This past Earth Day, Jameson represented GreenKonnect in an online panel for the BrightTALK Green Building Summit 3. It was called “What’s Good and What’s Next: The Future of Sustainable Building Materials.” We primarily discussed how the consumer (both professional designers and Home Depot customers) can find sustainable and healthy building materials. It’s definitely worth a watch (or at least a background listen).
Now that you have signed up, it is time to share some of the projects you have worked on. This screencast will show you how.
We have over 1700 LEED Certified projects in our database (we even have the scorecards), but we need your help to build out the profiles of these projects and to add the projects that we do not have. Take a look around, find some of the projects you have worked on, add projects that aren’t in GrenKonnect, fill out the profile and, most importantly, add yourself to the projects. You can also invite your colleagues to contribute.
One of the great reasons to add Projects and connect yourself to them is to create an online portfolio for yourself. If you’d like to share the green building projects you have worked on, just give someone your GreenKonnect URL. Check out Brett Stevens’ profile for a good example of this.
Check us out in the January issue of Architect Magazine on page 46. You can also read the article online here. You’ll even get to see a picture of our beautiful office.
As I write this, I’m on a plane to San Francisco for Build Well, a forum to discuss green materials. My laptop died, so I’m writing it on my iPhone. I’m using WordPress’ iPhone app. When we land, and I get a cell connection, it will upload to our blog. A few years ago, this wouldn’t be possible. Every year it seems, a new piece of technology makes living and getting things done easier.
Unfortunately, when we look at the AEC world, it seems that technology innovation is slow. To make matters worse building sustainably adds a whole new layer of complexity. Between overstated manufacturer’s claims, VOCs, recycled content, regional mayerials and maugacturing, FSC, and more, things get complicated very quickly. It is very easy to lose yourself in all of it.
At GreenKonnect, we’re working hard to build intelligent and easy to use technology that will make it easier and more cost effective to build green. What you see today on GreenKonnect is only a small part of our solution.
We want you to be able to come to GreenKonnect for all of your green building related searching. Instead of using Google and hopping around from one manufacturer’s website to another, you’ll come to GreenKonnect and tell us exactly what your needs are from recycled content to manufacturing location and even color. We will tell you what all of your options are. Moreover, you will be able to see reviews from your colleagues, examples of where the products have been used and verified LEED credits.
We hope to do for green building what the iPhone did for personal communication. Building green should be easy. You just need the right tools.
By the way, if you’d like a peak behind the scenes, let us know. We’re always looking for more beta testers.
This story goes back a couple of years to when I (Jameson Detweiler) helped start a project at Drexel University to transform a former fraternity house, in West Philadelphia, into a LEED Certified “Living Laboratory”. Drexel believed in the importance of our vision and provided us with this house, with it we created Drexel Smart House program. Designing the house proved to be very frustrating at times. I quickly realized that finding information about existing LEED Certified buildings and the building products it takes to build a LEED building is a time consuming and frustrating process. There were so many different types of product certifications, manufacturers all made different claims, and this information was distributed across thousands of sources. To say the least, it was very confusing.
I knew there had to be a better way to find the information we needed, so about a year ago, I assembled a team and got to work. We decided that GreenKonnect needed to be the resource for green building information. While Google is a wonderful tool, it contains so much irrelevant information that sorting through it is a virtually insurmountable task, but is there a worthwhile alternative? I haven’t found one.
We like to think of GreenKonnect as a “human-powered search engine.” This means that all of our search results are built and edited by humans which translates to higher quality results for you. Additionally, it allows you and the rest of the community to contribute to the search engine results.
The key to GreenKonnect is the “Konnections”. People and Companies connect themselves to Projects they have worked on. Soon, we’ll launch Product reviews in conjunction with the largest database of green building products. When you review a Product, you will first attach it to a Project, giving context to the review. You can also let people know what LEED Credits it helped you achieve. These Konnections follow you throughout the site. Reviews don’t just show up on the Product page, they also show up on the Project page.
It is our hope that GreenKonnect will increase the transparency in the industry and make it easier to do your job. We believe increased transparency will result in a stronger community dedicated to green building and ultimately, a more sustainable future.
We are hear to listen to you and your needs, so please let us know what we can do to help. If you have any suggestions or feedback, please comment below. You can also email me directly at jameson@greenkonnect.com.
By the way, while I’m no longer involved with the Drexel Smart House, a younger group of students has continued with the project, and they have taken it to the next level. The renovations should start sometime next year. You can see the vision in this video below:
Come check out GreenKonnect at Greenbuild at booth 2470. Our booth is a bit over the top, so you will notice it when you’re near.
At our booth, you will be able to try out the beta of our brand new green building product search engine. You will also be able to search LEED Certified Projects around the country by individual credit!
Even better, you can add yourself to our search engine and connect yourself with Projects that you have worked on, creating a very effective, visual portfolio of your work experience.
Stop by and grab some candy. If you sign up for our website at Greenbuild, you will be entered into a drawing for a brand new iPod Touch.
And if you’re worried about the Swine Flu, don’t be. We’ll be disinfecting the computers regularly and have instant hand sanitizer at every computer.
