Inc.

The Idea, Inc. Systems + project management for leaders compelled to transform institutions Coaching ↔ Strategy ↔ Planning ↔ Implementation

Turning your vision into impactful initiatives and thriving businesses.

05/20/2026

Leaders must figure out a way to make bold(er) choices. Link in bio on the "how to".

Burn out happens for a host of reasons. Greed that trickles down. Over committing when you ought to say no. Thinking you...
05/19/2026

Burn out happens for a host of reasons. Greed that trickles down. Over committing when you ought to say no. Thinking you have to be Captain Save-a-hoe. I wanted that to rhyme. 🤸🏿‍♀️

Any who, I have found that leaders burn out because they do not have systems in place, and that caused major projects to stall or fail. To say nothing about what this lack of project management does to a cynical, apathetic team.

The Collaborative Operating System was built for exactly this moment. Not when everything has fallen apart. When the leader still has the vision and just needs the infrastructure to finally catch up. Link in bio.

Looking forward to this incredible weekend with A young, bright-eyed 20 something year old Ebonni would be so proud of t...
05/13/2026

Looking forward to this incredible weekend with

A young, bright-eyed 20 something year old Ebonni would be so proud of the work she does now. Everyone seemed to know what was next back then. I, on the otherhand, did not. I remember standing in the line to get extra graduation tickets in front of the UCF bookstore, thinking, "If I have to go back to Jacksonville, I will die."

She's very dramatic. Still. Now.

I did move back. I didn't die. I moved to South Florida for a total of 2 months during the summer of 2005 and then in August, moved back to NY. Started a business, dove into nonprofit management and organizing.

I don't have a flex, as the kids say. I have been honored and awarded and have had successes. Sure. But to know I made her proud by honoring people for who they are, protecting their autonomy, dreams and passions, and building a business that is as unapologetic as she was then, and is now. And was KILLING a front swoop bang, you hear me?!

Proud to know the organizers of this weekend. To stand firm in community work in the midst of a global unraveling is not light work. Big up to Jasmen and Terry.

Any who, join me.

05/11/2026

What a gift. We get to manage projects and secure funding partnerships for agencies that build low income, affordable housing. In this case, for seniors. I love my work.

05/05/2026

Yesterday was fun. Our client hired us to help move a capital campaign (amongst other things). This particular case (what we call something a client called us in to fix) means looking at the history of the housing authority to show how they will provide stable, long term housing for the residents into the future.

05/01/2026

This is for the govt official, nonprofit director who still has the vision. The one who knows exactly what needs to happen and can't seem to make it move.

Full article, link in bio.

It may not seem like it, but now more than ever we need to talk about housing. We need to talk about public institutions...
03/12/2026

It may not seem like it, but now more than ever we need to talk about housing. We need to talk about public institutions as a whole. I wrote a piece on unifying our communities around not just affordable housing but codifying public institutions so that government agencies are fully funded to provide a stable home for everyone. Shout out to for making it plain for us! The link to the piece I wrote is in our bio.

02/25/2026

Here's a look inside our work as a team that does the hard, detailed work for social good institutions and organizations.

There are people behind the scenes of every major change in a business merger, nonprofit rebrand, rally, and/or coalitio...
02/01/2026

There are people behind the scenes of every major change in a business merger, nonprofit rebrand, rally, and/or coalition. It isn’t always the folk holding the mic, taking interviews, shaking hands. It is usually those behind the scenes dealing with every challenge in order to get everyone to the finish line. Or at least to a benchmark.

In 1963, Bayard Rustin faced the same challenge except his "stakeholders" were 100+ civil rights organizations with competing priorities and limited resources.

Mr. Rustin's job was to coordinate them to move 250,000 people to Washington, DC in one day.

While Dr. King was the face we remember, Rustin built:
→ Transportation systems (thousands of buses)
→ Communication protocols (no cell phones, remember)
→ Safety infrastructure (first aid, security, crowd management)
→ Stakeholder alignment (getting everyone on same page)
→ Decision-making frameworks (who decides what when)

The March succeeded not because of inspiration alone, but because of often ignored infrastructure.

Mr. Rustin understood what most coalition leaders miss like the fact that visionary moments require boring systems, meeting protocols, communication standards, role clarity, accountability structures. The list goes on.

This is the work we do with government agencies and nonprofits today. It is the building of the infrastructure that transforms well-intentioned partnerships into forces for institutional change.

Because your community deserves more than another meeting where nothing moves forward.

---

This is #1 in our Invisible Architects series, honoring the coordinators who built the infrastructure behind transformation.

Who's building your infrastructure?

I was a part of at least 8 meetings this month as a fly on the wall observing how they are moving the needle after a pro...
01/29/2026

I was a part of at least 8 meetings this month as a fly on the wall observing how they are moving the needle after a project is launched. One of those meetings was with one of our clients. It is a national organization that focuses on philanthropic equity.

Infrastructure can make the difference between organizations that transform communities and organizations that exhaust the good people doing the work in said community.

The question I ask the client or the person who wants our support is, “How many meetings have you had about this particular project?” There have either been a slew of meetings where very little progress has taken place, or the project lead hasn't been able to get all of the people in place to move anything forward.

By the time a project is almost off the rails, a company calls us to project manage it to its completion or its next benchmark.

I also ask, how many of your past initiatives actually moved forward, and how quickly? Stalling can be costly. Folks are typically off to the next project while this phase of a major capital project is being paused for reasons they are not completely conscious of.

You're not leading the important work you set out to.

And February will be exactly the same unless you change how you're building.

Here's what actually needs to happen:

Stop this:

-Hosting more alignment meetings
-Creating more task forces
-Writing more strategic plans
-Asking for more buy-in

Start this:

-Building decision frameworks (who decides what)
-Creating coordination systems (how work flows)
-Establishing accountability structures (what happens when things don't happen)
-Measuring infrastructure and quality of the work, not just outcomes

February starts Sunday. What real work (infrastructure) will you build next week?

Address

Fort Lauderdale, FL
33301

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 6pm
Tuesday 10am - 6pm
Wednesday 10am - 6pm
Thursday 10am - 6pm
Friday 10am - 6pm

Telephone

(954) 881-4969

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Idea, Inc. posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share