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Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, is a 27 year-old, game-changer, in the world of green products and the world of beautiful waste. Here are my notes from his Inc. 5000 Breakout Session:

Traditional Green perspective - The more eco-friendly, the more expensive
The larger stores like Walmart & Target are leading the way for more than Whole Foods, etc.

Bottles (Plastic)
Revsed Virgin 30% Recycled Compostable
$0.02 $0.05 $0.07 $0.15

Our products must be: Better, Cheaper, Greener

Pre-Consumer/Post-Consumer (overprint CDs/DVDs), 75% of gift cards never leave warehouse

70lbs waste was produced to make 1lb of waste

99% of what you buy is waste in 6 months

Waste is America’s biggest export

Key is to separate waste

CapriSun- 4.5 billion drink pouches per year

Terra Cycle gets paid to collect the waste (profitable) becauses it is branded

Sort, Sanitize, Waste in Trenton, NJ – then gets flown to Mexico & gets sewn there

Revenue: 3M -> 8M -> 15M

What are the solutions for retailers for greent?
Working with big brands to create creative solutions

You have to evaluate on first two- Better, Cheaper (prove ROI) BTW-it’s Green

Do NOT sell on the virtue of being green. Green is the assumed baseline now. It’s the gravy on top.

Recycle Bank- give credits/$ coupons for recycling more. They’ve increased recycling rate from 20% to 90% in some small cities.

If I can collect enough of 1 thing, it creates value. Lock up I own these waste streams.

BILL McDONOUGH- Cradle to Cradle (Upcycling vs. Downcycling)

Natural Foods Tradeshow, Expo West, Expo East
• Tiny consumer products & companies inspire to be in Whole Foods
• People who are authentically green who don’t work with big brands/retailers

Question: In Germany, charge a lot for garbage to consumers and retailers

Clorox – Green Works – owned the market by being same low price and green

All purpose cleaner- same exact stuff as all the other stuff

More notes from the Inc. 5000 Conference.  This young, 30-something, Bay Area entrepreneur is outrageously talented and currently running 3 mind-blowing companies.  Insane.

 Paypal, Zip2, (SOLD THEM)
Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City (NOW RUNNING)

Tesla Roadster- faster than a Ferrari, more energy efficient than a Prius, 3.9 seconds (0-60 mph), $4 for going 250 miles, Price: $109,000

Elon in press is called nano-manager:
• Re-design and re-modeled doors, headlights
• Delorian failed because it was a bad-performing car
• Orders – 1,200 deposits

Charge agent:
Example that Tesla sets for the entire industry (Chevy Volt happened because of that)

Solar City- as big as 5 competitors combined in California

SpaceX- lead designer on space rocket-3 tries- keeps improving. First two paid for by DARPA, third paid for by Air Force.

Considered one of the most powerful women in the world (and certainly in business), Marilyn is CEO of Carlson Companies, and has grown the company from $12 billion to $40 billion during her tenure. She recently wrote a book showing the more human side of how business is just one aspect of life. Here are my notes from her Inc. 5000 speech:

What deeply cared for, fight for, of what personally mattered to her

Sunday School Story – if you don’t like it, fix it -> her Dad

Financial Collapse- Similar to performance enhancing drug for athletes. Performance was pushed (artificially) over stewardship. We are all suffering from this financial economic collapse.

9 days ago (1 week before Paul Newman’s death), his business partner, A.E. Hotchner brought over a thousand CEOs to their feet w/ tears in their eyes at the Inc. 500 conference. Here are my notes from his talk:

“Paul Newman’s Own” Companies:
Great product testimonials of Neman’s Own Salad Dressing, Spaghetti Sauce, and hilarious story of a 70-year-old man with erectile dysfunction for 20 years. In the past, this man had tried Viagra many times, natural supplements, everything, yet nothing worked. Until one day, he ate Newman’s Own spicy mango salsa, and it shocked his system into a frenzy - he and his girlfriend are very satisfied with the product and he keeps a pouch of spicy mango salsa on him wherever he goes.

Over the years, Newman’s Own has given almost $300 million to charitable causes.
– Over 25 years of camps for Kids with cancer. At the time only 30% kids survived the year after.
– Now, 119,000 Kids have attended these camps, 70% survived now, investing in cure for cancer.

– Don’t just give to charity, start your own charity.

– Story of 10-year-old girl who held his hand and thanked him – she lived all year just for 8 days of camp.

STANDING OVATION – SNIFFLES AND INTERNALIZING FOR NEXT 20 MINUTES

The Right Stuff – doing wrong stuff, re-examine, fix it, and get it right.

Numbers run the business, not people.
• Share numbers with your people
• Teach your people how the numbers related to their job
• Teach anybody anything

We DON’T train our employees well enough (which is why we create needless rules)

Practice learning, Practice courtesy

Speaker, Norm Brodsky, greeting people at the door
Hand-written note

Exposing entire life & numbers -> Share with employees – profit sharing culture is huge

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Reduce the Job of leadership to 3 Words:
1) Strategy
2) People (We need to optimize these 3 categories)
3) Execution

1 Man Band- all infrastructure, resource, run through 1 decision-maker, risk is too great.
• Start up or crisis

Tribal Band- strong leader with helpers

Sovereign Organization- leadership creates a hologram of the minds of people

Strategy- (Strategic Planning) a collection of ideas of how we’re going to web

Psychology of Routines- Strategy helps you breakthrough the routine

1) Most companies think about Strategy too seldom -> Should do it every 90 days!!!
a. What are 3 most Strategic important accomplishments we’ve had in last 90 days? (some element of how we’ve changed the field of play)
b. What are 3 most important strategic ways we fell short of our strategic potential?
c. What are 3 most important things we’ve learned about our strategy?

You could build a strategy in 48 hours that is 90% as good as 3-month planning. (more…)

TOM PETERS - A self-described capitalist pig, but a big fan of distributed taxes
SETH GODIN - Not accepting status quo

(GODIN): When asked about the next president, said it’s important to consider:
• How you live the Earth for kids and grandkids
• Amount of debt
• Level the playing field

(PETERS): Small Business leaders should focus in the personal financial issues and microfinance, NOT macro. Everything is ambiguous as hell. Most of the time you could be lying and don’t even know it.

(GODIN) Contract between leader and who is being led.
->Certain things a leader should NOT tell about stupid things said by a board member.

(PETERS) “The Manager’s Handbook of Decency” (Loves that word and word GRACE)
• Caring

(GODIN) Temptation to take a shortcut is so overwhelming because we feel like we deserve it, but we as Inc. 5000 entrepreneurs didn’t take that shortcut – so damaging for taking the easier path.

(PETERS) Engineer, Practical “The Dream Manager”
Everyone has a dream, and as CEO, we are the enablers of our people’s dreams.

(PETERS & GODIN) Great camaraderie, but not afraid to disagree.

(GODIN) There will always be a reason of some catastrophe on front page of Wall Street Journal for me not to reach my goals. We create our own destiny no matter what happens in the outside world. Must be aware of what’s going on, but it can’t change your character.

(PETERS) 100 year flood in financial world. Absolutely floored by crisis, but glad for our leadership in Washington. (more…)

Kate Ertmann, Executive Producer and Owner of Portland-based animation agency, ADi, shared her Commencement Address with Jerry Ketel (owner of Leo Ketel + Partners) and me.  I was so inspired, I felt compelled to share it with you.  Here goes:

“Thank you very much, Cassandra, and I want to first say congratulations to the women and men who are graduating – after some long days and nights of hard work, your determination has shown through and propelled you to this day. I also want to say congratulations to the families and friends who have been a support system for you – be it monetarily or emotionally or whatever, I’m really glad to see all of you here today too. And I don’t want to leave out the faculty and staff at the Art Institute who were also certainly a part of making this day possible for everyone graduating today.

As Cassandra said when she introduced me, I am the owner of ADi, an animation company here in Portland. When I graduated from Ohio University with a Bachelors of Science in Radio / Television broadcasting, I had no plans at that time to be involved with animation, let alone own an animation company.

I grew up in television. My parents met at CBS in the 1950’s where my mom was a Producer and my dad was Director. I grew up in NY and from the ages of about 8yrs old till I was about 16, I had a pretty successful career as a child actor. I was in commercials, I was on All My Children, I was in a Broadway play.”

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This is my second consecutive year in attending the Inc. 5000 Conference, and I’m absolutely honest when saying it is the best conference of the year for the following 6 reasons: entrepreneurial energy, dynamic and entertaining speakers, approachability and access to those speakers, strategic and contrarian content, networking with other entrepreneurs from around the country, and Inc. staff is very cool and real.

This blog post is all about who I met and why I’m so encouraged about the future of our country’s industry leaders and innovation. Optimism is the new cynicism and we can’t fixate on the nation’s financial industry woes when we have our own companies to grow, innovative products to build, and value creation waiting to happen.  Who I met:

1. Vance Patterson is a stud. I met him last year at this conference - he and I were garnering a bit of attention with our outfits at the Inc. 500 Awards, black-tie event - he was wearing a dapper top hat, tux, and a staff w/ crystal and blue LED light, and I had my late grandfather’s Buchanan-plaid (bright yellow, orange, red) vest and bow-tie on.  He and his wife, Mary Joe, carried themselves with cool confidence and engaged in great conversation throughout this year’s award dinner.  Of the 6-7 businesses he’s involved in, Vance spends most of his time running an industrial fan company called Patterson Fan Company.  We discussed what we love doing (he and Mary Joe ride their Harley Davidson on long trips), family business issues and my younger perspective on what his kids are probably thinking, employee recruiting and retention, politics, and the conference itself.

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Today’s annual iMedia Connection article is (in years past) the most read article of the year because readers (and authors) like me love the joy of discovering unique / beautiful / hilarious / branded / insanely creative websites.  In the “10 killer websites worth watching” article, I got a chance to write about 2 of my favorite sites:

Brand Name: Wacom
Agency/Site Creator: eROI
URL: www.pencollective.com

What is unusual and effective about this website?
A lot of sites try to personalize the message, but the Pen Collective site is different — the highly personalized stories are the messages. The site offers the opportunity to meet such people as Mark, an illustrator who prefers his pen to his girlfriend, or Alex, who will show you how she uses her pen to remove the cellulite from her sister’s wedding photos. The site also allows other users to share their own story with the world and become part of the Collective.  Read the full story >>

Brand Name: Converse
Agency/Site Creator: Anomaly
URL: www.thisistheindexpage.com
 
What is unusual and effective about this website?
This site connects so completely with the nostalgic high school kid in me. It’s like a Will Ferrell movie where a 16-year-old jock or a 45-year-old creative can find their own experience and sense of humor in the content and the way it’s executed. This site differentiates itself from all others with its full-screen videos, never-ending supply of full-screen background images upon refresh, clever URLs with the implied promise of humor and entertainment in each of the individual video vignettes within the overall campaign website. Content is king and Converse nailed it with this site. The “I’m too hot for you” attitude, voice, mannerisms of the girl in OutofYourLeagueGirl.com reminds me exactly of several girls in my year at Wootton High School in Maryland.  Read the full story >>

One last thing, David Friedman of Avenue A | Razorfish introduced me to a hilarious site called www.iliketotallyloveit.com - check out the site, but first read his creative review of it.

I got an email from my sister with a link to this SNL skit w/ Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin and another SNL actress playing Clinton. I thought it was worth blogging because Saturday Night Live was the source of so much of my sister and my shared humor Middle School through High School - Dana Carvey, Chris Farley, Mike Myers - now, that I have 2 kids, I’m in bed by 10:30pm most nights, and I’m now consuming this hilarious content on YouTube and NBC’s site (this is the first time I’ve ever used an NBC widget below - let’s hope it’s as functional as YouTube). BTW - I just Googled “FLIRG” and it’s pretty damn funny. Watch the video.

Check out the video clip if you aren’t one of the 10 million views across the hundreds of copies of the video clip online. Couldn’t get the NBC video widget to work on the blog, so I had to revert to faithful YouTube below.

 Apparently, I have a problem.  I’m too plugged in.  Although, I did unplug w/ yoga on Monday.  Check out this brilliant viral site - below is the email I got from a Friend who is concerned about me: www.UnplugYourFriends.com or click on the “click here to read it” button below!  Don’t forget to join a meetup with me - I know you have Screen Addiction, too.

This internal email went out yesterday from our queen of yoga, Christine (or is it “yogaROI”).  Nice job getting people psyched about yoga at eROI!  So, blog readers - who’s got my back (in the pic below).

Comment below to guess who the mysterious yogi is (it’s not Christine).

It’s a fact. A beautiful fact.  I’m bald (it’s okay - I love being bald). It’s so unbelievably low-maintenance and I have grown to prefer the more streamline look I have now. In fact, friends, uncles, whoever I know even sparingly, who are showing clear signs of balding, my response to them is always, “Shave that shit.”  In fact, I’m thinking of starting a website - www.shavethatshit.com (don’t buy that domain, I may use it) - and showing unoptimized, balding horse-shoe hairstyles on them.  Then again, maybe not.  I got some spam that made it into my inbox untouched, which made me think that AlviArmani (see photo below) knew I was bald, but didn’t know me well enough to know that I would prefer a razor to hair treatment for men.  I liked the Before and After picture so much, I had to share it with you.

Darren Rowse wrote an awesome article on ProBlogger.net about “How to Polish Posts: Individual Blog Post Design.”  Since we, at eROI, are slowly developing an overall strategy to encourage all employees to create blog posts on one of our 5 blogs (The Email Wars, eROI Days, Return on Subscriber, Cross Pixel Nation, and the soon-to-launch “Fresh” creative blog), I thought a few tips would help me and others in the company with more engaging blog posts in the future:

How to Polish Blog Posts:

Following are a number of areas that I consider when polishing blog posts. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you’d add to the list - I’m sure there are plenty more. (more…)