®

Manifesto

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

Introduction

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

When I started Plywerk in 2007 I didn’t give any thought to being eco-conscious or creating a values-driven organization. The aspirations driving my ambition in 2007 were to learn how to run a small- to medium-sized company, to make as much money as I could, to cash-out, and to use my new-found wealth and skills to work for nonprofits in SE Asia… all within five years.

I shot that plan out of the water and instead decided to focus on building a strong foundation for a company that prioritizes people and the planet. But it’s OK, because I actually feel good about that choice, and more to the point, I have found a lot of other business owners who share these priorities.

I often liken being an entrepreneur to working on a doctoral thesis. Both require dedication, perseverance and constant learning. The main difference is that as an entrepreneur the premise is a constantly-moving target and the research never-ending because the target often moves before the research is complete. Like a researcher whose knowledge becomes more proficient over time, as an entrepreneur I have come to better understand Plywerk than anyone else out there. Along with that I have reached a deeper level of understanding into the “why” of Plywerk.

So, without further ado, well…seven years of ado I suppose... I finally feel confident in writing this manifesto on behalf of our company and sharing it with all the people, legal entities and world wide web of machines of this wonderful world.

Kind regards,

Kjell van ZoenCo-Founder & CEO

Disclaimer: We live in a world of 144 character limits and the abbreviation of the two-letter exclamation “OK” to the one-letter “K”. I value efficiency as much as the next person but this is the Plywerk manifesto and I embrace my right to ramble… a little.

Co-Founders Kjell Van Zoen & Kim Oanh Nguyen-van Zoen

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

photo credit: Faith Cathcart

Our ValuesWe are very aware that “values” is an

overused term in business and often just marketing hype. We’re hoping that this manifesto will quell some

of the fears people experience when a private corporation (we’re a C-Corp) once again uses this term. In fact, we feel like Plywerk, along with many other companies, isare taking this term back to it’s roots - that being from the Old French

feminine past participle of valoir, ‘be worth,’ from the Latin valere.

This is what we find to be of worth:

Craft & DesignCommunityEfficiencyRespect

Playfulness

Let us elaborate… a lot.

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

Craft & DesignWe remember a time before the internet. We remember that taking pictures meant thinking about how many shots of film you have left; on waiting for just the right time to capture that moment; and then choosing the ones you want to print and display. There was craft and design in this endeavor. Much of this craft has been lost in the firehose of mass-produced images that flood our online-world.

Whether art that provokes deep reflection or photos that stir feelings of nostalgia, everyone has a handful of images they love to have around them as they go about their day. We design and handcraft eco-conscious photo frames and display products to help people get their images offline and into the tangible world we live in. Because you can’t hang a JPEG on your wall.

We feel that craft and design is not about carbon-copy, mass-produced, cheaper-is-better products. Our designs are about applying minimal aesthetics and function to responsibly sourced materials, and producing our product on-demand, by-hand in our Portland, Oregon workshop.

We take our time in adding value for our customers, but don’t waste time (and increase end-costs) fretting over the little things that don’t matter. We like it when our logo (branded on the back of each panel) can differ in position by up to ¼”. We love that the Western Walnut grain of each Stanley is 100% unique. We value that the color of each bamboo panel is derived from a process that heats-up and “caramelizes” the very sugars within the bamboo resulting in a myriad shades of caramel. Some people call these imperfections, we call it personality.

But we also take great pride in our finished products and our ability to continuously refine our craft to ensure that each order that leaves our workshop is the best we can make it. And our craft

goes beyond the product. It also applies to our marketing, sales and customer service. To us the craft of a customer’s interaction with Plywerk is as important as the product’s we make.

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

Community

Plywerk, according to U.S. federal law, is a legal person. Be that as it may, we’ve never felt that this should be used as an excuse to do whatever makes sense solely for the bottom-line with blatant disregard towards the lasting negative effects this may have. We feel that a better way of looking at this is that Plywerk is a community of people, working together on something they all believe in; be it our vendors supplying us with high-quality service and materials, our co-werkers sanding our products to a 220 grit baby-smooth finish, our customers purchasing product and supporting our endeavour with cash, or our UPS delivery driver rushing orders to our customers on-time.

Every single person who interacts with Plywerk is part of our story. The whole of Plywerk as an entity is not captured by our legal standing as a “person,” we are a made up of all those people and relationships. How we interact determines our character. Are we appreciative? Empathetic? Kind? Respectful?

Besides sleeping, most people spend more time at their jobs than any other activity. At Plywerk we work hard to try and ensure that the people who interact with Plywerk are the kind of people we want to be in a community with. We do everything we can to make that interaction a comfortable and enjoyable experience. We do so by treating everyone (vendor, employee, customer, etc) with mutual respect. And in choosing our employees, vendors (and sometimes customers) we expect the same in return. Because we are not just working together, we are living together.

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

Efficiency

We don’t want to waste our vendors time, our own time, or our customers time. We don’t want to stockpile materials that we wont need for another 6 months. We don’t want to consume more energy or materials than is absolutely necessary to get the job done. Doing so hoards and depletes valuable resources, adds unnecessary costs, and increases stress.

We use lean business systems to eliminate muda (all seven types), kaizen our processes, and thereby reduce our inefficiencies and increase the proportion of our time that is “value added work” for customers.

Our hat goes off to Mr Taiichi Ohno. Enough said.

Taiichi Ohno San - 1912 - 1990

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

photo credit: Toyota Motor Corporation

RespectWhen we say “respect” we mean respect for all People and the Planet.

We love nature and all it has to offer. We also know and respect that earth is a closed system with finite natural resources. At some point on our current trajectory we will outstrip the planet’s ability to provide for our needs; whether that be running out of fresh water, collapsing fish populations, loss of topsoil, and/or destruction of our forest ecosystems, earth will balance it’s checkbook. That is, unless something is done NOW to change the status quo.

We also know that our role in the global eco-system is heavily influenced by the global “economic” system. In fact, we feel it’s almost impossible to talk about being eco-conscious in business without first talking about economics.

If we can’t first admit that the main unit of value by which the success of most human activity is measured, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is flawed then it’s pointless to talk about how human activity can change the environment. Let me give you an example. The infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill led to an increase of the GDP of the U.S. because of the spending associated with the clean-up effort. Shouldn’t the environmental impact of the estimated eleven to thirty million gallons of oil spilled into Alaskan waters be part of the overall equation by which we measure human succes?

In 1972, the kingdom of Bhutan coined the term “Gross National Happiness” (GNH, a.k.a GDH). Bhutan, a small country deeply rooted in Buddhism, obviously felt that measuring GNH was a valid measure of the success of their leadership. Almost thirty years later the rest of the world listened with the United Nations approving a Bhutan-sponsored resolution titled “Happiness: Towards a Holistic Approach to Development”.

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

photo credit: PhotosbyKim.com

It was co-sponsored by 68 countries and stated:

Happiness is a fundamental human goal and universal aspiration; that GDP by its nature does not reflect the goal; that unsustainable patterns of production and consumption impede sustainable development; and that a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach is needed to promote sustainability, eradicate poverty, and enhance wellbeing and profound happiness.

If you’re starting a company, it is a shortsighted endeavor if you’re only targeting profit and not valuing people and the planet. From our point of view, there is simply no more room in this world for companies that do not operate on at least a triple (people, planet and profit) bottom line philosophy. We also wonder whether such progress will be enough. Perhaps other even more radical models like Permaculture are necessary for us to create the dramatic shift needed for happy people and a healthy planet.

Let’s just summarize all this with a statement from our ”More Than Just Green“ page on Plywerk.com.

The RepoRT of The high-LeveL MeeTing

on WellBeing and Happiness

Defining a

neW economic paradigm

2 apRiL 2012 · UniTeD naTions heaDqUaRTeRs · new YoRk

“At Plywerk we recognize and appreciate the gift of our existence. We see it as our responsibility to treat all people with dignity and respect and to be stewards of the planet during our time here. We assess the life-cycle of every aspect of our business to make ecologically and socially responsible choices.”

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

photo credit: PhotosbyKim.com

www.plywerk.com/green

Playfulness

Ok, last but certainly not least. Work is work, it can be a slog. It has taken our CEO the best part of seven years of collecting information and another 12+ hours of collaborative drafting and editing to get this Manifesto into something that we can stand by. So where’s the play in this work? Well it’s work, but it’s satisfying. It’s also as “playful” as we want it to be.

An intentional community in SE Portland has a focus on having the kids do work that helps them both learn and play. They referred to it as “plerk” (a combination of “play” and “work”). That idea of the fun and enjoyment found in learning and a job well done is something that really speaks to us. We plerk hard to make our plerk more plerkful. :)

Quick DisclaimerThe name Plywerk has NOTHING to do with the word plerk. Plywerk is simply the “ply” from plywood and “werk” is the Dutch (our CEO’s native language) spelling of work. We even have a whole website dedicated to this fact. Sorry to disappoint, but happy with the coincidence. You may also be interested in knowing that Plywerk is both singular and plural, and that we also have another whole website dedicated to that as well.

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

Email Subject: New Low Sodium Plywerk!

We really wanted to have ‘New Gluten Free Plywerk’ as the subject line but spam filters hate the word ‘free’ so we settled for low sodium. It was a tough compromise and we fought intensely about it. Here are some other subject lines we rejected:

• Plywerk Nuevo Sin Gluten• Worst Plywerk Newsletter of 2010!• I’m Afraid of Microwave Ovens• Plywerk Bullet Points Killed in Horrible Gardening Accident• My friend hates italics

For another fine example of plerk give us a ring during plerk hours and ask to be put on hold.Thanks for reading.

In striving for a plerkful plerkplace we embrace fun and laughter at our plerkplace whenever possible. They say that (besides having a standing desk at work) laughter will make you live longer. So why not make business a little more fun. How? Well, we’ll say our goodbyes and leave you with an introduction to one of the Plywerk newsletters to illustrate one way in which we like to plerk:

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.

The legendary Techno Kitten. Found in the Plywerk.com footer.

For more information, visit: www.plywerk.com

or contact us at:info@plywerk.com

+1(855).759.9375+1 (503).616.3055

318 SE Main St. #400Portland, OR 97214

Because you can’t put a jpeg on your wall.

®

So, there you have it, what Plywerk believes to be of worth. This does not mean we are perfect, and there is some tension between different values at times, but everyday we do our best to embody these values and move closer and closer to the ideal they represent.

Cheers,

A Closing Thought

Plywerk Manifesto - © 2015 Plywerk Inc.