The main service I provide is to assist you in solving a problem, making a decision, or meeting a challenge.  There are other services listed below.  It's free to talk with me and see if I'm the best one to use in your situation.

 

Here are some areas where your challenge may be in my wheelhouse.

 

The Biggest, Toughest, Most Stubborn Problems

Almost every situation can be improved, often dramatically.  No matter how big or complex.  My ability to listen, to absorb knowledge from thousands of people, deep optimism, and breadth of experience make me a good person to turn to if you believe you have an unmovable challenge.  If you think no one can be of help, I might be a guy to try.  It's likely I can at least recommend an outstanding book or article.

 

Promoting Your Business or Organization

It can be tough to promote our own efforts.  Sometimes the most effective people aren't sure how to talk about their own work, to avoid what is perceived as boasting.  I'm honest, and that works in favor of the outstanding business that needs a little help with promotion.  Because all they need is someone to write a short blurb, direct and truthful in an upbeat tone. 

 

Assistance With Writing or Editing

Need a quick edit on your content?  Or copy-editing/proofreading?  I have lots of experience with the written word in many formats.  The goal is to improve your work while in no way losing your voice.  Each person has a unique voice, in speech or print.

 

Saving on Energy Costs

My house is one example of high energy savings with relatively low investment of time and money.  That is the whole goal here: how can you get the biggest savings with the least effort, materials and time?  Apply that approach to every aspect of a building and you get low energy costs.

 

Your wallet is a good guide to what to do.  Spending $10 to save $20 per year (which is $200 per decade) is a no-brainer.  Spending $200 to save $100/year will work for almost anyone who has $200.  Other decisions revolve in part around the length of time you'll have the building.  Very few people are as good as I am on these types of questions, on keeping things simple but not getting simplistic.

 

On the other hand, after talking with you, or exchanging emails, I'll refer many of you to furnace installers or commercial energy analysts (or solar installers, by far the best source for solar questions).  Because they'll have specific expertise I don't have.  I'm the guy who can get you started on the best road, for $0-90.  I'm a good person to describe how your house is a jacket, and you're constructing a good windbreaker with complete insulation, allowing moisture to wick out.  I understand what's possible -- that most U.S. homeowners who want to are getting electric bills of 300 kwh/month (with gas heat and hot water), without austerity, a number many believe is way below realistic.  I haven't missed the importance of passive solar heat, which quite a few experts short-change.

 

Budget Savings

Dropping expenses and raising revenues is a basic goal of business, and most non-profits as well.  I have a lot of experience with it, was always good at it, and have seen it from numerous angles.  If you're a business owner, homeowner, or non-profit leader,  your combination of experience and mine may be stronger than yours alone.

 

My basic approach is this.  If you can spend $900 and improve your results by $1000, that was a good decision.  But we're especially looking for ways you can spend $100 and save $1000, or spend $1 and save $100.  Or, for bigger organizations, spend $400,000 this year and save 10 million in the next ten years.

 

I see waste and irrationality, often effortlessly.  The culture and counter-culture don't have the same appeal to me as they do to others.  I tend to see the easy way, not distracted by what's considered normal or acceptable. 

 

Spot Problems You've Missed

See the last paragraph of Budget Savings.  This is a lifelong strength of mine, and I get better at it as I gather more experience each decade. 

 

Just Listening

Frequently the best one to steer your solutions is you. But not you alone.  The human brain evolved to work better thinking out loud, thinking around others.  This doesn't mean you always need feedback from another person, or tough questions, or a devil's advocate.  You may just need another person's presence to get more power from your mind.  When asked just to listen, confidentially, to be there and do nothing else, I generally have a huge attention span.  If you talk out loud for four hours and then ask me a question about something you said in hour one, I may remember what you said.  I'm not thinking about me, or analyzing you. My hunch is that many people, whether in their role as household leader, small business owner, or whatever, would benefit significantly from an hour per year of high quality listening. Some might want an hour a week for six weeks.  If you're only getting the best listening in small batches, two minutes here and three minutes there from various people, I can provide something stronger.  I can also give you the "Art of Listening" by Harvey Jackins, and help train your group up to provide this listening for each other every day.

 

Sounding Board

Again, I'd guess that many people who haven't been able to afford consultants, never thought of using a consultant, would make good strides with a sounding board listener once a year.  For $45-65/hour, I provide that service.  Here, you bounce ideas off me.  We try to build momentum to bring your best thinking to the surface.

 

No Emotional Barriers

At times you may not have anyone who'd listen to you for an hour and not be disturbed by your constant yawning, crying, trembling, sweating, or hysterical laughter.  We're born expecting adults to understand these basic functions, but right away run into the reality that the adults ran into when they cried or stomped their feet "too much" when young.  Adults have been conditioned to feel tense, worried, or prone to change the subject when someone gets real emotional.  They have the urge to pacify young people. I fell into these traps too, to a lesser extent than most, but around 1980 decided from real experience that it's far more useful to encourage people to act in human ways. You can't get close to your decision-making potential if you're doing socially acceptable levels of yawning, crying, and trembling.  The accumulated fatigue, tension, fear, and sadness interfere heavily with reason and creativity.

 

Test this with a friend.  For two hours per day for four days, agree to give each person a turn for an hour, with the other person encouraging yawning, tears, trembling, nervous sweat, etc.  See how this affects your decisions and outlook.  People will drive an hour and pay $20 for a comedian, on the chance of getting maybe three minutes of hard laughs  That's how valuable emotional release is to humans, and yawning is equally beneficial.

 

Listening Mixture

We don't always know what we need.  With me, you can change it up, finding once you think out loud without interruption you need a sounding board, and then lots of emotion, and then back to just thinking out loud, etc.  This is more complex, but sometimes more precisely what someone needs. 

 

Building Management or Home Improvement

For people in the Bloomington area, I have a lot of experience with contractors.  Some clients are already using me to get the best painter for their house, or to look at ten complex problems on a house, and decide which contractors to bring in for bids.  This will often be for free.  For example, if you want a new furnace, who should you get bids from?  I have a well-formed opinion on the four top companies in our area, built on firsthand experience and listening to others' comments. That's going to take a one-minute email, so it's free.  Then you have the four companies come out, and make your decision.

 

For long distance clients, I can refer you to books or articles.  I may be able to brainstorm with you on managing your building. 

 

If you're setting up a cleaning operation, I have so much custodial experience that I may be an ideal person to help, even long distance.  For instance, you just started a preschool.  How many hours a week would it take to clean, what equipment is needed, and how do you hire the best people?  What are the safest cleaning chemicals? 

 

Those are just examples.  If you have a desire to improve a building, check in with me.  Maybe I can assist in some way.

 

Being Green With Low Expense and Low Effort

Here's a true story that I'll use as an example.  Around 1999 I took a job at a Red Wing Shoe Store, newly opened, with only a manager and me.   I asked Ron the first week about setting up recycling, and he said "sure."  In about four minutes I outlined what we need to do -- what could go in the box marked paper under the desk and the best way to flatten cardboard and put it in big boxes in back.  Once a week I left work two minutes early, took two or three of those big boxes, stuffed them in my car, and took them to the recycling center less than a minute from my house (then went home).  That was about all of the discussion we ever had, because both of us put everything into the recycling, but didn't stretch the program by putting paper bags from lunch with crumbs into the paper bin, or other ways people get crazy with recycling. 

 

Results: About 98% of our waste stream was recycled, and 2% went into the store's dumpster out back.  Here's what excited Ron, that he reported a year later.  We paid per pickup, on the dumpster, not per week.  He called when he needed a pickup. We'd gone from 26 pickups the previous year to 6 in the year I started.  Not sure what the cost per pickup was, but I'd reckon the savings was about $1000.  For zero extra effort -- it took zero extra seconds to put a paper in the trash can, as opposed to the bin next to the trash can.  A second or two less to put cardboard in the back of the store, as opposed to the dumpster (we flattened it either way). (I also have experience speeding up recycling participation and eliminating wrong stuff in wrong bins in much bigger organizations.)

 

Another concrete example is lighting.  This is known to many building managers, but the public under-thinks it, or over-thinks it.  Overall resource use is lowest on halogen and fluorescent lighting (still the most prevalent) if you use a 15 or 20 minute rule of thumb.  Leaving to go to the bathroom?  Leave the lights on.  Going to a meeting that takes more than 15 minutes?  Turn them off.  There is extra electricity use here, compared to turning them off every time, but it's small.  The life of the light bulbs and ballasts is much longer using this rule -- sometimes five or ten times longer.  Hence, the resources used in manufacturing and shipping are much lower.  Again, good resource management lines up well with lower expenses.  In U.S. culture, people have this yen to always leave lights on or always turn them off.  Both are generally brown approaches (not green). 

 

Those are simple examples, but there is some type of break-even point or best decision in every case of resource management.  It can usually be found, and then followed.  Most organizations are doing this less than they imagine.  A lot of effort still goes in the direction of feeling green, as opposed to reducing waste with little fuss.

 

Other

This is not everything I can do, but this process is quite simple.  If you present me with your situation, in most cases I'll refer you to a better person or resource.  I'll generally know if you have something that's in my various wheelhouses, where I'm better than almost anyone you can find, and then you get to test me out for free for a while and see what you think.  You don't spend money until you've test driven me for 20 minutes, or exchanged a bunch of emails.  Not only do you have no obligation, I encourage you to use free help from me and then focus on a better person.  If the market is smart, and it often isn't because we're talking imperfect humans, I will get slightly wealthy working with clients who were right in choosing me.