More Plenary Tales

The prospect of getting into today's plenary by Paul Hawken isn't looking good for me. The lines are about as long as they were for Clinton yesterday, probably because all the people who were standing in the registration line then are available now to stand in this one. It gets darker. There's a local-chapter guy walking up and down the line announcing that it's a ticketed event—"if you don't have a ticket, you're not getting in." A ticket wasn't included in the press registration, of course. There's also no press entrance this time, and no press pen, according to the woman standing watch at the staff entrance. I'm actually OK with not getting in, except for one thing: my friend is getting a Leadership Award, and I'd like to be able to see him get it. It's my understanding that the awards will be given out at this plenary, and then celebrated tonight at the Merchandise Mart party. Maybe out of spite, here's another scoop (like the Top-10 post) that you get to find out here, before the people in there find out: David Eisenberg, director of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology, is getting an Organization Excellence leadership award. And it's about time! Scuttlebutt has it that he received the most nominations of this year's recipients. I was one of the many who nominated him. I wrote:

David's work toward the greening of building codes over the past dozen years was recently recognized by the ICC, which named him and his organization as 2007 Affiliate of the Year. His work was previously honored with an invitation to contribute a regular column in the ICBO's Building Standards magazine, and later in ICC's Building Safety Journal. He has served on the Board of Directors of the USGBC, and chaired the USGBC's "Greening of the Codes" Committee. He has reached thousands of code officials through his work, creating positive, lasting change of real magnitude. "The Development Center for Appropriate Technology works to enhance the health of the planet and our communities by promoting a shift to sustainable construction and development through leadership, strategic relationships, and education."

And that doesn't even come close to saying the half of it. The most important things I've learned from David over the years are all about building, but don't necessarily have anything to do with building buildings. I'm going to go see if I can sneak in, or find somebody with an unused ticket.

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Argh. I went back to the Staff Entrance. There was a different person at the door. "Yes, this is the press entrance; sit on the left." Simple as that. This will be a much better world once everybody learns not to make definitive statements when they don't actually know what they're talking about. (I mean that in the most broad way possible, and include myself.) And so I'm in again. I came in while a pre-speaker speaker was exhorting powerfully to change the world with green building. Now somebody from Adobe is talking about the goodness of green building. A video clip of a little girl explaining why she likes to attend a green school. All of these things are important to hear, and hear again... but more important, some people are hearing them for the first time. Patience is a virtue. Sadly, I'm not always virtuous. You could, in theory, be watching this live at greenbuild365.org. I wonder if I missed the awards. I think I might have. Sorry about that scoop thing.