If you haven’t, I suggest you check out some of the neat podcasts available on iTunes for your iPods. I can’t believe I never bothered to check before today. The business section is pretty good. You can get investment related shows from BusinessWeek, TIME, and other major mainstream companies along with smaller shows that deal with the business and investment industries. But it gets better…

One of the things I miss from my college days were the really neat guest lecturers and interviews with successful business people. Well, it seems that are a WHOLE bunch of business related podcasts including some really neat podcasts from guest lecturers at some of the top universities in the world; Stanford’s Technology Venture Programs ‘Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders’, Harvard Business IdeaCast, Knowledge@Wharton Interviews, and more. These are top quality guest lecturers, some of the industry titans that have started some of the largest companies in the world. I love hearing from the most successful people and gaining an insight into how they think and how they’ve achieved success. I highly suggest you check it out. When I was in college I found some of the guest lecturers to be extremely inspiring and one of the best parts of attending college.

Hope you enjoy!

Here is a list of industries and trends I believe have a good future.

Agriculture Technology

As the population increases, so does the demand for food. At the same time demand for food increases, so too does the erosion and depletion of our over-used soil on our farmlands. Technologies that replenish the soil and filter out chemicals and petroleum based products will do well. Another industry that will boom is the greenhouse industry as it is far more productive per acre. From hydroponics, aeroponics and aquaponics - the technology to grow larger volumes of high quality food will be important to our future. I particularly like aquaponics and the way it grows both plants and animals in a unique system whereby both benefit each other and the waste of water can be minimized.

Aerospace Technology

We will go to the other planets - colonies on Mars will be established. They will make use of all sorts of neat aerospace technologies and even agricultural technologies in order to live sustianably. We will need more efficient means to travel from planet to planet. We will need energy, water, food, and the ability to mine planets. Think about terraforming planets like Mars. What about creating an atmosphere? It is theoretically possible…

Healthy Snack Foods

All our snack foods are full of sugar and salt. This isn’t the way it has to be. Stevia is a natural herb and much sweeter than sugar and yet it doesn’t affect blood sugar levels! Agave is another good natural sweetner (from cactus) that barely affects blood sugar levels. Think about all the healthy snacks that will be made in the future… so many people refuse to eat vending machine food because it is unhealthy and doesn’t actually taste THAT great… There is a lack of healthy food options for vending machines - and the ones that are labeled healthy often aren’t or else don’t taste good. There will be a future for healthy and GREAT tasting foods.

Health Food

Organic, fresh and full of flavour - the type of food we were meant to eat. Many of the varieties of food found in stores, like vegetables, are varieties that look good and can travel well without bruising, but don’t always taste the best… Also think about food that caters to specific illnesses.

Building Technologies

It takes a lot of work and time to build a building! There are so many opportunities to create solutions that will save both time and money to construct buildings. For example, a lego-like building block that is wind, water, and fire proof! It would be put together quickly and efficiently and have very good insulating properties. Another idea is to look further into the earthship idea where soil is used as a primary building block. There are so many ways to improve upon the way we currently construct buildings…

Energy Storage Technologies

Our battery technologies are several centuries old and one of the primary reasons why electric vehicles aren’t completely practically (though they are becoming more so every day with sky rocketing oil prices!). We need to find a better method to store energy! Oil is just a store of energy… chemical batteries are just a way to store energy. Several key ideas that look promising include flywheels and ultra-capacitators!

Alternative Energy Technologies

Think solar. The sun is where we get all our energy… think about the food chain and the cycle of life… The sun is where it’s at… so why not go direct to the source for energy? If we had proper ways to store energy we wouldn’t need to worry about night or cloudy days. Think concentrating solar panels like Sterling Energy Systems. There are so many opportunities from solar cells on paper thin materials and plastics to solar cells in windows and paint and even clothing fabric…

Health Care

What can I say? The baby boomer’s are getting older and the health care industry has a bright future. Think about the alternative health fields - herbs and healthy foods…

Overall

There are many opportunities in EVERY industry. The way we do things is out of date. Watch for huge opportunities in the food, shelter, health and transportation industries along with the technology and sciences. Sciences have just barely touched the surface. Many of the things we want to do have already been done by nature - and done well too! I like the thought of bio-engineering products by looking to nature to find inspiration and solutions.

While researching about Hydroponics & Aeroponics, I found an interesting technology I’d never heard about. It’s called Aquaponics and it incorporates the growing of food in a hydroponic setup with the raising of fish in aquaculture. It’s an extremely innovative way to grow both plants and fish, and I believe it has the potential for use in commercial operations - It is being used by a few commercial operation in Australia and the United States, and I’m assuming there are other places using it as well. For the most part, information I’ve found on the subject indicates most of the people using aquaponics are doing so in their backyards in smaller operations for personal food consumption.

How It Works

It’s a unique symbiotic relationship for both the plants and the fish. The fish effluent (waste) accumulates in a closed system. This effluent is high in nutrients that plants can use to grow, but the high effluent content can be toxic to the fish. So, the effluent water is pumped out of the tank into a grow bed containing plants. The plants then use the nutrients in the water and the “cleaner” water that filters down through the grow bed is then recirculated back into the fish tank. The fish create fertilizer for the plants and the plants clean the water for the fish.

Benefits of Aquaponics

• Organic fertilizer for plants is created by fish.
• Less water is required due to the reusing/recycling of water.
• More efficient method of growing crops (less space needed).
• Environmentally friendly.
• Aquaponic operations can be built close to cities (fresher food that travels less miles).
• No chemical fertilizers or pesticides/herbicides are needed.

The system can be expensive to begin due to the various number of parts needed to do both hydroponics and aquaculture. Each system can have varying results as well.

What Can Be Grown?

In the hydroponics part of an aquaponic system, you can grow almost anything - herbs, flowers, vegetables and fruits are commonly grown. Tubers such as potatoes don’t grow very well - but that’s fine - as tubers are usually an inexpensive crop. When using hydroponics in an indoor greenhouse, the point of the operation is to control the environment for growing the fruits or vegetables so that a premium quality crop can be grown to fetch top dollars at the market.

For fish, the most common fresh water fish grown in aquaponics is Tilapia. Tilapia has a very mild taste and has a nice flaky texture and is low in fat. Other fish grown by Australian Aquaponic enthusiasts are Silver Perch, Murray cod and Barramundi. Fish such as catfish and trout can also be grown. It is best to choose a variety of fish that is a relatively hardy species so that losses can be kept to a minimum.

Why Aquaponics for a Business?

Aquaponics has a bright future ahead of it for several reasons. An indoor hydroponics operation can be used to grow premium crops efficiently, so a farmer is able to make more money. Fish are also grown in the system and are an added bonus that can fetch good prices in the market as well. The system is an efficient way to use water and reduce the number of miles food travels to reach customers. We need to get better at producing food while leaving a smaller footprint on the environment. As the human population continues to grow, we need to begin exploiting technologies like this. Our traditional farmlands are becoming depleted of nutrients and are heavily saturated with petrochemicals. To top it off, wild fish stocks are quickly being depleted.

Not only does aquaponics have the ability to grow food where it normally can’t be grown, but it may be some of the same technology that allows space travel and an eventual colony on a distant planet. This is serious technology with many practical uses.

More Information

If you would like more information on aquaponics, we recommend the following sites:

www.aquaponics.com

www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/ - The Best Forum I’ve Seen -

www.aquaponics.com.au

www.aquaranch.com

www.aquaponicshq.com/forums/

That should give you a good place to begin your search for more information. Many aquaponic systems are used so people can grown their own fresh organic food. Commercial operations are also feasible. We suggest you start your own small aquaponics system at your home to experiment and learn about the technology before starting a large commercial venture.

Ideas for Aquaponics

• We all know someone that has spent money at the Health Food store on some dried herbal remedy or some herbal extract for an illness. The alternative health field is growing by leaps and bounds as people realize that many of the chemical based drugs we are told to use by our doctors have too many side affects. Sometimes looking to nature to find a solution to a problem is the best thing one can do and there are plenty of useful herbs. Using aquaponics, you could start a herb company that grows and processes herbs into dried, powder, liquid extract and pill form for sale in the Health Food Industry.
• Another idea is to start an aquaponics operation to grow the best flowers. Simple enough.
• How about using aquaponics to grow the freshest foods - lettuces, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs for food, etc, etc. This is also simple enough and is the main use of aquaponics.
• How about using aquaponics to grow wine grapes and then produce wines? You could theoretically have an aquaponic vineyard where you produce wines. You could even produce wines from other fruits and vegetables. With a controlled environment, you could produce some of the best quality wines in the world.
• What about a “Pick Your Food” style greenhouse operation where the customers get the pleasure of picking their own food?
• What about starting an organic food company that manufactures organic food using only ingredients grown in the aquaponic setup contained on-site?
• You could raise and fillet fish on-site and then sell at the market for a premium. You could freeze some as well, and sell it in stores.
• Instead of raising edible fresh water fish, you could raise koi fish, some of which can be worth hundreds and even thousands of dollars. You could raise other tropical fish as well.

There are so many ways to use aquaponics in a commercial setting. I’d prefer to use the technology for edible foods, but decorative flowers and fish can also be grown. Either way, I think aquaponics has serious commercial potential and is a great business idea.

We all know social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are extremely popular. They grow virally and the users create the pages and information on the pages for others to view. I believe another area on the internet that has been neglected is Internet Forums. I think a large multi-billion dollar company could emerge out of this particular industry. We all use internet forums to discuss our favorite topics, learn, ask important questions and sometimes to just socialize. Imagine an internet forum company that owned MANY large internet forums for different niche’s!

The basic model for internet forums is quite simple: Create an internet forum using VBulletin (the back-end software that powers most internet forums) which is created by Jelsoft Enterprises. After a unique site skin is created so the front-end of the site looks nice, the business is ready to go. Many plugins and customizations can be done in order to preform other tasks.

Overall, its very inexpensive to start a forum and can be done by professionals for just several thousand dollars. The hard part is getting people to use an empty forum. Considerable traffic must be driven to the forum in order to get it “popular” enough that it can grow organically. Once the forum has enough activity it will grow exponentially through the power of the internet.

The beautiful thing about the internet forums business model is that the users perform all the work! They create new threads to ask a question or discuss a particular topic. Others reply. They are creating information and content on the site - and they do all this work for free. If the forum is popular, people think it is an honor to be a forum moderator and “police” the forum by removing hurtful comments or remove spam. All the content that is being created is being indexed by search engines and help drive lots of traffic to the site.

Monetizing That Traffic

If the forum has users discussing and creating content, it is time to monetize all that traffic. Forums normally have lower advertising rates than other sites because the users are typically repeat browsers. Also, since the user is busy conversing, they may not notice advertisements. The traffic can be monetized in several ways though: Pay per click advertisements like Google’s Adsense program, banner ads and cost-per-action (commission based payment scheme) can all be utilized.

Examples of Forums

PokerForums.Org: The Forum was created about three years ago and today it has over 9,000 members and 200,000 posts! The site gets 16,500 unique visitors per month and 150,000 page views. The website owner sells the ads directly on the site. The site takes a few hours a day to run which mainly entails checking emails from potential advertisers. So how much does it make? We don’t know exactly but we know that it makes between mid to high $x,xxx per month. The only real cost is hosting which is low. Consider this: The owner is a young twenty something that barely works two hours a day and yet pulls in over $70,000 a year. He has found financial freedom because of how efficient the forum business model is!

SprintUsers.Com: The Forum owner also runs many other forums, which shows us that forums don’t take THAT much time to manage when you have a set of community volunteers in place to moderator the discussion. This forum uses a cost-per-click advertising system and a commission based advertising system to generate revenue. The site makes high $xx,xxx per month with more than 120,000 members.

So…

These forums took off from the power of the internet. Their user bases are VERY small compared to sites like Facebook which have millions of users, and yet they can generate decent revenue streams. What I’m saying is this: If an investor was able to get together with forum owners and form one large internet media company (either give shares in the company for a forum or pay cash for the forum) and create a few forums along the way, a large network of forums under one company could be very valuable! It would be easy to market advertising solutions to Fortune 500 companies for the larger advertising rates and it could eventually go public through an IPO and be worth billions! If Facebook, a company that doesn’t generate $1 dollar in revenue is worth $15 billion (according to Microsoft!), then what would an internet forum that is making millions be worth? Let’s not forget the company would continue to have very fast growth rates. The Company could also be sold to a large media company as well.

If large forum owners got together and pooled their properties under ONE company, they would be able to generate higher levels of revenue by getting Fortune 500 advertisers, increase efficiency and internet traffic and the number of forum users (by linking forums together as a large network), and ultimately sell the company for a lot more money. Together they are worth a lot more money than they are alone.

Sometimes when looking for an internet forum on a particular topic it can be hard to find a good one. You come across all sorts of forums that are full of spam or are completely dead from a lack of activity. It would be nice to have all the large forums networked together so you can find good forums on any topic very easily.

AeroGrow is an innovative company that took hydroponics (or aeroponics) to the next level and designed a system that would get the attention of the mainstream public. They didn’t invent hydroponics - but they made it simple to use! Now anyone can grow food in their kitchen, no green thumb necessary.

The AeroGarden does almost everything for you. The lights turn on and off automatically for growing plants with the optimal amount of light. The pump turns on and off automatically to feed the plants properly (In hydroponics, water and nutrients are used to grow plants; There is no soil). A little light on the machine comes on and tells you when to add water or nutrients. The AeroGarden kit comes with a herb seed kit that contains seven delicious herbs (Italian Basil, Mint, Dill, Cilantro, Purple Basil, Parsley and Chives). AeroGrow also sells replacement light bulbs, replacement pumps, and a wide variety of accessories that can be used with the AeroGarden.

The AeroGarden can be used to grow many other types of fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs. AeroGrow sells seed kits that come complete with the proper nutrients. Right now AeroGrow sells seed kits for: Cherry Tomatoes, Chili Peppers, Green Beans, Jalapeño Peppers, Snow Peas, Strawberries, a variety of Salad Greens, Herbs and Flowers. The list goes on and the Company is always adding new seed kits. You can also grow your own seeds.

AeroGrow claims the AeroGarden uses aeroponic technology. That is not exactly true. After using the unit I can verify it uses hydroponics. The difference between aeroponics and hydroponics is that in aeroponics the water/nutrient solution is sprayed or misted onto the roots of the plant, instead of just dripped or pumped onto the root. The Company most likely claimed it to be aeroponics to get away from being associated with illegal grow operations that hydroponics are commonly known for.

What makes AeroGrow so innovative is the fact that they took an existing technology and created a user-friendly, compact and aesthetically pleasing version that would fit perfectly in a kitchen. The AeroGarden is priced in the $150 to $200 range. There are currently no other competitors on the market that come close. I’d expect a whole range of competitors to be launching soon after seeing how much success AeroGrow has had; In the fourth quarter of 2007 the Company estimates sales were in the $14 million dollar range.

It just goes to show you that you don’t need to invent a technology in order to create an innovative company and product. The Company created a new industry with the product - Kitchen Growing Appliances. Hydroponics is an underused technology that many people don’t understand. AeroGrow was able to create a product that is not only educating millions of people on the benefits of using hydroponics, but it is allowing them to grow fresh food in their homes. It also takes advantage of the organic healthy food movement by allowing people to grow food organically without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides, right in the kitchen.

We’ve all heard the term ’sustainable‘ being thrown around a lot when talking about the environment and and our relationship with it. Many of our business practices aren’t sustainable, including the way businesses treat the environment… but I will throw a slightly different spin on things and apply the term to businesses and the way they treat their employees, customers, shareholders and environment - and how they are all ultimately linked. The way we conduct business is unsustainable. This article will focus on employees as they are the foundation upon which a sustainable business strategy is formed. Businesses need to take into account the way they treat employees, customers and shareholders when designing a sustainable business strategy.

Business Sustainability Includes Treating Employee’s Well

If a business neglects its employees it creates an unsustainable situation in which employees are going to eventually leave in large numbers. In order to replace employees the company must advertise that it is hiring and then go through the interview processes. After finding a replacement, training begins. It’s a costly process. Then, eventually the new employees will also leave if they are being neglected. Customers often get wind of the fact that employees are being treated poorly. Customers may also have a relationship with some of the employees. A revolving door of employees should be avoided at all costs.

I often hear it said that the younger generation (which I am part of) isn’t loyal. I believe some of that stems from the way our parents raised us. My generation watched our parents put in long hard hours for companies, only to be laid off during a restructuring program or downsizing initiative. Why should the younger generation show loyalty to businesses that don’t treat them right? Loyalty is a two way street! Businesses didn’t show loyalty to our parents generation and we know most businesses won’t show loyalty to us: As soon as our jobs can be outsourced - they will be. That is the reality most of us now live in and the only reality my generation has ever known. We didn’t see the good ‘ol days when you’d work for a business for your entire life and then retire and the business would look after you ’till death. Today its every man/woman for himself/herself. You got to look out for #1 - No one else will.

A sustainable business should begin by treating its employees well. Human to human contact is one aspect that is often missed. Employees shouldn’t be treated as just another number. A sustainable business should look to its own employees first for giving out deserved raises and promotions. I firmly believe that all businesses should have an element of profit sharing for their employees. Often times if a company is doing really well and has been busy, its employees have been working very hard - they deserve a piece of the action. Employees will also care more about the business if they have a personal stake in it. I could go on and on about how its actually good for business to treat employees right… maybe I will some other time - but I hope you can understand that on your own. I want to move on to the main reason for this post.

The Ultimate in Business Unsustainability

It seems like every business in America has a dream: To create cheap goods (or perform cheap services) in a foreign country with foreign labour… Then sell those goods (or services) to consumers in America for top dollars with huge markups and fat profit margins. There is one fundamental flaw with this scenario: If all goods are created elsewhere, how are Americans going to afford to buy anything? There won’t be any jobs if every business practices this strategy. No jobs means consumers in the market won’t be able to afford to spend top dollars on products or services… The money must come from somewhere and that requires the population to have jobs. If you want a business or economy to do well in the long term it must be sustainable. I think the economy and money system are currently unsustainable and people are in for a rude awakening.

I want to leave you with a video. Watch the entire thing and think about it real careful, it contains so many truths…

If you asked 100 people to describe their feelings towards corporations and businesses you would probably hear a lot of answers. The general outlook towards corporations would be negative. Greedy, Unethical, Cheap, Anything For Money, Dirty, Bad, Immoral, Pollution Generators, etc, etc. As a society we have been told that corporations are supposed to be greedy and do all they can in their relentless quest to acquire infinite amounts of money and use (or abuse) humans in the process.

Here is a simple truth: Corporations aren’t bad, people are (or can be). In fact, corporations are neither bad nor good. Technically speaking a corporation is a separate legal entity. Although it’s a separate legal entity, it doesn’t live or breathe nor does it make decisions. Nope, a business is nothing more than a person or group of persons conducting commercial transactions under a corporate banner. In other words, people ultimately control corporations.

Unfortunately, the people that control corporations often hide behind the corporate veil and commit business in such a way that they don’t want to be legally or morally responsible for their actions. Hiding behind the corporate veil is what has allowed so many corporations leave ethics and morals behind. Corporations routinely underpay, overwork and treat their human employees poorly.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Since corporations are controlled by people they can be used to do good things. Whether its a corporation that provides health services to the sick at reasonable rates (or cheaper rates) or a corporation that develops alternative energy technologies to help create a sustainable economy, the activity of corporations can be for the greater good. Some corporations clean up the environment and others build homes for people.

Corporations are often run under the theory that they have to make as much money as possible and are in a relentless pursuit to grow the bottom line. The result of such beliefs is the abuse of people and the environment. Why do you think so many employees no longer show any loyalty to corporations? It’s because the corporations have treated them poorly. Look, I’m no environmental hippy. I don’t think the planet is being warmed solely due to human activity. At one point the planet was covered in glaciers - it all melted before vehicles existed; the planet has cycles of warming and cooling. That said, I don’t like the pollution that automobiles generate (have you seen pictures of China or Los Angeles? The sky isn’t clear!) and so I’m all for clean technologies. Companies can do good, just as they can do bad - but they themselves don’t do the good or bad deed… ultimately its a human that controls corporations.

Does your corporation or business value you enough? Does it pay you enough? Most people will answer no. Once again, it doesn’t have to be this way. All it takes is for the person(s) running a business to decide they won’t conduct business unethically anymore. When an employee is deserving of a raise, give one - and don’t worry, not everyone will even deserve a raise so the company won’t go bankrupt. I’m not trying to bankrupting the company - I’m talking about running a company in a sustainable fashion. Many companies ONLY care about their shareholders - but they forget they have employees and customers that matter as well. A sustainable business will take all three into account and treat people like humans and not a commodity or property.

Next time someone tells you corporations are greedy, go ahead and correct them - Let them know people control corporations and that corporations can do good (and many actually do ‘good’!). There are studies that show it can pay for a corporation to do ‘good’! Think about incorporating it into your business strategy.