My name is Frank and I’ve never written a blog before. When my colleagues suggested the idea, I was all in, mostly because of my passion for our brand and what we stand for.
My job is orchestrating an amazing group of people who comprise our brand, Coalesse. Sorry, we had to misspell it to protect the mark around the world. The proper spelling is coalesce and we hear it mostly when elections roll around as in, “the democrats are coalescing around….”, fill in the blank. It means to unite; to come together.
Most people in our industry think we are in the furnishings business. But at Coalesse, we believe we are in the inspiration business. And we are fascinated by human behavior, particularly at the intersection of work and life. How inspired are we in our own lives, and then a layer deeper, how inspired are we at work. And why? We used to talk a great deal about work/life balance. But the truth for us is that balance was lost long ago and today we are designing lives that integrate work and life. And this is rich territory to consider no matter what walk of life you happen to be in.
When I think of my own life, I immediately do an internal search of those things that inspire me.
My children, I have three teenagers – lucky me;
music – I am a jazz freak;
sports – love em all but have this intellectual draw to the chess match that is baseball;
friends – I am blessed with some amazing people with beautifully textured backgrounds and interests;
extended family – we love to talk about ourselves and how weird we are;
design – big D design that helps us tackle quality of life issues around the world;
politics and religion – I know, I know, can’t go there;
and work. Yes work. It is where I spend most of my time for better or worse and if you are reading this, it is likely true for you as well.
Our passion at Coalesse is to hold up a mirror for those of us who recognize the nuance of the change from seeking balance to designing this integrated way of living and working. Whatever your own lifestyle and inspirations happen to be, you no doubt are constantly challenged to juggle them all in a world that no longer honors an 8:00 to 5:00 template. We now are always on because of mobile devices and 24/7 connectivity. While the technology has been around for awhile, the pace of change continues to accelerate and as a result, we strive to do more at work, more with friends and family, more learning – no matter what our individual pursuits may be, there are still only 24 hours in a day!
To those who come to know us at Coalesse, we want to empathize with how rapidly our lives are changing and to share with one another how we are dealing with these issues. Yes, we will continue to bring great products to the market that help with the inspiration and design aspects of the challenge, but they will be derived from the Coalesse community and our collective, unique experiences and insights.
I hope you find the topic compelling and encourage you to share with us your stories.
You know, so we can coalesse.
Be well,
frank
