There’s a reason you’re familiar with Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie A Few Good Men yelling, “You can’t handle the truth!” Partly it’s because of the intensity of Nicholson’s performance, but mostly it’s because it’s a hard-hitting piece of universal reality: A lot of the time we’d rather not know the truth.
It can be as bland as the ubiquitous, “How are you?” When you ask somebody that, you don’t really want their verified health summary. Similarly, when someone asks, “How’s business?” the expected answer is, “Great!” If you’re on the verge of bankruptcy you might answer, “Hey we’re hangin’ in.”
The problem is, “Fake it till you make it” doesn’t always work. Sometimes in business, as in other aspects of life, the only way you can change and grow is if you deal with the truth.
A business consultant or a board of directors will typically only go so far in that regard. And that’s the reason David Purvis started up The Alternative Board in New Orleans.
The Alternative Board is exactly what it says: an alternative to a typical board of directors. It’s more like a business support group. A business owner joins a group of other business owners They meet regularly, have honest conversations about their issues, and draw on their experiences to critique and help each other.
The Alternative Board is an international organization. It’s in 22 countries. It has contributed to the success of more than 25,000 businesses over the past 30 years and members of the organization reportedly grow their businesses two-and-a-half times faster than the national average.
David Purvis launched the New Orleans branch after a successful 36 year career as an engineer and executive in the oil and gas business.
Even if you don’t have a business yourself, you’ve more than likely had to do business at some point with the city, or municipality you live in.
Whether that’s here in New Orleans, or pretty much any other city in the country, you’ve more than likely been amazed at the apparent dysfunction and bureaucratic b.s. you have to go through to get anything accomplished.
Here in New Orleans, our everyday stories are legendary about road repair, street lighting, building permits, burst water mains, boil water advisories, and the list goes on.
Here’s a true story. On a street near my house, the city dug up the whole street and sidewalk and repaired and re-paved it. It was beautiful. For about a month. Then some other city contractor came along and dug up a section of the sidewalk. Now a sheet of plywood covers that bit. It’s been like that for 9 months and now the plywood’s beginning to rot.
I know you’ve got a similar story. We all do. But, imagine living in a city where this kind of dysfunction doesn’t happen. That is what Sevetri Wilson Taylor’s company, Prosperall, is setting out achieve.
Prosperall is an AI-driven platform that lets cities and municipalities consolidate data across departments so that disconnected systems that were never designed to talk to each other, communicate and coordinate.
Sevetri Co-Founded Prosperall in 2025 and it’s already at work in 11 cities, including New Orleans.
It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, or how successful you are, all of us to one degree or another believe that however well we’re doing now, we can do better. Whether it’s about making more money for yourself, or making life better for somebody else, the desire to do better - at least in the Western world - is probably one of the biggest motivators of human activity.
Sevetri and David are both focused on making things better. For lots of people. David is focused on making things better for people in business. Sevetri is focused on making things better for everybody – everybody who lives and works in a city. It takes a special balance of drive and selflessness to pull off what each of them are doing.
Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.
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