We are very please to announce that we are now associate members of Greeen Enterprise Toronto (GET) , an organization that promotes green practices in the Toronto business community. They have also become associates with us and as such, GET members can obtain a discount on Nimonik services. Here is a blurb from GET which explains the work they do.

GET is the preeminent green business alliance in the Greater Toronto Area. We are a membership-based, not-for-profit organization 330 members strong – and growing! With our online directory, advertising and outreach, we connect locally-owned green businesses with consumers. Through networking events and seminars, we help locally-owned businesses to thrive by being part of the ‘green’ solution. We encourage consumers and businesses to buy and produce goods and services based on “living economy” principles— strong communities, a healthy environment, providing meaningful employment, buying local first and fair trade. GET is one of over 60 independent local networks of BALLE, the international Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.

The debate over free vs. paid online content has been raging for sometime, but it seems to be heating up further as the newspaper industry continues to bleed red ink. Dow Jones Les Hinton recently gave a speech where he makes a strong case for paid content.

We have struggled with this same question, much of the content in Nimonik has been created with our blood and sweat (and money) and it is not easy to set it free. We have no desire to run ads, and our audience is too small to justify it. However, our content is only useful if it is read. This ongoing debate has a few potential solutions, micro-payments (pay per article), subscriptions and giving it away. I think there will be some sort of compromise between the three, but until then we are still working on the right mix for our existing and potential customers.

In August, I wrote an article, titled Saas for Environmental Compliance in the Purchasing B2B magazine, a Rogers Media publication. In the piece, I tried to layout the rationale for buying software as a service instead of a one-time purchase. Amongst other things, the article explains,

In many companies, general counsel and legal departments are responsible for keeping the company up to date on constant changes to the law. But procurement departments can also take an active role in searching for simple and affordable solutions in this area.

Software as a service (SaaS) and Web 2.0 technology have the power to fundamentally change the way businesses seek solutions for environmental compliance. 

Pressure from all sides

Consider the Canadian environmental scene, and the breakneck speed at which it’s heating up. In the past year, Ontario has passed sweeping laws on green energy production, permit requirements, and waste from electronics.

Quebec has pushed through regulations to conserve water and climate change legislation aiming to introduce a cap-and-trade system. British Columbia has clamped down on hazardous waste and is also working towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The federal government has added restrictions to the transportation of dangerous goods, mining practices and banned certain chemicals.

Signaling it’s taking its own existing laws more seriously, Ottawa has also increased fines for environmental degradation and hired 100 new compliance officers to enforce the laws on the books. The green police are on the beat.

Understandably, companies are having a tough time keeping up with these changes. Jurisdiction for the environment is shared between the federal and provincial governments. Because every province has its own industrial profile, each wants to manage its environmental legislative agenda in a manner that won’t sink its local economy.

Click here for the full article.

At Nimonik, we are trying to change an established market – never an easy chore. Notably, we are trying to pull companies away from using excel spreadsheets to manage legal obligations and get them to use an online tool that is always up to date, always accessible and collaborative by definition. Sounds obvious, right?

But, people know excel and email. Our job is to convince them of the merits of the change, no easy task, but once the ball gets rolling, industry tends to follow quickly.

People dislike change because implicit in any change is a critique of how they are currently doing something. People dislike criticism, and thus change.

A recent article from our friend Jordan Furlong at Law21 outlines the dramatic changes happening in the legal profession and how lawyers are and aren’t changing.

Going first, and doing so conspicuously, is incredibly important to change in the law. It’s conventional wisdom to blame lawyers’ reluctance to innovate on the fact that they hate being first movers, that they much prefer to stand back and let someone else make the initial move. And that’s true as far as it goes, maybe even more so for in-house lawyers than for private practitioners. But the corollary to that is that lawyers also don’t like being the last ones to join the club. Ron Friedmann explains this very well by using “a discontinuous step-shaped function” to describe lawyers’ willingness to change:

Consider adoption in the legal market of e-mail, document management, marketing, lateral moves, or mergers. For each, there seemed to be only a few firms doing it and then, quite suddenly, many or all were. The “step function” reflects lawyer decision making: the first few adopters change slowly, gingerly, and quietly. Everyone wants to follow so once you have a dozen adopters, “the coast is clear” and the rest rush in.

In physics you have two types of friction: Static and Kinetic. Static friction is the force required to get an object moving, while kinetic friction is the force required to keep it moving. Static friction is always greater than kinetic, meaning it takes more effort to start movement than to maintain it. What holds true with objects, holds true with organisations. Getting change going is the hardest part, once that is accomplished, it is easier to keep it moving – though not effortless. Help us change business.

We are heavily influenced by others. And the more exposure people have, the more likely they will be tolerant and open minded. A recent article in Good Magazine outlines how social networks (Facebook, Twitter…) are makes consumers more responsible and less image conscience. When your online comments, photos and videos determine your reputation, you tend to adjust your behaviour towards the “right thing”.

Nate Silver, gave a great talk on why people are racist. This might not appear related, but it is. He breaks down demographics to show that racism is most prevalent in areas where the population is homogenous. When you grow up amongst different cultures, you are less likely to view them as alien or threatening. In effect, your peers change your views by simply being your peers.

A behavioural economics study (which I cannot find) recently found that providing reports to people with their energy consumption plotted against their neighbours had a dramatic impact. People would literally get into competitions to see who could cut their energy the most, social pressure worked.

Now with tools from Google, Microsoft and Twitter to broadcast and digest your energy consumption we should see a progressive move towards greater efficiency. As they say, if you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it. Or, if your friends don’t see it, you don’t care.