Imagine H2O Prize Competition to Drive Water Innovation
Posted by 3p Guest Author November 6th, 2009 
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As 3p readers know, the growing scarcity of freshwater is causing significant social and environment problems around the world. From a rise in cholera in parts of Africa to chronic water shortages in Australia as a result of drought, people everywhere are feeling the impact of the global water crisis.
Imagine H2O, a non-profit that aims to turn the world’s water problems into opportunities for entrepreneurs, is running a business plan competition to encourage water technology innovation. Through the inaugural Imagine H2O Prize Competition (which is accepting entries until Nov. 16, 2009) and its business incubator, the organization aims to bring water technology from entrepreneurs, investors, inventors and academics around the world to address critical water challenges.
As research from global water organizations, such as the World Water Council, indicate, addressing water conservation is critically needed. Participants of Imagine H2O’s competition will not only help solve a timely global issue, they will also receive assistance to bring their business idea to market. In addition to having the opportunity to receive $70,000 in cash and in-kind services, competition participants will also benefit from Imagine H2O’s incubator program.
Give more, Useless
Posted by Audrey November 6th, 2009 1 Comment
Believe me, USELESS, I get it. I get the point you’re trying to make. Your anti-consumerism, “Use less, give more” message is not a new one. However, following it with a list of products to purchase definitely is.
I understand that you mean to be somewhat ironic. And I get how handy it is that when you combine the words “use” and “less” into one word, you end up with “useless” (somehow I suspect that’s how this whole company came about – clever name first, company second).
And sure, your cleverly designed hoodies are made of organic cotton and your cute, logoed bottles are BPA free. And I appreciate that you donate 10% of your profits to fund water and sanitation projects in the developing world. You’re better than a lot of companies out there. BUT, you’re still selling products!
SolarReserve: Everything’s Better With a Little Salt
Posted by BC Upham November 6th, 2009 3 Comments
It’s the holy grail of renewable energy: power, even when the sun don’t shine, or the wind don’t blow. Some companies are hoping advances in battery capacity will provide the answer, others are looking to flywheels, or hydrostorage. But SolarReserve, an 18-month old start-up based in Santa Monica, uses a fundamentally simpler technology: hot, hot salt.
SolarReserve’s solar power technology uses thousands of mirrors, called heliostats, to focus the sun’s energy on a tower filled with salt. The solar energy heats the salt over 1000 degrees F., turning it into a liquid, which then boils water to run a steam turbine, generating electricity.
But that’s just the half of it: SolarReserve’s plant can store that molten salt and release it to run the turbine whenever it is most cost-effective to do so — including at night, when traditional solar power is unavailable. They can do this because of the amazing heat-retention qualities of salt: 98% or higher if stored properly.
How to Bring Green Weddings to the Masses
Posted by Paul S November 6th, 2009 7 Comments
One’s wedding is usually one of the pivotal, most memorable events in one’s life. And yet for an increasing number of people, there’s a nagging sense that things could be done differently. The wedding favors, where did they come from? Who made them? What are they made of? My choice of location, while idyllic, does it necessitate thousands of cumulative extra miles by my guests to get there? What can I do to make my event enjoyable and memorable, while not leaving a huge impact?
But there’s a confusing array of choices out there. One option is to hire a green wedding event specialist. But in this tight economy, many may want to just take care of the details themselves.
So it’s a wise move that Dream Green Weddings launched an online store that serves as a hub for just about everything but the food, photographer, and where to have it.
Eco-rate Aids Eco-Minded Buyers
Posted by Bill DiBenedetto October 30th, 2009 0 Comments
It’s a Consumer Reports or CNET type of comparison shopping service for the eco-conscious crowd.
Eco-rate is the brainchild and a labor of environmental love and activism founded by a Seattle couple, Brycelaine Self and Colby Self.
“The Eco-rate idea is to allow people to compare common household products, based not only on their green attributes, but also on their affordability,” says Brycelaine Self, co-founder of Eco-rate and principal of a related green building, green marketing and energy consulting company, Eco-innovations.
Launched in mid-May, they spent more than two years designing and developing the Web-based product and technology rating and comparison resource for shoppers looking to make ecologically-intelligent choices on just about any product out there, from autos to dishwashers to TVs to paint to water heaters.
EcoUnit Partners with Organic Valley to Supercharge Sustainable Consumer Behavior
Posted by Paul S October 30th, 2009 2 Comments
How do you effectively shift consumer behavior with minimal cost to you as a business and minimum effort required of consumers? EcoUnit is one company attempting to answer that question.
When we last wrote about them in June, they were testing out ways to reward customers for bringing in their own bags. This earns them EcoUnits, redeemable for anything from store discounts to donations to local eco non profits of choice. As mentioned, the pilot store program was a huge success, a 77 percent increase in reusable bag use in the first two months after launch.
Where are they now?
What Really Matters in Clean Technology, or “The Spark Plug Guy”
Posted by BC Upham October 30th, 2009 5 Comments
I attended a panel discussion Wednesday night at UC Irvine on the future of the automobile, part of OCTANe’s clean tech program. There was a series of presentations on hybrids, plug in hybrids, all-electric vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles, from some of the most respected names in advanced automotive design, representing some of the world’s biggest car companies. Each one of those technologies represents a sea change in the way cars drive, and by extension, in the way we live. It was exciting, heady stuff.
And then there was the spark plug guy.
Finisterre Finds Best Path to Staying Warm and Dry Is to Act Like an Otter
Posted by Mary Catherine O'Connor October 30th, 2009 0 Comments
On any given day, you’re likely to find a small team of product designers, material developers and scrappy marketers holed up in a converted mine building in the town of St. Agnes on the North Cornwall coast—unless, of course, the surf is good. At those times, you’re more likely to see these folks, who operate the Finisterre outdoor apparel company, bobbing in the chilly waters of the Atlantic, just a quick walk away from the office of Finisterre.
Finisterre makes jackets and base layers for people who love being outside, whether they’re surfing, hiking, skiing, climbing…whatever.
Most of the baselayers it sells are made of the soft, high-performance wool of sustainably-raised merino sheep. But the company is not only using materials from animals in its products, it’s also designing products that mimic the way that animals stay warm and dry. In developing this season’s Humboldt and Storm Tracker Finisterre jackets, the designers employed biomimicry.
“Harmless” Packaging – Something We Can All Buzz About
Posted by Smith School of Business October 30th, 2009 0 Comments
By John Comberiate
Harmless Enough?
An up and coming low impact packaging idea comes from the British company “Harmless“. Everyone’s received a magazine covered in a plastic bag in the mail at some point in their lives. Everyone has shipped a delicately packed box with a fragile treasure inside meant for a close friend or relative. So we’re all familiar with packing materials as well as the waste that goes along with disposing of them once they’ve completed their useful life. Harmless is making that waste a little more eco-friendly.
Harmless-Dissolve
Harmless has several options that have the ability to accommodate packing needs but the most impressive is the Harmless-Dissolve. Similar to any magazine wrapping you’ve received in the past, the Harmless-Dissolve protects the magazine from knicks, scratches and tears from point of origin to your door. Different though, is how you get rid of it; you just put it in water. The Creative Review, for examples, is shipping its magazine out this month in Harmless-Dissolve and even has demonstrational pictures of it in action.
Let’s Talk About Failure: Lessons to Learn from FailCon
Posted by Amie Vaccaro October 27th, 2009 1 Comment
I find people most endearing when they speak with humility and honesty about things they’d rather not have you know. FailCon was an amazing day of just that – successful people describing how they failed, rather than how great they are. Here I’ll summarize my key learnings on running a successful start-up for all of you who weren’t able to attend. (Also check out #failcon on twitter for more).
- Don’t build your resume. You screwed your resume up when you became an entrepreneur, so you might as well just go for it. Who cares what the next person is going to think. ~Mark Pincus, Zynga (Love this one!)
- We are living in a time and place where there is a high reward for success and high social acceptance of failure. We call this Boom Town. Take advantage of it. ~ Thor Muller and Lane Becker, Get Satisfaction
- Don’t get funding too frequently, or too much. This made the team very lazy. The coolest things we’ve done have been when we’ve been close to running out of cash. There’s something about being in a tight spot that you have to innovate out of. ~Ali Moiz, Peanut Labs
- Get empathy into your business. Spend time with your target customers, learn about their behavior and motivations, connect these insights to your business objectives. ~Brandon Schauer, Adaptive Path
Five Start-up Mistakes Not to Make, Courtesy of Meebo
Posted by Amie Vaccaro October 27th, 2009 0 Comments
I’m writing from FailCon today which is shaping up to be an excellent use of a Tuesday. I have a lot of opinions about conferences and two of the things I look for in a conference are that speakers are forced to prepare relevant, thoughtful content beforehand. And the dress is casual. FailCon meets both of these needs. Kudos!
Seth Sternberg and Sandy Jan, co-founders of Meebo revealed five mistakes they made.
1) Don’t try to do it all on your own. You need co-founders.
2) Don’t team up only with people like you. People have a tendency to attract similar people with similar skill sets, which can greatly hurt a team. Find people whose skills complement yours.
A Conference on Failure: Tell Us Something You Don’t Want Us To Know
Posted by Amie Vaccaro October 26th, 2009 3 Comments
Silicon Valley is filled with swagger. It is also one of the best places on the planet to fail. Very few start-ups succeed and failing seems to be encouraged. Some investors will only invest in entrepreneurs who have failed at least twice. The more failures under your belt, the better your chance of success at the next one. But what can we learn from failures? Will a tale of failure prevent my start-up from sharing the same fate? I’ll find out.
Tomorrow I’ll be attending SNAP Summit’s FailCon, which is billed as the first conference to ask successful folks what went wrong and how they fixed it. The conference is produced by Cassie Phillips who said the idea was a joke at first in response to the way “speakers love to rattle on about big successes, and brush over their mistakes.” The conference features CEOs and other leaders from companies including Meebo, Evernote, Fast Company, Slide, Zynga, Aardvark and more.
Tips to Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners from BizTechDay
Posted by Amie Vaccaro October 26th, 2009 0 Comments
After two full days of panels, keynotes, and hallway conversations at BizTechDay, I collected the following tips and comments–mostly paraphrased–that I think will be most useful to entrepreneurs and small business owners. (See also my post on Tim Ferriss’ tweeting style and Mark O’Leary’s lessons to small businesses).
On marketing
- Claim your local business listing on Google for free at google.com/lbc. ~Ryan Hayward, Product Manager, Google Local Business Center
- Unlock your business’ Yelp page at www.yelp.com/business (only takes 5-10 minutes). And don’t abandon your social media. ~Michelle Broderick, Marketing Director, Yelp
- Try using Facebook instead of a newsletter so you can deliver nuggets of information to your fans and create conversations around your brand. Set up custom tabs on your page to speak to different audiences. More than anything, make your Facebook page fun. ~Hazel Grace, Founder, Socialbees
- Use a handful of social networking sites. Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg.com watches a number of early-adopters to see what tools they use and then makes bets about which will become big by getting involved
- Social media is here to stay. Be authentic and real. ~Porter Gale, VP Marketing at Virgin America
- A useful and attractive website is essential. Yola has a number of resources to help you get started by building a free website
How to Tweet Like Tim Ferriss
Posted by Amie Vaccaro October 23rd, 2009 3 Comments
I’m a huge Tim Ferriss fan and I don’t think I’m alone. He spoke on two panels at BizTechDay. Working 4 hour weeks is pretty much anathema to starting a small business, and I get the sense that Ferriss himself works more than 4 hours per week. Ferriss, author of New York Times best-selling 4-Hour Workweek, angel investor and tech start-up advisor, introduced himself as “about 14 minutes into my 15 minutes of fame.” In any case, he imbued some priceless nuggets of wisdom I’ve compiled here. They may not be sustainability focused, but this applies just as well to someone getting out a green message as it does to someone selling widgets.
How to use Twitter
- Ferriss uses twitter for 3 things
- To communicate day to day bits of info that are not relevant for his blog
- As a microblogging tool to convey useful resources to his audience of 60,000+ followers
- For polling and getting feedback from the broader world (i.e. market research)
- Keep it fun. It should not feel like work. And if you’re tweeting and using other social media for business reasons, you better have a measurable output
- Don’t tweet when angry or drunk. Even if you delete a tweet, it doesn’t disappear
- Posting a pic or a video gets massive click through rates (if you’re Tim Ferriss)
- Ferriss uses direct message rather than @replies to respond
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