Today we’d like to introduce you to John Land.
Hi John, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
In short, I’m a scientist by education, and an educator by trade: I got a degree in Evolutionary Biology but immediately found my heart in helping others learn. For eight years, I worked as an educator, mostly at colleges and universities, before seeking a new adventure. What immediately drew me to CIC was its fearless embrace of innovation combined with its philosophy of always doing the right thing by its people. It felt then, and still feels, like the perfect place for my own eclectic background to shine.
When I assumed the local leadership role at CIC St. Louis in March of 2020, little did I know the world was about to change — drastically. Out of the gate, I was eager to build on the strong legacy that our founding GMs had built, but first I had to contend with the effects of a global pandemic on our site, our team, and our community members. We’re a team that thrives when we’re helping others, creating high-energy gatherings, and forging connections in our community. All of sudden, none of those things felt safe to do anymore, and that caused an initial crisis of morale for all of us.
To say the least, navigating the last two years has been an exercise in patience, empathy, and compassion, but it also provided a great opportunity to lean into our core values. Those include believing that our relationships are our most powerful assets; that doing what is right in general is usually also the right business decision; and that we can solve even the toughest local and global problems through innovation.
Today, as society emerges from the pandemic and CIC marks our eighth year in St. Louis, I am both thrilled and humbled at the prospect of building again. We are well-positioned to be a transformational community to everyone from aspiring entrepreneurs to established companies. My main focus will be to add even more value to the CIC experience by connecting clients to our other campuses around the world, providing a stage for thought-provoking and world-changing new ideas, and facilitating invaluable — though sometimes unlikely — alliances and collaborations between the brightest minds in our community.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Absolutely not! And as a rule, I am deeply skeptical of anyone who claims to have experienced a smooth journey to where they are. My primary struggle has been learning how my professional background – unconventional as it may be in the business world – is actually my greatest source of strength. It took a place like CIC, where differences are not seen as deficits, where we encourage new ways of thinking and doing, for me to understand the value in not fitting the mold.
COVID has been a bump in everyone’s professional road, and it will continue to be a challenge for workplaces and for any groups hoping to facilitate in-person activity. That said, from early on, CIC has taken big steps to create the safest possible environment for our staff, clients, and guests.
CIC Health, a CIC subsidiary launched during the pandemic, made a name for itself by providing fast, easy, and accessible COVID testing and vaccination services, and by making those experiences as positive as possible. The close relationships they built with healthcare practitioners and public health thought leaders helped us develop and implement a comprehensive test-or-vaccine policy locally. This approach balanced client choice while still enabling people to feel secure on-site. It solidified our standing as a leader in creating safer workplaces.
While it seems we’re largely out of the woods, we know COVID will never be completely gone. We have to embrace some ambiguity as we enter this next phase, and we remain confident that our science-driven approach will serve us well no matter what comes next.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
CIC launched in Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1999. The CIC St. Louis campus became the company’s first expansion outside Massachusetts. We opened here in 2014 with one of our primary goals being to ensure that our center would genuinely reflect the community within which it exists. That’s one of several things that sets us apart from other traditional coworking providers. It meant taking the time to get to know the community make-up and dynamics, intentionally hiring local talent, and building strong partnerships with established area organizations. One such organization — the Cortex Innovation Community, aka Cortex — has been an incredible partner to us, and our missions are very much aligned. We even share the same acronym (CIC)!
Launching a local chapter of our sister organization, Venture Café, immediately demonstrated how we bring added value to a community. The Venture Café St. Louis Thursday Gatherings quickly became a mainstay of the local professional and entrepreneurial communities — hundreds of attendees came week after week to learn, connect, and share. Although we had to take a break from in-person gatherings during the pandemic and through some VC St Louis management changes, we are beyond excited to bring the energy inherent in in-person gatherings back to the community (the first of which is coming very soon!).
Since opening the St. Louis campus, CIC has grown to become a global leader in building and operating innovation campuses that support the growth of entrepreneurs and startups. We now have more than 1 million square feet of shared workspace and event space in nine cities around the world — two of which we successfully launched during the pandemic — and the company is actively pursuing centers in new cities.
CIC has become widely known for its world-class flexible office and coworking space with a palpable energy. Typically, our clients are attracted to being in the thick of exciting, important work and to our global network. They stay in no small part because of our incredibly personable and responsive staff (although it doesn’t hurt that our kitchens feature some great snacks either).
What I’m most proud of is the way we’ve slowly and methodically expanded, only taking on a new site when we feel we are truly prepared to integrate into a community and serve the people there. That approach has preserved our ability to make personalized connections across sites and bring together people doing great things all over the world.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc.?
I’m a huge proponent of any resources that help me better connect with myself and other people more deeply. To that end, I’m a big Brené Brown fan, and I live in the “nature of work” section of TED Talk videos. I’m also a big proponent of meditation and mindfulness, and I try to carve out 15 minutes for that practice, even on the busy workdays. Taking the time for some simple breathing and silence on a hectic day can make a huge difference in my ability to keep up and feel at peace.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cic.com
Image Credits
CIC
