Friday, November 28, 2008

The Green Festival Website Needs More Social Media Elements

I wanted to followup my previous with some ideas about how the Green Festival website could advance the role it plays in the festival.

I think first it is important to emphasize that this is a really powerful part of the current community building, especially around issues of sustainability, green economics and much more.

Having said this the presence of the festival in the multiple blogging and social network platforms could be greatly increased and would also help cultivate lasting conversations and communities beyond the short 2-day event.

Some ideas include:

1) Create profiles, groups and pages in different social networks. Actively participate and keep your groups and profiles cultivated. Some examples of social networks could include Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Myspace and many more.

2) Create locally specific resources that are community created and accessed via bulletin boards or forums. These could also link directly into existing networks in the communities that are hosting the festival.

3) Set-up a live web-cast of the talks for those in other parts of the world and within the USA that don't live in the bigger cities and struggle to access these types of conversations.

4) Work at linking up with similar festivals around the world and create a single networked space were ideas can be transfered, conversations can be shared and ultimately a large global community could flower. There may be something out there already that this could link into actively.

I am sure there are other ideas that could be used here and I feel that there could really be some active community based marketing that would help get a larger story out and perhaps lead to gatherings occuring at and during the festivals that in them selves would be powerful catalysts for change and community growing.

San Francisco Green Festival

I have been meaning to share my thoughts on the recent San Francisco Green Festival that happened in the first week of November. I have been to several of the festivals, my first time as a volunteer about 5 years ago. The last few times as a "helper" for my friends over at Blue Lotus Blankets.

As with all festivals that you go to some years are better than other years. And I believe this was true for this festival too. I saw some really great talks from John Adams, Kevin Danaher and Riane Eisler. All three were very powerful and uplifting talks - dealing with paradigm shifts the green economy and new economics. Relevant and important conversations.

My concern came from walking around the festival and looking at the products that were being sold and the type of "atmosphere" that was being created. I have to admit that it felt like being in a glorified mall. Seriously - there were free samples of "green" chips in throwaway bags, "green" herbal drinks in plastic bottles, "green" health bars in wrappers, "green" beer being served in plastic bottles, stacks of magazines and newspapers.

In the end it felt like a version of a green consumer hell. This is not to takeaway from the really interesting and dynamic businesses and products that were being offered.

My point is that moving from these inspiring talks into the larger halls was like moving from the future back into the past. I was at pains to see the truly green economy, to see a community being developed or to see products that were offering innovative solutions rather then "alternatives" to the crappier product that you didn't really need to begin with.

Don't get me wrong I think that there is much gained from this movement towards greening businesses. I am a big advocate of it in many ways. What the festival really felt like it was saying is, hey listen to us talk, feel good, then go ahead and pick up some chips in a single use bag and head over to drink some beer out of those non-recyclable plastic beer glasses.

Co-op America says that they screen all of the businesses that join the festival and that this is a pretty stringent screening. But I failed to see what the message was that they were trying to convey via the businesses that they allowed to participate. I don't see how selling stuff solves the problem of over-consumption and environmental destruction. I have heard the argument of, "well, if they are going to buy a bed then wouldn't you prefer they bought a "green" bed?" My response is of course. But, a bed and a health bar, a magazine or a bottle of some herbal drink are very different things.

It forces the question of what is it that we NEED to life a decent life? What is SUFFICIENT?

The point is that if every person on the planet got up every day and purchased a "green" health bar or packet of chips that were packaged in a throwaway wrapper we would still be in huge trouble - no matter how green the product was, there are still finite resources. This is not sustainable.

This is not green, and the Green Festival has lost its focus and is not helping to change and redirect consumption behaviour but rather to offer people the opportunity to sustain the type of consumerist life styles that Americans, and many other people around the world have become accustomed to.

I am saddened by this development and I hope that the next festivals are more geared towards promoting community and a focus on what is a sufficient life style verse a sustained lifestyle.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Posts in the Making

I have been meaning to post on the blog for a while. I have been busy but have several posts lining up - some partly written others much more conceptual

1) My thoughts on the green festival in SF
2) Value - Use vs Exchange in Adam Smith
3) My latest ideas on my grad school research - alternative/complementary currencies and the use of mobile technology
4) Cre8 my wife's incredibly successful fundraiser http://www.messymonkeyarts.com/cre8

Perhaps couple more. I hope to write some of these next week when my life will slow down a bit. I have been doing lots of job hunting and networking, helping to organize events for Kelly, doing some research for others and just generally catching up with the non-virtual world.