gDiapers: the early years...

Good Morning America v2.0...

Powered by AOL Video

NY, NY

Kim and I just blasted our way through New York. Three days, many meetings from gMums to strategic partners with the odd good meal thrown in. Nothing better than starting a day with a run around Central Park. It amazes me that at 5.30am there are huge Peletons doing laps and runners of all shapes and sizes putting the hard yards in. There was a quote near the Children's Zoo - a city's greatness is measured by the quality of their green spaces. NYC has done an amazing job.
And as you leave the tranquility of the park and negotiate around the horse drawn carriages you are transported right back into the thick of a major city the highlight being those delightful tax drivers. I had an idea for a reality tv show...take a NYC cabbie and a Portland cabbie and have them swap cities for a day. Make that an hour...

Conflict of interest

Our youngest, Harper is 2.5. Last week he decided he was over diapers. Hasn't been in the product for 7 days now. And I though he was a team player...

The face of Interface

One of my true heroes is Ray Anderson - the CEO of Interface carpets. Carpet making is a messy business. Ray has been in the business for 50 years. 14 years ago at the age of 60, he was asked what his view on sustainability was. He drew a complete blank. Since then he has transformed his company into a business at the cutting edge of sustainability. Drawing on Bill McDonough's Cradle to Cradle principles and bio mimicry, his carpet design and facilities are the gold standard in sustainability.

I was lucky enough to meet hiim at a marketing conference last week. It was such a thrill to meet someone I have read so much about. He was the keynote speaker and his words made all of us really sit up and think. Needless to say he received a standing ovation. He is truly inspirational.

The Lazy Environmentalist - the book...

Anyone who saw gDiapers being featured on Martha Stewart last month would have seen Josh Dorfman doing the demo. And he nailed it. He can join our crew any day - and he doesn't even have kids yet!

Josh and I first met last year over the phone when he did an interview with me for his radio show - The Lazy Environmentalist on Sirius Radio. When Martha Stewart asked him to come and offer some green products, there were many to choose from but gDiapers were chosen and Josh was just fabulous. This month, he has launched his book, "The Lazy Environmentalist" and he has given gDiapers another rave review ...we should be giving him stock or something.

So check out the book. Here is the low down:

We can’t all camp out in old-growth forests, lying down in front of the bulldozers. And it’s not only that we’re too busy: Some of us just don’t want our fabulous threads to get caked with mud.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t care passionately about the environment. Luckily, the days when becoming environmentally aware entailed eating bread that tasted like dirt, wearing clothes that looked like frayed burlap sacks, and spending summer vacations assailing whaling ships with Greenpeace are passing away. It is now perfectly possible (and increasingly easy) to be well fed, well coiffed, well dressed, and well traveled while remaining deeply committed to an ecologically sustainable lifestyle.

In The Lazy Environmentalist, Josh Dorfman—host of the Sirius Satellite Radio program of the same name—provides comprehensive guidance to fashion-forward consumers who are as concerned about the long-term health of our planet as they are about the design of their bathroom fixtures. Covering topics that range from clothing to electronic gadgetry, home decor to recreation, and gardening to financial investment, Dorfman lets us know which trends to watch and which eco-conscious products—cars, toothbrushes, cell phones, pet accessories—to buy. Green, it turns out, can be an extremely stylish color.

A touch of celebrity

So at the aforementioned event, Kim and I had the opportunity to speak with Jenna Elfman and Amy Brenneman. Given the worship of celebrity in this big brown land and the media saturation of all things Hollywood it is always odd when you actually meet one or two of them up close and personal. They are both of course incredibly lovely and parents of course so we had much to talk about.

One big omission...

I failed to report on a terrific afternoon Kim and I had in Santa Monica, at an event to launch the new brand and name of CHEC - the non profit we support. Their new name is Healthy Child and they do great things to help keep homes safe for kids.
The event was held at the fabulous home of Steve Glenn. His home is the very first Platinum Leeds standard home in America. And his business - Living Homes - is in the business of making these homes for everybody. As he says, they are "nature made, factory built". They are prefabricated offsite and then the team arrives onsite and puts it together - just like lego, kinda. His home took 8 hours to erect and you just have to watch the tour here. It is beautiful!

Solar Powered Treo

Charging my Treo in the glorious Portland sun. The folks at Reware make this great portable solar power plant. No emissions or messy used uranium to handle. You can strap it to your courier bag or just lay it out wherever to power up your PDA, phone, iPod...way cool!

The kids at work at gDiapers

Spring has sprung and the Village has been out tilling the fields...

A movie launch isn't a movie launch...

...without an after party. gDiapers, Happy Baby and Baby Legs hosted an after party for the aforementioned movie. It was quite the success. We met customers by chance - who were really tall too - which is always a thrill. We ended up having sushi with these guys!
And as a couple who have had two homebirth waterbirths, we were surrounded by like minded people which is always nice. As homebirth now represents such a tiny percentage of all births, if you have had one you tend to be drawn to others who have done birth that way. And while I am by no means preaching - birth is a choice and you need to do it the way you want it - the movie did a great job of setting out where birth has come in 100 years, the medicalization of it and the risks of both hospital birth and homebirth. It was really well put together, again in non preachy way. There is always such a fine line to tread with these kinds of issues. There was a great interview with a really wise French ObGyn who did such a good job of setting out the issues.
Maybe time to have another one...