Success Can Come at Any Age. Just Look at These 6 Successful Entrepreneurs.

Image credit: http://www.kfclibrary.com/

Based on the way startups are covered in the media today, it’s easy to feel like all founders are in their teens or 20s. Stories abound of young millionaires and entrepreneur teenagers, but that’s only part of the picture. There are plenty of entrepreneurs out there who found their “big ideas” later in life, founding companies that, in some instances, last well beyond their years.

Here are six entrepreneurs who got their start later in life and prove that success is a possibility at any age:

1. Leo Goodwin, GEICO

GEICO, or the Government Employee’s Insurance Company, is now a well-known car insurance brand with well-known advertising figures. But before the Gecko, the Caveman or Maxwell, GEICO was the idea of Leo Goodwin. Working as an accountant in San Antonio, Texas, in the 1930’s, Goodwin realized that insurance needed an overhaul. Why weren’t companies just dealing with customers directly, saving all the money that traditionally went to brokers?

In 1936, at the age of 50, Leo founded GEICO in Washington, D.C. In a departure from most businessmen of the day, he worked closely with his wife Lillian in running the company. By the end of the year, GEICO had 12 people on staff and 3,700 policies in force. Today, GEICO employs over 27,000 people and has over 14 million policyholders.

2. Harland David Sanders, Kentucky Fried Chicken

Col. Sanders did not start out as anyone’s idea of a successful businessman. He lost his father at an early age, quarreled extensively with his stepfather, and was fired from multiple jobs, even losing his job as a lawyer after a courtroom brawl with his own client. However, he was determined to never give up, and this trait led to his eventual success.

While working at a service station in Corbin, Ky., Sanders gained local popularity for his delicious chicken recipe. After the Corbin station was destroyed by a fire, Sanders had the location rebuilt as a motel and 140-seat restaurant. In 1952, at the age of 62, Sanders franchised his “Kentucky Fried Chicken” for the first time. Today, KFC has over 18,800 outlets in 118 different countries and territories.

3. Robert Noyce, Intel

After earning his doctorate in physics from MIT, Robert Noyce found work as a research engineer, eventually ending up at Beckman Instruments. In 1957, he and seven others left Beckman and founded the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. While he enjoyed some success there, he eventually left with Gordon Moore. Together, they founded Intel when Noyce was 41.

Noyce was considered the visionary of the company and treated staff like family. He declined the lavish benefits that most CEOs received, and kept the company less structured and more relaxed. While at Intel, he oversaw the invention of the microprocessor, an innovation that revolutionized computer technology and forms the foundation of the machines we still use today.

4. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn

Surely a company like LinkedIn, a major social network, was founded by a youngster, right? Not at all! Reid Hoffman struggled with what to do after he graduated from Stanford. He decided to work, but to do so strategically, mapping out a plan of what he would need to learn before he started his own company.

When he first started on his own, he founded a networking site called Socialnet, believing that having a great matching algorithm would guarantee success. He tried advertising his new site through magazines and newspapers, but never found traction with the idea. In the end, he left and joined PayPal before leaving his position with the company in 2002 to co-found LinkedIn. Hoffman was 35 when he founded the company and 43 when it went public.

5. Wally Blume, Denali Flavors

If the thought of tomato-flavored ice cream turns your stomach, you’re not alone. Wally Blume had a successful 20-year career, but knew he had to move on when his boss decided to move forward with that crazy idea. In 1995, in his mid-50s, he started his own ice cream company, Denali Flavors, where he created the famous Moose Tracks flavor.
Today, this dairy treat brings in $80 million a year alone through licensing agreements. Denali now has over 40 flavors, and Blume is still going strong at the age of 70.

6. Carol Gardner, Zelda Wisdom

When you’re 52, newly divorced, broke and depressed, you’d think that the last thing on your mind would be starting a company. Then again, it might be just what the doctor ordered.

After getting a dog at her therapist’s recommendation, Carol Gardner won a local Christmas card contest with a picture of the dog and a funny quip. The win inspired Gardner to start a greeting card company, which she named after her dog, Zelda. In 2010, Zelda Wisdom was valued at roughly $50 million, showing that you truly never know where your next great idea might come from.

Running a business isn’t easy -- it takes hard work and discipline to reach success. As a result, it should be unsurprising that, many times, it’s the older and wiser among us who are better at navigating that road. So don’t count yourself out, no matter what your age. Success can come to anyone at any time.

Attention CEOs: Social Media is Critical in Acquiring New Customers

As a CEO of a small or medium sized business, you have a lot of responsibility. You are in charge of the growth of your company while managing all aspects of the business from IT to accounting and you are also probably one of the top sales people. Sure you have people to help you with these things but ultimately you're are the one responsible for results. One area that you are probably neglecting is Social Media.
Social media is a buzzword that almost everyone is familiar with. Wikipedia define social media as the social interaction among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social media platforms allow you to broadcast messages about your product or service to potential customers. At no other point in history have we had the ability to reach so many of our prospects and customers than we do now. Social media has become one of the most important business tools for you and your sales people in reaching customers.

These virtual communities and networks are composed of things such as (to name but a few):

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google+
• Pinterest

You no doubt have heard or even used some of these sites. However, have you created a strategy for your company to leverage these platforms for acquiring new customers?

Chances are the answer is no. Most companies have not given any thought to how Social Media platforms can help them grow their business. Worse yet, many CEOs of small and medium sized businesses have not taken the time to educate themselves about these amazing platforms and how they can help grow their customer base. To help illustrate the importance we've outlined the user base of three of these platforms:

• Facebook: Over 1,000,000,000 users
• Twitter: 650,000,000 users
• LinkedIn: 375,000,000

These numbers are staggering and continuing to grow. Social media allows you, for very little money and effort, to reach your customers where they work, live and play. Online. Social media platforms, in simple terms, are like online cocktail parties. Everyone is on these platforms to engage, get educated and interact with others just like at a cocktail party. If your company is not on social media, it's the equivalent to not being invited to the party. Being on social media and not engaging with people is like being at the party and sitting in the corner not talking to anyone. It's important for your business to be the life of the party.

Posted by Matthew Cook

4 Things Marketers May Not Know About Social Media Marketing

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Steve Olenski 

 

I know, I know, there is no shortage of social media experts, gurus and bhagwans and many marketers themselves now believe they know all there is to know about social media marketing. Yeah and I’m Donald Duck. Translation: Don’t believe anyone who says they know everything about social media. Ever.

Why? For the simple reason it’s still growing and may never stop so how can you know all there is to know about something that has not stopped evolving yet?

The explosion that is mobile marketing alone and the way consumers are using their mobile devices for any and all social media related activities alone is cause to sit up and take notice when someone tells you they know everything about social media.

Instagram and other Social Media Apps (Photo credit: Jason A. Howie)

To those who claim to know everything and to all others among you, here are 4 things marketers may not know about social media marketing

1. Use brain science to ‘make’ people trust your brand
Don’t just rely on knowing or anticipating what the customer wants. Srini Pillay, M.D. and CEO of NueroBusiness Group did a study that shows the brain has a ‘trust hormone’ oxytocin; which does in fact enhance trust, possibly because it enhances the distinction between self and others and increases the positive evaluation of others. Thus, a trust hormone actually changes how the brain perceives people and situations.

The greater the trust you can build between your customer and your brand, the greater the chance of marketing success (which I define by amount of deals closed or leads generated).

What are some of these trust building activities? Clear communication, being on time, delivering on promises, and fulfilling contractual obligations are good ways to create a climate of trust when things are unfamiliar.

2. Do your homework
Rather than cold calls, use social media to develop the relationship to a warm point before an initial call. Target someone through LinkedIn LNKD -2.22% that fits your buyer profile through an advanced search. With Google GOOGL -0.63% Analytics, there are certain metrics that can measure how long visitors from LinkedIn stay on your web page. More time spent on the web page means that you have engaging and meaningful content. Using this information, you can target your customers easier through social media.

Once you have identified them, do research on them through reading their profiles using a CRM such as Nimble to aggregate all of their public information. Then find their email address or send them a direct message on Twitter TWTR -2.59% to start a conversation.
This works best for people who have retweeted or favorited something you have said on Twitter or LinkedIn.

3. Use your resources
The number of social media followers you have has little to do with how many people will see any social media posts you make. Since most adults don’t live on social media 24/7, only those who are checking the network at that moment (or whom you tag by name) will see the post. Tools like HootSuite and Hiplogiq’s SociaCentiv allow you to set up repeated or rephrased posts later.

According to Social Media Examiner it’s important to have three or more posts in between repeats so your profile stays interesting.

4. Offline presence
Many offline tactics still have better conversion rates than online techniques. But, a recent study by Search Engine Land found that 85% of consumers have used the Internet to find a local business. Integrating TV, radio and print into your digital marketing efforts helps differentiate your brand and target a new and profitable audience. Scott Langdon of Highervisibility.com said, “we’re living in a very digital world, but people still like to have something tangible to hold or feel when making a purchasing decicision.”

Social media marketing takes consistent effort and attention to detail. Businesses that use social media outlets to build relationships of trust, combined with an offline presence,  and diligent consumer data gathering will drive awareness and profitability for the long term.

SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLAINED

A Complete A to Z Guide To Personal Branding

How To Unlock Great Ideas

Many companies blow off the best ideas of their most creative employees–leaving innovators no choice but to leave if they want to act on their brainstorms. This is clearly a source of huge frustration, as some of you expressed in your comments the last time I posted on this topic in “What To Do When Your Boss Won’t Support Your Great Ideas.”

But if you’re an inventive type, maybe there’s hope that you don’t have to live with your frustrations indefinitely. Serial entrepreneur Ken Tencer, co-author of the new book Cause a Disturbance, believes that it’s very possible for companies to change and embrace innovation. He’s the CEO of Spyder Works, a branding and innovation firm with offices in New York and in a suburb of Ontario, Canada. He previously founded Nettlewoods, a private label of bath and body products sold through major chains, such as Walmart. He is also chair of the Unleashing Innovation Summit, to be held in New York City on March 26 and 27. Here’s an edited transcript of a conversation we had yesterday about how to bring more innovation to today’s workplaces and to innovate more on your own.

Many people say it is hard to get their company to pay attention to their great ideas. How can companies become more receptive?
Tencer: Certain companies really embrace the notion that `We have a lot of incredible people working for us, they’re very close to our customers, and we should actually be engaging these people.’ If  you look at a company like LinkedIn LNKD -4.55%, they enable employees to come up with new idea, put a pitch together and if it comes through, to bring the idea to market. At Google GOOG -0.37%, 20% of your time can be spent on projects other than your main job. I don’t know why more companies aren’t gravitating toward that whole notion of empowering employees, of putting in place mechanisms where they allow people to present ideas and push them forward. It engages and motivates them and helps attract the best talent to your company, rather than frustrating them, turning them off or pushing them out.

Is it possible that big companies don’t see an upside to internal innovation? Many seem to want their employees to focus the products or services they already sell. When they want to add new products and services, they go out and acquire small, innovative companies, instead of doing a lot of R&D internally.
Tencer: If they don’t see an upside to internal innovation, I think it’s incredible short-sightedness. Your brand is about building relationships with your customers. Innovation is about keeping those relationships fresh. It’s about introducing “new, improved and better.” The people closest to your relationships are your employees. They’re on the front lines of  speaking to or working with customers. To me, these are where the most relevant ideas are coming from or should be coming from. I’m not saying acquisitions or open source innovation aren’t important. They are, but why–if you have  5 or 50,000 or 100,000 people–would you ignore their ideas?

Some companies want their employees to stay focused, but I am not saying innovation should be 100% of their day.  I’m talking about adding a glorified suggestion box. Let’s get those great suggestions back to corporate management and the R&D team. I think the tide is turning. I hope it’s turning. I think the great companies are seeing that listening to your employees is powerfully motivating and engaging.

What’s holding the other, not-so-innovative companies back? 
Tencer: It’s an incredible mind shift for most companies to move from viewing employees as the doers and executors to the idea generators. I think companies are afraid it will take them out of the stride of their daily work. The change is hard. Instead of being managers, we’re being motivator and coaches.

I think managers can be. [Creativity expert] Ken Robinson talks about  the notion that creativity is taken away from us and replaced by very linear thinking through our education processes in his TED talks. In large companies, just like you have an open source innovation platform, you need an internal platform through which employees propose or present their ideas, so it doesn’t become every manager’s responsibility to be brilliant at this. If you have the processes in place, you’ll see that tide changing. I do believe that, given permission, managers will start to shift.

What if you’re an employee in a company that isn’t as receptive to innovation as LinkedIn–and you’re innovative? What can you do to put your ideas into action? 
I think if top management  really doesn’t appreciate it–I hate to say it–but in many cases an innovative employee will leave. If you’re one voice in 50,000 I don’t know that you’re going to have incredible success at it. But I think that with this new generation of employees, recognition and engagement are so high up on the scale of what motivates people that you won’t be the one voice in the company anymore. Hopefully a lot of companies will recognize that they don’t want to lose their employees.

What can someone who is, say, 47 years old, learn from Millennials about innovation? 
They’ve grown up and see sharing as just a normal part of their life. They’re sharing their ideas, thoughts on what they’re doing and social activism through social media. They are habitual sharers. What we need to learn is it’s okay to share our ideas and to build on one another’s idea. For the 47-year-old, the whole notion of the wiki or open source programming or innovation is a little more challenging. We were taught to keep our head down, keep things to ourselves and go in a linear fashion. To be fair to our generation, we didn’t have social media growing up. We can adapt to a new reality. We do it very well through LinkedIn. We share a lot of ideas through LinkedIn groups and other platforms. We can do that internally, as well.

Do you see any relationship between Millennials’ attitudes about consumerism and their opportunities to create? Many started their careers during the Great Recession.
We were brought up with home ownership and the cars in the garage as status symbols. To them, status symbols relate to whether something goes to sharing: Does it go to lowering emissions, saving the planet, to working together for a better cause? It’s an extension of that whole interconnectedness. To me, they’re almost better equipped to bootstrap a company. They don’t have that singular focus on the acquisition of material goods.

So how do midlife professionals who have mortgage to pay take a cue from a younger, very entrepreneurial generation and get back in touch with the innovative side of themselves? 
In my workshops, I don’t start out talking about innovation and being creative. I ask people to talk about what cool things around them they like. Someone might say: “Standing on a corner and getting a text message that your cab is one mile away, and your cab is number 118.” Here’s another example I like: At Disney theme parks, if a child drops an ice cream cone, an attendant will run up and take them to the ice cream vendor, who will put a new ice cream upside down in a cup, with a smiley face on it. These are examples of brilliant process innovation. It’s about making your customer happy in a simple but very different way. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Once people start realizing that innovation is that simple, it frees them up to be creative.

9 Ways Social Media Marketing Will Change in 2014

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News

From the decline of Facebook use among teens to Twitter's IPO, if there is one thing we know for sure about social media, it's that few trends hold on for long — so marketers need to stay on their toes.

With that in mind, we asked nine successful entrepreneurs how they are planning on altering their social media marketing strategies in the next six months, based on their predictions for the new year. Here's what they had to say. 

1. Graphic software will rise.

 

Posts on Facebook with photos get 53% more likes, 104% more comments and 84% more click-throughs than text-based posts, according to Kissmetrics. With the rise of Pinterest and Tumblr, it's going to become increasingly important to produce content in visual form, whether it is infographics, images with text overlay or pretty quote graphics. We'll be using more graphic software to turn our written content into visual content to make it more shareable on social media.
- Laura Pepper Wu, 30 Day Books 

2. Social won't be used for sales.
 

People love to buy, but they hate to be sold. Companies currently celebrating the most success in social media focus on engagement, nurturing relationships and sharing value through their social outreach. Customers and prospects will seek out companies offering value, entertainment, discounts, help and engagement.
- Charles Gaudet, Predictable Profits 

3. Automation will explode.
 

 A lot currently rides on the shoulders of social media marketers. They have to be on top of brand voice, any current company promotions or marketing campaigns, the tools they measure social media with, the various communities on the platforms, etc. It's a lot, and it's more varied than most people are capable of doing well. In 2014, we'll see a lot of automation of the tactics (think timing, platform, structure, etc.), so social media marketers can focus on the content and the genuine social interaction. Autonomics is being adopted now and will only explode as more technologies come online in 2014.
- Brennan White, Watchtower 

4. LinkedIn will become the most important publisher.
 

Imagine a publication with more than 100 million captive readers and writers, such as Bill Gates and Richard Branson, all natively hooked into and targeted to a social network. LinkedIn will become a premium destination for industry news, and you need to take part in that ecosystem early and often. Publish original content, network among peers in groups and raise your profile now.
- Trevor Sumner, LocalVox 

5. Content will be bigger and better.
 

Simple messages and simple questions aren't enough anymore. To achieve a deeper connection with your customers, a company needs to engage on a deeper and more intelligent level. Short videos, infographics, quality imagery and polls are all ways to engage deeper. Companies need to look at the content they put out and ask themselves, "Is this shareable?" An example of a huge company that's doing this really well right now is Wal-Mart. Its content is smart and engaging, and the fan engagement is very high by comparison to its competitors. Also, companies need to focus on the fans they have and not the fans they want. If your message is always trying to reach out, you'll bore the fans that have chosen to connect with you.
- Andrew Howlett, Rain 

6. Social will need to stand out.
 

Social media has really started to mature. Therefore, it will be a lot harder to stand out. To win big in social media, you'll have to think outside the box and find ways to get your content to stand out in all the noise.
- Wade Foster, Zapier 

7. Social media campaigns will have to be paid.
 

 I assume that the most effective social media campaigns in 2014 will be paid. The key is learning how to use Facebook and Twitter's paid tools now so that you'll have an edge on the competition. For instance, are you using Facebook's advanced audience tool? It allows you to upload your email database and send specific response messages directly to your focused audience. Imagine being able to segment both email marketing and Facebook ads to your target audience. Facebook already offers these types of advanced tools, and they will become more mainstream in 2014. Similarly, Twitter is now public and has been making an aggressive push into paid advertising. If you are a brand and want to succeed on Twitter in 2014, get ready to pay for it.
- Kristopher Jones, ReferLocal.com 

8. Interactive content will trump static content.
 

Creating static content is too easy. In 2014, the bar will be raised on the type of content people choose to engage with. Expect to see content become more interactive (think software-like). The year 2013 was the year of "Top 10" lists. To get users to engage to the same degree in 2014 and subsequent years, publishers will need to make it increasingly engaging, and one effective way to do that is to make your content interactive.
- Chuck Cohn, Varsity Tutors 

9. Google+ will merge into the social scene.
 

As Google continues to merge its products, it’s becoming more and more important in the social media landscape. There are so many benefits to using Google+. It creates a strong community that allows you to use your brand and identify consumers who share an interest in your products. It also allows your brand to become more social with like-minded consumers. They provide like-minded consumers a platform to connect with one another.

This builds a strong community, which is a great way to get feedback on new and old products from real-time consumers.
- Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net

Scott GerberScott Gerber is a serial entrepreneur, author (Never Get a 'Real' Job), TV commentator and founder of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneur...More

5 Ways I Use Weekends To Be a Better CEO

When I first started Mashable in 2005, I had no work-life balance. Weekdays blended into weekends blended into weekdays. On an average night, I’d get a few hours of sleep and get back to work – and I did this every day for several years.

Up until about two and half years ago, I also served as weekend editor of Mashable, and it was often the most stressful time of the week. By the time Monday came around, I was exhausted and ready to have a weekend!

Those early years were incredibly busy and intense, but it provided me the opportunity to learn about the importance of having time set aside to decompress from work, and I feel as though I become a better professional with every passing weekend because of this.

I recently asked my connections and followers on LinkedIn how they use their weekends to prepare for the week ahead. Many noted that they use it to get work done ahead of time, catch up on work they didn’t get to during the past week or get away from work altogether.

The variety of responses was nice to read, and it forced me to sit back and really reflect on how I use my weekends. What I came to realize is that without thinking about it, I have created a strong weekend routine that allows me to recharge and better prepare for the next week.

Below is my list of five things I try to do every weekend to keep me on track for success during the week. 

1. Call my mum
Mashable began in Scotland, but I now live in New York City, where Mashable’s headquarters is based.

The weeks are normally quite busy, so Saturdays have become a day for me to catch up with my mum, who still lives in Scotland. This call has become an important part of my week and one I look forward to. It is a call where I don’t have to think about or discuss work, and we usually end up talking about another important someone still in Scotland – my dog.

Lesson: Make time for friends or family, even if it’s just a phone call or Skype chat. It will help put the stress of the workweek in perspective and remind you of what’s important. 

2. Decompress by any means necessary
Recharging from work on the weekends is critical, no matter how you do it. There are a few things I do every weekend that have become great traditions.

Music may be the most important complement to anything I do on the weekends. Outside of just listening to music, I play the guitar and I’m also learning how to play the keyboard.

Learning how to play a new instrument in my free time is challenging, but it allows for me to invest my attention and efforts into a new creative outlet. Plus, as all you amateur musicians will agree, there’s no better feeling than learning a new song!

I also need to spend some time outside on the weekends, and I normally take a trip to Central Park. Spending most of my days staring at screens during the week, this time away from that world is greatly needed. It’s not a completely tech-free trip, though – I typically listen to music or unwind with an audiobook.

Lesson: No matter what you do to divert your thoughts from work, spend some time doing that. I usually find some of my best ideas for Mashable come while doing things that are meant to divert my mind from it. 

3. Get Inspired
This might be the most important part of my weekends. I spend the week in meetings talking about “what’s next…” or thinking about the future of Mashable. These are some of the most inspiring weekly discussions, but it can also create tunnel vision.

What I love about weekends is that it allows for me to purposely broaden my views on topics that are typically outside my wheelhouse of knowledge. I watch a lot of TED Talks, and look specifically for dense topics outside of my industry that push me to understand the material.
One of my favorite Mashable stories recently was a TED Talks list of life-changing speeches. I advise you to spend some time watching these, and then let me know your favorites.

I also spend time reading on weekends – especially non-fiction. I recently finished Malcolm Gladwell’s book David and Goliath, which was part of Mashable's MashReads book club.

Lesson: Never stop learning. Use your weekends to consume knowledge that may not be completely applicable to your career, but will help you become a more well-rounded and creative person. 

4. Catch up on what I’ve missed during the week
Yes, I admit it. I don’t completely abandon work on the weekends.
I can’t keep up with everything during the week, so I set aside time to catch up on important industry news that I missed. Now that Google Reader is dead (R.I.P!), I use the news aggregator Feedly to collect all my news.

This gives me a chance to consume a lot of content, while also doing it with a clear head. I can catch up on some of the latest innovations and really think about how this impacts my team.

But to avoid getting sucked down a rabbit hole and spending hour upon hour reviewing news, I set aside a set amount of time, and I’ll try to consume as much as I can in that allotted period.

Lesson: You don’t have to avoid real work over the weekends, but set limits for the amount of time you spend doing it. Don’t lose your weekends to work. 

5. Get rest
I think this is the perfect way to come full circle on this post. As I stated at the beginning, I spent too much time working and too little time sleeping when Mashable was in its infancy.
Today, I may not work as many hours, but I work much more effectively and efficiently. And much of this is due to the time I spend away from the daily grind.

Lesson: Make time for recharging your batteries. Getting rest on the weekends can help make you a more efficient professional during the week.

Each piece I’ve noted above may be simple, but they are essential to what I do. These weekend routines help me stay clear and focused on my goals for the company.

How do you use your weekends? I’ll make sure to spend a part of my weekend reading your thoughts and learning from your routines!

 Posted by:Pete Cashmore

10 Sustainable Business Stories Too Important to Miss

by Andrew Winston

Somehow it’s already year-end, a time to look back and try to make sense of what’s happened. Creating any “top” list of stories from 12 months is nearly impossible. But as I’ve done for the last 4 years, I’ll attempt to summarize some of the latest stories about the big environmental and social pressures on business, and how some innovative companies are dealing with them.

This year, like recent years, saw some continuation of big trends: with a few exceptions, the international policy community keeps failing to come to a meaningful agreement on climate change; carbon emissions just keep rising; transparency is increasingly unavoidable and keeps gaining technology-enabled traction; pressure from big companies on their suppliers keeps going up.

So what’s really new this year? Let’s dive in.

The Big Picture

1. The science of climate change gets clearer: the IPCC lowers our carbon “budget.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its wonky, but readable, Summary for Policymakers (a precursor to the full 2014 report). The report expresses “near certainty” that humans are causing climate change and calculates how much more carbon we can “safely” put in the atmosphere and hold to the 2-degree warming threshold that the world’s leaders have agreed to (and some scientists are suggesting that even the 2-degree threshold is too high).

The short story is that we have less room than before. PwC’s annual Low Carbon Economy Index report concluded that we must lower global carbon intensity (the amount of carbon produced for every dollar of GDP) by 6% per year until 2100, a percentage point lower than last year’s report recommended.  On the upside, similar calculations from WWF and McKinsey suggests that this pace of change –they endorse a 3% reduction in absolute emissions per year through 2020 – will actually be very profitable.

2. The reality of climate change and pollution get scarier: Australian heat, Philippine devastation, and Chinese air pollution all break records.
The models and carbon budgets aside, the weather this year got even more extreme, helping make the case for action in a more visceral way. In January, Australia’s meteorologists had to add new colors to weather maps to deal with temperatures ranging up to 54 degrees Celsius (129 degrees Fahrenheit). And in November, after the Philippines faced the most powerful storm ever recorded to hit land, some climatologists suggested we add a “Category 6” to the top end of the storm scale.

While it’s impossible to tie any single weather event to climate change, the complicated correlation got clearer this year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that “high temperatures, such as those experienced in the U.S. in 2012, are now likely to occur four times as frequently due to ­human-induced climate change.”

In parallel, China’s air became, at times, dangerous and unbreathable. Several cities experienced days with small-particle air pollution running 25 to 40 times higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended limit.  This may seem like a regional story, but it has global ramifications for manufacturing, consumer goods, the energy industry, and much more.  The world’s most populous country is taking increasingly drastic action, such as slashing Beijing’s new sales quota for cars by 40%.

3. The clean tech markets keep growing fast: three of the world’s biggest economies — the U.S., Germany, and Walmart — add lots more renewable energy.
In October, 99% of the new energy added to the grid in the U.S. came from renewables (solar alone was 72%). Germany keeps breaking its own records, with wind and solar providing 59% of the country’s energy one sunny day in October. And America’s wind power has quadrupled over the last 5 years; wind is now generating enough electricity to power the state of Georgia.

In addition, electric and hybrid cars are about 4% of US auto sales now, a doubling of market share in the last couple of years. Companies are increasing investments as well. Walmart, already the largest private sector buyer of solar power in the US (with more solar capacity than 38 U.S. states), committed to a 600% increase in renewable energy by 2020.

4. Deep concerns about labor conditions, wages, and equity take root: From tragedies in Bangladeshi apparel factories to minimum wages in the U.S.
Travesties like the death of more than 1100 workers at the Rana Plaza apparel factory in Bangladesh are increasingly unacceptable to the buying public. And it’s getting harder to hide how connected we all are to these workers. When the news hit about the loss of life, front pages around the world included the names of major brands that depended on the factory to make their goods. A startup called Labor Voices is now collecting information on working conditions in Bangladesh and elsewhere in a shockingly simple way: by giving workers a number to call from their cell phones, which everybody now has.

European companies are doing more than U.S. peers, at least publicly, to commit to higher safety standards. Swedish retailer H&M recently said it would pay a “living wage” to 850,000 workers in its supply chain by 2018 – a somewhat vague, but important announcement.  And to be fair, while U.S. companies haven’t been as clear, Walmart has contracted with Labor Voices to gather data on its 300+ Bangladeshi suppliers and subcontractors.

On the other side of the ocean, though, Walmart, McDonald’s, and many others are facing increasing challenges about minimum wages. Watch this space, as it seems unlikely that this debate will go away.

5. Food and food waste gets more attention, debate, and innovation: Can cows save the world, or should we make meat in labs?
The level of concern about how we’re going to feed 9 billion people by 2050 is rising. Food waste also got more attention: a UN report estimated that the world throws out $750 billion worth of food annually.  Food is too big a topic to summarize, but a few stories grabbed my eye this year. Fenugreen, a smart startup that won the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open in June, sells sheets of paper made with natural ingredients that fight food decay – they can keep fruit and veggies from going bad 2 to 4 times longer than they would last normally.

On a different front, Biologist Allen Savory made a splash with a much viewed TED talk about how grazing cattle in a way that fertilizes land and sequesters carbon can fight desertification and climate change. His theory is under attack, at least to the extent that his method could make a significant dent in our climate problem. Wherever the science on this ends up, it’s an important discussion that brings more focus to systems thinking and to the nexus of food, energy, and water.  Finally, a quirky, totally different meat story was fascinating. Billionaires Bill Gates and Sergey Brin are funding experiments to grow meat in labs, a process that – once people get past any “ick” factor – could greatly reduce the footprint of producing meat-based protein.

What Companies Are Doing

6. (Some) businesses get off the sidelines in the climate policy fight: Hundreds of companies sign onto the Climate Declaration.
Started by the NGO Ceres, as part of its Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP) initiative, the Climate Declaration is a broad statement of intent that acting on climate will be good for our economy and society.  A large range of leading companies have signed on including Diageo, ebay, EMC, Gap, GM, IKEA, Intel, Microsoft, Nestle, Nike, Portland Trailblazers, Starbucks, Swiss Re, Unilever, and many more.  The Declaration itself is directional and not as specific as what Ceres and a subset of these signatories advocate for as part of BICEP’s work (like pricing carbon and aggressive energy efficiency programs). But it’s a very good start and demonstrates that the business community is not against tackling climate change.

In related news, Accenture produced a fascinating survey of 1000 CEOs around the world, in which a surprising 83% agreed that government should play a critical role in enabling the private sector to advance sustainability. And 31% even supported “intervention through taxation.” In a world where business generally fights all regulations and government interventions, it’s astonishing that one third of global CEOs basically said, “tax us.”

7. Companies are aiming higher, for themselves and their partners: Dell, Coca-Cola, Lego, and many more set very aggressive environmental and social goals.
Goals are not the same as outcomes but they matter a lot – they set the bar within sectors, driving competition and performance.  As part of its 2020 Legacy of Good Plan, Dell said that it’s aiming to get a 10-fold multiple of good (reduced footprint, for example) from its technologies versus the impacts of making them (mimicking BT’s earlier 3:1 “Net Good” goal).  More specifically, the company pledged to reduce its greenhouse gases by 50% and product energy intensity by 80%.

Coca-Cola launched its own 2020 goals including reducing value chain carbon emissions by 25% (per drink), recovering 75% of bottles and cans, and replenishing 100% of the water the company uses. And Lego just announced its intention to use 100% renewable energy by 2016.  A few companies have already made incredible progress, including Diageo, which, I reported earlier this year, cut its North American GHG emissions by nearly 80%.

In fact, 75% of the world’s largest companies now have multiple environmental and social goals in place (see my new website, www.pivotgoals.com, a searchable database of 2500 environmental and social goals set by the world’s largest companies). In addition, my research shows that more than 50 of the top 200 companies have even set carbon goals in line with PwC’s 6% per year reduction recommendation.

A few companies have begun to extend their goals to their suppliers, a form of what I’m calling “de facto regulation.” Walmart is phasing out 10 toxic chemicals in the products on its shelves, and HP set a carbon reduction goal of 20% for its supply chain.

8. Sustainable companies are winning the talent wars: Unilever ranks 3rd in LinkedIn’s list of in-demand employers.
Just consider LinkedIn’s top 20 most in demand companies (in order): Google, Apple, Unilever, P&G, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, PepsiCo, Shell, McKinsey, Nestlé, Johnson & Johnson, BP, GE, Nike, Pfizer, Disney, Coca-Cola, Chevron, and L’Oréal. The tech companies make sense given the platform (and they’re cool brands). But the rest are perennially in-demand employers, such as big consumer brands and top destinations for MBAs (McKinsey) and engineers (Shell).

But what’s surprising is Unilever’s rank — for a company not nearly as well known as the others, it came in just behind two of the hottest, most valuable companies in the world, and ahead of much better known brands like Disney, Nike, and Coca-Cola. Executives at Unilever credit their ranking to the company’s known leadership on sustainability. It’s hard to argue the point.

9. Systems innovation starts to take root: NIKE, NASA, USAID, and the Department of State create LAUNCH.
LAUNCH is an initiative to identify and accelerate innovations that help solve global problems with water, health, energy, waste, and systems. This program is new so it’s unclear what the impact will be, but it’s an interesting and indicative story for two reasons. 

First, look at the partners — what a weird, wonderful mix of business, government, and scientific organizations. Second, the goal is really systems change, and if we’re going to solve the mega challenges in our midst, we need to work across value chains and traditional lines.

10. Better tools for companies to assess “materiality” get closer: SASB releases its first sustainability accounting standards.
The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board has been plugging away, drawing together executives from the world’s largest companies to develop the right sets of questions – specific to each sector – that will help leaders identify which environmental and social issues are really material to their business. We’re very early in this journey, but SASB produced the first set of guidelines for one sector (health care). Watch this space.

2014 and Beyond

• Will the divestment movement continue to gather steam and put significant pressure, either financial (unlikely) or moral (much more intriguing), on fossil fuel companies?
• Will all the talk about building a circular economy gain mainstream acceptance?
• Will we get better at valuing natural capital (and will companies and markets care)? It certainly garnered lots of attention this year, with new estimates of the damage the global economy does to natural assets (trillions), new tools to measure natural capital, and an important new book from former Goldman partner and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, Mark Tercek.
• Can challenges to our consumption-driven model go gain currency? Patagonia continues to launch programs like its Responsible Economy initiative and a backlash to Black Friday, “Worn Wear,” which suggests that we should enjoy what we already own.
• Will the resilience push take hold? New York City released a $20 billion plan to get the city ready for more extreme weather — will companies embrace the risk-reduction benefits of different thinking and planning?
• Finally, why haven’t more companies followed some of the recent sustainability leaders? Paul Polman at Unilever stopped providing quarterly guidance a few years ago so the company could focus on real value creation. And Microsfot and Disney remain really the only two big companies charging their own divisions a carbon fee (yes, as CDP recently reported, and the New York Times put on the front page, 29 large companies now use some kind of internal pricing for carbon. But most of these are “shadow prices,” in use for years, not actual fees. Why has the pace of change lagged the urgency of our mega challenges? Will more than a small number of companies embrace a much deeper change to business as usual?

So it’s been a mixed year, as I suppose all years are, but I remain optimistic that greater stories of change are coming. Have a very happy, healthy, and sustainable 2014!

Andrew Winston

Andrew Winston is the co-author of the best-seller Green to Gold and the author of Green Recovery. His forthcoming book, The Big Pivot, will be released in April. He advises some of the world’s biggest companies on environmental strategy. 

The Top 10 Workplace Trends Of 2013

Top 10 Workplace Trends of 2013

This year, through primary research through my company and secondary research by a variety of trusted sources, I’ve tracked ten major workplace trends affecting the world of work. They focus on the generational shift, the rise of freelancing, the skills gap and more. From a professional perspective, understanding these trends will give you the leg up as you make career choices. From the corporate perspective, these trends will help you make more informed business decisions. Here are my top ten:

1. Millennials will rise up. Despite all the reports of the poor economy and the high unemployment rate for Gen Y, they will start to get jobs again. They will become nearly 30% of the American workforce next year and that number will increase substantially in the next five to ten years. As millennials enter and boomers retire, new life will be breathed into corporations and policies will change rapidly.

2. Working from home becomes mainstream. We’ve heard some companies trusting their employees enough to let them work from home. In 2013, companies will realize the cost savings and the productivity increase and give their employees more flexibility. While in years past flexibility programs were viewed as a perk, they will become more standardized and expected. One of the best examples is Aetna. 47% of their 35,000 employees work from home and they have saved an estimated 15% to 25% on real estate costs at an annual savings of about $80 million.

3. Emphasis on employee engagement. Employers are still having major retention problems and it’s costing them a fortune. In 2013, they will focus more on employee engagement to increase their retention rates. An October survey by MSW Research and Dale Carnegie Training found only a mere 29% of employees are fully engaged. One example is when MGM  Resorts put on an entire show for their employees this month.

4. More boomers retire. The shift in workplace demographics is finally upon us. Boomers will start to leave the workplace and retire next year and it’s about time. This will free up positions for Gen X and Gen Y to take leadership roles. The question is which generation will seize their roles? My research next year may give you an answer to that question.

5. Intrapreneurship is embraced. Companies are starting to understand how entrepreneurial Gen Y is and in order to compete with startups, intrapreneurship programs will take off. Aside from EY, PwC, DreamWorks, Microsoft, Google and Facebook, LinkedIn has now created their own program called “[in]cubator.” Employees with an idea can organize a team and pitch their project to executive staff once a quarter.

6. Freelance nation booms. We keep hearing about the surplus of freelancers out there and it’s just the beginning. Next year, there will be millions more freelancers, replacing full-time workers. Companies will hire experts to solve problems instead of full-time employees and save on benefit packages. This is due to the economy and how corporations operate now. One third of American workers are freelancers, reports NBC News.

7. The skills gap shrinks. As of this year, there are over 12 million people who are unemployed and 3.6 million open positions, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics. American Manufacturers have 600,000 unfilled positions and 34% of companies say they are having trouble filling open positions. I see this skills gap shrinking as new talent enters the workforce, companies work with schools to train the next generation workforce and people realize that they need new skills in order to get jobs.

8. Internal hiring takes off. It costs companies 1.7x as much to hire an external candidate. The top reason why millennials leave companies is lack of career opportunities. My research shows that companies are starting to give opportunities to their employees over anyone else. This also means that job seekers will suffer. Internal hiring is good for employee morale, saves them money and is quicker (weeks versus months).

9. Employees become social advocates. Companies will start to leverage their talent in order to recruit and market. They will finally realize that they can just use their employees to get the word out instead of wasting money on advertising. Companies will become publishers and in some capacity compete with the likes of magazines and newspapers. IBM, for instance, has 32,000 employee blogs that touch on every area of their business.

10. Women start to outpace men at work. One billion women will enter the workplace in the next decade. Research shows that they are more educated than men and many are saying that they will start taking leadership positions away from them. Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer are just the beginning. Look for more females to break into top roles next year and beyond.

Dan Schawbel is a workplace expert, keynote speaker and the New York Times bestselling author of Promote Yourself.

10 Questions to Ask When Creating Your LinkedIn Company Page

Image credit: LinkedIn

 

Given LinkedIn's more than 200 million members, a company page on the popular professional networking site can provide a valuable venue for recruiting talent and promoting your products and services. But while setting up a LinkedIn company page is relatively common, some business owners have questions and wind up making potentially costly mistakes.

To generate the kind of results you're looking for, it's important to consider many details when setting up a company page on LinkedIn. Cambridge, Mass.-based business-to-business marketing software firm HubSpot, for instance, found LinkedIn to be nearly 300 percent more effective for visitor-to-lead generation than Facebook and Twitter, says Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot marketing director and co-author of The B2B Social Media Book (Wiley, 2012).

To help you create a standout LinkedIn company page, here are 10 essential questions to ask:

1. Who should set up and maintain my company page?
If you're a startup with only a handful of employees, consider assigning the task to someone on your team who is an active LinkedIn member, preferably with some digital marketing knowledge and experience. At a larger company, a qualified employee in the marketing department would likely be up to the task.

If you're creating the page yourself, begin by going to LinkedIn's Create a Company Page section and selecting "Start Now." Next, enter your name and company email address. Then, follow the prompts to enter a description of your company and its products and services.
 

2. How should I describe my company?
Every LinkedIn company page features a brief explanatory About section. This is your chance to tell potential customers and employees about the number one thing that you want them to know about your business, says Lana Khavinson, senior product marketing manager at LinkedIn.

Describe exactly what your company does and what your overall mission is. You can also provide some basic information such as headquarters location, website address, the industry you're in, the company's public or private status, founding date and number of employees.

3. What images should I use?
A banner-style horizontal image is the first thing someone visiting your company page will see. That's why it's critical to choose an attention-grabbing image that reflects your brand and draws people in to learn more about the company, Khavinson says. CNBC's main LinkedIn image is an example. It features its famous peacock logo at an interesting angle, with newsroom flat screens in the backdrop.

You can also use your main image space to highlight the latest company news and events. For example, Xactly Corp., a San Jose, Calif.-based sales incentive management company, recently promoted a conference with a photo of the keynote speaker and an overlay of text detailing the event's date and time.

4. Should I include videos, too?
Both Khavinson and Bodnar recommend adding videos as a way of bringing your brand to life, whether they're professionally produced or simply shot on a smartphone. Video content to consider: passionate customer testimonials, product demonstrations that are anything but dull, snippets of your CEO speaking at a webinar or conference, and behind-the-scenes vignettes that show the lighter side of your brand or office culture.

Keep your videos short and to the point. "Sometimes video is the only thing people have time to click on," Bodnar says, "so you have to grab their attention right away, in the first few seconds."

5. What should I list in the page's products and services section?
Meeting the needs of your target market should be top-of-mind when listing your products and services, Bodnar says. So, describe what each of them will help people accomplish.

Also, it's important to carefully choose which product or service to feature first on the list. People often skim online text and might not read past the initial product or service description.
  
6. How often should I post status updates and what should they be about?
Status updates let you reach out to LinkedIn members who follow your company page. Your status updates will appear in their main LinkedIn Home view, which looks and feels similar to Facebook's News Feed.

Ideally, update your status no more than three to five times a day about company events, achievements and product releases. You also should try to highlight the "human, less hard sell side" of your business, Bodnar says. For instance, you can pepper your status updates with links to blog posts, memes and videos that might resonate with your target audience. Doing so can encourage a two-way conversation with your followers through the comments section of your page.

7. How can I encourage LinkedIn members to recommend my products and services?
Often, all you have to do is ask, Bodnar says. HubSpot includes an option to recommend its products on LinkedIn via customer surveys. You might also create a section on your main website or blog that reminds satisfied customers to recommend your services, complete with a link to your LinkedIn page.

Recommendations lend credibility and trustworthiness to your brand, Khavinson says. The more you receive the better. And you can always delete unwanted recommendations.

8. How can I promote my page?
You can add a LinkedIn "follow" button to your company website and put your company page's URL on your business card, email signature and your e-newsletters. Another option is to ask your employees to create LinkedIn member profiles, if they don't already have them, and request that they regularly like and share your status updates.

LinkedIn pay-per-click (CPC) and pay-per-1,000 impressions (CPM) ad campaigns can be effective ways to boost your page traffic quickly. You control the cost of your ad campaign by bidding and setting a budget.

9. How can I track the effectiveness of my page?
LinkedIn provides analytics, similar to Google Analytics, for each company page. Only your page administrator can view the results. LinkedIn Analytics can help you see who's visiting your page and what types of content they click on, like and share most and least often. You'll have access to statistics about your follower community, including how it's growing and what kinds of LinkedIn members you are attracting.

10. How can I directly recruit talent from my page?
Millions of job seekers visit LinkedIn every day to research employment listings. To recruit the best talent in your industry and show them content specifically targeted to their professional background, you can contact LinkedIn about adding a premium LinkedIn career page that connects to your company page. Your career page shows LinkedIn members your current job openings and employee testimonials. It also gives job seekers an opportunity to directly apply and to contact recruiters within your company.

Kim Lachance Shandrow

Kim Lachance Shandrow is a Los Angeles-based tech journalist who specializes in writing about iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android phones, as well as social media marketing, startups, streaming TV, apps and green technology.