San Francisco Green Fest today

My entire week was filled with working on two new SVTAGS TV/Cable shows, speaking engagements-one at SBODN, a 3-year Anniversary event of the Green Chamber of Commerce SF,the
"Be The Change" Program with Aterra, an "Awakening Women's Potential" event with Soroptimist International and now I'm off to film at the Green Fest San Francisco for my TV Cable show.

Since I have been out of town in years past for this fall Green Festival. I'm really looking forward to investigating today the hundreds of vendors, speakers and see what's up there!

Exhausted from the weeks activities, but also very excited to be able to go to this.... I will be reporting more later on all of the above mentioned!

http://www.svtags.org/

(Above photo of San Francisco City Hall lite up with orange colored lights for the SF Gaints).

One Green Gals Home Improvement Projects Day 4

Okay, so I thought I would walk into the tile shop and know what I wanted. The FireClay shop that won the CA Clean Tech Open (now Clean Tech Open) in 2008 has so much cool stuff I walked away confused about what to buy!

Today I will go back and take a closer look at their bone yard, which is leftovers that people did not want after the tile was handmade just for them... (people can be so wasteful and picky!)

Here is what my shower has looked like this week and some photos of the tile from Fire and Clay in San Jose. After looking through my photos and thinking I had took before shoots, the only photos I could find are of the cats playing next to the tile we tore out. For the past 2 plus years the cats have thought that the upstairs shower was there personal sandbox, since that's were their box has sat. They are very confused this week and are not happy about the tar in the shower.

Nothing like old meets new in a home improvement project.
Click here for slide show of the project.

Green Drinks Silicon Valley

Tonight I'm heading to Green Drinks Silicon Valley. There is a new gal running this one and her name is Suzanne Hibbs. She is very enthusiastic about getting Green Drinks numbers up from where it stands. Last month she said that about 50 people showed up and she is hoping that this keeps increasing. She asked if I would do a few minutes on Green events in the area, or on my TV Cable show that I started about a year ago, (of course that show is called Silicon Valley -Technology, Art, Green and Sustainability (SVTAGS).

In my past experience with the local Green Drinks only a hand full of people showed up. However other areas have any where from 40 to a 200 people show up. Since Green Jobs, Green Economy, Sustainability and related topics are so hot right now- it makes sense that people would want to gather and share information here. Since we are so used to sharing information through technology. Maybe this is why the numbers in the past have bee low, because we like to sit at our computers and talk to others, not really get out and share our research... I think that it's not that really, so we will see what the turn out is like and I hope folks will come, share their thoughts, perspectives on this new green economy and the boom that feels like it's just ahead!

A verde cheers to all!

http://www.greendrinks.org/CA/Silicon%20Valley

Green Chamber of Commerce event in Silicon Valley

Last night the Green Chamber of Commerce helped us celebrate our first year of film production for Silicon Valley -Technology, Art, Green and Sustainability (SVTAGS). The event was held at CreaTV San Jose.

Silver Mountain Winery hosted their organic wines for tasting, Morocco’s hosted Couscous salad that was yummy and Marin Gourmet hosted with all natural, locally made hummus and olive tapas.

Our guest speakers were Christine Hertzog, author of the Smart Grid Dictionary and Ken Crittendon of the Smart Grid Council of Silicon Valley. We had rave reviews from all that attended and they said that these two are dynamic speakers.

We had four door prizes and winners are as follows: Ron Huch, CEO of WESCOA Engine Technology won the Green Chamber of Commerce membership. Jill Cody won the SVTAGS guest appearance on the ½ hour show. Sandy Desch won the CreaTV San Jose annual membership. Cesar Plata won the Eco Baskets that included vintage wine glasses, CFL’s and a set of eco-friendly bamboo hot pads and drink coaster.

A big thank you to everyone that has helped to produce the television show this year and that helped set up last nights event!

Margo Alaimo -Assisting with set up/prep and tear down, picked up the couscous (thanks so much!) and other production tasks.

Mark Arnold -Film editing and writing/editing for blogging, set up/prep and tear down of events.

Tammy Correa -Assisting with set up and prep at this event, the USGBC event and all the other help she has supported me with this year! Also to Tammy’s Daughter Onjaney -Assisting with set up and prep.

Courtney DiMiceli –Event set up and prep!

Luis Del Rio - great help with set up/prep and tear down for production and the event!

Again the wine is the best organic that this crowd has every tasted... I totally agree!

For some reason this blogger site is not letting me add the slide show feature right now. So go here to see the photos form last night: http://picasaweb.google.com/HeatherNoelleDurham/GreenChamberCoHostigSVTAGSCreaTVSJ#

More events to come this summer!

Deepak Chopra, Cinequest and SVTAGS

Last month I was invited to be "media" at Cinequest Film Festival for my TV/Cable show. The two-week event was amazing with movies that you would never normally get a chance to see.

One of the staple events that Cinequest does is a “Life of a Maverick Award” and this year the recipient was Deepak. He spoke for about an hour and a half. You can read about that here with Sandy Desch, who was my guest write at the event: http://sandydesch.blogspot.com

To see my exclusive interview with Deepak backstage go here for the uncut version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3df1v6qje8

Don’t forget to watch my show, Silicon Valley -Technology, Art, Green and Sustainability (SVTAGS), on Monday’s at 7:00pm in San Jose channel 15 Comcast/CreaTV San Jose, or watch after they air here: http://www.veoh.com/search/videos/q/SVTAGS

Sept. 2009 USGBC-NCC Silicon Valley meeting, Leaders of Silicon Valley

After a long Labor Day weekend, I’m back to the grind here in Silicon Valley. Okay, well I did not take the whole weekend off. I was prepping for the filming today of two new television shows in my series of shows Silicon Valley - Technology, Art, Green and Sustainability.

After a day of three meetings on Tuesday the 8th of September, there was another interesting USGBC-NCC Silicon Valley Branch meeting. Our SV Branch of the US Green Building Council always meets the 2nd Tuesday night of every month. This month our topic was “Leaders of Silicon Valley. Our panel of speakers consisted of Kevin Surace from Serious Materials, Carl Gaurdino from Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Abe Yokell from Rock Port Capital.

All three men had very interesting and unique perspectives on what is happening in Silicon Valley. All agreed that clean tech, green jobs and innovations here in the Bay Area (Silicon Valley to the rest of the world) is where the economy is going to keystone, or paddle back to life from this economic crisis.

Kevin’s opening, some said was almost like a sales pitch, with video clips of Obama talking to the world about what Serious Materials is doing and how it’s a model company. In the video you see Kevin standing on stage with Obama, walking through towns with workings and you see flashes of ribbon cutting ceremonies at various plants that Serious Materials has purchased. They made these purchases and saved hundreds of jobs around the US from leaving our boarders and from those factories closing down completely- forever!

Yes, it was little salesman like of Kevin, but hell, why should it not be- tell the world what they are doing and hope that others will follow in their footsteps. 
(We can hope so at least!)

Next up, Carl Gaurdino spoke on Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the 4 basic rules that they have: 1) Define victory, 2) Determine Strategies, 3) Detail steps and 4) Don’t forget to have fun! Yes theses are the four D’s that Carl bases his decisions on. The programs that have been started by SVLG are pretty amazing. If you have not heard of Sustainable Silicon Valley, it was formed with the help of SVLG. A fun event that was started more then four years ago by SVLG is the CEO bike to work challenge that this year in May got 80,000 workers biking to work all on one day. The CEO’s that took part in this had areas set up to reward the bikers, with parties, prizes and celebrations that encouraged everyone to partake in the event. The smog on that day in the Bay Area was for sure lower!

Last up, was Abe Yokell and I have to say that many women were whispering in the room, "is he single???" This guy is not only smart, but a hunk- (can I say that-oh yeah-I’m not reporting to any boss, just me!). He is a transplant from Boston and has been working with Rockport for many years and many-many millions of dollars invested into start-ups. One you might of heard of lately- Solyndra that is another company paving the way for a green economy!

There was a Q &A session and then our monthly meeting was complete. At the start of every meeting there is an hour of networking with some facilities hosts giving us a tour of their LEED building. Tonight we had a review of SAP’s sustainability practices and then we were right into the meeting.

So, for the details of this event, to hear the full from start to end and all the information relayed at the meeting, you will have to watch my show on Monday’s at 7:00pm in San Jose or Campbell Comcast channel 15. If you do not live in California in one of those cities, you can watch online at www.creatvSJ.org

These are the photos from the USGBC Advocacy Day in Sacramento
July 8th 2009