On the one hand, we're exiting a year that is on record as one of the Top Ten HOTTEST...and I don't mean cool hot. I mean polar bears endangered hot. On the other hand, I'm pretty excited that as 2009 kicks in, all of the projects I'm scheduled to work on so far each are either bonafide environmentally conscious or at least have a tinge of green. That's pretty different from just three years ago when I was trying to get clients to at least let me purchase post-consumer waste paper for their sales kits.
But of course we still a ways from green streaks being mainstream speak. Anyway, one of the projects will be the branding/marketing from the ground up, so to speak, of an eco-conscious improvement on an existing service-industry category (yes, that's all I can say for now!)... Another will be a mall tour for one of my mainstream media clients, but I got them to add an "e-cycle" overlay. It's this tour that got me thinking about sharing some of the stuff I've come across in researching electronics recycling providers. At last year's Greener Gadgets conference (which is coming up again in February and for all you green gear heads out there it's a very cool event), I met the founders of three new companies:- Myboneyard.com, which pays you for a lot of the stuff you'd just drop off for recycling (but things change quick. Last year I researched what they'd pay for my old Pentium Toshiba and it was about $35. This year it's worth bubkus to them.)
- Solio, which keeps your gadgets charged by the sun;
- HyMini (an unfortunate name that comes from Hybrid and Miniaturized, but still. Clearly they didn't talk to Moss Appeal first about their branding), which keeps your gadgets charged by the wind or sun or handcrank.
But, like I said, things changed. Now there more cash-for-trash sites and portable powerpacks out there, even as Solio and HyMini have evolved more...and a ton of ways to e-cycle, even in Alabama. And if you're lucky enough to live in a house vs. apartment, you might check out the Power Cost Monitor to show you exactly how much you just saved when you turned off that appliance or shut off your laptop when you left the room!
So, as you clear out the old (my never ending battle in my world of packrat meets closet-challenged apartment) and try to welcome a little less of the new, here are good sites with links to some of the e-cycling centers that should help. If that's still to hard to deal with, Waste Management and other companies will send you a postage-paid box you can fill with old electronics, for a fee.Season's Greenings, and an abundance of health, wealth and happiness in the new year to you all.
1/17 Update: Just had to add these links:
http://hub.tm/?RHCDB
which sums it all up...
And this from David Pogue:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/twittering-tips-for-beginners/
(er, note: his article was written days after my entry appeared! Maybe I have a future?... Then again, we're all frustrated and expounding on tech-headaches.)
Just I'd love to wish you (all two of my faithful readers) a Happy New Year. But I'm not sure if you'll ever see this because I haven't really figured out how to enable my blog to be fed for greater consumption. I just can't digest all the new social media bites and bytes. And I'm hungry for more scoop. There's definitely a food theme going on here that I have to stop.Anyway, a funny thing happened to a friend of mine on the way to my apartment. I'd sent an evite to a few folks for some holiday fare. (yes, more food.) Now, Cecilia is a making social media her career choice. She has uncovered all kinds of cool tools and sites and is starting to tweet, twitter, blog, maybe vlog, who knows. But she called me two minutes before my soiree and said she couldn't find my apartment because she'd lost my evite.Today, I tried to RSVP to HER holiday party, but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out which application/platform/email address she'd sent her party non-Evite invitation to, so I couldn't find the invite. NON-e-vite because she discovered the not-your-grandfathers-electronic-invitation-service dejour and used THAT service and I can't remember the name of it. Purple something. Wait - I looked in my Web history and found it!! Purple Trail. Remember the days when using email we were nostalgic about snail mail and phones? Now I'm nostalgic about email! I guess I'll just pick up the phone and actually call her.So, if you're reading this that means I'm still alive and writing and you're alive and reading, so I wish you all the very best for a wonderful 2009 filled with lots of happy moments when we all reach out and touch people.
Post Script: I have NO idea if those on the alert for my latest postings received multiple alerts about this one, but in the spirit of full disclosure since social media is notorious for transparency and crowdsourcing critics I revised this twice to keep the crowds happy. Sorry for the repeat blast. But real live friends are more...or at least as...important as the virtual ones.
