Who am I?
Coordinates: 47.619791 / -122.358175
Mobile: 206.778.4330
Phone: 206.420.4509
Email: Kevin@kevinhoffberg.com
Skype: khoffberg
I am a consultant, author, speaker, and serial entrepreneur. I help people solve difficult, obtuse, highly-charged problems: The kind that have big financial, organizational, competitive, regulatory, and/or social impact. I help them, people like you, come to decision as quickly and elegantly as possible consistent with working the problem in a high quality way. That’s what I do.
What I am is another question completely. Storyteller, unrepentant ranter, clear-eyed optimist though occasional pessimist, passionate believer in the power of being the best version of yourself every minute, and sometimes agent provocateur are terms I hope people use when they think of me.
It’s fair to say that I have an attitude about things, and certainly a style in how I think, write, and speak. Don’t mistake the sometimes familiar, breezy tone for a lack of earnestness about the work of meaning and the meaning of work. I am serious about my business and have serious thoughts about business. In fact, I think the work we do, whatever it is, can and should be ennobling. It should bring out the best in us, not the worst.
I’ve done a lot of consulting over a nearly thirty year career. I’ve worked closely with executives at a hundred or so organizations both big and small.
Some of them--like CapitalOne, Lloyds/TSB, EDS, Russell Investments, Union Bank, Teletech, Wells Fargo, FleetBank, Microsoft, Bank of America, Regions Bank, Sony, Colgate, Young & Rubicam, Sears, CIBC, Arthur Andersen (long, long before Enron), Ernst & Young, KPMG, United Utilities, and Colonial First State (Aus)--you’ve probably heard of. Many others you probably haven’t. None of them ever asked for their money back, and most would even tell you that the work I did made a difference. Sometimes even a big difference.
Over those nearly thirty years I’ve written and conducted sales, service, marketing, customer experience, coaching, and leadership training programs, workshops, and seminars that thousands of people have been through.
During that time I’ve worked as a lone wolf, worked in partnership with others, started some companies, and worked for companies that others started. I also briefly worked for an Internet incubator during the dot.com craziness, thus heeding the siren call of instant riches that gathered in so many others. I’m not proud of that one, but it was a fascinating experience.
Long ago I helped found a wonderful company called Lion Coffee in Honolulu Hawaii. This was back before coffee was king and when Starbucks could only see as far as the Puget Sound. As a measure of my then youthful impetuosity, I left long before Lion became the success it became, so in all honesty, I get a founder credit, but Jim Delano, the guy who really started and funded the company, was the real star.
More recently, I took a swing through the corporate world as Chief Knowledge Officer of Onyx Software. I actually had a slightly less grand title on my business card, but nobody was using the CKO title so I took it. Nobody fought me for it so I kept it.
Since 2002, my focus has been on complex problem solving for large organizations. I write, I speak, I pepper an unsuspecting world with my rants and screeds, and generally do what I can to make work coincide with the great intentions and aspirations most of us carry with us when we're not trying to earn a living..
"Here," meaning this web site, not why am I on this earth. Much bigger question than we want to get into just now.
I guess you can call this a “guru site.” That’s what I call the online cyber-shrines to the various luminaries, consultants, authors, pundits, and experts put on the Web to advertise their presence, precepts, perceptions, and powers. So count me in.
Most of the guru websites I’ve visited are unspeakably boring. They’re barely worth visiting the first time, yet alone book-marking for a return visit. The ones for big consulting firms I find even worse. After about thirty seconds, I usually find myself asking: Where is the thoughtfulness? Where is the art? Where is the verve? The vivid prose? The deep insight? The penetrating observations? The human voice? Why am I here? Why are they here? Sometimes I can figure out what they say they do, but who are they really and why does it matter? The answers to those questions reveal themselves much less readily.
If you search on my name, you’ll find my footprints all over the place. Some of it is lighthearted fair, a lot of it pretty serious stuff. I do serious work for serious clients. I also muse about life and riding motorcycles. I love story telling. There’s a pattern in there somewhere but it doesn’t’ fit neatly into the cloak of lofty sounding words and creaking images of corporate mission and vision. So rather than add to the blah blah, I decided to just let it rip: pure, unedited, unvarnished Kevin Hoffberg point of view.
Many of the people I’ve talked to about websites say you should be brief, clear, and get to the point. People just want the facts. I disagree. I think the real problem is that there too often is no point. Absent a point, the facts just have to do.
I have lots to say and don’t mind saying it. This website is one of my platforms.