In his recent book Bill McKibben’s eaarth has stunning facts and figures about the state of the global environment today. A dear friend said today as they were flying into Florida they flew over the oil in the gulf for close to HALF AN HOUR! So much for the MSM saying 70% of the oil is gone. That just goes to show how HUGE the full-on spill was.

The media has been surpressed, the activists have been threatened and jailed. Pictures of the devastation have been limited and respun for our comfort. But the story is not comforting at all.

After a littany of scary facts, the writer goes on to say:

Don’t let your eyes glaze over at this parade of statistics (and so many more to follow). These should come as body blows, as mortar barrages, as sickening thuds. The Holocene is staggered, the only world that humans have known is suddenly reeling. I am not describing what will happen if we don’t take action, or warning of some future threat. This is the current inventory: more thunder, more lightning, less ice. Name a major feature of the earth’s surface and you’ll find massive change.

The book is already brilliant. Bill McKibben is the author of The End of Nature, that twenty years ago foretold of global warming as a future we must try to avoid. Well, we is there. We IS the future. And we IS in trouble.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://amzn.to/eaarth_book

Update 4-20-10: AND ONLY TWO DAYS BEFORE EARTH DAY: I just got word that RE:GEN is back! Michelle M works miracles and regeneration.org is back up, at least as a redirect. Thank you Michelle and thank you Dell for standing tall in the face of economic hardships. Cause green isn’t a campaign, it’s a way of life!

Follow the link and flood Dell with warm wishes for this effort, or don’t. I am happy to have been a part of the rebirth of Re:Gen.

++

Update 4-19-10: Michelle M from Dell responded to my lament about the demise of regeneration.org today. Her comments are with the original post on uber.la. Kudos to Dell for the reach.

++ Original Post March 14, 2010, during SXSW ++

So one of the “campaigns” I’d like to highlight, that seemed to be running strong last year, and today it’s pushing up 404 page errors is Dell’s GREEN REgeneration campaign and website.

[Here's a Google cache of the site assets if you want to see them: http://bit.ly/cache-regen ]

SELF-ID: I worked at Dell for two years 2007 – 2009. I launched a ride-sharing app internally for Dell employees to find other carpool-ready people to share gas, conversation and commute to the Round Rock and Parmer Dell campuses. I did not, however work on Dell’s REgeneration program, though I tried to get that team interested in a widget I had been architecting.

That said, when approaching a Dell RE: person about two years ago to understand more about what the GOAL of RE:gen was, the answer I kept getting was, “Michael want’s to give RE:gen to the world.”

Here’s how the rest of the conversation went both times I met with Dell RE:gen team members.

“Okay, so what is it your want people to do when they get to the Dell RE:gen site?”

“We want them to sign up.”

“And what do they get for opting-in to RE:gen?”

Silence.

Granted this was a rather web developer, social media strategist, type of questioning. Things like Goal and Purpose were often not part of the discussion for some of the biggest “programs.”

The unspoken goals of RE:gen were more clearly envisioned on Dell’s DellEarth page. These are my recollections of what Dell RE:gen was about.

Michael Dell had stated that Dell was going to become the Greenest company on earth.

If people associate Dell with Green, perhaps some of the large-scale deals that were competitive on price might tip in Dell’s direction, if the large clients believed Dell was the “greener” company.

A “green halo” effect was imagined, even at the consumer-level, where Dell would gain sales because they were perceived to be more Green than say Apple or HP.

Those are fine ideas, and the Press Releases to support the “greenest company” program were effective at getting Dell noticed. Heck at one point a Dell VP even challenged Apple’s greenest notebook on the planet ads, not because anything Apple said was wrong, but because Apple had struck at the actual heart of Dell’s imagined RE:gen concept. Apple was out-greening Dell and Dell had nothing to say. [You can Google it, the conversation is still going.] And here on the earth not RE:gen site is the most recent press release (5-20-09) on Dell’s Green Leadership.

So finally I’m going to tell you that it costs NOTHING for DELL to redirect regeneration.org to point to dell.com/earth. But at some point Dell decided it was no longer profitable, or in the best interest of the company to keep pouring money into the RE:gen project. But what they did next defies common sense and good web practices. The killed the RE:gen site WITHOUT ADDING THE REDIRECT.

And I can assure you it is not may connection.

Here’s a thumbnail of what existed the last time the page was shown.

And if you check the whois records you can see that Dell will OWN regeneration.org until mid 2011, so it’s not like the URL isn’t still pointed to the appropriate servers. I think I’ll get in the queue to buy the domain when it expires.

And there’s one other small problem in simply deleting an entire site of pages without any redirects. Here’s the result of a backlink check on regeneration.org from Google: Results 1 – 30 of about 586 linking to regeneration.org And I would be willing to bet that over 200 of those links are from within Dell.com in some form or fashion.

But the biggest question is, how does killing Dell’s Green program make any sense at all? Green is not a campaign! Green is not a marketing platform! And if it is, that’s called Greenwashing. Shame on you Dell, or probably more directly, Dell’s PR and marketing firm that would let this happen. So Green is not the most important issue on Dell’s mind at the moment. Does the Green initiative simply go away? Is Dell still striving to be the greenest company on the planet? Or was that a 2009 advertising platform?

Final note: You can believe what you want about global warming, polar ice melt and the timing of the carbon turning point, but you cannot deny that we, as humans and businesses, are not doing a great job of mitigating the environmental impact on our environment. So use compact fluorescent lights, get a hybrid or hydrogen car, or simply hope that the scientists figure something out before we cross over the point of devastating and dangerous planetary climate shift. But please don’t let GREEN be an advertising program that ends!

If you are committed to GREEN, that commitment can never end. It costs me approximately $14.95 to have and host a domain for a year. Dell, please consider redirecting all of the regerneration.org links to your dell/earth pages. Or better yet, GIVE regeneration.org to a non-profit environmental group. You spent so much money and so many man hours building up a brand/campaign and what we thought was a “movement.” I promise you the GREEN TEAM within Dell, the employees who are working to reduce waist, reuse materials, and find better ways for Dell employees to be green, has not given up.

Last bit, the twitter/regeneration page is still up, with the last post being in October 2009, a self-promo piece by a Dell employee.

Yes, I believe Dell has done the first GREEN FACEPLANT. Let’s see if they redirect the ol’ site now.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/dell-green

Other Uber.la Green Posts

• #SXSW Social Media and Sustainability Meltdown #SMFS – Can We Agree?
• #SXSW TODAY 3-16: Sustainability and Social Media at #SXSW Interactive 09

A few more Dell regeneration.org facts:

Whois Record

Email Search:

is associated with about 5,964 domains
is associated with about 2,819 domains

Domain ID:D76811973-LROR
Domain Name:REGENERATION.ORG
Created On:03-Sep-2001 18:06:52 UTC
Last Updated On:16-May-2009 00:31:22 UTC
Expiration Date:03-Sep-2011 18:06:52 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Safenames Ltd. (R130-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:mmr-1674
Registrant Name:Dell Inc.
Registrant Organization:Dell Inc.
Registrant Street1:One Dell Way
Registrant Street2:MS 8033
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Round Rock
Registrant State/Province:TX
Registrant Postal Code:78682
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.5127283500
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:+1.5122833369
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:

After much hemming and hawing the City Manger decided to postpone awarding the business to the California team and later decided to put the bid out for bidding yet again. (This would be the fourth time the city had tried to bid the website work.)

So on the COA website today, there was an update about the begining project. On a FRIDAY? Funny, maybe they had beers at the kickoff.

On Dec. 17th it was announced that SteelSMBology (a mutual partnership between Austin-based Steel Advertising & Interactive Inc. and SMBology Inc) was tapped to do the local work. Today the city issued more information about a kickoff meeting.

Here’s the statement from the site, “Our goal is simple: the City’s website should be an unobscured window in to what we do, how we do it, and how our residents can play a part. Providing residents the online tools they need to interact and do business with the City is imperative in order for us to be the best managed city in the nation,” said City Manager Marc Ott.

So here we go. They are saying the evaluation portion of the project, or Phase 1, will take between 6 – 8 months. Wow, that’s a lot of consulting. But I guess there are a ton of legacy systems and legacy management teams that will need to be corralled and herded onto the path to web 2.0.

Let’s wave and wish them luck on their journey.

And again, congratulations to SteelSMBology for taking on the task that will be watched by thousands of rabid developers and designers in town.

@jmacofearth
permalink:

Help Haiti. Ayudar a Haití.

Teach people. Enseñar a la gente.

Provide computers and access to those unable to provide for themselves. Proporcionar ordenadores y el acceso a aquellos que no pueden valerse por sí mismos.

Connect even more of the world together by communities, affinities and passions. Conectar aún más del mundo junto con las comunidades, las afinidades y pasiones.

Build a team. Construir un equipo.

Create a tribe. Crear una tribu.

Lead a revolution. Dirigir una revolución.

Be at peace. Estar en paz.

Support our president. Apoyo a nuestro presidente.

Slow and reverse global warming, and stop arguing if it’s real or not. Frenar e invertir el calentamiento global, y dejar de discutir si es real o no.

Sing with one another. Canta con ellos.

Feed more people, provide more medicine, provide clean water to drink. Alimentar a más gente, proporcionar más cantidad de medicamento, proporcionar agua limpia para beber.

Learn humility and compassion. Aprender la humildad y la compasión.

Be more green. Ser más verde.

Reach across racial, economic and lifestyle prejudices to be more connected. Alcance a través racial, económica y prejuicios estilo de vida para estar más conectados.

Help build a more balanced health care system in the US. Ayudar a construir un mejor equilibrio del sistema de atención de salud en los EE.UU..

Support our troops both as they deploy and as they all come home wounded in some way. Support our troops, tanto en su despliegue y, como todos regresan heridos de alguna manera.

Recover from addictions. Recuperarse de las adicciones.

Be with the one’s we love. Estar con el que la amamos.

We could get more people on the cluetrain. Podríamos tener más gente en el tren de claves.

Support one another. Se apoyan mutuamente.

Drive fewer Hummers and biiiiig SUVs. Hummers unidad menos y SUVs biiiiig.

Pray to the same uber-God, sans dogma, or exclusionary religious politics. Ora a los uber mismo Dios, sin dogmas, o de exclusión política religiosa.

Learn to love more. Aprende a amar más.

Just be. Just Be.

Be just. Ser justo.

Love. Amor.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/MLK-2010s

The MLK dream speech.

(8:00 am CST, I’m going dark for 24 hours to be with the ones I love. And then I’m back to be with the dream of social media tomorrow morning. Blessings all. The views expressed here are mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions or professional guidance of my employer.) (8:00 am hora del centro, voy a oscuras durante 24 horas para estar con la gente que quiero. Y entonces vuelvo a estar con el sueño de los medios de comunicación social, mañana por la mañana. Bendiciones a todos. Las opiniones expresadas aquí son exclusivamente mías , y no reflejan las opiniones o la orientación profesional de mi empleador.)

CNN on How Your Money Gets to Haiti

The real face of Haiti has nothing to do with US. Here is a site that contains real-time requests for information about people in Haiti. Oh my… Please reach out, give money, get the badge and share it. The previous site has been merged with Google Crisis Response App.

You can left-click on the image to download it to your drive and make your own badge. Or email me and I will be happy to do one for you.

++

In the spirit of supporting those across the globe in Haiti, recovering from the disastrous earthquake, I have put a red “haiti” ribbon on my Twitter pic. I will be adding it to my Facebook and other profiles shortly. If you are interested, the PSD-EPS file is available for free download here. Let me know if you have any trouble putting your pic together. There are PNG files at the bottom of the post. Or email me and I will do it for you.

While I was chatting with a colleague today regarding the Iran Green and other similar campaigns the idea resonated with me to simply “put it out there.”

I derive no benefit from this effort. What I am doing, hopefully, is creating a bond of awareness and hope with those suffering from this terrible loss. In criticizing the Iran Green movement initially, I was doubting the power of the taskless gesture. Why not send $10 rather than putting a green ribbon or green peace sign on your icon?

Here’s a bit more of the source photo for the red cross. It’s a man’s shirt who is holding an injured Haitian.

What I learned while discussing the process with colleagues and on the comments on my Iran post, was that we all want to be part of a tribe. As we join “tribes” we associate our hearts with those of others. We join our voices into good rather than evil, or merely promotion.

Yesterday my wife called and asked if I had already given money to the relief efforts. I am glad that she did some due dilligence, because there are some ‘help’ efforts that may not be as well intentioned as others.

While I cannot do the research for you, yesterday on NPR I was encouraged by Bill Clinton talking about his efforts to provide relief in Haiti. His organization is http://clintonfoundation.org/haitiearthquake. What I liked was he was being quite direct with the type of support the Haitians need. It’s CASH.

In the coming months they will need clothes and water and staples. But today the only relief that is going to impact the situation is the fluidity of gold. Let the people doing the work decide to buy water, medical supplies, food or tents. I am pretty sure your church cannot air lift the hard goods over to those in need. CNN How to Help is page that lists a bunch of vetted services working on Haitian relief efforts.

Do what you can, show your support how ever you feel. Most of all, let the impact of this moment hit you where it hurts. We are all in this together.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/haiti-help-badge

• On badges and affinities: Oh My IRAN! Another Meaning for GREEN ACTIVISM #iranelection #iran
• CNN: How Your Money Gets to Haiti
• CNN: Social networks, texts boost fundraising
• CNN: How Technology Helps
• ZDNET: Haiti earthquake themed blackhat SEO campaigns serving scareware
• GAWKER: Says Wyclef’s charity might not be the way to go for donations
• Fastcompany on Google Maps and Haiti’s Rescue Efforts: Haiti Earthquake Disaster: Google Earth, Online-Map Makers, Texts “Absolutely Crucial”

Photoshop template for the help haiti ribbon: (PSD)

The pngs

gray

black

white

transparent background

The Red Badge of Courage shattered American preconceptions about what a war novel could be. In the decades before Crane’s novel, most fiction about the Civil War was heavily idealistic, portraying the conflict as a great clash of opposed ideals. Whereas previous writers had taken a large, epic view, Crane focused on the individual psychology of a single soldier, Private Henry Fleming, during his first experiences of battle. In this narrowed scope, Crane represents Henry’s mind as a maze of illusions, vanity, and romantic naïveté, challenged by the hard lessons of war. Crane does not depict a world of moral absolutes, but rather a universe utterly indifferent to human existence. — sparknotes

Update 12-31-09: Time Warner Cable shows subscribers how to cut cord (okay, this is a stunning development.) Happy new years all TWC customers and Faux lovers.

Update 12-30-09: So the showdown is still on. So FOX wants $1 per subscriber increase in pricing to keep American Idol on TWC. Looks like a few bowl games will be affected as well. Go with DirectTV soon if you want to get them without worry. I think FOX will lose this one.
+++

Oh whoa are the many who love Fox TV. And oh whoa are the many who get their cable TV via Time Warner. Hey wait a minute, isn’t Fox 7 broadcast via the airwaves in Austin? Oh, I guess digital TV did away with our TV’s actually receiving TV, unless we’ve upgraded recently. What, for American Idol? Geesh.

Today Time Warner Cable AND Fox TV had full page ads in our local paper. Seems they are doing battle here in Austin to make a point, a line in the sand, a last stand at the Alamo perhaps?

Frankly I’m sick of Time Warner’s Lock on our cable access in Austin. I am not too excited about my recent switch to DirectTV either, but lesser of two evils… The kids are the only reason we keep any cable. Without Nick and Discovery and a few choice Disney shows, we’d never turn it on. Okay maybe the Superbowl, but actually our TV is so small, we’ll be looking for somewhere else to enjoy that bastion of American tradition. Now if Time Warner were threatening not broadcasting the Rose Bowl or the Super Bowl, then I think we’d have a fight. But Fox 7 News? It’s on the internet. And Fox News, it’s Faux and not worth watching.

But let’s not make this political, it’s about money. So Fox wants more to provide TWC with their programming. And TWC is crying foul, as if it would bankrupt them. I would guess that neither is the TRUTH.

Until we open up the cable access to competition, TWC can do whatever they want.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/TWC-Fox

The conversation on my previous post (Roll Over or Get Tough) is just getting started. Check the comments.

Time Warner Cable has a site ( http://www.rolloverorgettough.com/) where they are asking the customer to vote:

” You Can’t Get a 300% Raise. Why Should a TV Network?

Here is the LIVE webcast if you are not able to be here: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/austingo/webcast.htm

+++

Austin’s Living Wage ($11 per hour) must be paid to any contractors directly connected to this project.

Health Insurance must be provided for any contractor directly connected to this project. (Wow! Question: Does this preclude offshoring resources who would/could not be held to such requirements?)

– updated 12:38pm

+++

Question from the floor: Is there a pass/fail standard posted somewhere on the City’s financial viability standard? Is there a formula online that we can use to self-evaluate our company?

Confirmed: No bond requirements.

Who were the secondary community people advisors and have they been precluded from bidding? In addition to Gartner, all participates signed non-disclosures and will not be participating in the bid.

Then the sub-vendors were asked to present themselves and their capabilities.

John McElhenney, former eBusiness consultant and program manager for Dell and am looking to provide executive oversight to primary and sub-vendors looking for additional guidance and leadership. I have not selected my teams.

12:47 — update

+++

MBE/WBE qualifications are being discussed.

Question: Can vendors outside the City able to bid on the project? Yes, they can even be outside the country.

+++

4.5 million page views per month, expressed from city employee.

A single vendor is trying to ask all of his questions here with all of us.

City has: Oracle Database, MS Office applications, including SharePoint.

+++

Technology architecture: What are the current systems and how will they need to be implemented in phase 2. That information will be provided to the winning vendor.

+++

Development of prototypes is the primary focus of part 1 of the RFP. All of PART 1 is consulting.

+++

Community engagement plan and steering committee are both part of the RFP.

+++

Question from the web:

+++

The processes and methodology of the winning vendor for phase 1 will be made available to the public for everyone interested in phase 2. [Wow, watch your processes folks. You're gonna be giving it away if you DO win.]

+++

Expected timeframe for phase 1 of the project. City answer, 6 – 9 months.

+++

Can you give us some indication of the level of design templates:

• We want to see the “Branding” of the website
• Architecture of the website
• Not fully coded or clickable.
• Would like to see the workflow of the design.

+++

The city uses Google Analytics to track current site usage. Data would be made available to the vendor.

+++

Audited financials will be required by vendors and sub-vendors. So get your books ready folks!

+++

That’s it. Good luck everyone.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/website-austin

Attend pre-bid conference live or over the Web
If you’re interested in asking questions of the AustinGO team, the RFP committee and the Purchasing Department, you can attend the pre-bid conference at 12:30 today at Austin City Hall room 1101 (the Boards and Commissions Room).

You can also participate live on the Web during the pre-bid at the AustinGO site. A chat box will be active at this time. All questions must be submitted with the name of the requestor, company and an e-mail address. This is to ensure you are signed up as a participant and will be able to receive information and addendums resulting from the pre-bid conference. Questions will be addressed in the order they are received. Any questions not answered or addressed during the forum will be answered and posted on www.austingo.org within one week and be part of any addendum issued by the Purchasing Office. Inappropriate comments (including profanity, offensive or hate) will be ignored.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/coa-prebid

Due date for proposals is still Sept. 17th, 2009. With a bidders conference on August 12 at city hall.

And clicking on the Attachments page will get you a one page WORD document that provides another link to this page:

Providing a whopping 16 file links. And the .zip file provides an additional two documents that give access and information about using the COA vendor database. Adding these to the initial .doc download we have a total of 19 files to examine. Let’s see if we can sort out a bit of the information and give some access to the documents directly.

1. MSO0036APXA.doc: Appendix A: Vendor Response Access Database Instructions
2. MSO0036APXB.zip: contains:
3. AustinGo Assessment Requirements Database (Draft).mdb
4. AustinGo Assessment Requirements for Import to Access.xls
5. MSO0036APXC.xls: A Sample Cost Proposal Sheet in Excel with the following sections:

Scope of Work:

And Deliverables and Other Services:

And then the most curious part, we’ll see if these items are addressed further in the other documents, Optional Services:

Austin Energy web site and Convention Center web site both “as part of overall project.” Interesting.

1. MSO0036APXD.pdf: Public Involvement Report dated June 5, 2008
2. MSO0036COVR.DOC Is the cover page for the RFP with this handy bit of info:

1. MSO0036LINK2.doc – the document that gives the link to the project section above.
2. MSO00360400.doc – Supplemental Purchasing Provisions
3. MSO00360500.doc – Table of Contents
4. MSO00360800.doc – Equal Employment/Fair Housing Office Non-Discrimination Certification
5. MSO00360805.doc – Non-suspension or Debarment Certificaion
6. MSO00360810.DOC [not sure about the meaning of the capitalization] – Assessment of City Web Portal and Redesign Initiative
7. MSO00360815.doc – Living Wages and Benefits Contractor Certification
8. MSO00360820.doc – Living Wages and Benefits Employee Certification
9. MSO00360900.doc – Nonprofessional Services MBE/WBE Procurement Program
10. MSO00360900a.pdf – Sub-Contractor Vendor List Exported from database
11. MSO00360900b.pdf – Sub-Contractor Vendor List Exported from database (mailing label format)
12. MSO00361000.DOC – “No Offer” Reply Form

And that’s about it. I guess MSO00360810.DOC is the one to focus on. Here’s a link to a ZIP of MSO00361000 in case you are interested but not ready to put in a bid on the project.

I will offer some reflection on the RFP when I’ve had a chance to review it completely.

Until then, keep the lights on,

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/RFP-Austin