I just learned about a book of relevance to the SHP that is soon to be released:
- Peter Korchnak and Megan Strand, eds. The Portland Bottom Line: Practices for Your Small Business from America’s Hotbed of Sustainability, Portland, Ore.:
This book is “a collaborative exploration of how small businesses can effectively and efficiently shift toward sustainability and thrive.” This exploration involves “Fifty-one small-business people from Portland” who “share their experiences with implementing sustainable practices in their companies.” The collaborative effort to create the book involved crowdsourcing. As the book’s website identifies:
- The difference between crowdsourcing and ordinary outsourcing is that a task or problem is outsourced to an undefined public rather than a specific other body. The difference between crowdsourcing and open source is that open source production is a cooperative activity initiated and voluntarily undertaken by members of the public. In crowdsourcing the activity is initiated by a client and the work may be undertaken on an individual, as well as a group, basis.
Mercy Corps Northwest is hosting a free-of-charge book release party for Portland Bottom Line on Wednesday, November 10, from 5-8 pm (with a program at 6) at Mercy Corps HQ, 45 SW Ankeny St., Portland.
The book’s website provides some sample chapters and a forum for other regional business professionals to share their stories.
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** Updated soon after posting, with information from the editors. Thanks, editors!
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Sustainability History Project 
Thanks for the plug. How did you hear about the book? Hope you can join us at the launch party!
Peter
Creator and co-editor of “The Portland Bottom Line”
One more thing: The publisher is GoodBookery. Find us at GoodBookery.com. The book does have its own, dedicated website, PortlandBottomLine.com.
Thanks,
Peter
Creator and co-editor, “The Portland Bottom Line”
CEO, GoodBookery
Hi Peter, thanks for the prompt correction & response to the post! I incorporated your correction.
I’ve made the book release event info available to my students this quarter so that they can potentially use the event to fulfill community service hours or earn some extra-credit by reporting back on their experience of the event.
Yours is a fascinating and much-needed project that is in-line with the goals of the SHP to document sustainable business and cultural practices in the region. I learned about it through the CNRG list serve.