Personal Energy Conservation

Wow. I'm always surprised (and humbled and excited) when I get evidence that people are reading my blog!

The blog is like a lab for my thought process about business, and information I've been sharing -- and finding new ways to share. My initial intention was that I'd use this as I worked with my yoga community, but due to the power of the internet, I'm finding neat interactions with small business owners from all over the place.

Business is about community. And I don't mean that a business and its customers are a community.

For the last 6 years, I've been a customer of the wonderful Minardi salon here in NYC. I only go in 5 or 6 times a year, but staffers remember me and greet me like a "member". I enjoy my relationship with the incredible woman who cuts my hair. When I arrive early, I sit in the waiting area and have coffee with other patrons.

Can a salon be a community? It is. The lovely group of people who work there. There are probably customers who spend time there every week. And people like me on the border.

On my last visit, the topic of discussion was (coincidentally) a great little coffee place nearby. The employees were trying to find ways to get the coffee place to deliver. Minardi employees are customers of other local businesses.

When I go all the way uptown to get my hair cut, I often stop at a nearby chocolate shop for a truffle or so. Minardi customers bring business to other local businesses. (And my beloved Virayoga has a similar relationship with the amazing Hampton Chutney. Dean & Deluca is another beneficiary of the post yoga class rush.)

Step back for a larger view, and think of the firms that depend on Minardi for revenue: companies that provide beauty supplies, accounting services, office supplies.

Another step back brings a view of businesses that serve employees when they aren't at work -- landlords, grocery stores, day care centers, yoga studios -- some in communities far away from the salon.

Employees pay taxes, and the government turns around and cuts a social security check to someone's grandma. (And also fuels the engine of war in Iraq. Sigh.)

We are interdependent, inter-related. There is no such thing as my business.

This blog has some posts I'd call mechanical: practices that can make a business more intentional, more sustainable, more conscious.

Sometimes a post is a mini-case study, something I think is food for thought about all of the communities in our ecosystem.

Yesterday's case study post was about small businesses in tiny New Paltz, New York battling over the coffee market.

Yesterday, my tiny blog got a comment on this story. How did the anonymous commenter find me, and so quickly? (This is something like blog 3 million on the Technorati list!)

Others can dig into this story online, if you'd like, to observe a mighty outpouring of emotion and energy around whether an entrepreneur should open another coffee store in a town that apparently has several.

I have no direct knowledge of the coffee wars in New Paltz, or the New Paltz community in general. But I have heard this this story before, and not just about New York.

How I would love to talk with the business owners in New Paltz about how many hours they have spent defending their respective positions. How many hours of conversation have gone into this debate? Did the business owners ever lose sleep worry about losing business, or being called names?

How much attention has this claimed from the community? If all of the hours of attention could be measured and converted into days of effort, what productive and positive creation might have resulted? (Say, if the hours were devoted to raising money for Habitat for Humanity?)

It is probably way too early for this conversation in New Paltz, if I'm reading the level of emotion correctly.

But what could we learn from enlightened business from owners on both "sides" of a debate like this who have the benefits of time and hindsight, and would be willing to share similar experiences?

Personal Energy Conservation: Part 2

Todd Henry's recent Accidental Creative podcast, "Victim", is related the theme of conscious competition.

(Download it from Todd's site, or subscribe on i-Tunes. But if you want it, get it soon, because he doesn't leave stuff up there forever. Unless you join his community; I haven't made that leap.)

Todd talks about how we rob ourselves of our own creative output when we devote our time to thinking about "Them", and what "They" are doing.

He's a positive guy with a lot of passion for this subject. I actually listened to it a couple of times...an excellent use of my time and attention.