Och Aye. Scotland and Freedom.

I have had a decade long love affair with Scotland that is about to come to an end.  I have sat on the edge of her entangled politics whilst trying to make one tiny portion of the country better, through my company Thistle & Broom, T&B, to perpetuate her traditional hand skills and unique culture and in providing economic benefit to the talented artisans and craftspeople that make their home within her geopolitical boundaries. My decision comes following the duplicity of an English customer and one of the 80+ year old Fair Isle hand-knitters whose work has only been available through T&B – my disappointment was immense.

My Scots blood is seven generations removed (and like most Americans I am a mutt joined with French, English, Irish, German and Polish heritage).  My maternal forebear, carrying the last name of Johnson was a mere scrolling signature of entry into Canada who later migrated to the United States, and who like so many in the 19^th century was forced from his Highland lands by greed and famine.  I do not self-identify with a specific clan, so I have also never worn a tartan or learned to properly dance a Highland reel (oh, but I do love a man in a kilt). I took my first sips of single malt early in December 2002 when I first stepped upon the sacred ground of ‘home’ and ate haggis six months later on a return to Scottish soil. I once sat with an officer of the Bank of Scotland spouting statistics about loss of jobs, the Diaspora, income disparities between the central belt (running between Edinburgh and Glasgow) and the Highlands, Islands and Borders whereupon he said “why do you know so much about my country?” to which I replied “why do you not?”.

I have ached over nepotism and patronage, smiled sweetly in the face of ridiculous levels of naiveté and been crazy angry over outright lies and swindle perpetuated by people who claimed to support Scotland.

I have been mightily frustrated by the “not-invented-here” mindset, the territorialism of middle level bureaucrats and the mind-numbing aspects of how 1000 years of subjugation can make a population of talented, intelligent people collectively feel like the utterly incompetent bastard cousin (Shaun Moore’s epic Wha’s Like Us? is perfect, do watch the video) – part of the family but looked down upon.  What happened to the people who affixed their signatures to the most important piece of diplomatic language ever written, The Declaration of Arbroath?

I have watched as Whitehall consolidated Scottish regiments just as the English banned wearing tartan in 1746, and wept. I have been welcomed into homes across the country, and toasted in pubs where I knew not a soul on entering and left richer with friendships that are as solid as Ben Nevis.  I have had a Scottish lover many years my junior who I still cherish and with whom I remain friends. I have enjoyed eating fish and seafood hours out of her clear waters, and drunken my fill from ice cold cascades issued from chasms in solid rock. I have sunk up to my hip in a couple of peat bogs and been grateful for not ever encountering the quick sands found on her Outer Hebrides. I traversed her breadth, and width, logging tens of thousands of miles upon never previously traveled roads and made the last ferries on time in all kinds of weather.

Scotland is a home I didn’t know I had, until after 17 years of subtle messages made it damn clear she was calling me to her.  I have invested time, energy and financial resources I was ill equipped to make – and regret not one aspect of having done so. I have learn much – which I now take forward to the benefit of other countries and regions of countries and apply the T&B model. New beginnings. And so, on the eve of the Scottish Referendum where the country I have loved faces new challenges and opportunities herself I have a few things as an outsider that I have refrained from previously expressing.

First, a question to pose – if British Prime Minister David Cameron and President Barack Obama are so certain that Scotland will fail why plead for her to remain part of the union? Why does her independence so threaten the state of the global economy as to expound on this? Why not just let the little country fail? I have a short list of whys and they have nothing to do with altruism toward Scotland’s population and everything to do with greed – Timber, Oil, Natural Gas, Fishing, Wind Power, Tourism, Whisky and Innovation (scroll down, there are astronomical values at stake here). There’s one more thing, when you perpetuate meddling in global affairs using the military for the benefit of “interests abroad” the Trident nuclear missile silos of the United Kingdom are located on the west coast of Scotland at Clyde – the Scots have wanted them gone away for a very long time, and England doesn’t have a place to put the armaments.

At least some of you reading this will understand the history, how Scotland came to be part of the United Kingdom. For those that really don’t understand – allow me.

 As for believing a word the English promise the Scots we need only to look to history; earlier today I Tweeted this image, at left, and

Let’s take a lesson from ‪#‎history on ‪#‎English ‘promises’ to ‪#‎Scotland. http://www.thistleandbroom.com/scotland/glen-coe.htm …

For those who appreciate a bit of humour with their hard facts I commend John Oliver (Englishman though he may be) for his explanation of the Scottish Independence vote.

Scotland is where she is today because, very short history lesson, in the 17^th century Scots founded the Darien Company to conduct trade – which would have been in competition with England’s East India Company. Aside from the various disasters which befell Darien, from the beginning England was keen to protect its trade monopoly, global expansion and world dominance.  With the failure of Darien the bankrupt Scottish aristocracy was offered a bailout – The 1707 Treaty of Union allowed the 1% to maintain their status and lands and essentially sold Scotland cheaply giving over her population and sovereignty to England to the considerable benefit of the latter’s trade, colonialism and war efforts. With that unlikely and largely unwelcome marriage the British monarchy realised 10% of all revenues from Scotland – go back to the Timber, Oil, Natural Gas et al link above and calculate the monies involved on an annual basis to fully comprehend that Scotland has been propping up the UK economy for a great many years (not the other way around as Cameron and company would have the world believe).

Now, least you, dear reader, think that I am a fan of Alex Salmond and the SNP – I am not. I also do not agree with most Scots as they wish (incredibly enough given that the Windsors are not actually the legitimate heirs to the British throne) to have HM Queen Elizabeth continue as their monarch (maybe it’s my being an American?) but it’s particularly frustrating to me given how much land surrounds Balmoral and the other properties owned by the royal family in Scotland and how these would better serve the Scots. Again, an outsiders view.

So, YES (a thousand times yes) I believe that Scotland should be a free and independent nation. I believe that the time of the British Empire is long over yet many upper class English men cling to the vestiges of the historic glory days where trade was really a pretext for pillage and meddling in the sovereignty of other nations (you really must read William Dalrymple to truly understand the history of British classicism, racism, bigotry, entitlement and arrogance that we continue to witness on the global political stage daily).  Yes, the ‘natives’ are restless, no doubt that the significant changes (should a Yes vote be realised) will be daunting to overcome (and I have doubts about the managerial, negotiation and diplomatic skills of the SNP), but if you tell people that they will fail there is no greater rallying cry to success (the heist of the Stone of Destiny being a wonderful example, another is Michael Forbes who has tied up Donald Trump for so long). New research shows there is a lot more under the North Sea than the “Better Together” folks would have Scots believe. And yes, it is getting vocal and ugly on the streets of her beautiful cities – this is a divisive, life altering decision for nearly 5 million people.

On the eve of a historic vote for Scottish Independence I am ready to sell Thistle & Broom. To let someone Scottish, I hope, grow the business in ways that truly give Scots the considerable bragging rights they should own because Scotland and her people are truly remarkable.  Step out of the shadow and own your destiny Scotland.

Sláinte mhath.

If you enjoy my blog please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

 

The ferment of genius in a broken world.

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.”
― Anaïs Nin

Photograph by Massimo Sestini, accompanying the Italian navy in rescue June 2014

According to (nearly) universally held scientific beliefs human beings have traversed the breath of the Earth for over 60,000 years. Migration is not a new phenomenon, neither, sadly, is the terror of being a refugee, but the epic proportions of displacement are all too familiar across the globe certainly are new.

Somalis in Ethiopia

There can be nothing more de-humanising than to have your community scattered, the traditions of your culture destroyed, to experience the brutality of violence directed toward you because of your geographic location (and the covetousness for what lies beneath your feet) or your faith. That we, who are all ‘of one’, could do this to another and not understand that we are doing this to ourselves (for eventually we always reap what we sow) is beyond my capacity to comprehend.  Being assigned refugee status and then being forced to live in an encampment with tens of thousands of others who likewise are forced to accept this fate and ‘live’ on the handouts of NGOs is beneath human dignity. And yet, according to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, UNHCR, there are more than fifty (50) million people living this way. FIFTY MILLION PEOPLE living in tent cities and if you can read this from the comfort of a home, where water runs in your tap and flushes your toilet, where you can bathe, and cook, and sleep anytime you wish, a piece of you – in our common existence – is living this other life.

I believe in the ferment of genius.  That there are ideas floating all around us, destined to be pulled down because at a precise moment in time we see a problem and know with every fiber of our being that there is a solution to it that ‘we’ have been called upon by the universe to fix.  Goethe understood it too.

Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.
                                                                                                     ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Because of her Lexus Design Award winning “Weaving a Home” project, I discovered the extraordinary work of Abeer Seikaly a couple of weeks ago. I have worked with artisans and craftspeople for more than a decade to find a way of taking their traditional skills and making them contemporary and commercially viable so, you can imagine how Seikaly’s efforts took my breath away. The conjunction of honoring the traditional housing of nomadic peoples everywhere, seeing in handwoven baskets a possibility for something more, and her training as an architect have created something truly innovative and worthy of the (all too often loosely assigned) appellation of genius.

In combination with “ovens made from old bath tubs” we might be able to fix some pressing problems and build communities (and all the healing, dynamic energy which accompanies such) within refugee camps to restore a level of human dignity.

I have facilitated introduction between Ms. Seikaly and a friend of mine who is the CEO of Glen Raven (Sunbrella) fabrics.  I suggested that the integration of a rain collection and cooling system into the functionality of her design and they have now taken the conversation into the business development core of Glen Raven for direct conversations. I can’t know the outcome, but I see NO REASON why something couldn’t be developed for those living near salt water but within an arid environment to cope with increasingly demands on water resources. I am so very hopeful of something smart, and cost effective, will come of the connections I saw and acted upon.

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a cup of tea’ in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share the blog with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

Currency and banking innovation – Bitcoin, microfinance, plastics – inspiration in a tea tin

Earlier this afternoon I was making myself a cup of tea and pulled out the sweet remnant of a birthday gift, the empty tea tin of something wonderful and fruity that my girlfriend Jennifer had bought for me, for a couple of Sugar in the Raw packets and found $20 I had stashed in there at some (unremembered) point in the past. This seemingly mundane discovery reminded me of the recent mother lodes of gold coins found in California, Israel and those of the Staffordshire – buried treasures of the American Gold Rush as well as Iron and Middle Age era ‘safety deposit boxes’.  What we trust, insofar as currency for transactions, has certainly evolved over the course of human history.

The creation of new currencies, or protecting assets and still making them available to their owners, most notably rests with The Knights Templar.  Their efficient network and managed holdings ultimately created such wealth, and jealousy and covetousness as to foster the political intrigue between Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V resulting in their condemnation, and destruction to allow the ‘legitimate’ confiscation said assets. Our modern banking system might have been modelled on The Templars but 1000 years on, it’s time for innovation and to cast off the shackles (and fees, and bloated salaries) that come with what has become conventional and its resulting hotbed of resentment.

A brilliant, passionate man I met, (virtually within the dynamic social entrepreneurial world of which I am part), Shaun Frankson works for The Plastic Bank (title: The Dot Connector). The truth is I promised Shaun months ago (sorry for the delay!!) I would write about their ground-breaking efforts in monetizing Ocean Bound Plastic waste, in fact The Plastic Bank is the only organization on a global basis to do such, (please also sign their petition) .  What’s so impressive to me is how their efforts aim to solve catastrophic environmental issues simultaneously with raising up the world’s disadvantaged populations by collecting and trading in plastic waste as a currency – hidden treasure indeed. The Plastic Bank has had some recent successes worth mentioning as synopsised in this post to Shaun’s Facebook wall on 25 February (but not yet found in Google’s news feed): “2 countries, 3 cities, 8 meetings, 8 flights, 1 historic train trip, and 20,000 ton of social plastic… Mission accomplished.” What did that net? The Plastic Bank is now only months away from making plastic waste a bona fide currency in Latin America during Q2 2014!

While I am on the subject of “plastic currency” I can only hope that all this innovative thinking leads to a deal with Innovia Security. The Bank of England just announced it will spend 1 billion Gbps ($1.67 billion USD) over the next decade on materials and printing of its new banknotes and the integration of Ocean Bound Waste (OBW is intercepted rather than reclaimed from the oceans’ various gyres, let’s hope that it is in the future) as the raw material used to create the polymer substrate in printing currencies, currently in 23 countries, would have incalculable positive impact in the eradication of poverty as well as the mitigation of environmental pollution; two very different types of currencies each servicing its unique population.

While innovators are realigning our core values and responsibility to the planet (and hat’s off for the positive start but) San Francisco is currently only concerned with single serve plastic bottles of water yet hasn’t banned any other beverages (maybe the beverage industry successfully blocked the inclusion of soda and juice and milk – again?). Redemption monies from bottle bill legislation serve as a currency of sorts for the urban impoverished across America and Canada, still all plastic bottles and containers have not earned the distinction of 5cents (or 10cents) per to ensure recycling.  Why? (More on that particular rant in the future, I promise.)

Matthew Paris, maps from the Historia Anglorum and Chronica Maiora, St Albans, c. 1250.
Route-Map to the Holy Land
The St Albans monk Matthew Paris (died 1259) never made the journey to the Holy Land. He did however draw a fascinating map of the pilgrimage route from England to Jerusalem. The route begins in London and progresses from the bottom to the top of each page. The final destination is the Holy Land depicted on two leaves.

I have been dealing with things tangible, that any one of us can hold in our hand, from grocery bags and plastic containers, to currency made from the same polymers – what about the intangibles? When Medieval pilgrims to the Holy Land first put their trust in The Knights Templar to ease the stress over carrying the funds necessary to make such a journey and for protection it was with the blessing of the Pope in Rome, faith notwithstanding trust was implicit and quite literally sacred.  There wasn’t profit involved as usury was considered a sin:

 …though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase (Leviticus 25:35-37).

So monies were deposited with the Good Knights and the same monies were returned (using those funds in the meantime to offer loans at interest to sovereigns who overspent was something else).

The Greater San Francisco Bay area has been host to technological innovation since 1939, anyone using a computer should know the story of William Hewlett and David Packard, but no one REALLY KNOWS exactly who is behind the brilliant currency innovation known as Bitcoin. While Bitcoin’s buried treasure is worth about the same amount as the gold coins in the buried Californian tincan should the $9m USD in value harddrive be found in a hundred years’ time will the digital code supporting it still exist? Because while any innovation in currency deals with hiccups (and thefts and counterfeiting) as well as the means to protect those assets we are moving forward so fast and away from traditional, and even digital currencies, that it’s hard to grasp how humankind will ultimately conduct its transactions in even five years time.

In the meantime, in global terms, there are 4 billion people who live on less than $2.50 USD per day – surely the contemporary equivalent of Medieval pilgrims to the Holy Land where innovation and trust platforms are critical.  Clearly the likes of JP Morgan (net income for the fourth quarter of 2013 of $5.3 billion) are not going to service those earning such insignificant amounts (even as their greenwashing efforts for WaterAid ease the conscience (?) of those top 100 London based JP Morgan top earners gaining average of £2m each in 2012 and Goldman Sachs disclosed its high flyers received £2.7m on average). Smart people have been tinkering around with servicing this underserved population for a couple of years with crowdfunding on low cost smart phones, but even policy wonks disagree is microfinance designed to raise people out of poverty or provide equal access to financial services? Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? And even experts agree that the success of Grameen Bank and its microfinancing model is 20 years old and ready for the next round of disruptions (or innovations). Forbes magazine (back in 2007) indicated that there were more than 12,000 microfinance institutions operating across the globe, 900 are currently registered with the Nigerian Central Bank alone.  

Let me expand on the nominal introduction previously offered of Oradian.com because as I see it what they are doing is critical to the successful disruption of microfinance and could provide the bridge to both lift people out of poverty and provide financial services in due course.  They are not an NGO, they are technology geeks – four CIOs actually – with a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model which has two distinct client bases, the institutions providing microfinance services and the end customer whose transaction is being processed; in other words they are “development tech” and very much like the actual Knights Templar both interfacing with the pilgrims as well as holding the assets (albeit very temporarily) on their trust platform – well over 100,000 transactions to date spread amongst their (current) three customers, not bad for a company that didn’t exist before June 2012.  A two year contract with Development Exchange Centre (DEC) in Nigeria provides Oradian credibility, income and expansion of their client base much the way that Templar founders Godfrey of Bouillon and Hugues de Payens were able to grow in a mere nine years to having expansive holdings all over Europe and the Levant.  We still are impacted by their decision to provide, protect and disrupt the status quo of the 12th century, and today four billion people stand to benefit from the disruptive efforts of The Plastic Bank and Oradian.

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a cup of tea’ in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and do share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

Hack ~ innovation to global happiness

To hack used to be something I did ‘to be useful’ out in the “back forty” with one of these – you swing it back and forth thus ‘hacking’ the weeds down to something more manageable for a mower unit on a tractor to cover, or to till the earth without having all the seed heads getting into the dirt and creating even more work in the long run.

Hacking hasn’t been that for me for a very long time, primarily because in the early 1990s I landed a MarComm Manager role at a tech company spun out of the IBM, MCI and Merit called, then, ANS CORE Systems, Inc., shortly thereafter, changed to ANS Communications.  At that point, amidst towers, air conditioned closets, vast pyramids of empty cans of Mountain Dew and Coca-Cola, my awareness of hacking shifted dramatically; hacking became something our team of programmers protected our Fortune 500 client base from happening to their information systems with firewall and VPDN solutions.  Each and every one of my colleagues possessed the technical skills capable of breaking into, rather than protecting, IT systems but each had the moral compass to ‘do no harm’.  They were (and continue to be) innovators – way ahead of the technology curve that most of us deal with on a daily basis and obsessed with achieving perfection in code – my job was to shine a spotlight on the product suite they developed and have it gain adoption with our core audiences.

The general public is a bit more aware of hacking today – security breaches abound from crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, to Forbes and Neiman Marcus – it’s generally a rather nefarious association to hack something.  But thankfully hacking is emerging from doing “a hack job” to something about fostering positive disruption of a less-than-ideal status quo by applying the creativity inherent to each and every one of us.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

 — Albert Einstein

Several months ago I sat enraptured watching Logan LaPlante’s TEDx presentation on hacking his education – I am not a mom, but had I been such I would so want to create an environment for learning and living life for my kids as his parents clearly have.  At the end of the day it is Logan doing the heavy lifting on his life with a maturity that far too many of us (insert any nationality) do not possess. Self awareness, discipline, creativity and curiosity drive him (as much as his love of skiing on fresh powder).  The seminal article by Dr Roger Walsh referenced by Logan encompasses eight building blocks of a happy and healthy life and are referred to as Therapeutic Lifestyles Changes (TLCs) and I can’t help but wonder why (like Logan) this path to living has not become more mainstream – well, in fact I do know why, as do most of us.

The paradigm of happiness is treated like a Holy Grail instead of something common to our experience and when our reality fails to ‘live up to’ the perception drilled into our psyche by the media we chose ‘medication’ (pills, alcohol or on the psychiatrists’ sofa) rather than stepping into the void. The core outcome of hacking is innovation ~ seeing the possibility of doing something easier, with greater style or more efficiently, fostering positive impact for ourselves and the world around us all of which exist at the core of social responsibility.

There are hundreds of thousands of ‘hackers’ whose efforts have produced totally cool end results, but I want to share two extremes of creative thinking with you that I believe have real possibilities of fostering paradigm shifts in many of our lives.  Though I don’t personally know any of these people the term lifehack comes immediately to mind when I think of Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin of the Swedish firm Hövding who have created a cyclists dream come true – a bike helmet that is essentially a personal airbag, and the disruptive microfinance and financial inclusion technology model created by the Croatian firm Oradian‘s co-founders Antonio Separovic, Andrew Mainhart, Julian Oehrlein and Onyeka Adibeli.  I think it is a reasonable assumption to write that their quality of life is enhanced because each recognised in themselves creativity begging for outlet and then, as a fundamental principle of their businesses, they engaged in work that both stimulates them and which also incorporates ‘service to others’.  

Yes, I realise that my perception of any of these, and thousands of others, individuals might be skewed toward something larger than reality but in believing such perhaps the resonance of positive carries forward to inspire more creativity, catalysing innovation and fostering change.

As the Buddha is credited with saying, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.”

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a cup of tea’ in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and do share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

Rubber Meets the Road – guest blog for Ethical Value

Please consider visiting Ethical Value for consulting on CSR best practices!

Publishing simultaneously with Ethical Value – http://bit.ly/174hNas

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Let me be clear I am not an eco-warrior, or a war protester. I have the utmost respect for NGO workers but there is something terribly flawed in the pervasive hand-out, not hand-up mindset of so much of what is called ‘aid’ coming from the private sector or governments.  Create jobs with all that money for goodness sake! 

Since the 1970s (in the tender bloom of my teenage years) I have maintained that doing right by the world around us, ethically, in terms of product development, green i.e. sustainability and its net results in recycling, reclaiming, up-cycling, stewardship of the planet as well as solving the Earth’s ‘pressing problems’ need not be mutually exclusive to creating jobs and building economies which scale and have positive impact. Making money out of ‘doing good’ is not a horrible thing! What is horrible, in my humble opinion, is leveraging ‘feel good’ marketing and communications to increase profit with only nominal re-investment in society or none at all (while fat, dumb and happy Joe or Jane consumer thinks they are making a difference in voting with their wallet).

My personal efforts with Thistle & Broom were driven by the belief that to sustain the cultural heritage of a specific country whilst positively impacting the lives of the actual artisans creating bespoke luxury products by their earning 66% of the retail price was a noble and ideal business model. Honestly, given my own elimination of the brick and mortar storefront a decade ago, T&B should have served as a paradigm shift for the luxury goods space and made me a key-note speaker at the Financial Times Business of Luxury Summit at least once.  Alas, I suppose I must content myself with having been quoted in The Economist!

There are plenty of other like-minded individuals with deeper pockets, outside investment, and, far cooler products than, say, an authentic hand-knit Fair Isle jumper. People who understand that doing good and having positive impact can only be sustainable with innovation and, yes, volume sales.  It’s why, as the driver of an 1989 Turbo-charged Saab convertible and someone who once sold luxury automobiles while simultaneously serving as the Finance Director for a United States Congressional campaign, who looks at the Bentley Continental GT and gets a total head rush, I am VERY EXCITED about the various vehicles of Croatia-based RIMAC Automobili and United States based BRAMMO.

The products of these companies fire on all possible cylinders for me (pun intended) even as I am not a motorcycle rider, nor likely to ever spend $1m USD on a limited edition car, or ride an electric drive bicycle. They are based in sustainable practices and if they only eliminated the consumption of petroleum based fuel they’d rock; but what both the RIMAC and BRAMMO marques offer are exquisitely designed, breathtakingly engineered and (mostly) practical transportation solutions.

As a modest car geek, you’ll forgive me if I get ridiculously excited about the tire shredding capability of the RIMAC Concept One car, 1088HP, 0-100kmp (0-60mph) in 2.8 seconds, a Bulgarian leather interior that is so gorgeous it belongs in MOMA and the Tate Modern, the coolest placement of engines ever – one at each wheel; something that RIMAC CEO Mate Rimac calls All-Wheel Torque Vectoring (AWTV) – the car is first and foremost a super car that just happens to out-perform combustion engines. Did I need to mention it’s also urbane and sexy?

Equally but differently so, Craig Bramscher of BRAMMO has taken his eco-consciousness and early adopter mind-set to create world class motorcycles that cherry picked engineering from precision racing brought such down to street level for law enforcement as well as commuters. PS, I LOVE that Craig has staff to teach an all-female riding school!

The men behind these machines certainly embrace the mantra of “I feel the need, the need for speed”, Vrrroom, and their teams excel at meeting their objectives.  It is only a matter of time before the Top Gear guys are begging for the opportunity to drive (or ride) any of these machines, very likely bumping into the top 10 episodes of all time in the process!  From an outsiders view, both companies successfully leverage the passion of their founders and best in class commitment to their portfolios while providing real value to employees, customers, their respective economies and the world at large.  It’s an exciting possibility to consider that in our near future that technical innovation and sustainability will be “where the rubber meets the road” fostering dynamic system changes across all aspects of our global economy.

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a cup of tea’ in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

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