Peak Compartmentalism

Like most vices, specialization started out as not a bad thing. Without it we’d still be hunting and gathering in poorly dressed family tribes. But one of your ancestors came up with a brilliant idea – I’ll stay home and tend the crops if you’ll take care of the hunting and building of huts. Everyone wins: The good hunters hunted, farmers farmed, and sewers sewed. Life was good, or at least better.


If the farm is where specialization was born then the factory is where it found religion. The Industrialists took it to a whole new level. Farmers became factory workers became riveters became robots. And life was better… at least for the factory owners.

Specialization has crept into every aspect of our lives. Today, most of us wouldn't try to fix our own cars or plumbing, any more than it would occur to an octogenarian to call in a closet organizer. Your grandparents lived in a world without pet groomers, estate liquidators or personal coaches. .

Specialization has not only impacted the functions we perform but the way we think. We compartmentalize our lives in a way that would baffle our ancestors. We have a time to work, a time to work out, a time to play, and a time to think about God. We schedule phone calls, play dates, date nights, and down time (if you’re lucky). Creating wealth is done in one compartment called business which isn’t, by the way, personal. But don’t worry because there is another compartment called philanthropy or community service where your personal part is encouraged to give back.

But as with most great ideas, there comes a tipping point where the benefits diminish and the tradeoffs start to get silly. Many of us pay others to do the heavy lifting in our lives and then pay to work out at a gym. Or take philanthropy. Your 401K may well be invested in companies that create problems you try to help solve with your charitable contributions.

When we reach these tipping points there is a desire to go back and a need to move forward, to some new paradigm and there are signs all around that this is happening. The New York City Council has decided that is no longer content to give their Billions in deposits to big banks, and allow these financial beohemoths to do whatever they like so long as they deliver an acceptable financial return. Now, in exchange for their deposits they want banks to report what they are doing for the city. Joining other cities, New York wants to know - what are you doing in our city and for our city?

What a powerful question! It recognizes that not everything can be or should be compartmentalized. Investing in local businesses, or providing low interest loans to local entrepreneurs might not offer the sexy financial returns, but if it provides jobs, boosts the local economy, creates city rent and tax revenues, and helps eliminate the blight of boarded up store fronts, there's a lot more than simple financial returns to be considered. It’s a big, complicated, messy, human picture.

Smaller banks, community banks and credit unions get it. They understand that their existence is tied to the communities in which they serve. If our towns and cities invested in these smaller financial institutions that are invested in us, we all win. Big banks, not surprisingly, aren’t happy. They have benefited from the black box approach of highly specialized compartmentalization. It has enabled them to make huge profits regardless of the collateral damage. They argue that a city’s demand to consider the bigger picture is really increased regulation getting in the way of their ability to do their job. But it isn’t regulation, it is our right to think holistically and our recognition that focusing on one thing (financial return) means we ignore the externalities like climate change, peak oil, and pollution) that are mounting in costs and consequences.

Thank you New York!

We have apparently reached the tipping point – Peak Compartmentalization may be here at last, and we’re starting to reach beyond to a more integrated, holistic approach where we embrace our interdependence and the responsibility it entails. And it demands that our institutions play more than a one dimensional role in our communities.

Feeling uneasy about the state of the world? Here's why.

If you have the feeling the bad news is picking up speed, this video will confirm and explain.   In it Dr. Albert Bartlett, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Physics at University of Colorado at Boulder explains why the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.  In a studio lecture he delivers the most compelling explantion I've heard as to why I have such a queasy stomach these days.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Trickle down justice

Tanya McDowell is a homeless woman in Norwalk, CT and for her, life has been tough. After being laid off from her job and evicted from her home, she’s now been arrested and charged with first degree larceny for stealing a kindergarten education for her 5 year old son. She’s facing up to 20 years in prison and having to repay the town of Norwalk more than $15K because she lied about where she lived in order to enroll her boy in school.

Justice today seems to be trickling down just as ineffectively as wealth. Because of the large and monstrous crimes perpetrated on all of us by unscrupulous hedge fund hucksters and derivatives con men our towns are hemorrhaging red ink and have to crack down wherever possible. And while we don’t seem capable of arresting, indicting, fining, or imprisoning those irresponsible frauds at the top, we’re left rendering justice on those at the bottom.

I’m not suggesting that what McDowell did is right, but stealing bread for your starving family, or an education for your child is a little more defensible, and a lot less damaging than screwing everyone so that you can earn a few more million in your bonus.

The greediest among us figured out a way to scam everyone else , and the richer they get, the less likely it is they’ll ever have to pay for their wrongs. Let’s focus our energy and the righteous arm of the law at those who really warrant it, recoup a little of the money they owe us from their outsized bonus payouts, and then maybe our towns and schools can afford to look the other way when a mother bends the law in order to give her child the benefit of a good education – something that benefits us all.

Poetic Justice in a Forgery

Pierre Lagrange spent 17 million to buy a Jackson Pollock painting that turned out to be a forgery. Now the hedge fund executive is suing to reclaim his investment. . Poor Pierre. A painting that looks like a Rembrant but isn’t, is, at least, still beautiful, but a Jackson Pollock forgery is just so much paint flung against a canvas. What a shame. It kind of reminds me of what the banks and hedge fund managers like Pierre did to all of us back in the Jackson Pollock days of derivatives, credit swaps and other financial shell games.... just sling a bunch of crap at the wall, and if anything sticks, give it an A+ rating and watch the suckers line up to buy the junk.


Here’s what I’d like to see: Recover the $17million and return it to its rightful owner – the public, all the poor schmucks who got suckered by the idea that we can expect a system which rewards profit and greed to deliver something for the rest of us other than profit and greed. And Lagrange can keep the painting-there’d be poetic justice in that. He could rechristen it “My Mess”

SEB Legislation is Coming to Connecticut

Social Enterprise may be coming to Connecticut!  A bill is now being considered by the Commerce Committee that would create a new Social Enterprise Business (SEB) designation.

This is good news to all!  I've been asked a few very good questions that I wanted to share:

What makes SEBs different from another type of business?
With this SEB designation a company

• needs to be mission based, and this mission must be for social benefit, and be spelled out in the by-laws
• needs to plow at least 20% of any distributed profits back to the mission
• needs to disclose the compensation of the highest earners
• can not return to a traditional for-profit status, and if it is to be sold then the assets will go to another SEB or a nonprofit with a similar mission.

Why not just set up as a nonprofit?

Entrepreneurs who start a social enterprise business own that business, can earn a return on their investment and sell the company for a profit. There is no real "owner" of a nonprofit organization in that traditional sense, and the founder can not turn around and sell it for a profit.

Then why not just set up as a regular for profit?
Think about Ben and Jerry's Icecream. They had a social enterprise philosophy and ran their company accordingly, but without this designation, when they sold the company to Unilever, the guts of the philosophy got sucked out of the company and all that is left is the husk of their intention which is used as a marketing tool. If they had been able to set up as an SEB it would continue to run as they intended today. A social enterprise designation allows an entrepreneur with a conscious to combine purpose with profit.

With this legislation we have an opportunity to create a business designation for those people who want to use business to solve community problems.  Business is a huge and powerful force, and with this legislation we can help make it a force for good in Connecticut!

Perspectives change when things change

Your kid gets his liscence and suddenly you look back at all the carting around you did with wistfulness.  A flood in the basement and all that stuff you couldn't part with because so much flotsam and you can't wait to get it out of your life.  All the daily pressures and inconveniences get you down until a house fire makes you grateful for the mere existence of those you love.  

Wouldn't we be wise to conjur up these moments to help us sort out our priorities every day.  Things are changing all around us and we're moving to a future most of us can't imagine.  Either we stay focused on what is really important to us and let that guide our choices, or we'll find ourselves grieving the lost time and opportunity.

Thanksgiving 2011

Sipping my orange juice
I am grateful for the farmers
And all those working in fields and orchards

Dressing
I give thanks to the weavers and the sewers
The cobblers, designers, and makers of soap

Driving to work
I am grateful for the builders of bridges and roads
The trash haulers, truckers, school bus drivers
And the wonderful people at National Public Radio

Sitting at my desk
I am grateful for the opportunity to make a difference
For clients, professionals, partners
And friends I am surrounded by each day

At meetings throughout the day
I give thanks for the risk-takers, the problem-solvers
People who work with integrity and passion to get the job done

Working late
I am grateful for loving what I do
And chefs everywhere making dinners with love

Seeing my son
I am grateful for teachers and coaches
And everyone who works to serve others

At the close of the day
I am deeply grateful for the 99% who care deeply
And are working hard to craft a better future for us all

- Kate Emery