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Unconferencing

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My life as a producer and consumer of B2B events has its moments. Some are painful, tiring and awkward, some enlightening, inspiring and rewarding. It's good then to be presented with something fresh and new, which I'm hopeful that next month's Be2Camp will prove to be. It's billed as an unconference, which I suppose means that it's trying to move away from the established norms of such events - bloke or lass stands in front of crowd and spouts forth, issuing his definitive view of the world while we the audience meekly sit, try to stay awake and take a few notes.

Green Mondays - payback, population and facial hair

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Having been invited along to the Green Mondays event via this blog I duly trotted north of the river to the Brewery last night. And a worthwhile trip it turned out to be. A mix of key note speakers, round table discussion, speed dating and old-fashioned networking the do managed to fit a lot in without hurting your brain overly after a hard day at work. It's aimed at sustainability bosses and bods at big corporates and consultancies across the spectrum of business but has sub-groups which focus on particular sectors, such as property. I saw a few familiar faces but it was a good opportunity to talks to those out of the buildings business. Here's a few highlights:

Open House

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I'm a big fan of the Open House event, the weekend in September (20-21 this year) where you can poke around major landmarks in our capital for free. There was a good sprinkling of green projects on display last year as well as a Sponge Eco-tour run by the group of sustainable professionals which will be repeated this time. The programme also highlights a couple of new elements:

Green drinks

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I finally made it to a green drinks bash last night, encouraged out of my sustainable social shyness by Mel. I returned home the proud owner of a Totnes pound, the currency used in one of the leading Transition Towns - the current exchange rate is 95p. There were about 60 of us, from beardies to suits, campaigners to capitalists holed up in the basement of a (very cheap) Soho pub. Barring the aforementioned Mel I met two fellow green hacks, a contingent from the climate camp, a CSR expert at URS, a pair of design and branding bods, an assistant buyer at Topshop, a lady from a world music record label and a Finnish man called Albert who we unfortunately were unable to understand very well - I think he was talking about wind turbines. The chat? Sustainability in a downturn, fuel cells, General Electric, Big Brother, Georgia (the country), are website more or less sustainable than print? eel-skin bags, summer music festivals and celebrity stylist Gok Wan Read. I think I'm going to give the Tower Hamlets one a stab in the autumn - I'm told it's more intimate but I've got the bug now.

Think RIP

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I wanted to pass on some rather disappointing news. Unfortunately the Think event is no more. I put a considerable amount of effort into making the content element of the show as good as I could from January to May of this year so it was something of a blow when the decision to ditch it was made last month. I suppose the cliche about learning from failures is one to trot out such a moment. I won't go into a long post mortem/explanation but will list a few reasons and lessons for and from its demise:

What are you reading this summer?

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I have rather tardily decided to run some summer based coverage on the Building Sustainability channel. I realise by starting this it will inevitably lead to overcast conditions (such as I now see out of my window) so my apologies in advance. Anyhow, as part of the content I was keen for reader to put forward their summer reading and listening this summer. So by all means put forward the tome or album you will be burying yourself in on the beach please. Either comment here or send them to [email protected].

Is there wheelchair access at virtual conferences?

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I thought I would share an amusing thread from the Sustainability Now lounge at the start of the month. It was started by one Jacob Allderdice, who hails from the International Academy of Design and Technology in Toronto and I'm hoping he had a keen eye for irony. Here's some of the transcript:

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Jacob Allderdice: Question: I am in a wheelchair. Here I am at the grand complex to investigate the green strategies available, and everywhere I look I see staircases, with not one ramp in sight.

Sustainability again

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I'm grateful for the valuable feedback from both Paul and Martin to the Sustainability Now event. Paul's idea of plugging in profiles from social networking sites is an excellent one and Martin's view that we need to make the event action-packed is well made. All plenty of food for thought as we plan another one. It was interesting to compare the experience with chairing a live conference last Thursday (more on the content of the event in future posts). I'm not sure how good the analogy is but I'd compare the two to the difference between TV and the cinema. In the first you dip in and out, flick between programmes and carry out chores while you view it. In the latter you sit in a room and concentrate for a longer period of time. Two different experiences but both valid and of use.

From virtual to live

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I'm now switching seamlessly from avatar status to live form this week, chairing a conference on the regulations, codes and legislation covering non-domestic buildings on Thursday. Other speakers at the event will include Paul King from the UKGBC, LABC chief executive Paul Everall, the irrepressible David Strong and Rachel Wooliscroft from contractor Wates. The conference title has been shortened to the sustainable non-dwelling conference - hopefully not a reflection on the current state of the construction market. Still wondering whether to use that as an opening gag.

Sustainability Now- success and lessons

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It's a few days since the Sustainability Now show which took place last week (you can still look around now, although there's no live interaction any more - register here or click here if you've already registered). It proved a real success and confirmed to me that there is an audience out there that really responds, and gets involved, in such a format. We had 1,500 visitors on the two days and nearly 2,000 downloads of content in the auditorium, which ranged from video and audio to two live seminars. Here's a few lessons from the event: