Communique
Communique: Take Your Business to The Next Level
Helping companies accelerate their growth
About Communiqué
Communique’ develops, communicates, and implements effective business coaching and management strategies to help companies succeed.
Communiqué helps entrepreneurs and organizations develop business and coaching strategies to solve unique and extraordinary business challenges for growth and prosperity. We also love focusing on the value of human capital and how important it is for company success.
We provide executives with leadership, business solutions, and coaching skills for organizations in the Gulf Coast Region. The firm utilizes its complementary, diverse experience and educational backgrounds to assist small and mid-size organizations with business development, financial management, capital access, sales and marketing, mergers and acquisitions, turnaround strategies, and business mentoring.
How We Work
Our Approach
Our approach is to uncover and understand your specific needs and customize a solution for your success. Your company can rely on our depth of knowledge, entrepreneurial experience, partner resources and hands-on experience to maximize potential for growth and profit.
We distinguish three distinct stages of company growth, each having its own inflection point, this requiring a shift in business:
Stage 1: The business owner is the business
He or she drives performance in all areas of the company, and success is completely owner-dependent.
Stage 2: The business owner creates a system
He or she develops repeatable functions within the company and begins to delegate core responsibilities. This allows the owner to focus on building greater long-term value.
Stage 3: The business owner manages an investment
He or she achieves the “machine” that great entrepreneur’s dream of creating. People, strategy, and processes are completely aligned.
Executive Coaching
Communiqué provides business coaching services across many functional areas. We coach and consult small businesses and professionals to help them develop initiatives to be the best person they can be, both personally and professionally. This involves developing and implementing strategies to solve unique and extraordinary business and life challenges for growth and prosperity.
Coaching is a partnership between two people and not everyone is a right fit. To learn more about how Mark Lewis coaches and his philosophy on coaching, download the document.
Business Consulting
In addition, we are a business management and consulting firm that provides comprehensive business and management solutions to meet the needs of organizations in the Gulf Coast Region.
Our firm utilizes its diverse experience, educational background and the expertise of our business partners to assist small and mid-size organizations seeking guidance and strategies in:
- Business plan and market development
- Financial Management
- Human Resource Management
- Technology Implementation
- Hiring and firing
- Sales and Marketing
- Capital Access
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Turnaround strategies
- Business start up mentoring
- Entrepreneurial Challenges
Special Projects For CEO’s & Entrepreneurs
Each year Communiqué works on several and unique special projects that helps develop the economic development of the region and assists the business and entrepreneurial community in the Gulf Coast region.
Who WE Are
The Team
FOUNDER/MANAGING DIRECTOR: MARK S. LEWIS
Founder and Managing Director Mark S. Lewis began his career with IBM and left after thirteen years to form Communiqué, a New Orleans based Internet Service Provider (ISP). Communiqué quickly became the Gulf South’s largest ISP’s building a client base of over 10,000 users.
Communiqué was sold to a national player and a year later Mark founded EyeOnet, an Internet sales and marketing consulting firm that later merged with two other businesses into Orange Twine, with Mark serving as Chairman and Director of Business Development. In 2000, Orange Twine was chosen by the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce as the Rising Tide Small Business of the Year in Technology. In 2002, Orange Twine was later purchased by a wireless Internet provider and late that year Mark assumed the role of President of the Louisiana Technology Council (LTC) to assist with the technological development of the State of Louisiana. In November of 2005, Mark was selected by the Governor’s office as Technology Leader of the Year for the State of Louisiana for his contributions to the technology industry.
Through his leadership, the LTC helped Louisiana become one of the top three states in the country in technology job and wage growth going from 49th out of 50 states in technology employment to 32nd. Mark joined the consulting firm Simmons & White as a partner in December 2012. He has taken over the company and renamed it back to Communiqué once again. For the past six years, Mark has moderated CEO Round tables in both Baton Rouge and New Orleans and has published a #1 Amazon Best Seller book called GIVE A DAMN – The Ticket to Cultural Change. For more on Mark, download here. Or visit his LinkedIn profile.
COMMUNIQUÉ PARTNERS
For over 10 years Communiqué has partnered with WWLTV to bring you Digital Gumbo, a monthly program that promotes technology initiatives throughout the Gulf Coast region. Have a unique idea? Let us know and you could be on TV.
Since 2011, Communiqué has partnered with EFM in presenting the Louisiana IT Symposium, specifically for CIOs, CTOs, VP of IT etc, and their direct reports.
LOUISIANA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Since 2013, Communiqué, Louisiana Economic Development and EO of Louisiana has provided CEO Round tables for both New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
ENTREPRENEUR ORGANIZATION of LOUISIANA
Mark Lewis is the Membership Board Chair for EO Louisiana and in 2019 he helped EO of LA become the fastest growing chapter in the Country. EO is the only global network exclusively for entrepreneurs, with a network of 13,000+ leading entrepreneurs in 52 countries.
Moving the community forward
Special Projects
Communiqué works on several special projects that develop the business community throughout the Gulf Coast region.
GIVE A DAMN! Book & Merchandise
A portion of all proceeds go to Steve Gleason and his Team Gleason Foundation to generate public awareness for ALS, raise funding to empower those with ALS to live a rewarding life, and ultimately find a cure.
Responsibility, accountability a servant attitude and doing the right thing are center to the GIVE A DAMN! philosophy that uses common sense to address many of today’s issues. Our own actions, individually and collectively, determine the world in which we live. Motivate your employees to improve their performance with an introduction to this inspirational way of thinking. For news or information about speaking events, please check the GIVE A DAMN! website. Please like our Facebook page also!
Digital Gumbo
For the past thirteen years, Mark continues to appear live on WWLTV’s program ‘Digital Gumbo’; a monthly segment that addresses and informs the community on technology issues like information security, and the latest in technology advancements across many industries. Communiqué also helps promote unique entrepreneurial ideas along with up and coming technology products, services and companies throughout the Gulf Coast region. If you are interested in being a part of Digital Gumbo, contact Mark at mlewis@communiquellc.com.
Louisiana IT Symposium
The primary goal of the Louisiana IT Symposium is to bring CIO’s, CTO’s, their management teams and their direct reports together for a day filled with IT best practice presentations and peer to peer networking.
Connecting IT teams across all industries and across Louisiana and the Gulf Coast is a very powerful thing. The conference has grown from 90 attendees in 2011 to 350+ attendees in 2019. Held in November of each year, our other goal is to also build revenue to help fund a charity. The year 2020 was a special and very successful year year in which we provided multiple sessions virtually. For the past 3 years we have donated $30,000 to charities including the Team Gleason Foundation. We were blessed to have Steve as our keynote speaker for 2017.
The Symposium Advisory Board currently consists of almost 100 CIO Executives and equivalent and they provide their input each year for the education tracks and keynote speakers. Click here for more info.
CEO Round tables New Orleans / Baton Rouge
The annual CEO Round tables are sponsored by Louisiana Economic Development (LED) each year (since 2013) through EO of Louisiana and are provided by Communiqué. Approximately 15-18 CEO’s and key decision makers are brought together from Louisiana-based small businesses 10 times throughout the year for strategic, collaborative, growth-oriented and coaching sessions. It is a supportive and trusting environment in which CEOs can safely explore both business and personal issues and share best practices. Want to be part of it? Let us know.
Participation in the Roundtables provides access to numerous benefits, including:
- Peer-to-peer learning through discussion
- Interaction and the sharing of experiences that allow participants to learn from each other’s achievements and mistakes
- Expert guest speakers and connections to various small business resources
- Personal and Business Coaching and Feedback
PatentDive
PatentDive builds software that provides the automation for rapid invention disclosure and the creation of patent applications. Also, PatentDive assists patent applicants with their marketing efforts. Having been partially funded through grants from the National Science Foundation, PatentDive’s unique visual patent drafting interface significantly reduces the time and cost associated with preparing patent applications. Communiqué is assisting this organization in raising funds and helping all idea makers with filing patents quicker and at a much reduced cost.
Masters CEO Round Tables
Similar to Annual CEO Round tables above, graduates of the LED Round tables from the seven previous years can optionally continue their personal and business development in the 4 areas above with other graduates from the LED program in their respective city. New independent round tables are established every year.
Communiqué provides all the resources and requirements necessary for CEO’s who wish to continue to learn and grow from their peers.
CEO of Evolve Media A.I.
Evolve Media AI is an exciting new start up that Mark has recently become a founding member and it’s new CEO. Evolve Media AI is best described in an example.
When guests attend an event they record videos with their mobile devices, and in most all cases that footage normally stays with them. Evolve Media A.I. changes all that. This new app transforms event attendees into artistic collaborators, inviting them to submit their individual videos to our cloud storage platform. It is then that the Evolve Media A.I. algorithm automatically and autonomously stitches the best photo and video shots together into a homespun memento for everyone to enjoy.
Evolve Media’s patent pending minimal viable product is expected to be introduced in the spring of 2021. Evolve Media AI has already been funded by seed investors with more funding expected. Email Mark for more info at mlewis@evolvemedia.ai.