This year Amy and I signed up for a CSA (it stands for community supported agriculture). It’s essentially a share of a nearby farm’s output for the growing season. That means we get a ton of locally grown fruits and vegetables every week, and it forces us to eat them. I already feel healthier because of it. The only problem is that it’s pretty expensive. We can solve a lot of societal problems “by increasing affordability and access to fresh, locally grown food.” That’s exactly what Wholesome Wave does. They’re a Bridgeport, CT based non-profit with a mission “to empower people in underserved urban and rural communities to make healthier food choices.” Not only can this be good for the environment and public health, but it can also stimulate local economies.
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I’ve heard that the way math is taught in schools has completely changed since I learned to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. That seems crazy to me, but I know that there is a ton of room for innovation in the way that we educate children. While there are certainly some great for-profit companies working on this problem, there are also some great non-profits. One is Digital Promise, a Washington, DC based organization that “supports comprehensive research and development to benefit lifelong learners and provide Americans with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy.” Digital Promise is a bipartisan effort that is authorized by Congress, so it has serious support.
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One day I hope to have a business that makes real products. There’s something extremely alluring about designing and selling something tangible. Even though it may seem like every new company is operating entirely online, there actually has never been a better time to build physical products. Not only is it easier than ever to connect with manufacturers, but prototyping has been revolutionized with 3D printing. There’s still a barrier to entry in that it’s expensive and time consuming to get into 3D printing, and that’s why you can go to a studio like FATHOM in Oakland, CA which uses its “expertise in 3D printing and additive manufacturing to help customers innovate faster and more efficiently.”
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Our federal, state, and local governments do a lot of things that are bad for their constituents, but one of the worst has to be state-run lotteries. They are great at generating income for things like schools, but they are a massive regressive tax that disproportionately harms lower-income individuals. It’s almost as if people see lotteries as a savings account instead of a long shot bet. For a long time I’ve had an idea that state lotteries should be transitioned into an investment vehicle. Imagine how much better off people would be if a one dollar scratch off ticket contributed 50 cents to savings account, 40 cents to prizes, and 10 cents to education or something similar. You could even engineer it so that people win “prizes” out of their own savings accounts. To my surprise I recently learned about a non-profit that is working on similar ideas. It’s called Doorways to Dreams Fund, and they’re based in Allston, MA. They work “with the financial services industry, government agencies, national non-profit groups, grassroots community agencies, and public policy organizations to generate promising ideas, pilot test financial products and services, build awareness of the needs and potential of low-income communities, and advocate inclusive social and economic policies.”
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In the world of advertising and marketing, creative seems to get all of the credit. We idolize the people who came up with the idea for a memorable campaign, but we don’t think of all the work that led to that idea. Whether you’re developing products, communications, strategy, or anything else that relates to your customers, you have to start with research. That’s where Kelton comes in. They are a New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA based consulting firm that is “passionate about listening to your customers and translating their stories into innovative solutions.” They start with research, then build a strategy, and use that to create design.
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InvestmentNews is our sponsor this week, and they would like to tell you about their NextGen Virtual Career Fair on November 8th. It’s an awesome opportunity for students and interns to network and find finance jobs on the spot.
Although I always knew that I wanted to run my own business, it took me until after I graduated college to actually do something about it. It’s a shame because there are all kinds of resources available for entrepreneurs who are enrolled in college. A great example is the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. They are an Amherst, MA based non-profit that supports “technology innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education to create experiential learning opportunities for students and successful, socially beneficial innovations and businesses.” The organization exists to bring all of the great thinking ideas that happen on college campuses to life through business.
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When you look at a bunch of advertising and communications agencies, you start to see a lot of the same words. They all claim to excel in areas like strategy, creative, and insights. You’ll often see the word innovation used, but it’s not always listed as a core competency. One word that I wasn’t expecting to see on an agency’s capabilities page is “culinary,” but that’s the exact word I found on the Sterling-Rice Group What We Do page. They are a Boulder, CO based “strategy, innovation, and communications firm that grows businesses and builds brands in considerable ways,” and they clearly have separated themselves from the pack by being total foodies in addition to everything else that they are.
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Yesterday we looked at Institute for Educational Leadership, one of a seemingly endless number of non-profits devoted to improving educational outcomes. Education seems to be one of the most worthy and, as a result, pursued causes, but I think poverty reduction has to come in number one. Project Concern International is a San Diego, CA based international development non-profit that works to “prevent disease, improve community health and promote sustainable development worldwide.” The core idea behind PCI is that they identify areas with the greatest need and then deliver help in a way that can have lasting community impact.
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If you haven’t had one of your social media accounts hacked, you certainly know someone who has. It’s pretty obvious that the social-ification of the web has made the Internet a much more dangerous place. Not only can malware spread more quickly and efficiently, but hackers have access to far more personal data–and that allows them to abuse the trust that you have in your online social connections. While this is kind of scary on an individual level, it’s much more frightening for large companies and organizations. Riskive is a Baltimore, MD based company that sees what’s happening. That’s why they’ve built an “enterprise grade security technology dedicated to identifying, monitoring and preventing risk across the socially connected enterprise.”
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Over the weekend I wrote about how important parental involvement is for our education system. I might have been wrong. Today I learned that parents are completely replaceable–and by robots nonetheless. When I first came across 4moms, I thought it might be a later April Fool’s joke, but they’re a totally for real Pittsburgh, PA based company that is “dedicated to finding innovative solutions that make parenting tasks easier and more enjoyable for families all over the globe.” That’s a nice way of saying that they’re building a future in which parents are obsolete. Ok, I’ve completely overplayed the robots thing, but it’s really cool to see how 4moms has used to technology to overcome some of the more frustrating parts of parenting young children.
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I went to a funeral for a friend’s relative yesterday. It was lovely service in memory of a long, full life; however, the only thing that identified the service as being in 2013 and not 1995 (or 1972 even) was that the minister did all of his readings from an iPad. There isn’t a lot of innovation in the funeral industry. I thought online obituaries and guest books were the state of art, but I learned today that Platinum Innovation Group is a Detroit, MI based company that is bringing new ideas to the industry. They’re also working in “the areas of telehealth, telemedicine, health and beauty, film industry, real estate, and genealogy.” They do this by operating “a diverse set of businesses that are powered by innovation and change.” I also found the company using the brand Hello Innovation, so I’m not sure what that’s about. Maybe they’re in the process of rebranding or something.
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Most college kitchens are filled with decades old hand-me-down tools (at least mine was). They’re not the best, but they get the job done. That used to be the way that all kitchen tools were. OXO changed that in 1989 with the launch of their Good Grips brand. Their focus on design helped take kitchen tools from a commodity to a product where brand matters and grow from startup to acquisition. A lot of the credit for the success has to be attributed to Oxo’s working with Smart Design, “an award-winning design and innovation consulting firm with offices in New York, San Francisco and Barcelona.” Smart Design has been around since 1980, and in that time they’ve worked “with companies of all sizes and across diverse industries to create human-centered design solutions that delight customers and help companies achieve their business goals.”
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What if I told you that the Reebok Pump, the Swiffer, and the portable ascender (it’s straight out of Batman) were all designed by the same company? You’d probably assume that there’s some giant holding company that owns Reebok, Procter and Gamble, and Atlas Devices. That’s not true. Continuum is the company in question, and they certainly don’t own any of those three companies. They’re a Boston, MA based “global innovation and design consultancy” that helps “organizations drive business innovation through the design of products, services and experiences that become part of the fabric of people’s lives.” Continuum has been at it for 30 years, and they’ve worked with some of the world’s biggest brands (PepsiCo, American Express, Johnson & Johnson, and Nestle in addition to the ones that I’ve already mentioned) to improve business outcomes through design.
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There’s no question that America’s future is filled with challenges, and we’re going to be the ones who have to rise to them. It’s a huge opportunity, but it’s also a bit daunting. The New America Foundation is a non-profit organization that “emphasizes work that is responsive to the changing conditions and problems of our 21st Century information-age economy — an era shaped by transforming innovation and wealth creation, but also by shortened job tenures, longer life spans, mobile capital, financial imbalances and rising inequality.” They’re based in Washington, DC (and Sacramento, CA), and they’re working to ensure that every American generation is able to live better than the one that came before it.
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When I look at creative, marketing, or design agencies, I usually like to check out their client lists and their work. I’m no expert, but it gives me a much better feel for the company. That’s why I was a bit surprised when I came across Phenomenon on the Inc. 5000–they don’t disclose their work or their clients. In fact, they promise anonymity to their sixteen clients (one of which is a country), and they mostly take on new clients who are referred to them by current or past clients. Phenomenon is based in Los Angeles, CA, and their approach is definitely different, but it does seem to be working. They’re growing like crazy with 1,274% three-year revenue growth to $15 million.
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One of my favorite sources for company ideas is e-mailing people who unsubscribe from this mailing list saying they found an internship. I figure if somebody is hiring them, then there’s a good chance that that same somebody might hire other readers. A while back a reader told me that he landed one of a few coveted internships at Prophet. I’d never heard of Prophet before, but when I checked them out I saw that they’re “a strategic brand and marketing consultancy with offices around the globe.” Apparently, they’re headquartered in San Francisco, CA, but also have locations in Chicago, IL; New York, NY; and Richmond, VA along with a number of international offices. What I find interesting about Prophet is that they seem to lean more towards a management consulting model in how they do business, even though their focus is on areas including Brand, Marketing, Innovation, Design, and Insights & Analytics.
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When I hear the word innovation, I usually think high-tech. It’s really just about finding new things that work, even if they’re old ideas. Innovations for Poverty Action is a New Haven, CT based non-profit organization that is “dedicated to discovering what works to help the world’s poor.” By using the scientific method in everything that they do, Innovations for Poverty Action is able to optimize their programs for maximum return on investment. That means they’re able to help more people with less money, which is absolutely essential when you’re fighting poverty. It’s pretty cool that they’ve been able to create a system for reliably developing new innovations.
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There are two ways to go about your internship search. You can push or you can be pulled. You can seek out companies that you want to be a part of, or you can wait passively for companies to blast their internship openings out to the world. The former will lead to far more rejection, but it can be well worth it. This is why I occasionally like to cover companies that don’t appear to have any internship opportunities posted. If they’re doing something fascinating, they’re worth looking at regardless of what they have posted. One of the coolest things that I’ve seen lately is the iPod Nano watch made by LunaTik. It’s simple, elegant, and totally awesome. Basically it’s a watch band that you can slip a 6th generation iPod Nano into–totally putting calculator watches, game watches, and every other kind of watch to shame. Not only can you tell the time and use it as a stopwatch (with a multitouch interface), but you can listen to music and track your runs with Nike+. If I didn’t hate wearing watches, I’d totally buy an iPod Nano just so that I could get one of these watches. Now, LunaTik is the brand that these watches come from, but it seems that the whole product line came out of a Chicago, IL based product design shop called Minimal Inc.. Both are founded by a guy named Scott Wilson, so they seem to be very closely related if not formally connected.
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I often hear from readers that I don’t cover internships in their preferred location or in their area of interest. On a day to day basis that may be true, but over the past three and a half years I’ve written about a truly wide range of companies, industries, internship types, and locations. Just check out our archives to see them all. (Remember, the goal of these daily profiles isn’t just to get you to look at the company we’re featuring–it’s supposed to be a jumping off point for you to generate new ideas for your internship search.) However, the companies I cover are going to be skewed towards areas with job growth, both in terms of geography and industry. Sometimes you have to move where the action is to land a great internship and set yourself up for a great career. I find that readers get most frustrated by the plethora of available software development positions that seem completely out of reach to students who aren’t studying computer science. Today we’re going to try to relieve some of that frustration by looking at Seilevel, an Austin, TX based company that is “exclusively focused on IT Product Management services for Fortune 1000 companies.” They’re working hard to change the way that companies write software requirements. You may not know what that means right now, but you can learn. Just like a One Day, One Job reader who told me about Seilevel after landing a job there with no background in software development.
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When I was in high school, I got good grades, did community service work through my church, played baseball and basketball, and ran a fan website about my favorite rapper (it was a long time ago, and it was profitable). It may sound like a lot, but I can’t believe how much time I wasted. High schoolers are capable of a lot, and they need to be challenged. That’s exactly what the San Francisco, CA based Conrad Foundation does. They’re a non-profit organization that challenges “high school students to create innovative products using science, technology, and entrepreneurship to solve real-world, 21st century problems.” They do so through the Spirt of Innovation Awards, which is a competition put on in honor of Pete Conrad (whom the foundation is named after), the astronaut who commanded Apollo 12. Pete was expelled from a prestigious high school because he couldn’t read or spell. It turned out that he was dyslexic, and the headmaster at his new school was able to help him make the most of his genius. After high school he went to Princeton and the moon. Not bad for someone who couldn’t read or spell in high school.
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Usually, when you start a company, you do it with a specific purpose in mind. Maybe you want to create and sell a line of products or offer a suite of services. When Bill Gross started Idealab in 1996, his approach was a little different. For him and his Pasadena, CA based company, products are actually new companies. In just under 15 years, Idealab “has created and operated more than 75 companies with 30 IPOs and acquisitions.” I’m sure you’ll recognize many of the names—there was eToys in 1997 and Picasa in 2002. They also had NetZero, PetSmart, Tickets.com, Citysearch, Commission Junction, and lots more. You may not be familiar with many of Idealab’s current companies, but you will be if their track record is any indication. Idealab continues to generate and test ideas, and the best ones get more attention and are eventually turned into companies.
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I was flipping through the June issue of Fast Company to take a look at their list of The 100 Most Creative People in Business (Lady Gaga is #1) because I figured it would probably lead me towards some new companies to feature. Oddly enough, the profile in magazine that caught my attention first wasn’t even from the list. It was a short profile of Geoff Vuleta, the CEO of New York City based Fahrenheit 212. He’s building a new type of consulting firm—one where IDEO meets McKinsey. He thinks that most innovation firms ignore the fact that the products and ideas that they create need to make money, and he thinks that traditional consulting firms rarely have ideas good enough to serve the markets that they so easily identify. Fahrenheit 212 focuses on helping major companies find new areas for growth—areas that will provide in excess of $100 million in new revenue. But what might be the most unique thing about Fahrenheit 212 is their business model. They only get paid if their ideas work, as they “put up to two thirds of [their] fees at risk, subject to hitting agreed commercial milestones on the initiative.”
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I feel as though I’ve been coming across a lot of innovation design firms lately. I guess it must be a growing field, which makes sense considering that design-focused companies like Apple are making a killing lately. Today we’re taking a look at Aruliden, a New York City based “brand strategy and product design consultancy formed by Rinat Aruh and Johan Liden in 2006 to bridge the gap between design and marketing.” They’re a small firm, but they make up for it by working with big name clients like Motorola, Jaguar, MINI Cooper, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Volkswagen. And not suprisingly, the work that Aruliden has done for these clients is just as impressive as the names of the clients. There’s the Motorola Sparrow and there’s retail strategy for Starbucks. Then there’s Areaware Clips and Scoot, Hydrogen Scooter. As you can see, Aruliden is always working on cool stuff.
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I still haven’t quite worked through all of the companies that I want to cover from the Fast Company World’s Most Innovative Companies list. It really is amazing how helpful magazine lists can be for finding internships. One company from the list that stuck out to me was Ammunition Group, which came in as the 5th most innovative design company. The reason that I’m so impressed with them is that they can claim Apple as a client. If Apple hires you to help with design, you’re doing something right. In addition to Apple, the San Francisco based product, interaction, and brand design firm has also worked to develop the Barnes and Noble Nook and some really interesting Lady Gaga headphones. Whether it’s designing products, identities, or interactions, Ammunition Group is one of the best at what they do.
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It’s tax time, which means that I’ve spent some time looking over my records from last year. This year is already looking better than last year thanks to a sponsor on One Day, One Job. Hopefully it will mean that when I do my taxes in 2011, I won’t consider myself a “low-income entrepreneur.” But if I still do, I’ll at least have the option of getting some support from the Corporation for Enterprise Development. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit that is “dedicated to expanding economic opportunity for low-income families and communities.” The program that I’m alluding to is the CFED’s Self-Employment Tax Initiative, which helps to provide free tax preparation services for people like me (though I haven’t actually taken advantage of any of these resources). That’s just a small slice of what CFED does, though. Their broader goal is “working at the local, state and federal levels to create economic opportunity that alleviates poverty.”
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It’s an exciting time to be in your 20s (or teens). We’re living in a period where technological innovation is constantly in our hands. It’s not in some spaceship that we see on tv or behind closed doors; it’s all around us. Beyond the tangible stuff, it’s never been easier to share and spread ideas. PopTech is a perfect example of this. They are a Brooklyn, NY based non-profit organization that has created a “a global community of cutting-edge leaders, thinkers, and doers from many different disciplines, who come together to explore the social impact of new technologies, the forces of change shaping our future, and new approaches to solving the world’s most significant challenges.” Even if you don’t end up working for PopTech, hopefully you can be a part of that thriving community as you move forward towards an exciting career.
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I’m fascinated by the field of industrial design. As much fun as it is to build virtual products like this website, I wish that I had the talent and creativity to develop something tangible. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks that, because it seems that there are more and more industrial and innovation design firms popping up lately (or maybe I’m just starting to discover more of them). It makes sense. Look at what Apple has done since it refocused and reemphasized beautiful industrial design. More and more companies are using design as their point of differentiation, yet most of them need outside help. That’s where firms like Hoboken, NJ based Propeller come in. As they put it, they “create products, packaging, and modes of visual communication that elevate human experience.”
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Apparently the hot dog is a killer. Who knew? I had heard that the preservatives in hot dogs might cause cancer, but I read yesterday in this Fast Company article that the American Academy of Pediatrics recently “called for the redesign of hot dogs” because of the choking hazard. One of the Academy’s doctors even went so far as to say that, “If you were to take the best engineers in the world and asked them to design a perfect plug for a child’s airway, you couldn’t do better than a hot dog.” The article went on to discuss how RKS, a Thousand Oaks, CA based industrial design firm, was playing with ideas on how to redesign the hot dog. That’s a big task to bite off, but RKS was able to come up with some pretty cool concepts in their brainstorming. It shows why they can claim companies like Apple, Coca-Cola, Nissan, and HP as clients.
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A lot of people think inventing is easy. You see those guys like Billy Mays screaming on tv, and you think to yourself, “I could have thought of that.” Believe it or not, even those stupid infomercial products aren’t easy to come up with, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the world of invention. Inventing a new product is a long, arduous process that requires a ton of resources. Invention Machine is a Boston based software developer that “drives sustainable innovation by enabling global organizations to consistently generate breakthrough ideas that accelerate product development.” It’s hard for a non-inventor to understand how software can help the inventing process, but judging from the number of large corporations that are using Invention Machine’s software, there’s something there.
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If there’s one criticism that I often hear about the non-profit world, it’s that they’re plagued by inefficiency. It’s certainly not true across the board, but taking the profit motives out of an organization can certainly create efficiency issues. Additionally, things like organizational structure, egos, and political agendas can disrupt for-profits and non-profits alike. Root Cause is a Cambridge, MA based non-profit strategy consulting service that “envisions a world in which the public, private, and nonprofit sectors work together to invest and re-invest in the most efficient, effective, and sustainable solutions to social problems.” In other words, they want to find the absolute best way to solve the world’s social problems, and then work with social innovators and social impact investors to make things happen.
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