I apologize for the posting hiatus. Things have been busy. I was traveling for work, getting engaged, yadda yadda here I am back in blogistan. These links will be quick, but I promise lots of good material later this week–including reflections on an alternative energy forum I’m attending today and Tuesday. So, without further excuses ado, your links:
- I can’t really summarize this post from a blog I’ve just started reading (LifeYears), but it’s an intriguing piece on “How problemsolvers can help save the world” by identifying leverage points for change and categorizing causes behind major problems. Like I said, hard to summarize but worth a read.
- Add this to the list of topics I keep meaning to blog about: techPresident asks, “Is the Obama Campaign a Model for Online Politics?” Their assessment very much coincides with my view that truly effective online campaigning is as much about (ultimately, MORE about) simplifying and empowering offline mobilization as it is about Facebook groups and email lists. Great post, and a good time to check in on the state of the campaigns.
- Lifehacker continues to be one of the most useful sites on the web, this time cluing us in on how to best store onions: in pantyhose.
Sorry, that’s all for now. But keep checking back all week–Jarred and I will have plenty of new material to keep you busy. Happy Monday.
Lesson 1: Share. In this case, 31 patents that electronics manufacturers Sony, IBM, Nokia, and Pitney Bowles have released free-commons style through the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Eco Patent Commons. The patents cover a wide variety of sustainable industry practices from packaging without stryofoam (using recycled cardboard instead) to recycling old cell phone parts and a bunch of other processes I can’t even begin to explain (but that I’m sure are great).
I’m intrigued by this collaboration, but it calls to mind another model for innovation in corporate environmental sustainability; the second model, I believe, holds more potential for large shared gains across sectors. In the fantastic new book Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High Impact Nonprofits, the authors describe Environmental Defense’s work alongside corporate behemoths like McDonald’s and FedEx to eliminate styrofoam packaging on Big Macs and replace 30,000 trucks in FedEx’s shipping fleet with hybrids within the next ten years. The trick? Environmental Defense retains rights (in lieu of consulting fees) to the patents they create with their corporate partners.
Continue reading ‘All I Need To Know [To Run My Company] I Learned In Kindergarden (?)’
Hey folks, welcome to week 2 of Tropophilia. Let’s start things off with a bang…or at least a few links for your Monday haze:
- Always reliable for intriguing and downright cool stuff, EcoGeek does not disappoint with this gem on a thirty floor vertical farm planned for completion in 2010 in Las Vegas. Imagine, urban agriculture that provides fresh produce (year round!) for hotel and restaurant kitchens all over the city that never sleeps. I would love to see some sort of breakdown in terms of carbon inputs–creating a tropical climate indoors in Las Vegas year round can’t come without pretty powerful lamps–but I’d offer a rough guess that this would be a gain (though certainly not ideal if powered by coal, for instance) over Peruvian asparagus and Dutch bell peppers in wintertime. Here’s a doozy of a quote from the article EcoGeek refrences; it should pique your interest to read the whole thing:
“Although the project initial cost is high at $200 million, with annual revenue of $25 million from [selling] produce and another $15 million from tourists the 30 story vertical farm would be about as profitable as a casino with operating expenses only being about $6 million a year.”
- This is a predictably optimistic review of the ways much of Europe far surpasses the US in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The author interns at a corporate sustainability consulting firm, so she has reason to view the European situation favorably. BUT, I think it’s an interesting think piece in terms of considering what she leaves out. I’m not an expert on Europe (I defer to le Jarred, senor Dan and ye ould Joel), but I’d be interested to hear about some downsides to the regulations mentioned in the article. I’m hopeful to see more CSR reporting and regulation here in the US, but I think we need to be honest about the tradeoffs and learn from any mistakes made across the pond.
- Following up on our political theme of last week, techPresident offers this provocative tidbit based on Yahoo data: are measures of online interest in candidates (searches for a candidate’s name, visits to a candidate’s site, etc) better predictors of votes than polls? The data is parsed out in a very unscientific fashion, and it might only be compelling based on coincidental correlation with the New Hampshire results that predicted Hillary’s advantage over Obama contrary to polls. Still, worth a ponder.
- It’s easy to forget as we live our fast-paced and technology-laced lives, but sometimes a handwritten thank you note is still the best way to make a good impression. lifehacker offers guidance.
That’s all for now. Please keep coming back, and we’ll keep the hits coming. If you’re intrigued by this whole “RSS thing” but don’t know where to start, email us [tropophilia (at) gmail (dot) com] and we’ll help you get started.
