FMYI | For My Innovation

Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among children in the US; 12,000 children are diagnosed each year and approximately 3,000 will not survive. My family has lost loved ones to cancer, but as a father, I can only imagine the greater impact if the patient is a child. Progress is being made, and the survival rate is nearly 80 percent for children, but lack of funding threatens the momentum being made towards treating and curing childhood cancer. My heart goes out to all of their families and we want to make a difference.

A few weeks ago at a conference in Denver, I was honored to present our largest donation to date, to Diane Vaughan, Senior Development Officer of the Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service. We are very grateful that our contribution will help fund innovative research and we look forward to the day when we all can say that childhood cancer is cured.

Ranked as one of the top childhood cancer centers in the country, they are helping more than 350 new childhood cancer patients annually. I’m constantly touched by the courageous stories of the children who are fighting for their lives.

I’m especially touched and empowered by this video:

If you are interested in learning more, please watch the videos on YouTube or follow them on Facebook.

I’m proud that FMYI is committed to empowering others to make a difference. FMYI’s growth has enabled us to do our part with cash and in-kind donations to support organizations dedicated to improving the lives of others locally, nationally and internationally.

Thank you to all of our customers, without whom this would not have been possible. Thank you to the Aflac field force for your generosity to the Aflac Cancer Center has inspired mine. And thank you to the staff of the Aflac Cancer Center for making a difference in children’s lives.

-Seth

Can the iPad be used as a laptop replacement at work? To figure this out, I kept my laptop off for a week after first deciding to get an iPad, setting it up, and leaving the laptop at the office. Part of the week I was in Manila on a trip, and during the other part my laptop stayed turned off in the office.

My general impressions? I didn’t miss the extra complexity of the laptop, but I did miss doing some key workflow related tasks that aren’t possible on the iPad:

1. Pros

• Singletasking: I found the lack of multitasking (until iOS4 is released on the iPad) to be actually refreshing. Focusing on one task at a time made it easier to get things done.
• Travel: The iPad is perfect for traveling and leaving the laptop behind. Battery life is outstanding. During my 18 hour trip back, I watched two movies, read an iBook, did some work, and only used up half the battery! And if you get the built in wireless data 3G version, you can work in more places without committing to a wireless data contract.
• Worklife: Using a tablet is truly “A New Day“ for working. How you sit, being able to work from anywhere with built in Internet access and a longer battery life, making it easy to pass around during group brainstorming, and not having a screen cluttered with too many things at once will change how you work.

2. Cons

• Emails and calendar: The Mail app doesn’t show flagged emails for follow up (essential to my system of never filing an email), you can’t search the full text of emails on the server, you can’t click on an original email to view the sent email, no iCal tasks show up, and .ics file import is lacking. Together, these have a major impact on my workflow, although I can use FMYI’s Activity Manager and shared calendar to get around this.
• Writing: Without a physical keyboard, typing anything more than a paragraph is a pain. A Bluetooth keyboard is a must if you plan to do a lot of writing. Copying and pasting URLs, critical to blog posts, is awkward.
• Sharing: There’s no videochat (at FMYI, we rely on it because of team members working around the country) and IM through push notifications is a bit clunky. And the biggest problem of all is you can’t upload documents easily to websites/web apps.

3. Tricks

• Get access to your laptop’s document folders by using services like Dropbox, MobileMe, or SugarSync. That way, you won’t have to use iTunes to sync individual files.
• Use web apps to collaborate especially if you have a 3G iPad. This keeps your team’s info in the cloud and accessible from anywhere. Check out FMYI, which blends a social networking site ease of use with project management, contact tracking, file/calendar/task sharing, and more. I may be a little biased, but we created FMYI for exactly this situation.

My conclusion? If you’re traveling for awhile and shut down the laptop, the iPad works well, but in the office, you’re not going to replace the laptop or desktop computer just yet. You can get close if you have a cloud based file and collaboration solution though.

Next: final thoughts on the iPad, tablets, and the future of computing in the workplace.

-Justin

So I’ve been exploring whether I can use the iPad for work. After I set up my iPad, my first experiment was to see if I could leave my laptop behind at the office for a week. The iPad served as my email, web, calendar, and presentation device at home, in between meetings, and during client visits.

How did it do? Remarkably well. The form factor made running around town a breeze. Not only did I save my back a little because of how much lighter the iPad is than a regular laptop, but I was also able to carry a smaller (man)bag. The simple iOS interface made quick tasks easy like checking email, the weather forecast, tweaking a slide, and finding the best route to my next meeting. A full desktop OS soon felt clunky. And the extra screen real estate is a big benefit over a small smartphone for extended work.

1. Pros

• The touchscreen interface is a revelation for web browsing. By touching the screen directly to navigate links, the experience is so much faster and fun than using an intermediary input device like a mouse or trackpad. The downside is the time your spend browsing aimlessly goes way up!
• It’s a pleasure to read PDFs, books, and presentations. You’ll find yourself curling up with the iPad going through all those work documents you haven’t scanned.
• The speed is outstanding. Combine the fast processor with the simple iOS interface, and you have a winner. Startup takes seconds, as does going from app to app.

2. Cons

• The lack of Flash makes it hard to watch embedded videos that haven’t been converted to HTML5. And company websites using Flash for navigation are worthless on the iPad. You can get around this using one of the tricks I mention below.
• Content creation isn’t ideal as we all know. There’s no multiple undo. You can’t upload files to websites using the Safari browser. Keynote is very limited for presentations. The touchscreen keyboard is a pain for typing more than a few sentences at a time and is missing numerous characters like a bullet (•). Either you have to keep things simple with your presentations, or you’ll need to do them on your laptop/desktop computer.
• Of course, being an early adopter means the device is a little rough around the edges. I had to return mine after some mysterious problems with the iPad restarting on its own without me touching it. Fortunately, Apple’s legendary customer service was a joy to deal with, and they replaced my unit with a new one. I also had some problems with syncing the iPad and having my apps deleted, meaning I had to reinstall them and set up the preferences all over again.

3. Tricks

• One of the coolest things you can set up is a VNC client like iTeleport. This allows you to access your work computer remotely from your iPad. You’ll be able to view Flash sites, email yourself a file, or run an application you don’t have on your iPad. Definitely a must have.
• Definitely get a case of some sort. The iPad is slippery and you’ll want one to prevent it from sliding off a table, and it’s a bonus to have it angled for typing.

My conclusion? The iPad is ideally suited for mobile work. You can confidently keep your laptop at the office. Having an iPad makes those long hours on the road or burning the midnight oil at home almost enjoyable. And it helps that you’ll never be far from music, videos, and books when you need a break.

Next: keeping the work computer off for a week and using only the iPad for work!

-Justin

At a reception held last night, the Portland Business Journal unveiled its 2010 Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies in Oregon. “Like a mighty salmon, these 100 businesses are King of the River and successfully made it upstream in this challenged economy,“ said Craig Wessel, Portland Business Journal Publisher.

The top 100 companies were chosen based upon their percentage of revenue growth from 2007 to 2009 and then ranked accordingly. With unprecedented growth in 2009, FMYI made its debut and ranked 13th on the list. After receiving the ranking at the event, FMYI president, Justin Yuen said “We’ve grown during economy 2.0 because the time is right for the collaboration software that FMYI provides to improve the way teams innovate. I’m truly appreciative of the people on our team, our customers and the community partnerships we’ve built locally and around the country.” 

Additionally, FMYI ranked 8th in Employee Percentage Growth.

A bootstrapped company built entirely through client revenue, FMYI hit unparalleled momentum in 2009. Annual revenue increased over 200% by working closely with existing customers to indentify business needs as well as investing in marketing to generate new business and aggressively pursuing those opportunities.

Launching FMYI Version 6 in October garnered rave media reviews and visits to FMYI.com and usage of FMYI both increased by over 400%. In line with revenue growth, FMYI more than doubled the number of employees on its team from 5 in 2007 to 16 in 2009 and in July moved into a new headquarters in the Leftbank Project. The user adoption graph also grew rapidly over the last year due to increased marketing efforts. Currently, FMYI serves over 90,000 profiles across 9,200 sites.

Despite the economy, 2009 was FMYI’s strongest year ever and with the momentum it created is pushing the company onward and upward. 2010 marked the premiere of FMYI’s first ever brand video in February. Featuring changes agents who use FMYI to make a difference, A NEW DAY expresses what the heart and soul of FMYI is all about and what the team aspires to deliver to customers.

So I decided to take the plunge and pick up an iPad and use it for work. I opted for the 3G version. which gives me Internet access when I’m not connected to a Wi-Fi network. This comes in handy when traveling or giving presentations where Internet access isn’t available, such as workplaces that don’t allow guests to connect to their network or issues come up when trying to connect. In the past, I’ve used tethering between my laptop and a cell phone, and have considered wireless data devices that plug into a USB port. Both options are a bit cumbersome to set up, and the cost and contracts involved with the wireless data devices are a barrier to entry.

What I like about the iPad 3G setup is it’s fast to set up, there’s no extra USB device to keep track of, and there’s no contract. I’m using the entry level $14.99/month plan (up to 250 MB in bandwidth) which makes me judicious about when I use 3G service. For the most part, I’m using the iPad at the office, at home, or in other places with Wi-Fi like airports and coffee shops, but the 3G has already come in handy during a presentation at a restaurant and in an office. When I’m not connected to Wi-Fi, I’m typically only using 3G for checking emails and browsing the web. No Pandora or YouTube for me in my quest to save money on the data plan, and the quality isn’t that great when streaming video.

Setting up the iPad through iTunes takes some time, especially if you’re copying over a lot of audio, video, photos, and apps. It didn’t help that I originally had a lemon that kept restarting on its own. Thankfully, the Apple Store came to the rescue and replaced my iPad free of charge. Once that was taken care of, it was on to exploring what apps to install, and the best way to protect it:

Essential apps for work

It becomes quickly apparent that the apps made for the iPad’s screen are way better than running the apps made for the iPhone’s little screen. Definitely opt for the versions that take advantage of the full screen real estate on the iPad (look for “HD” or “XL” at the end of app names). I’ve been a little disappointed with the selection of productivity apps overall, but these are the ones I’ve found to be most useful so far:

• Documents: GoodReader (essential tool for viewing a variety of files), Keynote (beautiful way to present and create simple presentations), Pages, Numbers
• Communication: IM+ (unified place for instant messaging chats across multiple platforms), Twitterrific (clean design), TweetDeck (powerful features)
• Research: Pulse (fun news reader with quite a story), Bloomberg, Zinio (browse magazines and go green), iBooks
• Brainstorming: Adobe Ideas (Drew Bernard said it best: “I really like their sketch pad. I have tried all kinds of electronic sketchpads over the years Adobe Idea on the iPad is the first one that really works for me.“), SketchBook
• Utilities: Dragon (turns audio into text), Analytics HD (Google Analytics dashboard), Jumbo (calculator)
• Travel: Weather Channel, World Clock, Kayak Flights

Cases and bags

As opposed to cell phones (you need a case) and laptops (you need a bag), for the iPad you’ll probably want to get both a case (protection against scratches and more grip so the iPad doesn’t fly out of your hands or slide off a table which isn’t a problem with laptops) and a bag (phones can slip into a pocket, but unless you have Stephen Colbert’s iPad suit you’ll need a bag to carry the iPad around).

First, check out iLounge’s iPad accessory reviews. The number of cases reviewed will make your head spin. Fortunately, I’ve poured through a ton of them and came up with this short list for you:

• Cases: DODOcase (amazing Moleskine-style bamboo case!), Incase Grip
• Bags: STM Jacket, STM Scout, Timbuk2 Freestyle, WaterField Muzetto

In my next post, I’ll explore what happens when I leave my laptop behind and use the iPad outside the office.

-Justin

Are we in an era of information overload instead of information empowerment? U.S. President Barack Obama recently said:

“You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank all that high on the truth meter,“ Obama said at at Hampton University, Virginia. “With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.“

Since we’re very focused on social media in the context of work here at FMYI, let’s take a closer look at this from that angle. A recent survey found that although 52.3% of U.S. workers agreed that social media helped them learn more in less time, only 37% felt they got more work done. No doubt we have more information at our fingertips that we can learn from; the question is, are we leveraging new ways of sharing information to achieve goals in the most effective way possible? I think there are three key issues at play here:

1. We need to manage the information firehose.

Think about all the streams of information you manage daily. Emails. Text messages. Instant messages. Social networking sites. Phone calls. Voicemails. Snail mail. Face to face meetings. Water cooler talk. Videos. We’re surrounded by content, and if we wanted to, could immerse ourselves in it 24/7. Being deeply involved in social media definitely exposes you to more content. But it takes time to filter, sort, read, scan all the feeds. It’s not a given that “social business” is also synonymous with “effective business” especially with workplace collaboration. We need ways to better aggregate all the streams and filter it down to only the most relevant items needing our attention.

2. We need to have more creative tools for innovation.

In terms of the workplace, it’s not enough to just launch brainstorming discussion forums for sharing ideas, or talk crowd sourcing but rely on simple voting mechanisms. Technology needs to help connect ideas with people who have the skills and experience to make them a reality, or provide guidance with suggesting ways to get projects done more efficiently, or set up meetings on the fly based on need, or provide intuitive dashboards that help interpret activity going on and where people can best invest their time.

3. We need to work in a whole new way.

Old habits die hard. The only way to create lasting change is to put yourself in an environment that is conducive for the change. Just like it’s sometimes hard to tackle a brainstorming project while in the office because of all the day to day distractions (necessitating an afternoon trip to the neighborhood coffee shop), in order to work more efficiently or generate new ideas we’ll need to embrace a more flexible work structure. President Obama himself has been a supporter of workplace flexibility. We’ll need to build communities around this concept, and build workplaces to maximize the results.

I believe achieving these is essential to the future growth of our economy. What do you think? We’ll be talking about examples in the coming months that illustrate the power of these solutions to mitigate the information overload we experience today.

-Justin

Yesterday FMYI received an Innovation in Sustainability Award in the small business category at an event hosted by the Portland Business Journal and Sustainable Business Oregon. Recipients of these awards are organizations committed to pushing the envelope to provide innovative sustainability solutions for business and commerce as companies that demonstrate new and creative products, services or approaches that serve to strengthen our sustainable economy.

At FMYI, we realize that sustainability is not an easy sprint or long-haul marathon, but rather a journey towards zero impact. As a mission-based company focused on empowering teams to make a difference, FMYI is about doing good and changing the world. From the very beginning, sustainability has been a part of our DNA and corporate social responsibility is written into our Articles of Incorporation. As we have bootstrapped FMYI over the last six years through client revenue, sustainability has permeated into every aspect of the company and has informed every step we’ve taken.  Quite simply - sustainability is the heart and soul of FMYI. We, like many others, continue the journey by continually looking for ways to improve our efforts and envisioning how we can achieve zero impact.

When accepting the award, FMYI President Justin Yuen said, “Small business success and sustainability are linked. If you want to have a small business that succeeds, you have to surround yourself with passionate people who believe in the mission and are there to make things happen. You have to bootstrap your way through things, you may not have as many resources you may like, and finally you are looking for every competitive advantage you can have in terms of business development.”

“What does it mean to be a sustainable service company or small business? It really comes down to 3 things. Even though you may not have a tangible product, 1) you can use it to attract and retain employees through the commitment, and that is pretty important thing in this community. 2) Essential for reducing costs and finding ways of reducing expenses, in terms telecommuting and digital marketing materials, as opposed to printed materials.  The third and last thing is really looking for business development advantage, competitive advantage in terms of building sustainable attributes into your service, like our commuting tracker and templates for sustainability and employee engagement.”

Check out today’s Sustainable Business Oregon article and find out why they believe FMYI is “a living embodiment of the sustainable office.”

Congratulations to the other award recipients as well: Miller Paint (Medium business), Truitt Bros. Inc. (Large Business) and Zero Waste Alliance (Sustainable Vision Award).

Okay, so it’s impossible to shield yourself from the iPad hype. Especially for an Apple fanboy like myself. I mean, an entire episode of Modern Family revolved around it.  I’ve read the mammoth Arstechnica and iLounge reviews. I’ve stalked early adopters on New Jersey Transit to take a sneak peek. It got to the point where my wife limited my iPad talk to one mention a day.

But let’s take a step back for a second. Leading up to Apple’s announcement of the product with all of the rumors circulating, I was most interested in the business case for the iPad. Why would someone want such a device, and how would it fit into their lives? Up until January this year, this space was mostly filled with netbooks for people who wanted smaller laptops to run Microsoft Office, check email, and browse the web. Sure, there were a few tablets still out there leftover from when Ja Rule was still popular. But by and large, tablets hadn’t caught on.

What is the iPad good for? Whenever anyone asked me about the iPad, this was my answer: inherently, the laptop is a compromise. When you’re at the office, it isn’t as fast as a desktop nor does it have as big a screen built in. And when you’re away from the office, out of the box, it isn’t as light, simple, intuitive, fast, always connected, and long lasting battery-wise as I want it to be. In my dream world, I’d have a 27” iMac at work for all my power user creation needs (design, video, multimedia library, MLB.tv), and everywhere else, I’d have a supremely portable, simplified, thin client to do basic work (email, presentations, word processing/blogs, spreadsheets, calendar, address book) and browse multimedia content for inspiration (music, videos, magazines, newspapers, books, websites) without carrying around a lot of paper.

So after my extensive research which was essentially an exercise in delaying the inevitable “buying a first generation device when it’s obvious you should never do that but you’re powerless to stop yourself,“ I took the plunge recently and ordered my iPad 3G. As the head of a hosted collaboration software company, I’m always looking at the next horizon for new ways of working digitally. It truly is a new day.

Since I couldn’t find that many blog posts out there reviewing the iPad exclusively from a work perspective, I decided to set out on an ambitious five part series (I’m prone to never ending blog post series on bootstrapping and Economy 2.0) to delve into my experiences over the course of a month of using an iPad for work. Along the way, I’ll be inviting a few guest commentators to weigh in with their experiences.

Although this is all probably just a ruse to finally convince myself to pull the trigger on an iPad, I figured others out there are wanting to know the answer to this burning question:

“What would happen if I never turned on my laptop/desktop for a week and just used an iPad?“

Stay tuned to find out!
-Justin

Let’s talk about Ning. This is a timely topic since Ning has been in the news lately for replacing their CEO, cutting staff, and ending their free version. But occasionally we’ll get questions about how our service compares with Ning. We both offer platforms to create a social network for a group of people. Here are the main differences though:

Differences between FMYI and Ning

1. Ning is usually for public networking. FMYI is only for private invite-only groups, and we offer many levels of access permissions.
2. Ning was created for people to network and communicate with each other, like a more social version of older tools like Yahoo Groups, or Google Groups. FMYI is specifically for collaboration, meaning the team of people are working together to achieve goals, such as managing projects, tracking contacts, and sharing resources in the workplace, in a class at school (college, university, or other higher education environment), or as part of a membership/networking association.
3. Ning no longer offers a free version. FMYI has offered a free version for years, and always will.

This brings us to a big question: why does FMYI believe in a free version? We think it’s important to let people experience what we’re all about without a limited time trial period. It take a little time for you to get to know us in terms of inviting people in to your site, experiencing the free email and phone support we offer, and trying out all the features we offer as activity ramps up in your site.

We feel like the more time you spend with us, the more you’ll like us, and be interested in our upgraded features. But no pressure if you don’t want to upgrade, because you’re helping us to spread the word about FMYI with the people you invite into your FMYI site. And this viral word of mouth referrals are important for us to reach new clients. Tools like SurveyMonkey has had a commitment to providing support to their free users, and they’ve grown tremendously as a result of people spreading the word.

So if having a free version is great, why did Ning stop offering one? A company has to make money, and Ning is smart to focus on boosting their revenue. At some point, even in this age of cheaper cloud computing, the cost of hosting millions of free users starts to have a major impact on the bottom line. If the percentage of paying users is in the single digits, that makes it tough unless you have major venture capital (2% of Evernote users pay but they have $25.5 million in funding) or other revenue streams to fund the product (less than 4% of Google Apps users pay but 95% of Google’s revenue comes from advertising).

For FMYI, although we provide free support for all users, and free generates paying leads for us, our business development focus isn’t on the freemium business model. We spend most of our time generating revenue from our large corporate customers. This is key for the bootstrapping portion of our how we’ve grown over the years. It’s the notion that we try not to spend more than we earn. And we have a singular focus on providing a great collaboration platform, not on other activities that could distract from the quality of our service or our responsiveness.

What do you think about the importance of free versions?

-Justin

FMYI is pleased to announce we are a finalist in the 2010 Zipcar for Business “Wheels of Change” award. As a business committed to sustainable practices, Zipcar is a great partner for our transportation needs. Zipcar’s services come in handy around the country as well as in our own backyard. During the filming of the sunrise scenes of our brand video - A New Day – our film team rented a Mini cooper convertible in the early hours of the morning to film FMYI president Justin Yuen riding the infamous orange bike to FMYI HQ.

As a company committed to the triple bottom line, FMYI offers car sharing to make it easier for employees to walk, bike or use public transit to come to work while still being able to attend meetings throughout the city and while on business trips in other cities (instead of car rental). FMYI also subsidizes employee’s public transportation passes and recently started a company telecommuting program to further reduce the number of trips each employee has to take weekly.

We congratulate the other finalists (Dull Olson Weeks Architects, Yost Grube Hall Architecture) and the recipient of the award, Integral Consulting.

Thinking about rolling out a collaboration site at work? Been researching online workspaces but you’re not sure how to get one going? There’s a lot of buzz about the social enterprise, collaboration software, crowdsourcing, etc. But frequently there are obstacles to getting full user adoption. Here are some lessons we’ve learned at FMYI after six years of empowering teams to make a difference:

Download a copy of this presentation

1. Rally your team around a goal.

• Bring together people motivated to work together to achieve a goal.
• Make it clear what they are responsible for contributing.
• Focus in on how the collaborative effort benefits them.
• Get support from leadership and share the results of the collaboration.

Case study: A global hospitality corporation brought together green team members across hundreds of locations worldwide under the common banner of achieving their sustainability goals. They tailored their FMYI collaboration site to easily capture best practices and green team results. Everyone understood their posts would generate visibility for their sustainability efforts. Their CEO supported the initiative and had visibility to posts on the site, which gave transparency to the efforts of the green team and the VP of Environmental Affairs.

2. Cut the red tape by making the business case for internal stakeholders like IT.

• Focus in on how this specialized collaborative effort addresses a specific goal.
• Be sure to convey how your initiative is different from others.
• Make sure to address IT’s requirements and reduce their workload.
• Lean on your vendors to help provide technical and customer support.

Case study: A global media corporation rolled out an FMYI collaboration site focused on keeping everyone on the same page when it came to strategic planning. They wanted to make it easy to share information quickly, make changes to the site on the fly, and empower other team members to share information as well. This helped reduce the workload on IT by eliminating the need to deploy or customize another enterprise platform that was struggling to get user adoption. And FMYI addressed IT’s security requirements and provides all support needed, minimizing the burden on the media company’s team.

3. Make it as easy as getting back on the bike.

• To minimize the barrier to user adoption, set things up so the collaboration is as natural and familiar as possible.
• With the rise of social networking, embrace the spirit of those sites to enhance adoption.
• To create the conditions for maximum user adoption and stickiness, provide easy ways for people to collaborate together to answer questions, share updates, and get things done.

Case study: A global sportswear corporation is using FMYI to easily and effective engage over six thousand athletes to provide input and data regarding new products. With a userbase reflecting a wide range of computer skills, and the importance of getting regular input from a cross section of athletes, FMYI’s social networking site look and feel helped increase user adoption, made the transition from an older solution seamless, and reduced the need for support. FMYI’s collaboration features also made the site more than a data repository and enabled collaborative conversations to happen, creating a private social network for greater engagement and insight.

4. Give a helping hand right at the start.

• It’s critical to understand how you can help the team achieve its goals, and build the collaborative effort around that. This includes learning what motivates most team members.
• Involve key “change agent” team members in planning the rollout. They will give great input and assistance with getting others on board.
• Schedule a kick off training event (in person, virtual via webinar, or a pre-recorded video/slide tour) to convey excitement of the benefits in addition to showing how things work.

Case study: A multinational insurance corporation is using FMYI to help its salesforce improve results, track prospects, and manage clients. FMYI helped them understand the needs of its field force sales teams, worked closely with top agents across its salesforce, created customized template sites, and rolled out entertaining and approachable training sessions to engage the sales teams.

5. Like karaoke, you need to rely on continuous improvement.

• You can count on not getting it completely right the first time.
• Ongoing support for the entire team is important for input to refine things.
• It’s essential to have a solution that easy to update and change on your own.
• Incorporating sustainability can help increase performance.

FMYI provides all its customers free support no matter how small or large they are. This helps refine the features in our software. Configuration changes to FMYI sites are easy for site administrators to do without any technical knowledge, and updating pages in the site are intuitive for users. That way, the site stays relevant and useful over time. And FMYI’s commitment to sustainability means we minimize our environmental footprint, maximize our positive impact on our community, and empower our clients to do the same with built in triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit) features.

Click here to view and download slides illustrating these five keys to collaboration success.

-Justin

FMYI is pleased to announce that Sales and Marketing Manager Graeme Byrd has been appointed to the Oregon Environmental Council’s Emerging Leaders Board. This advisory board is comprised of entrepreneurs, strategists, community leaders and visionaries under the age of 35 who have been selected to share their skills to support the mission of Oregon Environmental Council. Since 1968, OEC has helped advance innovative and collaborative solutions to Oregon’s environmental challenges for today and future generations. Congratulations Graeme and to all the OEC Emerging Leaders! More info about this FMYI team member:

Graeme Byrd is a Sales and Marketing Manager at FMYI [for my innovation], where he teaches customers how to be change agents by using FMYI to communicate and collaborate. Prior to FMYI, he managed marketing for national restaurant chains including Noah’s Bagels, IHOP and Church’s Chicken at Metro Marketing Resources. At Tom Dwyer Automotive, he spearheaded the Carbon Neutral Program with Bonneville Environmental Foundation offsetting over a million pounds of carbon in less than 1 year. Just after graduating from Willamette University, Graeme used his film degree to develop recruitment campaigns for Pacific University and documentaries for the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center and International Korean Adoptee Associations.

At FMYI, we realize that sustainability is a marathon, not a sprint, and is an eternal learning process. Our commitment to supporting social and environmental causes shows in the involvement of our team with a variety of organizations. We encourage all team members to volunteer and participate in the community.

A year ago, the Portland Blazers made it to the playoffs (and I was at the game), but didn’t get beyond the first round. (Sadly, this year the same occurred.)
A year ago, I walked into FMYI and made new friends; these friends have become family.  We truly are the FMYI Family.
A year ago, I jumped onto a jet plane.  Boy, it moves so fast.

Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast.

It has been an amazing flight and a whirlwind journey so far, but I can say that Most of the time - My head [has been] on straight…

Last week marked my first anniversary with FMYI. From the moment I got on this plane, it was “onward and upward” as Justin says.

What an amazing journey it has been so far, so much has happened…several new members joined the FMYI Family, we moved into a new office at The Leftbank Project, Version 6 was launched, rave reviews from our friends in the media, continued to improve upon our sustainability practices, launched A NEW DAY - our first ever brand video and a multitude of new clients are using FMYI to make a difference.

All this and undoubtedly much more occurred - thanks to the efforts and dedication of a great team.

Words of the year

Every year major news sources list the new “popular” words - I came up with my own list a few days ago.  In a meeting last week, I did not say “FMYI,“ (I know, that is pretty impressive, for those who know me), but I used these powerful words…words of the future:

• Innovate
• Empower
• Human energy
• Sustainable
• Collaborate

Family

FMYI is not just a company. FMYI is not just a group of people who post messages, chat online and frequently have video chats. FMYI is a family of individuals committed to a common cause…making life easier for people around the planet.

“Planet” is an interesting word to consider with the 40th anniversary of Earth Day just a few weeks ago and our commitment to Every Day being Earth Day as well as the triple bottom line.

FMYI is about making life easier for people around the planet to improve the world’s profits by using new technologies to communicate and collaborate. FMYI empowers teams to make a difference.

We can’t make a difference alone. We can only truly make a difference if we work towards a solution every day as a team and as a family.

Thank you to everyone on the team for making my first year full of energy and excitement. I’ve always believed that you should do what you love in life (I’m a big fan of the short film from 2000 - “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, directed by my friend Scott Stewart, based on Raymond Carver’s short story). That is what I am doing. Every day, I’ve been excited to be on this airplane. Experiencing this journey. Thank you to everyone for welcoming me into the FMYI Family.

This first year has been unbelievable. While so many great things have happened…I’m excited to spend the next years building on my experience and doing my part to take FMYI to new heights.

365 days in…and I’m just getting started…

Keep empowering [with FMYI],
(that’s how I roll)
-Graeme

Is today Earth Day? Yes.
Was yesterday earth day? Yes.
How about tomorrow? Yes.

At FMYI, we believe that every day is Earth Day. As Justin Yuen returned from Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN 2010 this past week, it reminded us of the importance for ongoing discussion and engagement around sustainability. We are excited to celebrate the 40th annual Earth Day; we can only truly make a difference if we work towards a solution every day.

When we talk about our sustainability initiatives and company core beliefs, people sometimes give us a confused look. I am sure many wonder why an online collaboration software company is so committed to sustainability. To help others understand the heart and soul of FMYI, we released A New Day earlier this year. In the video we call for change agents to stop working, start innovating and keep empowering. We believe in a new way of working that is characterized by innovation, empowerment and sustainability. Like the first Earth Day, this new way of working requires just one thing – vision. Forty years ago, Earth Day was just one day. In the past several years it has evolved into Earth Week. Now, with sustainability being incorporate by more and more of us into our daily lives every day is Earth Day.

The Planet
We are committed to the triple bottom line business strategy of people, planet and profit. We believe innovation is the key to our efficiency and that doing things differently and sustainably increases effectiveness and decrease long-term impact on the planet. We have not inherited the planet from our parents; we are renting it for our children. We want to leave it a better place for them.

As we celebrate this 40th Earth Day, here are some the ways we take action every day to be a more sustainable business and do our part to grow a vibrant green economy. 

Educating Ourselves
Every member of our team continues to be empowered by Natural Step Network training and Northwest Earth Institute discussion courses. Through these activities we continue the discussion and engage each other around sustainability and how we can continue to deliver on FMYI’s commitment to the planet.

Energy Use
We recently achieved the City of Portland’s Climate Champions designation. Carbon offsets for the energy used by our servers and your computer provided by The CO2Stats Project. We’re also a member of the Climate Savers Computing initiative.

Transportation
Employees are encouraged to commute using public transportation or by bike. We offer discounts on car sharing through Zipcar, access to bikes, flexible telecommuting options, and provide monthly TriMet mass transit passes for eligible employees through the Lloyd TMA.  As a member of the Zipcar for Business program we were recently selected as a Finalist in Zipcar’s first annual Portland “Wheels of Change” awards for our dedication to improving the sustainability of our business practices and reducing our carbon footprint.

Sustainable Innovation
With sustainability in our DNA (along with innovation and Human Energy, of course), we are excited to have been selected as a 2010 Sustainable Business Oregon Innovation Award winner. Presented by the Portland Business Journal and Sustainable Business Oregon, we look forward to receiving the award at the banquet on May 27th.

Even though we have made great strides in our sustainability efforts, we know this is not a race, but rather a march forward. We hope you will join us to make a difference on Earth Day 2010 by finding events in your community and continue making every day Earth Day. 

Keep empowering,
-Graeme

It’s been a week since I moderated my panel on sustainability employee engagement at FORTUNE Brainstorm Green 2010 and I’m still trying to digest the entire conference experience. Besides the beautiful setting and my “Hey, I’m from the Pacific Northwest” sunburn, I came away with three key observations:

1. Collaboration is at an all time high.

I have to say that the conference was unlike any other sustainability gathering I’ve ever attended. The level of discourse was frequently at the macro level, probably due to the preponderance of C-level executives in attendance, including Walmart Chairman Lee Scott and Ford Motor Company Executive Chairman Bill Ford. Ann Davidson at VOX Global had this to say:

“...the third annual FORTUNE Brainstorm Green conference had the feel of a high school reunion where the star athletes and cheerleading captains (in this setting, major corporate CEOs and capitalistic entrepreneurs) are now happily walking the halls with the class nerds (the tree huggers and animal lovers).“

I was struck by how much collaboration I saw going on, including references by corporations to what they’ve learned from partnering with NGOs and sustainability consulting firms. The atmosphere was all about thought provoking dialogue across stakeholders. And the Fortune Editors did a masterful job of facilitating the discussions to minimize speeches and get at pointed questions. The main message I heard was that corporations have learned that sustainability is good business, not just a values-based commitment. Because of these multinationals’ massive footprints, any improvements they make have major positive impacts on their industries. To his credit, Bill Ford said last year he could only attend to give his talk, but this year he wanted to attend the entire conference so he could learn more from everyone.

2. Snakes on a plane? Nope - snakes on a stage.

A priceless moment was when Julie Scardina of SeaWorld brought a few friends of hers on stage, and a 14-foot boa constrictor immediately took a liking to Andy Serwer, FORTUNE’s Managing Editor. It was a metaphor for the most polarizing moments during the conference.

When Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant took the stage, the Twittersphere lit up with posts accusing him of sidestepping the big issues. But arguably the most controversial sentiments expressed came from long time environmental writer and creator of the seminal “Whole Earth Catalog,“ Stewart Brand. Once he started talking about being pro-nuclear and pro-biotechnology, to many environmentalists in the crowd, it felt as if he had transformed into a snake right before our eyes.

I don’t know if I came away convinced, but it definitely took me down the path of questioning assumptions. And that’s what the conference did so well with so many thought provoking sessions on major polarizing issues. I’m looking forward to diving into Brand’s latest book, “Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.“

3. Optimism for the future.

For the most part, attendees were optimistic about the future of sustainability and the prospects of creating a new clean economy. Bill Gross‘ eSolar was out in force, and I wish I could have taken Mission Motors’ electric superbike out for a ride. I had a great talk with the folks at Unisource about their innovative sustainable packaging. And I was also inspired by my chats with Herman Miller, eBay, and many others.

The intimate environment that the conference fostered helped make the conversations and breakout sessions more effective. I really enjoyed moderating my panel with Sodexo, Hyatt, NBC, and Ernst & Young. It was great to see so many great companies at our panel, including REI, Zipcar, Nordstrom, BMW, Chick-fil-A, and POET. My biggest takeaway from the session is how the trend of engagement is accelerating, and including more stakeholders including customers/clients/consumers. This definitely bodes well for FMYI’s approach to leverage our social media tools to make engagement more effective. I hope to post a transcript of our panel discussion soon.

For next year, it would be great if FORTUNE Brainstorm Green covers “elephants in the room” in more depth, such as this quote from Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard:

“Saving the economy by consuming more has to stop.“

Also, with all the old and new economy power brokers and visionary NGOs in the same room, I’d love to see FORTUNE create more “roll up the sleeves” sessions to help forge new innovative partnerships to accelerate our transition to a triple bottom line economy. This could include building a 2020 or 2050 vision for a truly sustainable economy across all sectors, figuring out solutions to reduce the barrier to entry to new markets, or how to create economies of scale to revolutionize sustainable products and services. We all have a piece in creating sustainable prosperity for everyone, and everyone has something to gain from realizing this dream.

-Justin

P.S. To read a great summary of the conference, read FORTUNE Editor and conference creator Marc Gunther’s blog post. Also, there’s video online of select sessions. And special thanks to Marc and Starbucks VP of Global Responsibility Ben Packard for giving me the opportunity to moderate a panel at the conference!

As I prepare for my panel at Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN next week, sustainability employee engagement has been on my mind. What is it and what does it have to do with karaoke? First off, I should say that I’m a terrible karaoke singer. Get me behind a mic and I’m dreadful. So bad in fact, that after just two hours of off-key warbling in a karaoke lounge, my voice will be shot for a week. Fortunately, I can say that I’m a sustainability employee engagement pioneer, having been involved as a change agent for 12 years both as part of a sustainability action team, and as someone who shaped employee engagement strategy at Nike.

Simply put, sustainability employee engagement is empowering your internal stakeholders to create triple bottom line value. As we all know, there’s been a groundswell of interest and commitment to sustainability in the workplace building over the past ten years. But frequently, the percentage of employees within an organization engaged in applying sustainability to day to day responsibilities is small, confined to corporate responsibility/sustainability full time staff, and perhaps a few key employees involved with some aspect of compliance with climate change, recycling, labor practices, etc. Recently, a study showed that 86% of employees aren’t engaged by companies’ sustainability programs. Sustainability employee engagement is all about getting everyone involved with taking daily actions toward creating triple bottom line results. There’s a strong business case for doing it.

Which brings us back to karaoke. How in the world are the two concepts similar? Let us count the ways — allow me to present you with the five keys to successful sustainability employee engagement and bring down the house karaoke:

1. Create an inspiring vision for success.

Sustainability employee engagement: Create a vision of the ideal sustainable future for your organization so everyone has something to shoot for — and be sure to involve a broad cross section of employees to development the vision. The beauty of this kind of exercise is you’ll learn so much about your brand, what employees believe your organization stands for, and you’ll identify areas for triple bottom line growth. The Natural Step offers a framework for creating a vision.

Karaoke: Who are you ultimately trying to emulate? Beyoncé? Tim McGraw? Lin Yu Chun? Whoever you decide on, study the entire package and go for it. (Note: if you’ve developed your own unique singing style, dance moves, and lyrics, then you should be performing at concert venues instead of the karaoke lounge.)

2. Have a process.

Sustainability employee engagement: The New York Times Magazine recently had a feature on “Building a Better Teacher“ which focused in on not the subject matter knowledge needed to be an effective teacher, but the 49 classroom techniques required for getting students to focus and learn. Sustainability employee engagement is the same — you need to at least have a simple process for each team involved with engagement to do things like create ideas for improvement, put them into practice, measure the results, and spread them to other teams. Definitely check out the Northwest Earth Institute’s “Sustainable Systems at Work“ discussion course for an easy way to empower your teams to develop their process solutions.

Karaoke: It’s definitely about the entire performance, not just the singing. How will you grab the audience’s attention at the start? What hand gestures to use during the crescendo? Do you memorize the lyrics so you can look them in the eye during the big finale? Having the process nailed down will guarantee success. That and making sure everyone has enough drinks in their hands.

3. Build up your toolbox for scalability.

Sustainability employee engagement: It’s vital to have effective tools. Otherwise, the engagement won’t spread beyond the initial green teams. Having the right tools is the difference between isolated pockets of sustainability activity and generating widespread triple bottom line results across a broad cross section of employees. When I was involved with Nike’s Shambhala program in 1999, it was a wonderful series of offsites designed to catalyze sustainability employee engagement efforts across the company. 55 middle management folks created their own green teams spanning multiple regions and divisions. But what prevented the momentum to continue after the offsites ended and from spreading to more areas within Nike was the lack of a platform to nurture the innovation community, share best practices, manage projects, and track results. That’s why I started FMYI to build a tool to do just that for sustainability employee engagement and beyond. We have a template for engagement initiatives, and companies like Hyatt are using it to bring people together across the globe to achieve sustainability business integration. It’s wonderful to see FMYI’s passion for sustainability realized with all the sustainability-related initiatives using our platform.

Karaoke: Now, when it comes to karaoke, the tools may be different, but just as vital. Be sure to crank up the echo on your mic when singing to large crowds. And for maximum effect on your target audience, and to try out some new moves before a larger audience, book a private room.

4. Capture the results.

Sustainability employee engagement: Senior management is going to want to see results. Whether it’s metrics or success stories, make sure you’re capturing them along the way. This will help allocate more resources for engagement activities, attract new team members, and generate positive stories for sharing with external stakeholders. Above all, it’ll help you develop best practices for new projects. In an ideal world, each initiative would have its own living “Impact at Work“ guidebook like Net Impact’s.

Karaoke: This one is easy. While someone is up there signing, be sure to capture photos and videos to post on Facebook and Twitter. That way, their performances are immortal reminders of excellence for family and friends to admire for years to come.

5. Evolve constantly.

Sustainability employee engagement: There is no finish line. This is a process of continual improvement and innovation, which can be exciting for everyone involved. For example, how can the concept of a “CarrotMob“ be leveraged? What are ways to embrace social media for building a community of practice? New ideas, new approaches, new people, new goals. And ultimately, scalable triple bottom line results.

Karaoke: In order to keep your audience begging for more, and to keep things entertaining, you’ll have to figure out ways to evolve your act. Adding new artists, songs, and moves to your repertoire will pay dividends. And some day, you might be doing a karaoke performance on stage at the VMAs.

So perhaps this entire blog post was a ruse to make me feel better about my sagging karaoke skills. I guess it’s in my nature to turn challenges into opportunities. I’m sure you can sing better than me, which means it’ll be even easier for you to be a sustainability employee engagement change agent!

-Justin

FMYI President Justin Yuen to Showcase Sustainability Employee Engagement Leadership at Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN 2010

Ernst & Young, Global Hyatt Corp., NBC Universal and Sodexho Executives to Empower Attendees With Actionable Best Practices

PORTLAND, Ore., April 7, 2010 – FMYI [for my innovation], Inc., a provider of Web 2.0 social workspace collaboration sites that empower teams to make a difference, today announced sustainability employee engagement pioneer and company president Justin Yuen to moderate a roundtable at the Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN 2010.


Forty years after the first Earth Day in 1970 comes an unparalleled opportunity to renew efforts to develop a healthier, more prosperous green economy.  As the world grapples with the challenges of advancing climate policy, energy efficiency, renewable energy and green job creation, companies have made huge strides in becoming sustainability leaders by engaging employees in innovative and creative ways.  With its online collaboration sites, FMYI makes employee engagement seamless for companies large and small.  Using FMYI as a centralized communications and collaboration hub, companies are able to integrate sustainability across their entire enterprise by identifying new sustainable business practices, developing strategies for their implementation and measuring their success.

“Since FMYI was first started six years ago, employee engagement has been a critical component to our mission of empowering teams to make a difference,” said Justin Yuen, President, FMYI, Inc.  “This roundtable is an incredible opportunity to be at the forefront of sustainability employee engagement by learning from the successes of industry leaders like Ernst & Young, Hyatt, NBC and Sodexho.  Ultimately, by engaging and involving all employees within their respective enterprises these leaders are driving sustainable innovation for business results and creating the building blocks of a vibrant green global economy.”

Employee Engagement Makes Every Day an Earth Day!
During this roundtable discussion, industry leaders will share ideas and practical information about how to harness the power of employee passion and creativity to drive sustainability efforts throughout their respective organizations.  As a longtime leader in sustainability employee engagement with over 13 years of experience at FMYI and Nike, Justin Yuen will draw on this knowledge to moderate panelists including:
• Beth Colleton, Vice President, Green is Universal, NBC Universal
• Holly Fowler, Senior Director, Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility, Sodexo
• Leisha John, Americas Director of Environmental Sustainability, Ernst & Young
• Brigitta Witt, Vice President, Environmental Affairs, Global Hyatt Corp.

About Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN 2010
Fortune Brainstorm: Green 2010 is a three-day-long conference for CEOs, senior executives, government policy makers, leading thinkers, investors, and environmental advocates.  Centered on a discussion of how business can profitably help solve the world’s biggest environmental problems, the program will include one-on-one interviews, debates, informal breakout sessions and networking opportunities.  Visit www.fortunelivemedia.com/brainstormgreen/ for more information about the conference.

About FMYI [for my innovation]
Founded in 2004, FMYI is a collaboration software company with headquarters in Portland, Oregon and operations in Orlando, Florida. By considering the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit, FMYI has endeavored to build an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value because it is simply the right thing to do. FMYI is committed to sustainability internally and to injecting sustainability into the business practices of its clients. In addition to helping companies benefit from paperless work processes, FMYI also enables a team to track its sustainable commuting modes and methods and purchases renewable energy credits for clients’ FMYI power usage. Built with Web 2.0 technology, FMYI collaboration sites have been tried and tested by teams of all sizes (2-20,000) at companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world. FMYI provides free support as an integral part of making technology work for people in keeping with its tagline, “Powered by human energy. ®“

Today, FMYI took an extreme step to work in more of a sustainable way. 

All of our software engineers have been working since early this morning with their computer monitors powered off. The rest of the FMYI team followed suit and powered off their monitors. I have to admit, it is a great idea!

To help the environment by conserving energy, some team members then threw their monitors into the Willamette River, guaranteeing no more power will be consumed by them. (No need for an FMYI screen duster anymore!)

At lunch time, the team turned on the water faucet, left on the office lights and each drove in their own SUV to a convenience store on the opposite side of town, drank sodas and threw them in the trash.

Happy April Fools Day!

Use FMYI to make your workplace more sustainable!

Seth

Ghostbusters?
Sometimes, when I’ve called a company’s support line, it’s felt like calling Ghostbusters might have actually been a better option.

Just last week I was sitting in the eye doctor’s office for an 8 AM appointment - the first appointment of the day. I arrived early with paperwork in hand. Then I sat there for 20 minutes…waiting. Luckily, I had my iPhone to pass the time and catch up on other things since no one told me they were behind schedule. Whether it be at the doctor’s office, at Starbucks or on the phone with the bank or credit card company – we experience customer support and service daily in everything we do. Of course, we generally don’t think about the experience until it turns into a negative one.

We probably have all had negative customer support experiences. We walk out of the store or end a phone call and wonder what the heck just happened. It is common to wait several minutes or even hours listening to ever-awful hold music in hopes of speaking with someone who can actually help. When we finally hear a voice on the other end of the line saying something like “don’t worry, I’m here to help you” complete frustration has already overtaken me. Especially when the unresponsive tech company wants to charge extra for phone support.

Yes, we all know the frustrations people have. The FMYI team is on a mission to reverse this effect and make sure that our clients have a positive experience on each and every support call. We also strive to have great hold music (call us to find out!). For us a “help call” is an opportunity to interact with our customers and help them overcome their challenges. Most can be resolved immediately, and callers know that if complexity is involved, the FMYI team will stay the course with them until they are completely satisfied.

This has been important to us over the last 6 years and is a growing trend, including Apple’s success by offering free in-person and online support with the Genius Bar and discussion forums to Get Satisfaction. Even if we can’t be in the same place at the same time as our clients all the time, we use screen-sharing software and go the extra mile to do in-person visits and trainings to empower teams.

This growing trend is important to us. We truly care about you and see you as a part of our team. We enjoy working together and sharing ideas on how to use FMYI to best target and improve the triple bottom line - people, planet and profit.

At FMYI, we are collaboration specialists. Our team acts as your personal consultant examining your overall needs to help you get the most out of collaboration software. By working closely with you and listening, we gain great insights for product development to improve FMYI to make your life better – we are here to empower you as a change agent.

So while the Ghostbusters may have cornered the market on removing slime or a giant marshmallow man, we are here to help you, as a change agent, empower your team to make a difference using FMYI. We enjoy talking to you so give us a call (888.FMYI.COM ext. 1), or us. We also make it easy to reach out with a button at the top right of your site…Just click on “Support.”

Keep empowering,
-Graeme

Java software engineer

FMYI Inc. [for my innovation] is a growing collaboration software company headquartered in Portland, Oregon with a strong sustainability commitment. FMYI’s platform is a fast, fun, and friendly shared online workspace that empowers teams to collaborate. In a nutshell, it’s social networking meets tools for work. Organizations across the country use FMYI including Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, government agencies, nonprofits, and universities. Collaboration for inspiration and innovation is at the heart of FMYI. Watch FMYI’s two minute brand video.

Job summary
We’re looking for a software engineer who wants to be a part of small and dynamic team committed to standards-based web application development. You’ll pick up skills and grow in our supportive environment. And you’ll play a key role in an exciting startup environment. Some of your tasks will include:
• Development and maintenance of application
• Database administration, including growth planning
• System administration

Minimum qualifications
• 5+ years professional software engineering experience with Java
• Basic understanding of SQL
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced startup
• Strong communication skills
• Self-motivated, self-starter

Preferred qualifications
• Professional experience in database and systems administration, and/or web development
• Experience with Spring, Hibernate, Lucene, and knowledge of web standards (e.g. HTTP, HTML, SMTP)
• Sustainability interest and/or experience

Company benefits
• Medical and dental plan
• 401k retirement plan
• TriMet pass
• Collaborative and casual work environment
• Generous vacation days

To apply, email a cover letter and resumé to us.

I recently gave a presentation on Portland, Oregon’s sustainability commitment at the Lan Su Chinese Garden to a delegation visiting from Langfang, China. Bob Wise at Cogan Owens Cogan invited me to present as part of an EcoCity Plan project with HOK and Janine Benyus. It was great learning more about China’s green city, and to see such an impressive collaboration come together around the EcoCity Plan concept. And I was able to practice a little bit of my rusty Chinese skills.

-Justin

Today is a new day. Last night, we premiered our first-ever brand video at a party in the Ballroom of our wonderful home here at the Leftbank Project. The FMYI team was joined by over 100 customers, vendors, friends, family, neighbors, and people watching the online stream of the event. We were also pleased to have local leaders including Democratic Candidate for Oregon Governor Bill Bradbury, Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman, and Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder participate in the festivities.

Highlights of the evening included six announcements in line with our commitment to a triple bottom line strategy of people, planet and profit.

1. FMYI turned six on January 28th.

2. 400% growth in usage in 2009.

3. Revenue in 2009 more than doubled.

4. Doubled our team adding positions in Portland, Orlando, and New Orleans.

5. FMYI named a City of Portland Climate Champion.

6. “A New Day“ video.

We’ve dreamed of doing something like this for years.  “A New Day” is a brand video about the heart and soul of FMYI. It tells the story of who we are as a company and what we aspire to provide our customers.  It’s about a new way of working to get a job done, online, in a social and sustainable way.

As a celebration of change agents and what we’re all about, the video is the cornerstone of our marketing efforts in 2010 and beyond. There’ll be more videos to come such as funny stories showcasing “stop working,“ product tours, podcasts, case studies and other exciting activities promoting change agents and how they’re their using FMYI to make a difference in the world.

Here’s a toast and a big thank you to the FMYI community and a special shout out to the cinematography and editing talents of Ben Garvey for helping us create a video that celebrates the “soul glow“ of FMYI.

Onward and upward,

-Justin

A New Day Dawns at FMYI
First-Ever Brand Video, Stellar 2009 Growth, Portland Climate Champion Honor Propel Company Strongly into its 6th Year

PORTLAND, Ore., February 4, 2010 – FMYI [for my innovation], Inc., a leader in collaboration sites that empower teams to make a difference, today unveiled its first-ever brand video titled “A New Day” as well as 2009 performance achievements and recognition as a sustainability leader in Portland.

As people seek ways to grow during hard times, FMYI is leading the way by redefining the idea of work. Trusted by teams at non-profits, small businesses and Fortune 500 brands, FMYI is now telling its own brand story with the release of A New Day. With the backdrop of stunningly beautiful scenes of Portland filmed by Ben Garvey, words based on copy by Kimberly Harrington, inspirational music by Bruce Gibbs, and motion graphics by Derrick Yuen, narrator and FMYI President Justin Yuen calls for change agents to stop working, start innovating and keep empowering. 

“We’re excited about launching our FMYI brand video,” said Justin Yuen, President, FMYI, Inc. “Over the last six years, we have wanted to create a video that tells our story. ‘A New Day‘ expresses what the heart and soul of FMYI is all about, and what we aspire to deliver to our customers. Using a FMYI collaboration site, customers can solve problems like overflowing inboxes, hard to find files and overall disorganization (‘Stop working’). That way, they can focus more time on achieving goals, generating new ideas, and putting things into action (‘Start innovating’). And we’ve embedded sustainability features so they can make a difference (‘Keep empowering’).

Dawn of A New Day
As the video starts, Justin talks over a visual of the sun rising as the analogy for the beginning to the workday. “Here it is — a new day. A new day to make it happen. A new day to kill the to-do list,“ he explains. He then asks why an hour is wasted each day by workers wading through an inbox rather than enjoying, being inspired and renewed by the beauty of the day. “You know that feeling of never quite being caught up? That’s called work,“ he says. “We’re against work.“ He goes on to add that FMYI is about one thing, but it’s a big important thing — making life easier. As an online collaboration site that empowers teams to make a difference, FMYI allows users to get to the best part, the energizing part, the innovating part, right from the very start — thinking, doing, creating. As the video ends, Justin reminds the audience of FMYI’s dedication to sustainability and that “we are all in this together…we are all change agents.“ A New Day is available for viewing at www.fmyi.com/ANewDay.

“With ‘A New Day‘ we are promoting the idea that people need to stop working,“ said Seth Tayler, FMYI VP of Marketing and Sales. “Definitely not the way Tiger and Conan brought work to a screeching halt, but rather by using FMYI to communicate, collaborate, to be more productive and in the loop.“

Unprecedented Success Drives FMYI Forward
A bootstrapped company entirely built through client revenue, FMYI has hit unparalleled momentum as it enters its sixth year in business. Overall revenue in 2009 more than doubled by focusing on working closely with existing customers to indentify business needs and aggressively pursuing new business opportunities. Launching FMYI Version 6 in October garnered rave media reviews and visits to FMYI.com and usage of FMYI both increased by over 400%. In line with its revenue growth, FMYI nearly tripled the number of employees on its team from 6 in 2008 to 16 in 2009 and in July moved into a new headquarters in the Leftbank Project.

“There’s no doubt that 2009 was our most successful year yet and has set the bar higher for ourselves,” added Yuen. “We’re positioned to continue our growth and expansion in 2010. With our dedication to sustainability, we’re pleased to have been chosen as a Portland Climate Champion and hope others get certified as well.“

FMYI is a Portland Climate Champion
FMYI recently earned the BEST Business Center’s new “Portland Climate Champion” recognition. To achieve this status, the company demonstrated a commitment to energy efficiency in their business operations by providing alternative transportation options for employees, and implementing a robust waste reduction, sustainable purchasing, and recycling program. The Portland Climate Champions program was created to recognize businesses in Portland that have taken comprehensive, concrete actions to reduce their carbon emissions. The Climate Champion designation is valid for two years.

“Congratulations to FMYI on becoming a Portland Climate Champion,” said Portland Mayor Sam Adams. “We appreciate their leadership in taking a comprehensive approach to reducing carbon emissions. Their innovative platform helps facilitate a paperless, virtual office, which serves as a model for Portland’s business community. Their efforts support the City of Portland’s goals towards dramatically reducing carbon emissions, as outlined in the City’s Climate Action Plan.”

About the BEST Business Center
The BEST Business Center provides free tools and advice to help businesses in Portland, Oregon become more profitable and sustainable. It is a partnership of city and regional government programs and energy utilities, including the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, City of Portland Water Bureau, Metro, Pacific Power, Portland Development Commission and Portland General Electric.

About FMYI [for my innovation]
Founded in 2004, FMYI is a collaboration software company with headquarters in Portland, Oregon and operations in Orlando, Florida. By considering the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit, FMYI has endeavored to build an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value because it is simply the right thing to do. FMYI is committed to sustainability internally and to injecting sustainability into the business practices of its clients. In addition to helping companies benefit from paperless work processes, FMYI also enables a team to track its sustainable commuting modes and methods and purchases renewable energy credits for clients’ FMYI power usage. Built with Web 2.0 technology, FMYI collaboration sites have been tried and tested by teams of all sizes (2- 20,000) at companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world. FMYI provides free support as an integral part of making technology work for people in keeping with its tagline, “Powered by human energy. ®“

This week FMYI celebrates our 6th year as a company.  During that time we have grown to love and appreciate becoming part of so many different communities. Like the Leftbank Project, home to our Portland office, we are connected to each of them in a special way. 

As 2009 came to an end, we reflected on ways we could give back to these communities as a company. Empowering teams to make a difference is our mission here at FMYI so ultimately, we decided to donate $1 to the Natural Step Network for every new follower of @FMYI on Twitter and $1 to The National Crittenton Foundation for all new Fans of FMYI on Facebook. It was a fun way to utilize our social networks on Facebook and Twitter to call attention to both organizations and the work they do to empower people to make a difference in the world. 

The Natural Step has played an integral role building sustainable business practices at FMYI by allowing each of us to understand the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) approach to business. Supporting them over Twitter this past month, we received a 40% increase in our followers. While garnering more attention for the organization, we were able to donate funds to help spread the important message of sustainability in the workplace.

With an 80% increase in our Facebook Fans, we are extremely excited to support the great work of The National Crittenton Foundation.  We’re truly grateful for the work they do supporting empowerment, self-sufficiency, and ending cycles of destructive behaviors and relationships for vulnerable girls, young women, and their families.

Thanks to all of our fans and followers for supporting the work of these two organizations.

Keep empowering,
Graeme

Like all of you, we’ve been saddened by the tragedy going on in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. As part of our triple bottom line commitment, we’ve been talking over here at FMYI about how we can best help. Here’s what we’ve committed to:

• 25% discount for three months on FMYI Lite, Plus, and Pro as a thank you for anyone who has given to the relief effort (honor system). Just use this coupon code: haitirelief10
• 5% of FMYI Lite, Plus, and Pro sales through February will be donated to Haiti earthquake relief efforts.
• We’re donating free sites to nonprofits involved with relief efforts and are building a special template for agencies to manage the collaboration needed for relief work.

Organizations we recommend you donate to:

Hope for Haiti
“Through your generous donations and the helping hands of our family of volunteers and dedicated staff, Hope for Haiti is helping to improve the quality of life of hundreds of thousands of Haitian children and their families. Our unique approach of helping the poorest of the poor in Haiti is both efficient and effective. We encourage you to look at our “Programs” section to see how over 96% of donations we raise directly reach the people who need it most. 100% of all donations received in response to the earthquake are going directly to our disaster relief effort on the ground. We thank you for your interest and support in helping us spread HOPE to the men, women, and children of Haiti.“

MercyCorps
“Mercy Corps’ experienced, crisis-tested emergency team is on the ground in Port-au-Prince, responding to the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that rocked Haiti. They need your help to speed clean water, food, shelter and other supplies to families in the aftermath of the worst disaster to strike the region in years. The needs are enormous. Mercy Corps is focusing on the immediate humanitarian needs on the ground — water, food, temporary shelter supplies and much more. As the most basic needs are met, Mercy Corps’ response team will transition from relief to long-term rebuilding and recovery efforts.“

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
“Through the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, we will work to provide immediate relief and long-term support to earthquake survivors. We will channel the collective goodwill around the globe to help the people of Haiti rebuild their cities, their neighborhoods, and their families. Also, text the word “QUAKE” to 20222 and you’ll be donating $10 to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, charged to your cell phone bill.“

Living Water International
“Living Water International is mobilizing to help communities in Haiti restore clean water after the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere was rocked by a catastrophic earthquake on Tuesday. LWI teams are already on the ground in the midst of unimaginable devastation to do what they can, but the problems for affected communities are only beginning. The most urgent need during the coming days and weeks will be water. Homes can take months to re-build, electricity can take weeks to restore, but people can’t last long without water. In response to the Haiti earthquake, Living Water International is setting a goal to repair 500 incapacitated handpumps in Haiti during 2010, serving at least 250,000 people. In order to do this, LWI is organizing a coalition of water organizations that are partnering to multiply their effect on Haitian communities. Partners include Global Benefit, Mercy Water (working with Nspire Software), Wishing Well, Hydrate Hope Project (through I AM CHANGE), The Water Project, and Safewater Nexus. Containers of parts and equipment are already on the way to replace rapidly diminishing supplies, but even more will be needed soon.

Thanks for all your help!
- The team at FMYI

We’ve all heard about the tough economy and the dreary year that was 2009. But what about the success stories and optimistic thoughts for 2010? On Wednesday, January 13, join FMYI President Justin Yuen, Ken Westin of GadgetTrak, Dave Allen of Fight Digital Strategy for a Phoenix Forum interactive panel discussion. The drinks will be flowing freely, and the conversation will be fast and loose. Some of the topics we’ll cover:

• Strategies for business growth in this recession.
• A community of innovative technology professionals.
• Strong companies looking for top talent.

Find out more on the Software Association of Oregon’s website >

With the end of 2009 comes the final installment of my bootstrapping blog series (with a New Year’s resolution to blog more frequently and involve all our team members!). At the end of the day, you can plan, strategize, rationalize, work hard, and dream all you want, but so much of the startup experience comes down to intangibles. Luck is frequently mentioned as being a key ingredient. And you have to be in the right place at the right time. I’ll call all of this the “Soul glow.“

At the heart of your startup, you need an authentic soul. It’ll carry you through all the difficult times and elevate you to new heights during the good times. What is soul? I’m sure you’ll have a different definition, but to me it’s a crazy combination of passion, surrounding yourself with inspiring people, working in places with things around you to spark new ideas, a desire to collaborate with others to overcome challenges, having fun to stay sane, bringing meaning to your mission, and staying grounded with reality while reaching for goals that truly excite you. Balance is a key theme.

For me, starting FMYI in Portland was key in terms of livability and the balance between cost and work life benefits. For example, because of the public transportation system, bike paths, and urban growth boundary, commuting times are shorter here than other cities which helps the local economy. This helps reduce stress for employees and maximizes the productive hours people can spend at work. Much has been said about the population of cultural creatives in Portland. It’s important to be surrounded by creative energy and new ideas when starting a business to help you tackle all the challenges that stand in the way.

Passion is a key element in keeping the energy level high. We truly enjoy helping people collaborate more effectively and are excited that 2009 brings us closer to a tipping point. We’ve also surrounded ourselves by people who are great at getting things done in a collaborative manner, whether they’re employees or vendors. Our commitment to sustainability has been a differentiator for us and brings a greater sense of meaning to what we do. We’re doing the Northwest Earth Institute’s Sustainable Systems at Work course and had a lively discussion this morning about how we can continually improve and help others. Doing the course helps us get into a different frame of mind at work. NWEI definitely has a lot of soul!

And a key element is having fun since growing a startup is hard enough as it is. Working with great clients is the biggest factor, and is something we’re very thankful for over here at FMYI. Being located in the Leftbank Project building also helps with a brewery in the basement and a cafe featuring local/organic ingredients. Occasional karaoke sessions, although potentially dangerous, can bring some soul (literally) to the workplace.

So as I bring this series of blog posts on starting up a business to a close, I’ll raise a virtual toast to everyone that 2010 brings all of us a “soul glow.“ May all your hard work be rewarded, and your dreams realized!

Onward and upward,
-Justin

Links to the complete blog series on starting a business:
• Intro: “Head west, young man”
• Bootstrapping: These bootstraps are made for walkin’
• Growing: Grow with the flow
• Worklife: Does worklife balance exist in startups?
• Tools: Startup bliss using online tools
• Sustainability: Sustainable startups: the triple crown
• Soul: Soul glow

FMYI PRESS RELEASE

FMYI Celebrates a Monumental 2009 with Charitable Gifts, Delivers Additional Features for A New Way of Working
Demonstrates Its Commitment to the Triple Bottom Line - People, Planet, Profit

PORTLAND, Ore., December 31, 2009 – FMYI [for my innovation], Inc., a provider of Web 2.0 social workspace collaboration sites that empower teams to make a difference, today celebrated a successful 2009 by announcing additional features for FMYI 6 and unveiling its charitable contributions for the holiday season.

The success of 2009 has propelled FMYI to new heights. The company grew its team to 16 in Portland, Orlando, and now New Orleans. In July, it moved into a new headquarters in the Leftbank Project and expanded its sustainability efforts. In October, it launched FMYI 6 to rave media reviews, and best of all, visits and usage of FMYI has increased over 400%. Finally, FMYI is capping off its 2009 product development with some just released features that further strengthen FMYI 6 and enable a new way working. With such a successful year, FMYI is celebrating by giving back to local and national charitable organizations and encouraging others to take part in the effort.

“This year has exceeded our expectations,” said Justin Yuen, President, FMYI, Inc. “With the critical mass achieved in 2009, we have the momentum to take our mission of empowering teams to make a difference to the next level in 2010. To thank our customers, vendors and communities where we do business, we are celebrating these achievements by honoring the Aflac Cancer Center, Portland Parks Foundation, Northwest Earth Institute, The National Crittendon Foundation and the Natural Step Network. We encourage everyone to join us in donating to these amazing organizations.“

Development Enhances Version 6
Since unveiling FMYI 6 in October, developers have continued work to enhance the feature rich collaboration platform to deliver a new way of working. Standout features include:
• Filter by topic in Activity Manager - a great way to keep informed of posts from different pages in a central location
• Map it - quickly map a contact’s address
• VCard importer - create new pages from an address book or a card scanner
• Export contact list - get all the contact info on a page into excel to use in other formats

A Time To Give
The Aflac Cancer Center cares for children with cancer and blood disorders as well as conducting innovative research. FMYI donated $776 during Aflac’s convention in early December and will be donating 5% of January’s Aflac sales to the Cancer Center as well. More information is available at www.choa.org/cancer.

The Portland Parks Foundation engages the community in support of Portland’s parks, recognizing that government agencies alone are not able to guarantee us the vibrant network of parks and park programs that are Portland’s rich heritage. If you donate $50 or more, you’ll get special discounts from FMYI. More information is available at www.portlandparksfoundation.org.

The National Crittenton Foundation supports empowerment, self-sufficiency, and the end of cycles of destructive behaviors and relationships for vulnerable girls, young women, and their families. FMYI will donate $1 for each new person who becomes our fan of FMYI on Facebook from December 15, 2009 to January 15, 2010. More information is available at www.thenationalcrittentonfoundation.org.

The Natural Step Network provides programs and services to prepare organizations to integrate sustainable business practices into their strategic design making. FMYI will donate $1 for each new person who becomes a follower of FMYI on Twitter from December 15, 2009 to January 15, 2010. More information is available at www.naturalstepusa.org.

The Northwest Earth Institute empowers individuals and organizations to transform culture toward a sustainable and enriching future. FMYI is participating in the innovative social media telethon 30 Hour Day, with the proceeds of our sponsorship going to NWEI. More information is available at www.nwei.org and www.30HourDay.org.

About FMYI [for my innovation]
Founded in 2004, FMYI is a collaboration software company with headquarters in Portland, Oregon and operations in Orlando, Florida. FMYI’s goal is simple: build an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value because it is simply the right thing to do. FMYI is committed to sustainability internally and to injecting sustainability into the business practices of its clients. In addition to helping companies benefit from paperless work processes, FMYI also enables a team to track its sustainable commuting modes and methods and purchases renewable energy credits for clients’ FMYI power usage. Built with Web 2.0 technology, FMYI 6 online social workspaces have been tried and tested by users at companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world. FMYI offers free support for everyone as a key part of its focus on making technology work for people in keeping with its tagline, “Powered by human energy. ®“

It’s been a busy few weeks over here for sustainability at FMYI with Al Gore’s visit and other great things! Some highlights:

• Al Gore visited our office building!
• Triple Pundit wrote an article about the Net Impact Conference panel FMYI President Justin Yuen moderated at the Net Impact conference in November.
• Justin and Mike Mercer are giving a Net Impact conference call entitled “The Holy Grail of Sustainable Culture Change: Employee Engagement“ on December 2nd.
• FMYI became an Affiliate Member of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.
• We sent out our November newsletter with links to our sustainability-related blog posts.

I moderated a panel last week at the Net Impact Conference and came away inspired by the energy of 2,600 people from 40 states and 23 countries who attended. Net Impact is a membership organization of 15,000+ emerging business leaders committed to using the power of business to create a better world. Being surrounded by change agents and meeting Al Gore in our office building today has put me in a reflective mood about why sustainability is important for a startup.

Earlier this year in my blog series on Economy 2.0, I wrote about how sustainability is an approach to sustaining innovation. For startups (either new businesses, small enterprises, or new initiatives within larger organizations), holistically integrating sustainability from the beginning is a competitive advantage for bottom line savings, building your brand, and finding new business opportunities. I won’t be talking about the definition of sustainability or a process for embedding it (refer to this great Natural Step PDF for an introduction). Instead, I’ll be focusing in on a basic sustainability innovation framework you can use that we’ve developed over the years here at FMYI:

SUSTAINABILITY TRIPLE CROWN

Operational processes
The purpose here is to establish a sustainable foundation for your day to day activities. You could call this “corporate practices” and compare the mindset to efforts like Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing. But this is much more holistic and should touch upon all aspects of your day to day operations. Laying the groundwork for attracting and retaining innovative employees and customers is crucial to sustaining a culture of innovation, and having a commitment to sustainability has helped us do that. By having this kind of culture, the results you enjoy are innovative and sustainable product/service features which lead to new business opportunities. It’s a continual learning process and an opportunity to get ideas from employees, customers, and all your stakeholders. For some ideas, here’s what FMYI is committed to putting into practice each day:

• Sustainable transportation options for employees (free mass transit passes for employee commutes, covered bicycle parking, showers, car sharing and bicycle access for company travel, and telecommuting opportunities)
• Energy conservation (lights off at night, computers off when people leave, monitors turn off after 20 minutes of inactivity, purchase Energy Star appliances and EPEAT Gold computers, compact fluorescent light bulbs, linear florescent lighting uses T8 or T5 bulbs with electronic ballasts, emergency exit signs have LED or similar low wattage bulbs, outdoor lighting is on a timer or photosensor, renewable energy purchased
• Minimize use of paper and disposables (digital collaboration on FMYI, printer paper contains 100% post-consumer recycled-content, marketing materials printed on at least 30% post-consumer recycled paper, durable plates/silverware/cups)
• Recycling (paper, bottles, cans, toner, batteries, food scraps)
• Climate change (business travel renewable energy offsets)
• Education (all employees attend sustainability training and have the opportunity to participate in discussion courses at work)
• Community engagement (headquartered in an office building with a sustainable community, employee volunteer time with nonprofits, grants to community groups)
• Corporate commitment (FMYI’s corporate responsibility written into our Articles of Incorporation)

Product/service features
Once you’ve laid the foundation for an operational commitment to sustainability, next up in the triple crown is embedding sustainability-related features into your product or service. This is all about gaining a competitive advantage by increasing the differentiation between you and your competitors. Frequently, I get questions from people about how a software company or a service-based firm can be sustainable. At first glance, your internal footprint may be smaller than consumer products companies for example. But the greater impact is with your clients. As a software or service company, you have a major impact on helping your clients on a day to day basis, and on a strategic level. Here’s some of the features in FMYI related to sustainability:

• FMYI platform helps enable paperless offices and reduces shipping (if you do have to print, we display a view that minimizes ink/toner and pages).
• Commuting tracker embedded into each account.
• Renewable energy offsets as you work on our site through CO2Stats.
• Preference to work with clients with a sustainability committment.
• Discounts on FMYI Pro Direct for nonprofits, government agencies, and schools.
• Sustainability info included in most template sites.
• Advertising on FMYI Free is only from organizations with a sustainability commitment.
• Newsletter features sustainability-related opportunities and discounts for our community.

New business development opportunities
This is a big one. Everyone wants to find new business development opportunities, right? It’s an essential part of starting any new venture, especially bootstrapped ones solely relying on customer revenue for growth. This could mean going deeper with existing customers, finding new ones, or creating new sales channels and products/services. To tap into these new business leads, you could prepare marketing materials explaining your sustainability commitment, blog about trends in the sustainability you’re studying, hold a webinar about your sustainability product/service features, partner with sustainability organizations to help educate others about the competitive advantages with integrating sustainability, or find a sustainability-related need with your customers and release a product/service that addresses it. Our clients often mention that our sustainability commitment and features are a unique differentiator in the collaboration software marketplace. And we’ve created a new sales channel with our unique social platform for sustainability employee engagement.

Companies like Hyatt are leveraging our template to help educate stakeholders about sustainability while giving them tools to share best practices and track results. Seeing more corporations, universities, NGOs, and government agencies use FMYI for their sustainability-related activities inspires so much. It’s the reason why I started FMYI five years ago based on my experiences with sustainability employee engagement at Nike. FMYI’s growth strategy is firmly rooted in the “sustainability triple crown” and relying on the support of so many people that make up the FMYI family. Thank you.

Onward and upward!
-Justin

Next blog post in my series on bootstrapping a startup: Do you focus on marketing or sales?

PRESS RELEASE

FMYI President Justin Yuen to Moderate Employee Engagement Panel at 2009 Net Impact Conference
Executives from Intel, Sodexho and WalMart to Discuss Resources and Tools for Employee Driven Sustainable Innovation

PORTLAND, Ore., November 11, 2009 – FMYI [for my innovation], Inc., a provider of Web 2.0 social workspace collaboration sites that empower teams to make a difference, today announced company president Justin Yuen’s upcoming participation as a panel moderator at the 2009 Net Impact Conference.

As companies seek to cultivate new strategies, products and services to further sustainability, they must also motivate their employees to innovate and solve problems. In a recent Gallup Poll 59% of engaged employees strongly agreed with the statement that their current job “brings out [their] most creative ideas.” Only 3.1% of disengaged employees agreed. This new business trend is requiring companies to engage all employees to integrate sustainability across their enterprise by indentifying new sustainable practices and strategies for implementation. Through its social workspace collaboration sites, FMYI enables companies, organizations and individuals alike by providing a platform to inspire innovation and sustainability.

“I am honored to be participating at the 2009 Net Impact Conference,” said Justin Yuen, President, FMYI, Inc. “From our very beginning as a company, FMYI has endeavored to build an business with minimum environmental impact and maximum societal value by focusing on the triple bottom line — people, planet and profit. This panel is a great opportunity for us to demonstrate our sustainability commitment and to be involved in the eternal learning process that ultimately furthers sustainable innovation.”

Sustainable Innovation through Employee Engagement
During this panel discussion, executives from industry leading companies will provide an in-depth look at tools and resources that successfully engage employees and result in social and environmental solutions and innovations. As a pioneer in sustainability employee engagement, Justin Yuen will draw on over 13 years of experience at FMYI and Nike to moderate and panelists will include:

• Richard Coyle, Senior Director, International Corporate Affairs, WalMart Stores, Inc.
• Holly Fowler, Senior Director, Training & Innovation, Office of Corporate Citizenship, Sodexho
• Carrie Freeman, Corporate Sustainability Strategist, Intel

About Net Impact
Net Impact is a global organization of students and professionals using business to improve the world. The organization offers a portfolio of programs and initiatives to educate, equip, and inspire over 15,000 members to make a positive impact through business. Spanning six continents, Net Impact’s membership is one of the most influential networks of students and professionals in existence today, and includes current and emerging leaders in corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, nonprofit management, international development, and environmental sustainability. The Net Impact network includes more than 240 chapters in cities throughout the world and a small central office in San Francisco. Learn more at www.netimpact.org.

The annual Net Impact Conference is the world’s largest event of its kind and has established itself as an important forum for student, business, academic, and nonprofit leaders to network and learn from each other. Past speakers have included the CEOs of Starbucks, DuPont, Coca-Cola, and Patagonia; leaders of nonprofit organizations like YouthAIDS, Room to Read, Children’s Defense Fund, Acumen Fund, and Teach For America; as well as civic leaders such as Al Gore. The theme of this year’s conference is Advancing Sustainable Global Enterprise: Changemakers, Innovators & Problem Solvers. Sessions will bring together the players behind the sustainable global enterprise movement, including sustainability and corporate responsibility practitioners, social entrepreneurs, and nonprofit leaders. For more information, please visit www.netimpact.org/conference.

About FMYI [for my innovation]
Founded in 2004, FMYI is a collaboration software company with headquarters in Portland, Oregon and operations in Orlando, Florida. FMYI’s goal is simple: build an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value because it is simply the right thing to do. FMYI is committed to sustainability internally and to injecting sustainability into the business practices of its clients. In addition to helping companies benefit from paperless work processes, FMYI also enables a team to track its sustainable commuting modes and methods and purchases renewable energy credits for clients’ FMYI power usage. Built with Web 2.0 technology, FMYI 6.0 online social workspaces have been tried and tested by over 40,000 users at companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world. FMYI offers free support for everyone as a key part of its focus on making technology work for people in keeping with its tagline, “Powered by human energy.®“

Media Contact:
Joseph Martorano
415/699-4215

Two of the main barriers to entry when starting an enterprise are getting internal operations set up, and getting the word out to generate leads. Thank goodness for all the great online tools out there to help you turn a plan into reality! Without some of these services, it would have been harder to get FMYI off the ground:

Operations
In the beginning, I enjoyed handling all the minute tasks that came with starting a business. Then I realized that I was better suited tackling other tasks. You should have seen those early spreadsheets I used to track our finances. It was enough to make a finance professional cry. By using online tools, not only will you spend less time dealing with operational issues, but more importantly, it’ll be easier to scale without needing create additional headcount. Some tools to check out:

Do you have suggestions for great online services for operations and/or marketing? I’d love to hear about it. Post a comment below!

My next blog post: sustainability and startups.

-Justin

One of the goals I had when creating FMYI was to grow the business while offering worklife balance for our team members. This seems paradoxical and insane. But if you think about what a startup is all about, it’s putting ideas into practice. And the only way to come up with ideas or think strategically is to make sure your brain isn’t fatigued. Worklife isn’t just a nice to have, it’s essential to coming up with new ideas and tackling all the challenges that come your way. You need to be able to take a step back constantly to evaluate where the startup is headed in order to make needed course corrections along the way.

The irony of this blog post is I put it off in order to spend time with my family. Our second child was born a week before our FMYI 6.0 release, which presented some challenges. I touched on this topic briefly in the The Oregonian recently. I want to live a full life with family and friends, while contributing to the economy by helping to create jobs in a sustainable way. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive, but it is a challenge to balance them.

So how do you enable worklife balance in a fast paced startup environment? Fortunately, technology makes so much possible these days. A lot of attention is on real time tools like live videoconferencing, but most of your day isn’t meetings (and if it is, maybe it’s time to work somewhere else =) ). It’s emails and “water-cooler” chats. This allows you to reflect on what’s being said, rather than the immediate reaction required at meetings. Most of the FMYI team members were telecommuters in the early days and many still are telecommuters, and we rely heavily on our own collaboration system to make everything run smoothly. Similar to the phenomenon of Facebook where you can stay up to date with what your old friends are doing in between phone calls and seeing each other face to face, browsing your FMYI site keeps you up to date on what’s going on — but at work.

In the end, it’s all about the quality of your work, not how many hours you’re investing, and whether you’re in the office or not. This applies to startups and big organizations (definitely check out Best Buy’s successes with results-oriented work). We’ve found that offering your team worklife options like telecommuting, flexible schedules, fewer meetings, family leaves, and involving friends and families with events and work opportunities can help. Of course, there are times when balance is difficult due to new projects. But it’s the new projects that enable you to grow and provide worklife benefits.

Next up in my series on starting a business: leveraging technology and social media. In the meantime, have fun enjoying your own worklife balance with friends and family!
-Justin

It’s been quite a week for chatter in the press about FMYI. New York Times, BNET (CBS Interactive), Salon, Web Worker Daily, CMSWire, The Oregonian, Silicon Florist, and Northwest Cable News Network have all weighed in. And now we’re blushing.

This week we’re “innovating innovation.“ We’re proud to announce the launch of FMYI version 6.0. It’s been truly a collaborative effort with the hard work by our amazing team (special thanks to Josh Pyles at Pixelmatrix Design!) and the great input from our customers. Check out the FMYI 6.0 press release, watch the video, view the tour, and download some screenshots. This version represents an all hands on deck labor of love. And we hope you’ll see how it fits in with our goals as a company:

FMYI mission
• “No headcount software” approach to lower the barrier to entry.
• Design, usability, social media look and feel to drive user adoption.
• Empower teams to work anywhere with workflow functionality.
• Quality, free support from collaboration specialists for change agents.
• Platform to inspire innovation and sustainability.

Highlights of what’s new in FMYI 6.0
• New clean interface makes it easier to work faster and get new people onboard.
• Super fast access to your information with the sleek drop-down navigation bar.
• Advanced filtering options to see who did what on pages.
• Easier page scanning with new icons such as Calendar icons displaying the date.
• Cool on/off switch for receiving email alerts.
• Email alerts now come from your name and email address, delivered by FMYI.
• Breadcrumbs show you where you are in the site.
• Admins: Organized “Manage invitations” page to control the people you’ve invited.
• And much more!

Some changes to the FMYI interface
• Note these name changes: “Workspaces” and “Workspace types” are now simply called “Pages and “Page categories.“
• Effortlessly add pages to the site using the new “Add” tab.
• Your “My profile” page is now organized under the “Profiles” tab.
• Admins: New “Invite people into this site” button above the search box.

We’re excited to hear about what you think of FMYI version 6.0!

Onward and upward!
-The FMYI team

The idea to tackle workplace collaboration in a whole different way started back in the early days of the blink tag back in the mid 90s. I was an intern at Nike working as an intranet developer and immediately realized that there had to be a better way of collaborating beyond custom developed static intranet sites. Throughout my career at Nike, I worked with and in numerous countries, divisions, and projects which underscored the urgency of better collaborative tools. In my mind, the experience could be more friendly, easy, interactive, and community-oriented. And I had a suspicion that potential customers would feel the same way.

So when I realized it was time to start FMYI, I followed these three rules to grow the business and go after my dreams:

1. Have a point of view.
2. Know your customer.
3. Build your product/service around your point of view and the customer’s needs.

The key is the balance between your point of view of how you’re going to improve things and what the customer is telling you their need. First you need a foundation and launching pad which you can run by potential customers to refine the product/service. And ideally you can initially fund the startup through client revenue and a few credit cards.

From the beginning, based on my observations of workplace collaboration across multiple sectors, FMYI’s point of view has been:

1. “No headcount software” approach to lower the barrier to entry.
2. Design, usability, social media look and feel to drive user adoption.
3. Empower teams to work anywhere with essential workflow functionality.
4. Quality, free support from collaboration specialists for change agents.
5. Platform to inspire innovation and sustainability.

And over the past five years, we’ve constantly refined our service through customer feedback to grow the business, all the while keeping true to our point of view. The POV is what gets people interested, and our adaptability to customers’ needs that help keep things growing. We’ve been growing with the flow…

Coming up next: sustainability and startups.

-Justin

Presentation I gave at the Oregon Small Business Fair yesterday on triple bottom line startups:

-Justin

FMYI has been hard at work, and people have been taking notice. We were recently mentioned in Willamette Week, in an article about our “Community Chest” of a building, the Leftbank Project. According to the article, FMYI “is basically Facebook for businesses,“ and is used to “form virtual work groups and share files.“ We thought that was a pretty quick and fair representation. But wait, there’s more! We were also talked about in Triple Pundit, as a tool that the Northwest Earth Institute (NWEI) uses “to allow individuals to set personal goals and make affinity groups.“ Both Willamette Week and Triple Pundit came across some great uses for FMYI!

So you have an idea. And some plans, energy, people interested in helping out, and a healthy dose of optimism. What next? How do you go from dreaming to making it a reality?

The very first decision is to start going after customers or investors. Not only is it hard to do both well at the same time, but strategically there’s a difference. Do you relish having control over your creative idea and the autonomy in commercializing it, or would you rather put the priority on scaling quickly with the help of others to run the show?

For me, it came down to what I felt most comfortable doing. I love talking with potential clients, understanding how they operate, and building solutions that address their needs. It was a no brainer to go after customers first, rather than investors. And I felt like we had a different take on collaboration software that we wanted to stay focused on and grow through client input.

So five and a half years ago I started FMYI in a coffee shop. I interviewed Eric, our first employee, over a cup of joe. Later I found out he kept wondering when he was going to see the office. There wasn’t one. Eric spent the first week working out of my wife’s store having to answer questions about her handbags and baskets. We laugh about it now (he’s better at leading our tech team than hawking housewares), but it was consistent with our mission to focus all of our resources on the product and what customers want.

Our team has grown FMYI through client revenue, which has made the journey more of a walk than a sprint. But if you’re passionate about your idea, and a laser-like focus on what people want, you’ll have what it takes to take on a marathon.

“Are you ready bootstraps? Start walkin’!“

Coming up in my next blog post: how to grow.

-Justin

We just sent out our most recent FMYI newsletter! Read it and share it if you’d like—and it’s never too late to become a subscriber for the future…

Twelve years ago, I embarked on my own Lewis and Clark Expedition, going from the East Coast to Oregon. My journey featured a plush ride in a 1991 Ford Taurus emblazoned with neo-hippie band stickers. Portland drew me in, with its promise of rugged adventure, and the potential to do things differently. The other big reason for the move was getting a job at Nike, a culture that to me epitomized an innovative, entrepreneurial, and irreverent spirit. And free shoes of course!

Combine the two together, and I had a perfect platform to incubate my business ideas spanning the intersection of design, organizational change, and technology. From the early days of exploring BBSes to putting my university newspaper on the web, to working on intranet projects at Nike, I was fascinated by how to connect people online, help them communicate, and catalyze action.

But ideas aren’t worth much unless you can bring them to life. Once I had refined the concept enough through meetings with friends, basic drafts of the (now useless) business plan, and developed some connections, the vision came together. Bootstrap a company through client revenue, have an authentic brand, build a great team, and integrate sustainability. In short, our “common sense” plan born out of not knowing any other way of doing it.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be blogging on the top ten things I’ve learned through the startup experience. I don’t think any entrepreneur feels like the startup feeling ever ends. You’re always looking for new plateaus and solving new challenges. So why am I writing about it now? With the worst economy in generations and so much continued attention on VC/Angel funded startups, I figured this was the time to focus on a topic that’s all about finding opportunities and going after them the old fashioned way when resources are tight — bootstrapping. You may not need to head west to do it, but I can guarantee it’ll be an adventure!

-Justin

I presented last Wednesday at the Project Management Institute - Portland Chapter’s Managing Projects & Programs conference. What ensued was a one and half hour stimulating discussion about the impact project managers can have with sustainability. My main takeaway? Project managers are change agents who can leverage their skills in making things happen to further sustainability. I learned quite a lot about how project managers approach their craft and their process.

-Justin

I’m by no means an expert in social media marketing in Asia, but we did have a great discussion with the students last Tuesday. My slides are below:

-Justin

Coworking is a hot trend and Web Worker Daily recently featured a few friends of FMYI in a recent post on “How Coworking Is Working in Portland.“ FMYI is mentioned as one of the Leftbank’s (they run “The Hive”) leading tenants. Go Portland!

I led the Association of Climate Change Officers‘ webcast on “Engaging Stakeholders of Climate Change Initiatives within Corporations, Government Entities and NGO-Based Activities.“ It was a webcast that was held July 30, 2009 from 12-1:30 pm Eastern.

The speaker lineup included:
Justin Yuen – President, FMYI
Michael Armstrong – Deputy Director, Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, City of Portland
Dave Newman – Former Head Global Climate & Energy, Nike
Patrick Nye – Vice President, Climate Business Group, Bonneville Environmental Foundation

Webcast description:
Businesses, institutions and government entities that are successful in establishing sound GHG management infrastructure and inducing culture change will mitigate risk and create new opportunities while others will struggle to achieve their goals. This webcast will discuss stakeholder engagement at corporations and government entities, NGO-based marketing efforts, and leveraging social media.

Slides from the presenters
Watch the webcast
-Justin

A recent GigaOM article about FMYI entitled “With Social Media, FMYI Makes Enterprise Collaboration Pay“ has also been republished in Businessweek. We’re very honored. And it’s more evidence that social media within the workplace is catching fire!

A shout out to Silicon Florist and The Square Feet Report for their recent posts about our presence within the Oregon tech scene and our new office!

Silicon Florist:

The Square Feet Report:

It was a very proud moment to be a board member of the Portland Parks Foundation (FMYI has also given grants to the Foundation as well). We received over $382,000 in donations thanks to the efforts of Al Roker’s “Lend a hand” program. You can check out the Today Show video below (you may even see me in there somewhere). And I got to eat chicken wings from Pok Pok with Al!
-Justin

I gave a presentation last Wednesday in Seattle at the Action for a Sustainable America conference. My slides are below. The big takeaway for me was New Belgium Brewing founder Kim Jordan’s talk about building their employee culture and sustainability. I definitely came away inspired. We like to think that the culture we’re building here at FMYI is in the same spirit as New Belgium’s. Except we produce software instead of beer =)
-Justin

We’re excited about being selected as a semi-finalist for the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network Development Stage Company of the Year! The event brings together so many great entrepreneurs who have given so much to the community. We’re honored to have been named a semi-finalist, and look forward to helping other entrepreneurs as we all grow together.

So we’ve introduced Economy 2.0 and covered the blueprint for Economy 2.0. And we’ve talked about the definition of innovation (collaboration, sustainability, and technology). Now, let’s talk about how you can create opportunities for yourself in Economy 2.0.

The concept of the “Brand called you“ has become even more relevant. Whether you’re working within an organization, looking for a job, or starting your own company, it’s all the same — besides branding yourself to stand out from the crowd, you need to make the business case for why you add value. It’s all about bringing compelling entrepreneurial ideas to your employer, future employer, or customers, with a clear plan on how to make it all happen. The urgency is here unfortunately thanks to the state of the global economy whether your organization is downsizing, or you’re looking to be employed.

And the bottom line in Economy 2.0 is how you can help your current employer/prospective employer/client innovate through collaboration, sustainability, and technology. How can you leverage collaborative networks to help speed up innovation? How can you apply a sustainability lens to help create long term innovation? How can you make use of technology to help scale innovation?

We can continue to talk about high level reasons why it’s important for you to be a part of the solution. But when it comes down to it, being a part of Economy 2.0 is all about your personal passion. I’m a firm believer that if you’re doing something innovative you’re passionate about, it’ll help you perform at a higher level. And unlike the old days when everyone wanted to get rich quick, or create the next global phenomenon, these days it’s all about quality over quantity.

Witness innovative efforts like B-Line and Brunch Bunch here in Portland, Oregon. And check out this recent article about “The case for working with your hands.“ There’s a movement going on where people are taking things back to the basics, doing something they’re passionate about, while often putting an innovative twist to it.

I’ll explore this topic in more detail in the coming weeks, using the story of FMYI. In the meantime, I leave you with this video to ponder, which illustrates the urgency of needing to think differently in this day and age:

Onward and upward,
-Justin

• When you upload a file to a page, if it’s an image, a thumbnail preview (100 x 100 pixel maximum) is now displayed.
• If you use a Blackberry mobile device, event alerts sent from your FMYI site will now import automatically into your Blackberry calendar.
• If you create a task, an alert won’t be sent to you (it will be sent to others who are responsible for completing the task).
• Updating a profile image from the admin section sets the workspace image properly.
• By default, no reminder email is set for an event.
• Any validated email address associated with an account can be used to reset a password.
• Added Javascript to disable-then-enable “Add comment” button on site and workspace view to avoid undesired side effects of double-clicking button.

Read our latest newsletter…

Welcome to the latest edition of the FMYI human energy newsletter. Can you believe 2009 is almost half over? Wow. It’s exciting that we’re close to a major tipping point for online collaboration. People seem to realize the importance more and more of combining a social networking site look and feel with secure workflow tools like project management, contact tracking, knowledge base building, and calendar sharing. That’s what we’re all about, whether we’re working with our Fortune 500 clients, or startup social enterprises. There’s a lot of good stuff happening in the world of FMYI, social media, and sustainability…read more >

Next up in our innovation blueprint (collaboration + sustainability + technology) for Economy 2.0 is technology.

This one seems to be a no-brainer. Compared with collaboration and sustainability, technology is the most widely accepted definition of innovation. To some extent, we tend to rely too much on technology itself to solve every problem in the world. When combined with collaboration and sustainability, technology is at its best. The balance is crucial. Without collaboration, technology doesn’t advance as quickly. Without sustainability, technology isn’t long term enough. But collaboration and sustainability without technology isn’t as scalable.

Using the sectors I mentioned in Economy 2.0 blog post, let’s check out examples of technology innovations coming out of Portland:

EDUCATION
I don’t know much about Educadium, but from what I’ve seen from their website, it’s a great way to leverage the web to increase access to educational opportunities. Their mission is “to help individuals and organizations of all sizes create, manage, and profit from online teaching and training through easy-to-use and affordable learning management tools.“ One of the great hopes for technology and education is to level the playing field for those trying to teach, and to increase access for those wanting to learn. Of course, we need to address the digital divide, but that’s another blog post entirely!

ENERGY
BetterBricks is the commercial building initiative of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, which is supported by local electric utilities. BetterBricks’ goals are to support the marketplace’s capability to deliver efficient products and services, provide pragmatic and comprehensive information about energy efficiency and its benefits, and build awareness and demand for energy efficiency in buildings. The key question to me is how we scale efforts around clean tech, not just grow individual clean tech companies. BetterBricks is one way to address this.

FOOD
If you live in Portland, then you’re no stranger to New Seasons Market. Besides being a model of sustainable operations, local options, organic foods, and a community commitment, they’ve also been innovating with technology. Their online shopping service makes it easy for anyone (including those not near a store) to benefit from their products anytime during the week. And is this sustainable? You bet. New Seasons fuel their vans with a B20 biodiesel blend in a process that utilizes their own delis’ used cooking oil. And they can prevent up to 240 trips to the grocery store per day through grouping the online shopping purchases together, potentially saving over 80 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Now I’m hungry…

HEALTH
Intel is one of Oregon’s biggest employers, and their new personal telehealth product is an intriguing way to leverage technology to provide better healthcare. People can get monitored by the healthcare provider from home, which is more convenient for people in rural areas or for anyone who finds it difficult to travel to their healthcare provider’s office. And perhaps more regular monitoring can take place, which could head off problems before they get worse.

HOUSING
GreenRenter is a great online source for green rental properties. Their mission is to inspire renters and owners to go green through showcasing green properties and providing resources. Again, this is a great example of technology helping to scale the impact of collaboration and sustainability. Check out the site for both commercial and residential properties.

PRODUCTS
I’m a big proponent of more centralized resources for furthering the commercialization of innovative products. A great example of this is Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center. The FIC helps people commercialize their product ideas through research and technology. Portland has attracted and retained a lot of people with innovative ideas thanks to lifestyle and sustainability reasons. But that increases competition for existing jobs. What we need is more cross functional resources to commercialize and scale ideas people have. And these can come from higher education, government, nonprofits, or other businesses.

TRANSPORTATION
You have to love Clever Cycles. Their mission is to promote cycling as primary transportation for the everyday activity of households and businesses. Not just for commuting or fitness, but also family and cargo transport. This requires a whole set of unique tech solutions to bicycles, gear, and accessories. They’ve scoured the planet for products that fit their mission. And in the process, they’ve become a focal point for a growing community.

Do you have suggestions of other innovative models of technology in these sectors? Share them in the comments field below. In my next blog post, we’ll take a look at how we can all be a part of Economy 2.0…

-Justin

For Immediate Release
Media Contacts: Joseph Martorano
503.952.6569

FMYI social workspaces give teams “A faster fast” in online communication and collaboration

Balancing people, planet and profit drives knowledge innovation and sustainability for customers

PORTLAND, Ore., May 8, 2009 – FMYI [for my innovation], Inc., a provider of Web 2.0 collaboration software that empowers teams to make a difference today unveiled a complete redesign of its corporate Internet site as well as updates to all versions of it product line including FMYI free, FMYI lite, FMYI plus, FMYI pro, FMYI pro direct, and FMYI enterprise online social workspaces.

With the update of its corporate Internet site, prospective customers now are able to better evaluate FMYI’s offerings with more robust product tours and information.  Driven by feedback from current customers, the product line now offers two additional attributes to help drive team communication and collaboration including:

• Threaded comments further the social networking aspect of its workspaces to enable better communication. 
• The ability for site administrators to showcase workspace items on the home page as well as prioritizing items by simply dragging and dropping them to change their order.

Almost everyone who uses a computer regularly drowns daily in the multitude of emails arriving in their inbox.  It’s hard enough reading the messages and attachments, much less managing all the information they contain.  Appointments get missed, documents get lost, important emails go unnoticed—and then there’s the time wasted slogging through hundreds of emails to find the one that is really needed.  FMYI solves this problem for once and all.  It’s an online communication and collaboration tool—part document storage platform, part social networking site, and part business activity hub.  It allows teams of people to work together more effectively to achieve greater success and make a difference.

“FMYI is a transparent look at the past, present, and future – a collective brain that people can access securely and instantly,” said Justin Yuen, president, FMYI, Inc. “It moves people beyond water cooler talk, overloaded email inboxes and the ever-common file that can’t be found dilemma.  The dynamic nature of social networking software glues the team together equipped with common, but newly potent tools to connect and share.”

Communication and collaboration – A faster fast
FMYI makes effective communication, collaboration and cooperation more efficient regardless of time or geographic separation.  Information is kept at every team members’ fingertips.  Project and customer or relationship details become action-oriented, labeled or tagged tasks, events and messages are more readily managed.  FMYI helps teams and team members alike get things done with a collection of action-oriented features (project management, CRM, knowledge base, task management, shared calendar, etc).  Managing information is simplified within the fast and simple interface by email alerts, an activity manager, a powerful search engine with filtering options as well as easy site administrator options.

Knowledge innovation empowers teams
Since an empowered team has a clear, collective understanding of its purpose, and key measurements of success, FMYI organizes team details into workspaces allowing it to stay focused on what really matters – innovation.  People collaborate in their workspace with a familiar, friendly social networking look and feel instead of only sending emails through their inbox or accessing a shared network drive.  FMYI helps transform simple message posts into a virtual whiteboard where the creativity and ingenuity required to brainstorm is no longer limited by time of day, geography or even caffeine intake.  Uniting details in one location gives teams the ability to quickly see where they have been, to better understand current focus, and to plan where they need to be in the weeks and months to come.

People, planet, profit – A balancing act
FMYI strives through workspace architecture and characteristics to help individuals and teams to achieve equilibrium in work and life.  This isn’t about technology for its own sake, but about personal and team betterment through a positive experience of achieving work goals. 

A clean, fun interface helps bring together a far-flung team building community to create more success and opportunities at work. FMYI helps provide work life balance benefits like telecommuting and complete organization of information for less stress.  Utilizing FMYI minimizes impact on the planet by going paperless, reducing travel, offsetting non-renewable energy usage of computers, tracking sustainable commuting, and more to reduce expenses.  With more efficiency and a more common purposed direction, teams can be more successful.  Success can mean greater profit for a business or money raised for an organization success.  Ultimately, success can also translate into greater scalability to more positively impact people and planet.

About FMYI [for my innovation]
FMYI is a collaboration software company that empowers teams to make a difference by using the Internet and social media to connect people so that they can take action and achieve goals.  Since 2004, it has endeavored to build an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value because it is simply the right thing to do.  Based in Portland, Oregon with operations in Orlando, Florida, FMYI is committed to sustainability internally and to injecting sustainability into the business practices of its clients.  In addition to helping companies benefit from paperless work processes, FMYI also enables a team to track its sustainable commuting modes and methods and purchases renewable energy credits for clients’ FMYI power usage.  Built with Web 2.0 technology, FMYI free, FMYI lite, FMYI plus, FMYI pro, FMYI pro direct, and FMYI enterprise are online social workspaces in use by companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world.  FMYI offers free support for everyone as a key part of its focus on making technology work for people in keeping with its tagline, “Powered by human energy. ®“

Next up in our innovation blueprint (collaboration + sustainability + technology) for Economy 2.0 is sustainability.

No doubt there’s a lot of baggage with the term sustainability. What does it mean? Why does it sound so whimpy? The best definition out there is the Natural Step’s. In terms of the word itself, people criticize it for not being aspirational or inspiring. And I agree. But to me, the point is sustainability. By paying attention to the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit), we’re able to sustain innovation and not get too out of balance. Because as we know, getting out of balance results in major shocks to the system. A lot of this is common sense and harkens back to the old days when things were simpler. Time to go back to the future.

So the bottom line is, sustainability is an approach to sustaining innovation. Using the sectors I mentioned in Economy 2.0 blog post, let’s check out examples of sustainability innovations coming out of Portland:

EDUCATION
The Northwest Earth Institute publishes discussion courses about sustainability that grows sustainably. What do I mean by that? You gather some friends or colleagues, do a course, and you either repeat the process for another course, or your friends/colleagues start their own. It grows without much top down guidance because people can talk about their passion around community and the environment. It’s also innovative because it’s an education approach that spurs personal action, without being prescriptive about how to bring about change.

ENERGY
Want to offset your carbon footprint? Check out the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. What they do is basically create an innovation fund for the development of renewable energy sources like solar power and wind farms. It’s a successful attempt at lowering the barrier to entry for new sustainable technologies while leveraging a fresh approach to marketing something that could be dry. And what makes it sustainable in the long term? There will always be a higher cost to new technology. This is a program that engages people and organizations to help bring down the barriers without relying solely on investors.

FOOD
Portland Farmer’s Market is an organization that has been putting on farmer’s markets since 1992. As we know, these markets are the perfect balance of people, planet, and profit. What makes it sustainable over the long term is the message of a closer, direct connection between the farmers, community members, and the food.

HEALTH
Coalition for a Livable Future is a group of almost 100 organizations dedicated to health and livability in the Portland area. By addressing health at a high level and stressing the interconnectedness of the issue, I’m betting that CLF’s efforts are sustainable over the long term. Health isn’t an isolated issue. We’re all connected to it.

HOUSING
Verde creates environmental job training, employment, and entrepreneurial opportunities to residents of Hacienda CDC affordable housing and to other disadvantaged individuals. The key to the success of affordable housing is the success of the residents. By providing sustainability-related education and opportunities, Verde is working toward the long term success of the residents.

PRODUCTS
Rebuilding Center is a major hub of reused materials for new buildings and remodeling projects that employes disadvantaged community members. By taking a more balanced triple bottom line approach, the Rebuilding Center is creating a long term success model that will be more sustainable than the boom and bust cycles of more traditional home center retailers.

TRANSPORTATION
Ecoshuttle provides transportation services to groups using innovative vans powered by renewable fuels (and there’s wifi on board as well!). Long term, this approach is smart because of potential volatility with traditional fossil fuels, and is a competitive marketing advantage.

Do you have suggestions of other innovative models of sustainability in these sectors? Share them in the comments field below. In my next blog post, we’ll examine how technology can be leveraged for innovation in Economy 2.0…

-Justin

FMYI President Justin Yuen is speaking June 10-11 in Seattle at the Action for a Sustainable America conference. Come by and say hi!

• Before, email alerts showed up in your inbox with “fmyi [for my innovation]“ in the “From:“ field. Now, they show up in your inbox with the name of the person who triggered the email alert.

• When adding a task or event, you can check a team’s availability and see a list of its members.

• When someone posts a message/file/link/task/event and isn’t a subscriber on that page, and another person posts a comment on it, the original person who posted will get an email alert.

• We’ve made improvements to how email addresses are handled for your FMYI alerts, including requiring that all addresses go through a verification process. See the changes on your “Manage emails” page on your “My FMYI account.“

• You’ll have the option for biweekly and bimonthly repeat intervals for events.

• You can set a file as editable, meaning others can edit or delete the file.

• In the calendar, if there are more than 15 active profiles, teams are displayed first in the dropdown to view other calendars.

• You’ll see scrollbars on the day view if the contents of an entry don’t fit.

• You can email yourself a copy of your entire calendar for import into Outlook or iCal.

• A site administrator can create a main calendar by selecting “Main calendar” when editing an event. This is useful for overall milestones that you want to share with your team that don’t necessarily involve them as attendees.

• Site administrators can more easily feature a page by using a checkbox that appears right below the name of the page.

Let’s dive deeper into the innovation blueprint (collaboration + sustainability + technology) for Economy 2.0. First up is collaboration.

In 2000, Seth Godin wrote about the progression from farms, factories, and now ideas in the first chapter of his seminal book Ideavirus. Godin brought up an intriguing point. How do we build a farm or factory for ideas? And how do we commercialize the ideas in the most efficient way?

To me, the key is through collaboration to maximize our resources. Open source is a perfect example of this. Bringing people together passionate about a mission with a minimum amount of overhead and the skills to get the job done. Using the sectors I mentioned in my last blog post, let’s check out examples of innovative collaborative approaches coming out of Portland:

EDUCATION
The Natural Step is a framework for understanding sustainability. People take the tools and train others in their community and within their organizations. It grows virally, often in a decentralized way. In the case of The Natural Step Network (the U.S. chapter of the Natural Step), networks form of people helping each other out across sectors in local communities. 

ENERGY
Green Empowerment partners up with NGOs in developing countries to leverage clean technology solutions to alleviate poverty and preserve the environment. Their staff brings together products from clean tech manufacturers, students, and on the ground NGOs who understand the local needs. Fundamentally, they are connectors who utilize collaboration for innovation in rural communities in the developing world.

FOOD
Beer Chips makes potato chips. Made from beer. And I love eating them. But that’s not why they’re an example here. It’s an amazing example of innovation through collaboration. Founder and inventor Brett Stern came up with the idea of combining beer and chips, and worked with a virtual network of chip producers and distributors. For quite awhile, he was a one man virtual company, collaborating like mad to develop the chips, get the word out, and get the product in stores.

HEALTH
Recess Wellness helps companies get their employees in shape. They develop a customized fitness plan, bring selected fitness instructors from their large network of subcontractors into the office, and track the progress. Like Beer Chips, Recess Wellness is highly efficient, and Tanya Barnham, their founder, utilizes her network to provide customized services to each client.

HOUSING
Orange Splot is a cohousing developer. They build affordable and green community-oriented developments, leveraging a wide range of talent to make ideas turn into reality. And a strong foundation of every community are the residents, who participate in the design process.

PRODUCTS
RYZ is a site to buy customized footwear. What’s unique? They leverage crowdsourcing to produce what people want. Designers can download a template and whip up the look they want. Then the community at ryzwear.com votes on their favorites. In essence, RYZ leverages collaboration to design what their customers want.

TRANSPORTATION
Zipcar is a car sharing program. At its heart, the idea is to bring a community together to share cars, instead of selling cars to individuals. People enjoy a variety of options without the full time commitment.

Do you have suggestions of other innovative models of collaboration in these sectors? Share them in the comments field below. In my next blog post, we’ll examine how sustainability can be leveraged for innovation in Economy 2.0…

-Justin

CEOs and leading sustainability innovators include representatives from FMYI, Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Lafarge, New Belgium Beer, Kettle Foods, The Holland Inc, Spud, Portland General Electric, End Footwear, The Port of Seattle, Salt Spring Coffee Company, Gray’s Harbor Paper, Nestle Waters North America and more are to share sustainability strategies in Seattle to kick-off a new series of business sustainability events. The series is called Action for a Sustainable America and the Seattle event takes place June 10-11. Action for a Sustainable America is a series of conferences across the US at which leaders from corporations and organisations will meet to examine how they are using sustainability to redefine corporate strategy and drive management practice. The series kicks off in Seattle, June 10-11 and continues in New York (July), Chicago (September) and Miami (November). These strategic and management focused events are complemented by detailed sector focused conferences on Manufacturing (Chicago, April), Stakeholder Engagement (July, New York), Fashion (September, Chicago), Water (San Francisco, December) and Food (San Francisco, December). Read the full press release on CSRwire.

So in terms of Economy 2.0, what’s a blueprint to guide us? I propose focusing on seven core sectors central to producing jobs and livability: education, energy, food, health, housing, products, and transportation. This probably isn’t new news (I like to repeat words in conversations so I might as well do it in the blog) to anyone. All of these are pretty straightforward except products. With two-thirds of the U.S. economy based on consumption, we need to make sure this sector stays strong while moving large multinationals from a focus on products to services, while at the same time helping local communities grow their small businesses and “local for local” manufacturing (for example, Portland, Oregon’s bike industry successes). Both of these deserve their own blog posts down the road…

The key to progress in these sectors is innovation. No doubt it’s a murky term that confuses people and often loses its meaning. I’ve defined it as cross functional attributes in the chart below: collaboration, sustainability, and technology. From my standpoint, the blueprint for success in all these sectors are contingent upon widespread innovation utilizing cooperative efforts, minimizing the negative environmental impact, maximizing the positive societal impact, and the connective power of the Internet. I’m going to explore these three areas in more detail in my next post…

Okay, I fully admit adding “2.0” to the end of any phrase is just a lazy way of saying, “I can’t think of a more original way to capture this thought.“ But hey, you can’t argue with the success of everything 2.0.

So here we are. We’ve all heard about the credit crisis. But the mess is so much deeper and wider than that. In conversations with people over the past few months, I’ve been saying that the big thing we all have to answer is this: how bad is the global economy? Do you think it’s just another cyclical event we’ll get ourselves out of, or do we urgently need more fundamental change?

What do I think? We need to work together for long term change because that’s the only sustainable solution. Any other approach is only a band-aid. With two-thirds of the U.S. economy relying on consumption, and consumption going down, we need to figure out a way to innovate, collaborate, and create new sustainable jobs.

And what do I propose? Because, if you’re going to complain about something, what’s the solution you’re bringing to the table? Stay tuned for my next post…

-Justin

Here it is. The long awaited initial blog entry. After years of prodding, wild ideas, and countless ruminations over coffee and beer (in moderation of course), a dawning of a new era is here. Well, maybe not. At the minimum, I hope you’ll find this blog both entertaining, meaningful, and ultimately, all about the positive change happening in the world.

So, “Powered by human energy.“ Where does that come from? Credit goes to fellow Oregonian Kevin Carroll, who helped me shape the human energy concept back in 2002. To me, it beautifully captured the spirit of people working together to make good things happen. From the first day I started FMYI in January 2004, the phrase “human energy” has been a central part of what we do. My passion has always been to empower people to make a difference. And now, it’s humbling and inspiring that we have a team of people at FMYI who share the original mission.

But this blog is bigger than FMYI. It’s about exploring that creative tension and tough balancing act we all engage in at the intersection of people, planet, and profit. This triple bottom line is at the heart of the journey we’re all on right now. The world is coming together to figure out how to leverage the positive things in us to come together and solve the serious problems around us. There’s been a lot of talk about surviving. But merely surviving won’t get at the root of the issues. We need to thrive. And the only way to do that is to come together to maximize our resources through building community and work with nature, not against it. Collaboration. Innovation. Sustainability. All those hard to understand buzzwords.

We hope this blog becomes a showcase and forum for thoughts and examples of triple bottom line solutions. And we’ll enjoy a laugh together now and then, because these topics can get too heady and serious.

Onward and upward,
-Justin

We appreciate being mentioned in Net Impact’s March 2009 “Impact at Work” newsletter. An excerpt:

“Integrated project management tools. These sites are oriented towards teams that are coordinating tasks with lots of planning, communication and coordination between team members…Also check out FMYI, it’s easy to use and similar to SharePoint, but free and created specifically to help sustainability efforts succeed.“

Thanks Aboutus.org for putting us on your list of Portland’s best startups! Check out the site if you haven’t already. It’s a great web directory resource.

As you may have noticed, we’ve redesigned FMYI’s corporate site. More new content will be coming, so stay tuned!

THREADED COMMENTS

On the “Home” page, you can now directly add comments under “Latest activity.“ Just find the post you want to comment on and type in your comment in the text box at the bottom of the post. Press “Add comment” and you’ll see your comments posted on that screen. You’ll notice that comments are grouped together now under an original post. (Note: if you click on any other tabs besides “All” under “Latest activity” you won’t be able to see any comments that have been posted).

On any individual page in the site, you can also post comments just like on the “Home” page. It works the same way.

TOPICS ENHANCEMENTS

On a profile, team, and workspace page, you can now group messages, files, links, tasks, and events into topics (previously, you could only do this with files). This helps keep each page organized as more and more content is posted. If you have permission, you can create topics using a link right below the “All” tab on a profile, team, and workspace page. And when you add content, you’ll be able to choose from topics shown right above the “Add” button.

NEW COMMUTING FEATURES

You can now see the top five sustainable commuters and sites. And you can choose “car sharing” as an option. At the end of each month, the person with the most points gets to choose a nonprofit that FMYI will donate to (more details to come).