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The ‘Kumbaya spirit’ of LOHAS
-- and my reinvention dissertation

June 25, 2009

Recently I had the pleasure of spending time in Boulder, Colo., at the Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) Conference, following on the heels of the Greener by Design and Sustainable Brands conferences. Having attended all three, I’d like to offer a capsule evaluation of the contrasting perspectives and focal points of each of these events.

Greener by Design represented the core Green Movement, serious about things like life cycle analysis. Its real leaders – the authentic “doers” of the Green Movement – don’t bring any greenwashing to this conference; they will know whether you’re ‘the real deal’ before you even show up. By contrast, the Sustainable Brands Conference consists mostly of big companies represented by their marketing groups and brand managers – in other words, not the authentic core of the Green Movement, but rather the fringe that uses great imagery and clever words to promote fragmentary or, in some cases, token things they are doing to make a company appear more environmentally responsible and its products more sustainable. (An example that comes to mind is a chip company making a point that it uses solar power at one of its multiple plants, which, while I applaud the effort, didn’t really convince me that consuming a bag of the actual chips would contribute to either my health or that of the planet.) In fact, I couldn’t escape the feeling that all the brands represented were each attempting to build on some particular Green Movement “twist,” which – don’t get me wrong – is by no means a bad thing, but just a distinct contrast to the serious nature of Greener by Design. One might even say, in fact, that the two events really are symbiotic, because often brand budget administrators hire the authentic core green experts to learn how best to give their products a green glow.

But since this blog is in regard to the LOHAS conference, why the buildup? Because I felt like this third conference captured something found at neither of the others, and that is an emotional quotient --a feeling of love and brotherhood that permeated all its various aspects (in fact, it could just as easily have been called a Kumbaya Conference). From what I observed, the attendees seemed to want to hug, network and truly get to know each other, right from the opening session, which I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to address on the subject of reinventing oneself. (I also had the chance to hear from participants about their own personal reinvention experiences.) It was as though everyone attending was on some sort of spiritual mission. People seemed genuinely happy to be there; the sessions were over capacity, with standing room only, and at all times of the day, which I can’t say for the previous conferences. The enthusiasm must have been contagious, because, I, too, felt really good about this conference, and want to congratulate Ted Ning and his staff for staging a superb event that not only rocked my mind but, more importantly, my soul.

My opening remarks on the subject of reinvention are below, somewhat modified and revised to fit a written, rather than a spoken format. Let me know if you have comments or suggestions -- and if anyone from the show reads this, thanks for making this conference so very special.

* * *

Today, the subject I’d like to talk about is the reinvention of businesses and of yourself (quite an ambitious topic, I’d say). In reflecting on my own personal reinventions over the years, I can say that they were always done for a specific reason and with a specific purpose in mind. Unfortunately, during the early part of my career my reasons for reinventing myself were primarily financial ones – that is, for the purpose of acquiring more things, a bigger house and a better car. But the world we live in today it is so changed that I believe the reinvention of oneself or one’s business can no longer be undertaken solely for material goals.

If you’re considering a reinvention of yourself or your business, there are three specific questions I would challenge you to ask yourself:

1. Will this reinvention deplete any valuable resources or is it sustainable to the planet and our environment -- or better yet, can this reinvention have a healing effect on yourself and the planet?

2. Will this reinvention be economically viable without requiring money to support it, keeping in mind that today, even NGOs need business models.

3. Will this reinvention sooth your soul and resonate with your heart?

One thing you should know about me as it relates to reinvention is that I am a son of a fisherman and lived in a fishing family. Why is that relevant? Because I grew up spending my summers at sea, and what I learned besides a great respect for Mother Nature was that great fisherman reinvent themselves every day without attachment or judgment. This was a truly valuable lesson for me, as there have been some pivotal points in my career where I had to reinvent myself for personal or career reasons.

My first such reinvention occurred when my father told me my brother was going to be running the family fishing business. I thought it might be a good time to “jump ship,” so to speak, to the world of big business. So I got a job at Jack in the Box -- not flipping burgers, but in the quality-control lab. Now here is what prompted me to reinvent myself: my brother and cousins were making more in one fishing trip than I made in three months, a disparity I found simply unacceptable. So I sat in the lobby of the corporate headquarters and read every business book available, along with The Wall Street Journal, and in short order had become a walking, talking business expert. As a result, the vice chairman of the parent company put me on a 10-year fast track program to CEO of a ten-billion-dollar enterprise. I attended the board meetings, interacted with all the senior managers and had access to the company plane. Life was good -- but despite that, I wasn’t content with my role. The corporate world, with all its perks, just didn’t do it for me.

So, using the knowledge and contacts I had already acquired, I reinvented myself again, this time as a food entrepreneur, and started my own business, Pacific Basin Foods, which bought and delivered commodities -- primarily meat -- to my friends in the restaurant business. Within three years, it had become a business doing $50 million in sales, and I sold it to Kyotaro, a Japanese concern.

Now that I had become a food expert, I took this money and invested in five different organic food companies at a time when the organic food movement was in its embryo state, and soon was struggling to stay in business. So in order to support them (although they eventually petered out), I reinvented myself again.

In 1990, I became a self-proclaimed turn-around artist. Once again, I read all the books on the subject I could find, met people like Sandy Sigoloff and Charles Lynch of Market Value Partners – and lo and behold, I achieved my first turnaround, involving a a $400 million-dollar company that had been losing a million a month. I went on to do three more turnarounds, although at first I was losing money on the last of these big time. It was the largest importer of shrimp in the country. But six months into the engagement, I went to see the movie Forrest Gump, had a ‘eureka moment’, and ended up licensing the brand “Bubba Gump” from Paramount. We relabeled the shrimp, and had 3,500 stores selling it within five weeks, which not only saved the company but facilitated its sale to Con Agra. That’s when I became known as a brand expert, in which capacity I appeared on the Today Show, CNN, CBS Good Morning -- you name it. I even made the front page of The New York Times business section

So guess what I did? I took the money from this newfound expertise and once again invested in the organic sector. This time determined to make it pan out, I merged Eco-Terra, a sustainable agricultural company I founded and created, into the New Organics Co. which I was also hired to reposition for the purpose of making organic food available to the masses--- and failed again

So two years ago, I decided I needed to move out of the organic food industry, since all I seemed to do was lose money in it. Once again, I reinvented myself -- right here at the St. Julienne Hotel, in fact, where I went from organic marketing entrepreneur to sustainability expert. In my new role, I traveled the world, looking at how different countries defined sustainability as well as the problems they faced in trying to make it work, and in the process, came to realize that the world is choking on its trash. So I created Code Blue LLC, and came up with the concept of tracking our trash and the GreenOps tracking system to facilitate it. Now, we are partnered with a major company with a goal of reinventing the world’s waste disposal problem as an opportunity to renew its resources.

In closing, there are a couple of insights I have acquired that I want to share with you. When I was reinventing myself in the past, I always knew what I wanted – in essence, more money to be able to indulge in more consumption (Yes, I wanted the Bentley). In today’s world, however, we are so resource constrained that I think it is necessary to redefine what the outcome of any reinvention will be and whether it really can bring the kind of change that will benefit society as well as your business. Secondly, when you reinvent yourself around a cause, make sure it makes economic sense. Don’t be fooled by your own thought processes -- listen to the experiences of others and use them as a sounding board. Third, when reinventing yourself, I repeat: make sure you follow your heart and that it resonates with your soul.

I will leave you with a little story that I think best illustrates the point I’d most like to make. The son of an American fisherman goes to Mexico and visits a little fishing village called San Felipe. On his second day of hanging at the beach, he goes over to where the pangas would come in every day to examine the fish they had caught. One had yellowfin tuna in it, big ones—big fish are indicative of a very viable resource, so the son of the American fisherman met Jose, the captain, and asked him, “Where did you catch this?” Jose pointed out to sea, and then was asked how long it had taken him to catch those fish. Jose replied a couple of hours. The American then asked how often he fished, and Jose said once or twice a week, adding that he liked to spend most of the time with his family at their home on the beach. The American son of a fisherman immediately told Jose, ”We have a big opportunity here. If we can bring down some big boats and if you can just guide them to the fish, we can build a big fishing business and sell it for millions of dollars and you will make millions. Jose then looked at the son of the American fisherman and said, “What would I do with millions of dollars? Live at the beach, spend most of my time with my family? And go fishing once or twice a week?”

In essence, I think we really have to redefine what reinvention and success means in our resource restricted world today.

More women shaping corporate policy
might help to humanize product appeal

June 16, 2009

Can the presence of more women in the boardrooms and corner offices of the big consumer-product companies help produce the kind of sustainable products that will genuinely resonate with consumers? Based on what I took away from the Sustainable Brands Conference that took place in Monterey from May 31 to June 4 (and Sustainable Life Media is to be commended for an outstanding job of producing a sustainable event), I think it can – and ultimately will.

If this content-packed conclave conference convinced me of nothing else, it’s that female influence must play a more dominant role in whatever changes are necessary to save the environment and, indeed, the world as a viable habitat. In listening to the varied presentations, it became increasingly clear to me that the brands that are best able to alter our behavior for the better are the ones that we respond to on an emotional level – and achieving that kind of reaction is something that requires feminine energy to bring about.

Now, admittedly, this is strictly nonlinear, nonscientific thinking on my part – but I can no longer accept the outmoded notion that typical male attributes and attitudes, whether they include the "hunter-gatherer" ethic, an emphasis on efficiency and number crunching, or condescending skepticism, can come up with the kinds of solutions our contemporary challenges call for. But unfortunately, these are the types of approaches that still pervade much of the corporate system and are embraced by its current leadership (and that includes women executives, or at least, some of the more successful ones who have left their emotions behind in order to compete with male colleagues on the corporate ladder).

So what kinds of change in the business hierarchy, exactly, am I proposing?

First and foremost is the need to recognize the obvious – that women are the dominant gender in this society, outnumbering men by more than five million in the last census. And as consumers, they most certainly leave the opposite sex in the dust. Yet in very few places in our corporate culture is this fundamental reality reflected – and particularly not in the companies that count most when it comes to finding and facilitating solutions to our most pressing problems.

How many women, for instance, can be found sitting around the table at a typical senior leadership team meeting? How many, for that matter, are making a major difference in your organization? Whenever I sit in the boardrooms of large companies that I work with as a consultant, I usually don't see very many – maybe one or two out of ten members. Even the speakers at the Sustainable Brands Conference I would say were no more than10% female (not that I was counting, mind you).

So what do we do about this situation? It is, after all, not going to be anytime soon that we will see half the men in those corner offices being replaced by members of the more sensitive sex. But what we can do is start to reward products and companies for exhibiting attributes beyond traditional “masculine” measures of return on investment – those that speak to real values, real meaning and real emotions. Again, I found it most interesting that most of the videos we watched at the SB Conference -- especially the commercials – attempt to evoke those emotional responses, but in my opinion were unable to transcend the commercial messages they conveyed. In many cases, instead of "greenwashing," they simply seemed to be resorting to "emotionwashing" or "valueswashing".

So maybe an approach would be to look at such commercials and internalize them, and to ask ourselves how many of the brand’s "metrics” are driven by shared values? How many evoke genuine emotion? Because beyond the various competitive features and benefits that a particular product offers, the values and emotion associated with it are what will ultimately build customer loyalty. If we start with that realization, maybe we can infuse the corporation with more of the kind of feminine energy that understands the importance of nurturing a toxic-free environment for its offspring, rather than just the economics involved in eliminating a ton of carbon.

In essence, I am convinced we’ve gotten it all wrong all along, and that the only way we can set things right is to soften – and indeed, to humanize --our approach to product development and marketing by bringing far more women in on the process. (And, speaking for myself, I’m willing to do whatever I can to support the notion that women on the whole are “more equal” to the task than men.)

Some of the conference’s presentations provided me with insights that were genuinely helpful in arriving at these conclusions. For example, in a clip that Teaque Lenahan shared with us demonstrating that recycling and sustainability are by no means new concepts <www.gravytank.com>, it was women leading the way. Nathan Shedroff, the author of "Making Meaning," was especially instrumental in bringing home to me the importance of meaning and values in a brand as reflected in its advertising (in this case, Sun Chips). I also thought Diane MacEachern, the author of “Big Green Purse, (which can be purchased on-line at www.BigGreenPurse.com) made some extremely salient points. She started her talk with one fact --- if a man sets out to buy a pair of jeans in a mall, it takes him about six minutes for him to find what’s he’s looking for. But when a woman purchases a pair of jeans, it takes her an average of three hours and 26 minutes. Women account for 85 cents of every dollar spent. And while men tend to love gadgets, women are mainly people-and-relationship-oriented.

What all this brought home to me is that if our corporations focused on the things real people attach real importance to instead of relying on today’s “Mad Men” to interpret their values, they could become a far more effective force for constructive change – and by celebrating women’s emotions, nurturing and people skills rather than simply allowing a few exceptionally talented women who have had to sideline their emotions to shatter the glass ceiling, we could go a long way toward creating a kinder, gentler, and less toxic planet shared in abundance by corporations and consumers alike.

Emerging 'enviro-industrial complex'
merely needs a unifying set of standards

June 3, 2009

Recently I attended the Greener by Design conference, where some 200 people with sustainability in the forefront of their minds came together to talk about what they are doing to make products greener and more environmentally friendly. That part was fantastic, and enabled us to launch our GreenOps Tracking Station, which received an incredible amount of publicity complete with pictures of our bottle babes on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle business section as well as the lead story on the Bay area’s Channel 2.

Despite the upbeat feel, however, I couldn’t manage to shake a feeling of nagging trepidation over so many companies suddenly scrambling to ‘go green’. I had seen the organic industry go through a similar period of overly optimistic exuberance before it “graduated” to a more mature phase.

What the greening of American industry currently lacks, in my opinion, is more definition and a clear way to identify or index the concepts of "green" and "sustainability." Though such abstractions may be comprehensible to this relatively small group, that I really concerns me are the consumers, whom our GreenOps Tracking System is designed to directly engage, educate and reward.

To me, this particular conference was a reminder of how much work we really have ahead of ourselves. The positive part is that a couple hundred people from all walks of life had come together to explore how we can start to design cars, buildings and bottles to be completely recycled and reused. That made me feel like we have a chance, and that just like the organic industry, we will eventually have a set of standards.That’s because as the movement grows, the consumer will demand it, along with authenticity and transparency.

I guess the one thing that’s different from when I had this feeling with the organic industry is that all the dissension and disorganization back then used to make me shake my head and say I wasn’t sure we’d ever achieve any kind of standard. But now I know it can be done – that order can eventually come out of chaos, and that once this still fragmented enviro-industrial complex manages to get its act together, agree on a uniform code and develop a way to communicate with consumers, it will explode. I know so because at this point, it’s already an unstoppable force that simply needs to be harnessed. And because a couple hundred dedicated individuals are already committed to doing just that.

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