I’m always excited to see a few companies with great products and services at the green living show. Check out the following links (no particular order):

Sander Design (Landscape Architecture)
Martin Liefhebber (Architect)
Solares (Environmentally Integrated Homes)
Green Enterprise Ontario and Green Enterprise Toronto
Traffic Design with the Worlds Greenest Business Card
Project Innovations with its Water Recycling System

The following are companies that I discovered this year:

Chariot Carriers with their Bike Trailers (Respect for Manufacturing in Canada)
Living Arc – Green Roofs for Industrial Buildings (creating great environments in urban settings)
Fair Trade Jewelry Company (recycled silver + fair trade diamonds)
Wiggers Furniture (Great Furniture, made with FSC lumber)
Homestead House (I never knew about milk paint and how great it looks)

I think the big looser (with the worst product) at the show was:

GE with their heat pump water heater. Here’s why: The heat pump takes the temperature out of the surrounding air and “concentrates” it into the water (sorry for the simplistic description, I hope you understand it though). This effectively cools down the air in the room where the water heater is installed. Not a bad concept IF YOU LIVE IN TEXAS. Here in Ontario, you spend a lot of energy to put that heat into the air in the first place, why take it back out for the water heater?

I picked up a book two days ago called “REWORK“. It was more of an impulse buy (although I really try not to do that too often).

David Heinemeyer Hansson inspired me when I saw and heard him on “This Week in Startup” and “The Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Series from Stanford University“. Check out the book, it’s very inspirational.

ASAP IS POISON
UNDERDO THE COMPETITION
MEETINGS ARE TOXIC
FIRE THE WORKAHOLICS / EMULATE DRUG DEALERS ( at Jason Calacanis )
PICK A FIGHT
PLANNING IS GUESSING
INSPIRATION IS PERISHABLE

I found an article about a “Beef Bio-Diesel” Powered Train on mashable. I don’t think the economics really work. How many cows does it take to power the train? I assume this business model is fine, if we are using diesel trains anyways, and we can simply modify the trains to use less crude oil.

At which point does the meat become the by-product of bio-diesel though?

This brings me to another post published on ecouterre by Galahad Clark, the owner and director of Terra Plana. He talks about the fashion industry driving the cattle industry. Again, is meat the by-product of shoes and fashion?

I obviously am not an expert on this issue, but I encourage everyone to think about how everything ties in together.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you have any facts on this issue? Leave me a comment.

I’m self-employed and I’ve tried myself at owning a business (at least at this point it’s “tried”). I’ve often wondered how did people get to become business owners or investors? What does it take? What are the real differences in mind sets?

I read “Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant” right after reading “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” – the last one I read in the “Rich Dad’s Series”, so no worries, I won’t report on any more books from Robert T. Kiyosaki. It shows in really easy ways, how people that are in the different parts of the quadrant think and act.

It was a real eye opener to me (just like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”). This book is not a how-to, just an overview that will help you understand weather you even want to operate in a different “quadrant”. Maybe you are self-employed and would like to own a business. Many “self-employees” don’t understand the difference between the two.

Here are a few excerpts from the first few pages of the book:

“Because my rich dad had explained the Quadrant to me, I was better able to see the small differences that grew into large differences when measured over the years a person spends working.”

“Changing quadrants is often a change at the core of who you are, how you think, and how you look at the world.”

If you are serious about becoming a business owner and gaining financial freedom, do yourself the favor and buy this book. You can get it at Amazon for under $13, if you buy it used, you can even get it for less than a $1. This book is definitely worth your time and money.

I found this post on the website of Shelton Group. To me it sounds like the equivalent of “green is just a by-product” just from a consumer point of view. If a company is concerned for its cashflow and for the health of their workers and makes changes to accommodate that, they will most likely become greener and create greener products. If consumers are concerned for their and their families health, they choose “green products accidentally”.

Do you buy green products not for the sake of the planet but because you are concerned for your health?

If someone was to ask you to build a car that is simple and extremely robust that has to have a ticket price of $2000 with no compromises of quality and features, would you just shake your head and walk away?

Exactly that was the task of Tata Motors of India (see the video at the end of this post). I think it is very remarkable that we (the humans) can put out such seemingly complicated tasks and achieve them. In this case, the car industry is trying to tap into the huge growth potential of the car market in India, but why can’t we use this same determination and set out for other goals? Provide shelter for the people, health care for the poorest, clean water. Should it not be possible to provide clean drinking water for every person on this earth within 5 years? What growth potential is that? Think about it?

Common sense not so common. Here is an example of a guy that wrote a letter to the editor at our local newspaper about how technology and cars evolve. Watch to see what I mean.

A few years ago, when still living in Toronto, I started a journey of educating myself on money, entrepreneurship and business. Although I can’t say that I’m successful to this day yet, there are a few books that have really shaped how I think about money.

The first book that I read was “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert T. Kiyosaki. A best seller for many years. This book is like testing the water with your toes.

I use a high-lighter when going through these books, so I’m going to quickly quote a few things from this book:

” Learning how to have money work for you is a lifetime study.”

“Never forget, because your two emotions, fear and desire, can lead you into life’s biggest trap, if you’re not aware of them controlling your thinking. To spend your life living in fear, never exploring your dreams, is cruel. To work hard for money, thinking that money will buy you things that will make you happy is also cruel”

If this tickles your interest, I would recommend to go over to Amazon and check it out some more.

I’m always so perplexed to see how much stuff is made in China and I don’t really get it. Shouldn’t we be interested in creating as many jobs here rather than shipping them offshore?

It’s a tough question, but hear me out, I’ll show you a fancy video at the end.

Lets for instance look at a Billy bookcase from Ikea. Do you really think that there is a lot of labor involved in making one of those? If everything is completely automated in the manufacturing of the bookcase, the only thing that would be more expensive is setting up the factory and maintaining the machinery, but should that cost (even with much higher labor cost) be so small compared (almost neglectable) to the amount of product that is made?

Here is a video of a machine that drills the holes into a shelf, not fully automated, but this is just a demonstration as to the type of machinery used in making a book case. There are machines out there, that just have to be loaded with wood and other materials and that just spit out bookcases every few minutes. Think about it.

So after seeing this, does it really matter if this machine sits in the USA, Canada or in China?

This article at FastCompany sums up why I will not shop at Wal-Mart. It is literally backstabbing a business owner. Please take your time and read the article. It’s essential for us to know what is going on, in order to keep our jobs in the future.

Fast Company: The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know” by Charles Fishman