I am a huge proponent of re-use, but after researching bedbugs I am seriously rethinking the idea of ever buying any used furniture or rugs ever again. I have a house full of antiques and I have never even considered what I might be bringing into my house along with them. As I read about these horrible creatures I learned that they can come in on boxes, in suitcases, in clothing—so now I must consider the option of going naked both at home and while on vacation!

We go on vacation but just a few times a year, if we are lucky, so the suitcase issue isn’t a huge source of concern. But what do we bring into our homes every single day that is crusted in dog poop, trash, chewed up bubble gum, gasoline, decaying road kill, chemicals, and possibly bedbug anchor babies? Our shoes. It’s really disturbing if you put any thought into it at all. Why on earth would we wear our shoes into our house?  We traipse around spreading germs, fecal matter, petro chemicals and rotten food without a care in the world. We then subscribe to such idiotic ideas as the “3 second rule” when a potato chip drops to the floor. We lay on the floor watching TV. We let our little ones crawl around and then watch them put their hand in their mouths!  EEEEWWWW

According to a 1991 study called the Doormat Study by the EPA, 85% of the dirt in our homes has been tracked in on our own shoes!  Heck, I thought that at least 50% was brought in on the bottom of my purse—a topic for another issue of Iggy’s World—and the other 50% came in on the feet of the dog. But a much more alarming statistic is that in homes where they took off their shoes at the door there was a 60% reduction in the amount of lead dust.  And here we have been blaming all our lead dust on long ago covered over lead based paints.

I find that many ancient cultural traditions actually served a really good purpose rather than just being an odd way to show respect or membership in a tribe.  I have to say that removing ones shoes when entering a home or holy place now seems to me to just be downright medicinal and smart!  I have always had a shoe basket by the back door and thanks to my husband it is no longer full of plastic grocery bags.  I think the Igguldens are going to actually start using it for shoes—which my dog will look at and say “oh, yeah, mommy refilled my ‘toy box’ ”.

Tip #3: Support your Interns

When a new person joins your team its easy to forget the importance of shared history. Your culture, protocols, business model and individual personalities are all unfamiliar terrain. With a permanent hire you have the luxury of time for them to make the transition. With a summer intern, figure on a couple of weeks! That’s why it’s critical to provide adequate support both at the beginning of the internship and throughout its course.  We start each summer with a four-hour orientation that covers key topics like corporate values, customer segmentation, organizational structure and sales history. We then work with each intern to define their project scope, deliverables, and timeline. Finally, we conduct weekly on-on-one meetings with each intern to ensure they stay on track.

Tip #4: Empower them

Among the highest compliments we’ve received from our interns is that they feel comfortable questioning they way we do things and offering their own suggestions.  As a small, heads-down organization, which rarely has time to hit the pause button, getting this kind of outsider perspective is one of the most valuable aspects of our internship program.  Its important to recognize, however, that fostering this kind of openness takes work. Part of it comes from a managerial approach that emphasizes to them that we don’t have all the answers and are sincerely interested in new perspectives. The other key component is providing access to information and people. There are several ways we do this. First, we give interns free reign on our intranet so they have access to the same information management has: sales data, forecasts, inventory, financials, etc. – its all fair game. Second, we invite them to sit in on key meetings, even those that aren’t directly related to their projects. Finally, we make introductions and encourage them to meet with the people in our organization who may hold the other pieces to the puzzle.

So that summarizes what we’ve learned in the two years our program has existed. But there’s always room for improvement, so we’ll revisit this topic next spring when we start gearing up for Summer 2011. Meanwhile please share your comments and experiences. Have you been an intern? Have you managed one? I’d love to hear from you.

I come from a long line of dirty auto owners.  My parents both had dirty cars and so did my grandparents.  My mom and I both will have to move over piles of papers and old candy wrappers if you want to sit up in the front (or in the back).  So I guess I could claim that it is a genetic pre-disposition. It really does bother me when I have to pick someone else up and they see that it’s not just the outside that resembles a truck that just completed the Baja 1000. And frankly even I hesitate to use the cup holders in my own car for fear that the cup will be permanently stuck in there. It’s a classic case of denial, as every time I do get a new car, I swear this one will be different, I promise to keep this car clean.

 I actually have two cars from my past that I swore to keep clean, you know, so that when I traded them in they would be worth something. My first car was a white Nissan Pulsar T-top convertible with custom pink racing stripes. Its final blow was when my then fiancé and I picked up a stray cat and took it to the shelter—let’s just say that the stray didn’t deal with the stress of the car ride very well and ended up with a bad case of the runs all over the passenger floor board. And then there was the Honda Accord with the giant black marks all over the tan leather driver’s side seat. The moral of that story was: “Never get into a very hot car wearing a cheap black vinyl mini skirt”.  But I digress. 

Actually, it’s amazing that I get to have one of the cherished front parking spaces at KOR Water. I mean seriously, people probably think that some homeless person is living in it! But in the interest of saving water and money, I don’t take my car to the carwash but once a year. And I successfully con my kids into washing it about once a year on the middle of the grass in our back yard. So I guess you could say that my car gets washed at about the same time that I go in and get my teeth cleaned at the dentist. It’s a stark comparison to the immaculate vehicles that park on either side of me, looking like a lady coming out of the beauty salon–all shiny and smelling of “new car” air freshener. 

So I guess that my habit of minimalist car washing has easily fit into my desire to use less water.  My excuse for not washing it now has a smugness to it that makes people think “wow, she really is serious about this water conservation thing”. So if you have looked at my car and thought better of me….don’t.

This floating pavilion was made possible by 1,700 2-liter plastic bottles, the expertise of marine surveyors Loki Ocean and the design group Goodweather Collective. Diners can view the bottles through a window on the floor—a constant reminder of the waste that litters our delicate oceans. It is located at the False Creek Yacht Club in Vancouver and catered by the award-winning C Restaurant. Not only is the craft sustainable; so is the 6-course seafood dinner. If you can spare $215 and a trip to Vancouver, you can actually enjoy this experience through the end of September 2010.

Projects like the Plastic Dining Room open a great opportunity and window for discussion on global water issues as serious topics are conveyed in a delightful, attention-grabbing manner. If you know of any other water-awareness projects like this, give us a holler! We’d love to see them and are sure you’ll inspire others with your findings.

There are only about 150 Freestyles in the wild right now, but a total of 2000 are planned by end of year. I had the chance to try one out in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago and, while I admit, the technology is very cool, I couldn’t stop thinking about the implications it has for bottled water. Because, while Coke markets Freestyle as a way to revitalize its traditional soft drinks business, it also dispenses Dasani — the number one bottled water brand in the U.S.

Say what? Bottled water from a tap? What’s next?  Draft beer from a bottle (oh wait, that already exists)? Seriously though, on one hand, this isn’t really news. After all, most of us know by now that Dasani does, in fact, come from the tap. On the other hand, Coke doesn’t want that thought to be top of mind when we take our first sip of this new-era Dasani, do they? And what happens to our image of Dasani the next time we encounter it in bottled form? Certainly many of us will pause before shelling out the two bucks we once did for a bottle.

No doubt, these questions consumed many hours of discussion at Coke HQ, but I like to think the company made the pragmatic choice. They realized they couldn’t keep the illusion going forever – especially as more sustainable options like home filtration gained popularity – so they did the smart thing and began preparing for a day when their brand could stand for something more than just purified tap water in a plastic bottle. In this new guise, perhaps Dasani becomes a seal of approval for dispensing and filtration technology; sort of like what “Intel Inside” does for your PC.

Whatever the outcome, its fun to imagine the possibilities and exciting to watch it all play out. Meanwhile, I applaud Freestyle’s potential to minimize bottled water waste and move the world toward more sustainable hydration.

What do you think? Is this the end of bottled water as we know it or merely a detour on our current unsustainable path?

Our interns’ departure led me to reflect on our program and what we’ve learned these past two years. Internship programs can be a huge win-win for both employee and intern, but getting it right takes discipline and sometimes trial and error. So in the interest of helping other small businesses start their own programs, I thought I’d share some best practices (note: these tips are intended for MBA interns, but I think most apply to undergrad or mid-career interns).

Top Five Internship Program Best Practices (Part I)

1. Be Selective

Finding the right talent is critical to creating that all important win-win. Obviously, an intern who is well matched to the company and project stands a greater chance of succeeding.  Short term, this means you gain from higher quality contributions. Long-term you gain by cultivating an important relationship. One thing we have found is that successful interns make invaluable good-will ambassadors. For example, last summer’s interns spread the word on campus about our program, which led to more and better recruits this year.  So when recruiting interns, go the extra mile to get the best. Interview as many as you can, ask probing questions, check references and don’t hesitate to move on if the fit isn’t right.

2. Find The Right Projects

Getting the right match between intern and project takes some work, but it’s critical to the win-win you are trying to achieve. The ideal project balances a number of criteria:

It fills an important business need
It can be completed during the course of the internship (or substantially so)
It aligns with the interests and passion of the intern
It provides enough of a stretch that it allows them to expand their horizons, but not so much that they can’t make high-quality contributions

Tall order right? That’s why you’ll probably need to make trade-offs. We’ve found that finding projects with less immediate need can help improve the match. For example, you may have been dead set on getting an intern to develop that online marketing plan that’s due next month, but your intern is majoring in operations. No problem, just have them work on the inventory management project you were planning for next year. You’ll get better results and a happier intern.

On a related note, try to limit the number of projects you give each intern. We aim for one primary and one secondary project. This limits the amount of time interns spend ramping up for each project (an important consideration given the short duration of most internships). It also gives them the satisfaction of digging into something meaty and provides a nice portfolio piece for future job searches.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back with the rest of my tips next week in Part II. Meanwhile, please share your thoughts on the above and your experience with interns.

I take serious issue with wasting such a precious resource.  We all heard our mom or dad say, “eat your food, don’t you know there are starving children in Africa?”  For me I say, “don’t you know there are people all over the world that fight a daily battle just to have a few drops of water?’

My husband has taken it even further.  It’s always entertaining to watch new friends and neighbors walk through our back yard, passing by the sealed 55 gallon drums that grace the landscape.  You can just read it on their faces.  “OMG, the Igguldens are whackos storing toxic waste in their backyard.” OR worse yet, “How many bodies are chopped up and stored out here!”  These barrels are actually just rain barrels.  It’s a rarity, but we do occasionally get a rainy winter here in Southern California and  when it does rain we collect it.  We water plants and know that if a catastrophe happens we may even be able to filter it and use the water for drinking or bathing.

So don’t judge a barrel by it’s cover—but feel free to call 911 if you do smell a ghastly odor coming from any of them!

As the photo above show, rain barrels don’t have to look like a toxic waste dump!  Do you collect rain water?  If so I would like to know how long you have successfully stored the water in metal barrels vs. in plastic barrels.

What do you think is the most popular resuable bottle on the market?  KOR?  Not yet.  Camelbak?  Nope.  Could it be Nalgene, the pioneer of the reusable category?  Zip.  It turns out the most popular reusable water bottle in America happens to be a bottle not intended for reuse – an empty bottled water bottle.  Don’t believe me?  Go to any gym and ask someone holding a bottled water bottle the question, “did you just buy that or did you refill it?”, and you’ll inevitably get the response “I refilled it”…followed by defense, “but I throw it out after a week”.

I can certainly relate to the practice of reusing bottled water bottles as a matter of convenience.  Back in 2004, in an effort to be healthier, I began drinking more water in lieu of drinking Coke or fruit juice.  I much prefer chilled over room temperature water, so without giving it much thought I filled an old 32 0z Gatorade bottle with filtered water from our sink and threw it in the fridge.   The Gatorade bottle I chose to reuse was perfect – it held the right amount of water, had a medium sized spout, and was easy to carry.  For the next six months, I continued to refill that bottle, stopping only occasionally to run hot water with mild soap in it for cleaning.  Little did I know.

One day, in passing, my wife stated “you know that Gatorade bottle you keep drinking out of is a complete bacteria petri-dish”.  She related how the bottle wasn’t intended for reuse, and the fact I didn’t thoroughly clean it meant that my backwash was breeding some interesting organisms in my supposedly “healthy” new water habit.  I told her she was crazy and didn’t know what she was talking about.  Secretly, I “Googled” the subject of reusing bottled water bottles and about fell out of my chair.  Of course my wife was right :)

One Canadian study focused on kids reusing bottled water bottles in school found bacterial contamination in about a third of the samples and even fecal coliforms in some.  Yeah…fecal matter.  The bacteria comes from our human hands and mouths after repeated use without washing and drying the bottle.  So why not just wash the bottled water bottle?  It gets worse.

Bottled water bottles are made out of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) which, while considered safe for its intended “single” use, has been found to break down over time.  The more you wash them, the faster they break down.  As stated in a recent National Geographic article:

“…the plastic used in single-use bottles can pose more of a contamination threat than the water. A safe plastic if used only once, #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) is the most common resin used in disposable bottles. However, as #1 bottles are reused, as they commonly are, they can leach chemicals such as DEHA, a possible human carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a potential hormone disruptor. And because the plastic is porous you’ll likely get a swill of harmful bacteria with each gulp if you reuse the bottles.”

Oh great….so now I have that going for me.   At least my wife caught me early in the process and set in motion my pursuit of a reusable water bottle I could wash (which led me to start KOR…but that’s another story).

If you’re a closet reuser of bottled water bottles, do yourself a big favor and buy a good reusable bottle – if not from KOR, consider a bottle from one of our fine competitors Nalgene, Camelbak, Klean Kanteen, and Sigg.  Your health will thank you!

Directions for a Bottled Water Bacteria & Cancer Cocktail:

- take 1 bottled water bottle and drink original contents
- refill bottle with water from another source (filtered)
- drink water, fill up bottle again, drink water, fill up bottle again, etc.
- watch bacteria (even e-coli) build up within bottle after 1 week
- attempt to wash bottle with soap and warm water
- cause bottle to break down through washing, releasing DEHA (potential carcinogen) and benzyl butyl phthalate (potential hormone disruptor)
- stir it all up and wash it down

As you can imagine, one of us has a distinct advantage when it comes to winning company arguments. But, Paul gave a little leeway on this one. After we spent Tuesday through Thursday listening to his looping 63-song water playlist in our trade show booth, I asked if I could try my hand at it for Friday.

As the last one awake in our rented Utah house, I worked late into the night and early morning, scouring my iTunes library to compile a water playlist for the trade show’s final day. Paul set the criteria, but he often violates some the rules himself. So, I decided to whittle the constraints down to the two that seemed most important:

1-Each song must (legitimately) be about water.

2-The songs must have a nice groove, allowing for comfortable downtime in the booth and providing a strong but not overpowering background during a sales pitch.

To clarify the first point with an anecdote: I initially placed Paul McCartney & Wings’ Band On The Run on my playlist, because the song enters its second half stride with the lyrics:

“Well the rain exploded with a mighty crash …”

But, as far as I recall, that’s the only time Sir Paul mentions water in the tune, so it’s hard to make an argument that Band On The Run is a water song. Therefore, I eliminated it.

In addition, ranking one song above another does not necessarily mean it’s a better song. It means that I think it’s a better water song, based on the criteria. For example, Bob Dylan’s When The Ship Comes In is one of my Top 5 favorite songs of all time. But, the acoustic guitar/harmonica background did not play well in a convention setting. It’s not on this list.

With that said, here are my Top 25 water songs. Next to each title, in parentheses, is the KOR employee who included it in his playlist.

25. Orinoco Flow, Enya (Paul)

24. Big River, Johnny Cash (me)

23. Yellow Submarine, The Beatles (me)

22. When The Levee Breaks, Led Zeppelin (Paul)

21. Nightswimming, R.E.M. (me)

20. Ripple, The Grateful Dead (me)

19. Have You Ever Seen The Rain?, Creedence Clearwater Revival (Paul)

18. Wade In The Water, Babbie Mason (Paul)

17. Up On Cripple Creek, The Band (me)

16. Sail On, Sailor, The Beach Boys (Paul)

15. Black Water, The Doobie Brothers (Paul)

14. Take Me To The River, Al Green (Paul)

13. Riders On The Storm, The Doors (me)

12. Sea Of Love, Cat Power (Paul)

11. I Can See Clearly Now, Jimmy Cliff (somehow, we both missed this classic, which always makes me think of Cool Runnings and the comic genius of Doug E. Doug)

10. And It Stoned Me, Van Morrison (Paul)

9. Atlantis, Donovan (me)

8. The River of Dreams, Billy Joel (Paul)

7. Dry The Rain, The Beta Band (me)

6. No Rain, Blind Melon (me)

5. Beyond The Sea, Bobby Darin (Paul)

4. Tide Is High, Blondie (me)

3. Sittin’ On The Dock of The Bay, Otis Redding (me)

2. Sloop John B, The Beach Boys (Paul)

1. Rain, The Beatles (me)

That’s my list. Now we want to hear from YOU. What did I miss? What are your top water songs? Also, if you’re interested …

-Some other great water songs from my playlist: High Water (Bob Dylan); Just Like The Strange Rain (Elton John); Longer Boats (Cat Stevens); Peace Like a River (Paul Simon); Proud Mary (Creedence Clearwater Revival); Red Rain (Peter Gabriel); Seven Seas of Rhye (Queen); Shelter From The Storm (Bob Dylan); Swanee River (Ray Charles), Water (The Who).

-Some other great water songs from Paul’s playlist: Bride Over Troubled Water (Aretha Franklin); Buckets of Rain (Bob Dylan); It’s Raining Men (The Weather Girls); The River (Bruce Springsteen); Smoke On The River (Azul); Surfer Girl (The Beach Boys); Waterfalls (TLC); Who’ll Stop The Rain (Creedence Clearwater Revival); You Don’t Miss Your Water (Otis Redding); You Left The Water Running (Wilson Pickett).

One of the biggest green efforts that we have made at our home is the installation of solar panels on our roof. When we finally made the plunge and had a pool put in at our house we threw all caution to the wind and said, “Hey, if we are going to make the investment—why not go all the way.” And I have to say I am glad that we did.  Along with the solar water heating, which was put on the roof, we also put in 5.5KW worth of solar panels.  To assist in keeping the pool clean, warm and safe we also installed a completely integrated pool cover that is electrically operated with the flip of a switch.  If it’s well designed and easy to use, I will use it—if takes jumping in the pool and pulling it across the pool—forget it!

I must say that probably one of the most thrilling parts of having solar panels is standing there watching the electric meter run backwards—its BETTER than the slot machines in Vegas, because I don’t have to sit next to some guy chain smoking while breathing through a tube and dragging his oxygen tank.

We haven’t gotten to a point where we have no power bill, but we are well under a hundred a month with a 2,650 square foot home, large pool, a home office, four computers running virtually 24/7, and kids who tend to leave lights on.  So I think we are pretty pleased with the results.  Oh…and all the neighbor kids love to come swim at our house as the water is always warm and clear— so come on over and join us!

Yes, that is our pool in the photo above.