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WCBS Business Breakfast: Growth in the Hybrid Workplace
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‘At their wits’ end’: Inside a decades-long fight to declassify 9/11 documents
By Lynda Lopez, WCBS Newsradio 880
Produced by Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — A bill introduced in Congress last week would require the Department of Justice, Central Intelligence Agency and the Director of National Intelligence to oversee a review into declassifying documents related to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
The families of 9/11 victims, first responders and some survivors have been calling on the federal government to release the documents for some time, alleging they will reveal Saudi Arabia financed the attacks.
Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal has been leading the bipartisan effort to get the documents declassified and into the hands of the families looking to sue Saudi Arabia.
He spoke with WCBS 880 this week saying he believes the documents are the key to winning the lawsuit.
“There is mounting credible evidence, profoundly significant evidence that the Saudi government was complicit and indeed aided and abetted the 9/11 attackers,” Blumenthal said. “These 9/11 families lost loved ones, and they are seeking justice against the Saudi government, but they need some of the documents and notes and other evidence to prove their case in court against the Saudi government.”
He adds that the lawsuit is also much more than getting justice for these families.
“It’s about holding accountable a foreign government that may have aided and abetted and enabled an attack on the United States – one of the most unspeakable and heinous attacks in our country’s history,” he said.
Multiple administrations have refused to release these documents in the past with many saying that it would be a national security concern.
“No government, and no official, has yet provided any explanation or justification for refusing to release these documents,” said Blumenthal.
However, Brett Eagleson – who lost his father, Bruce, on 9/11 – says the investigation by the FBI is now over and the information can be released for the lawsuit.
“It’s gone on for too long, quite frankly, and the families are at their wits’ ends, it’s been 20 years, we’ve been made promises and assurances from previous administrations, and the time has come,” he said. “As we look to see what’s going to happen over the next 30 days, the focus of the world will be on us … And we need to take this opportunity to let the world know, and let the United States know, what our own government has been doing to us. They’ve been blocking justice, and they’ve been blocking truth and information. And quite frankly, they’ve been blocking the closure that we so justly deserve. So, we are really hopeful that we can finally cross the finish line.”
The Justice Department on Monday announced it will be reviewing 9/11 records with a goal of providing the families of victims with more information about the run-up to the attacks.
The announcement came after 1,800 relatives, first responders and survivors signed a statement saying President Joe Biden wouldn’t be welcome at the 20th anniversary events in New York City, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania unless the documents are released.
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NYC Tech Firm Embraces Remote Work in Brooklyn Apartment Building
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Co-working from your apartment building could be part of the post-pandemic hybrid workplace.
Remote work may be here to stay, but Metro Tech Services has put a new spin on it by operating out of a new co-working space in a Brooklyn apartment building.
Tony Dopazo’s Williamsburg apartment building Level converted party rooms on the first and ninth floors to fully functioning work spaces with desks, computers and private conference rooms that are free for those who live there. Dopazo also pays about $80 a month for space on the balcony that offers picturesque views of the city and meets the technology standards of a growing New York tech company.
“Signing that long-term lease, the huge capital outlay to design and build out your office space, I think, that people are thinking long and hard about that now,” Dopazo said on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
He calls co-working in apartment buildings a “piece of the puzzle” for hybrid work that will enable companies to minimize the risk of signing long-term contracts for corporate office spaces when it may not be necessary anymore.
“Other enterprises right now are really looking at that as a good model for them in the near-term,” Dopazo said.
The Brooklyn tech owner told WCBS 880’s Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso that downsizing made sense for his firm to cut costs and he’s enjoying the flexibility, but he noted some workers are not well-equipped to work from home. He’s been getting calls from employers who hire Metro Tech Services to outfit their employees’ remote work spaces to avoid any disruption of their operations.
“Everyone is moving to voiceover I.P. because it allows you to bring your handset to your home, plug it into your router, and make and receive phone calls from your regular handset,” said Dopazo.
Metro Tech Services has about 90 clients across various industries.
Embracing remote work has made Metro Tech and its clients more nimble, but in reducing managerial oversight, it has opened the door to allow talented workers to pursue new opportunities at the same time. Dopazo realized this after turning a couple workers into contractors. One moved to California and the other started his own business.
“They’re now contractors for me so we maintain that relationship, but I’ll also say, projecting now that things are getting a little hectic, I do need to bring in full-time folks now so this is the next challenge,” he explained.
“Unfortunately, they’re great, but I don’t see them as full-time. In other words, they’ve gotten spoiled and good for them. I think they’ve both done well.”Dopazo now discourages his workers from moving out of New York to work remotely.
See the co-working space in Dopazo’s Williamsburg apartment building on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight video above.
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Achieving Work-Life Balance in a Pandemic World
By Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — It’s okay to work hard and play hard.
The age-old struggle for work-life balance is in overdrive during the pandemic. Those who are working remotely are often working longer hours, feeling like they can never tackle their entire to-do lists. The surging COVID-19 infections this summer are introducing more social anxieties.
Christy Wright has spoken about balance for 11 years at Ramsey Solutions where she hosts a national radio show based in Nashville, TN focused on personal growth. In her upcoming book “Take Back Your Time: The Guilt-Free Guide to Life Balance,” she writes it’s important to prioritize work and life so you’re “doing the right things at the right time.”
“If what’s right right now is a busy day at work then it gives me permission to not only shake the guilt from the things I’m not doing, that are not right right now, it also helps me be present for the moment I’m in and be proud of how I’m spending my time,” she told WCBS 880’s Neil A. Carousso, noting, “The opposite is also true.”
The best-selling author explained that sometimes it’s okay to put your phone down to enjoy family and friends. Other times, your attention should be on work.
Wright ties balance to guilt. She used to think about her kids when she was working and thinking about work deadlines when spending time with family and found many others were in the same monotonous cycle.
“If you live your entire life this way, always focused on where you are not, then of course you feel guilty because you’re always focused on what you’re not doing,” she said.
Wright advises people to be confident in their decisions. She told WCBS 880 that often leads to happier and more fulfilled lives.
She also mentors women who are looking to start their own businesses and side-hustles and speaks on the topics of confidence and fear. Wright is frequent guest co-host on The Dave Ramsey Show.
Watch Neil A. Carousso’s full conversation with Christy Wright about ways to achieve work-life balance on the video above.
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NYC Tour Company Grows Revenue with New Profitable Services
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — A New York City tour business has been growing despite the pandemic shutdown by adding new viable services.
Cindy VandenBosch and Andrew Gustafson are the husband and wife duo at the helm of Turnstile Tours. Both of them have decades of experience in history, museums and tourism. Over the past 10 years, they’ve built a diverse portfolio of programs with unique New York stories at historic sites such as the South Street Seaport, the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.
They focus on the “people in the place” to develop the most compelling content. That recipe translated to virtual tours in the pandemic, which helped them amass an audience outside New York.
“We’ve just been able to spread our wings and share so many more stories through the virtual format,” VandenBosch told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
Quickly, they figured out a way to offer daily virtual tours on a variety of subjects to both educate and entertain. VandenBosch and Gustafson hosted more than a 100 consecutive virtual programs at one point as the coronavirus kept people home.
As hundreds of people signed up to participate in interactive virtual tours, they launched a monthly membership program.
“People sign up for a monthly membership, and then, they get access to a certain number of programs per month, and then, they can they can access our library as well,” said Gustafson. “That ongoing revenue has been really important to us.”
Now that Turnstile Tours is back in-person, they host members-only events to retain repeat customers for its premium service. They plan to continue virtual tours in some capacity even though COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted because of the opportunity to reach a mass audience.
It was their partnerships with non-profits that helped them become more than a tourism business.
“We could create this kind of suite of services working behind-the-scenes to help either existing institutions be better at what they do or to help them grow a new program,” Gustafson recalled.
As they and their team learned video production and editing engaging content to capture a digital audience, Turnstile Tours began offering those in-demand services to partners and clients.
“This spring, we supported the Brooklyn Botanical Garden for their spring virtual festival. So, we were behind-the-scenes, our team, producing and directing, helping with their ‘Making Brooklyn Bloom’ programming, which they normally do in-person,” said VandenBosch.
“We were really proud to have developed the skills just through practice,” she added.
You can get ideas for creating adjacent services to grow revenue on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight video above.
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Hometown Flower Collective Expands Flourishing Mobile, Digital Business
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — This business has mastered digital sales and is now doing the reverse pivot in their expansion.
On the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank, Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso caught up with Jaclyn Rutigliano of Hometown Flower Collective who brought her 1976 Ford F100 to Huntington for the WCBS Business Breakfast in October 2019.
Jaclyn was positioned to succeed in the pandemic with a digital and mobile-first business that has since accelerated with her strategic use of Instagram and local partnerships.
“Since day one, we really knocked on all the doors of any like-minded businesses just to say, ‘Hey what can we do?’ From a photo shoot to an event to a workshop to free flowers to a giveaway, anything, collaboration has been the number one focus and the number one growth tool for us,” she said.
“If you’re looking to go online, pay attention to that and try to offer ways to help other small businesses because that’s really what we try to do. Help us, help you.”
Hometown Flower Co. is increasing their mileage. They recently expanded their footprint from Long Island to Brooklyn and Queens.
“There are some incredible designers, especially in Brooklyn, so it’s definitely humbling,” Rutigliano said. “Our design aesthetic really has resonated with a certain group, especially in Brooklyn and Long Island City and those parts. It’s been fun and it’s also attracted some people in the media landscape and fashion world.”
The public relations professional told Connolly and Carousso that the city can be intimidating, but called it “validating” for her business.
Hometown Flower offers monthly, weekly and annual subscription services to its customers, sourcing from 10 to 12 Long Island farmers. They played an important role helping their customers cope with the sadness of the COVID-19 pandemic, and now, they are being approached for large-scale and private events.
“We’ve increased our wedding work, which is something we never thought we would be doing,” Rutigliano said.
She and her husband Marc Iervolino have also opened their first brick-and-mortar store in Huntington Village to service pickups across Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Rutigliano realized she and her Ford truck cannot be everywhere at once.
By all accounts Hometown Flower Co. is operating on all cylinders, but Jaclyn and Marc are struggling to find skilled workers, which is hindering their ability to scale.
“It’s been very difficult to find drivers, it’s been very difficult to find administrative and associate-level support as well. It’s tough and we can’t scale if we don’t have the support. It’s just not sustainable,” she said.
They were able to find a designer who Jaclyn refers to as her “right hand.” Before the hire, Jaclyn had been designing until 3-4 AM every night. But, in order for them to grow even more, Hometown Flower will need support staff. Meantime, they’ve had to turn down some events that are coming back in full force this summer.
See this creative, flourishing business in-action and see how Hometown Flower Co. is managing fast growth on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight video above.
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