Beyond 2020 Sustainability Unconference

This post originally appeared on Peter Korchnak’s Sustainable Marketing Blog.

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The inaugural Beyond2020, Portland’s first sustainability unconference, took place last Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at the Olympic Mills Commerce Center here in Portland, Oregon. As co-coordinators, Renee Spears of Rose City Mortgage and I aimed to engage sustainable business owners and other sustainability leaders in fostering a stronger sustainability community. We’re happy to report the event turned out awesome!

Participants

Thirty-one people attended the 1st (test run) Beyond2020 (the participant list is on the event wiki). We proposed sessions, we voted on sessions, we participated in sessions. We ate food, we drank beer and wine. We chatted, established new connections, reaffirmed old ones – I hear participants are still holding follow up meetings around town! We also agreed we’d come back to participate in the next Beyond2020!

Here’s what some of the participants wrote after the event:

“[W]hat a great event, and how validating to know that there are like-minded individuals and business owners interested in collaborating in this fashion. I very much look forward to the next event.”

“That was a fantastic conference….whoops, I mean
unconference you coordinated. Really had a great time,
and met some fantastic people. Thank you again for your efforts.”

“Thank you for all of your good work on the event! That was a good start. The wiki should be a good place for people to
share information.”

“I REALLY enjoyed myself and the format. Looking forward to next time.”

“I had a great evening meeting and talking with different people from the sessions and renewing some old aquaintances too. [T]here was definitely good material for consideration–I like discussions that ask as many questions as they answer.”

Sessions

We adapted the open space meeting format for the event, which worked really well in engaging participants in fruitful conversations and establishing lasting connections. All content at Beyond2020 is participant-driven: you decide what the event is going to be about. You decide what sessions will be held. There is no agenda until you make one, because you should drive your event’s content!

These four sessions were held at the 1st Beyond2020 sustainability unconference

• The Good Life: Living Well, Doing Good and Using Less (Considerably Less!), by Beth Meredith
• Zen and the Art of Sustainability for Small Businesses, by Ami Martin
• Cooperative Marketing for Small Sustainable Businesses, by Elizabeth Johnston
• Working toward Zero Waste Events, by Lindsey Newkirk

The event website PortlandBeyond2020.com has all the latest event updates, information about the event format and sessions, gallery, and wiki for notes. The Twitter hashtag for Beyond2020 was and will continue to be #pdxb2020.

Save the date!

The 2nd Beyond2020 sustainability unconference will take place on Thursday, January 21st, from 5 to 8 PM.

The good people at Beam Development have invited us back to the Olympic Mills Commerce Center – Beyond2020 will take place there again, at 107 SE Washington Street, Portland, Oregon.

We will be fine tuning the event process based on lessons learned and we’ll also expand (double?) the number of sessions. Stay tuned for updates on this blog, or subscribe to the event mailing list (in subscription options select “Beyond2020 unconference”).