Ecopreneurist

There are tons of green conferences these days, and to be sure lots of great information to be learned at them, people to connect with, ideas to germinate, funding to be sought. And yet, something’s missing.

Don’t get me wrong, magic has been made and minds blown with just Powerpoint and a good presentation. I don’t know about you, but how many times do you find yourself thinking, “I have something to add to what they’re saying,” or “Gah! I wish they’d do a session on *this* topic!”

Green Business Camp, done for the first time a few weeks back in South San Francisco at the Green V Sustainable Center, a creative reinvention of a former car dealership site, may be just the antidote you’re seeking. It’s what they call an “unconference.” As in the opposite of all the trappings of your usual conference. Read the rest of this entry »

We are ecstatic about sponsoring 3rd Whale’s Greenest Person on the Planet contest for 2009 .  Entry consists of submitting your carbon foot print information and also describing why you are the greenest person on the planet.  The contest launches on Earth Day (April 22nd).  Deadline to submit is May 22nd.

Those entries get narrowed down to 10 candidates in each region.  Those candidates are then asked to submit videos about their green lifestyle.  3rd Whale’s audience votes on the semi-finals.  From there, a second round of votes determines the Greenest Person on the Planet.

You may have already heard of 3rd Whale if you have an iPhone.  3rd Whale’s mobile application for the Apple iPhone lets you power up your green lifestyle. With a shake of the phone you can find the nearest vegetarian restaurant, fair trade store, yoga center or bicycle shop.  It is like the magic 8 ball but for greening up your lifestyle.

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Planning a business trip on a tight carbon budget? Need an Earth Day gift for your employees?

Well, then you might be interested in a unique Earth Day marketing opportunity offered by  nextstop.com, a new travel community where users provide short recommendations of places they like, and can create guides with a theme. Nextstop has put together a contest called “Traveling Green”, and it’s open for entries until April 21 (the day before Earth Day).

The process is pretty simple and fun. Basically, it calls for creative minds to put together a guide with your favorite “green” travel destinations. The prize is a $50 VISA Gift Card for Earth Day.

Now can you possibly pass up the offer to get your creative juices flowing and line yourself up for an eco-friendly reward all at the same time?

Check out the contest rules at: http://bit.ly/3nuSix

EcoTuesday, the sustainable business leaders networking forum, is celebrating it’s two-year anniversary this Tuesday, Feb. 24^th at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. The featured speaker is Dave Rochlin, CEO of Climate Path and former COO of TransFair USA. Climate Path is applying transparency principles to carbon markets.

From it’s start in San Francisco in 2007, EcoTuesday has grown to a multi-city network of convenings, now including Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Washington DC.

Growth formula:

Unique format + thought leaders + passion

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Jill, you are an artist, designer and crafter. Tell us about what you do and what you create.

First and foremost I create detailed native nature drawings. With these, I create an eponymous line of paper goods and fabric accessories. I’ve been an “indie-craftpreneur” since 2001, selling my goods on my retail website and in boutiques worldwide. I also create murals, take on custom art commissions, and the occasional graphic design project for like-minded businesses. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just returned to Southern California from The Shorty Awards, held Wednesday night in New York to honor “The best producers of short content in 2008”, in other words, the best of Twitter. A combination of lost luggage, including my computer power cord, (I know, I know) and a nasty cold has both delayed my writing this post and given me some time to collect my thoughts.

My expectations attending this, the first annual awards show were low, but I was surprised how professional and well attended the awards turned out to be. Though, my account @greenmoms was the winner in the #green category, we weren’t the only green company at the awards. @pawluxury, an entrepreneurial, organic dog food and accessories company won in the #business category. I wrote about how they successfully use social media at A Green Social Media Story – Paw Luxury.

I first started using Twitter, as @mcmilker, in 2007, slowly at first and then, as I discovered the power of this short messaging service, with more frequency. I’ve added feeds from blogs for which I write and wrote about the Top 10 in Green You Should follow on Twitter. This list, of course tends to be a bit fluid, so I suppose I’ll be writing about it again. Read the rest of this entry »

In it’s second year, the Opportunity Green conference, hosted at UCLA, was a big success. Kudos to Karen Solomon and her team! This year was amplified in many ways over last, including major brand name sponsors, media partners and speakers. It was a very progressive sustainability event; mingling movement building, innovation and collaborative culture.

Opportunity Green:

Having attended Opportunity Green last year, I believe the conference has some very unique qualities. As opposed to other sustainability conferences, Opportunity Green’s DNA is L.A.  – A little more style and flash, as well as a concentration on the business upside in going green.

From a crowd perspective, you also see more students involved, which is very valuable. As the dominant industries of L.A., Media and celebrities are well represented as well. I like that Opportunity Green also includes Clean Tech and Venture Capital as core concentration areas. If you are an entrepreneur, this is probably the best conference for exploring the potential to rapidly move from idea to wide scale market penetration.

Manifesto:

Opportunity Green issued a manifesto that resonated with me, framed in the power of coming together. The manifesto speaks to Opportunity Green serving a movement to transform business for good; advancing change and market transformation. It goes on to establish itself as a gathering to create a collaborative, positive culture of change with a focus on innovation and inspiration. An experience acting as catalyst for sustainable, profitable and responsible business. I encourage other corporations to follow suit and position themselves as participating in the movement for positive change. Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe the title should instead read “How to Fail at ‘Greening’ Your Business”. Often times companies seem to approach “green” or eco-friendly as just another product attribute that can simply be added to packaging or website to reach the “green” consumer segment. In the rush to be eco-friendly, and due to the typical structure of many organizations, the marketing team will take the lead of the greening effort and, in the interest of time & energy, they’ll create a brilliant plan to communicate “green” to a target consumer group, but no internal alignment.

The sustainability and marketing strategies of a typical entrepreneur are often times based on the same model – the shotgun approach. Typically, entrepreneurs start to think about marketing after at least 6 months of hitting the pavement, and then sustainability appears as part of a new “marketing plan” or is seen as some kind of charitable giving / community relations campaign. Sustainable business is neither part of a marketing campaign nor a community relations effort. Neither is it about shifting revenue, but rather how revenue is generated.

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This is a guest post from Glenn Croston, author of “75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make a Difference”,

At the Opportunity Green conference held at UCLA November 8-9, many themes related to the growth and changing direction of the green business movement were discussed by the great variety of green leaders present.

One particularly interesting theme was about the mixed feelings some green entrepreneurs have about going big with their business.

Everybody is eager for success, but green entrepreneurs often fear that scaling up products to reach the masses requires compromises that would negate the benefit of what they are doing and hurt the brand in the long run.

Most green products today are still niche products, perhaps as a result of this fear. At the conference Josh Dorfman, author of “The Lazy Environmentalist”, said that contrary to what many are saying, “Green has not gone mainstream.” Some products are starting to change this, like the Prius and Green Works cleaning products from Clorox, but even these successes represent a small percentage of the overall market. Organic food is big, but it’s still only about 3% of the food we eat.

Do products have to be small to be green? Do they sacrifice something in going big? Read the rest of this entry »

AIGA Chicago is organizing an event called Incite / Insight 2008: Responsible Design 101, November 20 in Chicago that addresses the significance of green design. AIGA, the professional association for design, is the oldest and largest professional membership organization for graphic & communications design. The organization has been at the forefront of promoting the shift to sustainable design practices through their Center for Sustainable Design.

Green business owners are realizing that green marketing and design is a business asset that’s here to stay as momentum in the green movement builds. The graphic design industry is responding by opening more and more dialogues about sustainability and greening their practices. In this vein, Incite / Insight 2008 in Chicago focuses on the importance of green design. Read the rest of this entry »