SustainableWork

A new Business Week article - Ben Franklin Where Are You? - is about the United States falling behind in the global patent race.

The article in the Dec. 28, 2009 issue by Michael Arndt documents the fact that in 2009 for the first time non-Americans were granted more U.S. patents than resident inventors.

The body of the article focuses on the difficulties universities and high tech centers are facing in the patent race. However, the headline (celebrating Ben Franklin) highlights our history as independent innovators.

It's my opinion that this kind of citizen innovation and entrepreneurship is more alive and flourishing than I've ever seen in decades of work in the field. In fact I think the world is full of Ben Franklins, and that the age of the independent entrepreneur and inventor is just arriving.

I think a difference between an independent inventor and those in universities and corporate labs is that independent inventors work to solve very specific problems not create new technologies.

Dave and I didn't have any budget to launch or grow our company. We had values that were important to us and each of us had a skill set that built on the other person's strengths.

We also knew some really cool ways to solve some very specific problems. The fact that new technologies emerged from this and were taken through the intellectual property process was an afterthought.

The fact that the rest of the world is surpassing the United States in patents is a tribute to the value placed on ever increasing innovation by governments and societies worldwide. Much of the world seems to get it that continuous, sustainable innovation is the only way forward.

So, my favorite independent innovation story from the last startup Dave and I founded…

One of the world's leading satellite and space manufacturing firms, Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne, recently gutted their two satellite and space manufacturing plants in California and retrofitted them from the ground up with worldwide 'best of class' equipment. Their corporate mantra is: "Pure and simple, we are the best at what's new."

Rocketdyne chose to recycle their manufacturing fluids using inventions Dave and I created. We worked out these ideas far from corporate labs and universities.

It was my last major sale for our company. I really miss that work.

Thank you Pratt and Whitney! The fact that you chose our inventions as the 'best of what's new' for fluid recycling in 21st century space manufacturing is a lifelong honor for an independent inventor.

For those of you working in the trenches, let me say that there are big firms and important organizations looking for better ideas and ways to innovate. Even when you're doubting your own capability to execute or to reach those markets, press on. The world needs you, your ideas, and your work. Like Pratt & Whitney, keep working to be the best at what's new.

Happy Holidays 2009!


Photo courtesy of Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne. Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-110)

Business Week article, Ben Franklin Where Are you?. Online edition Dec. 17, 2009. Print edition Dec. 28th and Jan. 4th.

Our first patent (patent number 6,183,654). I wrote this patent and did the patent drawings. For our subsequent inventions, we turned this process over to our wonderful patent attorney Dr. Jaen Andrews - Thank you Dr. Jaen!

Labels: business partners, entrepreneurship, green tech, innovation, intellectual property, startups

When Woody Tasch from Slow Money came to town last week I was startled to hear him respectfully and with gratitude reference the book Small is Beautiful.

I'd read Slow Money and was struck by the possibilities but hadn't connected the work to E. F. Schumacher and his great book, "Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered."

But this is a natural 21st century marriage. Efficient, market-driven financial discipline, with sustainable goals and methods, (Slow Money) meets smart, appropriate-scale technologies, in this case taking the form of local foods and sustainable agriculture.

What a magic time for this combination to occur. Demand is off the chart for local foods. Production and processing techniques are faster, smarter, cheaper. Tools for design, organizing, marketing, sales and distribution have never been better or less expensive. I'm back to the fact that this is indeed the Renaissance age of entrepreneurship, and it's just beginning.

Food is an issue whose time has come. There is a wonderful quote from Wisconsin's own Aldo Leopold in his Sand County Almanac that ties in here. Think about the following Leopold quote in terms of sustainable agriculture, local processing, local foods and healthy, more compelling communities; "By and large our present problem is one of attitudes and implements. We are remodeling the Alhambra with a steam-shovel, and are proud of our yardage. We shall hardly relinquish the shovel, which after all has many good points, but we are in need of gentler and more objective criteria for its successful use."

Free markets have nurtured the greatest freedoms in human history, but we need to apply those tools in less destructive, more successful ways especially in the way we feed and nurture ourselves and the place we live.

As a group of us works to design an efficient, reproducible local foods processing system with our Driftless Foods, Iowa County initiative, none of us are taking anything as gospel. Small is beautiful not because it sounds good as a theory on paper but because technology has evolved small, smart, nimble processing equipment that makes better use of resources and produces higher, more sustainable profits. That's why small is beautiful. Schumacher was [is!] right.

Small is a matter of perspective certainly. The multiple local foods processing plants we are designing to work in a self-supportive coalition, are not garden sheds. They will take a lot of money by anyone's standards. They will be technologically and environmentally brilliant. Small? No, compared to farmyard vegetable stands. Yes, compared to the Wall Street backed food system now falling apart.

One of my favorite Schumacher quotes sums up what a new local foods processing system might look like: "The aim ought to be to obtain the maximum amount of well being with the minimum amount of consumption." That is, an ultra lean, wise production system that creates great multi-generational jobs for a community, passing the bulk of the profits into a pool that all contributors are compensated from equitably.

I'm going to post the first Driftless Foods Cooperative white paper that we produced by separate headline following this. It's a short overview of the project.

Small is beautiful because it is smart, sustainable and profitable. Above all else small is valuable because it is reproducible .

In economic terms, that's a beautiful thing.



The E.F. Schumacher Society

Small is Beautiful. Wikipedia

The Aldo Leopold Foundation

Aldo Leopold. Wikipedia

The Aldo Leopold quote in this post is from the dedications page of the 25th Anniversary edition of Small is Beautiful.

Labels: boomers, bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, green tech, innovation, regional fair trade, slow money, startups, The slow start up movement

My presentation to the Wisconsin Assembly's Committee on Rural Economic Development was really fun. Nervous, but fun.

I knew as the last of 4 speakers I'd be limited in time, so I had to focus on the three key action steps I most need as an economic developer working in rural communities.

For me it's a no-brainer. Good universal broadband, virtual incubators, and micro lending.

For this post I'd like to focus on micro lending. Specifically how a fast, inexpensive, off-the-shelf hybrid lending program might be put together quickly in local communities.

Thomas Friedman had a good piece in the New York Times last month about the use of capital in this awful economy. He focuses on the high tech economy, which is an obvious necessary component, but I believe this approach would benefit all levels of enterprise investment, perhaps especially micro lending. In an economy this bad, there are millions of people who might benefit from their own startup enterprise, sustainably run and seeded with micro investments, wisely overseen.

Here is Mr. Friedman: "Our country is still bursting with innovators looking for capital. So, let’s make sure all the losers clamoring for help don’t drown out the potential winners who could lift us out of this. Some of our best companies, such as Intel, were started in recessions, when necessity makes innovators even more inventive and risk-takers even more daring.

Yes, we have to shore up the banking system, which underpins everything; and finding a fair way to prevent hardworking people, who played by the rules, from losing their homes to foreclosure is both right and essential for stability.

But beyond that, let’s think, talk and plan in more aspirational ways. We’re down, but we’re not out…. Our motto should be, 'Start-ups, not bailouts: nurture the next Google, don’t nurse the old G.M.’s.'”

We are down, but we are not out. Exactly. That's a succinct call to action. Communities and economies will be rebuilt through new and better enterprises. A few will be Googles. The vast majority will be small businesses.

There are surely micro loan funds run by governments in North America that work, I just don't know any. I think that governments really want to do this, but it just requires too many activities that governments constitutionally can't do. They just can't get involved to the degree that's needed by the entrepreneur.

That's where you come in. Here's my hybrid idea.

A group of citizens want to improve their community. These communities can be neighborhoods, cities, counties, and regions. The community could also be virtual with members worldwide and everything in between.

Let's say the interested citizens want their community to go increasingly greener. Those citizens should vote with their money and establish their own green micro lending fund.

Banks are equipped to segregate the funds and create the loan coupon books specific to each loan, providing the institutional backbone with the tracking and recording components needed. They can create this for a modest fee if they can avoid the costs normally associated with loan origination (finding appropriate borrowers) and with loan collections, which can consume time and resources. Some loans will fail, many times because there is no insight and oversight afforded the borrower by the bank or government backer.

This is where you come in again.

As local citizens who want their community to go green, your group could be out in the community finding the entrepreneurs who are creating the kind of tomorrows you want.

Do not look for home runs here. That's a death strategy. Play small ball. Light a thousand candles stuff.

It's your money, shared with your friends and peers in your community, so it's unlikely you're going to publicly game the system to benefit cousin Bubba. There is a built in feedback loop that would keep our green citizens motivated to help find and create good, sustainable green entrepreneurs.

And your work continues…

You help present the case for your entrepreneur to your fellow green citizens or their green investment review committee. If approved, you have to help with mentorship and advice for that green entrepreneur while they grow their enterprise. If you can plug them into local resources like my office, all the better.

Self interest. Feedback loop 2.

The green entrepreneur succeeds. Your green fund gets their money back. Feedback loop 3.

Governments can't do this kind of personal mentorship. Banks can't easily locate and prepare efficiently organized, highly targeted new enterprises, let alone manage the supervision and collection issues associated with most small scale startups.

But you can't manage the loan coupon books the way the IRS requires either. Banks can. Easily and accurately. It's not good VS bad. It's who does what best.

I would strongly recommend people initially treat these targeted micro loan funds as though they were stock buying clubs without the stocks. If you want to formalize into a corporation or legal entity of some kind that's perfectly legitimate, but I'd like to focus on a looser model in this post. This latter route will absolutely require a lot more law and regulation than most situations need, but as the fund grows and as a more diverse group contributes, everyone will likely want a contractual way in and out of a more formalized and legally defined fund.

So, this could be your community green group. People chipping in risk money to make the vision of their green tomorrow happen. I'd suggest people put that money in as seed money and treat it as an investment in their communities, not as a way to make personal money.

This would be treated as a loan only. Requiring an ownership share would require that the receiving entrepreneur lawyer up to a degree that isn't productive at this stage.

Talk among yourselves about what the fund should have in place in advance for things like goals, returns (to cover bank fees), and potential rules to play in this sand box. Build out future conflict up front.

If it's like a simple stock buying club, the members voluntarily join for a common purpose, make their contribution to the pot, then add their expertise for trying to grow that pot. If their circumstances change or the goals of the group fractal, then contributors can take out their share of the non-invested pot at that moment and go play elsewhere.

Put the money into a segregated fund at the bank or credit union. For a modest fee, the financial institution will handle the official requirements and back-office mechanics, for which they are unbelievably well prepared to do. Your group and you do the messy, fun, non-bank entrepreneur stuff.

Here is where my day job comes into this. What's my dream tool for effective, nimble economic development?

I would have independent micro loan fund(s) available for specific purposes that were controlled by interested citizens, not governments.

If I knew the interests of those groups in advance, I can find, train and point appropriate entrepreneurs to them.

Beyond me, the entrepreneurs would get pre-loan vetting by interested, motivated individuals, fiscally legal processes, managed by committed people with some mentorship capabilities in place, and the most valuable of all resources, a network into the communities they hope to serve.

Like-minded people who want to change their communities in ways they and their friends want, should vote with their money. There is no more direct way I know to change and positively influence the future.

So, what would a targeted investor group like this look? Whatever you want it to look like.

I'd suggest for a neighborhood, it might be a group of people building up a fund of a few hundred dollars could help some local startup(s) improve their community. See what works and what doesn't.

If I think about this at a county level where I work, you'd have to pilot it to see what was manageable, but I'd think starting with $10,000 would be a reasonable start. You'd start with loans from $500 to say $2,000 to test it out, following the feedback loops described above. If it works and you can garner the contributions, move the fund to $50,000 and any good economic developer can get you dozens of startups tailored to the needs of that fund.

Nobody should expect home runs. This is small ball stuff. Day-in, day-out. One foot in front of the other. Repeat. This is how communities get built by choice not accident.

I scribbled down a quote from a guy on the radio I can't locate via online searching that went something like, 'our future is our choice, not our fate'.

We have a choice in this miserable economic environment to build the futures we want. Leave these decisions to others, and we will live in futures others choose for us.

Small, locally based, independent, member-run micro loan funds would be an unbelievably powerful tool for communities and the economic developers who serve them.

If you keep your expectations realistic and you keep the structure of the loan fund appropriately non-regulated, small groups of like-minded citizens can change the future of their communities.

Not by talking about it, but by making it happen with their money.

Labels: boomers, bootstrapping, business plans, entrepreneurship, green tech, slow money, startups, The slow start up movement

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

How can you tell which organizations are going to survive?

I want to recommend a Business Week story dated Jan 29, 2007, by Pete Engardio. It was the cover story titled "Beyond the Green Corporation."

The cover text led with this proposition: “Imagine a world in which socially responsible and eco-friendly practices actually boost a company's bottom line. It's closer than you think.”

Much of this article is looking at the green practices of large firms which is fine. There is so much low hanging fruit at these big companies that the smallest gestures on their part can yield significant results.

What Mr. Engardio focuses on nicely is the fact that managements of all sizes are getting smarter about the economic burden of unsustainable practices. Waste costs too damn much and management is getting it quickly.

He quotes Philips Electronics Chief Procurement Officer Barbara Kux, "For us sustainability is a business imperative."

If you’re in those big organizations, charge! Good on ya.

For start ups and emerging enterprises the message is just as necessary. The quiet bonus for the rest of us is that most every enterprise of every shape and size will be looking for help along these lines. Starting yesterday.

This is a big opportunity to create and grow your own new enterprise. It’s a renaissance time of new markets. The demand for services and products that increase efficiency and strengthen sustainability will flourish. In summary, pick a problem and fix it.

What is a nice theme to emerge from the Business Week story, is the suggestion that smart, sustainable business practices can be good at predicting who is growing into the future and who is fighting it.

I like the way the Mr. Engardio closes his Business Week story (except that smart green tech DOES help next quarter’s numbers)…

"Such laudable efforts, even if successful, may not help managers make their numbers next quarter. But amid turbulent global challenges, they could help investors sort long-term survivors from the dinosaurs.”

Yep.

Business week article

Labels: entrepreneurship, green tech

I can’t express how comforting it is to copy down that headline .

Working in green tech fields may look fun from the outside, but like any other kind of enterprise, it's got to be sustainable. You have to prove your economic value to the customer every time, just like the rest of the world.

In a world of rapidly restructuring economies, it has not always been easy to prove out enviro stuff. You need big, fast paybacks or nobody buys it.

However, the world continues to turn. And now I'm seeing headlines reading 'Green tech leads economic rebound.'

Obviously, the technologies are improving all the time, creating more green tech successes. On top of that, the paybacks from fixing environmental problems are rising rapidly. The many liabilities and inefficiencies implicit in generating waste cannot be understated. Fixing those problems is becoming a priority in every sector of every economy.

And where there are needs, there are opportunities for enterprise.

There was a good article in Monday’s New York Times by Laurie J. Flynn about green tech leading an economic rebound in Silicon Valley.

"... investment in clean technology - from alternative energy products, like solar panels and hybrid cars, to the use of nanotechnology to solve environmental problems - went from $34 million in the first quarter of 2006 to $290 million in the third quarter," according to a report released Sunday.

Software and semiconductor companies in Silicon Valley received about 40% of the new money, leaving about 60% to be spread around many markets, or as the article notes, "Clean technology crosses many industries..."

The NPR radio program Science Friday, hosted by Ira Flatow picked up on the story this afternoon. Mr. Flatow interviewed John Denniston, partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) about the 'business side of green tech'. These guys are in the elite lanes of the VC world, probably not a road many of us will travel. But it is very interesting to see what their view of the business side of green tech looks like.

John Denniston cited what he saw as the characteristics of the green tech field and why the funding for green tech was advancing so rapidly.

Mr Denniston cited two important pieces that rang true for me. I’m watching it happen in my day job.

The first is the rapid emergence of many new green tech niches, all focused on solving specific problems.

The second is the acceleration of talent coming into the field.

Your solutions don’t have to involve high tech, biotech, or nanotech (though all certainly qualify). You just need to solve real problems with repeatable solutions. No matter the venue, that’s green tech, friend.

The acceleration of talent coming into the field should include you.

Pick a problem and have at it. Welcome.

New York Times green tech funding article Jan. 29, 2007

$100K yearly prize for green tech innovation funded by Kleiner Perkins.

Ira Flatow /Science Friday archive page for this show with this green tech section available separately.

John Denniston page at KPCB

Labels: entrepreneurship, green tech, John Denniston

The November 2006 INC. magazine features its first ever Green 50 awards. Editor Jane Berentson describes these companies as "part of a growing breed we call ecocapitalists - men and women who've chosen to train their creativity, passion and acumen on finding solutions to the thorny problem of preserving our planet."

You can read about their choices from the link below. A very admirable group.

I want you to remember also, my friends, that sustainable not only means helping the planet keep running, it also means keeping your own enterprises running.

Sustainable work is not just blue sky stuff. It's executing after the phone rings.

You don't need an MBA to successfully run your own enterprise. You do however need control over the information flow of your enterprise, including contacts, sales, order management and financial data.

As you look through the wonderful companies listed in the Green 50 below, keep in mind that the folks behind these enterprises are also executing the data and financial fundamentals that make their inspiring stories possible.

I wish you the best as your enterprises launch and emerge to change the world.

Just remember to take good notes.


Inc.com Green 50 Stories, slideshows and podcasts about doing green business.

One of my favorite winners, Greenfuel Technologies. I believe algae is in your future.

Labels: entrepreneurship, green tech, startups

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

Labels: entrepreneurship, green tech, innovation, startups