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.

MyMiniCity, fun community traffic building technique

March 20, 2008 · Posted in innovation, sharing · Comment 

I stumbled upon an online game that is like SimCity. The way to get actions to occur to make improvements to your city is to have people click on links. So you send links to your friends or post them in your blog. Check it out and Increase Industry in the MyMiniCity of Merfopolis.

I assume the site makes money from advertising. They should get a lot of traffic very quickly. This follows one of the main rules of Evangelism Marketing, spreading the message benefits the user. Its both fun to see the city grow, plus you are helping your friends develop their cities. Pretty cool.

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