3p Contributor: Paul Smith
Recent Articles
Skilio: Education that Lives Up to the Collaborative Consumption Hype
It seems everywhere you look these days, people are proclaiming this the year of collaborative consumption, C2C, otherwise commonly known as the sharing economy.
One of the poster children of this is Skillshare, a site that allows people to connect with others to teach classes in their area around just about any type of skill. But there’s one problem: most of the courses are located near the Skillshare HQ in NYC, limiting who can participate, when classes can happen, and ultimately, the growth potential of this service. It tethers it to an older education paradigm, operating much like the Learning Annex, but with better site design and without online class options.
Skilio takes the potential here and has created something quite amazing: a social-network-connected portal to exchange skills of all sorts, with video, chat, and file exchange available, and unlimited participants. Even better, the participants decide on the terms of the exchange for themselves.
Notice I didn’t say Skilio is for teaching classes. It certainly can be used for that, but as Skilio puts it,
The Ultimate Green Building Material: Dirt?
In a time of increasing weather-induced natural disasters, viable, affordable, durable shelter options are becoming vitally important. Additionally, as entirely new cities spring up, a greener building option is crucial to minimize use of resources and overall lifetime impact.
Dwell Earth has high aspirations for a humble building material: Dirt. Compressed Earth Bricks are an impressively simple modern interpretation of a building material that’s been perfected over the centuries by many indigenous populations. They are the ultimate locally sourced material, more energy efficient to heat and cool than wood or concrete based structures, do not offgas VOCs, and are able to provide a source of employment and pride in developing countries.
AbleBanking: A New Bank the Big Ones Shouldn’t Ignore
Did you know Bank of America donated around $200 million last year to charitable causes? It sounds impressive, until you find out that that’s 0.02% of deposits. With all the consumer uproar around banks adding new fees, and the huge success Bank Transfer Day had getting people to move their money to a local credit union, it’s clear people want more and better from their banks.
AbleBanking may prove to be just the thing people are seeking:
Considering Being a Benefit Corporation? A New Site Clears the Path
Over the past year, the reputation of corporations has been dragged through the mud, with the global Occupy movement casting a skeptical, antagonistic view of such entities, and rightly so, in many cases. But quietly, a new, broader world-benefitting form of corporation has been emerging during the past several years - the B Corp, and more recently, Benefit Corporation status.
With last week’s headline-capturing news that Patagonia’s founder, Yvonne Chouinard, was literally the first in line to file for Benefit Corporation status in California, many other companies are likely now giving greater attention to this status. However, if you mix up Benefit Corporation and B Corp status, which are not the same, you are in good company.
Up until recently, there hasn’t been a single resource available to get yourself up to speed on what it all means, how they differ, what other options are out there and answer questions. With the creation of the Benefit Corporations Information Center, the path is cleared for many more companies to confidently pursue the route that works best for them.
Kickstarter-Style Crowdfunding for Local Businesses
2011 was the year that crowdfunding came of age, with Kickstarter leading the way, along with IndieGoGo and others, presenting an appealing idea: support an innovative new product, service, creative project, or cause, and in return get a reward depending on your level of money pledged. Though the models vary, they each provide effective incentive to get even the shiest of self promoters to get out there connecting with the world, creatively building awareness about what it is they’re up to.
In doing so, many entrepreneurs discover that their initial asks were modest, with outpourings of support offering a clear indication that they are on the path to solving a market need.
2012 sees the arrival of a compelling mix of crowdfunding and people’s desire to support local businesses with Lucky Ant.
BizBox: A Solar Powered Mobile Pop Up Shop
The term “pop up shop” has become common currency these days, but it hasn’t generally meant a store that actually pops up. Until now, that is. BizBox is as its name says: A business space in a box. This self contained, towable, solar powered space can be brought to its destination by your average consumer level truck, then it pops open and expands outward to reveal a functioning space, flexible for a variety of uses. In these uncertain economic times, having a business space that does not require the commitment of a lease or up-front build out costs is extremely appealing since it reduces risk. BizBox may have the perfect timing.
Yellow Leaf Hammocks: A Powerful Example of Social Enterprise Done Well
While yellow leaves to most of us signify the changing of the seasons, to the Mlabri hill tribe of Thailand they mean a complete change in their lives. Yellow Leaf Hammocks are a vehicle to change their health, environment, and financial independence.
These resilient people were able to create their own livelihood via these high quality hammocks, making over six times their typical income, which was derived primarily from slash and burn farming of their land.
Joe Demin went to go learn about this tribe, and was surprised that, despite the substantial change in income potential, enough to employ their former employers, they were still practicing this devastating form of agriculture. It turned out that this lucrative hammock making was a seasonal operation and business slowed dramatically when the rainy season washed away the tourists.
Demin was moved enough that he decided to find a way for these hammocks to reach the rest of the world. Yellow Leaf Hammocks, a B Corp, was born.
3 Big Steps Toward Mass Use of Bicycles
Bicycling has seen an unprecedented rise in popularity, support, and accessibility these days, worldwide. To be sure part of this can be credited to the faltering global economy. In the US, there’s also been a willingness on the part of both federal and state government (questionably motivated Republican threats aside) to make an investment in infrastructure, to make biking safer and therefore more broadly used.
What needs to happen now is to make the bikes themselves more compelling to people. Here are three bike-related projects to encourage everyone to get out and ride:
Is This the Wind Power Solution That Answers All the Critics?
Wind power, on paper, sounds like a good idea. No emissions generated. High potential for energy generation, when optimally located. No dependence on foreign oil.
And yet, wind power often gets hit with a number of doubts and concerns: first, theres the fact that the wind does not always blow. Will it be a source of noise pollution, due to the hum of the turbines as it turns? Does it need to be placed just so, to be effective? Does it need to be so huge? What about the birds, will the turbines be responsible for their death?
These are all legitimate concerns, and not unexpected, given people are used to power generation happening elsewhere, or when it’s local, being a silent set of solar panels. But that doesn’t mean wind power shouldn’t be pursued as an option. As early as 2008, Helix Wind was working on an urban scale, business friendly vertical wind option. Now comes Wind Energy Corporation that has clearly done its homework, presenting wind as a win/win for businesses and communities.
Two Square Meter: Skin Nourishing Eco Friendly Clothing? Yes.
In a time where organic clothing has expanded far beyond hippie boutiques and shoppers in Target don’t bat an eye at seeing it offered there, it is not a big leap to consider that clothing may one day actually be good for you. Two Square Meter has done just that, with a line of clothing that it claims is nourishing to your skin. You read that right!
Using yarn that contains fibers derived from milk protein or seaweed fibers, each said to have skin nourishing properties, the act of wearing a sweater can be both warming to the body and beneficial to the skin. Clothing companies have previously made body benefit claims, such as the recent trend of touting SPF, but this is a step further. Athleticwear has long served both a functional and fashion purpose, wicking away moisture, moderating temperature, etc, but as far as I know, never has such been the case for purely fashion oriented clothing.
An EPiC Green Food Processing Incubator Opens In Oregon
With the clearly entrenched trend of green, organic, locally sourced food making inroads even in the largest of chain stores, the impact is clear. And yet, there’s a missing piece to this: Where the food is actually made.
Food processing facilities are often quite energy intensive, and for food businesses entering the market, it can be prohibitively expensive to procure a professional facility to prepare you food. Sure, there are emerging models such as Portland’s Kitchen Cru that serve as a community kitchen and culinary incubator, but it’s more geared towards restaurants.
A solution to both is opening in Salem, Oregon shortly.
Panam Shows How to Smartly Re-Launch a Dead Brand
In this turbulent global economy, sometimes the best path forward is looking backward – to brands that have been well loved in the past. They clearly had people’s attention at one point, and there’s potentially less legwork needed to resurrect them vs. starting from scratch, attempting to grab mind and heartshare among the harried masses.
But how do you do it? There’s usually a reason that brand went away. Is its past glory irretrievable, and a waste of time and energy to attempt a resurrection? Fast Company recently detailed the efforts of instant coffee brand Brim, whose current owner said, “The longer a brand is dead, the more flexibility you have to relaunch it in a new way.” They intend to fortify it with nutraceuticals, a la Smart Water. In a time where previously unlikely attributes meshed together are increasingly commonplace, this could work.
One company has come up with a way to both draw massive buzz while generating income from recycling its past assets: Panam.
SunTracker: Leveraging GPS to Radically Optimize Daylighting
In recent years, much has been made of the energy savings and emissions reduction associated with switching to CFLs. What if every moment the sun was out you could go completely without electric lighting?
Daylighting is an often touted solution. In my case, having skylights in our office meant hiding from it as the sun was directly overhead to avoid sunburn, squinting into my computer at other times due to glare, and unworkably low lights in the winter.
Other options such as the light tubes have improved upon simple skylights. Light tubes reflect light that lands on a roof down a tube and into whatever space, even on another floor, that needs illumination. Yet here again, when the sun is not shining on it, the lighting quality degrades.
Ciralight has come up with a brilliant solution: SunTracker. The product uses skylights with a series of mirrors, oriented by GPS, to maintain lighting throughout the day, coupled with solar power to run them.
Two Emerging Models of Consumer Owned Utilities
For all the talk of emerging renewable energy technology, there has thus far been precious little movement in most of the world in terms of people getting their power directly from renewable energy sources. Options like PGE’s Green Source, and Bullfrog Power are good, but they are both indirect routes to greater renewable energy inclusion. Energy use, still based largely on legacy fossil fuel options, is offset by renewable energy projects elsewhere. And they each add cost to your existing energy bill, which to many who are not so green committed is a deal breaker.
Two options have recently emerged that, pardon the pun, put much more power in people’s hands, while keeping costs in line: Spark Your Power and Wind Centrale.
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