(un)Sustainable Comments

Musings on "Made in Bangladesh"

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:52:00 +0000

One of my shirts

When I learned that the death toll of the Bangladeshi garment factory collapse topped 1000 - I started writing. A few months ago this would have put me into a steep tailspin. I'm still saddened, though instead of throwing my hands up, casting blame, and tilting at the windmills of "race-to-the-bottom" capitalism, I found myself thinking of the systemic causes and possible solutions in the context of our global economy and sprawling supply chains and possible actions to take to incite change.

A short digression...

Back in March I wrote about my personal responsibility for a long list of global environmental catastrophes and miscarriages of justice. It was a dark time for my faith in humanity, and, if I am completely honest, listing things out made it easier for me to mentally disengage from them - on top of that, my intent was to instill a sense of responsibility for these challenges with anyone that might read the post - depending upon the readers' socio-economic background, responsibility should (a loaded word) be shared, correct?

Before I published that post, I ran it by some friends that share my sustainability ideals. They suggested that instead of focusing on a laundry list of problems and the guilt associated with them, it might be more useful to think about how I contribute to solutions. Makes complete sense.

...back to the topic at hand.

With that in mind, relative to the Bangladesh building collapse, what might I do to make an impact? Here are a few ideas that came to mind with questions and comments about potential impact(s):

Buy garments made in another country

Reward those with better labor regulations, though there were regulations and policies in place in Bangladesh that were enforced poorly
Does this then unfairly punish the laborers that have improved their lives despite their dangerous working conditions?

Buy garments made by brands with the highest level of supply-chain scrutiny working in Bangladesh

With the complicated supply chains of today, does this mean anything?
Where does one find this information? Looking at my closet of recent clothing purchases, I know I did not look.
Note: the photo above is from a shirt I bought recently - with no thought to where it was made. At the time of this writing, I could find nothing about the brand's responsible business practices in Bangladesh. I've sent them a message and asked about this - we'll see where this goes.

Buy garments from the brands that said they would be compensating victims' families

What impact will this make in the long term?
Is this slacktivism at its finest, taking an action that easy and ultimately not very effective?

Buy garments from local / regional sources

I never thought of this until I visited the Watch City Festival (a Steampunk affair) and found a purveyor of clothing in my region - yes, clothing is still made in New England.
Of course, because a garment is stitched within my region, does not imply that its constituent parts were sourced here as well. Thread, buttons, cloth, zippers, etc. all come from somewhere. In fact, one-off garments could have a larger per unit environmental and social impact.

Buy no new garments at all

There are a wealth of thrift stores and other ways to find gently used items to cover oneself and extend the useful life of an item.
In the world of (assumed) requisite economic growth, where would this cause pain?

Make them myself

This would be a useful skill to have, and, in the world of neoclassical economics, is my maximum value in society manifested in making clothing? Maybe.

I am sure important actions, ideas, and insights are missing. What would you add?

I am indebted to friends Kevin Hagen, former REI Sustainability Leader and now on his own helping organizations start and continue their sustainability journeys, Asheen Phansey, Babson MBA, Bio-engineering undergrad with biomimicry expertise currently changing the world at D'Assault Systemes, Caleb Bushner, self-proclaimed philosopher of sandwiches, BGI MBA, and Associate Director at Digitas, and Paul Diegel BGI MBA and Executive Director, Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center for providing invaluable insights into these topics. I am grateful for their help as I continue to challenge my mental models and unconscious assumptions about sustainability and my battle against a priori pessimism. Follow them on twitter at @asheen | @kevinhagen | @calebbushner .

Rediscovering Optimism

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:55:00 +0000

Image by Samantha Celera

It's come in fits and starts - my optimism peeks through the dark veil of pessimism that slowly crept up and took over my sustainable thinking over the past few years. It dawned on me as I re-read my last post that pessimism was winning - handily - creating an overwhelming sense of hopelessness at the state of the world when it comes to environmental sustainability and social justice. The plane on which I functioned had tilted steeply to the negative...and...I concluded...once it's tilted that way...it can be tough to bring it back.

Tough...and I am.

I paused and reflected a bit on the people and organizations I know of that are doing great things, whether building a company with a social mission or believing in their artistic pursuits and making it happen. Taking the time to think about these positive actions re-framed my internal debate at our collective trajectory - calling my pessimism into question - again.

Dwelling, mulling, stewing, on the negatives just sucks the energy out of anything and everything

Lesson learned - for now. So, that means that whatever you see here going forward will be focused on solutions.

Waking up to Responsibility

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 09:35:00 +0000

Image from Moonty used under Creative Commons

The germ of this post sprouted sometime in 2012, I'm not sure when and I'm not sure what it was, it's not important. With my previous post on spirituality and sustainability, teasing out the theme of "connectedness" along with a few recent articles shared by friends I respect with themes that relate to these ideas it was time to reconnect with the idea and see where it goes.

So, here we go.

I've known it for a long time. It's one of those things that we know and bury beneath our existing identity and worldview because it raises big questions about who we are as individuals, what we believe in, and our role in our local and global communities.

What is it that I know?

I'm responsible for Fukushima
I'm responsible for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
I'm responsible for reality television
I'm responsible for type 2 diabetes in children
I'm responsible for pink slime
I'm responsible for lead paint
I'm responsible for the plastic in the oceans
I'm responsible for the production of carcinogens

The list could go on, and I'm not sure that's helpful. We could argue about the term "responsible" being replaces with complicit, culpable, or some other less in-your-face word. Again - not helpful. The point is that this list of social problems (some might categorize them as "environmental" and/or "social" as well but I'm not sure that the distinction is relevant) are all symptoms of my activities as a consumer of, and investor in, products and/or services that contribute to them. Ultimately, if we see the news about any of these issues, do we not have a shared responsibility to do something about it? Otherwise, I must come to the uncomfortable conclusion that I am, indeed, personally responsible.

"What's the point?" you might ask - rightfully. How do my actions in my ______________ [insert city, town, company, family, community, etc.] affect things happening at these scales or other countries or even other parts of my own community? The question is, how do they not? We're all connected in the same socioeconomic system that at its core seeks to extract and amass wealth. We do this by extracting raw materials from the biosphere, investing energy in the process of manipulating it (this involves many, many steps) to increase its value in the marketplace and then slowly extracting that value in the form of financial capital as it flows through the distribution chain to the end-user. The challenge is that the value extracted is not proportional to the net effects of the damage caused by its production. In other words, the people living near the oil wells in Nigeria and adversely affected by the pollution associated with the oil's extraction receive a small portion (if any) of the overall value of that resource. Where does then rest of it go?

We take some of it when we buy the item and use it. The rest goes to various organizations along with way, businesses that may or may not have a desire to use what they've earned (extracted) in restorative activities.

So...what's the solution?

It's time to take a step back from the day-to-day and ask serious questions about what our role is in this world and what we're willing to do in the short and long term to right the wrongs listed above. It's daunting, absolutely daunting, sobering, and massive. Most of the time when I think about these issues I fall into despair - feeling completely helpless in their depth and scope. But...I am sure there are others out there, others watching the news or reading the paper and feeling the pang of sadness and/or responsibility and then burying that feeling below the myriad activities that keep us busy. After all, we all have our own lives, families, and communities to look after.

Here is one of the articles that I referred to that might make us think a bit differently about our impact, responsibility, espoused values, and actions.

Want to save the planet? Shrink your habitat — not just your apartment

Is Spiritual Connection Necessary to Save the Planet?

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 12:05:00 +0000

From CC nasrulekrom

One of the great mysteries I continue to wrestle with is the contribution of individual spirituality and spiritual institutions to creating an environmentally sustainable and just world economy.

Pretty minor topic, right?

This has come up for me at a very personal level as I seek out my own spiritual connections. I define spirituality/religion as - wherever there are deeply felt connections between people that share a concept and/or belief. This desire sneaked up on me over the past few years as I sensed I had become distant, disconnected, and pessimistic about the state of the world and my ability to contribute in a positive way. I painted the whole of "developed world" humanity (myself included) as base organisms seeking enrichment through material wealth with nary a care about the social and environmental injustices these actions inflicted upon the rest of the world. Let's just say that this world view was not working.

With that as background, I'd steeled myself to emotional and empathetic connections, yet found myself moved to tears in situations involving spiritual gatherings (as I defined them) and wondering what I was missing in my intellectual Cave of Agnosticism. The last time I felt connected to something was when I attended BGI a few years ago, only now do I appreciate what that connection meant to me.

Considering that many definitions of sustainability involve the concept of systems thinking and earthly interconnections - I wondered "how does my individual spirituality connect with sustainability"? Or, more directly, how can it NOT?

I started reading on the topic again looking for answers (that's dangerous!) to my questions. I picked up "Spirituality and Sustainability" by John Carroll a few months ago. I immediately connected with the writers ideas - what we pursue as "environmental sustainability" is woefully inadequate - more of a quarter-measure to make us feel better about maintaining a growth-centered economic model that tolerates social injustice even though we know something is wrong but we can't collectively deal with the massive shift needed in our thinking. The author posits that there is something missing in our conversations about what a sustainable business needs to be, and the something is spirituality.

Imagine the Pope coming out and saying that members of his Faith are damaging the Lord's Creation with their actions and that they are bound to take action to make amends. What would happen? Anything? Would individuals of this faith take action?

The next question becomes - if we experience a desire to build a sustainable and just world through our individual spiritual pursuits, why is it that these desires are "checked at the door" of most businesses (that are comprised of individuals)? Is the business world operating in a sphere that we have collectively agreed is in its own space devoid of our shared morality and values with the overarching goal of increasing monetary wealth? If so, how might it be shifted to encompass the values we profess in our personal spirituality reflected at a societal level?

Do B Corporations, hybrid non-profits, L3Cs, and social enterprises hold the key? Do they go far enough?

Finding Inspiration for Creative Expression

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 21:20:00 +0000

It happened in the most innocuous way. I read somewhere - I cannot remember where and I'm not going to pretend I do by looking it up now - that "successful people" take time every day, usually in the morning, to pause and reflect on what they are thankful for. It seemed like worthwhile advice, pausing to be with my thoughts about things I take for granted. Since I was struggling with my vision of a sustainable future (maybe "struggle" is the wrong world - I gave up on it) it seemed like a good activity to help change a pessimistic outlook. I'd been somewhat of a regular journal writer since the mid-90's, though what started out as a way to record significant events in my life had morphed into a repository for (mostly) rants of a recurring theme (see pattern comment above) - I had this. So inspired, I started jotting thoughts in my journal every morning...easy enough.

That lasted a day...

A few months later, I happened upon a tweet about why keeping a notebook near your bed was important - I liked it and ended up in a short interaction with @geoffliving and @ErinMFeldman (thanks to both of you!) on the benefits of writing...by hand, the old fashioned way. [Need a reason to maintain cursive writing skills? In the not too distant future it might be sought after since it's slowly dying as a form of writing] Since then (re-inspired), I write daily - maybe not first thing in the morning and maybe it's not well-crafted, but it's happening.

Most importantly, I have spent that last three days caring for my young son. It's been an enlightening, rewarding, and - dare I say - inspiring time. I'm not sure what happened, what he said or did that altered my view quite so suddenly - but it happened. Do I need to know? Maybe that's what it was - renewing my appreciation for simple enjoyment, letting my lack of understanding sit there - alone - dispensing with the need for an explanation and just "doing". I kept writing...

"So...what' the big deal about writing?", you may ask.

It's not about the writing. The big deal is that I'm listening to The Maker trapped inside of me again for the first time in a few years. I've squelched it in the name of "practicality", with defeatist pleas of "I don't have time", or "I'd rather sit here and watch a movie", or "what I'll create won't make a damn bit of difference", or "how can I contemplate this while [insert global catastrophe] or [family health problem] is happening?" Yes, the Internal Critic was kicking my ass. IF, we are living in what I perceive to be a world of consuming and taking v. generating and making AND I participate in the former over the latter far too much AND bemoan that state of affairs...

...how am I helping move from taking to making if I do not try making?

The End is...no...well...maybe...Nigh!

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:57:00 +0000

Yes, it is 12/21/12.

The Winter Solstice (as changing of the seasons go - not the coolest to begin with - it's either one of the equinoxes) marking the "official" change to winter from autumn and all that jazz.

I read an amusing blog post over at Scientific American a few days ago that I thought summed things up rather nicely

I found out that it was not just the Mayans that had an era ending today, apparently the Sumerians were looking for another planet to collide with the Earth round about this time. I have to pause and wonder if it would be driven, you know, by someone like Ming the Merciless.

From what I read a few months ago, the whole doomsday thing is one way to interpret the Mayan Calendar. Another way, and one that might be considered more optimistic, is the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new one. The questions then becomes, what will this new epoch look like? What will we create? Here are a few suggestions for beginnings and endings:

Ending	Beginning
Age of Excess	Age of Frugality
Age of Fossil Fuels	Age of Renewable Energy
Age of Humans	Age of Something Else
Age of Prescription Drugs	Age of Homeopathy
Age of Wealth Concentration	Age of Wealth Equilibrium
Age of Possession	Age of Sharing
Age of The West	Age of the East (already underway)
Age of Deconstructive Thinking	Age of Systems Thinking
Age of Reality Television	Age of No Television
Age of Consumption	Age of Restoration

OK, some humor - hopefully - what do you think? What "Age of...." would you like to usher in?

Brand Equity - Is That Why I Bought This?

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 02:15:00 +0000

Why did I decide to buy this where I bought it?

The answer to the where is easy...it was convenient. I could swing by at lunch from my office. Would I have felt better if I had bought it at Cambridge Naturals? Yes. My friends at the Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts should rightfully chastise me.

Among the brands displayed at the nationally recognized organic/natural/sustainable food store it did not have the best shelf placement, it was not at eye level (given that I am not within the height range of optimum shelf placement, that's probably not a factor for me in most cases). Within products of the same category, it was on the edge, teetering on the border of oblivion that is the next section.

Was it the Lorax? Probably not, since I find that connection mildly annoying (though knower of the ins and outs I am not).

Was it the fact that Seventh Generation was one of the first few companies I learned about as I started to dive into the concept of "sustainability" over ten years ago? Had their brand been infused in my head for that long?

How about the fact that I was fortunate to have seen (and briefly chatted with) their new CEO John Replogle at the Vermont Business for Social Responsibility Spring Conference in May of this year (seemed like a nice enough guy)? Was some lingering piece of his keynote message ringing in my subconscious mind, adding to my brand awareness as I perused the detergents? After all, I spent a few hours in the months following the event reading about what appeared to be a tumultuous transition from founder Jeffrey Hollender, through Chuck Maniscalco to Mr. Replogle. Seems like they're on a good track now.

Did I remember reading about their compostable packaging, something the well-developed geek in me found so compelling? Was the need to experience its coolness first-hand enough to influence my buying decision? Clearly.

I could easily look past the quantity paradox - in our "bigger is better" economy, super-concentrated anything, with smaller package sizes appear to be of lesser value. In this case, their two-piece package containing the 4X concentrated goodness with paperboard outer casing was larger than if they had used a recycled plastic bottle - making the overall size closer to the "regular" laundry detergents. I wonder if that weighed in on their design decision?

Was I hoping that this purchase would bathe me in the "Halo of Goodness" and provide green bragging rights that (we think) come with buying something green? (Note - I know that anything single-use is one of our biggest problems so at best this is "less bad" - but in a consumer economy - this still scores "green" points, right?)

I believe that the few extra dollars I pay for their detergent is an investment in an organization of individuals working to make the world a better place through their business activities. Do they have a long way to go? Sure, we all do...and...in this case...it's the least I could do. (I'll not forget to mention that I am fortunate to be able to spend the few extra dollars here - one of the criticisms of "green/healthy" products, particularly food, is that some people cannot afford them. As another aside, I know of one cool company working on this issue, Stockbox Grocers.)

These are all pieces of the brand equity Seventh Generation has built with me, all factors in my buying decision. How much was linked to their traditional marketing? Doesn't seem like that much to me, though I'm gathering that not everyone thinks this much about this kind of stuff

Do you regularly think about the whys and wherefores of something you buy regularly? What comes to mind?

Peace in Imperfection - The Quest for a Quiet Bike

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 02:41:00 +0000

It happened every pedal stroke - tinnnngggg, tinngg, ting, t-tinngg, _____, tinngg. The incessant, insistent, and maddening sound reminding me that my machine is not ideally tuned and/or cleaned, leading me on a chase to find the offending noise producer. Digression - Yes, my maintenance standards, while still higher than the average Joe Racer (or so I think), have slipped over the past five years or so. In fact, I was roundly mocked a few weeks ago at the top of a local "hill" at the sad state of my bike's cleanliness - as I trundled up at the tail end of the group (I am NOT always there - thank you very much!) a comment was lobbed my way by one of those insufferably skinny guys with a super-flashy carbon-of-the-moment ride like "well, if you cleaned that pound of s$%t off of your bike you'd be faster". Well, maybe, but jettisoning the 15+ pounds around my middle (and elsewhere) would probably help more there jackass...anyway...back to the whole "imperfection" thing.

So, as I obsessed about what could be causing the Chinese Water Torture of bike noises, alternating my weight on the saddle, standing up (it got louder and more pronounced - I could almost feel it), riding no hands, loosening and tightening bolts, taking the bottle cages off, removing the seat post, smashing my fists against my head in rage and frustration, I started thinking about what it was that was driving me so friggin' insane about this noise.

Was it the noise itself, or what the noise signified?

First off, there's the anal element of working on one's own bike, especially for anyone that races, used to race, or wants to race - all that preparation, tuning and tweaking to get ready - mostly an exercise to keep nervous energy utilized. What's going on with your body is more important. Of course, there is a baseline level of bike tuning required to prevent a mechanical failure which can ruin your day. Creaks, pings, tings, and any other unwelcome noise signifies a possible mechanical problem. Is there something broken? Crap.

There's the failure the noises point out. So, when I threw the directions for that new stem in the garbage and just installed it (what torque spec? This things ain't magnesium.) did I really need those specs? Did I fall victim to my desire for expediency and screw something up? Idiot... What about that cable routing, did I make one of them too short or too long, causing unnecessary movement back and forth in the cable stop, miniscule enough to appear insignificant and large enough to send a vibration ringing throughout the titanium frame?

It's just one more problem in the world that needs to be addressed. (cue the dramatic music)

I consciously worked on accepting the noise as merely that, a noise, and thought about how fortunate I was to be riding my bike to work on an absolutely beautiful late summer morning. I noticed the reflection of my newly re-installed TA Specialities Alize crankset (re-installed to see if it fixed the blasted tinging and also because it's nice) chain rings on the pavement and curb beside me. The low morning sunlight filtered through the trees created a reasonable facsimile rotating along the ground next to me.

I raced my shadow...we'll call it a draw.

I remembered racing my eighth grade best friend down the big hill (seemed big at the time) near my house as we rode to school (cue idyllic photo montage music). My books, faithfully strapped to the spring-loaded rack behind me, carried along with me to their destination on a brown Vista 10-speed bought from my uncle. I put into practice what I learned from watching Buddy Baker, Richard Petty, and Cale Yarborough in that weekend's NASCAR race - before most people knew what NASCAR was (and before restrictor plates) by sitting behind my friend before shooting by as I gathered momentum in his wake. Helmetless, my cheesy K-Mart mechanical speedometer needle pushed 40 (or maybe it was 30). Whatever it was, it felt insanely fast. That hill sucked on the way home.

Soon enough, the noise faded in its importance. It was still there, and probably will be off and on for a while. I'll keep chasing it, maybe I'll find it and maybe it'll come back again later. I'm getting better at saying "whatever" to stuff like this.

The simple lesson I learned today? Pursuing ideal solutions is fine, and it will make life easier if you're willing and able to accept the now with all its faults and imperfections.

Twitter, Events, Connections, and Value

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:43:00 +0000

Image from KK+ (thank you)

When I say "value" I am not referring to its recent valuation estimate based upon private trading.

When twitter was launched in 2006 my immediate reaction was "this is stupid". (of course "stupid" ideas have often gone on to be unbelievably successful - and one person's stupid is another person's genius).

Then one of my classmates at BGI said, "I think you might like this" (he shall remain nameless), and there I went. I have to admit that my first use of it was more than likely as a distraction from class; reading news, talking trash, etc. Those tweets are long gone (I think) so who knows what I did.

Fast-forward to 2012. I've continued to use twitter as a news feed, conversation portal, and as a way to interact with event attendees in professional and personal settings.

Here's what I've learned about twitter and events - use the conference hashtag (duh, right?)

Savvy event organizers provide a twitter hashtag on the event website, registration materials, and in obvious places around the venue to make it easy for attendees to interact and share their observations with the twittersphere.

I find this fascinating and of great value when I cannot attend an event that I am interested in - it's an easy and informal way to interact remotely. From a professional perspective, it allows team members at the event to stay focused on greeting visitors face-to-face (nothing is more off-putting to a visitor than someone staffing a booth or table with their face buried in a mobile device) while another team member monitors the twitter stream and seeks to interact with attendees virtually to create initial relationships and invite them to their company space.

Observations:

Choose your hashtag intentionally - short, memorable, and unique
Beware hashtag appropriation by "outsiders"
Depending upon the event (in my experience - a reflection of the community's adoption of the medium) the tweets may or may not be useful for interaction. At some events they're dominated by advertising blasts
Take a flyer and help coordinate an impromptu tweetup for those active twitter users at the event. You never know who'll you meet and what great connections you might make
Think about archiving the tweets from the event for later follow up / analysis
If the opportunity arises, project the twitter stream somewhere at the event to encourage engagement - I've seen this at multiple events and it can be quite fun
Set up keyword searches relevant to your business (or your goals for the event) and monitor them along with the event hashtag for people you might like to connect with

Using twitter helped me connect with a number of people at a recent event - we shared the use of the medium, with that in common it was much easier to strike up a conversation. Who knows how many connections were made and/or reinforced among other attendees (is there a way to measure this?). I planned to tweet anyway, to help spread ideas beyond the event's walls - I overlooked its effectiveness as a connector, and was pleasantly surprised by how it helped.

So - if you're thinking about jumping into he twitter fray - or you're a seasoned tweeter - how might you use it to connect in new ways?

In what ways has twitter surprised you? Good? Bad? Neutral?

Unionize Facebook?

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Fri, 18 May 2012 01:28:00 +0000

Image by highwaycharlie

With Facebook's IPO looming I find myself asking the question:

Why are Facebook users giving away their content and control of personal information?

This information is what Facebook uses to make their money - it's the basis of their business model. So, Facebook users (of which I am one) have decided that the service Facebook provides is worth providing information and content for free (and forfeiting control of that data).

Interesting. Think about it. What does that mean?

What if Facebook users decided to stop. Is it conceivable that users could start charging for the data they provide? Or, what if Facebook were unionized or became a cooperative, where the people that provide the content (users) are considered part of the business, and be fairly compensated for their data use (and/or pay to use the service). Facebook provides a service that connects us in ways we never thought possible, but remember, Facebook's customers are the companies they sell advertising and data to, not the users.

So, what would happen if Facebook users unionized, for real?

Looks like someone thought about it a few years ago - doesn't appear much has happened.

More interesting to me is the emergence of the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium - analysis and collective standardization of the new asset class of personal data.

Part 2: Social Impacts of the Circular Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 14:24:00 +0000

In a previous post, I talked about my recent obsession the The Circular Economy. I'm taking a look at the social implications of a fully or even partially implemented circular economy. What could we expect for changes in the social sphere?

Changing - easily?
The first benefit would be...nothing. What I mean is that, in a circular economy, while there will certainly be shifts in behavior and activity, there is no large-scale "call for change" that causes the everyday consumer to recoil, feel judged, and climb into their business as usual shell. Someone buying a printer, an area rug, or a chair could buy that item without much of a thought to what to do with it at the end of life because there would be a system developed around end-of-life reuse that would make it simple and straightforward to do. In fact, they would have to go out of their way to NOT have the item reused. In other words, the social benefit we reap is lower resistance to the concept and faster adoption. (Yes, this is idealized - there would certainly transitional challenges - and it's good to think of what could be.)

Lower Unemployment
While this certainly has economic implications, reducing unemployment has far-reaching social impacts as well. In a circular economy, regionally distributed remanufacturing and refurbishment hubs shift the overall costs associated with continued use from material to labor - specialized labor (essentially a renewable resource) at that. These jobs are kept locally and regionally, reducing the social challenges that accompany unemployment like depression, separated families, atrophying work skills, ill-health, and feelings of isolation. These all come with associated social costs as government an non-profits provide the services the unemployed need.

Lessening the Affects of Income Inequality
I suppose one could argue whether this is a "good" or a "bad". With a reuse and refurbish economy with a minimum amount of virgin materials used, consuming (in perhaps a new sense of the word - "using up") an item is a "good thing". The item enters the reuse stream as something requiring disassembly, assessment, and remanufacturing to be sold again to another user. So, the current linear system's relationahip between higher income, higher consumption and therefore higher resource use is flipped - no longer are the profligate spenders subjected to the judgment of their peers for being wasteful polluters. Could this have an impact on the current debate over income inequality? Maybe. I won't pretend that this is a utopian solution to creating universal harmony between the classes. I can imagine the creation of multiple, isolated circular economies where those with the most have the highest quality circular remanufacturing streams, those in the middle have the middle (if it exists) and those at the bottom have the least. In fact, what we might call the "circular economy" is already in practice in developing areas or where incomes are low and this it's done by necessity.

Building Social Capital Where we Live
When the housing bubble burst, contributing to the financial crisis and the economic downturn in 2008, our culture of mobility came to a screeching halt. The ease with which we jumped from house to house "trading up" and an unemployment rate on the rise, pulling up stakes and moving for a new opportunity was not simple. Despite the hand-wringing that comes when some sort of an "unsustainable" bubble burst, perhaps this is a good thing - we might start paying attention to where we are now, making improvements instead of seeing greener grass through every open gate. It's possible that in a circular economy, with distributed local and regional remanufacturing and reuse centers we'll be reconnected with both the organizations and people with which we share space with. The term "throwing away" could mean "throwing to the next town". It's not a forgone conclusion, but the opportunities to recreate civic bonds that have been lost according to some (see Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone) will be more plentiful.

Connecting Communities of all Sorts
One can imagine formal and informal value cycles emerging and self-organizing in business and personal communities, it's already happening through craigslist, freecycle, ebay, etsy, etc. In the B2B space, it will be formalized and institutionalized, with large scale companies sealing procurement/value cycling agreements that span years and revolve around delivering the services/value needed, not the items themselves (think cloud computing). What social impacts will this form of supply chain collaboration create? At the individual/consumer level, people seek out their neighbors and/or regional organizations that can use their stuff and connect with like-minded individuals that may share other aspects to build community resilience and inter-dependency.

What's missing?

Part 1 - Creating the Circular Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 01:41:00 +0000

What was this again?

In my last post about Cora, a new project I am enamored with using mobile technology to help solve our "waste" problem, I mentioned that one of the reasons I think what they're doing is so cool is because "They're helping preserve and recreate our relational/circular economy".

What is a Circular Economy?

When I say "circular economy", I'm referring to an economy modeled on natural systems where there is no waste - "waste" is an input for other processes. Raw materials, once extracted from the earth, are continually circulated in the industrial system as industrial nutrients. Products are designed to be disassembled and reused, or designed to be an input into another product at their end-of-life. In the industrial ecosystem there are losses along the way (friction - tires, brake pads, band saw blades, etc.) and as part of this thinking those losses are digestible in Nature. Eventually, a material's industrial utility has ended. At that point, as part of a circular economy, the material may be reintroduced into Nature without any harmful impact. Of course, energy is required to re-purpose industrial waste and/or transport it for its next use. In an ideal scenario, this energy is derived from renewable sources - including harvesting the heat generated from the very processes the materials are used in. I'm drawing upon my memory of The Natural Step and Cradle to Cradle for this definition.

I wrote the comment "helping preserve and recreate our relational/circular economy" in passing, almost as a "no-brainer". Then, I read an article from Fast Company's co.exist design site mentioning the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's "Towards the Circular Economy" report prompting me to think intently about what it would take to make it happen. The answer: a lot.

We think about resource use and flow linearly

We've created linear systems of resource flow; we pull something out of the ground, throw a lot of energy into it in the form of manufacturing, use it up and throw it back into the ground. We recycle, that's true, though looking at mining company financial performance one might conclude that rates of raw material extraction continue to climb. You see, collectively, we generally believe that an item has a useful life and when we're done with it, it's value is minimal or zero - to the point where it is in our best interest to toss it away as valueless, and replace it. We're essentially making an economic decision based upon an item's utility under current social conventions and economic incentives.

We require a shift in perceived value at an object's end-of-life

When something is "used up" from an individual perspective - its value to someone else or another organization may be high. As one of my reuse friends said, "We're so used to buying it instead of making it for ourselves that there's more [social] legitimacy in an item we purchase than if we make exactly the same thing for ourselves at home." Developing a secondary economy of reuse and upcycling (as is already happening) will help drive change in economic policy to support reuse. It's not the engineers, energy geeks, and cradle-to-cradle worshippers that see a circular economy as obvious, it's consumers, politicians, gen X, Y, Z, millennials, AARP members, football stars, prom queens, liberals, conservatives, communists, and capitalists - all of which may be reusers and creative upcyclers.

I focused on the physical/material portion of a circular economy in my earlier definition. There's much more to it. Breaking it down, I see it in three levels (as with most "sustainability" frameworks or buzzwords its a triumvirate like "people, planet, profit", "triple bottom line", "triple top line", ESG, CSR, etc.)

Socially - we meet and exchange goods and services with people we know (probably nearby) and in the process build and strengthen social connections and communities
Economically - the goods we exchange have economic value, and the longer those goods circulate in the "material world" the more value they provide for their users and society
Environmentally - large amounts of energy were used to create these items, by keeping them circulating, we're improving our EROI and preventing the introduction of indigestible post-human waste into the biosphere

Up next, the the social elements of the circular economy.

Using What Appears to be Useless

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:24:00 +0000

What the heck do you do with these?

I'm going to ask you to bear with me on something that is probably NOT remotely part of your consciousness - what the heck can you do with a few thousand used Wolfgang Puck coffee pod wrappers?

Yes, that is correct, coffee pod wrappers.

You know what I'm talking about. It may not be coffee pod wrappers for you, maybe it's baby food jars, or those little cardboard thermal wrap things that come with certain brands of coffee, or used bicycle inner tubes, or used coffee bean bags, or the crinkly wrapping paper that comes with takeout, or something completely different. Things you look at and say "what a waste...why are we sending thousands of these a year to a landfill". Sure, some of these items may be recycled - hopefully lots of them are - and there are things that cannot be recycled, and/or might have more value if they were kept in the material world and not broken back down and remade into something completely different. After all, "recycling" (which is really downcycling at times as an item is make into something of lesser value) requires energy of some sort right?

OK, you may not be obsessing about this kind of stuff, but when you stop and think about it for a few minutes does it really make sense to bury something in the ground after we've invested who knows how much energy to pull it out of the ground and make it into something useful?

What to do? There are services like freecycle and craigslist to connect people with used stuff with people that want the used stuff (I successfully passed along ~200 CD jewel cases a few years ago to a library) and a continually developing collaborative consumption and person-to-person ecosystem that might be considered and outgrowth of the ever present DIY, voluntary and involuntary simplicity, and reuse/upcycle community.

I recently learned about a project I'm excited about (and helping to spread the word about them)
seeking to connect the dots in all these communities - they're building a mobile app built on top of a curated database that will make it easy to find out what to do with the thirty empty bags of dog food in your garage or the empty 5 gallon buckets from your latest home improvement project.
It's called Cora - Trash Backwards.

Why I like it?

As much as mobile devices are contributing to our waste problem, they're not going anywhere anytime soon so we might as well leverage them to help solve the problem they contribute to
The Cora message is about the positive and creative things we can do with these items, and the personal connections made when we creatively reuse - not hand-wringing, guilt-ridden pleas to "save the planet" (though that's the ultimate goal, right?)
They're helping preserve and recreate our relational/circular economy. We're now skewed toward a linear/transactional economy
I'm fascinated (and sometimes flummoxed) by the intersection of internet technology/communication and old-fashioned DIY/build it yourself culture in the real world

So head on over to their Kickstarter page (kickstarter is a clearinghouse for creative projects looking for financial help to get off the ground) check them out, make a small investment and soon you'll be able to creatively reuse the stuff you're not sure what to do with. You can get a sneak peek of how their app works here.

What Charlie Brown Taught Me About Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:12:00 +0000

image from http://www.x-entertainment.com/

The Holiday Season may not be the best time to be concerned about sustainability and the environment. It's all about BUY, BUY, BUY. Heck, the term Black Friday, despite its morbid etymology is looked forward to with glee (at least for retailers, though Black Friday sales may not be all they're cracked up to be as an economic indicator). Even Lucy tells Charlie Brown in A Charlie Brown Christmas that Christmas is run by a "big eastern syndicate" whatever that meant to an eight year old in 1965.

Guilt occasionally accompanies my acts of consumption, feelings that "buying of stuff" (perhaps phrased differently as "participating in the marketplace") is the root cause of much of our environmental and social justice concerns.

To be clear, my level of guilt is influenced by my emotional seeding at the time:

what have I been reading (failblog, The Economist, Orion Magazine)?
what am I buying?
why am I buying it? (fodder for a doctoral thesis)
what's it for?
Maybe I should listen to Linus

It dawned on me as I had lunch with an old friend a few weeks ago that guilt associated with participating in the market may be misplaced. He's working on the EASE Initiative, an interesting project linking organizations working along the value chain of social change while building a marketplace with a "do good" undercurrent. Another friend's soon-to-be active company here in New England believes in the need for markets, and has asked questions about the kind of markets they'd like to participate in and and come up with their own answers. Nearby Registry (coming in the Spring of 2012) will engage people in the tradition of gift-giving for special life events while supporting local businesses and building community capital. The conclusion I've drawn from these two examples?

It's not the act of consumption that is the problem, it's how we consume.

Participating in markets and consuming goods has been a part of human culture since we organized settlements 12-15,000 years ago. It was the way we connected with each other and obtained the goods we needed. It was a RELATIONSHIP economy and in it's purest, earliest form it was strictly trade; you traded with someone you trusted and with whom there was a mutually beneficial need to trade (my bushel of dried cod for your sweet flint, animal hide, and oak-handled handmade axe). While we traded we built social capital among our tribes and villages, such that when the guy I traded my cod with had an issue with a bear, I might help out.

As our societies and economies developed we moved from relational purchases to transactional purchases, with the pace accelerating as we tapped into the wealth of stored solar energy that is fossil fuels over the past 200 years or so. Much of the social capital developed through relational transactions as you picked up books, shoes, groceries, coffee, etc. at your local merchants is now missing from villages, in essence "shipped out" to centralized, on and off-line retailing companies. Trust is still a factor - the fact that Amazon can launch a campaign during the Holiday season encouraging people to act as their market research associates by using local independent bookstores as showrooms for $5.00 illustrates this point. What does this say about who we trust and what we value?

So, were am I going with all this?

There is a need for markets
What kind of markets do we want?
What businesses do you trust?
What businesses do you want to trust?

I've bought stuff online (a lot of stuff - and from Amazon too) and I'm not advocating that we return to a barter economy (though, depending upon what you read and believe, that could happen whether we want it or not) only that we pause to think about what we buy, how we buy, and why we buy and what the answers to those questions mean to us as individuals, our communities, and the world around us.

Here are a few resources that I found interesting...I am sure there are many more. What do you have to say?

Shift Your Shopping
Collaborative Consumption
The Story of Stuff
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
The Gospel of Consumption
Mineral Information Institute - What one Human Needs
National Association of Manufacturers

(re)Connecting for Change 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:34:00 +0000

For the third year running, I decided to head down to New Bedford, MA for the last day of the Marion Institute's Connecting for Change event, a Bioneers by the Bay conference described as:

...an internationally acclaimed annual gathering of environmental, industry, and social justice innovators who have demonstrated visionary and practical models for restoring the Earth and its inhabitants.

I enjoyed my visits to the event over the past few years, and was curious about what would be different (if anything) from what I'd experienced in the past considering the Occupy protests underway nationally and internationally. Given some of the comments I saw written in the community sign-making area, it appeared that a few people were aligned with the Occupy protesters.

My visit focused on the speakers and performers gracing the stage of the Zeiterion Theatre, an historic space in downtown New Bedford standing as symbol to New Bedford's once (and future?) status in the nation's and regional economy.

Unfortunately, I underestimated the drive time to New Bedford (badly) and missed William Foote of Root Capital. I've heard of the organization, and would have liked to have heard first hand about their mission to make finance for small-scale farmers in the developing world work.

I caught the end of Mercy Bell's performance (a nice way to arrive) and settled into the crowd to take in the rest of the morning's speakers and performers. John Francis - Planetwalker's mixture of serious thoughts with one-liner levity made his message of taking responsibility for our individual impact on future generations easier to swallow. His "A-ha!" moment came in 1971; he decided to forgo motorized transportation, after he and his wife drove down from their house to the San Francisco Bay to view an oil spill resulting from a tanker collision. He realized that his actions were part of the problem, and he could do something about it. Then, on his 27th birthday, he gave everyone a "gift"; he did not talk for the day. Quickly, he realized that when he did not talk, he listened - intensely - and learned things that he missed when he was thinking about what he was going to say.

Chachi Carvalho took the stage for a powerful rap performance. I find Bioneers by the Bay interesting because they integrate arts into their programming about solutions-based sustainability and social justice. These performances provided a brief respite for my mind to process what I just heard and exposed me to things I would otherwise not experience.

John Perkins was next, sharing thoughts about native cultures' prophesies associated with 2012. We're not talking about the movie versions of 2012 but the mythological versions of multiple native cultures. His scheduled partner, Llyn Roberts was unable to make it and unfortunately I did not get the name of her replacement (I believe her first name was Liza). The story of the Eagle and the Condor helps illustrate the multiple versions of this story. The Eagle represents the society of the intellect and mind an the Condor represents the society of the heart and spirit. We're at the time where these two societies have the chance to combine and the next phase of humanity's growth....combining the best of both. What else might we combine?

left & right
for & non-profit
industry & environment
oil & water

My restless nature revealed itself toward the end of the morning as I fell in and out of the auditorium. Kari Fulton climate justice and new media activist of checktheweather.tv and Laurie David writer of The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect... joined us. The key take-a-way from Kari was that "future justice" happens now - the decisions we make today will affect those coming after us - we have a moral responsibility to think in the long-term. Laurie made the point that everything we need to address as a society - economic, social, educational, environmental (and more) issues - crosses the family dinner table.

Remember that awkward holiday dinner moment when someone brought up a politically charged topic? It may have been awkward, and those moments are necessary as we process our social challenges.

Here's the full program of the weekend's events.

I appreciated the people people tweeting from the event. I was not there Friday or Saturday so searching by the event organizer's pre-determined twitter hashtag #cfc2011 provided some small bits of insight into what was happening. Depending upon the type of event and the content people share, I find this immensely valuable.

I am sure there is much more to say about Bioneers, Connecting for Change, and the Marion Institute...thoughts?

What Will be (Y)our Legacy?

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:00:00 +0000

image from www.the-perfectshape.com/

The birth of my first child and the recent deaths of two innovative American business leaders prompted me to think about what we're leaving behind.

The innovators I'm referring to are Steve Jobs of Apple and Ray Anderson of Interface.

Before their deaths, I'd fallen into the habit of reading The Economist's obituary upon receiving each new issue. I found myself seeking information about how people were remembered upon their passing, and appreciating the wide range of personalities featured there; "celebrities" of a different sort, most of which I had never heard of and maybe should have. They made their marks in different ways and in different places in the arts, politics, social justice, sport, etc. This weekly reading brings up questions about my legacy, our generational legacy, and society's values reflected in who we collectively remember, celebrate, or demonize.

With that in mind...

It's easy to understand the volume of celebratory media coverage; blogging, writing, reporting, and business hand-wringing about the loss of Steve Jobs. He was truly an American icon in the technology world, contributing to the transformation of how we experience communication technology and consume information. In many ways, Ray Anderson was just as iconic a visionary leader in the corporate sphere, but instead of seeking to transform our lives with access to information through personal technology, he was seeking to transform manufacturing, rebuilding a company with zero impact on our planet.

It's easy to see why Steve Jobs is celebrated, his design influence has touched millions globally since Apple's early days with Steve Wosniak in the late 70's. In fact, according to John Maeda at RISD, he brought "design" as a discipline into the world of technology, making it consumer technology such that just about anyone could pick up or plug in an Apple product and start using it. Apple's products (with a heavy dose of his perfectionist design input) made it easier for people with access to the products to generate, experience, and share media in many forms and encouraged innovation in other disciplines like publishing and medicine because of what they could do with Apple's devices. I may not own any Apple products (gasp!) and I'm a beneficiary of their innovations.

As a consumer society generally enamored with bright and shiny advances in technology, Apple's products fit quite nicely. We celebrate them because they conform to our perception of advancement, moving forward, of gaining access to more and varied content, and looking ahead to the next great thing. These are admirable qualities in many ways, though we tend to gloss over the underlying problems associated with relentless consumer electronic advancement, like where are these made? Where does the energy required to make this device come from? What happens to it when it's obsolete in 6 months? What about the digital divide?

Ray Anderson took the entrepreneurial leap in the 70's as well, betting his future on modular floor-coverings, depending upon your point-of-view, not as sexy as consumer electronics. After building a successful company through the 1990's Ray was asked by his employees to help them launch a sustainability initiative driven my customer demand. Not knowing where to start, he read Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce and had what can be called an epiphany - his company, and therefore he, was a despoiler of the earth, an ecological criminal - their activities extracted natural resources, processed them into forms that were not digestible by nature at their end of life, leaving the responsibility for their disposal elsewhere. It was then that he committed to making Interface an ecologically neutral company. Consumers' wide-eyed Apple gadget awe may not be duplicated when they learn about the Interface FLOR carpet tile solution. They're made of 100% recycled material that, when worn out, is torn up, disassembled, and remade into a new FLOR tiles, closing the loop of industrial nutrients.

What's more empowering, taking a picture and sharing it with the world from wherever you are or knowing that there's a company seeking to reduce their impact on the earth to zero?

Imagine if Ray and Steve had met and had a conversation, and Ray told Steve about his "spear in the chest" realization about his contribution to despoiling the earth and the need to take action to preserve the planet's resources for his children and grandchildren. Imagine if Mr. Jobs' design vision not only encompassed the customer's use with the customer, but with the eventual return of Apple's products to the biosphere with no impact. Wow. There have been advances in electronic recycling, and Apple is among the companies taking action, is it enough?

To be clear, I'm not seeking to tear anyone down nor do I have some clear-eyed answer to how we proceed as a society in times of rapid technological change and finite natural resources. What I am proposing is that we pause to question our assumptions about what progress is, what we remember and celebrate, and perhaps cast our forward-looking gaze a bit further down the road thinking about how our actions will affect generations to come...what are we leaving behind?

Rekindling the Green Mojo

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 15:32:00 +0000

image from http://4.bp.blogspot.com

Could someone pass me that can of Green/Sustainable/Socially Just/Free Range Whoop Ass over there?

I seem to have misplaced my passion for creating a sustainable future over the past few years. Once I left the like-minded, change agent- friendly, we can save the world environment of BGI, and lost the energy I drew from it, things....slowed....down.

Most of my efforts at work to help us establish a cohesive recycling program have been placed on the back burner. I'm the first to admit that my real job responsibilities have trumped my voluntary work "on the side". I'm wagering that's an issue many people with green intentions struggle with.

I tend to believe that my green inertia was rooted in feeling overwhelmed by the environmental and social challenges facing "the world" (these are all inter-related as far as I can tell);

climate change
political upheaval in various places
natural disasters
energy (where it comes from and where it WILL come from)
economic uncertainty
bigotry and social inequity
food supply issues
etc., etc.

Oh, and then we had a child...so now we're charged with shepherding this little person into and through the world for the rest of our lives. What I've found is that while the birth of our child certainly increased my sense of responsibility, its hasn't exacerbated the overwhelmed feeling when thinking about those issues mentioned above. Instead, it's served as a bit of a kick-start for getting that Green Mojo back...to think about how to make a positive impact no matter the scale.

Interesting.

What keeps your Green Mojo charged up?

Place-Based Education - Creating Bio-regional Economies

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:15:00 +0000

Image from Friends of Tarrywile Park

With the arrival of Earth Day I started thinking about how we might best achieve what the day symbolizes. That got me thinking about articles I've seen highlighting new perspectives on our educational system, how it contributes to a sustainable future (does it?), and how we might modify it to achieve agreed upon social goals while preparing people for the economy in which we live. Complicated? Nah...here are a few ideas...

The founder of Fair Trade Sports and BGI marketing instructor Scott James penned a blog post on Forbes.com offering some ideas that made sense to me:

Not everyone...aspires to attend a four-year degree program. In fact, some of the brighter high school students are wise enough to see the amount of debt they would be saddled with after a four-year program, and take a pass on it. As more motivated and smart students opt out of the four-year college program altogether, the idea of a re-skilling college seems more viable.

Think of a reskilling college as a new, hyper-local version of the defunct trade school, focused on teaching the specific skills needed to thrive as entrepreneurs in this age, tailored to the unique aspects of the bioregion (Washington State companies will be different from Florida companies). The world may currently be flat, but when cheap energy goes away, life (and our companies) will become much more regionally focused.

Regionalization makes a lot of sense; (ideologically, I'm on board) and economically, if one assumes that rising energy prices will crimp global supply chains (as is already happening) "re-regionalization" is going to happen. Why not plan for it now?

Then I saw this from Carol Sanford on the BGI Sustainable Business Blog looking at the concept of sustainability in business. Why did I think about this is the context of education? These concepts must be integrated in our educational curriculum from start to finish, including business education if we're to have meaningful long-term change.

First: We have to stop working on saving, protecting, conserving, and restoring the environment. These ideas are not based on living systems or on creating healthy ecosystems. Instead, we have to understand the working of Life-sheds and how we can engage with Life as an integral player in the ecosystem to support self-regenerating capacity. We have to stop thinking of Life-sheds as environments outside of us that we are responsible to steward, and know instead that humans and businesses are included in the working of Life, inside their ecosystems, not outside of them.

Second: We have to stop using market and customer research, classifying buyers by demographics and generally effacing the lives of the individuals we seek to benefit. We have to build champions inside our businesses who know and care for the lives of stakeholders outside our walls. Then we can be deeply responsible for the health, vitality, and fulfillment of people who trust and count on businesses to do what they cannot or do not want to do for themselves.

Third: We have to stop using the concept of suppliers and employees, especially as we conceive of their roles now. We have to re-imagine them as co-creators in the pursuit of beneficial effects in the lives of customers and other stakeholders. A responsible business’s offerings flow continuously from Earth to Earth—from concept and resources all the way to reinvestment of “waste” into something of higher value than downwardly recycled compost. When we know that businesses are living systems within other living systems, then we understand that there are no supply chains. There are no chains, period. There are only value-adding processes.

The "Life-sheds" Carol referred to might be considered the bio-regional economies as Scott referred to them, or maybe that's too limiting. Either way, I find it fascinating to think about bio-regional "states" that leverage their inherent resources to provide goods and services within their boundaries as a hedge against disruptions in the global economy.

This wonderful news from the NYTimes on the problem of skating through undergrad business school caught my attention, as it ties into the "why" of higher education.

Scholars in the field point to three sources of trouble. First, as long ago as 1959, a Ford Foundation report warned that too many undergraduate business students chose their majors “by default.” Business programs also attract more than their share of students who approach college in purely instrumental terms, as a plausible path to a job, not out of curiosity about, say, Ronald Coase’s theory of the firm.

“Business education has come to be defined in the minds of students as a place for developing elite social networks and getting access to corporate recruiters,” says Rakesh Khurana, a professor at Harvard Business School who is a prominent critic of the field. It’s an attitude that Dr. Khurana first saw in M.B.A. programs but has migrated, he says, to the undergraduate level.

Certainly, emerging from an educational institution with skills applicable to the economy in which one functions is important. Yet, if we're simply churning out pegs to insert into functional holes without adding critical thought to the process and the education, are we adding value to society as a whole?

What about the physical spaces in which we learn? They influence how we experience education in subtle ways we may not quite fully appreciate. I was fortunate to experience what might be considered and "alternative" learning environment at Islandwood on Bainbridge Island...and loved it. This Fast Company feature from last year offers some interesting insights into design of facilities we call "schools". They're akin to learning factories...how might we design these spaces to foster the learning we seek while instilling a sense of responsibility to the world we share?

The ultimate question is (no, not that!), what are we seeking to accomplish with our educational system?

This is a complex issue and I am sure there is more to add to the conversation...please add your thoughts.

April Fools'...

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 11:14:00 +0000

...well, not really.

I had grand designs of creating an Onion-esque news piece complete with video and multiple blog entries about Facebook and other social networks deciding to "upgrade" their users' accounts to automatically generated QR code profiles; they would look at all your "stuff" on the network and mash it all together into a code that someone could scan or click on and get an online summary of "who you are". The kicker is that you'd have no say on how the description came out, therefore, unlike The Kennedys, you'd be better served actually dealing with it and seeking to change the things that go into "The Profile" instead of suppressing it. The other idea was that Facebook's overall page layout was one big code scanable by special marketing computers located in third world countries to enable massive "social spamming"...

Do me a favor and drop a quick comment if you read this...I'll take any suggestions for pranks (that I'll think about and never do) for 2012

So, if you bothered to can the QR code expecting a Rick Roll or something like that, here's your opportunity.

Oh, and in the cruelest of April Fools' jokes, it's snowing here in the Boston area. Nice.

Have a great weekend.

Cars versus Cyclists (social media can help fix it!)

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:56:00 +0000

Image: Terry McAfee

I was prompted to revisit my thoughts on the relationship between automobile drivers and bicyclists as I joined my first group ride of 2011 last weekend. As a bicyclist and an automobile driver explanations like "cyclists are scofflaws that do not belong on the road" and "car-drivers are selfish jerks" are far too simplistic; first of all, cyclists are allowed to be on the roads, and not all car drivers are selfish jerks.

So, what's going on? It's a systemic problem, we all have roles to play, no one wants to share, and no one wants to wait anywhere for anything at anytime.

As the predominant form of transportation for many, the automobile has an important place in our society. Roads are an integral piece of cultural and economic development dating back to humanity's development of settlements about 12,000 years ago or so. They may not be so critical to cultural development now-a-days and still serve as the often-clogged arteries of our economy. We've focused on building roads for motorized vehicles for the past 100 years; with that in mind it's easy to see why automobile drivers feel they have the right to proceed unimpeded by anything, let alone a cyclist. I'll admit, when I strap myself into a car, fire up the radio, and enter the fray, I'm not so thrilled to see a police officer directing traffic or a group of cyclists impeding my progress.

It comes down to a lack of shared responsibility for each other on the roads; each person feels they're more entitled than anyone else to get where they want to go, whether it's car-to-car, car-to-bus, dump truck-to-car, bus-to-taxi, bike-to-bike, pedestrian-to-car, etc. The big difference with the [insert motorized transport here]-to-bike/pedestrian is the balance of power. Until traffic rules are enforced for things like tail-gating, failure to signal turns, poor headlight adjustment, stopping for pedestrians, etc., not much will change.

Let's turn to the rainbows and unicorns of social media to see how we might solve this problem! With it's ability to bridge divides and bring about revolutions I'm sure we can leverage it to help solve this problem, right? Considering that there is evidence that we seek out information that confirms our beliefs and facts that refute our beliefs are summarily discounted perhaps the key lies in joining groups that support the other side of the issues we're passionate about. Gasp! What would we learn about each other if a pro-bike advocate were to participate in an anti-bike Facebook community? Anything? Would it be fruitless? Useful? Infuriating? All of the above?

I did some searching and planned to join the roads are for cars not bicycles. get off the road!! group but there's been no activity for nearly a year (did their passion run out?). Hmm...I checked out Get off the road D__KHEAD! as it seemed like the next logical choice but there's been nothing since last August, and it's based in Australia, no dialogue to seek there. The Petition to keep cyclist off the road and on the sidewalk! group is based in Vancouver, BC.

I checked a bunch more...not much going on. Maybe Facebook isn't the place for this mending of fences after all. Where should I turn?

What's Your Cultural Change Character?

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:53:00 +0000

It's recently come to my attention that I might be a curmudgeon.

It's alarming. When I think of that word, I think of an old man (in my case) railing against the status quo and generally longing for simpler times, which generally occurred when he was young. And, if you did not agree with him, you're an idiot.

This realization dawned on me as I read Alan Atkisson's Believing Cassandra. It was given to me a few years ago and promptly lost in the best intentions of my sustainable reading pile. I wish I'd read it sooner; it does a good job of addressing the reasons I play the curmudgeon (bordering on iconoclast) far too often and offers tools to help me take on other roles that I might like.

Take a look at the figure above, the Anatomy of Culture Change. Does the curmudgeon really help move something forward? Is that where one would like to be when it comes to creating a sustainable future (moving a new idea forward)? No. There are times when I act the change agent, and maybe the transformer (depending upon mood) but the curmudgeon takes over all too often.

Take a look at Mr. Atkisson's terms for culture change types [emphasis mine and you may note similarities to types from Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm]:

Innovators: person or group who invents, discovers, or otherwise initiates a new idea
Change Agents: people who actively and effectively promote new ideas
Transformers: early adopters - gatekeepers for an idea making it to the mainstream
Mainstreamers: the majority of the culture
Laggards: late adopters - satisfied with the status quo; change when they have to
Reactionaries: actively resist change - may have a vested interest in the status quo
Iconoclasts: angry critics of the status quo; nay-sayers not idea-generators
Spiritual Recluse: contemplatives that withdraw to seek, and preach, eternal truths
Curmudgeons: change efforts are useless; they project disillusionment & disappointment and can derail change efforts

So where do you fit now? Have you taken the initiative with something, attempting to bring it into a new place? Maybe you're ambivalent to it all, and will await whatever happens, riding the waves of change that make it to the middle of the road.

The real question is...

Who are you and what role do you want to play?

Personality Types; Are You Primed for Social Media?

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I've been talking to small, mission-driven business owners/founders I know about how they utilize social networking tools like blogs, twitter, Facebook, etc. to build relationships with their customers and prospects and to tell their stories. I've come to the conclusion that personality types have something to do with their willingness to explore and use these powerful engagement outlets; (image from towerofpower.com.au)

those on the introverted side of the spectrum tend to be less likely to spontaneously start using these tools than those with an extroverted tendency.

OK, my sample size is small, and I did not administer the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (or any other such test)...and cross-reference it with their marketing activities. If I include friends and acquaintances that I know on and offline and there engagement in these networks there seems to be something to this.

It's distinctly possible that it's not just the use of social media that small-business/ entrepreneurial personalities all along the intro-extroverted spectrum struggle with. Depending upon the nature of their businesses and their skills, its distinctly possible that their overall use of any kind of communications to tell their story and reach customers suffers. One might posit that someone with an operational background might be less likely to spend the 16th hour of their day attending to twitter (which they need to do during working hours by the way) instead of working on their latest packaging machine challenge. It's also possible that they're so passionately engaged in their work & mission, something they've committed to with heart and soul, that they're lost in their own story and believe that everyone else already "gets it".

Regardless of the small-business owners' proclivities and personality types, the people that might buy their products/services or are talking about things relevant to their businesses use these social networking tools. And, the beauty of these services is that they're pretty darn easy to set up. Of course, content is king so a blank Facebook page may not be very engaging, and could end up hurting the business if left that way.

Has anyone else experienced this in their conversations with mission-driven/small business/ entrepreneurial types?

People WANT to Buy From Your Small Business

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:19:00 +0000

Why do people tweet and or post (wherever it may be) their dismay after getting a “talk-to-the-hand” response from the regular customer service channels? BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BE HEARD! They want to connect with someone that might treat them like a person instead of a transaction and solve their problem. Social media tools offer cost-effective ways for small locally-focused companies to listen to what customers are asking for and respond, building their community of brand advocates - and their business.

Give them a better option...listen to what they're asking for...set up a twitter account with your company's basic information and create a Google or socialmention alert (search kurrently and collecta if you're so inclined) for competitors in your community, looking for people posting comments that ask for help. See what you get. You may need to tweak the searches to get what's relevant to the solutions you provide. Imagine if you heard someone seeking a resolution to a problem that you could solve, when they complained about someone else (maybe that anonymous big-box store down the street, or even in the next town). Once you offer a solution that meets their immediate need (and you serve them well) you have the opportunity to invite them back and go about developing a long term relationship, telling the story of your business and why it matters to them and the city or town they live in.

Something I read late last year made me think about this “Delta said it sees social media channels like Twitter and Facebook as a chance to offer better customer service. So it created a channel called @DeltaAssist and told workers in the social-media lab to offer customers quick fixes, such as rebookings and reimbursements. Sometimes that means even waiving rules that consumers typically find unbendable at airlines.”

If there are enough customers using this channel to communicate with the companies they do business with, and they see it as a way around the traditionally unsatisfying customer service channels, it seems that you better be listening. If the term "twitter" and "Facebook" are new to you, maybe it's time to take a look and enter the fray, with listening the first priority.

Reflections of Self...

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 01:16:00 +0000

I engaged in a friend's [insert social network here] conversation about the air rage associated with people's rights and responsibilities to use the power of the reclining seat. (image from dbagjournal)

The article summary: it's interesting to note that the author presents the "for" and "against" recline opinions. What I did not see in the article was a summary of seat purchase "terms & conditions" from various airlines; is the unfettered use of the seat pocket and tray table in front of you part of your "seat space" right? If so - depending upon the spacing of the rows - this is clearly in conflict with the reclining ability of the person seated in front. In the article, etiquette expert Lizzie Post concludes:

The courteous person will choose to not recline their seat for the entire duration of the flight. ... [But] I do think that the person who, unfortunately, has the seat coming back into their lap has to get over the fact that that's just the reality of the situation.

A comment made in the ensuing conversation stuck with me, something about there being no moral requirement that an individual sacrifice personal comfort for the sake of someone else's comfort - the implication being that one may recline at will and be free of any responsibility for said reclining's affect on those seated behind you. Interesting.

Does this comment provide any insight into how societies treat each other in the global community? What I'm wondering is if individual actions "trickle up" through our local, regional, and national elected officials to be made manifest in our international relationships. If we're OK with this, do we elect people that are OK with it too?

What I'm getting at is the thought that we're collectively responsible for the well-being of those that share our global community through our individual actions reflected in the actions of the societies we inhabit.

Is this far too simplistic a conclusion?

For me, the key portion of Ms. Posts comment above rests in the word courteous (connecting to the comment about shared responsibility & moral responsibility). Perhaps my simplistic conclusion that the lack of courtesy displayed in small daily interactions leads to a lack of inter-societal courtesy may be reversed by heeding Ms. Post's admonition; those less privileged need not be saddled with a global seat back in their face.

So, going back to my question, is there a shared responsibility for "comfortable" societies to forgo some of those comforts for the sake of others?

Perhaps something as simple as an International Call for Courtesy between people and Nations is required (how naive is that?!). How about we change our Facebook avatars to include Emily Post's Blue Book of Etiquette (or something) in the background and open doors for people, wave people into traffic, and perform other random acts of courtesy for a week (hopefully longer) and share the stories in our feeds. It is The Holidays after all.

What would that accomplish? Would it "trickle up" through communities and governments in a few years? Would it end up as another in a long line of slacktivist acts?

Happy Holidays!

Were Natural Products Expo East Participants Sharing?

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Maceyka) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:45:00 +0000

Thanks to a friend of mine with a small start up in the healthy snacking space, I had a free pass to the Natural Products Expo East earlier this month. I was most curious about how brands present themselves in the physical space of the show and how (if) they connect this image to online social media interactions. Despite the fact that the show is for producers, distributors, retailers, and others in the natural products industry (not consumers) my assumption was that I'd see "follow us on twitter!" and "connect with us on Facebook!" signs in many booths...that was not the case (image from naturalproductsbiz.com).

I'd also heard that there were product samples galore at this event, so I packed a spare bag for what could be a good haul of new & familiar products to try.

I had good conversations with a few companies about social media, though my assumption about neon signs blinking "follow us" and "connect with us" was clearly misplaced. With so many companies and limited time I am sure I missed some interesting people and engagement projects. Of the conversations I did have, I appreciated the ones with ECOS Products, Champlain Orchards, and Crofter's Organic.

What was interesting to me was the variety of strategies (or lack thereof) for these brands' social media efforts. From having someone on staff as the Director of Social Media to someone wrapping the function into their existing responsibilities. It was clear that they understood that there was value in their social media efforts, but not clear about what that value is.

Integrating social media efforts into a customer relationship management strategy, marketing campaigns, and measuring the results is the interesting space. The measurement piece is what most companies are interested in, and the area that must be approached cautiously; it is crucial to establish relationships with customers & stakeholders maintaining the authenticity of the brand without turning social media into a PR channel.

Given the importance of word of mouth in purchasing decision-making and the speed with which WOM may travel in social networks, I was surprised that seeking to connect offline and online actions was seemingly not a priority.

For those social media advocates, professionals, and users that attended the event, what do you think? How much did I miss?