We set a few goals a year ago:

2009 Resolution

1) Promote a lifestyle of nature and technology that enhances happiness and connects people with their environment and community.

Evangelizing every moment… connect to the source

2) Build a balanced global group of grapethinkers to share ideas and discuss global issues and events, while sipping a little vino for inspiration.

For sure, some new grapethinkers:

Linda Constantino, amazing painter and artist teaching illustrating the edible at SCAD

Alicia Griffiths, passionate artist in DC

Danielle Butler, vino lover and museum curator of Charleston

Jill Bentley, talented photographer capturing nature’s beauty

Franco Luisi, Italian negociant of Roma

Calvin Baldwin, event planner, organizer and new media marketing manager of RTP

Doug Fath, dynamic mentor and real estate developer of Philly

Lee Whitfield, designer and ecolist extraordinaire of Manchester

3) Continue to bring in clients that we can offer valuable services to, including marketing, technology development, and business development.

Worked with an amazingly diverse group of companies this year, providing consulting services, while continuing to learn and expand our vision:

Faithful Investments, Wealthy Passion, Sweet Spot Housing, KDM Global Partners, Lamprey Systems, SEER Interactive, Invite Media, Castelfeder Winery, Nistri Winery

4) Develop our first product, a global wine brand

This has been developed and will hopefully reach market by the end of the first quarter of 2010.  We’ll reveal the product soon!

5) Think positive, stay focused, spread love

Always…

Cheers to all! Happy 2010!!

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My theory is he used his infinite curiosity as a feedback loop to direct his body, hands, and eyes to work and operate in a balanced fashion (ambidexterity), which resulted in greater structural and energetic harmony between the two sides of his mind. This allowed him to have clear and simple insights into innovation…. lol, I know. Just being there filled me with a type of inspirational energy I’d never felt before.

Odd Art Plaza outside of Museum

Vitruvian Man, the ESSENCE

Birthplace of Leonardo

There was a wedding in Da Vinci’s home the day we were there

Striking view from Da Vinci’s home

Full Moon on the ride home

Vitruvian Man in Vinci

The Vitruvian man

The essence of a human being

Practically you see he’s inside of a cube and a sphere at the same time

It was Da Vinci’s way of saying that the anatomy, the shape, the essence of a man, of a human , of a woman… is perfect.. it’s the essence of the universe… it’s the chiave, the key

It’s probably one of the most well recognized symbols in the world other than the Coca Cola brand

We are here in Vinci, Italia, which is the small town where obviously Leonardo Da Vinci was born and raised, and nurtured his genius

You see right here we’ve got the vigneto, the vineyard, and the olive trees

It’s what the locals here in Italia say is the key to their good health… olives and good wine

Leonardo’s Home

Now we’re at the house where Leonardo was born. We’re a couple kilometers outside of Vinci.

You’re probably wondering why… was Vinci, Leonardo Da Vinci, called Da Vinci. Da Vinci means from Vinci.

And it’s cause he was just kind of a common guy, kind of like a peasant I guess.

And he took his dad’s name. It was like Leonard Di Piero, I think… Ser Piero. Ser Piero Da Vinci… and then he just shortened it to Da Vinci… from Vinci.

See here are some gorgeous olive trees… I wonder if that had anything to do with his genius?

There’s his house right there.

Another really interesting thing, I mentioned ambidexterity earlier, was that he mainly actually wrote with his left hand. He was known like Michelangelo to switch, from his left hand to his right hand. Back and forth… kind of like that, ha.

Yeah, anyways, another interesting thing was that he actually wrote (some Italians are looking at me over there) he actually wrote from right to left, right to left… opposed to left to right. And he wrote backwards.

And they say it was so that he could disguise all of his major plans so they couldn’t read them.

I think it was because it exercised the other side of his mind… the right side… the creative side.

I don’t know… those are just a few facts. I’m here… this is the birthplace of the greatest genius in the history of our time.

Olive trees, ambidexterity, good wine… I tend to think it’s the simple things that converge into genius.

But who knows?

Ciao

Wedding

(Wedding cheers)

That’s pretty cool

We’re here at the house where Da Vinci was born.

The greatest genius in the history of humanity… LOL

Where he was born

And of course, we’ve got all the olive trees goin on down here

Lexus and the olive tree

Just had a wedding here

Full Moon

And on the way back from Vinci, we’ve got a little Luna Piena, piena? Luna Piena? (Si)

Luna Piena or Luna Nuda… full moon

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I’ve been working with an amazing company here in Philadelphia called SEER Interactive and it hit me last week in our company wide meeting sitting around the whole office together with 11 women and 3 men. It was one of the best meetings I’ve ever been a part of. Not only was it relaxed, humorous, and productive, more so than most meetings I’ve attended, but I left with an overwhelming sense of peace… something I’ve never felt before in endless male dominated board, class, and conference rooms.

Sometimes I tend to feel that women possess the essence of the universe and men are simply expendable, thus the reason why man created religion and has scoured the earth with linear wasteful supply chains and chaotic ways of capitalistic thinking, because we are not in rhythm with the universe like women are. So instead we stomp around and kick up dust trying to feel what women do naturally… the connection.

There are so many problems with the world, and the reasoning could be infinite. I argue it is because of a simple disconnect between men and women, mainly in man’s lack of understanding of the enlightenment that women provide. It is the woman who is in rhythm with the world, the seasons, and the lunar cycles. They feel it, they don’t think it, they don’t have to. And they inspire men thru this feeling to create, to build… to fulfill our destiny. Everything that a man does, when taken down to its fundamental element is for a woman, the love of a woman. A man that does not love women, that does not cherish women and surround himself with strong women, cannot be enlightened… cannot create.

My personal enlightenment to all, to god, came from one thing… my love for the women in my life. There is no reason to get lost in the details and ideals. Everything is very simple. I think I’m starting to get it now.

I love women!!

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By and large this is a question that does not usually elicit an interesting response. However in the world of news-reporting – digital media often covers the essential how, who, when and where questions of journalism, because our communication mediums are increasingly location aware, user-specific and time stamped. What is a question that requires actual human input – and in the past 3 years people have been answering it in terms of Facebook status updates, and for the early adopters – by joining the twitterverse.

Yesterday, however, the answer to that burning question reached critical mass and took on historic significance. Whilst some protested and others wondered about what was going on outside their office walls, multi-tasking employees were able to get on with their work whilst receiving a blow by blow account of history unfolding. It has been overstated to the point of cliché that the medium is the message – but yesterday the message made a medium and Twitter found its place in the global setting. Beyond the news-helicopters, simple tweets turned digital enthusiasts into citizen journalists and for once, a multitude of opinions on the same subject were heard. Suddenly all the hype made sense – some of us had tweeted previously to moderate effect, but for most of us not concerned about letting the world into our daily happenings, Twitter just left us scratching our heads.

The power of Twitter is its ability to allow multiple voices to communicate disparate opinions in unison. Of course, its fantastic to be in the loop of the wonderful world of Stephen Fry via twitter – but what we saw yesterday was not celebrity admiration, but rather the changing documentation of history, where instead of being written by the victors, we captured a glimpse through the eyes of the observer – raw, unfiltered and uncesorable. We have seen dictatorships stifle freedom of expression in blogs and websites – but the immediacy of Twitter gives the voice on the individual more resonance than before.

Of course history in the making needn’t be people tweeting from Hurricane Katrina or Tiananmen Square – we all have histories, cultural histories and personal histories. A father tweeting the anxiety of being in the waiting room whilst his child his being born, a techy tweeting the anticipation at a tech-conference whilst waiting for Steve Jobs to unleash Apple’s new toy, or a Machester United fan tweeting from the stands during half-time with the score at 1-1. Every generation alters the way it communicates, and it seems that those alterations are happening more frequently. In 6 years we have gone from long-form e-mail, to group e-mails, to text message, on to Facebook and finally: Twitter.

Of course Twitter has its critics, and there are those who see it as a distraction and a detraction from complete discourse. But so often when our collective brains are abuzz with thought, instead of thinking in full sentences or having complete thoughts, our minds are aflutter with neural tweets.

Could Twitter be the closest we have come to reflecting how our society collectively thinks, sees and experiences the world?

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The LOHAS market in total represents $209 billion in consumer sales!

Personal Health: $118.03 billion

• Natural organic products
• Nutritional products
• Integrative health care
• Dietary supplements
• Mind body spirit products

Green Building: $50 billion

• Home Certification
• EnergyStar appliances
• Sustainable flooring
• Renewable energy systems (solar)
• Wood alternatives

Eco Tourism: $24.17 billion

• Eco-tourism travel
• Eco-adventure travel

Natural Lifestyles: $10.6 billion

• Indoor & outdoor furnishings
• Organic cleaning supplies
• Compact fluorescent/LED lights
• Social change philanthropy
• Apparel

Alternative Transportation: $6.12 billion

• Hybrid vehicles
• Biodiesel fuel
• Carsharing programs (pickup pal)

Alternative Energy: $300 million

• Renewable energy credits
• Green pricing

Biggest Market Growth:

• Retail Sales +28%
• Organic foods +15%
• Solar energy +20%
• Eco-tourism +23%

*Information provided courtesy of Lohas.com

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From a business standpoint, this translates into an evolution beyond cost per impression and cost per click into a real way to track affiliates, through online coupons and redeemable points. Recycle  Bank is doing some cool stuff by rewarding consumers with coupons and redeemable points at local stores for recycling their garbage. A resourceful site like Savings.com will help you find all the great deals on different internet sites, helping you become a savvy shopper. You’ll find promotional codes and coupons for the best deals online.

It would be really smart, as more local retailers get hooked into the online medium, for Savings.com to create search filters for location, helping people find deals at not just online stores, but also local brick and mortar restaurants, grocers, apparrel, etc. This would help the customer find the best local deal. Savings.com could develop an incredible business model by taking a cut of coupons redeemed. It will take some time and a lot of sweat, but the hard part is over. Platforms like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter have captured the attention and time of the consumer, and made every retailer and business under the sun take notice that this how they reach their customers. And when businesses are ready to spend money on online marketing and generate discount opportunities through coupons and promo codes, you know a real business model is coming for this crazy thing called the Internet… in fact it’s already here.

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1. We would be keeping the bears happy…  I mean seriously.. look at this fellow.  He’s enjoying a little splash in the water without a care in the world.   If we don’t make an effort to save the environment, this is going to be a grumpy bear without any place to go other than your back yard.
2. Prevent extinction – I’m constantly reading about how animals are going extinct.  This isn’t animal gone from the zoo, this is animal species GONE FOREVER!!   If you do a search at iucnredlist.org, you will see that in 2008, they listed 590 species as critically endangered, many with population trends continuing to decrease, and 8 species that were no longer in existance in the wild.  This article about the Monk Seal Extinction discusses the proof that humans are the cause of many of these extinctions.
3. Keep the planet from melting - The proof keeps stacking up that the planet is warming.  Regardless of whether this is part of a natural cycle or not, the truth is that it is most definitely happening, and that we do contribute in some part.  If we all take some action to reduce our carbon footprint, and it makes the smallest difference.. won’t that mean something?
4. Save the Rainforest – Deforestation is a huge problem.. Apparently, such a large percentage of the world is in need of food, that we continue to bulldoze the Rainforest to make cow pastures and corn fields… apparently noone pays attention to the fact that we grow all of this corn… TO FEED THE COWS.. maybe we should all just eat corn?   I found this pic which also explains it well..
5. Make Al Gore happy – Just look at this guy..  do you want his face to get stuck like that?   Well, then do something about it.  The only way he’s going to be happy is if he knows everyone is trying to do something to help our environment.

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