growth. FII provides practical tools to get families started. These include: Access to some capital, earned through FII for contributing data, meeting regularly to share stories, and helping the effort expand; and a laptop that allows families to report on their progress through FII’s online data-tracking system. Family clusters meet in person each month to review their progress and help each other in a myriad of practical ways. These meetings are part social, part business. Each family is responsible for using the laptop each month to share their progress using a short questionnaire designed by FII. Each family is also responsible for committing to a longer-ter... posted on Feb 23 2022 (2,387 reads)

about yourself. Everything's about your salary. Everything's about your small world. Whereas wisdom looks to the future, looks to future generations. What is life going to be like for our children's children's children at the rate we're going, in terms of climate change, destruction of forest and soil and oceans and rivers? And of course species are going extinct at never before levels. Last time it was this bad was 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs went out of business. And yet we have a whole political party in America that's in official denial about climate change. I mean, and we tolerate it. In fact, they win elections. And it's amazing. What ... posted on Sep 8 2022 (3,239 reads)

quality. Once an unseen, unheard resident of a poor, black neighborhood, Gordon—now 63—has become a visible insider, someone who wields influence in the quest to improve the area’s environmental health and, ultimately, the health of its residents.     Photo by Talking Eyes Media / Copyright Civic Ventures Allan Barsema Community Collaborations Inc. Rockford, Ill. Allan Barsema’s alcoholism cost him his marriage, house and real estate business. With his parents’ support, he sobered up, started a new construction company and remarried. But, over time, Barsema found that he wanted to do more for others who were down on their lu... posted on Dec 5 2010 (6,124 reads)

months later, after biking to Santa Barbara from Pennsylvania Dutch Country, he has a greater idea of what his goals are and how far he hopes to carry his message of peace -- he hopes to ride around the world.   Mr. Bornstein, 34, told the the News-Press he is an adopted child who was raised in Lancaster, Pa., and joined the Navy at 18. For four years he served on the USS Independence in Yokosuka, Japan.   After his Navy stint, he moved to Arizona, but two marriages, a couple of business ventures and part of a bachelor's degree later, "I decided to drop everything," he said.   He found himself in Hawi, Hawaii, but life in the Aloha State soon plateaued. &nbs... posted on Apr 5 2011 (7,870 reads)

you borrow, rent and share stuff within your neighborhood or group of friends * * * For more on the culture of shared resources, do watch Rachel Botsman’s excellent TEDxSyndney talk. Her forthcoming book, What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, hits bookstores in two weeks and is an absolute must-read. UPDATE: Botsman’s book, What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, is now out and landed promptly on our best books in business, life and mind shortlist for 2010. ... posted on Aug 11 2011 (92,227 reads)

JOHN HART — State Journal Meghan Blake-Horst and her children, Dylan, left, and Harper read a book found in the Little Library in their front yard on Few Street. Blake-Horst also sponsored a Little Library on the bike path near her East Side business, Absolutely Art. Bigger than a breadbox, homier than a newspaper box and more surprising than a bookmobile, the Little Library is popping up all over town.  On bike paths. Outside coffee shops. In the front yards of private homes.  "They're sprouting up all over," said Meghan Blake-Horst, owner of Absolutely Art, who install... posted on Aug 12 2011 (18,206 reads)

a little surprised when children do their homework without parental micro-management, but also because these two 8th graders made collaboration look like child's play.   And yet that's not always our experience in the office. Rather than the free-wheeling interchange of ideas and labor we anticipate — we're grown-ups after all — working together is typically everything but easy.   Why is teamwork so difficult?   Because collaboration is actually a pretty risky business. Perhaps, like me, you are generally of the mindset that two heads are better than one. But because your ideas frequently get co-opted, there's a risk-reward imbalance that makes you reluctan... posted on Sep 27 2011 (13,932 reads)

doing small acts of kindness, seeking internal clarity through any number of awareness-building practices (such as introspection, prayer, or meditation). The opportunities literally are unending. It is a bit of a paradox, but the end result of all this "internal change" is in fact of greatest service to the world. Imagine a system proposed by someone who deeply cultivated thinking only about others for their whole life. Imagine an incentive system, or a business model, born of the same process. In a world where most everything is 'self-oriented', these options would be breaths of fresh air. Systems do need shifting, and incentives can certain... posted on Oct 29 2011 (31,135 reads)

Business Simplicity. Simplicity means a new kind of economy is growing in the world, with healthy and sustainable products and services of all kinds (such as home-building materials, energy systems, food production and transportation systems). As the need for a sustainable infrastructure in developing nations is combined with the need to retrofit and redesign the homes, cities, workplaces and transportation systems of developed nations, it is generating an enormous wave of green business innovation and employment. Civic Simplicity. Simplicity means living more lightly and sustainably on the earth, and this requires, in turn, changes in many areas of public life -- f... posted on Nov 10 2011 (19,188 reads)

the West African nation of Gabon is a poster child for globalization's accelerated reach for resources, its president says he is committed to increasing support for national parks. Taking on the mantle of pressing the government to implement that commitment is a non-governmental organization financed out of the modest salary of an activist who runs a cleaning business on the side. Guest columnist Daniel Glick reports: "A group of nine dwarves lived here, and one day a dwarf dropped his ax in the water," says Ladislas Désiré Ndembet, standing on the shore of Lac Blue, or Blue Lake (pictured above), in Gabon's southern province of Ngounié. According t... posted on Dec 12 2011 (9,047 reads)

drew up his Three Laws of Robotics. The First Law was: “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” The Second: “A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.” We would be much better off today if all corporations – which, like robots, are man-made automata – were constrained by these laws. Our legal systems instead put into these business automata a single urge – to seek profits. This one-track mind has made them take over commonly-held sources of abundance – from seeds, to land, to knowledge – and turn these... posted on Jun 15 2013 (21,586 reads)

Industries, helps rural women buy one of the $2,500 machines through NGOs, government loans, and rural self-help groups. "My vision is to make India a 100% napkin-using country," said Muruganantham at the INK conference in Jaipur. "We can create 1 million employment opportunities for rural women and expand the model to other developing nations." Today, there are about 600 machines deployed in 23 states across India and in a few countries abroad. The machine and business model help create a win-win situation. A rural woman can be taught to make napkins on it in three hours. Running one of the machines employs four women in total, which creates income for rura... posted on Jan 26 2012 (19,172 reads)

for Making a Fine Car When a product has served you well, it’s always nice to write an appreciative letter to the people who make it. This one allegedly comes from Clyde Barrow, of Bonnie and Clyde notoriety: Dear Sir: - While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusivly when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got ever other car skinned and even if my business hasen’t been strickly legal it don’t hurt enything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8 - Yours truly Clyde Champion Barrow Legend has it Henry Ford rec... posted on Feb 16 2012 (90,888 reads)

have nothing against automobiles. I have a car, and I appreciate its utility. All I would say is, it is important to remember who is serving whom. If we were the masters of our machines—and our lives—we would have good, well-made cars and good roads on which to drive, but wouldn’t we also use them sparingly, so our children and our children’s children would have enough oil left to heat their homes?   Nor am I suggesting that there is anything wrong in a businessperson making enough profit to support his or her family in comfort—everyone should have this opportunity. But we have exaggerated the importance of profit out of all proportion to its n... posted on Feb 17 2012 (82,107 reads)

a story.   She threw out the linearity of history.  She made what was dry and ancient, charming, engaging, and at times, even humorous.   That was her imagination at work.  And it helped me develop a love for the social sciences.   Our imaginations can be quite contagious, I learned.   But can this love for the imaginative ever find a place in the real world?  Certainly.   More and more young people today want to work for start-ups where business meets creativity, where what may seem impossible today is reality tomorrow.  Who knew that you could pay for your Starbucks coffee without cash or credit card?  You can.  Just ... posted on Mar 29 2012 (85,412 reads)

Use pictures to answer some questions such as: What kinds of houses do these car buyers live in? What kind of watches do they buy? Where do they go on vacation? What kind of art do they hang on their walls? Mix your own idea sketches in among them. As the swarm of pictures grows, anunderstanding of who is going to buy this car and what might appeal to them begins to emerge. PLAYFULNESS. One of Walt Disney's greatest secrets was his ability to draw out the inner child in his business associates and combine it with their business acumen. Because he made the work playlike, his associates worked and played together with a missionary zeal. Disney was a true genius who needed ... posted on Jul 17 2012 (22,847 reads)

and singing and calling to me.” *** Daniel is in third grade, and I’m on the phone with his after-school day-care provider, who is throwing him out of her day-care center. “It’s not that I’m throwing him out,” she explains to me repeatedly, and then goes on about how if Daniel has a sudden breakdown, and she focuses her attention on him and not on the toddlers there, one of the toddlers might get hurt, and then she would lose her business, and then her house. So can’t I understand? This is the third after-school program he’s been tossed from in two years. My Baby Rides the Sh... posted on Oct 10 2012 (10,104 reads)

time." Our own research has compared the pace of life in different cities. In an early study we conducted field experiments in the largest or other major city in each of 31 countries. One experiment, for example, timed the average walking speed of randomly selected pedestrians over a distance of 60 feet. Another experiment sampled speed in the workplace -- specifically, how long it took postal clerks to fulfill a standard request for stamps. All measurements were taken during main business hours in main downtown areas under similar conditions. More recently, my colleague Stephen Reysen and I replicated these experiments in 24 cities across the United States. We've found... posted on Nov 9 2012 (24,437 reads)

living in absolute poverty, and almost 20 percent of its children going hungry. Then in 1993, a newly elected administration declared food a right of citizenship. The officials said, in effect: If you are too poor to buy food in the market—you are no less a citizen. I am still accountable to you. The new mayor, Patrus Ananias—now leader of the federal anti-hunger effort—began by creating a city agency, which included assembling a 20-member council of citizen, labor, business, and church representatives to advise in the design and implementation of a new food system. The city already involved regular citizens directly in allocating municipal resources—the &l... posted on Nov 27 2012 (74,747 reads)

speech given at St. Mary's College, Moraga, California on May 20, 2012. Six months after leaving grad school, I found myself at a rocket launchpad for one of the very first private enterprise rocket companies. Our business manager was doing the countdown. 5-4-3-2-1, oh, BLEEP. The rocket blew up! That explosion, that failure, launched my career in a completely new direction as an entrepreneur. By being part of an incredibly bold venture, well a bold failure (that didn't kill me or anybody), I became open to becoming an entrepreneur myself. Returning to the Bay Area, I started my own rocket company. It failed. I ended up helping start seven high tech c... posted on Dec 12 2012 (15,197 reads)