On Wednesday, I received a copy of Colin Beavan’s book called No Impact Man.   I owe a big thank you to Michael Mah of QSM Associates for the gift.  Michael and I have talked together at numerous Agile and Rally events over the past four years.  His work has been instrumental at proving the benefits of Agile by benchmarking Agile projects against their database of 7500 projects.  He has clearly seen me talk about my personal quest to get my family’s carbon and environmental footprint down, as well as our work at Rally on our corporate footprint.

My take away: As you share your personal or professional vision with others, it becomes easier for them to help you attain it. It is a wonderful reinforcing loop.  Thanks again Michael.

(Click on Book to see at Amazon)

 

This is a book about Colin and his family, who live in New York City, and how they lived for a year with a zero environmental footprint, not just a zero carbon footprint.  I have broken the cover on the Introduction and the first chapter.  It looks like a great and funny read.  Based on my Amazon search, there is even a movie/DVD on the book.

Here are some Chapter titles, to give you a bit of the feel:

  • What you think when you find your Life in the Trash
  • If Only Pizza Didn’t come on Paper Plates
  • Conspicuous Nonconsumption

I look forward to finishing the book on my next plane trip, which is coming in two weeks to the Oracle Open World/Java One/Oracle Developer’s Conference.  I am speaking there on the “Linchpins for Scaling Software Agility.” This talk is on Wednesday morning in the San Francisco Hilton, right before Ted Farrell.  Please join us both as we explore the needs and tools for team hyper-productivity.


Ryan Martens is a homegrown tomato lover, founding board member of the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado, and CTO at Rally Software Development.

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