Chris Jordan presents an evocative series of wall-sized prints that beautifully convey a tragic story. See more of this and other series at http://www.chrisjordan.com/

from www.frogdesign.com posted with vodpod

I live just across town from William McDonough, but this is as close as I’ve seen him. He’s the creator and advocate of Cradle to Cradle design – a design methodology which he describes in application to product design, material selection, and even urban planning in China.

from www.ted.com

When a hotel executive asked me recently what I would do to communicate the hotel’s sustainability initiatives to current and future customers, I proposed that the hotel explicitly abandon trying to advertise and promote its actual green activities to focus more on the emotional goodwill of sustainability through story telling and interactive displays – allowing guests to touch and feel (with hands and heart) the ways the world could be a better place.

The hotel industry is in a bit of a marketing quagmire when it comes to demonstrating their green-ness to customers. Most of its sustainability efforts take place out of view of the customer experience, meaning the hotels are often unable to capitalize on their success in limiting resource consumption through enhanced customer experience and brand perception. While in-room services allow guests to participate in greener efforts by washing linens less frequently, a hotel that devotes staff to purchasing local produce, recycles grey water, and invests in green architecture often has trouble connecting those efforts with the “feel good” goodwill that could come with more visible green efforts.

The hotel executive surprised me with his response. Instead of critiquing the concept, he asked, “What do we do next? Assume that succeeds, what’s next?”

I told him I would want him to stop competing on green alone, because green is not the only color his company wants to preserve. From the emerald hills of Ireland, to the red tulips of Holland, to the Caribbean blues of St. Lucia, there’s a whole world of colors we want to sustain – for the world and for our children.

The value creators in our new economy are providing exceptional experiences by outperforming their niche in an industry network or tying together the nodes of the network and packaging the whole thing in innovative ways.

As part of my recent course at Darden on Innovation and Integration in Services – The New Economy, I made observations on a number of innovations as examples of value creation in this flat, networked world. This is my submission on Miriam’s Kitchen.

THE SERVICE

This organization falls strongest in the “Make Their Day” and “Be There” categories of the Fish! Philosophy. Miriam’s Kitchen, a provider of meals and additional services to homeless people in Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, DC

HOW IS IT INNOVATIVE? WHY DID IT GRAB YOUR ATTENTION?

Miriam’s Kitchen is noteworthy for a number of characteristics. It has always used hot meals as a way to gather people who could benefit from the area’s social services and introduce those services in a non-threatening manner. In that sense, the dining room aggregates a target audience and makes additional, highly valuable services know. Second, Miriam’s Kitchen attracted a great New York chef to run the soup kitchen. His culinary smarts have helped form food partnerships with local distributors and restaurants who now provide unsold fruits, vegetables, and other delicious but perishable items. The chef then uses these ingredients to enhance otherwise mundane food offering at the kitchen, providing high quality food for the guests at this kitchen.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM OR ISSUE ADDRESSED?

Serving food to homeless people can become a thankless job if you do not see progress in the guests’ lives. Miriam’s Kitchen infuses meals for homeless folk with caring and genuine support, attracting more volunteer and staff workers to the kitchen and more candidates for additional services to the dining room.

IS THERE A CHANGE, DEVELOPMENT, OR TREND THAT CREATED THE OPPORTUNITY? OR, IS IT JUST NEW THINKING?

The idea that homeless people deserve gourmet food preparation might be seen as impossible on limited budgets by some and socially or politically repugnant by others. Miriam’s Kitchen serves its guests with the dignity and respect of human equals, in a way that demonstrates the sincere desire to assist the guests without being demeaning.

WHAT ARE TRANSFERABLE QUALITIES TO OTHER CATEGORIES?

It takes just a simple creative step to turn ordinary into extraordinary. At Miriam’s Kitchen, that means transforming ordinary pancakes into extraordinary mixed berry pancakes bursting with fresh fruit. But people recognize extraordinary and they appreciate it so much.

DOES THIS SUPPLANT A PREVIOUS SOLUTION? WHAT, IF ANYTHING, IS THIS DISPLACING?

For Miriam’s, the problem is how to connect beneficial social services with the clients who will benefit from them. By making a special breakfast each morning, the people of Miriam’s are already demonstrating they care about the people they are serving. This creates the opportunities to “market” additional services that can truly transform someone’s life, be it through addiction recovery, job training and placement, or referrals to health care or other needs.

ANY OTHER POINTS WORTH MAKING:

Social services is not often considered glamorous, and food at homeless kitchens is often forced to be economical before nutritious or pleasing. Miriam’s Kitchen has used some creative, passionate people to transform the purpose and execution of the soup kitchen.

Originally published May 25, 2006.

A few recent news items have triaged the current status of sustainable design in architecture and urban development.  In Atlanta, a model of new urbanism and smart growth has emerged in Atlantic Station, where urban lofts, high profile office space, hotel rooms, restaurants and retail have combined to fill a 138-acre plot reclaimed from an old steel mill (see property map image below). 

Atlantic Station is tops on the list of the nation’s bold mixed-use/New Urbanism developments, many of which were previously featured in the Business Week article, Bringing Community to the City (also check out the slide show associated with the article).

While the model is exciting for its pedestrian scale, access to public transportation, and inclusive development, the New York Times (Building a City WIthin the City of Atlanta, photo below Tami Chappell for New York Times) suggests the paint is so fresh as to make the place sterile and national retailers dominate storefronts while boutique or local retailers have not yet built a noteable presence, making it awkward to create an image distinct from that of a transplanted suburb.  The sustainable part may be right, but it’s not yet clear if the design works.  (Atlantic Station is roughly only half complete at this point, and several more years of development lie ahead for the ambitious $2 billion project.)

As Atlantic Station is discovering, architects and designers are struggling to identify the place of sustainability in architectural design.  Sustainability and Design seem to be playmates on a teeter-totter – linked together, but often facing trade-offs that raise one element over the other.  In the case of architectural design, interest (and commercial demand) pushes toward architecture as high art, elevating Design above Sustainability.  As students and professors of architecture put it in this New Tork Times article – Architects are a Lagging Indicator for Sustainable Design - the architectural profession is not yet widely geared toward producing practitioners skilled in Sustainable Design – though emerging standards for clean building technology and LEED certifications seem to be effectively demonstrating shifts in demand.

On a hopeful (albeit smaller scale) note,  The Culver House in Chicago is a new glass-facade condo project emerging as a beautiful model of advanced, sustainable building materials and high design, finding a nexus of eco-building and Modernist design.  (see the BusinessWeek article: Condo Development, image reproduced below.)

My hat goes off to the pioneers developing Atlantic Station and other bold mixed-use developments across the country.  I hope you are successful in revolutionizing the way we live, the way we interact with our built environment, and the way we preserve and steward the built environment for future generations. 

Originally published May 17, 2006.

Venture capital investors seem to have one major, common point of reference – the dot come bust of 2000-2001.  That bust followed a record year of VC fundraising – some $106 billion in 2000 among top benchmark firms – and preceded a major fallout of invested dollars across the economy.  The lessons learned all seem to point to greater discipline in VC investments, but that’s not holding back (re-)growth in VC fundraising.  The Associated Press reported in April that venture capital firms had raised some $6 billion in the first quarter of this year, more than 20% over last year’s figure for the same quarter, with projected annual fundraising around $30 billion.  (See the article as published in the Washington Post online: Venture Capital Fundraising Rises in 1Q.pdf.) [Update: The New YorkTimes ran an article suggesting that the renewed vigor in venture capital is not a sign of a new bubble: A Few Signs of Froth Do Not a Bubble Make]

The trends of last year indicated strong venture capital interest in “clean tech” and alternative energy as solar and wind technologies matured and new ventures generated profitable cash flows, buyouts, and IPOs.  In fact, three of the top IPOs of 2005 were solar power companies, as reported by the Wharton Private Equity Review.  [Update: See BW interview with Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and current partner at venture capital firm KPCB: Green: The Next Big Thing.  He thinks greentech is going to provide the next Google in terms of revolutionary wealth-creation.)

Now, the energy market is showing no signs of decreased demand despite continually high gas prices.  As Americans (and others around the world) effectively say “no” to conservation (see James Ellis’ op-ed piece in BW, No Sacrifices, Please), energy demand will continue to grow while limited stocks of fossil fuels (not to mention the political delicacies surrounding the international energy market) keeps a ceiling on supply.  With the proven returns in solar and wind power, and wide interest and policy incentives in ethanol, biomass, and energy storage technologies, the stage could be set for continued successful investment in clean tech industries.

And hopefully in two years the stage will be set to hire this Darden MBA into a successful and growing VC clean tech fund.

Originally published April 7, 2006.

From the glossy ads of IBM’s new Innovation business area to the whack jobs on American Inventor, it seems like everyone wants to be an innovator (or wants to hire one).  The emergence of Chief Innovation Officers and business school courses targeting innovation suggest that, in today’s tight market for large cap companies and healthy growth for small and mid-caps, innovation may be today’s killer app.  To my mind, this makes sense conceptually: as markets mature, the potential to exploit market openings diminishes and the need to create revolutionary new products, processes, and especially business models becomes a necessity.

In social entrepreneurship, innovation is never an option.  There are rarely opportunities to exploit; rather, whole new paradigms must be introduced, supported, and grown  – often outside the realm of traditional business.  (See The Economist’s article The hidden wealth of the poor (Nov 2005) in PDF.)

Its encouraging to see innovators finding successes in the realms of social entrepreneurship, such as the Washington Area Housing Partnership in Washington, DC, which is “re-branding” affordable housing initiatives as not just social support programs but prudent community development programs for working citizens.  Check out their story in the Washington Post, A Regional Campaign for Affordable Housing.

This innovation is also being cultivated in the young and passionate minds of academia.  As I head to The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, I’m especially interested in the innovation occurring within the University’s Engineering and Architecture schools.  I recently learned of an outstanding initiative in affordable housing at The University of Virginia’s School of Architecture: the ecoMOD program to prototype ecological modular housing.  For a heart-warming insight into the ecoMOD program in Gulf Coast restoration efforts supported by Charlottesville’s most famous author (Mississippi native and UVA parent John Grisham), take a look at this Habitat for Humanity Press Release (PDF).

Further interesting information on ecoMOD and other innovative architectural systems can be found at the Charlottesville Community Design Center’s  exhibition showcase and the Rural Studio, part of the Auburn University School of Architecture program of studies.

Originally published March 17, 2006.

Advanced energy technologies for clean and sustainable (financially and environmentally) power seem to be a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the United States.  While major corporations, such as Exxon, disavow any interest in trendy renewables, other large cap firms continue to celebrate their profitable ventures into next generation energy technologies.  BP Solar, a subsidiary of the more-recognized petroleum company, achieved profitability in the last two years, with continued prospects for high growth.  GE Energy, part of the venerable General Electric empire, recently announced a partnership with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to construct offshore wind turbines with 5-7 MW capacity – among the largest turbines ever built, and could result in extremely cost-competitive grid-tied wind energy at 5 cents per kWh (which would be at the lower end of US electricity prices).

The market for efficient and renewable energy technologies may be a matter of perception, but I’m excited to learn of increasing venture capital interest in the sector.  Nth Power, a prominent energy technology venture capital firm, “believes a classic venture capital environment exists in the energy sector. Experienced management teams are developing disruptive technologies aimed at underserved markets where value can be created in relatively short timeframes and where exits to public markets or acquirers are available and proven” (from Nth Power’s website).  Clean energy, which used to be squarely in the purview of environmental friendliness, is now holding prospects for widespread adoption as a high-growth industry (albeit still on a small- to mid-cap basis).

Nth Power, which receives roughly 500 business proposals each year (and funds 3-6, according to its website),  also released its annual energy-tech venture data report, showing some $917 million of venture capital flowing into 80 companies – a capital increase of 28% over 2004.  This energy tech venture capital represents perhaps 4% of the nearly $22 billion VC market, but that’s an increase from 1% in 1999, according to Nth Power publishing partner Clean Edge.

With the prospects of continued high growth in hydrogen creation and storage, more efficient solar PV modules and technologies, and large-scale, grid-tied wind power installations, efficient and renewable energy may continue to make in-roads as a viable and profitable high tech industry.  And with global business drivers like China and India aggressively pursuing rapid and sustainable energy expansion, the market demand only stands to increase.

Other energy tech and related venture capital links:

GE Energy

BP Renewable and Alternative Energy

Nth Power - Venture capitalEnerTech Capital - Venture capitalRenewable Ventures - Venture capitalKPCB - VC firm portfolio includes giants like Amazon.com and Google, as well as new “Green Technologies” portfolioFA Technology Ventures - Venture capitalThe Altire Group - Venture capital

Technology Partners VC - Venture capitalGreenlight Energy - Large scale wind developerIntrinergy - BIomass distributed generation, founded by Darden MBA graduates

Originally published March 7, 2006 

The New York Times ran a fantastic column interviewing Harvard economist Edward Glaeser about the inextricable links between urban housing prices and the life of a city.  Provocative insights into the mind of a gifted economist with an eye on the life of people and the places that house them.

NY Times – Home Economics (March 5, 2006)

Special thanks to my dear friend Kristi for forwarding this article…