Rita’s Career Corner …With Rita B. Allen

Do you invest the proper amount of time, effort and energy in developing and nurturing relationships at work – both internally within your organization and externally within your field?

As we all do more with less, and barely have enough time and resources to accomplish expected "deliverables", your answer to this question is likely to be “not as much time as I would like”. Have you stopped to think about the cost of not investing in these relationships –such as missed opportunities, underdeveloped resources, unidentified trends, lack of visibility, untapped possibilities, and/or friendships and partnerships that were not enabled to be established.

Throughout our careers, it is our relationships that will preserve our livelihood as much as our professional capabilities. In order to navigate through the peaks and valleys in the course of our professional lives, it is invaluable to build and nurture sustaining, long-lasting relationships with our network of colleagues. In fact, our ability to do so can make or break our career.

We should not confuse collecting several business cards and building our rolodex, as we used to call it, with building relationships. It’s not the number of contacts or friends we have on LinkedIn or Facebook that measures our success, it is the quality of those relationships that makes the difference. So, how do we begin to do this?

Many people find the notion of building relationships to be overwhelming and intimidating especially when they are working so hard to keep up with their daily responsibilities. These feelings are unnecessary and consume energy rather than energizing you in a positive and productive manner.

Try these three easy steps to start unleashing your potential and embrace the concept of relationship building as user-friendly and vital to managing your career.

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We know you've been waiting with bated breath for round two with Communispace superstar Diane Hessan. Well here she is in all her glory:

And in case you missed it, here's Part I of Diane's session with REEL Innovators!

The REEL Innovators Series is a collaboration between REEL Entrepreneurs and Boston World Partnerships. Using the medium of video, we introduce you to Boston's most innovative personalities and the businesses they've built.

by Kellyanne Dignan, Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications

Last week I was asked to participate in a panel for a group of European companies looking to do business in Boston. I followed the lawyers, accountants, and bankers with a short presentation on what organizations need to know about communications and media before they move into the American market. Almost all the questions I got were about mistakes I’ve seen other companies or individuals make, all of which fall into three categories.

Flying below the radar: As I learned from the above mentioned lawyers, accountants, and bankers when you’re expanding your business into a new market there is a lot to do and it can be very tempting to put the media strategy on the back burner. Resist temptation! If there is only one piece of advice I could give everyone it’s this: you want to initiate contact with the media on your terms. It goes without saying; you never want to be introducing yourself for the first time in the middle of a crisis. The American media is a giant, highly segmented industry. Chances are very good that there is some publication somewhere that covers some part of your value chain and they will become aware of your entry into the market. You not only want to be prepared for contact with these reporters, but actually to be proactive in developing a strategy to reach out to them that aligns with the overall marketing goals of your organizations.

Initiating a media strategy is not necessarily about the coverage you will get. It is about discovering and introducing yourself to the journalists who can provide a conduit to your new stakeholders be it potential customers, employees, or regulators either now or in the future.

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By Nathan Rothstein and Dan Rothstein

In the fall of 2002, Mark Zuckerberg entered Harvard. Less than ten years later, he has become one of the wealthiest people in the world. Over the years, he has grown as a leader, but there’s one thing that has remained constant throughout his rise from awkward Harvard freshman to CEO of Facebook: He is constantly asking questions.

In a recent New York Times article, Evelyn Rusli quotes one of his friends and early Facebook employees talking about Mark, saying: “He has a higher ask-to-talk ratio than anyone I know.” There’s a key lesson here: to be great, to be a visionary, and, perhaps, even to become very wealthy, it helps to be curious and to ask the right questions.

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By Lex Schroeder, Writer and Research Fellow, The Lean Enterprise Institute

Most of us think we know what the word collaboration means, but we don’t. I usually oversimplify it and think of two or more people joining efforts to get something done.

Let’s collaborate on this deeply interesting thing over here! Or let’s join forces on this other thing that demands our attention!

Sure, people bring their own skills and talents into the mix, but the emphasis is on productivity, not the interplay and synergy that happens or doesn’t happen—or has no chance of happening—in the group.

I’m working on two different projects dedicated to exploring what effective collaboration looks like in practice and how to create the conditions for it to occur more often. The idea is that if we can work together better, maybe we can focus more energy on the creative potential of the work at hand, advancing the real possibilities that exist there rather than the interpersonal or process dynamics that so often get in the way.

I still have plenty of questions, but this is clear: collaboration is much more than two or more people working together; it’s about communicating and learning with others in order to create something you couldn’t possibly have created alone. It’s about finding a shared groove, yes, but a purposeful, synergistic, fantastically unique one.

How often do we set out with this goal in mind rather than simply think: "Let’s go work together to complete this very important task?"

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By Ted Chan

Current Executive Chairman of Athletes’ Performance and Core Performance Bill Allard's career has covered a lot of bases: from sports management and athletic performance training to private jet space. The former CEO of Marquis Jet Partners and former President and COO of SFX Sports Group oversees the Athletes' Performance's Norwell corporate office and has led the company through significant growth over the last five years.

A South Shore resident, Babson graduate, and Harvard Business School alum, Bill has significant ties to both the Boston area. His connection to the world of sports is no less: he's been named one of the Sporting News “Top 100 Most Powerful People in Sports” and The Guardian’s “50 Most Powerful People in the World of Sports.” He sat down with Ted Chan to share his story.

TC: Bill, tell us about Athletes’ Performance and how you ended up there. It seems like a pretty amazing job.

BA: After I left Marquis Jet, I joined Polaris Ventures as an Executive-in-Residence. I thought it would be a great role to be part of an exceptional firm, and was excited about the opportunity to advise seed and early stage companies on effective growth and high-level strategy. Soon after I joined Polaris, I sat on the board at AP and realized it was a huge opportunity both personally and professionally for me, and that the business had tremendous potential to impact not just athletes, but a much broader universe of consumers.

As someone with experience in the sports world and a former athlete myself, that’s something that really appealed to me, so I joined the AP team full-time in 2007.

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By Laurisa Neuwirth

Innovation is alive and well in New England and it has been fueling uncommon economic growth within what I lovingly refer to as our "Massachusetts bubble" through this recession. With a national unemployment rate near 8.2%, our unemployment rate in Massachusetts is about 22% lower than the rest of the country.

This good fortune is not due simply to the brilliant ideas flowing forth from our local pool of massive brainiac power. As my friend Steve Snyder points out in his recent blog "There's more than 'I' in Innovation", the true value is only realized when the innovative idea is developed and commercialized and becomes a contributor to our economy.

The Smaller Business Association of New England (SBANE) celebrated game-changing companies who are making just that type of impact at their 27th Innovation Awards on Thursday. Nominees came from a stunning array of fields including mobile tech, medical device, software testing, eco-friendly product retail, technology for learning, mobile payments and painted a rich and colorful picture of New England’s innovation.

Another sign of economic health is that nominations were up 43% over last year, to a record number of 268 companies competing for ten top awards. “Usually we see a 10% increase year-over-year, so this is by far the biggest increase we’ve ever seen. It tells us that folks in New England are excited about the innovation in their own companies and in their client companies,” says Todd Faber, who has been Chairman of the Innovation awards for the last four years.

The “Agnostic Awards”

In the excitement that filled that room, one thing rang loud and clear: like any complex ecosystem, our survival depends on diversity. Nicknamed the “Agnostic Innovation Awards” by Chairman Todd Faber, unlike every other award in New England this one has never been limited to any particular industry like biotech or geared only towards the "sexy tech" niche. There are even separate categories for non-profit and early stage companies.

Scott Goodwin of Wolf and Company, an Innovation Award judge for the last 3 years, described a few of this year’s powerful group of nominees: “When you look at a company like Parcell Labs, that company can actually change people’s lives. UTEST has taken a completely different approach of ‘crowd-testing’ to software testing; Xtalic and the materials they are creating can have a significant impact across a whole range of industries.”

Sometimes the innovation lies in simply looking at the way we all do business and finding a new angle. Corporate Reimbursement Services, Inc. maximizes tax incentives and reimbursements for vehicle expenses for mobile employees through an automated platform. "Where have you been for the last 20 years?" is what CEO Gregg Darish most often hears from his new clients - and voila! - there's the market reaction to this particular innovation.

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By Ellen Keiley

Is it possible to significantly decrease the number of homeless individuals and families?

According to Heading Home, a Greater Boston non-profit organization, it is.

Heading Home has taken an innovative approach to decreasing the number of homeless people through its shelter and transitional housing programs, which create a supported bridge toward the end goal of providing permanent housing. Its model begins with a home and offers critical services such as life skills, education, financial literacy, and job training. The model has proven to be very effective. In fact, 91 percent of the people housed through its program have remained housed.

According to Heading Home’s Executive Director, Tom Lorello, on any given night in Greater Boston more than 7,000 people are homeless, including 3,000 children. On the family side, Heading Home sees that most situations involve a young single mother at the average age of 26 years old with 1 to 3 children. Almost half of the kids are under 6 years old and about the other half are under 10 years old. On the individual side, it is generally the disabled population with problems such as mental illness or drug use.

Board member, David Weinberg, said “Many people don’t realize that homeless individuals and families are just like everyone else and are not all street people. In many cases, the cause of homelessness is a run of bad luck or bad choices, and those that end up homeless just need assistance to get back on their feet and stay there.”

In 2001, Heading Home decided to look at an old problem differently. The organization changed its focus from emergency shelters to housing first and became a model for Greater Boston. At the forefront of this new idea was to give the homeless the opportunity to get housing first, provide support, and then let them prove to be good citizens. It became very clear to Heading Home that housing is the foundation for people to turn their lives around.

Former board member, Phill Gross, Managing Director of Adage Capital Management, said “housing first gives people mindshare, and that enables them to focus on fixing the problems they have.” If people are on the street, they are in survival mode, making it very difficult to focus on getting treatment and turn one’s life around. Believe it or not, it costs society a lot less to put homeless people in housing with support than for them to be homeless, because homeless people frequently end up in Emergency Rooms or hospitalized when on the streets.

The current public welfare system presents part of the challenge because of the loss of services for those who make above a certain amount of money. If someone makes $15 per hour, certain services such as childcare will be taken away, and it is difficult to afford childcare at that amount of pay. To provide an incentive for people to get off the public welfare system while housed, Heading Home designed a program to reward families that work toward self sufficiency with cash and housing. Its participants are given a monetary account that can be used for necessities such as purchasing a reliable car to get to work, a computer, or a down payment on a home.

Instead of lifetime public housing, program participants receive an 8-year voucher. During years 3 through 8, the financial assistance decreases. At year 5, participants receive education on home ownership. After 8 years, the payout from the escrow on their account can be used for a down payment on a home. Currently 36 out of 40 parents working 6 months or more have assets and an account open.

To assist with the transition into housing, Heading Home’s Up and Out Council furnishes and decorates the housing and provides children with items such as toys. That added touch is often an overwhelming relief for the families that are housed, as they don’t have to worry about things like not being able to afford curtains to put in the windows.

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Diane Hessan is a Boston superstar. She knows how to run a company, Communispace. She knows how to develop and retain talent. She tells good stories.

She is an innovator in the truest sense.

Meet her!

A few weeks ago, Reel Innovators talked to HubSpot's Brian Halligan. To get to know him, looky here!

The REEL Innovators Series is a collaboration between REEL Entrepreneurs and Boston World Partnerships. Using the medium of video, we introduce you to Boston's most innovative personalities and the businesses they've built.

By Michael Lake and Daniel Spiess, World Class Cities Partnership

Boston’s high ranking as a global innovation city and, according to one recent report, reputation as the 10th most competitive city in the world would be the pride of mayors everywhere, but Boston continues to experience its “brain drain.” Northeastern University’s World Class Cities Partnership, whose global research has focused on talent attraction and retention issues, recently hosted the pre-launch of Boston’s foremost advocate for hipness – the Future Boston Alliance (FBA). Founded by Greg Selkoe, a locally-based streetwear retailer, Selkoe and FBA director Malia Lazu described the Alliance as an opportunity for Boston and Massachusetts to seek input and guidance from an untapped core of new leaders and entrepreneurs in order for our region to compete in the 21st century. Selkoe and Lazu noted that not only does Boston need to compete in education and technology, in which it already performs quite well, but it also needs to compete in the ‘hip’ factor as featured by Michael Farrell in his recent Boston Globe article “E-retailer Hopes to Boost Hub’s Hip Factor.”

Though this hip factor may seem irrelevant to the focus of modern city policy, research shows that a city’s success rate for talent attraction and retention, the bedrock of a stable economy and the lifeblood of an entrepreneurship ecosystem, can be greatly influenced by the population’s desire to want to live and work in a creative, welcoming and fun urban environment.

Selkoe draws his knowledge from personal entrepreneurial experiences, but is also a Harvard-trained city planner and knows of what he speaks. His tenure at the Boston Redevelopment Authority shows in his awareness of the power and potential of zoning, tax incentives, citizen participation, and regulation to truly influence how the city literally shapes itself and its image, both to residents and those who are considering a move to the so-called Hub of the Universe. As a business owner who chose to start and keep his business here within the city limits, Selkoe knows that keeping and attracting workers to grow his company is not based on salary alone.

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By Donna Dodson, Artist

Swissnex Boston the Consulate of Switzerland recently hosted a panel on International Art Residencies to discuss the opportunities that are available around the globe. The panel discussion featured Kiki Thompson, Co-Founder of the Verbier 3-D Sculpture Park Residency, as well as Andy Moerlein and me, Boston sculptors and Verbier Residency veterans. The panel was moderated by Caitlin Strokosch, Executive Director at Alliance of Artists Communities and included Mary Sherman, Director of TransCultural Exchange, Franklin Einspruch, painter, writer and arts critic, Lynne Allen, Director, School of Visual Arts at Boston University and Antoni Muntadas, visiting Professor of the Practice at MIT. These artists gathered in front of a crowd of over 100 people to exchange thoughts about the value of international residencies in the arts and how such experiences can leverage their work at home.

Andreas Rufer opened the program with a brief introduction to Swissnex Boston and its mission to support the arts, education, technology and innovation in Boston. Through the generous support of Swissnex, Kiki Thompson flew in from Switzerland to kick off the discussion with a video presentation of the Verbier 3-D Sculpture Park Residency in Verbier Switzerland. The Verbier 3-D Foundation is a not-for-profit organization, founded by New York-based artist Madeleine Paternot and Verbier-based sculptor Kiki Thompson. Its mission is to promote contemporary art and culture, to focus on nature and community and to provide educational workshops.

In the Verbier 3-D Foundation residency seven international artists were invited to the Swiss Alps for five weeks to create monumental works of art that were site specific to the Sculpture Park. Each artist was asked to teach a class to the students in the community and to lead tours through the studio and discuss their work while in residence to demystify the art making process. The curatorial premise for the 2011 edition of Verbier 3-D was set by Paul Goodwin, in his capacity as an independent curator as a new approach to monumentalism. All sculptures in the Verbier 3-D Sculpture Park are for sale with the 3-D Foundation and the artists splitting the profits.

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By David Chevalier, SalesBlend

Twitter can help to forge powerful relationships if you put yourself in your audience’s shoes by listening before you tweet. So, get close to your target market before broadcasting any sales messages. Start socializing and networking and then, after you build strong relationships based on trust and understanding, deliver targeted communications that will help your audience meet their informational needs.

Follow Your Market

Listening before commenting is a great approach to attracting the ‘right’ visitors to your website. Begin by clicking the Follow button next to people who are writing about topics that are relevant to your business. For better or worse, they are currently influencing your target market. You can also consider clicking the Follow button when Twitter suggests a user for you to follow in the Who to follow suggestions. In either case, make sure you start following people who you think will have a reason to pay attention to you once you start tweeting.

Find Relevant People

Next, use Twitter’s search engine to approach prospective customers. Below, you’ll find a simple 5-step process to help you listen to what your community values:

1. Go to Twitter Search
2. Enter a relevant query in the search field. For example, if you are a pizza restaurant in Boston you might search for “pizza in Boston” to discover what people are commenting about.
3. Determine if the results are useful.
4. Save the search.
5. Repeat the process with variations or new terms.

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By Cheryl Meyerson, Founder, new city, inc.

Since Boston is a hub for green technology, I thought it would be interesting to see how being green enhances work life by focusing on Genzyme's award-winning, environmentally responsible corporate headquarters in Cambridge.

Rick Mattila, Director of Environmental Affairs at Genzyme shared his knowledge by giving me a "blow your mind" tour of the building. Rick has been a key player in developing Genzyme's environment for over 20 years, both locally and internationally, while Genzyme had evolved into becoming one of the largest biotechnology companies worldwide. Last year, Genzyme was acquired by the pharmaceutical company Sanofi and is now a Sanofi company.

I was interested in knowing how green tech design affects Genzyme's staff and the community at large. Rick's passions happen to lean towards how the building impacts people including patients, employees and community. These were his thoughts.

"The transparent nature of the building was purposeful in enhancing visual communication among employees within the building, making it easier to have spontaneous meetings. It also provides employees with views to the outside environment (enhancing their well-being) and to the community to reinforce that connection. From the outside, neighbors can see in and get a sense of our openness and transparency as a corporation. Having a green building that reduces the impact on the environment follows our safety and environmental management statement that includes: We want our corporate and residential neighbors to be proud to have Genzyme in their communities.

The tour program that we instituted provides an open invitation to the local and broader community to come into our building and experience its green design features. It also provides an opportunity for the architectural, engineering and construction industry professionals and students in those fields to observe this unique green building. We want others to see the design and hopefully inspire them to think deeply about the designs of their own buildings. It is apparently working as Genzyme Center was chosen in a 2010 survey of green building experts by Architecture Magazine, as the third most important green building in the world."

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By Arne Hessenbruch, Founder, Boston Denmark Partnerships

Three months ago I got up on my high horse to preach about the advantages and disadvantages of getting a PhD. In the meantime, I have had the pleasure of talking to Ben Nelson about what to look for when applying for an undergraduate degree.

Ben has thought deeply about the demand for elite higher education (see his TED talk), and he recently raised $25 million to launch a university called The Minerva Project. It will cater to the tens of thousands of people that meet all the academic requirements of other elite universities. Below, I will list the five most important things that Ben thinks should matter to applicants. To help explain, I will compare and contrast Minerva with existing universities.

Most challenges to existing higher education these days focus on technology. Minerva uses online technology, but the main point of the project is not technology – it is catering to the demand.

What do students need, and what should universities aim to supply?

1. Status
2. Chance of getting in
3. Pedagogy
4. Student life
5. Student-university relationship after graduation

A degree from an Ivy League University is so attractive that the number of applicants far exceeds those accepted. That its status will rub off on alumni is one important reason – perhaps more important even than the education you receive. As non-elite universities are quick to point out, you can also learn stuff at other universities - possibly more and better. But whether or not you get a superior education at Ivies or not: their status is undoubted.

The problem for most of us is that we will not get in. Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford etc. simply cannot expand to accept the many, many applicants who desire an association with their brand. Unlike the Ivies, Minerva can scale. Its campuses will be rented and they can move if need be. So students satisfying Ivy League schools' entrance requirements, while still unlikely to be accepted by an Ivy League school, will be accepted by Minerva. (I forgot to ask Ben, but he might have to worry about Groucho Marx's dictum: I don't want to be a member of a club that wants me as a member.)

Ben thinks students really ought to consider the prevailing pedagogy of different universities before applying. For example, Brown has a very open-ended program where a student can gather the requisite credits however he or she wants. This will suit some students and not others. Columbia, by contrast, is more structured and perhaps rigid in its organization of progress towards a bachelor's degree. Penn is very interdisciplinary and excels in mixing degrees, such as business and technology. Harvard Business School is the home of the case study. Students should aim to understand a university's pedagogy and choose according to their own personalities.

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By Laurisa Neuwirth and Ashley Ryall, John Leonard Employment Services

Read Part I Here

Big Fish Helping Little Fish

Kendall Square is home to the strongest life sciences cluster in the world, an audacious claim that is supported by the fact that the four main industry groups chose Boston for their signature events this year:

• PhRMA Annual Meeting April 12- 13
• BIO International Convention June 18-21
• BioPharm America 2012 September 19 - 21
• Advamed 2012 October 1-3

The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MassBio) is an essential institutional underpinning of support for the biotech space, with offerings in many different forms. Their newest offering, MassCONNECT, is already a wildly successful mentoring program. Both the demand for mentoring and the experts capable of providing it demonstrate the deep pool of local talent and passion for the industry that is present. This depth of talent can’t be bought, transplanted or otherwise grown quickly, although other locales both within the US and internationally have poured resources into such efforts.

Hear about the exciting specifics of MassCONNECT from Sarah MacDonald, MassBio’s VP of Development & Communications:

Repurposing with Purpose

In the uber-serious world of entrepreneurial bioscience development, SEMPRUS BioSciences is an emerging medical device company. Located in a building that was once an old tire factory, Co-Founder and CEO David Lucchino recognizes the value of repurposing Kendall’s unique resources. This includes not only the buildings but also the talent pool of seasoned specialists coming out the newly acquired companies who are looking to move back to a small company culture.

Born out of the MIT 100K Entrepreneurial Competition in 2007, SEMPRUS now has over $30M in funding and made a conscious choice to remain in Kendall. “ I couldn’t get the bang for my buck anywhere else. Even though my rents were a little higher here, the aggregation of the benefits outweighed the dollar premium to be here.”

“So let’s think about it, if you tried to do what we are doing in another locale, in Pittsburgh or Cleveland or other locales you can do it, but it’s going to be a lot more difficult.” David Lucchino continues, “Getting the access to the talent, access to the ideas, access to the venture capital… you can do that in other markets but it’s going to be a lot harder to do because you don’t have the structure in place to allow that to happen so readily.”

How Topography Dictates Flow

Xconomy, the go-to news platform and event-driven engagement organization for the "exponential economy" has become an anchor here in Boston. Founded by Bob Buderi and Rebecca Zacks, the team of Xconomists connects people and ideas through localized blogs, events, conferences, and other initiatives in six cities. Boston's own Xconomy guru and Senior Vice President of Business Development, Bill Ghormley, is based in Kendall Square and provides insight into the development of the clean tech, health IT, life sciences, mobile and the diverse start up community.

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By Laurisa Neuwirth and Ashley Ryall, John Leonard Employment Services

Intrigued by Mark O’Toole’s recent post,”An Innovation Snapshot: Three Engaging Hours in Boston’s Innovation District,” we traveled across the river to the original innovation district, Kendall Square. What was once a busy manufacturing hub filled with distilleries, soap and hosiery factories and home to 19th century entrepreneur and namesake Edward Kendall, is now the nucleus of greater Boston’s development of information technology, life sciences and energy technology.

It only took us a few seconds to feel what British Consul General Phil Budden calls “the change in the air” as we entered Kendall Square.” We made it our mission to capture the new pace of business here– the modern version of the long-lamented “daily grind” which has morphed into what we call the “Kendall bump n’ grind.” And we share it with you right here. Watch this space for Part II next week!

“Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends…”

According to Travis McCready, Executive Director of the Kendall Square Association, 2007 marked a turning point for America, with more of us residing in urban districts than in suburban or rural areas. What comes with the alluring potential of urban offerings –vibrant night life, lively cultural institutions, fun restaurants, cafes and clubs, reliable public transportation, and civic space – is a density of talent, companies and institutions. As one of these growing urban areas, Kendall Square has achieved the critical mass that fuels unparalleled technological innovation.

Travis likens this density and diversity to “a box of chocolates… you open it up and you don’t really know what you’re going to get, but you know it’s going to be something good.” The best business representation of the box of chocolates metaphor is in the dense and crowded environment of the Cambridge Innovation Center, (CIC) where smart people serendipitously “bump and connect.” That collaboration creates waves of innovation, and it’s happening at an unprecedented rate right here.

Both Pixability and CoachUp.com are fast tracking start-ups, two of the 500+ companies who have called the CIC home since it opened its doors in 1999. Leaders of these two companies credit the entrepreneurial environment here for a great deal of their companies’ transformations. Pixability found a key vendor they needed while VP of Marketing Rob Ciampa was riding the CIC elevator up to his office one day. Their engaged and ever-curious compadres in the community inspired Pixability as they expanded their initial core business from customized video into an end-to-end video marketing platform.

“People in Kendall, yes, they want to know about your product but they also want to know your story, so you’re constantly pitching and getting your message honed, and the community here ends up giving you leads as well. It’s helping your product, your message, and your sales.” Rob describes his experience here.

Similarly, Jordan Fliegel, CEO of CoachUp.com, found all of this team and his initial funding partners either directly in the CIC or through the avid referral network of his fellow entrepreneurs. Jordan and his business were both born in Cambridge and he’s so doggone proud of Cambridge and what it means for his company.

Life in the Kendall Coral Reef

So what shape does this entrepreneurial community take? See it through Geoff Mamlet’s eyes here:

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By Donna Dodson, Artist

In response to my recent article on ‘Art as Commodity or Art as Experience’ my colleague, Joanne Mattera, a widely exhibited artist, who blogs about galleries and art fairs in New York city and elsewhere replied “There are many art worlds, represented by art fairs, commercial galleries, nonprofits, academic galleries, co-op galleries, museums, private and corporate collections. All of these may range from small one-person operations to large businesses with multiple staffers in multiple locations in gigantic spaces; and they may show artists who range from local unknowns to international art stars in venues that are local, regional, national or international. So when we talk about "the art world," we really need to be clear about which "art world" we're talking about.

Also, I was annoyed to read yet again about the dichotomy between "art pilgrim" and artist as maker of a commodity. It's old the Madonna/whore mentality. Does an opera singer sell out if she performs to a standing ovation at the Met? Does a surgeon sell out if she performs brilliant surgery in a clean, modern facility? Does a scientist sell out of she creates a cure for cancer? So why is it that artists should be "pure" only if they're indigent pilgrims? That is old, old, old, old think. Rather than filling a studio with unsold works (which, yes, come ideally from an emotional or spiritual or intellectual place) we sell them. I think it does a disservice to artists and the public to suggest that finding or creating a commercial outlet for the work somehow makes the artist or the art less pure. Art making is a calling, yes, but unless you’re Mother Teresa, most other callings don't come with the imposition of poverty. Let's think about art as a professional undertaking, just as the dealers, curators, critics and collectors do.”

In my article, I referred to Morley Safer’s report on Art Basel as being perhaps representative of the Public’s opinion on the Art World. When I asked Christian Holland, a writer, ‘What did you make of Morley Safer's report on 60 minutes about Art Basel?’ he replied “There was a running joke in the twitter/blogosphere that ‘Morley Safer went to an art fair and found lots of bad art.’ I suppose the only thing stranger was the fact that 60 Minutes decided the subject was newsworthy enough to do a program about it. Also, I didn’t know 60 Minutes was still on the air until Safer went to Basel, so I suppose they incrementally expanded their audience for at least one show.” As to his show from 1993 ‘But is it art?’ Christian replied ‘If the mainstream media stops mocking contemporary art, it means contemporary artists have stopped making art. The art/ not art debate that takes place in mainstream media will only end when artists stop making art.’ Todd Levin, Director of Levin Art Group, offered this, ‘ Jerry Saltz pointed out in his piece in New York Magazine on the 60 minute bit that Safer went to an Art fair looking for an "aesthetic experience" and then was shocked when he didn't find one.’

I also wrote about the art of Thomas Kinkade in the wake of his untimely death. What is the controversy that his work stirs up? Todd Levin: ‘Kinkade's Art is no more and no less than emotional pornography. He provides all the emotional triggers that his public identifies with, but there is nothing deeper behind those multiple hair triggers than an empty, hollow void.’ Joanne Mattera: ‘I can’t tell you why the “art world” is talking. All I can tell you is that as a painter, I am astonished that Kinkade could have sold so much crap to so many people. I know the average person is not art sophisticated, but those glowing Hansel-and-Gretel cottages are even farther off the map than Elvis on velvet.’ Christian Holland: ‘Kinkade just found a niche by making people believe they were buying fine art they could afford, but perhaps they were, right?’ To these insightful comments, I would add, if you told the average person, you could buy original art for the same modest prices that Kinkade is selling for, they would panic that they would have to decide for themselves what was valuable whereas Kinkade’s work is so obviously ‘pretty’ and his business strategy and marketing promoted it as a a safe buy or good investment for people who don’t want to decide, don’t know how to decide what has value, what they like, or what is Art.

By Arne Hessenbruch, Founder, Boston Denmark Partnerships

Dougan Sherwood started his own company and burned through $20K of friends and family's investment. He got burnt. He now works at Cambridge Innovation Center, located at Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA.

He sees many startups in different stages and he ponders the impact that location has. His advice for startup companies is a mixture of the conventional and the more existential.

Go where you can:

1. Recruit the talent you need
2. Minimize hassle and free up head space
3. Figure out who you are!

Everyone in the startup world knows that recruiting people is of prime importance and also excruciatingly hard. A startup needs a team of people whose skills complement each other. We tend to know people like us, not people with complementary skills. A startup needs people with drive and enthusiasm, an understanding of product development and the many iterations it has to go through with feedback from potential consumers, people skills, market savvy, fundraising, legal and accounting, technology and so on.

The list is very long, which is why only a very few places on the planet have produced successful startup companies. Putting it starkly, only Silicon Valley and Boston have the critical mass of people with different skills to routinely put together successful teams. But even within those cities, you want to be where you can meet people, preferably on a daily basis. In Boston, for example, you may want to be on the Red Line, because many of the young people you want to recruit do not want to drive cars and sit in traffic.

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By Donna Dodson, Artist

While collaboration in the music world and performing arts is the status quo, visual artists have been lone wolves, for the most part. Famous artist teams like Christo and Jeanne Claude or Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen are the products of collaboration and marriage where one partner’s solo works became shared works through a lifetime of team work. In the business world, collaboration is a natural result of web 2.0 tools and social media technologies that are utilized to achieve the bottom line. In lean economic times, when competition is fierce and financial resources are scarce, artists will oftentimes look for ways to work together to share resources and contacts, conserve energy and maximize teamwork to achieve more than is possible by oneself. But how can artists, who are so wedded to their own personal vision, branded by the making of individual products, let go of control and cooperatively work with each other? And what is the outcome of this type of collaboration?

119 Gallery in Lowell fosters innovative cooperation between artists, musicians, dancers, performers, video artists and creative thinkers. As part of my current show, "Two Artists in Two Dimensions: Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlein," the gallery recently hosted several notable artists' teams on a panel discussion on their experiences as collaborators. The panelists were Margot Stage and David Crane, Rick Breault and Elaine Wood, Tim Winn and Zehra Kahn, and Andy Moerlein and me. The moderator was Walter Wright, co-founder of 119 Gallery. The event host was Mary Ann Kearns, also a co-founder of the gallery.

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By Ellen Keiley

Why are we still having this conversation? That was the theme of the Bentley University Center for Women and Business Inaugural forum that took place on April 27, 2012. The Center is working on initiatives relating to advancing women in the workplace and moving from conversation to action. Energetic as always, Bentley University President Gloria Larson kicked off the forum that over 700 people had signed up to attend. Bentley University’s Toni Wolfman said “the Center provides a framework to develop effective solutions to challenges faced by women in the workplace.”

Betsy Myers was appointed as the Center’s Founding Director. Myers is an authority on leadership and author of the book Take the Lead: Motivate, Inspire, and Bring Out the Best in Yourself and Everyone Around You. She has deep experience in the corporate, political and higher education arenas and served as Chief Operating Officer of Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign. Myers also served in the Clinton Administration as an adviser on women’s issues.

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By Dave McLaughlin, Vsnap

Recently The Capital Network presented its Venture Fast Track program, a one-day “boot camp” to prepare startups for success with venture capitalists and angel investors. So often I find that people with great ideas might be a little bit unsure whether they’re a good fit to plug into all the resources offered by organizations like The Capital Network, Mass Challenge, Boston World Partnerships, Venture Café, and so many more. It’s important that people understand just how open this community is. If you have a hunger to start and grow something, just show up! You’ll be welcome.

At the Venture Fast Track, people commented on two big buckets of value: the info and the people.

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By Mark Vasu, perCent Inc.

Boston is preparing for the first Boston Cleanweb Hackathon on May 4 through 6. Students, entrepreneurs, companies, developers, and innovative business people will roll up their sleeves and create new applications in one weekend for prize money and bragging rights.

A year ago, the term ‘cleanweb’ was coined by two cleantech entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley. It is based on the simple idea that the next wave of innovation in a cleaner energy economy is happening, and it’s coming from information technology applications that address resource constraints, whether those limits are related to energy, water or even food.

Cleanweb is about creating low cost, capital efficient web-enabled business models capitalizing on the easy access to huge amounts of data - Big Data as some like to call it - that is available and open source. It’s about leveraging those data points from millions of things that now capture them, from shipping crates to smartphones - known as the “internet of things.”

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