Volunteer, Fail, Volunteer Again

This week I spent half of my week in a geometric dimension and tolerance class. It was based on ASTM Y14.5, a 250 page standard. In short, it's not easy to understand GD&T yet it's important that things always fit together the way we intend when they are coming from six different countries and first see each other on the assembly line.

So we were doing a number of examples on the board, and I made the decision a long time ago that I will volunteer, in general for anything. Volunteering gets you farther and into more interesting situations than not volunteering. In the class of about 20 of us, only about three were regularly volunteering. You see, engineers have spent plenty of time in hard classes and we know that it usually takes lots of practice to get things right, and volunteering to demonstrate on the board basically means you are taking a huge chance at getting it wrong in front of everyone. It's embarrasing. I did, at least three times publicly have the wrong answer either on the board or when verbally offering an answer. Near the end of the week the teacher was asking for volunteers and everyone was putting their heads down avoiding eye contact because we didn't want to go up and have the wrong answer in front of everyone. It's painful to sit there in silence. More painful for me than getting it wrong in front of the class. It is ridiculous to be afraid of having the wrong answer because no one cares if I am wrong, each person only cares if he or she can figure it out eventually. Finally I volunteered, again, but the teacher passed me over trying to get another student involved, who did eventually offer an answer, and the correct answer might I add.

This brought to ming a blog post by Seth Godin a few weeks ago titled, "Don't blow it (the secret of b2b)". I work for a very large company. Companies exist so that risks can be taken and the liability taken by the company and not the individuals. I saw in this class of interns and first and second year employees the fear of getting it wrong and blowing it. That, actually worried me. If we aren't brave enough to stand in front of our inexperienced peers in a class, where we are all the student, and take a risk answering a problem, how will we stand in front of our managers, customers, investors, and the world and take a risk presenting an true innovation? 

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 24

The Successful Innovative Company of the Week is: Internet Movie Database Ltd. (IMDb)

What they do right: They list nearly everything in the world of movies. When I say everything I mean it all. For example, I have a friend who is an actress and is listed on IMDb with four of her projects. Some of those do not even have the five ratings required for a rating to show for that movie. Yet there is a cast list and synopsis for each project. (On a side note she is probably best known for being the girl in the One Republic and Timbaland Apologize music video.)

IMDb is the 43rd most popular website in the world (according to Alexa). That's pretty good for a site with such a narrow focus of just movies (and television).

IMDb was officially incorporated in the UK in 1996 and was bought in 1998 by Amazon.com so it is now a private subsidiary company. I'm not sure what exactly that means. I did not find information of the founders leaving with tens of millions. However, Wikipedia said that this arrangement allowed Amazon to advertise and the income was enough to pay the shareholders salaries.

IMDb also offers a list of the Top 250 movies. I have to mention that right now the Shawshank Redemption is at the top of the list so I agree with it. One list that has all of the best movies as rated by their users and when most of the top movies have hundreds of thousands of movies I think they have a fairly good sample size. So the next time you want to watch a movie that is good that you haven't seen go to the list and find one that you haven't seen.

What they could improve: I am not sure that they do this yet but I would like them to list music videos, commercials, and what would be really cool, if they started to list YouTube stuff and other internet videos. Anybody with a camera and a computer can go out and make a movie and post it on the internet and I can see a time, if we aren't there already, when independent film makers will be getting millions of views a week on their various projects and somehow make a living from that kind of publicity. I can imagine a whole sub-industry of internet movie makers, actors, producers, editors, that easily have the skills to go to something full length but with no desire to make that kind of thing.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 23

The Successful Innovative Company of the Week is: IKEA!

What they do right: IKEA changed furniture shopping into a schedule-able event. I have only been to an IKEA once. However, it occupied most of my afternoon. My friend was intent on buying a table and chairs for her apartment. We left in the morning for the hour long drive there. Then we ate a four dollar filling lunch. If cafeterias like that were more accessible I would go more often. A similar meal at a typical college will run two or three times as expensive.

As we journeyed from the start to finish line through IKEA visiting each room with a different theme I was amazed by the selection. I was even more impressed by the people. Yes it was August a traditional moving month for both college kids and others yet there were hundreds of people there at the same time. August 2009 the economy was not great at that time yet there were hundreds of people out buying new furniture. Furniture is the kind of purchase that is made every decade or so and most college kids would be content with used sofas from Goodwill so this was a rather surprising experience.

Their organization is second to none. They have one of everything displayed nicely on one level. On the lower level they have stacks of boxed filled with disassembled furniture in the same layout as the display level. That is to say that on the display level there will be a dresser in the far corner of the store. On the warehouse floor in the same far corner will be a stack of disassembled dressers in cardboard boxes. By taking a tag from the display piece you like you will be able to find the stack of boxes on the warehouse level containing that piece of furniture.

As far as style, most of what they offer is modern with simple lines and shapes designed to be assembled by normal people. Which is really nice. I like the whole modern thing. Hey, I like Piet Mondrian. However, I also like solid-wood-construction, too-heavy-on-moving-day, no-it-doesn't-come-apart, could-probably-take-a-bullet-for-me furniture as well. I've built this kind of thing and it lasts a long time. I think there is a place in a room for both types of furniture.

What they could improve: The sales representatives, as I remember, were not the most informed about their products. When asking about alternative colors or mixing tables, legs and chairs to get the perfect combination they were not very helpful. When a sales representative says he or she is not sure then reads the sales tag, that you have already read, before admitting that they don't know, I wonder what he or she is getting paid to do. Can the table and chairs be bought separately or do they have to be bought together?

There was also a general lack of sales people, a fact that some people may actually like. I however on the other hand like to talk to someone that knows their product. When I go into a running store to buy shoes I usually have to spend 15-30 minutes trying shoes, jogging, trying some more, jogging and talking with the sales person about my feet and running. I have tried on dozens of shoes because of a sales person's recommendation that I would have never given a chance.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 22

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: The Gillette Company!

What they do right: They invented the razors and blades business model (also known as the bait and hook). Gillette is very good about sending new 18 year olds the handle to a razor and a few blades. They motivated me to buy many blades and even a new handle after I lost my first one. Now I've lost that one and a third that my dad gave me...

In the jet engine industry they say they could give away the engines and make money just selling the blades. In the razor industry they actually do it. As far as making the best razor blades I really have not tired other companies (except for disposable 1-2 blade razors) so I can not say. I can say that I have always been pleased with Gillette razors.

If a business model can be traced to one person or one company they get a nod for innovation. There are only a handful of business models, maybe 25. That's about how many people have climbed the 14 highest mountains in the world. About twice as many people as have walked on the moon. Far more people have been president of the US (a young country).

What they could improve: targeted marketing. Sending out razors I will not complain about at all. However, commercials and advertising in mature men's magazines may not be the most effective. Companies have known for a long time that targeting the young people to build customer loyalty is a winning strategy. Cigarette companies have kind of had a bad rap on that. McDonalds hasn't had such a nice reputation either for feeding calories to kids. Shaving on the other hand, I say target the teens! Get the boys while they are young like Gillette did with me so that I inevitably ended up buying $30 of their stuff. So they aren't bad, but I think they could do better.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 21

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: Carbery!

What they do right: they make cheese! That's a good start but I've toured probably half a dozen cheese factories and let me tell you, innovative is not a word used to describe the cheese industry. Not even American cheese. (It hurts me a little inside to call it cheese. Calling it American semi-solid processed oil would be more appropriate.) In the world of cheese the recipes have been around for centuries and changes are few and far between. In the last hundred years most of the actual change has been creating production equipment to mass produce cheese. So when Carbery created a new cheese in 1996 that is simply amazing, they get a nod for being innovative.

Carbery is a company headquartered in Cork, Ireland. They were established in 1965 as a dairy food company. Today they produce everything from alcohol to flavorings.

If you have never had Dubliner cheese, you are missing out. Introduced in 1996 it is tasty. It is similar to cheddar but it is a little bit more sweet and a tiny bit sour. It is aged 1-2 years and has a nice sharp cheese aged taste. There are also little calcium crystals that give it a slightly rough texture. It is my favorite cheese.

What they could improve: I would like to see greater distribution of their other cheese flavors in the US. Dubliner is somewhat easy to find however they have several varieties of Dubliner and other cheeses like Red Leicester that I have not tried.

Other than that I think that offering only the 7 ounce and 5 pound sizes of Dubliner must save money on packaging and production. They also do very little advertising in the US so word spreads by word of mouth. I can only imagine how a little advertising would go a long way for Carbery and Dubliner cheese.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 20

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: Adventure Consultants.

What they do right: The world of high altitude mountaineering is a small one. There are only several thousand people around the world that do it on a regular basis. Also, 30-60% of those people are your average people that only ever hit up the standard routes on the standard mountains. That is to say that Everest is the most popular 8000 meter peak. A friend of mine that was at Everest North side base camp a few years ago said that there were around 1500 people total there. Compared to Broad Peak or K2 last year when there was probably 100 people at each base camp. To make things even smaller, there are only a handful of guiding companies or commercial expedition providers. These are companies that specialize in setting up expeditions for climbers that are inexperienced enough to get invited on private expeditions or set up their own. This is a great way for a few hundred people around the world to make a living. Most climbing guides do not guide high altitude mountains like Everest but it is a major aspect of the guiding industry. How small is this guiding world? I have only been on one expedition but the connections I made through that trip are enough that I could probably get the personal phone number of Russell Brice (from the Everest: Beyond the Limit Discovery Channel series), Ed Vestiurs, or Steve House with one phone call to people I know. Not that I have anything to ask any of those people that hasn't already been published.

The small industry forces every company to scrape out their own niche. Due to bad weather, difficult mountains, and terrorists Pakistan has only a few companies that guide there on a regular basis. It is similar with other nonstandard mountains like Mt. Logan (second highest in North America).

I still haven't answered what they do right. I'm not quite done explaining the situation yet, bear with me. Now mountain guiding started in the 1800s in Europe. In fact several first ascents of mountains were done by guides and clients during the 1800s. The history of guiding thus dates as far back as the history of modern alpine climbing. What separates Adventure Consultants is that they took guiding to a new level. In 1992 they led their first Everest expedition. It was not the first commercial expedition to Everest, but they organized it and advertised it in a way that no one else did at that time. They brought a level of support to Everest that no other company had brought for their clients at that time.

People want to climb Mt. Everest because it is the tallest. Adventure Consultants started at the right time and offered the right services to carve out a niche as the premier guiding company on Everest. Of all the niches, within the niche of high altitude mountaineering, to "own" I estimate that it is the most stable and probably most lucrative.

They have been copied by many companies now but they still remain the standard for an Everest guiding company. They were one of the companies dramatically involved in the 1996 Everest disaster. However, high altitude climbers are a somewhat risky group of people and the resulting publicity only fueled the "go climb Everest" band wagon.

What they could improve: Adventure Consultants has garnered a reputation as a sort of pay-your-ticket-and-get-pulled-to-the-top sort of company. They have a reputation for wearing matching bright down suits and attracting mid life crisis climbers. This is definitely an exaggeration of the reality, but like most rumors it has roots in the truth. In general, the more you pay on an expedition the more support you can expect. At the highest level, the high altitude porters (Sherpas, generally in Nepal) carry your sleeping bag to every camp and hand you soup at the high camp at 7900 meters. My experience in Pakistan was somewhat different. I carried cooking equipment, fuel, all of my personal gear, and helped chop tent platforms. At high camp at 7000 meters I also manned the stove to make my own water and cook my own food. That was the experience I wanted, to do some of the work.

For many people the entire goal is the top of the mountain. That is fine, that's a worthy goal. My goal is more about the experience. The challenge of seeing how much I can do. I think the premier challenge of high altitude mountaineering would be to climb a new route, solo (or at least with a small 2-3 person team), in winter, alpine style, on the west face of Gasherbrum IV. The problem is, that would be very hard. Nobody has even attempted that.

So what they could improve in my eyes would make the climb more challenging. However, the niche they fill requests as much support as possible. That is to say I do not see myself going on an Adventure Consultants trip anytime soon. However, for many people Adventure Consultants is the best option.

Successful Innovative Company of the week: volume 19

The successful innovative company of the week is: Jetboil

what they do right: Jetboil came on the camping and mountaineering stove scene in 2001 with their namesake signature stove. This stove changed the possibilities of what a stove could do. It is more effiecient than any stove was before. It locks in place so it is easy to hang in steep situations. It has neoprene on the outside so you can grab it with barehands when there is boiling water inside. It is made of aluminum and is very light. The actual stove and a fuel canister pack inside the mated pot. It just works better than any stove that came before it. This was a game changer.

I was talking with an aquaintance who is a professional mountain guide and he said that on a training trip about two years ago he started to cook supper and he was the only person that didn't have a jetboil so he went out and bought one the first chance he had. When professional mountain guides are all using it you know it works.

Since their first product they have expanded to include pans and larger pots and detached fuel canisters. Their product line includes everything for cooking. They also have a coffee press attachment and I have to say a nice cup of coffee in the morning is so nice sometimes.

What they could improve: Simply put a few years after Jetboil came on the scene MSR responded with the Reactor. The Reactor is amazing and I would easily take it over the Jetboil. It boils water faster, it has a bigger pot, and is less prone to wind which are all significant factors when using the stove to mainly melt snow high on a mountain (which is what I like to do). The Reactor does not have the twist lock connection that the Jetboil has and thus I have never seen anybody hang one, which is necessary when you are using a portaledge (which I also like to do).

I would also be interested to see what Jetboil could do in the liquid fuel stove realm. Currently all of their stoves use propane/butane canisters. Offering a stove that used white gas and/or kerosene would expand their appeal.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 18

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: The Weather Channel.

What they do right: give weather information all day every day. You will be hard pressed to ever catch me watching The Weather Channel but I recognize something innovative and different when I see it.

Can you imagine what it must have been like when they were proposing this? Some younger guys standing in a room with some older guys and the question coming from the older guys, "So, you're just going to give weather forecasts... all the time." However, weather is kind of a big thing. Outdoor activities and travel all depend on the weather. Weather can destroy buildings and strand communities.

As far as the details, local on the 8s is pretty cool. Every ten minutes they give two minutes of the local weather forecast at :08, :18, :28...

I also like storm stories. They show short programs about historical weather events like hurricanes and blizzards. They also have an iPhone app which is better for weather than the weather app that came with my iPhone. It has nice semi-detailed weather forecasts and all of the weather information I ever need.

What they could improve: Their website is not my favorite for weather information. I prefer Weather Underground because it has more information when you type in a zip code or city. I like the fact that so much information is on the page. You can just scroll down instead of clicking on this link and that link. I like information that is available in one place without having to go down the rabbit hole to find everything. Perhaps some people like to click on links to find information but I click on enough links as it is.

However, when it comes to television The Weather Channel is number one. I can not think of a single thing that I would do to their station to make it better.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 17

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: The New York Times.

What they do right: I can narrow this down to one thing that in my mind sets them apart from all the other print news. They adapted to the internet very well. They have advertising but not very much and it is restricted to the margins not placed in the middle of the articles. Their articles are in nice big print that is easy to read. They cover stories that are really interesting. This is not restricted to The New York Times but they just seem to cover stuff every now and then that is original and interesting.

For example, one of their reporters was held captive by the Taliban for over seven months and when he returned he wrote this very thorough story about it. Another story, much less dramatic, is a book review of Born to Run where the author takes a run around New York barefoot with Chris McDougall.

They are the most accessed online print newspaper. Their Alexa ranking for news is #6 which is the highest of any print newspaper in the world. It's easy to access too. You don't have to log in or pay money and you get to read from the most popular newspaper in the world, based on Alexa ranking. According to Wikipedia The Wall Street Journal and USA Today both have about double as many subscribers which is still significant. However, I am rarely sent newspaper clipping like I am forwarded online newspaper stories. So, in the battle of information I think it's better to be the biggest on the internet. I mean what research librarian has the power of the entirety of Google?

What they could do better: sometimes they do ask me to log in when I am two pages through a three page story. Since I read so few articles from any one newspaper (I usually use Google News) I draw the line at creating another login where I'll inevitably get sent more emails I won't read.

I also think that The New York Times has probably not fully realized their prominence in the world of journalism. I read one article that said they were planning to create some sort of system to charge people to read it online. I don't think they have done it yet but my point is: they are the leader in what one company can do for daily news publishing. There are news companies out there like CNN or BBC that are ranked higher but consider the way they give news. Their news is often in short blurbs by information hungry reporters. The NY Times on the other hand is journalists who write complete articles. Like Twitter versus a blog. They are both important for information and appeal to different types of people or when people are in different moods. So I'm not saying that one is better than the other. I'm saying that The NY Times is the leader of it's category.

In the book I've been reading (which I will eventually review) one of the themes is prioritizing your life. It's a book about how to make a living and have time to pursue your money consuming passions. The author says, pretty much strait forward, that you are better off trying not to make millions of dollars but instead spending your time with your friends and family and doing things that you want to do. So as The NY Times considers charging people for their paper I ask what is more important: money or readers? A business person would say money and an artist would say readers. As something of an entrepreneur and writer I can say that being a household name is worth more than any given number of dollars. Millions of dollars sit there and maybe you can make it a little bigger every year. A household name can create something and make even more money, you just might have to wait a little bit until the pay day. Besides, Google has done so well simply on advertising instead of subscriptions that I think other companies should keep that in mind before turning to a subscription model.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 16

The Successful Innoative Company of the week is: McMillan Running Company and McMillan Elite.

What they do right: make people run faster.

This is an organization I had not even considered until this week but as soon as I thought about it I knew they were a successful innovative company. This company is kind of centered around one man, Greg McMillan. It has expanded in recent years but he is the guy that got the ball rolling. Greg was a runner, and still is. A very good runner but not one of the best in the country. I personally know several people that are faster than he was. However, athletic ability and coaching ability do not always go directly hand in hand.

He started coaching athletes and turned out to do it pretty well. So three years ago he started McMillan Elite. The goal was to take decent college runners, not great runners, and give them housing and support to really train hard. Things have gone well. Many of the runners, who were not good enough to get sponsorship when they graduated from college are now some of the best in the country. They have gone to world championships and all sorts of international competitions representing USA. Most recently one of the original athletes had his debut marathon and ran a 2:10. In general running sub 2:11 gets you a 100k per year contract for two years. The economy may have changed but running a 2:10 is serious. Accomplishing that is no small feat.

The specific instance which really showed me that this company is different is that just this week they started a coaching program for ulrtarunners. I have never heard of ultrarunners having a coach. Most of them are self coached and independent. While this is a tiny segment of the running population it is a growing segment. I must applaud them for finding an accomplished ultrarunner to coach others. This is a step in the right direction. You see, one of the USA's top five ultrarunners is only maybe in the top 120 in the marathon. Not that it is a wide open and uncompetitive domain, it just does not get the attention that the marathon and shorter races do from athletes and spectators alike. I mean who, besides me, would really want to watch the entire seven hour 100k (62 miles) world championships? I see directing coaching at this segment is one small step toward making the sport more accessible to the masses.

What they could improve: more sponsorship. One of the problems with running sponsorship in the US is that athletes are only allowed two sponsors. Generally one is a shoe company and then the second is a sports nutrition company. Imagine if NASCAR, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Ed Vestiurs, the SuperBowl, or tennis players only had two sponsors! They would have so much less money. As I look at the stuff on my desk and think about sponsorship I think of all the opportunity we have. Chapstick, sunglasses, watches, car companies, food chains, formal clothing, computer companies, and coffee brands are all sponsorship possibilities. The best marathoner in the world right now is a 23 year old from Kenya who has trained in Japan for several years. He was, and I think still is, on a team sponsored by Toyota.

While having these training groups sponsored by shoe companies is great, I would really like to see Team Fidelity or Team Bank of America pop up. The bonus that just one CEO of these huge financial companies gets every year is enough to fund a fifteen person team for several years.

So my main complaint is not exactly against McMillan Elite or McMillan Running Company. I just think that by searching out alternative sponsors they could have greater financial resources. I also think that these alternative corporate sponsors would be easier for a club to get than individual athletes.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 15

The Successful Innovative Company of the Week is: Clif Bar!

What they do right: They make stuff you can digest. On my first backpacking trip in 2001 I was 15 and we ate all sorts of unpalatable stuff. Energy bars that tasted like beef jerky meets fudge. The point is that from that experience I have learned that nutrition is an important part of multi-hour and multi-day activity. Clif Bar has shown that they know how important taste and nutrition are.

For the uninitiated, Clif Bars have a story on the back. I have learned through experience that a story while you eat is better than no story. This is especially true when entertaining teenagers. Anyway the story, and corresponding book, tell the tale of how Clif Bar came about. Basically this endurance nut was out on a 175 mile bike ride with a friend and bonked and could not force himself to eat anything because of the terrible taste of energy food back then. So he worked on

making his own tasty food in his mom's kitchen and eventually named it after his dad. At some point he founded a company and expanded the product line.

Now they have a fantastic line of products. In fact when I went to Pakistan I took five of their products with me: Clif Bars, Builder Bars, Mojo Bars, Shot Bloks (these are amazing!), and a few gel Shots. The thing about their products is that they all taste good. The Builder Bars are protein bars that are really big and filling. The Mojo Bars are like pressed trail mix and provide a different taste and texture than traditional energy bars. Their energy gel, Shots, are nice because they have this thing called a Litter Leash. It allows you to tear the top off and the little piece of plastic stays attached to the rest of the package. I like this energy gel package design best of all although the tastes of their gels are not my favorite. You can see the Litter Leash on the right side below.

Shot Bloks get their own paragraphs because they are so awesome! They are like very firm pudding. Six come in a package with 200 calories. They are convenient because you can open the package and eat one or a few with your gloves on and put the package half open back in your pocket. With energy gel you have to commit to eating the whole thing or get this sticky mess all over everything. With energy bars you have to chew, when it's cold you have to chew a lot, and it sometimes feels like you am wasting as much energy trying to eat it as you are getting. So like 33 calorie Shot Bloks are a fantastic alternative to eating on the go. They require very little chewing, aren't messy, and come in small doses. Additionally the extra salt flavors are very nice when you are sweating a lot.

Clif Bar is committed to using as much natural and organic food in their products as possible. I do not know if this has anything to do with why their food tastes good but it might. Personally I think that some of the world's farming practices are unsustainable or in fact unhealthy and using organic food is a good alternative to those practices.

What they could improve: the taste of their energy gels. To be honest I have a hard time eating all the flavors I have tried because they are rather bitter. Perhaps that is the caffeine talking because all of the flavors of theirs I have tried contain caffeine. So my argument is somewhat premature I admit but I have had a hard time downing their gels.

Another desire I have is that these companies would make it easier for people like me to get discounted products. I spent over $150 on energy food before I went to Pakistan. Half of it I brought back but still that was a major expense for me. I also go through lots of energy food with running and climbing. I know I am not one of the top 20 athletes in this country in my sport much less the world but it would really nice to at least get like a 25% discount on orders of $50 or more. Some kind of discount would be nice. I usually buy my energy food in bulk like 6, 12 or 24 packs and at about a dollar per bar/gel and two dollars for Shot Bloks the costs add up. I do not mean to whine and I know that when I net some engineering jobs $20 will seem like nothing but at the moment and for the last year it has kind of been an issue.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 14

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: Saucony!

What they do right: I first heard of Saucony in the summer of 2007. It was the only summer the last five years when I was not in the mountains with little or no outside world access. As such I followed the Tour de France, the European track season and learned a lot about running. Going across the internet I ran into the blog of Nate Jenkins. This was back in the day when he had only ran a few decent races and was so far off most people's radar that no one considered him a serious threat in US marathoning. Well, I was inspired by his 130 and 140 mile weeks week after week including lots of workouts. That fall he ran to a seventh place finish at the olympic marathon trials. That's kind of a big deal. What makes that so special is that When he decided to take the path of professional runner and again when Saucony decided to sponsor him he was pretty slow by professional runner standards. So I have to be thankful to the company that gave this hard working guy a chance.

Secondly, in 2009, or perhaps 2008, they came out with the best shoe I have ever owned: The Grid Fastwitch 3. I've had other Saucony shoes and they were nice too. I've had shoes fromm just about every running shoe company in time but this model takes the cake. My first pair has 560 miles on it and I'm going to keep using it to at least 1000km. The other two pair have less than 50 miles between the two of them I am just so scared that when the Fastwitch 4 comes out they will change it. I know at least five people that train mainly in this shoe and everyone likes it. You can see my two newish pairs and the old pair with salt stains.

What they could improve: Saucony is mostly a New England company. It seems that most of their athletes are in the New England area. While there are a lot of runners there they could probably expand to the rest of the country (and world). They have a good stable of products they are just not one of the biggest shoe companies so people don't know about them as much as say Nike or Asics.

Coming from a NCAA division three background it seems that shoe companies often cater only to the best runners and to joggers. What I'm saying is that I would like to see more sponsorship for guys like Nate Jenkins and shoe companies sponsoring more races. With the increase in race fees for marathons climbing every year it would be nice if that $130 entry fee would get you a pair of shoes instead of another technical microfiber shirt.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 13

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: GU Energy!

What they do right: they were the first company to produce an energy gel in 1991. This one single invention revolutionized endurance sports. In athletic competitions longer than an hour it is beneficial to consume some calories during the event. Competitions of a longer length use up about all of the glycogen in your muscles and to keep going without bonking you need more fuel.

Basically GU energy gel is a blend of maltodextrin and some other stuff. The sugars are more complex than simple and thus distributes the energy over a longer length of time than simple sugars. In essence they concentrated gatorade and put it in a 100 calorie package that you can carry almost anywhere. This one invention was so successful that something that started with triathletes progressed to marathoners, mountaineers, and probably sports I don't even know about.

Since 91 they have come up with other products as well. They now have a full range of energy and recovery products including more solid chomp pieces and drink mixes. They also sponsor a number of athletes in several sports.

For me personally, once I tried energy gels I was hooked. They give you a blast of energy and really help you keep going longer. In fact I buy energy gels in bulk.

What they could improve: their outreach (not necessarily marketing) could be better. Many of my friends never try GU until the night before their first marathon. Some also don't use GU in marathon. As a veteran of many runs over 2.5 hours and hikes and climbs in the 12 or more hour range I greatly appreciate GU. However, they don't always make it easy to get to GU. Often at races they are not at a convenient locations and they aren't promoted in training very often. Perhaps GU could partner with a shoe company to offer a free gel with the purchase of a new pair of shoes. That way people could try a gel before a race. Or perhaps with your marathon entry they would send you a packet with two gels a month or two before the race so that you could practice eating them, or decide if you need to buy more.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 12

The Successful Innovative Company of the Week is: Full Circle.

What they do right: they make organic foods! I turned myself onto Full Circle when I was cereal shopping. I was looking for one of those healthy grain and nut cereals and I wanted something without all sorts of sugar and corn syrup. I saw the organic label and decided to try it. It was really good. In fact most of the cereal I buy now is Full Circle because it tastes good and doesn't make my teeth hurt.

Since then I've tired their pastas as well. The grocery stores I frequent don't have more products that I buy made by Full Circle.

They were started in 2006 in California. I like companies that push the environmental conscious movement. The reason being that the world can not handle the kind of consumption the US enjoys if more than the US enjoy it.

What they could improve: lower prices so that direct competition between the inorganic brands and the organic brands for the poor consumer is possible. They could also stand to improve their distribution of products to grocery stores. They seem to be doing well with the cereal but not so well with the other hundreds of products.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 11

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: ING Direct.

What they do right: give you interest on your checking and savings account. There was a time in life I paid bills with checks. Then I finally learned something and started using free bill paying on the internet. No more stamps, envelopes, not even bank statements mailed to me. I don't have to pay postage and nobody has to waste paper. ING masters the internet bank. They only have nine locations according to Wikipedia, but they have millions of users.

Now lots of banks give interest, but ING Direct consistently gives 2-3 times higher interest than other banks on their checking account and somewhat higher interest on their saving account. Most of the money saving is due to not have brick and mortar locations and using so little paper. As a corollary they also have less employees than a similar sized bank.

Their website is also set up very conveniently. Several of the banks I am part of have confusing websites but ING has done very well. There are not many buttons, the links are descriptive, and the pages show you everything you want to know without a bunch of advertising fluff and disclaimers.

I must also mention ShareBuilder. Apparently you can invest in the stock market and in very little amounts. I've never used it but Russ told me to mention it. I think that Russ recommends it too and he is a smart cookie with his money so I believe him. So there Russ, I mentioned it.

They also sponsor a bunch of marathons and other races. People that sponsor stuff for running are just cool. It's like a subversive way to get people exercising.

What they could improve: ATM access is always a little troublesome. It's fine when you find one of the free withdraw ATMs but when I am traveling it is a hassle because I'm looking for an Allpoint sign which is tiny. So I often get charged the two or three dollars to withdraw money.

Also, ING group recently announced that their business model was unsustainable. Their insurance branch received like 7.4 billion from the dutch government because of the recent economy so they announced they would separate the insurance and bank instead of being a banc-assurance company. Also, it is possible for other companies to copy the business model of offering a high interest rate and steal customers. So ING Directs looks poised to lose a bunch of customers because people have no loyalty. That being said they are the first and still the biggest online bank so they have experience which will probably help them survive a slew of new competitors.

As I set out to publish the 11th edition of this series I have to remind people that success as I define it can be short lived or long term. Also, innovative sometimes means just harder marketing so people forget about your competitors. I'm saying that in ten years perhaps none of these companies will be around because their business was not sustainable. That being said I think we have a lot to learn from failure and success. Even short term success if properly managed can turn into something great. Professional athletes compete for 5-15 years and many never have to work again. I will be interested to see in several years how my "successful" companies are doing.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 10

The Successful Innovative Company of the Week is: Wikipedia.

What they do right: they give away free information. I first heard about Wikipedia in high school and at the time we were not allowed to source it. In serious publications people still don't but everyone takes a journey there to verify information. It is a starting step for a journey of a thousand miles. It is a pool of knowledge to swim in or dump your glass.

The strength of Wikipedia is in the millions of people that update it. I was reading a message board the day after Dathan Ritzenhein set the 5000 meter US record and one of the first comments was something like 'you know Wikipedia is great when it already has his record less than an hour after he set it'.

Wikipedia is also vastly underutilized by the advertising industry. I mean if you are doing something that you want to make your company look good, well go on Wikipedia and change it so that people know you are trying. I mean when it comes to companies first there is your website (propaganda) then there is Wikipedia (the truth). I'm not saying delete the negative information on Wikipedia I'm saying add more of the positive stuff. Add the history, the people stories, sales information, product information, details, add wikipedia pages for your products. It's free. People believe it. It's like a snowball effect, start a page for your new product and as people update it it will grow and become it's own thing. I mean it's just so obvious to me how any company, brand, famous person, whatever can help their image by using Wikipedia. It's like a minibiography that you have the chance to edit. Do you want to see how history will remember your company (or you), well, write history! For all the money spent on bandwidth, website templates, computer templates, just about anyone could add a paragraph to Wikipedia.

What they could improve: If people had to have an account to update Wikipedia that would make them more accountable. I mean you could still set up an account to falsely update one thing and then not worry when it was deleted, but it would slow down a lot of trolls.

I see accountability as the largest challenge to Wikipedia. For incorrect information there is no punishment to the person that posts it. I am not sure exactly how to get around this, maybe some sort of approval before something goes live by the page author.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 9

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: The Bean Counter.

What they do right: They have good coffee. After having a cup at The Bean Counter Dunkin Donuts will take pretty terrible. They have consistently been ranked the best coffee in Worcester year after year for the last decade. They have two locations, one in Worcester and one in Shrewsbury. How are they innovative? Simple they focus on the quality of the product.

Starbucks has good quality coffee too, but when you go in you feel like you should be wearing $300 shoes and driving a new Lexus. At the Bean Counter you can go in with holes in your pants and no one will care. It is a place that takes all types. Yuppie college students with laptops at 10 PM grinding out tomorrow's assignment. The 8:30 AM coffee crew age 50+ that defines liberal Massachusetts. The old retired lady sipping the small coffee just looking out the window. The British guy who shows up randomly for a week and hangs out with everyone then disappears for two months. The summer gang of acoustic or punk 20 somethings that smokes and drinks coffee from sunset til close. The pale vegans searching out some unadulterated piece of candy. The impatient business woman waiting to buy a cake. The best part is the girls behind the counter that know your usual drink.

Example: wake up at 7 in January or February and go over to The Bean Counter to do homework. Sitting beside the windows and the heater drinking a mocha. Scribbling rocket science as the snow flitters down from a gray sky. The rush of cars through the slush. The contrast between me warm and dry and productive on the inside and the outside world a cold wet mess three feet away. For some reason I'm three times as productive here as I was last night in the library. How I get so fortunate?

What they could improve: A student discount would be great! They also kind of a strange setup with the register and condiment counter. It's fine as long as they only serve one person at a time but sometimes they are serving three at a time and I have a little trouble knowing where to stand. Also a few of their electrical outlets don't work. My computer's battery lasts all of 15 minutes so an outlet is vital.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 8

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: Patagonia.

What they do right: They care about more than just profits. The founder Yvon Chiounard, the same guy that founded Black Diamond, had this environmental idea that he would try to make performance clothing with the least damage to the environment. That means he uses recycled materials, nontoxic dyes, organic cotton, safe labor environments in third world countries, and actively recycles old Patagonia products among other eco-friendly initiatives.

Patagonia promotes The Cleanest Line of products as a world leading brand in putting the environment before profits. They also helped to start the 1% For the Planet charity. Patagonia is surely one of the leaders in environmental production and does well informin their customers about their initiatives.

They also make some great clothing! I bought a R1 Hoody last year for $95 marked down from $135. At the time I thought I was crazy. It fit well and had nice features like thumb loops, a hood, an offset zipper and chin mask, a chest pocket and it was warm. I thought it would be a nice addition to my stuff to take to Pakistan. I wore it for two days while ice climbing and hiking in February. Oh my it was good! It breathed so well that if I wore it alone I could run or hike hard when the temperature was well below zero and the sweat would quickly vent off of me. It really provides no protection from the wind but that is no problem for most situations. As soon as I would stop hiking and stand there, as long as there was no wind, it would quickly heat up so there was no need to throw on another layer. To adjust the ventilation I could take my hands out of the thumb holes and slide the sleeves up my arms or I could take the hood off and zip the zipper down until my bare chest, head and neck were venting to 15 degree New Hampshire. I wore the R1 Hoody every time I went above camp one on Broad Peak this summer. I wore it on Longs Peak in August. I wore it running the Presidential traverse in September. If there is one shirt I will use when the temperature will be below 40 it is the R1 Hoody. I even bought a second one for $85 in March when I saw it on sale. I was so paranoid that they would quit selling them that I have it still with the tag on in my room just waiting for me to break the one I currently use.

But Patagonia, also known as Patagucci, does not only sell amazing hooded shirts. They cover the entire mountaineering range of clothing as well as city dweller clothing of sweaters and pants made of cotton and cashmiere.

Finally they have created a website called The Tin Shed. It is a collection of stories told with videos, pictures and words of the Patagonia environmental effort as well as their sponsored athletes.

What they could improve: Personally I think they send too many emails. I seem to get two or three emails a week sometimes twice a day announcing new sales or new items or the new surfing catalog. While it is nice that they are so proactive about telling people what they are doing they are trying to hard and I have archived several of their emails just from reading the subject.

They are also a very expensive company. None of their clothing comes cheap. This is the price of their hard work making The Cleanest Line yet for a poor 23 year old like myself it is prohibitive. That is not a bad marketing strategy, in fact they are doing quite well, but unless you can afford it it is too expensive.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 7

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI).

What they do right: they facilitate people to get out more. In middle school I started to take the outdoors more seriously and started thinking about camping more than 30 feet away from someone over 40 or a car. I do not remember if it was my dad who introduced me to REI or if I stumbled upon them on the internet. I do remember vividly the first time I went into one of the stores. I was 14 and our family was on vacation in California and we showed up ten minutes before it opened so we waited in the car. This was in middle to southern California. I remember pulling on the wooden handled ice axe door handles and thinking that this was really hardcore. I felt like a mountaineer just opening the door! As we looked around inside I remember seeing the huge assortment of climbing gear and marveling at how many different things there were. That was the first time I had ever seen a cam in real life. Now I own 15. They had tents and sleeping bags even warm down to -40F(C)!

When we walked out of there my life was changed. While it would be years before I would start buying rock climbing and ice climbing equipment, the seed had been planted. Maybe it's an engineering thing. I find it so interesting how to put a piece of metal into a slot in the rock so that if you fall it will hold you. Similarly I'm interested in the heat transfer involved in hiking up a mountain when the windchill is far below freezing.

REI succeeds where others fail because they span the entire range of outdoor committed enthusiasts. Walk into an REI and you can easily buy a $400-600 rain jacket, one of the most expensive on the market. You can also buy a $39 polyurethane rain jacket. It is the same with tents. You can spend $800 on a tent that could probably be used on Mars or $100 on a tent that is still way better than the one I slept in at 12,700 feet in Colorado on one trip. It is important to have a range of items because as consumers grow and their interests changes there is a real possibility that at some point years later the same person that bought a $39 rain jacket will be back for a $400 one.

My advisor old me that people are most disposed to pick medium if given three or five options. I think it is the same with prices. They don't want the cheapest but don't need the most expensive. Sounds like good marketing to me.

Also, several times a year REI stores have the garage sale. They sell the returned items that other people didn't want. Much of the merchandise is broken or in need of serious repair but there are very good deals if you are willing to look. My best finds were two pairs of rock climbing shoes for a total of $25 which is far better than the $220 they would have originally cost.

They also have this great program called the member dividend. It works by paying $20 when you sign up and as long as you buy $10 or more each year you get a percentage of all that you bought back to spend again. The reason it is so easy to keep buying year after year is that if you spend $100 and get the 10% back the next year you just have to buy something to use those $10. They also have a credit card where you earn even bigger dividends on REI purchases and small dividends on all purchases. I can not suggest getting a credit card as it encourages you to spend more money than you have but if you must have one this is a good one to have.

What they could improve: this is just my opinion and I am a special case but not many people at REI can help me any more. I know more about the gear and clothing they sell than they do. It can be frustrating to ask a question and get a totally bogus response.

Another things I think would be great is having sponsored athletes. I know they are a retailer as well as a manufacturer but they make a lot of good stuff and giving free gear and travel money to a few talented outdoors athletes would help promote their name among the dedicated outdoors professionals. What I mean is that I do not remember seeing the REI logo in Pakistan this summer but The North Face, Scarpa, and Mountain Hardware logos were everywhere, especially on their sponsored athletes.

Also, and again this is just my opinion, I would like to see REI delve into the niche aspects of outdoor recreation. Which is to say selling or producing cold weather gear, ultralight gear, and more running apparel. I think they have done very well with their product line as it is but they could expand into other segments of the market.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 6

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: Google.

What they do right: They made the internet what it is. They made a source of information. The internet was cool before but this took it to another level. You could search the world and actually find what you wanted to find. They took a moderately competitive market and fixed the errors. Ads were smaller and all in text. There was a focus on text and not images. Their googlebot.com managed to connect everything and make it searchable. If you don't remember, it was hard to find things ten years ago. Not every website seemed to be on the same internet. Now it really only matters if you are indexed by Google. That's what it means to be on the internet: searchable by Google. Had they stopped there and just sold ads and indexed websites they would still be great. However, they saw other possibilities.

Then came Gmail. At first it was a staggering 1 GB of available space for your emails for free, now it's over 7. The mailbox has easy inbox and archive features and the star feature for important emails. Again, had they just done that it would be the best out there, but they linked it with a new chat feature Google Chat. Instant messaging and texting are slow compared to the speed of Google Chat. It also saves conversations in your archived emails so you have records. They also linked a calender to the email so you could see upcoming events. Then they released a new program Documents. It is possibly the most simple word processing device that has been created in the last 10 years but for simple writing and editing text it is great. For collaborations between multiple authors a single document can be edited at the same time and is updated about every minute. It tracks the changes and can show you what different authors changed. As far as producing group papers this is such a useful tool.

Their stable of products, and mostly free products is really staggering. They have Blogger the world's most popular blogging program. They recently came out with a fairly popular phone. They rule internet marketing by developing industries like search engine optimization and Adwords.

Aside from all of these technical innovations they have managed to create a new corporate system. I have a friend who had an internship at Google. They have a free cafeteria and games and all sorts of on site employee benefits. My friend said that he stayed there up to 14 hours a day. Obviously not working the whole time but the culture was such that everyone just hung out there. Wether that attitude in the business world is catching on is hard to say. With the current recession I would guess that most companies aren't giving out free lunches every day.

What they could improve: This is hard because I am afraid of Google becoming too powerful. They are so good and so connected to almost everybody that if they chose to wield their power it could be a bad situation. In the world these days it is hard to know where the balance of efficiency and fair are. If there was only one search engine people used it would be fine as long as you were on it but if you were not on the search engine then you would be invisible. It is the age old monopoly problem. On the other hand, the web of the internet has grown so much that a company could be spread by Facebook, email, and other networking systems so that very little of the traffic to that site would come directly from Google. Also, with the advent of smart phones and netbooks the internet is beginning to change. I think in the future it will change even more to perhaps pieces of thin flexible plastic that are just connected to the internet. We shall see how Google responds to this new era in the digital age.