Invest in a clutter-free desk

Sick of your 9-to-5 job? Want to prioritize your day by what you think is important? Feel like working in your pajamas? There are endless reasons why Americans want to work from home. According to WorldatWork, a human resource company that specializes in employee retention, 12.6 million Americans work from home at least one day a week.

According to Moira Allen, editor of WritingWorld.com, workspace is the key to efficiency at home. "I found that the most important feature in my home office was a layout that gave me a sense of pleasure in 'coming to work,'" she explained. "If your office is awkward, or dark, or poorly laid out, or just plain ugly, it can be a deterrent." She recommends quality furniture and a comfortable chair.

Function is also important. If you can dedicate an entire room to working, you'll be much more able to block out the world and focus on your work. As an added bonus, you can also write a home office off on your taxes. If this isn't possible, try for a dedicated section. Make your workspace off-limits to family members, and set up a system to inform them when you are working and not to be disturbed.

Finally, have the tools of the trade readily available. "Things that you use less often can be stored in some other part of the house," Allen said. "But you don't want to have to jump up and run to a closet every time you need to load paper in the printer. Eventually you'll sort out those things that need to be close at hand, and those that don't."

This article originally appeared in Boston NOW on November 15, 2007.

Pair wine with holiday fare

The date of your holiday party has arrived, and you need to find a seating arrangment for 25 of your friends and relatives in a dining room that a realtor would call "intimate." You feel stressed, and yes, you could use a drink with dinner.

There are plenty of alcoholic offerings this holiday season that will compliment a variety of traditional holiday fare.

From the vine
Martignetti Liquor in Boston's North End offers an excellent array of wines to accompany your turkey dinner, including Chalone Vineyard's Pinot Noir. This dark red, priced reasonably at $15.99, offers a "beautiful fruit flavor," says Bob Goodwin, Martignetti's resident wine expert, with a "soft, very nice finish."

If you're serving ham, Goodwin recommends McLaren Vale's Hermit Crab Viognier Marsanne. This Australian blend enjoyed a 90-out-of-100 rating from Spectator Magazine, and costing under $20, Goodwin called it "an elegant wine at a reasonable price."

Treats on tap
For those of us more partial to drinks of the grain-and-hops variety, turn to Boston's local beers. Harpoon's Winter Warmer is an excellent holiday brew. It pairs well with pies as well as poultry, and somehow manages to taste just like Christmas.

Harpoon's Munich Dark is also delicious. This Munchen Dunkel style beer has a chocolaty flavor with a slightly bitter, hoppy finish that is reminiscent of a porter, but a bit more crisp.

Don't forget the Boston Beer Company's Samuel Adams Winter Lager. This modern day classic offers a strong but manageable cinnamon and ginger taste, with an underlying citrus flavor uncommon to winter beers.

Originally published in Boston NOW on November 12, 2007.

Go fall with fiscus

Leaves are falling off of the trees, and in no time flat, the multicolored view from your windows will transform into multiple shades of grey. With depressing seasonal color changes en route, now might be a good time to start considering house plants.

Although some plants are difficult to grow in the cold season, you have numerous options for your indoor garden, the simplest including the rubber plant. The Ficus elastica is easy to maintain, but make sure to care for and prune it, because it can grow up to ten feet tall if you're not paying attention.

Ivy is another good bet. Those frosty windows can be cheered up immensely with lush, green leaves and vines growing around them. These plants also grow fast, though, so be sure to pay attention.

A more challenging plant is the poinsettia. This holiday favorite is still relatively easy to maintain, but temperature is key. Although these beautiful red blossoms are associated with Christmas, temperatures below 60 degrees is bad news.

These simple plants, like many others, can be easily maintained by watering regularly and giving minimum sunlight. Keeping a temperate climate at home is important, so make sure not to have your heat shut off. The end result is a fresher air, and a fresher looking home.

Originally published in Boston NOW on October 25, 2007.

Rebuilding Plan Draws Criticism

An artist's rendition of the proposed construction. Image supplied by Forte, which is responsible for the design.

JAMAICA PLAIN — A community meeting to discuss the proposed construction of 615-619 Centre St. drew a dozen neighbors to hear and voice their opinions of the building’s additions.

The single-story building, which was victimized by arson last summer, will maintain its current footprint, but will add a second story if owner Christ J. Stamatos gets what he wants.

Some neighbors expressed their concerns at the meeting, held at Stamatos’s Century 21 office at 660 Centre St., last Wednesday, ranging from blocking the sun to adversely affecting their property values.

Perhaps most impacted by the proposed construction would be Michael Tang, the new owner of 609 Centre St., Unit 2, who would have a side of his condominium, which currently enjoys large amounts of natural light, come within three feet of a wall, should the second floor be added. Stamatos hopes to reach a compromise with Tang, in which both parties will be "reasonably unhappy."

Neighbors of the building on Centre Street and Pond Street, which is behind the building, seemed aggravated that Stamatos approached the meeting without much wiggle room.

"I think people are generally supportive of redeveloping this block," explained Laura Vanderleeden of 2 Pond St. to the property owner, "but I’m not hearing a ton of flexibility from you." Another neighbor echoed the sentiment, saying, "It’s interesting that the zoning laws [prohibit this type of construction], because they seem pretty logical to me." Zoning regulations for the property currently allow for a two-story building with only 3,500 square feet of floor space. Further, any new additions on the right side of the building must be at least ten feet away from the neighboring building. The first floor, which is grandfathered into its location, is only three feet from the neighboring building. The proposed structure would maintain the outside of the building as is but would change the interior of the first floor, in addition to the second floor, which would serve as extended office space for Stamatos’s Century 21 office. The office had resided in the building, along with a clothing store and nail salon, before the fire. Permission from the city’s zoning board is required, due to the proposed building’s proximity to its neighbors as well as its square footage being increased to 48 square feet. Stamatos, who owns numerous other properties in the neighborhood, can still go ahead with construction, if the plan is not approved, but will have to comply to zoning requirements. He worries that if he complies with those requirements, the building will be aesthetically unappealing while the newly created space won’t be cost-effective.

"It will cost me just as much to add 2,400 square feet as it would to add 1,100," he said on his plan’s behalf. "I’d rather put up a nice looking building." Stamatos and his architect, Edward P. Forte, are scheduled to meet with the Boston Zoning Board in November, and in the meantime, will continue to discuss possibilities with neighbors as well as the Jamaica Pond Association.

This article originally appeared in The Boston Bulletin on September 27, 2007.

Give Life To Your Bottles

Containers can be expensive, particularly glass ones. Regardless, people fork out loads of money on glassware made to look like spaghetti jars while filling their recycling bins with the real thing.

Instead, make a habit out of keeping those glass containers, like salsa jars and liquor bottles. You can use them throughout your house for storage, which will not only save you money, but it will also add some color to your kitchen compartments.

While some containers have paper labels that take some elbow grease and steel wool to remove, other bottles and jars, like those from higher-end products, have well designed labels, which are often painted onto the glass. This can look even better than a blank bottle because it gives you the opportunity to color coordinate the food being stored with its packaging, or to purposely clash colors to draw more attention to the objects.

Bottleneck containers, particularly wine bottles, are excellent for dry goods that you will need to pour, such as rice or popcorn kernels. Although it would be a good idea to invest in a funnel to put the foodstuff into the containers, the bottle's design allows for slow, easy to control release.

And you can alos use old, label-free bottles for serving purposes. A wine bottle is a classy container for water, and an old Jack Daniels bottle can shift the image of your discount barbeque sauce from cheap to chic in no time.

This story originally appeared in the Abode section of BostonNOW on September 6, 2007.

Spruce Up Your Porch

Sure, Greater Boston is one of the greenest urban areas in the country. The emerald necklace cuts through us like a botanic knife, and all but the most developed parts of town have at least a patch of grass on properties.

But there's always room for more, and in an age that begs for more eco-friendly and self-sufficient lifestyles, a porch garden can add a nice, economical touch to even the most run-down triple. Kristina Johnson of Allston has turned her porch into a garden oasis. With $100 and a lot of work, she purchased a dozen pots and plant containers to grow both food and decorative plants.

"Both me and [my boyfriend] have found ourselves getting up earlier, just to come out there, read and enjoy the garden," Johnson said.

And although she chose plants that require cultivating, plants requiring less effort, such as aloe and ficus trees, are relatively self-sufficient and can add a lot to the wood and iron flats just outside your door.

Garden Tip
Although fall is around the corner, you can still plan for next year. Also, with your entire garden in pots, you can survive the harshest part of the year - moving season.

This article originally appeared in The BostonNOW weekend edition, in the Adobe section.

There is a You in BzzAgent

Everything at the tips of your fingers. It has been the promise of the digital age, expanding the voice of the people – your voice – into virtually every facet of American life. But in this new, more people-powered world, can the market itself be democratized? And if so, can the democratization of the market turn a profit? David Balter certainly thinks so, and he’s got the company to prove it.

An internationally recognized founder of the Boston-based word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing firm BzzAgent, Balter has taken it upon himself to harness the cultural mainstay of insisting to your friends that you know what’s cool, and packaged it into a guerrilla advertising strategy that is more effective than a cartoon character on a lightbright.

Functioning under the understanding that 80% of consumers trust WOM more than any other kind of communication, Balter’s BzzAgent has enlisted thousands of volunteer agents to simply try some free stuff out. The catch – if you like it, you have to tell your friends – a small price to pay for free food, fragrances, and other fineries.

The Direction in a Directionless Youth

David Balter didn’t know what to do with himself when he grew up. To the contrary, his future plans as a child changed from day to day. “I went through all these random phases,” he recalled. “I remember one time I wanted to be a chef, and my parents bought me this crepe machine. I practiced making crepes for family events.” He also dabbled in hotel management, writing, and others. “As a kid I just wanted to do everything. I had a different passion every year.”

The whirlwind of goals led him somehow to a BA in psychology from Skidmore College, a period in his life that “most people try to forget,” and in entering the work force, he decided that he’d make for a career in cellular phone technology. Realizing that the industry might not be for him due to an acute lack of knowledge of anything phone related, he fell into an accounting job at an entertainment promotions firm, Retrofit. “Had I gotten an accounting job with a farming company, I probably would have become a farmer,” he joked, confessing that his involvement in Retrofit brought him into the marketing industry.

But marketing appeared to be a comfortable fit for Balter – he soon bought and eventually sold the company that employed him, moving onto the almost ill fated online entertainment marketer, 360 Merch. A beneficiary of the nineties online boom and a victim of its subsequent fall, 360 was a sinking ship when Balter unloaded it to a competitor. “I actually called up five competitors offering to sell, and four of them promptly hung up the phone on me, and the last one said ‘really, I’m coming right over.’ I really lucked out on that one.” Able to escape from the doomed vessel, Balter also earned his marketing sea legs, completing the first part of his unlikely journey to become a marketing pioneer.

Something to Buzz About

The idea for BzzAgent came to Balter at work one day when he was about thirty, when a co-worker came to his desk raving about some great book he’d just read. “It occurred to me then,” he said of his epiphany, “how much time people are willing to give to tell you about products that they like.”

With the basic idea of trying to harness WOM, such as he had experienced at work, the young entrepreneur approached five companies, attempting to sell his marketing idea. “They politely declined my offers,” he admitted. Undeterred, he built the initial website platform and went back to the same companies that had previously rejected his offer, proposing them the same service again – but this time for free. Most of them said no. One of them said yes – Penguin Publishing Group.

Taking on the Penguin book “The Frog King,” a novel about working in the book industry by then freshman author Adam Davies, Balter’s infant BzzAgent had its first crack at creating a –well – a buzz around a product. The book’s projected sales for the first year were met within two months of Balter’s marketing experiment. Balter was surprised by the immediate success, and more importantly, so were the folks at Penguin.

But “maybe you guys got lucky,” they told Balter. “Maybe it was just a good book. Do it again.” Rising to the challenge, Balter was given “The Art of Shen Ku,” a book that had flat-lined in sales. The ultimatum – if you can make it sell again, we’ll start paying you. And sell the book did. The previously bottoming out travelers book tripled in sales following Balter’s bzz. Penguin is now a regular BzzAgent customer.

Spreading the Word (of Mouth)

BzzAgent’s initial success with Penguin back in 2001 led to a foundation for the company to build. Currently harnessing the input of over 250,000 volunteer agents all over the country, and recently expanding into the United Kingdom, Balter’s company has worked with over 150 companies, including Energizer, Sun Microsystems, Ralph Lauren, Tabasco and many more, on over 350 campaigns.

But sometimes the buzz isn’t necessarily a good thing. While Balter insists that BzzAgent does create quite a stir about many products, assigning BzzAgents products is not a sure-fire way to make a product all the rage. “Sometimes the product doesn’t meet expectations for the agents, and they don’t activate. But that’s just part of the natural equation of what we do. You can’t make someone like a product.”

The negative buzz can be just as useful to companies as the positive though, in that they learn about a product’s shortcomings. “The client can learn where the products have issues, and why people aren’t talking about it.”

Past and Future

As the company grew, Balter’s role has changed. He’s thinking about the future, and promoting his vision. He still does much of the daily grind, though. “I feel that I have to know the pulse of how [BzzAgent] works.” He still reads reports, meets with clients and strategizes about new markets.

Often shocked about his company’s success, he also sees a bit of inevitability in what BzzAgent is doing. “It’s up to people now to define what companies do,” he declared. “It’s time for companies to pay attention to what people want and what they want to do.”

This article originally appeared at Experience.com, an online magazine about young entreprenuers and college students, on August 23, 2007.