On "Business," that much maligned word

This is the next installment of a series pondering each essay in the book More Space: Nine Antidotes to Complacency in Business.

I just re-read my co-writer Rob May's chapter again in More Space with fresh eyes. Rob (of Business Pundit)and I were editing partners, reading and guiding each other's work, which is kind of funny considering our vastly different takes on business. What's important, however, is that we both love it; Rob just takes a more logical approach to the subject, and mine is more, shall we say, melodramatic.

Reading his chapter this time around, I took the editor's hat off and really explored my own feelings about business. As Rob says, many people, such as myself, give business a bad rap because we associate it with greedy, immoral corporations, or with crappy jobs.

There was a time when I was disappointed with being a writer and reinvented myself as an "executive." I told people that I loved business, and I suppose I did. Rob enjoys the powerful things that can happen when business is at its best; I enjoyed business because it was a game of Clue, where you looked at the market, the client need, and your business reality and tried to find the ultimate solution that fit like a perfect story with a satisfying and happy ending. Business became the creative outlet that replaced my writing.

Eventually, the creative aspects of my work disintegrated, and I tired of my business persona. I wanted to be paid for work that was personally meaningful, not for my ability to manipulate the market. I assumed that I had to seclude myself to do this, that I would have to sacrifice my business skills to regain my credibility. Knowing how to promote products took a back seat to having a product that was promotable.

Reading Rob's chapter again I realized that I could still be creative in a business environment and that my ideas could be best served by using the skills that I once used strictly for selling others' ideas. Business sense and creativity are not mutually exclusive. I had mistaken my poorly aligned, uninspiring former jobs as "For-Profit" gigs. By assuming there was no fulfillment in creating profit, I threw out the baby with the bathwater.

According to Rob:

"We believe businesses exist for profit, and we have been taught that profit is bad. But neither statement is true. Profit is a requirement to stay in business and continue serving those needs."

He then quotes Peter Drucker:

"Profit is not the explanation, cause or rationale of business behavior and business decisions, but rather the test of their validity. If archangels instead of businessmen sat in director's chairs they would still have to be concerned with profitability, despite their total lack of personal interest in profit."

I'm reading this at a good time. My life is riddled with decisions that I've been trying to make regarding my vocational purpose, but that I realize I can't really formulate without re-thinking my take on business.

For instance, BlogHer was an initiative built on passion, but in order for it to flourish, it may very well have to be run like a business. The minute Elisa Camahort told me about her and Lisa Stone's idea to have a conference for women bloggers, I thought to myself, "Where do I sign up?" Never did I feel put-out while developing sponsorship packages and revenue plans because I wasn't being paid, even though I worked on it at all hours, even when I put my paying work on hold to attend to the conference--I felt that passionate about it. Because I was passionate, and I didn't perceive BlogHer as a BUSINESS, trying to make money for it felt like doing good.

Now, as we try to build the organization, one that fulfills our mission of helping wired women meet their goals, we realize, Goshdangit, this thing might make a profit. Believe me, we've struggled with this unfortunate outcome: How can we be bootstrapping do-gooders if our organization makes money? Then we're capitalizing on our community, right?

According to Rob May and Peter Drucker, the answer is no. Businesses at their best are profitable and do good. If we end up making a profit serving the BlogHer community, then we have proven our worth to it. Now sure, this argument doesn't apply to everything: Tobacco companies make tons of money off of people's bad habits, not by empowering them, and there are many worthy organizations that do not generate revenue comensurate with their relevance. But the critical point is that we (women, perhaps, as several men told us, if they'd founded BlogHer, they would have tried to monetize it long ago) tend to demonize businesses that both do good and make a profit.

When a clear for-profit like Starbucks decides to adopt socially responsible practices, that's considered good business. But when a nonprofit or hybrid organization decides to employ for-profit models to fulfill its purpose, suspicion ensues. Where's the money going? It better not be going toward paying people well. I'll admit, I'm the first person to squawk when I hear of the head of a nonprofit or socially responsible business making a six-figure salary, but I would never say boo hearing of the head of a pure for-profit earning several million a year. If the socially responsible business/nonprofit is meeting its goals AND making money/value for its constituents, why should we care?

We've been almost religious about keeping the BlogHer money clean, meaning the three of us didn't even pay ourselves back entirely for expenses. While I wasn't one of the co-founders who put BlogHer '05 on my credit card, I think it's safe to say that none of us saw the experience as a money-making one, but rather a meaning-making venture. When we had some cash left over after covering our overhead, we spent it on sending speakers and attendees to the conference. But what if we make even more in '06? Should we avoid capitalizing the organization for fear that we've crossed into "Business" territory?

I'll speak for myself: I think any extra money should go toward anything that allows us to pursue the organization's mission. And frankly, some of that happens through traditionally business-oriented functions--promotion, marketing, and eventually, dedicated, compensated staff. Could running BlogHer like a business potentially taint it by aligning content with sponsor dollars and lining its co-founders' pockets? Sure, but it wouldn't happen because the org was run like a business. It would happen because we were easily swayed, shallow human beings (thank goodness Elisa and Lisa are not and have good credit). Business is the language of growth, not an indication of devious motives.

Another business situation has presented itself to me that I initially struggled with for fear that I might go back to a for-proft-not-relevance mindset. Media vixen Susan Mernit and I are teaming up to develop a substantial project--one I can't go into detail about until it's ready. Let's just say we've got a nice vehicle in the works, the engine is a killer one, and we just need to finish the design. When Susan asked me about joining her, I initially hesitated. I thought of all the other start-up projects I've had on my plate, at past jobs, where I've been asked to build a business, and how I dropped everything creative and desireable in my life in order to properly hunker down and build it. This process of dropping everything always struck me as a necessary interruption, one I would allow for a limited period of time in order to buy myself more freedom later. But more recently I've committed myself to devoting my time to creative, passionate, personally important projects.

Sure, Susan's project sounded heady and exciting, but somewhere that self-righteous artist in my head was warning me, reminding me how I get with these things. I forget the life I want to have, and my purpose becomes building just for the sake of building.

As we started to chat and concepts began to germinate organically, however, I realized that I was misperceiving the opportunity. In fact, can be a huge amount of creativity involved in developing any business, and something very meaningful about working with another woman in what has often been a male-dominated field. In fact, I see our contribution as a balance, a contribution of a skilled female approach, a purposeful pursuit, and alas therein lies the difference. Sure, I'm back to my for-profit ways of gauging market interest and guessing what it wants. Sure, I'm thinking of how we must position our project. Sure, it requires good old fashioned project management skills, the ones that I maligned in numerous blogs where I mention not meeting my potential. Sure, I'm hoping it pays; but now I am comfortable combining the meaningful with the profitable.

My business background feels like a tool that I can use to help me realize my passion and larger goals, not a defining character trait, or an old coat that I slip into begrudgingly because I can't afford a new one and it's getting cold outside. In one section that I just love in Rob's More Space essay, he describes how learning to love business was, for him, like learning to read cursive when he was a child. Once he learned to read it, he found that it opened him to a more sophisticated level of understanding the world. I suppose I looked at business that way too--like a six-year-old trying to make sense of cursive writing and assuming that, since I couldn't read it, it probably couldn't be very interesting or relevant to me. Later, when I learned the language of business I spoke it fluently to prove that I could, like a kid playing dress-up and wielding high-heeled shoes she wasn't entirely able to walk in. I suppose my fascination with it is over, but not my appreciation for it. I see it for what it is--not an identity or an accessory, but a way of powerfully viewing the world and making great things happen.

Comments

Another point Mr. Drucker made about profit is that it primarily exists in order to sustain the operations of an organization. If you see profit as the end (profit maximization)and not the means, you move into that space of greed and corruption. Profit is not meant to be maximized (contrary to popular belief); it is meant to keep the cost of operations down.

On the other hand, if you make no profit, it takes a lot of effort to get the resources necessary to continue operations, ask anyone that runs a not-for-profit.

I agree with Rob, don't begrudge reasonable profit, it ensures that you can come back and play again tomorrow.

Posted by: Lee White | November 03, 2005 at 07:58 PM

Organisations that can pay their way are often happier spaces, too. Profit should open up other opportunities for BlogHer, full credit to all three of you for getting it right first time around.
I've finally read your chapter in My Space, Jory. It was of a piece with everything I've found in your work here, but it also captures your pre-blogging life very clearly. Good luck with your new project, sounds exciting.

Posted by: genevieve | November 08, 2005 at 12:21 AM