I met today with Jared Asch the National Director of Efficiency First.

They are a nonprofit that connects together people seeking green jobs with product manufacturers to promote energy efficiency. Jared and I will both be speaking at the upcoming West Coast Green Conference at the end of September and I have have been talking with all of my fellow speakers about their efforts.

http://www.efficiencyfirst.org

For 30-plus years, the modern environmental movement has been preaching energy efficiency, but it has only been recently we’ve seen it being taken seriously. Why the change? Surely rising fuel prices, instability of oil imports and our growing dependance on those imports factors into it – but these issues have persisted for decades.

I asked Jared about what has changed recently. He pointed out how the business case for energy efficiency now has a proven track record of success. “We didn’t have that just ten years ago,” he added. Jared has worked for 6 Senators, 3 presidential campaigns and several Members of Congress, and understands how policy can affect positive change. He mentioned the power of simply having an Administration supportive of these ideas. U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is an admitted “energy efficiency nut.”

Back in December, President Obama told a group of businesspeople at a Home Depot in Virginia that energy efficiency was a “win-win,” because it saves energy, helps our environment and create jobs. “Here’s what’s sexy about it,” the President added, “saving money.” Jared quotes this on the cover of their brochure.

Simple tasks, such as weatherstripping around your doors, caulking around your windows and insulating your attic can easily cut your home energy use by 30%. If American households saved just 10% of the energy used to heat and cool their homes, it would amount to 8.2 billion kW saved, equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from over a million passenger vehicles.

Not only do these things reduce energy use and cut your monthly utility bills, they do much more. As it turns out, energy efficiency retrofitting of our existing buildings is also a job creator.

Jared pointed to their Home Star Program, a piece of proposed legislation that would give homeowners rebates for energy efficiency retrofits. Home Star would create about 168,000 jobs, help homeowners save money and move us toward energy independence. He told me they are only a couple of votes shy of the 60 needed to pass it in the Senate.

Energy efficiency is at the core of every climate solution. We cannot reach the goals we need to reach (350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere) without an aggressive policy of energy efficiency retrofits for our existing buildings. Every Architect, Contractor and Designer needs to take notice and push this as part of their remodeling projects.

Just this week, the Center for American Progress released a report showing how a national energy efficiency program could create 625,000 sustained jobs over 10 years, ignite $500 billion in investment, and save people over $64 billion off their utility bills. Money in their pockets they could use to move the economy forward.

—Eric Corey Freed is an architect and author of four books, including Green$ense for the Home.

You saw plum on the runways during the Fall 2010 fashion week and in storefront windows shortly after that; but can you successfully bring Fall’s hottest color into the home?

Some people are intrigued with the idea of color but have commitment issues when it comes to painting an entire room in an adventurous color. This is when a pop of color in a closet, cabinet or even a drawer may satisfy that need.

Purple hues can replace black, dark brown, steel gray or navy blue to liven up the style while still keeping the formal, sophisticated feel of any room. As we move into fall and closer to winter, purple will shift from red-inspired to being infused with gray.

Color can fit in anywhere. Ranges from La Cornue and BlueStar are offered in eggplant. Rugs can easily be added to almost any space for extra color or pattern. Consider window treatments for adding temporary accent color to a room.

—Ann Porter

Ever in search of the perfect project management system, I have come across another PM service, in the cloud, that I’d like to pass to you. I’ve heard it said that it is not uncommon for one to try out a particular PM system several times before finding the right one or coming back to one that was looked at many months before.

I think what happens is this: As we work with a variety of project management features, we change our opinions about which features we thought were important. One cannot always know, when first signing on to a PM system, if there will be some features that might end up not working as we expected or hoped, once certain features are discovered. In some cases, a super sexy PM feature may make us just lose our heads in excitement and ignore other, less attractive but more important features we should be looking at. You want sex appeal? Check out ProjectTurf. I dare you.

I spoke about Central Desktop in a previous post. I like Central Desktop (CD) very much, but I am moving away from it. Here’s why. I quickly tired of spending $100 per month … makes sense, doesn’t it? I justified it enthusiastically at first but then, perhaps, came to my senses. In addition, in downgrading to the $50-per-month plan, CD only offers 10 “projects” to work on. Much too limiting.

In searching for a project management system, be aware of the number of projects allowable. Projects are not only clients—they may also be categories such as marketing, PR, showroom issues, accounting, products, suppliers and so on. More and more, I am seeing systems that allow unlimited projects and unlimited users but vary in terms of other features.

I am currently trying out Wrike. As I was looking, looking, looking for another PM system and I would come across Wrike, the words “patent pending” and “intelligent email” finally got my interest. I did a little more research and actually READ a fair amount on their site and others to understand that the connection between email and the project management system … is everything. I’ve used this feature before in Thymer.com and loved it, but Wrike takes it several steps beyond ANYONE. I LOVED Nozbe (very sexy and fun to use) but the email formatting just does not work well in my opinion.

Being super productive with tasks, which many emails are, is about the ability to a) email tasks to a system easily (I emphasize easily) and b) the holy grail: the inclusion of attachments, files, images, VIA EMAIL which, when they end up in the project management system, provide the task recipient everything he/she needs to get that task done.

Wrike has several patents pending. I am using Wrike to email tasks to a particular person who has access to Wrike and the task goes into a particular folder within Wrike…again, easily. I can put a due date in my email to Wrike for the task as well.

The theory is that emails are not letters. They are tasks. As such, they are disconnected, disjointed, and if you get many emails, they very easily fall through the cracks, and I can attest to that. Every few days, discounting spam and newsletters, I end up with 200-300 emails. If I do not keep up, I’m in trouble. Right now, I am thrilled to have 24 emails in my inbox, and my goal is to continually have zero, with all tasks in Wrike, neatly organized by date due, project and task recipient.

At first glance, Wrike looks like a typical PM system. I think it is very powerful. I cannot go further into its many powerful features here, but take a look, give it some time and see if it’s for you. It’s definitely not sexy (which I wish it were, after all, I’m a designer) but it’s a workhorse.

In the end, it’s difficult to have ALL of the features we may wish for. We need to consider price, number of users permitted, number of projects, email to task features, general user interface and more. Everyone’s needs are different. As I search for a way to save time and as I believe email, tasks, and a project management system are integrated, like it or not, Wrike is where I am focused right now. I’d love to hear about your experiences and opinions on project management systems.

—Susan Serra

Since I seem to be on the crest of a tile trend lately, I thought I would continue with a West Coast offering from Fireclay Tile in San Jose, CA.

Claymonde Series by Fireclay Tile

Claymonde Tiles are a new offering for Fireclay Tile and include their typical craftmanship and sustainable practices. I’m more familiar with their beautiful, traditional ceramics, so when I saw these, I knew I had to show you.

Instead of calling them tiles, Fireclay rightly calls them “sheets.” At 6 in. x 36 in. and 12 in. x 36 in., these large-format tiles are manufactured in 14 different colors, with additional sizes and custom colors available for an upcharge.

The sheets are made through a rolling process to ¼ in. thick and fired with non-leaded glossy glaze. Unlike traditional handmade ceramic tiles where one expects a certain amount of variation in evenness, these are relatively smooth. The variation in glazing and smoothness is typical for a mid-to-high-end glazed tile.

Claymonde “Golden Flan” 6 in. x 36 in.

In residential applications, you can consider these for kitchen walls (Fireclay recommends a penetrating sealer at cooktop and wet areas), showers, fireplaces or any vertical or ceiling application. This is also the type of application where any bulges or unevenness in the walls will have to be dealt with if you don’t want the teeter-totter effect or edges to pop.

Lead times are four weeks plus shipping for standard color, and eight weeks for custom colors. www.fireclaytile.com

Until next time,

Kelly