The Idea Hive

Fed up with rhetoric: Can the health care debate become a main dish?

sasho — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:48:59 +0000

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

While watching Congress wrestle with issues at the health care summit, I started to worry…have we crippled this government with our lazy palate for dialogue? What if the shock of modern media has blunted our taste buds to the point where real content now seems boring? Is this just another example of the original not being as good as the imitation anymore?

It’s the same way the fabrication of the modern meal seduces us: with the temptation of shortcuts. In In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan shows how the western diet leans toward refined grains instead of vegetables. The luxury of highly-processed concentrated doses of stored energy is that they can be sculpted into any form imaginable, namely, the funnel cake. How can leafy greens can compete with this flavorful figment of our modern appetite?

I believe that, just as in the production of food, it is in the process of democracy that integrity is upheld. But real debate on this country’s political stage is reduced to bland slurry because we are happy to settle for whatever bold impression can be dreamt up through clever packaging. I tell myself I want to see people having relevant, meaty conversations, but am still easily amused by the desperately-seasoned side dish of the mainstream’s bite-sized story lines.

Elected officials derailing each other in difficult political discourse is as surprising as professional athletes finding comfort in junk food during the Olympics. It is as if we’ve created a processing plant for social issues, choosing consistency over health. Is this simply a compromise inherent in government? The only way Congress can begin to communicate is by agreeing on a set of rules. But the boundaries that help legislators also limit the voices they represent. The very act of aggregating ideas, while meant to bring attention to them, requires a common format.

So what would be the vegetable version of government? Maybe it looks a little more messy than what we’re used to, maybe it has a shorter shelf life. But if we really engage in these issues, maybe we won’t be left with that endless gnawing hunger we’ve come to expect from well-rehearsed talking points.

Hey! Used Cooking Oil is sexy, gargantuan and here, now!

matt — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:51:51 +0000

Not sexy, but it works! Biofuel in action.

The event’s title caught my attention: Biofuels 2.0 from Garage to Gargantuan.
“Wow”, I thought, as I scanned the details of the event hosted by The MIT/Stanford Venture Lab (VLAB), “This is exactly what I am doing: helping to usher in the next generation of biofuels.”

My boss and I represented Sirona Fuels at the event. We met people in all facets of renewable fuels from research and development to marketers to end-users, though during the entire meet-and-greet session, neither my boss nor I spoke with anyone else who is currently producing fuel.

As we filed into the auditorium, I was already formulating the questions I wanted to ask the panelists. All of my questions had to do with the state of biofuels, specifically sustainable biodiesel made from used cooking oil. Early into the presentations I realized that if this event was about biofuels 2.0, my company is stuck in biofuels 0.4.

All the panelists and presenters were discussing huge ventures worth hundreds of millions of dollars, focused around technologies that were still at least a few years away from even being close to cost effective. One panelist, an executive at an algae-to-fuel start-up, answered, “I don’t know,” to the question of how long it would take to get the fuel to market. I wanted to stand up and let everyone there know that we have renewable fuel, in tanks, in Oakland, and it’s available NOW. But I didn’t. I felt left behind, as if I had hitched my cart to the wrong horse because biodiesel made from used cooking oil is “so 2005.”

It wasn’t until the next day that I came to terms with how my company fits into the new era of biofuels. While we are waiting for the most cutting edge research to bear fruit, small, independent biodiesel producers will be producing fuel from used cooking oil, and providing millions of gallons of clean burning fuel to consumers while eliminating millions of pounds of harmful emissions from entering the atmosphere.
Undoubtedly, harvesting new strains of robust and resilient high-lipid content algae is much sexier than sucking oil out of the kitchen of a greasy burger joint. There is a place for sexy when it comes to renewable energy, as scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers strive for innovation. And at the same time, there is a place for the same old biodiesel, just as it has been made for the past 150 years. I see biodiesel made from used cooking oil as a stepping stone to the future of biofuels, and although it was disheartening to see that the VLAB does not consider what I do ‘2.0,’ at least we are making a clean burning fuel for sale to diesel users everyday.

Our mission and the mission of many other sustainable biodiesel manufacturers is to create a product from locally acquired inputs and sell it locally so that the communities involved can feel the benefits of biodiesel usage. Green collar jobs are created, harmful emissions are reduced, and a “waste” product is repurposed into an alternative fuel.

After all, today’s sustainable biodiesel is the cutting-edge green fuel that was developed over 100 years ago.

Photo Courtesy Blue Sky Bio-fuels

One Business’s Healthy Lunches Make Healthy Kids

sarah — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:59:22 +0000

photo credit: DavidDennisPhotos.com

The innovative food company, Revolution Foods, (aka: RevFoods) makes thousands of nutritious lunches every day for students all over the Oakland area. They also recently expanded their business to serve schools in Los Angeles and Baltimore. RevFoods demonstrates a sound financial and socially responsible business model in the school lunch industry.

Their impact has been tremendous. On their website it states that “in just three years we have already made significant impact in the communities we serve [including] over 3.5 million meals served since inception, reaching close to 40,000 students. And, we have established key strategic partnerships with healthy food suppliers including Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, Niman Ranch, and local farmers in order to deliver on our promise of all natural, safe and fresh meals for students.” Furthermore, RevFoods worked with their partnering school “to gather anecdotal evidence reporting higher attention levels in class, less disciplinary problems, an increased interest in healthy food, and weight loss amongst their students.” These are huge achievements.

A combination of junk food in school lunches, prevalence of fast food restaurants, and minimal farmers markets in low-income areas play a substantial role in the high rates of obesity and poor nutrition. It’s not surprising that the highest rates of childhood obesity are in these same low-income areas. Lunch provides the bulk of the calories most kids consume in a day. The federal school lunch program currently serves 31 million low-income American children every day. Yet this same school lunch program has been under fire by several organizations and advocates, like Slow Food USA, Jamie Oliver, Tobey Maguire, and Whole Foods, over the ubiquitous junk food and empty calories of the school lunches. This same issue served as a major impetus for the founders of Revolution Foods.

As of last week, these organizations and food advocates can add another very significant player to their side of the argument. First Lady Michelle Obama held a press conference about her new initiative to end childhood obesity. The “Let’s Move” initiative puts a special emphasis on getting healthier choices onto school-lunch trays. With secured commitments from the food industry to reduce the amount of fat, sugar, and salt in the school lunch products, the First Lady is off to a great start. However this federal school lunch program needs more money to achieve positive change. Organizations, advocates, and nutrition experts were hoping the president’s new budget would add $1 to the current $2.69 budgeted per school lunch. This extra $1 would allot more veggies and fruits and increased nutrition, however, the budget only increased the school lunch budget by 20 cents. We are still short changing kids and their potential.

In the mean time as we continue to push impatiently for saner food policy decisions, this problem could be a great opportunity for innovative food entrepreneurs to launch a social enterprise and join RevFoods in the school lunch revolution.

I encourage advocates, innovators, and investors to come together, generate ideas, and put action towards ventures that provide an invaluable service, equipping our future leaders with nutritious energy. For a relatively small investment, these business ideas will produce high returns for investors and the whole of society.
If you would like to connect with advocates and entrepreneurs in this area, I recommend searching on Twitter. There’s a strong online sustainable food system presence, with many of them using the hashtags #Profood #Agchat and #SchoolLunch. Also, feel free to contact me @TheEcofoodie with any questions or if you would like to collaborate.

Celebrating Our ‘Inner Girl’

kas — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:40:47 +0000

On the eve of Super Bowl Sunday – a day that celebrates, in excess, everything that is overtly masculine — I offer a shift in perspective to reveal one of the most powerful forces on the planet next to Mother Nature herself — the power of young girls!

Yes, I will be rooting for the underdog New Orleans Saints…but, come Monday, I will be back to rooting for an even bigger underdog: girls and young women and the global challenge they face to be valued, educated, and free to create their own uninhibited futures.

One of our most treasured storytellers of the modern era, Eve Ensler, conveys the reality, complexity and power with her TED Talk from India (November, 2009). Eve calls for each audience member to rediscover and embrace his or her “Inner Girl” while weaving stories of individual courageous young women from all corners of the world.

Eve Ensler Embrace Your Inner Girl

Eve’s story of witnessing the reunion of a young woman and her father gave me chills. A resilient young woman returns home to her father’s house in Kenya after fleeing years earlier to avoid being mutilated and sold by her father for a few cows. Upon seeing the strong and confident woman in front of him, the father understood the value of educating his daughters and abandoned the practice of genital mutilation for all of his daughters as well. This story is truly a microcosm of the transformation and cultural shift that can occur when an oppressed segment of our global community is nurtured and supported.

Over the past few months, I have found several resources to help further frame the severity of the issue and also the ways in which ordinary people have stepped up to help. Perhaps you will be inspired to find out more, support an ongoing effort, share a personal experience, support girls in your community and/or add to our resources list.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
“If you educate a boy, you educate the individual. But if you educate a girl, you educate a community.” African proverb via Greg Mortensen

“Saving the World’s Women” a Special Issue of The New York Times Magazine, Aug. 23, 2009.
“Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.”
–Nicholas D. Krisof and Sheryl WuDunn
Co-authors of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

The United Nations Girls Education Initiative
UNGEI Vision:
“A world where all girls and boys are empowered through quality education to realize their full potential and contribute to transforming societies where gender equality becomes a reality.”

Biodiesel Business Helps Earthquake Victims Start Fresh

matt — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:48:55 +0000

Destruction from the quake

When most people go on vacation, they try to get as far away as possible from anything that reminds them of work. Not me– on my recent trip to Peru, I visited two biodiesel production facilities.

The first refinery I toured was in Pisco, located four hours south of Lima. Pisco had been in economic decline for decades; it was dealt a nearly fatal blow when an 8.0 earthquake leveled 85% of the city in 2007.

Two years after the first emergency responders arrived, when Pisco was on the front page of news sites around the world, the scene is still bleak. Walking from one makeshift neighborhood to the next, the piles of rubble and toppled adobe homes are unavoidable as they lie exactly as they were the day after the earthquake leveled the town, when over 500 people died and 1,300 were injured.

The government erected walls to hide the makeshift temporary shelters that have become permanent residences. The citizens of Pisco call these post-quake government construction projects “walls of shame”.

A partnership between Pisco Sin Fronteras (PSF) and Burners without Borders (BWB) is showing just how much can grow out of the rubble. These two organizations are part of the second phase of emergency relief. Every day teams of volunteers head out into the city to pour concrete slabs for new homes, build composting toilets, and help erect new homes. In an effort to fund these projects and show that sustainable business can thrive in places that have faced a disaster, PSF and BSB decided to make biodiesel. They will be able to sell and trade the fuel to enable them to continue their work, while teaching how sustainable business can be formed and thrive in places not usually considered when people imagine green enterprise.

BSB produces biodiesel from used cooking oil collected from local factories, restaurants and kitchens, and sells or barters the fuel to local truckers. I observed a BSB representative trading a few gallons of biodiesel in return for towing a cement mixer to a work site.

One important aspect of biodiesel production in Pisco is that everything is sourced from within Peru. The refinery is a perfect example of engineering prowess and MacGyver-esque ingenuity. At the heart of the biodiesel project is a teaching component; local restaurant owners and truck drivers, visiting biofuel enthusiasts, and anyone else who is interested, are welcome to learn how the “waste” from the fryer can be turned into fuel.

Two years ago, scenes from Pisco, Peru mirrored the images broadcast from Haiti a couple of weeks ago, and now PSF and BSB are showing how to make a product that will power trucks and generators, and also empower those who lost everything to begin again.

The Case of the Stuck Consultant

kas — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:55:02 +0000

As one of the more practical Bees, Kas Neteler has decided it’s high time to share some insights from all the buzzed out coffee dates that we attend on a regular basis. We enjoy getting together with potential clients, collaborators and the like to share experiences and offer suggestions for tough organizational issues. If you would like to contact us for a coffee date (in person or virtual), and don’t mind us alluding to insights from the conversation (without giving away organizational secrets, of course) please email us at thebees@theideahive.com with the subject line: “coffee date”.

photo credit: autumn_bliss

Recently, I had coffee with an aspiring independent consultant, Victoria (not her real name), who wants to work with sustainability practices in the Latino community. Unfortunately, she was feeling stuck in her efforts to find and engage in her work. Here is one method I have used myself and with others to gain clarity in getting “unstuck”.

One caveat before proceeding: I am primarily a visual learner and the advice I am about to dive into is geared towards others who learn this way. If you soak up information in a different way, please chime in with a comment (below) to add diversity to this topic and perhaps help someone along the way.

Create the Space

Time to put down the laptop, get away from your 8 ½ by 11” notepad and create a fresh space to explore your ideas:

You will need:

• Sticky notes (many colors work best)

• Color markers (colors!)

• A big surface (e.g, white board, butcher block paper, big clean table top, or over-sized sketch pad)

[A brief aside: in all the workshops we have designed, each time we have placed 100 colored markers on the table our attendees light up with glee -- and so do we!]

A Touch of Structure

Often the first step in getting “unstuck” is taking a muddled pile of thoughts, ideas, concerns, limitations, expectations and every other random notion and applying a simple structure. In the case of our aspiring consultant, she has bilingual skills, a family to support, blogs to write, Latino community, green practices, small business owners struggling to stay open, non-profits vying for funds, fundraising… and so much more that came flooding out in our conversation. No wonder she felt stuck!

OK, from my own experience this is where we need to take a deep breath before we move on in the process. Good. Now let’s use the simplest of frameworks to begin the process of navigating towards clarity.

At the very top of your paper write, “Higher Purpose.” This is it, your big chance to write down your life’s purpose. This may take some editing and revising, but this is key to the success of the structure.

In our example, our heroine Victoria, may define her higher purpose as:

“Educating the Latino Community in Sustainability Practices”

Next, under your Higher Purpose, create two columns: one with the header “Opportunity Statements;” and the other “Problem Statements.” With sticky notes and colored markers in hand, brainstorm on each category. Remember to write one thought per sticky and place it under the appropriate header (Opportunity/Problem) as you go. In the end, you should be able to see each sticky note and read it from a short distance away – don’t overlap/cover up any of your notes, you want to see them all.

In our example, Victoria may have created a list that read:

Opportunities:

• Making a living as a paid consultant

• Translating Green Practices into Spanish and vice versa

• Connecting on a deeper level with my community

• Finding allies in the community

• Connecting with Latino business leaders

• Creating a collaborative network

Problem Statements:

• Getting paid!

• Finding funding to serve an under-served community

• Making connections in community

• Meeting affluent Latinos

• Finding affordable self-educational opportunities

• Making a profit

Now that you have brainstormed your list, take a step back and look at your sticky notes. Seeing any patterns? Begin to move sticky notes into clusters (remember no overlapping) to show emerging themes under your two headings.

In a final step to build momentum, make a header under all the others that says “S.M.A.R.T. Goals.” S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) goals help you form actions and measure results.

In our example, Victoria may have written:

S.M.A.R.T. Goals:

• “Set up six informational interviews with Bay Area Latino small business leaders for February”

• “ Attend one green audit workshop in next 4 weeks”

• “Respond to at least one RFP for greening Latino community each quarter”

• “Get a paid consulting gig within the month!”

Nice Job!

Step back and take in the big-picture-living-document (meaning you can change and update this anytime) you have just created. Are you still feeling stuck or can you see how you just created a map to help navigate towards the future? You have defined your higher purpose in life, organized your opportunities and problems and finally created some actionable/measurable steps toward progress – not too shabby for a rainy afternoon.

Swimming Against the Tide: Assessing Salmon’s Life Cycle from Spawn to Bagel

nancy — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:11:25 +0000

Photo: Mark Finch via Flickr; Creative Commons license

A first-time comprehensive study of the lifecycle of salmon consumption brings into question some notions about how to think about what we eat, especially in terms of long-term sustainability: “Even food has a lifecycle, and the world must learn to comprehend the full costs of it in order to design reliable, resilient food systems to feed a world population that’s forecast to grow to 9 billion in less than 40 years” note the report’s co-authors from Ecotrust, Dalhousie University and the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology. Life Cycle Assessment is the systematic examination of a product’s full environmental impact; in this case the study examined “how salmon are caught in the wild, what they’re fed when farmed, how they’re transported, how they’re consumed, and how all of this contributes to both environmental degradation and socioeconomic benefits.”

This is the first comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment of a food, and it provides a valuable window on the complex effects arising from how we fulfill the basic need to eat. Salmon was chosen for the study because it is widely available year-round and researchers could study impacts of both wild-caught and farmed salmon.

Beyond ‘Food Miles’
The Life Cycle Assessment looked at multiple aspects of salmon production, processing, distribution and even preparation, and concludes that rather than worrying about metrics like “food miles,” which only measure the relative distance to table from where a food was produced, greater benefits can be achieved by a fuller understanding of key aspects of food production and distribution. The argument is key, since food production is the single largest source of environmental degradation in the world. The report claims “We offer an example of a multi-dimensional approach to seafood sustainability, considering local ecosystem, social welfare and global environmental factors, as applied to an icon of the global food marketplace.”

Swimming Against the Tide?
The researchers point to far reaching effects of energy-intensive production and distribution methods to conclude: “Across salmon production systems — and all food systems — the world is often swimming against the tide. Instead of working with nature, people work against it, chasing fish in the open ocean with big diesel engines or substituting energy demanding pumping and water treatment for free ecosystem services in salmon farming. We can and must do better than this and start to swim with the tide.” However a simple switch to farmed from wild salmon is not recommended because “growing salmon in land-based farms can increase total greenhouse gas emissions ten-fold over conventional farming, depending on how and where the farming is conducted.”

One recommendation of the report is that the consumption of frozen salmon needs to increase dramatically to decrease the negative environmental effects of shipping the fish by air, yet the atmospheric damage from shipping cargo by sea has also been documented; in other words, tradeoffs must be made. There are several interesting points here, but the most fascinating to me is the limited view of our options. Rather than simply figuring out how to produce and consume salmon sustainably, what about considering not eating salmon at all? Is there a substitutable product that would be more sustainable? What would a comparable analysis of soy beans show?

From Data to Action
It is tempting to confuse providing data with providing answers, though of course accurate data is vital to intelligent decision making. Questions arise constantly when analyzing a system with as many variables as which kind of fish one can extract and consume with the least amount of harm to people, planet and profit (not to mention the fish itself!).

What’s a conscious consumer to do? All this data can be paralyzing, and the temptation to reach for simple answers is overwhelming. The one thing we can be sure of is that there are no easy answers to feeding the world’s people while caring for the planet. This study is another small step in the direction of fully understanding the impact of our everyday choices in something so basic as food.

How do you decide what to eat? Any guidelines, thoughts, or warnings?

A version of this post originally appeared on Care2.

A Culture of Innovation is the Key to Our Future

david — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:15:11 +0000

photo credit: royryap

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
Charles Darwin

Massive tectonic shifts are underway that are beyond our control.

One billion people are hungry. Our oceans are overfished and full of plastic. Climate change is beginning to cause terrible disruption to peoples’ lives. Our economic system has shown itself to be bankrupt, built upon a mirage, and conceptually incapable of meeting the challenges ahead.

At the same time, the rise of social technology, from cellphones to the internet, is wiring up our planetary nervous system in unprecedented ways. This is changing everything, because when information flow changes everything else follows. How we relate to our work, to our governance, to our planet and to each other is shifting rapidly.

The future looks very different from the past. Everything that we do as a species needs to change if we want to survive in a meaningful way. It is time to be as creatively adaptive as possible. Creating a global culture of innovation is the key to our future, because innovation is the engine of responsiveness to this massive change.

What are the essential attributes for a culture of deep innovation?

All cultures fall somewhere between creative and conformist, and between collaborative and competitive.

Creative cultures are always looking to create better ways. Conformist cultures want them to stay the same.

Collaborative cultures accelerate the evolution of ideas, because they nurture their cross pollination. Competitive cultures slow down the rate of evolution by locking their ideas away.

To be responsive to massive change, our survival demands that we consciously nurture a global culture of creative collaboration, and collaborative creativity.

Are you part of a culture of innovation?

Tackling (Holiday) Complexity with Pens and Paper…and Good Cheer

thebees — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:45:58 +0000

It’s a complex time of year. What to eat, where to go, which presents to choose, which holidays to celebrate? Will your niece appreciate gift certificates for Heifer International? Where did you put that brussels sprout recipe that your guests claimed to enjoy last year? Is this the year that you and Uncle Formsby can bury the hatchet? What to make of the Health Care vote, the Copenhagen accord, and the craze for Avatar? Here is a conversation map The Idea Hive put together, capturing our multiple voices and perspectives on holiday cheer. Take a closer look (here - click on image to enlarge), defocus your eyes, let it speak to you. What themes emerge? We see silliness, camaraderie, and a passion for the occasional good drink.

May your holidays be restful, merry and bright!

Communication Changes Consciousness

david — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:11:36 +0000

photo credit: Wevie Stilson

Or What I’ve Discovered About Twitter

This is my response to @VenessaMiemis who retweeted the following from @ekolsky ’spread the word: Monday 12/21, write and post “What I’ve discovered about Twitter” – tag it #MonTwit (please RT)’

140 characters is a small space in which to generate resonance. Each tweet is like a seed being swept along a rushing stream. Some find fertile soil in which to germinate, unfold, hybridize and grow into new patterns in our minds.

Without the rest of the internet Twitter would not be so compelling. The key is that behind those 140 characters lies a vast repository of information, so that each tweet becomes a gateway into that illuminated store of knowledge.

The second key is that because of the brevity of the form, the fast, interwoven nature of the stream challenges us to create new connections in our minds. Ideas seem more malleable, fluid and promiscuous. They interbreed and create new form. How is global warming connected to sanitation in Africa. How can our knowledge on innovation be applied to slow down species extinction? How can we apply design thinking to create a society that works for all?

A rich tapestry of collective meaning is thus collaboratively woven, which allows us to enhance our shared understanding of the whole.

The nature of our communication shifts our collective consciousness. From manuscript to book to television to internet, human consciousness has been driven by the changing nature of our information flow.

How is consciousness changing now as a result of it all?