Conscious Business

Everything's An Algorithm

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:50:00 +0000

A recent Wall Street Journal article caught my eye. Scott Morrison writes that Google is using algorithms in their efforts to manage and retain talent.

When you have a really big data analysis hammer, do even your people look like a nail?

Smart people have been talking about something that makes intuitive sense: it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a subject.

That's 3 years of full time effort.

Organizations need people to master their jobs. So it's important to hire good people. But that’s not enough.

Beyond mastery of basic job skills, people also need to practice navigating your organization (and an industry's culture).

In a big or complex company, can take years to log the hours of practice required to master the firm's particular code of etiquette. When you're writing code, you're getting better at writing code. Not politics; that's a separate practice.

If the organization itself has any meaning at all -- retaining people is important.

Some readers seemed to feel that Google's methods were a bit cold. Really?

An algorithm is "a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end especially by a computer," per Merriam-Webster.

On Saturday, I went out at 6am for coffee here in Lower Manhattan. Scanning the streets, quiet because of the holiday, I saw a man. Was he crazy looking? Yes. Did he appear motivated to bother me? No. Was there sufficient traffic nearby should my last determination be incorrect? Yes. Should I proceed to my coffee destination? Yes.

It's an algorithm.

We run algorithms in our heads all the time. I ran this one in about a second. ("The heels or the flats?" is a complex operation and may take longer.)

The algorithm is not the problem.

Problems: the wrong variables, assigning incorrect yes/no values -- and possibly most important, but least transparent: when we’re not sufficiently aware of how our algorithms work.

Which leads me to the dreaded "bad fit". The hire we never should have made.

It takes time, and costs money, to bring people into your ecosystem. When someone doesn’t fit, it's rarely pretty. And that costs you more time, and often money.

To hire the right people, you have to know what you want. The Google story caught my eye because we make our best hiring choices by being very clear with our algorithms.

Unless we're self-aware, our constantly running programs may not contain the correct variables. A degree from a particular school may not be a true indicator of success. We might misinterpret a line on a resume. Or we may not interview strategically.

Hiring the right people requires practice.

While interviewing skills are important, the more important work happens before we even talk to a candidate: practice selecting the correct variables.

When we select a particular degree to indicate that candidate can do a job, we may be right. And also dead wrong. It’s not whether he can do the job. It’s whether he will do the job. In your firm, and on your team.

That's an answer to a different question, or questions -- different pieces of the algorithm.

Were there other steps in my coffee algorithm I couldn't see, like whether I thought I could outrun the crazy guy to my neighborhood firehouse if I needed help? (Was I correct?)

The discipline of identifying the correct questions offers the opportunity to practice a kind of self-awareness. Not just a navel gazing exercise, because some unconscious steps in our algorithms (age, gender) might put our firms at risk.

And if you hire well, then you'll have Google's challenge: who to retain, and how to retain them.
Last year, at a panel discussion on talent management, I heard an executive from a global Fortune 500 consumer goods company say that his firm was investing 80% of the firm's training and development resources in 20% of their people -- the "high performers".

This doesn't sound like an investment to me. It sounds like a gamble.

It all boils down to what you want, and whether you want the right things.

(Photo: Jared's "Engraved Invaders", used under Creative Commons license. His beautiful algorithmic artwork on flickr sent me to his profile, which notes that he's a founder of Etsy. (If I had time, I'd be obsessed with Etsy.) Thanks, Jared.)

Paying Attention

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:25:00 +0000

I'm visiting family in the suburbs. This morning when we stepped out for coffee, the woman making our drinks was taking multiple orders.

Wearing a headset, she simultaneously juggled our drinks and asked a drive-through customer to repeat their order. I usually wind up amazed by the listening skills of the young people who make my coffee.

Today, we arrived home to find that we had gotten one drink that we hadn't ordered.

When we think we're "multi-tasking," we're actually quickly shifting our attention between multiple things. Sometimes this does not end well. (In the scheme of things, the wrong coffee was hardly an issue.)

Online today at Guardian.co.uk Peter Walker writes about introspection at business schools about their place in the credit crisis. The lede:

"When the former bosses of HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland were called before the Treasury select committee a month ago to explain exactly how their institutions got into the current mess, one question concerned formal banking qualifications. Just one of the four possessed anything remotely relevant: the Harvard MBA earned by Andy Hornby, the deposed HBOS chief executive."

Financial institutions used to provide lengthy and competitive credit training programs for people on banking tracks. In all of the finger pointing, the business press seems to have missed at least one interesting point: there has been a decline in credit training programs at financial institutions.

I studied finance at Wharton: that this was not, nor was it intended to be, a credit training program. An MBA is not a "formal banking qualification."

I've been paying attention, offline, to gathering background and content for the series on fear in the workplace (thus absent here). On deck: 3 posts on the media, including the financial media, and what contributes to their erroneous belief that an MBA might be a "formal banking qualification."

(And speaking of paying attention, I recently succumbed to Twitter. Frankly, I think that the crisis of attention today dwarfs the financial crisis...so I'll be interested to see how this whole thing works, and how the business case that keeps getting Twitter funding could possibly play out.)

(Photo: "paying attention", by flickr's zachstern used under Creative Commons license.)

Hope

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:51:00 +0000

New Yorkers participated in a shared dream yesterday. In a luminous confluence of talent, compassion, right effort, and what some would call karma, Circle Line and New York Waterway boats were alongside FDNY and NYPD, aiding the crew and passengers of the US Air jet that miraculously landed on the Hudson River.

The water temperature (as I heard on the news) is around 40F; if you're in that water, you lose mobility after a few seconds. By the time I was on my way home, it was clear that all were ok, and I stopped to chat with a local first responder, saying, "It's a miracle that you guys made it there so quickly." Characteristically, he responded that the Circle Line had gotten there first. We then agreed that people are good. (Generally.)

I spent the rest of the evening at a local restaurant with some neighborhood moms, gathered to support JustTell, a young non-profit led by Vivian Farmery. Some of the women's teenagers studied and ate at tables nearby as the group brainstormed about pulling together resources for a fundraiser and local outreach. (It's true, if you want something done, give it to a busy person!) One kid matter-of-factly spoke into his cell phone, "No, it wasn't a terrorist attack."

Before dawn this morning, I prepared for 11 degree (Fahrenheit) temperatures by donning layers (enough to prevent me from raising my arms above my shoulders) and walked over to the Hudson where the plane was tied up along the waterfront. I don't know what I expected to see, really.

I guess I was looking for hope realized.

What I saw was a bunch of news vans and emergency response vehicles, what I heard was a local newsperson rehearsing her pitch about a miracle, and what I felt was -- cold.

Ducking into the World Financial Center dressed for a hike in the Himalayas, I grabbed a double espresso, chatted briefly with an NTSB guy, and walked up to look out across the street at the construction on the World Trade Center site.

Warm and hopeful, and holding news images of people standing on the water outside the aircraft, I walked home. Grateful that lower Manhattan smelled like coffee and discarded Christmas trees, and not like tens of thousands of burning computers.

(OK, I'm feeling all arty and abstracty with my iPhone -- the photo is actually construction at the WTC site, with palm trees from the World Financial Center and my Himalayan silhouette reflected in the window.)

The Business of Creativity, Part I

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:36:00 +0000

The handmade movement here in the US links and aligns sustainability, authenticity and the infinite human capacity to create. All things I love to celebrate here.

New industries start on the fringes. (As I learned from Wendell Dunn, in the early days of the internet.)

After seeing a wide range of Americans -- mostly women, many with an agenda to recycle and consume less -- creating small home businesses from making and selling craft and art works, I started to watch.

I came across an excellent podcast episode, Craftypod's Making A Creative Career, With Kim Werker. Kim talks with Diane Gillieland about following her creative love as a career path.

If you're starting a business, invest 30 minutes to hear Kim's archetypal story of the ups and downs of making her avocation into her profession.

Please stay tuned, there's a more in-depth post on handmade in the works. And an update on another Conscious Business project -- I'm excited by the responses from some great people I've approached on the topic of fear as it operates in the workplace.

(Hat tip to Kim Fraser, Spoonflower's crafter-in-chief, for the heads up on Craftypod. Spoonflower produces print-on-demand fabric, with a potentially great business model combining elements of Threadless, Etsy, and Lulu. They use online so skillfully to tell their story that I wanted to hop on a plane to Raleigh-Durham for a visit. Fascinating.)

(and the photo -- a work in progress, I'm getting crafty myself and learning how to crazy quilt!)

Brownie Points: Wrapping Up the Holidays (and 2008)

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 20:49:00 +0000

Sustainability was entering the mainstream conversation when I started to write here at Conscious Business.

189 posts later, this space has been a laboratory for my learning, and a place to share what I’ve learned. Meandering and returning to one theme: how does our behavior at work matter?

Early on, I used my own experience to explore basics of environmental sustainability. In 2008, a few things converged in my on-line and off-line lives.

The sheer volume of media coverage on sustainability has both encouraged and disenchanted me. And I became more engaged in off-line sustainability efforts.

And my focus shifted to subtler views, particularly the ideal that sustainability means not wasting people. This past spring, I started a consulting business to help business owners and managers to engage optimally with our employees and colleagues.

Diverted by my non-virtual efforts, and encouraged that topics like water conservation will be amply covered by journalists and bloggers who have both passion and bandwidth, I’ve shifted some of the creativity and attention I once directed to blogging into developing my consulting business.

What a ride!

It has been challenging to stay out in front of people this fall. Many friends and clients are in financial firms; it has been tough to imagine how to connect with people when they are fearful of being booted, bought, or bailed out (or not).

Everyone is stressed, and I’ve started to offer workplace stress management programs. This has been an easier topic of conversation.

But with some people, and some firms, silence and compassion have seemed like the best approach.

And, brownies.

Baking is an excellent science for left brainiacs. Predictably delicious outcomes are almost assured when you use the best ingredients, measure and mix them correctly, and use the right tools.

I’m a pretty good baker, and home-baked breads, cookies and granola have been frequent gifts for my friends and family members.

In past holiday seasons, I’ve sent tins of Dean and Deluca cookies to business friends and clients. People seemed to love them. But this year, the faux homemade cookies in the elegant silver tin looked a little cold.

I intend for my business services to be handmade with good ingredients, and with care for how they are presented. So this year, I decided to bake that metaphor into brownies.

It was great fun to select and source the ingredients, tins, ribbons and cards. (Readers who know me may smile to hear that I used an excel spreadsheet as a project planning tool.)

I fell into a rhythm of baking early in the day, letting the brownies cool while I worked. In the afternoons, I’d construct the packages and schedule deliveries based on where I had other afternoon appointments.

(Knowing that recipients would have an abundance of available holiday sweets, the packages were petite, just enough for a couple of people to share a snack or two while they were fresh. And to avoid raising either the Grinch's ire, or true ethical concern, in firms where gift policies prevail.)

After all of this holiday fun – and it was fun -- it was heartening to see press coverage about home-baked gifts. The health blog at The New York Times, Well, posted at least two items.

Commenters on one NPR story shared my dismay with Claire Crespo’s suggestion that we use cake mix and canned frosting to make good looking gifts that make people smile.

Our willingness to value things that look good, but lack substance, has contributed to our current problems. And it literally feeds our health care challenges.

(Is canned frosting even food?)

I felt more aligned with Nicole Spridakis, who spoke of the pleasures of baking gifts from scratch; her results sound far more elegant than my simple brownies.

Holy Zeitgeist Batman, could home baking be an antidote to the financial crisis?

It seems that the raves I’ve won relate less to my baking prowess, and more to the power of a humble, but well constructed, bakery item to speak to a place in our hearts that can’t be touched by the markets.

That’s the kind of leadership we need -- in abundance -- as we approach this next and very hopeful new year. Eyes wide open.

(The photo is a few of my finished gift packages...I had a heck of a time keeping the ribbons tied onto the round tins. Sigh.)

Business Partnership: Interview with Virayoga's Elena Brower and Lynn Hazan-Devaul

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:00:00 +0000

The most frequently "hit" post on this blog is an article on business partnership.

Precious little information you find out there on partnership relates to what is -- in my opinion -- the most important ingredient of a partnership: the way that the partners manage the interpersonal nature of their business relationship.

Here's an article about an exemplary partnership in my circle, that of Elena Brower and Lynn Hazan-deVaul, owners of NYC yoga studio Virayoga. This article was posted this past spring to a website that serves the Anusara Yoga community in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut -- hence some of the yoga terms! (I'm cross posting here because it has been replaced by fresh content!)

(And on another yoga related update, I got a lovely note from Marsha Nieland of Fusion Studios in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. After flood waters subsided, they offered services to a member of the National Guard there helping in recovery work. They are on their way to rebuilding and reopening their business. You go!)

Here's the article.

(I think we called it "Elemental Truths about Yoga and Business Partnership".)
Anusara yoga teaches Universal Principles of Alignment by linking metaphor with physical action. The principles also provide powerful images for our lives off the mat.

Working relationships are fertile ground for practice -- particularly our close working relationships.

There's no closer working relationship than a business partnership.

Business partnership offers a seemingly simple and elegant support. When you're not feeling strong, someone else will be there with you. You'll have someone to lean on, a complement, shelter from the storm.

"It's like a marriage," says Virayoga's Lynn Hazan-Devaul. And like marriage, partnership is far from simple.

Virayoga has served the tri-state Anusara community since 2002. Its heart is the strong business partnership between Lynn and her partner, Vira's founder Elena Brower.

Consider the elements of this successful business partnership: actually, consider the elements, and the principles.

Space. Open to Grace.
Lynn and Elena joined forces shortly after Elena opened Virayoga's doors.

Lynn had been a devoted yoga student for many years, and a student of Elena's. Months into Vira's new life, Elena was overwhelmed by the behind-the-scenes work required to keep the business running. A friend who knew both women thought that Lynn's financial and management expertise could help. He suggested that the women meet, so that Lynn could take a look at the business.

Over a weekend, Lynn sorted through receipts and bank statements. By Sunday, Elena and Lynn were discussing partnership.

"It's about desire. You know, ask for what you want?" Lynn comments. After leaving a music industry job, she had told friends that she'd like to own a yoga studio one day.

Elena says that she saw Lynn as the perfect person with whom to join forces, “I was awestruck by Lynn’s deft embodiment of both business professionalism and spiritual awareness, for lack of a better phrase.”

And both shared a clear drive to serve. “Service is really the heart of teaching, and particularly of overseeing a studio." says Elena.

Earth. Muscular Energy.
The choice to proceed as partners emerged from that weekend. The women spent several months working together to develop a legal operating agreement that supports the partnership today.

The key to crafting a grounded agreement was honesty. Elena and Lynn each knew, and could clearly state, what she wanted and needed; each was willing to articulate these details and commit them to paper. The individual requirements were used to create their roles, and written into the partnership agreement. For example, the agreement states that part of Lynn's role is to manage and further Elena's career.

The partners also intended for the agreement to balance responsibility between them.

Each listened, and aligned with what was important to the other. The women also came to the partnership with shared values. Most obviously, they wanted to center Virayoga in Anusara Yoga.

Freedom to make this, and other choices was partly possible because Virayoga was neither the primary financial nor social means of support for either partner. "Elena and I both had outside interests, so it was about desire rather than need to form the partnership – we didn't need to do it, we wanted to."

Honesty, shared values, balanced responsibility, and sufficient external support provided stable ground for the business, the partnership, and each partner.

Water. Inner Spiral.
More than a legal agreement allows this partnership to flow. Lynn describes the unconditional respect the women share, “It is a respect for the other's whole being. Even the things that bother us!"

Along with shared values and respect, the women have evolved a conscious process for making decisions together. Not every decision comes with complete and total agreement: sometimes one partner makes the ultimate choice. But when a decision has been made, both partners move ahead in support of the choice.

Respect, balanced responsibility and conscious decisions create the opening for each partner to fully offer her unique gifts.

Fire. Outer Spiral.
Each partner can thus place attention and effort on the work she loves. Elena manages the teachers, crafts the schedule and flyers, seeks substitutes as needed and teaches weekly classes. Lynn takes the lead on all things business, such as where to grow and where to spend.

"We are very clear in our delineation of roles, and we don't try to do each other's jobs," Lynn comments.

Elena adds, “The boundaries of our agreement have opened a great deal of clarity within the partnership, wherein each of us can really do what we do best.”

Air. Organic Energy.
Elena and Lynn's activities outside of Virayoga can make scheduling time together a challenge. Sometimes they don’t talk for a week, yet the partnership continues to work. Lynn says, "We're in a groove."

Partnership has allowed Elena and Lynn to build a solid, stable and highly skilled staff, which permits the business to operate smoothly.

Both partners offer additional kudos to Virayoga’s new manager, Kiriaky Binihaky. “Kiri has essentially taken on the studio as her baby, which has allowed us even more freedom and trust."

Choice, honesty, respect, balance, and love are elements of a partnership through which Elena, Lynn, and Virayoga’s staff manifest their desire to serve, touching the lives of thousands of students and teachers in our community.

The partners report 2008 as their best year ever. Virayoga has expanded, moving into larger space in the same location, and opening a new "Healing Annex" for semi-private classes, workshops and bodywork. The business has flourished; six years of partnership have also deepened the women’s friendship.

Lynn says, “You don't have to love your business partner to have a good partnership. I'm lucky that I do."

(photo of the lovely Virayoga snagged from their website, in hopes of being able to ask for forgiveness instead of permission!)

Leading Amidst Fear: First Post in a Series

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:33:00 +0000

Over the years, I've studied a bit about leadership. Though I haven't always been the best student, I've had some of the best teachers -- in business school and beyond.

These great teachers have never held up fear as a leadership virtue.

Early in 2008, I pondered the perception that many people are afraid at work, all the time.

And I don't mean firefighters, police officers, and people in combat. Or illegal immigrants. Or doctors and nurses. Or teachers in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

I mean highly paid "knowledge workers".

Back then, I asked a good friend what he thought about fear at work. A friendly, churchgoing guy with exquisite manners, a great sense of humor and capacity for joy, my friend has held lofty executive positions in a service industry where people don't routinely die at work. Like people do in fires, or in the ICU.

He told me that fear could be a good thing -- that it could provide motivation to achieve.

This surprised me. And shook my slender thread of composure, which had grounded me enough to start a polite conversation about a negative emotion. I surrendered to my own social fear, and changed the subject.

But I decided to invest more time in what I started to call my Fear Project. Since then, I've been reading, talking with friends and colleagues...and contemplating my own relationship with fear, and how my reactions have shaped past business decisions.

This study was timely, because I was once again leaving the perceived safety of corporate life to start a consulting business. And the volatility and uncertainty of the past few months have offered excellent ground for study.

As 2008 draws to a close, I'll start sharing a bit more about this here: opinion, perception, analysis.

The next phase of the Fear Project is to reach out to people with differing stakes in workplace fear. You'll see some of them here, either via interview -- or if I'm fortunate, via guest posts.

And hopefully in the comments, too. Are you afraid at work? If so, why?

Clay Irving's photo Wat Plai Laem, Koh Samui, Thailand, downloaded from flickr, used under Creative Commons license. Hopefully the license extends to the ability to quote from Clay's caption. This beautiful photo is a Buddha demonstrating the Abhaya mudra, or hand position, “by raising the hand, palm facing outward in front of the chest. The left hand hangs down at the side of the body… It represents granting protection of dispelling fear.” (Thanks, flickr and Clay. I love Clay's colorful Halloween photos, too!)

The Power of The Crowd

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:02:00 +0000

In August, I got a nice note from Crown Business asking me if I'd like to read Jeff Howe's Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving The Future Of Business.

Regular visitors know that I spend time each summer in the North Woods, a family haunt for generations. Usually I have a basket of books and vats of coffee on my agenda. So the invitation was timely, the subject matter seemed relevant.

This year, we found that a mouse had gotten into a linen closet. Ah, mouse remediation: laundering, disinfecting, and pondering the impossibilities of mouse-proofing (particularly for one attempting to cause no harm).

So it took me a bit longer to get this reading done. And since (disclosure) Crown sent me a free review copy, I have to confess it has felt a bit like unfinished homework. Not because I had to write this review, but because I wanted to. (I don't review every book I receive.)

Business books are tough. Bestseller lists rarely offer classics. I revisited some old favorites this spring, and they feel dated: 90s books offering web strategy that feel like advice on how to use a buggy whip, others from the 80s that were written before Gen-Y was a gleam in our eyes. Not really relevant to today's business environment.

Crowdsourcing is more descriptive than prescriptive, offering profiles of disruptive, successful and unsuccessful applications. I had a bit of a tough slog through the examples: what it is, what it does, and how it behaves.

Crowdsourcing, in a nutshell: technology can facilitate a group of people to contribute ideas/products/money/resources that become the lifeblood of your business -- in the absence of pre-existing relationships or formal connection to your business.

For example, Innocentive is hired by corporate R&D shops with scientific problems they haven't solved in-house. Innocentive broadcasts the problems to scientists and hobbyists who puzzle over the problems anonymously in their spare time, earning a fee when they find a solution.

This model is compelling -- and ultimately disturbing.

It feels like a surrender to the end of creativity and relationship as a reason to show up for work.

The Innocentive crowd includes a PhD chemist described as having a "rote" day job. Evenings, she works on her home lab bench on projects for Innocentive. She is motivated as much by the love of the puzzles as by the money she earns solving them.

Here's a view I might infer from an imagined Innocentive client: "We don't have the time and space to let our own people creatively puzzle out the problems we need to solve. After all, we have work to do!" Or, "Our average employee leaves after 3.8 years. We wish they would stick around long enough to create all of the solutions we need!" Or another imagined outcome: an Innocentive client finds a great solution -- from an anonymous soul who already works for them!

Since we want the people who work for us to do more than march through the day, juiced to get home and create someone else's solutions, Crowdsourcing is of interest to those managers and businesses who seek to harness everything our people bring to the office.

Crowdsourcing's more disturbing consequences are being played out in the today's financial world.

An operator sells financial products to people who don't understand them, obligating the buyers to a stream of payments. This guy's boss flips legions of these obligations to a financial intermediary who packages them into a security. The security gets flipped to the street by an investment bank, priced to the market based on a rating assigned in the absence of knowledge of the security's underlying components -- that stream of payments the initial buyers didn't understand, and may not be able to make good on.

In reality, "The Street" is the mutual fund in your 401K, the pension fund that supports retired teachers, police officers and firefighters who served us. Or your university's endowment fund.

Um, mortgage-backed securities are now a crowdsourcing application. (And my guess is that had the book been published in late 2008, Howe may have seen this -- thus, the problem of the business book.)

It turns out that when people don't know one another, and don't understand the greater whole of what they are operating in, maybe they'll invent something "toxic".

It can't feel good to invent something that blows up. I repeat my recommendation of This American Life's early coverage of the mortgage crisis, which if I recall correctly also touches on the evolution of a once-solid investment into what is now being called a "toxic asset". (TAL's recent follow-up is less helpful, and follows along the lines of "be afraid, be very afraid," which has been a problem recently in the financial press. But I digress.)

(And I'm no historian, but when I let my imagination run dark, I wonder whether crowdsourcing could be used to facilitate a modern-day Manhattan Project? And forgive my bleak imaginings; my book club just read the most depressing post-apocalyptic tale, Cormac McCarthy's The Road.)

And on the other hand, sending books to bloggers for review is a different sort of crowdsourcing application. The fact that I'm writing about the book 2 months after I received it shows one of crowdsourcing's inherent frictions to people who seek to harness its powers: the crowd is literally not on your agenda.

Thought provoking, worth reading...but very much of 2008, so read it soon if this is your cup of tea. Crowdsourcing may not stand up to the test of time.

(Liverpool Street station crowd blur by flickr's Victoriapeckham, used under Creative Commons License.)

Paul Newman: 1925 - 2008

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:02:00 +0000

From a man who believed in his own "luck" (which some might call karma) , a goodbye that is also a call to action...

In addition to his family, friends, and body of work in the entertainment field, Paul Newman leaves an enterprise to remind us how transformative business -- and gratitude -- can be.

Click here to learn more about part of Newman's legacy, the Hole in the Wall Camps.

One Conscious Response to Market Events

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:58:00 +0000

The mood here in NYC is brittle and odd.

So many people literally see their fortunes rise and fall with the market -- from the guys who run the coffee carts that line the streets in business districts, to boutique owners, to consultants and financial executives. Charitable institutions, too. I recently heard a figure bandied about: 10% of the city's tax base is dependent on Wall Street. (This seems low, actually.)

People are stressed out.

My friend Marjorie Nass is a former executive. Years ago, she made a career change, and she's now a certified Anusara yoga teacher. Marjorie told me that Equinox Fitness centers have asked all of their teachers to increase the amount of meditation offered in Equinox yoga classes. Read her take on this here.

It's not what "happens to us", it's how we respond. Meditation teaches us how to increase the time between stimulus (what has "happened to us") and response. This gives us more time to choose our response -- and maybe during this time we'll choose a better response, make a better choice.

Many of the Equinox clients serve the NYC financial markets: especially now, they need to be making the best possible choices.

Kudos to Equinox for finding a positive and conscious way to serve clients during this tough time. By doing so, they are also serving all of the rest of us who are dependent on will happen in the financial markets.

(And Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programs are used more and more by businesses and business people -- MBSR is a secular meditation technique that many have found useful. You can find links to instructors at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. Or if you're in the Philadelphia area, check out the wonderful Penn Program for Stress Management, offered via the University of Pennsylvania Health System.)

(Meditation Room by flickr's Joe Schlabotnik. Thanks, Joe.)

"Green" Fatigue

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:40:00 +0000

I was recently shopping in my local megachain bookstore (yes, I had checked my local small bookstore for the title I wanted, they didn't have it) and saw this display.

It seemed a little bit...unsustainable?

There had to be 60 or 70 books on how to green everything -- from your dog to your dummies.

It is wonderful that we're all out there seeking out information about how to live on the earth more gently.

(I'm mad about the NY Public Library, which lets me place an online order for any title in circulation, and emails me after they deliver it to my local branch. They also offer amazing services for business owners. If you're only going to read a book once, does someone need to manufacture it for you? Do you need to own it? Or can you share it with your neighbors?)

When I first started blogging almost 3 years ago (!? can that be right?) I was just starting to think and learn about sustainability.

My personal experiments (eliminating plastic bags, LED lights, putting energy sucking devices on powerstrips that get turned off when not in use) have either entered the mainstream, or are on their way.

And there is a lot out there, along with growing awareness of "greenwashing". (Search the NY Times alone and you'll find 770 articles, today, that reference greenwashing.)

I've become increasingly interested in more subtle elements of sustainability. Not just saving energy or recycling -- but putting human energy to its best and highest use in the workplace.

This week, one of my favorite iPod downloads, Speaking of Faith, addressed some of the bigger issues of corporate social responsibility in an interview with Jonathan Greenblatt. (He even talks about transparency and Product(RED), which I went on and on about a couple of years ago.) I'll probably listen to this show twice.

SOF host Krista Tippett's journal notes that the scope of her program has been expanding to cover spirituality and faith in a broader -- and subtler -- sense. Greenblatt is a "social entrepreneur" (whatever that really means), and this week's show is about business.

When you start to dig into big subjects like "spirituality" and "sustainability", you start to see something even more interesting underneath it all -- whether you're a public radio show host with staff and budget, or a just person with a day job who is just trying to figure things out.

(And as such, I'm going to continue to write about "green" topics from time to time, but also spend time on sustainable practices as they relate to managing people...and when I find intersections, I'll be all over it.)

The Devil Eats Organic

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:33:00 +0000

I'm not sure how to feel about my newfound ability to buy designer salt a mere 5 blocks from my home, but Whole Foods has come to my 'hood.

My cousin called WF "seductive". I have to wonder if a serpent handed me the stunning heirloom tomato I bought today. When I cut the tomato, it smelled so good that I couldn't even bear to rinse the juice left on the cutting board down the drain: I poured it into the bowl with the rest of the tomato.

Then I ate it all plain, with salt.

Sea salt, bought in bulk from my local, family-owned, health food store, Bell Bates. Since WF arrived in Manhattan a few years ago, I've been riding the subway to WF for things that Bell Bates doesn't carry. (And a couple of items that I prefer, like olive oil and bulk almonds.) Now that WF is more easily walkable, I'll continue to direct most of my food spending to Bell Bates.

But that tomato! (And the early/late/weekend hours. Sigh.)

I also stopped in at Tribeca Hardware, another neighborhood institution. For once, they didn't have what I was looking for, but I reveled in the Bob Dylan soundtrack (either theirs, or maybe WFMU). And how it smelled like hardware stores I used to visit with my dad as a kid.

And in fact, Bell Bates also has a distinct scent, redolant of the bulk spices they sell and the food at the steam table. Real places, owned by real people.

In the New York Times on Friday, Susan Saulny covers variations of Community Supported Agriculture, profiling one Illinois organic farm that survives by selling "shares" in its output at the beginning of each growing season, and with labor provided by its owners and customers.

The CSA model acknowledges that there is no free lunch. If we want real places, owned by real people, and real food, we have to be willing to pay more in time and money.

I wonder if anyone has explored the CSA model for maintaining small, locally-owned business as part of our commercial ecosystems? (And I'll poke around on this one.)

Don't get me wrong: I'm a pragmatist and (mostly) a capitalist -- some businesses aren't meant to survive.

But I'd pay a fee to join forces with certain local businesses.

In the meantime, on a quiet summer Saturday afternoon, I was the only shopper at Bell Bates. One of the owners said, "Glad to see you."

Me, too.

Yoga "Props": Conscious Customer Service

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:14:00 +0000

I got an email last week from Anusara Yoga's "head office" (I'm not kidding, there is a "head office" for yoga!) Fusion Studio, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa yoga studio had been affected by recent floods.

Fusion's scrappy owner Marsha Nieland had found another spot to set up shop, and she and her team were looking for mats, blocks and other materials (also known as "props") needed by students.

I wrote to a small company that I've done business with before, Yoga Props (www.yogaprops.net). Within hours, one of the owners, Ruth, had written back to commit her help -- and the next day she had shipped off some brand new props.

Thanks, Ruth!

I also wrote to a couple of the larger businesses in this yoga supply space, using generic customer service and sales email forms or addresses.

At a small firm like Yoga Props, the general customer service email address is monitored by the owner, or someone very close to her.

I haven't heard back from the larger firms.

Which doesn't mean that we won't: my request is probably going up a chain of command. (Word from Anusara HQ is that prAna has also chipped in, and Bheka-Bhakti is offering advantageous pricing for community members who want to make gifts to Fusion.)

Which leads me to my favorite speaker at last week's Wharton Leadership Conference, Southwest Airline's Colleen Barrett.

Colleen showed a brief video of customers and employees talking about how they feel about Southwest, customer service stories and their resolution...standard stuff. (The segment about the relationship between the gate agent and passenger who was flying towards life-saving surgery did cause me to brush a little tear away. I'm a sap!)

More powerful was Colleen's anecdote about what happened when planes were grounded on 9/11. She called a hotel, she thought in Sioux Falls, where a Southwest pilot had been billeted with his crew and passengers.

When Colleen asked to speak with the pilot, she was told that he wasn't there -- he had rented a bus and taken everyone to the movies.

When bad stuff happens, how does it affect your customers? Colleen Barrett and Southwest Airlines had no choice but to react: this one was in their faces. The good people at Anusara Yoga saw it, too.

When we hear back from the other yoga-related companies, Marsha and her colleagues at Fusion will probably have been outfitted. Colleen was talking about the service that is possible when you put people at the front lines who understand the Golden Rule, tell them that you expect them to practice it -- and then put policies and processes in place to support that intention.

This kind of thinking gives a company the power to respond in a timely and meaningful way.

Having worked with a small business in lower Manhattan after 9/11, I know that the next good thing that can happen for Fusion is for people to use their services. (So maybe my contribution will be send them a check to buy some classes for first responders in the community, who will be in need of stress relief. That is, when they finally come to a stop.)

And BTW, help is still needed in New Orleans...my choice is the Leary Firefighter's Foundation, which is helping to rebuild there, one firehouse at a time.

(Addendum on July 16, 2008: click here for video of Colleen's conversation with Wharton's Mike Useem at the Leadership Conference. And welcome to readers of Knowledge@Wharton (and thanks to my friends at Wharton for the link, which noted my "slash" existence as a management consultant/yoga teacher.) Those interested in my consulting side can click to my website. I'm noodling on how to unify the blog and the site. Yoga means "union". Sigh. )

(Photos of Fusion Studio before and after the flood are from Marsha Nieland.)

Welcome Yogis and Yoginis

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:38:00 +0000

I've been a yoga student since the mid 90's. Longer, if you count the practice I did as a suburban Chicago kid, aided by a yoga book from the public library. Since 2002, I've studied Anusara Yoga, working with Amy Ippoliti, John Friend, and a host of wonderful teachers at NYC's Virayoga.

This blog is a bit of my studentship, too. How can we place ourselves most optimally in our professional lives, given the interdependent nature of our (relative) reality?

One of the most frequently viewed posts on this blog is about business partnership. I wrote it in 2007, and have watched the numbers grow since then. At first, I wondered why the post drew readers.

But when you google for information on partnership, much of what you find is focused on "what":

What form of corporation should you choose?
What are the components of a partnership agreement?
What percentage of the company will you own?

No doubt about it, these and other "whats" are key.

"How" is even more important. Primarily, how will the partners work together to set and meet their individual and shared goals? (Including jointly finding answers to all of the "what" questions.)

When I was asked to write a business article for a website serving Anusara students and teachers in our area, I jumped on the opportunity to put a yoga lens on partnership, via an interview with Virayoga owners Elena Brower and Lynn Hazan-Devaul.

So, regular readers and web-seekers interested in one yoga perspective on business partnership may click here (and scroll down the page) for "Elemental Truths About Yoga and Business Partnership". (Down the road, I may cross-post this article...)

And if you arrived here from the Trikula News site, click here for "Business Partnership: 3 Important Questions".

However you arrived at my blog, thanks for visiting!

(and thanks to flickr's Valentina Powers, who allowed use of Yoga On the Bridge under a Creative Commons license)

Conscious Light on the Housing Crisis

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:54:00 +0000

After the dot-com meltdown, a friend who works outside of the business world asked me where all the venture capital had gone.

Um, some of it went into my pocket.

Consultants (me, at the time, though most of my work was not in dot-coms), infrastructure providers, commercial real estate providers...and the bankers.

And sellers and purveyors of Aeron Chairs, later to grace the offices of non-profits and other buyers of used office furniture, also prospered.

This American Life did a tremendous show last week about the mortgage industry food chain: where that money came from, and where it has gone.

They connect the dots, showing points of convergence -- and even agreement -- (as they say) for folks who read the WSJ editorial page, and those presumed to be a bit more left-leaning.

(Missing: the complicity of local tax authorities and public officials, glad to have the coffers filled by property taxes based on fat assessments. It's only a 60 minute program!)

My early career was in banking, and I still remember my managers drilling me with the mantra: "The First Rule of Banking is Know Your Customer".

The program shows how financial culture's "first" agreement was violated, over and over.

Download it here. (It's also available for purchase on CD: and excellent tool for forward-thinking managers in the financial world who recognize this point in time as a good teaching moment.)

But if you want an Aeron chair now? It might be a bit too late, but you can always check Ebay!

(Or connect with Aeron via the Herman Miller website, where I snagged this photo.)

Mindfulness of Fast Food in NYC

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:11:00 +0000

In NYC, a new law now requires fast food outlets to post calorie counts on menus and menu boards.

People seem generally supportive of this effort, with the exception of the inevitable "nanny-state" complainers.

(And for opinions of some dissenters, check comments at the NY Times City Room blog. And a brief digression, if I may -- I appreciate what seem to be moderated comments on the Times blogs. I recently watched commentary on one of the WSJ blogs devolve to the most juvenile sorts of attack and counter-attack. I won't squander my attention there again.)

In the meantime, and I don't think this is my imagination: Starbucks muffins seem to have shrunk. Significantly.

Calorie counts in the 450 range for the seemingly smaller muffins make me wonder: coincidence? Or solution to a marketing problem?

(photo from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene website)

Earth Day: The Dalai Lama to Speak on Sustainability

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:38:00 +0000

On Sunday, April 20, His Holiness the Dalai Lama will offer The Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability at the University of Michigan.

The talk is sold out. Tickets were free, so the U of M anticipates no-shows -- open seats will ultimately be given out to some who show up without tickets. If you want to try to fill one of those seats, click here for more information.

Michigan's website quotes His Holiness:

"We are also being drawn together by the grave problems we face: overpopulation, dwindling natural resources, and an environmental crisis that threatens our air, water, and trees, along with the vast number of beautiful life forms that are the very foundation of existence on this small planet we share. I believe that to meet the challenge of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for his or her own self, family or nation, but for the benefit of all mankind."

Ann Arbor's Jewel Heart is co-sponsoring talks by his Holiness on "Engaging Wisdom and Compassion"; they are also sold out. But a live stream will be available -- and it looks like the Wege Lecture will be streamed, too. Check it out.

And if you're missing the connection to business here, it is a bit tenuous. But if learning about wisdom and compassion is useful to the law enforcement community, it may help in business, as well.

Sustainability Means Not Wasting People

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:32:00 +0000

Fasten your seat belts: this post is a bit "earthy".

Regular readers know that I've spent a lot of my career with a day job in financial services, and that late last year my entire team was politely shown the door due to a merger.

I got a great severance package, including the services of a blue chip outplacement firm. Outplacement, for those who don't know, provides job search services and office facilities to laid-off corporate executives.

This is my first round (and probably last, although I've learned not to say "never") through outplacement. All in all, I'm pleasantly surprised.

Some of my fellow clients set themselves up in offices at outplacement and report to the work of job search work every day. This firm provides also support to people who are buying and starting their own businesses. I mainly show up for meetings, since I have a good office setup at home.

So while I'm in the process of starting a small management consulting practice (which I'm sure will make the pages of this blog as time goes on) I'm also meeting with professionals who have looked at my business plan, and a group of other laid-off executives who are starting their own businesses. It is a huge blessing to have this support!

That said, the New York office of this fine business is stuffed to the gills with out-of-work finance professionals.

The other day, I went in for a meeting, and and there was no toilet paper in the ladies room. Not a spot. And while I've seen worse situations in public restrooms (even here in the "first world", although things like this week's airline imbroglio is another nail in the coffin of "first world" status for the US, as far as I'm concerned, but I digress), the waste baskets were overflowing, the soap dispensers were empty.

Two or three women were in various stages of exiting of the ladies room as I was walking in. None of them warned me about the lack of, um, amenities. Nor did they (apparently) report the issue.

(Doesn't this violate some kind of girl code? Or is the world of job search so dog eat dog that even our most primal agreements are out the window?)

At any rate, I noticed. Having cleaned the bathrooms at the yoga studio, I had no problem asking the receptionist for supplies. There was a bit of a production, a flurry of phone calls and flagging people down. I would up with two half rolls of toilet paper, and the information that this had happened the day before, too.

That evening, I wrote a very ladylike note to the head consultant, and got a slightly harried, almost appropriately horrified, and appreciative response.

The place is overwhelmed with volume.

One of the outplacement consultants reported that one Gigantically Large Financial Services Institution (GLFSI) was sending executives in to outplacement with one hand -- and hiring in other outplacement clients in with the other.

Um, it took me about a year to figure out how to get things done at the gigantic global financial institution I just left. Wouldn't it make sense for GLFSI to keep people in the fold*?

Do institutional knowledge and the relationships that people build up by virtue of working in these firms have value?

Rhetorical question. Of course they do. The real question is, why is this not seen, and valued by the current marketplace?

Seeing this value isn't just some floofy sustainability practice: it is good business.

*(NB: this wouldn't have applied to my situation -- due to the merger there was very little hiring going on. And it was time for me to move on, and I did so gratefully!)

Beautiful NASA photo "Blue Marble (Planet Earth)" courtesy of flickr's Woodley Wonderworks. Used with permission under Creative Commons License, and under the NASA guidelines.

Two Not So Little Words: "I'm Sorry"

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:56:00 +0000

Yikes, it has been quite some time since I've posted.

In late February, I got the flu, in epic proportions. (I understand why Janet Jackson had to cancel her Saturday Night Live appearance.)

For a month, it felt like my visual field was the Kansas part of the Wizard of Oz, filmed in black and white.

Even after I started to see in color again, I was dashing around to catch up with everything I had canceled and fallen behind on.

No, I did not get a flu shot. It is my understanding that this year's flu vaccine didn't cater for this monster flu anyways. (And even if it had, the vaccine may not have protected me.)

Enough about that. Last week, I returned a disc to Netflix, and didn't get the same day email telling me when my next pick would be delivered. I noticed this for about a second, and then forgot about it.

Until the next day, when Netflix sent an email with the header "We're Sorry":

As you may have heard, our shipping system was unexpectedly down for most of Monday. We should have shipped you a DVD but were unable to. Your DVD was shipped today, Tuesday, March 25th, instead.

And they were issuing me a 5% credit. Chances that I would have registered the one day delay as a problem? Miniscule. Especially a weekday delay, as my usual viewing time would be over the weekend.

What's the big deal? Netflix demonstrated three important rules of how to recover from a customer service snafu:

Take responsibility;
Be proactive;
Offer a remedy.

Apologies work. Hospitals are even finding that they are less likely to be sued when doctors apologize for making medical errors.

I'm not sure what Netflix saved. Maybe some complaint calls and emails into their customer service group, which divert time and energy from the core business.

But they've renewed my admiration for their service. It is deadly simple, it doesn't have many bells and whistles. And it works. (And when it doesn't, they apologize!)

"Red Rx Drugs Sign" courtesy of Exothermic, used under Creative Commons license.

PS on Shopping Local

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:15:00 +0000

Check out Wall Street Journal's small business blog, Independent Street. Wendy Bounds has posted on buying local, including a nice mention of the documentary about small business, Twilight Becomes Night.

Wendy's post is insightful. The comments are quite lively. Head on over and add your voice to the conversation!

(And don't forget to visit Wendy's personal blog about Guinan's Pub, subject of her book Little Chapel on the River.) (And do read the book. It is wonderful.)

To Have Local Businesses, Buy Local: Conversation with Virginie-Alvine Perrette

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:23:00 +0000

Many small towns here in the US offer the story of a trend that has probably spanned the last 30 years: empty downtown storefronts embody the eclipse of small owner-operated retail businesses by malls and chain stores.

Malls drove some of this change. But it's not just malls: I’ve even seen a nearly deserted shopping mall, a stone’s throw from a shiny new Walmart.

This trend may seem more sudden to New Yorkers because we’re so close together here. Because we frequently travel on foot. Because when a small business closes, the storefront – empty, or filled with a higher rent tenant – is in our faces. Because real estate values and rent prices are bandied about in polite conversation. (When I moved here 20 years ago, I couldn’t believe it, either.) And because, outside of fast food outlets, the chain store incursion didn’t gain momentum here until the early/mid 1990s.

Twilight Becomes Night is Virginie-Alvine Perrette’s documentary on the value of Mom & Pop businesses in our daily lives. It will be shown this week, at New York’s Anthology Film Archives on February 20, 2008 at 6pm.

Virginie recently treated me to a homemade lunch, and we talked about her career and her film.

After starting her career as an environmental attorney, Virginie bought a camera, enrolled in an NYU continuing ed film course, and started interviewing small business owners: she was a filmmaker. At around the same time, she also started 2 Spot Digital, a video production company, with a childhood friend Kate Howard.

Interestingly, 2 Spot is itself a small business that has grown organically, through friends, family and word of mouth.

She learned her craft as she made Twilight Becomes Night.

Each new store was a new experience, and store owners were tolerant as a grateful Perrette learned on the job. “I didn’t have a wireless microphone. So at first the microphone was attached to the camera, and I was tethered to the store owners. I would follow them around all day, often barely averting tripping one person or knocking over something else.”

On the last day of business for Howard Hassan’s Basket Shop (formerly near City Hall in Manhattan, thankfully re-opened in Borough Park), Hassan describes the satisfaction of working in a way that has earned the trust of his customers. Smiling broadly, he says,

“I know that I can never capture the whole the world, you know, to be a giant in the industry. I guess unlike some people my dreams aren’t that great. I don’t need to be a giant, you know, it’s okay that I’m not.”

On the Basket Shop’s last day in business at the City Hall storefront, a customer had stopped in to offer his best wishes. Viewing the microphone setup, he said to Perrette, “You definitely need a wireless mic. Come with me.” He walked her across lower Broadway to J&R Music, and gave her a wireless microphone, which she used for that scene and the rest of the film.

The customer turned out to be the owner of J&R, and had always loved the Basket Shop.

I asked Virginie what she found to be most surprisingly easy about making this film. She said, “The connection – I would walk into a store with my camera and tell people that I was making a documentary about the vanishing of small business, and they simply let me in.”

She sometimes worried about intruding on very personal and emotional moments, as owners closed their doors for the last time. But, as she explains, “I think that I connected with the store owners because we both knew that this story should be told, otherwise stores are simply disappearing into thin air.”

Virginie, herself, is completely absent from the film. She is not a talking head, a disembodied voice asking questions, or a narrator. But her editorial voice is strong and clear.

She captured her stories simply by letting people talk as she filmed.

This was also a challenge: she started with 60 hours of film, which had to then be edited down to 35 minutes. Virginie told me that she feels it’s important to let people find their voice as they talk, rather than guiding them to say something specific.

It reminds me of a technique that one of my teachers, Mike Useem, gave to me and fellow graduate business students when we provided companies with consulting services in exchange for school credit. He told us that we’d know that we had our data when people started telling us the same story over again.

Twilight Becomes Night is not an angry film. Virginie said, “I feel like there are enough angry anti-globilization films out there. And, while I feel they are very important, that’s not me.” She is actually optimistic. “It is not too late” she says, “But it is essential that we act now.”

Her goal for her film to inspire New York City to start helping small business legislatively. Perrette tells me that San Francisco, Chicago, London, Paris, and lots of other cities are starting to enact regulations to help save their local business. She wants to encourage New York City to do the same; for there to be a concrete change in the way that the city – its government and its people – views and values local business.

Already, Virginie said that she had been in touch with the New York City Planning Commission. They have seen the film and are interested in using it to gain traction on this issue.

So saving these stores is a possible reality. But we have to act.

I was a few minutes late to lunch due to a “user error” with the subway. But I had also stopped in at a local store to pick up a little something for dessert. As we drank tea and ate locally-made cookies in Virginie’s sunny work space, we talked about how individuals can help.

I told her about my relationship with Tribeca Hardware, which began years ago with a broken light cord I took in, looking to find a matching replacement. Instead, one of the guys worked on it for quite a while to fix it.

And he wouldn’t take any money. He said, “Just come back and buy something.”

Virginie thinks it is similar to trying to lead a healthier, more environmentally friendly life. “We won’t be perfect, but every little step counts. Maybe we can’t buy everything at a local store, but we can try our best to be sure we think before we buy and choose a local store whenever possible.”

(Mall in Hong Kong's Kowloon Tong, photo by flickr user JohnSeb, used with permission under a Creative Commons license.)

Why Shop Local?

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:18:00 +0000

Check out some photos I took yesterday, a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center.

Now I don't know who owns the building, or why it sits empty more than 6 years after the attacks.

I just came back from picking up some sandwiches from Bouley Bakery.

David Bouley is divisive -- some people think that his restaurant made a profit for work they did after 9/11. (I'm not sure what is real. But didn't many businesses make money after the attacks, laying new cable and fiber, hauling away tons of debris? Isn't that everyone's dream -- to do well by doing something useful?)

I had the opportunity to be alongside people from all over the city and country, doing food prep at Bouley as some amazing chefs engineered meals for thousands of rescue workers. I worked a few nights a week from 11pm until 7am, and saw him in there frequently.

One night at around 2am, I watched him finger some cooked sausage. He called a young chef over, and spoke quietly to him. The chagrined young man told me that Bouley thought that the sausage wasn't tender enough; we should start over. (The already cooked sausage was put to the side, apparently to be used in some other dish.)

Today, he is still in business, still in the neighborhood. (And still controversial, as he will apparently occupy space vacated by a much loved local diner that couldn't handle an enormous rent increase. Sigh.)

I got there today armed with plastic and a plan: lunch for a winter picnic. (Indoors at JFK, with family stopping on a 2 hour layover.) Their credit card machine was broken, and the woman behind the desk wrote down my credit card number to enter it later. I left with my sandwiches.

This reminded me of another experience with a local business, when I returned home weeks after 9/11 and needed to restock my refrigerator. My credit card didn't go through at Bell Bates, my local health food store.

But they told me not to worry, and let me sign the receipt. "We know you."

Bell Bates is still here too. And other, larger, businesses (notably Borders Books) did return.

The building formerly occupied by Burlington Coat Factory looks like a textbook illustration for urban blight. Maybe they have nothing to do with the space today -- but I might think that they would want their name to be removed from the building.

(I don't usually add to posts once I've hit "publish", but dashed out of the house for my picnic without including links in this post, and came back this evening to add them. As of February 17, 2008, the Burlington Coat Factory corporate website shows the location at 45 Park Place as "Closed 9-11-01 until further notice". Sadly, there's a similar indication about a store in Harvey, Louisiana, closed on September 1, 2005 "until further notice".)

February 20, NYC: Twilight Becomes Night Film Screening

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 20:31:00 +0000

Virginie-Alvine Perrette's documentary about Mom & Pop businesses in New York City -- both closing and enduring -- will be screened at Anthology Film Archives, as part of the Filmmakers Documentary Series. Virginie will be there too.

What: Twilight Becomes Night Film Screening
When: Wednesday, February 20, 6:00 pm
Where: Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue (at 2nd street), NYC
Cost: $5 (I am not kidding you!)

And more soon on a recent conversation I was fortunate to have with Virginie. And stay warm!

E-Waste Bill Passes in NYC, Bloomberg Doesn't Love It

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:26:00 +0000

Early this week, the New York City Council overwhelmingly passed a producer responsibility-based e-waste bill.

New Yorkers love being first (and best) (and biggest) and we're no different on this front, announcing that we're the first city to pass this sort of legislation.

That said, we followed the lead of the great state of Minnesota (and others) to craft a bill that business, environmental groups, and City Council members could live with. (That's no small accomplishment.)

The bill asks business to take action to keep computers, monitors, cell phones, MP3 players and other electronica out of our waste stream, and to do so by taking back 25% of what they sell to us. Manufacturers have until 2009 to figure out how to implement the take-backs; measurement against performance standards will be effective in 2012.

Mayor Bloomberg has spoken out against the bill; he doesn't support performance standards.

NYC's performance measurement system CompStat has been lauded for reducing crime; the city has extended its application to other arenas. And yesterday Mayor Bloomberg announced City-Wide Performance Reporting (CPR) -- "the mother of all accountability tools" -- designed to increase transparency and accountability in city services. Both CompStat and CPR are, to my understanding, based on the notion of watching trends to identify areas for improvement, rather than setting standard targets.

Maybe the Mayor is looking for similar measurement with respect to e-waste recycling; a veto is not currently certain (despite some strong rhetoric). Reach out to Mayor Bloomberg and let him know what you think.

(The photo of several of the bill's sponsors, and a tower of e-waste, is from the 2/13/08 press conference "preannouncing" the bill's passage.)

Local Businesses Create Our World: Little Chapel On The River

consciousbusiness@pipeline.com (Anne Libby) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 14:22:00 +0000

I cheated last night. I stayed up late doing it, and I woke up thinking about it.

And I don't regret it for an instant.

Little Chapel on the River isn't the book I'm supposed to be reading for my book club. (We're reading War and Peace. I was a proponent. Sigh.)

Gwendolyn Bounds has documented the life and times of a small-town family business on the Hudson River, Guinan's Pub & Country Store.

Bounds honors us, and the Guinan family, by noticing.

She captures sights, sounds and characters in the orbit of one family business. By writing the story of the relationships that grow up around this business, she tells a basic truth.

As they create ground and space for local relationships to grow, Mom & Pop businesses offer us the possibility for transformation.

Wendy describes how Guinan's set aside morning papers for regulars, penciling names on the upper corners, and laying them out. Setting out coffee and a bit of money so that harried commuters could serve themselves, and make change, on the honors system.

Our local businesses change our worlds microscopically, intimately, by creating small safe spaces that expand to become part of our lives.

When I cracked the cover of this book, I never realized that the author and I would have parallel stories, starting the day that forever changed the way New Yorkers see a crisp blue sky.

In the years following the attacks on the World Trade Center, Bounds and I both ended up literally behind the counters of the small safe spaces we found, hoping beyond reason to preserve places we felt had value. Her little chapel was an Irish bar in Garrison, mine was a yoga studio in lower Manhattan.

The book ends before the story does. Guinan's closed this past week after 50 years in business.

I woke up this morning not quite remembering this; I remembered Bounds' Little Chapel blog, and I logged on first thing. The blog offered news coverage of the final night of Irish music at the pub, but I didn't have the heart to watch it.

Bounds writes on small business for the Wall Street Journal -- and in a recent column on Guinan's, she says "the soul of this family business disappears with the family".

With time, I hope that she'll feel differently: what this business put into people's hearts can't disappear.

A flick of my finger left the virtual Guinan's behind me on my laptop, but the strains of "Danny Boy" came out with me for coffee. The sun shone through the mist rising off the East River.

For a moment, my feet were grounded in a soil far greener than that of the isle of Manhattan.