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The Company We Keep

Dear Reader,
This blog is now an archive. John Abrams (Founder of South Mountain, author of this blog, and a book of the same name) retired on December 31, 2022. All posts published up until this date are preserved below.

For updates on John's next chapter, visit abramsangell.com.

For updates on South Mountain's second act, subscribe to our newsletter using the form below.

NESEA

Riding Toward A New Future

December 4, 2020 by John Abrams 1 Comment

More than 25 years ago, I was in a room somewhere organizing a conference for the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association. There were two new faces among the group – Marc Rosenbaum and Bruce Coldham – who were engaging and appeared to know their stuff. Not long after, The Wampanoag Tribe asked SMCo to design a new Headquarters, the first building they would raise as a tribe in 300 years. I was excited, but knew we had neither knowledge or capacity to take this on alone. I asked Marc (a mechanical and systems engineer from New Hampshire) and Bruce (an architect from Western MA) if they would collaborate. They agreed; we did that project together and several more after. Although we collaborated deeply on all aspects, at the heart of our shared work, Marc was Numbers, Bruce was Pictures, and I was Words. Together, a seamless composition.

Thus began a relationship that has endured. For several decades, Marc was our go-to consultant about all things energy and systems. He taught us so much about buildings that we wouldn’t have known otherwise. He still does!

Ten years ago, our relationship changed. Marc and wife Jill moved to the Vineyard. He became an SMCo employee, and later an owner. His contributions to the company, to our buildings, and to our institutional knowledge ever since have been entirely remarkable. He thinks in a way that is unlike anyone I’ve ever met. The thing about Marc is – he cares. About truth, excellence, people, life, and impeccable data-driven information. It matters to him to make a difference; he’s committed to improving conditions for people on our planet. He does – consistently, relentlessly, and generously.

At the end of this year, our relationship will change again. Marc recently announced to our leadership team that he will end his time as an employee-owner and transition back to being a trusted consultant. He has other endeavors he wants to combine with his SMCo work, so he wants to be more independent and flexible and . . . well, you know, unemployed. He’ll still work with our architects, engineers, solar team, and production staff on most of our projects. It really won’t be much different (since he’s not in the office these pandemic days anyway). We’ll still be asking “Hey Marc…” on a regular basis. He’ll still be finding the best intelligence, dreaming up new solutions, and teaching us all. We’ll still have the benefit of well-filtered know-how from his extraordinary nationwide network of experts. He’ll still be pointing out my typos and making bad puns.

He’ll still be here. We’re very lucky and very grateful. We all hope that his path forward is all-the-way fulfilling, as we’re sure it will be. After all, he’s never been one to waste opportunity.

Our mutual friend Jamie Wolf illustrates this point with an early NESEA conference story. He remembers this guy in the front row at every presentation. Invariably, his hand would shoot up to ask penetrating questions. “I first met the back of his head,” says Jamie. “Inquiry, scrutiny, mastery. That was his method. He embodied that – it’s the NESEA ethic, but we learned it, as much as from anyone, from Marc.”

About SMCo, Marc wrote after his announcement, “ . . . This community of people is extraordinary in so many ways. . . . . I’ve never been in a group where dedication to excellence, and doing the best one can, has been so prevalent. The richness comes from the diversity of what we define as excellence. That diversity leads to differences of opinion about what should be prioritized, but the commitments we bring are the foundation of goodwill that allows us to, together, create something profoundly better than any of us could do alone.”

The first time I visited Marc and Jill in New Hampshire, decades ago, I stayed in their finished basement. Hanging on a sheetrock wall in the hallway at the foot of the stairs, where you’d expect a painting to be, was a bicycle. I asked him about it. “Oh, that’s a bicycle I built for my senior thesis at MIT. At the time, it was the lightest bicycle in the world.”

Buildings are one of his passions. Bicycles are another. He’ll surely find time for both in this new chapter – The Rosenbaum Chronicles, part three.

Filed Under: Collaboration, Employee Ownership, Small Business, Uncategorized Tagged With: Bruce Coldham, Marc Rosenbaum, NESEA, Wampanoag Tribal Center

Bottom Lines Reaches the Summit

November 17, 2015 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

The first Bottom Lines Business Summit is over.  It will not be the last.  It was a peak moment after several years of work with two friends and colleagues, Paul Eldrenkamp and Jamie Wolf, to design and build a new program for the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA).

On a beautiful fall day, more than 100 NESEA members gathered at Smith College to celebrate two years of Building Energy Bottom Lines, to hone business skills, and to consider the future of this exciting endeavor.

Read More about Bottom Lines Reaches the Summit

Filed Under: Housing, Small Business, South Mountain Company Tagged With: Amy Glasmeir, Bruce Coldham, Building Energy Bottom Lines, carbon footprint, Declan Keefe, Fine Homebuilding, Heather Thompson, Jamie Wolf, John Abrams, Kate Stephonson, Kevin Ireton, living wage, NESEA, Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, Paul Ekdrenkamp, Peter Taggart, Steve Silverman, SunBug, Yestermorrow

Launching Bottom Lines & Joining Amicus

February 4, 2014 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

In September I wrote about a new initiative we are working on called Building Energy Bottom Lines (B-Lines for short).  Now it has come to fruition – it’s ready-to-launch.  That will occur at the annual Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) conference – Building Energy 14 – in Boston in early March.  You can read about it here.  You can apply for membership there too.

I’m pumped up about this new NESEA program.  It’s an effort to assemble 30 (for now) of the most progressive and thoughtful architecture, building, and energy companies in the Northeast to share secrets, cross-pollinate, and learn from each other within a rigorous peer group structure.

Read More about Launching Bottom Lines & Joining Amicus

Filed Under: Collaboration, Cooperatives, Energy, Small Business Tagged With: Amicus, BE Bottom Lines, Byggmeister, Jamie Wolf, Jennifer Marrapeese, Kate Stephenson, NESEA, Paul Eldrencamp, Stephen Irvin, Wolfworks, Yestermorrow

Building Energy Bottom Lines

September 26, 2013 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

Next week’s SMCo tangent handrail class is full, with people coming from around the country, and from right here on the Vineyard as well.  Now, as we slide into one of our busiest fall/winter seasons ever, we are still trying to find  time to concentrate on other aspects of this theme of training and education.

We are very excited about Building Energy Bottom Lines (BEBL),  a new initiative that has emerged from a few age-old questions:

•  How can we make a difference?

•  How can we insist on the future we want rather than accepting the future we get?

•  How we are going to assure a better world – or even a tolerable one – for our grandchildren?

•  Are we being good ancestors?

For more and more of us, these days, and all of us at SMCo, the answers to these questions are embodied in our business careers.  We are business people with passion for our craft.

But we live in complex times.  Our country is experiencing more mood swings than a teenager.  The future is unpredictable.  And yet, despite all that, we carry on.

But is that enough?

We try to use our business to create the world we wish for.   We try to use our business to create better lives for our families and our employees.  We try to use our business to enhance and stabilize our communities.

BE Bottom Lines is designed to help us get better at doing those things.

It will consist of a group of regional (New England) peer group networks of architecture, engineering, building, design/build, energy efficiency, and renewable energy companies dedicated to high performance building.

Each network will consist of 8-12 geographically diverse businesses.  The scale of the individual businesses may be similar; they may vary.    The networks will meet several times a year and communicate online year-round.

The central idea is that each network will use a variety of techniques to help the individual businesses within to learn from each other and sharpen business skills and capabilities.

The focus of the endeavor will be Triple Bottom Line (TBL)  business practices – a way of thinking and practicing that assigns equal weight to “People, Planet, and Profits”:

•  People:  social change & justice, employee well-being, governance, ownership, community involvement, philanthropy, legacy, and service to our clients;

•  Planet:  building performance standards, resilience, company carbon footprints, and environmental restoration;

•  Profits:  financial success and stability, capitalization, sales and marketing, investment.

TBL practice is a fundamentally different kind of commerce that is growing exponentially in the business world.   We can learn from each other about doing business this way – and about finding strategic alignment and improving capacity in all three domains.  Groups will agree on useful metrics in each area and share performance data, experiences, and stories with each other.

The program is being designed by two long-time friends and colleagues (Jamie Wolf of Wolfworks and Paul Eldrencamp of Byggmeister) and me.

We are collaborating with the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) and the Yestermorrow Design/Build School. The enterprise will become one of NESEA’s programs.

 

Where Did This Idea Originate?

Peer group networks are a proven way to improve business performance.  Jamie, Paul, and I have all been involved, in the past, in peer group networks in which companies drilled into each others’ businesses year after year to help each other improve their financial performance.

Since 2007 I have taught a two day class at Yestermorrow – called The Art of Small Business – which is a crash course in triple bottom line practice.   This is a photo of last years’  class.

The three of us have worked together for decades as organizers, board members, and presenters with NESEA and as collaborators and travellers along similar business paths.

In 2012 Jamie and Paul both attended my class; Jamie returned in 2013.  At some point we decided we could expand what was happening in the class – the dynamic of companies coming together to share information about how to build businesses that are better for the world – to a larger audience with more on-going continuity.  We agreed that the regional peer group network model is the right one.  We presented the idea to the 2013 class and asked for their feedback.  It was positive and enthusiastic.

Building Energy Bottom Lines was born.

 

The Heart of the Matter

Within the various NESEA and Yestermorrow programs we gain technical knowledge from our fellow practitioners. The willingness to share successes along with lessons learned from past mistakes has always been a NESEA core value.  This has fostered a community that is truly a learning organization for developing broad-based mastery of technical skills.

But the three of us perceive a need and a strong desire among members of the NESEA/Yestermorrow communities to foster broad-based mastery of business skills to complement and support our technical skills.  We share a sense that that technical mastery is not being adequately deployed due to the lack the business skills to increase capacity to do good work and broaden the marketplace.  Teaming up in these peer groups will lead to more effective advocacy and practice.

Emerging from within the NESEA community, this initiative is already endowed with:

• The high levels of trust and collegiality that have been nurtured over the 40 years of NESEA’s existence (this cohort will have no problem sharing all kinds of information in small peer groups, because that’s what we already do!);

• A culture which takes for granted that we develop skills and share knowledge not just for our own benefit, but for the benefit of all — inside and outside our community;

• Humility borne of shared experience that makes us open to learning from a wide range of sources and people.

That’s a lot to start with.  Plenty to build on.

 

Who Do We Expect To Participate and How Will It Launch?

BE Bottom Lines is targeted for small businesses in the design, building, and energy sectors. They may range in size from businesses with no employees to those with 75-100 employees.

We have already identified a number of interested companies.  In March, 2014, at NESEA’s Building Energy 14 conference in Boston, we will offer two half-day introductory workshops to begin to collect more participants.  In April 2014 we will convene a two day launch gathering.

At the April meeting we will discuss logistics, organize the networks, and BE Bottom Lines will be underway.

 

What Will the Process Be – How Will It Work?

Individual network self-governance is the goal.  A steering committee will oversee operations.  Each network will have a representative who will join other key stakeholders on that committee.  Some key responsibilities of the steering committee will be to:

•  Operate an online forum to connect the networks to share information;

•  Provide facilitation and governance training for the individual networks;

•  Maintain organizational supervision and financial viability.

The individual networks will decide when, where, and how to meet, how to organize their other communications, how to prioritize topics and metrics, and all other business of the network.

Each company will pay an annual fee to participate.  Most of the fees will be used to fund the network operations.  A part of the fee will go to BE Bottom Lines administration to finance the umbrella organization.  We anticipate that BE Bottom Lines will be financially self-sustaining and will generate a modest income for its sponsoring organizations (NESEA and Yestermorrow).

 

And Finally . . .

As Paul says,  “There are two kinds of small businesses in the NESEA community:  those that I have learned a tremendous amount from from and those that I will learn a tremendous amount from when I get the chance.”

This will be that chance.

 

Filed Under: Collaboration, Small Business, South Mountain Company Tagged With: BE 14, Byggmeister, Jamie Wolf, NESEA, Paul Eldrencamp, Triple Bottom Lines, Wolfworks, Yestermorrow

Tangent Handrail Workshop (and more)

August 19, 2013 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

Lately we have been devoting thinking and planning to new training and educational opportunities.  We have re-purposed a space in our building as a new meeting/class room.  It comfortably holds 25 people and we continue to outfit the space so that it is appropriate for many uses.  Various meetings are now held there and we are planning our first class there.  See the announcement below.

 

In addition, SMCo is collaborating with NESEA (the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association) and the Yestermorrow Design Build School (in Vermont) to create a new program in the Northeast that will bring together architecture, building, design/build, and energy companies in a peer group network called Building Energy Bottom Lines.  The purpose  is to form groups of businesses which will help each other improve their practices on an ongoing basis.  The focus will be progressive Triple Bottom Line (people, planet, profits) business approaches.  Our co-conspirators in this endeavor are old friends and fellow design/builders Jamie Wolf (Wolfworks) and Paul Eldrencamp (Byggmeister).

The program will launch with several half day workshops at Building Energy 14 (the annual NESEA conference which draws thousands of Northeast professionals) in March 2014 and a two day workshop in Vermont in April 2014.  You’ll be hearing  more about this as time goes by.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested in learning an arcane and remarkable technique (or maybe it’s an “art”!)  that very few carpenters and woodworkers know, come to our Tangent Handrail Workshop in October.  Jim Baldwin is a fine instructor and he will be assisted by our own Billy Dillon.

Filed Under: Martha's Vineyard, Small Business, South Mountain Company Tagged With: Billy Dillon, Building Energy 14, Byggmeister, Jamie Wolf. Paul Eldrencamp, Jim Baldwin, NESEA, Tangent Handrails, Triple Bottom Line, Wolfworks, Yestermorrow

BE 12 Meets TED Talks

March 21, 2012 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

Two weeks ago several of my SMCo colleagues and I spent two days at Building Energy 12, the annual conference of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA).  My involvement in NESEA goes back 30 years.  For me this annual meeting is truly a tribal gathering.

This year’s conference was particularly thrilling. The highlight for me was experiencing the emerging youth contingent which has brought great new vitality into the organization the past few years. It makes me feel like we have greater capacity than ever before. I feel this at NESEA, and at South Mountain too. I like us. I like who we are now. While we are more empowered as individuals than ever before, we are people who know, with conviction, that all of us are smarter than any of us.

Read More about BE 12 Meets TED Talks

Filed Under: Climate Change, South Mountain Company Tagged With: BE 12, Marc Rosenbaum, Marjorie Kelly, NESEA, Paul Gilding, Peter Diamandis, Rob Meyers, TED talks, Terry Mollner, The Divine Right of Capital, The Great Disruption, The X-Prize

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