Alternative to Closing for Legendary Greek Restaurant

March 26, 2008 · Posted in economics, problem solving, strategy · 1 Comment 

New Hellas Cafe Detroit

The 80 year old owner of Detroit’s oldest Greek restaurant New Hellas Cafe, Gus Anton, is shutting the business down claiming he needs the rest and can’t keep up with it any more. Surely he deserves to retire after 57 years of running the business his father started in 1901. Unfortunately shutting the business down means 35 people lose their jobs. Anton say he hopes the workers will get rehired if the restaurant is sold. He said, “he doesn’t have anyone to take over. His son is ill and one of his grandchildren wants to be a plumber, the other a doctor.”

How about selling it to the employees?

I realize that business has been way down but I suspect the people working there need their jobs and know how to run it without Gus. I also suspect the business is still profitable. I suggest that Mr. Anton either sell the business and the building to the employees or lease it to the employees while he is attempting to sell the building. Since he was planning on closing the doors he doesn’t seem to need the money right away. This would give the loyal worker a chance to improve their lives and save Gus and his family some money, and maybe even make a bit more. Perhaps the employees turned owners have some ideas to make the business more successful.

Venerable Greek restaurant in Detroit to shut doors

New Hellas restaurant closes after 107 years

VenetianPrincess Remote Collaboration Music Video

March 24, 2008 · Posted in abundance, economics, innovation · Comment 

VenetianPrincess is a star on YouTube and an innovator. Her next project is a great example of how abundance is changing the world.

Venetian Princess is a pretty and very talented woman who makes movies and music videos, some for songs she writes and performs. Her channel has Subscribers: 25,271 and Channel Views: 1,117,782 as of today. She is the start of most of the movies she makes, using green screen chroma keying. Her movies are released in segments, much like a TV mini-series. This format is a great match for the way people watch video online plus it lends itself to business models that work with freely available content.

She is very talented at editing and makes dreamy eye catching videos with lots of special effects as well as some very funny stuff, watch the an episode of Princess Chronicles
She garnered some extra attention by poking fun at Obama Girl in a parody called “I Got A Crush On…. Giuliani” None of what she does would have been possible 10 years ago and it would have been difficult 5 years ago.

Low cost, easy to use tools makes it possible for her to be a one woman movie studio. But since those same tools are available to her audience they can participate. I don’t mean leaving comments or even just posting their own videos. She is asking her fans to contribute video for her to use to create a music video. Her co star will be digitally editing into the scene to interact with her. She can star in a video with someone she’s never met.

This remote working environment makes things possible that never would have been before. Its both Long Tail and Free, which are all parts of abundance and made possible through innovation.

Borders Personal Publishing Beta Test

March 17, 2008 · Posted in abundance, economics, innovation · Comment 

Borders Books new concept store in Ann Arbor has several innovations. My next book will be part of a Beta test for one of those innovations, Borders Personal Publishing Service. http://publish.bordersstores.com And I would like you to be part of this test. I want the readers of my blog to suggest things to cover or questions to answer in my next book, “Free. How to Thrive in the New World of Abundance”. When the book is published I’ll be making appearances at Borders to talk about Predictive Innovation & Abundance.

Borders Publish Yourself allows you to have your book printed and listed for sale at every Borders store plus others such as Amazon and even Barnes and Nobles. The books are printed on demand through Lulu.com, the leader in on demand publishing. I’ve already published one book using Lulu. The great thing about all of this is how quickly you can complete a project. Instead of waiting months for a traditional publisher to print your book Lulu can print your book the same day and ship it to you overnight. This is exactly the reason I used LuLu to publish Ron Paul Revolution: History in the Making. The content was fresh and it needed to get out while the topic was hot. As a result I beat Ron Paul to market with his book.

Low upfront cost. Traditional book publishing and even self publishing services required printing thousands of copies. Print On Demand allows you to print as few as one book. This fits very well into the long tail. Now that people are able to publish books that might not have large audiences those books can now be sold. The market goes from 0 to 100s and maybe 1000s. Perhaps your market is bigger than you imagined. Until you can get it published you will never know. Abundance makes things possible that weren’t before.

Borders Publish Yourself offers three levels of service plus a selection of individual services.

Service ISBN Standard Premium
ISBN Registration Yes Yes Yes
Interior Page Design & Formatting No Yes Yes
Free Proof Copy of Your Book No Yes Yes
Self-Publication Guide No Yes Yes
Editorial Evaluation No No Yes

Action Items

Click here to send your questions or suggestions for my next book, “Free. How to Thrive in the New World of Abundance”

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