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CONCERN ABOUT OUR FOOD SOURCES has increasingly been a critical issue of the 21st century.
We know that enormous agricultural enterprises can be highly efficient, but tend to eliminate healthy diversity in what we eat. And we worry about the environmental cost of transporting our food all over the globe.
I was fascinated, then, to talk with Michele Ostrander, the owner and CEO of RevoGrow. It’s a company dedicated to connecting restaurants, stores and consumers with local growers.
WITH THE RIGHT ATTITUDE, building solid technical skills is much easier.
This is the philosophy of Canidium, a rapidly growing consulting business which focuses on sales and service performance improvement via strategic guidance and systems integration and support for their clients..
It’s a pretty technical set of services, but I was intrigued by the notion that this company puts people first: Both its customers and its employees. Read the rest of this entry »
BANKING MIGHT NOT BE THE FIRST INDUSTRY you think of improving the world. We’ve become quite jaded with all the banking issues in the last thirty years.
That means there’s room for someone who’s taking a different approach.
New Resource Bank was founded in San Francisco in 2006 with a mission to support businesses and non-profits which improve the world in four key areas:
- Environmental protection
- Health & wellness
- Education & community empowerment
- Sustainable commerce
THE WORD “STEWARDSHIP” CROPPED UP in several conversations for me recently, so it seems that God’s asking me to pay attention to the idea.
The word originally came from “servant of the house,” but over time expanded to the role of chief servant. Well, these days few of us have servants, much less more than one, so why is the concept important?
Because it’s about taking care. Of the house, of possessions, of the gifts you’ve been given in your life.
This is something each of us needs to do.
HAPPY LUCKY’S TEAHOUSE is a little shop in downtown Fort Collins. They have the largest tea selection in Colorado, as displayed on their ever-growing “Great Wall of Tea” alongside teapots, accessories, and silk scarves.
Silk scarves? What’s that about?
It turns out that those scarves were an important part of the genesis of this business. Read the rest of this entry »
“IF YOU LOVE WHAT YOU DO, you’ll never work a day in your life.” This quote has been attributed to a variety of people, so I’m not going to pick just one.
It has a strong foundation of truth in it. I do indeed love my work, and it’s totally changed my outlook on my career, indeed, the rest of my life.
But I don’t love it all the time.
And I don’t love every part of it. There’s grunge work and boring parts and annoyances.
Source jean hambourg, no modifications
THIS WEEK I’VE BEEN PONDERING the concept of delivering outrageous value for my clients. This isn’t unique to coaches, of course – it’s something which can make any business stand out from the crowd.
For instance, I was speaking with the owner of an engineering product/services company. That’s a bit dear to my heart, actually, since I started my career that way.
This company has great products, of course – highly technical, as you’d expect. But that doesn’t really say much about the nature of the company. Read the rest of this entry »
DO YOU PRAY for your business?
I know that I’ve struggled with this question over the years.
In our society, we try hard to separate our religious lives on Sunday from our secular lives the other six days of the week.
But God has asked us to be focused on him at all times, not just for an hour or two.
ROBERT REICH
is one smart guy, and I deeply respect the fact that he appears to actually understand how the economy works.
So I noticed his recent article titled “The Rebirth of Stakeholder Capitalism“.
He makes a powerful distinction between Shareholder Capitalism and Stakeholder Capitalism. The former structures a business to benefit only the shareholders, while the latter incorporates other beneficiaries: customers, employees, and communities.
DOUG, WYNNE and CORKIE ODELL started their brewery in 1989 in the outer reaches of Fort Collins. 
The Odell Brewing Company is now one of the top craft breweries in the area, distributing to ten states in the region.
There’s a distinct passion for producing high quality beers. But that’s just the beginning of the story.
I had the opportunity to speak with Karla Baise recently, the company’s community outreach coordinator. This isn’t just a simple PR position, it’s actually a critical part of the company’s business strategy.
Here’s a great example: When I met with Karla, she had a couple of ladies stop in with big bags of fresh herbs from The Gardens At Spring Creek. Read the rest of this entry »
The Values-Based Business 