FMYI | For My Innovation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FMYI launches Stoplight Email to improve workflow and team communication
The Stoplight Email campaign includes a one-hour event encouraging people to not check email, a guide to reducing email madness, and features to help teams manage email more effectively

Portland, Ore. – FMYI [for my innovation], leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software for project management, contact tracking, and calendar sharing, announces Stoplight Email, the solution to reduce email madness, plus a collection of new and enhanced features in the FMYI platform to enhance team communications.

With the increasing epidemic of email stress causing people to look at their inbox yelling “mayday,” the Stoplight Email approach offers solutions to reduce email stress. FMYI is launching an event, a guide, and features to help stop the madness:

Take a step away from your inbox
On Friday, May 4, take a break from email madness and join the FMYI crew in not checking email for one hour at 1 pm local time, and simply focusing on a project that will make a difference in your business day. FMYI is promoting this event to help teams across the globe take a break from email stress.

Tips to reduce email stress
FMYI is also releasing a quick and easy guide to reducing email overload, streamlining workflow, enhancing team communication, and loving your inbox. The guide is available for download at StoplightEmail.com.

New features in the FMYI collaboration platform
Stoplight Email is a three-pronged approach to reduce the email madness from internal team communication built into the FMYI collaboration platform. Individuals with a project or contact management system can choose the perfect amount of email. (1) Individuals who prefer no email can search what they need or see what’s new in an activity stream. (2) Individuals who prefer one digest email a day (or one a week) enjoy a single summary of all relevant activity, plus they can be alerted to urgent information if needed. (3) Those on the go, with no time to sign into a system, want to simply reply to emails from the team and have the information automatically organized.

FMYI has incorporated the Stoplight Email system within FMYI with as a collection of features. The “Activity manager” has been a staple within FMYI for years to manage the flow of updates, but now users can also enjoy a selection of timing for a Digest summary, and the ability to simply reply to an email, and have information automatically filed for them. This unique combination of features enables people to work smarter.

“Emails fill a critical role as an easy-to-use notification process that brings timely information to your attention,” said Justin Yuen, President, FMYI, Inc. “Using email to try and manage workflow, such as project management, contact tracking, discussing ideas, the volume of emails can really get out of hand. FMYI reduces the volume of emails by enabling people to filter out less critical items, consolidating important information, and keep everyone focused on critical high priority items.”

To support the Stoplight Email solution, FMYI releases new features to manage workflow:
•  Digest – A fun color-coded slider allows each user to select the frequency of their notifications. FMYI provides users the ability to personalize their communication by receiving instant, daily, or weekly alerts, or turn off email notifications completely and stay in the know with the Activity manager.     
•  “Urgent” override – a unique feature where by select team members can override the digest and push out urgent information.
•  Featuring posts and video – embedding video and pinning items to the top of a page, allows team members to easily find and review important information.

“These features allow users to select the amount of email that works for their style, meeting them where their needs are, and leading to instant user adoption,” said Justin Yuen. “Access without excess reduces stress and increases effective communication for a team.”

Over 14,000 teams, including many Fortune 500 corporations and industry leaders, use FMYI to reduce email and improve effective workflow. Using the Stoplight Email approach, Ian Symmonds & Associates, a research and strategy firm for education and non-profits, has reduced their internal email 100% and traditional email communication with clients by 50%. “FMYI is critical to our team’s workflow and productivity. It helps our team build strong relationships with our clients, while improving productivity and collaboration” said Ian Symmonds, President & Founder. “Our team and clients know all information is in one place and nothing is lost in the inbox.”

About FMYI [for my innovation]
Founded in 2004, FMYI is a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software headquartered in Portland, Oregon. FMYI collaboration networks are used by teams of all sizes (2-20,000) at companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world. Guided by the triple bottom line (people, planet and profit), FMYI endeavors to be an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value because it is simply the right thing to do. FMYI is the only software-as-a-service (SaaS) collaboration software company to be certified as a B Corporation.

FMYI Media Contact:
Graeme Byrd
888.FMYI.COM ext. 813

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What does your overflowing email inbox have in common with my eight-month-old, just learning to crawl? They’re both frustrating and oddly enough, share the same solution!

Travis, the newest addition to my family, was learning this weekend to crawl. My wife, my three-year-old and I were a team, trying to figure out how to help him move forward. I put lots of toys all around him so he’d have many options – it lead to a few cute squirms but proved too overwhelming. My wife did the opposite and took away all toys so there were no distractions, but that lead to loud shrieking screams! Finally, our three-year-old put just one object out of his reach so he could focus, and we got to see him make real progress!

We all have individual work styles when it comes to team communication through email. Everyone works differently and the key to reaching goals is to provide each individual the option to select the perfect amount of email. Many people recognize the value of an internal collaboration system to manage their information and send email alerts, using tools such as Basecamp, SharePoint or an alternative, however they struggle with different work styles in a one-size-fits-all solution.

That’s what’s different about the new Stoplight Email approach for internal team communication. It works with your current email and works with each person’s individual style:

1. Some people are on the go and prefer a constant flow of email to keep up with what’s going on - however they want to simply reply to their emails and then delete them, not worrying about staying organized.

2. Others refuse to add a single email to their inbox and instead prefer an activity stream (similar to the newsfeed in Facebook, but for work) to review what’s new.

3. And some want one email a day or a week to keep up with what’s going on. If they need information more frequently, they can look it up within a project or contact management system.

It’s a trifecta that ensures user adoption, reduces email stress and allows people to focus on reaching their goals. The keys to success are to first have a system to securely leave files and details organized for select team members, with the ability to automatically email alert when someone needs to know about new information. Secondly, satisfy mobile users who live and die by email with the ability to reply and not have to sign into any system. Thirdly, there must be options to select how frequently to receive emails (digest options). And, for the emergencies that inevitably pop up, a bonus is an override to send an urgent alert to digest users.

And there’s a business case for making email more efficient - people spend 2.5 hours a day (600 hours a year) on email - wasted time is money out the window. Not only are Stoplight Email features available to anyone, it’s also built into FMYI’s project management and contact tracking collaborative tool. Sure you can upgrade to grab more space and more features, but all elements are in the FMYI Free team collaboration version as well!

My eight-month-old hasn’t given up on crawling, and you shouldn’t give up on striving for perfect team communication. Here’s a way to take your first step: take a break from email madness and join the FMYI crew on Friday, May 4th in not checking email for 1-hour at 1:00 PM local time. Instead, use that hour to simply focus on a project that will make a different in your business day.

-Seth

Want to learn more? Consider a consultation!

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City of Portland Mayor Sam Adams presented the BEST Award to FMYI President Justin Yuen last night at the Nines Hotel. The Portland BEST Awards recognizes business leadership in environmental, economic, and social sustainability.

FMYI was selected the BEST practices winner in the very small business category at the 20th annual (and final) BEST Awards presented by Sustainability at Work.

FMYI is a pioneer in the field of social collaboration software and integrates the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit) into its operations and through use of FMYI’s platform, clients are able to reduce travel, commute more sustainability, and reduce shipping by sharing videos and manuals.

Other highlights:
‌• Fully subsidized TriMet passes for all Portland-based employees
• Employees are able to work remotely
• A shared bike for employee use as the company vehicle
• Certified B Corporation
• 2011 Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility
• City of Portland Sustainability at Work Gold Certified
• Reduced company travel 40% in 2011

While accepting the award last night, FMYI President Justin Yuen said, “It is an honor for us to be recognized by our peers. We’ve all learned from one another over the years and what I’m most looking forward to is helping all of us continue to share best practices and coordinate our efforts to continue to make Portland a triple bottom line leader.”

The seven companies awarded last night represent leading practices and creative solutions in environmental, economic and social sustainability.

FMYI would also like to congratulate the winners who were announced in the other categories:
BEST Practices - Large: Purdy
BEST Practices - Medium: Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance
BEST Practices - Small: Capital Pacific Bank
Sustainable Food Systems: NatureBake - Oregon Grains bread
Sustainable Services: GO Box
Sustainable Products: Sustainable Northwest Wood

The BEST Awards are presented by Sustainability at Work, a program of the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability in partnership with Energy Trust Oregon, Metro, Portland Bureau of Environmental Services, Portland Water Bureau and the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

The City of Portland Press Release can be found here.

We’ve hit another milestone – 100 blog posts. In honor of this occasion, we’ve come up with a list of 101 ways you can use FMYI. People are consistently surprised when we bring up all the things you can do in FMYI to help you get things done. And since we know you’re the helpful type, now you know who to recommend the next time someone asks you how do I…

LOGISTICS
1. Share large files
2. Build community
3. Reduce paper
4. Share my calendar with my team
5. Get information to people in remote places
6. Enable flexible work environment
7. Access work from the beaches of (insert dream location here)
8. Task my distributed team with to-dos
9. Get out of my inbox
10. Cut down emails
11. Keep information centrally located yet secure
12. Cut down costs of using multiple online tools
13. Move my data off my servers to cut down costs
14. Integrate a permission based personal/professional calendar so everyone in my life stays up to speed to utilize my time best
15. Access my work from any internet connection
16. Keep a record of my activity with time and date stamped documentation
17. Keep my amazing ideas in a secure environment and not on my computer or a piece of paper that could be swiped
18. Prevent shipping big binders
19. Reduce my weekly meetings
20. Lead my team without micromanaging
21. Set reminders for important dates
22. Provide quick status updates
23. Share an internal blog
24. Streamline communication
25. Replace my shared drive
26. Securely stream video
27. Make work more fun by creating an internal and secure social network
28. Assign tasks and questions that the whole team should answer
29. Receive automatic emails before appointments
30. Sleep well knowing my data is securely available from the Internet

WORKPLACE
31. Collaborate with vendors and external partners
32. Plan a workplace event
33. Manage my sales leads
34. Track my sales pipeline
35. Report what activity has taken place
36. Store HR resources
37. Make their work accessible when employees become unavailable
38. Create a business plan and track progress
39. Track all of my client relationships
40. Share knowledge and articles with my team
41. Track my consulting hours
42. Share files with my clients
43. Connect all the offices in my building
44. Track my teams social responsibility goals
45. Share all of those random office diversions
46. Take that water cooler conversation online
47. Post orientation materials for new employees and keep it all together
48. Get to know my employees and colleagues better
49. Move my workplace trash-talk online
50. Loop in new employees on current projects
51. Share my stories of my workplace’s success with everybody: from customer service department to the president to IT
52. Track support tickets
53. Create a way to track sustainability projects and connect the green team
54. Stay up to speed on my office happenings on a leave of absence
55. Share best practices with my department
56. Mobilize my green teams and share solutions
57. Share ideas to address my companies biggest challenges
58. Crowdsource ideas to find the best solutions to implement
59. Share information with my partners
60. Empower my team with ample data to give me peace of mind when I’m out of the office
61. Track my PR activities and share information with the media
62. Track my workplace’s energy usage
63. Keep an image library for everyone in the workplace to use: logos, headshots, letterhead
64. Organize workplace community service days
65. Stay connected with conference attendees after the big event
66. Meet about what matters and leave the details in the site
67. Select who is allowed to see what, so my data is confidentially accessible
68. Keep a shared HR file on employees for executives, managers and HR.
69. Assign tasks a priority so you ensure you get to what’s most important
70. Automatically archive everything you do so you don’t reinvent the wheel

EDUCATION
71. Teacher communicating with parents
72. My group project for that class you are in
73. Organize a nonprofit charity with my classmates
74. Share readings and homework assignments with students
75. Collaborate with my team on my graduation thesis

NON-PROFIT
76. Collaborate with my non-profit board, staff, and members
77. Plan fundraisers
78. Share relevant news and ideas
79. Keep the conversation going between monthly meetings
80. Keep track of processes so everyone has a central place of reference

MEDIA
81. Collaborate on a TV/film project
82. Share video files with my casting team
83. Cast my upcoming reality show
84. Create a library of experts and confidentially share this with my team
85. Post all show files to keep organized

HOME
86. Share and track parenting information
87. Host a book club and discussion forum
88. Share with my kids soccer coach
89. Organize my family life
90. Plan a show for my band
91. Train for my marathon this summer with my friends
92. Keep track of all my medical records and appointments
93. Send my mother those cute pictures of my kids
94. Create one place for wedding planning
95. Create a site to help my husband remember to pay the bills
96. Confidentially track my dating life so you don’t double book myself and can remember what flowers and food people like

COMMUNITY
97. Share neighborhood watch safety alerts
98. Plan my monthly neighborhood potluck
99. Manage a political campaign
100. Organize a composting project with my neighborhood
101. Schedule play-dates with my neighborhood using a shared calendar

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FMYI Recognized in First ‘Best for the World’ List as a Business Creating the Most Positive Community Impact
‘Best for the Community’ Businesses Score 2x Higher on Community Impact Than Nearly 2,000 Other Sustainable Businesses
Top 10% Among More Than 500 Certified B Corps

Portland, Ore. – FMYI [for my innovation], leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software for project management, contact tracking, and calendar sharing, is recognized in the first ‘Best for the World’ list as a business creating the most positive community impact. FMYI and the other ‘Best for the World’ businesses earned a score in the top 10% of all Certified B Corporations and, on average, 2x higher than the average score of nearly 2,000 other sustainable businesses that have completed the B Impact Assessment.

The B Impact Assessment, governed by the nonprofit B Lab, is the most rigorous, comprehensive, and comparable independent assessment of overall corporate impact and shows the relative value businesses create for society by comparing nearly 200 individual metrics on corporate impact on workers, consumers, suppliers, community and the environment.

“FMYI is a leader in the global movement to redefine success in business,” said Jay Coen Gilbert, co founder of B Lab, the nonprofit organization that governs the B Impact Assessment and certifies B Corporations. “FMYI is among the best in the world at being the best for the world.”

FMYI’s commitment to the triple bottom line is embedded into the culture and company from the founding in 2004. In 2009, FMYI announced their 2020 Vision for Zero Impact to continue the commitment and creating a positive impact. In 2011, FMYI reduced their corporate travel by 40% from the previous year and continue to seek ways to be a leading sustainable company in Oregon and the United Sates with features built into their platform such as a commuting tracker and renewable energy credits purchased for clients while they use the software.

“We’re honored to be recognized as a leader in the sustainable business community,” said Justin Yuen, President of FMYI. “FMYI was founded with a mission to be an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value for our community. We’re inspired by how our clients are using our software to collaborate for change, and we’re proud to integrate the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit) into our business.”

The ‘Best for the World’ lists appear in the 2012 B Corp Annual Report published today by B Lab. For the full list, check out the report (PDF).

Along with FMYI, the ‘Best for the Community’ leaders include fellow Oregon business Prem Group and the following companies outside of Oregon: Agora Management Corporation, Cap Global, Care2, Change.org, Ecovations, Hershey Cause, Ideal Network, Mal Warwick Associates, Moving Forward Education, New Resource Bank, Next Street, Peaceworks Technology Solutions, SQA Pharmacy Services LLC, thedatabank, The Redwoods Group, and Virginia Community Capital.

About FMYI [for my innovation]
Founded in 2004, FMYI is a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software headquartered in Portland, Oregon. FMYI collaboration networks are used by teams of all sizes (2-20,000) at companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world. Guided by the triple bottom line (people, planet and profit), FMYI endeavors to be an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value because it is simply the right thing to do. FMYI is the only software-as-a-service (SaaS) collaboration software company to be certified as a B Corporation.


About B Lab
A nonprofit organization dedicated to building a new sector of the economy that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Lab drives systemic change through three interrelated initiatives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and just good marketing; 2) driving capital to impact investments through use of GIIRS Ratings and Analytics; and 3) advancing supportive public policies to accelerate growth of social entrepreneurship and impact investing. To earn certification, B Corps must achieve a verified minimum score (80 out of 200) on the B Impact Assessment and amend their bylaws to legally require their directors to consider the interests of stakeholders, not just shareholders, when making decisions. For more information check www.bcorporation.net, or contact Jay Coen Gilbert at
.

FMYI Media Contact:
Courtney Timm
888.FMYI.COM ext. 813

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How many minutes a year do you spend thinking about energy efficiency?

The average person spends 6 minutes a year pondering such things.
Are you average?

At the Green Professionals Conference last week, there was frequent discussion about Green Jobs in energy, technology, supply chain and government. It is a reminder to me that it will soon become vital for all jobs and companies to consider their impact in areas outside of the financial world and push themselves to minimize their world footprint.

With research showing that energy efficiency is a minor topic in the mind of the average American and a green economy on the minds of conference attendees; I was reminded of the important role FMYI plays to our clients. I touched on this during my “Online Tools Driving Sustainability and Energy Efficiency” session.

We are at a crossroads in business – where technology and sustainability are showing to be growing attributes to a company. This growing trend is due in part to the fact that the millennial generation—a generation shown to be interested in workplace flexibility, social working and sustainable living—is two years away from representing over 50% of the workforce. This generation has changed universities’ views of sustainability and will inevitably continue to change the business world, pushing for increased workplace flexibility and company culture embedded with sustainability.

As a pioneer in an industry that is looking to bring improved collaboration to every workplace, we see sustainability having a growing impact on future of technology and collaboration. It is important for us to work with companies and organizations committed to sustainable practices – including Hyatt Hotels, Focus the Nation and the Association of Climate Change Officers, but just as important to help the average American who only thinks about energy efficiency 6 minutes a year. The average American with a company who doesn’t have a primary goal and focus on being sustainable, but trusts their technology providers to be innovative leaders in the industry. While the general public may not necessarily think about reducing their energy consumption on a daily basis (or track their consumption), we feel it is important for our tool to help people do so with little effort. Helping these companies and teams reduce their travel, work from home and share information with clients.

As a sustainable company we track and reduce our own energy consumption (as part of our 2020 Vision to zero impact), but more importantly we help our community of users make an impact. How do we help others make an impact? Through tracking the energy used by their computers and network accessing our servers (and purchasing carbon credits to compensate), by reducing their paper consumption, by providing tools that enable them to collaborate online and reduce travel. We empower change agents across industries and sectors that want to improve their productivity and team collaboration – they just happen to reduce their carbon footprint at the same time.

It was inspiring to hear the great work being done around the Green Economy and brings me hope for a new and sustainable economy—an economy where we don’t have to think about energy efficiency, rather everyone is living and working a sustainable life.

Keep empowering,
Graeme

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Fluid Market Strategies is hosting the fourth annual Green Professionals Conference on February 16, 2012. This conference is a chance for business, nonprofit, education and government sectors to gather under one roof to stimulate and discuss economic growth by strengthening the green job workforce.

FMYI Business Development & Collaboration Manager Graeme Byrd will be speaking about Online Tools Driving Sustainability and Energy Efficiency, including the FMYI platform.

“As a company guided by the triple bottom line, we are happy to share our story with other professionals committed to economic growth through green jobs,” says Byrd. “This is a great opportunity to collaborate and learn from what others are doing to enhance this space.”

Other speakers at the conference include: Derek Smith (Clean Energy Works), Eric Brody (ShiftAdvantage), Vince Porter (Oregon Governor’s Office of Film and Television), and Margi Hoffman (Strategies 360). The Keynote address is by Jared Bernstein (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities).

Follow Graeme’s (@graemefbyrd) experiences at the Green Professionals Conference (@2012GPC) on Twitter.

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Last week, we celebrated FMYI’s eighth anniversary. Let’s take a look back at the beginning of FMYI.

I started the company on January 28th because in Chinese, eight is good luck. I can still remember that first morning working out of Urban Grind Coffeehouse here in Portland’s Pearl District, which became FMYI HQ for much of the first year. Urban Grind owner Kevin Crawford created a thriving coffee shop for artists, knowledge workers, and the tech community in Portland. The irony is I don’t really drink coffee. I soon became a “social coffee drinker.“

The goal from day one was to start as a bootstrapped company and focus on revenue, not raising external capital. I’m proud that thanks to the efforts of our team, we became profitably early on, but it wouldn’t have been possible without a little bit of money my grandmother left me when she passed away. Recently, I spoke at the Net Impact conference on a panel called, “Not your Grandma’s CEO.“ I first had to confess to the crowd that I am my grandma’s CEO because her values are integrated into FMYI’s culture (resourcefulness, continuous improvement, helping others, being creative).

One of the early decisions was a name for the company. The original inspiration for “FMYI” came from all the emails flying around with “FYI” (an abbreviation of “for your information”). Wouldn’t it be easier to just post it in a centralized place instead of emailing it around? Unfortunately, “FYI” was already trademarked. So we came up with FMYI (pronounced “F-MY-I”) which is “for my innovation” because it’s about what all of us can do to spur innovation, not just share information. So now you know the story. And knowing is half the battle!

Eight years has gone by quickly. Back in 2004, we were one of the first pioneers with the idea of combining a social networking site with tools for collaboration. The vision was to make the software easy to use, offer tools to get things done, host the platform in the cloud so clients didn’t need additional IT help, provide free customer support, and embed the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit) into our business model. To this day, we are still focused on these things.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. It definitely takes a community to grow a startup. The team here at FMYI would like to thank our clients, contractors, vendors, community partners, friends, family, and everyone who has helped us along the way. We’re looking forward to celebrating with you as we embark on our eighth year together!

Onward and upward,
-Justin

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2012 is here and so far so good! Contrary to what the Mayans said, we’re relieved to hear that NASA doesn’t think the end of the world is coming this year.

There was a lot of good news in 2011 as well for FMYI, both as your leader in collaboration software and for the team that makes the magic happen:

Client stories
Let’s start things off with some gratification for three of our clients who have been sharing their FMYI stories with the world:
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service mentions us in these two eHealth Insider articles:
• CCG tries US collaboration tool
• New Year revolutions
Focus the Nation leverages their FMYI site to spread clean technology innovation across university campuses and Globescan brings together people from around the world on its FMYI site.

All new!
2011 gave us some opportunities that haven’t been present in years past! We were able to introduce some exciting campaigns, features, and (ahem) rap videos:
• The Launch of Change Agents Unite
• B Corp Rap

FMYI Features
Jan 18, 2011 6.23.0
#949 Team Task – Assign tasks to a team
Jan 21, 2011 6.23.1
#964 Report - Add page status and search labels to reports.
#957 Admin - In manage page categories, admin can “Select the default post type: “ (defaults to message).
Feb 4, 2011 6.24.0
#1013 Import spreadsheet - Add teams to drop down when choosing to assign page owner.
#1008 Search - Autocomplete suggestions for search input.
Mar 1, 2011 6.25.0
#1032 Account - Organize My Accounts page.
#1031 Account - Search across all your sites.
#1035 Import Spreadsheet - Map columns to search labels.
May 19, 2011 6.29.0
#178 Search - Advanced search.
#731 Admin - Bulk reassign users via advanced search (off by default).
Jul 26, 2011 6.32.0
#1228 Message - Complete post-by-email.
Sep 30, 2011 6.35.0
#1334 Public access - Anonymous access to site and pages.
Oct 21, 2011 6.36.0
#1394 Alerts - Option to receive a digest of notifications daily, located in user’s profile.
Dec 8, 2011 6.38.0
#1476 All posts - Allow poster to indicate if post is Urgent.
#1495 Email Digest - Allow more options for delivery times and weekly delivery.
#1505 Import - Support importing of Highrise contacts.

Company news
We were all kept very busy this past year whether it was speaking at a conference, attending award functions or getting out in the community to show our support for organizations we believe in! Here’s a birds eye view of some of the great groups we have been able to support this past year, the conferences we have participated in and the gracious acknowledgements we have received.

Awards:
• Fastest Growing Private Company
• 40 u 40 (FMYI President Justin Yuen)
• Pivotal Leader
• Sloan Award winner
• PBJ Corporate Philanthropist

Supported:
• Shake it Till We Make It
• Net Impact
• GreenGov
• Oregon Environmental Council

Conferences:
• GoGreen 2011
• GreenGov 2011
• Fortune Brainstorm Green 2011
• GreenBiz Innovation Forum ’11
• SLA
• Net Impact
• Social Media Conference

And lastly…
We’ve been selected to work with the Meyer Memorial Trust to build a platform in order to engage Oregonians with the goal to create civic change.

None of this would have been possible without you. A BIG thank you to everyone out there who has supported us as we continually grow and strive to be a better business and active participants in our communities. Here’s to another great year in 2012!

-The FMYI Team

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It’s been a banner year here at FMYI [for my innovation] from new feature rollouts, being 14th on the Fastest Growing list, growing list of client testimonials, the launch of our Change Agents Unite campaign with major brands and NGOs, the start of our pilot with the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, and our Sloan Award for Workplace Flexibility.

But let’s take a step back and survey where we’re at as an industry. I know it’s getting late already for 2011 retrospectives and 2012 predictions, but I still haven’t seen any succinct recaps of last year and a look ahead to this year for the collaboration software industry. So here’s your look at key moments and trends in collaboration from behind the scenes:

Three key moments for collaboration software in 2011

1. Jive Software’s IPO is evidence that collaboration software is big business and something Wall Street believes in. Their enterprise sales success is well documented (although losses continue) showing robust interest in purchasing these kind of platforms. The market for collaboration software continues to grow, and Jive going public gives them the cash to try and compete with large players like Microsoft Sharepoint as enterprise IT rolls out more platforms.

2. Google Wave’s demise came quietly compared with the hype surrounding its unveiling. Google’s official announcement about shutting down their Wave collaboration platform ended a short but wild ride, starting off with much fanfare, followed by eager “Googlers” trying out the software, and culminating with turning off the lights. The cautionary tale? Hype and pedigree can only take you so far - user adoption and revenue is what reigns with collaboration software. Also, if it takes you over an hour to demo a piece of software, it’s probably too complex for mass adoption. There’s a niche open source future for Wave, but for now, Google is content to mimic Microsoft by focusing mainly on their Google Docs service (like Microsoft Office) and traditional Gmail email (like Outlook Exchange). It remains to be seen whether their social (non-work) network Google+ will evolve into social collaboration and workflow productivity tools and get closer to a lofty new vision.

3. The rise of Dropbox and Evernote is evidence that people are getting very comfortable with storing their information in the cloud, whether they’re files or notes. Why are they so successful? The barrier to entry is low because the user experience is seamless and intuitive, and their freemium model is affordable. As we’ve seen lately with the iPhone, iPad, and social media, enterprise has been following consumer technology because people demand easy and fun ways to work. Although Dropbox and Evernote are primarily ways to store your individual content, they do have basic collaboration features. And their focus on making things easy directly relates to one of the trends I’m predicting for 2012…

Three trends for collaboration software in 2012

1. Simplicity for user adoption is going to be the name of the game as collaboration software becomes more a part of our daily work lives. Groups are interested in collaboration software, but there are two main barriers to success: too many steps (from a time and budget perspective) to pilot a platform and struggles with user adoption after the launch of a platform (especially with large enterprise platforms that need a lot of customization, handholding, and gatekeeping from IT). The name of the game isn’t putting out 50 page RFPs and cramming every feature under the sun into a platform. People at work are extremely busy and won’t use anything that requires months (or years) of customization before deployment, and they certainly won’t use anything that can’t be figured out or configured quickly by themselves without IT or training. And being hosted externally in the cloud doesn’t always mean it’s easy to rollout and generate user adoption. Salesforce is a case in point - paid training is needed for greater adoption. Yammer and 37Signals’ Basecamp product are examples of folks doing it right in terms of simplicity. And how will we know if collaboration software has hit higher levels of user adoption through simplicity? As Fred Wilson put it, you know you’re successfully achieved critical mass when you’re “Mocked and Misunderstood.“

2. Tools for action, not just sharing are going to be demanded this year. People are trying out simple status update software platforms like Yammer and specific tools like Basecamp’s project management service, but to get full value and actually change the game for reaching their goals, platforms are going to need to do more than share info. Solutions need to offer recommendations, such as ways to operationalize ideas, connections with project team members who can help realize a goal, and analyze data posted to the site for productivity adjustments, but in a simple way. There are elements of this in LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman’s Web 3.0 talk at SXSW last year. If ecommerce sites have been doing recommendations for years, it’s high time for collaboration software solutions to do this more.

3. Creating meaning has always been a tricky subject for the industry. Most lack a commitment to the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) baked into their DNA. It’s mostly an afterthought, lagging behind the corporate responsibility commitment of other industries. With all of the significant global issues these days around economic growth, the strength of local communities, and the environment, the time is ripe for more collaboration software Benefit Corporations. We don’t want to be lonely. To all our competitors: join us as B Corps and help us provide solutions and business models that walk the talk when helping businesses, government, education, and nonprofits work together to create a more prosperous future for all. There’s enormous opportunities out there to sustainably solve major issues through simplicity, tools for action, and triple bottom line goals. Let’s do this together.

Onward and upward,
-Justin

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I’ve been working remotely for FMYI over the past six years. With team members in Portland, Seattle, Austin, New Orleans and Orlando, it can be challenging to stay on the same page. I’ve used GoToMeeting for screen-sharing with clients and when they released their new video conferencing solution for a team meeting, I was eager to give it a shot.

We’ve experimented with so many providers: Skype, Google+, iChat, iMeet, and others. Each lacked in some significant area for team meetings – dropped connections, out of sync audio/video, echo without headset, and not enough spots to include everyone. Cost was also a factor that ruled out some providers. So when GotoMeeting video suddenly gave us our best video conference experience ever, I was ready to shout it from the mountaintops!

GoToMeeting allows six people on video at once, plus the ability to simultaneously share a computer screen (including sharing a presentation). The quality was impeccable – the images were large and there were no technical issues. We’ve learned to set five minutes aside at the start of team meeting to address any challenges of getting connected to so many locations, but usually we’re up and running quickly, giving more time to bond with fun personal interactions. (Continued below the jump)

So what’s missing from GoToMeeting?  Most remote workers in our company work from home (I used to until I moved into a small office). We can’t have face to face time too often, but we do need to interact in small conversations frequently – picking up the phone or setting up a meeting each time can be overkill so we use instant messaging for the quick one-on-one conversations.

The other big aspect missing from GoToMeeting is to fill in all the gaps between meetings. It’s important for a team split across multiple time zones to stay organized, efficient, and secure – for that we use our own collaboration tool, FMYI. It’s our shared drive, intranet, contact tracking/CRM system, project manager, resource library, shared calendar, task manager, and social tool all-in-one. Security for a decentralized workforce also requires a remote hub for documents and notes, leaving minimal data on computers. For under $50 a month (try it free for a month, or use our free version forever), FMYI can help a team operate like a well-oiled machine, regardless of location. We’ve honed our service thanks to feedback from our clients at small, medium and large Fortune 500 companies.

So there you have it – GoToMeeting for immediate face-to-face interactions and screen sharing, instant messenger for small talk, and FMYI to manage the asynchronous aspects of communication and organization. Now you’re productive wherever your team is!

Take care,
-Seth

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Note: This was an internal post I shared with our team on our own FMYI social collaboration site when we won the Sloan Award. I’m republishing it publicly so all of you can read about workplace flexibility and FMYI:

It was a dream of mine when I started FMYI to create a company with a commitment to work life balance, and a culture that embraces our desire to spend time with family and friends. I know many of you share this same spirit as well. Even though it can be difficult to do this given our industry, going through the startup phase, and the challenges of the global economy, we are committed to improving in this area.

I’m proud to say that last week we received the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility and a letter of recognition from State Senator Diane Rosuenbaum, the Oregon Senate Majority Leader. The Sloan Award is unique because it emphasizes employee input, is work-site based, and workplaces compete against a national standard.

Family Forward Oregon hosted the event where 20 workplaces received awards, including Intel, Portland State University, gDiapers, Mercy Corps, KPMG, and the Oregon Environmental Council. Several members of our Portland-based team attended this celebration. We were inspired by the efforts of our fellow winners, such as Rose City Mortgage. Founder Renee Spears has created an amazing culture that lets its staff set their own hours, hides buddhas around the office to create a fun atmosphere, donates a major portion of their fees to charity, and creates rapid economic growth.

Here are some of the workplace flexibility policies that we have at FMYI:

• Encourage and support employees with personal or family needs by finding solutions that work for both employees and the organization.
• Allow some employees to work all paid hours from home to accommodate temporary and permanent relocations (such as when a spouse/partner assigned or needs to move somewhere or to care for family).
• Provide more than the required amount for job protected leave for FMLA even though we are not required to do so by law because of our company size (16 weeks).
• Accommodating to the needs of families by allowing employees to care for children and spouses when they are sick through flexibility in schedules.

It hasn’t been easy though — distance and real time collaboration tools can’t completely replace face to face in terms of building bonds and reducing misunderstandings. To address this, that’s why we have our annual summits that bring together FMYI team members from around the country.

And a big part of making this all possible is the FMYI collaboration platform. It would be harder to implement workplace flexibility without using FMYI sites. Much of the attention when it comes to telecommuting focuses on real time tools like video chat and screensharing. We use those, but most of the day, people aren’t meeting in real time. Asynchronous or communication that doesn’t happen at the same time make up most of our day and needs. For example, emails and social networking site posts are an important way to stay up to date. It captures what happens in between meetings, whether it’s catching up with a colleague or a high school friend you haven’t seen in awhile.

We know that FMYI is the perfect solution for powering a flexible workplace because whether you’re in the office, out visiting clients, traveling, clearing your mind, getting creative, or permanently working remotely, you can stay on the same page through FMYI’s built in social network, and get access to projects, contacts, resources, and a calendar all in the same place. The free email and phone support we offer and our social and environmental commitment are icing on the cake.

Congratulations on receiving this award, and I’m looking forward to doing even better with empowering work life balance!

Onward and upward,
-Justin

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The FMYI team traveled to sunny Washington, DC for GreenGov recently to complete the fourth installment of sustainability conference season (GoGreen, GreenBiz Innovation Forum, Net Impact, and GreenGov). The White House Council on Environmental Quality‘s GreenGov focuses on sustainability within a wide range U.S. federal government agencies such as the Navy, Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Defense, Department of Veteran Affairs, Homeland Security, the National Laboratory, Department of Agriculture, Office of Management & Budget, and many more.

FMYI played a role in several ways. The planning team managed the conference using our FMYI platform. FMYI President Justin Yuen moderated a panel on “Green IT and Transformational Possibilities.“ We were also a featured sponsor and an exhibitor. Since we traveled from Portland, we wanted to minimize the footprint of our booth. We were able to fit everything into one normal sized grocery bag. Thanks to the wonderful folks at Capital Bikeshare, we also had a gleaming red bicycle in front of our table to draw interest and to publicize the memberships we raffled off to the lucky winners while raising awareness of our new Change Agents Unite online community.

Through our many conversations during the week from people stopping by our table, interactions during networking time, attending sessions, and having meetings with agencies in DC, here are the three keys to governmental sustainability integration that I saw:

1. Clear mission

President Obama’s 2009 Executive Order on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance sets clear goals for agencies. The GreenGov conference and many new initiatives have sprung up as a result. Instead of a vague mission statement paying lip service to this topic, the Executive Order has very tangible goals that agencies can build plans around to achieve.

2. Measure your progress

During the panel I moderated featuring Wanda Gibson (Chief Technology Officer, Fairfax, Virginia County Government), John Tuccillo (Vice President, Global Industry and Government Alliances, Schneider Electric), and Tamim Chowdhury (Realty Specialist, U.S. General Services Administration), everyone focused in on measuring the impact of their efforts. Wanda talked about a “Just Do It” attitude with identifying opportunities to be more efficient and save money. Her efforts won an InfoWorld Green 15 Award for Virtualization and PC power management. John talked about how within a short period of time they were able to save $15,000 annually by cutting energy usage 20% for a 2500 square foot EPA data center. He estimates that there’s $1.1 billion in energy savings opportunities in the U.S. with similarly-sized data centers. And Tamim covered the GSA’s efforts to reduce the footprint of federal office space through space planning and teleworking to achieve $3 billion in cost savings required by President Obama.

3. Employee engagement

To scale their efforts, agencies are relying on collaboration across their employee base. The biggest example of this is the Postal Service’s Green Team efforts which saved $27 million last year. Each team has access to a suggested list of projects they can take on, and USPS tracks the trailing indicators that capture the operational savings across the country. The GSA has a sustainability fellowship program to engage and train staff across the agency to create innovative projects. And I gave a brown bag session at the Peace Corps as they ramp up their engagement efforts with staff around the world to create sustainable results in line with the Executive Order.

We came away impressed by the discipline, resourcefulness, and operational mindset of the different agencies as they identified opportunities and rolled out initiatives to save money, minimize their environmental impact, and engage employees. Many leveraged partnerships with NGOs and the private sector and were energetic innovators. This gives me great hope for creating triple bottom line value on a greater scale, especially considering the footprint and influence of the federal government.

Onward and upward,
-Justin

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NI11 – unforgettable. What better place could hold one of the best sustainability conferences than Portland?

Portland, Oregon. A city and state that love innovation, creativity and sustainability. A place where David takes on Goliath. A place where sustainability is part of the tattoo industry and the sushi industry. A place where change happens. (And yes, a city where the dream of the 90s is still alive.)

As president of the Net Impact Portland Professional Chapter here in the host city, I knew we needed to start the conference out right by welcoming people to the heart of Oregon where we are committed to local and sustainability. Best way to do that? With a party of course! Thanks to great businesses and universities (including FMYI, Columbia, University of Oregon, Marylhurst University, Net Impact Portland Professional, OneEnergy Renewables, Bamboo Sushi, Garrett Downen Photography, Vestas, TriLibrium, Perkins & Co., Junk to Funk and Sustainable Business Oregon) who sponsored the “Welcome to Oregon” Launch Party, we introduced more than 900 people to things we love about this town – music, food and fun. It was a party for the ages. FMYI President Justin Yuen made a cameo and rapped about change and B Corps. The party and city are constant reminders that we do business in a different way – with a triple bottom line. A reminder that it is time for a new economy. 

As the Net Impact Conference began, Liz Maw (executive director of Net Impact) reminded us all, “You can take the power of business and change the world. This conference is about helping you come up with your own sustainability and impact plan. We want you to Occupy Wall Street, but from the inside.”

With 7 billion people in the world now (as of Monday!) and a focus on Wall Street, Net Impact is a reminder of the positive impact we can create as individuals and small groups.

PDX Impact.
While some people visited Occupy Portland during the conference, the focus at the conference was on creating positive change in business, social enterprise and organizations (not from the outside). Change can happen within the “system.” It is about a new way to do business. It’s about creating goods and services with sustainable resources, as written by an entire culture of sustainability that will provide a similar lifestyle for generations to come. And it’s about Economy 2.0 and B Corporations.

If we are going to make an impact, we shouldn’t wait until after the conference and risk fading energy, we need to develop deliverables within the conference–action happening during the sessions. I had the honor to help organize and participate in the Portland Impact sessions. It was a great opportunity for attendees to help five Portland-based organizations and businesses with a challenge that can improve an organization.

(Video by of Sustainable Business Oregon.)

I had a great time using design thinking practices to address the Bus Project’s challenge about engaging the millennial generation in short and long-term philanthropy. Definitely a challenge the Bus and many other organizations want to solve. Learning about the Bus Project and the other Portland Impact organizations showed me the impact we can create in one community.

The difference a few hours of collaboration can make to empower a community – whether it be towards clean energy (Focus the Nation), healthier children (Upstream Public Health) or scaling an up and coming business (Portland Pedal Power and GoBox) - is very impressive.

The power of design thinking and crowdsourcing along with passionate organizations made a difference for the conference experience and to the community.

Your Grandma’s CEO?

Justin shared some new insights to his story and that of FMYI. Joined by Jensine Larsen (World Pulse) and James Curleigh (KEEN Footwear), Justin talked about innovative leadership and a new way of doing business. Why in Portland? Think historically – from Lewis & Clark, the Oregon Trail (and I don’t mean the game) to Nike, Columbia and now FMYI, KEEN and World Pulse. Oregon is a place for pioneers and innovative leadership. A place where we build public-private partnerships and live a HybridLife style. Justin’s innovative leadership has been critical to fostering a culture committed to minimizing our environmental impact and mazimizing socital benefit and generating sustainable economic growth. As James Curleigh reminded everyone – “the suits need to trust the t-shirts and the t-shirts need to trust the suits.” Portland may not be a city of suits and ties (evident by the conference attire this year), but we are an innovative community talking about EcoDistricts, partnerships and ways to build a sustainable community and economy. The leadership styles of Justin, Jensine, James and others will make Portland a place people look towards for ideas, innovation and collaboration.

UNITE.
How do you capture the energy of 2,600 people interested in making a difference? How do leaders and the next wave of leaders share ideas and innovate? On FMYI. Of course.

Capturing the energy of the Net Impact Conference (and sustainability leaders from around the world), FMYI launched Change Agents Unite  - a community platform to solve environmental, social and business issues.

The launch event featured local Change Agents – including Bamboo Sushi (the first certified sustainable sushi restaurant in the world), the Bus Project (helping engage the next generation of leaders in democracy), Junk to Funk Trashion Collective (inspiring positive behavior change by asking people to reconsider their consumption), Oregon’s First Lady Cylvia Hayes, Sec. of State Kate Brown, Rep. Tobias Read and Chair Jeff Cogen (who passed the ban on BPA in Multnomah County the same day!).

We’ve created a community of change agents, those with innovative ideas, to solve social and environmental issues and to get rewarded for their efforts. We kicked off our Change Agents Unite campaign to a full house of those from sectors of business, government and non-profits, coming together to support and enter this community.

Let’s continue to create change. Help organizations and make a difference.

Don’t just talk about the issues, take the energy and UNITE to truly make a difference. Help organizations and businesses with their challenges. Help the Aflac Cancer Center, Mercy Corps, Hope for Haiti, The National Crittenton Foundation and more.

Change is always occurring. There are movements happening around the world right now. While the attention is being brought to issues the “average Joe” may not have listened to a while back, it is not just about bringing attention to issues, it is about creating positive change.

Be innovative. Be collaborative. Become a change agent.

See you at NI12 in Baltimore!

Change agents unite,
Graeme

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New Community Platform Launched for Change Agents
FMYI launches collaborative problem-solving tool for social good

Portland, Ore. – FMYI [for my innovation], a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software, announced today that it has created an online community platform to solve environmental, social and business issues through the power of digital collaboration.

Last year, FMYI started the Change Agents Unite project with a contest that invited users to nominate teams of people from business, nonprofits, schools or government who are making a difference in sustainable business practices. This year, FMYI is expanding the reach of Change Agents Unite by inviting organizations, including non-profits and community groups, to post challenges that are addressed and solved by a community of innovative thinkers and change agents who are motivated by recognition, prizes and the chance to make a difference.

“What do a three foot duck, a stylish bag, an iPad and a comfy jacket have in common? They are all prizes that can be won, just for sharing an idea on ChangeAgentsUnite.com. And they are just a small way to recognize those whose ideas make a big difference,” said Justin Yuen, Founder and President of FMYI. “We’re honored that these big brands are helping to attract fresh thinkers to solve problems as it all adds up to a rewarding experience.”

The Change Agents Unite community platform is powered by FMYI, and provides selected nonprofits the opportunity to list challenges they hope the community can help solve. Members of the larger community collaborate together, generating fresh ideas and solutions. The community member or members that have the best solution for the nonprofit will have an opportunity to win prizes from sponsoring participants such as Columbia Sportswear, Aflac and Princeton Biotech.

Challenges and prizes include:
• Aflac, which is sponsoring a prize to help the Aflac Cancer Center collect ideas on how to transition children with sickle cell to adult care to continue their needed treatments;
• Columbia Sportswear is sponsoring jackets for the two people whose ideas most help the Trust For Public Land bring urgency to the importance of having parks in urban areas;
• An iPad awarded by Princeton BioMeditech to the contributor who most helps Give Kids the World Village improve their “Ice Cream for Breakfast” Campaign.

The benefits to participating in Change Agents Unite are many: organizations can gain ideas to help solve their challenges. Companies can help increase the ideas being posted and position themselves positively from a corporate responsibility standpoint. The Change Agents Unite online community members can share ideas, potentially see them come to life, get inspired and connect with other change agents around the globe.

“At FMYI, we’re a big believer that software can be leveraged to create a better world,” said Yuen. “Our Change Agents Unite site, built on FMYI collaboration technology, allows us to bring innovative sustainable solutions to organizations thanks to the support of corporate sponsors and a community ready to empower teams to make a difference.“

For more information about the Change Agents Unite new platform, visit www.changeagentsunite.com.

About FMYI [for my innovation]
Founded in 2004, FMYI is a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software headquartered in Portland, Oregon. FMYI collaboration networks are used by teams of all sizes (2-20,000) at companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world. Guided by the triple bottom line (people, planet and profit), FMYI endeavors to be an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value because it is simply the right thing to do. FMYI is the only software-as-service (SaaS) company to be certified as a B Corporation.

With the world events in the news recently, these questions have been on my mind a lot these days.
• Are we at the brink of a new era in our global economy?
• Will the Arab Spring, natural disasters around the world, the debt crises, the information revolution online, shifting demographics, and other emergent trends result in fundamental change with our economic system?
• Are we entering an “Economy 2.0” phase where collaboration, sustainability, and technology are changing how the game works?

I blogged on this topics a few years ago in a series of posts:

• Economy 2.0
• Blueprint for Economy 2.0
• Collaborate and Listen
• Sustainable Sustainability
• Check your Tech
• Economy 2.0 and You

Here in America, we’ve been hearing more about discontent with the economy, whether it’s the Tea Party’s political pressure and Occupy Wall Street protests, both of which are triggered by unemployment figures that haven’t improved and the feeling that the establishment isn’t serving their needs. As I hear this, I immediately start brainstorming about solutions. We hear there’s a problem, and we see some evidence of it around us. But how do we start to fix it?

The scope and variety of these challenges demand widespread innovation. Everyone has a role in trying out new ways to address the opportunities they see around them in if the current approaches aren’t working. Or apply strategies that have worked for another sector and in a different industry. I’m reminded of this quote from Phil Knight, founder of Nike:

“The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, but that we are making too few.”

With budgets tight and the flow of capital restricted, we must look at ways to more efficiently use resources through cooperation from leveraging business networks for not just discussions, but also partnering on business deals more frequently. For individuals trying to make ends meet, collaborative consumption is on the rise. As Generation Y (otherwise known as the “Millennials”) begins to have more of an influence, we’re going to see technology used to bring people together and create transparency of information in ways we can’t imagine right now.

And through these new ways of working together and thinking, the way our economy works today is going to fundamentally change forever. It’s not going to be easy to make the shift, but I would argue that the best way forward is to leverage models that have worked, only in new ways. This will make it easier to achieve change. I’ll be sharing details of the plan in the coming months. In the meantime, in the wake of the passing of one of America’s greatest innovators, I’ll leave you with this quote from Apple’s Think Different campaign:

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.“

-Justin

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I’m back from San Francisco after a great experience at GreenBiz’s Innovation Forum. My take? The GreenBiz team did a wonderful job intentionally creating an interactive conference full of thought leaders who are defining what’s next. You can watch some of them by viewing the videos posted online of select plenary sessions from Nike’s Hannah Jones, GE’s Mark Vachon, and Steelcase’s Dorothea Seebode.

From brainstorming at the tables led by Nicole Boyer after insightful remarks from speakers, to interactive workshops that enables attendees to delve deeper into opportunities and challenges, having Krys Freeman on stage behind a laptop stoking the Twitter conversations, plenty of networking breaks, the fun Go Game “green” scavenger hunt through San Francisco (see the photos and videos posted above), the GreenBiz team successfully turned this conference of 250 people into an interactive event. By the way, shout out to “Team Woodstock” (Amanda, Jasper, Jennifer, Joel, and Kelly) — although we finished second to last, we had a blast =)

My workshop on “Enhancing Collaboration through Digital Tools” which was summarized on GreenBiz.com helped me get a sense of the challenges organizations are experiencing with online collaboration. Despite the onslaught of new features and new players in the industry, there remains the same age-old barriers to adoption at work which include too many emails in the inbox, enterprise platforms that people are required to use that are too difficult to figure out, and lack of clarity with the business case. I enjoyed addressing the barriers based on our seven years of online collaboration experience and painting a picture of what’s next with creating communities for action.

At the end of the conference, I came away with ideas for how to scale our impact, and with a greater network of change agents to help make it happen. Some of the burning questions about sustainable innovation shared by participants that we’ll try to solve in the coming months and years together:

• How do you make it intuitive?
• How do you institutionalize innovation and idea generation?
• How do you move from process to culture?
• How do you create focused innovation?
• How do we connect ideas with people with money?
• How do we balance short term with long term economic success?
• How do we approach individuals to create change and keep them engaged?
• How can we produce more attention for the good disruptive leaders?
• How do we encourage tapping into real needs?
• How do we get the accounting right for true costs?
• How do we allow room for failure?
• How do we change the business model?
• How can we create more “spear in the chest” moments?
• What is the vision for success and what we can do together?
• How do we get the messaging right?

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-Justin

GreenBiz is holding their Innovation Forum this week. A key driver of sustainable innovation is collaboration. FMYI President Justin Yuen will be leading a workshop on Collaborative Tools which will be focused on methods to accelerate the implementation of ideas. He’ll be covering collaboration, case studies, and help attendees brainstorm solutions to make ideas become an effective reality.

“The ability to harness the resources that we have is very important, especially the human resources,” said Justin Yuen, FMYI President. “This workshop looks to not only propose ideas for a framework of collaboration to support sustainable goals, but ideas on how to implement them and scale the impact as well.”

During the conference, Justin will also be leading a “Birds of a Feather” dinner and a GreenBiz Guru session, which our opportunities for attendees to speak with thought and industry leaders in innovation.

GreenBiz Innovation Forum 11 will be in San Francisco from October 11-13. The conference is focused on sustainable innovation as we harness new opportunities by rethinking products, processes, and models in business today. Other speakers include Fortune Magazine Contributing Editor Marc Gunther, Nike VP of Sustainable Business & Innovation Hannah Jones, and Greener World Media Founder Joel Makower.

Follow Justin’s (@jyuen) experiences at Innovation Forum 11 (#grnbz #if11) on Twitter.

Yesterday, I gave an introduction for Hannah Jones’s (Nike VP for Sustainable Business & Innovation) sobering and inspiring keynote at GoGreen Portland 2011. One of the themes during her speech was “Cooperation is the key to sustainability.“ In the face of major global economic challenges, the path to finding solutions and achieving sustainable success in the most resource efficient way is through cooperation and collaboration. But how do we do this? Here are some ideas given our experience in this area:

1. Connect your change agents

Ideally, this audience is a group of folks who have worked together already. That way, the social connections are stronger and increases the chances for success. Creating change is hard. Build an online community so they can connect with each other to ask questions, find solutions, develop a working relationship, and support one another along the journey. You can create a closed or open social network on FMYI to bring people closer together, whether they’re in the same town, across the world, on mobile devices, or dial-up Internet connections.

2. Share information

Knowledge is power of course. By centralizing links, best practices, documents, events, and more, you’ll give them the tools to take advantage of opportunities. And since finding sustainable solutions requires constant innovation, having a steady flow of new information is critical. Not only can you flexibly tag information on FMYI and set up email alerts, you can also benefit from our “Thought Leader” feature to identify the experts on specific topics within your FMYI site.

3. Achieve your goals

Once people connect and share information on the site, they can catalyze new ideas and turn them into projects. This is where you can cooperatively and collaboratively get things done to scale your results. Project teams should be assigned (or can self-organize) around accomplishing the goals your initiative has established. On FMYI, you can easily set up project pages and track tasks to achieve your mission while using the world’s only sustainable collaboration platform provided by a certified B Corporation.

Tweet

-Justin

My GoGreen 2011 introduction for Hannah Jones, Nike VP for Sustainable Business & Innovation

Good morning! I’m honored to introduce Hannah Jones, Nike Vice President for Sustainable Business & Innovation.

We first met ten years ago while we were working for Nike in Europe. What I’ve admired is her ability to collaborate for change and innovation, from Nike senior management to global NGOs and across many other stakeholders.

As we all know, going green starts with being a change agent. Hannah’s success in integrating sustainability into design, marketing, throughout Nike’s supply chain, and across industries serves as a blueprint for sustainable innovation.

Her team’s mission is to embed sustainability into the heart of the Nike business model and mobilize employees, consumers, policy makers, civil society and other businesses to power a rapid transition to a sustainable economy.

Before joining Nike, Hannah served as a consultant to Microsoft and Kimberly-Clark on their community affairs programs. Prior to that she worked for CSV, a European non-governmental organization, where she led media campaigns centering on youth issues. Hannah began her career as a reporter, researcher and producer for the social action unit of BBC Radio One and Radio Five.

Hannah is a founding member of the business advisory council to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and was named a Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2007.

It’s inspiring to have a global sustainability leader right in our backyard. I’m looking forward to learning more about what’s next so we can all collaboratively build a sustainable future together. Please join me in welcoming to the stage Hannah Jones!

October is just days away and the FMYI team is planning to attend a month of sustainability events!

FMYI is happy to continue our relationship with the GoGreen Conference and will be attending GoGreen ’11 Portland on Tuesday, Oct. 4.  This one-day sustainability conference for businesses offers the best in green practices for Oregon business owners, leaders and decision-makers. GoGreen ’11 Portland features exciting keynotes including Hannah Jones (Nike) and Lorie Wigle (Intel), plus featured speakers from New Seasons, SolarWorld, Columbia Sportswear, Widmer Brothers, The Standard and more Portland-based sustainable business leaders. FMYI President Justin Yuen will be introducing Hannah Jones during her keynote address.

Our collaboration started in 2008 with the launch of the GoGreen Conference HUB where speakers, sponsors and attendees can have a place to share and download information related to the conference, and has since blossomed into a successful partnership. Attend the conference and join the HUB.

Join us at the conference to hear more about how we are helping Oregon businesses and organizations create change in their workplace as their CRM, Project management and knowledge management tool, and the first software as a service company to be B Corp certified.

FMYI is committed to sustainability and we know you’re that way too!

Portland Business Journal has released its list of Corporate Philanthropists for 2011 and FMYI is ranked No. 26 among small companies. Small companies were ranked by cash donations with revenue less than $10 million and recognized for their support of Oregon nonprofits in 2010.

The top three organizations receiving grants in 2010 by amount were:
1. Northwest Earth Institute
2. The Brian Grant Foundation for Shake It Till We Make It
3. The National Crittenton Foundation

“It’s an honor to be recognized as a leader in corporate philanthropy,” says FMYI President Justin Yuen. “FMYI has been guided by the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit from when we were founded in 2004. We enjoy being a part of the communities that we conduct business in and are happy to support so many wonderful nonprofits.“

In addition, FMYI has recently become a certified B Corporation. This community is unified around the goal of redefining success in business and as a result holds companies accountable to a triple bottom line commitment.

Learn more about FMYI’s commitment to people and the planet.
Learn more about FMYI as a B Corporation

FMYI is all about “empowering teams to make a difference,” for both our own team and for our clients’ teams. Focus the Nation (FTN) is a national non-profit, committed to engaging millennials in creating a clean energy world, and is definitely one of our favorite teams to empower.

In 2010, the Focus the Nation team (pictured left, in our favorite colored hard hats) was looking for tools their small Portland, Oregon based team could use to engage hundreds of students around the country. Such tools needed to be user-friendly and foster collaboration for both the short and long term. At the start of 2011, FTN partnered with FMYI to help redefine collaboration between Focus the Nation and their stakeholders, increasing their ability to do what they love – empower the next generation of clean energy leaders. With the help of FMYI, they were able to more than double the number of student teams they are working with, including teams at University of Hawaii at Manoa, Clemson University, Miami University, and University of Oregon (Go Ducks! Yes, FMYI is an Oregon-based company).

With FMYI, FTN staff shares curriculum with students in their leadership development program and tracks progress and response as students implement clean energy solutions in the local communities. Additionally, FMYI helps them engage their ReCharge! Retreat Delegates – 20 rising clean energy leaders selected each year to spend one week together on Mt. Hood.

“Distance education is a significant part of our programming. FMYI allows us to connect with students across the country using a highly effective yet edgy, fun and interactive platform,” said Anne Bertucio, Business & Community Relations Coordinator at Focus the Nation. 

With over half the world’s population under the age of 30 and this generation constantly communicating over social media platforms, FTN realized email and other methods were not ideal to lead the younger cohorts. FMYI provides a community to students at a local and national level to share best practices, ideas and create change on their university campuses in a collaborative way. Students are able search the organization’s work by themes and keywords to find a group from another part of the country facing the same barrier, and can share ideas to generate a solution and promote partnership between communities. “With traditional email, this kind of collaboration was a rarity at Focus the Nation due to the logistical obstacles; with FMYI, cross-country collaboration is now an integral and required part of our programming,” said Anne.

“Our organization is proud to partner with a company that is dedicated to sustainability and supports our organization’s mission of creating a sustainable, clean energy economy,” said Garett Brennan, Executive Director.

Check out this great New York Times interview with Garett about Generation E.

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The wheels on the bus go…
Forward! That’s right, we believe it is better to go forward and take the high-road in business. The high-road means operating with more than just one bottom line, it means being committed to the triple bottom line. FMYI is proud to be a home-grown Oregon business and honored to be nominated for a Wheelie!

As a finalist for the High-Road Business Award at the upcoming Wheelies – the Bus Project’s awards for people, organizations and businesses that treat Oregon right – we need your help. Please take a moment to vote for us and spread the FMYI love to your friends and family.

And you ask “What makes FMYI a high-road business home-grown in Oregon?”
Started at a coffeehouse in Portland, FMYI is the first B Corp certified software-as-a-service company and committed to the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) with a mission to empower teams to make a difference. At FMYI, we realize that sustainability is not an easy sprint or long-haul marathon, but rather a progressive journey towards zero impact. Our goal is to minimize our environmental footprint, and maximize our societal impact by providing teams a collaboration platform to make lives flow seamlessly. As part of our commitment, we support over 40 organizations making a difference in Oregon and beyond who are committed to a better world – including Oregon Environmental Council, Brian Grant Foundation, Focus the Nation, Northwest Earth Institute, Aflac Cancer Center and the Associate of Climate Change Officers.

While that is just a short summary – vote for us and we will continue to provide you more reasons why we are a high-road business and deserving of a Wheelie.

Why do we like The Bus Project?
Like FMYI, it was started out of passion to create change and move this country forward! The Bus Project is a 10 year old organization committed to empowering the next generation in democracy.
(FMYI was founded in a coffee house and the Bus Project in a bar – that makes both very “Portland”!)

Keep empowering [and don’t forget to vote],
Graeme

P.S. Join us and other fun people on October 10 at the Wheelies event to celebrate 10 years of The Bus Project!

In 2009, FMYI conducted a survey examining corporate social responsibility and sustainability employee engagement in Europe. We’re finally releasing the results to the public.

The idea first came about for this survey because of my experiences at Nike. I was both a member of Nike’s “Shambhala“ sustainability employee engagement initiative from 1999 to 2001, and also managed business integration and sustainability engagement from 2001 to 2004 at Nike. One of the original reasons I started FMYI in 2004 was to create a social collaboration tool for employee engagement in the areas of CSR and sustainability initiatives. Of course, many of our 10,000+ clients are now using FMYI sites for other purposes, but I was curious to learn more about the trends with CSR engagement since there haven’t been many major studies done on this topic except for the National Environmental Education Foundation’s “The Engaged Organization.“ Also, since we serve clients around the globe including corporations such as Hyatt with significant operations in Europe, it made sense to examine engagement trends there as we have expanded our reach in Europe.

The high level results of our survey are below. If you’d like more details, please let me know. We’ll be releasing a closer analysis of our findings soon, so stay tuned!

This survey was completed with help from Diana Ursachi, a Fulbright Scholar formerly with the European Commission.

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-Justin

When I was a kid, I remember using big desktop computers and awkward dial up modems to get online. You had to fiddle with a ton of settings, swap floppy disks, add peripheral cards, and there wasn’t much you could do online.

Today, we live in a world connected by the Internet. At work, we rely less and less on specialized programs installed on a hard drive, and more on web applications we access through a web browser. And as a result, work is now much more collaborative. This was the vision I had when starting FMYI in 2004 - to provide a complete online social collaboration solution to make it easier for people to connect, share, store, and get work done. Thanks to so much information being stored remotely in the cloud like on FMYI, the hardware devices we use are getting smaller, simpler, and sexier.

But what is the one perfect device to be your main machine to handle a variety of business tasks day in and day out? Smartphones are out because of screen size and power. Tablets like iPads are getting a ton of attention lately because of the ease of use and wow factor (check out one of my reviews). But when it comes to work they remain a secondary device because of the lack of file directories, needing to carry around a keyboard for writing anything longer than short email replies, and the challenges of simple things like copy and pasting URLs into blog posts or documents. Most people still need a desktop or laptop at work in addition to a tablet.

With the rising popularity of working out of the office (business travel, visiting clients, conferences) and telecommuting (“Your Commute is Killing You“), laptops are preferable over desktops. Ultra portable netbooks are easy to bring anywhere, but have quite a few compromises when it comes to power. And you can feel the extra weight of regular notebooks when traveling. The perfect laptop would combine the portable form factor of netbooks with the power of a regular laptop. And Apple has done this with the latest generation of the MacBook Air.

These laptops are light (2.38-2.96 pounds), thin (0.11-0.68 inches thick), powerful (dual-core Intel Core i5 or i7 with shared L3 cache), and fast (flash storage SSD hard drive). The MacBook Air can handle a wide range of tasks from email, web browsing, document editing, managing a photo library, video editing, and more. In many normal work situations they’re faster than the MacBook Pro laptops. And they’re environmentally friendly, achieving an EPEAT Gold rating and the EPA’s ENERGY STAR qualification.

But with the two main size options of 11” and 13”, which one should you choose? Lost in the buzz of Apple’s speed update to the MacBook Air line in July was the fact that you can now special order either the 11” or 13” with the same processor/memory/hard drive specs at Apple’s online store (up to a 1.8GHz Intel Core i7 with 4GB memory and a 256GB flash storage SSD hard drive). So the big decision is to go for the 11” or 13” size. Here’s the main differences between the two models:

The MacBook Air 13” has these features that the 11” lacks:
• Bigger screen with a traditional screen size ratio (1440 x 900 resolution which is the same as the MacBook Pro 15”)
• Longer battery life (around 7 hours vs 5 hours with the 11”)
• SD card slot (to import photos from a camera)

The MacBook Air 11” has these features that the 13” lacks:
• Screen size ratio that minimizes letterboxing for watching HD videos (1366 x 768 resolution)
• Greater pixel density that makes text look a little sharper and crisper
• Smaller form factor and lower weight for convenience (the width is one inch smaller, the depth is 1.38” shorter, and it’s .58 pounds lighter than the 13”)
• TSA friendly (you don’t need to take it out of your bag at security in U.S. airports)
• $50 cheaper at the maximum configuration (Core i7 processor, 4GB memory, 256GB hard drive)

So which one to chose? To me, the 13” is ideal if you’re primarily using the laptop in the office, while working at home, and for the occasional out of office meeting. The battery life is longer for shuttling around town, the bigger screen is nice for doing presentations when meeting with people, and you have an SD slot to import photos at your desk or while out and about.

The 11” is ideal if you travel longer distances frequently because you don’t need to take it out when going through security, the size of the laptop makes it easy to use on seatback trays on the airplane, and you’ll enjoy watching movies in the hotel without letterboxing. The weight and size difference over the 13” feels greater than the specs show. It’s just that much more portable. And if you have an external monitor at work, it definitely can be a desktop replacement. If you like to write blog posts, copy for marketing materials, short stories and other creative projects, this is the perfect writing machine to take to a coffee shop, the front porch, a park, or the baseball stadium when you’re frustrated that the Mets are losing (something for another blog post!).

For me, I prefer the 11” for the reasons I mentioned above. When I started FMYI, I used a PowerBook G4 12” because of its portability. Unfortunately, it was still heavy, the screen was tiny, and it wasn’t very fast. The new MacBook Air 11” solves all of those issues by being close to the size of an iPad with a high resolution screen and it starts up, wakes up, and opens applications very quickly. Now if only it can help with writer’s block…

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-Justin

Forget what you’ve heard about Google+ being a social network. Move past the current limitations and look into the future with me.

But first, let’s recap where it is now. The debut of Google+ has been endlessly debated by the technorati, lampooned, and hasn’t proven it can generate adoption from the mainstream yet.

To be fair, it’s early. There are promising signs. The new look of the Google homepage and the design of Google+ is clean, it’s smart that they’re starting to integrate it with their other services, and in theory I like the Circles feature (although most people never seemed to use Facebook Lists).

So far, I haven’t seen enough evidence that Google+ will capture mainstream social networking converts. MySpace beat Friendster because it attracted music fans and exhibitionists who spread the word. Facebook beat MySpace because it had a cleaner interface and grew exponentially through college students and it felt like a safe place just for existing friends, not to meet new people.

Right now, Google+ is only a place for early adopters to play around. The power of Facebook and Twitter is their simplicity to the majority and G+ will have to be just as easy and also differentiated enough in the value proposition to get them to switch.

But don’t think of Google+ as a social network. The real promise is if it can achieve the challenging balance between ease of use for the mainstream and a wide range of functionality that touches their lives everyday. A home focused around all the information you care about, with a social layer weaving it together. Think of it as the web-based operating system for your daily life. A more cohesive and elegant version of Windows, and a more community-oriented, interactive, and connected version of Mac OS X.

You’ll be able to move from playing music, to reading a book, checking emails, writing some documents, doing research, looking up maps, shopping, checking sports scores, and more all through a seamless interface with recommendations and feedback from your social connections throughout the experience. Instead of separate solitary experiences, everything will be integrated with your community embedded around the interactions with your content and content you share.

To achieve this dream, Google has a massive challenge ahead itself to integrate all their services which currently seem more disjointed, and will have to embark on an organizational development redesign to empower its employee teams to work together like never before. The confusing days of Chrome OS vs. Android OS vs Chrome browser vs Android browser and endless streams of pet projects have to end to achieve this lofty goal.

To succeed, they’ll need to adopt Apple’s internal operational discipline while keeping Google’s strong relationship with the communities they serve and taking their “Don’t be evil“ mantra to the next level to win this battle.

Google+ looks much better thanks to the touch of Andy Hertzfeld who worked on the original Mac. But from an operational standpoint, will Google learn from the failures of Google Buzz and Wave to gain mainstream adoption and deep integration with other Google services?

I’m looking forward to seeing the results of this epic battle as Google seeks to reinvent its offerings and its internal organization in the face of competition from Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. Meanwhile, we’ll continue to evolve our social collaboration platform for the working world here at FMYI.

Who’s ready for an integrated social UI across Google’s services and the first social operating system?

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-Justin

At a reception held last night, the Portland Business Journal unveiled the 2011 Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies in Oregon, recognizing companies large and small for their feats. That’s what this list, “and the underlying mission of the Business Journal itself, is all about - focusing on growth and learning for those companies that are making it happen,“ said Craig Wessel, Portland Business Journal Publisher.

The top 100 companies were chosen based upon their percentage of revenue growth from 2008-2010 and then ranked accordingly. FMYI remained on the list at 14th, after making our debut on the 2010 list at 13th—and the momentum is still going. More teams are learning the power of FMYI to INNOVATE NOW, as FMYI serves 135,000 profiles and 11,500 sites.

Celebrating at the reception with the Portland team, FMYI President Justin Yuen said, “Our team is honored to be in such great company and appreciative for the Portland Business Journal’s recognition of our efforts. We look forward to continually helping more people easily collaborate online in a sustainable way by creating a private social network to get work done on FMYI.“

In 2010 we released version 6.16 with new features making FMYI simpler, smarter and more flexible and launched our Change Agents Unite campaign to empower others to make a difference. Additionally, FMYI expanded the company’s commitment to the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit) as we announced our 2020 vision for zero impact at the 2010 Net Impact Conference and became a certified B Corporation.

Continuing to thrive on our growth, FMYI recently unveiled new pricing options making it even more affordable than other competitive offerings.

The FMYI team congratulates all the recipients who continue to grow Oregon’s economy during these tough times, including our fellow certified B Corporations (Bamboo Sushi and Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers) who are also guided by the triple bottom line and a new way of doing business.

June 24, 2011

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FMYI Unveils New Pricing Options Making It More Affordable Than Most Competitive Offerings

Media Contact:
888.FMYI.COM ext. 813

 

 

FMYI Unveils New Pricing Options Making It More Affordable Than Most Competitive Offerings
Industry Leading Collaboration Software Delivers Even Better Value to Customers

PORTLAND, Ore., June 8, 2011 – FMYI [for my innovation], a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software, today announced new, highly competitive pricing options to provide customers various features and price points. FMYI’s unique value proposition is the combination of social and workflow tools with ease of deployment, free support, sustainability - and now even better price options. Complete details about the new pricing are available at www.fmyi.com/pricing.

Since not all teams are created equal, FMYI developed its new prices to take into account a variety of team sizes as well as their different needs. With FMYI, every team gets its own private social network and collaboration platform. They can manage a variety of activities, such as file sharing, project management, customer relationship management (CRM), group calendaring, task management, resource library, intranet, workflow tools, and sustainability features. Each product level is designed to provide for a specific number of users and pages as well as space including:
•    FMYI Pro – unlimited users and pages with 50 GB of file storage - $149 monthly
•    FMYI Plus – 30 users and unlimited pages with 15 GB of file storage - $49 monthly
•    FMYI Lite – 15 users and 15 pages with 3 GB of file storage - $14 monthly

“With our new pricing we’re breaking through to the next level to make FMYI affordable for any team, of any size,” said Justin Yuen, President, FMYI, Inc. “

FMYI aims to provide a triple bottom line value, with a solution to help customers reduce their impact on the planet and now priced to minimally impact profits. FMYI is proud to be a certified B Corp, underscoring our commitment to being a social responsible enterprise.”

Competitively, FMYI’s new prices go the distance to offer the best all-in-one solution at the lowest price point. In fact, 37signals requires at least two purchases, Basecamp and Highrise, to be a comparable product to FMYI’s less expensive offering. Newly signed-up FMYI customers who formerly used Salesforce.com report Salesforce is far more complex and exponentially more expensive. As an alternative to Jive or Microsoft Sharepoint, FMYI is pennies to the dollar in both price and the extensive implementation required for those systems. Yammer doesn’t have the workflow tools and an I.T. executive who is now a FMYI customer, recently called it a spamming machine.

About FMYI [for my innovation]
Founded in 2004, FMYI is a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software headquartered in Portland, Oregon. FMYI collaboration networks are used by teams of all sizes (2-20,000) at companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world. Guided by the triple bottom line (people, planet and profit), FMYI endeavors to be 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 as well as purchases renewable energy credits for clients’ FMYI power use. Keeping with its tagline “Powered by human energy ®,“ FMYI provides free support as an integral part of making technology work for people. FMYI is the only software-as-service (SaaS) company to be certified as a B Corporation.

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June 08, 2011

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“Portland Timbers, here we go!”

We are all fans of something, whether it’s a cause, a person you admire, or an idea. However, when you hear the word “fan” a lot of people think offhand of being a fan of a sports team; the jersey wearing, SportsCenter watching, season-ticket holding, drinking out of a team logoed coffee cup, crowd that never misses a game, on TV or in person. Of course there are the fan-atics that paint their bare stomachs in below-freezing weather or will throw a punch at an opposing team’s fan if they say the wrong thing, but let’s stick to the healthy version for now, the kind of fans that we encountered yesterday when the Portland FMYI team (partners included) attended a Portland Timbers MLS game at Jeld-Wen Field.

For some of us (myself included) this was our first Timbers game. Before the game, our president, Justin Yuen, printed out some team chants and songs, some uniquely written to be sung to the popular tunes of “You are my sunshine,” “Feliz Navidad” and the theme from the iconic video game “Tetris.” I laughed these off as a friendly gimmick, having never fans singing at major league sports games. But I had yet to be introduced to the “Timbers Army.”

The Portland Timbers Army contains members that fall into the first definition of what a sports fan is. They are the season-ticket holders that all sit in the north section of the field above the goal, creating a mass sea of green and white with clothing, flags and Timbers team scarves. But I heard these fans before I saw them…heard them singing… and they never stopped singing from the moment I took my place in section H to when the game ended. They stood the whole time, proudly making their way through each chant and song on the list. Three people stood at the front facing the crowd like orchestra conductors, guiding them through each lyric, urging the crowd to clap and raise their hands in unison. These were fans.

It’s quite an atmosphere to witness on the border of what is the Army. Here you have a congested group of people that are all there for the same reasons: first for the love of their team, and then for the love of the game. As an outsider, it makes you want to share that feeling of devotion and join their boisterous singing, but no other part of the field came even close to the energy of that section. Everyone else is sitting calmly with a drink or nachos in hand, only occasionally shouting encouragement when a Timbers player dribbles the ball near the opposing team’s goal.

Maybe it was because we were on the edges of the high-spirited north section, but the FMYI team was definitely on their feet that day, cheering for the Timbers and trying our best to sing along with unknown lyrics and clap in rhythm. It could’ve been the round of margaritas at Mazatlan beforehand and the beers in our hands that were partly responsible, but we were thoroughly enjoying the time we were spending together outside of the workplace. Since we use our own collaboration software internally, we have built a socially-based environment in the office and enjoy a sense of community because of that. However it’s nice to take that same approach as you relax with your co-workers and enjoy each others’ company. There is a natural camaraderie that comes out when we’re not talking about shared tasks at work, but other things like the game and our non-FMYI lives. And even though we aren’t members of the Timbers Army, it’s nice to appreciate someone else’s exuberance and show our support for their cause, the Portland Timbers soccer team.

“Portland Timbers, here we go!”

Live to innovate,
- Sarah

May 26, 2011

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Justin Yuen Announced as one of the 2011 Pivotal Leaders

Justin Yuen, FMYI Founder & President, was just announced as a 2011 Pivotal Leader by the Pivotal Leaders Network. The Pivotal Leaders Network is comprised of leading community members in the Pacific Northwest who, through resources, collaboration and innovation, will help the region develop and generate clean technology jobs.

“I’m honored to join this list of catalysts, innovators, change agents, and friends,” said Justin Yuen. “Together, I look forward to growing our regional clean tech triple bottom line economy. It’s gratifying to see the team at FMYI being at the forefront of sustainable social collaboration.“

Pivotal Leaders Network official press release can be found here.
A full list of the 2011 Pivotal Leaders class can be found here.

May 25, 2011

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We are information sherpas

We definitely are in the information age. People are sending 1,200 tweets per second (tps) and spending 800 million minutes a month on Facebook posting 900 million objects. Wow. What do we do with all of this information that is constantly being thrown our way?

With all this information being shared in a digital fashion, even Seth Godin has posed the question about The future of the library.

Godin believes that if one wants to watch a movie, “Netflix is a better librarian, with a better library…” Yes, the structure of a library is changing, but it continues to be essential to education, to future generations. Netflix may have a “library” of films, but is missing the human energy. “The librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work at a library.” Wrote Godin, “A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher.” Librarians – information professionals – are more critical to knowledge sharing than ever before because of the increased amount of information being shared.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of presenting to and spending a day with the Southern California Chapter of the Special Libraries Association, an international organization of information professionals, discussing knowledge management and the relationships people have to information. 

An exciting day of 5 speakers discussing tools for information sharing, building relationships with vendors and best practices for knowledge professionals, followed by an afternoon of unconference sessions full of engaged professionals.
• Britt Foster, a graduating MLIS student and blogger with a passion for public libraries shared social media tools to help engagement.
• Sandra Crumlish with St. Jude Medical provided examples of how working closely with vendors and building a partnership provides for better adoption of services.
• Scott Brown with Social Information Group and Christy Confetti Higgins, Oracle’s Cybrarian shared examples of Oracle’s internal virtual library and how one person has built relationships in an international company to engage their team and share knowledge management tools. 

Powered by Human Energy

View more presentations from Graeme Byrd

The theme throughout the day was that as a member of a small team of information professionals in an organization (often, a team of one) build relationships with other stakeholders. Libraries are powered by human energy (like FMYI) – sherpas of knowledge. 

These special guides are trusted more by colleagues because they provide relevant tools and resources. Information junkies can be change agents empowering teams to make a difference.
While librarians are “information professionals” you also are a knowledge expert in your organization. Are you ready to be a change agent? 

We are surrounded by Change agents who are empowering teams to make a difference. Ian Symmonds is helping revolutionize the future of education by advising schools around emerging trends. Kevin Carroll is changing the world with a red ball and helping create a positive atmosphere for youth through sport. And Cindy Romaine (the SLA President) is leading SLA to be Future Ready in an ever-changing world. We all have knowledge. We all can empower others to make a difference. We all can be change agents.

As leaders in knowledge management we are uniting as change agents as the future of information is rapidly changing. Are you ready today to be an information sherpa for your organization? Be Future Ready.

Keep empowering,
- Graeme

P.S. I had dinner with Cindy along with my other SLA friends at the Proud Bird to end the great visit to Southern California. If you are near LAX I recommend a round of drinks at this place – amazing backyard of airplanes and you are right below the planes as they approach the runway.

May 17, 2011

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We’re hiring: Web designer change agent (UI designer and front-end developer)

Do you love creating beautiful user friendly interfaces for web apps? Do you enjoy the challenge of creating efficient front-end code? Are you excited about being on a team of change agents helping people improve how they work in a sustainable way? Yes? Then we’d love to talk with you!

FMYI [for my innovation] is a private collaboration site where you store and share information securely with your team. It combines a social networking site look and feel with tools to achieve your goals. You can create pages to manage projects, track contacts, share files, and more. Our company was founded in 2004 as the pioneer in social collaboration software. We’re headquartered in Portland and FMYI is the 13th fastest growing private company in Oregon. FMYI is a proven and tested platform that has been used by Nike, Aflac, HBO, Hyatt, Sony, Target, Office Depot, Fox, Scholastic, Macy’s, Martha Stewart, Disney, and over 10,000 other companies, government agencies, universities, and nonprofits in countries across the globe. We’re also a certified B Corporation with a commitment to the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit). Here’s a three minute video about FMYI’s culture.

Job summary
What will you do at FMYI? You’ll be responsible for user experience design, visual design, and HTML/CSS. Products you’ll work on include our Ajax/JavaScript social collaboration web app, web apps optimized for mobile browsers, and our corporate marketing site. In addition to web stuff, you’ll work on future mobile applications (iPhone, iPad, Android, etc). You’ll collaborate with product managers, engineers, and marketing to develop innovative and user-friendly products and marketing sites that users love. And help us imagine the next big thing coming from our team!

Minimum qualifications
• At least three years experience designing user interfaces for web
• At least three years experience with front-end web development, specifically HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and AJAX
• Demonstrated experience in designing outstanding Ajax/JavaScript web apps as a key member of a design team
• Experience in designing early stage/new products, as well as new versions and/or feature enhancements of existing products
• Strong, clean visual design sense
• A solid understanding of user-centered design principles
• Fluency in standards-based HTML and CSS
• Demonstrated ability to follow interface guidelines and best practices when designing for new platforms (e.g., iPhone, Android)
• Fanatical attention to detail down to the pixel
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced startup
• Strong communication and collaboration skills
• Self-motivated, self-starter

Preferred qualifications
• Design experience in mobile or desktop software
• Academic background in human-computer interaction (HCI) or related field
• JavaScript experience for rapid prototyping
• Experience leveraging HTML5 and JQuery
• Experience targeting mobile devices
• A passion for being a change agent with social collaboration
• A passion for being a change agent with sustainability

Company benefits
• Medical and dental plan
• 401k retirement plan
• Paid vacation days
• Collaborative and casual work environment
• TriMet mass transit pass
• Sustainability training
• Brewery in the basement

Company info
• One minute overview
• Three minute brand brand video
• Media reviews
• Team
• People, planet, and profit
• Ranked 13th fastest growing private company in Oregon by the Portland Business Journal, Oregon Entrepreneurs Network “Development Stage Company of the Year” semifinalist
• Certified B Corporation, City of Portland Climate Champion, Sustainable Business Oregon “Innovation in Sustainability” award winner, Metro Recycle at Work member, Zipcar “Wheels of Change” finalist

We are open to contract, full time, and telecommuting relationships. and include the following:

1. A little bit about yourself.
2. The name of a web app you think has awesome UI/UX, and what makes it so awesome.
3. Your portfolio (links to Ajax/JavaScript web apps where you were a key member of the design team - please describe your role).
4. Your resume.

May 03, 2011

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1100+ Friends Celebrate Oregon’s Environment

A year ago the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred and the PDX2Gulf Coast group visited. Their story influenced Northwest Earth Institute’s newest discussion guide, Just Below the Surface: Perspectives on the Gulf Coast Oil Spill as it explores the connections between the oil spill, energy policies and our lifestyles. One of our teammates based in New Orleans experienced this tragedy first hand (where going to the beach to look for seashells has turned into helping clean up for oil). It’s a reminder of why we support organizations like Oregon Environmental Council and Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV).

The FMYI team is proud to have joined the OLCV last Friday night as an event sponsor of their 14th annual Celebration for the Environment. Over 1,100 guests attended this “eco-prom” including a bi-partisan group of over 60 elected officials from around our home state. We had a fun evening chatting with Oregon’s First Lady Cylvia Hayes about the West Coast Clean Economy Collaborative (WCCEC) and catching up with other friends and clients from around the state including Fluid Market Strategies, Oregon Environmental Council, Friends of Trees, Strategies 360, Renewable Northwest Project, The Standard, Bus Project, Blue Tree Strategies, Metro, Multnomah County, and many others.

The opening remarks by Governor John Kitzhaber hit on the great work of our client OLCV and the Oregon Conservation Network (a coalition of 50+ organizations in the state working together on shared environmental priorities), including Ban the Bag, BPA-Free Baby Bill and Modernizing the Bottle Bill.

As Rep. Tobias Read said, “It is okay to be concerned about profit, it is okay to be concerned about business that will be successful over the long run. In fact, better business over the long run is being sustainable (and) is being responsible.”

And in the words of Marcelo Bonta, “We can do this. We can protect the environment and protect people too.” His reminder and others are shared in this OLCV video:

We are committed to supporting organizations, like OLCV and the work of OCN, to create jobs, protect the environment and the health of future generations.

Keep empowering,
- Graeme

April 20, 2011

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April 20, 2011

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RSC Actvity Report

April 11, 2011

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Activity Report

April 11, 2011

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Laird Hamilton and sustainability action at Fortune Brainstorm Green

Fortune Brainstorm Green is one of the most unique sustainability conferences around. Nothing I’ve attended so far can top it for insightful speakers, skillful moderators, fun surprises, and stimulating conversation during networking time. Last week was no exception. Oh, and did I mention the food is always stellar? Now that’s the way to my heart.

So who stole the show given this year’s stellar lineup? Laird Hamilton.

If you’re not familiar with Laird, he’s the Michael Jordan of big wave surfing. His ability to surf waves of up to 70 feet high are legendary. His fearlessness began when he started surfing at four years old, and he was jumping off 60 foot cliffs as a seven year old.

At Fortune Brainstorm Green, there seemed to be a lot of talk about taking sustainable action. People recognized the bleak situation for movement with policy, were energized by opportunities in the private sector, and appreciated the help of NGOs. So from what I was hearing during and after sessions, the focus became what can we all do together to scale sustainable innovation? I’ll summarize this using some lessons from Laird:

1. Laird on nature: he’s more comfortable on the waves than figuring out the I-405

To me, this one is all about biomimicry. You may not know how to surf (I missed out on Laird’s paddle surfing lessons on the beach last Wednesday morning), but you can look for cues from nature to influence how to develop solutions for opportunities in the marketplace. And the process of making it a reality is a systems thinking endeavor, requiring strategies and tools that involve a broad spectrum of stakeholders who need to work together toward action. Case in point — the inspiring sustainable innovation stories from the seven “Cool Green Companies” who made a pitch to a panel of venture capitalists. For example, Peter Scott from Burn Design Lab had a beautiful solution to the major clean cookstoves global opportunity. He has created a way to scale local manufacture and sales of clean cookstoves to improve the health of communities while reducing the impact on the environment through partnering and working with a variety of stakeholders. It was a natural approach to solving this in a triple bottom way.

2. Laird on health: consistency with effort, good nutrition, and not worrying about failing

What you put into things, you’ll get out of it. Garbage in, garbage out. Or as Laird said, “Potato chip in, potato chip out.“ But if you’re consistent, invest in the right “fuel” to scale the initiative, and encourage innovation by fostering a culture of risk taking, you’ll get maximum results. Clearly, this is the blueprint for sustainability employee engagement. How do you make your mission, strategy, goals, and dreams a reality? Only through the day to day collective efforts of everyone on your team.

Why should workplaces have engaged employees? Tim Mohin, Director of Corporate Responsibility at AMD, shared some compelling data. A three year study of 41 global companies found that highly engaged employees generally produce better business outcomes than less engaged coworkers. Disengaged employees account for a loss of up to $350 billion in lost productivity. And the more employees agree that their company is proactively pursuing environmental and social activities, the more they are engaged. Incredibly, 88% of millenials said they will choose employers who have corporate social responsibility values that reflect their own and 86% would consider leaving an employer if CSR values no longer met their expectations.

I heard many best practices during and after the panel I moderated. Quite a few folks expressed interest in this topic, so we’ll be figuring out a way to continue our discussion about best practices for scaling initiatives and encouraging innovation. if you want to stay in the loop.

3. Laird on life: raise content children and break through formerly impossible barriers to help others do it too

Laird sees himself as a trailblazer, who breaks through barriers so the mental challenge isn’t so tough anymore for others. He compared it to the four minute mile. People thought it was impossible, but after Roger Bannister did it, many more followed with their own sub-four minute performances. It’s the same for sustainability pioneers. The key is fostering a transparent way to share successes to inspire further innovation. Brands and organizations have come a long way with embracing social media to engage in conversations with key stakeholders. We heard a lot of great examples during a panel on “Radical Transparency” from Starbucks, AT&T, Levi’s, and many others.

So if the first phase of transparency is leveraging technology to address customer feedback and gather ideas, the next wave will be all about doing this with employees, vendors, contractors, and others who work on the day to day aspects. And the third phase will be to offer tools to help operationalize the ideas in the most efficient way possible. As we all know, coming up with ideas is only half of the opportunity. You need to implement the changes to reap the triple bottom line rewards. I’m excited that here at FMYI we’ve created a great way to help teams gather feedback, connect people, and implement ideas, all with a sustainability commitment. The tipping point is here for scaling triple bottom line action online in a transparent way!

Thanks for another great conference, Fortune. Looking forward to seeing what surprises you have in store for next year!

Onward and upward,
-Justin

April 11, 2011

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The sunny side of sustainable opportunities

After a month of rainy days in Portland, it's great to be in sunny Laguna Niguel for Fortune Brainstorm Green. While there's been some sobering talk about the global challenges in front of all of us, the sun and ocean has also brought out optimism and success stories for creating a sustainable future.

Dow told the story of $9 billion in savings generated from an investment of $2 billion in energy efficiency. Someone waiting in the coffee line mentioned being on the sidelines with sustainability, but now they're engaged because there's money to be made. Sir Richard Branson said last night at dinner that if oil goes to $200 a barrel, the "mother of all recessions will result" which is why he's invested in forward thinking prizes as part of competitions to spur innovative solutions. And Herman Miller is walking their talk by giving away $25k in product to a charity nominated by a conference attendee.

The best quote I've heard so far comes from Joel Mackower of Greenbiz about change - everyone loves the noun, but hates the verb.

Next up - solutions for creating change...

- Justin

April 05, 2011

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FMYI President Justin Yuen Moderating Panel at Fortune’s 4th Annual Brainstorm GREEN

Media Contact:
Joseph Martorano
888.FMYI.COM ext. 813

 

FMYI President Justin Yuen Moderating Panel at Fortune’s 4th Annual Brainstorm GREEN
Industry Leaders to Discuss Strategies for Driving Employee Engagement Throughout An Organization

PORTLAND, Ore., March 31, 2011 – FMYI [for my innovation], a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software, today announced that Justin Yuen, company president and sustainability employee engagement pioneer, will be moderating a roundtable discussion next week at Fortune Brainstorm GREEN 2011.

With mounting pressure for continuous improvement in corporate sustainability, companies are grappling with how to increase the performance of their programs. As the only collaboration software company with a DNA level commitment to sustainability and the B Corporation certification, FMYI is uniquely qualified to provide a solution that meets these challenges. With a FMYI private social network, organizations like Hyatt Hotels and the Association of Climate Change Officers (ACCO) are tackling this issue by increasing collaboration and cost-effectively scaling sustainability engagement. FMYI is a central platform where their stakeholders are storing news and information, sharing best practices, asking questions, collaborating on projects, and tracking progress.

“Once again, our participation in this important industry events affords us the opportunity to join CSR leaders from across the country to help effect the triple bottom line of people, planet, profit,” said Justin Yuen, President, FMYI, Inc. “By playing this small role in promoting innovations that further sustainability by enabling collaboration, we are delivering on our mission of empowering teams to make a difference and positively impacting the world.”

During the roundtable panel, CSR leaders from a diverse a cross section of industries will discuss this growing trends for continues improvement, including:
• Jib Ellison, Founder, Blu Skye Sustainability
• Tim Mohin,Director of Corporate Responsibility, AMD
• Hugh Share, Senior Global Director, Beer and Better World, Anheuser Busch InBev
• Jim Thomas, Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility, JCPenney
• Ryan Whisnant, Director of Sustainability, SunGard

As a longtime leader in sustainability employee engagement with over 14 years of experience at FMYI and Nike, Justin Yuen will draw on this knowledge to guide the panelists through ideas, such as:
• Transforming an organization so that sustainability is part of everyone’s job rather than the work of a select few.
• Building a shared vision at the grass roots level, diffusing innovation, and creating a culture that integrates sustainability into the mission and brand at every level.
• Cost-effective strategies for scaling engagement to bring people together from multiple divisions and across geographies.
• Measuring success and increasing results through surveys and tracking output of projects.
• Harnessing employee ideas and energy to further integrate and diffuse innovation

About Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN 2010
Fortune Brainstorm GREEN is a high-powered community of thought leaders and business leaders who come together to exchange innovative ideas, do deals, and build valuable relationships. The participants are diverse—CEOs and senior executives of Fortune 500 companies, government policymakers, leading thinkers, investors, and environmental activists. The 2011 program—led by key members of Fortune’s editorial brain trust including Senior Editors at Large Brian Dumaine and Adam Lashinsky, and Contributing Editor Marc Gunther—will focus on the key emerging environmental trends as well as innovative ways that companies can drive sustainability-based transformational change initiatives. For more information visit http://www.fortuneconferences.com/brainstormgreen.

About FMYI [for my innovation]
Founded in 2004, FMYI is a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software headquartered in Portland, Oregon. FMYI collaboration networks are used by teams of all sizes (2-20,000) at companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world. Guided by the triple bottom line (people, planet and profit), FMYI endeavors to be 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 as well as purchases renewable energy credits for clients’ FMYI power use. Keeping with its tagline “Powered by human energy ®,“ FMYI provides free support as an integral part of making technology work for people.

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March 31, 2011

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Justin hits a double with two speaking engagements this week

Today from 5:30 – 7:30 pm at the Mercy Corps Action Center, Justin Yuen, FMYI Founder and President is leading this month’s PDXTech4Good Meetup. In his presentation, Justin will discuss the basics of collaboration within an organization and how FMYI enables teams to make a difference. He will talk of the importance of teamwork and address some best practices that lead to achieving great results. With FMYI as a backdrop, Justin will discuss how a team can utilize tools to track contacts, share resources, and manage projects, with a focus on organizations that strive to affect positive change.

PDXTech4Good creates platforms for discussions and monthly meetups around Portland, bringing together organizations that use technology to create a greater social good. Listen, engage and talk with other like-minded individuals at this month’s meetup about collaborating for change.

On Thursday, Justin is delivering – The Power of One: Being a Change Agent for Sustainability – to 130 executives of the Sodexo Corporation from across the United States and Canada. His talk delves into important characters traits to be an agent for change including having an entrepreneurial spirit, being natural leader as well as a social animal. He will tie each trait to Sodexo’s Better Tomorrow plan which is an effort to take its leadership to the next level with a sustainability plan that will affect 80 countries, 30,600 site, and its 380,000 employees. He will conclude with the powerful video and thematic element – The Power of One.

Read more about Justin’s thoughts on being a sustainability change agent in his latest column for Sustainable Business Oregon – Collaborate and Listen!

March 29, 2011

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Celebrate Oregon + We stand with OEC

Empowering teams to make a difference — it’s something the FMYI team loves to do. We’re also proud of our home state and there are many reasons why we launched FMYI in this community seven years ago.

The people. The food. The rivers. The bike paths. The mountains. It’s all about our surrounding environment and how it creates a quality of life for us in Portland, Oregon (or should I say Portlandia?).

Since we care about our surrounding environment for ourselves, our kids and generations to come, FMYI is proud to support the work of Oregon Environmental Council – the oldest environmental organization in the state.

We stand with OEC.

Celebrate Oregon

Join us on March 3rd to Celebrate Oregon at OEC’s annual event. An evening full of tasty food and drink (from Oregon, of course) and an opportunity to learn more about the great work OEC is doing (and has done for 40+ years).

FMYI is proud to be a Premier Sponsor of the event.

We like to empower teams in many ways and are excited that FMYI is the chosen event planning software for OEC. “Thanks to FMYI, we are working more effectively together,” said Andrea Durbin, Executive Director. OEC uses FMYI to coordinate and plan for this upcoming event allowing them to collaborate with board members, volunteers and staff to allow for a successful celebration. In a recent conversation, Jason Menke, Membership and Marketing Director told me that “FMYI is our central place everyone involved can visit to stay up to date and remain informed is invaluable – a huge asset as we prepare to Celebrate Oregon every year.”

We recognize planning events and collaborating as a team requires a level of understanding, a process and most importantly, communication.

BPA-Free Oregon

The Oregon Environmental Council and its partners launched a campaign to create a BPA-free Oregon to protect our kids from toxics. As a member of OEC’s Emerging Leaders Board, I’m proud to say that FMYI is supporting a BPA-Free Oregon.

There are many staggering facts about BPA and its affects on our health - bisphenol A is a synthetic estrogen that impairs children’s brain development, brings on early onset of puberty and reduces sperm count in men. It also has been linked to breast cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

Please take a minute to learn more the truth behind BPA and support the efforts for a BPA-Free Oregon.

Keep empowering [for our environment and our future],
Graeme

Justin Yuen, FMYI Founder & President, was honored by the Portland Business Journal at its annual 40 Under Forty Awards Luncheon last Friday. This annual award recognizes 40 local executives and professionals under the age of 40 for the contributions they have made in their businesses and community. For the entire FMYI team, Justin winning this award came as no surprise because he inspires all of us to make a difference every day.

A little over 7 years ago, Justin founded FMYI on a simple idea – using emerging social networking to empower businesses to collaborate and communicate. Since then, he has bootstrapped our company into a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software to Nike, Sony, Aflac, Fox, HBO, Hyatt, Disney, Office Depot, Target, Martha Stewart, and thousands of other companies, government agencies, universities, and nonprofits.

His passion for how technology can help lessen our impact on the planet while positively affecting society has shepherded FMYI’s DNA-driven commitment to sustainability. In 2010, his vision for building a company based on the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit received local and national recognition. FMYI was designated as one of the City of Portland’s Climate Champion, was a finalist in Zipcar’s 2010 Wheels of Change award, was a Sustainability Business Oregon 2010 Innovation in Sustainability award winner, and became the first software company in Oregon to be certified as a B corporation.

At Friday’s event, the entire Portland FMYI team along with guests Sarah Severn and Herb Hedges from Nike, cheered Justin on as he received his award. The awards were handed out in alphabetical order, but for us all, that just meant they saved the best for last.

First off, we’d like to thank everyone who has used FMYI for helping us have another successful year! The season of giving is upon us and we’re doing our part by supporting national and local community organizations creating positive good by providing financial and in-kind contributions. In this spirit, we just launched our new campaign to spark innovation at every level possible, while sharing stories of change agents. Our Change Agents Unite campaign kicks off with a contest to recognize change agents who are empowering their teams to make a difference. The three winning teams will be set up with a free lifetime subscription to a top of the line FMYI Pro Direct site. Marc Gunther and Silicon Florist have taken notice of our campaign recently. As you socialize throughout the holiday season, please spread the word with family and friends; nominations will be accepted through January 7th.

Enjoy the holidays!
-The FMYI team

FMYI news

Over the course of 2010, there’s been much activity at FMYI. We’ve been sponsoring and releasing, awarded and recognized. Take a look back at what we’ve shared throughout the year:

We’re looking forward to an exciting 2011 as we empower teams to make a difference through collaboration on FMYI.

New features

Looking to 2011, there are quite a few things we’re looking forward to rolling out. While we continue work on those, here are just a few of the features we’ve produced in the last year—we’ve spent a lot of time working on CRM functionalities.

If you have any questions about these features or others, please contact the .

Last week, after a month-long application process, FMYI was certified as a B Corporation for our commitment to using business to help change the world for better (read Sustainable Business Oregon’s article, “Oregon’s Benefit Corporation roster grows“). B Lab, a nonprofit organization with the vision of creating a new sector of the economy that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems, certifies B Corporations.

As a result of more companies joining the B Corporation movement, individuals will have greater economic opportunity, society will move closer to achieving a positive environmental footprint, more people will be employed in great places to work, and we will have built stronger communities at home and across the world.

“This is an exciting moment for us,” said Justin Yuen, FMYI Founder & President. “From our beginning almost seven years ago, FMYI has endeavored to be to be an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value. Our B Corporation designation helps us scale our impact by joining other like-minded, innovative companies using business to bring about change.”

The diverse community of B Corporations includes sole proprietors, national brands and global financial intermediaries, ranging from consumer product companies (Dansko, Method, Numi Organic Tea) to business suppliers (BBMG, Give Something Back, New Leaf Paper); from law firms (Hanson Bridgett, Lara Pearson) to local businesses (White Dog Café, Village Books). These companies also represent diverse areas of impact, including environmental practices (Icestone, Seventh Generation), employee engagement (King Arthur Flour, Workplace Dynamics), charitable giving (BetterWorld Books, Untours), or serving low income communities (Agora Partnerships, Indigenous Designs).

The certification affirms that FMYI meets rigorous and independent standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. B Lab’s independent Standards Advisory Council (SAC) sets the legal and performance standards that are required to become a B Corporation and oversees the evolution of those standards and the auditing of B Corporations. The legal and performance standards, as well as the members of the SAC, the Board, and the management team, are all transparent to the public on www.bcorporation.net.

Please join all of us at FMYI in congratulating Sales and Marketing Manager Graeme Byrd for his recent election as Chapter Leader of the Portland (NW Oregon) Net Impact Professional Chapter.

Net Impact is a global organization of students and professionals using business to improve the world. With a portfolio of programs and initiatives including an annual conference, it educates, equips and inspires more than 15,000 members to make a tangible difference through business. Spanning six continents, its 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.

Graeme, other business professionals, and students from Portland State University and University of Oregon, will host the 2011 Net Impact Conference being held at the Oregon Convention Center next October. The conference, in its 19th year, is the largest gathering in the world of students and professionals using business for environmental and social good.

As a company guided by the triple bottom line, we believe that environmental and social responsibility are just good business and take action to demonstrate that belief in a variety of ways. With a steadfast sustainability commitment, we work daily to reduce our impact on the planet and hope to achieve zero impact by 2020. We provide our product for free or at a discount to nonprofits and other mission-based efforts and we make regular financial contributions to a variety of national and community organizations. Finally, we encourage each team member to volunteer and participate in the community. Graeme’s election as the new Net Impact Portland Professional Chapter Leader is a great example of how FMYI’s team of like-minded individuals dedicated to creating a better world gives their time and energy to organizations in our community and beyond.

Shout out to Graeme on Twitter or Facebook!

Today is the day we launch “Change Agents Unite” (CAU). We’re kicking this campaign off with a month long contest to select three teams of Change Agents who will win a lifetime subscription to FMYI Pro Direct.

Are you a Change Agent? Have you ever thought of need in society to address or identified a challenge within your organization? Have you ever taken that thought and put a plan into action to create that missing link? Did that action result in societal or environmental change for the better? Did you unite people to create change? We want to hear from you!

Our goal is to reward teams from small to large who are uniting people around change and who are engaged in an environmental or social mission-based effort or program. Along the way, we’ll be featuring a blog and videos to build a community around change and the people who are making it happen.

There are thousands if not millions of people around the globe who are transforming an issue they are knowledgeable or passionate about into something much bigger than themselves. CAU is about bringing Change Agents like you together, celebrating the strength we have in numbers, and transforming the world.

We hope you will unite with us here at FMYI to empower teams to make a difference. Join the movement today.

(Thoughts about Net Impact 2010)

How do I begin to convey thoughts about an awe-inspiring whirlwind, intensive 60-hours of crazy travel, networking and education?

Well, I’ll just start at the beginning. I have never spoken at a large, national conference so I knew it was time for me to get the experience. Plus, it’s the kind of challenge that would push my professional growth to a new height. With that in mind, Justin and I worked with our PR guy to develop a workshop titled “Got 2020 Vision? Two Companies’ March Towards Zero Impact.“

Last month, we attended and presented our workshop at the 18th annual Net Impact conference, 2020: Vision for a Sustainable Decade. Held at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor, the two-day conference hosted 395 speakers in 131 sessions with over 2,500 attendees. Net Impact is a network of more than 20,000 new generation leaders committed to using the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world.

The conference itself encourages a collaborative approach to empowering leaders to drive business and the world towards a more sustainable future. It focuses current and future leaders in the areas of social innovation, corporate impact, energy & clean technology, international development, investing, natural resource and often, how all of these are greatly intertwined.

7 Out of 10 Americans Do What?

Net Impact has a tradition of digging deep into issues including a keynote moderated by Marc Gunther a contributing editor of FORTUNE Magazine with William McDonough, author of Cradle to Cradle and Kim Jeffery, the President and CEO of Nestlé Waters North America about disposable bottles and the US beverage industry. What is the impact? Seventy percent of Americans purchase bottled water. What is so astonishing as well is that the bottled water we all buy at our local store travels – from source to consumer at the maximum of 270 miles. From a sustainability standpoint, it is basically in our backyard. As Marc suggested, why can’t we just use a reusable bottle (BPA free that is) to drink out of?

There is 46 times more plastic than plankton in the Pacific Ocean. Since plastic is made from oil, as Bill McDonough said, “Burning oil is the stupidest thing we can do. Carbon should be put back into the ground.” Why do we keep buying bottled water? Yes, there is a time and a place for bottled/canned water. When a natural disaster disrupts the flow of clean water or in areas where water is polluted it is essential. But for the average American, bottled water is just another example of unconscious consumerism. If there was greater awareness about the journey of a bottle, could we change this bad habit?

From the discussion about bottled water to revolutionizing volunteerism with Catchafire or Taproot; the conference blasted me into the information overload stratosphere. Rather than being overwhelmed, I was totally engrossed in networking with other like-minded Millennials and learning about how collaboration can drive our society to a more sustainable future by 2020.

The coffee was definitely flowing (as well as local beer from Arbor Brewing Company) over late night conversations about creating positive change for business. The conversation about bottled water shifted to coffee, packaging and the great work Ben Packard and his team is doing at Starbucks. According to Ben, “eco-efficiency is not enough; we need visionary thought leaders and a collaborative community.”

A fascinating idea shared at the conference was from Matt Bauer of BetterWorld Telecom. He believes that by having 50% of American workers telecommute 50% of the time we can solve our climate issues quickly. I was reminded that this is not just his personal theory, but that Best Buy and others have made this amazing leap. At FMYI, like BetterWorld, we believe in the power of bridging geography, space and time. Our personal social networks empower teams in all sectors of our economy to innovate. Not only do we sell our product, but it also drives our business enabling us to work anywhere we can connect to the Internet with a PC, smart phone, or iPad. It was thrilling to see how FMYI was playing a part in enabling the paradigm shift and the new way of working that Matt discussed.

Sharing Our Vision for the Next 10 Years

With all these amazing ideas, Justin and I were excited to help others learn about our experiences working towards zero impact. At a packed session, Justin shared about the work he did at Nike and I shared about the work we are doing at FMYI. The Natural Step Framework, as the basis for the work of both companies, provides a common thread and process for building a vision. From raising awareness to establishing benchmark baselines, we helped others learn how to get down to action. 

With a changing work environment and a new generation coming into the workplace with new values (64% of incoming college students care about sustainability), I can really see the possibilities for ZERO IMPACT by 2020. So, again it was thrilling to see how FMYI is doing our part. How we are doing our best to be change agents by addressing the white elephants in the room and taking action to achieve our vision.

The FMYI 2020 Vision:
• Zero impact operations: net zero servers, net zero office footprint, net zero commuting, 100% renewable energy, net zero waste
• Zero impact features: crowdsource and tools for sustainable solutions to help achieve zero impact
• Zero impact community: empower our stakeholders to be change agents to achieve zero impact in their community

A Word About Travel

So, going to a conference centered around sustainability probably makes you wonder how we got there, if we are seeking to have zero impact. Well, there are certain things like air travel that make it difficult. Even though we joked about riding the company bike across the country to Michigan, inevitably we jumped on an airplane (actually, a few due to travel complications). Since no major airline uses renewable energy, we work with OneEnergy Renewables to offset all travel with Climate Reserve Tonnes sourced from a landfill gas project in Utah. Of course, with Net Impact 2011 in Portland, we will be riding our bikes.

Thanks to Net Impact Central and the Ross School of Business Chapter, Justin and I made new friends and connections also trudging the road to zero impact. Most importantly, I came away even more convinced that by partnering and collaborating with other social enterprises committed to the triple bottom line (People, Planet, Profit) we will create the change necessary for a more sustainable future.

Keep empowering for our 2020 vision,
Graeme

P.S. A few other resources and blog posts from the conference:
• BetterWorld Telecom’s blog by Matt Bauer
• Herman Miller’s blog by John Kim
• Marc Gunther’s blog post “Glimpsing the future at Net Impact 2010”
• Net Impact conference in the news
• Net Impact conference on twitter (#NI10)

This Saturday, team members, Justin Yuen, FMYI President, and Graeme Byrd, FMYI Sales & Marketing Manager, will present at the 2010 Net Impact Conference.

Attendees of their workshop, “Got 2020 Vision? Two Companies March Towards Zero Impact” will learn about building a vision and action plan to drive sustainability efforts towards zero impact by 2020. Justin will share personal insight from his work pioneering sustainability employee engagement at Nike. Graeme will present the processes and tools FMYI utilized for its own 2020 vision and action plan. An overview of the Natural Step Framework, a systems approach to sustainability, will also be featured.

“Once again, FMYI is very pleased to be participating in Net Impact,” said Justin Yuen, FMYI President. “This workshop is an incredible opportunity for us to share our experience which hopefully inspires others. It is also a way for us to demonstrate how we are guided by the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit) to do the work necessary to stay true to our DNA-level commitment to sustainability.”

The 18th Annual Net Impact Conference, 2020: Vision for a Sustainable Decade, hosted by the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan from October 28-30, aims to challenge attendees to envision their role in working towards a sustainable future. With over 90 panels and workshops, this year’s event will also feature 5 keynotes including a talk by William McDonough co-author of Cradle to Cradle, a book calling for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design.

Follow Justin’s (@JYuen) and Graeme’s (@GraemeFByrd) experiences at this year’s Net Impact (Justin and Graeme or #NI10) on Twitter.

Aflac Cancer Center photos:

Recently, I took a tour of the Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. I was in Atlanta for a Board of Trustees meeting for the National Crittenton Foundation during which we took a tour of Families First including housing for homeless teenage parents. My biggest impression besides coming away inspired and thankful for the amazing work being done by these agencies? Social innovation is alive and well in Atlanta.

I’m a big fan of the Aflac Cancer Center’s collaborative and cutting edge approach that Development Officer Lauren Griffin walked me through during my tour. The holistic approach to care and treatment, which included support for not only the patients, but also the entire family. And Families First CEO Kim Anderson’s focus on the impact of their work and sustainable solutions is innovative. They are true change agents making a difference in Atlanta and beyond.

-Justin

Families First photos:

FMYI is simpler.