Elizabeth Eiss, center, a business specialist with The Creativity Workshop for Business located in New York, distributes a set of photographs to Prob Reshamwala, co-owner of the Tobacco Barn, and Lou Sirois, foreground, owner of Ezra’s Mercantile, as part of a hands-on seminar yesterday. The workshop was designed to develop “out-of-the-box” thinking, perceptual awareness, self- confidence in sharing and implementing new ideas, leadership, and teamwork for local business owners. The event was sponsored by The Westfield Business Improvement District. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – Any dreariness brought on by the early morning rain dried up for local small business people yesterday at the Genesis House on Mill Street, as the city’s Business Improvement District (BID) held it’s first “Creativity for Business” workshop.
Utilizing funds granted to the city by the Community Development Grant Block, BID chose The Creativity Workshop For Business as the group to lead the city’s march to a more innovative and successful downtown business sector.
Based just west of Central Park in Manhattan, The Creativity Workshop has been working to improve businesses near and far for the past 20 years, and both Alejandro Fogel and Shelley Berc, the company’s directors, were on hand for yesterday’s session, along with Elizabeth Eiss, the company’s business specialist.
With a group of around 15 men and women, the gathering was small but warm and welcoming, as yoga mats and easels filled up floor space and the scent of coffee and pastries filled the air of the facility’s Carriage House building. According to the Executive Director of the Business Improvement District, Maureen Belliveau, the event was already a rousing success, even at 8:30 in the morning.
“The program is designed around the concept of business owners taking more of a creative approach as opposed to an analytical one,” Belliveau said, “It’s not about just looking at a sheet of paper.”
The workshop isn’t the only thing in it’s infancy at the BID, as Belliveau is also in her first year as the executive director of the BID, after six years of being involved with the organization as a co-founder of Optimum Health Therapeutic Message on Elm Street. She has also helped to create and plan the city’s farmer’s markets, coming up on its seventh summer.
“It’s our first go round, but I’m very pleased,” she said regarding the workshop. “We’re just trying to get people to look at business in a new way, to give them tools they can use long after today.”
Also in attendance were Westfield Mayor Daniel M. Knapik and Community Development Director Peter Miller, who oversaw the start of the session and who both spoke highly of the day’s program.
“It’s a good new program,” said Knapik. “These are novel concepts for business groups. It’s a good start.”
“It’s the perfect way to utilize government funds and get people to think differently,” said Miller, “It’s going to help people meditate on what they need to do to improve their businesses. We’re pleased to help.”
Area businesspeople were also quite impressed with the day’s activities.
“We really learned how to not only be creative, but also how to work together as a community,” said Prob Rashamwala, owner of Mina’s Wine and Spirits on Elm Street, “We (small business owners) have to think outside the box. Today was a great way to really fertilize our business brains. Very worthwhile.”
Rashamwala’s sentiments were echoed by others following the session.
“It was a positive experience,” said Lou Sirois, owner of Ezra’s Mercantile on Elm Street. “Whenever business owners can get together to discuss ideas, it’s a good thing.”
“It’s good that the town is so invested in trying to help local businesses,” added Kim McNutt, owner of Mama Cakes of North Elm Street.
While the day was of great benefit to area small businesses, Berc, Eiss and Fogel were also able to take something from their trip to the Whip City.
“They (BID) contacted us about 90 days ago,” said Berc, who holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and was one of the first women to graduate from Amherst College, “(Maureen Belliveau) had a vision for Westfield, and really wants to see Westfield’s businesses become more successful. It shows that Westfield is serious about positioning businesses for growth.”
“Entrepreneurs have to think differently,” she said. “And every small business owner has to be a bit of an entrepreneur today. We’re just focused on making these people and their businesses shine.”
When summarizing the group’s methods for helping businesses think outside the box, Eiss was quick to lay out Creativity Workshop’s philosophy.
“There are no PowerPoints or tables. We like to focus on tangible exercises for about two-thirds of the session,” said Eiss, who, like Berc, has connections to the Pioneer Valley, having earned her undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College before going on to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business Senior Executive program.
“The other third of the session we like to focus applying what we’ve learned so far to business problems unique to their community and other issues, such as difficult customers, and other ways to improve business leverage, such as through a city event like a Founder’s Day. It’s all about personal accountability,” she said.
In addition to personal accountability, the program is designed to give people freedom to create and produce their own “thing”, as Fogel said.
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be professional, it has to be yours.” said Fogel, an Argentinian-born artist and author whose paintings, photography and other works are world-renowned.
“We, too, are a small business,” said Berc, giving perhaps the most succinct reason for why the workshop was so enjoyable for the Creativity Workshop team.
