Marylhurst University Registration Day

Now, it’s serious. I’ve registered for my first two classes in the MBA in Sustainable Business and I’ve scheduled an advisory meeting for tomorrow. I don’t really feel like a lemming but I do feel like I’ve taken a leap.  I’m registered for:

• Principles of Sustainability
• Strategic Leadership in Sustainable Management

and I start on September 27th. I feel like I should go out and buy new notebooks and pens and quite possibly a quart of ice cream.

But I also know statistics is out there…at some point…in the future…it’s there. Despite that looming cloud of destruction, I’m getting really excited about the readings, learning from my fellow students and just being included in discussions about ideas and new ways of doing business. I have no idea what to expect and that’s primarily because I know very few people in these types of programs. However, I am really hoping that as I progress through the program, I can begin applying some of these business principles to projects on which I am working. Maybe I am expecting too much, I am just optimistic that the exercise of learning and sharing ideas will energize my way of thinking and working. Or perhaps, I’ll just be exhausted. Hard to say until I get in there.

I just checked out a sample syllabus, which makes my decision feel much more real, immediate and life-changing (if only for the 18 months I’m enrolled) – I mean I’m going to have to do that work in the outline.

In the meantime, I’ve been reading a couple of life-changing books about cycling and cycling culture, which I’ll write about soon.

Leadville Mineral belt trail

Hard Living at the Colorado Green Tech Group

Last night I made it up to the Colorado Green Tech Group meeting at the Law Auditorium Wolf Building on CU Campus. I used to work with one of the speaker so I was really excited to see what they were up to. I didn’t get to see my former manager but I did get to see and hear from a great line of companies.

The Wolf Building is the perfect place for this type of meeting; it’s kind of like a geek’s geek meetup: green technology, which in itself is often times quite sophisticated, short presentations with clear needs articulated and a well-educated, non-shy group who asked tons of great questions.

My only complaint is that during the networking time everyone clusters around the food/beer and does not budge creating a kind of green house effect – a sort of micro-climate suitable for ferns, frogs and other semi-tropical species and not for casual, relaxed exchanges of ideas.  So, like water on a hot plate, I landed and quickly steamed. Nevertheless, despite overreacting I met some interesting folks and listened to great talks.

Pulmor – wants to provide mobile and brick/mortar business fronts for charging cell phones using PVs. Their focus is mostly the developing world where the gap between available electricity, the population and the population that has a cell phone is enormous. They want to work with existing businesses and arrangements but make it easier for people to charge their cell phones. For some reason their logo includes a kangaroo.

BioVantage  Resources – talked about how water is the next oil – as in peak water. Water will be the next finite immensely valuable resources  and they have the technology – scalable algae growing systems for bioremdiation of wastewater and algae research. Well-prepared speech, very polished.

The standout for me, though, was the VAIREX air systems speaker. I’m a sucker for someone who makes me laugh and Ski had me laughing and out loud…in public.  The speaker, Ski, was candid about his company’s innovation and the mistakes he made along the way growing his company.  His talk was titled Hard Living and included great pieces of wisdom, like focusing 100% on “customers that support you” instead of “customer who suck you dry” or “if you are single stay single, if you are married, stay married”. Gems like this were interspersed with an update about the company – a fuel cell company

What Happened to Last Week and Other Musings

I have no recollection of the past two weeks. I mean I have the occasional memory that kicks up some dust and fragments of experiences: events, people and places. I don’t think I have been this busy – or maybe this type of busy – in a long, long time. I feel like I am cramming on ton of newness into my life and on the whole it’s been super. Here’s a run down of the past couple of weeks:

• I got a JOB OFFER and started this week. I have experienced all the emotions inherent in finding a new job: the thrill of an offer, the excitement and nervousness of staring at the learning curve, curiosity to meet my new colleagues, etc. etc. It’s been a satisfyingly challenging week.
• I’ve been writing about start-ups in Boulder for boulder.me, which has been great fun. I’ve met some pretty amazing people taking some creative and business risks to go out on their own and most of them seem to be having a great time – a challenging time but one that seems to energize them. Some of the companies I’ve interviewed are: fidatto, duck duck deal and several others.
• I’ve been helping out with TEDxBoulder, which is this Saturday, August 7th. The speakers at this event are going to be great and I really think everyone is going to have a great time.
• I’ve realized that I really need to start preparing for my upcoming stats class in my MBA program. I know it’s coming, so I may as well get stuck in now so I don’t feel completely marooned in death valley. I picked up a Magna-inspired book about statistics. The drawings are superb as is the story line, and, oh yeah, the explanation about stats is very helpful.

So, that’s it. Well, that’s enough for me, at least.