how to see…

In a recent interview about his new novel The Same River Twice, author Ted Mooney described learning “how to look, and how to teach people to look”:

If you stand in front of an artwork of even medium value, you really have to spend some time cleaning your mind of words utterly, and just begin to look, and keep yourself as blank as possible, for as long as possible, and you’ll begin to see the relations of things, how they fit or don’t, and eventually you’ll be able to see the object whole, and then you can start letting words come in again, and they will be the right words. If you do the same thing on a street corner it works too, by the way.

How does this apply to working with your customers? or the projects-goals you track against?

Does everything fit or align to the direction you want to head in? Where should you edit?

Business Model: New Uses For Old Things, Seed Bombs

Seed Bombs, Distributed through old gumball machines. Brilliant!

Candy machines repurposed to vend garden seeds. Who thinks of these things?? Brilliant!

Los Angeles-based Common Studio, Greenaid, has coined the term “guerrilla gardening” and is targeting many forgotten grey spaces of the urban world, including sidewalk cracks, vacant lots and parking medians. Toward that end, it has reclaimed a series of old, quarter-operated candy machines and converted them instead for use selling seed bombs—mixtures of clay, compost and seeds that can be thrown anonymously into derelict urban sites to (temporarily) reclaim and transform them.

Sort of like humans finding a way to take on the role of ancient Bison, I suppose – with less fuss and mess.

Greenaid invites business owners, educators and concerned citizens to purchase a machine—pricing is about USD 400 each, with potential income generation of between USD 1,000 and USD 2,000 per year. Greenaid will then develop a seed mix and a strategic neighborhood intervention plan in response to the unique ecologies of the particular area. The purchaser can then simply place the machine at a local bar, business, school, park or wherever it seems likely to have the greatest impact. Greenaid supplies all the seed bombs needed to support the ongoing success of the initiative.

Common Studio explains: “Greenaid is equally an interactive public awareness campaign, a lucrative fundraising tool, and a beacon for small scale grass roots action that engages directly yet casually with local residents to both reveal and remedy issues of spatial inequity in their community.”

Similar in many ways to Anthropologie’s recent initiative featuring seed bombs produced by Cincinatti studio VisuaLingal, Greenaid is currently focused on its hometown of LA. One to partner with or emulate in other parts of the urban world?

Website: www.thecommonstudio.com/index.php?/project/greenaid/
Contact: info@thecommonstudio.com

Source: Springwise

 

 

 

 

 

Business Model: New Uses For Old Things, Art*O*Mats

The Art*O*Mat

A cool, hip new business idea, funky enough to appeal to a sophisticated crowd, yet marketable enough to eventually also convince the global masses to part with their dollars, yens and euros. So what’s it all about? Art*o*mats!

Art*o*mats are retired cigarette vending machines that have been converted to vend art. Currently, there are 49 active machines in museums and various locations throughout the US. The experience of using the stylish machines is quite a thrill, but you also walk away with an original work of art.

Approximately 300 contributing artists from 10 different countries are currently involved in the Art*o*mat project. Work from participating artists has to be the exact size and shape of a pack of cigarettes, and is sold for five dollars or less to everyday consumers.

Think painted blocks of wood, stained glass, poem decks or clay sculptures. On each art package within the Art*o*mat the artists have the option to include information about themselves: if buyers like the artwork, they can e-mail or call the actual artist to request more art. The economics? The artists get 50% of the revenues, USD 1.50 goes to the company/venue hosting the machine, and the rest goes to Art*o*mats.

Opportunities

A no-brainer if you’re a budding artist, if you work in a museum, or run a gallery, shop, restaurant, bar. Get exposure or turn your customers into ardent art-buyers. Art*o*mat is still very US-centric, but would obviously do as well in Sydney and Seoul as it does in New York and LA. A global roll-out would truly bring art to the masses: give it a shot by contacting Art*o*mat at www.artomat.org.

Want to be an Artomat artist?
There are around 400 contributing artists from 10 different countries currently involved in the Art*o*mat project. We are always searching for fresh work. [ submission process ]

Source: Springwise

Business Models: SoupCycles

Related to other posts on interesting business models, here is a unique “spin.”

SoupCycle, unique model supporting other local businesses

Bicycles have been used to deliver a variety of products–from groceries, farm produce and laundry. Now? Organic soup, made from locally grown produce and delivered each week to subscribers. Three soups are typically on the menu in any given week at SoupCycle. Consumers who live or work in the Portland, Ore., company’s delivery area begin by checking out the selections for the following week and placing their order by midnight on Friday; rustic bread, salad and dressing are also available.

With a list of subscribers in hand, SoupCycle then buys the necessary produce from local farmers. Their schedule looks something like this:

• Monday: Cook Soup
• Tuesdays: Begin deliveries

Pricing: USD

• $18 for a quart of soup plus bread and salad, serves 1-2
• $45 for quantities that can serve six
• A la carte options too
• $3 delivery charge applies for orders under USD 18; otherwise, delivery is free.

Loaves and … soup containers

Each of SoupCycle’s trailers can carry some 40 soup containers, 40 bread loaves and 20 salads at once, it says. Since SoupCycle first launched about a year and a half ago, it has delivered more than 10,000 orders of soup, spent USD 33,000 with local farmers and saved 3,000 gas-powered miles by using bicycles instead. Some 150 subscribers now enjoy its weekly deliveries. One to emulate locally for some piping-hot profits of your own…?

Website: www.soupcycle.com

Contact: yesplease@soupcycle.com

Source: Springwise

 

 

Business Model: put your future in the crowd's hands

BuyABeerCompany.com presents the most ambitious crowdsourcing effort yet: USD 300,000,000 for the Pabst Brewing Co. The 165-year-old firm, third-largest beer company in the US (going by 2008 sales), was originally sent to market by the IRS in 2000 as tax laws would not permit ownership by the non-profit Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation. Failure to meet the 2005 sales deadline saw it extended to 2010. With this deadline now imminent, two US ad agencies are ringing the bell for last orders from the beer-drinking crowd.

Hollywood-based Forza Migliozzi and New York’s The Ad Store are the two firms behind the venture. They’re asking (legal-age) fans of Pabst’s 25 brands to pledge between USD 5 and 250,000 each towards acquisition of the company. Money will only be accepted if the full purchase amount is reached, at which point all contributors will get “a crowdsourced certificate of ownership as well as enough beer to match their pledge”.

While BeerBankRoll promised the crowd control over the business plan for a pub and brewery, no crowdsourcing of decisions is mentioned on the BuyABeerCompany website (in fact, Pabst owns brands and outsources brewing to MillerCoors). Still, if figures on the website can be trusted the idea is going down like a cold beer on a sunny day—over USD 11 million has been raised. It could be that fans of the cheap-but-hip Pabst Blue Ribbon are just the crowd to go for community ownership, though whether 60 million will stump up five dollars each remains to be seen.

Website: www.buyabeercompany.com

Incorporating Mini Movements Into Your Business Model

When you consider your business model (which includes your marketing efforts), you generally concentrate on these core components:

1. Why will people pay you? (money, votes, donations)
2. What does it cost you to sell your item…margins?
3. What protects you from competition, price-feature battles?
4. How will you turn an agnostic audience into loyal customers?

Early on when transactions had no costs, doing anything at a huge scale was very cheap. In order to be successful (a subjective term), you didn’t have to be very big at all. Some efforts don’t look at revenue as the only sign of success, and it’s probably safe to assume they have no real business model.

Identifying tribes and determining the success of working with them is not a new idea; the concept of tribe mentality or acting in a way that benefits the tribe has been around since cavemen. But, the concept of bringing people together, of building tribes, makes the internet is the best friend of people focusing on the third component, differentiating yourself from the competition. Once a network is in place, it is extremely difficult for someone else to disrupt it. I’ll add to this that the network must be active, relevant and provide value. 

The internet, it’s “isms” and even some of our online behaviors are permeating our culture. It is affecting business models offline as well. Local t-shirt and records stores, traditional advertising firms, and political campaign have different business model than they did ten years ago—can you imagine Dukakis, Stockton, Bush Snr, or Dan Quayle, figuring out what tweeting means?

Viral marketing and the growth of cash-free marketing means that people can spread an idea farther and faster than ever before. It also makes it far cheaper for a competitor to enter the market.

Here are three examples of companies leveraging online to create mini movements:

Company	Technology	Goals	Outcome
ATT	YouTubeTraditional Commercials	Highlight small businesses using ATT technology in order to execute their business; more phones, more places.	A top-down use of online media.ATT is not going to completely invert their business model of selling phones or laying cable throughout the world to establish service. How to get that 100 year old message to sound fresh? ATT started highlighting small businesses doing good in their communities and enjoy the halo effect of companies with mission. Not only is TOMs Shoes doing great things by giving shoes away, they would not be able to do so without ATT phones. Link: ATT commercial
Barka Foundation	YouTubeBlog Web site Facebook - Standard page - Causes page (to accept donations) Documentary Film	Increase audience of donors in order to solicit funds to maintain programs they care about.	A bottom-up use of online mediaBarka is a classic example of an organization that started with a seed of passion for a particular cause and uses grass roots efforts to secure support. They’ve established key partnerships, are leveraging online media to get the word out, and use online media to highlight their offline efforts. Adopting Peace Corps-style projects such as organizing a 500 mile walk to raise funds for the drilling of a well in La Petite is one example of an offline event that relies on online community, donations, guerilla press, etc.  (you can track their progress on their facebook page and make a donation to help their cause).
Dove	YouTubeTV Commercials	In this now-famous commercial Dove chose to differentiate themselves by starting their own movement – redefining beauty.	Top-down, generating a grass roots movement.Here is a large company that could easily sit back and be of the opinion that they do not need to participate in “new media” for the simple fact that everyone needs soap. Dove reshaped the premise that rather than needing soap, among a long list of other products, the  women who used Dove were already beautiful – and needed nothing else. Literally.Once launched, the message gained momentum and now Dove has a Campaign for Beauty campaign featuring real women as their spokes models and a nationwide self esteem work shop tour. Once an idea like this is out, it belongs to the community, Dove can’t really control much more about the message of self esteem than Nike can – they can offer a framework for discussion…a community.

 

What mini movement is driving your business?

Giving is the new taking

There are precious few examples of corporations ditching the greed and embracing generosity. President Obama’s speah highlighted a CEO who distributed his bonus across his workers (past and present) – who does that??? (a true leader) And what an incredible example for the larger companies to follow.

Countless individuals have already started giving, of course: giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving. How can you really afford not to spend some time figuring out how to get a little closer to your customers?

Generosity as a leading societal and business mindset. As consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy—and while that same upheaval has them longing more than ever for institutions that care—the need for more generosity beautifully coincides with the ongoing (and pre-recession) emergence of an online-fueled culture of individuals who share, give, engage, create and collaborate in large numbers.

In fact, for many, sharing a passion and receiving recognition have replaced ‘taking’ as the new status symbol. Businesses should follow this societal/behavioral shift, however much it may oppose their decades-old devotion to me, myself and I.”

Some themes contributing to the new giving climate:

- Consumer Disgust

The current financial meltdown has led consumers to be more disgusted than ever (if that’s even possible) with greedy corporate execs who just don’t care.

Some fun (US) stats from Reputation Garage:

• As few as 13% of all Americans place their trust in big business (and it’s not much higher for other mature consumer societies!).
• Only 39% of employees in a Watson Wyatt survey said they trusted senior leadership.
• Some three-quarters of US consumers feel that companies don’t tell the truth in advertising.
• Three-quarters of employees in big companies observed violations of the law or company standards in a 12-month period.

- Longing for institutions that care

And yet…the need for the opposite of greed (that would be generosity!) is never greater than in challenging times. Challenging times see people craving care, empathy, sympathy and generosity.

-Giving as the new taking

Rich People (Gates, Buffet, Bono); Any Individual

I’m talking the collaborative / free / creation / crowdsourced / gift / sharing movement* that—especially online—has unlocked in entirely new ways the perennial need of individuals to be appreciated, to be loved, to feel part of the greater good, to contribute, to help… To basically find status and gratification in something other than consuming the most or the best.

-Giving doesn’t mean giving it away for free

Being generous to customers doesn’t always mean giving away everything you have. You shouldn’t forget about bottom lines and profitability. Giving can be about being a bit kinder, a bit more caring towards your customers.

What are some ways you are being kinder to your customers?

Wish I’d Thought Of It

	MyElectionChoices allows you to select statements from candidates and find out who you really support!
	Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.
	www.gingerbreadusa.com/AboutUs.htmlThis Stoneham, MA company started by husband and wife team constructs gingerbread homes through an assembly line process. Each house is assembled by hand. They sell about 10,000 a year.
	www.blisssoap.comLooks like bakery items, but it’s soap!
	www.dogster.com   www.catster.comA simple idea, essentially home pages for pets, has quickly been turning into the pefect niche advertising site.”We are dog freaks and computer geeks who wanted a canine sharing application that’s truly gone to the dogs. Such a site didn’t exist, so we built it ourselves. The fluffy love is backed with serious technology and years of coding experience under our collars. Dogster has since become more contagious than kennel cough.”