Making connections in Seattle

One of the first things I did here in Seattle was volunteer to give a little talk about 2People at the monthly Planetwork meeting. Planetwork is a "convening organization" that aims to bring people together who are interested in applying networking (web, internet) technology to create large-scale global change. Pretty good fit for what we're doing, eh? They have monthly meetings in a number of cities, but not in Boston, so this was my first opportunity. The meeting was small, and my allotted time brief. To me it felt surprisingly superficial -- a quick little talk, a brief discussion, and then on to a smorgasbord of other (random) topics. I guess I have to get used to the idea of a kind of sampler plate approach to networking. But just to attest to the power of this approach, I did connect with a woman there with deep ties to Indymedia, who the very next day invited me to be part of a large, brainstorming meeting convened by some amazing folks at Seattle Biotech Legacy Foundation.

About 100 of us spent 4 hours together, in various structured and unstructured processes, getting to know each other and beginning to brainstorm about visions of a sustainable future and how to get there. As you'd expect, nothing specific came out of this first meeting. But I'm totally jazzed that we were there and that there's an opening created to bring this group of people together. So many resonances with 2People, and what we're working on -- I kept hearing people looking for ways to build community. A fine start to my stay in Seattle...

Seattle and beyond...

I'm in Seattle, living with my brother and working full-time on the project. It's going great -- will have a demo done pretty soon. Next week I'll give a talk at the Seattle branch of Planetwork.

Three different friends told me to get in touch with the Great Transition Initative (at Tellus Institute), and I finally did. Had a great chat with Orion Kriegman, who has agreed to join the advisory group, and invited me to participate in GTI. GTI is a brain trust of sustainability scholars and activists mapping out a vision for the transition to sustainability. Their approach is more top-down than I prefer, but it's a great opportunity to connect with many smart people from all over the globe.

Two new advisors join our distinguished group: Orion Kriegman and Dave Miller. Great to have their totally distinctive skills and vision on board!

Orion Kriegman: Organizer and researcher at Tellus Institute's Great Transition Initative. Orion is a graduate of the Harvard's Kennedy School, where he specialised in community participation in the sustainable development of urban neighborhoods. He coordinated the creation of the Urban Ecovillage Network (UEN) and was the Project Officer for the Reflecting on Peace Practice Project (RPP), a practitioner's learning network gathering lessons learned about various peacebuilding efforts in internal armed conflicts.

Dave Miller: Seasoned entrepreneur, angel investor, and clean energy advocate. In his former life, Dave started and sold a successful tech company, then helped run a venture fund at Lucent. He's currently getting his Ph.D. at MIT's lab for Energy and the Environment, and is active at the intersection of energy, business, and environmentalism.