„If no one is laughing at your idea – you are not thinking big enough!“

 Be(e) love – how Sweet Beginnings and Brenda Palms Barber change lives and what other businesses can learn from it.

By Konstantin Keller

It is a good thing to have an idea for a business. It is even better if that idea helps a lot of people and provides a well-deserved second chance for them that others are not willing to give them. And if you are actually able to make profit with it, it is actually a quite amazing business and a wonderful story.

All of those aspects come together at Sweet Beginnings – a Chicagoan company that I visited with my fellow students in the framework of our entrepreneur program. Brenda Palms Barber, CEO of the company, took the time to introduce the business and it's philosophy and culture to us. She made it her task to provide jobs in difficult neighborhoods and to people who did their time in prison and want a chance to complete their own personal “U-Turn” - a second chance to improve their own lives that they are way too often denied. At Sweet Beginnings, the employees are being introduced and included into the honey business – in this multisided work environment, they learn aspects of bee-keeping, science, education, inventory, accounting and many more. In this way, the company gives it's employees the tools to build their own future and leave their past behind them: Less than 10% of the people who worked with Sweet Beginnings return to prison. Some of them actually used their new knowledge to open up small own businesses in the bee-keeping sector and become entrepreneurs themselves – another proof that Sweet Beginnings is all about encouraging people to improve their lives on their own!

Brenda had and has a clear vision of what she wants her business to do and what kind of culture she wants in it: “If nobody else is going to provide jobs and hire – we will!” She told us that many people did not believe that a business idea like this could survive or actually make a profit – and how she and all the other people in Sweet Beginnings proved them all wrong: “You need to think creatively, put some trust into people and them into the right positions and above all – you need to do your business with passion!”

Her passion for her idea was definitely tangible in the whole room during her whole presentation and was followed by the sentence that stayed in my head for the rest of the day: “If you have an idea for a business and no one's laughing at it – you're not thinking big enough!”

Creativity and new business ideas, trust in yourself and others and passion indeed made the organization a company with over 400 employees and – probably even more important – a company that actually makes a profit. When the pure tablehoney business was not profitable enough, Sweet Beginnings found other ways and business fields to make money with it, e.g. with skincare products on a honey base.

Since our own project “säft.” is a creative new business idea that has suffered some backlashs, I could identify myself a lot with Brenda's words and advices. Even though unfortunately we are not able to do so much for the community, I personally took a lot of ideas for organizational culture away today. The most important ones:

1: Believe in yourself and your colleagues – if you do not believe in your idea, nobody else will!

2: Always be open to new business ideas and keep developing existing products – their might be new markets and opportunities that you probably did not even think about yet!

And the most important one for me as CEO of our company as well as in any future professional career:

3: Real leadership means getting into something you care about and be a game changer – make a difference!

I will definitely make sure to keep that in mind – thanks Brenda and thanks Sweet Beginnings!

For those of you who want to read more about being a “game changer” and making a difference, I stumbled across this interesting article that I can recommend: http://onforb.es/1HozzJW

And if you want to keep updated about säft. - follow us on Facebook (http://on.fb.me/1LQZOLz) and Instagram (http://bit.ly/1U5A7di)!

Thanks for reading!

Konstantin (@Konstanberlin)

Bee the difference by Stephanie Kirchstetter

Bee the difference

by Stephanie Kirchstetter

If you ask people “Would you do anything for your friends and family?”, nobody will deny that they would. When growing up in a bad neighborhood and drifting to the wrong side of life, people sometimes make bad choices, which often result in prison time. These choices then give them a criminal record, which makes it almost impossible for them to be re-employed. This is where social justice organizations step in, because U.S. government does not, to help these formerly incarcerated individuals to reintegrate both socially and professionally. 

One of these organizations is the North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN), which supports the North Lawndale residents to meet their unmet unemployment needs. Each individual does not only have the opportunity to receive training in anger management and employment, but they also receive help during the period they try to apply for a job. 

A study of the company found that 57% of the adults in this area are either involved in criminal actions, served time in prison or are on probation.

Therefore the company introduced a program called the ‘U-Turn-Permitted-Program’, in which participants can change their direction and re-start the engine of life. The motto of it is ‘Once someone served their time in prison, they’ve served their time!’ Meaning that program participants will not be judged by their past mistakes, once they completed their punishment, but on their current performance.

However, the NLEN goes even further than that: In 2004 the organization helped Brenda Palms-Barber launch a new company called Sweet Beginnings, LLC, which gives its employees the opportunity to gain work experience by working in a full-time transitional job at a ‘bee-farm’. The participants will take care of the bees and hives, harvest honey and make the ‘beelove’ products, such as honey and the newly introduced skin care line. It was proven that through this 90-days-training the recidivism rate of the team members decreases from 55 %, which is the average in the state of Illinois, to below 10%.

If you ask Brenda, why she is doing what she does, one can see her watery eyes when she speaks about her passion. Before she founded Sweet Beginnings, LLC and was only working for the North Lawndale Employment Network, she tried to find jobs for her clients. She often got the same response from employers: Not now, come ask again in two weeks and so on and so forth. Therefore, she decided she had to do something to help these people, because everyone can make mistakes – small or big. So after she recognized the problem, she came up with some ideas, the final one being working with bees, because ‘they are the only animals that create food for the humanity just because of their existence.’ Some people might have not taken the idea too serious in the beginning, but as Brenda says ‘If you have a dream and nobody is laughing about it, you have not dreamed big enough!’

Now they are even selling their honey in eleven Whole Foods and a couple of Mariano’s retail stores all around Chicago. 

So how did Sweet Beginnings, LLC get that far? How did they finally succeed in earning profit last year? Not only due to Brenda’s dream and passion the business did succeed, but due to her being a great leader, which is a title she does not give herself. But Brenda has it all – she is called the ‘Queen-Bee’ at her company:

• A strong conviction, which motivates her, that she can change something about this situation.
• A great relationship with her clients/followers, which she developed carefully.
• A great leader also needs the acceptance for fellowship.
• Awareness about the responsibility she has for her followers.
• A strong enough self-esteem to accept that someone else is better in a field and if he/she has more skills, they need to step up to the podium.
• An ability to transfer her spirit to her employees.

After the impressive meeting with the ‘Queen-Bee’, I thought to myself: How can I adapt what I’ve learned today to our project the LIB? How can I transfer Brenda’s leadership style into our management?

The two most important things that I’ve learned are that (1) your passion drives your business and (2) you should be encouraging your team to step up and embrace their skills.

(1) The LIB’s mission is it to offer a place where people from all over the world meet and feel comfortable, through our heartwarming atmosphere and unforgettable unique urban experience. It is our passion to give guests an unforgettable vacation in our hotel. In order to achieve this the hotel staff, meaning the management and each employee, has to live by that spirit. Through our passion, we have to transfer this spirit to our employees, which than execute the job in our sense.

(2) In order to have a well-functioning team, it is important to accept and recognize the skills of each employee. Even better the whole hotel staff should see itself as a team with each one of them contributing to the hotel’s success. If employees are encouraged to embrace their skills, it can only be a win-win-situation. A leader is only as good as his/her team, because he/she cannot be good at everything. A team requires specialists in different areas, which not only help to succeed, but this procedure also motivates the team through the recognition from the leader, because of their contribution.

U-Turn permitted

By Eva Lotta Lockner

U-Turn permitted

When your own future and the future of your family are at stake, there may not only be doubts but also anxieties that follow you day in, day out. This exactly is what the clients at the North Lawndale Employment Network faced, before they heard about a concept, which gives hope to a very specific kind of people from the North Lawndale neighborhood. Your life should not be a dead end. You should be the master of your own destiny and everything that follows, as long as you are given the chance to make the U-Turn. 

“U-Turn permitted” is an initiative that is giving ex-convicts a spark for hope, and there is one person that lets the spark turn into a fire: Brenda Palms-Barnes. Embracing Brenda’s inspiring personality, she is called the Queen-Bee of “Sweet Beginnings”. And what Brenda amongst other great people does is helping to rebuild the community of North Lawndale and by that they are also helping to rebuild life for those whose lives seemed to be a dead end, or a vicious circle in which they kept being incarcerated their whole life.

“I believe that after people did something wrong, and they’ve served for what they did in prison, they deserve a second chance”, Brenda puts it. And yes, many companies claim that they would be willing to employ ex-cons, but there is a tiny problem, just the size of a box that decides, whether you get a job interview or not.

“Ban the box!”

Johnny Patterson, recently promoted as the operations team manager tells us first hand, what he experienced on his path out of incarceration. ‘Have you ever been convicted of a felony?’ is the one question that could be your downfall. If you say yes, the odds are close to zero that you will even get in the reach of a job interview, if you say no, then they check your permanent records and even though your manager values your skills and your personality, you have lied in the first place, so you lose your job.

What Johnny tells us is that even though the permission of the U-turn is there, people might still crash into your future plans and there you are: in the vicious circle of incarceration. And by that I don’t mean the time you actually are behind bars, but the feeling of being incarcerated after you have served nonetheless. This is an outcry for Social Justice, and this is what Sweet Beginnings and the NLEN fight for. 

Sweet Beginnings

What if former cons get a chance to make the U-turn and be open for the change in life they so desperately need and seek? Well, that is what Sweet Beginnings offers these people so that they be the writers of their own future with the help of beautifully-minded souls and thousands over thousands of little friends: Bees. Sweet Beginnings gives their clients the chance to build up the work experience they need in order to apply for a job. 

Brenda, the Queen-Bee of them all, is one of these beautifully-minded human beings with a determination in her voice and expression that I was impressed to see. When she speaks, all the small pieces seem to make the bigger picture we were all eager to find on our way to our own business concepts.

“Be creative; be innovative if you are lacking resources.” And this is what “Sweet Beginnings” and their product line “beelove” do: They are creative and innovative with a compelling passion and they acknowledge those people who made poor decisions in their past, due to poor resources at hand. She also speaks about the stigmatization most ex-cons face once they “come back”. 

“Rejection is one of the biggest issues”, Brenda knows. And a global logistics company did just that. They rejected graduates from the “U-turn permitted” program while pleading that their company’s values were to help those in need, without prejudice and such like. And here is one valuable lesson we learnt from today’s excursion, not only for all our business concepts, but for our whole working life that will follow: You as a person, both in your professional and your private life, have to live by the values you promote. And if you look at this statement from a leadership point of view that also means forcing your employees and team members to recite the mission you and your company follow and incorporating this mission and your values to each and every one of them. 

It’s not a title that makes you a leader

Our project, the Lib Hotel has the approach to also give something back to the community, but this approach might just be a daydream, if the employees do not implement these values into their daily business.

But how do we infiltrate what we believe in into our own team members? What is the kind of leadership approach one should be following in order to accomplish the company’s mission and keep the culture? We have seen different views on leadership and organizational culture throughout our excursions, which were all enriching and inspirational, but none like Brenda’s made me realize what it actually means to be a leader, something you won’t find in any scholarly article, but which comes straight from the heart of a woman who wants to make a difference, and it’s a powerful one: 

“What a big word leader is. I have very strong convictions on that. Once I understood the opportunities, I won’t call myself a leader. It’s not a title that makes you a leader, but making a difference for others. Leadership is scary, because it also enables fellowship and by that I mean that you have to earn the right to lead. To me, leadership has seasonality, so that I am convinced that you have to empower your team members to develop their very own skills and that you let others rise and shine.”

While these powerful words still echo in my ears, I was also impressed by the naturalness of Brenda as a business woman. With our hotel, we have to consider to not only having one source of revenue in order to be successful. Like “beelove”, they found that honey only has a profit margin of 13% while their recently launched skin care products bring up to 80% of profit margin. This made me realize that we are on a good way to develop further sources of revenue through our tours, our rooms and our plan to expand to other cities sometime in the future. 

And what we should always consider while developing our ideas is: “If you have an idea and no one’s laughing about it, then you didn’t dream big enough!”

Thank you Brenda & the team of Sweet Beginnings and the NLEN for what you do to help the community in North Lawndale and what an insight you gave us in order to think about Social Justice and what that means not only to our business, but to us as people and those around us that need help to make the U-turn in their lives. 

Cultural insights at Google

by LeBeOnAir

Wow, what an inspiring excursion! We just came back from a tour to Google (Chicago) where we, as a group of Master students, were told a lot about Google’s history, products, and where we got valuable insights of its culture and leadership.

Not only what Megan (Danielson, Head of Industry Travel) and Matt (Jones, Team Lead Travel) told us, especially from how they talked to each other we experienced the cooperation at Google. Since this is not only about Megan and Matt but about Google’s culture:

As you might know, Google is a multibillion dollar company and a huge global player that connects people around the world every time – everywhere. However, although having more than 50.000 employees in total, it has a low hierarchy. According to Matt this is one aspect that makes Google special. Everyone can talk to everyone – no matter of the person’s position. Whenever Matt wants to talk to Megan’s boss about something he will talk to him and so do all employees at Google. The example of Larry and Sergey, Google’s founders, walking in the cafeteria at the office in Mountain View and asking “random” employees if they could join them for lunch just emphasizes this.

Thinking of our vegan restaurant chain Green|Dish at Kendall College that we are about to found – at least theoretically however you never know… - I really would want to have this kind of atmosphere where there are no boundaries felt within the people in the company, as well. Of course this is not the only interesting part I could take home of Google through its presentation. Google actually does a lot for its employees. Of course Google does. Beneficial offers for employees  become more and more a “must have” rather than a “nice to have”. And it is actually pretty positive for both parties – Google’s employees AND Google itself. Let me give you an example of how this looks like:

Google has great cafeterias at their offices that serve FREE food for Google’s employees (we went through the one in the Chicago office and the food looked just delicious!!!). This is very nice for everyone who works at Google (it tastes very well and it saves money). But why does Google offer this?

For several reasons: Eating at Google’s office makes people stay at the office and be more productive, eating healthy food at Google’s cafeteria supports employee’s health and makes them work more efficiently (everyone probably knows how sleepy you get after a greasy lunch – in German we call it “soup-coma”) AND last but definitely not least employees eating at Google’s cafeteria talk to each other when waiting in line (at least 4 to 5 minutes) and then sitting together. Thus they exchange ideas and thoughts and build a network within the company.

These are definitely aspects that I want to keep in mind for our company. Another thing, that really impressed me and that I would wish to have at Green|Dish as well is how much employees indentify with their employer. This was shown for example by one of the employees wearing a “Google”-T-Shirt – actually one the first ones we met at the office. Although Megan and Matt were not wearing clothes that said “Google” on it they showed how much they enjoy working at Google and that they are proud of being part of the team. They appreciate Google caring about them “when they are at work as well as when they are at home” as Matt put it.

There are so many more inspiring things about Google’s culture, such as the “20% time”, which encourages employees to think out of the box (and their daily routines) to find new solutions, create new products, and services, which I found just great and which really elated me. It shows appreciation to the employees, they get the freedom and opportunity to self-fulfillment, and the company takes advantage of its human resources or rather its “human capital”.

All in all – regarding my impressions from visiting Google - I would want Green|Dish to be a workplace where people come to work every day because they want to do WHAT they do and WHERE they want to do it, where employees talking to each other and treating each other at eyelevel no matter of their position, and I would want it to be a workplace that treats employees very respectful and supports them in several regards.

Why? Because treating employees very well and offering them a certain freedom to think about innovations and improvement, and creating an atmosphere that allows them to do so, does not only keep them happy but it also helps the business, as it does help Google.

90% with one Revenue Stream

Google is one of the most valuable company in the world. Google helps us to organize, communicated, travel and search the internet. A day without google would be much more inefficient and complicated. But wait did you ever pay for any using google products? No, because google earns money through advertisement, not only a small percentage but in 2015 90% of googles revenue comes from advertisement. 90% revenue out of one single revenue stream!

So if google only earns money with advertisement, why does google have products which doesn’t even show the advertisements(e.g Chrome)? The idea of products like Chrome is, to give the user a powerful, convenient tool, which the user love to use. Each google product links back to the websites or services where google shows sponsored links. For example: The smart phone OS Android does not contain advertisement, but the google search (which contains the sponsored links) is always easy to access on those smart phones with Android. In this way google ensures that its revenue-machine is always running also in the future.

How much do we need to focus on the revenue stream when we develop a great product at the beginning?

Google is able, through its huge cash reserves ($67 bils. in 2015), to develop ideas without specifying which customer needs they are solving or where the money will come from.

For example: the engineers and product developer are still not sure how the business model for the google car is going to look like. Wether its going to be a cap ride like uber or a free ride with advertisement inside the car.

To ensure that only good ideas are developed google has the culture of fast failing. That means to drive through an idea and see wether the chinks make the idea blow up or if its tough enough to survive. Therefor employees define perviously  what indicator will tell us that we failing? And while going through the testing of an idea, pushing hard the risk to see whats happens - so to fail fast or getting the certainty that its a great idea.

So how do you get the people in a organization to live fast failing? I think this has a lot to do with the culture in a company. At google people have open work spaces, flat hierarchy and are encouraged to network with their co-workers. We at streetTube have a great product wich we are certain people will love. But we are not sure what the best revenue stream is, so to establish a fail-fast culture like at google is very important for us at streetTube.

For being innovative and competitive, you have to take the risk …

(by Lina Kummle)

Google in Chicago has around 500 people who work for this site and presented us an organizational culture from which we all can learn a lot. The kind of "looseness" in their culture and leadership is what makes them so successful and the current technical leader on the world market.

I ask myself the question if we could adopt this kind of “looseness” for our business concept or further businesses and try to analyze and compare it in the following section.

 The most important inventions have been built in the 20% part

Megan Danielson told us, that the most important inventions of Google have been built in a special 20% part, which Google is offering to his employees. The leadership allows them to use 20% of their real working time for challenges, which are usually not in the part of their responsibility. It was really impressive for me how successful Google is with the idea to give their employees the freedom to do other things they are interested in. The people mostly use this time for doing things which they have a huge passion for, try something different, new, are innovative and creative. On the one hand this could be a risk for every company in the world, but on the other hand Google shows us how successful it could be and it’s the only chance to be innovative and better than your competitor. If you don’t take a risk, you won’t see any development. BUT can we adopt the 20% plan for our business concept? The idea of it is great, but in the first stage of building a company it’s difficult to spend much time for doing things out of your area of responsibility. Every team member should have a clear focus on what’s important for the growth of the company and should do the referred assignment. In this stage I would prefer to use 20% of the time to discuss different topics with all team members and to think about innovative things in a close interaction and exchange. The chance is given to think about topics which are not directly in the own responsibility. But in a case of further businesses I would definitely try to consider the 20% plan, because I am convinced that it is something what keeps your business innovative, productive and competitive.

Additionally there are some other favorite aspects of Google:

• Leadership opportunities (coaching and integration of women as leaders)
• Rotation program (they get the chance to go 3 months abroad and make their own experiences at other sites, cultures and countries, - the job back home will be reserved for this special time)
• Intramural and team events for all employees
• Food and amazing benefits (they get free food, which is organic, healthy and local – option to meet new internal people, don’t waste time for searching food outside, ensure a healthy nutrition of the employees what is good for their health.

These favorite aspects, which Google is offering to their employed people, are great. For a small company, especially if it stands at the beginning, it is not possible to push through. We can focus on eating healthy food and convince our team members to do so, we also can have some team events, but a lot of things are step in when the time is right and the company is bigger. To think about such opportunities and keep them in mind as an entrepreneur and for further leadership and culture options as well, is nevertheless important and gives our business a substantial insight.

Another point where you can see an open minded leadership and culture of Google is the point that if an employee comes up with an idea, they take it serious and try to make it happen, - if it’s a good one and possible. In other companies you have often no chance to get yourself involved and experience just refusal by the leader. Actually we heard in our first week in a marketing lesson, that the Americans often say “let’s try it” what means – “nothing will happen”, but in this case you definitely feel that there will something happen caused by a unique team spirit. It’s important for every company to take the employees and colleagues serious and work for a good team spirit. I liked this point of view and would try to adapt it for every company I would work for in the future, because the employees have insights in different parts of the company which a leader should use.

Here you get more details. There are two very good videos included. The first one shows the New York office of Google and the second one is about the Life at Google and how employees work at Google.

Result: Google has happy and productive employees

The employees of Google feel comfortable, come to work with good grace and are productive. Google don’t have the huge risk of employees dropping out because of burnout and ensure a well-adjusted work-life-balance, where the people have time off for family, friends and other things they love to do besides working for Google.

The described employees are helping the company to grow and innovate new matters for a survival of the company. This should be a goal of every company in the world. 

The employees are responsible for the success of the company

Google is a company, which is focused on giving all employees the opportunity to grow – personally and professionally. They understood that the people who are working for the company are the reason for the success and it is one of the most important functions of the leadership and culture to ensure the best work-life-balance for them they can afford. In my point of view every leadership should implement such an understanding of employee treatment in their organizational culture. This should be the base to be successfull.

I am thankful for getting the opportunity to take ideas with me, which I want to import to our team and other further businesses. It’s important to have your own area of responsibility, but it is important as well to have the option and time to do something what is out of it, if the company is not right at the beginning. This is a fundamental impulse for more effectiveness and efficiency of team work in general to perform better and reach an excellent development and result. We’ve to take the risk and keep this option in mind!!

How innovations drive our world by Niklas Hogrefe

In order to maintain market power and shares companies try come up with new ideas and products at a faster speed than ever before. Partly they get forced from the market as customers are constantly asking for new products. Other companies try to innovate to achieve a benefit for their customer and to find solutions/products that they are not even aware of.

 

Google Logo

Think of Google and its search engine. 96 percent of Googles revenue is generated through ads on YouTube, the search engine and several other websites and services. The idea back in the founding days of Google was to reinvent search engines from unorganized, randomly listed hits for searched keywords to structured, rated and well displayed search results based upon the customer’s needs. The first and probably most significant innovation Google launched was the search engine. However, since then many more came upon their minds. Think of Google Maps, Google Car, Google Calendar, Google Books, Google Scholar, G-Mail and many more. Innovation is part of Googles philosophy and atmosphere that is present in every inch of their offices. Matt Jones, who is a team leader in the travel-section, somehow symbolizes the image Google wants to have in the world. He is young, very smart, has got high social skills and lots of ideas. He said what makes Google special to him are the people he gets to work with. Google’s employees are not only good people. They are also very intelligent and open for new ideas. For innovations.

So how do they interact and how do they exchange their ideas? One way to encourage Google’s employees is the free food that they get in the office building. Why? You do not walk out of the building and save time. You get healthy and fresh food to keep you active and vital. However, the main and most interesting reason is: You start talking with colleagues you might never meet elsewhere. You share ideas & possible innovations and talk about possibilities and weaknesses that the idea might have.

To sum it up, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Innovations keep up the team spirit.
2. Innovations lead to improvement.
3. Innovations need to be supported by a company.
4. Innovations should help your customers.
5. Innovations are substantial to a sustainable and successful business.

Google Card Board

In respect to the Business Plan that I am setting up at Kendall College there are many things we could learn from Google and the Strategy of Innovation. Innovations, like Google Card Board, enable our customers to get an idea of how their meals are produced and cooked. As transparency is very important to us, this innovation could be helpful to make our customers believe and trust in us. This is just one example of how innovations can help improving your business. Finally Google AdWords might be useful to us, as we are tight on budget and would like to do efficient and customer addressed marketing.

The Strategy of Innovation is a chance for companies to react on customers constantly changing needs. It is the company’s choice to use innovations. As the CEO of Foodentity I will motivate team members to innovate and develop new ideas all of the time. To serve ourselves. To serve the customers. To serve the world.

Me @ Google Offices in Chicago