Events
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Craiglist Foundation Bootcamp
“Imagine 1500 passionate people gathering together to change the world. That’s Boot Camp – a fun, intensive one day gathering where people learn how to bring their ideas for stronger communities into reality.” Salem and I had the great pleasure to serve as volunteers at Craigslist Foundation’s Boot Camp last Saturday.... -
BALLE 2009 in Full Swing
Over 300 folks have packed it in for Day One of the national Business Alliance for Local Living Economies' conference. First off, Colorado is rocking on local living economies, there are so many networks and great things happening here. Entrepreneurs and network leaders from Vancouver to Santa Fe, all over New England down to Charleston and all the way to France have descended on Denver for our conference!... -
BetterWorld Brings BetterWork to GreenCities Orlando
Orlando was green in more than one way today as the BetterWorld Train rolled into town. In addition the spring monsoon passing through central Florida, GreenCities Orlando is the first installment in the GreenCities Tour (www.greencities.com), orchestrated by BetterWorld friend, customer and partner, Seven Star Productions. There was a great turnout and the kickoff event set the tone for sure as it turns to Huntsville, AL and New York City later in the year.... -
BetterWorld Supports Sustainable Art Show at Soundry
BetterWorld was out at the Soundry this past Monday along with the Sustainable Business Network of Washington to support a showcase of local artist talent and foster sustainable collaboration. The innovative space of the Soundry, a former auto body shop now converted into a public coffee shop, art gallery, and shared studio space for local artists and musicians provided a rich backdrop for the opening of their “Green is Beautiful” Sustainable Artwork show.... -
BetterWorld at the Brower Center
Brower Center BetterWorld Telecom is partnering with East Bay Green Tours and the Sustainable Business Alliance to sponsor a space in the Sustainable Enterprise Cluster at the brand new David Brower Center in downtown Berkeley, CA. The grand opening event this past Sunday had hundreds of locals and nonprofit professionals exploring this inspiring new facility, named in honor of the legendary environmentalist David Brower.... -
Full Circle Fund
Matt and I recently became members of Full Circle Fund, an engaged philanthropy organization cultivating the next generation of community leaders and driving lasting social change in the Bay Area and beyond. I attended their annual member retreat in Monterey last weekend to dive right in. It was a wonderful retreat with an incredibly dynamic and talented group of motivated individuals.... -
BALLE Conference 2009 – Be There, Be Local
The excitement is growing for this year’s upcoming annual conference for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) May 21st-23rd, with Denver being the lucky host city for 2009. If you are one of the millions of regular readers to the BetterBlog, you know how passionate we are about BALLE and everything it stands for, and it all started at the 2006 Annual Conference in Burlington, VT!... -
SBNOW Raises the Bar for Sustainability in D.C.
The Sustainable Business Network of Washington (D.C.) keeeps on growing and growing its impact in the Washington, D.C. area and beyond. Formed a number of years ago (BetterWorld participated at the board level early on), SBNOW and its truly fearless leader Pamela Skarda, have now amassed hundreds of businesses, organizations and individuals as members and most recently, as part of Earth Week’s celebration, SB NOW announced that two companies; WGL Holdings, Inc.... -
Green Telecom � IT Summit at CTIA, Introducing BetterWork
While the telecom carrier segment is slow to adopt a true & meaningful green agenda – – which is astounding to us given the massive opportunity – – there continues to be progress and the Green Telecom Summit at the CTIA / Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association convention last week was further proof that things are gaining steam.... -
Sustainability in San Francisco’s East Bay
Jay, Jacob and I were fortunate late last week to attend our first Sustainable Business Alliance monthly luncheon in Oakland and get to see some old friends and meet many new ones as well. BetterWorld is now a member of SBA and is exploring more ways we can become involved in the coming months with this great organization.... -
Eco Build Expo – Boston 2008
Betterworld Telecom wrapped up the week in attendance at the Eco Build Expo in Boston this past Friday who’s theme for 2008 was “Revolutionary Green: Innovations for Global Sustainability”. Attendees included vendors from the green building space who showcased their goods and services. Majora Carter, Executive Director of Sustainable South Bronx in New York, was just one of the many talented speakers that discussed how the economy and green-collar jobs are becoming more popular in today’s society and she urges businesses to get back to their local roots.... -
A Weekend in the Woods with BGI
This past weekend, I was most fortunate to spend a weekend in residence at Island Wood on Bainbridge Island, WA with the Bainbridge Graduate Institute during one of their student intensives. It is hard to put into words what an amazing place Island Wood is, but equally difficult is trying to describe in a few words the powerful engine for change and sustainability that has been created at BGI.... -
2008 SF Green Business Conference
Out in San Francisco, the Mecca of sustainable business and progressive thinking, I just finished up with Green America’s (Co-Op America’s new name) Green Business Conference. It was an opportunity to strengthen connections with folks we know and develop new relationships with many new wonderful companies and organizations. Amidst the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Green community remains optimistic about the exponential growth of responsible business and public awareness.... -
Green Telecom Summit 2008, Berlin
We were fortunate this week to be able to present at the first Green Telecom Summit, held in Berlin. Along with Verizon, BetterWorld Telecom was the only other U.S. telecom carrier presenting at the conference. The focus of the conference was the overall impact of climate change – what are the challenges we are facing in society as a whole and how can the telecoms industry work to reduce the impact?... -
GreenFest DC 2008, Another Huge Success
The BetterWorld team was out in force again at this year’s DC GreenFest – – we don’t have the final numbers but it seemed the largest for sure to date and the crowds were very active. As always the case, our friends from Seven Star, Coop America, and Global Exchange put on a great show and deserve the highest congratulations.... -
Obama Campaign Calls, BetterWorld Answers
While it is our policy as a company not to endorse political positions or candidates, we are excited to find a new application for our virutal PBX and unified communications technologies in political campaigns. As we have been touting these technologies as enabling greener solutions and more democratic solutions for the workplace (see previous blogs on our project with BGI, and partnership with WorldBlu), we are feverishly trying to keep up with deploying our virtual calling platform for a number of state headquarters in the Obama-Biden Campaign for Change including campaign offices in Nevada, Colorado, New Hampshire, Montana, Wisconsin, Virginia and Pennsylvania.... -
SVN Conference Report: The New Apollo Program
The 2008 SVN fall conference is off and running and the energy level is higher than ever – – just saw a great presentation from Phil Angelides and Jerome Ringo, leaders of the Apollo Alliance. What an amazing organization with a great vision! The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution in America to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, cut the carbon emissions that are destabilizing our climate, and expand opportunities for American businesses and workers.... -
Business Seeing Green in Atlanta
Earlier this week I spoke at the 2008 Green Business Works Expo in Atlanta, great to see such great representation across all aspects of the business and government worlds in Atlanta. My talk focused on the coming Green Communications revolution that we have begun to implement with many of our customers, saving precious dollars while trimming organization’s carbon footprints at the same time.... -
The Green Telecom � IT Summit at CTIA
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association has long been at the forefront of the exploding wireless/cellular industry and this week took significant strides forward in helping to further the green dialogue within the industry at this week’s CTIA convention in San Francisco. Most folks have no clue that the Telecoms industry in the US, both wireline and wireless, is now over $900 Billion per annum, and eats up an estimated 3%-5% of ALL the power produced in the country.... -
Good Business Network Salon, San Francisco
After a slight break from the blogosphere, we are back in force with a number of visits and events over the past week. My colleague Jacob and I were fortunate to attend a great event/salon the other night in San Francisco – The Good Capital Movement: How Everyone Can Be a Social Investor.... -
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies 2008 Conference
Even though the weather was downright Londonesque most of the week, things really heated up in the Student Center at Boston University this past week. Hundreds and Hundreds of leaders came from all over North America (largest contingent I’ve seen from Canada yet to date), to discuss the merits of localizing all aspects of the economy and our communities.... -
Appalachian Voices Rally for CLEAN Energy!
I attended a Rally for clean energy on Thursday May 8th co-hosted by Appalachian Voices (BetterWorld is a member of the Appalachian Voices Business League), the Southern Environmental Law Center and other local organizations and residents of Richmond. The rally was inspired by numerous outcries opposing Dominion Power’s construction of a new coal mining plant in Wise, VA.... -
Social Venture Network’s 2008 Spring Member Gathering
Now is the Time: Create the World You Want to Live In, was the conference theme…Wow, what a great conference, having been on the Board of Directors for the past 3 years and a member for 5 years- I have to say this was one of the best conferences for connecting with old friends and making new ones while learning how we are all Creating the world You Want to Live In….... -
New Jersey Getting its Green On
We’re at the Global Green Expo 2008 today in Liberty State Park, just across the Hudson from the former World Trade Center – – the New York area is buzzing green this whole weekend with the Go Green Expo downtown and the Global Green 2008 today and tomorrow. There are thousands walking the aisles out here on a perfect Spring day in New York, taking the ferry across to the park, couldn’t help but salute ol' Liberty and reflect on that first sight for so many as they came into Ellis Island.... -
Sustainable in Seattle – GreenFest 2008
Another inaugural GreenFest in the rear view mirror and what a wonderful host Seattle played – kudos to the Global Exchange/Coop America/Seven Star team for putting on another flawless event, hard to imagine a better team out there, and we’re just lucky that they all love to put on Green Fesitvals....
