The City of Reno 2008 Green Summit is scheduled for September 20. I’m stoked that Rocky Anderson is speaking. As many of you know, Twelve Horses has a significant and growing presence in Salt Lake City and because of that I’ve spent a lot of time in the SLC vicinity over the last two years. With every day I spend in Salt Lake City, I become more and more impressed with the accomplishments of that city and the business community. Reno can definitely learn from their success. Rocky Anderson had a lot to do with that success.
I’ve spent about two weeks there over this summer. Between the Utah Transit Authority’s rail system, my bike and some creative carpooling I didn’t have to drive to one meeting, or even to our offices in Draper. It was like living in San Francisco yet surrounded by mountains and ski resorts. Every time I hang out in downtown catching great music shows (like Lucero and Langhorne Slim) I can’t help but think that Reno is but 20 years behind in size yet poised with the opportunity to focus our town’s growth curve with more emphasis on land resource planning, mass transit and all the green-in-between. Where Salt Lake will suffer is that their hockey-stick growth phase occurred during cheap gas and real estate. Consequently their town is a very car-dependent culture where people live dozens and dozens of miles from their place of work.
So back to Reno:
Jason Geddes kicks ass. Not only does he share in my penchant for cowboy boots, shirts with mother-of-pearl buttons and chasing Chukar, but he’s local visionary leader that’s dragging Reno (sometimes kicking and screaming) into a future that I want to live in. A Winnemucca/Gabbs native, petroleum chemist and former State Assemblyman, Jason assisted Chuck Alvey take the patchouli-edge off of “green” in the EDAWN business development and economic diversification dialog and made huge progress in his time there. Currently he’s a Regent with the University of Nevada and serves the City of Reno as our town’s Environmental services Administrator. He’s also married to Cindy Geddes who’s one of the best writers here locally.
Jason got the Green Summit off of the ground last year. The first Green Summit was held in April of 2007 and served as a dialogue between Council, staff, and citizens on what the City could do to make Reno more “green”. There were almost 400 people in attendance. The 2008 Green Summit is intended to be a report back to the community on action taken since the last summit, and a continued dialogue on what the City should have as priorities in the 2008-2009 Green Action plan.
[Side note: Jason works with another great organization in this community, Nevada EcoNET. Every Wednesday night this summer the City of Reno's West Street Market features “Eco-Nights” produced by Nevada EcoNet. Click here to read about it. Props to Lauren Siegel and the City of Reno for putting this on!]
Here’s the deets on the 2008 City of Reno Green Summit:
Location: Joe Crowley Student Union-Ballroom, University of Nevada, Reno
Time: 1-5pm, Date: September 20
Program:
1:00-1:45 Welcome by Mayor and Council and Report to Community
1:45-2:30 Keynote Speaker- Rocky Anderson, Former Mayor of Salt Lake City
B- Education/Youth Programs-EnAct/Youth City Council
C- Green Building and Sierra Green Guidelines
D- Transportation
Keynote Speaker - The Honorable Rocky Anderson, founder of High Road for Human Rights, practiced law for 21 years; representing plaintiffs in antitrust, securities fraud, professional negligence, and civil rights cases. He then served as mayor of Salt Lake City from 2000 to 2008.
His comprehensive environmental programs, including an aggressive climate protection campaign, achieved a 31% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Salt Lake City’s municipal operations.
For his leadership on climate change, Anderson received the Climate Protection Award from the EPA, the Distinguished Service Award from the Sierra Club, and the World Leadership Award from the World Leadership Forum.
Anderson is now working to achieve municipal and regional support for climate protection initiatives and to provide grassroots education and advocacy opportunities in the areas of human rights and climate change.
Incidentally, here’s some photos I snapped on the ‘ol trusty Nokia N95 while I was roaming downtown Salt Lake City with @leilanis during National Ride Your Bike to Work Week campaign. Obviously I thought it was brilliant!
Pull the hall pass for Thursday night because there’s two great events:
First up is a Deanne Stillman book-signing at Sundance Bookstore. Deanne’s latest book, “Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West,” was published today. The event starts at 6:30pm. Click [here] for directions to Sundance. Also, please visit: www.nvwildhorses.com to join a community dialog on this subject.
After the booksigning, the Reno-Tahoe AIGA (that stands for American Institute for Graphic Arts) is screening Helvetica on the Nevada Museum of Art’s rooftop.
“Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West” Booksigning
Failure to enforce a 1971 law endangers the mustangs it was supposed to protect.
By Deanne Stillman June 2, 2008
It’s not news that America is a cowboy nation, but it may surprise many that we are destroying the horse we rode in on.
Since the early 1970s, mustangs — wild horses — have been protected under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act, spearheaded by Velma Johnston, a.k.a. Wild Horse Annie. In 1950, she saw blood spilling out of a truck on a Nevada highway, followed it, and then witnessed injured and dying mustangs being offloaded at a slaughterhouse. She led a battle to stop the cruel roundups, resulting in the passage of federal protection signed into law by President Nixon in 1971.
Under that law, horses are to be “considered in areas where presently found as an integral part of the system of public lands.” Their management falls to agencies inside the Department of the Interior, primarily the Bureau of Land Management, which culls the herds based on the land’s grazing capacity and what’s required to sustain the wild horse population. But the government also balances the needs of horses against other uses of the range — and that means corporate cattle ranching. Today, instead of being protected, mustangs are in danger of being “managed” out of existence.
At Twelve Horses (where I’m employed) we kinda stirred up the dust on the wild horse issue and did a video podcast and created a social community to foster more dialog on the subject. Here’s the video, and if you will, please join www.nvwildhorses.com and let’s find some resolution to this issue. Our aim to get folks leveraging social media to draw the attention, air out the facts and protect our State’s brand.
Helvetica: Rooftop Film Screening Party at NMA
Thursday June 12, 7pm: Nevada Museum of Art
Join us for a rooftop screening of the acclaimed documentary Helvetica on the 51st birthday of the typeface. We will be serving birthday cake and beverages and the museum galleries will be open prior to showtime.
7pm - Food, drink and museum galleries, 8pm - Showtime
Members | Free Student non-members | $10 Non-members | $20
Everyone is encouraged to bring a guest, free of charge.
Stoked to see that there was twice as many people at the Reno Bike Project Pancake feed this morning to support Bike to Work Day. Logan and I rolled down, ate some bacon, and then we rolled out to his school. We practiced his spelling words on the ride out, stopping at Walden’s Cafe for some more bacon. Thanks Kyle/Noah/Mikey for the bacon and griddle and Soma for flipping ‘them flapjacks.
This is AWESOME. From Esquire: “You cannot deconstruct Reno. It’s ruddy and rock hard, self-evident and openhearted. Reno is of a whole. It is a city, not an event.” Bingo. From Esquire’s second annual register of emerging ideas,
The author — Tom Chiarella — blows the secret on what we already know: “Don’t leave Reno without stopping at Peg’s Glorified Ham & Eggs for breakfast. They’re glorified for a reason.” Great to see Reno get some *real* treatment from a non-RV driving writer. Thanks Tom for the great ‘investigatory’!
So Myrna has a new look to her Blog. Cool! Loving that Reno’s #1 blogger dug-in and upgraded. Reno and its Discontents got a makeover over the weekend and it’s lookin’ great! Blog redesign can kill a person (or pay the bills for some, wink)…or at least drive you ”absolutely bonkers” which is what I think drove Myrna to write a post on economics.
Her post “On Capitalism” got me thinking about how much I enjoy social and political economic theory and why. Myrna asks the question:
“Come on, is there anyone out there who can tell me with a straight face that Milton Friedman or Karl Marx or John Keynes didn?t have certain agendas in mind while formulating their theories?”
Rather than give a straight answer (yes, I have a BS in Economics AND a BS in Finance, emphasis on “BS” hahaha), here’s a little story about where my passion came from:
When I showed up to UNR in 1988, I intended to be a Finance Major w/ Political Science and Marketing Minors. I wanted to go to law school then. Yeah…anyway…probably should have stuck with that plan, BUT:
My adviser was Mike Reed — a social economics professor then. Mike later went on to become Dean of the College of Business and is now basically the CFO for the Nevada System of Higher Education. He works for Jim Rogers & Crew now. What kind of sillyness he must witness in the name of education one can only imagine…but I’m jealous!
Because of Mike Reed I dumped my minors and ended up taking all of his classes, and incidentally, pretty much every one of his “arch enemy” Tom Cargill’s as well (who is a hidden UNR treasure). They weren’t actually enemy’s. I just like to think so. Cargill had a different approach. He’s a banking economist who I think predicted/nailed the whole EU unification/outcome in 1991 with an intense decade crystal ball accuracy… Smart dude, anyway…
There’s simply no better person to have a drink with in all of Nevada and have a conversation about economics and the social/political conundrum than Dr. Mike Reed. A hippie. A beatnik. A redneck. A artisan. A philosopher. An economist. A real human being. He’s the kind of social chameleon that makes him great at everything. Not only can he slide comfortably in to every social-economics conversation and actually ADD to it, he can — and will – challenge every belief you hold until you have no choice but to find empathy and a understanding of all perspectives. I’ve seen the most virulent of socialists tamed in to respect for Smith/Hayek. Conversely, he beat the Ayn Rand right out of me, while simultaneously introducing me to Ludwig von Mises v. Keynes, and then doubled-back with Schumpeter (hence my Entrepreneur bent). Then, just when I was all puffed up, he slipped in Marx, Kant, Hegel and Rousseau. (Ayn still tops in the book favs tho’.)
Yes Myrna, every economist has an agenda – visible, hidden, obfuscated or even more often subconscious. But we all do!
We all have agendas. We all have different worldviews. The greatest thing about Mike’s approach towards teaching economics was to encourage his students to discover these “worldviews” and navigate in-and-around them in understanding what made their approach tick, click or sick. BTW, agenda sounds evil - all these people were well intentioned passionate people deeply vested in trying to understand the world about them to the benefit of everyone…folks like Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Stalin, Che, Hitler, Castro, Chavez, Peron hacked certain economic theories for their impassioned Maslow-political marketing/branding strategy a.k.a. “an agenda”.
Because of Mike’s passion for his students, I was fortunate to be able to see Milton Friedman — not once…but twice before he passed away.
Anyway, Myrna’s post reminded me of how much value I got from my education as a result of Mike Reed’s meddling with my mind…and how lucky I am to have meet and see speak one of the great economists of our time. Speaking of (future) great economists…Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and Curator of TED and writer/creator of the Long Tail is still quite young/alive/kicking and just may be a recent example of great economic mind of our time…go see him speak before he dies in a WordPress makeover!
So, the two people that are most often maligned for being Capitalists donated 33 Billion buckaroos (now a 65B portfolio) to solve a lot of world ilk. Can anyone with a straight face tell me that whatever they’re 33 Billion dollars goes to, it doesn’t have an agenda too? That’s 64.9999999999999999Billion more than I have to help people out!
Anyway, When Mike Reed introduced Warren Buffet to UNR students celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the COBA, I couldn’t help but think that Mike Reed and Warren Buffet were two intellectual giants/peas-in-a-pod on stage. While Warren Buffet talked about how important people are to business and organizations and the empathy/ethics required to steward any organization, I realized I was fortunate to have experienced that philosophy first hand from Mike starting in 1988.
Thanks Myrna for finally triggering a post outta me!
I’m a huge proponent of professional social gatherings (a.k.a. parties) here in Nevada to bolster our tech/design economy. Lifelong experience has proven to me over and over that people do business with people and if you’re not out starting and maintaining relationships you eventually suck at your business and/or your career. And there you have it: business is largely about parties and meeting people hahahah!
From a branding perspective it’s ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that our Greater Reno Tahoe brand perception is that of a great place to party and hookup I’ll blog about why Reno’s burgeoning meat-market is vital on another post…just know that the 20-30 something tech/creative’s are in high demand everywhere on the planet and we need to hold on to every single one of them here locally. Frankly, my business cannot grow without them.
A long time a go (1999 - 2002) Michael Thomas (now at EDAWN) ran Greater Reno-Tahoe’s first technology oriented social-networking driven organization, the TechAlliance @ NewNevada. Perhaps the greatest boon to northern Nevada’s tech economy back then was what was then known as Cocktails.com. It’s where we all got together, got on the same page and built momentum with cocktails in hand.
I met Robb Smith for the first time at a Cocktails.com event and he convinced me to joined the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (then known as YEO) which has been perhaps one of my greatest professional life experiences. Back then there were startups like Ken Hawk’s iGo, CandyBarell.com, HardwareStreet.com, HomeSeekers.com and a dozen others. UNR’s Mike Reed, Nevada Bell’s Dick Bostdorf and Reno attorney Garrett Sutton were instrumental in the TechAlliance’s startup. More recently, thanks to EDAWN/Michael Thomas we’ve got the newly formed Reno Tahoe Young Professionals Network kicking ass and an we’re on the world’s design radar with a fully legit and operatin cool AIGA chapter.
At the beginning, Cocktails.com events would last all night with everyone spilling out of bars, nightclubs and JK’s Nugget in the wee hours of the morning. It was a great time of forming a tech-community. Then: Dot.com bust…and as Paul Harvey would say “now know you know the story….”
Michael Thomas to came to work for Twelve Horses in 2002 and the TechAlliance eventually folded in to a newly formed state-wide effort known as Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (NCET.ORG). (DISCLAIMER: I’ve was on the founding board and am now the Chairman of this wonderful organization — so this is blatant promotion.) About a year-and-a-half ago under Dave Archer & Emily Lowe’s exceptional care, we brought back Cocktails.com as Tech Thursday’s. These events have been awesome, however, they’ve leaned a little too much on the professional and a little too less on the networking/drinking/have fun/hooking up. In perhaps kinder words, Tech Thursday attracts an “older behaving crowd”. Folks that have to be home before sundown.
WiFi Wednesdays are, by design, intended to be much more geared to the twenty/thrity-somethings rather that “all-inclusive professionals”. If people aren’t doing shots of Tequilla and YouTube jousting, we’ve failed at this experiment. I expect/hope that the Thursday mornings following an event to be just a little less productive among Reno’s tech/design class. But in trade for that, collectively we hope to have a larger pool of those workers to chose from. Now this doesn’t mean that folks over the age of 40 aren’t welcome. If you still feel and act like you’re twenty-six (that’s my personal maturity wall) then get your game on and come out!
Wi-Fi Wednesdays is the brainchild of NCET marketing manager Emily Lowe and Robert Payne/Josh Kenzer of Twelve Horses. The trio was looking for a way to expand their professional networks and was weary of the same old venues. Wi-Fi Wednesdays is intended to be a bi-monthly high-energy networking opportunity designed to serve the specific needs of and cater exclusively to the influential 21-39 demographic. Come help make it succeed!
Details:
August 22, join NCET and the Reno-Tahoe Young Professional’s Network (YPN) as they put a modern-day spin on Greater Reno Tahoe’s networking with the launch of Wi-Fi Wednesdays: “Connecting the Connected.”
- Wi-Fi Wednesdays is a bi-monthly high-energy networking opportunity designed exclusively for the influential 21-39 demographic - Held in wireless venues throughout Reno - Entertaining high-tech networking tools - “Speed networking,” a twist on the “speed dating” concept that helps facilitate numerous one-on-one introductions in a short period of time - Brief presentations by successful young entrepreneurs and technology professionals.
The Chocolate Bar August 22 - 5:30 – 7:30 pm 475 S. Arlington Ave, Reno
August’s Wi-Fi Wednesday features a YouTube contest where you get to vote on your favorite video. To enter, send links of your best videos (3 max) to Emily at NCET by Monday, August 20.
- Space for the August 22 Wi-Fi Wednesdays debut is limited and reservations are preferred. - Cost for the event is $5 per person for Reno-Tahoe YPN members and $10 per person for non-members. RSVP@NCET.org.
NCET, Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, helps foster an environment within Nevada in which high-growth entrepreneurial companies can succeed and flourish. NCET has a strategic partnership with the Nevada Commission on Economic Development. For more information on NCET, visit www.NCET.org. NCET is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
Please join NCET on August 16 for Tech Thursday, Greater Reno Tahoe’s premier technology and entrepreneurial networking event! Find it on Upcoming. This month, we’ll give you a preview of NCET’s many exciting programs and events, some brand new for 2007, including:
Wi-Fi Wednesdays
Silver & Gold VC Conference
Nevada Clean Energy Summit
eWeek (Entrepreneur Week)
When: Thursday, August 16 5:30 – 7:30 pm, $10 donation at door
RSVP by Tuesday, August 14th Redfield Campus - Nell J. Redfield Building
18600 Wedge Parkway Reno, NV 89511 (775) 850-2710
Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology helps foster an environment within Nevada in which high-growth entrepreneurial companies can succeed and flourish. NCET has a strategic partnership with the Nevada Commission on Economic Development. For more information on NCET, visit www.NCET.org. CET is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
OK…so this is kind of old news (from CNET). Somehow I missed it…and if it did hit the local headlines, my apologies for my Google alerts to fail me. Anyway, since it’s not in Myrna’s RSS feed I’m wondering if the usual suspects for ballyhooing this about are too focused on John Edwards hair hahaha!
I was listening to this week’s episode (#107) of TWiT (This Week in Technology) while eating a bowl of Pho noodles and almost started choked when Leo LaPorte started talking about this news story. If it weren’t for TWit, I would have totally missed it. Listen to this clip of the banter of TWiT…too funny hahaha! (BTW, you should subscribe to TWiT. Best tech podcast.)
In what could be a whopping security hole, Nevada has posted the password to the gubernatorial e-mail account on its official state Web site. It appears in a Microsoft Word file giving step-by-step instructions on how aides should send out the governor’s weekly e-mail updates, which has, as a second file shows, 13,105 subscribers.
And just before anyone goes off claiming that this is endemic to a particular political party or something snidely silly like that, let me tell you first hand that for the last 16 years I’ve witnessed this type of stuff go down at pretty much every level of government on both sides of the aisle. For the one or two times that make it to the headlines such as this, there’s the ninety-nine other times that it does not…which is ultimately a good thing. It does get depressing when you think about all the folks who “run this place” who can’t even send or receive a simple text message or an email for that matter!
What we’re witnessing is the last days of the “un-connected” political elite. It’s still possible for folks to get elected without a Blackbeery in hand. But those days are numbered. The 2008 election cycle will prove that the luddite politicos are on the decline. Facebook and MySpace friends count more than ever. Luddlite politicians who can’t compete for the mindshare of the “media consumer voter” may not swing a lot of elections in 2008, however, by 2012 that will change. I predict it will be folks like Reno 911!’s stars (who partnered with Declare Yourself to produce satirical video shorts) that will begin to dominate the voter’s attention. Simply put, by 2015, Gen-Y will account for 1/3rd of the voting population.
Lastly, what is missing from most of the elected 1.0 is the self depreciating sense of humor about themselves that develops personal brand trust and connectedness with the media consumer voter under the age of 40. Al Gore’s figured it out…see that post here. John Edwards’ campaign should jump on the hairdo PR wagon and hand out mini-shampoo bottles with his mug on them driving them to his Facebook page. But alas they’re probably too busy fighting off hackers in Second Life!
The City of Reno 2008 Green Summit is scheduled for September 20. I’m stoked that Rocky Anderson is speaking. As many of you know, Twelve Horses has a significant and growing presence in Salt Lake City and because of that I’ve spent a lot of time in the SLC vicinity over the last two years. With every day I spend in Salt Lake City, I become more and more impressed with the accomplishments of that city and the business community. Reno can definitely learn from their success. Rocky Anderson had a lot to do with that success. 
My adviser was 
I’ll blog about why 
