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Living the dream in East Tennessee
By Alex Lavidge
T
his year brought with it many adventures and insights includ-ing: a rejuvenated sense of pridein my hometown of Knoxville, TN, renewed bonds with my mother’s side of the family, and a rekindled passion for pro bonocommunity service through a nonprofit we started this year called Knoxville Overground(KO). (KO is a community-building and advocacy group for entrepreneurs and self-employedprofessionals.) Professionally, I’veenjoyed the flexibility of freelancecontract work for various startupsand projects across the US in theareas of user-interface design, siteanalytics, social media consulting,market research, sales, marketing strategy, storyboarding, and writ-ing content for ad literature. Ever since I was a young boy I’vethrived with variety; I’m blessedto say that continuing the tradi-tion leaves me feeling young-at-heart. I’m 29 years young.The story of how Iended up staying in Knoxville, TN started earlier in the year. While sitting in my o
ffi
ce in SanFrancisco my plan was to travelthe world in 2008-09. Surveying social enterprise projects fromcooperatives to economic devel-opment initiatives taking place inSouth America was planned asthe first phase. Those planshaven’t changed – rather, they’vebeen put on hold for the time be-ing as I collaborate with prospec-tive sponsors and media partners.I still remain as passionate as ever about interviewing “altrupre-neurs” internationally, sharing their stories, and outlining therecurring patterns in their lives (inthe same spirit of Napoleon Hill's work in his classic
Think andGrow Rich
) so that others whoare inspired to follow in their footsteps will feel as though they have access to the tools and frameof mind it takes to reach their level of success. Over the yearsI’ve been calling on many of themacross the globe and recording those interviews on Skype whichI’ll start publishing in 2009.
Here I am taking a napafter hiking to the very topof Chimney Top Mountainin Cashiers, NC.
Picturetaken by Rhiannon Cou-lombe.
2008
IN REVIEW
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T h e H a p p y N e w Y e a r U p d a t e !
Altrupreneursare visionaries andstewards of the publicinterest who havereached financial free-dom through triple-bottom line entrepre-neurship (or in somecases, inheritance).
(Essentially, by “triple-bottom line” thisentails measuring success of any for-profit endeavor through its impact onthe environment, its benefit to the qual-ity of life for all people, and its financialreturns.) These altrupreneurs define wealth not by net-worth, but instead by the good health, happiness, and free timethey have in their life. They live relatively simple, sustainable, ecologically sensi-tive, stress-free lifestyles that are sus-tained by their local economy. With that free time, they integrate the three Cs of altrupreneurship – capital, connectivity,and consciousness – to be an agent for social change in a manner that is moree
ff
ective than any antiquated “activist” models. In a world where it’s more andmore common to hear the attitude, “yesthat could help people, but who is going to pay for it,” these people have the trans-formational power to be the new cata-lysts for social change in the public inter-est of humanity on a level never beforeseen on both a grassroots as well as aninstitutional and international stage.Freedom, for them, is the act of giving without asking for anything in return.
At first Knoxville wasonly a transfer point onmy journey,but itbeckoned me to stay awhile.
For starters my Grandfather (with whomI have always been very close) is going through some major life transitions at theage of 88. Being here to provide helpthrough the process has been a relief tothe family until a decision is made to pro- vide full-time professional assistance.Being with him has also given me anopportunity to document and organize a lot of family history and in so doing learnabout my roots. I’m very grateful for that.But additionally, Knoxville, inmany ways, feels like the Wild WildEast. It’s an incredibly exciting time tobe here. “Green” is now becoming en vogue and there’s more emphasis oncommunity development all over theplace. We're in the midst of renaissance.People are friendly, open-minded to in-novation, diverse, and driven. Thedowntown area is being revitalized andhas a progressive, authentic, trendy vibe. As I started to network and researcheverything I could about Knoxville, Icame across some impressive rankings. The Economic Research Institute re-ports, for instance, that Knoxville is #1out of 206 locations surveyed for topplaces for recent college graduates. Theregion here also has a world-class braintrust with Oak Ridge National Labora-tory, et al., just north of us, a low cost of living, no personal income tax (other than dividend and interest income), andthe list goes on. I wondered to myself, “could Knoxville, in the spirit of Silicon Valley, be a new hotspot where entrepre-neurs, and altrupreneurs, can thrive?” Turns out, it already is - and conditionsare improving all the time. So I told a lot of my friends in “the startup scene” back in San Jose, Mountain View, San Fran-cisco, Austin, TX, and all over, to “con-sider a place like Knoxville; for starters,the money you’ve raised will last you twoto three times longer - and other condi-tions are improving continuously.” Shortly thereafter, KnoxvilleOverground was conceived in July 2008by a small group of us working together weekly for casual cow orking sessions at Panera Bread in West Knoxville.
AN ALTRUPRENEURIAL REFLECTION
One adventure this year took me to TheFarm (http://thefarm.org)
in Summertown,TN. It reminded me that a challenge for allof us in the 21st century is figuring out howwe can combine the comforts and aesthet-ics of contemporary middle-class living withthe timeless principles of a self-sufficienteco-village.To the left is a picture an electric car at TheFarm that charged itself using the solar technology available at the time. It wasdebuted at the World’s Fair in Knoxville in1982. I was reminded of the film
Who Killed The Electric Car
which if you haven’t seen,I’d highly recommend. The Farm continuesto have gems lying around that are glimpsesinto the future. This is a great symbol inparticular that reminds us that a zero-wastesociety is only possible when we under-stand the psychology of human adoption,politics, and economics - not just sciencealone.
Thanksgiving at High Hampton with family
Standing to the right are my Grandfather and Mother. Wespent the Thanksgiving holidays in Cashiers, NC thisyear.
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Knoxville Overground (KO) is creatinga grassroots system for empowering self-employed professionals and entrepreneurs
KO is a now community-building and advocacy organizationfor entrepreneurs, techies, and self-employed professionals that in less than half a year, starting with nothing but a conversationover co
ff
ee and laptops, has already reached hundreds of sup-porters and members through sites like twitter.com andfacebook.com. We’ve accomplished a lot this year – from open-ing up Knoxville’s first coworking space in Sequoyah Hills in West Knoxville to hosting the First Annual Knoxville Over-ground Startup Awards during Global Entrepreneurship Week. Needless to say, in these times of economic uncertainty,people are looking for new opportunities and a stronger work/ life balance – and Knoxville Overground is one of the few bottom-up, grassroots organizations in the community that isadvocating for public policy changes and additional entrepre-neurial resources that in turn can help both attract and retainthe “creative class” (for a good definition of “creative class,” visit www.creativeclass.org
) and a stronger entrepreneurial culturein the region. Ultimately our goal is to automate as much aspossible so that what we‘re doing can be duplicated in other cities across Tennessee and possibly the US. We’ll see what happens. We already see a Nashville Overground emerging,and chapters in Memphis and Chattanooga are in develop-ment. Our o
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cial stance on expansion is regardless what thegroups call themselves, we’re happy to help however we can.
Contact Information:
Alex Johnson Lavidge6545 Northshore DriveKnoxville, TN 37919Knoxville Overgroundattn: Alex Lavidge, President1204 Kenesaw AvenueSuite ABKnoxville, TN 37919
c:
917-477-7732
e:
a.lavidge@gmail.com
skypeid:
alexlavidge
twitter:
twitter.com/alexlavidge
facebook.com:
search/add: “Alex Johnson Lavidge”
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[Upper left] First Annual Knoxville Overground Startup Awards
To my right are friends Marina Prutskova, Scott Brooks, and Christy Cagle.Behind us is the banner we displayed for the awards ceremony at the WorldGrotto in Market Square, downtown Knoxville, TN.
Picture by Caleb Wilson.
[Lower right] CoworkingKnoxville
The group got started by a group of us getting together once a week after deciding we were tired “working out of a coffee shop or a home office, alone.”Page Patten, Scott Adcox, myself and other members were in an article pub-lished in the Knoxvillle Business Journal about cowor king.
Knoxville Overground on the Web:
http://knoxvilleoverground.ning.comhttp://www.facebook.comhttp://twitter.com/overgroundhttp://www.knoxvilleoverground.com
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