Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Economics in a tightly-connected community

The Community as social network

In this county people get to know each other and while we may not be one big happy family, we share a lot of information on how people are doing, who needs help, and who can provide help. You also know who is out of work and can help you out on tasks where you need help

A few minutes of conversation in any spot where people gather will garner you enough information to buy or sell almost anything and can lead you to find employment or a helping hand when all else fails. This rural telegraph also carries news of illnesses and other hardships where you might lend a helping hand.

I lived for many years in communities where we did not know the last names of our immediate neighbors and had no meaningful contact with them. We rarely did business with or exchanged help with these neighbors.

Living in Floyd Virginia for the past 4 years has been a welcome change. This county has a network of people who expect to work with each other and look after each other in times of need. It adds a new dimension to life when you have someone to turn to other than immediate family.

The economics of a connected community

No community can support itself without exchanging labor and goods with the outside world, but buying local and hiring local talent provides positive feedback that can energize a community in many ways. Buying local is not just a nice concept, it aids the economic survival of the county and enhances one's own financial security. Money that is spend on local purchases increases the amount of money that is put in circulation in the local community.

My framing business exists because word-of-mouth recommendations keep sending customers to me. I was eventually forced to develop sophisticated framing techniques to keep up with expanding business volume and more complex requirements. Even so, I find that I am working longer hours than I ever expected.

As my framing workload increases, I need to hire others to do some of the chores that I used to do. Some of these chores are physical challenges that I am not able to deal with yet and other chores can be done better and faster by others who need the work.

When I can hire some one to help with repairs and minor construction projects, this frees me up to do work that I cannot outsource. The end result is that I can reduce my stress level and provide employment for others. We all benefit.

The circle gets completed. My business grows from recommendations by clients and their friends. As my workload increases, I can share in the economic benefits by hiring others who need employment and we all benefit to the extent that we can contribute to each other.

People who are helpful

Some people have been very helpful in many different ways. Here are a few whom I recommend highly:

Glenn Givens, small engine repairs, welding, household projects, just about any repair job I can think of. He does not require direction and has solved some really annoying problems that I could not find time to tackle. (745-4380)  He repaired a mower deck that I had completely trashed when I drove it over rocks one day.

Ann and Rodger Bower, they have helped us out whenever we needed a helping hand. They run a farm near us and have many different skills. Ann is an Avon Distributor and works for several businesses in Floyd. (745-3020)

Bob Eich is the contractor who built my workshop with its pine-paneled interior and finished off our modular home.  I have recommended him to others for challenging renovations and he does a great job. (651-3180)

Michael Shortt, Shortt's Excavating (745-2817),  was an incredible source of advice and encouragement when we were building our modular home. He cleared our land and put in our septic system and most importantly, he introduced us to the contractors who put the finishing touches on our home.

He also handled the takedown of a dangerous and crumbling silo at the Jacksonville Center.

I am sure that many of you know of others in the Floyd Community who are in a position to provide help to those of us who cannot always do for ourselves what we used to. Feel free to add your recommendations in the comments.

Finding an Ethical Employer

One of my readers is taking a break from corporate life and is living in a quiet corner of France to settle her nerves. She writes:

I am keen to return to work but having re-read my diary for 2003 I am determined NOT to fall foul of another bad position. ARE there ethical employers out there? And if so how do I recognize one?

The simple answer is that you need to look for an employer who does the following:

Promises only what he or she intends to deliver
Keeps their word once given
Follows through so as to meet expectations

A more useful answer is that you need to thoroughly understand both the company and the people you will be working for. For example, there ARE ethical employers which have some managers of doubtful sanity. There are also ethical and sane managers who work in insane companies. There are ways you can determine this during the interview.

The complete answer is that seeking to return to a job arena that has chewed you up and spit you out without reading Danger Quicksand - Have A Nice Day is foolhardy in the extreme. It is available as a FREE download, so there is no reason not to spend an hour or two reading up on the key factors in finding and securing the right job.

I wrote this unconventional guide to surviving corporate employment for hardworking people who have had career experiences that have crushed their spirits.

Chapters 6 - 8 describes exactly how you can find the right employer for you. The rest of the book will help you survive almost any career experience with your sanity intact.

It has produced some amazing results, but only when read.  :)

Serendipity plays a huge part in career decisions

Forty years ago when I was designing electronic systems to capture missile test data, I would have laughed uproariously if someone had suggested that I might end up framing artwork in a rural community in Southwest Virginia. My goal then was to live on the beach in California and drive fast cars.

Twenty years ago I was living on the beach in California and driving a Shelby version of the Dodge Charger. If someone had made the same suggestion, I would have carefully explained to them that I had a mission to change the world for the better and I could not see Virginia and picture framing as part of that goal.

Fast forward through numerous career changes to last year when my wife Gretchen asked me to frame some of her pastels for an exhibition. I found it to be more of a challenge than I ever expected. By the time her friends had asked me to frame their artwork, I was seriously engrossed in learning the ancient art of picture framing and I realized that I had an awful lot to learn.

It is now a year later and I am deeply involved in cutting-edge picture framing which marries computer technology, fine woodworking and many aspects of graphic design to enhance the presentation of every kind of artwork imaginable. At Floyd Custom Framing, I am using every bit of my technical and business training and am scrambling to learn more about design every day.

Custom picture framing is every bit as challenging as designing computer systems and is a lot more rewarding. In both cases, one has to think outside the box to come up with a viable solution and pedestrian solutions are not acceptable.

Successful computer designs may affect more lives, but there is a "wow" factor in completing a challenging custom frame design that creates a bond with clients and enriches my life.

Every day I have to solve design problems that test me to the limit and give me added insight into the complexities of making artwork "pop" without overwhelming the art with an overly elaborate design or intense color scheme. The technical and artistic challenges are significant. See floydcustomframing.com for more information on what is involved.

Fortunately the picture framing industry is a tightly-knit group of fairly small businesses and these business owners share business and design information freely on the Internet. Most of us have an abiding interest in art and in preserving and displaying it. We are beset by competition from big box retailers and few of us are computer literate.

My recent entry into the field has not hurt me in the least. There are new tools available this year which have changed the ground rules for running a framing business and have opened up new opportunities to give customers better service. The entire industry is in the throes of major changes and the playing field is no longer stacked in favor of old established framing companies.

I am receiving help from well-established framers and I can return the favor by helping them with technology issues. We are all working together for mutual support in this period of economic uncertainty. All in all, this is one of the most satisfying careers I have ever had.

It is also the most challenging in terms of creating a profitable business. Anything that involves custom work always carries the risk of discovering unknown issues and then having to solve them with style and grace. Great stuff! I wouldn't have it any other way!

How has serendipity affected your career choices?

Transferable skills - a big asset in post-corporate life

As a corporate employee, you tend to gain experience in relatively specialized areas. In fact, after a few years you may become unable to carry on a conversation about work with anyone outside your own industry.

The skills you accumulate in such a specialized environment will probably not be of much use when you are laid off or retire.

In a post-corporate environment, you may find that your ability to generate income comes from skills that you have never paid much attention to, because they fell outside your normal career activities.

The job skills which help you move from one career to the next during your business career may still be useful after your corporate life is history, but your real earning power may come from your ability to cook or to write or to entertain others in some way.

You may find yourself as a professional caretaker for people, or pets, or even houses. You may find yourself in the role of educator, or life coach, or in an administrative role in a non-profit organization far removed from anything you have ever done.

The possibilities and challenges are amazing and if you take full responsibility for your life, you may find yourself with more job satisfaction than you ever experienced as a corporate employee.

Post-corporate life is a different game than anything you ever did as an employee. For one thing, you may be self-employed and you will have all sorts of responsibilities and freedoms that you never had before.

You will learn to be very resourceful and you will eventually develop a network of people who may help you develop a business and will most certainly help you develop a lifestyle that maximizes your value to your network.

And the skills I mentioned at the beginning? They will probably be things that you have always enjoyed, but never figured that you would ever find use for them.

The way things are going now, you most certainly will need all of the skills you can muster.

Don't just dabble around with your hobbies. Try to do everything to the best of your abilities and to learn as much as possible about the techniques that you are employing. Try to gain a professional understanding of what you are doing, even if it is a hobby.

You never know, but your future livelihood may depend on that knowledge.

Are any of you earning a living from skills that were once a hobby?

House Concerts and 21st Century Touring

In response to my last post, Fran Snyder, a singer-songwriter based in Lawrence, KS, sent me a link to his website ConcertsInYourHome.com which is a resource for musicians and house concert hosts alike.

He also has a blog, house concerts and 21st century touring where he discusses the growing "house concert" movement  which creates meaningful and financially rewarding opportunities for artists and which brings neighborhoods and music lovers together in a common cause.

The music industry is changing and the old business models need to be re-examined if musicians are to thrive in a world where labels no longer control distribution and the economics of playing noisy clubs for tips is increasingly less rewarding.

Perhaps musicians can take a lesson from writers who have turned to self publishing in order to reach audiences and have successfully bypassed the traditional publishing industry and its insider network. Very few get rich, but most of the writers I know who have done this have managed to sell books and generate some income.

More and more musicians seem to be self publishing also, but what if they really got behind a grassroots effort to augment their income with performances in house concert venues?

One musician friend feels that playing for tips is demeaning for a professional musician. How about working for donations?  Working for a living always involves having to make choices and being able to draw an audience.

Providing background music in a club means that you are always interrupting someone's conversation. If you are good enough to command the attention of the crowd and willing to overlook the screamers in the front table, you may pull in enough tips and applause to make the day worth while.

How about setting up a few house concerts with congenial hosts?  Donations are understood to be the price of entry and you get an attentive audience. Your only problem as an entertainer is drawing a crowd through reputation and promotional activity.

I would be interested in hearing if there is a down side to house concerts from the musician's standpoint.

Let's have some discussion on the 21st Century touring model.

Generating income from your artistic efforts

(I am going to be quite busy for the next few days and will not be able to post new articles, so I am reprinting this post from October 2006 for those of you who would like to increase your post-corporate income)

Generating income from your artistic efforts is the first step towards supporting yourself. It is entirely different from technical expertise. Read on only if you like getting paid for your efforts.

Generating income as an artist may be more difficult than generating income as a business person because the answers to the following questions can be harder to answer:

What need does your product satisfy?

Who has that need?

What are they willing to pay to satisfy that need?

Like it or not, your chances of creating a viable career in the arts or any other form of business depends on how accurately you can answer these questions.

Before you throw up your hands and say, "He's trying to apply business logic to art and it won't work!" consider that every buying transaction involves satisfaction of a need. People buy books, hand crafted articles, and paintings because they want to be entertained, amused, enthralled, or validated. They also buy them for countless other reasons.

Generating income involves a customer exchanging money for something you provide. Trust me, it is a good thing and will do great things for your self esteem. It will also make others happy, which is always a good thing.

If you put attention on satisfying a need, you are putting your attention where it belongs, which is on a future customer and what this customer needs, wants and is willing to pay for. You are already thinking of your creation as part of a communication. It works like this:

(1)You create a work with a message,
(2) A potential customer recognizes the message,
(3) and admires it enough to purchase your work.
(4) You are validated by the acknowledgement and set about creating more work.

Now, you don't have to consider a future customer while creating your art but ignoring customers is a certain route to nonviability as a businessman or as an artist.

Here is a way to turn the first three questions inside out. Try asking yourself these two questions instead:

What problem do people have that I can solve?

How can I solve it for what they are willing to pay?

There are at least a thousand ways to exhibit your creativity. Doesn't it make sense to choose a few ways that people are willing to exchange money for?

If you would like to have people validate your creativity with cold, hard cash which you can exchange for food, housing and trinkets, try working through these questions until you come up with answers that make sense to you.

If it seems too difficult, leave comments and let's see what others can suggest.

Here's to your success!

(All of the items pictured are produced by artist/members of the Jacksonville  Center in Floyd, VA.  Examples of their work are on display in the Retail Shop or the Hayloft Gallery.)

Generating income from your artistic efforts is the first step towards supporting yourself. It is entirely different from technical expertise. Read on only if you like getting paid for your efforts.

Generating income as an artist may be more difficult than generating income as a business person because the answers to the following questions can be harder to answer:

What need does your product satisfy?

Who has that need?

What are they willing to pay to satisfy that need?

Like it or not, your chances of creating a viable career in the arts or any other form of business depends on how accurately you can answer these questions.

Before you throw up your hands and say, "He's trying to apply business logic to art and it won't work!" consider that every buying transaction involves satisfaction of a need. People buy books, hand crafted articles, and paintings because they want to be entertained, amused, enthralled, or validated. They also buy them for countless other reasons.

Generating income involves a customer exchanging money for something you provide. Trust me, it is a good thing and will do great things for your self esteem. It will also make others happy, which is always a good thing.

If you put attention on satisfying a need, you are putting your attention where it belongs, which is on a future customer and what this customer needs, wants and is willing to pay for. You are already thinking of your creation as part of a communication. It works like this:

(1)You create a work with a message,
(2) A potential customer recognizes the message,
(3) and admires it enough to purchase your work.
(4) You are validated by the acknowledgement and set about creating more work.

Now, you don't have to consider a future customer while creating your art but ignoring customers is a certain route to nonviability as a businessman or as an artist.

Here is a way to turn the first three questions inside out. Try asking yourself these two questions instead:

What problem do people have that I can solve?

How can I solve it for what they are willing to pay?

There are at least a thousand ways to exhibit your creativity. Doesn't it make sense to choose a few ways that people are willing to exchange money for?

If you would like to have people validate your creativity with cold, hard cash which you can exchange for food, housing and trinkets, try working through these questions until you come up with answers that make sense to you.

If it seems too difficult, leave comments and let's see what others can suggest.

Here's to your success!

(All of the items pictured are produced by artist/members of the Jacksonville  Center in Floyd, VA.  Examples of their work are on display in the Retail Shop or the Hayloft Gallery.)

Cobblers children and so forth....

I have been so busy with Floyd Custom Framing,  my new business, that I had put off creating a website.

After all, I reasoned, county people know of me through word of mouth and few use the Internet to search for local businesses.

Dumb! Dumb! etc...

Almost every new settler in Floyd seems to be Internet enabled and some even carry Treos. They use the Internet and Google to search for everything.

My memory must be failing, because I used the Internet constantly to search for local contractors and suppliers when we were building our house in 2005. I was quite frustrated that so few local companies had any kind of Internet presence. The nearest most came to Internet visibility was being listed on Chamber of Commerce sites or listed on regional business listings.

So, here I am, an Internet veteran with no website planned for a new business. How lame!

Anyway, I was jogged into activity by Kirstie, a picture framer and blogger in Berkeley, CA, who wrote a post, Make it Easy to Shop  Local which pointed out that she searches for local businesses using Google.

To make a long story short, I now have a website, www.floydcustomframing.com, that explains what Floyd Custom Framing is and does.

Life-changing moments...revisited

(I wrote this in 2005 and it still applies today, so I wanted to share it with those of you who missed it the first time and are hung up in doubt about a new opportunity.)

When the door to a new business opportunity opens, some fortunate people seem to step through it easily and pick up a new life on the other side.

Others agonize, trapped by indecision and self-doubts, until the door of opportunity closes on them again.

Still others exultantly throw the door open and embrace their new challenge, only to find that their nearest and dearest are hanging back in disgust or dismay. They hear:

    "You didn't say we were going to live ___________!"

    Fill in the blanks with your choice of: in Detroit... on Penobscot Bay...on a tramp steamer...so far away from mother.

Others find that long-awaited opportunities present themselves at inconvenient times: they just got promoted, the children are in a new school, they just met the person who is right for them, etc.

If you find yourself in the last three groups, your life is far more stressful than it needs to be, but there is a possibility that you might be able to do something about it.

First of all, you need to recognize that opportunity means change. If comfort is important to you, your choices of new opportunities are severely limited. A lot of people grumble about their jobs, marriages, and living quarters, but find any number of excuses to avoid changing any of them.

Life is all about recognizing the need to make changes and then making them. When you are part of a family group, it is wise to bring the rest of the group into the decision-making process. If your family does not support the changes needed to take advantage of a much-needed opportunity, you need to re-examine your priorities or the family's priorities. In either case, you may have some hard decisions to make.

The people who find opportunities on every hand are those who keep themselves open to new opportunities. They don't wish for opportunities, they create a mood that anticipates opportunity by remaining open-minded and ensuring that pursuit of opportunity is welcomed by their family group.

When children are raised in an environment where self-employment is well-understood and is respected, they also learn a wealth of information about discovery of business opportunities.

Developing a plan to improve your live and the life of your family is not a one-shot deal. Get everyone involved and things will either go far more smoothly, or you will discover what sources of counter-intention exist in your family. Either way, you will be closer to a resolution than before.

If you keep looking for life-changing moments that never seem to appear, try examining your readiness to accept change. When you are actually ready for a change to occur in your life, it is almost as though the universe seems to get it, and your opportunity appears.

Hope you have some pleasant life-changing moments this week.

If at first you don't succeed, try Starbucks??

Michael Gates Gill, son of privilege and New York society insider, was the very model of what moms want their sons to become until he was eased off the corporate merry-go-round at 53.

Yale graduate, member of Skull & Bones, Executive vice president at J. Walter Thompson on major accounts, children going on to college, all was going well until the new owners of JWT decided that he didn't fit the lean, mean, hard-charging image they wanted to project.

As many others have done, he went into business for himself and even wrote a book about it. But, ten years later, his life as an entrepreneur had collapsed, an ill-advised affair left him at a new low point in his life, and he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

While sitting in Starbucks painfully going through the motions of contacting prospective clients, a chance encounter with Manager Crystal Thompson gave Michael a new start in life.

On the way to his personal and financial redemption, he learns to clean toilets, run a cash register, and become a coffee master. None of this was easy and he made plenty of mistakes along the way as he recounts in his essay in the Sept/Oct 2007 AARP magazine.

He has now written a book, How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else, and it also appears that Tom Hanks will be starring in a movie adaptation of the book.

I haven't read the book and I am writing this only to illustrate that this is an increasingly common career situation and that personal redemption is possible with enough work and persistence.

His story also illustrates that it may take more than one attempt to recover from a massive career dislocation. His earlier book about his entrepreneurial experiences was called "Fired Up!: The Proven Principles of Successful Entrepreneurs". 

It seems that he may not have covered all of the essentials, as his consulting practice eventually dwindled and he had to regroup and start again.

From what I have read in the AARP article, it appears that this time he has made some significant changes in his approach to life and that may make the difference in his latest career(s).

I wish him well.

How do you know when it is time to move on?

I have been taking on new challenges recently and found that the vital accoutrements of my earlier lifestyle are now getting in my way.

It finally forced me to re-evaluate the way I have been holding on to and preserving valuable tools and equipment.

In my case, these were expensive tools and woodworking machinery that I had accumulated since leaving the corporate world and I had carefully moved them several hundred miles and had even built a workshop to house them. I had used them to finish two houses and to build custom furniture for ourselves and for paying customers.

This is fully operational equipment which I still need occasionally because there is no other convenient way to accomplish the same tasks. It took years to accumulate this particular equipment and until now, the thought of parting with any of it seemed totally counter productive (and painful!).

And there's the dilemma: the equipment is as useful as ever; I still need to accomplish the same tasks occasionally; there is no economically realistic way to purchase the same service from others; but I need more space for what I am doing now to generate income.

I have been wrestling with this problem for almost two years and an answer finally came to me in the middle of the night and woke me up in the process. I thought of a way to share the wealth and to retain access to the equipment when it became necessary.

I needed to find someone who needed this equipment, all of it and had space to house it and put it to use and would be willing to let me use it if the time came that I had further projects to complete. I would essentially loan the equipment to them on a permanent basis as long as I had access to the equipment when I needed it.

It occurred to me that the solution might lie with my next door neighbor. He has started building a second workshop and has already started the long task of accumulating the tools which will enable him to do professional level wood working.

I sent him an email outlining my proposition and went back to bed. By the time I woke up I had a positive email response from him and we moved all of the equipment the same day.

I gained a hundred and fifty square feet of additional workspace in my frame shop and he gained a fully equipped woodworking facility complete with a wheeled cart that holds some thirty different wood clamps.

It feels like a win-win situation. The equipment will be used more frequently. I have more space to work. I still have use of the equipment for the few times I need it and no money changed hands.

I can see that this kind of out of the box solution might work in other situations where lifestyle changes create encumbrances out of valuable equipment or dwellings that are still needed, but which consume resources, space or money that are no longer available.

Someone with a large home and no one to share it or help maintain it could conceivably look at a new pattern of living where they bring in others under the same roof so that shared physical and financial resources would enable everyone, including the original owner, to live in a more comfortable and affordable lifestyle.

In our aging population, this solution is already being piloted by many with some success.

Essentially it is a rethinking of the idea that we accumulate property and we protect it from others. It is a more organic approach to life where we accumulate property with the idea of eventually sharing it with others when we have more property than we can use every day.

This is not charity. This is exchange where everyone wins. It will be interesting to see where this can go.