World is Green

The Art of Nonconformity » The Normalization of Mediocrity

To reverse the acceptance of mediocrity as the new standard, the only escape route is nonconformity through setting your own example of being the anti-mediocre.

Here’s a few ways to do that, and you can probably think of more.

1. Stop rewarding bad behavior. How many restaurants do you know that stay in business for years despite bad food and poor service? Yes, some of them will fail, but others manage to carry on in their carelessness, relaxed in the knowledge that they can continue the hit-or-miss record without any consequences.

2. Refuse to settle. This is hard, because the pressure to conform to mediocrity is all around us. But the more we settle, the more we accept the triumph of the good enough instead of the excellent.

3. Challenge yourself and others away from mediocrity. Stop asking, is it good enough? and start looking to a higher goal. Encourage others in the same fashion.

4. Model excellence. People will be amazed when you do this, in large part because it’s so unusual.

John O’Brien, who runs Australian Clean Tech is organising the Beyond Carbon 2008 conference on June 3, 2008 in Adelaide, South Australia. It is a 3 days event managed by CEDA. John previously launched the Australian Clean Tech index.

Update: If you are interested, check out the Live Blogging that I have done of the entire conference.

From the blurb that I have got with me:

The conference will explore the challenges and opportunities presented by the transition to a carbon constrained economy, from multiple perspectives and for multiple audiences.

The focus of Beyond Carbon 2008 will not be backward looking at the reasons for the current position, or focus too much on the threats and dangers, but rather will highlight how different groups within the community can work towards building the greatest benefits for themselve and society as a whole, through the transition process.

Beyond Carbon 2008 will be about a direction forward for business, government and the community in assessing the opportunities and risk associated with climate change.

Hon Mike Rann MP Premier and Minister of Sustainability & Climate Change for South Australia will officially open Beyond Carbon 2008.

The conference on the 4th and 5th of June will be managed by LGA SA focussing on the governance of climate change.

Some distinguished speakers are present for the morning and afternoon sessions including; Ray Garrand, Chief Executive of DTED, Professor Dexter Dunphy, Terry Kallis from Petratherm, Christina Jensen from Macquarie Climate Group, Dave Sag from Carbon Planet, Andrew Peterson from PWC and more.

I am attending the event, courtesy of John O’Brien and exploring the option of live blogging the event.

Standby saturday is a campaign in Australia to inform, educate and motivate people to action at home and work to switch off all their appliances at the plug point and save almost 10% of energy wasted in standby.

The campaign is scheduled for June 7th, 2008.

Standby Saturday highlights a simple but important step to reduce unnecessary energy wastage – switch off appliances and equipment all the time – every time when not in use, instead of leaving them on standby.

Figures from the International Energy Agency show that, based on 10% energy wastage for domestic residencies, electrical devices left on standby waste an estimated 4.8 Terawatt hours of energy per year and account for nearly 7.7 Megatonnes of carbon emissions each year. This doesn’t include commercial equipment and is equivalent to the total output of Australia’s biggest power station for over 10 days.

The Age has a video interview with Andrew Maynard, a young, award winning eco designing architect.

A very big real estate cliche is “location, location, location”. This is right for many reasons.

For us, the decision for locating our home came from many features and constraints that we have placed. Firstly, our budget. The best we can afford is $350,000 for both the land and house. May be a bit more, but we need to see how it goes. Second, we wanted a house on a decent sized block of land. No units, apartments and small house with no open places. Third, we were ready to travel upto 1 hr one way to work. Fourth, decent surroundings and facilities.

Before I go further, it is important to explain how Adelaide is structured. As you can see from the map on the left, Adelaide has some constraints. On the west, Adelaide is bounded by the ocean and on the right by the hills. The major growth areas are the North and South.

Considering our constraints and features, as explained above, the only possible areas are located in North 2, South 3 and Hills 2 as suggested in the map.

Australia is going through two types of lifestyle living. Beach side is called - Sea change and Hills, country side is called Tree change.

North has not fascinated us for a variety of reasons. It is still a good growth area due to industrial activity, a new express way to Adelaide and all the mining is happening North of Adelaide. Much further, but all north based. South provides a great beach side living. And the Hills have a great environment attraction and a cool climate.

After comparing the alternatives of living in the south and the beach or the Hills and trees, the decision was tilted in favour of a tree change. This has happened mainly due to the location of the excellent Waldorf School in Mt. Barker. In the future, when we have kids, we would like them to experience the great education provided in a Waldorf school. I know, its a bit far in the future when we still do not have kids; but we believe in planning for the future.

In the end, we have decided to build a house in the beautiful hill town of Mt. Barker. It is about 35 km from Adelaide CBD and has the South Eastern freeway connecting the town to the city. A good bus service from Adelaide Metro and all the facilities required for modern living are available. Peak time journey is about 1 hour. With a population over 12,000 people and the main town for the entire Adelaide Hills it a nice and cosy town.

Mt. Barker has been growing a lot in the past years and this has created demand for new housing. A new estate called the Bluestone estate is coming up near the Waldorf School in Mt. Barker. This is a 95 hectare development with 835 blocks of land. This is the first stage and the entire project can take anywhere between 5-10 yrs. The developer is promising some good stuff.

The 835 lot development, named Bluestone, has a major focus on the environment and quality lifestyle, with extensive parklands and landscaping in keeping with the Adelaide Hills.

Walker Corporation’s project development manager Humfrey Whitaker said about 16 hectares of the 95 hectare development will be devoted to parkland and green space, and there will be four kilometres of walking trails.

“We’ve been working with Mount Barker District Council and its officers to ensure that Bluestone is of the highest quality and delivers significant benefit to the local community,” Mr Whitaker said.

“In planning this development we’ve looked at sustainability, parkland and open space, extensive landscaping, the very latest communications technology for internet connectivity and design guidelines for all housing to ensure a high standard of construction and complementary building styles.

“We’re offering a taste of hills living but with all the benefits of a modern cosmopolitan lifestyle.”

That is where we are now. I will discuss about Mt. Barker’s capital growth opportunities and the financing options available to us. Then we will come to the green design options and our exploration.

After having finished my MBA and living in Australia for 3 years now, we have gained our permanent residency through the Skilled migration program of the Australian government.

This has prompted us to make some decisions. One such decision is about the city where we would live. We have been living in Adelaide for the past 3 years. Adelaide is a relatively smaller city with a population of just over a million people. In terms of job opportunities, it is relatively less compared to say Sydney and Melbourne or the booming cities of Brisbane and Perth.

Even in this environment we both (my wife and myself) have had a decent life and some good career opportunities. Considering the cost of living, the size of the city, our connections and friends made here; we have decided to stay on in Adelaide for the time being. Unless some fantastic opportunity comes along for us, we would not think of moving.

In some ways, Adelaide can provide us with more opportunities. For example: green drinks. Green Drinks is a worldwide networking event happening in various cities across the country. I wanted to attend one in Adelaide and guess what, it was not here. This prompted me to explore the opportunity of setting up one here. I am in the course of doing this with another enthusiastic friend of mine. More details will be coming soon. The point is that Adelaide will provide some opportunities which the other cities may not. Just need to keep your eyes and mind open.

The next decision for us has been to move into the real estate industry. Looking from only a financial perspective, at one time I did not believe in the idea of buying my own house however, that has changed for now. If you add in the emotional and other aspects of living in your own house, it surely trumps for me now.

The Australian real estate market has been doing very well for the past 7+ years. Adelaide is continuing to do well (20% growth in the last year) and with the big mining boom expected in the near future; it will continue to do well.

In all consideration, we have decided to build our own home. With the limitations in our budget and meeting our needs we are going ahead for now. One consideration is the design and building of a green home.

Since this is a big decision for me and the biggest financial outlay till date; I will be planning this real well. Considering the possible green aspects of the house, I will be blogging about this under the Green Home category of this blog. I hope this will be of interest to some of the readers.

Suggestions, advise, experiences and anything else will be appreciated. Read on!

Logic+Emotion: Whispers

Life’s whispers are often soft and subtle. They come without warning. The whispers are always there—but we’re not always listening. The noise we surround ourselves with often keeps the whispers at bay. We become incapable of hearing them, until we choose to. At this point we see through fresh eyes.

I’m choosing to listen. But first I had to slow down and stop in order to do so. I had to be willing to miss the train if it meant learning something, even if just for the day. The whispers are there, waiting for us to notice them. But only if we’re open to turn our own volume down, even if only for a brief moment in time. For me, this moment just happened to be the right one.

From Tom Peters

Simple & crystal clear (to me): To give a high-impact, well-regarded, occasionally life-changing speech “to customers” I first & second & third have to focus all my restless energy on “satisfying” … myself. I must be … physically & emotionally & intellectually agitated & excited & desperate beyond measure … to communicate & connect & compel & grab by the collar & say my piece about a small number of things, often contentious and not “crowd-pleasers,” that, at the moment, are literally a matter of personal … life and death.

I crave great “customer feedback”—but in no way, shape, or form am I trying to “satisfy my customer.” I am, I repeat, trying instead to satisfy me, my own deep neediness to reach out and grab my customer & connect with my customer over ideas that consume & devour me.

Hence … my “Job One” is purely selfish & internally focused, to be completely captivated by the subject matter at hand. That is, to repeat in slightly different words, Job One is … self-motivation.

Warren Bennis, my primo mentor, in On Becoming a Leader, said, “No leader sets out to be a leader per se, but rather to express him- or herself freely and fully. That is, leaders have no interest in proving themselves, but an abiding interest in expressing themselves.”