This bread is so good, even my cat wants to chow down on it.

Here are a few lessons I draw from Catvertising:

• Take yourself lightly: Agencies are always predicting that they are on top of the next big trend, which is poised to take over the market.  I love that john st. blatantly makes fun of that by predicting the cat video market to take over 90% of internet content, surpassing porn among other things.  And they do it all with a straight face.
• Get your name out there without a sales pitch: This video says nothing directly about what john st. does, but I immediately looked them up after I saw this and would definitely want to invite them to bid on my next project.
• Strut your stuff:  Without being obnoxious about this, at 1 million views and counting, john st. is telling us that they can make viral video gold – no problem. They even do it for fun for their own agency.
• Eat the dog food: Catvertising utilizes one of john st’s primary media.  And it is amazing and highly effective, as far as I can tell. (I’d be curious to know how many new business inquiries cite this video when they reach out).  In any case, john st. is proving the effectiveness of what they recommend their clients.

If you’re still reading, check out another amazing video from john st.: Pink Ponies, where john st. is challenged to make Chelsea Bedano’s birthday party a success in an already cluttered birthday market.

What other examples of smart, entertaining marketing have you come across?

Rachael Chong, Founder & CEO of Catchafire

Tim O’Shea, CEO of CleanFish

Nigel Waller, CEO of Movirtu

David Hodgson, IdeaHive and International Futures Forum

Deborah Hirsh, Co-Founder of the Hoop Fund

Mike Del Ponte, Founder and CEO of Sparkseed

Hope Neighbor, Founder & CEO of Hope Consulting and Greg Ulrich, Project Manager of Money for Good

Nick Ellis, CEO of Job Rooster

Amy Benziger, Co-Producer of Socap

The world that we live in today is advancing rapidly in the fields of computing and communications. This has allowed big changes in the way new materials are developed and the way energy is being created.

The Green Net 2010 conference brought together investors, scientists, and many companies in the green technology field together with information on various topics from the grid to the electric car. Overall, the conference concluded that much of the technological advances in the green sector have been driven by cloud computing and different networks that can effectively deliver important information from one part of the electric grid to the other.

Although all speakers were very informative I particularly fancied Bill Weihl, Google’s green energy czar. Although he may have talked about simple tips that we could easily find on any green website (how to efficiently save energy at your corporation by keeping temperatures contained), in an interview later with Stacey Higgenbothem during the event, he expressed his interest in the idea of energy proportional computing, which basically means that an entire system (x-86 servers) would idle when it’s not in use verses only the processor.

He also gave us insight on what Google will be investing in the near future. Weihl mentioned that they are investing in companies that are innovative and find new ways of keeping renewable energy costs down, as announced a week later when news came of their investment in the wind farm company, NextEra Energy.

Another notable speaker was Bill Gross, founder and CEO of eSolar and Idealab. Gross spoke about new solar technologies that are in the works that will save costs as well as store a lot of energy on the grid. He briefly spoke about his latest project of turning heat into mechanical energy with Infinia, the Stirling Engine. His company “mated” two of the best possible optimizations and repeated that for 1,000 generations. In less than two days a million engines were simulated. “The computation power to enable that was not even possible five years ago,” said Gross.

Gross also spoke about his latest project in Lancaster, CA. He has created a “solar farm” but with no PV panels because they are much too expensive. As an alternative he created a mirror field in the valley with 24,000 mirrors as an accordion steel machine with the ability to power 4,000 homes. The sun reflects on the mirrors into a tower in the middle of this field, it boils water into steam that travels through pipes, creating power toward a turbine and creating electricity.

All in all this event was great, and I learned a lot about information technology and how the clean/green tech industry is progressing in leaps and bounds of innovation. One thing’s for sure, when it comes to innovation, we may be moving fast, but we’ve got a ways to go.

In the meantime, I was at BizTechDay last week, and published the following on TriplePundit that you may enjoy checking out:

• Tips to Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners from BizTechDay
• How to Tweet Like Tim Ferriss
• From BizTechDay: Seven Things Small Business Owners Need to Know to Succeed
• BizTechDay: Helping Start-ups Succeed

Oh, and I have a new kitten – that’s her in the photo!

All you’ve got to do is:
1) Go here: http://shinealight.ivillage.com/sbo-profile/?ProfileID=8611
2) Click “Endorse this story now,” then “register” (which only takes 1 minute, I promise) and then “Endorse this story now”

Here is Viv’s story that we submitted in hopes for this grant:

Imagine a way to drive environmental change, save money and reap rewards, and engage with a community of conscious consumers, all without going out of your way.  That’s Viv.

Viv is an innovative small business that enables you to make every purchase count towards building a thriving, sustainable local community that you, your friends and family can enjoy.  Viv empowers and rewards you for supporting the livelihood and environmental sustainability of your favorite local merchants.  Viv works with small businesses, including cafes, restaurants, bars, and local retail establishments to make eco-friendly changes to their operations while bringing in new customers, driving customer engagement and communicating the business’ commitment to change to an audience of engaged customers.

Viv works in San Francisco, California with plans to engage cities across the US.  Over seventy small merchants currently benefit from the Viv program and 20,000 consumers are members – armed with a loyalty card in the form of a Viv sticker on their credit card. Each Viv merchant commits to making sustainability enhancements to their store (i.e. improving recycling system, adding compost bins, switching light bulbs to more energy efficient CFLs) based on Viv consumers showing their stickers.  Viv consumers drive eco-friendly change by showing their sticker while making purchases at Viv businesses.

One Viv merchant, a sports apparel retail store, loves the Viv program because it gives them a mechanism to share their environmental commitments and progress with their consumers without tooting their own horn.  It also creates a tangible connection between consumer behavior and eco-friendly improvements.

Viv is creating a network of conscious consumers that are empowered to vote with their wallets, and use their purchasing power for good.  Going forward Viv will be enhancing the program with direct rewards for consumers, and mobile technology to inform consumers as they go about their day. Viv is a system by which merchants and consumers can communicate about the importance of resource efficiency and drive and reward change.  The impact of Viv is unlimited: giving anyone anywhere in the US a means by which to vote with their wallet, building a national network of millions of people who care about the future of our planet, building environmentally sustainable small businesses, and driving awareness of the need to conserve our resources and use our collective purchasing power for good.

The inaugural Imagine H2OPrize competition is now open for submissions.  The competition offers prizes of $70,000 in cash and in-kind services, which will be awarded to the business plans which promise the greatest breakthroughs in the efficient use and supply of water.

The Imagine H2O Prize is designed to encourage the competitive and ambitious spirits of entrepreneurs, investors, experts, inventors and academics around the world to focus on water issues.  This inaugural business plan challenge focuses on solutions to improve water efficiency in agriculture, commercial, industrial or residential applications, such as water demand reduction, improved water use, water recycling and/or reuse.

Entries will be accepted from around the world beginning September 1 through November 16, 2009. Winners will be announced at a showcase event in early 2010.Future competitions will have different prize topics addressing other critical water challenges.For more details and to participate, go to: www.imagineh2o.org.

Ann Wizer, XSProject

More than 500,000 people in Indonesia attempt to make a living collecting and reselling garbage.  Artist Ann Wizer lived above a colony of these trashpickers and inquired about what waste they could not sell: plastic drink pouches and other non-biodegradable plastics.   Wizer began purchasing these scraps from the trashpickers and using them to create bags, book covers, and other products. Not only does she produce a useful, well-designed and beautiful product (everyone who sees the bags loves them), she supports trashpickers, creates jobs for the Indonesia’s poor, utilizes landfill-bound trash and educates all who come into contact with her products and operations about consumption and waste.

“Why are people still accepting products that end up in a landfill? ” Wizer asked, “We shouldn’t have them.  Our task at hand is to find ways to keep these materials out of landfills by reusing them. I am not interested only in upcycling or making “sympathy” products – I want these goods to be fabulous, they need to be able to compete  in markets.”

Wizer was saddened by the way corporations use South East Asia as a dumping ground.  “Companies do whatever they need to according to law and developing countries generally don’t have decent environmental protection,” she said. An artist, Wizer launched the XSProject initiative as an art exhibition in Jakarta.  “The show got a lot of press.  But I was despondent after – here I am talking about poverty, corporate abuse, lack of awareness, education but I felt I was talking to the wrong people.  That culture audience was not involved with any of these issues.”  That’s when she decided to work with the poor directly.

“If people are desperately poor, they will abuse their environment.  They have no choice…we started by picking up non-recyclable waste and training poor people to make new things out of waste.”

Photography copyright Elizabeth Finlayson [lizzieinmanila@hotmail.com], supplied by XSProject Foundation

Continue reading on TriplePundit.com.

“Last year we wanted to validate the asset class – prove that social capital is real, large and resilient. Social capital was hurt less than other sectors. It didn’t participate in the bubble and it didn’t cause the bust and has since out performed the traditional capital market. This is partly because so many more risks are factored in, in terms of externalities,” Kevin Jones said.

Socap09 (coming up Sept 1-3, 2009) outlines the roadmap to a new economy, focusing on three themes:

1. The new administration and its focus on social innovation and social enterprise
2. An increasing acceptance of social venture funds and impact investing
3. The impact of disruptive technology

“This market is evolving. Pieces of infrastructure are starting to get filled in. Two years ago it was about discovery and finding our way. Now there is a roadmap. It doesn’t mean it’s a smooth highway. It’s extremely tough,” Jones explained.

The space is becoming more sophisticated, more business savvy as well. Jones described what he sees as the second generation of social entrepreneurs. “The first generation of visionary, heroic social entrepreneurs were pioneers. They provided a solution without a market. The second generation can grow the ventures beyond themselves,” Jones explained. They have a firmer grasp on their customers and their needs, which enables them to scale more effectively.

“We’ve seen that post-economic collapse and with the new administration in place…people have a stronger sense that social capital is a full asset class that is moving our economy and administration towards a brighter and more stable future,” noted Amy Benziger, Associate Producer of Socap09.

The same team behind Socap09 is bringing The Hub, a coworking space for social and environmental innovators, to the Bay Area.

“Good Capital was looking to invest in The Hub and following the success of Socap08 we realized we had the network to make that happen – to house the partnerships, collaborations, and discussions that happened in Socap08…The Socap conference is one time global event, and The Hub is where ideas are carried out on a daily basis,” Benziger explained. Jones, co-founder of the conference and also a partner at Good Capital noted their intent to raise a $3M “Hubcap” fund to invest in high impact, early stage start-ups.

Continue reading on TriplePundit.

Swartz has been with Timberland for over 20 years and has served as President and CEO since 1998. Timberland has grown from a $156 million company in 1989 to a $1.4 billion company in 2007.

At the same time, Swartz has built some of the most impressive and inspiring programs I’ve seen at a public company. Timberland employees put in 40 hours of public service hours each year through Timberland’s Path of Service program and annual Servapalooza. Timberland is committed to going carbon neutral by 2010. Timberland’s shoe boxes display nutrition information, which includes information about the manufacturing plant and the impact on the climate and community. And Timberland is starting a green index for all of its products. Just to name a few initiatives. (For more, see http://earthkeeper.com/blog)

But what is the business strategy behind all of these initiatives?

Continue reading on TriplePundit.com