Anne Mollegen Smith

Brooklyn’s Newest Greenmarket Opens Outside Barclays Center

July 17, 2013 by Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

TODAY WAS LAUNCH DAY FOR THE NEW BARCLAYS CENTER GREENMARKET, in cooperation with GrowNYC. The market’s regular hours are 8 am to 4 pm on Wednesdays now through November. (Food stamps are accepted, even incentivized, at GrowNYC partner-markets.) Brooklyn Artisan braved today’s extreme heat to browse the farmstands and talk with the vendors, but didn’t stick it out for the mid-morning food demonstration of corn salads.

The inflatable critter now marks the corner by the new greenmarket.

The giant rodent sits at the corner next to the greenmarket.

The new greenmarket is at the crossroads of Atlantic and Flatbush (look for the huge inflated rat), just outside Atlantic Terminal, so commuters-special shopping is definitely an option. Because of the heat, most stands closed early today, around 3 or 3:30, but they had opened bright and early, definitely ready to serve customers by 8. The familiar truck farm offerings included a few surprises such as nicely cleaned fish presented in well-iced cases (Hint: A sprinkling of salt on the ice makes it hold up better in the heat, the folks from Suffolk County’s American Seafood told us. If you’re planning to pick up some of their fish next week, though, best bring a cool pack and insulated bag to get it home.)

John D. Madura Farms had the biggest spread, from corn to carrots to kale plus potatoes (see photos above), radishes, and plenty more, grown at Pine Island in the Black Dirt Region of Orange County, NY. Staffing the booth was John D.’s young son Skuyler, who spoke with pride of the community-supported agriculture part of the family business.

Need goodies for a morning staff meeting? Ah, ask James.

The Body & Soul Vegan Bakery booth offered yummy-looking fancy breads and gluten-free items, many made with locally grown ingredients. James, behind the counter, was more than ready to explain the options and thought special orders could be arranged for pick up by particular customers. Body & Soul is long-established at the Union Square Market Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, where a dozen reviewers on a food site gave top marks to this year-round regular. (BTW, job shopping today too? Check on the bakery’s Brooklyn-based food prep and production jobs at indeed.com.)

Matt stood ready to explain Applestate Hilltop Family Farm's varieties of pure honeys

Matt was our guide to Applestate’s pure honey varietals.

Matt in the Applestate Hilltop Family Farm booth knows his bees, or at least their honeys, the way a vintner knows grapes. He was ready to share his expertise — the sweetest honey came from the clover-fed bees, he said, whereas the wild-flower nourished bees produced a more nuanced flavor. The pure-honey complexities are interesting. (As he talked, Brooklyn Artisan imagined friends-and-family brunches built around honey-tastings.) The Applestate Hilltop aviary is in Calicoon, Sullivan County, NY.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Brooklyn artisanal without pickles! Rick’s Picks of Dutchess County has been producing hand-packed and all natural pickles “since 2004” and today was pushing Rick’s Picks’ Hotties – referring not to the smiling gentlemen in the booth, but to their crenelated cucumber and julienned veggies bottled with special hot (“but not searingly so,” one New York Times writer judged) pickling spices. Rick’s Picks pickles come in sweet flavors (4 choices), savory (6 choices), spicy (3 — hotties, mean beans, and smokras) and several special proprietary blends. Gift packs can be ordered from Rick’s Pics and you can even get low-sodium pickles from them.

Rick’s Picks’ artisanal pickle vendors sport shirts that don’t permit taking themselves too seriously.

GrowNYC’s handy credit-card sized fold-out of greenmarkets and farm produce outlets that take EBT credit lists nearly 50 in the Heartland (Brooklyn), and another 100 in Outer Brooklyn locations. Photographs: Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool.

Filed Under: Community, farms/gardens, Food/Drink, The Business Side

What’s Your Business Mantra? And When To Commit to It

June 25, 2013 by Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

“Ready, Aim, Fire” or “Done is Better Than Perfect”?

Business and career coach Bill Jones first appeared on motivational posters in the 1920s and 30s.

Here’s the conventional wisdom, but does it still apply? (Business and career coach Bill Jones first appeared on motivational posters in the 1920s and 30s.)

WHY DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT, says the Etsy Blog title for the June 20, 2013 entry by Alexandra Ferguson. And then the art shows a cute cushion with the message, Ready, Fire, Aim. As the originator of “‘Done’ is better than ‘perfect'” (explained in an addendum to an earlier post to this blog), I like to think that in today’s conditions these mottos make more sense than they did in Bill Jones’s day.

Ms. Ferguson observes that many businesses get stuck in “paralysis by analysis” rather than going forward. Her own story is a case example that encourages leaping from the daydream stage into production and selling – in her case, selling her handmade cushions on etsy.com. Her first offering of message pillows she’d already made cost $1.60 in listing fees, a very low capital requirement to enter a business! No lease. No significant inventory. No staff. No equipment beyond what she’d needed for gift-cushion making as a hobby. Her launch served as a market test — and a commitment test. Was this really a business she could stay in? DUMBO-based etsy.com made it not only cheap and easy to get her product to market, but the market itself is global.

Smorgasburg and the Brooklyn Flea help other artisan-entrepreneurs test themselves in the food business by providing venues and some basic disciplines. The Brooklyn Botanic’s celebration of hot chiles is another. Ample Hills Creamery founder Brian Smith took his unusual ice cream flavors to market via ice cream trucks and kiosks before committing to that first lease in Prospect Heights. Brooklyn’s growing network of co-working spaces and commercial kitchens keep equipment and production space costs thinkably low. Share-and-learn facilities like 3rd Ward in Williamsburg can graduate their biggest successes to Industry City in Sunset Park.

Brooklyn Artisan Executive Editor Basia Hellwig reports in “Start Ups Aren’t for Sissies” on some entrepreneurial thrills and chills. Her stories provide mental preparation. BA Executive Editor Joy Makon’s look inside Alchemy Creamery gives another window into what’s involved. BA Executive Editor Phil Scott and Contributor Bruce A. Campbell have reported on Brooklyn’s Makerbot, pioneer of 3D printers. There’s venture capital out there to back some winners.

Tomorrow, Brooklyn’s first food and drink trade show, Brooklyn Eats, presents a new opportunity. It is sponsored by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and a host of corporations like commercial Citibank, Fairway, Whole Foods, National Grid, Verizon, and Acumen Capital Partners LLC and Jamestown Properties, as well as the Daily News and Edible Brooklyn as media partners.

The bright line between artisan and entrepreneur shines when the Alexandra Fergusons and the Brian Smiths of the world realize they’re not just creating cute cushions or unique premium ice cream flavors, they’re creating businesses. Should they move beyond bootstrapping? How much bigger can small-batch get before small-batch loses its edge? Sounds like it’s time for a serious, stage-two business plan. That’s when a trade show like Brooklyn Eats or a presentation to a venture capital fund really starts to make sense. It’s only been a very few years since Makerbot stepped up, after all, and it’s now valued at $403 million. Who’s next?

Brooklyn Artisan Editor & Publisher Anne Mollegen Smith was editor-in-chief of Working Woman magazine when its circulation grew to 950,000.

Filed Under: best practices, Collectives, Coworking, Encore, The Business Side, Uncategorized Tagged With: 3rd Ward, Acumen Capital Partners LLC, alchemy creamery, Alexandra Ferguson, Ample Hills Creamery, Bill Jonese motivational poster, Brooklyn Eats, Brooklyn Flea, Edible Brooklyn, Etsy Blog, Etsy.com, Industry City, Jamestown Properties, Maker Faire, MakerBot, paralysis by analysis, Smorgasburg, venture capital funds in Brooklyn

Notes to Self (With a Nod to Bill Jones)

June 4, 2013 by Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

One might quibble about how “objective” the pep talk is, but the Bill Jones motivational posters have clear messages.

OFF MY MIND AND ONTO MY DESKTOP: One can relish the relief of listing tasks to be done tomorrow in order to stop worrying about them tonight. Whether it’s on a piece of paper, in a file on the computer, or on a whiteboard in the corner, it’s good to leave the list at work when the day’s over. If it’s in an app on a mobile, best not to check it until tomorrow.

Off my desk and onto yours: Delegating has at least two forms. One is giving away the task and putting it completely out of mind, knowing the results will be apparent without further effort on your part. The other is assigning the task and expecting to follow up to be sure it gets done, to praise or nudge or redirect. In the second case, the task hasn’t really been given away, it’s just been transformed from one kind of task to another.

Off my list and out of my mind: It’s worth remembering that one form of prioritizing is not letting a task get onto one’s personal to-do list in the first place. If the list has gotten too long anyway, then decide which things not to do. Let go of them, at least for now. That keeps the list from being overwhelming.

Filed Under: best practices, Brain Candy, Look, The Business Side Tagged With: best practices, Bill Jones, motivational posters, pep talk, productivity, to-do lists, work habits

‘Bill Jones’ Rules for White House, State, IRS (Wall Street, We Wish!) and Your Business Too

May 18, 2013 by Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

REMOVE THE DOUBT — THAT’S ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING HEADS MUST ROLL when certain types of screw-ups occur. So after the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups to search out 501 (c) 4 violations made such big news, the acting head of the agency had his “resignation asked for and accepted.” Could he have survived in the job if he’d broken the findings to the President himself simultaneously with firing the hands-on people involved? Maybe.

And maybe even if he couldn’t get out in front of the news, but had acted quickly to remove those most responsible. That’s what Hillary Clinton and her management cadre at the State Department did after the tragic news from Benghazi broke; when she “accepted responsibility” for inadequate security at the Benghazi post, it was clear she was speaking in code — it happened in her agency and she was handling it: The faulty decision-makers were already on the way out the door .

We’re still waiting to see what the fallout will be after what looks like excessive phone monitoring of the AP in an effort to find the recent big leaker.

Even more, we’re still waiting for Wall Street and banking to “accept responsibility” and clean up after the financial crisis, the “liar’s loan” mortgage mess and the wrongly foreclosed housing.

In a small-business context, when a client’s order has been screwed up, it’s up to you to ‘fess up, clean up, sometimes even pay up, and show what action you’re taking to be sure it never happens again. A change of employees, a new procedure, or taking over that dawn delivery route yourself — whatever will “remove the doubt.” That’s a business fundamental.

Filed Under: best practices, Brain Candy, Look, The Business Side Tagged With: ARP phone monitoring, Benghazi, Bill Jones, IRS firing, motivational posters, small batch producers' business tips, small-business fundamental, State Department firings, White House trifecta

Bill Jones to Jeffrey Krusinki: What were you thinking (with)?

May 13, 2013 by Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

As has widely been reported, less than two weeks ago Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, head of the Air Force’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program, was arrested and charged for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in a suburban parking lot in Virginia.

The fictional Bill Jones was the voice of career advice in the 1920s and 30s posters put out by a British printing company. Though the advice here was meant in another context, it’s not hard to imagine what Bill Jones would have thought about sexual assault or harassment, or derailing one’s career in this way.

Filed Under: best practices, Brain Candy, Look, The Business Side, Think

Rhetorical Rhinos and Flights of Inspiration

May 11, 2013 by Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

(Mather Company, posters from 1920s and 30s)

(Mather Company and Bill Jones posters from 1920s and 30s)

A GREAT GRAPHIC, BUT A DOUBTFUL METAPHOR. Unlike the rhetorical rhinoceros in the closet. this rhino in the bush probably isn’t going to be just stared down successfully. Arming yourself with appropriate resources seems like a much better idea. “Facing troubles” is Step One; “turning worry into effective action” would be Step Two. And thanks to Bill Jones, here — still in “Out of Africa” mode — is inspiration for making the effort.

Filed Under: best practices, Look, The Business Side

Getting Your Message Across?

May 9, 2013 by Anne Mollegen Smith 2 Comments

IT’S A 140 CHARACTER WORLD NOW, and what used to be called a magazine article is now “long-form journalism.” But this Mather poster advocates not only brevity but “snap.” Brooklyn Artisan long ago offered thoughts on quotability, but here snap means directness, too.

Some examples of this are in the Brooklyn Artisan photo pool. A favorite:

Filed Under: Chalkboard, Look, The Business Side, Think

Business Lessons from a Master

May 4, 2013 by Anne Mollegen Smith Leave a Comment

Where Park Place meets Flatbush, looking out through the front window.

WHATEVER WE MAY THINK OF STARBUCKS COFFEE, THEIR PRICES OR UBIQUITY, we can all take a lesson from the new Starbucks location on Park Place at Flatbush/Seventh Avenue, where the oversized and under-busy 5 Guys burger place recently failed. The premises reportedly rents for $20,000 a month. Can even Starbucks bring in enough to do business there profitably? Time will tell, of course, but certainly the managers are trying to make a go of it.

Let’s infer some items for our checklist: Yes, Starbucks put out the welcome sign, literally, in chalkboard vernacular.

Yes, the Seventh Avenue Q/B subway stop is right there, and Starbucks has put in the pedestrian equivalent of a drive-by window: the long bar-height shallow counter right in front for commuters and other muffineers. There is enough open floor space for a long line at 8:40am, even allowing for a four-wheeler or two en route to Eladia’s Kids, near the 2/3 station.

Yes, the setup is neighborhood-savvy. Although the ramp at the entrance is wheelchair-friendly, the greater traffic is sure to come from the stroller-moms and -dads. Traffic control is smart: there’s stroller parking for the stay-awhile or coffee-date set.

The community bulletin board is right by the entrance, with a small mural in the style of the Starbucks-on-Seventh location (we hear the artist there is one of the partners).

There are more chalkboards in the back, toddler height, near the low table and small chairs, that signal little guys are welcome and allowed to roam free (relatively). There’s a play shelf with crayons and other amusements.

The half-dozen deep leather chairs welcome long-term loungers: those who want to read the Times thoroughly, say, or polish off the review copy of a new book. Easy-to-pull-up stools in a skateboard aesthetic allow kibitzers to interrupt them, but if the kibitizers really want to engage long enough to make their point, there are a few leather-cushioned stools around as well.

And blogger heaven: wi-fi and a huge, two-sided laptop-friendly work table. While the hard metal chairs might discourage you from settling in to finish your thesis here, they are a good sit for long enough to post a blog entry or handle email away from the kids.

We didn’t forget to check for the critical amenity! Yes, it’s here, the changing station in the bathroom. At this juncture of Park Slope/Prospect Heights, the diaper table really says, “Welcome, families.” Starbucks shows it knows.

Filed Under: best practices, Chalkboard, Food/Drink, The Business Side, Uncategorized

Staying Motivated in a “401 k World”

May 3, 2013 by Anne Mollegen Smith 4 Comments

FIRST IT WAS TOM FRIEDMAN writing in the New York Times two days ago about the 401 k world where pension responsibility is thrust back on the individual worker, instead of custodial employers, unions, the Social Security Administration. Next came the Matthew Yglesias piece in Slate yesterday, “It’s a 401 k World and It Sucks.”

It’s hard for the small-business owner and artisanal producer – who’s very often the supply-buyer, the marketer, the Flea Market hawker, the copywriter and the chalkboard artist , and sometimes also holding down a day job too– to stay motivated in a such a low-payoff world. Too often there’s no über-corporation to put matching funds into one’s artisanal retirement account. But wait!

Let Bill Jones keep you pumped! Out of the pages of history comes a bunch of illustrated sayings of this fictional Brit, in inspirational posters put out by a printing company called Parker-Holladay. We’ve pulled some together from various archives, and mixed in others from sources like the Chicago-based Mather Company and the WPA, and will be posting them from time to time to fuel your creativity – and/or your staff.

Because of the eras in which they were created, most are addressed to men, but it’s out of this tradition that WWII’s Rosie the Riveter came to celebrate and motivate the women who were serving the country. For the collector, poster historian and art director Steven Heller looks to the Reinhard Brown Gallery. (And just in case the artisanal chili-pepper face cream business never takes off, you might want to take out the thumbtacks and stash your dad’s Milton Glaser poster of Dylan with the psychedelic hair (1966) and even your Shepard Fairey Obama “Hope” poster into sturdy archival tubes.)