Dead in the Water

When it comes to specifically what I want to specialize in, one of the things I saw with Two Parrot was that I was a generalist doing everything for everyone. Given how much I’ve enjoyed the work we have done with non-profits, I think I want to work with companies that are involved with sustainability. I read this great book called the “Triple Bottom Line” which talked about companies that embrace sustainability practices. It could be environmental sustainability or social sustainability like fair trade or safe labor practices or ethical sustainability. Companies that are practicing that kind of sustainability are often times more successful financially for a number of reasons.

Anyway I got all hyped up from that book. I thought sustainability was the key. One of the things I knew early on was that throughout that whole process I was going to get a lot of feedback early on from experts on the field. So I wanted to get feedback from people that I trusted, from people who knew me very well and knew what I wanted as a businesswoman.

So the first person I talked to was my Aunt Georgy Oliveri. She owns a company called Go Initiatives. She’s an expert in the field of green. I talked to her and said I wanted to work in the field of sustainability. The first thing she said was “Be careful. Sustainability is a very tricky and complex area of study. You want to be careful what you claim. If you can’t talk sustainability then you can lose a lot of credibility.” So she really took me through this process of what it would take to be an expert in sustainability. She said I understand that you want to have a very niche business but I don’t want you to think that sustainability is it for you now. May be later on in the game. She estimated that it’s going to take me about 2 years to become an expert in sustainability and to build the kind of case studies I would need. So I got off the 30 minute phone call with her like…Wow, my first idea shot dead in the water...love that.

She figured that it will be probably be better if I stuck to what I am already good at.