I thought it’d be fun to share a bit about what’s happening with our company.
I laid out our focus in this Last post. This hasn’t changed.
I am happy to report that we are growing faster than ever, as are our competitors. In this early phase of the market, each player sharpens its differentiation.
I’ll take two of the players I called out in that previous note: Sidebar and Chief. (There are many many others and more everyday; here’s a list I keep). Both, like us, offer a flavor of Forum powered by professional facilitators and technology. Sidebar has done a nice job sharpening its focus to technology executives with a promise of accelerating their careeers. Chief, of course, is focused on senior women leaders at big companies. Sidebar is priced at our level; Chief is about double, close to a YPO membership.
Concretely, our biggest difference is that we are scaling a hybrid experience. We’ve seen in our data just how impactful one in-person day or two a year can be. This is a widely recommended best-practice if you are running a remote team, too. Here’s a nice 30-second video from one of our recent Forum retreats.
Philosophically, I see some other contrasts emerging. Let me highlight one: Sidebar and to some extent Chief are very focused on work, career, professions. We believe that it is less effective to isolate this one aspect of a person’s development. CircleSpace embraces a concept I’ll call “Wholeness.” Like a YPO CEO Forum, or an Aspen Fellowship Seminar, participants grow to such a high degree of trust over time that they begin to work on improving aspects of their lives outside of work together. Our assertion is that development is wholistic as all parts of us are interconnected. the recent Apple TV series “Severance” did an awesome job parodying this false dichotomy.
We’ve also tended to work with mid-market companies, many of which also embrace “Wholeness” as a part of a innovative cultures. Many are family businesses. “wholeness” is more rare in Fortune 100s.
In any event, the growth of Forum in the world makes me optimistic. I believe it is part of the general evolution of humanity’s consciousness. Forum will soon become part of our work infrastructure, like MBAs and coaches. It will do its part moving us out of the individualistic mindset and towards developing the true small-group collabration that brings out our best.
