Planning Meeting for the 2014 Clean Business Investment Summit

As I’ve mentioned, I volunteer as a mentor to up-and-coming cleantech entrepreneurs who wish to present their business plans at the Clean Business Investment Summit, held annually at UCSB (the University of California at Santa Barbara).

My main role is helping participants to fine-tune their PowerPoint, and, more importantly, to find the words they’ll use to communicate their vision to an audience of interested but understandably skeptical angel investors and venture capitalists.  I’m not God’s gift to public speaking, but I’ve been through enough of all of this over the last 30 years to be able to bestow some good advice as to how to take a microphone and communicate from a position of conviction, certainty, and competence.

Later this morning at 11 we have one of our numerous planning meetings in preparation for the big day.  I’m sure there will last-minute suggestions that we could use another corporate sponsor or two, and who-knows-what other banter with the other volunteers.  I so enjoy the company of these people I’ve come to know and respect through the five years since my involvement with them commenced.

Then, considering I’ll be only a few blocks from the beach, I’ll make a quick change into a pair of shorts, take a quick jog, and be back in my office by 1:30 at the latest.  IMHO, there are far worse ways to spend a couple of hours.