Business Enhancement Associates Aha! Moments

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Trash To Cash: Mining Landfills For Energy And Profit

Fast Company

BY Ben Schiller Wed Sep 7, 2011

A Belgian company is working on removing the raw materials from dumps, making both energy and building materials out of them, and then redeveloping the land.

trash-mining

[Image: Flickr user D'arcy Norman]

… Dating from the 1960s, the Remo Milieubeheer landfill at Houthalen-Hechteren is a typical dump full of industrial waste and household garbage--16.5 million tons of it in all.
Hardly the sort of the place to get anyone excited.

Except, that is, Patrick Laevers, director of Group Machiels, the Belgian waste management company that owns the site. Laevers has a 20-year plan to excavate the entire expanse, recycling about 45% of its contents, and converting the rest into electricity.

Eventually, … he hopes to turn the site back to nature. What's more, Laevers thinks Houthalen-Hechteren could be the first of many such projects around the world. “We really believe this concept is the future, and that we can all benefit from it,” he says….

Machiels has formed a joint venture with Advanced Plasma Power, a U.K. energy-to-waste company that converts the non-recyclable residue into a mixture of clean-burning natural gas--which generates electricity for 100,000 homes--and a building material called Plasmarok.

Machiels hopes the scheme, which has cost hundreds of millions of dollars, will be fully operational in 2014….

Rolf Stein, CEO of Advanced Plasma Power, says “the mind boggles at the potential” for landfill mining--and not just for energy and recycling. Several companies with landfill sites near cities are looking to reclaim land for property development, he says. …

The concept of mining landfills has been around for years. In the 1950s, the Israelis took soil enriched with waste and spread it over orchards to improve earth quality of the land. And, in the 1980s, some U.S. states farmed landfill material for use in incinerators.

But it has taken rising energy prices and higher demand for recyclables (notably plastic and metals), to make landfill mining viable for companies like Machiels. That, and government support: A key part of the funding for the Houthalen-Hechteren project is coming from renewable energy credits….

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

12 Things Happy People Do Differently

Marc and Angel Hack Life Blog
August 30th, 2011
by Jacob Sokol of Sensophy

Cover via AmazonStudies conducted by positivity psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky point to 12 things happy people do differently to increase their levels of happiness. These are things that we can start doing today to feel the effects of more happiness in our lives. (Check out her book The How of Happiness.) …

Express gratitude. – When you appreciate what you have, what you have appreciates in value. … We’re gonna have a hard time ever being happy if we aren’t thankful for what we already have.
Cultivate optimism. – …People who think optimistically see the world as a place packed with endless opportunities, especially in trying times.
Avoid over-thinking and social comparison. – Comparing yourself to someone else can be poisonous. … If you feel called to compare yourself to something, compare yourself to an older version of yourself.
Image via WikipediaPractice acts of kindness. – Performing an act of kindness releases serotonin in your brain. … What’s even cooler about this kindness kick is that not only will you feel better, but so will people watching the act of kindness. …
Nurture social relationships. – The happiest people on the planet are the ones who have deep, meaningful relationships. …
Develop strategies for coping. – How you respond to the ‘craptastic’ moments is what shapes your character. … It helps to have healthy strategies for coping pre-rehearsed, on-call, and in your arsenal at your disposal.
Image via WikipediaLearn to forgive. – … When you ‘hate’ someone, and you’re continuously thinking about it, those negative emotions are eating away at your immune system. …
Increase flow experiences. – Flow is a state in which it feels like time stands still. It’s when you’re so focused on what you’re doing that you become one with the task. …
Savor life’s joys. – Deep happiness cannot exist without slowing down to enjoy the joy. … It’s the simple things in life that can be the most rewarding if we remember to fully experience them.
Commit to your goals. – … When you’re fully committed to doing something, you have no choice but to do that thing. Counter-intuitively, having no option – where you can’t change your mind – subconsciously makes humans happier because they know part of their purpose.
Practice spirituality. – When we practice spirituality or religion, we recognize that life is bigger than us. We surrender the silly idea that we are the mightiest thing ever. …
Image via WikipediaTake care of your body. – … If you don’t have your physical energy in good shape, then your mental energy (your focus), your emotional energy (your feelings), and your spiritual energy (your purpose) will all be negatively affected. …

Jacob Sokol is committed to living an extraordinary life. Today he released “Living on Purpose – An Uncommon Guide to Finding, Living, and Rocking Your Life’s Purpose.” He also loves his mom dearly.

The FINAL Question

The FINAL Question

By Adam Shaivitz

The following story is great:

During my second month of nursing school our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?"

Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank.

Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. "Absolutely," said the professor. "In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you can do is smile and say hello."

I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.

--JoAnn C. Jones, Brockville Ontario

Get to know the people whose paths you cross, remember their names, and smile and say hello. ... We meet so many people in organizations who seem to have amazingly strong technical skills and abilities. How do the ones at the top separate themselves? It's often that they have developed the ability to relate to all the people they pass--from the mail room to the board room. A few basic applications from the lesson above:

Smile and say hello. ... Be the person who looks the other person in the eye and smiles with a friendly greeting. You'll be amazed at whom you'll meet, how great it will make you feel, and one day, one of those people will be able to help you.

Gatekeepers. Joel, a successful sales rep with 35 years experience uses the line with gatekeepers: "I know you're really in charge. I'd like to speak with the person who thinks he's in charge." All the time, we hear stories of deals that were won or heavily influenced because of a relationship with someone involved in the process other than the "decision-maker." People buy from people, and they would always prefer to do business with people they like.

Names. ... Multiple studies show that people who use names in conversation are generally seen as being more friendly and likable. Think about the last time someone remembered you and your name, when you didn't expect him or her to. It makes you feel important, because you were memorable to that person. Imagine how much more success you would experience if you made everyone in your network feel that important.

Close out a strong year by taking the initiative to greet people in your path and use their names. You'll be amazed at how you accelerate your performance.

***

Cover via AmazonAdam Shaivitz is a well known sales expert. He is the co-author of the best-selling book "Selling is Everyone's Business: What it Takes to Create a Great Salesperson." His company, Accelerate Performance, specializes in sales performance development programs for salespeople and sales managers. You can learn more about Adam at www.accelerateperformance.com or contact him at info@accelerateperformance.com.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

The No. 1 Predictor of Startup Failure: Premature Scaling

PEHub
Posted on: September 5th, 2011
Joanna Glasner

…The Startup Genome Project … published last week, crunches data from a set of more than 3,200 companies, seeking to identify the qualities that make startups most likely to either succeed or fail.
… The most consistent predictor of failure, …was a startup’s propensity to engage in premature scaling.

What is premature scaling? The authors define it as “focusing on one dimension of the business and advancing it out of sync with the rest of the operation.” For example, a startup may overspend too early on customer acquisition, hire too many employees, or focus too much on engineering at the expense of customer development. …

Researchers at the Startup Genome project, an eight-month-old effort supported by a collection of startup industry insiders and academics, also churned out some other interesting findings related to startup success. Insights include:

Pivoters do better: Switching a core facet of one’s business model, or pivoting, is sometimes the only way a startup can stay competitive in a fast-changing market. …

Image via Wikipedia… Researchers found startups that pivot once or twice raise 2.5 times more money, have 3.6 times better user growth, and are 52% less likely to scale prematurely than startups that pivot more than two times or not at all.

Co-founders scale faster: Researchers found solo founders take 3.6 times longer to reach scale stage compared to a founding team of two, and they are 2.3 times less likely to pivot.

Business and Technical Partners Outperform: Teams with one business and one technical founder raise 30% more money, have 2.9 times more user growth, and are 19% less likely to scale prematurely than technical or business-heavy founding teams.

Founders are ridiculously over-optimistic: Researchers found that startups need two to three times longer to validate their [market] than most founders expect. Startups that haven’t raised money, meanwhile, tend to over-estimate their prospective market size as 100 times bigger than it actually is.

Interestingly, while premature scaling is quite common, its opposite, which the authors call dysfunctional scaling, is quite rare. … Curious to see if you’re committing any of these startup sins? The Startup Genome Project has a tool for companies to test whether they are scaling prematurely.

3 Steps to Handling the Unexpected

Image via Wikipedia

Harvard Business Review Blog

Peter Bregman

Peter Bregman is a strategic advisor to CEOs and their leadership teams. His latest book is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done. To receive an email when he posts, click here.

Trying to predict the future is futile. Instead, be ready to respond. When the unexpected arrives at your door, do these three things:

Stop. If you feel pressured to make a decision, stop what you're doing. Give yourself a chance to think before acting.
Assess your options. Don't waste time wishing things were different. Think about the best outcome in the given situation, the information you have at hand, and the available resources. Then lay out your options.
Move forward. Based on your new assessment, make a decision and commit. Even if the decision isn't ideal, accept that it's the best under the circumstances.

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Thursday, September 8, 2011

Trash To Cash: Mining Landfills For Energy And Profit