Why Rochester, NY Was So Progressive.

Discover how Rochester led the abolition and suffrage movement, which led to pioneering women entrepreneurship, Visiting Nurses, and affordable housing.

Martha and Me

As another year passes, I am reflecting on how  Martha and I became buddies when she had been dead for almost fifty years.  Who knew that a marketing assignment for the grand opening of First National Bank of Rochester, NY’s refurbished headquarters in the grand Powers Building would change the direction of my life? As my consulting […]

Martha’s Simple Lesson

Following the NPR Morning Edition story on franchising (www.npr.org),  Lea Kemp, Library curator at the Rochester Museum and Science Center called to share how sixth  graders were impacted by Martha Matilda Harper.  Seems the Museum’s charter school was teaching business to their sixth graders and Lea shared Martha’s story.  A youth piped up, “So, Martha treated […]

Reboot American Values

The game is stacked.  Unless you go into certain fields and maneuver a golden parachute, expect to watch the rich get richer and the poor poorer.  According to September 11, 2013 Associated Press article, “the gulf between the richest 1 percent and the rest of America is the widest it’s been since the Roaring 20’s. […]

Turning Change Into Dollars $ – George Eastman Had It Right–Too Bad His Successors Did Not

On January 19, 2012  Eastman Kodak declared bankruptcy because its executives lost their way, drowned by their greed to stick with the profitability of film when the digital revolution was calling.   Just when they needed another George Eastman, who transformed the world with his KODAK concept by mainstreaming photography, the KODAK leadership got lost […]

Turn Change Into Dollars $

Women and Social Entrepreneurship ©Jane R. Plitt Women have always been at the center of social entrepreneurship as initiators and recipients.  Given the current world protest against the recent market abuses, it is particularly timely to understand what has and is being done to use business for social change and to urge women’s involvement in […]