Collaborative Labs Celebrates 20 Years

Productive, engaging, collaborative, results-driven, valuable, efficient. What do all these words have in common? They are words clients use to describe the Collaborative Labs at St. Petersburg College.

Collaborative Labs define their work as the “consulting arm” of the College. They provide expert facilitation for strategic collaboration, and their highly skilled team specializes in producing actionable results for businesses, nonprofits, municipalities and department groups. This is done by combining state-of-the-art technology with fun and highly interactive engagements. The process enables maximum participation to identify areas of consensus on a shared strategic vision and priorities.

The vision emerged over 20 years ago when Dr. Carl Kuttler, the then president of SPC, experienced a planning session with other Florida College presidents in Orlando. After that session, he decided that Pinellas County and Tampa Bay needed a center to serve as a think tank for businesses, nonprofits, and governmental entities to propel strategic planning for the region. Kuttler enlarged his vision and partnered with the Pinellas County Board of Commissioners to fund the EpiCenter in Clearwater.

The EpiCenter became a joint-use facility between St. Petersburg College and Pinellas County. It is a place where professionals from business, government and academia can come together to provide a unique blend of information and services in addition to classroom space for SPC programs.

Executive Director Andrea Henning joined Collaborative Labs at its inception. Even after two decades, her hard-working team continues to use advanced technology such as visioning and brainstorming software, cellphone polling, and digital whiteboards. The Real-Time Record is completed and forwarded to all participants within 48 to 72 hours, so implementation can begin immediately. Also, visual illustrations detailing participants’ shared vision and priorities are created by a business illustrator. This complete package ensures that all participants can absorb and move ahead with the plans and goals post-engagement.

“So many entities have tried to duplicate or imitate, but no one has cracked the code,” Henning said. “Our facilitating is strengthbased, and our facilitation is still unique. Others have copied one or two elements, but where we stand out is our people. Our team is the Collaborative Labs. We become an extension of the clients we are helping. We become the easy button.”

The team’s strength-based approach is centered around the idea that the client is the actor or agent of change. It allows for open communication, encouraging individuals to identify value and assemble their strengths and capacities.

“Everyone’s voice is heard. Our methodology works. We leverage technology so we can quickly prioritize ideas and create an implementable action plan in a short amount of time,” Director Tina Fischer said. “Our client deliverables — Real-Time Record and Visual Illustration — are powerful tools that enable our participants to focus solely on sharing their ideas and being present in the engagement.”

In the past 20 years, the Collaborative Labs team has averaged close to 200 facilitated events a year. They work with every type and size of nonprofit organizations including community-based, association, government, municipalities, and membership-based organizations. The team also works with private-sector companies. The team also uses their methodology to achieve their own goals. In 2010, the team met to figure out their biggest goal. In the meeting, they found their goal was to lead Florida’s five-year plan in 2011. Then, just a month later, their goal became a reality. Collaborative Labs led the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity in a strategic engagement and have facilitated two Five-Year Strategic Plans for the department since. This success has propelled the team to pursue new, expanded strategic work both in the state and nationwide.

“I want to hear a call from the president one day, and draw up on that stage,” Business Illustrator and Consultant Jonathan Massie said. “This is a hidden gem, and I believe that we have some of the best facilitators in the country.”

Ninety percent of Collaborative Labs’ customers return for services. The team has been on the forefront of strategic collaboration since the beginning, showing they can pivot with anything thrown their way — even the COVID-19 global pandemic. During a time when meetings were virtual, it was nothing new to the team. They always led the way in virtual and hybrid collaboration and continue to evolve with technology to collaborate. SPC President Dr. Tonjua Williams called on Collaborative Labs to “stand in the gap,” she explained, during a time when the College needed to have mission-critical meetings. Collaborative Labs facilitated these collegewide and statewide meetings during the pandemic with ease.

“We always pushed the limits on technology and had been doing virtual strategic facilitation for the past 15 years when the pandemic hit,” Henning said. “Our team was the ‘go-to virtual facilitation experts’ right away. We then introduced hybrid work. We had in-person events and included people via technology. Since our inception, we offered mobile Collaborative Labs. We travel to where we are needed. Even our illustrations by Jonathan were able to move forward in the pandemic. Our methodology continues to move forward and be ahead of the game.”

Collaborative Labs continues to have the “secret sauce,” according to the team. They offer engaging technology that accelerates facilitation along with real-time visual stimulation and robust meeting notes with action plans. When an organization can’t solve something themselves, they call Collaborative Labs. The team comes in and builds the opportunity for everyone to have a voice. Then, the company can walk out with a plan. Over the past 20 years, all three SPC presidents — Kuttler, Dr. Bill Law and Williams— have had Collaborative Labs on “speed dial” as the strategic conveners to facilitate SPC and the region’s most critical initiatives.

“The College has come to depend on the Collaborative Labs in facilitating many types of engagements including emergent initiatives to future planning,” Laurie Hill, Branding and Business Development Consultant, said. “We are fully integrated with SPC’s goals and work to collaborate with internal departments and our partners and surrounding communities to envision success.”

Collaborative Labs at SPC continues to serve as an extended strategic partner for organizations in the planning process, in the facilitated engagement, and in the most difficult part of the process that is the implementation plan. While 2024 means celebrating their first 20 years, the team is not slowing down. In fact, it has expanded with a satellite at the SPC Downtown Center and is looking forward to even bigger goals for the next 20 years!