THE LAB

That is a quote from a fairly high-level manager responsible for over $65 million in revenue and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in assets at a company that was once valued at nearly $1 billion.

Of course I would guess anyone reading this blog scoffs at this quote. It gives me pause to think about what is “green”. I would say, based on conversations with some well educated and very experienced managers, that the “green thing” largely means “the environment” and still smacks of Birkenstocks and patchouli oil.

A week or so ago I attended the Washington State Department of Commerce (the pending new name of CTED) Washington Energy Summit. The Gov spoke, as did the new head of the Department of Commerce – former Microsoft exec Rogers Weed – who organized the sold out show.

Who did I meet there? The usual suspects, of course. But I also met several union reps. How “green” is that?

It’s green jeans, is what it is. There is the obvious “green” job: developing solar panels. And then the not so obvious green job: installing them. And stringing electrical wire and raising transmission towers.

There are hundreds of millions of dollars headed for the State of Washington directly, and billions available federally on a competitive level. The conference was the beginning of a plan to funnel as much of that money into our state economy as possible.

Some of the money is specifically directed at, for example, low-income housing weatherization: someone has to go to the homes, audit the energy use, and offer services for making the homes “tighter” (more energy efficient). And by the way, that’s a tool belt job that requires steel-toed boots, not open-toed sandals.

So if you know one of these managment dopes who thinks green is “over” or “too expensive,” send them to the CTED site and show them all the money coming from the government designed to make our buildings, transportation, and economy more efficient. That puts our economy in the black, and might make them enviously green, when they are left holding a bag full of something brown.

I encountered this amazing website recently: an open source project that has set out to make Green Maps all over the world.

According to their website, “Green Map System promotes inclusive participation in sustainable community development worldwide, using mapmaking as our medium.” Their purpose is to:

• Strengthen local-global sustainability networks
• Expand the demand for healthier, greener choices
• Help successful initiatives spread to even more communities

Since the project began in 1995, the green mapping movement has spread to over 500 cities, towns and villages in 54 countries. While of course it’s not perfect, the great thing about open source is that it can be built upon. It’s a pretty amazing idea, don’t you think?

Check it out and see if there’s one in your area. And if not, you can start creating one!

Does this remind you of Walk Score a bit? Hmmm… Considering both are utilizing Google as a part of their platform, I wonder if someone might combine Green Map with Walk Score to create a more powerful  and usable community portrait…  Food for thought.

When I originally wrote about the Green Map system at One Green Generation, Founder and Director Wendy Brower informed me their full-featured Open Green Map System will be launching on June 5th.  Sounds like we can look forward to more innovation from this New York non-profit.

Have fun checking it out!

When former Fed. Chair Alan Greenspan and Senator Lindsay Grahm (R-SC) openly acknowledge the need to nationalize many of America’s largest banks, you know that the rules to the game have changed. If someone floated this idea 6 months ago, they’d instantly be branded a Communist and chased by lynch mob of NYSE traders.

Today, even the famous “October Bull” Warren Buffet declared that the “Economy has gone off a cliff”:

However, many of the former financial elite and chattering class have yet to confront the new realities. They are sleepwalking through a crisis.

In this CNBC video from Feb. 9th economists Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of “The Black Swan”) are mocked by CNBC correspondents. Nouriel and Nassim both have been predicting the credit crisis for years, and supposedly “Bill Gates stood in line for 4 hours” at Davos to hear them speak last month. But the CNBC commentators aren’t buying it. They want to hear their favorite stock picks and good bets for Q2 ‘09: like the whole crisis is just a hiccup, and let’s hurry-up and get back to old days of massive hedge-fund returns and de-regulated credit-default swaps.

It’s like watching a glory-starved former quarterback talk about his favorite tight-end passing play, forgetting he’s not in high school anymore.

*Note the “How is this actionable!?!” tizzy fit at 6:23.*

As many of us know, this ironic lack of macroeconomic acumen among the American financial punditry isn’t new. If you haven’t watched Jon Stewart’s hit-job on CNBC, please do, and then send it to your day-trading uncle.

Unfortunately, much of this could have been avoided had we not silenced voices of reason for the sake of absurd and unsustainable profits. If you listen to broadcast media – or heaven forbid, CNBC – they make the crisis seem much more complicated and harder to foresee than it really was. Jonathan Jarvis has a great visualization of the credit crisis, easily explaining its origins, motivations, and outcomes:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

While I’ll unpack more of these ideas in future posts, the point is that we as business people and citizens have to own the reality of our new economic climate. These problems will not be solved by a new marketing initiative, or a social media platform, or by simply closing stores and firing employees. There are no quick fixes, there is no getting back to normal. The rules of the game have changed – in many cases, for good.

We are experiencing a convergence of crises and market disruptions across all industries. To get us through this transformational moment, we must remember what has always made our institutions powerful and productive, whether government, business, or non profit. And that is Community.