How I prepare for the West Coast Green Conference

I look forward to the West Coast Green Conference each year. Of all the conferences I attend, it is by far my favorite. Most of the time, I'm giving a lecture to room full of doubters and skeptics, so it's uncommonly fun to speak to the enthusiastic crowds at West Coast Green. I have been honored to be one of the advisors to the conference since it's inception, and am thrilled to contribute to the success of the event.

In preparation for the conference, I create an entirely new presentation. I throw out everything and start from scratch. It is akin to a standup comedian trashing his act to write entirely new material. And though this is incredibly time consuming, it forces me to rethink how I talk about design and sustainability.

The process of developing a new keynote speech takes an entire year of thinking and research. It starts at the previous years West Coast Green conference as I learn of new ideas and memes emerging. Topics, stories and information rattle around in my head, while I stuff notes, images and thoughts into a folder throughout the year. By letting the subject marinate, I find the gaps in my research and in the final story I will be telling.

Once the narrative is fairly complete, I can begin putting the actual slideshow together. The process of building the slides is conducted over two months before the conference. I work closely with my interns during this process we find ways to connect boring data with something relevant and memorable. Slides are shuffled, reordered and edited. Images we like are replaced with new, better images we love.

We continually try to find ways to inject humor into the talk. Ironically, this is incredibly serious business and the hardest part. How do you write something that will always come off as funny amid all of that "doom and gloom" talk? How do you balance humor with the need to make a point? I don't want the humor to allow people to ignore the bigger issue or overshadow the point... the humor is key to the success of the talk and the hardest thing to add. There are always more facts to be found; but humor is impossible to simply "dig up."

The slides are tweaked up until the start of the conference. I practice the final draft of the talk in front of my students; which might be the only chance I get to perform it in front of a real, live audience before the actual conference. I use this as a chance to test the timing and humor; often recording it for later viewing.

I've posted before about the tools I use to I create my presentations, skipping PowerPoint and using Apple's Keynote instead.

We're still working on the final version of my talk, "The Myth of Sisyphus: A plan to green our buildings and avoid extinction." In short, I discuss how our buildings are like Sisyphus, constantly pushing boulder uphill in order to survive. The talk outlines how to change this paradigm and find the hidden opportunities in green building.

I will be speaking at West Coast Green on Thursday, September 25th at 1:30 - 2:30pm. A booksigning will be held immediately following the talk.

Be sure to do what you can to attend the conference. It is well worth the cost and time. Register for the conference here.