What a whirlwind life and business can be. Here’s a quick snapshot of our last month or so…
Coachella was a great time, working with The Do LaB there…though the event still is far from the sustainable festival it could (and should) be. Lightning In A Bottle on the other hand, is the pinnacle of what green festivals are meant to be, and we were proud to have so many of our team members be so intimately involved with its production, again.
This year’s event highlights for me, were mostly the guest speakers that I booked to speak in the Temple of Consciousness/Healing dome space. Some of the highlights included talks from the Algalita Crew, a dot-com panel with some other great, green gurus Creative Citizen CEO Scott Badenoch, Jenn Breckenridge (web marketing consultant for the Greenloop, managing editor for eConsciousMarket.com, and more), Ben Clayton (Gliving, WattsUp America, etc.), and moderated by our very own Ryan Wartena.
Speaking of whom, Ryan recently joined one of the most exciting clean and green tech companies, iCel® Systems, Inc. as their Chief Technology Officer! Congratulations to him on his continued personal and professional path.
In regards to our company’s development, we’ve been exploring a number of different paths: from a deeper look into green data center development, services, etc. to getting our company LEED’s certified, to finding some new, key members to help actualize some of these options. We’re also looking into opening an east coast office, due to a continued request for our services on the greater eastern seaboard. Should you or someone you know be interested in joining either of coastal-based teams, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
As for our solar powered web hosting intentions, they’ve fallen much farther behind schedule then we’d hoped to be with this service offering and have now put any sort of public launch of this on hold, due to manpower restraints. And in that time, other companies have manifested similar services as we too had sought to make available.
Lastly, in area’s more personally related, my fiance and I recently found out we’re expecting…which has obviously triggered a whole new perspective on what it means to be living green and such. So much so that you’ll probably be seeing a whole new range of services here in the not so distant future. 
We’ve launched our new website design today.
If you catch any bugs or glitches, please let us know about them.
Also, Brent and I will be out of town for the next week working at Coachella with The Do LaB. We will not be able to respond to any emails until the 28th. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Marlene Martinez from Public Affairs with Caltrans approached us this week about doing a table at their Earth Day event roughly two weeks from now.
So, we’ll be doing a table, hosted by Ryan Wartena, along with Freya Bardell of GreenMeme. Come on out and say hi if your in the neighborhood! Details on the event below…
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California Department of Transportation
District 7 – Los Angeles & Ventura Counties
100 South Main Street
Los Angeles, California 90012
http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist07
EARTH DAY EVENT
WHO: California Department of Transportation
WHAT: Earth Day - “A Day of Information”
WHAT: Come share information concerning one or multiple ways your company is environmentally improving your practices and/or emissions
WHEN: April 22, 2008, 10:00 a.m.
WHERE: Caltrans Building Plaza at 100 South Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
BACKGROUND: The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is celebrating Earth Day by planting trees in our plaza and inviting other environmentally conscious businesses and departments to share information and ideas
COST: No charge to participants or the public
PHONE: 213-897-3656
Electronics in the United States should have a UL (Underwriters Laboratory) tag on them somewhere, in Europe, it’s the CE tag.
Guess how much electricity your computer uses and then take a look at the tag and see what the maximum power consumption is.
Power is measured in Watts, W (Watts, Volts and Amperes are always capitalized since they are named after people). Sometimes, on battery-powered devices, the power is not stated, but the current (in Amperes or Amps) and the potential (in Volts) will be. In this case, you multiply the current (in Amperes or Amps) with the potential to get the maximum amount of instantaneous power your device uses (in Watts). Typically, cell phones use 3 to 5 Watts and laptops use 35 to 50 Watts. Coffee makers are typically 900 Watts. Wow.
When you use power for a duration of time, you can determine how much energy has been used. If you use your cell phone at a power level of 5 Watts for 1 hour then you have used 5 Watthours (Wh) of energy. A battery’s capacity is how much energy it holds.
Take a quick gander and count up the amount of power you are using right now. You may have to catch the refridgerator if its running. You can also split that up between your housemates. Honestly, it will take some real effort to determine how much power you use at any moment, there is a lot of power that was put into making the products in front of you. This is okay, as long as we are aware that our power and energy usage and continue to clarify where it comes from and educate our selves to the direct and embedded energies that fuel our lifes.
Right now, my direct power use is about 100 Watts (two computers and a cell phone) and its daytime so I don’t need to worry about lighting and the alarm clock by the bed is on but I don’t see it. I’m sure Im not counting everything, but I’m getting closer.
In 1998 the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology issued its vision for each person to live under 2000-Watts, the current average in the United States is 12,000 Watts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Watt_society
There is a new design paradigm emerging, one that replaced the brute-force method of getting it done. In the past, adding more power or energy meant getting more functionality (more gas give more speed). Now, the elegant design challenge is to get more functionality with less energy (go farther with a hybrid-electric car with regeneative charging from breaking). Where does this lead? All the functionality with no to minimal energy. This is beauty.
And, this is enegy awareness and it spreads. Electrical power is political power. Know your power and energy.
We’re pleased to announce the addition of one of our green consulting team members Ryan Wartena, here to our blog team.
He joined our open source collective a few months back and has quickly become a core voice in our operations. His wealth of knowledge spans a great many topics: sacred geometry to PV and battery systems design, to business development to so much more. He’s really all around quite a bit of fun too, which we feel is an important part of the creative and professional processes…why else would or should you do something if it doesn’t bring you some measure of joy?
Anyway, we welcome him here to our blog and look forward to his future posts!
Green Gurus is on the prowl for some new tech-driven team members.
Our team is comprised of a wide-range of talents from sustainable energy systems designers, feature film miniature and mechanical engineers, sustainable architects, Second Life programmers, and a host of other skills. Our projects range from multi-thousand person events, to on-air consulting, to feature films, to eCommerce, to manufacturing, and much, much more.
We’re well connected and very active in the Los Angeles underground modern tribal scene (cliche yes, but it fits the part), utilizing a vast range of science, technologies and metaphysics.
Here are our current task priorities:
1. Our site: GreenGurus.net
We’ve got to nail down a site design fitting of our name and team’s skills. We’ll have a much better conversion rate in closing new clients if we get this locked down.
2. Our keyword domains
We’ve got around 500 domains, most of them green-themed: We’re looking into monetizing a bunch, selling some and building out others.
3. Green eCommerce platform
One of our other companies, Distinctivefabric.com has an extensive, proprietary code base that we’re looking to overhaul into a green eCommerce platform and then license and/or sell.
4. Solar powered web hosting
We’re working towards our own solar powered data center chain, but until we’ve raised the money to put that together, we’ll be running on a dedicated server through AISO.net, configuration with them happening right now, should be up and running within the next week.
If any of these projects appeal to you and you think you’d like to explore a potential partnership with us to help manifest any of these items, then please let us know. We’re only able to pay through profit-sharing, performance-based pay and/or sweat equity right now. Assuming we get our site up to snuff, we can really start creating some exciting and meaningful compensation opportunities.
We continue to receive steadily increasing inquiries, have got some great natural page ranking on Google, especially under “green consulting” search terms, our team member’s individual projects and companies continue to complement our own here, and much more.
You are adept in any of these programs/languages/CMS:
PHP, MySQL, Python, Perl, Ruby, RoR, Ajax, Java/JavaScript, XML/XHTML, Drupal/Joomla/etc., WordPress (including installs), Apache/Debian, Photoshop/The Gimp, Illustrator, Quark, InDesign, AutoCad, Maya, Flash, ActionScripting, API interfacing, version control systems, Unix, ProTools, Logic, Ableton Live, and any other language or science you’re competent with in producing results.
You have experience from school and/or on-the-job training, can provide live and close to or fully completed projects online, have a working/proficient understanding of iterative, agile and atomic coding techniques/philosophies, and are otherwise a bad-ass online.
Preferably: you work in open source, off a Mac or Linux box, but have some working understanding of PC to get around should the need arise; live within the US, ideally w/in CA > Los Angeles…if not, possibilities still exist. Telecommunicating okay.
Please submit any relative content, links, resumes, or other media format…just be creative, inventive, entrepreneurial, and socially/eco-conscious in your approach to contacting us.
Also, see our ad on Craigslist.
Shena, our Chief Green Officer, is scheduled to speak at the upcoming South By Southwest festival.
She’ll be speaking on the “It’s Not Easy Being Green” panel:
Room 12AB
Saturday, March 15th
12:00 pm - 1:15 pm
Here’s the panel description:
“Music business initiatives in the environmental field are gaining traction, most notably in the touring and recording fields. Great numbers of initiatives and solutions are offered, more than any one company can process. How does one choose which efforts to undertake?”
She’ll be joining Kelly Cox (Integrated Mktg, NRDC) and Neal Turley (Ringmaster, Who Is Guy Grand), who’ll be moderating the panel.
If you’re in the area or are already planning to go, be sure to check it out and say hi if you can.
Wish her luck!
We just wrapped a second day of green consulting for Mario Van Peebles and his family, along with the help of Ed Begley, Jr. From left-to-right: Shena, Elizabeth, Mario, Me, Ed, Brent, and Ryan:
We were hired by Hour One productions to come in and consult for Mario and his family for a green home makeover and today we got to get down with him, his family, Ed and his daughter and really have some fun with each other while showing them some quick and easy (along with a few major technical points concerning electric use and meter reading, which the kids just loved!), steps to go green as a family.
Brent, Elizabeth, Ryan, Shena, and I rolled out in her biodiesel Jeep Liberty from our base of operations at the Sugar Shack (an intentional urban community house going green too), arriving on site at 1pm sharp. Our team met the complete production team and Van Peebles family, then completed our assessment of the house, prior to shooting everyone’s first scenes.
The day went by very quickly as everyone had a lot of fun. Elizabeth and Shena shot some scenes with the boys, girls and Mario’s wife, while Brent and Ryan went through the electronics with the boys in their room, followed by a fun meter-reading session with them outside.
Then it was off to shoot our arrival scene with Ed, walking up the street with him and his daughter and our team. This was followed by our initial arrival into the house and meeting with Mario, then quickly dispersing off into our respective area’s of expertise throughout the house.
We shot some other various bits and pieces and were able to get nearly every one completed before the latest round of rough, west coast weather hit again.
And that was that: At a wee bit past 5pm, we packed up our gear, said our goodbyes and returned back to HQ for a homemade team dinner (along with our household’s weekly meeting). It was a great day of fun and learning for everyone involved and we look forward to the show airing on HDTV.
We’ll keep you posted on this as more details come our way, along with some promo clips, once the show launches.
Best of luck to Mario and family as they continue the greening of their beautiful home!
A few of of us attended the monthly Green Drinks in Culver City last night.
We were joined by a few others including Michael Moss (MossCadora), and some of Ryan and Elizabeth’s friends and colleagues including OneLove, Shiko and Cris Wagner. The gathering was held at the Living Green and ran from 7pm on.
I met several interesting people including Rony Alcalay of Hemptations, who sounds to be doing a great job with his hemp clothing line. Also in attendance were:
- Karen Feinberg, one of Living Green’s sales reps
- Andrew Mannle, senior editor at Arcwire
- Matt Diamond, president of Diamond Lane Entertainment
- Barent Roth, industrial design-principal at Grow-Design
-each and every one was a pleasure to speak with.
We look forward to attending many a Green Drinks in the coming weeks and months. Feel free to drop us a line if you’d like to meet up with any of us sometime.
This past week has been a very productive and exciting week for us.
We’ve officially added three new team members (who I’ll announce shortly below), made the most comprehensive set of site updates since we first launched, met with a great, new potential client that’s got some amazing insight into some sorely neglected elements to the current, green wave, scheduled our solar powered, green web hosting server setup (along with a meet and greet of our data center providers), and a slew of other details.
Before I go any further, let me first announce our new team members.
First up is Dr. Ryan Wartena, serving as electrochemical engineer and energy systems designer. Here’s all his relative metadata:
B.S. in Chemical Engineering from UCSD with minors in philosophy and psychology; Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in Chemical Engineering with a minor in International Information Business Technology Management, Post-Docs at the Naval Research Laboratory (’01 – ‘03, Advanced Electrochemical Materials Section) and MIT (’04 – ‘07, Department of Material Science and Engineering) developing small battery technologies (3D architectures, bio-materials-based electrodes), energy systems, carbon nanotube structures and nanoparticle assembly techniques.
Co-founded and co-directed the Burn Clean Project that helped create the pathways to bring biodiesel generators and fuel to the Burning Man festival in ’06 and ’07 and successfully advocated for the use of biodiesel fuel in generator sets owned by commercial vendors. Co-organized the Burn Clean Project’s BIOBUS 2007 shuttle between Reno Airport and Black Rock City, NV. Assisted in the development of MIT’s solar house (Solar 7) entry into the 2007 Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. Co-designed MIT’s 1.102 Spring 2007 course on building applied energy generators in the forms of wind turbines, a rowing machine, an exercise bike, a pedal station and a merry-go-round. Co-Developer of Growing Architecture (’97 to Present) Currently designing integrated PV applications as VP of E,R & D at Nano Sol Systems, Inc.
Next is Brent Heyning, our technical energy specialist and builder. All his bits and pieces include:
University of California, Los Angeles CA, Production Design, Art Direction, ’93 – ‘96;
BA Fine Arts: Engineering, Theatre - Technical Arts, University of Memphis, ’85 – ‘92
Technical Director - Toyshoppe Productions, Los Angeles, CA ’04 - Present; Power/stages at LightningInABottle.org, Sound/power at Black Rock City, OYA Energy installation (with Ryan Wartena, Elizabeth Marley, Evonne Heynig), technical robots and craft for film/tv, custom LED design for clients such as Disneyland and the CW Network, television appearances include Monster House (2005) & voice talent for shorts & commercials.
And last but far from least, Evonne Heyning: Green Fairy, Interactive Artist, Writer and Producer. Bringing new worlds together:
B.A., Religion/Chaplaincy, Business, Communication Arts, Eastern Nazarene College, Quincy, MA, September ’93 – May ‘98
Post-fire cleanup & sustainability planning for Madre Grande (’07), OYA/Green Man Pavilion, Many international bridge building & resourcing projects with Amoration/International Humanities Center (’04 – ‘07), Founded/organized the first AltWheels festival in New England (’03), Artist/Teacher at Apeiron Foundation (building a sustainable, all-natural ecocenter, 2001-2). Television appearances as an artist for Blind Date, Monster House & Black Rock City documentaries (’05). Frequent speaker on the use of virtual worlds for international gatherings, saving the cost of carbon by interactively working together.
So, our team is becoming even more well-rounded and with its collective, multi-disciplinary experience is eager to dive into its next project. Throughout the course of the last several weeks we’ve been engaging in some very exciting discussions pertaining to the services we currently offer and those we plan to offer.
In the meantime, site work continues with minor content changes, though we’ve just recently hired an experienced programmer to help start tackling various projects, as the company’s finances allow. Current recent updates include the addition of a new page for green, getting started steps that offers several levels of detailed suggestions, questionnaires and even an introduction to the art and science of biomimicry, along with some about and services updates.
Lastly, earlier this past week I met with another highly committed socially conscious entrepreneur to discuss our mutual companies and see how we can best serve each other’s needs. More on this as things develop…
