Standing Firm for Freedom of the Press (A letter to Ann Telnaes)

I admire...

..you for standing firm for freedom of the press, despite being perched on the slippery slope of American descent into fascism and autocracy. Satire has always been and must remain a precious element of democracy and free speech. I saw this in the Soviet Union during the years when there was a short-lived flourishing of freedom. Please see the photo below from my collection of matryoshkas.

While it was once seen as sacrilege to depict Soviet leaders other than with the utmost respect, that changed under Gorbachev when artists started showing leaders as nesting dolls. But note, in the beginning the satire embraced Gorbachev, Brezhnev, Khrushchev – and eventually Stalin. But even after Stalin became an acceptable target of satire, Lenin remained off limits for a while.

It was only later that you could pop open Stalin and find a little Lenin inside.

If either the story or the photo are useful to you in any way, please feel free to share/use.

Again, thank you for taking a stand. It matters.

https://AnnTelnaes.com

Dion Drew: An Amazing Man

Newton Was More Right Than He Knew “…an object in motion remains in motion unless acted on….”

In Minneapolis for a convening to help build “an Intersectional Philanthropic Approach: Climate Change, Agriculture, and Healthy Rural Communities”, I am reflecting on a film we made in 2009. Hope in a Changing Climate premiered at Agriculture and Rural Development Day at COP 15, the goals of which are described below in the report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

“The key objectives of the meeting were to build consensus on ways to fully incorporate agriculture into the post-Copenhagen climate agenda and to discuss strategies and actions needed to address climate change adaptation and mitigation in the agriculture sector.”

Tom Vilsack, The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, both then and now, addressed the group and “underscored that food security and climate change are linked and one cannot be addressed without the other.” The film went on to be broadcast globally by BBC World, received numerous awards, and was the impetus for gatherings and guided discussions in over 30 countries.

And now we are approaching COP … 29.

I thus can’t decide whether I am proud to be a part of this important meeting or dismayed that it has taken us so long to have such a joint convening of funders. Probably both. Congratulations are due to the leaders and staff of all the sponsoring organizations: Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders, Climate and Energy Funders Group, Funders for Regenerative Agriculture and the Health and Environmental Funders Network. Putting together something like this takes a ton of thinking, planning, coordination, and execution. And as has been the case with all previous SAFSF gatherings, I am sure it will be enlightening, spawn collaboration, and help move not just one but multiple needles.

But why has it taken so long to do this – to act? Surely it is not because participants don’t know one another. And while there is always some competition for members among philanthropic affinity groups, we are a generally collegial group and don’t operate in the “free” market that many would likely agree is the cause of serious environmental, climate, health, food, and agricultural challenges. And although resources are always scarce, it is also not for lack of funds.

The last 18-months has seen a host of positive announcements from USDA, ClimateWorks, Acumen and others; and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, Rockefeller Foundation and additional organizations are pushing for deeper collaboration in advance of COP 29. Yet the question persists; why the lag from COP 15 to COP 29? I’m not sure of the answer, but I think it is important to reflect on how we arrived where we have, at the moment we have.

I propose for consideration what I think is a major obstacle that we need to overcome. Most of us are not trained as systems thinkers. Most of us don’t know the underlying principles that are used to design, understand, and fix systems. Many of us work in organizations where we encourage others, or are ourselves encouraged, to think outside the box. But very few of us have been charged with thinking about the systems that connect the boxes.

Despite our commitment to drive systems change, how many foundations have a ‘program officer for systems’? A member of SAFSF for quite a few years, I have been a regular irritant on this matter – and am excited that Clare Fox, the new head of SAFSF, spoke to the importance of systems in her opening remarks. While the language of systems change can seem opaque, it’s no more daunting to understand system dynamics and hierarchy or mental models than it is to come to terms with carbon sequestration, glyphosate, or nutritional deficiencies. It is helpful when trying to change systems to understand the differences between a fulcrum, a lever, and a leverage point. Whether our vocabulary defines our thinking or our thinking defines our vocabulary, it’s hard to change systems unless we understand them.

Let’s set some targets.

• A webinar series for foundation trustees and leaders on the fundamental of systems thinking;

• Advanced training in systems design for a staff member;

• Guest speakers at annual conferences who focus on systems design and change; or

• A digital and curated library of materials on systems thinking.

I am sure other folks will have better ideas for how to overcome this obstacle. But, please, let’s not wait for COP 40.

Watch the full-length version of "Hope in a Changing Climate"
(Courtesy of Plant for the Planet)

Brittle Systems: Staying Connected in the Post-Pandemic Era

My experience this week at Heathrow is a small but telling example of the global risk many businesses face: multiple systems failing simultaneously. Solving discrete problems is what we do every day, at home and at work. Resolving the failure of a system is much more challenging. However, coping with the failure or near failure of interwoven and codependent systems can lead to catastrophic grid lock.

Heathrow reminded me of airports I used regularly running my business in the Soviet Union – minus the stray dogs and birds inside the terminals. In both settings people were working mightily to succeed despite multiple systems failures.

A common feature of systems failure is a disconnect between people with and people needing information. Communications collapses often go unseen until they spill over either into another business function or into the public domain. The most disturbing and compelling explanation of this may be Edward Tufte’s iconic analysis of how the likelihood of “O-ring” failure was missed in a jumbled PowerPoint slide before the Columbia shuttle burned on re-entry. (PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports)

Although inconsequential by comparison, massive crowding, low ceilings creating a cloud of noise, and awful or completely missing signage at Heathrow meant that hundreds of people in line for dozens of flights could not hear agents shouting. They were trying, in vain, to pull people who were at risk for missing flights from lines that started well outside the terminal building. While waiting, we asked ourselves numerous times: “What did she say, was that about Dulles or Dallas?” It should have been obvious to on-site managers that shouting indecipherable instructions in an overcrowded, international airport was going to fail, especially while competing with booming public address system broadcasts of clear but useless instructions about unattended bags.

We received repeated false assurances not to worry because there was a back-up plan -- to supplement the verbal communications with written signage. “We will come around with boards.” But just like the inaudible audio, when agents did finally mingle with the crowd, they were hugging the signs rather than raising them overhead. For different reasons, in instances, people with important information could not get it to people who needed it. The information was known, the users were known; they never connected.

Working around these communications failures, based on experience (always the genesis of workarounds), we managed to get into a short line to a check-in. But when it was our turn, the agent announced that she was closed, I flashed to a surreal scene decades ago in the Soviet visa office in Washington, DC. As I would talk to a consular office behind a glass partition, sliding papers and passports through a little metal tray. If a discussion was not to the Consular officers liking, s/he cut it off. Abruptly, by pulling a curtain down over the window. Conversation done. In this instance at Heathrow, again, information black out.

Despite these obstacles, we finally did make communications work. We told an agent, she found a supervisor, the supervisor phoned the gate, reached someone, received the correction information; they had just closed the gate. By definition, workarounds always come back at some point to rejoin the system that they were avoiding. They are detours, not replacements.

Next stop, customer service for rebooking and a place to stay overnight. Another system, equally brittle, equally on the edge of collapse, and also intertwined and codependent. As required by policy (a system of words), we were told that rebooking is done through a consortium of hotels that service the airlines. Booking a place myself was not an option – well, not an authorized option. She logged into the booking system. She emailed the system operators. No result from either. She emailed again.

While doing all this she was also regularly reaching behind her monitor into a tangle of cables. Since we had more than enough time together (way more!), I learned that this was to switch screens on her single monitor. Again, memories of what in Russia, in the 90’s, we called ‘sneakernet.’ Before networking software enabled multiple computers to share printers, we put together a manual mechanism. If you needed to print, you walked over to the printer and manually flipped a switch that enabled the printer to receive signals from a designated computer. In Russia. In the 1990s. And at Heathrow in 2022.

Finally, she called the consortium operator. After a brief conversation, the agent at the airline consortium for hotel booking hung-up on the airline customer service agent. A digital version of the shade being pulled down in the Visa office. Sensing that I was inside a system on the edge of collapse (as I was in the USSR when it did officially collapse), I mapped a workaround. Calling various airport hotels, I found one with an opening and booked a room. While the consortium booking system was still failing to generate the needed output (a hotel reservation), I let the agent know I had a room. Long story shortened; we then bartered my reservation for her authorization to rebook – which she shared with me by – wait for it – using my phone camera to take a picture of her computer screen.

In a sense, who cares about my experience at Heathrow? We all know airports are a mess. But the mess is much more important and bigger than my experience. Our systems today are so complex, human/machine interactions are sticky rather than smooth, and workarounds are fast becoming the norm. Fragile systems on the edge of collapse are incredibly risky. It’s unsustainable for business because, especially in tight margin sectors, you can’t keep sending flights out with seats empty because passengers could not get through the airport, then occupy a second seat on an additional flight, pay for overnight accommodations, and absorb the snow-balling transaction costs of all these adjustments – in addition to reputational costs.

Transforming systems that are fragile and critical and are regularly right on the edge of gridlock is one of the most critical and daunting challenge of the Post-Pandemic Era (PPE, again). Complex systems fail in complex ways. We cannot fine-tune or tweak our way out of this challenge. We must act.

First, systems thinking cannot remain the relatively obscure discipline that it is today. We need to pull systems training out of engineering schools and build it into our primary, secondary, and executive education institutions.

Second, companies need to come clean about the various systems used to shift costs to customers. We need to understand externalities. By way of a tiny example, the time has come to pull back the curtain on the façade of “your call is very important to us.” Companies have cut staff, reduced training, and invested in technology rather than people to reduce costs – maximizing benefits to owners and imposing costs on customers. As consumers, we have all become unwitting accomplices in shifting the cost of selling ourselves the services being offered. It’s a neat trick. But especially for companies with ethical pledges, commitments to socially responsible behavior, and a dedication to mission beyond profit the externalities charade needs to end.

Third, we need to study joints. Let it be the awareness that connection points between interlocking systems are extremely fragile. And when they fail, risks multiply. And fail they will. It is these in-between spaces, the joints that hold systems together, where failure is most likely. That is as true for O-rings on the Space Shuttle as it is for tiles in your bathroom, or the white space on organizational charts.

The handwriting is scrawled across the wall tiles. We have been warned.

Putin and Trump: At War with History

I have never been to the Russian Air Base on the Eastern edge of Ukraine in Millerovo, where attack helicopters, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and ground forces have begun the Russian invasion. The last time I was in eastern Ukraine, in Luhansk (about 60 miles from Millerovo), I visited a military plant that was then converting to syringe manufacturing. I was with Yuri Shchekochikhin who represented the region as a member of Parliament.

Yuri is dead now; murdered by the Putin Regime for telling the truth. Perhaps the most courageous leader of independent journalism in the former Soviet Union, he was poisoned before either Anna Politkovskaya or Aleksandr Litvinenko. I’ve been reflecting on our time together in Ukraine and Russia, and as his host at my home when he first visited the United States. I will always remember his sweet incredulity that after I made a quick phone call to a local Chinese restaurant, a man on a bicycle arrived with dinner. Yuri closed his big round eyes and slowly shook his head in disbelief.

Over many years and more than a few vodkas, Yuri and I became friends. I remember him tugging at my arm in a Moscow hallway, excitedly explaining that he had interviewed the FSB agents (formerly KGB) who carried out the order to bomb apartment buildings in Russia - a false flag operation to garner support for military suppression in Chechnya. It was my turn to look at him, incredulous; ‘really,’ I asked? ‘How can you be so sure?’ He looked at me with his soulful eyes and short, cropped hair and leaned in: “They told me, the ones who did it; they talked with me, the agents; I interviewed them.”

In that same region of Eastern Ukraine that Yuri once represented, Russia has issued papers to nearly a half-million residents - officially identifying them as Russian citizens. If ‘provoked’ by some horrible slaughter of these innocents, it would not be the first time Russia sacrifices its own. Or as now seems equally likely, he may just recognize the two regions as part of Russia.

But really? Why, we ask? What is Putin thinking; what does he want that he is willing to risk so much? This is not fundamentally about his thinking but about the feelings deep in his Russian soul. He yearns not only for the warm-water port Russia has sought since Peter the Great (which he has now secured in Crimea). He is driven to repair a profound affront to Russian exceptionalism. His quest is to remake Kyivan Rus’ and repair The Great Schism - the spiritual and religious split in 1054 between Rome and Constantinople that has given us what we now understand as Eastern Orthodoxy in contrast to Roman Catholicism.

This is less about Ukraine as a runaway Soviet Republic, and more about Putin trying to roll back 1000 years of history. Comparatively, Trump is a piker. But the January 6th attack on the US Capitol was without question an attempt to rewrite American electoral history. Both these political strongmen understand that the power to rewrite history is also the power to shape the future.

Democracy is resilient and can better withstand the forces of autocracy than can the valiant but vastly outmatched Ukrainian military. Democracy in America won’t just collapse like an apartment building.

But the marauders on the Capitol steps operating as paramilitary units (and equipped as such), Putin with control over a vast military and propaganda apparatus, and Trump in his pathological lying and fanaticism all share the same disdain for history when it stands in the way of their dystopian visions for the future. It was because of his hope for a better future that Yuri was determined to tell the truth. And alongside the catastrophe unfolding on the ground in Ukraine, truth itself has also suffered a terrible blow.

More than geography is at stake in Ukraine.

A Vision From Farm to Fork: What A Strong Regional Supply Chain Looks Like

Following sessions with the Global Alliance for the Future of Food (NYC) and The Emerson Collective (CA), Jonathan J. Halperin addressed the audience at The Chesapeake Food Summit (DC), urging participants to let go of the myth of a “neat, clear, linear supply chain.

"It’s a web, a network, a system.  We all need to think systems. Systems connect silos.”

What They Talked About in Helsinki.

Note: The fiercest competition today is for attention. More than any other, this is the market that counts. Dominate the market for attention and you wield a kind of power rarely seen across business, politics, and culture. As exemplified in the Trump Administration’s dizzying attacks, reality itself is under assault. The institutional cornerstones and conceptual underpinnings of democracy are profoundly at risk. Even as new revelations emerge every day, what we might call “The Helsinki Moment” is instructive. This dispatch thus looks somewhat wryly at change, shock, power, partnership and the limits we often place around our own imagination – of both the future and the past.

Helsinki was not an aberration. Trump is many things. Stupid is not one of them. It is time we stopped being shocked.

Trump and Putin share common goals and values: absolute need for loyalty, disdain for free and fair elections, willingness to use and discard people, and antipathy toward media. As has been well documented, they are also both vengeful, racist, misogynist bullies. They are united in a relentless drive for power amassed in all its forms: financial, institutional, political, and control of natural resources. The goal is clear: engineering the collapse of democratic institutions and societies around the world.

Trump is not so much Putin’s toady or agent as his enthusiastic partner.

The core topic in Helsinki was how well they are doing in this collaboration to bring forward their vision of a world run be authoritarian despots: elected, stable, geniuses as they fancy themselves.

The dust will not settle after Helsinki; and we will not return to the established norms of diplomacy, democracy, and allegiances. Helsinki was, rather, a harbinger of things to come. Trump is not going to now start reading briefing books; he is not going to repair relations with America’s allies of the last 75-years. Those relationships are finished.

Helsinki was intentionally announced publicly yet held privately to send myriad signals and warnings to foes as well as allies, to confidantes as well as would-be challengers. It was intended to and did serve to intimidate. And make no mistake, the reactions were carefully monitored – like political sonar, taking readings, to chart the next move. I spent 17 years working in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Union with major western companies; this is a well-honed technique.

Understanding Putin and Trump as collaborators allows us to bring more clearly into focus the likely discussion points in the Helsinki meeting. On foreign affairs, the Middle East, Syria, Iran and Israel’s regional capabilities were center stage with discussion of who can tolerate what levels of military intervention where; timetables and sequence of military and diplomatic actions; and possible puppets, spokesmen and how to sow division among opposition parties. There was discussion of the need to perhaps instigate an action just provocative enough to warrant a pre-planned response.

Trump was also no doubt cautioned to manage his open disgust for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and to not be too hard on Putin’s all-important Gazprom – the global tentacles of which are essential to Putin’s apparatus.

On trade, aluminum, oil and natural gas figured prominently. Various commitments were made to ensure the ongoing allegiance of oligarchs such as Oleg Deripaska. Putin also pointedly reminded Trump that the global price of oil determines the state of the Russian economy. The stability and vulnerability of stock exchanges was also likely discussed – as these centralized markets are a juicy target. If one aims to shift the concentration of wealth on a global scale, well-timed stock market manipulation can accomplish quite a lot.

In the same vein, intelligence and propaganda was a theme threaded through the entire meeting. Putin shared some of his more refined propaganda techniques and urged Trump to develop a bit more patience -- to reduce his vulnerabilities, to manage some of his impulsivity. But Putin was sure to feed the American president’s ego with praise and admiration. Putin’s ability to read Trump’s body language (crossed arms, upraised eyebrow, tilted head) no doubt helped him find the right combination of ego-stroking and unsettling bluntness. Once a KGB agent, always a KGB agent.

Although not explicitly discussed, there was also clear recognition of the critical need to control data, access communications infrastructure, and manage the media. The combined power of post-Soviet intelligence operations, the porous security safeguards around US social media, and Trump’s power to access government databases was referenced as a key strategic asset of this new collaboration. Satisfaction was expressed at the prospect of a unified Russian/American monitoring, surveillance, and tracking system. With both leaders sharing a common desire to extract revenge against those who cross them, the energy around this unparalled capacity was palpable.

Putin no doubt praised Trump for conducting the various tests, for floating various trial balloons, such as encouraging the killing of journalists, not commenting when it happens, and maintaining ‘plausible deniability’ throughout. The use of ICE as a never-before seen U.S. internal security force was discussed and Putin provided suggestions and guidance to Trump for how to allow other figures to have just enough oversight that they can become targets of blame if things get out of hand. Trump expressed relief that the horrific images of kids in cages had vanished from the pages and screens of American media.

Trump complained mightily to Putin about the American judicial system continuing to be an obstacle in his efforts to rule -- as if a King or a Tsar, by proclamation or tweet. Putin praised for managing Justice Kennedy’s departure, keeping largely unnoticed connection to the critical Duetsche Bank loan by Kennedy’s son when Trump badly needed a billion-dollar cash injection. While the question of Trump pardoning himself was danced around, there was clear acknowledgement by both leaders that it was important to preserve the facade of an independent judiciary. Trump asked Putin if he wasn’t impressed also that the justice department switched direction just this month so that 501(c)4 organizations like the NRA no longer need to reveal donors. A knowing wink was exchanged.

Around guns and violence, they joked about how fun it would be to go hunting or at least to a shooting range, maybe bring some sexy girls, some vodka and beer, and have a little respite from the stress of leadership. But they moved on, speaking of girls; Butina. It was a good ploy, they agreed, to throw her away and see how the various institutions in the US responded, to garner intelligence on how much Mueller really knows. They considered if it would be needed to engineer some kind of quid pro quo personnel trade. Trading a girl who offered sexual favors to gain access in return for protecting Ambassador McFaul would be a delicious way for Trump and Putin to smear the good name of a diplomat – and yet appear that Trump was protecting him. Snowden was also briefly mentioned.

How to manage key assets was discussed extensively. And as part of a designing a pretext for announcing a joint Russian/American intelligence operation, various risk scenarios were reviewed. The pros and cons of creating and planting evidence, or digital footprints that would warrant investigation in Montenegro, or one of the Baltic states or in Ukraine/Crimea was also discussed. What would be the right level of crisis to engineer such that it would not spin out of control but be sufficient to further justify the collaboration?

Trump complained that he was beginning to be uncomfortable with the dance around election manipulation; if the hijacking of the 2016 election actually happened, then it might well be traced to someone ‘other’ than the Russians. Putin signaled empathy and understanding, agreeing that this trope might need to be refreshed as Trump has indeed referenced “other” quite a lot in this context. He promised to have his “boys” at 55 Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg look into some new messaging options that might reverberate well in social media.

Plans for hacking the 2018 elections were discussed and Putin thanked Trump for sending the Republican delegation to the Kremlin. Trump sought advice on the November 10th military parade in Washington, coming so soon after the elections on the 6th. Would it be too much for Putin to visit Washington and also view the parade with Trump? To what extent should Trump explicitly call for his base of armed supporters to descend on Washington to celebrate the mid-terms and militarize the Capitol? Acknowledging that this might be too “Soviet-like,” they agreed to wait a bit before deciding.

Near the end of the extended private meeting, Putin asked after Trump’s children and Melania’s health. With his arm a little too tightly around Trump’s shoulder, and in rather good English, Putin repeated his past reassurance; ‘I have no plan, absolutely no plan, to let the media know that we really did hack the election. No plans whatsoever.’

And thus, he reminded Trump that the compromising material he has is not sexual but existential. Putin can declare Trump a ‘loser.’

Jonathan J. Halperin managed a strategy and communications company in the Soviet Union and former Soviet Union for 17 years.

Phones and Nuclear Power: The Network Effect Collides with the Tragedy of the Commons

The technologies we embrace reflect social and business values. But whether they embody our personal values is another question entirely. Contrary to decades of myth-making about the inherent neutrality of technology – it is only a question of how we use it – values are embedded in many technologies, reinforcing some values while undermining others.

This realization is awkward. It challenges the core idea that technology is a benign force that springs freely from the minds of scientists and engineers and is an inherent element in the steady march of social advancement and progress for all.

While the evolving Facebook debacle puts this in the public eye today, I had the opportunity some years back at the Aspen Ideas Festival to engage with Eric Schmidt (the then CEO of Google) about this question of technology and values. After claiming that key functions of our cell phones operate “by their nature,” he backed away graciously from this its-only-a-neutral-tool perspective. But his instinctive reliance on that claim reveals an all too common tendency among purveyors of technology; we just build the tools, how they are used is someone else’s problem.

(For commentary on this discussion, along with video of the entire panel discussion and Q & A session from the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival Channel, please see my blog Autonomous Technology.)

That the tech community still largely claims it can ignore the social consequences that attend the appropriate and intended use of its devices is stunning. We are in an age when corporate social responsibility, the circular economy, and supply chain management are expanding “cradle to cradle” responsibility. But leaders in the technology sector are drawing from the playbooks of the tobacco and firearms companies; it's the users not the technologies themselves creating negative consequences.

The warning signs are everywhere for tech leaders who can see them.

How about nuclear power? Is this a neutral technology or is there something inherent in the technology itself that ineluctably pulls us in a certain direction? Whether in North Korea or North America, the use of nuclear materials demands, without exception and regardless of the intended use, a high level of secrecy and security. From uranium mining through to nuclear waste it demands security perimeters, special handling, and so forth. Whether you like concentrated nuclear or prefer distributed solar, the values embedded in the two technologies are profoundly different.

Before we opine on how unfair it is to compare the phone to nuclear power, and before we appeal to the democratizing impact of smart-phones and social media, let us please remember that Facebook was conceived of in 2004 as a means of ranking babes at Harvard. The baby-faced depiction of it as a neutral, social platform that just lets people connect seems to be under assault as Facebook squirms in social quicksand made up in equal parts of hubris, duplicity, and market power.

There is a deeper new reality lurking beneath questions of privacy, net neutrality, data-sharing, and how we have become accustomed to accepting “free” services with impenetrable terms of use. There is no longer a meaningful distinction between content providers, advertisers, and the architects of distribution systems. The neat distinctions and firewalls between “the pipe,” platforms, and producers of content have given way to a wickedly complex web (sorry!) of interlinked technologies.

We are in a moment of historic reckoning that is playing out in the most personal places. It can be heard in dinner table arguments about phone usage; in school yards filled with kids looking at screens; in therapy office discussions of rising anxiety and loss of emotional connection; in medical offices and skyrocketing diagnoses of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD); in bedroom conflicts about where to put the phone.

But this moment also signals a profound conceptual clash between “The Network Effect” and “The Tragedy of The Commons.” The network effect speaks to one reality we all experience. The value of a network is closely related to how many people are in it; each new additional member adds value to the whole. Facebook as a tool limited to Harvard undergraduates was not so interesting. Add another school, and then another and another and after a few million people the network effect is clear.

Powerfully captured by Garret Hardin in his masterful essay from 1968, The Tragedy of the Commons explains what happens when too many people overwhelm a resource on which they all depend. When individual farmers use a common and limited grazing space for their herds everyone benefits when there is an equilibrium between the space and the number of animals. But if unbridled self-interest leads one farmer to enlarge his herd, thus consuming more of the commons, other farmers will be drawn to do the same thing. In the ensuing tragedy the commons is degraded and eventually destroyed. Private choices, public consequences.

Expanding the social media “commons” through the power of the network effect seems to have no limit. No technical limit, perhaps. But it is we, humans, who represent the limit. How much technology can the human commons absorb and still survive? No one wants to go back to living in caves. That is not the point. This is not a Luddite argument about smashing machines. But can we as a species manage our appetite for technology such that we don’t push past our own human carrying capacity?

Our fate may be in our hands. Literally.

A Fair Chance at Work: Employment Pathways for Excluded Individuals

A staggering 70 million Americans have a criminal record. Despite a tightening labor market, this forecloses for them - by rule or by discrimination - most employment opportunities, even though stable work is crucial to avoiding recidivism. Research from NELP suggests that removing barriers to employment for people with criminal records has been successful in numerous ways.To address this, several fair chance hiring initiatives have emerged, such as ban-the-box.

And previously incarcerated individuals are but one group that is traditionally excluded from employment opportunities: think of people experiencing homelessness or with language barriers.

An especially interesting model to counter exclusion is Open Hiring: the practice of filling jobs without judging applicants or asking any questions. Open Hiring creates mainstream work opportunities and supports individuals in succeeding at those jobs.

Exclusion from employment opportunities touches racial justice, criminal justice reform issues, and human capital management, and investors can play a role.

In this webinar Transform Finance Investor Network presents the Open Hiring model pioneered by Greyston (famous for supplying brownies to Unilever's Ben & Jerry's) over the last 35 years. We will hear from Jonathan Halperin, Head of External Affairs; and Mike Brady, Greyston CEO. Greyston is now looking to fund a new initiative to make Open Hiring a universal practice and support other companies in its adoption

Authenticity is the business principle for 2018

Jonathan Halperin. Founder & President, Designing Our Future:

“As the political battle worsens in 2018 in the U.S., and as facts and reality come under further assault, authenticity is the business principle for 2018. Companies that view CSR as window-dressing or a short-term marketing campaign will lose customers and market share to companies authentically embedding purpose into culture, operations, products/services, KPIs and structure.”

(For full article, clink on image link below.)

The Leading Good Podcast: Rod Arnold hosts Jonathan Halperin

Rod Arnold hosts Jonathan Halperin, Head of External Affairs for Greyston. Greyston has been changing lives for 35 years through radical inclusion. A pioneering social enterprise, Greyston practices Open Hiring™ – providing jobs to individuals who face barriers to employment – in its world-class bakery and supports its employees and community members with a range of community programs.

On Purpose and Profit

Much has been written since Peter Drucker observed that “profit is not the purpose of business, but rather the test of its validity.” Yet, many corporate leaders still wonder both what purpose looks like operationally and whether it really generates value.  Recently, a host of firms have sought to unpack this challenge: from E&Y(link is external) and Accenture to Sustainable Brands, Conscious Capitalism, Ogilvy, and the Arthur W. Page Society.

For some executives, the sustainability agenda and its cousin, corporate social responsibility, remain challenges.  For others, carbon disclosure remains problematic.  But if Unilever CEO Paul Polman is right that purpose-driven brands within Unilever’s $61 billion ecosystem are growing “50% faster than the rest,” then brand managers, board members, investors and executives all need to quickly get their heads around this next phase of corporate evolution.

To advance the conversation, let’s first take a quick look in the rear-view mirror to understand how we arrived where we are today.

• In 1602 the Dutch East India company was chartered and granted a trading monopoly across a vast area of the Indian Ocean and southern Africa.

• In 1811 New York State passed the first statute facilitating the formation of limited liability manufacturing operations, a landmark event in defining corporate form.

• In 1889 Andrew Carnegie published “Gospel of Wealth,” imploring his wealthiest peers to share their wealth to improve society – a precursor to the 2010 Giving Pledge launched by Bill Gates and others at the urging of Warren Buffett.

• Fast forward to 2012 and Greyston Social Enterprise becomes the first “benefit corporation” to be registered in New York State, identifying Open Hiring™ as the social mission that it would pursue on par with its fiduciary responsibilities.

While humans have been bartering and trading for a very long time, corporate form as we know it today is relatively new.  And the current way we practice philanthropy in the United States is also a modern construct.  The typical pattern involves, first, the accumulation of great wealth through commerce and then some of that wealth being returned to society to meet various social needs.

It is this fundamental sequencing – extraction of profits followed by giving back – that is challenged by purpose-driven corporations.  In the case of Greyston, the scale of profit-taking is moderated by balancing the necessity to not only generate profits but to also achieve a social purpose at the same time.  Benefit corporations bring purpose inside the corporation, thus fundamentally changing its culture.

Greyston’s two-part mission is to create thriving communities and produce delicious brownies. To this end, it operates a world-class bakery in Yonkers, NY, baking 35,000 lbs. of brownies a day for Ben & Jerry’s, and for sale in retail markets.  The kicker is that the Greyston bakery production line is staffed entirely of people brought into the mainstream economy through Open Hiring™.  Anyone who wants a job is offered the opportunity to experience the dignity of work at Greyston: no questions asked, no resumes, no references, no background checks. (Please see this link for more on our work with Greyston).

In codifying this duality of profit and purpose as equally important we enter an entirely new stage of corporate evolution.  Purpose is where self-interest and service meet.    Survival of the fittest, in the jungle, and profit maximization, in competitive markets, have in common what Chris Houston identifies as the fatal flaw of panarchy.   In his provocative book, For Goodness Sake (with Jordan Pinches), Houston extrapolates from systems analysis and ecology to set forth the panarchy principle: any system designed exclusively to optimize just one variable is self-limiting precisely because single variable optimization eventually destabilizes the system.

BCorps are among a few new forms of corporate structure designed to transform business from the inside, rather than through external regulation. These new corporate forms are early efforts to rewrite the rules and codify the opportunities and obligations for corporations to create value for everyone, beyond returns for shareholders. Tempering short-term profit maximizing behavior with the creation of long-term social value benefits may enable capitalism to avoid panarchy.

Such mission-drive corporations now operate in the US across virtually all sectors of the economy – from brownies to banking.  The Co-CEO of Beneficial State Bank, Kat Taylor captured the importance of this evolution in her remarks congratulating Greyston on its 35-year history as a purpose-driven commercial bakery: “I know there’s this popular notion that somehow the capital markets were put here by some cosmic force, and they’re perfect and universal and they always produce the right outcomes.  But they’re actually just a series of rules that we human beings wrote….”

While legal license to operate is still granted through government agencies (as it was in 1602), the more important and broader issue for companies today is around social license to operate.  When the purpose and behavior of a corporation is fundamentally extraction – mining the environment, harvesting time and talent from employees, maximizing profit over all else, squeezing suppliers and vendors – then it is not surprising that over time discontent bubbles forth.  When the richest 10% of the population own 88% of global assets (according to Credit Suisse), the system spawns the seeds of its own destruction.

Minimal licensing requirements, social and regulatory, will not going to forestall short-term profit taking or panarchy.  Licensing is, after all, the low bar of corporate behavior.  Rules requiring placards in elevators, anti-discrimination posters in break rooms, safety codes on wet floors are the absolute minimum.  “Do no harm” may be a useful guide for doctors, but does not take a business very far forward in pursuit of higher social purpose.

Beyond licensing and compliance, and recognizing that competition is fierce, how then are corporations finding competitive advantage in purpose – and simultaneously redefining what it means to be a business? Watch this space.

"Bottom line, fair chance hiring is about the dignity of work."

Plenary Presentation: Greyston Bakery and Open Hiring

Businesses Doing Good (Online Registration)

Businesses Doing Good -- Jonathan Halperin "Open Hiring at Greyston Bakery and Beyond"

Make it stand out

Event to be held at the following time and date:

Thursday, October 19, 2017 from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM (CDT)

From Sustainable to Flourishing Businesses and Communities

Today businesses are going beyond "sustainability" which reduces the ecological footprint, to "doing good" in the communities where they are based and in places where they offer their products or services. This is a movement toward flourishing businesses and communities.

This series of conference calls on the third Thursday of each month at 10 a.m. Central Time lifts up examples of business as an agent of community benefit. Dr. Glenn Barth, our host, will interview the guest in the first half of each conference call and then open the lines for callers to ask questions in the second half of these highly interactive one hour calls. 

Conference Call Number and PIN will be provided in Registration Confirmation.

Our guest on the October 19 Conference Call is Jonathan Halperin of Greyston Bakery. The interview topic is "Open Hiring at Greyston Bakery and Beyond". 

Greyston Bakery has been working at the intersection of social inclusion and business innovation for 35 years. Open Hiring is its proven and transformative business practice now being adopted by small as well as multinational companies.Today, Greyston produces 35,000 lbs. of brownies every day for Ben & Jerry’s.

JONATHAN HALPERIN

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Jonathan Halperin serves as the Head of External Affairs at Greyston—with responsibility for communications, development and digital assets. He is founder and President of Designing Sustainability, a strategy consultancy.  He has more than 25 years of experience in nonprofit and commercial organizations such as SustainAbility, Ltd., Resources for the Future, and FYI Resources for a Changing World.

In collaboration with international executives, nonprofit leaders, public officials and creative media producers he designs and executes projects to drive systemic changes in thinking and behavior.  Recent projects include research and design of communications on agricultural risk with The World Bank, creation of SNAPAlumni.org with Participant Media to dispel myths about hunger in America, and design of TeachFood! at Mundo Verde PCS which brings celebrity chefs to an inner city school in Washington, DC.

He serves as a trusted source for journalists, a regular public speaker, meeting facilitator, panel moderator, writer and diplomatically disruptive provocateur.  He is a graduate of Duke University and lives with his two young children near Washington, DC.

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Upcoming Interviews in the Businesses Doing Good series:

November 16: Pablo Guevara of Epoch Pi in Cleveland on the topic of "Purposeful Investing."

December 21: Guest in process of responding.

January 18: Paul Turek and Brett Struwe of Caribou Coffee on the topic of "Rainforest Alliance Certification."

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We hope you can make it! Glenn Barth, GoodCities GoodCities

The Capitol Pressroom: A WCNY Radio Production

This New York Bakery Thrives by Hiring Anyone Who Wants to Work, No Questions Asked.

Jonathan J. Halperin quoted in Entrepreneur (August 18, 2017)

Bakery Thrives by Hiring Anyone Who Wants to Work, No Questions Asked.

Full-text of the article appears below.
Kira Halevy - Guest Writer

Dion Drew was reluctantly but seriously considering returning to the drug trade -- a life that had landed him in prison for four years in New York. Nine months had passed since his release, and despite his best efforts, he couldn’t find honest work. At every turn, employers, leery of his felony record and criminal past, had turned him down for job opportunities.

Then the phone rang. It was Greyston Bakery.

A few days earlier, Drew had put his name on a list at the small, Yonkers, N.Y.-based company, which embraces a unique “open hiring” model. Anyone of legal working age can get a job at the bakery, regardless of his or her experience or background. No questions asked. No resume needed. Applicants simply have to put their name on a list and wait for a job to become available.

“After I applied, it took about three to four days for them to give me a call back, which was tremendous,” Drew says. “I was riding around with a friend and I was ready to start selling drugs again, to be honest with you. I got that beautiful call, and it’s been glorious ever since.”

One promotion after another, Drew has worked his way up into a management role at Greyston. He’s able to provide for his family without ever again flirting with the wrong side of the law.

“Now I’m able to take care and provide for myself on my own,” said Drew, who has since become a father, as well. “I have a beautiful daughter, I have started a family since I’ve been at Greyston, and I’m able to take care of them -- legally,” he says.

Located just outside New York City, Greyston is best known for its delicious brownies, 35,000 fragrant pounds of which its workers bake, cool, cut and package every day. The sweet, fudgy treats are sold online and at Whole Foods Market grocery stores throughout the country.

You may have even tried them without knowing it, as Greyston’s delicious brownies can also be found crushed up and folded into Ben & Jerry’s popular Half-Baked and Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream flavors.

Beyond Greyston’s superb baked goods, the for-profit B Corporation heralds a larger mission through its groundbreaking open hiring model. Core to its social stewardship values, the community-focused company affords eager, would-be workers from all walks of life -- including ex-cons like Drew, the homeless, the long-term unemployed and veterans -- jobs, paychecks and hope for a better future.

“You don’t need no resumes. You don’t get asked questions. You don’t need to know anything about working,” Drew says. “You just need to come here and show that you want to work.”

Like the chocolaty confections that abound at Greyston (4 million pounds of them are baked there annually), Drew’s story has a sweet ending. With gratitude and tears in his eyes, he’s unafraid to express his emotion as he shares his story, something he often does at conferences and other events, including during a recent TED Talk.

Imbued with the independence his position at the bakery has provided, Drew speaks with joy about his young daughter and the ability to properly care for her after leaving behind a life of crime in favor of honest work and a reliable income at Greyston. He beams with pride at having the opportunity to support himself and his loved ones legally.

Inspiring stories like Drew’s -- and Greyston’s unique approach to hiring that make them possible -- show how business owners, community leaders and local officials can work together to everyone’s benefit, potentially reversing generations of unemployment and poverty.

That sweeping social impact shines through in the bakery’s mission.

As longtime Greyston spokesperson Jonathan Halperin notes, “We don’t hire people to bake brownies; we bake brownies to hire people.”

“We create job opportunities for everyone who’s willing to work, regardless of their background, regardless of their prior criminal record,” he says. “That model creates an opportunity for people who have often been excluded to become a part of the mainstream fabric of economic and cultural life in this country.”

Beyond giving anyone who’s willing to work a job, Greyston bakes in the right infrastructure to make its distinctive open hiring model work in practice.

“I wouldn’t have been able to come back to work without the option of having daycare through Greyston,” says bakery account manager Sunitha Malieckal. “What is amazing about Greyston is that when they try to provide these add-on services, it becomes so much more than just a job.

“I have a lot of friends still in jail, I have a lot of friends that are still selling drugs, I have a lot of friends who died at a young age, and I’m tired of that,” he says, adding: “You’re changing a person’s life by helping them get a job.”

Watch the video above to get a glimpse inside the bustling Greyston Bakery facility in New York and to hear from the folks who’ve benefited from open hiring.

Brownie-Makers Wanted, No Application Needed

Jonathan J. Halperin quoted in beyond (June 21, 2017)

Brownie-Makers Wanted, No Application Needed

Full-text of the article appears below.

There are no job applications at Greyston Bakery. No background screenings, no interviews, no reference checks. Instead, getting a job at this 35-year-old bakery in Yonkers, New York, requires nothing more than a name and a phone number on a no-frills list. When a job comes up, the next person in line gets a call. No questions asked. 

“We don’t hire people to make brownies,” said Jonathan Halperin, the bakery’s head of external affairs and founder of consulting firm Designing Sustainability. “We make brownies to hire people.”

It’s called open hiring, and it holds the promise of providing equal access to employment for all, including those often excluded from the job market like formerly incarcerated individuals, immigrants and refugees. Speaking to an audience at this month’s Fourth Global Forum for Business as an Agent of World Benefit, Halperin described how this “hybrid social enterprise” has operated an open hiring model since its 1982 founding by Bernie Glassman, a former aeronautical engineer who became a Buddhist monk. The company is currently led by CEO and president Mike Brady. 

“As businesspeople, that means that we are people doing business,” Halperin said. “But the people part does have to come first. Having a purpose is essential for us in so many ways. At a species level, we are wired to create, to make, to build.”

Greyston was the first certified Benefit Corporation (B Corp) in the state of New York in 2008, and in 2017 received 138 out of 200 on its impact assessment report, well above the average score of 80 and qualifying it as a “Best for the World” honoree. The company churns out 35,000 pounds of brownies a day that supply Ben & Jerry’s — where you’ll find Greyston’s brownies in the Chocolate Fudge Brownie and other ice cream blends — and Whole Foods. 

The next step in Greyston’s evolution, said Halperin, is “moving from a place-based company to a practice-based company.” It’s fostered a community around the business that includes low-income housing, an early learning center, workforce development programs, internships and a community garden. “It’s where business innovation and social inclusion come together,” he said. 

Now the company is creating a Center for Open Hiring, which it describes as a “collaborative learning space facilitating the widespread adoption of Open Hiring and supporting innovation in the delivery of community programs for employees and neighbors,” as well as an Association for Open Hiring to set standards and promote best practices in the field.

Halperin pointed to the example of Dion Drew, a Greyston Bakery trainer who regularly speaks about his experience there. Drew grew up in the projects, turning to the streets to make ends meet and spending his years in and out of prison from the age of 17. After his last release, he searched for a job, but he was constantly turned away because of his criminal record. Now six years into his employment at Greyston, Dion spreads the word whenever he has an opportunity that the job saved his life.

“If Dion can do what he has as a man,” Halperin challenged the audience, “think of what we can do as business leaders.”

- Jennifer Keirn

Jonathan J. Halperin Keynotes at the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit

Leaders, change agents and entrepreneurs from the business, academic, nonprofit and government sectors gather June 14-16 at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.  (And artists who captured the presentations with creativity and accuracy.)

Greyston Social Enterprise — Using Inclusion to Generate Profits and Social Justice

The Successful and Achievable Open Hiring Model

Today is the day we each need to decide: Do we want a society that is more inclusive or more exclusive? That is the question asked and answered by this small bakery with a great, big mission. (By Mike Brady, Chief Executive Officer & Jonathan J. Halperin, Head of External Affairs)

April 25, 2017, BtheChange

Today is the day we each need to decide: Do we want a society that is more inclusive or more exclusive? That is the question. From Boston harbor to the Statue of Liberty, from the Gateway Arch to the Mexican border, we believe the arc of history bends toward inclusion, not exclusion. It is inclusion that has made our nation great.

Access and mobility, the freedom to chase a dream, the urge to innovate, the opportunity to take risks in order to succeed, the right to become part of the American tapestry; this is the America that we celebrate every single day at Greyston. At Greyston, inclusion is the core of our Open Hiring Model. Open Hiring creates opportunities for everyone: women, men, people of color, people of all faiths and sexual orientations, immigrants and refugees, the economically disadvantaged, the formerly incarcerated and all others who may have been excluded — blocked from contributing to the health and strength of our society. Because no one willing to work should be denied the dignity of a job.

Open Hiring is not a handout or give away. It is built on mutual respect, opportunity, a fair chance. It is about communities, jobs, families. It is about responsibility, hard work, commitment, achievement, and the intrinsic worth of every human being. And we’ve been doing it for 34 years. What began as a modest bakery on the edge of New York City with the moniker that “we don’t hire people to bake brownies, we bake brownies to hire people,” has emerged today as a globally recognized brand with an innovative business model and value proposition. We are proud to be a mission-driven social enterprise and certified B Corp, proud to be based in Yonkers, proud to be New York state’s first registered benefit corporation, and proud to be part of Unilever’s global business ecosystem. We are proud of what we have done with Open Hiring.

Open Hiring is not just a job, but a pathway forward — providing career training and life skills. Jobs are fundamental and yet insufficient. Open Hiring connects jobs to families and childcare — so parents can work to support their families. Open Hiring supports parks, gardens, and healthy eating. Open Hiring generates community housing and economic development. All from baking brownies — and a mission to use business as a force for god. What we do is first and foremost about people — and about systems, changing and creating new systems that meet social, environmental, and financial needs. It upends traditional hiring practices that focus on spending to screen people out and instead makes an investment to include people and support their success.

We envision a world where responsible businesses collaborate with communities to create inclusive economies. We envision a world where businesses compete to attract and retain citizens who have done their time and want to start a new life. We envision a world where business assets are deployed more effectively to generate a social return on investment that benefits the company, its employees and its community. We envision a world where tax benefits are extended to mission-driven companies that demonstrate consistent returns on mission that reduce government obligations. We envision a world where we recognize that everyone — from CEOs to day laborers — needs support to succeed on the job and also be a responsible family and community member.

Greyston is a community that celebrates the art of what is possible, that believes everyone can contribute, and that puts faith in the power of core American values: opportunity, fairness, respect, and equity. And, we measure success every day — and over the long term. Success for Greyston is not a trade-off where we short the next generation to make outsized profits today. We must not sacrifice our children’s future to satisfy our near-term desires. Greyston generates strong returns for all stakeholders, a hybrid enterprise with nonprofit operations alongside a commercial business.

Dion and Shay, two employees of Greyston Bakery. Photo courtesy Greyston.

Our signature initiatives weave together business innovation and social justice to create thriving and inclusive communities:

• The Center for Open Hiring at Greyston, a collaborative learning space facilitating the widespread adoption of Open Hiring and supporting innovation in the delivery of community programs for employees and neighbors;

• Development of new financial models to support mission-driven, hybrid organizations;

• Public policy engagement to create a level playing field for benefit corporations;

• Design of social return on investment (SROI) vehicles that bring transparency and rigor to measuring impact;

• Creation of the Association for Open Hiring to collaboratively set standards and best practices for Open Hiring;

• Leveraging the purchasing power of global supply chains to support Open Hiring;

• Alignment with business schools to prepare new leaders ready to manage for social, financial and environmental success; and

• Preparation of the Open Hiring toolkit and guidelines for innovative HR leaders.

We are a modest bakery with a great, big, disruptive idea. And we’ve been perfecting it for three decades. We are “Bakers on a Mission.” Work with us: Inclusion@Greyston.com