Flowers in the neighborhood This is my fourth BlogHer Conference.  I look forward to the event because it helps inspire me.   This year I selected sessions based on a personal goal - to improve my blog.   There are two focus areas -- design and writing.

This morning at the BlogHer Conference, about 40 "green" and "social change" bloggers, organizations and companies got together for a Birds of a Feather Meetup. I asked folks to give me their cards so I could share who attended with you. Give 'em a click and find out about the work they do (Is anyone except me surprised by how many companies attended?). Abbey McDonald, Debroff Debrief Abby Jaramillo, Urban Sprouts

David Bornstein's book, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, describes the qualities Ashoka looks for in the social entrepreneurs they support through their Fellowship program. The quality that stood out the most for me was Creativity. In the book, Bill Drayton, Ashoka's founder, says that social entrepreneurs need to have two kinds of creativity:

Back when I briefly worked at a bookstore, the manager once told me that during economic downturns, books still sell nicely. According to him, hard times make people look for brief respites from their money woes -- thus making them spend money on relatively affordable entertainment purchases, like books, DVDs, and CDs.

Photo Source: Obama Family Dog Campaign All the dogs in my life have been adopted from animal shelters or dog rescue organizations.   Choosing to adopt a puppy or dog from a rescue group or shelter, you're not only saving a life, you're decreasing the demand for puppies from factory-farm like puppy mills.

Last time I went shopping in San Francisco was with Elsa of The Greener Side -- and eco-fashions were pretty hard to find. That, however, was way back in February 2006 before "An Inconvenient Truth," you know, changed things.