OrganizingLA Blog

Steve Rubel, The Voice of PR Blogging, Mentions the OrganizingLA Blog

Steve Rubel, marketing strategist and author of Micro Persuasion, featured our blog last month in a brief yet powerful mention.

Rubel (pictured, right) is widely viewed as an expert in communications, currently serving as Senior Vice-President for Edelman PR, the 6th largest public relations firm in the world.

Denise Wakeman considers Rubel to be the voice of Public Relations blogging.  Denise says Rubel has "10s of thousands of readers, is quoted and linked everywhere and delivers keynote speeches about blogging and social media."

It's great for us to be recognized.  Our mention was short and sweet:  "OrganizingLA Blog:  A blog on organization."

Now, back to organizing!  Which is what we love to do more than breathing.

• Micro Persuasion - Links for 1/30/07

Container Store Up for Sale

The Dallas Morning News reports this week that the Container Store is up for sale.

We talked about this in a blog post two weeks ago.  The organizing giant announced they were shutting down their wholesale Elfa business in North American as soon as early summer, in a move that smelled like streamlining for a possible sale.

The company decided to launch a formal process after Chairman and co-founder Garrett Boone’s family expressed interest in selling a large portion of their leading stake in the company.

Boone said that at one time the families believed they would sell the company bit by bit but now realize that by selling the company to one large majority investor, they can control the chain's destiny in the long term.  Their priority however, is to keep the culture that Fortune Magazine called one of the top places to work. 

Ladies and gentleman, this deal will surely bring-in a premium price if they get it right.  Container Store sales have grown an average of 15 percent to 20 percent a year since it opened in 1978.

Source:  Dallas Morning News and Maria Halkeas

Photo courtesy of Heather

Related Posts:

• Container Store closing down wholesale USA Elfa

Podcast from BusinessWeek Magazine to Feature John Trosko Small Office Tips

 

I dashed around Hollywood today, and in-between office organizing appointments I taped a Podcast for BusinessWeek.com.

BusinessWeek offers a terrific and complete series of Podcasts-- the one we participated in features experts and newsmakers from around the country with new perspectives and strategies on everything from building an online audience to finding health insurance for employees to avoiding bankruptcy scams.

Next Tuesday, we'll be talking about small business organizing for the entrepreneur.  In the conversation with BW veteran writer and host Karen E. Klein, we provide tips on time, space, and interruption management along with some personal commentary for what it takes to encourage employees to be more organized.

We'll post a link as soon as it's up, or you can subscribe here for the series on i-tunes or any other other reader, by clicking here.

IKEA To Stop Providing Free Disposable Bags March 15

In an attempt to tackle waste and help environmental damage, IKEA announced yesterday that they will no longer provide free disposable plastic bags in the United States.

The bold move follows the UK decision last summer to ditch the free bags, too.  Beginning March 15, US Shoppers will be charged 5-cents for each bag, or they can bring their own.

There is a lot more to this story, check out Green Wombat for an analysis.

It's not that they're charging (proceeds to go charity)-- rather, they're encouraging eco-friendly behavior on a personal level.

Readers, what do you think about this move?

Source:  Green Wombat

Related Posts:

• Ikea shifting its guts to Ohio
• Ikea closet microsite- cool!
• View our entire "new" category, eco-organizing

How to Organize a Playroom - Leave It Be?

Last Christmas, I gleefully sat on a friend's living room floor playing with his young nephew.  Together, for what seemed like hours, we constructed some wonderfully complicated Lego toys together (no, it wasn't as elaborate as the Griffith Observatory scene above.)

Yesterday, I caught Laura's most touching and short (600 word) essay about her young son's passion for his toy pirates, which are carefully placed all over his bedroom floor.  Laura's maternal need for structure and organized chaos in her home is battling with her young son's desire for creative innocence.  If your're raising a family, can you dig?

"Everything to do with pirates resides on [my son's bedroom] floor. I can't walk through [those pirates]...I can't walk around them...in fact I can barely get in the door. You see, although it might look like a mess to you (and to me), my son has all those pirates strategically placed..."

"Oh yes, those pirates all over the floor, they can definitely stay because as long as the pirates are around I stand a chance of holding onto my little boy for just a little while longer."

Laura over at Organizing Junkie has a terrific site where the Canadian Christian mother pushes her passion for raising a family, and keeping her home in one piece.  She is not quite as insane as Amy's Blog, though.  It's fun seeing how Laura hacks her dollar-store bargains and what recipes she whips up in her crock pot.

We just had to share this with you.  The post reminds me of the days when I played LEGO-- voraciously.  The hours and hours I sat on my floor building skyscrapers and castles.  It's a wonder I never became an architect.  I think some rainy day Saturdays I ate and drank LEGO.  How fun.

Laura is smart to let her son go overboard.  And how generous he is to allow her to vacuum every two weeks!

• Organizing Junkie

Picture courtesy of this Lego.

Los Angeles Zoo Hires Beverly Hills Feng Shui Expert Simona Mainini

Simona Mainini operates a consulting business just like we do, in private homes and offices here in Southern California.

The Beverly Hills-based Feng Shui consultant has one advantage over us:  she was hired by the Los Angeles Zoo to "ensure three endangered monkeys will have health, happiness, fertility and, of course, a strong life-force energy in their new digs."

Simona Mainini worked with Zoo officials on a $7.4 million enclosure for three rare golden monkeys set to debut there this year.  Her fee for the feng shui consulting in the Golden Monkey Exhibit?  $4,500.

It seems what the news reports don't tell you is that the consultant is also a licensed architect in Italy.  She holds a Doctor in Architecture degree from the Polytechnic of Milan, Italy and a diploma from the School of Arts of Reggio Emilia.

Listen, upon our next feng shui request, we're calling her.  The stylish new digs open this month.

So readers, what are your thoughts on this monkey business?

• Source:  Daily Breeze