Since I’m too young to remember it, I’m sure that many of you are too. In 1989 “a major environmental disaster shook public confidence in corporate America—the Exxon-Valdez oil spill.” It made the environmental costs of business finally feel real to many people, and it resulted in the founding of a non-profit organization called Ceres. They are “a national network of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups” that work “with companies and investors to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change.” With the BP oil spill among other environmental crises, it’s quite clear that Ceres has lots more work to do after 20 years of operations. Still, Ceres, which is based in Boston, MA, has accomplished quite a bit in their mission to “integrate sustainability into capital markets.” They launched both the Global Reporting Initiative, which is “now the de-facto international standard used by over 1300 companies for corporate reporting on environmental, social and economic performance,” and the Investor Network on Climate Risk, which is “a group of more than 70 leading institutional investors with collective assets of more than $7 trillion.” They’re obviously a major player in sustainability, and they’re taking the right approach by working with businesses instead of fighting them. Continue reading about Ceres…
I honestly can’t tell you when the last time that I picked up a newspaper was. It’s not that I’m sequestering myself from current events, it’s just that I do most of my media consumption online because it’s so easy. Obviously, attitudes like mine are causing a lot of distress in the newspaper industry, but I think there’s still a great business in delivering quality content. One area where online media kicks traditional media’s butt is in grabbing eyeballs. Sensationalism sells, and most newspapers still haven’t grasped that. However, tabloids, especially those based in New York, have always known how to get attention. That’s why there’s a good chance that I’ll pick up a copy of the New York Daily News if it’s sitting on a table at the coffee shop that my parents like to take me to back in Connecticut (where I’m headed this morning). It may not be the most reliable source for information or the most academic, but you have to love the fact that the New York Daily News understands the psychology of its readers and uses that knowledge to convince them to read. It doesn’t matter how great the writing is if nobody reads it. Continue reading about New York Daily News…
I’m an unabashed Groupon fan. How can I not support the Chicago based company that started the group-buying frenzy? Moreover, I’m just flabbergasted at the amount of value that they’ve been able to build in such a short time. The only problem with creating an extremely lucrative new market when you have little or no IP is that the competitors come out in droves. There are a lot of Groupon wannabes. A lot. Many of them will fall by the wayside as they realize that they’re not capable of building out the kind of sales/business development team needed to grow a group-buying business, but there are a few competitors that seem to be doing quite well. One of them is LivingSocial, which is based in Washington, DC (maybe they should focus on group-bribing of politicians, or is that called lobbying?). They now offer daily deals in 52 cities, and they have nearly $50 million in venture funding. They weren’t profitable yet as of March, but you have to think that they’ll get there soon. Continue reading about LivingSocial…
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Ever get off to a bad start? Maybe it was a class, a sports season, or a new social situation. It’s hard to dig yourself out of the funk, right? Or maybe it was something far more important like life. Millions of people are born into poverty in our country, and that makes it likely that they’ll eventually have children who are born into poverty. It’s a vicious cycle that is nearly impossible to get out of, which means that more and more kids will be born into a very difficult situation. A Wider Circle is a Silver Spring, MD non-profit organization that empowers “children and adults to break the cycles of poverty and poor health.” By providing basic need items to struggling families, A Wider Circle puts people in a situation where success is attainable. Continue reading about A Wider Circle…
I’m not a big t-shirt guy. Don’t get me wrong, I have a ton of t-shirts, but they’re usually ones that I somehow managed to get for free. For me a t-shirt isn’t a great way to make a statement, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy the statements that other people make across their chests. Anti-eco is a New York City based t-shirt company that is all about making statements. They are “lovers of social commentary, rational provocation and a thriving healthy planet,” so they poke fun at the environmentalist movement while actually supporting it. You’ll find t-shirts with sayings like “acid rain tastes like chicken,” “be organic. eat an organ,” and “global warming sounds comfy.” They certainly sound anti-eco, but then you see that they use organic cotton, water based inks, and certified responsible apparel production methods. How ironic! Continue reading about Anti-eco…
One part of my morning routine to get these posts out to you is looking for the company’s logo. Usually I just snag it off of the company’s home page and that’s it. Occasionally I need to find a different version of the logo because it may have a weird background, the word beta written across it, or it may just be too small. The latter was the case today; however, I wasn’t able to find a more reasonably sized logo despite the fact that the company designs logos—in addition to many other things—and is named HUGE. The irony. HUGE is a Brooklyn, NY based company with offices in Los Angeles, London, and Stockholm that “helps build digitally-driven businesses.” What does that mean? It means that they work with some of the biggest brands in the world in areas like strategic planning, user experience, creative, interactive marketing, technology, and emerging platforms. With approximately 225 employees HUGE has designed and developed online experiences that drive 150 million monthly unique visitors and $12.3 billion in revenue. Continue reading about HUGE…
Do you know what’s an awesome thing to do after you graduate? Travel. Do you know what isn’t an awesome thing to tell employers that you’ve been doing since you graduated? Traveling. Think about it from the interviewer’s perspective for a minute. You’ve been in a job for three years, and you just got a promotion. You’re interviewing new grads to fill your old job. You get 10 days of vacation a year (after another promotion you’ll get 15). You use 4 to visit your parents during the holidays. You have to take 3 days for various weddings throughout the year. You use one for a sick day, and that leaves you with 2 glorious days to actually do what you want. Now some spoiled brat is telling you about he or she spent three months on a beach in Thailand after graduation. This isn’t as big of a deal when you’re still in school and looking for internships, but keep this in mind for the future—getting hired is all about making people like you, and making them jealous isn’t helpful. Luckily, there are some employers who don’t have a problem with travel. Take NileGuide for example. They’re a San Francisco based startup (with a lot of funding) that “helps travelers discover and connect to the most satisfying and relevant travel experiences.” Continue reading about NileGuide…
I’m not on a government transparency kick or anything, although I’m not one to to put much trust in those who govern. It just happens that both non-profits that I’m looking at this weekend are focused on helping the public be better informed about what their leaders are actually doing. Today we’re going to look at the Washington, DC based Sunlight Foundation, which is an organization that “uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable.” It used to be that the major media outlets controlled most of the information that flowed out of our government. Sometimes they’d do a good job of reporting, but they need to maintain relationships with government officials if they want the stories to keep coming. Now we live with technology that allows anyone to reach a massive audience. It’s slowly changing the way that government works, and the Sunlight Foundation is pushing to make that happen more quickly. Continue reading about Sunlight Foundation…
Everybody acts like social media and social networking is a new development, but it really isn’t. Even 15 years ago there was a web service that enabled you to create profiles, connect with friends, engage with communities, and communicate instantly or asynchronously. It was called Aol, and there’s a good chance that you used it. I feel bad for Aol. They had it all. They were the behemoth of the social web before anyone knew what the social web was, but they were too big and not agile enough. They continued to act like an ISP, and their market share eroded as people transitioned to high-speed connections. Today most people think of Aol as irrelevant, but the NYC based company is doing their best to make a comeback. The good news is that they aren’t living in the past. They’re not trying to win at social networking or being an ISP—they’ve repositioned. They now describe themselves as “a leading-edge web services company, with an offering of premium and niche content sites, world-class tools and platforms.” The focus is on content, and in some ways that’s what Aol was always about—making great content easy to access for the masses. The tough thing for Aol is that they’re already a huge company, so they’re going to have to swing for the fences if they want their new business model to work. Continue reading about Aol…
Earlier this week we took a look at F+W Media, a company that is aggressively targeting niche media markets with books, magazines, trade shows, and digital products. Today we’re going to look at a company that is attacking similar niches, but strictly on the digital side. Prime Publishing is a Northbrook, IL based company that is, as they put it, “building the premiere woman’s lifestyle site on the Web.” I’m not sure I’d go that far, since businesses like DailyCandy and Gilt Groupe seem to be building pretty strong cases for themselves in that regard. Prime Publishing seems to be taking approach more like that of Demand Media. However, that doesn’t mean that Prime Publishing’s business isn’t interesting—”premiere” is just the wrong word. It’s quite obvious to me that their goal is to build easily monetizable digital properties, not to build an overarching woman’s lifestyle brand. When you take a look at their sites, you’ll see what I mean. Continue reading about Prime Publishing…
This one is going to scare the crap out of some of you. If you’re thinking of pursuing a career in journalism, writing, blogging, editorial, or a similar area, you might want to start looking over your shoulder. The computers are coming. We’ve already heard about companies like Demand Media churning out tons of content with cheap labor, but now Narrative Science thinks that they can do it with no labor (except the programmers who write the software). They’re a five-month old company based in Evanston, IL, and to be honest, beyond that, I don’t know much. I first heard about them from this article in BusinessWeek, and I knew that I had to share the story with all of you. Right now, Narrative Science is focused on the field of sports. More specifically, they’re turning box scores into short news stories. I’m sure some journalists are up in arms about this, but the truth is that if you can be replaced by a computer, then it’s your own damn fault. Continue reading about Narrative Science…
Since I moved to Chicago a year and a half ago, I don’t think I’ve picked up a newspaper more than a handful of times. However, when I lived in Connecticut I was often reading both the daily regional local newspaper and the bi-weekly super local newspaper for my town. It was always fun to see which of the kids from my elementary school class got arrested in a given week (don’t act like you don’t read the Police Reports first). I often forget how many local newspapers are out there and how many jobs they provide. It may be an industry in flux (or on its way out depending on how you look at it), but it’s still a great place to start your career. This morning I noticed that Twitter was abuzz with word of a paid internship with the Everett Daily Herald (that’s Everett, WA), so I figured that we’d take a look at it. Continue reading about Everett Daily Herald…
The magazine industry is kind of an ugly place to be right now. Don’t get me wrong, there are still some great internship opportunities with periodicals, but the iPad hasn’t saved the industry yet. The problem is that most magazines rely on selling ads to drive revenue since subscriptions almost never cover costs. Unfortunately, ad dollars are moving online where performance can be easily measured. Additionally, many companies have cut back on advertising during the recession. But what if you worked at a magazine that didn’t have to worry about selling ads. At YES! Magazine, that’s exactly how it is. They are a Bainbridge Island, WA based non-profit magazine “that supports people’s active engagement in building a just and sustainable world.” Subscriptions cover about half their costs, and the other half is covered by donations. Since YES! Magazine doesn’t need a profit margin, they can operate way more efficiently than for-profit magazines. Continue reading about YES! Magazine…
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I don’t read a lot of magazines. Why be forced to read a certain set of articles when you can have the Internet bring you only the best? I make an exception for a few magazines, and Inc. is one of them. It’s a fantastic resource for small business owners, and it also has to be the best magazine for job and internship seekers out there. That may seem surprising considering that Inc. doesn’t typically focus on career issues, but when you look at their content, you’ll see why. The Inc. 5000, the magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest growing privately held companies in the country, is my undisputed favorite resource for finding exciting, under the radar companies that might be hiring interns. I’m also a big fan of their annual feature on America’s Coolest Internships. Since I find Inc. so helpful for internship searching, I logically wondered whether Inc., which is based in New York City, has any internships. Luckily, they do. Continue reading about Inc….
One of the cool things about doing what I do is that I get a lot of interview requests from media outlets. At least once a week I’m talking to someone who is writing about entry level employment or internships. What’s even cooler is when someone writes about me, and doesn’t even interview me. I’ll suddenly see a Google Alert pop up for my name or brand name, and I’ll click the link to see who’s talking about me. One of the most exciting mentions came from the journal Science and their Science Careers Blog. In case you didn’t know, Science, the Science Careers Blog, and many other publications and newsletters are published by The American Association for the Advancement of Science. The AAAS is a Washington, DC based “non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association.” They work in areas likescience policy, international programs, and science education, and Continue reading about American Association for the Advancement of Science…
It shouldn’t be a surprise that we haven’t covered many internships in real estate over the past couple years. Demand for real estate is way down, and the demand for college students to intern in real estate has to be down too. Luckily, there have been a few bright spots during the recession. Some real estate based startups have been able to gain market share from struggling competitors, and the demand for real estate based content has remained strong. I think it’s safe to say that media coverage of the real estate and mortgage markets has only increased over the past few years. The LTV Group, a Dallas, TX based “end-to-end communications firm spanning publishing and creative services,” has taken advantage of the growth in market for real estate related for information. The company consists of three subsidiaries, HousingWire, REOInsider, and LTV Creative. The latter is a full-service marketing communications firm, while the other two are magazines and websites that put LTV Creative to work. Continue reading about The LTV Group…
Today is my half birthday, which has nothing to do with trumpets or creative agencies, but I thought it was worth noting in case you want to buy me a present. Trumpet says “Don’t Advertise. Connect.” So that’s what I’m trying to do. Connect with me by buying me a gift. Anyway, Trumpet is a unique creative agency. They’re based in New Orleans, LA, and they typically work with startups, launches, and turnarounds. Since those are exactly the kinds of businesses that New Orleans needs right now, they’re a perfect fit for the city. Trumpet offers holistic strategy guidance that goes beyond advertising and touches on areas like “product development, social or digital strategy, publicity, events, design or sponsored content.” They really aim to touch all areas of the businesses that they work with. Continue reading about Trumpet…
I’m still working through my favorites from Fast Company’s list of “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies,” and today we have a firm that came in #3 on their list for Design companies. It’s New York City’s Rockwell Group, which is the company behind my favorite airport terminal (jetBlue’s JFK Terminal 5) and many of Starwood’s hotels. They also did this year’s set for the Oscars and a groundbreaking playground in partnership with KaBOOM!. It may sound like they’re an architectural firm, but Rockwell Group is more than that—they also do product design and set design. It’s all about creating “immersive environments.” They even have a book entitled Pleasure: The Architecture and Design of Rockwell Group
Yesterday I spent a few hours poring over an issue of Fast Company that includes their list of “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.” It is loaded with companies that I’d never heard of, so I picked out the most interesting ones and checked to see what their internship opportunities looked like. Luckily, I found quite a few prospects, so you’re in for some really cool stuff over the next few weeks. One of the companies that I found was VICE, a New York City magazine and media conglomerate that publishes a “superedgy hipster bible.” Their content is about as safe for work as American Apparel advertisements, which is partially because AA is one of their main advertisers. The interesting thing about VICE is that they are a huge company—they have a print circulation of nearly a million magazines and their sites get 3.5 million monthly unique visitors. This has sparked growth from $45 million in revenue in 2008 to $64 million in 2009. Continue reading about VICE…
We’ve grown up in the age of extreme sports. Not only did we get to see the X Games when it was a new thing, but we also got to see sports like snowboarding make their way into the Olympics. I’m sure many of you have tried (and failed if you’re anything like me) your hand in at least one extreme sport. The best thing about extreme sports is that they’re huge confidence boosters for kids. While just playing baseball isn’t usually good enough—you actually need to be good at it—being able to do an extreme sports is an accomplishment in itself. That’s why it’s a perfect outlet to help “enhance the health, abilities, personal growth and social engagement of people with autism,” which is what the Basalt, CO based non-profit, Extreme Sports Camp, is all about. Continue reading about Extreme Sports Camp…
If you woke up this morning with a sore throat, what would you do? I bet many of you would get on the computer, type your symptoms into Google, and probably end up on WebMD trying to self-diagnose. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing (maybe we should leave the diagnosing for the doctors), but it’s how most of us operate these days. We have a remarkable amount of medical information available at our fingertips, and WebMD, which is based in NYC with a significant presence in a number of other cities, is responsible for a lot of it. They consider themselves “the leading provider of health information services, serving consumers, physicians, other healthcare professionals, employers and health plans.” If you read that closely, you probably noticed that WebMD’s business goes well beyond their consumer facing website. Continue reading about WebMD…
Today’s post came from a reader recommendation (thanks Derek!), which is awesome because I was on the company’s site a few days ago and never would have imagined that they offer internships (or even considered them a company as opposed to a website). The reason that I was on the site was that I was reading the story of Epic Beard Man (it is tagged NSFW), which is another one of those ridiculous things that has become popular on the Internet. The term that many use to describe these phenomena is meme. Know Your Meme is a website that organizes all of the world’s memes. Let’s say that you’re looking for the story behind Rickroll because you have no idea why people think it’s so funny. Know Your Meme, which is based in New York City, will not only explain the meme to you, but it will also detail the history of how the meme became popular and how it evolved. To some Know Your Meme may seem frivolous, but in many ways it’s the Historical Society of the Interwebs. Continue reading about Know Your Meme…
I’ll admit it, I don’t read The Economist regularly, but plenty of my friends do—mostly the smart ones. It’s a magazine (they call themselves a newspaper, but you’d likely identify it as a magazine) that stands apart from other periodicals in a variety of ways. It’s not the topics that they cover—they offer both news coverage and analysis and opinion on business and politics—it’s more the way that they cover those topics. The most interesting thing about The Economist is the fact that all of their articles are written anonymously. It’s about “a belief that what is written is more important than who writes it,” but you have to like the fact that anonymity allows the writers the freedom that they need to address topics in the ways that they should be addressed. The Economist is all about free trade and free markets, yet it “considers itself the enemy of privilege, pomposity and predictability.” The Economist is based in London, but they are very much an international business and magazine. Continue reading about The Economist…
I probably should have done this post last week in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, but I still think it’s worth talking about New York City based OkCupid today. They’re a free online dating site that matches people based on what they say they find important. Since I’m not looking, I don’t usually come across dating sites in my daily Internet travels, but OkCupid keeps popping up. Most of the time it’s because of their brilliant blog called OkTrends. It has some amazing posts that analyze the data generated by OkCupid’s users. Previous articles have covered topics like profile pictures and how race affects online dating outcomes. It’s really impressive and interesting stuff. OkCupid is actually run by a company called Humor Rainbow, but that website redirects to OkCupid.com, so it’s clear where their priorities are. Continue reading about OkCupid…
I’m sure that you’ve heard a lot in the news about how traditional media companies are having trouble taking their business models online. You may be under the impression that making money from web content is near impossible, but there’s a dirty little secret: it’s not. While companies like the New York Times stick to editorial integrity and chasing Pulitzers, there are companies out there that craft their content with the sole purpose of making money. A perfect example is Santa Monica, CA based Demand Media. They’ve secured more than $355 million in venture capital funding, grown annual revenue to more than $200 million annually, and reached a valuation north of $1 billion all by taking an ROI based approach to content development. How does that work? Demand Media has developed an algorithm that helps them find profitable topics. By using data from Google AdWords, they’re able to estimate the demand for a given piece of content (example: an article and video on how to tie your shoes) along with the revenue that the yet to be developed piece of content could be expected to make given a certain number of pageviews. Continue reading about Demand Media…
I’m not sure if it’s a trend yet, but it seems that more and more creative/interactive agencies are moving away from client work and spending more time developing products. 37signals used to be a web design agency, and now they develop web-based applications that help people get things done. Brooklyn, NY based AD:60 appears to be taking a similar path. They’re still putting a strong emphasis on their client work, but they also seem to have a lot of interest in developing their own products. The agency’s offerings include Web Design, Website Development, Mobile Technology, Marketing & Advertising, and Consulting, while their current internal projects include MyBankTracker.com and BankTwitter.com. Continue reading about AD:60…
Some people never need to hire a professional. Whether it’s a plumber, personal trainer, or eco-consultant that they need, they’d rather teach themselves how to solve the given problem. Other people would rather spend their time and effort most efficiently, so they hire a professional when they get in over their heads. If you’re the latter type, and you want to “green” your home or office, then you’ll want to get familiar with Green Irene. They are a New York City based company, founded in 2007, that provides eco-consulting services and sells green products. If you’re worried about the negative impact that you’re having on the environment, you can have one of their consultants visit your home and office to make recommendations on how you can do better. The Wall Street Journal did a nice feature on the eco-consulting industry (it includes Green Irene), so check that out to get a better sense of the overall market. Continue reading about Green Irene…
I was traveling yesterday, so I scheduled yesterday’s post and hopped on a plane. Little did I know that my server would somehow forget to do what I told it. Sorry! If you’re looking for yesterday’s post, you can find it here. (Or if you’re reading by e-mail, just scroll down.)
There are a lot of people who aren’t very thrilled with healthcare in the United States. Yes, it can be atrociously expensive, but at least we have access to pretty much any medical procedure out there. Whether it’s something very basic or something that has never been tried before, the US certainly has the medical infrastructure to get the job done. There are plenty of countries in the world where even the most basic medical care is out of reach, and there are other countries where basic medical care becomes out of reach due to a crisis. That’s where New York City based Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) comes in. They provide “aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters.” Doctors Without Borders does this by recruiting both medical and non-medical personnel to travel abroad to offer a level of medical assistance that is well beyond what is typically available. Continue reading about Doctors Without Borders…
Being a newspaper these days is tough. I’d imagine it’s especially tough in a place like San Francisco where people embrace new technologies so quickly. Although I’d also expect those early adopters to be just the types who are heavy users of newspapers. I’m not sure where that leaves the San Francisco Chronicle, but they do seem to have a strong history of adapting to changes in their business model. According to Wikipedia, they first went online with SFGate.com in 1994, and now they’re moving towards a focus on subscriptions instead of advertising to generate revenue. I’m not sure that’s going to work long term, but you have to like the flexibility that the San Francisco Chronicle has shown over the years. It’s no surprise that they remain one of the largest newspapers in the country. Continue reading about San Francisco Chronicle…
Remember that time that you predicted the walk off home run during the baseball game or the fact that your friend would get back together with his girlfriend for the 7th time? Of course you do. It was proof of your psychic abilities. Remember the time that you made a similar prediction but were wrong? Of course not. When you only count your wins and not your losses, it’s easy to have a perfect record. Politicians take advantage of this all the time. The truth is that there aren’t a lot of people out there who are good at predicting things, whether it’s weather, the economy, sports, or any number of other things. Nouriel Roubini may be an exception. He could be insanely “lucky” with the fact that his descriptions and predictions of the current financial crisis were dead on, but you have to give him credit for the amount of detail included in his predictions, like when he said “the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.” He’s very obviously a brilliant guy, and he’s also the founder of New York City based Roubini Global Economics, a company that provides “a uniquely tailored look at the logic of the global economy” for its clients. Continue reading about Roubini Global Economics…
