Sustainable Planet Film Festival Inspires, Educates About Every Day Green Living
Last weekend I attended the 4th annual Sustainable Planet Film Festival, a day-long event in Manhattan that includes a handful of short films and expert speakers discussing various elements of environmental sustainability. We’ve collectively come a long way over the past decade or so in thinking more long-term about our everyday living practices; how we can use less, re-use more and just in general be more conscious of our consumption patterns. We’ve got a lot further to go though, and more than anything, the festival showed me how much; not in a negative, critical way though. Quite the opposite – I came away from the day very inspired and energized about what’s happening out there and what more we can, and must, do.
The festival is the brainchild of Pamela Peeters, a Belgian-born environmental economist and consultant who’s been living in the U.S. for 10 years and been a driving force for sustainability. I met Pamela last month at a Green Drinks NYC event where she was pushing her festival so passionately, I wanted to be part of it.
It’s hard to wrap my head around all that I learned during the day. One speaker, Alberto Gonzalez of Gusto Organics, a 100 percent organic restaurant in NYC, mentioned that in 1920, Americans spent 24 percent of their money on food. The number in 2005 was less than 10 percent and is probably even less today. It’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world; we now have more money to spend on things like education, travel, entertainment and HDTVs. But, “cheap food is an illusion,” he said. “We pay for it in our health.” Yeah, just take a look at the national diabetes rates.
Sustainable nutritionist Meredith Sobel talked about how important it is to eat organic foods, decrease our meat intake, and avoid highly processed food overall. “Stay away from any foods that have more than five ingredients,” she recommended. I’ve started counting some labels and this will clearly be a challenge. I am now definitely more likely to spend $4 on a package of organic berries than $2.50 for the regular kind though. Meredith by the way, was one of several people who acknowledged Al Gore and his film An Inconvenient Truth as being a huge catalyst for the latest wave of environmental action.
All the food talk also got me to commit to the Meatless Monday campaign. Name says it all: no animal consumption every Monday. The goal of the non-profit is to reduce our meat production by 15 percent, which will have a huge impact on our overall carbon footprint because of how much more energy is required to produce meat compared to other foods. You should try it out – if I can do it, you can too.
Another key theme for the day was around architecture and buildings. This is just an enormous percentage of our global energy needs, and thus waste. Two of the films showcased some very impressive and innovative techniques for creating more sustainable buildings. Two near LaunchSquad’s NY office, 4 Times Square download lipstick dvd and the under-construction One Bryant Park, are prime examples of this.
One other critical area worth mentioning is in city planning and development. Dr. Jaime Lerner, former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, talked about how is city has created a far more sustainable infrastructure for its citizens. One impressive stat: over 2 million daily rides on public transport in a region of only 3 million people (85% of people use it). That’s the same as the far larger Sao Paolo.
The Sustainable Planet Film Festival will take its show next to Miami in October and then to Los Angeles, as well as internationally to places like Australia, Mexico and Brazil. It’s yet another small example of people, one at a time, coming together and trying innovative, risky things to help change the world.
We’re Still About Community
Millions of pages have probably been written about one core human experience: building and fostering community. Before we had fancy communication mediums, we built fires and drew stories on cave walls. With the birth of radio and television, we congregated around our favorite programs and shows. Community was generated in our aptly-named ‘living’ rooms, around our radio and television sets. I can still recall coming to school following the latest episode of Dawson’s Creek: discussion time was deemed necessary. At the time, the show fueled the community that my girlfriends and I created.
Then came the birth of social networking–a virtual way for us to build a community beyond our home, and our hometown. Suddenly, we were able to discuss television shows, music, movies, books and relationships with people that we only sort of vaguely knew. We called them our ‘friends,’ but really they were only acquaintances, and distant ones at that. Through Friendster, MySpace and Facebook, we were able to share our local experiences with people that may have cared about them were able to provide feedback.
Most recently, our community building experience has forged into new territory: the process of building communities with people that we do not know at all. People that live very different lives from us, in states and countries that we may never visit. The process isn’t new: some of us may recall the phenomenon of pen pals–correspondence relationships with people that we had never met or knew. Pen pal chains were often created in grade school and junior high, when random people would become connected through their interests and begin corresponding. The idea of exchanging happenings in your daily lives, sharing book and movie recommendations and venting about problems with friends and relatives with a stranger is still just as prevalent today, if not more so.
These days, niche social networks allow us to make connections with people strictly on the basis of our interests, and community building mediums have opened our eyes to groups of people that are often beyond closed doors. In the case of Iran’s current revolution, the community of protesters is weaving a powerful web, both literally and figuratively, with the outside world.
Our mediums may have changed, but our inherent need for building a community with other people–whether they’re family, friends, or strangers, remains ever the same.
A Start-Up for the Ages
“I walk on untrodden ground.”
-George Washington, 1789
It wasn’t until I was on the flight back from a week of soaking up the history and sites of Revolutionary America that I realized how applicable Washington’s milieu is to our own work here at LaunchSquad.
I spent my vacation last week between Boston and Philadelphia, two capitals of the American colonies, walking the Battle Road from Lexington to Concord, climbing Bunker Hill, discovering Old North Church, and touring – in reverence – Independence Hall’s modest rows of oak desks and quilled ink bottles. I enjoyed Thomas Jefferson’s actual brew recipe at the City Tavern and strolled along the cobblestone streets of then-patrician Beacon Hill; stopped at just about every landmark and read any historical marking plaque I could find. From Paul Revere to Nathanael Greene and John Adams, some might remember these people and places from social studies class; more nerdy types from books such as 1776. The events and phrases in our historical vernacular — “one if by land, two if by sea” and “don’t shoot ‘til you see the whites of their eyes” — still buzz in our loose memory of facts surrounding America’s revolution…the same way we kinda remember how that League of Nations thing was related to Woodrow Wilson. Memorized milestones from schooling, helpful for the occasional pub trivia night.
But I love history. And while I will never be able to learn it all, the things I have time to read and digest in my otherwise busy life help inform the present moment with a wider context, no matter what the issue or topic.
In describing the rag-tag militia of the colonies’ Continental Army, historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough compares it with that of the British, which he frequently points out was too big and too rigid for its own good. Take the Siege of Boston: while the city lay in an awkward and stagnant state of tension, the British regulars were bogged down with hierarchy and formality. Even word of important American military plans would rarely make it through the onion layers of Red-Coat brass, resulting in a detrimental lack of preparation and many missed opportunities.
In contrast, any Continental soldier could schedule an appointment with any level of leadership, including commanding General George Washington himself. No idea was considered stupid and very few went without at least a discussion. After all, no one had done this whole independence-seeking thing before. For example, the need for ammunition and arms had become absolutely desperate as the winter of 1775 neared. The colonies had thousands of men ready for imminent battle, but no gunpowder or cannon with which to fight it. One lower-ranking officer (and former book merchant) came up with the crazy idea to travel 300 miles in the dead of winter to retrieve leftover cannons, arms, and gunpowder lying unused at far-off Fort Ticonderoga. The only things standing in the way were a huge lake, a major river, and the Berkshire Mountains packed with snow. Hair-brained and reliant on several fortitudinous conditions? Yes. But Washington said, “Go for it.” Two months later, that man — Henry Knox — returned safely. The arms and artillery were then used to successfully drive the British from Boston entirely.
Throughout the battles and uncertainty – in Philadelphia and other cities across the eastern seaboard – founding fathers met to essentially whiteboard ideas, synthesize options, compromise, debate, and eventually shape the way we would operate our government for the rest of eternity. Indeed, even as the wording and content of our law has changed, the way we go about these changes mirrors the process of democratic dialectic they used more than two hundred years ago in, say, tiny Congress Hall.
On the flight back I was doing my best to return my mind and focus from the hallowed walls of liberty to the web of niche enterprise technology, Twitter and digital media. Seemed like a stretch at first, but then I thought: America was a start-up. The values it takes to start something — flexibility, creativity, vision and perseverance (among others) — are the same qualities we seek in our clients and the stories we help them tell. It’s about starting something new, growing it towards a vision, and keeping an open mind along the way…Because you just never know when a Henry Knox will come along and transform the future with one simple ground-swelling idea.
The ground is untrodden, but that’s what makes for an exciting journey, and an innovative outcome.
Ride the Cloud Computing Wave
When a surfer catches a wave, he’s only looking out for himself. Each ride is solo, and the wave belongs to the person who gets to it first.
Google Wave, however, is entirely different. It is meant for everyone — for collaboration.
In case you haven’t been to the proverbial “beach” lately, here are the basics. Google Wave is a platform that will operate in real-time (you can opt out of this mode), and rather than relying on linear threads of emails, conversations (with one, or many others) will occur in ‘waves’ that take the shape of organic interactions. Plus, every application you’re currently using will be integrated into this ‘wave’ — not only will this be a time saver, but it is an innovative concept and challenges the way we have thought of Internet communication since the widespread adoptation of email and instant messaging services. Wave will eventually be open-source and allow developers to add infinite numbers of add-ons and community features to extend the software far beyond its creators’ original aspirations. Although still in its infancy, there are some people who are really excited about its potential to change the way we operate online.
While aspirational and definitely inspirational, there are a few hurdles in the way. People tend to be resistant to change, myself included. My favorite sandwich remains PB&J. I’ll never give up on Crest. And, I’ve had the same screen name since 6th grade. However, the biggest challenge for Wave will not be getting people to sign up, but to sign up AND participate, as the value of Wave lies in the content and participation of its users.
Are we ready to let go of email chains when we have just developed norms and expectations? Didn’t we just begin to understand how Twitter can be utilized?
In order to really maximize the potential of Wave, an absence of pre-conceived notions is needed. Email, IM, photo applications, video, Twitter, blog comments — everything will be different. Because the “medium is the message” (thanks, Marshall McLuhan), having this new platform will send shock waves into the way we think, act and create on the web. Wave is the first aggregation in what I suspect will become a flood of de-centralization on the Internet.
While this huge risk could easily sink, it could also swim, as long as people give it a chance; it will be what we make of it.
These potential trajectories and the challenge of a widespread adoption to Wave elicit questions on the bigger picture of cloud computing: What is it today, what it can be tomorrow and how we can prepare?
Here at LaunchSquad, we are all about the cloud. We use Google Docs, Yammer and Gmail. We believe in the power of SugarSync and Evernote. We collaborate, connect and create. We are web-based, on-the-go and all-access.
But how do we prepare for what is next?
We’ll have to keep an open mind and try to consider ideas and groups rather than linear conversations.
Take a deep breath and start paddling. The next Wave is all ours.
Balancing Optimism and Realism in the Tech Industry
It’s Internet Week in New York! For those people that don’t live in New York, what does that mean? It’s a week packed with panels, networking events, conferences and parties, all celebrating the Internet and technology in New York City.
This morning I attended a panel titled: “START ME UP. Investing in New York’s Digital Industry” that included Steve Brill (founder of Court TV, FlyClear and Journalism Online), Marc Cenedella (founder of TheLadders.com), Jalak Jobanputra (SVP of the NYC Investment Fund) and Andrew Cleland (executive director of Time Warner Investments).
One of the most interesting points made during the discussion — and most panelists agreed — was the difference between the Silicon Valley and New York technology industries. Steve Brill said that New York is more focused on the idea and Silicon Valley is more focused on the technology behind the idea. Marc Cenedella continued this thought by arguing that New Yorkers are constantly surrounded by media and have become “jaded” when it comes to new technology. New Yorkers are more skeptical and only get excited about something if it’s real and proven. Just because something is new, doesn’t mean it’s cool.
While these are all very general statements, they do parallel some trends in each of these geographic areas. New York has a lack of engineering talent since most of it is gobbled up by big banks and corporations with huge amounts of money to pay their salaries — hence the lack of focus on the technology. In California, most of the best engineers are in tech.
California has always been a hub of innovation, a forward-thinking state, and one that believes in the possibility of new things. While this mindset has led to some great developments in the Golden State, the bad has also reared its ugly head quite a bit too (web 1.0 bubble, housing crisis, current fiscal situation, etc.). New York, on the other hand, takes a much more conservative and critical approach to new ideas and industries. If the New York Post is any indication, there’s no time or tolerance for fluff and ineptitude. But, perhaps this has also stymied the technology industry here, preventing successful ideas and companies from ever reaching their potential.
This was a general, yet seemingly accurate take on the technology industries from our respective coasts. It’s hard not to imagine what it would be like if a happy medium could be found between these two — concentrated innovation with a better appropriation of engineering resources, less funding money wasted and a more modest level of “stupid optimism” as Steve Brill put it.
Who knows, maybe somewhere in the middle of the United States, they have found that medium — Austin, Texas comes to mind.
The Changing Face of Local TV News
No one following the media industry these days needs to be reminded about the struggles of local newspapers. From the shuttering of The Rocky Mountain News to the threatened shutdown of The Boston Globe by The New York Times Company, the future of the local daily remains in doubt.
But have you noticed the shakeup going on with local broadcast news as well? The local news used to be all about connecting with the personalities on the air. It was all about loyalty. You watched because you related to certain anchors and reporters like they were your neighbors. The personalities that drew the best ratings would command the best salaries, and the stations would pay them to keep the audience tuning in.
However, just like in the print media, economic realities are forcing changes in the broadcast world as well. The 6pm news, traditionally a staple of the American family, just isn’t as significant anymore. Audiences and revenue are down as more people turn to the Internet as their source for news. The on- air personalities that used to be the main attraction for a local affiliate are becoming displaced by cheaper talent, as stations look to cut costs. This is especially true when it comes to how local news stations are covering sports.
Growing up in Boston, Bob Lobel was my guy. He was the legendary face of the Boston sports scene as anchor and sports director at WBZ-TV for almost 30 years. He was relatable and entertaining – He was like listening to your buddy tell you what was going on in the sports world. Lobel was also well-known for using sarcastic catch phrases like, “Why can’t we get players like that?” when any former player from a Boston team is shown making a big play for his new team.
Last year, the station bought out his contract as part of a round of layoffs, and for me, it felt like a childhood friend was leaving town. At the time, I didn’t see foresee that it was part of a larger trend, but it was really just the beginning. In March 2009, New York affiliate WNBC let go of Sports Anchor Len Berman after 20 years on the job, as the station cut its sports department from three reporters down to one. Plus, earlier this year Fox affiliate KVVU in Las Vegas scrapped sports as part of its local news altogether.
It makes sense really. While Lobel and Berman added credibility to the newscast, the immense success of ESPN and other all-sports Web sites mean that local sports anchors rarely deliver breaking news anymore. They are relegated to providing that night’s highlights and box scores. Couldn’t anyone, including the news anchors do that?
While I understand the changes that are happening in the local news landscape, I still see value in getting the local perspective. It’s more relevant and provides a certain color that can’t be delivered through a national lense. What does the future hold? I think more local papers will fade away, while other companies, like our client, Village Voice Media will thrive by adapting to the changing times.
And while local broadcast stations search for the right programming mix that will translate into a successful news program – resulting in higher ratings and increased ad revenue – the fact remains that I miss tuning into personalities like Lobel whenever I visit Boston.
Well, at least I have The Boston Globe – for now.