Rob Schuham
Interest: Products & Services
Specialty: Creative/Brand Strategy
Location: Boulder, CO
I look back at all my favorite projects and the ones where I had a strong team of collaborators are the ones that were the most fulfilling. As an entrepreneur, and now a social entrepreneur, the concept of working within a larger social brand that can make companies famous is one of the most compelling concepts we could think of.
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Rob Schuham posted an update: 10 months, 1 week ago · View
I love this idea. How do you propose to do it?
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Rob Schuham joined the group
Common Collaboration Centers 10 months, 1 week ago · View -
Rob Schuham wrote a new blog post: COMMON Project: Alabama in Crisis 11 months, 3 weeks ago · View
One of the things I love most about coming into COMMON Headquarters every day is the same thing I can always be sure of: evolution. COMMON emerged as a natural reaction to the world’s resistance to change, which seems to explain our fighting commitment to tailoring our own path swiftly and nimbly. And about 95% … -
Rob Schuham started the forum topic I want Coffeee Common in the group
Coffee Common: 1 year ago · ViewA collaboration of an empowered coffee farmer, an artisan coffee roaster, a dedicated barista, and an enlightened consumer is like a holy grail for any other product ecosystem.
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Rob Schuham joined the group
Coffee Common 1 year ago · View -
Rob Schuham posted a new activity comment: 1 year, 1 month ago · View
COMMON Credit/COMMON Bank: Kind of a combination of a few things:
- Easy-access SBA-style loans and lines of credit for startup social ventures from $10K to $100K
- Financial guidance/advice for COMMON Community members
- A free solar toaster when you open a checking account:)Add on….
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Rob Schuham posted an update in the group
Common Bank: 1 year, 1 month ago · View
This is a great idea and something we’ve been banging around. Hopefully some people can join this idea and help you figure out how to operationalize such a thing. Starting a bank is so beyond me.
We need to figure out what the best first step might be. I really feel a Bank or Credit Union is an important way to leverage many of the synergies of the brand. It could serve as an accelerant.
I’ve been chatting/emailing with some guys who follow @umairh’s twitter feed who have been looking into doing something in the NC area. I’m going to try to work with them to help them and see if we can’t get their efforts to become Common Bank.
I’ve known a few small bank people over the years and it is very regimented operationally. The good thing is that there are hundreds of thousands of people trained in the field who currently work at really poor banks.
Maybe the thing to do is develop a network of banks under the Common brand which loan to each other and fund Common projects. Maybe existing banks can convert to a set of Common ideals and be brought under the brand instead of forming new banks, bring existing ones under this umbrella. Lenders are seen as predators right now and banks spend billions lobbying Uncle Sam to be predators. Excessive risk through fractional reserve banking is what brought down the financial system. Maybe there is commercial banking, investment banking and now common banking? Maybe Common banks do not lobby against the consumer for instance. The banking system is so screwed up. The FDIC insures bank deposits and the same banks back the FDIC which is broke. So maybe you define ”Common Lending” not just create a bank with the name Common. Maybe it is a network of banks that operate outside the existing system that uses a gold standard or silver standard instead of federal reserve notes. Maybe Common banks use gold as currency and get away from the Federal Reserves manipulation of the dollar. Utah has just made gold and silver legal tender. Define Common banking and lending and get existing banks to convert. Give them the opportunity to move away from the predator umbrella and maybe you create a powerful thing. Blah Blah Blah………….
To continue, the banks have been so successful at being predators that the credit worthiness of borrowers has deteriorated so much so that lenders now can’t find as many people and small businesses to lend to. They are all unqualified because they have been eaten by predators. Home owners under water on their mortgages is a good example. Nobody can refinance as a result. Maybe the concept is Common banks are not predators and you see a migration to the Common brand by banks and they have rules and maybe get more business. Perhaps with too big too fail it is not worth mentioning but there is real opportunity here in my opinion because bank is a four letter word and the banksters as people call them know it. Maybe there is a Common credit card? Banks are all about managing risk but make all their money on high risk borrowers and seek them out. While you try and maintain your credit score to please lenders they live and die by borrowers screwing up. When a borrower does screw up good chance they were eaten by a predator that can’t survive unless they continue feeding. There is a need for banks to be repositioned perhaps under a new Common brand.
Maybe the concept is also built around self regulation. ”Common Regulator” because the regulators all failed the borrowers or looked the other way after lobbying dollars poured into Washington. Perhaps that is part of it a self regulated network of banks with a constitution that works. Normally I would say a pipe dream in the banking universe but so much damage has been done to banks credibility and borrowers may or perhaps already become lending averse irrespective of credit worthiness. Maybe the excessive borrowing and spending pendulum is swinging back the other way in America and lenders will be on their heals looking for a better image. I think this is probable.
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Rob Schuham posted an update in the group
We Role Cycle Works: 1 year, 1 month ago · ViewDig the idea. Would be interesting under the COMMON brand
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Rob Schuham joined the group
We Role Cycle Works 1 year, 1 month ago · View -
Rob Schuham joined the group
Welcome Rob. How about you? What would you like to see in a Common Bank or Credit Union?
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Rob Schuham posted an update in the group
COMMON HEALTH: 1 year, 1 month ago · ViewPatrick, just to be clear, while the overall mission is terrific, we will only advance ideas that do the following:
1) Are a true social enterprise, and not purely to profit and benefit the owners/entrepreneurs
2) Will let go of any pre-conceived notions/brands and be (more than) willing to be COMMON-branded
3) Accordingly, the COMMON community will need to give a collective thumbs up to it once it gets more crystallized
4) There are no ulterior promotional motives here. In other words, COMMON idea forums are no place for existing businesses to seek publicity or exposure. Don’t think this is your intent.Thanks!
Sounds good. The purpose of my business partner and I have been completely aligned with COMMON’s focus, even before we began Supertrainer. It actually started when I began studying Aristotle’s purpose-based ethics several years ago. Jim Collin’s studies of business in ”Good to Great,” and how the best CEO’s put their customers needs ahead of their own returns was also instrumental. COMMON is very exciting for us because finally we have a community of people who think the same way. We have invested the last 2 years of our lives building a system for Personal Trainers and their clients to provide them with better lives. We have invested 97% of every resource we have acquired into this cause and $0 into our salary. We are a for-profit first and foremost because we want to reinvest the profits into expanding this concept and creating new ones. Our software is free and we don’t generate revenue UNLESS it is actually making the cultural change we are attempting to create.
Needless to say, we are willing and able to assimilate into the COMMON collaboration.
I will change the technology and gaming aspect from Superhealth to COMMON HEALTH. We are not in any way attached to the ”Super” brand. We created that a year ago because we felt it was a brand-name that might encourage people to focus on healthy behavior. Recently, we have actually had our doubts that the over-playfulness of ”super” undermines the seriousness of the issue we are attempting to address.
Is it okay if I use Supertrainer as a reference for how the technology and gaming mechanics work for Preventative Service Providers?
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Rob Schuham posted an update in the group
COMMON HEALTH: 1 year, 1 month ago · ViewLike the overall vision here. Two quick questions to Patrick…you guys looking to COMMON-ize this existing Super Health/Super Trainer program? As in rebrand it? The other question is if you know Gregory Florez of First Fitness?
Not really sure what would happen as far as the Supertrainer/Superhealth brand. I feel at this point COMMON and SUPER can work together; one communicating the big picture for society, the other communicating the individuals quest towards health superiority (turning health into a game.) By us being ”super” as individuals, we help the ”common” cause. However, I am open to any sort of change. I am really excited to use this community as a brainstorming platform, so nothing is set in stone. What are your thoughts?
I have never heard of Greg. Just looked him up. I will dig deeper after coffee.
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Rob Schuham posted an update in the group
Common Cycles: 1 year, 1 month ago · ViewI will be at the MBA in Greensboro. Not that I’m part of a perfectly curated group. But my intentions are to bring just enough outdoor industry and marketing expertise to be dangerous and wrong-thinking. Will be fun for sure.
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Rob Schuham posted an update in the group
COMMON SEEDS: 1 year, 1 month ago · ViewI have a lot of thoughts here as this idea has been floating around the Cottage. Not to mention curiosity of who the big players are that are able to help us in this endeavor. http://www.seedsofchange.com/ has been around forever. M&M Mars owns them now. Adam, let’s keep poking at this. It will take root.
Rob, I am looking at the seed banking network and indy sellers of organic, heirloom, and open pollinated seeds. There is a lot of consolidation as you mention. I feel like a Coffee Common set up could make a lot of sense. To me this could be about repackaging what the seed experts have already created, that is stable supplies, and bringing more awareness to the peril of seeds and our need to reconnect with our own food production. It’s a fringe issue now. Lot’s of reading to do…
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Rob Schuham joined the group
Common Cycles 1 year, 1 month ago · View -
Rob Schuham joined the group
COMMON SEEDS 1 year, 1 month ago · View -
Rob Schuham joined the group
COMMON HEALTH 1 year, 1 month ago · View -
Rob Schuham posted a new activity comment: 1 year, 1 month ago · View
Joana, keep going with that thought. There are sites where you can buy bulk organic fair trade coffee beans. Would you change this method? If so, how should it be done? For example, do it in a different kind of grower co-op fashion?
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Rob Schuham joined the group
Coffee Common 1 year, 1 month ago · View -
Rob Schuham started the forum topic How can we turn this into a movement? in the group
Coffee Common: 1 year, 1 month ago · ViewOn the following:
1) Artisinal coffee
2) Thought leadership on similar agricultural businesses
3) How can we create a triple-bottom line retail/selling opportunity that benefits baristas, micro-roasters and growers?
Why not think in others ways of selling coffee?
Nowadays coffee gets to the market shelf oxidated after been roasted and packed by the common industrial process. It loses aroma and taste. The producer loses in price for the industry. The barista importance, as coffee is seen as another industrial, fast consuming kind of good.
I wonder if there isn’t a way to sell coffee as we sell fruits, vegetables. No package, no industry. From the producer to the consumer. It could be grounded at the selling point and be taken home fresh. Increasing the producers profit and having the barista as a guide for that encounter and for blending matters.
Good for the producer, for the barista, for the environment. But most of all, for us. That would drink much better coffee every morning.
You’re right Joana, majority of the commercial coffee available is stale before it’s even purchased by the consumer.
Coffee Common does view coffee as a produce. That’s one of the key messages we are trying to spread. The roasters who Coffee Common represent are very persistent about coffee roast dates and brewing it within 12-14 days of that date to enjoy it at its peak freshness.
These roasters also get most of their coffee through direct trade relationships, cutting out the importers and other middle men who each take some of the money that should be going directly to the farmers.
Hey Brian. Cutting the middle men who take money that should be going to the farmers, it’s really valuable. It’s fair trade, automatically. You could also add Rain Forest Alliance Certification for ecological bottom line.
Thinking about the selling model. It would be nice to have organic fair trade coffee roasted beans, already blended in bulks tagged only with the information about the producer and the info given by the barista. Instead of brands and ads and package -> education. Baristas could educate people about coffee. There’s so much to know. Specially, when is organic, where it comes from, who is involved etc.
Can you imagine the smell at the selling point when you have coffee beans being milled? I’m already thinking in a special designed eco-can so people could come for more. No package. And there begins a much closer relationship between the producer and the consumer.
We’re on the same page Joana. That’s another thing the Coffee Common roasters try to educate consumers on—treating coffee like a produce. After it’s roasted it only has a freshness life of about 2 weeks. Our whole purpose is to educate the consumers about the coffee, the origin, and the farmers who produced it.
Great steps taken here in Brazil, Brian. Starting out something really great with this line of thinking. Soon I’ll be sending news.
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