Matthew’s Blog

In the past two days I have just been amazed by talent.   Two remarkable dance performances and one  Montreal street guitarist.

The first dance came from Pilobolus who I was first introduced to several months ago the same way many others did - on Conan O’Brien show or on YouTube - Summer In the City - The shadow play performance.   Shadows of full busloads of people, Statue of Liberty, and even a bust of Conan.

Well, yesterday I was surfing TED for interesting green ideas when I saw their name and had to investigate.  This performance was mesmerizing.   I like dance, but I’ve never seen synergy like this before.  And I love that they were part of the TED conference because of course art belongs in the same category as business and technology.  It is all about innovation and maximizing the human potential and delighting in the world of possibility.  Take a look

Today I was amazed by a Swan Lake performance presented by the Great Chinese State Circus.   The intro is charming as four frogs delightfully romp/leap around the stage.  The swan dance then seems like any other performance I’ve seen and then I take note that she is dancing on top of someone.  At one point she is piroetting on his right deltoid.   AMAZING strength and fluidity.

Lastly, for now at least, on the same website that brought us the Swan Lake performance an incredible guitar tapping musical performance by Erik Mongrain, a Montreal street performer with a critically aclaimed album.

Wow what incredible and beautiful paradigm shifts.  Take artistic standards and their expectations rotate them 90 degrees literally and figuratively and discover a new art-form, a new style, a new awareness, a new thinking.

Xerox Phaser 6130
This spring I bought myself a new toy (ahem) professional office support device - a Xerox Phaser 6130 color laser printer.  I LOVE IT!!!!  It duplexes, it makes booklets (2 pages per side), it is super fast, great pictures, and relatively low in cost to operate.   I was fed up with ink jet printers that never seemed to give me the value for the ink.  Xerox even goes so far as to calculate what your costs are per sheet depending on color content.

4Inkjets.com
Anyway, the one downside to the printer is toner - FOUR toner cartridges at MRP of about $85 each.  So I did some research and found “4InkJets.com” and found they had outstanding reviews and quite a following for ink and toner refills.  They sell a fully compatible cartridge (I think they are either the OEM or have direct connection to the factory as they truly are identical) for $39.99 - that’s a savings of $45 each right there.  And if you add your 10% off cashbaq coupon, it becomes $35.99.  If you order 2 you don’t have to pay for shipping (over $50) which would normally run about $8 anywhere.   They have been exceptional in service to me.   Only once was something backordered, but only for a couple of days.  These toners have a life cycle of 2500 for the black and 2000 for the color ones.   I don’t think my inkject printer came anywhere near that number of prints before they’d crap out on me.

Cashbaq.com
While researching toners I stumbled upon a cool little site that handles online rebates.   I’ve always been annoyed by rebates that you have snail mail in.  This is all handled electronically when you start your journey as cashbaq and use one of their many coupons for online stores.    I was a little skeptical at first, but it didn’t cost me anthing except my email addres which they don’t spam.     They have coupons for hundreds of online stores ranging from 5% off to free shipping to much larger.   That is cool in itself, but the real selling point is that this is a rebate center.  In the example of 4inkject they collect 20% rebate from each sale and offer 10% off coupons.   So in our toner situation.   The price is $39.99 which gets knocked down to $35.99 because of the cashbaq coupon.  Then in about 3 months you will receive a cashbaq check in your paypal account.  In this case 20% rebate.    So if I include the 20% rebate in my costing decision each cartridge costs me just $28.79.  So about the same if not cheaper than my office jet ever was.

It really works, and you totally forget about it until one day you get an email saying that they have deposited money in you paypal account.    They even start you off with a $5 credit to your account and focus.   So far I’ve received 2 rebate payments this year.

http://www.MatthewRecommends.com/cashbaq.htm

Apparently VP of Environmental Affairs isn’t thinking big enough or perhaps I filled out the wrong application.  Look what I saw on Channel 3 News.

I am passionate about responsible business practices.  Not only have I been actively studying, practicing, teaching, and coaching on it my own businesses for the past 20 years, but these experiences were built on top of  a foundation of being raised by a family of responsible business owners for the first 20 years of my life.  Responsible business is smart business.

These days I have come to say that “green business is smart business™” because green business is about responsible business and conscious capitalism.  It recognizes the interconnected and complex self-adapting nature of the systems in which business operates.

Having said this, whenever I get into a discussion about responsible business, green business, or conscious capitalism inevitably Milton Friedman and Adam Smith are brought up as counter arguments.   These men were brilliant and spoke in a language of their respective era.  And that language issue is critical to understanding and communicating about green business, responsible business, and conscious capitalism. (more…)

In researching (RED) I came across this excellent little film/story.

Filmmaker Armen Evrensel’s winning film from the (RED) Vision Showcase at the Vail Film Festival. Binty illustrates the (RED) themes: “Be a Good-Looking Samaritan” and “We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For.”

Binty - (RED) Vision Film Competition Winner

Perhaps Spiritual Cinema Circle will pick it up as one of their short films.

After the umpteen time of seeing an “inspi(RED)” tee shirt I decided to go look into what it was all about.  At first I assumed it was a Best Buy thing considering it seemed that everyone I met that worked there was wearing one only to find out that that it was actually a Gap thing.  So I went off looking at The Gap to find the answer and was impressed not only by the project but the scope of it.  They have partnered with the world’s most iconic brands (Hallmark, Apple, Gap, Dell) to produce (RED) products.

From the (RED) website

(RED) was created by Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of DATA to raise awareness and money for The Global Fund by teaming up with the world’s most iconic brands to produce (PRODUCT)RED branded products. A percentage of each (PRODUCT)RED product sold is given to The Global Fund. The money helps women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa.

All funds generated by sales of (PRODUCT) RED products (aka (RED) money) will support Global Fund-financed programs that positively impact the lives of women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. (RED) money provides access to education, nutrition, counseling, medical services, and the two pills a day they need to help stay alive. This includes programs in countries such as Rwanda, which has a proven track record and ambitious targets. For example, in the past two years, Rwanda has increased the number of people receiving treatments for HIV/AIDS ten-fold.

Be inspi(RED), be uncenso(RED), be ado(RED), be chee(RED).