NOTE: Use business sectors as gut-check…refer back to ...



 

 

1. OVERVIEW (1-2 pages)

In his inaugural address, President Obama called for bold and swift action, “not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth.”   

Our new federal economic stimulus bill includes infrastructure improvements, such as building highways and bridges, have been a focus of the discussion. Traditional “gray” infrastructure is not the only option. Investing in green infrastructure is a strategy that can help to jumpstart the economy, provide jobs, and protect the environment for future generations. 

Real change comes by moving towards thoughtful, measured growth that reuses our resources, fosters robust communities, and invests in the natural environment.

CEOs should consider sustainable operating for a variety of reasons but most importantly that it will keep their business flexible and profitable.

[need segue]

Include:

What this book will provide

State of economy/State of planet/enviro awareness/direction of country

Your business path/best practices and fitting this book’s ideas into them

 

2. AUTHOR BIOS (explain why we’re qualified)

Kathleen Pletcher

*Draft*

Kathleen A Pletcher is a Vice President Associate Creative Director for Edelman Worldwide, a global leader in PR and marketing communications. Tapped for her creative insight and expertise Kathleen has played an integral role in the launch of two multi-million dollar initiatives for Dairy Management Inc., Edelman’s largest US account. [NEED MORE HERE]

Prior to Edelman, she served as a creative and marketing consultant for several top Chicago advertising and marketing agencies. By identifying each client’s unique business drivers and leveraging their business methodology, she helped to provide clutter cutting tools, programs and marketing materials to improve the bottom line for many blue chip companies.

*trim*

As the Director of Communcations for the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, she developed strategies that articulated the importance of environmental issues and practices of the world on a Midwest level. She created and worked an integrated action plan, putting the Museum “on the map” and positioning the institution in targeted markets and with internal and external audiences including the scientific elite, members, donors, and visitors. With a nominal launch budget, she helped to establish a brand personality and environmental platform that gave the Museum new status as both a community resource and a national “nature” authority. With an even smaller sustaining budget, she executed a marketing plan that included a line-up of mission-relevant exhibits, an annual event program and an organized publications procedure that resulted in a prestigious materials portfolio.

She devised programs that generated Museum awareness and supported its environmental mission, proposing associations with relevant local businesses. She worked with the city to use the Museum as a backdrop for environmental programs and helped leverage the Public Transportation angle to make the Museum a new turnaround point for busses. Committed to the Museum’s environmental mission, she worked to ensure it was visible on multiple levels. She collaborated with all Museum departments to ensure that best practices and policies were established and followed, from a Museum-wide recycling plan, to a sustainable product Museum Shop, to an organic Museum Café.

Her unique blend of communications and environmental commitment provide a foundation for developing environmentally forward moving plans and actions that result in a significantly more environmentally conscious business, community and region. She is adept at developing “connectivity” programs which demonstrate environmental awareness and focus on community eco-education. She is a strategic thinker with exceptional verbal and written communication skills, media knowledge, planning and packaging skills - all necessary to capture the attention of peers, other organizations in the community, and its citizenry. As a proponent of environmental stewardship, she advocates for green building, alternative energy usage, native planting and sustainable living. [SCHOOL STUFF?]

Michael Mazzeo

Michael J. Mazzeo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management and Strategy, and a Faculty Associate at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research. He serves on the editorial board of the Review of Industrial Organization.

Mazzeo's research focuses on empirical industrial organization, in particular the role of differentiation and endogenous product choice in firm strategy and market competition. His work has focused on developing new statistical methodologies for examining the role of product differentiation in markets, and quantifying these effects in industry studies. Mazzeo has published papers based on research in the airline, banking, health care, lodging, retail and telecommunications industries. Current research projects include: exploring the product assortment decisions of oligopolistic firms; analyzing the relationship between the competitive environment faced by depository institutions and the decisions these institutions make regarding the size of their branch networks; and studying the effects of a school’s performance on the mobility and career advancement opportunities of its administrators.

Mazzeo teaches Kellogg's core MBA class in Business Strategy, and was the recipient of the Chairs’ Core Course Teaching Award in 2001-2002 and 2006-2007. He also teaches competitive strategy in Kellogg's EMBA and open enrollment programs. He joined the faculty in 1998 after completing his PhD in economics at Stanford University.

Areas of expertise include Econometrics and Industrial Economics. His expertise in exposing the manifestations of economic implications on businesses provide this book with a profound relevancy to all ranges of busienss.

Stephen V. Bell

[info to come]

3. KEY SELLING POINTS OF BOOK (1-2 pages)

I feel that #6, Market Analysis and #8 Format already covers some of this. What else can we include here to not be repetitive or should we be repetitive and embellish?

4. TABLE OF CONTENTS

 Introduction

• Define terms: sustainability, green, eco, carbon footprint, environmental, organic, etc.

• Define options: reduce, reuse, recycle (isn’t there a 4th one now?)

• Shades of green; determine your saturation level

• Opportunities to green: water, energy/utilities/office machines, daily operations/waste/recycling, shipping/receiving, others??

• Comparisons/state of businesses and sizes and what they spend on what and how that translates to burdens on the planet

• the seat belt factor: not a passing fad( way of life; commitment

• ongoing and organizational change of process; not instant

Chapter 1: Take stock of your situation/define your starting point so you can measure:

• $ spent on above

• how much waste (cups, paper, general kitchen residue, mfg by-products)

• what are you doing now

• feelings of staff about greening your biz

o do emps think it is important?

o What do they know about it?

o Do they understand trickledown effect to them?

o Are they doing things at home? Why not office too?

o Gain company-wide buy-in/show them how it is better than current process and what they get out of it

Chapter 2: Form team/s

• find out who’s interested in helping

o tap across disciplines: IT, Sales, Maintenance, Office Mgr, Creative, etc.

o rewards for team and general employee participation

• set goals/create plan

o month

o year

o 5-year

• assign duties

o evaluate current spending and monitor monthly utilities

o internal newsletter or video (electronic)

o PR on company efforts

o Client communication; add section to your corp website & update regularly; use as leverage over competition

o Regular monitoring (internal)

o Multi-office building? Talk to building management; ask other tenants to join you

o Sister companies? Friendly contest

Chapter 3: Small steps can make a big impact/ general office machines/day to day ways to save

• no Hz0 bottles

• cfl’s

• energy saver appliances

• automatic/mandate computer shut down/lights out each evening

• no drip faucets/sensors

• fair trade/locally made (might be a nice title, too)

o coffee provided

o food provided/cafeteria/vending

• recycle system for plastic/glass/paper

• use both sides of paper in printers

• recycle printer cartridges

• bundle office orders/shipments

• recycle boxes/refuse foam peanuts

• KP find corp audit document!!

Chapter 4: Transportation

• carpool benefits?

• Perks for public transportation?

• Bike racks available?

• Institute a walk/bike/transit to work day (weekly)

• Are you in an area without public transport/shuttle service? Are there enough emps who would take advantage if you created local bus company shuttle/extend routes?

Chapter 5: Investing in planet

• Stocks, etc.

• Alternative power

• Carbon credits

• Eco non profits; time and $ investment (NRDC local chapters, Slow Food orgs, recycling centers, local clean-up efforts/Friends of the Parks, etc.)

Chapter 6: Corporate and social responsibility

• Can you purchase better?

• Ship/Import/export better?

• Manufacture better?

• Host more responsible meetings: paper, water, food?

• Green your parties/events?

Chapter 7: Evaluation and taking it to the next level

• Examine corp policies; do they fit your new green process?

• What’s working, what’s not

• Can you translate green way of doing business process into green mfg standard or best practice/new market opportunities?

• Can CEO become spokesperson? present at sales/staff/board meetings? Add into annual report?

• Can you solicit your clients join you

o Bank

o Accountant

o Vendors

o others??

Chapter 8: Dealing with eco-hurdles

• Employee push back/change is difficult

• Cost

• Client conflict/moral vs. business ethics

• General disregard/non-interest

Chapter 9: Resources

• Earth 911 for recycling

• Co-op America for fair trade/locally made

• Office equipment recycling

• Printer cartridge recycling

• Cell phone/mobile device recycling

• Check local libraries; many take

o Books

o Batteries

o Cell phones

• Others??

5. COMPETITVE ANALYSIS

 

Below are the books JFox has written: short, advice-oriented, biz focused category; I’d like to review and pull some parallels; make some key observations

I’d also like to spend some time searching the Enviro category and see what’s out there; Stephen and I dove shallowly into this a while back but we should re-visit; what we found was more text-book like

1.How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules For Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients by Jeffrey J. Fox

2.How to Become a Great Boss: The Rules For Getting and Keeping the Best Employees by Jeffrey J. Fox

3.How to Become CEO: The Rules for Rising to the Top of Any Organization by Jeffrey J. Fox

4.Don't Send a Resume: And Other Contrarian Rules to Help Land a Great Job by Jeffrey J. Fox

5.Secrets of Great Rainmakers: The Keys to Success and Wealth by Jeffrey J. Fox

6.Rain: What a Paperboy Learned About Business by Jeffrey J. Fox

 

7.How to Become a Marketing Superstar: Unexpected Rules That Ring the Cash Register by Jeffrey J. Fox

8.How to Get to the Top: Business Lessons Learned at the Dinner Table (Fox Business Library) by Jeffrey J. Fox

9.How to Make Big Money In Your Own Small Business: Unexpected Rules Every Small Business Owner Needs to Know by Jeffrey J. Fox

10.How to Land Your Dream Job: No Resume! And Other Secrets to Get You in the Door by Jeffrey J. Fox

11.The Dollarization Discipline: How Smart Companies Create Customer Value...and Profit from It by Jeffrey J. Fox and Richard C. Gregory

12.How to Become a Rainmaker by Jeffrey J. Fox

6. MARKET ANALYSIS (how and why the book will sell)

Would like to look at how-to book market; how big of an industry is it; glean any trends; pull any data regarding CEOs likes/dislikes about books for business and provide proof points for this type of book being a good idea

Need to relate to green push; environmental climate of the world; eco is hot, yes, but it will also become a way of life, work and play; status quo. Business, like everything else, must be prepared to adapt.

Typical how to’s provide the processes for accomplishing something. If reading, How to replace your current toilet bowl float valve, at the end of the process you will most hopefully have successfully replaced your non functioning toilet bowl float valve with a functioning one. So in that case, process yields progress. Often How to books provide the message but lack the means to achieve. Our book strives to provide this means: with sustainability comes economic viability.

We want to deliver this information in a short easy to read book. Each chapter should be an idea for greater responsible productivity--more than just a piece of advice--and easy to digest. (And quick cover-to-cover read; or pick up any time and skim a chapter.) Writing style will be informal yet professional so that CEOs and business managers of all types can understand, apply and revisit their current methodology. It will be organized into X nuggets of interest to help shape attitudes and interests

It will have real life relevance: the content in this book will be backed up with simple reasoning and examples from actual companies/CEOs who are doing/have implemented the ideas. This will help readers to understand the motivation behind it.

Readers may not agree with or be able to implement every idea, but doing one, all or a combination will still yield overall and bottom line improvements that can be seen.

This book hopes to communicate rationale, realistic methodology for CEOs to apply to their particular discipline. Combined with their managerial expertise, proper corporate governance, strategic planning and a valid business model, they can rise above economic standards and become a model for positive change. Knowledge within these pages will be especially applicative as things in our world are changing so fast. We want to give the CEO/business manager the proper tools to move forward in a new era.

7. PROMOTION AND PUBLICITY (what are we going to do/what do we suggest

would be good marketing)

NPR/AIR America/Radio ads

• Topical discussion/non traditional advertising

Social Media

• Facebook, Linked In, blogs, etc.

Activate Sneezers

• Leverage/create relationships with Key Executives and use them as spokespeople

• Give them free copy and ask them to talk it up/blog/etc.

Transit Advertising

• Cab tops, cab receipts, hub cap

• Bus/El/Train

Target Office Manager/Administrative Assistant to CEO

• Via Office Supply stores (Staples, Office Max, Office Depot, etc.)

• Special event/offer to AA’s

Target wives of CEOs

• Via Top pubs, online sites, retail spaces

Target Financial Mangers/Bottom Line angle

• Via Top pubs, online sites, retail spaces

Leverage targeted delivery mechanism

• Starbucks displays

Health Clubs

• Airport Kiosks/news stand shops

• Online ads/alternative content

• Captivate Network (elevator marketing)

• Green Stores (my friend owns Green Home Experts in Oak Park and I’m sure would stock our book if you agree this is a good outlet)

Look into Green Segments online, broadcast, print

• NBC “Going Green”

• Nightly News week/monthlong green focus

Leverage Calendar Impact/Promote heavier

• Earth Month

• Christmas/Holiday

• Spring

• Calendar year Jan 1/Fiscal Year Oct 1

Grassroots Book Tour—need to do a little research here

• Look into CEO forums, meetings, summits as venue to speak/promote

• Look into American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to see if there are any opportunities for SMB’s or legislation that would cover book/tour/promo

• GreenFestivals: booth/speaking opp

8. FORMAT (approx how many words, chapters, will there be illustrations,

etc.)

Size: 5” x 7” -ish

May include

simple line-art illustrations

graphs/charts

quotes, in-sets

Handbook-style information delivery

Chapters work together but can be read independently

Apx 10 chapters

Apx 2-3 pages per chapter

Apx 450 words per chapter (calc @ 150 words per page)

TBD

PLUS: 2 sample chapters (sample chapters should not be the first chapter*)

*side note on first chapter: it should sound like a good magazine article

 

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download