As a Designer, Art Director, Creative Director, Project Manager, etc. that is.
Not to push the Eco Point so far that I create backlash make people destroy the Earth just to spite me and my treehugging compatriots, I did want to pass this site along.
101 Things Designers Can Do To Save The Earth
Great advice like, 30. Avoid using colored paper stock, 14. Use something besides vinyl for banners, 13. Support your local paper mill, 6. Think about shipping.
Maybe I can just tell the naysayers since Aquent sponsored it, it's a marketing ploy.
Would that make them feel happier?
I can never really tell about naysayers.
Thanks to everyone from all over the U.S. who called in to see how we were.
We're okay, I swear.
Funny, I was just getting ready to go to lunch when I heard Sharon say, "Oh, here it goes" and proceeded to feel the building roll back and forth and watch the lights swing.
We all just stood here for the minute that it happened.
Then we went to lunch.
With, apparently, everyone else in the city, who were already standing out on the street. (Prompting the discussion: Is that really the best place to be in an earthquake?)
Happily, Reuters is reporting, "no reports of injuries, major structural damage or power outages". Happy fact, considering it's a 5.8 magnitude earthquake right near LA that took place in the middle of a workday.
Regardless, if you're working through Aquent and need assistance, please feel free to call the office and someone cheerful will help you out.
Or me, I'll help you out.
And maybe it's a good time to review the Red Cross Earthquake Safety tips (which of course, would be better if they came in the form of a coloring book).
Image courtesy of USGS.
Of Bike to Work Week (in case you weren't bored of hearing about it already).
Best:
Seeing my friend Edmond walking through Hancock Park and being able to join him for mile or so.
Not the kind of nice surprise you get in your car!
Worst:
Two blocks after leaving Edmond, seeing 4 policemen jump out of their cars and drawing their guns on a Cadillac Escalade 30 feet from me. One yelling, in that anxious-in-the-moment voice, "Driver, get out of the car with your hands in the air!"
That's also not the kind of surprise you get in your car.
(But seriously, if you saw the latter in your car, you wouldn't be able to just kind of scoot along the side, hope the bullets didn't start flying, and quietly wheel away.)
Bike 2, Car 0?
It's HERE!
May 15, 2008 @ 4:05 PM
Bike to Work Day? Success!
A whopping 10% of the office biked in today. Woo hoo!
Okay, okay, it was just Rebecca and I, but there are only 20 people on-site today, so there you go.
Meri got as far as a couple blocks from her Glendale apartment before realizing her 13-mile ride unprepared would be folly.
I give her points for trying.
Rebecca gets extra points by having one of the coolest cruisers around - it's a lowrider, I'm telling you.
Not quite last year's turnout (Becky is working in our DC office and biking in, Andy is OC today, Emily's bike was stolen, and Kerry's housesitting), but it was getting a bit crowded around here with all those bikes (see below).
Congrats to everyone else who rode in, too!
Me, Not Me
May 14, 2008 @ 3:05 PM
So, I'm on Day 3 of biking to work and I do not yet look like this.
Which is good, because chains make me look fat.
The thing I'd forgotten about biking to work? That everyone you meet in the lobby of your building tells you, "Man, I wish I could bike to work." (Except the woman who told me, "I was going to say you look like an ad for
REI, then I saw your REI shorts".)
So, if you're looking to spend tomorrow as a superstar to everyone in your office lobby, which I know has been your secret wish all along, there's still time to sign up for prizes on the
MTA site and join in the fun.
This
bike routing map is probably the best tool you can use to map out your ride to work. (Seems to be working very slowly today
Let me know if you do? I may have an Aquent water bottle in it for you!
And bike that.
It's Bike to Work Week, home of Bike to Work Day and Bike to Work Month.
(Somewhere, I'm guessing, 2008 is Year of the Bike. Oh, yup. Here.)
Once again I'm going to try to fulfill my promise to ride to work (and back) all week.
If you've got a bike, you should at least try to work in Bike to Work Day, this Thursday.
Don't feel up to biking the 11 miles from your house to work? Hey, it's okay to Bus and Ride, where you put your bike on the front of the bus and ride part way - over 14 bus lines are free to bikers on Bike to Work Day
I drop my kids off at school (and there is no way around that without leaving my house at 6am), so for this week my bike is on my car for the 6 miles to the school. After dropping them off I bike the other 4 miles into work.
Cheating? Well, non-bikers might consider it cheating. But:
a) I'll be riding my bike 8 miles a day, which is technically biking (I think everyone would agree)
b) My car will be driven 40 fewer miles this week
c) I won't endanger everyone on the road by trying to balance two elementary school children on my bike while riding to their school
If you're at all concerned about the crazy LA traffic (and you should be) remember that you'll be taking "slow streets" instead of main thoroughfares to get to work. These streets are only "slow" to drivers who want to go 40mph, which is why drivers prefer the bigger streets. You'll be doing 10mph on a bike on streets long forgotten by car commuters.
You can check out the bike maps, guide to biking to work, sponsored pit stops, and more at the MTA Web site.
And if your Bike to Work Day is terrible, no worries, you can take your car for the other 239 (or so) days you'll go to work this year.
Let me know if you're joining in!
By now you've heard the expression Greenwashing, right? A marketing team decides they want to join the Eco Bandwagon (which, by the way, is getting pretty full) so they play up some "green" part of their company.
Say run two-page spreads during Earth Day featuring their regular products with eco tips interspersed throughout, as Macy's did.
Or build minimal impact LEED gas stations, as BP has done.
Many times marketers, it seems, confuse the playing field for their own company's profits. Not that I mind playing up the green part of a company and telling the world about it (I did it myself when we ran an FSC certified direct mail piece), but to pretend your entire company is out to save the planet to make a buck is about as honest as selling snake oil.
Look, snake oil salesmen weren't curing tuberculosis with their bogus medicine and BP sure isn't making a dent with their gas stations considering they make most of billions in gas and oil revenues.
So what's a company to do?
Patagonia may just have the answer.
Fast Company has a terrific article on Patagonia's challenge to 10 employees to "track five products from the design studio to the raw-materials stage to Patagonia's Nevada distribution center".
The company decided to post the employees findings, good and bad, on a microsite called The Footprint Chronicles. The site covers 10 products' journey to the factory and its energy consumption, CO2 emissions, waste generated, and distance traveled.
They then ask for the consumer's feedback and post the feedback on their Cleanest Line blog.
This is no bogus marketing ploy, this is honest-to-goodness "put your ethics where your wallet is" marketing.
Congrats to Patagonia for, again, raising the bar when it comes to corporate, and marketing, honesty.
As Advertising Age pointed out, big sales at the mall.
In a recent article by Natalie Zmuda (republished here at Commercial Alert), she asked, "Is Earth Day the New Christmas?"
"...marketers of all stripes are bombarding consumers with green promotions and products designed to get them to buy more products—some eco-friendly, some not so much. And while that message seems to contrast with the event’s intent, the oxymoron seems to have been lost on marketers jumping on the Earth Day bandwagon in record numbers. This year it seems that just about everyone has found a way to attach themselves to what is fast becoming a marketing holiday that barely resembles the grass-roots event founded in 1970."
As much as I'm never a fan of buying things to celebrate a national holiday (or even to celebrate the weekend, much to my wife's chagrin), I'm not sure I agree with Ms. Zmuda's point.
Americans are, by their very nature, consumers. I think Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is the only holiday I'm aware of that doesn't inspire Sit 'N Sleep to slash prices on affordable bedding. Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Presidents' Day have nothing to do with white sales, free shipping, or moving merchandise on the sidewalks, and yet there they are, staples of the modern American landscape. Is anyone surprised businesses have hopped on board to sell merchandise on Earth Day?
What's more, the merchandise they're moving actually is aligned with the day itself, which is more than I can say about buying a new washing machine Columbus Day. ("He hated filthy clothing, you know.")
If Home Depot decides to reduce prices and sell thousands, nay millions, of fluorescent light bulbs, water saving shower heads, and bottles of plant fertilizer made from worm casings instead of petroleum (I'm not joking) then wouldn't you say that's a good thing to promote?
So, instead of just picking up trash for one day out of the year, by buying one fluorescent bulb you could be using(according to ENERGY STAR) 75% less energy than a standard incandescent bulb. And that one bulb will last 10 times longer than the incandescent one.
If Home Depot and Lowes can help people in America pull that off, then I for one am all for it.
If you want to consume today, go ahead.
Make today the last day you buy bottled water and pick up a nice reusable water bottle.
Just make sure to bring your reusable bag to take home your purchase.
(A side note, how, exactly, does Advertising Age run an article about consumerism out of control? Is that or is that not like an adult film star asking the FCC for Howard Stern to tone it down?
How many times can I turn my lights out in 2008?
The answer: To reduce CO2 emissions, as many times as I have to, dang it. (We did it at home in October and March, and of course, every time we go to sleep.)
Saatchi and Saatchi LA just sent us along a missive (via thinkLA) that their office will be turning off their lights every day this week from 2 to 3pm and encouraging their customers and friends to do the same.
Well, Aquent LA and Aquent Orange County are hopping onboard, too.
And why not? It's not an incredibly complicated procedure.
(Though it does put a damper on our scheme to run searchlights in front of our building to help people find us, but hey, you've got to make sacrifices, right?)
Why this week, you ask?
In case you forgot, tomorrow is Earth Day and Car Free Day in LA.
Anyone else (besides me) biking to work? Don't forget routes are easier to find with the BikeMetro mapping system!
Photo by L. Marie
Or recycling, rather.
In the mid 90's, when my brother came back to the States after having lived in England a few years, he commented, "What the heck happened? I go away and now everyone's separating everything. Aluminum over here. Glass over there. What's going on with you people?!"
Apparently the Recycling Revolution had happened while he was abroad.
Which is funny to me, because I have no idea, exactly, when we all started separating our recyclables. Maybe it's like that Woody Allen story where everyone in the world wakes up one morning to discover they work at a dry cleaner's.
Either way, I'll happily separate my glass from my paper from my aluminum if it means not contributing to a Texas-sized plastic island floating somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. (My brother, by the way, did eventually come around.)
On the good news front, you can now dump more stuff than ever into your recycle bin in the City of Los Angeles. Like:
All Clean Styrofoam® (Cups, containers, and packaging such as Styrofoam egg shell cartons, Styrofoam block packaging, and Styrofoam clamshell packaging)
All Plastic Bags and All Film Bags (Grocery bags and dry cleaner bags, and all clean film plastic)
All Clean Plastics 1 Through 7 (The little number in the triangle on the cup, bag, etc.)
All Aluminum, Tin, Metal, and Bi-Metal Cans (Rinsed if possible, soda, juice, soup, vegetables, and pet food cans; pie tins; clean aluminum foils; empty paint and aerosol cans with plastic caps removed, and wire hangers)
All Clean Dry Paper (All unwanted mail, flyers, telephone books, note cards, newspaper, blueprints, magazines, file folders, paper bags, Post-it notes, catalogs; and all envelopes including those with windows)
All Cardboard Boxes and Chipboard (Cereal, tissue, dry food, frozen food, shoe, and detergent boxes; paper and toilet rolls; and corrugated boxes)
The whole list is here on their site.
See, aren't you excited too?
(Man, I need to start getting out on weekends...)
(Picture of unproofed sign courtesy of Steve Jenkins by way of Creative Commons.)
We call them baby steps, but are they really?
In January our Marketing deparment sent out a direct mail piece, as they are wont to do, a fairly funny board game based on the current complexity of Marketing efforts, called "Complextra".
The thing that impressed me, though, was the appearance of the Forest Stewardship Council (or FSC) logo on the piece itself. FSC is a non-profit "devoted to encouraging the responsible management of the world's forests with a commitment to environmentally sound business practices." It has blessings from Greenpeace, National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club and World Wildlife Fund.
Mary Anne, in our Marketing department, chose Mohawk's Chorus Art, 100# Silk Test which is 50% recycled and 15% post consumer waste for the run.
Just by this ONE choice in the production of the piece, according to Mohawk's environmental calculator:
- 37.56 trees were preserved for the future
- 108.47 lbs water-borne waste was not created
- 15,957 gal wastewater flow was saved
- 1,766 lbs solid waste was not generated
- 3,476 lbs net greenhouse gases prevented
- 26,608,400 BTUs energy was not consumed
(Values are calculated using the EPA's eGrid)
They may be baby steps, but I think those numbers a danged compelling.
And these were environmental savings reaped by the choice of just one or two key people.
See Mohawk's site (under envrionment) to see what the savings will be for any project by putting in pounds of paper used, recycled content, coated or not, and whether the product was made with windpower.
Congrats, Mary Anne!
Next step? Biodegradable squeezy balls!
Here's the question of the day:
"Who can trust the organic brand image if they all sell out?"
It's the one posed by Canada's Financial Post regarding Canada's own Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics' refusal to sell to bigger corporations or hedge fund managers.
They quote Mark Constantine, the brand's chief executive, commenting on the recent sale of Burt's Bees to Clorox: "You couldn't have a more dramatic difference in image from a chemical bleach company and a natural cosmetics company based on honey and bees."
They also point out other "natural" brands who have sold out in recent years, among them, Bare Escentuals and UK's Body Shop (to L'Oreal).
Of course, I'm just hitting the tip of the iceberg here, but I think that's the point: Now that you know Clorox owns Burt's Bees, will it affect whether you buy the product or not?
There are, I'm sure, myriad reasons that sale happened (outlined in the NY Times article), but does that change your perception when you actually choose which brand to buy? What if Clorox told you they'd stick by the original mission of the Burt's Bees company? (Their site states: "It's a great opportunity to help us better deliver against our mission of making truly natural personal products available to everyone, everywhere.")
Yes, it takes a lots and lots of money to expand a brand globally, but I'm not sure consumers who consider themselves "ethical" buyers really care how big their shampoo company gets.
But, then again, does a company like Estee Lauder really need them when they can turn a brand like Aveda into a global powerhouse?
I mean, does anyone remember when Ben & Jerry's ceased to be a little Vermont ice cream company?
I once heard an interview with eco-celebrity
Ed Begley, Jr. that he wasn't "green", he was just incredibly cheap.
On that Saving-Money-And-End-Up-Being-Green front, Tamara Krinsky came up with this idea:
Save Paper By Increasing Your Margins
Really.
Now, I'm just quoting the math here from her site (yes, you don't want me to bring out my math, do you? No, you don't...):
"According to a study done by the Penn State Green Destiny Council, reducing margins to .75" on all sides results in a total reduction of paper by 4.75%. This means that using these Efficient Margins on a ton of paper saves 19 reams of paper, which saves 1.14 trees.
So, you ask, what's the big deal? 1.14 trees don't seem like much of a tree-savings for a whole ton of paper.
So cynical! Check these numbers out - they add up fast:
In 2003, the U.S. consumed approx. 5.4 million tons of office paper. If everyone used Efficient Margins, every year we would save 6,156,000 trees.
"
She has the citations and math on her site for all that, plus a calculation on how much money you'll save by changing your margins.
Here's how to do it (once again, I'm stealing Tamara's stuff):
ON PCs:
On your WORD screen, go to FILE, then PAGE SET UP.
Click on the MARGINS tab, and fill in your desired settings. Then click on the DEFAULT button (it's on the bottom of the Margins tab). You'll be offered "Do you want to change the default settings for the page set up? This change will affect all new documents based on the normal template." Click YES.
ON MACs:
On your WORD screen, go to FORMAT, then DOCUMENT.
Once on DOCUMENT, click on MARGINS and you'll be able to fill in the settings for your margins.
The problem here is, of course, you'll have to do this for every new document you create until people start telling Microsoft to build in a Paper Saving Option into their next release of Microsoft Office.
But let's stop our bellyaching about what "someone else can do to solve our problems" and just do it every time we make a new document, shall we?
As Eldridge Cleaver once famously said, "You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem".
And no, I'm not calling Eldridge Cleaver cheap.
Or Green.
I've been passing by the new BP gas station on Olympic for about 6 months now and for the life of me I can't figure out what the company is doing.
Here's a gas station who rents (or owns) the billboards and bus stop surrounding it, promoting messages with flowers and messages like: "Put the petal to the metal", "A little better", and "Everyone into the carpool."
I bought gas at 7pm last night and it was a bit like an other-worldly experience. A woman in a BP shirt named Rita came over, introduced herself to me, asked my name, and wondered if she could answer any of my questions. I didn't ask any (because I was about to faint from overstimulation) but...
- What's up with the hip music pumping out of the speakers?
- Why is there a light show going on at your gas station?
- Why, on every monitor on every pump, is there a video talking about conserving water, gas, paper, and reducing emissions?
Lastly, what kind of gas station has really, really clean, modern bathrooms?
I've since come to learn that the whole station is a LEED certified project, which is a green building rating meaning that it meets certain criteria for "environmentally sustainable construction".
I understand the desire to create better buildings, encourage conservation, but isn't a funky, trendy, ultra-clean gas station an odd place to do it?
Daniel Gross over at Slate agreed, several years ago, that BP's environmental stand is a little crazy, as the world's seventh largest company "generates the overwhelming majority of its $160 billion in annual revenues from the oil and gas business."
So what's driving BP? Real concern for the environment, craving for the discerning consumer, or confusing bloggers who are in dire need of petroleum?
As green as some of us want to be, the hard fact is we're going to part with some cash for consumable gifts for others this holiday season.
There's good news, though. Every year the blog Treehugger runs a list of green gifts for their readers and this year they've tagged each item Light Green, Medium Green, or Heavy Green labels based on... well, they don't actually say what it's based on. But I do hope it's good science.
They've also grouped each by who you're giving to ("The Yoga Fiend", "The Jet Setter", "The Geek", "The Right Leaning NRA Member"... okay, I added that last one in.) and also included a healthy dose of charitable organizations to support.
And, like any good blog on a hot topic, it's chock full of dissenting opinions on the items listed. My favorite, as of today, "Treehugger continues to step farther into hypocricy everyday. Today's stumble: holiday consumerism, part III."
Guess who's not getting any figgy pudding?
There's a retelling of A Christmas Carol here somewhere.
Listed in three different posts:
TreeHugger's 2007 Gift Guide Part I
TreeHugger's 2007 Gift Guide Part II
TreeHugger's 2007 Gift Guide Part III
Bah humbugedly,
Tim
This is an interesting idea, to encourage energy conservation, a league of people is pushing for a Lights Out Night.
It was started in Australia, witnessed and borrowed by a San Franciscan, now adopted by a Los Angeles group promoting it here.
On October 20th (this Saturday) they're encouraging all of LA to turn off all non-essential lighting from 8 to 9pm and install one compact fluorescent light bulb.
Seems like a small effort you say?
Here's the conclusion drawn by Sydney's hour of no lights: "2.2 million people participated. Their one hour of lights
out meant that 24.86 tons of carbon dioxide were not released into the
air - the equivalent of taking 48,613 cars off the road for one hour."
If you hate fluorescent bulbs, you may want to have a look at this Popular Mechanics article comparing the light given off by them, to get one you actually like.
On a personal not, I'm up to 7 replacements in our house (everything not on a dimmer switch) and it really hasn't made a big difference light-wise.
If you're worried about the rumors you've heard about mercury in fluorescent bulbs, well, it's a lot of hooey. Check out the environmental impact reported in Popular Science.
Aren't you glad I said "interesting" and not "bright" idea?
I've got your back.
Awhile ago I blogged about Scotts Miracle-Gro, "the world's leading lawn and garden company" suing an upstart fertilizer company, TerraCycle, who makes its product out of organic worm waste (which they refer to as "worm poop") then packages it in old soda bottles.
TerraCycle turned the suit into a marketing opportunity by launching SuedbyScotts.com which parodies the difference in the companies in a very David and
Goliath fashion.
Not to be one-upped in the world of on-line marketing opportunities, one of the PR people from Scotts just contacted me with news of a settlement between their two companies. (With Scotts coming out the winner, of course. Otherwise, why would they contact me?)
Obviously, the Scotts team had scoured blogs for stories about the suit and wanted to make sure their new message was heard loud and clear.
What interested me about this story, and still does, isn't whether or not copyright infringement exists or false claims were made, but how both sides used blogs to promote their side of the story, hoping to grow their claim to the fertilizer market share.
In TerraCycle's case, it absolutely worked for me. I'd never heard of the company and, being somewhat a greenie myself, I was fascinated by their incredibly green (and socially responsible) business plan.
And in Scotts case... well, I just blogged that they won, didn't I?
Here's a first, the un-whoopee cushion:
GasBGon Flatulence Filter
The GasBGon flatulence filter seat cushion is a fun, yet serious solution to the embarrassing problem of malodorous gas (breaking wind).
GasBGon seat cushions apply cutting edge carbon filter technology to
absorb the sound and odor that accompany flatulence. The unique cushioning
property combines to form a dual filter technology to muffle the sound and
the smell.
Highlights from the site for this product:
- Product manufactured by Dairiair,LLC
- Washable black cover for device
- Site provides an "a to z" study on flatulence
- Invented by an air quality and filtration engineer
- Leopard print filter is called "Silent But Deadly"
- Company motto: "Clear the Air, Not the Room"
Sadly, it's only available in the UK as of this post.
Curse you Brits for being ahead of the curve once again!
(Thanks to Daphne, Down Under, for the pass along!)
And, finally, some good news about the earth...
Bald Eagles Rebound After 40 Years on Endangered Species List
How about that?
(picture by supaluminal via flickr)
A second "wow" hit from Microsoft for me in two weeks: a computer tabletop that interacts with your hands, WiFi enabled devices, and credit cards.
This may be old news for some of you, since this story was on Today at the end of May, but Gates unveiled his up-to-now top secret Surface device and it's fairly cool.
Not quite mind blowing, the way I felt Microsoft's Photosynth was, but still really revolutionary.
Read the story, watch the clip, let me know what you think.
Also, it's been awhile since I've watched The Today Show.
Are all their reporters really this corny?
When did cleaning your house become such a high-end, eco-friendly, well-designed task?
First Method flew under the radar to rank as the 7th fastest growing private company in the US (according to Inc. Magazine) and now Twist, who is seeking to "combine design and environmental
responsibility to create functional, beautiful, and responsible
alternatives."
Hey, doesn't that sound like Method's Mission Statement?
In a product category where price point is a huge concern (housecleaning products), getting people to spend $6 on Lemon Ginger floor cleaner in quite a feat.
For you packaging fans out there, the Twist sponge package can be turned into a bird feeder. Neat, huh?
Well, according to NOTCOT, they're not quite so good on the execution. "the packaging is so thin that it’s not that sturdy, and i do wish the
design made better use of the existing creases and the diecut windows…
this bird feeder wouldn’t hold up well in a drizzle (how about some
water proofed packing?) and isn’t quite strong enough to support the
birds."
More bad news for those crows in my front yard.
Still, it's an interesting try and it does fit in well with their company image.
Instead of just trendwatching, I'm going to take this post somewhere. Here are 3 To Do's:
- The Industrial Designers of America hosts An Evening with Method : Being Green and Being Profitable at Disney Hall on June 28th. Click here for more info.
- Add NOTCOT to your list of must visit, inspirational design sites.
- Pick up the next piece of garbage you see on the ground and toss it in the trash.
I hate the way bike helmets look.
I hate the way they feel.
But I probably would have suffered a massive head injury when a car pulled out in front of my bike and sent me flying in the street 10 years ago.
I'm guessing the guy in this story (who had a truck drive over his helmeted head) probably feels the same.
BTW, my buddy Jerry's bedside manner for this injury? Frozen peas for the wounds, beer for the head.
The winners: Natalie, Becky, Kerry (15 miles!), Andy, and I.
Wait, WE'RE ALL WINNERS! (bwaa haaaa....)
You know you may be a little deranged when you feel the compulsion to blog every day, even with all the fires burning around you (sometimes literally).
It's a busy week, but I did want to let you know, I did manage to bike to work today. (Okay, drove and dropped my kids off at their schools then biked the 4 miles here. Don't want to be a liar.)
Looks like at least some of the Aquent office will be joining me on Thursday, for Bike to Work Day.
In case you haven't looked up a route from your house to work, try this link from BikeMetro, which allows you to choose your skill level (beginner, intermediate, advanced), your hill tolerance (mine is low), and if you want to use public transit on your route. You might want to drive it the first time, I seem to remember selecting no hills and going up an extremely long, winding, busy, and hilly Silverlake Boulevard last year.
If you get a kick out of alternative transportation, then you'll love England's "walking school buses".
(P.S. I'll give some Aquent Silly Putty to the first person who can email me the origin of that quote in the title.)
I usually like to participate Los Angeles Bike to Work Week, at least riding a couple days out of that week (the promise that I'd start riding on Fridays after Daylight Saving Time started hasn't worked out so well). And I was kind of wondering, since it was already May, when I was going to start hearing about it. I got that answer today, when I opened my email at work. It started today. The email was sent Friday night.
Not that I'm the biggest "plan ahead" guy in the world, but wouldn't giving more than 48 hours worth of notice help bring more bicyclers onto the streets?
Just a thought.
Banners on lightposts might help, too. Like the ones they had for the extremely tiny Colfax Elementary School "World Fair".
Okay, I'll take of my Marketing hat for a moment (which is nice, because it's extremely heavy) and tell you, if you haven't thought about commuting to work by bike before, this is a good week to do it. Why?
- You can have your bike blessed at Good Samaritan Hospital, if you feel that will make your ride safer
- You can ride the bus or rail FOR FREE on Thursday, Bike to Work Day
- Snacks, friends, and more at pit stops throughout LA (on Thursday) and Pasadena (all week)
Be sure to check out this Checklist provided by California Bike Commute before heading out. I mean, if you're the planning type (like me). If you're one of those people who doesn't mind coming to the office and discovering you forgot a change of clothes, don't bother.
If you're a Doer, you might want to check out the LA County Bike Coalition site, they're an advocacy group that sponsors some great rides (like the ice cream shop to ice cream shop one in LA) and events (like the bike based film screenings during this week).
Hey, if you're out there, let me know by posting a comment here or by emailing me.
Don't forget your helmet!
Legitimate Package Rip Off or Market Share Hogging?
YOU DECIDE!
A small organic plant food company, TerraCycle, is being sued by Scotts Miracle-Grow who claims the upstart's packaging too closely resembles its Miracle-Grow product line and that it is making false advertising claims.
Scotts owns roughly 59% market share, according to AdAge, and TerraCycle believes that the suit is based on their move into big name stores like Home Depot, Target, and the like, where Miracle-Grow is king.
Scotts says it's more about TerraCycle's unsubstantiated claims for "superior performance" and that TerraCycle's packaging is "confusingly similar" to Miracle-Grow's.
Did I fail to mention that TerraCycle's product is made from worm poop and distributed in recycled bottles?
Sorry.
I'd also be remiss if I didn't tell you that TerraCycle has turned the suit into a marketing opportunity. They've launched the site SuedbyScotts.com which parodies the difference in the companies in a very David and Goliath fashion. They also are careful to point out 81 different brands of lawn and garden products with yellow and green labels just like TerraCycle and Miracle-Grow.
Worm poop.
Who knew?
In the wake of Earth Day, I've been catching up with some recent articles, blogs, and podcasts on the subjects of climate change, carbon footprints, conservation, and the like.
I just got done listening to Chris Goodall, author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life: The Individuals Guide to Stopping Climate Change and Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future and heard some interesting facts.
One, though we Americans aren't talking about tightening our belts when it comes to stopping climate change (gasoline use was recently up 5%, even with the high prices), that's what the Europeans are concentrating on: conservation. The odd thing? A European uses half the energy the average American does, according to McKibben.
When asked what was the most important thing you could do to reduce your carbon footprint, the answers were:
- Making sure your house in properly insulated
- Turning down the thermostat in the winter
- Not traveling by airplane
Yes, that last one came as a surprise to me. Goodall's reasoning can be found here on his site.
Goodall and especially McKibben stressed while you should act locally, if you really care about doing something about climate change, you're going to have to make sure you are heard by our government. Apparently the lobbyists are trying hard to convince them there's nothing to worry about.
While you're working on your carbon emission reduction, be sure to check out the rebates offered by LA County utility companies here.
Even though we're heard a lot of talk about ethanol being a silver bullet for all our oil-bred woes (reliance on unstable countries for oil, rampant pollution), atmospheric chemist Mark Jacobson at Stanford University has been more than a little suspicious, knowing that air
quality got worse during Brazil's big ethanol push in the 1970s.
Turns out he should be.
According to his recent report (downloadable): "Switching to E85 blends (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) could result in
slightly higher ozone-related mortality, hospitalization, and asthma
(9% higher in Los Angeles and 4% higher in the U.S. as a whole), the
study finds. Cancer rates would be similar for gasoline and E85."
Maybe we should slow down a bit before rushing into the Brave New World, huh?
(More of the topic is discussed in this Environmental Science and Technology article.)
And please don't think that guy driving around in her/his biodiesel Mercedes is saving the world, either. When Jacobson was on NPR's Science Friday he cited studies showing that all diesel vehicles are much dirtier than gasoline powered ones. Even the ones burning veggie oil.
No, I didn't mean to depress you so soon after Earth Day.
Would it help if I let you know that Jacobson's recommendation for alternately powering vehicles was by batteries charged via wind/solar energy?
Or that the best way to double your gas mileage is to carpool?
I leave you with this happy, green, and easy-to-do item:
If every US home replaced just one light bulb with a compact fluorescent one, "we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a
year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly
800,000 cars." (source EnergyStar)
Better?
I miss my bike. I really do.
For a year or so (during Daylight Saving Time) I could ride 4 miles from my son's school to Aquent every Friday . This was a switch up to dropping both my son and daughter off at their preschool and riding from there (5.5 miles). And from the times when I could ride from my home to work (9 miles plus the distance bike tires can fall into a drainage grate).
When I told people I did this, they'd occasionally accuse me of somehow "cheating". As if it wasn't a real ride if I did some of it by car. My defense was how many kids do you see being carried on the back of a bike in Los Angeles? Less than .000000001%? Well, there's a pretty good reason for it. Have you seen how people drive here? They don't buy Hummers due to their great gas mileage.
Regardless, my wife switched her work hours back in the fall and now it's impossible to get two kids to two different schools and myself to work via bike. I've tried working it out in my mind, it's just not going to happen. This will all change next year when my daughter starts kindergarten, which brings me joy to no end.
Because there's nothing like starting a day after riding a bike, not even a double latte. Or whizzing by the $3.49 a gallon station on Fairfax and smiling.
Until then, it's back on the bike trainer and reading or listening to This American Life's podcast.
Which, when I think back to falling into those drainage grates, is not such a bad tradeoff.
It may be a hard road to try and convince your client to use recycled paper, minimal packaging, and soy-based inks the way Chris Hacker, former Creative Director for the ultra-eco Aveda, does (he showed us how last year at AIGA's Save the Planet lecture), but maybe the road to ecologic Web design may be far less bumpy.
A recent post on Treehugger on Black Google posits that an all black Google page would save 750 megawatt-hours a year. It seems it takes your average computer monitor 74 watts to display an all white web page, but only 59 watts to display an all black page.
They also point to a post on ecoIron which displays a low wattage palette. The page design itself won't win any awards, but maybe one of you folks out there could come up with something a little nicer?
If you do, I'll throw in a planet to sweeten the deal.
There are people who should embrace the most cutting edge technology/products and those who should just wait until they're available for general public.
Take the Beta version of any software. If you don't mind finding bugs and reporting them to Apple, Adobe, or the like, then go ahead, be the "test body". But, if like me, you're frustrated by the glitches whenever Apple rolls out their new OS (at work) and complain about the sluggishness of your new Windows Vista (at home), you should probably wait until the kinks are worked out.
There's a certain wow factor about having the first Prius, being the first person skating around on Rollerblades (if you can remember that long ago), or taking a picture with the camera implant in your eye, but it might not be worth the trouble.
Which is part of the reason I'm incredibly fascinated with SVO cars, that is, diesel cars which have been converted to run on Straight Vegetable Oil instead of diesel fuel, something Lovecraft Biofuels in LA has perfected and is taking nationwide. My friend Chris has one and it really amazes me that he can run it off old filtered vegetable oil he got from a Chinese food place.
But, as it turns out, you need to be a certain kind of person to own one of these cars.
- The kind of person who likes to drive around in older cars that break down more often than newer cars (not me)
- Someone who doesn't drive around with his/her tank almost at empty, because there are not Straight Vegetable Oil Stations on every corner (once, again, not me)
- Someone who doesn't mind working out a business transaction for a car with a complete stranger who may, in fact, disappear the moment you hand them your money (yup, me again)
What probably brought this point home most strongly was that my Check Engine light in my VW Jetta came on, again,and it got me to thinking about the last time I checked the oil.
If you've never seen an oil dipstick cry, then I don't think you've lived.
The walk to Ralph's for 10W-40 actually gave me some time to think about this.
And make me consider that I should probably go back to riding my bike to work.
I'd originally bought my iPod for music. Seemed like a good idea. Get rid of lugging the CDs in the car, to and from work, into and out of the office... But the weird thing is, now podcasts take up the majority of my playlists.
Really.
For years I'd been trying to figure out how to record favorite shows so I could listen to them on the 40 minute drive home. ("Hmmmm, I could record it at home with a series of taped buttons on an old cassette recorder...") The morning commute has a number of choices, but at 5pm I've got.... well, I've got bupkis. (And yes, bupkis includes Tom Leykis.)
For the commute, the airplane ride, bike rides one the bike path, and those long periods in the dental office where the sound of drilling is driving you to the point of running out of the building screaming, there's podcasts.
And now instead of old issues of Highlights for Children (in the case of the dental office),I've got free, yes free, downloads of This American Life, NPR's Story of the Day, KCRW's film review show The Treatment, NPR's Science Friday...
I didn't know, until today, that iTunes also has a ton of Design podcasts from Debbie Millman's Design Matters to Paul Browning's Logo Design.
Just go to the iTunes store>Podcasts>Art>Design (under "More Arts").
I also found a School of Visual Arts in interview with Milton Glaser thanks to the folks at UnBeige.
Just remember to hit Subscribe on the podcast you want, then drag that over to your iPod.
You may never fall asleep in a meeting again!
Hole Foods
Feb 13, 2007 @ 8:02 AM
Paul from our office took this picture at his local Whole Foods yesterday morning.
Is this better or worse than "Recycle You're Cell Phones Here"?
Seems to me a company that charges $3 for an organic pear might want to invest in a good Proofreader.
And maybe a better box.
What do you say about a guy who runs an "environmentally responsible" burger joint but customizes motorcycles that spew hydrocarbons up to 10 times California's state limits?
"You owe us $300,000," if you happen to be California air regulators and you're talking to "Monster Garage" and "Motorcycle Mania" host and co-producer Jesse James.
According to the LA Times, "California Air Resources Board officials said their inspectors found
that the monster bikes (Jesse James) sold between 1998 and 2005 did not have state
certified emissions equipment on their exhaust and fuel systems," thus producing 10 times the pollution of a regular motorcycle.
Keep in mind that normal regular motorcycles already "produce up to 15 times the emissions per
mile as the average new car or light-duty truck." (from California's Air Resources Board site.)
My math's pretty poor, but I'm guessing that if you're down in the LBC waiting for the light to change and you just happen to be right behind Jesse James, you might want to move into the next lane.
Or put on your respirator.
It's true, someday I'm going to run out of 70's TV references.
In the meantime, give me a moment to promote this tripod to the amateur photographers among you.
Called the Gorillapod, this tripod has flexible legs which can be wrapped around branches, poles, Aquent springy clocks, and nearly empty bottles of cheap red wine (which is a time when you really should consider using a tripod). They say it's small enough to fit in a "large pants pocket". Not sure if those are large pockets or large pants, sorry. And it's only $25 bucks.
It comes highly recommended from three of the folks over at CoolTools, which is saying a lot.
Available at the Joby site or on Amazon.
For you environmentally-minded Designers reading, the CoolTools people loved the "environmentally friendly packaging-free option". The dawning of a new era?
As shocking as it may seem to many people, there are a l
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