Tallahassee, FL – GlobalMind and EarthSTEPS, LLC will provide the Florida Department of Health (Division of Environmental Health – Bureau of Onsite Sewage Programs) a statewide inventory of onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems in Florida.

Even though the work title may not be appealing, the results of the work have great benefits since it will help the Department of Health to determine the environmental impacts of the septic systems throughout Florida.  The team will use Geographic Information Systems and modeling to identify the systems throughout Florida.

GlobalMind provides information to support land and real estate decisions.  Its clients include land developers, real estate investors and government.  GlobalMind operates from offices in Palm Beach Gardens, Tallahassee and Ft. Pierce, Florida.  More about the firm can be found on its website: www.1globalmind.com

EarthSTEPS, LLC  is dedicated to helping companies and homeowners that want to reduce their use of the planet’s natural resources and thus reduce the operating expenses.  EarthSteps is focused on reducing energy and water consumption, as well as promoting the use of green technologies.  More about the firm can be found on its website www.earthsteps.org.

On November 4th, 2008, voters in Florida passed Amendment #4, Property Tax Exemption of Perpetually Conserved Land; Classified and Assessment of Land Uses for Conservation.  A big fancy name, but basically the Amendment, will provide property tax exemptions for real property encumbered by perpetual conservation easements or other perpetual protections.

Sounds great if you own conservation land, right?  Yes, but it can be used for other owners as well.  Take for instance the agricultural or greenbelt land classifications.  I know quite a few people who have used cows to save on taxes and it is within the law’s requirements.  Some opponents are claiming the same type of “abuse” could happen with the new exemption.  So, legislatures will have to determine what time frame will qualify for the tax exemptions (i.e. how long it is to remain conservation land).

Why is this important to me?  I think you may be interested to know that St. Joe’s Lobbyist was instrumental in getting the Amendment on the ballot.  Remember, St. Joe is the largest private landowner in Florida.  I am sure there is a substantial tax benefit to St Joe, since a large part of their land in undeveloped.

While I am not advocating abuse of the law, I do think it is worth a read to see how the tax advantages can help your company.   

One curtailing side effect will be the decrease in local government revenues, in times where they have already seen drastic revenue shortfalls.  The most heavily affected areas will be rural areas with large open spaces.

For a full version of the Amendment, please go to http://election.dos.state.fl.us/initiatives/fulltext/pdf/12-5.pdf.

WE ARE. We’ve started to receive direct inquiries about our services AND referrals from people we know through Facebook. It’s not huge by any means, but my sense is that we’re at the beginning of an important change.

It started over the summer. I’d been on Facebook for about six months. I’m embarrassed to say that I only had three “Facebook Friends” and they were all employees who, no doubt, “friended” me because I’m the boss. I’m just a few years too old to be in the early adopter group for Facebook and most of the other social network sites. In fact, Al Gore was just putting the finishing touches on his new invention “The Internet” when I graduated college.

So I had a severe Facebook inferiority complex. Then something astonishing happened. All of a sudden I started talking to, let’s call them mature, business contacts. They were joining Facebook. And not just a few…nearly every lunch appointment or networking event I went to, Facebook was the new fad. I started getting and sending friend requests to people I knew (that’s how you add someone to your network on Facebook). I also noticed more businesses and business groups represented on Facebook.

A trend is forming, and I think it’s here to stay. So I thought I’d share with you my top 5 reasons for incorporating Facebook into your business marketing:

#5. It’s the best way to reach millenials and Gen-Xer’s.

#4. You can quickly (in minutes) create a company or development specific page with video, events and a blog (called the ‘wall’).

#3. Prospects can identify themselves to you by becoming “fans” of your company or development. Now you can focus your message on people who want to hear it.

#2. You can learn about your customers through their Facebook pages. You’ll better understand what motivates them to buy.

#1. You can bring YOUR personality into your marketing. Your customers crave this connection with you. Facebook is a VERY easy way to “pull back the curtain” and let them see your human side.

If you’re not on Facebook, follow my easy 8 step process to get started today.

1. Go to www.facebook.com and sign-up (I know it’s obvious…but do it).

2. Fill-in some details about yourself in your personal profile. In my profile, you’ll see that I live in Tallahassee, FL, my birthday is June 12th, I’m married, I went to the University of Florida (GO GATORS!) and I went to Episcopal High School in Jacksonville. You’ll also see some of the groups I belong to. This serves two purposes. It makes it easy for people I’ve known to find me. In fact, “the girl next door” from my old neighborhood found me by searching for people who went to our high school. The second purpose, is that it tells my Facebook “Friends” about my background…stuff that they may not have known. That makes me more accessible and authentic to them.

3. Search for people you know by name or email address. You can even upload your contact list and Facebook will do the searching for you. Once you’ve found some familiar faces, send them a “Friend Request”. They’ll be notified of your request and asked to confirm you as a friend (this helps keep away bogus friends). When they confirm you, you’ll be able to see their Facebook page and they will see yours.

4. Setup a “Group” for your company. You can make your group open to anyone or by invitation only. You can post videos on your group page…a great way to add a personal touch to your marketing. You can also have a group discussion board on your page. This will allow you to have a conversation with your customers.

5. Create an “Event” for your next development launch of sales promotion. Invite your Facebook friends and your company’s fans. This is a great, free way to get to people that are likely to be interested in your offering.

6. Post tasteful, personal comments on your wall. Give status updates when you’re doing something interesting. Recently, I was in San Francisco on a business trip. One evening I had a dinner cruise in San Francisco Bay and posted a status update saying I was cruising past Alcatraz. When I got back home, four people asked about my trip at the next networking event I attended. It was a great conversation starter.

7. Send me a friend request (search for sgordon@1globalmind.com) and I’ll introduce you around.

8. Join the GlobalMind group.

People want to do business with people, not stuffy corporations. Facebook gives you a simple way to show some of your unique personality to your prospects and customers. Go ahead, give them what they want.

I don’t know about you, but I spend an awful lot of time trying to find information for our clients. Just in the last few weeks I’ve had to track down…

• The land development code for a city three hours away from my office.
• The wetlands and soils for a large acreage property.
• The public meeting dates for a city zoning board.
• The permit application for county we had not worked in before.

These four simple requests burned up SIX HOURS of my time. The truth is I hate doing this kind of research. It’s both BORING and TIME CONSUMING.

I’ve got two young daughters who think I’m the King and they’re my princesses…I’d rather be ruling my kingdom than doing the jester’s task…research.

And I know I’m not the only one in this business that feels that way. So last month we decided to do something about it.

We put all of the information that we go looking for (and you probably do too) into one easy to access place. In fact, we decided to do it for all of Florida. AND, we decided to put it on the web for you to use.

The Land Development Resource Center is Born!

On our website you can now find…

Links to city and county land development agencies.

Land development regulations.

Permit and development applications.

Local council and board meeting schedules.

Articles on land development topics.

Free reports to help you understand more complex issues.

Maps showing aerials, wetlands, soils, flood zones and contours for every property in Florida.

Audio interviews with leaders in the industry.

Monthly webinars on important land development topics

And much more to come…

We began the Land Development Resource Center as a resource for ourselves; We hope that by sharing it with you, that you’ll save time and frustration…

…AND spend more time in your kingdom!

To use the Land Development Resource Center go to:

1globalmind.com/resource-center/

In a recent article about Dunkin’ Donuts versus Starbucks I read an interesting piece of information. The customers who were in Dunkin’ Donuts told the reporter the reason they stick with Dunkin Donuts is because they are from the North East and Dunkin’ Donuts is what they are used to. The same is true for West Coast residents they tend to turn to Starbucks. How can this information help your business?

If you can pinpoint potential customers and market to them more efficiently, you will see better returns on your marketing investment. A tool that can help business owners better utilize their marketing dollars is GIS (Geographic Information Systems). In fact, you may have used Google Earth - a basic version of GIS technology.

GIS tools, such as Google Earth, use location information to help users make decisions. So, how could Google Earth help you understand your customer better and make more money?

First, map all your current customers to see where they are located. Next, use demographic data to find what households have roots in the North East. Data can be obtained from moving stats, relocation stats from State or County, or internaly collected data. Using color coding, the more intense red has a higher concentration of the target market, it is easy to identify high concentrations of the target market. So based on the high concentration of red and existing cutomers east of I-95, you can target a direct mail campaign to the area you identify.

Why would using Google Earth help direct mail? Couldn’t I just guess the area and send postards to those homes, sorta like trial and error? You could, but what if you guess wrong, how much would the mailings cost? A friend of mine decided to send postcard mailers to all the households within a 10 mile radius of her store.

The cost was an astounding $5,800 for the postcard and postage. I am not sure about you, but as a manager in a small business, $5,800 is quite a bit of money for one direct mail compaign. The large dollar amount also increases the break-even point, meaning more sales to cover the cost of the direct mail.

Instead, I offered to map her existing customer’s versus the county population. Then we tied in the female population under 30 years old. The ending result was the above illustration (blue and red). The darker red areas identify areas with higher concentrations of females under 30. Once we download the information and saw the total households, the total households were roughly 2,000. Instead of her direct mail costs totaling $5,800, the costs dropped to $1,160.

Now to turn on my marketing hat for a minute, direct mail typically has a return of less than 1%, which means of the 10,000 mailed, only 100 will respond. On the other hand, more targeted direct mail can have up to a 6% return or even higher. With a 6% return, on 2,000 households you could expect to see 120 people at the store. So, with 8,000 fewer households receiving the mailer we still managed to get a higher response! Also, since the mailer is targeted to the store’s target market, the customers tend to have a higher average sale per transaction.

You are probably thinking, that is all well and good for a store but my business is not based on a store front, how would GIS benefit me? GIS has been used by many different businesses for over 20 years. Companies such as McDonald’s and Wal-mart have been using the technology to count customer cars and determine new store locations. Insurance companies use GIS to measure their risk and market to areas with lower risk. A land developer uses the information to find their next project site. Land conservation groups use GIS to rank the land they want to buy. Shipping companies use GIS to route where their vehicles will travel each day. The possibilities are endless. If you have a question on location, GIS can help you answer it.

Taking information off a spreadsheet and putting it in a picture gives business owners the ability to make decisions within minutes instead of hours.

Checkout how you can implement Google Earth in your business: http://1globalmind.com/2008/02/13/google_earth_for_business/ 

Once you try it, post your results here. Have fun!

In the United States, people work on average 2000 hours per year.  The average person in the United States takes 10.5 vacation days per year.  Most people do not take any vacation, instead continue working.  Then once people go on vacation, they will bring a cell phone, PDA or laptop on vacation, thus never really checking out of work. 

The US is number one in productivity, surpassing the number two county, France, by more than 300 hours per employee.  The interesting part is that France ranks fourth in the world for total average hours worked, but second in productivity.  Isn’t that powerful?  In France, employees take, on average, 25-30 vacation days per year and have a 35 hour work week. 

Knowing the statistics about France and how vacation has worked in relation to productivity, I think it is safe to say that higher productivity is not necessarily derived from more hours worked.  As Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”  If I am sitting at my desk working or in meetings all day, how much creativity and business thought gets accomplished?  None! 

One of the reasons I think this is an important topic, especially now with all the “recession” drama we deal with at our office, in the media and with our banks, because now is the time to be thinking outside the box about how to make your business outstanding.  I recently went on a short cruise, which means no access to internet or phone (without paying a hefty fee).  I will admit, I had BlackBerry withdrawals but it turned out to be a blessing.

I was able to read books I had not been able to get to. I was also able to just hang out and do “nothing.”  What a fantastic feeling to not have a schedule or agenda for the day.  When I got back I realized that the time away, although short, did wonderful things for my creative thinking process.

I was recently reading a blog post from Paul Orfalea, the founder of Kinko’s, and one of his comments was that he used to take three weeks off at a time.  He quickly realized that if you take one week off, you have one week of work on your desk when you return.  If you take two weeks of vacation, you have two weeks of work on your desk.  But, if you take three weeks of vacation, people find a way to get the work done without you. I think it is a great idea, simply for the fact that every Executive should have procedures and plans in place, so that if she was not around, the company would still be able to function.

So, forget about how bad everything seems to be right now, take a long weekend and recharge your mind.  I am sure your company and employees will benefit in the long run!

Port St Lucie, FL – GlobalMind is pleased to announce that Kim Albritton has been selected to lead the inaugural year of the Young Professionals Council for the St Lucie County Chamber of Commerce (YPC).  With the position, Ms. Albritton will serve on the Chamber’s Board of Directors as well as the Executive Board.

The YPC is a networking group of dedicated, talented young professionals under 40 who either live or work in St. Lucie County. The goal of the Council is to enrich the community by uniting and developing our young professionals with the tools needed to succeed in a competitive business environment.

“I am excited to have a Young Professionals group in St Lucie County,” said Kim Albritton.  “The meetings will provide Young Professionals with insight to the business world, as well as foster mentoring relationships for years to come.” 

GlobalMind provides land information to support real estate decisions.  Its clients include land developers, real estate investors and government.  GlobalMind operates from offices in Palm Beach Gardens, Tallahassee and Ft. Pierce, Florida.  More about the firm can be found on its web site: www.1globalmind.com

Hometown Democracy did not make it on the 2008 ballots, but do not think it will go away. According to the Hometown Democracy website, they are only short approximately 5000 signatures. The new goal is for Hometown Democracy to be on the 2010 ballot. I don’t know about you, but the thought of Hometown Democracy passing is just plain scary. I am not just worried because I work in Land Development, but as a voter, I worry. Recently, I went to the last primary election for my area.

The turnout was 20%, which is just pathetic. So, if only 20% of the people turnout in small races like the primary, want to take a guess as to who will vote for comp plan amendments? I would have to guess that probably greater than 80% of our population has no idea what a comp plan amendment is. The other freighting statistic is that the entire county would get to vote on changes that have little or no impact on their area. Early numbers indicate that voters may be asked to go to the polls to make a decision on 200-300 changes per year. Does that seem realistic for the average person?

The other issue is the economics behind the decision. If the general public truly feels that there is too much construction (even if it is viable for the economy), the voters may not approve the necessary changes. What does this mean for the area? If the comp plan changes are not passed, local areas could see issues with economic uncertainty. This means fewer jobs, less money coming in for taxes and an overall decrease in dollars spent. During the economic times we are going though now, is that really a good idea? Frankly, I am not quite sure why our current system does not work. I know of counties that are anti-growth and I rarely see a comp plan change to rural areas. Most of the development has been clustered in designated areas. Can the landscape be the same as twenty years ago? No, as a nation we are growing, we need more room. Also, Florida is one of the most desirable states to reside in. Florida is also the 20th largest economy in the world, yes the WORLD! So, why can’t we allow the election system to work the way it is supposed to. If a community is anti-growth and they elect a leader that is pro-growth, vote the elected official out of office…SIMPLE.

I have heard people say government is too willing to take on big projects because of the tax base increase. Although this may be true some of the times, if the people have elected the right official, the official is representing the people’s voice. The issue goes back to the staggering 20% voter turnout.

How do we, as an industry deal, with Hometown Democracy? EDUCATE, EDUCATE, EDUCATE. Make sure people truly understand what the ballot means. The original language of the amendment read, “Public participation in local government comprehensive land use planning benefits Florida’s natural resources, scenic beauty and citizens.” Reading the original language of the amendment, it is easy to see why so many people originally thought the amendment would be a good idea. Luckily, that wording will not appear on a ballot, should Hometown Democracy ever get enough signatures.

My final thought for this issue, just remember the pregnant pigs amendment!

CASTLE Memory Field

GlobalMind employees, friends and family participated in the 4th Annual STOMP out Child Abuse Festival to benefit the CASTLE exchange club.  We wanted to participate in the Festival because if we can help save one child from abuse, it is all worth it. The team was able to raise about $500 for CASTLE.

CASTLE’s (Child Abuse Services, Training and Life Enrichment) mission is to “improve the quality of family life and prevent child abuse and neglect by providing community education, support and resources for parents in need of assistance.”   To learn more about CASTLE, please visit http://www.exchangecastle.org.

I am not sure about you, but I feel like I can’t go anywhere without hearing about green building.  Don’t get me wrong, I am all for innovating the process to conserve the environment.  I just can’t help but wonder how long the “Green Movement” will last and what part will stick around for the long term.

Environmentally friendly is not a new concept.  I can remember when recycling was introduced and when I used recycled notebook paper for the first time.  How about the grandmother who wraps the presents with newspaper, isn’t that “green?”  Granted, many resources that have been widely taken for granted are becoming more expensive and in time may just disappear.  Thus we have a need to come up with new technologies and innovations for things like energy, but isn’t that what we have always done?  We have a problem and find a solution.

I attended a local development event recently and a heavy debate erupted as to whether or not the costs of green building could be recouped in an office building.  On one hand, you have the developer saying it is almost impossible to rent at a higher rate.  The tenants do not understand the costs savings, nor can they see a discount or savings on their bill each month that would equal the amount of increased rent.  On the other side are developers who say they can’t lease their space to large fortune 500 companies or the government without meeting the green building certifications. 

So, is green always more expensive?  Not necessarily says Peter Morris.  Morris states that reasonable levels of sustainable development can be incorporated into most building types at little or no additional cost.  In a report published by Buildings, the average return on the initial investment  for a LEED-certified building is 2.6 years.  The LEED-certified buildings also had annual net savings of more than $170,000.  LEED-certified is the lowest LEED level a building can earn. 

I have always heard the lower the level, the lower the investment cost.  Just in case you are wondering, according to Beth Anderson to obtain LEED-silver, the building would cost an additional 3.5%, gold would be an additional 4.5% and platinum would be an additional 11.5%.  What are the benefits of pursuing a higher level of LEED designation?

A study performed in California yielded results of the following energy savings based on current LEED buildings.

Is it worth pursuing the higher LEED levels?  I believe that is still up for debate but there are many facts that support building a certified or silver LEED building results in costs savings in energy.  With the increase of fuel costs, everyone is looking for ways to save on energy.  Another fact that has fueled the demand for LEED buildings is the occupancy rates.

Occupancy rates, as well as rental and sales rates, are typically higher in a LEED building (or energy efficient) versus a building that is not energy efficient.  In the last two years, there has been a 70% increase in the rent charged per square foot in LEED buildings.  The increase represents a premium of 36% over a non-LEED building (AIA.org). 

Consumer buy-in has become a major factor in the green movement.  LEED buildings also have a 4.1% higher occupancy rate than the non-LEED buildings.  The chart below highlights some of the difference between LEED and non-LEED as well as Energy Star and non-Energy Star.

 Does this mean you should go green?  I think that decision rests very much in how you want to serve the market.  The estimated green construction for this year will only amount to about 2% of the total construction for the year, but by 2010 it is estimated to be as much as 10%.  In dollars, that would be equivalent to $29 to $57 billion (CNN Money).

No matter what side of the fence you are on, I feel that LEED is here to stay.  Over time, the requirements or rules may change, but some form of our current Green Movement will remain.