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Azavea Named a “Winning Workplace” by Inc. and Winning Workplaces

Vol. 5 Issue 3, July 2010

workplace-collage

This past June, Inc. Magazine and Winning Workplaces announced the winners and finalists of the 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces competition – the best small and mid-sized places to work in the country. We’re thrilled to announce that Azavea was a finalist in the national list of 40 winners and finalists.

And guess what?… one of our benefits even got noticed in the Inc.’s “10 Perks we Love“. Go to slide #6 to discover which one!

Over 500 completed applications were submitted by U.S. companies for the contest. A national panel of experts in leadership and small to mid-sized business judged the finalists based on specific metrics and qualitative assessments of their success in creating the kind of workplaces that engage employees and deliver successful results. The common characteristics of the Top Small Company Workplaces winners and finalists include a commitment to aligning their workforce with a clear vision, mission, and values; communicating with openness and trust; and investing in employees’ continuous learning and development.

These values align with Azavea’s recent B Corporation certification, which resulted from a comprehensive survey meant to verify the company’s social and environmental performance standards, as well as its commitment to creating benefit for all its stakeholders.

Inc. Magazine writes about Azavea, “This 24-person firm prides itself in its ability to hire smart people to engage in intellectually challenging work that has real social value. Their interdisciplinary approach in a relaxed work setting allows them to consistently create highly crafted, user-friendly web solutions solving tough geospatial problems. Leadership generously shares profits with employees and continually challenges them to pursue their own research projects to stretch their abilities and open up new avenues for the firm.”

So far in 2010, Azavea was also named a 2010 ESRI Business Partner of the Year and was in the 2010 Inner City 100 List of 100 Fastest-Growing Inner City Companies Nationwide

We are grateful for all these accolades. These would not have been possible without our dedicated staff, clients, and partners. Thank you all.

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Behind the Scenes At Azavea – Our Volunteer Gigs

By Abby Fretz Published in

Vol. 5 Issue 3, July 2010

rcr_newsletter Rachel Cheetham-Richard, Vice President

Rachel’s Volunteer Gig: Generation Appreciation Philadelphia, a.k.a GenPhilly
Rachel spent a tremendous amount of time during her childhood with her paternal grandmother. “Manou”, as she used to call her. They would go on vacation together, spend weekends together during the school year, go shopping, watch cheesy films, and when Rachel moved to the U.S. they would call each other every other week. When Manou passed away last year, she left a big hole in Rachel’s life. Soon afterward, Rachel met two terrific women, Kate Clark and Lauren Ring, both working at the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging, who are also leading the development and activities of GenPhilly. GenPhilly’s mission is to inspire emerging professionals to make a connection with older adults in their personal and professional lives. It is an alliance of individuals and organizations dedicated to promoting an age-friendly Philadelphia. Rachel decided to volunteer because she saw this as an opportunity to remain connected to her grandmother, better understand and connect to elderly’s issues, and participate in the promotion of Philadelphia as a place where growing older doesn’t have to be alienating. Rachel is currently volunteering on a GenPhilly event in conjunction with the Corzo Center/University of the Arts and the College of Art & Design. The event (Sept. 16 at UArts), entitled Women & Aging: Image (R)evolution, will feature Sarah Kagan, Professor of Gerontological Nursing at Penn and Valerie Temple Lange, Programming and Community Outreach Coordinator at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.

Rachel is not the only member of the Azavea team actively volunteering in the Philadelphia region. We’ve polled everyone in the office about their volunteer involvements. Check it out!

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Azavea Welcomes Ryan Lawrence

By Abby Fretz Published in

Vol. 5 Issue 3, July 2010

ryan_newsletter Ryan Lawrence, web developer, joined Azavea in June. He supports the application design, marketing, and business development teams, working with Brian Jacobs, our full-time web designer to design and implement web application interfaces, websites, marketing collateral and much, much more. He has been creating websites since the days of 14.4k modems and online services with strange names like Prodigy and GEnie. He is comfortable working with technologies such as PHP, Python, jQuery, and MySQL to develop dynamic, user-friendly websites, and web applications. Ryan also works as a freelance translator of Japanese-language documents, television programs, movies, and video games. Outside of work, Ryan enjoys playing guitar (especially Telecasters), reading, vegetarian cooking, and traveling.

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Azavea Makes the List of Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies Nationwide… Again

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in

Vol. 5 Issue 2, May 2010

Thank you so much for your support and trust!

For the second consecutive year, Azavea made it to the ICIC Inner City 100 List of the fastest growing companies nationwide, at number 28. And the Philadelphia Inquirer claims that “Azavea puts Philadelphia on the Map“.

inner_city_100_collage2

The Inner City 100 program recognizes successful companies and their CEO’s as role models for entrepreneurship, innovative business practices and job creation in America’s urban communities. The list is intended to demonstrate the idea that doing business in an urban environment holds a distinct competitive advantage. ICIC (Initiative for Competitive Inner City) has been studying the economic condition of the largest 100 American cities for more than a decade and is working to revitalize inner cities across the country by promoting entrepreneurship.

We want to dedicate this award to all of clients, our partners and our talented staff. Thank you.

We look forward to working with you on more thought-provoking projects and software that continue to bring together the best aspects of geography and the web.

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We’ve Become a Certified B Corporation. What the Heck is This? You Might Ask

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in

Vol. 5 Issue 2, May 2010

We have joined over 280 other leading companies who are setting a new corporate standard for social and environmental performance, by becoming a Certified B Corporation, a.k.a B Corp.

What is this? The B Lab organization was created to promote the designation of a new corporate form, the “B Corporation”. Under current IRS regulations, there are several types of private for-profit businesses including C Corporations, S Corporations, LLC’s, LLP’s, partnerships and sole proprietors. B Corporations are a new type of for-profit companies that use the power of businesses operating in a market-based economy to solve social and ecosystem problems, while committing to creating benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders. B Lab is working with state legislatures to try to have the B Corporation status added as a new corporate form.

To become certified, B Corporations must meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards, and amend their corporate by-laws to incorporate the interests of employees, community, and the environment. They also agree to undergo an audit of their business practices once every 2 years to ensure that their business practices continue to align with the B Corporation’s principles.

You might now wonder why Azavea would qualify. While terms such as ‘Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)’, ‘conscious capitalism’ and ‘sustainable development’ are increasingly being used to describe the behavior of for-profit corporations, whether or not we live up to those aspirations boils down to the choices we make as businesses and the values we actually apply in our day-to-day operations. The B Corporation status emphasizes the triple bottom line of social responsibility, sustainability and profitability (people, planet, profit). At Azavea, many of our business decisions stem from these three principles.

We were founded in 2000 with the vision to build innovative location-based web and mobile solutions and perform spatial analysis for clients committed to making positive and enduring impacts in the communities they serve. We have worked with numerous non-profit, academic and government clients to answer complex geospatial questions in a wide variety of domains including natural resource planning, neighborhood revitalization, economic development, crime analysis, real estate property analysis, redistricting, political advocacy, and cultural resources.

Our 10% personal research and pro bono programs have enabled staff members to spend some time working on projects that are not focused on the immediate needs of a particular client, while at the same time enabling the company to expand its skill sets and broaden its business opportunities in areas and domains not explored before. These programs have been at the source of projects such as Walkshed (to calculate and map walkability), BusMinder (a real-time bus notification application), a white paper on Gerrymandering, geographic service maps for MANNA, and the Haitian Earthquake Registry, to name a few.

The same service-oriented attitude extends to Azavea’s commitment to redistributing a minimum of 2% of our annual profits to charitable organizations selected by staff through the company’s “Time to Give Back” program.

We also try to treat our staff as if they were family members. In addition to our nifty benefit package, we also believe in financial and corporate transparency and hold at least two meetings per year to report on company performance.

But we’re not resting on our laurels! In addition to the business benefits, the B Lab also highlighted some areas where we can improve. Here are some of the ideas:

Establish a Board of Advisers made up people independent of the company
Give customers representation on a Board of Advisers
Develop an environmental policy
Conduct environmental review / audit and share with staff and customers
Measure our annual energy consumption and use it to develop metrics by which we can reduce it

We are proud of our new corporate status and look forward to implementing some of the above ideas in our business practices.

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Behind the Scenes at Azavea – Our Current Reads

By Abby Fretz Published in

Vol. 5 Issue 2, May 2010

thumb_john John Semmel, software developer, has a weekly ritual. On Sunday mornings, he listens to NPR’s notorious “Puzzlemaster”, Will Shortz’s weekly word puzzle. John then promptly puts his mental lexicon to work to figure out next week’s challenge and to submit his answer to the show. Though his submissions nearly always match the intended answer, he has never been selected to participate in the on air quiz. He remains hopeful and eagerly awaits his 15 minutes of enigmatological fame.

John’s current read: On Language, by William Safire

thumb_tamara

Tamara Manik-Perlman, GIS Analyst & Project Manager, has often been called a materialist, and she can’t really dispute the label since it captures both her tactile and academic obsessions. Although she’s fascinated by all aspects of material culture, Tamara is particularly taken with textiles and the various techniques for knitting, weaving, dyeing, printing and manipulating fabric. The anthropologist and economic geographer in her is also fascinated by how the desire for and trade in commodities has shaped the course of human history around the globe. (If you’re also curious about supply chains, check out developer David Zwarg’s recent research project Sourcemap.org)

Tamara’s current read: Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, by Sidney Mintz

John and Tamara are not the only avid readers at Azavea. We’ve polled everyone in the office on their latest reads which resulted in a pretty stellar list. Check it out!

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Avencia Has A New Name: Meet….Azavea

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard and Robert Cheetham Published in

Vol. 5 Issue 1, March 2010

breakingnews

Dear Friends,

Welcome to a new edition of the Azavea Journal. Did I say Azavea? Yes. Some of you might have already heard the news from the letter we sent out last Wednesday, but Avencia will now be known as Azavea – pronounced like ‘azalea’. There is no particularly good reason for this, and this was not a change that we sought – we liked our name just fine. So what happened?

Avencia became the target of a trademark dispute that sought to have our registered trademark canceled 3 years ago. While neither company has ever had any experience with a customer demonstrating confusion between the two names, the other party has persisted in their effort. We have vigorously defended ourselves since then but now taking it to its conclusion in federal court will be even more distracting and expensive. I have therefore decided to end the dispute in order to preserve the financial health of our firm and to focus on our company’s mission and commitment to impeccable service for our clients.

So what does Azavea mean? My brother-in-law is from Pakistan. While we were brainstorming for a new name, he mentioned that ‘zavea’ means ‘perspective’ in Urdu. We liked the sound of it and its evident connection to geography. So after a few spelling tweaks to enable us to create a strong trademark, we adopted Azavea.

While we have a new name, the company’s mission remains the same. We will continue to perform research and create software that brings together the best aspects of geography and the web. We remain committed to providing our clients access to advanced geospatial technologies through highly-crafted and easy-to-use web and mobile solutions, and personalized geospatial analysis services. Our goal remains to combine our experience solving tough geospatial problems, commitment to tailored service, and a genuine desire to “do well by doing good” in order to help our clients create more dynamic, vibrant, and sustainable communities.

We are proud of our team for sticking through the ups and downs of this trademark dispute and have valued their input throughout this 3-year process. We are grateful to work with smart people who get a kick out of working on projects with social value, and who are passionate about making a difference in the world around them.

Some of these projects are highlighted in the articles below. Enjoy, and again, welcome to a new edition of the Azavea Journal.

Sincerely,
Robert Cheetham
President & CEO

PS: Please note that none of our contact information has changed, except for our email addresses and website that now reflect the new name. For instance, my new email address is cheetham@azavea.com .

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Azavea’s Coffee ‘Uber’ Assistant: Caféduino

By David Zwarg Published in

Vol. 5 Issue 1, March 2010

cafeduino

Azavea has a clearly defined symbiosis with coffee. We have a designated Minister of Coffee, a world-class coffee grinder, and we get selections of coffee from around the world; some of it hand-delivered, and some of it hand-crafted. However, one of the problems opportunities that I observed with our coffee system was that as coffee was brewed and consumed in the office (about 6 brews a day), unlucky staffers would frequently pick up the (opaque) coffee pot to find it empty. I don’t personally drink coffee, so I was unaware of how much anticipation one feels when approaching the pot and the extreme let down experienced upon encountering an empty pot.

I slowly set to work in my free time to solve this conundrum. To me, it seemed like an individual would want to know if there was coffee in the pot before approaching the coffee maker (whom some of us address reverently as Zojirushi-san). This could be 1) a web page, 2) a desktop app, or 3) an IRC (not IIRC) bot. I drew up some schematics, took some measurements, and retreated to my home lab to build an Arduino based, web-enabled measurement system tailored for the coffee pot. I used an Arduino Diecimila, an Ethernet Shield, a couple piezoelectric sensors, a 3 color LED, a couple of buttons, and an awesome hand-crafted wooden base (thanks to Chip, our resident guitar maker).

A short while later, I had a working prototype ready for testing. The device now sits in Azavea’s kitchen, constantly measuring the weight of the coffee maker, and reporting the measurements to pachube. After doing some internal evaluation, the name ‘Caféduino’ stuck, and I developed a couple methods of viewing the coffee pot status.

1. Direct Web Access

Using this method, it’s possible to directly address the Caféduino. This gives the coffee addict aficionado direct access to the measurement values, but is more useful for other applications that are polling the data frequently.

2. Caféduino Notification

Using this second method, the Caféduino is polled continuously, and the tiny coffee mug in the system tray is updated as the coffee level changes. This is the most aggressive method of monitoring the Caféduino which, mysteriously, is the most comforting for users.

cafeduino_notifierchart When the coffee mug is clicked, the history of the Caféduino is charted in the window. What you are seeing is a Google visualization applet that is consuming the historical data, stored on http://www.pachube.com/.

3. IRC Bot Integration

cafeduino_botintegration

Lastly, the most interactive method of polling the Caféduino is through our internal IRC channel. The above screenshot is the conversation that I initiated with the IRC bot, and its response. It has reassured me that there is indeed, 77.78% of a pot of coffee left.

Now our staff can check in on the coffee pot, to insure that their next visit to the kitchen will be without disappointment. While this system works well for monitoring the coffee level, the next steps may be more involved – building a machine to automatically brew coffee.

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