In the past, it was easy. Corporations made money. Nonprofits helped the world. If a corporation wanted to help the world, it would donate to a nonprofit, or set up its own foundation.

That model is changing. Social ventures, a new kind of for- and nonprofit hybrid, are easing their way into the business world. From Good Capital, a socially responsible investment firm, to Google.org, which dedicates resources to helping urgent world problems, social ventures are proliferating throughout the country.

According to Andrew Greenblatt, NYU professor and Director of Products and Innovation at Criterion Ventures, the current generation of graduating college students will ensure that this trend becomes a fundamental part of our economy. To help today’s entrepreneurs navigate the confusing world of establishing a social enterprise, Greenblatt helps run Criterion’s Structure Labs, the country’s only one-day workshop on launching a social venture.

Business Pundit caught up with Greenblatt to discuss setting up hybrid ventures, where the movement is going, and how it will change the economy.

BP: Can you tell me more about the history behind Structure Labs? How did you guys come up with the idea?

AG: Criterion Ventures is a consultancy that launches social ventures, specifically with an eye towards things that have broader social impact. We also launch our own ideas. We identify some kind of need in society, find a sustainable way to address that need, and then launch a venture around it. We’re social entrepreneurs for hire.

Through this work, we’ve found out more about the problems faced by social entrepreneurs. Legal structures are an issue that came up over and over again. You’re either a for-profit, and your goal is to maximize profit. Or you’re a nonprofit charity, and your goal is to maximize making a better world.

Now we have all these blended, multiple bottom-line ventures coming together. Legal structures haven’t kept up. If you just want to maximize profit, there’s one structure. If you want to go out and have people give you money and use that money to do good in the world, there’s a different structure.

When you want to start blending your purposes, it becomes harder. So we created this 5-hour workshop that helps people understand what their options are, and what the advantages and disadvantages of all the options are. It’s fun and engaging. People can take their own projects to the workshop and work with their own real-life We got a grant from the Packard foundation, and that helped us create this, and now we are going around the country and offering the workshop, and that is really cool.

BP: What is a multiple bottom line?

AG: A single bottom line is profit. A second bottom line takes into account other stakeholders in the company. That could be the workers, so people could say that Costco cares about its workers, gives them health benefits, etc.

It could be their community, it could be their suppliers. For example, Ben and Jerry’s would hit cream crises (an oversupply of cream made prices collapse). When one of those cycles hit, and the price of cream went below the cost of maintaining the farms, then Ben & Jerry’s continued to pay the previous year’s to support the family famers.

The third bottom line is the environment. For example, is our carbon footprint growing or shrinking? Are we putting more toxic waste into the world, or less? That kind of stuff.

One beautiful thing about free-market capitalism is that there’s a really simple universal measure of success, and that’s profitability. When you start to add these other things–What does it mean to take good care of your workers? What does it mean to take good care of the environment and the community?–everything becomes squishier.

BP: If I want to launch a social venture, what are three of the most important things I should know, from a legal structure perspective, before I start?

AG: It depends on the social structure. If you want to start a foundation, because your Aunt Tilly died and left you $20 million to give away to save the pelicans, those 3 things you’re worried about are very different than if you’re trying to sell bednets in Africa. So the casual phrase of “social ventures” makes it hard for me to answer that question.

I can give you a broader answer, however. There are probably the three pieces of advice I would give to anyone.

Most people think, so this is my mission, that’s my job, and it’s my lawyer’s job to think about the structure. There are two problems with that strategy. The first is that unfortunately, some lawyers are better than others. The second is that people limit their own vision before they ever meet with their lawyer, because of their false assumptions.

And they go meet with their lawyer with their now-limited vision, and the lawyer says “yeah, I can do that.” Now, if they had a broader vision, then the lawyer would still say “yeah, I can do that.” But they’ve already clipped their own wings (when they limit their vision).

The second thing is that the legal structures have ramifications through different phases of your organization’s life. What your legal structure is will matter when you raise money, so lots of people start there, deciding on a legal structure based on whether they want donations or venture capital.

Some people go a little further. They think of their revenue streams, they think “how am I going to sustain this?” That might influence whether they’re going to be a for- or nonprofit. That’s usually as far as people tend to think.

The next thing that’s going to matter is how are you going to grow? You can franchise your operation, you can license out your intellectual property, or you can just grow. What your legal structure is will impact what options are available to you.

Then, there are issues about how you interact with your market. Being a nonprofit sends a certain message to your customers and your vendors. Being a for-profit sends a different message and allows you to interact with them in different ways.

The last thing that people don’t think about–that we have as the second thing you need to think about in our workshop–is your exit strategy. Someday you will exit this venture. If it means that God comes and takes you to heaven, I assure you, someday you will leave this venture.

Thinking through how you want that exit to be is crucial to how you set up your venture. If you think look, if this is wildly successful, and can sell someday, and I want to capture some of that money and retire, ok…well if you start a nonprofit, you can’t sell it.

So if you’re thinking 20 years from now, you’re retiring and selling this baby off, and you’re starting a nonprofit, we have some talking to do. Things like that.

BP: Let’s look at social ventures as an emerging economic movement. Where would you say we are right now on the timeline of that movement? Where are we going?

AG: Infancy. Elements of this have been around for a while. The idea that you can have sustainable ventures that encourage justice in the world is not new. You know, the YMCA’s been around for a long time. But as a movement, as people identifying it as a unique strategy and getting it moving, that’s pretty new.

It’s hard to choose a moment when this began. We didn’t have a Stonewall (Ed.: or any other major event to mark when this began). But it’s not more than 50 years ago that people started talking about being social entrepreneurs. It’s new.

When I was in law school, nobody knew about this. The fact that a few of us were graduating and wanted to go out and make a difference in the world was viewed as weird. This was 1990-3.

I went back to school to speak at Harvard about a year ago. Someone came from the business school to watch me speak, and we went out for drinks afterwards. He said that the largest student club at the Harvard business school today is the private equity club. The second largest club is the social venture club.

The world has changed rapidly, and it’s picking up speed. Students today are way ahead of where we were as students. That’s going to impact this world bigger, faster, stronger for a long while to come.

If you’re a recruiter for the mainstream economy, and you go to the business school today, you’ll be confronted with the fact that one of the biggest groups is the social entrepreneurs group. If you’re Rape and Pillage Inc., you’re going to have trouble recruiting talent.

I’ll give you one other example. There is a new corporate form out there. It’s called L3C, the low-profit limited liability company. It’s kind of an LLC, but also a new corporate form.

It was created in Vermont less than two years ago. It’s now available in 5-6 states. Just that there is a new corporate form says something, and the fact that it’s being picked up by other states so quickly is saying there’s a real hunger for this.

I think that this is a very young movement, and it is rapidly gaining speed. Economic forces will continue to push that. I think it will snowball faster and faster.

BP: How do you see this movement of social ventures changing the economy?

AG: In response to this? That’s a really complicated question. I’ll give it a shot.

I think more and more of the entrepreneurial energy will move in this direction. Most entrepreneurs start in their twenties. They usually really hit their stride in their forties, but they start in their twenties. And entrepreneurs in their 20s are doing this.

So, 20 years from now, this is what entrepreneurship is going to be. Currently, venture money is moving in this direction. Later on, expansion money is going to have to follow. As so many ventures mature, buyout money will move in this direction, too.

That’s already happening with certain consumer brands. Odwalla was bought. Danone yogurt bought Stonyfield Farms because that’s the part of the yogurt market that’s growing. You can still by Dannon yogurt, but it’s the part of the company that’s shrinking. You’re already seeing it begin to happen. It will happen more and more.

The dominant view now is a shareholder ROI economy. Things that can make money for investors get done. If you look at the trillions of dollars of investments that happen in America every year, the majority are driven by ROI for the investor. They fuel the bottom line.

That’s going to shift slowly to the multiple bottom lines. Ultimately, it will be more profitable to do that. Companies that don’t give a crap about anyone else will become less profitable. People won’t want to work there, won’t want to shop there. It will hurt your bottom line to be that company.

Today that’s not true, but you could make the argument that we’re starting to see it. For example, you can look at Costco versus Wal-Mart, and their stock price over the last 10 years or so. The recession may have changed this, but over last 10 years or so, Costco’s perfomrance has continuously been better than Wal-Mart in terms of P/E ratios. That’s partially because people view Wal-Mart’s relentless strategy of single bottom line as a detriment to them. Costco, which treats their workers better, cares about other stakeholders, etc., is viewed as the smarter long-term play.

If you look at who’s graduating from the top business schools today, that’s the talent pool that’s going to answer that question. But I don’t really know what’s going to happen.

We’re still trying to figure all that out.

BP: Anything else you’d like to share?

AG: Some people think that some of these ideas are good business, and they would have survived anyway, and that by painting it with some sort of social gloss is just decoration.

For example, Wal-Mart is way ahead of every other large retailer on the environmental front. They’re pushing their vendors, for example, to reduce packaging.

Pushing is the wrong word. They’re saying if you want to be on our shelves, you have to get rid of that excess packaging. It’s that simple. If you want to be in their stores—20% of the market or whatever—you’ve got to reduce packaging.

Some people are looking at that and thinking well, great, they’re protecting the environment. From Wal-Mart’s perspective, not doing it means more packaging in their trucks and less shelf space.

Yes, it’s good for the environment, but it’s good for the bottom line. They’re doing all kinds of cutting-edge energy management. They use very high-efficient lighting, and it’s off when it should be off, and all kinds of stuff. Again, why waste money?

Some people will say to the extent that any of this matters in business, only the stuff that goes to the first bottom line anyway gets picked up. So Costco will say we give good health benefits, train our workers better, and pay higher wages because it’s cheaper than having high turnover, and because our customers, when they ask where something is in the store, expect the right answer. Having someone who just started yesterday isn’t going to help that.

Some of that stuff that gets shed, is just stuff that costs money. It will help that first bottom line. That’s what some people will say who are watching all of this happen. Because clearly things are happening. You’re watching all this and can’t pretend that this is nothing. They’ll think that’s what’s happening.

I think they’re half right. The things that help the first bottom line are the things that will be picked up fastest and go quickest into the market.

But I think that the mindset of the public is changing generationally. That will have deeper impacts over time that we’re just starting to see. For example, if you want to hire the best and the brightest out of the best schools, you have to offer them more than just a high salary. There will be a generational shift that will go deeper than just “it makes sense to turn the lights out when nobody’s in the store.”

*

Andrew Greenblatt is the Director of Products and Innovation at Criterion Ventures. He is an entrepreneur, lawyer, professor, and social venture expert. Find out more about Andrew and Criterion here.

Images: Steffen’s blog, Harvard Social Enterprise Club, Yarek Waszul

...according to sources familiar with the situation–Twitter is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google separately about striking data-mining deals, in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.

Twitter is…seeking to create a large open platform, which many could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers.

Smart move for Twitter. Licensing tweets for real-time inclusion is a potentially easy and steady way to monetize. It’s also less potentially irritating than some of Twitter’s other ideas (derived from changes in its Terms of Service), which include selling tweets to marketers. That won’t stop Twitter from doing both–especially if it that means it can remain an independent company.

I was surprised yesterday, while browsing the booths at a local business women’s conference, to see a spread for The Trump Network. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I didn’t want to encourage the woman who was eagerly showing me the scientific looking test tubes which I had assumed were some sort of at-home drug testing kit for and therefore possibly very practical, but which would actually be used to collect my urine so that customized Trump vitamin supplements could be crafted. My extreme curiosity about all things Trump won out. I grabbed a few brochures.

Could it be true? Donald Trump launching a network marketing company? It is, and they’re selling vitamins and pre-packaged meals. Oh, Donald, I just don’t know about this. I mean real estate is so sexy, but laxatives? Not so much.

According to Trump it’s time to take back the American dream. The official launch of the company is set for November in Miami. You can find out more on their website here, but beware – there are a lot of video clips of the Donald shouting. But we wouldn’t have him any other way, would we?

My big question is this: why not hair products?

Image Credit: screenshot, www.trumpnetwork.com

Twitter altered its Terms of Service Friday, as a precursor to monetization. Erik Sherman has the scoop:

# “Twitter is explicitly saying that content can and will be shared with others that “partner with Twitter for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use.” Use of content can be made without any compensation to the people who created it. Given the ecosystem of add-on services that Twitter doesn’t make money from, you can understand the approach. But it also opens the door for the company to monetize content in a number of ways, including publishing collections of tweets on a subject or even analyzing content of tweets and making them available to companies that might wish to know what people are doing or saying.”

# “Twitter notes that it has always kept the door open for advertisements, but the old TOS simply didn’t mention the term. Now it seems that the “Services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the Content or information on the Services, queries made through the Services, or other information.” Other information is certainly going to include profile data for behavioral targeting. In addition, “… you agree that Twitter and its third party providers and partners may place such advertising on the Services or in connection with the display of Content or information from the Services whether submitted by you or others.” If they’re going to include ads, I can see how this would be necessary. But should they go that route, it’s going to potentially upset the millions of users who have been accustomed to getting a free lunch.”

# “The section on privacy points to a separate privacy policy. Twitter gives itself the option to “use your contact information to market to you, and provide you with information about, our products and services, including but not limited to our Service.” Interestingly enough, I can’t find any language that would allow Twitter to share the information with third parties that aren’t directly performing functions or services for it. So advertising may be an option, but sharing or renting customer data, other than through being acquired or selling off the assets in case of bankruptcy, doesn’t seem to be.”

More.

Twitter is bound to lose customers if it takes the wrong approach to monetization. Who wants their tweets sold? And who wants to see more ads? And whose business, at this point, actually depends on Twitter for revenue? When all is said and done, it’s a relatively easy service to replace or ditch.

Twitter needs to do more to make itself irreplaceable to customers before it starts trying to monetize through ads or selling tweets. Why not license Twitter software? Or sell out to a bigger company, where it can become part of a broader multimedia strategy? Trying to monetize off consumer information and inserting ads will only alienate users.

One of my favorite Business Pundit posts of all time profiles 25 visionary entrepreneurs who “created empires from virtually nothing.” While entrepreneurial success stories are always inspiring, the best ones always seem to be those that people can relate to. All due respect to the entrepreneurial geniuses of past centuries, but not many of us are aiming to become a railroad tycoon these days.

Here are some amazing success stories of entrepreneurs that started small.

1. Judi Sheppard Missett
Jazzercise

The founder of this wildly successful fitness company started teaching dance classes after hanging up her professional dancing shoes. When turnout dropped, she had an epiphany. The women weren’t coming to class to learn the precise steps to a dance, but to lose weight and tone up.

Sheppard Missett picked up the pace, turned up the music, and created a fun class that was soon packed. She trained additional instructors to teach the routines she choreographed, which eventually lead to a franchise deal. The company now has over 7,500 locations worldwide, a clothing line, and an extremely loyal fan base–all from a dance class.

2. Brian Scudamore
1-800-GOT-JUNK

Scudamore started his company, which he describes as “the FedEx of junk removal,” with $700 in start-up capital and his own beat-up truck. He dropped out of college with only a year left to run the business full time. 1-800-GOT-JUNK now has nearly 100 franchised locations across North America.

3. A.J. Scribante

MAJERS

A.J. Scribante started off selling bleach to supermarkets and other stores around the Midwest. But Scribante had bigger things in mind. He wanted to find a better way to compare regional differences in retail prices, so that he could make more sales.

He started collecting newspaper grocery store ads from various cities to show to grocery stores in different markets. He put all those ads into a single booklet. He realized how valuable the information was when companies started requesting price data for competitors. Thus, the idea for MAJERS, what would become a multi-million dollar marketing information company, was born.

4. Jill Blashack Strahan
Tastefully Simple

Blashack Strahan started her gourmet food company with $6,000 in savings, a backyard shed for storage, and a pool table as a packing station.

In her own words: “I remember sitting outside one day, thinking we were three months behind on our house payment, I had two employees I couldn’t pay, and I ought to get a real job. But then I thought, No, this is your dream. Recommit and get to work.”

She had the idea to sell at taste-testing parties, and sales began slowly picking up. In 12 years, Tastefully Simple has grown into a $120 million dollar business. ()

5. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield
Ben & Jerry’s

The now-legendary duo decided to open a business after taking a correspondence course on the art of ice cream making. They discovered that just about the only college town without an ice cream shop was Burlington, Vermont. With $8,000 in savings and a $4,000 loan, they leased an old gas station in Burlington, purchased equipment, and began coming up with ideas for “unique” flavors. Twenty years later, the company was taking in $237 million in annual revenue.

6. David Hauser and Siamak Taghaddos
Got VMail/Grasshopper

Hauser and Taghaddos came up with a great idea for an inexpensive VoIP phone system for small businesses. They got their startup money the hard way, by asking friends and family to help fund their business.

The idea for GotVMail was to give smaller companies a way to sound as professional as larger, established firms, allowing small businesses to set up voice-mail boxes that can route calls to cell phones and get messages via e-mailed MP3 files. GotVMail, now Grasshopper, generates about $5 million in revenue per year.

7. Seth Goldman
Honest Tea

Goldman started out brewing the tea in his kitchen and storing it in thermoses. After only five weeks spent perfecting the brewing process, he brought samples of and a mock-up label to a meeting with the company that is now Whole Foods Market, hoping that they would place a small order. They asked for 15,000 bottles. Honest Tea is now the top-selling bottled organic tea in the U.S.

8. Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor
Juicy Couture

Skiast-Levy and Nash-Taylor didn’t want to start a business in debt. Instead, they started their clothing empire with $200 of their own money, and applied for a revolving line of credit. Neither took a salary for two years while they designed and produced the now-ubiquitous terry and velour tracksuits that would make them famous. Juicy Couture Clothing is now sold at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman-Marcus, and Bloomingdales.

9. Jake Neuberg and Ramit Varma
Revolution Prep

Neuberg and Varma, who both had experience as tutors, met in business school and launched their test prep company in 2002, financing themselves with personal credit cards. After nearly going broke the first year, the company started becoming profitable. By 2004, Revolution Prep had more than $1 million in revenues, and by 2007, their first-quarter sales topped $3 million.

10. Ryan Hoak, Michael Benbow, and Todd Essman
RealGM.com

Hoak and Benbow “met” on an internet message board and came up with the idea for a site that lets fans analyze hypothetical NBA trades. Based in Illinois and Australia, respectively, the two collaborated on Trade Checker, later enlisting the help of Essman.

Not only was the idea a hit among NBA fans, it also attracted the attention of real NBA general managers. In addition to licensing RealGM software to teams for approximately $30,000 a year, RealGM.com has become one of the world’s most popular sports websites, attracting over 20 million page views per month.

11. Mena and Ben Trott
Six Apart

Husband-and-wife team Mena and Ben Trott developed Movable Type as a tool for Mena’s personal blog posts. When they offered it online, there were over 200 downloads within the first hour. From their apartment, the Trotts (who were also high school sweethearts) launched software company SixApart, now a multi-national provider of blogging tools with more than 10 million estimated users.

12. Dana Levy
Daily Candy

The snappy email newsletter that highlights everything from restaurant openings to eyebrow waxing was first sent in March 2000 to a 700-name email address list, authored by Levy herself. In a few short years, the subscriber base approached 3 million, e-mails were targeted locally, and spin-offs (Daily Candy Kids) became profitable in their own right. Comcast purchased Daily Candy in 2008 for $125 million.

So there you have it–a few inspiring success stories we all can relate to. At Resource Nation, we work with thousands of entrepreneurs a month, and one thing is apparent: There’s no “sure thing” business or industry. Whether you’re starting a software company from your garage or an exercise class at your local community center, dream big. These entrepreneurs are proof that those dreams really do come true.

Merrin Muxlow is a writer, yoga teacher, and law student based in San Diego, California. Merrin writes extensively for Resource Nation, an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs. She frequently contributes to several sites and programs that offer tools for business owners, including Dell, BizEquity, StartUpNation, and bMighty.

When the baby bedding business is booming, you have to wonder how bad the economy really is. Babybedding.com, the website of baby linen manufacturer Carousel Designs, was featured in the August 2009 issue of Fortune Small Business.  As part of the magazine’s makeover series Babybeddingcom will receive  a complete business strategy consult from the Fortune team.

Fortune Small Business generally chooses makeover subjects that are high potential companies with at least one million dollars in annual gross revenues. Carousel Designs has that and more. Jonathan Hartley bought the family business from his parents in 2007 and then hired former West Point classmate, Allan Sicat, to be the company’s President. Drawing on their rigorous West Point training and subsequent business experience Hartley and Sicat have set out to help transform the company into an Internet success story.

Hartley and Sicat hope the Fortune makeover will help them build the brand awareness and stronger operational framework they’ll need to go up against the big names in baby bedding – like Pottery Barn Kids. Currently they leverage advanced search engine marketing techniques and innovations such as “Design Your Own Custom Crib Bedding” feature to grow the business.

The magazine enlisted three of the top business minds in the country, free of charge to consult on these matters. For the makeover, the experts toured the Carousel Designs’ factory and held discovery sessions before imparting insights and advice in the areas of brand marketing, finance, operations and customer loyalty programs.

“It was invaluable to spend the day with experts hand picked by Fortune Small Business,” said Mr. Sicat. “We hope to apply many of the ideas drawn from the makeover in the coming year.”

In addition to valuable consulting services, Carousel Designs received feature-length coverage in the August 2009 Fortune Small Business, available at newsstands and bookstores this month, as well as on CNNMoney.com. And that’s something money can never buy.

Image Credit: www.babybedding.com

I was watching one of those cooking reality shows the other day while I was putting a frozen lasagna in the oven and opening a bag of salad. I don’t remember if it was Top Chef or Naked Chef or Chefs with Big Knives or That Hot Foreign Chef with the Really Cute Accent, but it was one of those.

If  you’re not familiar with these type of shows, they assemble a crew of amateur or professional cooks who compete in these *very exciting* cooking challenges wherein they only have a limited number of ingredients – say a pork chop, four anchovies, 2 cans of mandarin oranges, and a bag of rice. The chefs have to make something that tastes good and looks good on the plate, and that is also original. On the show I was watching they had 20 minutes to do it, outside, over a campfire, with some snooty looking Top-of-the-Toppest Chef looking over their shoulders.

And what’s a reality show without an elimination? There were two tied for last. One chef had an amazing idea. She had combined ingredients in new and stunning ways that impressed the judges. Her execution, however, left them hungry. She hadn’t quite manifested her vision on the plate. Her competitor had done the opposite. He delivered a somewhat predictable, ho-hum dish. But he’d done it flawlessly.

Who won? I don’t know because I changed the channel. But I kept thinking about the issue, and I think you should too.

What’s more important in business – concept or execution?

Image Credit: nicholas.boullosa, Flickr

This isn’t your grandfather’s business show. And guaranteed: No pleated pants.

With these words, David Siteman Garland introduces another episode of The Rise to the Top. The syndicated show is nearing its second season, and the 20-something Siteman Garland couldn’t be more enthusiastic.

“It’s a talk show on steroids,” he says of the entrepreneur-focused show, which airs both online and on ABC30 St. Louis. The show uses both traditional and new media to reach out to more than 50,000 viewers. Each multi-segment episode features tips, interviews, inspiration, advice, and other fodder for entrepreneurs. To boot, The Rise to the Top hosts community events, such as networking dinners and a summer-themed business event including Anna Kournikova in July.

Almost singlehandedly, Siteman Garland has built an exciting small-business community in St. Louis. Judging by his extraordinary levels of energy and commitment, the Midwest is just the beginning. Business Pundit interviewed Siteman Garland to find out more, so to speak, about how he runs the show.

BP: How’d you get into TV production?

DSG: The story is crazy. After I graduated from college at age 22, I started a professional in-line hockey league in St. Louis. It was like getting an MBA in two years.

I had a knack for doing sponsorships, so I ended up with a radio show talking about in-line hockey on 1380 St. Louis, a major station. While I was still doing that work, I sat down with a friend at a coffee shop and realized something. I said I felt like there was nothing on TV right now that would be designed for forward-thinking entrepreneurs, the young and the young-at-heart. I said, “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to do it. I think the show will catch on, and we can do good things for the community.”

I had no idea what to do when I started the show, so I found people who did know what was going on. I would ask anyone that would listen to me, I would say “look, I want to do a TV show. I don’t know what I’m doing. If you think it’s a bad idea, tell me now. If you think it’s good idea, and you think someone can help me out with this, I’d appreciate if you could nudge me in right direction.”

As a result, I got networked into some of the top people who could make this a reality, including one of the top media people in St. Louis. The original plan was just get on cable access and see what happens. Next thing you know, the head of this network station (my46 http://www.my46stl.com/) in St. Louis is nice enough to say “let’s give this a shot and see what happens.” It all happened through networking and relationship-building.

I poured everything I had, including all my savings, to get the show going. I made my own production studio, but that’s another story.

BP: What happened?

DSG: I hired a production company when we first started, but things didn’t go as planned. Costs escalated. Our price per episode was more than $8K, which was a huge amount when we were trying to get started. We had budgeted far less than that.

We were going bankrupt in a hurry. It got to the point where we either had to pack up shop, or try to get a loan or investors. We also didn’t have a lot of time, had 1.5 weeks to shoot the next episode.

I thought: “I just have to take action.” I decided to start a Craigslist competition for video editors (that’s the most important role). I put out an ad on Craigslist. Two days later, I had 98 resumes, from someone with 5 Emmies to some guy who just emailed “Yo, my name’s Jay, I do video.”

I weeded the candidates down to 50. Then, I interviewed 25 video editors in person in two days in 2 different coffee shops. By the end, we had narrowed it down to five decent editors.

I created a competition where I paid each candidate a small amount to edit an entire episode. I told them the best one would go on TV. Through the contest, I built great relationships with some of the editors. We got high quality content for less, and with the money saved, we were able to purchase our own equipment.

We had no place to shoot, so we transformed my condo into a studio. We created the most extensive studio in condo history! I’m actually looking at a couple set pieces as we speak. It’s sort of like living in a funhouse.

BP: How many employees do you have?

DSG: We have a team of fewer than ten people. I’m the principal owner of the company. I’ve created a Dream Team of entrepreneurs, independent contractors, and college interns. We have people in internet marketing, graphic design, web development, media planning/buying, video production, and logistics. Our tasks include signing sponsorships; shooting the show; producing, creating, and editing the show; events, and more.

My hands are in a lot of different buckets right now. It can get a little overwhelming in terms of doing everything at once.

BP: Who’s your demographic?

DSG: 62% of viewers meet our target demographic, which covers ages of 25-49. 29% of our demographic is in the 50+ age range, which I didn’t see coming. They’re attracted to our forward-thinking attitude. We’re getting some high-end people who want to know what the “kids” are up to. 9% of viewers are 18-24 years old.

BP: What has your experience with advertisers been?

DSG: We try to offer a different level of engagement than many advertisers. We like to create an experience where advertisers come to events. We try to keep it different.

We also use social media more. For example, the Sub Zero Vodka Bar in St. Louis spends $0 on advertising every year. We created an off-the-menu sponsored drink called The Rise to the Top. It’s a vodka mojito with 3 secret ingredients. The only way you find out about the drinks is through our show, events, Twitter feed, and other show-related media. It creates a sort of “cool factor.” People feel like they have a secret code when they go to the bar and get the drink. It’s been trackable and highly successful.

The idea was to get brand awareness so that we get people through the door. The key for working with any sponsorship or advertiser is to listen, to pay attention to exactly what the advertiser looking for.

You have to have the ability to say no, to tell them “I think you’re money is better spent elsewhere.” It comes back to you tenfold in the long run, because people know that you’re the person who is paying attention to users. You get a reputation for knowing what kinds of products, etc. users are interested in.

BP: What keeps you going?

DSG: My strongest personal assets are energy and taking action. I have a ridiculous amount of energy all the time. It scares people. I’m always bringing energy into everything, and I just don’t stop.

Taking action is also a major thing. Being able to pick an idea and being able to do something about it is key. I’m not a super planner, but being able to take action is the number one thing.

Part of this process is that you really have to be able to hustle and get it done in the beginning. The rewards are in the long run.

See David Siteman Garland in action at The Rise to the Top. The second season starts in September 2009, on ABC30 St. Louis and on the Rise to the Top website.

Pershing Square hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is holding a Town Hall meeting today to convince investors that Target’s board needs to be replaced. His attempted shakeup highlights a shift in activist investor culture as well as a questionable moneymaking strategy.

The Backstory
Ackman launched a board shakeup fight after Target refused a real estate proposal that would convert 20% of Target’s land–the retailer owns most of its stores outright–into an inflation-protected security called a TIP REIT.

The Fight
Ackman said the real estate deal would make Target more money. Target claims that the proposal would burden the company with $1.4 billion in annual lease expenses for 75 years, a number which would increase at the rate of inflation. Now, Ackman is hitting the streets, touting his nominees for a new Target board three weeks before the company’s annual shareholder meeting.

Ackman’s nominees include:

Himself
Jim Donald, former Starbucks CEO
Michael Ashner, Chairman/CEO, Winthrop Realty Trust
Ronald Gilson, law professor
Richard Vague, former Chairman/CEO, First USA
(from DealBook)

Mr. Ackman has maintained that this slate will bolster the board’s expertise in retail, credit cards and real estate issues. In the filing, Mr. Ackman insisted that the nominees are ”entirely independent” and have ”no preconceived agenda other than to maximize shareholder value.”

Ackman’s Stake
Ackman’s Pershing Square IV fund, which invests only in Target stock, owns 26.8 million shares (3.3%) of Target. He holds another 4.5% in options, according to an excellent article by Fortune’s Jennifer Reingold.

Ackman’s fund hit a low in February, when it was down 93%. Reingold writes that he let some investors close their investments, waived fees for others, and issued a public apology. He put $25 million of his own money into the Target fund.

Ackman’s Pershing SIV fund usually moves at twice the move of Target because Ackman uses derivative contracts that give his fund two-times leverage, according to the Street Insider.

Target’s Response
Target is reacting by pouring $11 million into the proxy fight. From Fortune:

Far from treating Ackman like a mere irritant, (Target) is spending some $11 million to promote its own candidates — money, Steinhafel notes, that would be better spent improving its business. “This is a very challenging economic environment,” he says, “and it’s unfortunate that we are having to invest our time in [fighting] a proxy contest.”

A Change in Corporate Takeover Culture?

Reingold comments on the meaning of the proxy fight:

The stakes are high, and not only because Target is one of the largest companies ever to be involved in a proxy fight. Regardless of who wins the vote at the annual meeting on May 28, Ackman’s move against a widely respected company with no record of poor governance represents a new front in the world of shareholder activism, and one that any company should pay attention to.

Although directors of companies with worse records — Citigroup, anyone? — have been reelected, the fight at Target suggests that the days of the “trust me” boardroom are waning, and that costly struggles for control may become commonplace.

Meanwhile, Seeking Alpha’s TraderMark posted a quote that sums up Ackman’s motivations:

“Bottom line, PSIV has been one of the greatest disappointments of my career to date,” Mr. Ackman said in the letter. “That said, we continue to believe that we will ultimately be successful in our investment in Target.”

Bad Idea
Ackman has a reputation as a sharp investor, but I wonder about his strategy. Mervyn’s, a former Target subsidiary, experienced a similar shakeup in 2004. Target sold Mervyn’s to PE firms Sun Capital and Cerebrus, as well as real estate investor Lubert-Adler Management. The San Diego Union-Tribune explains what happened next:

The new owners changed the structure of the company, dividing it into separate real estate and retail businesses. In essence, the Mervyns real estate arm charged retailer Mervyns huge rents for its department store space.

“It didn’t make any logical business sense,” (one analyst) said. “The new owners saw it as a way to generate a lot of cash, but it was impossible for Mervyns to build a viable, long-term business facing those staggering rents.”

Mervyn’s ended up going the way of the dodo–after suing Cerebrus and Sun Capital for increasing rent to leverage the buyout.

It’s hard to imagine Target, a much stronger business than Mervyn’s, facing a similar fate. Still, if I held TGT shares, I’d steer clear of Ackman.

Want to know how to be a stellar manager? Ask Joe Kerr and Wanda B. Goode. They’re Nick McCormick’s creations, two cartoon managers who guide readers through the process of becoming a better manager via McCormick’s book, Lead Well and Prosper, and their blog.

McCormick, himself a longtime IT manager, not only demonstrates his prowess at helping people improve their managerial skills, but also his own capability as a marketer. His book has been out since 2006. To help promote it, he created a blog, podcasts, promotional items like T-shirts, and a publishing company, all the while holding a full-time job.

We caught up with McCormick to find out more about McCormick’s book and his successful online promotion strategy.

BP: How did you come up with the idea to write Lead Well and Prosper?

NM: There was no light bulb that went off. It happened over time. I had been a manager for quite a few years and thought I had a decent grasp of what took to make a good manager. I wrote a couple of articles to start. Then over a period of a year or two I just kept jotting down more thoughts. I eventually got to the point where I thought about combining my thoughts and putting them into a booklet. It was some contacts in the publishing industry that suggested that I write a book. I’m glad I did.

BP: Can you give us a brief blurb about what the book is about, who the target audience is, and how it will help readers?

NM: The book describes how to become a good manager and a good leader. It sticks to the fundamentals and gives practical, insightful advice with some humor and a bit of an edge. Many have used it in training classes or coaching sessions. One reviewer referred to it as the Cliff’s Notes for management. Actually, those that have endorsed the book do a much better job of describing the benefits than I do. I do know one thing for sure, If the readers follows the tips they will have success in the field of management.

The target audience is actually very broad. Some say it’s best for new and aspiring leaders. Others say it’s great for mid-level managers. Still others believe it is a great reminder for executives. I happen to agree with all of them! Since it concentrates on the fundamentals, it has broad appeal. Incidentally, I think individual performers can benefit as well.

BP: You have more endorsements than I’ve seen on many books (36 total). What, specifically, did you do to get those endorsements? Send out free books? Contact people by email? How did you know who to contact?

NM: The most important thing that I did was to ask, and I continue to do so. I do searches on those that blog on leadership and management, writers of leadership and management books, members of management and leadership associations, etc. I send them an email asking if they’d be interested in reviewing/commenting on my book. If they agree, I send them out a review copy. Simple, huh? It may be simple, but it is a ton of work. Finding people is fairly easy, but that’s only the beginning… finding email addresses, authoring emails (the more personal, the better), packaging and shipping the books, then following up… these are all labor-intensive activities.

BP: Did you do anything else to get PR for your book? Marketing materials, book talks, etc.?

NM: When the book was first published I did the typical stuff, I had the press release, the bio, and the other elements of the marketing packet. I did the mass mailings to all the reviewers. Unfortunately It wasn’t very effective.

I’ve found the way to keep the books moving is to ensure that the book is out in front of people. I do that by blogging, podcasting, and writing articles. I review other people’s books and author a monthly newsletter. Although I still have a full time job as a manager with an IT firm, I have been able to squeeze in a few speaking engagements, author interviews, and podcasts as well. I’ve also traded books for sponsorship opportunities at leadership/management conferences. Actually this interview I’m doing now qualifies as a marketing activity as well.

BP: What’s your advice for other people looking for lots of endorsements? How can others be as successful as you were?

It’s not rocket science. If you are willing to put in the time and you have a good product, the reviews and endorsements will follow.

Learn more about Nick and Lead Well and Prosper here. Nick blogs here (via his book’s characters, Joe and Wanda). He hosts a variety of managerial tips, tricks, and inspirational podcasts here.