About this issue:

Powerful ideas and personal commitment - with that 'value added' difference

For the past couple of years, I've subscribed to Fast Company's e-mail newsletter. I was amused several years ago by a marketing stunt in New York City that involved clothing models walking sheep on city streets to advertise sweaters. In January, it was interesting to note which businesses were given Fast Company's "Social Capitalist Awards.” I was fascinated by an in-depth piece posted late last year titled "The Wal-Mart You Don't Know” that, starting with the analogy of a gallon jar of pickles, explored how Wal-Mart pressures its suppliers - often into "efficiencies” that eventually cost jobs.

Most recently, Fast Company engaged my attention with the "Fast 50” - companies that are "the doers and the dreamers, the truth tellers and the trendsetters” - selected from among 1,650 entries submitted by readers. The profiles ranged from entrepreneurial monks to nanotechnology specialists at GE to skateboarding shoe-sellers. While I may not have agreed with the mission or applications of some of the businesses, I had to admire the way in which most described their work, demonstrating "powerful ideas and personal commitment,” to quote Fast Company.

And frankly, that's just what I found in cultivating names of businesspeople - largely entrepreneurs - for this issue of the Bulletin. Yet here is the "value added” quotient: these are businesspeople with a vision that goes beyond their profession or service, people who place emphasis on their relationships with co-workers and clients and with Christ. How does it make a difference? You'll find some answers in the following pages. You can also find out more about "business as a calling” at the Mennonite Economic Development Associates web site (www.meda.org) and by visiting GC's business department online at www.goshen.edu/business.