I apologize for how dark this video came out (we were in an outdoor courtyard with no lights), but the sound is fine, so you can get the gist of the presentation. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is a video of my presentation to a group architects at an AIA Los Angeles event. I was one of seven speakers. We were each allowed 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide. There were approximately 50 people in attendance. I got to talk to a couple people afterward and received encouraging feedback, but I think my presentation was too general to really spark people’s interest. That will come as I continue to refine the idea.

I’m still super early on in concept development for my venture, so the idea is changing almost every week. Of course, ideas build on each other and I want to show the progression of thought, so I’m posting this up. I spent a good chunk of today on instantdomainsearch.com, trying to find a better available domain name than Vverdant. Gotta sleep on a few gems I came across. I don’t want to take too long though, as I’ve already seen one good name disappear before I could register it: fillvoid.com.

A great note of encouragement (below) from my friend Faust, who is a Director at a major oil company. More reason to push forward….

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Drew Shula: Faust has sent you a message on LinkedIn.

Date: 6/17/2009

Subject: Your Vverdant Concept

Hi Drew–
Very good concept. I strongly believe in green in all aspects of living. If we can get the fuel issue under control in this world, we will have a better environment. A very complex issue as we found out by going into bio-diesel production in CA. Hopefully we can all strive for the greater good without profit as the sole motivator. Keep up the earnest work and with your motivation being the greater good, I can’t see how you can fail.

-Faust

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As an addendum, it’s amazing how prevalent social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have become in our professional lives. I communicate on these platforms daily and love the ability to easily network with friends and business associates all over the world. Eventually we will have all the green builders on one platform as well….Vverdant, coming soon….

Remember the “If you build it, they will come” line from the 1989 Kevin Costner classic, Field of Dreams? I think the same line can be applied to Vverdant.

If I build this site, they will come….The critical mass of users is out there. The green building (GB) community of architects, engineers, building owners, financiers, etc. is huge and global. The entire industry is pushing toward green for new construction, as well as toward retrofitting our existing built environment.

Green building is the future of architecture and Vverdant seeks to be the knowledge center for this growing industry. A news aggregator, job board, social network, and event calendar, all in one. A homepage for green building professionals. I believe in the concept. Time to make it happen.

I saw Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. in The Soloist last month and was really inspired….Here is a true story of how one person can make an incredible impact in another’s life, simply by investing their time. This resonated with me, in my desire to positively affect people through green building. I think it’s important to invest our limited time in causes that we think will make the world a better place.

Success to me is defined as positively impacting others, or positively impacting as many people as possible. Financial success is a secondary result of this primary goal. But as I noticed with Facebook in a previous post, there appears to be a corollary effect between these definitions of success. The more you dominate on positively impacting people, the more loot you’re likely to rake in. Yet, it’s important to be focused on the order of operations of this philosophy to achieve the win-win.

It’s so easy to grow accustomed to turning away from problems: ignoring the homeless guy asking you for change, or continuing the status quo in our woefully inefficient building industry. And so important to remember that an individual can change the world.

The green light bulb went off in my brain (and it was a compact fluorescent).

So I have this idea to start a company:

I’ve been thinking about it for a couple months, but the concept is just a sprout. It’s barely started to germinate in my brain. This blog is meant to change that. I plan to write about my entrepreneurial ideas here, both to catalogue my thoughts, and to provide a forum for feedback.

This is the concept:

I want to create a global Web 2.0 platform for the green building (GB) industry. A knowledge center: news, jobs, links, community, calendar. With user generated content. This will be a one stop shop for GB professionals — a resource I would use every day in my profession (I’m an architect), but which does not currently exist. I think this is a big idea because the construction industry is one of the largest in the world, and the entire thing is shifting to green. There is a large potential user group for this site.

My idea is to organize a website by location (similar in concept to Craigslist), so GB professionals can tap into their local networks. I plan to start with my current local network of Los Angeles, and spread to other cities if this is a success. I’m using Curbed as a model of a similar idea that is working for the real estate industry.

Phases:

I: Create GB network for Los Angeles. II: Spread to other cities in the U.S. and globally. III: Apply this model to other professional communities: artists, non-profits, financial executives, etc….

It’s all about scalability:

I think I’ve generated a model that could have a lot of potential. We’ll see how this blog and this idea continue to grow. Stay tuned.