Conversations

Our eighth anniversary

2012-02-03T20:16:00Z

This week, we celebrated FMYI’s eighth anniversary. 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

Collaboration software: three key moments in 2011 and trends for 2012

2012-01-10T23:40:45Z

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

A Review of GoToMeeting’s Video Conferencing

2011-12-06T20:05:19Z

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

Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility

2011-12-02T23:29:54Z

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

GreenGov: Three keys to sustainability integration

2011-11-15T13:40:09Z

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

Impact and Change: PDX and the world

2011-11-04T16:07:02Z

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

The time is now for the new economy

2011-10-24T12:32:00Z

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

Collaborating at the Innovation Forum

2011-10-18T12:18:11Z

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?

-Justin

How to collaborate for sustainability

2011-10-05T15:52:59Z

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.

-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!

Removing barriers and sharing solutions

2011-09-20T15:57:55Z

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.

Corporate social responsibility and sustainability employee engagement in Europe

2011-08-25T20:22:51Z

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!

Corporate social responsibility employee engagement in Europe

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

-Justin

The perfect laptop: MacBook Air 11” vs 13”

2011-08-13T13:24:51Z

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…

-Justin

Google+ isn’t a social network

2011-07-19T05:16:57Z

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?

-Justin

“Portland Timbers, here we go!”

2011-05-26T23:48:37Z

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

We are information sherpas

2011-05-17T13:20:04Z

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.