I spoke last month at the Green Cities Conference in Orlando.

It was the first times I did not speak about green building, but instead spoke about the amazing work of Urban Re:Vision, a non-profit on whose board I sit.

I was interviewed at the conference. An excerpt:

Our measurement of growth is that you continue growing, but in nature that doesn’t happen. Animals don’t keep getting fatter and fatter until they explode… and so our cities shouldn’t. They should grow to a certain size and then stop when they are sustainable. But we haven’t done that. We have presented the idea that it’s an either/or…

Read the full interview here.

I’ve received dozens and dozens of emails about this, and YES, I have FREE tradeshow floor passes for the upcomingWest Coast Green Conference.

Contact me directly, if interested.

You can get free FULL CONFERENCE passes by simply volunteering your time.

I look forward to the West Coast Green Conference each year. Of all the conferences I attend, it is by far my favorite. Most of the time, I’m giving a lecture to room full of doubters and skeptics, so it’s uncommonly fun to speak to the enthusiastic crowds at West Coast Green. I have been honored to be one of the advisors to the conference since it’s inception, and am thrilled to contribute to the success of the event.

In preparation for the conference, I create an entirely new presentation. I throw out everything and start from scratch. It is akin to a standup comedian trashing his act to write entirely new material. And though this is incredibly time consuming, it forces me to rethink how I talk about design and sustainability.

The process of developing a new keynote speech takes an entire year of thinking and research. It starts at the previous years West Coast Green conference as I learn of new ideas and memes emerging. Topics, stories and information rattle around in my head, while I stuff notes, images and thoughts into a folder throughout the year. By letting the subject marinate, I find the gaps in my research and in the final story I will be telling.

Once the narrative is fairly complete, I can begin putting the actual slideshow together. The process of building the slides is conducted over two months before the conference. I work closely with my interns during this process we find ways to connect boring data with something relevant and memorable. Slides are shuffled, reordered and edited. Images we like are replaced with new, better images we love.

We continually try to find ways to inject humor into the talk. Ironically, this is incredibly serious business and the hardest part. How do you write something that will always come off as funny amid all of that “doom and gloom” talk? How do you balance humor with the need to make a point? I don’t want the humor to allow people to ignore the bigger issue or overshadow the point… the humor is key to the success of the talk and the hardest thing to add. There are always more facts to be found; but humor is impossible to simply “dig up.”

The slides are tweaked up until the start of the conference. I practice the final draft of the talk in front of my students; which might be the only chance I get to perform it in front of a real, live audience before the actual conference. I use this as a chance to test the timing and humor; often recording it for later viewing.

I’ve posted before about the tools I use to I create my presentations, skipping PowerPoint and using Apple’s Keynote instead.

We’re still working on the final version of my talk, “The Myth of Sisyphus: A plan to green our buildings and avoid extinction.” In short, I discuss how our buildings are like Sisyphus, constantly pushing boulder uphill in order to survive. The talk outlines how to change this paradigm and find the hidden opportunities in green building.

I will be speaking at West Coast Green on Thursday, September 25th at 1:30 – 2:30pm. A booksigning will be held immediately following the talk.

Be sure to do what you can to attend the conference. It is well worth the cost and time. Register for the conference here.

I spoke at the PSFK Conference last month. The theme was on trends, inspiration and creativity and I was enjoying myself so much at the event I was already looking forward to the next conference.

Some incredible speakers and brands were represented: Starbucks, Good Magazine, Current TV, fuseproject, NASA – and that’s just a handful of them…

Ken Fisher conducted interviews during the event, and the first compilation video is now available. I am in the video speaking about the need for innovation.

Watch the video here.

For those of you who haven’t heard of West Coast Green, it is the largest residential green building conference in the country and is held the last week of September. This years conference will be September 26, 27 & 28th in San Jose, California.

I have been on the Advisory Board of the conference since it’s inception, and watched it grow in size and scope each year. Each year brought new things to the conference as well.

For this years conference, one of the new features is the video section of the website, where you can watch recorded talks by this years speakers.

You must watch the talk by Van Jones, who brought the crowd of thousands to their feet with his take on green collar jobs.

Of the 40+ conferences I speak at each year, West Coast Green is by far my favorite. I urge you to attend the conference. Some discount passes are still available, so feel free to contact me directly if you’re going to attend.

Yesterday I took part in an online webinar sponsored by the Sustainable Industries Journal.

(A webinar is a virtual seminar, where people listen to the audio on a telephone conference call, and watch the slides on a website.)

I was joined on the webinar with:
Eden Brukman, Research Director for Cascadia Green Building Council’s Pharos Project and Living Building Challenge
AND
Becky Brun, Associate Editor, Sustainable Industries Journal

The Webinar can be downloaded for viewing/listening here.
(scroll down to “Missed the Webinar?”)

or find a direct link here (WMV format).

You need to have Windows Media Player to view it.

I’m currently in New Orleans speaking at the Traditional Building Conference. It seems an unlikely place for a modernist, I know, but Historic Preservationism is finally starting to make the connection to sustainability. After all, it makes sense. Durability, reuse, preservation of history and culture all fall well within the purview of green building.

This is my first visit to New Orleans, and it has delightfully surprised me. Filled with a rich history and hidden charms, NOLA also offers some interesting lessons. I didn’t quite know what to expect here over two years after Hurricane Katrina.

The damage by Hurricane Katrina was devastating, and evidence of it still remains today. Boarded up, wind damaged buildings appear randomly among otherwise undamaged neighborhoods. The difference seems to be the surrounding economy not being able to support repairing these abandoned structures. So they sit, alone, empty and reflecting a weakening of the overall economy. But these examples are only a handful of the real damage.

The subsequent flood was the real cause of the majority of the structural damage, and this ongoing economic damage. It is important to not blame the Hurricane. After all, it was the failure of man-made levies that created the flood. Mother Nature and wind didn’t destroy New Orleans, the raging flood waters did. Over 80 percent of the city was flooded, some areas by as much as 15 feet. It all could have been averted, especially in light of the ever-prescient reports on the inadequacy of the levee system.

This failure by our government is the real tragedy. Had the Hurricane been the source of the damage, we could look upon New Orleans as we did when Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston, or Andrew hit Florida.

To the contrary, New Orleans is a living reminder of the mediocrity of our government. Instead of empathy, I feel anger; instead of sadness, I feel disbelief. In addition to the 1,464 people who lost their lives, this incompetence continues 26 months later. A series of scandals including no-bid government contracts, toxic temporary shelters and illicit distribution of recovery money continues to cloud the recovery efforts.

What’s left is a shell of the former city. Over half of the downtown storefronts remain closed (* by my estimation, not by any hard data). The streets seem bare and uncrowded, especially along the most touristy areas.

The famed French Quarter was a wonderful surprise. Part of the original plan for the city, the French Quarter is located above sea level (five feet to be exact), allowing it to be spared from the flood. The original settlers had the foresight to locate the original neighborhoods above the line of the inevitable floods. The Industrial Revolution brought the engineering and technology of the levee system, allowing the low lying areas to be filled in. This blind faith in technology is reminds me of the story of Icarus, and dozens of other parables.

The Quarter was surprisingly genuine. To be honest, I expected something as phony as Pier 39 at Fisherman’s Wharf, ignored by the locals and filled with gawking tourists buying t-shirts. The empty streets of the French Quarter show a rich history, wonderful lessons of urban scale and a beautiful local vernacular architecture*.

(* A more technical explanation: these older buildings typically consist of deep, wraparound balconies at the second and third floors. These balconies shade the interior and keep the thermal mass of the stone and brick walls cool. Large windows on all sides allow for ventilation and cross-breezes for more cooling. Wooden shutters shade the windows from direct sunlight when needed. These are textbook examples of using an appropriate strategy to design for a hot, humid climate.)

For the most part, the stately homes of both the Garden District and Jefferson Parish today seem undamaged. What is evident is a lack of activity on the streets. While most children were in school (hopefully), I still expected smaller kids playing in the neighborhood.

Within walking distance to the French Quarter was the Lower 9th Ward, a long-time poverty stricken area. It was perhaps hardest hit by the effects of the flood. The streets look shockingly unchanged from the images you saw just after the flood. Most of the homes are abandoned and uninhabitable. A majority are damaged beyond repair. The spray painted tags by the rescue teams sit as an eery reminder of the grim discoveries found inside. The number in the bottom of the X indicates the number of dead found inside.

The remaining residents were unfazed by our presence. Although I felt like an embarrassed voyeur who was trespassing on their tragedy, no one seemed to mind, much less notice. Either they are used to this new kind of tourist, or they simply assumed we’re there to help. We stared in silence as we toured the streets, as the sheer amount of the damage is simply overwhelming.

But there are signs of hope. Throughout the city, and across social and economic neighborhoods, you’ll find the locals slowly rebuilding their city. Bright and shiny pockets of hope lie scattered amid the ruins. Standing next to a rotting skeleton of a house you’ll see a newly renovated one sporting a fresh coat of paint.

The biggest sense of hope comes from the locals themselves, all of whom give a new meaning to the term “Southern Hospitality.” Without exaggeration, I can say that every single person with whom we came into contact was friendly, engaging, helpful, polite and just generally grateful of our presence there. Tourism is clearly struggling, and the people of New Orleans are resoundingly determined to change that. Without any sense of being obsequious, the residents are genuinely happy to see visitors. And the best part: it works. I found that I wanted to spend more money, infuse more into the economy. If you’re looking for a place to take a trip, NOLA would be a wonderful choice. If you can’t travel, order some of Sally’s amazing pralines.

New Orleans has long been synonymous with good food, wonderful music and even the legendary corrupt government. The tragedy of the flood is now cemented into that and is inseparable from any experience with this wonderful place.

The Western Interiors Home Show is coming on October 26th in San Francisco. I will giving the keynote presentation, and am very excited to see the interior design world finally taking green so seriously.

There are some amazing speakers, so join me at the conference.

Our friends at West Coast Green are also helping to host the event, and some of the features:

-giving away 2000 cfl’s at the green home pavilion – where you can chat with me on Friday and other green experts throughout the conference.

- All of the exhibitors had to meet the same strict green product criteria as that of West Coast Green, so they are thoughtful products and companies

Conference site

Ever since my talk last week at West Coast Green, I have received dozens and dozens of emails from people asking, “How did you get PowerPoint to do that?!”

Well, in reality, I didn’t.

First, use the right tools. Like most Microsoft products, PowerPoint lacks good design sensibilities. After years of trying to push it to do what I wanted to do with colors, fonts and video, I gave up.

The real reason I am able to make these presentations so visually rich is using Apple’s Keynote. Keynote handles these elements far better than PowerPoint. C’mon, you should ditch that PC and have a Mac anyway.

Secondly, my speaking style is much more ancedotal. My job is to take this technical information and distill it into stories. As a presenter, my goal is to remove as much text as possible from the slides. You’ll notice there are no bullet points on the slides, and the text is made obnoxiously large to reiterate the point.

At several points along the presentation, I have no slides at all, just an image or movie running in the background as I tell a story. For more on this technique, check out Merlin Mann’s wonderful blog 43 Folders and especially his story on his own presentations.

Lastly, I am no expert on public speaking. Between teaching and traveling to conferences, I just get to to it a whole lot and the practice helps me. I also get to watch hundreds of other speakers each year and see how boring many talks can be.

To prevent boredom, I am experimenting with several techniques, including the Takahashi Method and the Guy Kawasaki Method for storytelling with visuals. The more I know about these ways to convey information, the more I realize how much great orators, such as Bill Clinton, are able to give a speech with such power using only words.

For more on using Keynote in a positive (double entrendre) way read on here and here.