I recently gave a presentation on Portland, Oregon’s sustainability commitment at the Lan Su Chinese Garden to a delegation visiting from Langfang, China. Bob Wise at Cogan Owens Cogan invited me to present as part of an EcoCity Plan project with HOK and Janine Benyus. It was great learning more about China’s green city, and to see such an impressive collaboration come together around the EcoCity Plan concept. And I was able to practice a little bit of my rusty Chinese skills.
]]>Highlights of the evening included six announcements in line with our commitment to a triple bottom line strategy of people, planet and profit.
1. FMYI turned six on January 28th.
2. 400% growth in usage in 2009.
3. Revenue in 2009 more than doubled.
4. Doubled our team adding positions in Portland, Orlando, and New Orleans.
5. FMYI named a City of Portland Climate Champion.
6. “A New Day“ video.
We’ve dreamed of doing something like this for years. “A New Day” is a brand video about the heart and soul of FMYI. It tells the story of who we are as a company and what we aspire to provide our customers. It’s about a new way of working to get a job done, online, in a social and sustainable way.
As a celebration of change agents and what we’re all about, the video is the cornerstone of our marketing efforts in 2010 and beyond. There’ll be more videos to come such as funny stories showcasing “stop working,“ product tours, podcasts, case studies and other exciting activities promoting change agents and how they’re their using FMYI to make a difference in the world.
Here’s a toast and a big thank you to the FMYI community and a special shout out to the cinematography and editing talents of Ben Garvey for helping us create a video that celebrates the “soul glow“ of FMYI.
Onward and upward,
]]>At the heart of your startup, you need an authentic soul. It’ll carry you through all the difficult times and elevate you to new heights during the good times. What is soul? I’m sure you’ll have a different definition, but to me it’s a crazy combination of passion, surrounding yourself with inspiring people, working in places with things around you to spark new ideas, a desire to collaborate with others to overcome challenges, having fun to stay sane, bringing meaning to your mission, and staying grounded with reality while reaching for goals that truly excite you. Balance is a key theme.
For me, starting FMYI in Portland was key in terms of livability and the balance between cost and work life benefits. For example, because of the public transportation system, bike paths, and urban growth boundary, commuting times are shorter here than other cities which helps the local economy. This helps reduce stress for employees and maximizes the productive hours people can spend at work. Much has been said about the population of cultural creatives in Portland. It’s important to be surrounded by creative energy and new ideas when starting a business to help you tackle all the challenges that stand in the way.
Passion is a key element in keeping the energy level high. We truly enjoy helping people collaborate more effectively and are excited that 2009 brings us closer to a tipping point. We’ve also surrounded ourselves by people who are great at getting things done in a collaborative manner, whether they’re employees or vendors. Our commitment to sustainability has been a differentiator for us and brings a greater sense of meaning to what we do. We’re doing the Northwest Earth Institute’s Sustainable Systems at Work course and had a lively discussion this morning about how we can continually improve and help others. Doing the course helps us get into a different frame of mind at work. NWEI definitely has a lot of soul!
And a key element is having fun since growing a startup is hard enough as it is. Working with great clients is the biggest factor, and is something we’re very thankful for over here at FMYI. Being located in the Leftbank Project building also helps with a brewery in the basement and a cafe featuring local/organic ingredients. Occasional karaoke sessions, although potentially dangerous, can bring some soul (literally) to the workplace.
So as I bring this series of blog posts on starting up a business to a close, I’ll raise a virtual toast to everyone that 2010 brings all of us a “soul glow.“ May all your hard work be rewarded, and your dreams realized!
Onward and upward,
-Justin
Links to the complete blog series on starting a business:
• Intro: “Head west, young man”
• Bootstrapping: These bootstraps are made for walkin’
• Growing: Grow with the flow
• Worklife: Does worklife balance exist in startups?
• Tools: Startup bliss using online tools
• Sustainability: Sustainable startups: the triple crown
• Soul: Soul glow
I moderated a panel last week at the Net Impact Conference and came away inspired by the energy of 2,600 people from 40 states and 23 countries who attended. Net Impact is a membership organization of 15,000+ emerging business leaders committed to using the power of business to create a better world. Being surrounded by change agents and meeting Al Gore in our office building today has put me in a reflective mood about why sustainability is important for a startup.
Earlier this year in my blog series on Economy 2.0, I wrote about how sustainability is an approach to sustaining innovation. For startups (either new businesses, small enterprises, or new initiatives within larger organizations), holistically integrating sustainability from the beginning is a competitive advantage for bottom line savings, building your brand, and finding new business opportunities. I won’t be talking about the definition of sustainability or a process for embedding it (refer to this great Natural Step PDF for an introduction). Instead, I’ll be focusing in on a basic sustainability innovation framework you can use that we’ve developed over the years here at FMYI:
SUSTAINABILITY TRIPLE CROWN
Operational processes
The purpose here is to establish a sustainable foundation for your day to day activities. You could call this “corporate practices” and compare the mindset to efforts like Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing. But this is much more holistic and should touch upon all aspects of your day to day operations. Laying the groundwork for attracting and retaining innovative employees and customers is crucial to sustaining a culture of innovation, and having a commitment to sustainability has helped us do that. By having this kind of culture, the results you enjoy are innovative and sustainable product/service features which lead to new business opportunities. It’s a continual learning process and an opportunity to get ideas from employees, customers, and all your stakeholders. For some ideas, here’s what FMYI is committed to putting into practice each day:
• Sustainable transportation options for employees (free mass transit passes for employee commutes, covered bicycle parking, showers, car sharing and bicycle access for company travel, and telecommuting opportunities)
• Energy conservation (lights off at night, computers off when people leave, monitors turn off after 20 minutes of inactivity, purchase Energy Star appliances and EPEAT Gold computers, compact fluorescent light bulbs, linear florescent lighting uses T8 or T5 bulbs with electronic ballasts, emergency exit signs have LED or similar low wattage bulbs, outdoor lighting is on a timer or photosensor, renewable energy purchased
• Minimize use of paper and disposables (digital collaboration on FMYI, printer paper contains 100% post-consumer recycled-content, marketing materials printed on at least 30% post-consumer recycled paper, durable plates/silverware/cups)
• Recycling (paper, bottles, cans, toner, batteries, food scraps)
• Climate change (business travel renewable energy offsets)
• Education (all employees attend sustainability training and have the opportunity to participate in discussion courses at work)
• Community engagement (headquartered in an office building with a sustainable community, employee volunteer time with nonprofits, grants to community groups)
• Corporate commitment (FMYI’s corporate responsibility written into our Articles of Incorporation)
Product/service features
Once you’ve laid the foundation for an operational commitment to sustainability, next up in the triple crown is embedding sustainability-related features into your product or service. This is all about gaining a competitive advantage by increasing the differentiation between you and your competitors. Frequently, I get questions from people about how a software company or a service-based firm can be sustainable. At first glance, your internal footprint may be smaller than consumer products companies for example. But the greater impact is with your clients. As a software or service company, you have a major impact on helping your clients on a day to day basis, and on a strategic level. Here’s some of the features in FMYI related to sustainability:
• FMYI platform helps enable paperless offices and reduces shipping (if you do have to print, we display a view that minimizes ink/toner and pages).
• Commuting tracker embedded into each account.
• Renewable energy offsets as you work on our site through CO2Stats.
• Preference to work with clients with a sustainability committment.
• Discounts on FMYI Pro Direct for nonprofits, government agencies, and schools.
• Sustainability info included in most template sites.
• Advertising on FMYI Free is only from organizations with a sustainability commitment.
• Newsletter features sustainability-related opportunities and discounts for our community.
New business development opportunities
This is a big one. Everyone wants to find new business development opportunities, right? It’s an essential part of starting any new venture, especially bootstrapped ones solely relying on customer revenue for growth. This could mean going deeper with existing customers, finding new ones, or creating new sales channels and products/services. To tap into these new business leads, you could prepare marketing materials explaining your sustainability commitment, blog about trends in the sustainability you’re studying, hold a webinar about your sustainability product/service features, partner with sustainability organizations to help educate others about the competitive advantages with integrating sustainability, or find a sustainability-related need with your customers and release a product/service that addresses it. Our clients often mention that our sustainability commitment and features are a unique differentiator in the collaboration software marketplace. And we’ve created a new sales channel with our unique social platform for sustainability employee engagement.
Companies like Hyatt are leveraging our template to help educate stakeholders about sustainability while giving them tools to share best practices and track results. Seeing more corporations, universities, NGOs, and government agencies use FMYI for their sustainability-related activities inspires so much. It’s the reason why I started FMYI five years ago based on my experiences with sustainability employee engagement at Nike. FMYI’s growth strategy is firmly rooted in the “sustainability triple crown” and relying on the support of so many people that make up the FMYI family. Thank you.
Onward and upward!
-Justin
Next blog post in my series on bootstrapping a startup: Do you focus on marketing or sales?
]]>Operations
In the beginning, I enjoyed handling all the minute tasks that came with starting a business. Then I realized that I was better suited tackling other tasks. You should have seen those early spreadsheets I used to track our finances. It was enough to make a finance professional cry. By using online tools, not only will you spend less time dealing with operational issues, but more importantly, it’ll be easier to scale without needing create additional headcount. Some tools to check out:
FMYI (we’re a little biased, but FMYI is the perfect place to track contacts, manage projects, store files, share a calendar, work with clients, build a collaborative social network, and more)
Marketing
It’s easier than ever to get the word out about your enterprise using these online tools. The best thing is you rarely need to have any technical knowledge in order to take advantage of these services. You can quickly establish a presence on par with larger organizations. And many of them connect you to a wider community instantly so you don’t have to wait for people to find you.
Do you have suggestions for great online services for operations and/or marketing? I’d love to hear about it. Post a comment below!
My next blog post: sustainability and startups.
]]>The irony of this blog post is I put it off in order to spend time with my family. Our second child was born a week before our FMYI 6.0 release, which presented some challenges. I touched on this topic briefly in the The Oregonian recently. I want to live a full life with family and friends, while contributing to the economy by helping to create jobs in a sustainable way. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive, but it is a challenge to balance them.
So how do you enable worklife balance in a fast paced startup environment? Fortunately, technology makes so much possible these days. A lot of attention is on real time tools like live videoconferencing, but most of your day isn’t meetings (and if it is, maybe it’s time to work somewhere else =) ). It’s emails and “water-cooler” chats. This allows you to reflect on what’s being said, rather than the immediate reaction required at meetings. Most of the FMYI team members were telecommuters in the early days and many still are telecommuters, and we rely heavily on our own collaboration system to make everything run smoothly. Similar to the phenomenon of Facebook where you can stay up to date with what your old friends are doing in between phone calls and seeing each other face to face, browsing your FMYI site keeps you up to date on what’s going on — but at work.
In the end, it’s all about the quality of your work, not how many hours you’re investing, and whether you’re in the office or not. This applies to startups and big organizations (definitely check out Best Buy’s successes with results-oriented work). We’ve found that offering your team worklife options like telecommuting, flexible schedules, fewer meetings, family leaves, and involving friends and families with events and work opportunities can help. Of course, there are times when balance is difficult due to new projects. But it’s the new projects that enable you to grow and provide worklife benefits.
Next up in my series on starting a business: leveraging technology and social media. In the meantime, have fun enjoying your own worklife balance with friends and family!
-Justin
So when I realized it was time to start FMYI, I followed these three rules to grow the business and go after my dreams:
1. Have a point of view.
2. Know your customer.
3. Build your product/service around your point of view and the customer’s needs.
The key is the balance between your point of view of how you’re going to improve things and what the customer is telling you their need. First you need a foundation and launching pad which you can run by potential customers to refine the product/service. And ideally you can initially fund the startup through client revenue and a few credit cards.
From the beginning, based on my observations of workplace collaboration across multiple sectors, FMYI’s point of view has been:
1. “No headcount software” approach to lower the barrier to entry.
2. Design, usability, social media look and feel to drive user adoption.
3. Empower teams to work anywhere with essential workflow functionality.
4. Quality, free support from collaboration specialists for change agents.
5. Platform to inspire innovation and sustainability.
And over the past five years, we’ve constantly refined our service through customer feedback to grow the business, all the while keeping true to our point of view. The POV is what gets people interested, and our adaptability to customers’ needs that help keep things growing. We’ve been growing with the flow…
Coming up next: sustainability and startups.
]]>The very first decision is to start going after customers or investors. Not only is it hard to do both well at the same time, but strategically there’s a difference. Do you relish having control over your creative idea and the autonomy in commercializing it, or would you rather put the priority on scaling quickly with the help of others to run the show?
For me, it came down to what I felt most comfortable doing. I love talking with potential clients, understanding how they operate, and building solutions that address their needs. It was a no brainer to go after customers first, rather than investors. And I felt like we had a different take on collaboration software that we wanted to stay focused on and grow through client input.
So five and a half years ago I started FMYI in a coffee shop. I interviewed Eric, our first employee, over a cup of joe. Later I found out he kept wondering when he was going to see the office. There wasn’t one. Eric spent the first week working out of my wife’s store having to answer questions about her handbags and baskets. We laugh about it now (he’s better at leading our tech team than hawking housewares), but it was consistent with our mission to focus all of our resources on the product and what customers want.
Our team has grown FMYI through client revenue, which has made the journey more of a walk than a sprint. But if you’re passionate about your idea, and a laser-like focus on what people want, you’ll have what it takes to take on a marathon.
“Are you ready bootstraps? Start walkin’!“
Coming up in my next blog post: how to grow.
]]>Combine the two together, and I had a perfect platform to incubate my business ideas spanning the intersection of design, organizational change, and technology. From the early days of exploring BBSes to putting my university newspaper on the web, to working on intranet projects at Nike, I was fascinated by how to connect people online, help them communicate, and catalyze action.
But ideas aren’t worth much unless you can bring them to life. Once I had refined the concept enough through meetings with friends, basic drafts of the (now useless) business plan, and developed some connections, the vision came together. Bootstrap a company through client revenue, have an authentic brand, build a great team, and integrate sustainability. In short, our “common sense” plan born out of not knowing any other way of doing it.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be blogging on the top ten things I’ve learned through the startup experience. I don’t think any entrepreneur feels like the startup feeling ever ends. You’re always looking for new plateaus and solving new challenges. So why am I writing about it now? With the worst economy in generations and so much continued attention on VC/Angel funded startups, I figured this was the time to focus on a topic that’s all about finding opportunities and going after them the old fashioned way when resources are tight — bootstrapping. You may not need to head west to do it, but I can guarantee it’ll be an adventure!
]]>The concept of the “Brand called you“ has become even more relevant. Whether you’re working within an organization, looking for a job, or starting your own company, it’s all the same — besides branding yourself to stand out from the crowd, you need to make the business case for why you add value. It’s all about bringing compelling entrepreneurial ideas to your employer, future employer, or customers, with a clear plan on how to make it all happen. The urgency is here unfortunately thanks to the state of the global economy whether your organization is downsizing, or you’re looking to be employed.
And the bottom line in Economy 2.0 is how you can help your current employer/prospective employer/client innovate through collaboration, sustainability, and technology. How can you leverage collaborative networks to help speed up innovation? How can you apply a sustainability lens to help create long term innovation? How can you make use of technology to help scale innovation?
We can continue to talk about high level reasons why it’s important for you to be a part of the solution. But when it comes down to it, being a part of Economy 2.0 is all about your personal passion. I’m a firm believer that if you’re doing something innovative you’re passionate about, it’ll help you perform at a higher level. And unlike the old days when everyone wanted to get rich quick, or create the next global phenomenon, these days it’s all about quality over quantity.
Witness innovative efforts like B-Line and Brunch Bunch here in Portland, Oregon. And check out this recent article about “The case for working with your hands.“ There’s a movement going on where people are taking things back to the basics, doing something they’re passionate about, while often putting an innovative twist to it.
I’ll explore this topic in more detail in the coming weeks, using the story of FMYI. In the meantime, I leave you with this video to ponder, which illustrates the urgency of needing to think differently in this day and age:
Onward and upward,
-Justin
This one seems to be a no-brainer. Compared with collaboration and sustainability, technology is the most widely accepted definition of innovation. To some extent, we tend to rely too much on technology itself to solve every problem in the world. When combined with collaboration and sustainability, technology is at its best. The balance is crucial. Without collaboration, technology doesn’t advance as quickly. Without sustainability, technology isn’t long term enough. But collaboration and sustainability without technology isn’t as scalable.
Using the sectors I mentioned in Economy 2.0 blog post, let’s check out examples of technology innovations coming out of Portland:
EDUCATION
I don’t know much about Educadium, but from what I’ve seen from their website, it’s a great way to leverage the web to increase access to educational opportunities. Their mission is “to help individuals and organizations of all sizes create, manage, and profit from online teaching and training through easy-to-use and affordable learning management tools.“ One of the great hopes for technology and education is to level the playing field for those trying to teach, and to increase access for those wanting to learn. Of course, we need to address the digital divide, but that’s another blog post entirely!
ENERGY
BetterBricks is the commercial building initiative of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, which is supported by local electric utilities. BetterBricks’ goals are to support the marketplace’s capability to deliver efficient products and services, provide pragmatic and comprehensive information about energy efficiency and its benefits, and build awareness and demand for energy efficiency in buildings. The key question to me is how we scale efforts around clean tech, not just grow individual clean tech companies. BetterBricks is one way to address this.
FOOD
If you live in Portland, then you’re no stranger to New Seasons Market. Besides being a model of sustainable operations, local options, organic foods, and a community commitment, they’ve also been innovating with technology. Their online shopping service makes it easy for anyone (including those not near a store) to benefit from their products anytime during the week. And is this sustainable? You bet. New Seasons fuel their vans with a B20 biodiesel blend in a process that utilizes their own delis’ used cooking oil. And they can prevent up to 240 trips to the grocery store per day through grouping the online shopping purchases together, potentially saving over 80 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Now I’m hungry…
HEALTH
Intel is one of Oregon’s biggest employers, and their new personal telehealth product is an intriguing way to leverage technology to provide better healthcare. People can get monitored by the healthcare provider from home, which is more convenient for people in rural areas or for anyone who finds it difficult to travel to their healthcare provider’s office. And perhaps more regular monitoring can take place, which could head off problems before they get worse.
HOUSING
GreenRenter is a great online source for green rental properties. Their mission is to inspire renters and owners to go green through showcasing green properties and providing resources. Again, this is a great example of technology helping to scale the impact of collaboration and sustainability. Check out the site for both commercial and residential properties.
PRODUCTS
I’m a big proponent of more centralized resources for furthering the commercialization of innovative products. A great example of this is Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center. The FIC helps people commercialize their product ideas through research and technology. Portland has attracted and retained a lot of people with innovative ideas thanks to lifestyle and sustainability reasons. But that increases competition for existing jobs. What we need is more cross functional resources to commercialize and scale ideas people have. And these can come from higher education, government, nonprofits, or other businesses.
TRANSPORTATION
You have to love Clever Cycles. Their mission is to promote cycling as primary transportation for the everyday activity of households and businesses. Not just for commuting or fitness, but also family and cargo transport. This requires a whole set of unique tech solutions to bicycles, gear, and accessories. They’ve scoured the planet for products that fit their mission. And in the process, they’ve become a focal point for a growing community.
Do you have suggestions of other innovative models of technology in these sectors? Share them in the comments field below. In my next blog post, we’ll take a look at how we can all be a part of Economy 2.0…
]]>No doubt there’s a lot of baggage with the term sustainability. What does it mean? Why does it sound so whimpy? The best definition out there is the Natural Step’s. In terms of the word itself, people criticize it for not being aspirational or inspiring. And I agree. But to me, the point is sustainability. By paying attention to the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit), we’re able to sustain innovation and not get too out of balance. Because as we know, getting out of balance results in major shocks to the system. A lot of this is common sense and harkens back to the old days when things were simpler. Time to go back to the future.
So the bottom line is, sustainability is an approach to sustaining innovation. Using the sectors I mentioned in Economy 2.0 blog post, let’s check out examples of sustainability innovations coming out of Portland:
EDUCATION
The Northwest Earth Institute publishes discussion courses about sustainability that grows sustainably. What do I mean by that? You gather some friends or colleagues, do a course, and you either repeat the process for another course, or your friends/colleagues start their own. It grows without much top down guidance because people can talk about their passion around community and the environment. It’s also innovative because it’s an education approach that spurs personal action, without being prescriptive about how to bring about change.
ENERGY
Want to offset your carbon footprint? Check out the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. What they do is basically create an innovation fund for the development of renewable energy sources like solar power and wind farms. It’s a successful attempt at lowering the barrier to entry for new sustainable technologies while leveraging a fresh approach to marketing something that could be dry. And what makes it sustainable in the long term? There will always be a higher cost to new technology. This is a program that engages people and organizations to help bring down the barriers without relying solely on investors.
FOOD
Portland Farmer’s Market is an organization that has been putting on farmer’s markets since 1992. As we know, these markets are the perfect balance of people, planet, and profit. What makes it sustainable over the long term is the message of a closer, direct connection between the farmers, community members, and the food.
HEALTH
Coalition for a Livable Future is a group of almost 100 organizations dedicated to health and livability in the Portland area. By addressing health at a high level and stressing the interconnectedness of the issue, I’m betting that CLF’s efforts are sustainable over the long term. Health isn’t an isolated issue. We’re all connected to it.
HOUSING
Verde creates environmental job training, employment, and entrepreneurial opportunities to residents of Hacienda CDC affordable housing and to other disadvantaged individuals. The key to the success of affordable housing is the success of the residents. By providing sustainability-related education and opportunities, Verde is working toward the long term success of the residents.
PRODUCTS
Rebuilding Center is a major hub of reused materials for new buildings and remodeling projects that employes disadvantaged community members. By taking a more balanced triple bottom line approach, the Rebuilding Center is creating a long term success model that will be more sustainable than the boom and bust cycles of more traditional home center retailers.
TRANSPORTATION
Ecoshuttle provides transportation services to groups using innovative vans powered by renewable fuels (and there’s wifi on board as well!). Long term, this approach is smart because of potential volatility with traditional fossil fuels, and is a competitive marketing advantage.
Do you have suggestions of other innovative models of sustainability in these sectors? Share them in the comments field below. In my next blog post, we’ll examine how technology can be leveraged for innovation in Economy 2.0…
]]>In 2000, Seth Godin wrote about the progression from farms, factories, and now ideas in the first chapter of his seminal book Ideavirus. Godin brought up an intriguing point. How do we build a farm or factory for ideas? And how do we commercialize the ideas in the most efficient way?
To me, the key is through collaboration to maximize our resources. Open source is a perfect example of this. Bringing people together passionate about a mission with a minimum amount of overhead and the skills to get the job done. Using the sectors I mentioned in my last blog post, let’s check out examples of innovative collaborative approaches coming out of Portland:
EDUCATION
The Natural Step is a framework for understanding sustainability. People take the tools and train others in their community and within their organizations. It grows virally, often in a decentralized way. In the case of The Natural Step Network (the U.S. chapter of the Natural Step), networks form of people helping each other out across sectors in local communities.
ENERGY
Green Empowerment partners up with NGOs in developing countries to leverage clean technology solutions to alleviate poverty and preserve the environment. Their staff brings together products from clean tech manufacturers, students, and on the ground NGOs who understand the local needs. Fundamentally, they are connectors who utilize collaboration for innovation in rural communities in the developing world.
FOOD
Beer Chips makes potato chips. Made from beer. And I love eating them. But that’s not why they’re an example here. It’s an amazing example of innovation through collaboration. Founder and inventor Brett Stern came up with the idea of combining beer and chips, and worked with a virtual network of chip producers and distributors. For quite awhile, he was a one man virtual company, collaborating like mad to develop the chips, get the word out, and get the product in stores.
HEALTH
Recess Wellness helps companies get their employees in shape. They develop a customized fitness plan, bring selected fitness instructors from their large network of subcontractors into the office, and track the progress. Like Beer Chips, Recess Wellness is highly efficient, and Tanya Barnham, their founder, utilizes her network to provide customized services to each client.
HOUSING
Orange Splot is a cohousing developer. They build affordable and green community-oriented developments, leveraging a wide range of talent to make ideas turn into reality. And a strong foundation of every community are the residents, who participate in the design process.
PRODUCTS
RYZ is a site to buy customized footwear. What’s unique? They leverage crowdsourcing to produce what people want. Designers can download a template and whip up the look they want. Then the community at ryzwear.com votes on their favorites. In essence, RYZ leverages collaboration to design what their customers want.
TRANSPORTATION
Zipcar is a car sharing program. At its heart, the idea is to bring a community together to share cars, instead of selling cars to individuals. People enjoy a variety of options without the full time commitment.
Do you have suggestions of other innovative models of collaboration in these sectors? Share them in the comments field below. In my next blog post, we’ll examine how sustainability can be leveraged for innovation in Economy 2.0…
]]>The key to progress in these sectors is innovation. No doubt it’s a murky term that confuses people and often loses its meaning. I’ve defined it as cross functional attributes in the chart below: collaboration, sustainability, and technology. From my standpoint, the blueprint for success in all these sectors are contingent upon widespread innovation utilizing cooperative efforts, minimizing the negative environmental impact, maximizing the positive societal impact, and the connective power of the Internet. I’m going to explore these three areas in more detail in my next post…
| Education | Energy | Food | Health | Housing | Products | Transportation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sustainability | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Technology | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Us | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
So here we are. We’ve all heard about the credit crisis. But the mess is so much deeper and wider than that. In conversations with people over the past few months, I’ve been saying that the big thing we all have to answer is this: how bad is the global economy? Do you think it’s just another cyclical event we’ll get ourselves out of, or do we urgently need more fundamental change?
What do I think? We need to work together for long term change because that’s the only sustainable solution. Any other approach is only a band-aid. With two-thirds of the U.S. economy relying on consumption, and consumption going down, we need to figure out a way to innovate, collaborate, and create new sustainable jobs.
And what do I propose? Because, if you’re going to complain about something, what’s the solution you’re bringing to the table? Stay tuned for my next post…
]]>