About ARTS & FARCES LLC

By Michael Fraase

Monday, 01 February 1993 05:28PM CST

Section: Announcements

ARTS & FARCES LLCSaint Paul, Minnesota-based ARTS & FARCES LLC is a multifaceted communications and professional services business specializing in information design and architecture, publishing (print, electronic, and online), and general business and technology consulting.

In continuous operation since 1979, the firm’s clients range from one-person businesses and successful startups to major design firms and Fortune 100 companies.

We are currently focusing on, and accepting very limited engagements in, the following areas:

  • Internet, Intranet, Extranet information architecture
  • Internet, Intranet, Extranet content creation and management
  • Print publication content creation and management
  • Software and hardware product documentation
  • Publication consulting
  • IT services

Team

Michael Fraase (President): After having produced more than twenty computer books and hundreds of articles for various trade and consumer publishers, Michael Fraase wrote the first Internet books designed specifically for Macintosh and MS-Windows users (Internet Tour Guide series, Ventana Press 1993 - 1994). Fraase’s internationally best selling Internet Tour Guide series demystified using the Internet for non-technical readers while predicting the rush to cyberspace. He has appeared as a featured speaker at various conferences and has been a guest on nationally syndicated radio programs. Most recently he has been working as Utne magazine‘s online managing editor and webmaster.

Karen Fraase (Vice President): Karen C. Fraase co-founded ARTS & FARCES in the fall of 1979 and returned to an active role in the business—after a two-year sabbatical—in 1997.

Vision

A plurality of voices and ideas informing citizens to the point of participation protects and revitalizes democracy. Traditional media have rapidly consolidated, resulting in a handful of international corporate conglomerates with their own agendas predominantly determining what we see, hear, and read. The corporate media model currently rewards only largess, waste, greed, and the status-quo, resulting in the suppression of diverse voices.

Parallel to the corporate consolidation of media comes the rise of the Internet as a citizens’ tool for locating, interacting with, and creating information we deem important to ourselves, our values, and our communities.

ARTS & FARCES subscribes to the economic golden rule set forth by Paul Hawken in The Ecology of Commerce:

“Leave the world a better place than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment, make amends if you do.”

We encourage our stakeholders to follow this creed.

We refuse to believe that largess, waste, and greed are requirements to be a major force in the new millennium and request that you remind us and others of the economic golden rule. Remind all of us that every endeavor—individual, organizational, or commercial—has an obligation to serve the public interest.

Mission

ARTS & FARCES develops publishing models and business services that work to serve the greatest number. The citizenry’s need to know, to participate, and to grow are sometimes eclipsed by the ever-ascending needs of corporate and government bodies.

ARTS & FARCES presents titles for both time-stressed professionals and everyday people, striving to make complex subjects understandable and accessible.

We are in business to create the highest quality publications—print, electronic, and online—we possibly can while operating the company on a fiscally sound basis centered on steady-state sustainability. We are determined to provide a fair economic return to our principals and to include an overarching concern for the community—both local and global—in our day-to-day decisions.

We actively choose to operate the company in a manner that earnestly recognizes the pivotal role that business plays in our society. We strive to discover and create innovative ways to improve the quality and sustainability of life in our local and global communities.

Recognizing that we have a responsibility to the community that makes the existence of our business possible, we are proud of our progressive, nonpartisan social agenda and integrate that agenda into our day-to-day business activities.

Principals’ Curriculum Vitae

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