SustainableWork

One of our major utilities recently brought in an unusual economic development specialist from Colorado named Chris Gibbons to give presentations in our area.

I wasn't able to attend, but I've been reading about Chris' work since he was here. His approach is one of 'Economic Gardening'. This approach emphasizes the creation of support programs that focus on growing local entrepreneurs in smart, low-cost ways. They do this by creating attractive, entrepreneurial communities. In essence, grow your own economic development from the inside out.

Here is how Chris summarizes it on the Littleton, CO, website where he is Director of their economic development activities: "We are more convinced than ever that our fundamental concept (entrepreneurs drive economies) is right and that healthy communities have a healthy base of entrepreneurs."

As a long time entrepreneur who has worked with business assistance programs of all kinds, I'm in a good place to highly recommend Chris Gibbons' work. As someone who has developed and taught my own curriculum for successfully launching micro-enterprises, I strongly agree with his conclusions.

This is a time of terrible economic news. The macro-economics of the world economy are under historic strains. There seems to be more difficulty with every new headline.

Yet we will come through this. Hurt and battered in many cases, but the cycle will continue on its way until we let another bubble get big enough to burst again.

What has changed permanently, I believe, is the sense of trust many of us felt leaving our economic security entirely in the hands of others.

The Economic Gardening approach to business development is to stop chasing any old big-is-better outside solution. The idea is to quit throwing money at businesses development, but rather, create communities in which creative new enterprises of all kinds can thrive. Help entire communities become more entrepreneurial. Help startups of ALL kinds. When some of those startups turn into 'gazelles', or faster growing organizations, help them plug into the next steps.

Chris calls this kind of sustainable development 'the edge of chaos': "This term describes the area between stability and chaos, where innovation and survival are most likely to take place. As a way to think about these regimes, consider what form H2O takes in each. In the frozen regime, it would be ice. In the stable regime, it would be water. In the chaotic regime, it would be steam."

Yes, yes, yes. Through the years I have seen peers vaporize wonderful companies because they could not control the chaos. I have seen other friends stay frozen in place because they did not have the constitution or the support to innovate.

What I teach in my micro enterprise courses is that you should launch your own startup as soon as possible. The idea is to invest in yourself to help gain some measure of financial control over your own life. This is especially true in times of economic trouble like we have with us now.

I teach my startup entrepreneurs and small businesses that running your own enterprise will be a giant lesson in making mistakes. If you haven't thrown a ton of money at your business, you can - and should - make as many mistakes as quickly as possible. They will be invaluable and inexpensive with this approach.

Here is what Chris Gibbons says on the subject:

"We came to equate the edge of chaos (success) with lots of changes and experimentation and lots of little mistakes. It seemed like the mistakes that accompanied the process of innovation were like earthquakes: if you don't have lots of little ones, you end up with a big one. We read a study out of Dallas that indicated the most vibrant economies (in terms of producing jobs and wealth) were highly unstable in the sense that they had the highest rate of business start ups and business deaths. This turbulence also looked like an economy operating at the edge of chaos."

The current state of Economic Gardening relies on 3 major approaches to creating successful economic development from the inside out. They are information, infrastructure, and connections. Notice they don't include throwing money at the issue. Those days are over.

Information refers to the capture and sharing of as much valuable data with entrepreneurs as is possible. Chris in Littleton, CO says he spends about three-quarters of his agencies time providing tactical and strategic information. Amazing.

Infrastructure refers to building sustainable, supportive communities that attract and retain entrepreneurs. It also refers to building intellectual infrastructure; that is, making world class ideas and resources available to local firms and the local community through local courses and training.

The emphasis on connections means that economic development and innovation are driven by the ability to connect with people and talent outside of your immediate area of knowledge. In my own region, this means the ability to plug into the University, the Technical College system, great regional and national economic development organizations, and my own favorite, our wonderful Inventor and Entrepreneur Clubs.

The economic headlines are awful lately. This is not a time to get into the fetal position and hide. It is a time to begin building more economic security into your own life and into the life of our regional communities.

Starting and growing your own sustainable business is a step you should take. In spite of the headlines, there has never been a better time to do it.


Chris Gibbons' story about economic gardening

Labels: bootstrapping, business plans, databases, entrepreneurship, new product development, The slow start up movement

Anyone reading these pages over time will know that I am an advocate of creating jobs by starting new enterprises. This strategy makes our personal lives more enriching and engaged, and it also makes our communities more secure and sustainable.

I think this is especially true for rural areas.

I just found a piece released by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. It was written by Kerwin Tesdale, who teaches at New York University in the business and law departments and is President of the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance.

Community Development Venture Capital (CDVC) is a great idea. It utilizes existing private money networks to create investment capital for reasons that not only include market rate returns, but also to enhance community development goals. Some people call this double bottom line accounting. You measure the metrics by which you make the place better then you execute on those measurements as hard as you execute the numbers. Both will be required to go forward commercially in this century.

Mr. Tesdale's strategy for enhancing development in rural America is to utilize the emerging private money networks rather than rely strictly on direct investments by angel investors and government agencies.

These networks have the ability to get involved in a productive way that government and typical funding sources can't. The idea of investment capital arriving with technical and management help, delivered by people with only an agenda of your success is compelling. I would like to see it grow in my state and beyond.

Here is a nice summary of how they work…"CDVC funds focus on markets where other venture capitalists typically do not compete. Rather than participating in bidding wars for pieces of Silicon Valley high-tech firms, rural CDVC funds nurture long-term relationships with entrepreneurs in their regions. When an excellent investment opportunity arises, they have the relationship to capture the investment on attractive terms."

What I really like about all this is that there is a bunch of win-win checks and balances built into the process.

For instance, investing in CDVC funds, local banks can satisfy their obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), but more importantly they can seed the field with a real contribution toward growing new customers within their markets.

We aren't chasing smokestacks here. That game is over. A better approach is to grow our communities by growing our own enterprises and creating our own new jobs.

As it says in Mr. Tesdell's article, "The term 'community development' evokes inner-city urban communities, where community development corporations develop low income housing and address other social needs. But the pioneers in community development venture capital are rural funds, and still many of the most experienced and accomplished CDVC funds focus on rural markets. Business development and job creation are at the heart of the rural agenda to promote economic well being."

This is an area many of us working on startups and small business development, especially in rural areas, can use to great benefit.

Many of us live well outside "the one plane rule" used by traditional venture capitalists to measure how far they would go to look at an investment.

You don't want those folks anyway. Not yet anyway. Their money is too big and the requirements placed on them by their investors will likely not match your agenda.

The deal flow through the CDVC Alliance shows a representative group of investments in the $150,000 to $250,000 range. That's a sweet spot that can be very hard to fill, especially in rural areas.

You know I'm an optimist by trade. I spent an hour on the phone with a gentleman from Milwaukee last week who was a farm kid that started his own small business in 1959. Life took many unexpected turns for him, but his enterprise gave him the platform to secure his own future and make many jobs for others. For almost 50 years now. His underlying message to me was that challenges always appear but solutions generally arrive for those willing to look for them.

I think these CDVC organizations can be a tool that grows solutions for rural and urban communities.

The world is begging for local and regional commerce. The cost of shipping alone is forcing the issue.

Wise funding sources will recognize that Community Development Venture Capital funds may be among the best tools for creating economic development in rural areas.

Let's put these CDVC tools to the test. Let's find ways as small businesses and entrepreneurs to provide them with market + returns. Your job is to show them how their funds can make money on your great ideas and your unmatched work ethic.

Of course this is hard work. But you need to know the metrics for developing your business anyway and working within private investment rules is a great way to make sure you have the data you need for them and for yourself.

Then, world, get out of the way.


Download the CDVC Strategy for Rural America article by Kerwin Tesdell. PDF

The Wisconsin Rural Enterprise Fund works statewide but primarily serves the Northwest counties in WI. Typical investments are fro $25,000 to $300,000. A nice model for the rest of the state.

The Community Development Venture Capital Alliance

Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), WIkipedia

Labels: business plans, entrepreneurship, funding, startups, The slow start up movement

I was honored to be asked to lead a panel discussion about innovation and invention at the next meeting of the Green County WI Entrepreneurs and Inventors Club.

This is an especially vibrant E&I Club. The panelists work from a wide variety of interesting and creative parts of the economy.

The meeting is Monday July 7, 2008 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM. The location is the Monroe Clinic in their New Glarus Room. 515 22nd Av. Monroe, WI

Come early and have a Limburger sandwich at Baumgartners on the Monroe square. Monroe is one of my favorite WI cities and you just can't beat the environment and the economic potential of this great location.

If you have an interest in learning more, please send me an eMail

Labels: entrepreneurship, innovation, intellectual property, new product development, The slow start up movement

I just received a nice note from the folks at HR World. Their web site is a resource for business people of all kinds, with a focus on HR work.

They have just chosen this Sustainable Work blog for a special honor. They have included us in a new article titled, "Top 100 Management and Leadership Blogs That All Managers Should Bookmark."

Here's what they included in their write up, "Novices can get tips for innovation, startups and emerging enterprises, while established leaders can get know-how on developing sustainable new products and services."

They included some of my favorites, such as Tom Peters, Chris Anderson (The Long Tail), and Seth Godin among many other notables.

Very nice. Thanks HR World!


Link to the HR World article

Labels: entrepreneurship, Long Tail, new product development, Seth Godin, startups, Tom Peters

Here is a quick follow up to the previous post. I just came across a new article by Ray Unger, who writes an excellent financial column for my local paper. Ray is the Chairman of Forward Investment Advisors of Madison. I like his writing a lot. Ray has provided a long record of open, transparent service to his community through his writing over decades. Great in-the-trenches stuff from a no BS guy.

Ray talks about how the legislation behind the Clean Air Act of 1990 entered the world and changed environmental history. The Clean Air Act used a "cap and trade" system to allocate the burden of cleaning up the air.

You may or may not have strong feelings about cap and trade systems, but as Ray points out, the Economist Magazine in 2002 crowned this system, "probably the greatest green success story of the past decade."

The article continues, "Today, much the same thing is happening in the area of global warming and carbon dioxide emissions. And like after OSHA, winners and losers will emerge."

The rules that will emerge will likely be based on a cap and trade model. The difference between political parties will be on the timetable.

Either way, it's coming, and the numbers are big. One estimate is $3.32 trillion dollars in costs to non-sustainable practitioners between now and 2050.

Green ROI is here. Our society is about to create a measurable, marketable return on investment for enterprises greening their operations. Green is getting monetized. Big time. Those that can demonstrate continuous improvements in sustainability and stay below the cap get increasingly valuable credits to sell. And there will be a large market for buyers of these credits going forward as large commodity based commercial systems plod through their conversions. You get to sell them increasingly valuable credits for a long while. For getting greener. Green ROI.

A current cap and trade bill has been introduced in the Senate by people considered to be pro-business. The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act probably won't be the final version that passes, given the national elections, but I think it defines the debate going forward. The lobbyists will help all involved sort out the timetables.

As Ray Unger closes his piece, "… it's never too early to work out such details. One thing's for certain: It will raise the cost of virtually all goods and services that depend on energy. And that's just about everything."

Creating ever-tighter sustainability practices has become a security issue and a survival issue for our economy. It's also about to become a lot more profitable.

Will this act as a tax on enterprises that are bad environmental actors? Yes. Will they try to pass along the tax to consumers? Of course. Are we bound to do business with them? Only at your own risk. Greener substitutes will arise, and we'll leave the bad actors to drift off.

And oh, by the way, getting greener will make your own products and services more profitable.

Not to mention the marketing avalanche anyone can create by documenting their sustainability gains.

When you can fix up the place and measure the payback, life is good.




Ray Unger's article, Confessions of a Money Manager: Carbon dioxide cap will change investment playing field


I love still saying "my paper", but reading it online. My afternoon paper for decades moved to the web and is doing a great job. I read it several times a day... The Cap Times online

Labels: business plans, entrepreneurship, green tech

Today we had the biggest one day jump in oil prices in history. A couple of big economists at major banks predicted $150 or $200 per barrel oil this year.

Is this the end of the world? Of course not. Some Europeans are coming here to take driving vacations because energy is so cheap.

Is it the end of the road for inefficient, wasteful, energy intensive commerce? Yes, thankfully.

In my last startup I skimmed & recycled industrial fluids. I saw millions of gallons of oil going to waste. The industries I worked in called that oil a contaminant or pollution. They were paying to have oil hauled away. Oil. Honestly. I'm talking this century.

Long ago Buckminster Fuller said pollution is resources in the wrong places. If he knew how dysfunctional the transition would be, I'm sure he would have been shocked.

I used to give talks around the country, mostly in industrial settings. I loved speaking at the yearly industry conventions and professional education seminars for our industries.

I had to travel on the night of Sept. 11, 2001. I was giving a talk in Cleveland the next day for some of the heaviest hitters in my business. It was an awful drive. My society was seizing up. There were people waving flags on almost every bridge across 4 states. There were reports of Indiana Troopers seizing gas stations in Gary, IN for hoarding fuel as I drove past wondering where I could find the next open gas station. Weird, scary times.

During the seminar the next day, we were all politically numb but a new economic reality was in the air. The focus of every discussion was the need to protect our exposures - as a nation, as states, as industries, and as individuals.

Every single day since 9/11 more and more people have equated the idea of increasing efficiencies and cutting energy use as a way of decreasing exposures of all kinds.

Today - especially today - you can't escape the tidal wave of public support/demand behind getting all areas of our culture greener and more sustainable.

My point for this post is as follows: Think of energy use as a 'sin tax'. Something that costs you dearly for your guilty little pleasures. You'll pay more because you just gotta have it…..

Sure the revenues may not be going directly to the government as true taxes, but the money is flying out of your world as lost, not as a productive investment. You've got exposure. You're going to pay. Fix the exposure and you become safer, more productive, and more sustainable.

The idea of 'we just gotta keep to our old ways' is NOT inevitable. Good design can reduce the 'gotta'. Thoughtful, sustainable practices reduce the 'gotta'. Day by day, you reduce the 'gotta'. Day by day you get stronger, more efficient, and less exposed as an organization.

If you are an entrepreneur, or if you are an entrepreneurial company, this is a time of great opportunity to help.

I know the industrial world the best. The way we manufacture things, the way manufacturing energy is expended, the way manufacturing fluids are spent, the way manufacturing affects air quality and the overall effects of manufacturing on carbon emission issue are all significant, immediate opportunities.

Remediating these issues will only get more expensive over time, especially as inflation returns to the economy. Energy costs may dip now and then, but the upward trend is inexorable so long as we're exposed to energy insecurities.

The way to get the biggest bang for the buck is to remediate these exposures and build out new sustainable systems as fast as possible. Do the math. There's no other solution to that problem. Do it fast. Save the most. Decrease exposures and increase security immediately. Payback is forever. Duh.

There is a lot of low hanging sustainability fruit in many parts of our industrial and commercial worlds.

If you are an entrepreneur or work in an entrepreneurial enterprise, this economy is not the end of the world. You are living through a world-wide economic system change.

Thankfully there is a vast, public demand for measurable improvements in sustainable practices at every level of commerce. Thankfully you can be here to help.

We had a gentleman in town this week doing a seminar at the University for regional marketing execs. While not exactly talking about my world of commerce, his thoughts about branding any enterprise in this economy is an apt way to close.

The following quote is from Mr. Gary Hirschberg, one of the founders of the $300+ million revenue per year Stonyfield Yogurt and a well regarded business writer.

"The best brands are truly the most authentic ones. Brands that really set out to be solutions to environmental problems, water problems, energy problems, climate problems, are going to have an inherent competitive advantage, especially in a world where oil is heading for $200 a barrel."

Sustainable practices make money. Sustainable practices decrease exposures. Sustainable practices increase security.

Measurable, sustainable practices are also the greatest opportunity to build an authentic brand and to create a company that people want to do business with.

The world is changing. Change with it, my friends. Be diligent out there.

Labels: business plans, entrepreneurship, green tech, innovation, marketing, new product development

For any friends in southern WI who might like to attend one of my talks, the next one will be June 11th.

This one will be at the Connections meeting, a quarterly networking event held at Waukesha County Technical College in Pewaukee. Doors open at 6 PM. There will be an opening welcome from the Small Business Center Director Russ Roberts at 6:30 and my talk will begin at 6:45.

Here is the official description...

Invest in Yourself: How to Organize Your Small Business to Grow During Difficult Economic Times

What does it take to start and run a small business in difficult economic times? It takes an investment of time, and an investment in the skills and tools to organize yourself and your enterprise. Learn how smart entrepreneurs do more with less, while increasing financial security for themselves and their businesses.

There is open networking all evening following my talk, along with an opportunity to display some of your marketing materials. If you need additional information please send me an eMail.

The talk and Connections meeting will be in the Anderson Conference Center. I look forward to seeing you on June 11th at WCTC!


WCTC Connections meeting agenda

Register online for the Connections meeting

Map to WCTC

Labels: boomers, bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, startups, The slow start up movement

This post won't be fun but it needs saying.

Many people are turning to self employment as corporations seize up and meta markets constrict.

In the past, many new entrepreneurs turned to their bankers to locate funding to start their enterprises. Often, the choice between acceptance or denial was the backup provided by the Small Business Administration (SBA). You may not have been able to convince your bankers of the worthiness of your idea, but if you could get that loan backed by the SBA, the loan went through.

There are a number of ways we could connect with the SBA, but over the years, it's influence has become greatly intertwined with the banking system and importantly, state Departments of Commerce. Entire programs to develop small businesses have grown up around this relationship.

In talking with friends in this world, I've learned that the SBA loan programs, in many cases, suffered from the same lax standards we are reading about in the general credit market. Often, diligence was not fully applied and as a result, the SBA default rate is up and standards are about to change.

Tomorrow, May 1, a new set of loan standards, called their standard operating procedures (SOP) will go into effect for all new SBA loans. These involve tighter standards and more oversight. In light of the wider credit crisis this is not really a surprise, but I am surprised by the lack of press this is receiving.

The new Small Business Administration SOPs are likely going to raise havoc in all existing programs you may know about at the state and local levels. Havoc in the sense that previously available programs will themselves begin constricting and possibly disappearing as regional governments fight their own fiscal battles.

Is this the end of small business? Of course not. Is this yet another sign that building a sustainable small business structure is your best bet to succeeding in turbulent times? Yes.

Going forward, startups and small businesses will need to control their enterprises carefully. They will need to manage for cash flow and profit, not debt repayment and outside funding.

This is indeed the renaissance age of entrepreneurship. There are problems galore that need fixing. Just don't make your new business one of the problems.

Labels: bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, startups

As an entrepreneur and small business owner there is one and only one constant that I've found, managing through in 35 years of widely changing economies.

We have to do increasingly more with increasingly less.

The chart in this piece was taken from financial analyst John Mauldin's great newsletter, which I highly recommend.

It shows all the official recessions we've had, charting from 1940 through 2010. Data is from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis research.

You'll notice they haven't labeled the mess we're in as a recession yet. In one sense that sets up this piece. By the time recessions are finally labeled a recession, there is plenty of economic turmoil and badly wounded small businesses out there.

I think the reality of the graphic is that there should be a lighter gray fuzziness about 50% the width of each recession pasted on either side of the dark gray lines now showing. At a guess that might indicate about 1/3 of US economic history for my lifetime has been in difficult economic times.

I've lived through nine out of the last ten recessions. I've run small businesses through the last five; six if you count the current travails.

What I've learned is that under ALL circumstances, entrepreneurs and small businesses need to do increasingly more with increasingly less. Period.

This is not a call for beating your small business self up with more workload, more stress and less available time. It's just the opposite.

This is a message that the way you can get through this, and all the coming economic messes is to trust your gut and follow your smarts. You can do more with less. That's what our American economy does. It creates winners that produce better stuff using fewer resources.

This is a call for evaluating every small biz decision you make through the lens of physical and financial efficiency. Will this (any) decision help me to do more with what I have? Will this (any) decision help me to do more of what I do at a lower cost to me?

Proof of this is evident in the graph above. Yes, the remarkable march of predictable recessions is obvious and something to learn from.

But check out the rapidly rising curve in the background. That's gross domestic product. It's a big macroeconomic measure, and subject to all kinds of interpretation and parsing, but the fact of the matter is this GDP number shows our economy, you, me, all of us, producing increasingly more value with increasingly less input. This happens through good times and bad times and everything in between.

I have commercial self interest in this piece. I used the theme of doing increasingly more with increasingly less as the centerpiece of a seminar at my Technical College this week. The seminar was for an invited group in advance of an Entrepreneur Expo put on at the college that evening.

I used the seminar and the Expo to officially roll out the public beta of Diligence™, the small business workflow tool I've been building this past winter.

Spring is here. The days are brighter. There is yet another economic mess rolling through, and everybody needs to do more with less. Seems to me to be a great time to start another company.

I ran our last company, which was a manufacturing firm, through the deepest recession in manufacturing since the Great Depression. I didn't just run it, I grew it. When the US couldn't export anything I had customers on 6 continents. I hired a guy for a key new role in a month when there was only 1,000 new jobs added in the whole United States. I used my organizing approach to build a firm that was recognized by some of the most significant global small business awards available. I'm damn proud of all that. I loved attacking that situation with the only tool that will ever work. Then, or now. Efficiency.

Doing increasingly more with increasingly less. We did all that at my last startup with just 4 committed friends and the tools for doing more with less.

I'm really excited about making my new biz organizing tool available to others. I'll link to it below. More importantly, I'm excited for what it can do for folks looking to organize and grow their small businesses in this difficult environment.

It's a tool I've used myself to grow small enterprises through all the recent recessions and look forward to training others to use. Diligence™ is a tool that gives my small business peers the ability to do increasingly more with increasingly less. Sounds like a good idea whose time just keeps coming.


The rollout and introduction of Diligence™ my new tool for organizing small businesses.

Subscription page for John Mauldin's newsletter You can also search back archives by entering your eMail address. The newsletter the chart above was borrowed from is March 7, 2008, 'What's that hissing sound?''

Labels: boomers, entrepreneurship, startups

I've used QuickBooks to run the last several businesses and I'm using it for my current startup as well.

This is excellent accounting software from Intuit. We like it; our CPA likes it; it's easy to learn, bingo.

I don't normally expect big insights from big companies, but I have to say I've been reading and re-reading a new report sponsored by Intuit, produced by the Institute for the Future.

The good folks at Intuit have seen your future as an entrepreneur and, as anyone who has followed these posts know, I couldn't agree with them more.

I have been trumpeting the ascendance of the independent entrepreneur for all of my working life. I work in those trenches. Intuit has just released (Feb. 2008) a great report with a really nice description for the new world of entrepreneurship called, "The New Artisan Economy".

This is the third in a series from Intuit called, The Future of Small Business Series.

Beautiful, smart, direct stuff. This is a publicly available download so I'll attach a link to Intuit's download page for these reports.

If I copied everything I liked about their Phase 3 report into this post it would be too long. So, here are just a few nuggets…

"The next ten years will see a re-emergence of artisans as an economic force."

Yes, many of us have been in this movement for a long while, but there is a palpable tipping point being reached right now. This idea is going mainstream at the speed of light. It's in the air and the water, and it's emerging into the world economies like a welcome spring day.

"The coming decade will see continuing economic transformation and the emergence of the new artisan economy. Many of the new artisans will be small and personal businesses - merchant-craftspeople producing one of a kind or limited runs of specialty goods for an increasingly large pool of customers looking for unique, customized, or niche products. These businesses will attract and retain craftspeople, artists, and engineers looking for the opportunity to build and create new products and markets."

A short comment on the quote above: This is exactly what we were able to build at our first start up, Banner Graphics, right through our last startup, SmartSkim™. You develop systems to produce unique services and products under the aegis of mass customization. You're world-beating within a niche subject area and then you find a way to scale your output and your productivity effectively. The time for this is not coming. It's here.


"They'll be equipped with advanced technology, able to access global and local business partners and customers, and will be competing in any industry. Their firms will be agile, flexible, and will often partner with larger firms to accomplish their business goals. Most will be knowledge artisans, relying on human capital to solve complex problems and develop new ideas, products services, and business models."

In my startups, I always follow this path. The critical piece I don't want you to miss is the last thought about developing new business models. The access to tools and innovative business partnering is virtually limitless within the scale of small businesses right now. Business models - how you organize and go to market - are limited only by your imagination and adherence to applicable laws.


"The new artisan economy will see rapid growth in the formation of small and personal (one person) businesses. The artisans will create new organizational structures and provide greater opportunities for work-life balance. These small and personal businesses will be run by a diverse group of entrepreneurs with a wide range of business objectives, but many will choose to join the ranks of the new artisans to match their work with their values."

… matching work with their values. Sustainable work at its core.


"Small business has generated the majority of net new jobs in the United States over the last several decades, and the number of personal businesses has been growing much faster than the overall economy. This trend will continue over the next decade. We expect that the small and personal business growth will again outpace the growth of the overall economy, and the number of personal businesses will grow from 21 million today to more than 32 million by 2018."

This predicts 10 million new jobs over the next decade, just within the subcategory of 'personal (one person) businesses'. Those growing into the small business category will rise proportionately.

The report describes our economy evolving into a pattern of development across most industries that they call, "barbell economics". This is a term from McKinsey & Co. describing industries, "…with a few global giants at one end, a relatively small number of mid-sized firms in the middle, and a large number of small businesses at the other end."

It is inevitable that the exponential growth in small business formation will create this barbell structure. The economics are obvious. Getting yourself ready to participate in this movement seems obvious. The Kauffman Foundation refers to this movement into entrepreneurship as, 'developing your personal economic independence'.

"Lightweight infrastructures will expand and redefine the boundaries of the small business. They will provide greater agility and flexibility in collaborating, pooling resources, and outsourcing functions to other firms. These changes will reduce the risk of starting and operating a small business by lowering capital requirements and shifting fixed costs into variable costs. Lightweight infrastructures will also open new markets and create new opportunities for small and personal businesses."

Lightweight infrastructures. It's lovely to hear these terms coming into vogue. Lightweight infrastructures are an essential tenant of sustainable enterprise. Moving hard costs to variable costs so that the enterprise can rise and fall and breathe like the (economically) living entity it is. Yep. Dead on.


"The small and personal businesses of the future will build upon information technology to extend their capabilities. Decreasing IT costs, coupled with increasing computer power and the growing popularity of "software as a service" delivery, will provide small businesses access to rich and complex business applications. These new applications will require less time, money and technical skills than traditional business applications, and offer flexibility and ease of use of desktop software. They also provide small businesses with tools and capabilities once exclusively available to large corporations."

What makes me most enthusiastic about all this is that all this guidance is not coming from the usual feel-good suspects. This is coming from hard headed accounting folks. Intuit, no less.

I type this standing under a photo of Buckminster Fuller, who long ago predicted the ever increasing utility of the knowledge economy, resulting in ever increasing possibilities and pathways for all of us to make the world a better place. For me, this report documents that progress.

Intuit really got it right with this report. This is the time, and this is the place for the re-emergence of the artisan entrepreneur.

The idea ties perfectly into the slow startup movement I've been touting. Smart, creative enterprises launched in support of the greater good and designed to support the entrepreneur and their communities. And oh by the way, it ties into the clear realities of the emerging global economy.

This is a time of major transition in economies worldwide, and small business entrepreneurs all over the world are emerging to lead the way to a better life for everyone.

Artisan entrepreneur. A great job title, just waiting for you.



Intuit's PDF links to this study I've been quoting from the Phase 3 report in this post, but they are all great.

Institute for the Future Report authors

The Kauffman Foundation

Labels: boomers, Buckminster Fuller, business plans, entrepreneurship, startups, The slow start up movement