Networking Event: Residential Design using Sustainable Building Practices

When: Wednesday February 1st (11:30am)
Speaker: Rebecca Ivans Amato
Location: 1650 Mountain Boulevard Oakland, CA 94611 (Montclair Women’s Cultural Center)

Fee: $20 (Includes Lunch Catering by Hugh Groman Catering)

This 10 Minute Presentation will be part of the 90 Minute Business Growth Network Chapter Luncheon. The presentation will focus on an architect’s personal residential remodel with creative and sustainable design solutions.

Come see how a local Oakland Architect doubled the square footage of her home near Lake Merritt and turned a traditional 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom Craftsman house into a Modern 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom home. Working with a tight budget, green building principles were incorporated throughout with creative uses for remnants and scraps, second hand tiles and recycled materials. Use of solar panels, radiant floors and updated MEP systems throughout enhances the long term maintenance and sustainability of the project.

Productivity 2.0 Means...

www.zenhabits.com has boiled down some of the best principals for reframing the way you work. It's all about working smarter rather than harder. That sounds easy in principal, but application requires commitment and being accountable.

1. Don’t Crank - Work With Deeper Focus.

Old School: Crank It Out. The old school of productivity taught us how to crank out the tasks. Each task is a widget that needs to be cranked, and the more we crank out, the better. Speed is important, and cranking out more tasks is the ultimate criteria. How many tasks can you finish in a day?

Productivity 2.0: Deep Focus. The new worker isn’t as obsessed with speed. He allows himself to slow down and work at a more leisurely pace. He clears away distractions and allows himself to focus on the task at hand. He gets passionate about important and exciting tasks and gets into Flow. This allows for a new kind of productivity — one where quality matters, where amazing things are produced at an intense rate, where there is a passion and satisfaction in completing a task.[more]

Navigating The Recession Sustainably

Slate's Daniel Gross opines on the rise of the hybrid in tough auto-markets and it brings to mind my own business model. How can I provide strategies that focus small business people on conservation and opportunity?

"...during recessions, discretionary products suffer while discount products and companies thrive, which is why Wal-Mart has been doing well. But at Toyota, hybrids have been doing well. In March, a month in which total sales fell 3.4 percent from March 2007, Toyota sold 31,552 hybrids, up 19 percent from the year before. Sales of Lexus light trucks rose slightly, powered by rising sales of hybrid SUVs, even as sales of Lexis sedans plummeted. In this down market, sales of high-end vehicles that convey only status are slumping, while sales of slightly less high-end vehicles that convey status and promise gas savings are booming..." [more]

New Money

New investors are changing the definition of good business and it includes conservation. Of course many of us already look at conservation as the heart of good practices, but the money people didn't always think this way.

Traditionally, economists thought consumption pushed trade forward. So the more people consumed the more value (wealth) would be created Globally. But what if transactions weren't pegged to consumption? Perhaps trading creates wealth and what people do with the goods afterwards should be tracked in terms of environmental impact instead of economic impact? What if we just keep on trading services and low-impact resources?

From this view, conservation is no longer the boogey-man of good business practices.

Money flowing into investments on route distant from Wall Street by ZDNet's Harry Fuller -- One Silicon Valley venture capital firm announced they’ll put a quarter-billion dollars into green tech. Runs counter to the frenzied state of Wall Street and the Federal Reserve where they think a bunch of bankers missing their annual bonuses is somehow a really important economic problem. Meanwhile, energy prices continue to rise and [...]

Collaborate & Create for Peace - Jan 26th 3pm

An awesome way to spend a rainy day. Come hang out in a SOMA loft on Saturday afternoon making Art for Peace. Bring a pal who likes Peace, Art, and hanging out in gorgeous lofts on rainy days.

Where:
81 Langton suite 13, San Francisco, CA [map]

When:
Saturday, January 26, 3:00pm

Contact:
createpeaceproject@gmail.com
www.createpeaceproject.org
415-385-4065

Come participate in an afternoon of artistic exploration as we collaborate in the creation of magical art.

As a first C.P.P. event of the year, we are asking for a small contribution at the door. Support the development of projects and the continued growth of this organization with $20.

A bit about C&C:

Collaborate & Create is one collabroative arts expereince being offered by the C.P.P. It is an opportunity for a group of people to share in the creative experience of making art together. One of the themes is to create beauty out of a recycled or otherwise value-less "canvas". I invite you to bring an item to share with the group.

things that work well include funky pieces of wood, ply, cool doors, platters or trays, old art canvas....look around, notice what's on the streets, see what you might find in the closet, and grab it!

***
There will be food. Please communicate with me if you are interested in contributing something.

art supplies will be provided, though contributions are certainly welcome. (NO OIL PIANT, please)

there is no requirement to bring anything, just bring your loving self and your willingness to step into the unknown.

**dress accordingly

* please come and express your self

12 Design principles For Permaculture

David Holmgren has developed 12 design principles for permaculture:

1. observe and interact
2. catch and store energy
3. obtain a yield
4. apply self-regulation and accept feedback
5. use and value renewable resources and services
6. produce no waste
7. design from patterns to details
8. integrate rather than segregate
9. use small and slow solutions
10. use and value diversity
11. use edges and value the marginal
12. creatively use and respond to change

Will Market Forces Stop Global Warming?

Jim Heskett, from Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge website opened up a conversation about Global Warming from a business & markets perspective. Some respondents proposed a mix of forces from government and private interests would be required to get things moving. Others claimed that we will keep on our current path until we burn off the last low-hanging hydrocarbon.

"...Green Is the New Red, White, and Blue. Whether or not you believe that humans are causing global warming or that it is occurring at all is beside the point..." [more]

Defining Sustainable

The Montague Institute has a list of tools for triple bottom reporting. It's dense reading, as taxonomy tends to be, but developing truly effective tracking methods is at the heart of corporate oversight practices. Since biology doesn't fudge the number, neither can we...