After a very energizing weekend with the folks at LinkTV in San Francisco, we stopped by Compostmodern 08 on the way to the airport to get wound up even a little more. It was a great line up for this event’s 4th year, where “brilliant ideas, practical solutions, drama, inspiration, eye candy and some tough questions” all converge in consideration of a transition to a sustainable society.

Our green guy emcee and man of many green properties Joel Makower kicked off the gathering with a framing of the green business timeline, and then handed the mike over to the always entertaining Alex Steffen from World Changing, whose powerful, pointed Powerpoint usually gets the crowd thoroughly roused. The day was filled with leading designers presenting case studies on their work in design toward a less unsustainable world. There was Mark Galbraith of cool green clothing company NAU, Jeff Walker of VSA Partners, who made a solid enough pitch of (his) work with GE on Ecomagination, Valerie Casey of IDEO, Jane Savage from Nike who we shared a panel with at Discover Brilliant in Seattle last year, and Scott Stowell of Open Studios whose work on Good magazine is better than good. Adam Werbach of Walmart “Personal Sustainability Project” fame keynoted out the affair to end on an upbeat we-can-do-it-one-small-step-at-a-time note (which ironically was quite the opposite message coming from Alex at the outset, who made it clear what he felt about individuals’ small efforts to address the planet’s problems).

Here’s to AIGA in the Bay Area for a very good event. Keep up the good work Phil, Gaby, Marc, and Jeff. And bring it to Seattle, please.