Holiday fun with the whole LaDiff gang

We have this list of core values at LaDiff. There's not much on it you wouldn't expect to see: integrity tops the list, creativity, kindness, intelligence... that sort of 'good stuff.'

There is also one other very important word that, for us, ranks right under integrity: HUMOR. We LOVE to laugh, to make each other laugh, to tell funny stories and bad jokes, and to be a little bit silly.

With that in mind, it comes as no surprise that our annual holiday party for our employees is one giant laugh fest (with some eating and drinking too). 15 years ago, our parties started as potluck affairs at our home in Church Hill. At one of the first parties, even Santa came to visit, scaring the blessing out of then-VERY-young Terrance and Tyler Fisher, whose dad Terry is our warehouse manager. I think those boys were mighty good for the few days between our party and Christmas!

Over the years, we've visited downtown restaurants, dined in empty but candlelit spaces in our building, and... returned to our house again, this time on Cherokee Road, and better sized to handle the crew we have now!

One of my great joys is buying gifts for EVERY LaDiff employee. I do not go online and point & click to some item 30 times. I make a list, and I consider each person's personalities, likes, and dislikes. Some years (and some people) are 'easier' than others. If it's Bernadette, I just channel ORANGE and it works. She's modeling her new orange handbag today, as a matter of fact! Cameron? I just find something that I like that I think she would try to 'steal' from me by telling me it is unflattering on me and would look better on her (ha!). Philip is funny... he loves (and I mean *loves*) to get a McDonald's gift certificate. I'm not kidding.

Like many businesses, we did a 'secret santa' gift exchange for YEARS. Last year, someone on our team suggested we do a Chinese Gift Exchange (with my apologies for the non-p.c. name, but that is what it's called!). What a SUPER FUN idea that was!! So, we did it again this year!

Instead of numbers, we had everyone put their name in a bag. First called? Jim Ramos, who opened a lovely grey shawl... not quite his color though. Jim immediately took it around to show all of the ladies hoping they might 'steal' it from him.

In the end, Cameron got the shawl (which she wanted), after her Russian Vodka (that none of us could read much less pronounce) was stolen from her! Throughout the evening, the most popular (and most frequently 'stolen') items were liquor and gift cards... so when the combination came up (a gift card to a Virginia ABC store - good concept, Juliette!), it was stolen, and stolen, and stolen that final 3rd time... BY ME! (Gotta have something to put in Mr. Thornton's stocking). Which is a good thing, since Ernest ripped a bottle of tequila out of Andy's hand, even though Andy threatened with the 'hey, I'm your BOSS' line... sorry, Andy, that one doesn't seem to work with this crowd!

There are always one or two gag gifts in the mix. This year's attempt turned out NOT to be a 'gag' for the person who finally got it: our 9-year-old daughter. Jennie Kam tried hard to pull a 'gag' when, in actuality, she selected an item that Lucy had put on her Christmas list! Yes, we now have a cobalt blue Snuggie, complete with deluxe book light, adorning our family room.

Now, with the LaDiff holiday party behind us, and the breakroom filled with delicious leftovers, it feels like Christmas has begun. From all of us at LaDifference to all of you, we wish you a very Merry Christmas with your family and friends, a holiday filled with love, sharing, and hopefully a whole lot of laughter!

The LaDiff Christmas Letter

Dear LaDiff Blog Readers and Friends,

Can you believe it's almost Christmas? I'm sure you've been busy shopping and decorating and baking and cooking, just like we are. As seems to be tradition this time of year, we've jotted some notes about what the 'LaDiff Family' did in 2009!

In January, Andy enjoyed a trip to the Koln (Cologne) furniture show, followed by skiing and hiking in Gimmelwald, Switzerland with his friend Ernest. Gimmelwald is where the story-book lass Heidi was from! Andy found some really beautiful furniture in Koln, including the Infinity dining table from Italian resource Porado, in our showroom now! At the end of the month, we had our annual Home Theater event - #6! Ray Lepper of Home Media came back again to share his expertise with all of our visitors. NOTE: that is NOT Andy in the picture ; )

February... our friend Jeff Hiller came to visit and speak at the Richmond Home Show/ Maymont Flower & Garden Show. His topic was Sustainability, so, keeping with the theme, our booth was all about 'living green'.

In March, we expanded our LaDiff-ness into a new venture called Vive (as in Vive la Difference!). Jim and Lisa and Rick and Tom painted and prepped an empty space in our building and turned it into something magical. Vive showcases an assortment of global and ethnic fare that brings a sense of purposeful eclecticism to our LaDiff story! The colors are rich, spicy, earthy; the feeling is distressed, loved, worn; the service, value, and quality are all... LaDiff!

We started April by hosting the Richmond Ad Club award ceremony in our Parking Garage. Wendy Wyne of Fete Studios turned this cold, concrete-floored space into a magical stage for Richmond's most creative to pat each other on the back. After the party, we turned the garage over to our 3rd annual GARAGE SALE and sold lots of great LaDiff stuff at AMAZING bargain prices!!! The month ended with our bi-annual pilgrimage to High Point for the furniture market. There, we started blogging and tweeting for the first time. One of our first blogs was about our friend Tom Moore of Lawrance Furniture in San Diego when he won a contest with American Leather to promote their unique Comfort Sleeper in a video, now preserved on YouTube. (that man is so darn funny!!!)

In May, right before we went to the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) in New York, we learned about The 3/50 Project, a grassroots project from Cinda Baxter that promoted support of privately held, independent, small local retail businesses. We were thrilled to learn that Cinda would be speaking at the Javits Center and we got the opportunity to listen to her 'campaign', meet her in person, and jump on board the 3/50 bandwagon!

June... another great summer in downtown Richmond and the canal boats were busy every week and weekend (and so were LaDiff's restrooms!). We *love* to see the increased activity in our neighborhood. We also loved sending our delivery truck out with its new, gorgeous 'skin'... check it out! At the end of the month, we had fun sharing the world of retail with Megan, our high school intern from the Cochrane Summer Economics Institute held at the Powell Center for Economic Literacy (based at Collegiate School).

Megan-the-intern was bright, a fast learner, and lots of fun... and she helped us kick off our annual JULY 4th Sale with a fireworkd-style BANG! Crowds of customers enjoyed sale prices AND burgers & dogs on the grill served by Terry-Teddy Bear-Fisher (aka LaDiff warehouse manager). July was hot-hot-hot!

August included our annual trip to the New York International Gift Show - our 2nd trip to NYC as a family! We visited with friend, lighting maven and jewelry designer Alecia Wesner while there, enjoying lunch at one of our favorite spots in Soho: Lucky Strike. When we returned to Richmond, our new TV spot - The Perfect Seat - was ready to air... featuring the backsides of several important Richmonders (okay, it's our staff and our family... but they're important to us!)

In September, I served on a panel for the Retail Merchants Association's First Friday Forum to talk about how retailers could get involved with the Think.Shop.Buy.Local campaign - our LOCAL, successful offshoot of the 3/50 Project. Later that month, while yours truly was busy prepping for high school reunion #25 (at OUR house), Jennie and Tim and Rick were busy prepping for the Chamber's annual BizLinc event at RIR (that's Richmond International Raceway to those who are not Nascar fans...). And, talk about cool, our booth was right across from the Chamber's booth, where guest speaker Bill Rancic - first winner of Trump's Apprentice title - was signing books and autographs in the afternoon!

October brought another High Point market... this one was MUCH more upbeat than the April show. Vendors were smiling, retailers were smiling... things are looking up! We had new product arriving weekly which means our sales team was smiling too! And, to make the market even more memorable, our own Lisa D got to meet design celebrity Thom Filicia IN PERSON. (And I got to meet Sponge Bob... but that's a whole other story...)

In November, we were proud to host another event, this time to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation: a wine tasting orchestrated again by the amazing Wendy Wyne. Our Passion for Dining tv spots brought some interesting and varied responses from our customers... we love the ad! And we ended November by starting two of our favorite 'donations for discounts' promotions to benefit Caritas Works' Furniture Bank and the Central Virginia Foodbank, two very worthy and deserving causes.

And now... it's December. There is always excitement and wonder at LaDiff in December. Andy and I spent the first few days of the month sharing ideas with other contemporary furniture retailers meeting in San Diego, sadly missing the Grand Illumination and rainy Christmas Parade the next day! But we returned to hear the news that long-time-LaDiffer Jaye Erickson received her certification as a 'GREENLeader Accredited Professional' - since she designed and built our 'Green Screen' and is our official onsite recycling pest, we are very proud of her! Now, with only a few shopping days left until the 'big day', the store is decorated, the windows dressed, and our sales team is busily sending out their holiday cards. Our annual staff party is Monday evening - a time to eat, drink, and be merry with each other, think about the year that has passed, and plan for the one ahead. It was a good year...

From all of us at LaDifference to all of you, we wish you a Happy Hannukah, a Merry Christmas, a spirited Kwanzaa, and lots of joy and happiness in the coming new year.

Networking can improve your business and your bowling game.

Okay, so I'm at this conference in San Diego: 15 contemporary furniture stores, all members of the Contemporary Design Group, spending 5 days in a room talking about how we advertise, what we buy, our vendor relationships, our staffs, our rent structures, etc., etc., etc. Naturally, it got me thinking about networking (at 5am California time, because I am still struggling with that 3 hour time difference after 5 days).

I woke up wondering where the expression arose.
Works like 'network' were once as foreign or 'new' to people as 'tweet' is now.

So, I looked it up.

According to ask.com:
network (n)"net-like arrangement of threads, wires, etc.," 1560, from net (n.) + work (n.). Extended sense of "any complex, interlocking system" is from 1839 (orig. in ref. to transport by rivers, canals, and railways). Meaning "broadcasting system of multiple transmitters" is from 1914; sense of "interconnected group of people" is from 1947. The verb, in ref. to computers, is from 1972; in ref. to persons, it is attested from 1980s.

We go back to the first half of the 19th century and find that the word was used, naturally, to describe interlocking transportation systems. Well, that makes sense.

Fast forward to the early 20th century when it was adopted by the very young broadcasting industry to describe their interconnected systems, and the adoptions continued by the computer industry, telecommunications, and, finally, people!

Systems and networks were established to achieve a goal faster: get you from the Atlantic to the Mississippi without leaving water, let Albany hear the news report coming from New York City, allow my computer in San Diego talk to my computer back home.

How does this apply to PEOPLE who network then?

Well...I had a much funnier image of the word origin in my head when I woke up (too early).

I kept thinking about tennis: and, literally, "working the net." There you are, away from that base line comfort zone, approaching your competition - who may also be your friend - face to face. You're trying to get to the ball earlier, before you have to think too much. In a way, this is the benefit of real life person-to-person networking, too!

When we try to figure out solutions all by ourselves, we have to start from scratch. Sure, we can do some educated research, and we certainly rely on, and hopefully trust, our own brain power to be resourceful. Still, in the end, the proof comes back and we've forgotten to include the end date on the sale, or we've neglected to learn that the event is the same weekend as a local college graduation, or we haven't taken into account that two sales people will be on vacation.

I'm a fan of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Outliers. In the former, he talks about how the first person to invent or achieve is often - no, make that usually - NOT the one who is the most successful with the idea. Was it Mr. McDonald or Ray Croc who became a multi-billionaire taking the 'fast food' concept around the world? The iPod was not the first mp3 player on the market, yet it is the best known, best selling of its device category by leaps and bounds.

Why? For several reasons, many of which Gladwell expands upon in his books. For me, one very obvious reason for the 'success of the second attempt' is because they were able to learn from the ones that came before: correct the mistakes and celebrate and expound on the successes!

That is a HUGE benefit of networking when open IDEA SHARING is involved.

The real beauty is that this kind of networking CAN come in the most unusual places. You don't have to network (note the now acceptable verb form) only at cocktail parties and breakfast meetings. You can network and share ideas anywhere you meet someone new. The more relaxed the atmosphere, the more open you - and they - are going to be about sharing, listening, and learning.

And last night, when our group of 15 stores hit the East Village Tavern and Bowl in downtown San Diego, there was a LOT of sharing. First, our team came in second (I was dubbed the WOOHOO girl... hmmm): led by the inspiring Bruce Selik of Hillside Furniture in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, who coached powerhouse Jerry Nowell of Nowells Furniture in Cary, NC, to aim for those white pins in the center with his 15pound ball. Bruce also encouraged Lora Sigesmund of Perlora in Pittsburgh, PA, to come from behind and beat us all with her game ending strikes! Needless to say there was a LOT of laughter, from when Carol Bell and Tamara Scott-Anderson of Content Interiors in Tucson, AZ, showed up dressed as Laverne & Shirley to the antics of team #1 who shall remain nameless (but included my husband) because of their unusual and tactile 'twisting' after a team member's spare or strike.

Last night, we were not worrying about the economy, our employees, or our advertising budgets. We were having fun. As we watched Jeff Burt of Suburban Furniture do his high scorer happy dance, we knew that the next day (today!) in the boardroom was going to be much lighter, more relaxed, and even more open and flowing with great ideas.

Yes, yes, yes, all that other 'network' stuff about creating a great system for idea-sharing and breeding success in our industry is the main goal of our conference and meetings, but I like the image that was in my head at 5am too: We ran to the net, met our opponent face to face, became their friend, and played the game not to win, but to improve each other's skills too.

Knowing and working with these amazing people with member stores in the Contemporary Design Group only makes LaDifference stronger and better. Thank you, Howard, Sandie, and everyone who attended the conference for making this year's event informative, helpful, and FUN!

Can't wait to do some more 'networking' NEXT year!