Margins: Gross vs. Net
July 28, 2003 | Business & Commerce
Point of interest: Gross margins refer to your sales (revenue) minus the cost of goods sold (COGS). So if a store buys beer at $4 a sixpack and sells it at $6 a sixpack, the gross margin is $2, or in this case 33%. Net margins are what's left after paying for everything else: salaries, rent, electricity, etc. Net margins = profits. It's what you get taxed on.
Tough competition
July 28, 2003 | Cooperatives
Well, I see the conversation over at Wealth Bondage didn't stop while I took the weekend off. Some very good discussion in the comments to this post. Mike Edwards has some especially good points. Great new weblog to track.
To capture my own thinking in one place, I'm going to post comment(s) to other blogs here. Possibly edited for context.
Credit Unions are co-ops. I'm meeting with the manager of the local CU next week to investigate building closer ties with our grocery co-op. Then a few board members will attend each other's board meetings. I'll report what I learn.
I can tell you that at the national level, the banking industry is constantly trying to shut down the credit unions. This takes the form of trying to limit their geographic reach, customer demographic or number of offices via legislation. The National Cooperative Business Association (www.ncba.coop) works really hard to publicize and lobby against all this hooha.
Re: competition: What's amazing to me is that co-ops thrive, if you can call it that, in the grocery business. This is a business with 25% gross margins, 1% (!!) net margins, and a business model highly sensitive to labor rates, perishables and continous margin maintenance. For contrast, Microsoft has something like 85% gross margins and on the order of 70% net (from distant memory; please correct if you know current numbers). Software CDs don't rot after four days (some might say that MSFT software rots on day one, but that's a different topic), the margins allow for lots of slop and experimentation, and although labor is expensive it's a relatively fixed cost.
What this says to me is that passion can compete in one of the toughest businesses round. Yes, Whole Foods and the like can put a co-op out of business pretty easily, but we're talking about pockets of resistance here, not taking over the world. Part of good market research (sorely lacking in most non-profit ventures) is analysis of demographics, consumption habits, geography, etc.
If an industry of ex-stoners can stay alive at 1% net margins, there is hope for alternative business structures, no matter what the big guys do.
Begin with the end in mind
July 25, 2003 | Arts & Culture
Michael J. is trying to hustle us out the door but the most amazing psycho-musical event just occurred and I had to report. Chill out dude, what's the rush?
Grateful Dead, Fox Theater, Atlanta GA, May 19, 1977, second set: An eleven minute Terrapin followed by an eleven minute Playin'. They're drifting around the cosmos, exploring measures of ten; I'm taking a shower, packing, snacking; 20 minutes later they're still noodling along and then suddenly they sing the final line from Uncle John's Band: "Woh, oh what I want to know is how does the song go?" and I think, "Did they just play Uncle John's? Wow, really smooth transition from Playin', I hardly noticed." And then, BANG, Garcia hits the opening chords of Uncle John's, plays a beautiful solo to start the song and leads into the first verse - starting the song by playing the ending. This is the sort of musical head games they pulled off all the time in the Good Olde Days. Since the audience was in various stages of deconstructive consciousness the groupmind impact was phenomenal, leaving us today with only the phenomenological documentation. Praise be the vault releases.
Music backup strategy
July 24, 2003 | Business & Commerce
One last post before vacation. Cringely has an interesting new business model for a music distribution business. He envisions a publicly held company where the shareholders mutually own a library of 100,000 music CDs, and they are allowed to download backup copies of these songs at the bandwidth cost of $0.05 per song or $0.50 per album. Totally legal under current fair use copyright law, though as he points out the RIAA would mount a campaign to legislate this out of existence.
He continues with a detailed ananlysis of the IPO market capitalization, which would be of significant, if secondary, benefit to the shareholders. In all, he makes the case that this new business model will accelerate the change that is washing over the music industry. Mr. Charlie would be proud.
Mini-Vaca
July 24, 2003 | Life
Notio is having a Team-Building Company Retreat this weekend. Myself, Dr. van der Meer, Michael J., and the other Senior Executives of Notio Experience are headed to a small island on a small lake, sans electricity, telephone or running water. We expect to have bonding experiences and perhaps some imbibing indulgences, and return home Sunday smelling ready for a shower. Blogging will be so light as to be non-existent. Have a great weekend!
Hybrid LLC/Co-op Structure
July 24, 2003 | Governance
Thanks to Walden Swanson, we have an outline on forming a hybrid LLC/Co-op business. Following is an edited amalgamation of an email thread we've had the last couple of days.
Minnesota has a new co-op law that has elements of an LLC. August 1 is the day the law goes into effect. This is the first state that has instituted a hybrid LLC/Co-op business organization.
http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/cgi-bin/bldbill.pl?bill=H0984.3&session=ls83
Note this link points to the mark up bill rather than the final law, so it's a little hard to read. I don't think the final one is available yet.
The way we (Walden's company) are going to set up the initial structure has 3 classes of members: Investors, customers and Employees (employees include founders, developers, management, etc.).
The employees start out with 100% of the company and are diluted by the other shareholders. As you will see, this will eventually end up with 45% for the employee class.
The investors want a targeted IRR (Internal Rate of Return). We both agreed on an expected scenario for the income statement and then backed into their percentage ownership. (Notio note: That sentence right there defines the business issues at hand – what are the expected income and expenses and how much money is the investor willing to put in for how much of the business.) The key elements here, after agreeing on the expected scenario, were the dividend policy (you can distribute all of the profits like a Sub S rather than a Sub T - which is a slight advantage from the old co-op act), and the "terminal value". We agreed that the terminal value would be 1 X Sales at the end of 5 years. There would be a put and call at that time. This provides for the investor exit. At the end of 5 years, the co-op could choose, or be forced, to buy out the investor, but neither would have to happen. The exit was important for the investor. Say this formula gives them 20% of the company for their investment. This share does not dilute as new employees or customers are added.
The third class is customers. As new customers join, they dilute the workers - up to 35%. Additional consumer shares then start to dilute the other customers. In other words, the customers can own up to 35% of the company, but no more. We used the "value added" co-op model popular with many new Agriculture co-ops, so that customers that joined early were rewarded more than customers that joined later.
Most of the worker allocation will be based on classical ESOP parameters. You can find good info at www.nceo.org, the National Center for Employee Ownership. We're going to use hours rather than dollars since several of us have put in many hours and not gotten many dollars. We don't have this in place yet, but will be glad to share it when we do.
Excess earnings (profits) will be distributed by the shares each class owns. So the investors would get 20% of the dividend in our example. The employee class would get 45% and within that class the allocation would be by hours worked. Customers would get 30% distributed as patronage refunds in proportion to how much they purchased from the co-op.
Notio sez: This is obviously a lot more complicated than showing up at your lawyer's office with $750 and answering a few questions to file paperwork for an LLC. However, it attempts to deal fairly with the sweat equity of the workers, the avoidance of over-charging the customers, and providing a mechanism for investment capital (which is typically hard to get in ESOP and Co-op models).
A separate issue is that of governance. This is a key point of the structure because everyone wants to be well-represented and everyone has a different perspective on what's important. One approach would be to have representatives from each member class in proportion to the shares for that class. A nine-person board might have 4 worker reps, 3 customer reps and 2 investor reps. It wouldn't necessarily have to work this way though. Certainly in the venture capital world, the investors call the shots and the workers can go to hell. That attitude is what we're trying to avoid with a more complex pre-nuptial corporate structure.
National Center for Employee Ownership
July 23, 2003 | Governance
Great resource! Quote: "The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) is a private, nonprofit membership and research organization that serves as the leading source of accurate, unbiased information on employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), broadly granted employee stock options and related programs, and ownership culture. We are the main publisher and research source in the field, hold dozens of workshops and conferences annually, and provide services to our thousands of members."
SBIR Grants
July 22, 2003 | Business & Commerce
Attended a session today on Federal SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grants held by the VT Technology Council, et al.
Key links:
ZYN.com
ThinkVermont.com Web Resources
These are research and development grants, not loans. 10 federal agencies are required to set aside 2.5% of their research budgets for SBIR use. That's a lot of money available on a competative basis. Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health & Human Services, Transportation, EPA, NASA, National Science Foundation. Money must be used for research, not commercialization, scale-up or marketing. You can outsource up to 50% of the funds to sub-contractors and consultants.
Applicant must be a for-profit business with less than 500 employees and min 51% US owned. Sole props, corps, partnerships all welcome.
Phase I grants are for feasability studies and are typically $70K to $100K for a six month project. Approx 10% of applicants get Phase I grants. If you know how to write a good proposal and carefully target your efforts you can hit 20-40% success rate. Over 60% of Phase I recipients have fewer than 25 employees.
Phase II grants (the real R&D) are typcially up to $750K for a two year project. About 40% of Phase I recipients are granted Phase II grants.
From 1984-2003, 49 VT businesses were awarded 144 Phase I grants and 52 Phase II grants, worth nearly $36MM. That's a lot of money flowing into a small economy like VT.
Basic process is that you are reviewing (via the www.zyn.com/sbir website) Pre-Solicitation Announcements and trying to find a strategic fit between your long-term research interests and what the gov't agencies are looking to fund. Call the agency SBIR program manager and talk about your interests. They are helpful, friendly, and answer their own phones (mostly). Sometimes if they like your idea they will write a PSA based on it.
You write a ~25 page proposal, including detailed budget and work plan. There is a technical review and an administrative review. Follow the admin rules carefully. Review successful grant apps online to see what worked in the past.
It takes 4-5 months to find out if your app was accepted. Some agencies have deadlines every four months, some only annually. This is not a short-term funding solution.
They do fund grants for social programs, including such things as rural economic development, educational initiatives, etc. Lots of grassroots potential here if you have the attention span and ability to tell a tale in words. You don't have to be a business to apply for the grants, but have to become a business before they disburse funds. Moonlighters welcome.
Mobile Psychoacoustics Lab
July 21, 2003 | Life
So, the Mr. Charliemobile had to go into the shop today. At the end of the day I got a ride from the shop's driver, Sam. Sam's job is to drive around all day, carrying people from the shop to their work and then from their work back to the shop. He uses a cell phone frequently and has people call him to get picked up, etc. It's a nice example of distributed control. He don't need no stinkin' receptionist to schedule the routes. Just call him, and he'll fit you in just as soon as he can.
Sam is a perfect stand-in for Kramer on Seinfeld, and probably in the off-hours has a a lot of stories to tell about life on the local road. When he picked me up this afternoon, the front seat was free, and Sam had some painfully bogus music on the tinny sound system. I could have helped him out with some kind CDs I had in my briefcase, but he was commenting on the skills and education of proximate drivers and I felt it might disrupt his Wa. Plus, I didn't want to freak out Don, an engineer from CRREL (no website, apparently), in the back seat. So we listened to oldies or somesuch dreck driving to the shop.
Driving through downtown, Sam commented on a shortcut that happend to be in a neighborhood where my wife and I lived for four years. We compared notes on which of the two methods to implement the shortcut is best. After four years of research, I'm sure that method two is best, except from 7:30 AM to 8:15 AM, when the high school is filling. The winner is not obvious. The difference between them is only perhaps 10 - 30 seconds, but if you're driving around all day, saving 30 seconds here and there and feeling like you won a minor battle isn't all bad.
So anyway, at some point in the 20 minute drive, Sam's cell phone rings. What happened next was a case study in efficiency and learned optimization. Instantly, Sam turned the radio off; he picked up the cell phone with his right hand and handed it off to his left; rolled down my window (right side) about two inches (key point); took the call using his left ear and made arrangements to pick someone up after he dropped us off. When the call ended he hung up, rolled up the window and turned the radio back on.
Test Question: Why did Sam roll down the right side window and use his left ear to listen?
Answer: Binaural Masking Level Difference. I kid you not.
Sam doesn't know the first thing about psychoacoustics or the BMLD, but I can tell you definitively that what Sam had learned from frequent experience is that a small amount of noise added to the opposite ear will improve the signal to noise ratio and the intelligibility of voices.
I asked him if he ever rolled down both windows when he got a call. "Nope, that doesn't work as well. I've tried it both ways. If I use my left ear I roll down the right window." Has he ever tried using his right ear and rolling down his left window? "Tried it, but that window is too close to my head, so the noise is too loud, even if I roll it down just a little. Plus, my hearing's better in my left ear. Know how I found out? One night I was lying in bed on my right side and I could hear everything just normal. Then I rolled over and my left ear was in the pillow and my right ear was up and everything was kind of muffled and distant. It's easier to go to sleep lying on my left side. It's weird that rolling down the window helps me hear on the phone, but it's a lot better."
What we were having here is a human conversation, sharing, learning, no defenses, no ego.
I explained a bit about the BMLD, and how it could improve intellibility by "6 dB," which is four times as good as without the window, so it didn't surprise me, but I had never seen anyone use the BMLD in daily life – it's mostly a lab concept, other than the odd audio freak widget for stereos.
Then, figuring it was related, Sam asked a question about why on his cell phone he could sometimes hear the other person fine but he was all static-y to them. I had no idea, but Don the engineer from CRREL said it was that basically you've got a tiny transmitter and tiny antenna in the phone, but the caller has a 100 watt transmitter on the cell tower and it's easier to receive signals than to transmit them.
Sam dropped us off and I went inside to find a bill for $1,147, at which I sighed, and paid. When I got home I noticed that they forgot to do the state inspection, for which I'm overdue. Sigh. Investigating the situation on the VWvortex forums I find that I probably overpaid for the mass air flow sensor ($600) by a factor of two. Dealer premium I guess. Sigh.
You learn something new every day.
For-Benefit Organizations
July 21, 2003 | Business & Commerce
There's a real resonance between many of my latent thoughts on humane business organization and the Tutor's quest to foster "a life well-lived." Witness the output generated in 12 hours of full-time blogging yesterday. Today, he points to the Fourth Sector Network, grouping organizations into "for-benefit" class of business.
Quote: "For-Benefits are a new class of organization. They are driven by a social purpose, they are economically self-sustaining, and they seek to internalize their social costs by being socially, ethically, and environmentally responsible.
Like non-profits, For-Benefits can organize in pursuit of a wide range of social missions. Like for-profits, For-Benefits can generate a broad range of beneficial produc ts and services that improve quality of life for consumers, create jobs, and contribute to the economy. For-Benefits seek to maximize benefit to all stakeholders, and 100% of the economic "profits" they generate are invested to advance social purposes. Because of their architecture, For-Benefits can embody some of the best attributes of other organizational forms. They strive to be democratic, inclusive, open, transparent, accountable, effective, efficient, cooperative, and holistic.
For-Benefits represent a new paradigm in organizational design. At all levels, they aim to link two concepts which are held as a false dichotomy in other models: private interest and public benefit."
Their taxonomy includes co-ops, esops, socially-responsible investing, open source, and the whole cultural creative/LOHAS market.
This is a great lens to view the emergence. I do hope, however, that we can soon move beyond defining ourselves and get to work. Granted, some of this delay is caused by all of us just now waking up that we are not alone, that in fact we may be a silent majority, and that many of our friends, neighbors and colleagues might choose this path if they felt safe enough to do so. Having a big mortgage and a local community reputation to maintain can keep a status quo employed for a whole lifetime.
There's an election cycle coming up, if we need a deadline.
Why Corporate Structure Matters
July 21, 2003 | Governance
An extended reply to a comment posted earlier today, regarding the importance of legal and financial structures in setting up humane organizations:
When LLC's first became available, most advisors (lawyers and accountants) didn't recommend them because they were untested in the courts as regards liability and whatnot. At that time, the operating agreements were expensive to draft because there was no boilerplate language to draw from. Now, you can set up an LLC professionally for $500 - $750 (nothing fancy). Or buy the Nolo Press books for $50 and figure it out for yourself. But this is a recent development.
Even now, my personal advisors, some of the brightest independent professionals in this Ivy League town, are not sure what to make of my thoughts for forming a software co-op. "Why not just do an LLC?" they say.
Structure matters because at the end of the year you have to file tax returns. The IRS doesn't allow creative new approaches, you have to map your state requirements onto the Federal possibilities. So when you set up an LLC there are a few questions that determine how the business is treated for tax purposes. Somewhat counter-intuitively, you can have your LLC treated as Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, C Corporation or S Corporation for tax purposes. This is why the LLC is so popular - it's a very flexible instrument.
An interesting aspect of the tax treatment of co-ops is that the amount refunded as patronage refund is tax-deductable to the co-op. This avoids the normal double-taxation of dividends. In addition, many co-ops pay a portion of their refunds in member equity (stock) increasing the co-op's tax-deductable amount and keeping the member from having to pay income tax on that equity gain until such time as the stock is sold, thus resulting in capital gains taxes, typically at a lower tax rate.
Business Names, Lesson 1
July 21, 2003 | Business & Commerce
I love business guys – they have such a sense of humor!
If you were a company called Powergen and you had a subsidiary that operated in Italy, what would you call that company's Web site?
Probably not http://www.powergenitalia.com
Equity vs. Profit-Sharing
July 20, 2003 | Governance
One of the most difficult business structure issues to be resolved in cooperative, mutual or producer groups creating "legacy" assets is that of transient employee/owners. Say for example you want to have a worker-owned co-op that produces a software product.
In the "normal" producer co-op structure, such as a farm products group, the amount of goods you contribute determines the amount of your profit-sharing. If you generated 200 bushels of corn, and your neighbor generated 2,000 bushels, you would each get a proportional profit-share.
Similarly in the consumer co-op model, a patronage refund is distributed in proportion to your purchases. If I bought $500 worth of groceries, my refund is 10% of someone who bought $5,000.
But in the case of a software product or any other enterprise where there is a persistant asset, what happens when one of the producers/workers/employees/owners leaves the firm? What happens to their equity investment? The problem is that the product will continue to generate revenue (or interest) for years, but if you were to continue to pay them at the full rate of their previous profit-share, there would be no incentive to stay with the firm. In other words, they are not producing anymore, but the asset is. What is an equitable arrangement?
I think this is particularly difficult in software, where early contributions are typically much more "make or break" than later contributions. An excellent first engineeer can set the stage for years of productive growth. This employee has much greater value (to the business success) than a later employee.
(My philospohy is that all people have equal human value - I am commmenting here on the economic contribution to a collective enterprise, which in my view varies by experience and education, at least. This isn't a socialist model but a collective determination model.)
A separate but equal problem is attracting investment capital, since typically worker-owners don't have a lot of cash sitting around. I've heard of a hybrid LLC/co-op that I'm researching. Details when I know more.
One solution I've thought about is something along the lines of how physical assets are depreciated over time on tax forms. in other words, the percentage of profit-share might decrease over three or five years by equal percentages. I'm no expert here, and perhaps this is a solved problem, but I haven't come across it yet.
Another approach from the standard stock-ownership models would be restricted stock. I am particularly interested to see what the details of Microsoft's restricted stock plan will be - they are eliminating stock options for employees and granting restricted stock instead. What exactly those restrictions are will be a helpful example for developing incented, humane, locally-controlled governance structures. Not that MSFT is any of those things, but we can learn from their expensive legal help.
I would like to collect contracts, operating agreements, state incorporation papers, etc. related to cooperative, mutual or employee-owned businesses. Sharing this knowledge will help speed the evolution of prosocial and progressive business structures. I am willing to maintain confidential and anonymous contributions. Please pass along anything you might have access to. For complete anonymity, photocopy docs and mail them to PO Box 828, Hanover, NH, 03755.
Mutual Banks & Insurance
July 20, 2003 | Governance
The Tutor points out in a comment post that a mutual insurance company is another opportunity for customer-owned enterprise. (Scroll down to the post at 5:56 PM.) Quote: "Another interesting co-op hybrid might be the old mutual insurance company concept. The company is owned by the policy holders and divisible surplus is paid back as policy dividends. In other words, the whole company is a kind of customer owned co-op, at least in theory. Governance, though, is through managers working under the usual kind of corporate board, without policy holder board seats."
We have a mutual savings bank locally, and I'm friendly with the President. Perhaps we can have a chat about how it works in comparison to Co-ops.
Psychological Skeleton Key
July 20, 2003 | People & Society
While Michael J. ate some lunch and Mr. Charlie mumbled about music and elastic time, I rooted around for a book I wanted to mention.
"In Over Our Heads; The Mental Demands of Modern Life" by Robert Kegan (Harvard) is an important scholarly psychology book. It is a model of adult development that posits an "advanced postmodern cirriculum" in our culture. Briefly, five stages. Stage three=seeking independence. Stage four=seeking interdependence. Stage five=creating systems of interdependence. This is an "always maturing, never mature" model of development, not tied to intelligence, age or education.
Most people struggle their whole lives to try to make it into stage four. A very few people are able to see beyond their own needs, and the needs of those dependent on them, and work toward creating new sets of related systems. An interesting aspect of the model is that those with more advanced comprehension are obligated to "slow down" and relate to others in a way that makes sense to the other. That is, a stage three person cannot comprehend the language of a stage four person. (Clinton was a stage four person. Bush is stage three.) What this means is that modifying your personal behavior to accomodate others slows you down personally, but speeds evolution of the common good.
A more practical treatment geared toward relations with those in your workplace can be found in "How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work." Both are highly recommended and were true "before and after" books for me.
Comes A Time
July 20, 2003 | Arts & Culture
From day to day
just letting it ride
you get so far away
from how it feels inside
You can't let go
cause you're afraid to fall
till the day may come
when you can't feel at all
Comes a time
when the blind man
takes your hand
says: don't you see?
got to make it somehow
on the dreams you still believe
Don't give it up
you've got an empty cup
only love can fill
only love can fill
-- Excerpt from "Comes A Time" by Robert Hunter. There's a very nice version on the aforementioned concert release.
What makes time elastic? No, wide-eyed, not drugs. This is serious.
Music makes time elastic by entraining our emotions with a larger group, which includes both the musicians and the audience group-mind. Subtle changes in the sonic rhythm create physical sensations (via hearing), and this triggers thoughts, memories, dreams and reveries. In some ways, the better the music, the better the dreaming while listening. This elasticity frees us from our linear perspective and lightens our mind. Music is a universal joy, in all cultures, through all time.
What makes time inelastic? The steady drone of asexual press releases, so-called factual news accounts, quantitative reductionism and amoral political manipulation.
Is it any wonder that we suffer from a lack of imagination today?
Chaordic Commons
July 20, 2003 | Governance
Another business structure worth investigating is the Chaordic Commons. This system was invented by Dee Hock, who founded VISA International. You may have heard of their credit card. It's described in his bio: "In 1968, he developed the concept of a global system for the electronic exchange of value and a unique, new form of organization for that purpose: a decentralized, non-stock, for-profit membership institution to be owned by financial institutions throughout the world. In 1970, the first portion of that organization, VISA U.S.A., was founded, followed by VISA International in 1974. It is now a $1.75 trillion enterprise jointly owned by more than 20,000 financial institutions in more than 220 countries and territories.
Lots of good links on their page.
Policy Governance
July 20, 2003 | Governance
It is worth noting that most non-profits, at least at the local level, suffer from disfunctional boards of directors. One reason is that boards are volunteers, and don't spend all that much time in the role, so they don't know what boards should do. They end up focusing on operational aspects of the business, rather than on the strategic direction and vision.
Get it straight: The board hires management to operate the business. Period. Management executes tacticly based on strategy the board has envisioned. If the board spends all its time critiqueing the operational tactics, there is no vision on which to base tactical decisions. It's a vicious cycle and causes frequent management turnover, hurting the long-term prospects for business success.
One approach to avoid this cycle, possibly the only method yet well-known, is John Carver's Policy Governance model. Quote: "Policy Governance® is a specific set of concepts and principles and their application to the servant-leadership of boards and the board-management partnership."
This model is widely know within the Co-op world, and somewhat widely used. It is, at first, a difficult model to work with, because as a board member you are not "allowed" to talk about operations. Your job is not to ask why the peaches always suck rocks, but to determine if the business should sell fresh produce. In other words, by what policies will we govern this business on behalf of our members/owners/shareholders. Once board members "jump up a level" to this perspective, simply stated as "why are we here? - what is our role in the world?" then things get interesting.
The advantages, as far as I can tell from my experience with it, are that management has clear direction, board members don't burn out (as much anyway), and the business has a vision and direction to its dealings with the world. It's much more energizing to have a board meeting talking about our "Ends" in the world than about the "means" to get there, especially since the board members won't be the ones executing the means. It's easy to have an opinion when you're not the one doing the work.
Serious non-profit boards should study the Carver model, hire some consulting help a couple times a year as you develop your policies, and stay out of tactical management. Hire good managers, trust them, work together to set a course and then stay out of the way. This alone could improve the prospects of most non-profit organizations dramatically.
Further reading: International Policy Governance Association.
Personification
July 20, 2003 | People & Society
Funny that Michael J. should invite me today to join in the Notio Experience. I've been thinking recently about personification and its value in psychological health. Intentional personification stands in stark contrast to the harsh black and white world of the fundamentalists. While our loved ones may know that we have "moods" or "phases" most of our business and community colleagues would like to think of us in a single way. Paul's a doctor. Beth's a lawyer. Marc works at the Chamber of Commerce. Kate is a waitress. John is a deacon at our church. Jill is a mother of twins and volunteers at the Waldorf school. All very neat and tidy. If it turns out that Kate is a waitress and a sex worker, people are shocked, just shocked! Such a nice girl......
But the reality is that we have multiple personalities, and successful people know how to move from one to the other smoothly. Your wife doesn't need your aggressive business attitude in the house, and your assistant probably doesn't want to hear "I love you!" after meeting some ungodly deadline. Or, at least, your wife doesn't want your assistant to hear that.
When I was first starting my psychological studies, Timothy Leary was an early read. Not your typical starting point, I know. But he clearly saw the truth of multiple personalities, from wherever he got his insight. Later, James Hillman via David Miller, carried the idea, and me, through to Jung's idea of the collective unconcious. Enough history.
Knaves may think it is splitting hairs, but in fact we are different people in different situations. We are not just "on our best behavior" at a formal dinner party, we say things that we would not be able to think of while mowing the lawn. When Mr. Charlie returned to white-collar work after his little weekend of fun in Albany, he did not greet his supervisor with "Dude! Killer shows!" He said, "Yes, thanks, I had a wonderful weekend. We visited some friends in Albany - it was great to see them." His personality is the collection of his personas. This is very useful, online and off.
Contrast this with the single-minded persona that, say, our President would like to project. An image of stability, a solid citizen, a trustworthy leader. This is why, when a crack in the hologram shines through, the media can be so relentless. Did he inflate the State of the Union speech? What else has been exaggerated? Does North Korea really have nukes? How can we trust for sure? When that hologram cracks, you can also see how disruptive it is for the person thinking they don't have personas. In our example, Bush, in explaining the 16 words, said that Saddam didn't let the inspectors in. This statement is entirely false, and makes one wonder what other statemets are false. So we witness our President, cornered, stammering, grasping at straws, lying, trying to regroup into the single familiar persona. Good luck. (c.f. the virtous William Bennet with a gambling habit for additional material.)
Dick's Picks 29
July 20, 2003 | Arts & Culture
Dude, 1977 was a good year for the Grateful Dead, and they've just released two complete concerts on six CDs -- Fox Theatre, Atlanta, GA (May 19, 1977) and Lakeland Civic Center Arena, Lakeland, FL (May 21, 1977). Check it out. Some fantastic music. I received my discs last week and I'm still digesting them, but, for example, the Terrapin > Playin' > Uncle John's > Drums > Wheel > China Doll > Playin' on disc three will not disappoint.
Music, as a mode of communion, is well understood within tribes such as the Deadheads as well as the Catholics and Southern Baptists. I remember going to a run of shows in Albany NY in the early '90s, and camping at a nearby campground. As a professional Deadhead, I knew enough to get there early for the best campsite, and when Dave and I were signing in, the friendly woman at the desk asked, "Are you a Follower?" I said, "Pardon me?" She said, "Are you seeing the Dead tonight? Are you a Follower?" I was heistant, having been previously denied accomodations based on my tribal associations. "Yes," I said simply. She replied, "That's great. I know exactly how you feel. I'm religious myself. I've been a Follower for years. Haven't seen the Dead, but I found Jesus years ago. There are a lot of you here today. Bathrooms are down the path, showers over there. Drive slowly and watch out for kids on bikes. Have a good time tonight." Most hotels and campgrounds are tolerant of the Dead crowd, but not at all welcoming. We walked out of the office with our heads spinning.
We left early to go hang out in the ultra-cool downtown Albany parking lot / vending scene, and when we returned after the show around midnight the campground was FILLED with Deadheads. Drumming, tripping, singing, dancing, talking, building campfires, making love. They sold out not only the campsites but a huge open field for tents. Great scene, and a major cash-cow for the owners. Followers take care of each other.
Thanks, Michael J., for inviting me to tell some stories.
Personas
July 20, 2003 | People & Society
The Happy Tutor has warm words of welcome for my comments on cooperative business models. The most interesting thing, for me, was his read that my interests "include business consulting, software development, playwriting, and Gaston Bachelard." All true. And I'm sure he was not intending to be limiting, and in fact probably just skimmed my sites, since the WB trade is so busy these days. But it occured to me that what I consider my greatest interests, music and psychology, are poorly represented in my weblog.
To correct this oversight, I've invited some friends to participate in The Notio Experience. Mr. Charlie will comment on music matters, and Dr. van der Meer has agreed to provide psychoanalytic interpretation. I've invited a few others to join us as well; we'll see if they enjoy the salon. As part of this expansion of operations, I've decided that "Michael J." will be my persona.
Meta Co-ops
July 20, 2003 | Cooperatives
Co-op Atlantic is a "'second-level" co-op -- that is, it is a co-op made up of co-ops. To quote: "Co-op Atlantic is the second largest regional co-operative wholesaler in Canada, and has a membership of 135 co-operative enterprises. Co-op stores serve over 200,000 member families in Atlantic Canada and the province of Quebec."
Many co-op organizations join the National Cooperative Business Association. In addition to providing educational services, they are also the official registrar for the .coop Internet domain, and provide a voice in Washington to elected officials. In other words, they're the lobbying arm of the movement.
Cooperative Service Providers
July 20, 2003 | Cooperatives
Cooperative Development Services is a nonprofit organization created and governed by the cooperative community of the Upper Midwest for the purpose of developing cooperative businesses in all sectors of the economy. Note: I have worked with several people from CDS and they are great.
The ICA Group Provides employee ownership, business development, and job retention services.
Unique Cooperative Businesses
July 19, 2003 | Cooperatives
Isthmus Engineering is a cooperatively-owned engineering and manufacturing company.
Independent Frabrication is an enployee-owned designer and manufacturer of high-end bicycles.
The Associated Press is a cooperative. Huh.
Cooperative Resources
July 19, 2003 | Cooperatives
Here is a good starting point for cooperative research: http://www.wisc.edu/uwcc/
The Cooperative Principles
July 19, 2003 | Cooperatives
One: Voluntary and Open Membership
Cooperatives are voluntary organizations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination.
Two: Democratic Member Control
Cooperatives are democratic organizations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions. Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership. In primary cooperatives, members have equal voting rights - one member, one vote - and cooperatives at other levels are organized in a democratic manner.
Three: Members' Economic Participation
Members contribute equally to, and democratically control, the capital of their cooperative. At least part of that capital is usually the common property of the cooperative. They usually receive limited compensation, if any, on capital subscribed as a condition of membership. Members allocate surpluses for any or all of the following purposes: developing the cooperative, possibly by setting up reserves, part of which at least would be indivisible; benefitting members in proportion to their transactions with the cooperative; and supporting other activities approved by the membership.
Four: Autonomy and Independence
Cooperatives are autonomous, self-help organizations controlled by their members. If they enter into agreements with other organizations, including governments, or raise capital from external sources, they do so on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their cooperative autonomy.
Five: Education, Training, and Information
Cooperatives provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their cooperatives. They inform the general public - particularly young people and opinion leaders - about the nature and benefits of cooperation.
Six: Cooperation Among Cooperatives
Cooperatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement by working together through local, national, regional, and international structures.
Seven: Concern for Community
While focusing on member needs, cooperatives work for the sustainable development for their communities through policies accepted by their members.
(Source: North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives.)
The Cooperative Potential
July 19, 2003 | Cooperatives
The Happy Tutor has an inspiring essay over at Wealth Bondage. it started me thinking about how important Coops could be to The Change. It's an existing business structure and relatively easy to set up.
Many people assume that Coops are just small-time natural food stores, but there are also producer coops (like Land-O-Lakes and Cabot). Even in the food sector, my Coop has five locations, 350 employees, and does $46MM a year in sales - this in a population density of ~50K. I'm currently researching how a producer coop would work for software engineers and software products. (Pointers welcome!) Coops are locally-owned, democratic (one member/one vote) and community-oriented.
The WSJ has a sense of humor
July 18, 2003 | Business & Commerce
Big news today is that the recession is over! (link) In fact, it ended 20 months ago!
I think the Bush administration should start to make a big deal about this news. After all, then they can declare victory on the economy too. Oh, wait, then it would show that they're disconnected from ordinary people who see no evidence of the recession being over. Well, at least they think growth will be over 4% for the second half of this year.
Interesting, if true.
