Bold Business Works Monthly Newsletter January 2017
Thanks for being part of the Bold Business Works community.
Happy New Year!
I hope that you have had a meaningful holiday season and you are looking forward to the new year. I've been enjoying this last week of 2016 in Southern California: check out this terrific display from the Enchanted Garden, an imaginative light display in a botanical garden. (Then read on to learn about the low tech efforts that power the Rose Parade)
Did you ever stop and think about what it takes to build 40 floats for the annual Tournament of Roses parade?
I never did...until this year when I volunteered for an afternoon as a float decorator. The rules of the parade require that every surface of every float be covered in living material---flowers, grasses, seeds, fruits. All of it done by hand by volunteers in the week between Christmas and New Year's. Wikipedia estimates that it takes 60 volunteers working ten hours a day for ten days to decorate one float. A quarter million volunteer hours.
And let me tell you, the work is NOT glamorous. For several hours, I trimmed the blooms off of yellow mums, flipped them over in a box and applied rubber cement to the back.
And inserted these "teddy bear" flowers into rubber-stopped vials that then got placed in the China Airlines float. Yes, volunteers were creating floats for FOR-PROFIT companies.
Whole families come. School groups. Girl Scouts. Some people camp out nearby annually for the privilege of glueing kidney beans and orange peels.
But it works! It all comes together for an amazing spectacular every year and the thousands of people who make it come to life are delighted to be part of the process.
What can we learn from this sustained tradition? Despite all the technology and changes in society, some things just endure. Low tech still has a place in our world! Other lessons? Happy to hear your thoughts!
