This Week's Herman Trend Alert The Consequences of Virtual Meetings

The Herman Trend Alert April 22, 2009 Free for All---Recycling Unwanted Machines Just in time to save cash-strapped consumers comes a movement to encourage "giving away usable unwanted items to others instead of depositing them in landfills". (Wikipedia) Called "freecycling" or "free recycling", this concept offers a socially conscious, environmentally responsible way to eliminate overhead. Many of us have seen perfectly good furniture and other items set out at the curb for the garbage men to take. Some of us "went shopping" at the curbs, when we were in college. Registered in the United States, The Freecycle Network (TFN), sometimes known as Freecycle, is a non-profit organization. TFN has organized a worldwide network of "gifting" groups: With a worldwide online registry, including groups in Brazil, Columbia, Singapore, and Slovakia, the organization coordinates the creation of local groups and forums for individuals and non-profits which offer and receive free items for reuse or recycling. Promoting gift economics as a motivating cultural outlook, the official tagline of TFN is: "Changing the world one gift at a time". As of February 2006, TFN passed the 2 million member mark; it has a global organization of over four thousand local chapters. As of this writing, the membership was an impressive 6,626,000 in 4,726 communities across the globe. Hundreds of similar groups worldwide have replicated TFN's original idea. TFN now has a number of corporate sponsors, including its first, Waste Management, Inc. For information about a community near you, visit http://www.freecycle.com. A wide variety of products are freecycled, from computers to copy machines, from televisions to toasters, from food to fuel to cars to paper goods. Whatever you have that you want to dispose of, there is someone who can make good use of it. Another, similar group is www.takemeimFREE.com. Started by an executive who wanted to eliminate excess warehouse space and did not want the items to end up in a landfill, this group believes that reusing items is "good for the economy, the environment, and all of us". Not only does freecycling make sense, but we believe this movement will gain momentum and grow rapidly, fueled by the needs of individuals and businesses to do more with less. © Copyright 1998- by The Herman Group, Inc. -- reproduction for publication is encouraged, with the following attribution: From "The Herman Trend Alert," by Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia, Strategic Business Futurists. (800) 227-3566 or http://www.hermangroup.com. The Herman Trend Alert is a trademark of The Herman Group, Inc." BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: RETENTION SPECIALIST PROGRAM A growing number of people have expressed an interest in attending our Employee Retention Specialist Certificate Program. We'd like to schedule on that's convenient for those who want to attend, but need your feedback to do so. Please place RETENTION SPECIALIST in the subject line and Joyce will personally call you back to schedule the workshop. Or you can call Joyce directly at 336-210-3548 (PDT this and next week). BUSINESS IS PICKING UP Most employers are unprepared. The recovery will bring a new set of challenges for employers that have been in prolonged contracted mode. They will need more skilled workers or will need now to begin to upskill their current staffs. But organizations can not engage in Strategic Workforce Planning, when they don't know how. That's where The Herman Group can help. We can help you with your "People Review"----large or small---so that you will know who you will need and when you will need them. . . and we can also guide you to the best sources for the people you will need. For more information, call Joyce at 336-210-3548 or e-mail joyce@hermangroup.com. FIND OUT WHAT YOUR EMPLOYEES REALLY THINK AND FEEL Discover what’s really going on in the hearts and minds of your employees. Our InnerViews interviewing service uses SPHRs and PHRs, certified human resource professionals to probe for the information you really need to know. Exit and Stay Interviews, as well as Why-Didn't-You-Take-Our-Offer Interviews. Call Rosalie Catalano at 937-416-7066, or read more at: http://www.hermangroup.com/retentionconnection/exit_interviews.html. Herman Trend Alerts are produced by the Herman Group, strategic business futurists, Certified Management Consultants, authors, and professional speakers. New subscribers are welcome. There is no charge for this public service. The Herman Trend Alert is received by over 30,000 subscribers in 78 countries, in addition to other websites and printed magazines. Do you enjoy receiving this weekly e-mail update? Contact us about our co-branded Trend Alert service. Click here to sign up for the Herman Trend Alert. Subscribe or Unsubscribe to weekly Herman Trend Alert View this week's Herman Trend Alert Archived Weekly Herman Trend Alerts

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