by aleida, on May 4th, 2009On Thursday, Kevin and I attended the Green Business Camp UnConference at the Greenv Sustainable Center in South San Francisco. It was the first time either of us attended an event based on that format. There was no set agenda for what we, the attendees, were going to talk about or learn that day. Every attendee was encouraged to submit a “speaking proposal” which was to be judged on the spot by everyone else. We all received seven blue sticker dots, which we could place on any of the proposals we liked. The proposals were taped along a wall, and it was a mob scene of judging. There was no order to the scene, but the energy was palpable. When voting was complete, the proposals with the most stickers were arranged along another wall, now with assigned locations. In the end, the group had four 45-minute session tracks, with five topic choices per time slot. So we all walked in with nothing, but after one hour we had a day packed with activity.
In every session, you could tell that people were actively exploring strategies for both doing less bad, and for doing good. Unlike so many conferences purporting to be about “going green,” here everyone already knew what they wanted to accomplish. There were no questions about what it means to go green. Undoubtedly, that means something a bit different to everyone, but it was rather impressive that the attendees knew what that meant for them, and were at the UnConference to learn about what others were doing and see what relationships could be established for symbiotic development. One of our favorite activities came when everyone received a brown paper bag (made with recycled content, naturally!) and was instructed to write on the bag one thing they really needed to move forward with their goal/business/project/dream. The bags were then placed on tables, and throughout the day we could all come back to those tables and drop in our contact information if we could contribute to a bag’s request. This was a phenomenal activity that guaranteed sustained interaction between attendees. For my part, I’m always looking to grow our green materials library, so I walked away with some suggestions on companies that are either developing or might know of people who are developing new green products for use in architecture/design. We didn’t stay for the wine reception afterward, but overall, it was a really great event. Impressive, too, was the fact that Paul Hawken gave the welcome address – an unequivocally inspirational, ad lib talk about the challenges businesses will face in order to survive as economically viable entities. There is no set answer, of course, for survivability, but with people so passionate about their work, there is no doubt that success stories will abound.
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