Like Cote I am already somewhat bored by the green data center frenzy but I do think the broad structural changes and new methods and approaches we’re finding in the software and Internet industries are extremely relevant to the environmental problems facing us all. Open source really does change everything. So does powerful cheap social software. In some cases those things come together, such as on the WordPress blogging platform, used by this site. It seems to me that there is no way that top solutions are going to work when we face such huge challenges. Greenmonk Associates will be designed to foster and support and amplify bottom up change agency. We want to create some stars of alternative thinking. We want to track interesting initiatives.
For those of you that don’t know me I am James Governor, co-founder of RedMonk, the first open source industry analyst firm. We have taken methods and approaches from open source and applied them to the market research and advisory business. I like to think we’ve been pretty successful. The skills and hopefully some of the contacts I have made over the years will hopefully get involved. Greenmonk is supposed to be a collaborative effort. Its not my baby, its our baby. My first partners are the guys over at The Movement Design Bureau. Mark and Joseph are both really smart, and are scarily obsessive about the future of movement (wait til you hear Mark start talking about walking machines and so on). Obviously transportation, mobility and environmental impacts are extremely closely linked, but the guys also do some work in related spaces. Some of that work will find its way here.<p>What is an example of a classic Greenmonk story? The town of Modbury in Dorset that just banned plastic bags outright. The supermarkets won’t do it (although they will kick in some lip service). The government won’t do it (the good old mantra of “choice”). In other words Modbury is a poster child for a grassroots revolution. Modbury rocks.
I was pleased to see Shai Agassi post today about where do big ideas come from, because it struck a chord about bottom-up change and innovation. That said, Shai is taking a pretty corporate view. Greenmonk is somewhat more interested in broader cultural changes. Its not that Big Companies won’t be a huge part of working out our environmental problems, rather that I think responsibility will be pushed to the end points.<p>People are braver than companies or governments. People are far more willing to make sacrifices than companies or governments. It is people that will come up with the ideas that are necessary to change our behaviours. And that is why GreenMonk Associates is going to be all about people.
And that’s about it for now, from an intro standpoint. If you want to readup about the Open Source water initiative, before I point to it tomorrow, then go here.