Sustainability sweet spots

Fortune Magazine, running major sections on sustainability. They've been hipping up old Fortune lately. Lots of titans probably spinning in their gilding at the thought.

The December 12 issue had a special section with a number of articles about sustainability and enterprise.

It opened like this: "Without any fanfare the sustainability movement is gaining powerful momentum. The concept is simple: Economic development, if carried out in a careful manner, can proceed without exhausting the natural resources needed by future generations. While conservation and development often seem at odds, corporations are realizing that they can employ eco-friendly strategies while running and growing their businesses."

I'm not going to paper over the fact that there are rogue enterprises rooting up the commons. If you were to go 1,000 years in both directions from now you'll find rogue enterprises rooting up the commons.

However, civilized types have been growing smarter and more sustainable economies and societies throughout history. It's our duty to not only defend the commons, but to grow it. Creating smarter, helpful, sustainable enterprises is a part of all that.

While the Fortune article focuses on large organizations benefiting from smart less-waste strategies, so can we all. In fact, there are a zillion small, smart enterprises that can be grown and developed by the rest of us in support of this strategy.

You want an idea for starting your own enterprise? Follow that lead.

Find a specialty that helps specific target customers get smarter about their enterprises. Get great at that specialty. Identify a core market of precisely focused end users.

I recommend setting up your enterprise to sell to other enterprises. I strongly believe that it's much easier and more rational to make and sell stuff to other enterprises than civilians. While your vendors should be eclectic as hell, your customers should be filtered carefully.

There are many, many enterprises within your reach that could benefit by the addition of smarter, more sustainable technologies. Make one of these tools or processes the thing you're great at. Specifically for (you fill in the blank) type enterprises and organizations. Find a technology niche, a set of tools, or a proprietary process you can reproduce inexpensively then fire it off with rifle barrel accuracy at just the customers you choose.

Breakthroughs don't have to come in extra large sizes. Breakthroughs can mean a few percent more efficiency someplace. Breakthroughs are processes done safer. Breakthroughs can come in all manner of shapes and sizes and levels of recognition. If you can help other enterprises produce their work with less waste, you've got the start of a sustainable business model.

That’s my pitch. Done over a number of enterprises, repeat-ably, throughout your network, you make a living and the whole place gets better.

Get really smart about something that helps. Search it out in magazines about stuff you already love. That’s a big help, as love can sustain you (for a short while) during times of bad cash flow. Don’t push this though. Analogies don't pay the bills.

The Fortune article quoted, “To Andrew Savitz, a Boston-based consultant who specializes in environmental and sustainability issues, there’s been a tipping point in one area after another, in which 'business and societal interests are clearly seen as intersecting'. He calls them ‘sustainability sweet spots’.”

Mr. Savitz goes on to report how Toyota bet its future on rising awareness of environmental performance in all walks of life. They are about to become the world’s largest auto maker. Figure it out.

You don’t have to develop hybrid engines, though I encourage that if you’ve got the stuff. You can make the world better in tiny incremental steps. That’s how most of what makes the planet grow happens anyway. Unnoticed hard work, getting it done better, little by little.

Your neighborhood is only limited by the internet.

Get smart about something helpful then go be helpful. Keep good notes and, among the right company, never pass up a chance to sell.

Come on in. The water’s fine. Your enterprise life awaits.


Fortune Magazine


Andrew Savitz works from Boston as a partner in PriceWaterhouse-Coopers' environmental sustainability business services practice. I can't locate a link to him but here's the PwC front door PriceWaterhouse-Coopers

It's the journey stupid.Enterprise and civility.

Professional yellers are stinking up the place.

Big mouths, big egos. The obnoxiousness of absolute certainty. True Believers, as Eric Hoffer called them.

The stated purpose of these posts is to encourage two things. The one that gets the most attention here lately is that you should take steps to make your life more economically sustainable by creating enterprises that make the world better. The other is the glory of simplicity in designing products, services, and processes for those enterprises.

This post is about the role of civility in enterprise. And the fact that it's in your self interest.

First the topic, then a nice implementation piece from Tom Peters.

The Providence Journal, over in Rhode Island, published a nice guest column by Eugene G. Bernardo, titled "Rise of Political Incivility Threatens our Democracy."

Mr. Bernardo cites a famous theory from criminology called "broken windows". If a vandal breaks a window or defaces a building, or dumps garbage and that mess isn't fixed, the redshift of decline accelerates. More broken windows, more garbage.

A telling change also occurs in the human behavior of the residents as their perceptions of the decline grow. "They will use the streets less often, and when on the streets will stay apart from their fellows, moving with averted eyes, silent lips, and hurried steps. Don't get involved."

Mr. Bernardo goes on to say that while we all have a constitutional right to speak with incivility, doing so hurts our own self interest significantly.

"By encouraging us to see as equals even those with whom we disagree vehemently, civility lets us hold the respectful dialogs without which democratic decisionmaking is impossible."

Yep. The same goes for your enterprise life, friend.

If we let the bums and professional yellers dominate commercial life, then we all lose. To get good decisions for yourself, make good decisions for everybody (except your competitors).

The "broken windows" theory says you can accept decline, or you can take back the streets. There's a built in success loop when you do things right. However, if you're going to set up your enterprise to cut corners and live in the shade, you put yourself into a neighborhood where the vandals are winning. Guess how your enterprise life will progress? Think gravity.

If you can make it a habit to look up and smile, to fix the broken glass, to say hello, you can sustain yourself and your enterprise and maybe change the world a little bit.

Enterprises of all sorts, for profits and non profits, need excellent discipline in their execution. That execution, done civilly can make your enterprise life worth living.

You know the drill. It's not the destination, it's the journey.

Today, people are learning about enterprise life from bad movies and worse TV. This cutthroat, take no commercial prisoners, sell whatever you can as unethically as possible is BS. It's not sustainable. Do enterprise crooks win? All the time, but that's not a life most people aspire to.

For the rest of us, living decent enterprise lives, sustainability comes from building bridges. Finding common ground. Being a fellow human because it's the right damn thing to do. If you need the bean counter return on investment justification, being civil means better decision making. Better decision making is in your own self interest. Argue with that.

Tom Peters posted a short piece on his site about an interchange he had while traveling. TP is a big shot biz guy who could easily throw his commercial weight around. However, involving people civilly works better.

Tom's post, dated November 21, 2005 revolved around an American Airlines counter agent who was being ripped by customers and her employer. Tom was working through screw ups like everyone else. Bad situations every direction.

Do you contribute to the problem or do you contribute to the solution? Here's TP's approach...

“Operation You-Alone-Can-Help-Me-and-I-Dearly-Pray-You-Will. We joked a little, commiserated about our different but extreme pickles, and I just kept on smilin'. Several things happened. By behaving in a relaxed, empathetic, life-goes-on fashion, I actually started to feel better myself—hey, this wasn't a trip to market in Baghdad. More important (selfishly), my "you're the only one for me" AA(Air) buddy bent over backwards and then some to track the bag, double-confirm its current whereabouts, get unequivocal info on the arriving flight, give me a priority hotel dropoff slot, and so on. And I flatter myself by thinking that she, too, ended up feeling a touch better about life—it really isn't much fun to be ripped, and ripped again, by customers mostly because your employer is in dire straits and understaffed everywhere and has left you on point to take [all] the heat.”

Tom Peters continues, "That's my "little tale." But of course it's not so little at all. It's near the heart of what happens on those occasions when human beings take the trouble in the face of trouble to deal in a civil and empathetic and even cheerful fashion with their fellows. That's not "news"...except that of course it is!"

Yep again. That's my news for the week. Your enterprise life can be one you can be proud of. It's the easier path. You don't need to live it out among broken windows and commercial idiots.

Build something you can be proud of. You can do this. You should do this. Keep up the details, then execute with civility, please.


Eric Hoffer resource site "Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good."

Tom Peters. Want to lead a good enterprise life? Put Tom on your daily links.

The poetry of great headlines

Those funny folks at MIT's Technology Review have some great headline writers.

One story, plucked from the back of my desk, is about a cool new idea for improving weather forecasting.

Right now all the data from the lower atmosphere in the US is gathered by just 69 weather balloons each taking only two readings per day. Amazing.

The July 2005 issue of Technology Review reports that newly developed sensors are being affixed to commuter aircraft to gather and transmit meteorological data in real time.

"The amount of data we're getting is just incredible", says a National Weather Service meteorologist. With this kind of data loop, forecasting ground conditions and precipitation is now becoming accurate to the minute.

Pretty simple idea, though surely long, arduous and exciting in getting it here.

In the world of innovation, there will forever be an unlimited supply of low hanging fruit. Please note.

However, my real love for this story comes from the poetry of a great headline. Ready? Here's how TR wrote it...

Proclaiming Rain Falls Mainly to a Plane



Technology Review Magazine. This small article is not linked. See hard copy July 2005.

NOAA's Great Lakes Fleet Experiment. Great links to the history and technolgy behind this story.

AirDat, the company processing the sensor data

From the kitchen sink:A great tale of innovation.

I guarantee you will remember the first time you see colored bubbles.

Bubbles that kids blow, except well, blown into spectacular colors. Technicolor bubbles. A zillion pixels per inch colored bubbles. Hot pink bubbles. Neon green bubbles. Yellow and orange bubbles. And when they pop, the color and the magic disappear until you do it again. And again. And again.

Colored bubbles will be on the market early next year. And you doubted that the world is getting better...

My report from the world of invention and innovation this week leaves me slack jawed and thunderstruck with admiration.

I'd never thought of a SustainableWork Hall of Fame, but I've decided to invent one just for Tim Kehoe. I'm making Tim the first endowed chair of kitchen sink innovation. Emeritus Professor.

I bring you an enterprise story that I hope will be long told and widely celebrated.

The December '05 issue of Popular Science has a wonderful, compelling story that is important for all of us.

"Tim Kehoe has stained the whites of his eyes deep blue. He's also stained his face, his car, several bathtubs and a few dozen children. He's had to evacuate his family because he filled the house with noxious fumes. He's ruined every kitchen he's ever had. Kehoe, a 35-year-old toy inventor from St. Paul, Minnesota, has done all this in an effort to make real an idea he had more than 10 years ago, one he's been told repeatedly cannot be realized: a colored bubble."

Well, Tim did it. The first cool result is that you'll soon be able to blow brightly colored bubbles. The more important lesson from the story is that persistence, hard work, and a respect for capturing details is critical. The you-better-get-this part of the story is that we all should celebrate and support great science and engineering.

First the upside stuff. Popular Science senior associate editor Mike Haney writes, "According to one industry estimate, retailers sell around 200 million bottles annually—perhaps more than any other toy."

"If an inventor could somehow add color, though, suddenly adults might have reason to start blowing again. Picture bubbles in NFL team colors, or bubbles that match charity ribbons. The potential market would grow to include every man, woman and child. So why don't they exist?"

This is a big commercial deal. Schools, fundraising, unlimited commercial PR potential. Close your eyes and imagine bubbles to match the wedding colors. Need I say more? 200 million units of anything is a monster number. Tim and friends have the potential to lay siege to that entire number and probably sell more than that by themselves, directly and through licensing.

Meet Mr. Tim Kehoe from St. Paul, Minnesota. 10 years ago Tim conjured up colored bubbles out of thin air. Magic idea, if only you could make it work.

Tim Kehoe, wife and family have lived the life of citizen innovators ever since. Cool stuff. Scary stuff. Tedious stuff. Their stuff.

Experiments went on for years. Great stories of innovation all-nighters. Hope led to painful rejections. Products rolled out before their time rolled straight into disaster. Job life, family life, and enterprise life all swirled about like Toto in the Kansas wind for over a decade.

Tim Kehoe chased his idea in and out of self employment for over a decade. If you think there's a direct line to enterprise success like you see on TV, meet Mr. Kehoe, the real deal. His story is a truthful representation of what much of innovation and enterprise success looks like. It's a story that should be richly celebrated by all of us.

Tim's enterprise funding has gone from home-made to angel-based, and it's making his dream work. Earlier outside funding might have helped, but it also could have screwed up the end result. I think the most important part about outside funding is not about how you get the money, but when. Tim's timing here looks dead on.

Another critical part of outside funding is what the entrepreneur brings to the money. Tim brought years of struggle and determination to the table. He brought his fire which couldn't be quenched by the repeated cold showers of start up roadblocks. Importantly, Tim brought years of knowledge of what didn't work. Those failures weren't defeats. Tim used them as refinements to a great story. He kept putting one foot in front of another, always improving the idea. Whatever it took.

Passion is a biz buzz word now. Unfortunately, passion typically gets translated as smiling people talking loudly.

But Tim's case is the real thing. Passion for the idea. Passion for the story.

With that in mind, Tim brought in money and brains.

Fortunately, not just any brains. Tim connected with the wonderfully determined brain of Mr. Ram Sabnis.

Great timing for all involved. Mr. Sabnis is a PhD dye chemist with dozens of patents.

His scientific specialty, among the most specialized in the world, led him to develop an entirely new dye chemistry. Something from nothing stuff, bless him. "Nobody has made this chemistry before," Sabnis says. "All these molecules - we will make 200 or 300 to cover the spectrum — they don't exist. We have synthesized a whole new class of dyes", says Mr. Sabnis.

Ram Sabnis’ story of 60 to 100 experiments per weeks for many months is well told in this article. Great science with a wonderfully colorful, magical ending.

Will Tim and Ram ride this story straight into sure-fire success? God I hope so.

What you need to remember friend, is that it started at a kitchen sink. It's taken longer than anyone involved expected, I'd bet. I'd also bet that, looking back, they wouldn't trade any of it.

Neither would you.

In the future, whenever you see a colored bubble float by (and you WILL see a lot of them float by) remember the story of Ram Sabnis and Kitchen Sink Emeritus Professor Tim Kehoe, our first SustainableWork Hall of Fame inductee.

A really wonderful enterprise story.

Now, friend, go find your own kitchen sink.


Popular Science article by Mike Haney

Photo for this post borrowed from Popular Science Magazine article.

Bait and Switchwith optimism

Bait and Switch is a very popular book by NY Times best selling author Barbara Ehrenreich.

It's a story of middle America out of work and the fact that desparate people are preyed upon.

It really can be an awful job mess out there. Many of us navigate it every day successfully, but you need to know there's an industry full of scurrilous frauds out there masquerading as help. A lot of people are cruelly victimized. When I drive through major cities I hear ads on the radio, "Become a coach. No experience necessary." What?!

The Bait and Switch title is good, but Ms. Ehrenreich's book got subtitled in a grossly offensive way, I think: The (futile) pursuit of the American Dream

There is nothing futile about the search for any dream. Don't damn the pursuit of dreams, damn the predators who steal those dreams.

I would agree that it is futile to take thousands of dollars and give it to job coaches. I would agree that it's futile to go to "network events" with idiots. I would agree it's futile to think someone else is in charge of your life. That's what got these folks into job trouble in the first place.

Planning alternative, sustainable economic strategies for yourself seems like a prudent alternative.

Here's a review I liked from the Miami Herald writer Ariel Gonzalez.

"Almost every page is devoted to the dispiriting process of landing an upwardly mobile job in today's market. As Ehrenreich's title suggests, people are lured into believing a generic business career is the path to early retirement. What they get instead is a callous, high-handed manner from employers who overwork them until they go elsewhere or are downsized. Corpse-like obedience is the key to advancement. You are expected to enthusiastically tow the company line. Individuality is frowned upon; after all, there is no ''I'' in ''team'' (it's missing from ''soulless drone'' too.) And if you display a healthy sense of irony, you will be labeled a critic or malcontent.

These are a few of the unsurprising tips Ehrenreich picks up as she wades through the ''transition industry,'' the core of which consists of uncredentialed ''career coaches'' who, for thousands of dollars, offer dubious advice on customizing your resume. The rank narcissism of these Tony Robbins-type characters would be funny if they weren't preying on human desperation. Borderline scam artists, they rely on personality tests with ''zero predictive value'' and spew platitudes about the importance of networking and maintaining a positive attitude."

Yes, there are people preying on us. Take some steps to strike out on your own, to make a contribution, to counteract this BS. Take the first steps. You can do it. It's the honorable thing to do for you and your family. Self defense stuff.

For her next challenge, I'd urge Ms. Ehrenreich to go after those that prey on small biz owners, and those that would be innovators and inventors. The latter are commercially assassinating many in our society's talent pool.

I've written this post for folks in danger of losing their jobs, or may be stuck in idiotic, mind deadening jobs. Starting your own enterprise in advance can help. Even baby steps help. Anything to give you a bit of control and a rational reason to hope. You can do it. Do not wait to become the prey. Search for opportunity yourself. You do not have to succumb to the awful "transition industry" tactics that may seem unavoidable when trouble is upon you. Do it yourself. You're fully capable. Plan and execute well, but get going for goodness sake.

Is it a tough world out there? If you don't know, I can't help.

Is the world full of, as the great singer songwriter Stan Rogers sang, "smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go?" Sorry to report, but there's an ocean of them. Just say no.

Can you do something helpful for yourself in spite of all that? Yep, and there's more opportunity than ever.

Sustainable work is not find your bliss stuff. It's control your own life, control your own enterprise stuff. You can apply it to for profit work, social entrepreneur work, non profit work, or whatever.

No matter the format, work is the key word. Smart, sustainable work.

Or, you can hire a career coach.


Barbara Ehrenreich’s home page featuring Bait and Switch

Miami Herald review by Ariel Gonzalez

Stan Rogers link to Fogarty's Cove Music. I dearly love Stan Rogers' work.

Encouraging innovation, orhow I brokethe Patent Office

Everybody searches for some kind of recognition.

We'd gotten our first patents a couple of years into our new enterprise. I found that I was going to be working around Washington DC and thought I'd stop by the patent office to feel like a big shot for a while. I imagined that there might be a separate door for inventors with patents. A celebrity runway for geeks.

That didn't happen, but I was able to find the US Patent and Trademark museum in Alexandria. Lots of very interesting stuff behind their glass cases. I was still hoping for some recognition, what with the new patents and all, but other than a nod from the security guard, the hushed, quietly lit displays kept everyone's attention.

That's when I walked over and set my notebook on the glass cover of a large diarama style display set up in the middle of the room. Except there wasn't a glass cover. My notebook fell with a crash right into the noisiest place it could.

Finally. Recognition from my peers.

Sunday's New York Times (11/13/05) business section featured a page one story about invention and innovation. The author, Timothy L. O'Brien, does a nice job of making the case for increased spending on research and development at all levels. The piece especially makes the case for Big Commerce/Big Academia research funding problems. However, at the meta level, that crowd can make things sound pretty bleak.

A recent National Academy of Sciences report on the subject says that, without a host of upgrades in science and math education and a package of federal spending on basic research and tax incentives, "For the first time in generations, the nation's children could face poorer prospects than their parents and grandparents did."

Even a top guy from M.I.T., Emeritus Professor Merton C. Flemings, who runs the wonderful Lemelson Foundation's innovation program there, puts his fears right up front, "The future is very bleak, I'm afraid."

And yet, and yet, and yet... Professor Flemings later goes on to describe something we don't talk about much. Places like Singapore which have high national test scores but still do not generate the innovation culture so apparent in the US. Singapore sends its education researchers here to study how creativity, an unmeasurable, is developed.

It is not just increased spending for math and science education, both of which absolutely should be done to increase our inventiveness. It's also recognition and support for creativity and a nurturing environment for innovation and innovators.

In fact the Times' piece quotes an M.I.T.- Lemelson Study issued in 2004: "In addition to openness, tolerance is essential in an inventive, modern society. Creative people, whether artists or inventive engineers, are often nonconformists and rebels. Indeed, invention itself can be percieved as an act of rebellion against the status quo."

The headlines for the NY Times article was, "Not Invented Here. Are U.S. Innovators Losing Their Competitive Edge?"

If I was selling this idea, I would have taken those lovely words from the M.I.T.-Lemelson study and headlined the Times piece something like, "People everywhere! Hurry! Rebel against the status quo! Storm the Gates! Over the ramparts, mates! The rebellion lives! Charge!!!"

What's hard about THAT sell?

I love to make that pitch, especially to young people. They get it. But I digress.

The Times' piece follows this hopeful direction nicely with the introduction of the work currently being done by Nathan Myhrvold, an inventor rebel himself from the early Microsoft years, subsequently the head of Microsoft's research arm. Mr. Myhrvold has set up a fund specifically to fund independent inventors, and they seem to be growing a nice enterprise from this platform.

I really like Mr. Myhrvold's focus on support and nurturing for the innovators, while also sharing ownership with jointly developed projects. "We all love the goose that lays the golden eggs but somehow we've forgotten about the goose," Mr. Myhrvold said. "This decade, I'm hoping will be the decade of the invention."

Yes, we want to increase innovation. Yes, it typically takes progressive institutional spending to make changes at the meta level.

Do big science, big spending and big institutions matter? Of course.

But there's always the goose to remember. There's always the revolutionary at the gates that needs to be encouraged.

Tom Peters makes this point brilliantly in his 11/11/05 blog. The Times did a major piece on this subject. Tom, as usual, cuts to the core questions, usually within a phrase. A full sentence, max. This time, Tom serves is up as really great bar bet: "Q: #1 R&D spending in the last 25 years? A: GM"

Big academic science research programs are critical to world progress. Big corporate research budgets are also critical. However, both can be used for good or ill.

Measuring the real inventiveness of cultures needs to also include the willingness of all of us to actively participate in the work.

Affirm innovation everywhere you find it. When you see a screwed up legacy piece of status quo getting in the way, attack it. Search out the innovators working in your communities locally or on line and support them.

We're all responsible for the future. Work on it every way you can.



New York Times article link

Lemelson Foundation program at M.I.T.

Intellectual Ventures, Nathan Myhrvold's program for supporting individual inventors.

Dr. Myhrvold's bio. Yes an important person in the field, but his Times picture makes him look more important to me as a guy I'd like to drink a couple beers with.

Tom Peters. Always walking a mile ahead.

National Inventors Hall of Fame

Photo for this post is the Catoctin Furnace, just south of Gettysburgh, PA.

Someday I will post a link to my upcoming invention, "Clear cover for diarama at the US Patent Museum"

Simple.The killer app.

KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid.

Old saying. Needs updating. How about Keep It Simple Smartie?

Simple is for smart people.

I was helping a new customer start up a recycler this week. The company was located in a beautiful area of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Nice plant. Owned by a Fortune 100 firm and working hard to do things right. It was my first visit and the engineer I'd been dealing with on the phone and eMail gave me the full plant tour. She carefully led me through a very modern facility packed with complicated production systems.

I want every recycler to run perfectly, of course, and this was no exception. We gathered a group of machine operators and maintenance folks around our system for the equipment start up and training. What spooked me was the unexpected arrival of the Maintenance Director, looking skeptical as hell.

Now, a Maintenance Director is not the janitor. A Maintenance Director in my world is typically responsible for keeping many millions of dollars of unbelievably complicated equipment operating. Electrical systems, hydraulic systems, fluid systems, mechanical systems, and often hardest of all, human systems. All the time. Under severe conditions. Often with bunch of people working for them. Typically with no support from idiot vendors. Often less than that from the people who write their budgets.

Stuff can go wrong in a million directions every day for Maintenance Directors. It’s their job to claw through complexity and keep things running. Much like most of our lives.

We fired up the recycler. After you test the fluid flow, the next step is to hit these systems with oil. In the recycling world, this is where rubber meets the road.

In spite of the many scenarios I’d conjured up that predicted gravity would fail to operate in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on that specific day, my fears proved unfounded. I was wrong. Gravity works in the UP all the time. I have proof.

What was really interesting was the response of the Maintenance Director.

He had circled the recycler a couple of times while I walked him through the details. The most complicated thing I could find was the single air line that ran our system, so I talked about that trying to sound smart. They'd paid good money for this thing and I wanted him to like it.

In the background, fork trucks flew past, while a dizzying array of production equipment churned, much of it run by control panels as big as your front door.

He looked at me without expression and said, "This is really simple."

I couldn't tell what he was thinking. Did he think he overpaid? The recycler was ripping oil out of their production fluids. He had to see that. What was the problem?

Then he said it again. No expression, "This is really simple."

Now, if you remember that I’m the guy who thinks gravity might fail under certain circumstances, you can imagine how I fill up these pregnant, oh-my-god-where's-this-going pauses.

Then he smiled widely, reached out and shook my hand. "Thank you", he said. "Simple is exactly what I need".

Exhale.

In fact, simple is exactly what most people need.

There is a nice cover piece in the Nov. 2005 Fast Company titled the beauty of simplicity. Good story, by Linda Tischler.

The hook is, "Simplicity. Google’s secret weapon." The article focuses on Marissa Mayer, Google’s guru of look and feel. It open with this proposition: “Making it simple is the next Big Thing.”

Just like my Maintenance Director, just like Marissa and Google, most of us are bombarded by complications from every direction. New stuff is good, but we’ve got to be able to fit it in easily or it’s doomed to failure.

Think of what’s swirling around you now. The Fast Company article says, “By one estimate, the world produced five exabytes (one quintillion bytes) of content in 2002 – the same amount churned out between 25,000 B.C. and A.D 2000”.

It often feels like 4 of those exabytes are in my eMail folder.

You don’t have much spare space in your life. Potential customers and partners of your emerging enterprise don’t have that space or time either.

When you do a Google search, you’re executing an equation with 500 million variables, ranking 8 billion web pages for you. Before you can snap your fingers.

Marissa Mayer at Google approaches the issue in this way: “Google has the functionality of a really complicated Swiss Army knife, but the home page is our way of approaching it closed. It’s simple, it’s elegant, you can slip it into your pocket, but it’s got the great doodad when you need it. A lot of our competitors are like a Swiss Army knife open – and that can be intimidating and occasionally harmful.”

Our small band of co-workers won the small business New Product of the Year for the whole country this year, awarded by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE). That’s the highest professional certification engineers can achieve in the US. Why did we win? Basically because we made something complicated simpler. I’d love to sound smarter, but that’s about it. Design simplicity leads to successful results.

When you look to create or grow your product or service, always look to make the interface simpler. You need to do the complicated execution and back office stuff better than anyone else, but the interface must be simple or your enterprise will tank.

Reverse the design of your products and services. Reverse the design of your enterprise. For the specific problem at hand, start with your answer.

“Yes. We fix that. It’s simple”.

Want sustainable work? Think simple.

You're in the middle of the next killer app.



Fast Company article not yet posted. Will link as soon as it’s on line

Worse is better Wikipedia entry about the New Jersey style of software design with wonderful implications for ALL design: Simplicity, Correctness, Consistency, and Completeness.

Occam's Razor Given two equally predictive theories, choose the simpler. Wikipedia

National Society of Professional Engineers

Get out thereand get lazy

Cranberries. Once a year maybe. Marginal, peripheral stuff in the macro economic world.

Cranberries. So what?

Wrong question. You say you want to find sustainable work? Look to the margins. The right question is how do you find a cranberry market for yourself?

Stuff that barely makes your radar is a big economic deal to the people working in those seemingly marginal fields. And that's just what gets to the edge of your radar. Most of the economy doesn't even show up. The rest of it is economic dark matter to you and me. And like dark matter, it makes up most of what goes on around us.

Good news, friend. Exponentially increasing opportunities are flowering in niches most people wouldn't think could support a church mouse.

There is economic sustenance for those that create innovations. There is opportunity in overlooked places right in front of all of us. It usually takes form as a better approach to an old problem.

Take Dan Brockman, for instance. A former hard working paper mill guy who came back to the family farm and got lazy.

My home state of Wisconsin produces more than half of the aprox. 575 million pounds of cranberries produced in the US each year. Big stuff for them but most of us in cheesehead hats have never seen a cranberry bog. It’s marginal to most of our day jobs even here in the middle of the Holstein bell curve.

In the fall, cranberry bogs are flooded and the berries harvested. The current device used to harvest cranberries is a complicated mess of old tech ag engineering. It's basically a big paddlewheel mechanism that's slowly maneuvered by several people through the bog. The machine beats hell out of the bushes in the water, whacking the daylights out of the berries with a big rotating beater as they float off for harvest.

Enter Mr. Brockman. A self-described lazy guy. He wanted it to be easier to harvest his cranberries. "I always approach just about everything with the idea that there's a better way to do it. You just need to find it," Brockman said. "I started cutting and welding and building. The first three machines didn't work at all."

It's taken 5 years to bring this story to life. Persistence wins out. Brockman’s cranberry harvester, the Ruby Slipper, now just flies through our Wisconsin bogs. Farms that use it are amazed at its simplicity and speed. Only one person is needed to operate it. Tests indicate it actually improves the cranberry yields in succeeding years.

Existing machines now used to harvest cranberries can cost $40 grand. Brockman’s device costs $7-$9 grand. Teryl Roper, a University of Wisconsin professor specializing in this field, says the Ruby Slipper is on track to "revolutionize cranberry harvesting".

Here’s what I really love about this story. The Ruby Slipper has no moving parts. Mr. Brockman, you're my kind of guy. Perfect.

Professor Roper said, "I don't know why no one thought of it before. It is elegantly simple."

His dad's response was the best. Mr. Brockman’s father, who started the farm 60 years ago and has been harvesting cranberries ever since, just laughs at his lazy kid. “I can’t believe that this thing works. It’s way too easy,” says Dad.

Is it a limited market? Of course. There are only 1,200 cranberry farms in North America. Not a very big array of potential customers. Economic dark matter. But Brockman and friends see the light.

Here’s the deal. They're estimating they can sell 500 to 1,000 of his Ruby Slipper harvesters in the next five years. Units will sell at $7K to $9K. Low end that's $3,500,000. High end, that's $9,000,000 in newly created revenue over 5 years. Who knows what will grow out of this effort beyond that? If you work their numbers backwards to get net dollars it sure looks to be a lovely, sustainable enterprise for Mr. Brockman and friends.

Will this make the waves with venture capitalists? Unlikely. Most money players wouldn't even notice.

Will this make a bunch of hard working folks living in a beautiful part of my state a good living for the foreseeable future? Looks probable. Will their kids be proud of them and see that the world can be made into a better place? Seems likely.

Mr. Brockman and the Ruby Slipper folks, if smart, know that this is not a zillion dollar lottery ticket. It's hard work. But it'll be their hard work, and their contributions and their rewards from a life hopefully well lived.

Here's my point... there is a better way to do most everything in this life. The fastest way, and the surest way, I know to get yourself into sustainable work occurs by fixing problems. Finding, simpler, better solutions. Then executing the details.

You can open up your enterprise in market segments that look like cranberries and economic dark matter to the rest of us. This is where your opportunities are.

This effort isn’t about head lines, it’s about capturing a sustainable piece of the economy for your enterprise. Brockman won't win a Nobel Prize. Neither will you most likely. But Brockman is making a difference, and you can, too. He makes things simpler and easier. You can, too. That's sustainable work, friends.

Fix something hard in your world. Look for the cranberry bogs of your life swirling around out there at the edges of your radar. That’s where to steer your enterprise.

It’s an unimaginably large global economy out there from the perspective of a start up or emerging enterprise. You can get a sustainable piece of it by making something easier and better in seemingly very small markets. Then execute the details.

Now get out there and get lazy.



Touring Wisconsin's cranberry harvest Great links from the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association

Central WI visitors info for our cranberry harvest

Bikes and berries. Warrens, WI area bike trips throughout the marshes and local links

WI bathing suit beauty queen harvesting cranberries. One would hope for a warm autumn for her sake.

Yahoo News. Original AP story about Mr. Brockman

Sales training in 3 words.No subtitles.

Our current enterprise was the creation of two friends. Start ups and emerging enterprises are usually staffed about this well. Ain't no job you ain't doing.

When we hired our first outsider the culture of the whole deal was moderately at stake. We needed someone to act as our Inside Sales Manager, someone to back up all the helter skelter street level peddling. The detail work behind the scenes to support successful sales and marketing is critical. It's not rocket science, but do it wrong and you're out of business. Doing this right requires a passion for capturing important details accurately.

We needed this person long before we ever thought about looking for them, of course, but I'm jumping ahead of myself.

Dave and I were going to meet the very first person we'd ever interviewed. Dave had seen a guy who stood out from his workplace because of his relentless ability to want to contribute in a friendly, cooperative way. He was operating like this in an environment wildly cultured up to do things exactly the opposite.

We were going to meet this person for breakfast at the Hardscrabble in downtown Streator. I made Dave agree in advance that we wouldn't make any promises. We'd just hear him out. Then we'd carefully look at other folks and make our choice. Slow, Dave. Go slow.

We were still looking at the breakfast menu, just one or two coffees into it, when I offered Dan the job. Dave just shook his head.

In a very polite way Dan asked just what the sales job description entailed. Dan had not worked in sales previously. He thought it sounded great but, well, what's the deal? What do you need to do for a sales job?

Since I clearly hadn't scripted this whole process very well I didn't have a ready answer. Sure I had the talking points of a printed job description at hand. But I wanted Dan to see the job was something I hoped would be cooler than just a listing of the parts.

As we ordered I also thought about giving him my rant about a passion for capturing details accurately, but it was a little early in the day for that.

The mission critical goal for Dan was keeping our collective asses out of trouble. The right answer to his question was obvious.

If your enterprise is to be sustainable you can't build it on lies. You can never shortchange your product or service. You need to be the best at something but never over-promise your way into defeat. You can't under-deliver. You can't execute poorly and survive. Every single thing in your operation needs full transparency, repeatability and grand slam data control. Above all you need honesty in your data and honesty in your life. Sustainable work.

Are there nefarious enterprises bilking people and running economically amok? Duh.

Are there zillions of enterprises set up to scam the system short term? Double duh.

However, that isn't you. That isn't what this is about. This is about sustainable work. First and foremost that means work that keeps growing. Next, it’s work that keeps you growing.

Starting honorable, well executed, properly documented, new enterprises looks hard. The reality is that it's far easier than wading into the world of cheating and lies. That stuff always takes far more time, work and effort than doing things right. Plus, you end up with the bonus of living a miserable personal life. Sign me up.

Breakfast ordering done, I told Dan his sales training came in a package of three words. Tell the truth.

He said “I can do that” and we shook on the deal.

Dan and I live and work in different states. Dan works in our sales office in Illinois. I work from Wisconsin. Since Dan joined us, weeks can pass between times we actually see each other. He doesn't need any direct oversight. He wants to do a great job and does. If we have stuff to work on together we find each other by phone, eMail, and all the usual suspects.

That frees me up to stay out there creating all the seeming chaos my kind of peddlers generate. We’ve since been joined by my sales partner, Bill. Being my kind of peddler he also has to meet his monthly quota of seeming chaos and he typically exceeds that goal, bless him.

Dan has to back all this up. I’ve done Dan's job in other places. It can be a miserable, inefficient mess if you’re not prepared.

Did I worry turning over this chaotic step? For his sake and mine? Of course. If this job is done wrong, you’re out of the pool, my friend.

Are there downsides to growing and expanding your enterprise so that you can do your evangelizing? Of course.

Enterprise is full of risk. Minimize it. But if you want to participate, you’re going to have to prepare, then learn to live with it.

Was there risk in hiring Dan? Sure.

Was there reward in hiring Dan? Immediately.

Why? Because Dan succeeds for all of us by minimizing the risk.

How does he do that?

Telling the truth.

Ten customers in 25 years

I'm such a chronic optimist, my family and friends usually just shake their heads and wonder.

I'm the inverse of that old saying "Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get me".

Mine goes something like this... "Just because I'm optimistic beyond what can be rationally supported, doesn't mean the world isn't getting better all the time."

So, when thoughtful, generally careful folks that I read start getting nervous out loud, I have to agree that caution is a good thing.

Natural and medical disasters continue to savage our world. H5N1, bird flu is on everyone's horizon.

I don't want to trade on fear. I want to give you something to think about. Perhaps even something to be optimistic about in your work life.

I've crafted up over 30 years of virtual enterprise employment.

To me virtual enterprise does not mean hiding behind a computer screen living off PayPal. To me virtual enterprise has meant planning ways to limit the scheduled and random human contacts in your enterprise life. For a million reasons that have worked in the past, and for all the new reasons on the horizon, you should at least consider this path.

I've organized relatively virtual enterprises around small family based operations, small groups of friends spread around the country, and now also with a cool, fast, high profile company with multiple co-workers and customers all around the world.

If you want to live fully on line, go try. That's the strict vegan version of virtual enterprise. I don't know how to do that. I don't want to do that. Some people are obviously doing it, but it's not a model I can vouch for or think I'd enjoy.

All the biz models I know involve human contact, and risks from interacting with life.

That said, you can vastly limit risks you live with, at least in your enterprise life. It's possible to build a biz model around yourself that gives you increased possibilities for choosing your risks.

Elsewhere on this site is some info about Banner Graphics, the first start up that led to all this.

I now have this interesting recycling work going on, but I used the Banner Graphics section to first talk about what I thought I meant by sustainable work.

I didn't expect that I'd be coming back to that description under these circumstances. I was talking about hanging out with my kids, not pandemics.

From the Banner Graphics site...

"I was privileged to start a wonderful small business called Banner Graphics in the 1970s. My wife, friend, and business partner, Mary and I ran it for 25 years while raising our family and serving customers on 5 continents."

"We worked from our apartment, our house, from business incubators and from really great shops. We were able to keep our kids with us and control our time. Less than 10 customers ever showed up at our door in 25 years. That’s sustainable."

Read on though, friend. I want you to have MORE human contact, not less. I want you to risk MORE, not less.

Just not in retail or large group settings.

Many people will make perfectly wonderful lives in retail. Many more will thrive in office herds. Forever. I just wouldn't recommend it going forward. There are other ways. Safer, nicer ways you can craft up for yourself and maybe some coworkers. Nothing tricky. It works. You can do it. You just need to be smart in the planning and execution.

You're going to need to control a lot of data, and you're going to need to control your presence on the internet. Don't tell me you don't get computers or don't get the internet. Illiterate young people in fourth world countries get computers and the internet. People with tragic disabilities get computers and the internet. Of course you can do it. You have to. I’ll keep on this subject. Start by fixing your interface with these worlds if it's too complicated the way you're doing it now. More on that in future posts.

The internet is your information grid. The shipping grid is your slow motion internet. You can plug yourself into both systems for damn near free, except the use fees.

H5N1 will roll out in ways none of us can predict. Calamitous natural disasters will continue to assault the vulnerable.

Few, if any of us has control over the meta stuff. Learn to adapt the best you can. It’s all I know to suggest. Get yourself some independence and control wherever you can. My pitch is that you can get yourself some physical / economic / spiritual security by rigging up your own start up and emerging enterprises to get as commercially virtual as is possible.

Then I want you to eat lunch with your vendors. Picnic with your neighbors. Fly to a customer 20 states away that you should really know better. Ride a bike until you get lost and end up in the company of great strangers. Make friends unexpectedly.

More contact. More risk. Just do it on your terms. It makes living this life a lot more peaceful. You'll work harder, but you'll be driving, not hanging on in the passenger seat.

Cool, cheap, easy tools are out there. Markets that want to interact with smart, emerging enterprises are out there.

My friend, tough, dangerous times are inevitably ahead of us. But tough, dangerous times have been ahead of every generation since the beginning, much of the worst of which actually happened. And yet, we grind it out, getting smarter and better at life all the time.

Who would have thought that 10 customers through the door in 25 years looked like success?

Choose your interactions. Then get out there!