Sheepless

I founded Sheepless in 2009 as a place to celebrate the inspiring small business owners I interact with everyday. We champion the Community Makers — small businesses who make our communities more sustainable, more accessible, more creative, and more fun. Through interviews and photographs, a series of video profiles, and providing resources and making connections, the project engages with a growing interest in cultivating local economies, understanding where goods come from, and nourishing our natural resources.

Focusing on the drive and personality of the mission-driven entrepreneur, Sheepless brings to light the similarities between one’s efforts to connect farmers with consumers, and another’s goal to provide educational resources to the underserved, or to support themselves through artistic and creative pursuits.

These pioneering activists and entrepreneurs are proving we can replace profit-driven corporate models with startups founded on convictions, without ignoring a very real bottom line. Self-sustaining businesses that create secure employment while having a positive social impact, and a small environmental one, are changing the world.

Visit Sheepless.org

Video produced by Scott Ballum. Shot and edited by Brian Hedden and Bryan Sykora. Music by the tUnE-yArDs.

The Consume®econnection Project

The Consume®econnection Project was a year-long effort to meet the laborers and craftspeople who made anything and everything I bought - before I bought it.

Why? My work frequently pushed others for deliberate, considered, personal, buying habits. On the event of my 30th birthday, I launched into an experiment devised to put my money where my mouth was: become aware of my own dependence on blind consumption, and gain an understanding of the people and processes involved in making commodities available to me.

My intention was not necessarily to change what I purchased, but to change my level of awareness and participation in the acts. I was interested in knowing where a large, mass-produced object came from as I was in meeting local entrepreneurs and artists. It was about understanding the labor and encountering the people that made my life, my consumer life anyway, possible. Read more about the project. See the blog.

Video: Speaking about the project at the Interesting:NY Conference Sep 21, 2008

Jan 13, 1009: Interview on NPR's All Things Considered


By Rebecca Sheir. Read the transcript on NPR.org

CONSUME®EVOLUTION Magazine

At a time when independent retailers are forced to compete with global corporations, and information is disseminated instantaneously and internationally, it is increasingly easy to be influenced by a good sales pitch or the latest trends.

CONSUME®EVOLUTION looks at the effects mass-marketing and globalization have on local industry, our buying habits, and our culture – highlighting the importance of our awareness and the immediacy of making personal critical choices.

View Issue 1 (May 2005) in Flash or view as PDF

Created by Scott Ballum with Jeffrey Metzner.