This post was written by James Moreau who will be sharing his experiences in the cleantech scene in Boulder, Colorado. Can’t wait to learn more about what’s happening in Colorado. Connect with him @jrmoreau

I moved to Boulder, Colorado a little over a month ago from Madison, Wisconsin. All I had to my name was a few hundred bucks, a Toyota Yaris packed with everything I (decided) to own and a drive to make a fresh start on my career and overall life in a beautiful, thriving place.

Luckily I had some resources already in the area where I was moving to: my girlfriend, a cousin and some friends from the Boulder Startup Week that I had met when visiting in May. I’ve become somewhat of a proficient social networker with my past experiences in social media, so I figured that the strong base I had established when visiting Boulder Startup Week would help me get into a renewable energy or cleantech company easily.

How easily I had forgotten about the silos associated with renewable energy and cleantech companies.

After a few weeks of living in Boulder, I had met dozens of entrepreneurs and freelancers like myself who were rabidly looking to get involved with some sort of web-technology based startup within Boulder. I’d ask around, “do you have any contact in the local solar or wind industry?” I’d usually get a glance of either confusion or sympathy from a lot of people I asked that and a simple “nope” followed right after.

What gives? Boulder’s supposed to be one of the most happening cities in the entire country when it comes to Solar PV and other cleantech industries, just like Boston, San Francisco and Arizona. When I lived in Boston, I also had a heck of a time (between 2005 and 2009) getting my foot in the door of cleantech and renewables companies.

Oh, how easily the gainfully employed forget the guerrilla tactics of job searching, especially in niche industries!

Here are my top tips for someone planning to relocate who may or may not have contacts already, but not in the cleantech or renewable energy field they prefer:

• Find out where industry leaders and representatives are meeting socially. Boulder has so many computer programmer and social media expert meetups that you could fill every day and night of your week with attending them, but you probably will not find the people you want to talk to in relation to getting hired as a cleantech or renewables professional.
• Job boards are only a small part of the equation. I’ve only gotten one call back from a job board in my renewable energy job search, so I can’t say it’s completely not worth your time, but just be mindful of how many folks you’re competing with.
• If you don’t have technical skills (i.e. engineering, solar installation certification), assume you know absolutely nothing, but don’t let that stop you for a second in pursuing your passion for cleantech and renewable energy jobs. You’ll just need to shorten your learning curve and accentuate the skills you do have to compensate.
• Never, ever stop telling your story and asking people how you can help them and vice versa. Networking for any sort of job can be a challenge, but if it’s niche, sometimes you just won’t have a glaring culture of social beings buzzing around with a welcoming mat when you move to town. That’s okay, just be prepared to network twice as hard as you would normally and leave no stone unturned, no hands un-shaken and no business cards hanging.

As for me? Well, I’m just starting to dig my claws into the sustainability scene here in Boulder and I’m feeling good about some meetings I’ve had with chance encounters that manifested themselves from me being a pest to people who I believed to know everyone in town.

I thought to myself, how can the Vice President of one of the most popular and successful small businesses in town not know a single person in the sustainability related industries that I wanted to break into? Well, I asked this gentleman during a meeting he so graciously granted to me and while he didn’t have any direct correlating contacts with the jobs I was looking for, he hooked me up with a friend who knew a friend who was an absolute gold mine.

Now I’ve got 8 names of heavy hitters in town who are making some noise in the businesses I want to be a part of. Time to roll up my sleeves and get busy. I’ll let you all know how it goes!

James Ryan Moreau, a current resident of Boulder, Colorado, is a Worcester, Massachusetts native and graduated from college in Boston, MA with a Bachelors Degree in Public Relations. He was worked as a copywriter, community manager and social media strategy consultant for large consumer and b2b brands. His passion lies in building community and awareness around renewable energy and clean tech companies, personalities and policy through social media and brand evangelism.

Here’s a question I’ve been getting asked a lot about lately and have been personally wondering myself: What is the best city for the cleantech industry in the United States?

If you work in the cleantech industry, I need your help for a couple moments! We’re going to crowd source the compilation of the information that will be useful to everyone in the industry and then make it free to the community. I know a lot about the information in Boston, but not so much about other cities, that’s where you come in

Goal Of the Survey

Based on your responses to my little survey,  I’m going to publish a yearly report and make it free to the community. The goal is that the survey will rank each city based on a simple criteria and provide a complete list of cleantech resources, government policies, companies, and investors in each city. We’re going to continue to collect the information and release the report every year, which will be especially useful as the industry grows and changes.

In this context, I’ll define cleantech as anything associated with; renewable energy, energy efficiency, water, green building, clean transportation.

Story

Two years ago it seems like the answer might have been pretty straight forward, but things have changed a lot since then. Cities and states are passing new policies aiming at attracting new investment, large companies are investing in CSR, and many more universities are beginning to change their curriculum.

My first thought was to answer this question by creating an as-you-go type documentary and travel to a bunch of cities and do interviews with companies, city official, and at universities and continually write and post photos and videos on my blog.

Information We’re Looking to Collect

I’ve created a simple form below with some basic information that I’m looking to collect. I tried to keep the survey very short and simple for the first try.

If you have a second, here’s how you can help:

1. Depending on the city where you are located, please fill in any and all information that you have.
2. If you have colleagues in other cities please forward it to them.
3. If you can just fill in one part, no problem, any and all information will be useful. You’ll be asked to rate each criteria for the city you’re located in and then provide SPECIFIC examples to back up your rating. These examples will be used to compile the resources in each city that we’ll provide in the report.

City Specific Information:

1) Quality of Investor Community:

-Cleantech specific investors in your city (angel networks, VCs, etc)

2) Cleantech Talent

-Universities with cleantech oriented programs

-Think tanks

-Local training programs

3) Resources

-Government Polices

-Green Incubators

-Non-profits/Industry Associations

-Business Plan Competitions

-Local Events

4) Existing Cleantech Companies. Please list companies you’re aware of located in your city.

-Large Companies (Public)

-Middle Size Companies (Large but not public)

-Small Businesses

-Startups

I’m very excited about this project as I think we’ll be able to collect some great information, but I can only do it with you help

Thank you in advance for your help!

Chris

This post comes from Walter Frick, one of our new Boston industry insiders. Walter works with the New England Clean Energy Council and has also worked with the USGBC in the past. Stay tuned for more of Walter’s insights in the industry in Boston.

Chris had a post on the Top 10 Boston companies killing it on Twitter.  I thought I’d add on to that with a post on the blogs and news feeds I use to stay abreast of the industry.  There’s no shortage of terrific news and analysis on energy and climate issues and I don’t intend for this list to be comprehensive.  But hopefully it will offer a starting point – or many starting points – to readers looking to keep up with the sector.  I also hope to hear from others about sources I may be missing.  (Quick plug: follow @GreenLDistrikt and @NECEC on Twitter!)

So here goes…

Local cleantech news: MassHighTech and Xconomy

MassHighTech is “the Journal of New England Technology” and covers much more than energy.  I make sure to at least skim everything they publish on both Energy and Envirotech.  Looking for a once-a-week news roundup in your inbox?  Sign up for MHT’s GreenFlash newsletter.  It’s as close to a one-stop-shop for local cleantech news as you’re going to find.

Xconomy is a great, hyper-local news site that covers all things innovation in Boston, Detroit, San Diego, and Seattle.  If you use RSS, you can sign up for feeds by either technology area (energy) or city (Boston).

The business of Boston: the Globe and the Boston Business Journal

Still don’t have your fill of business news?  I make sure to at least scan The Boston Globe’s Business section. Ditto with The Boston Business Journal.  Perhaps most importantly, I recommend you start reading Globe columnist Scott Kirsner’s blog, Innovation Economy.  Though it’s not always about cleantech, it’s a can’t-miss inside look into Boston’s start-up ecosystem.

Getting outside of Boston: a whole lotta cleantech news

These are all great feeds to keep up with the cleantech sector beyond – but including – New England.  I’d love to go into detail about what I like about each of these, but there are too many so I’ll just reel them off: CNET’s GreenTech by Martin LaMonica, Cambridge-based Greentech Media, VentureBeat’s GreenBeat, Earth2Tech, Green Energy Reporter, The Cleantech Group, and Clean Edge.

Beyond business: the science, policy and politics of climate & energy

The New York Times’ Energy & Environment feed is a good place to start.  So is their Green blog.  Dot Earth, another NYT blog by former reporter Andy Revkin, covers the many implications of an increasingly strained planet.

For even more news and analysis on energy and environmental issues I keep tabs on the Washington Post’s Post Carbon blog, The New Republic’s The Vine blog, and Yale’s Environment 360.

I also highly recommend Climate Progress, by Joe Romm of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.  Regardless of whether you agree with Romm’s politics, his blog is a must-read.  If nothing else, his daily news roundups are highly valuable.

If you’re interested in wonking out a bit on climate & energy policy not to worry – I have just the feeds for you.  Check out Harvard economist Rob Stavins’ blog along with Michael Levi’s at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Finally, if you want to keep up with the latest in energy technology, check out the energy page at MIT’s Technology Review.

‘There is no such thing as information overload’

…Only filter failure.  So says new media guru Clay Shirky.  The links above constitute most of my daily energy-specific reading.  There are a number of great individuals and organizations not included here that I follow on Twitter and count on to provide good links.  And my list is always changing.  But hopefully this gives you a starting point if you’re looking to keep up with all things clean energy.

I personally use Google Reader to manage all this.  If that doesn’t work for you, you could create a dashboard with iGoogle or NetVibes, sign up for email alerts, find these sources on Twitter, or just use old-fashioned bookmarking.

What great sites and feeds am I missing?  There’s more great energy info out there than anyone has time to read, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try!

Recently, I’ve been getting asked more and more who and what companies to follow on twitter. So, I’ve decided to put together some lists.

BEWARE, if you’re not familiar with twitter you may have no idea what I’m talking about.

Today, I did my first #FollowFriday for my favorite green people around Boston. It went something like this:

@GreenLDistrikt: My first #FF for #Boston’s #green scene @hollyfowler @asheen @morganmm @CleanPursuits @goodnaturegirl @mangojess @renewacycle

Those focused on my favorite people but these are the companies that are using twitter the best in and around Boston, and sometimes New England area in no particular order.

@firstwind – Although First Wind does HUGE wind development and thus their customers probably are not on twitter, they provide great news, information and resources to the twitter community interested in wind.

@millvillegreen + @millvillegreen2 : Laura and Helen are doing some great work with green strategic marketing and program implementation and are great at using their twitter feeds to communicate what’s happening in the are and nation.

@greencollarguy – Kevin Gulley has created the largest B2b Green Directory on the web, an impressive feet. The directory will allow companies to research and find the most profitable ways to become green.

@newgenenergy – New Generation Energy kicks butt in the twitterverse, always providing great information. They provide innovative financial tools that help people invest in greening their communities. Keep an eye on these guys, I think they’ll be national one day.

@HarvestPower – Harvest Power’s customers are not twitter per se, but I feel like their presence on twitter is in large demand. Organics recycling is something most Americans don’t have a clue about so any and all education on the subject is much appreciated.

@energycircle – Peter Troast is the energy efficiency man as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never seen a better site that educates homeowners better on energy efficiency, hands down. Also see @energycrclgoods for some deals on good stuff

@Jeff_groSolar – Jeff the CEO of groSolar has had a twitter feed for sometime now. It’s amazing to me that more solar CEOs don’t have twitter accounts especially if they’re selling to residential because homeowners are on twitter. I like hearing Jeff’s tweets, they’re a good mix of business, pleasure, news and life.

@emergentenergy – Emergent Energy Group doesn’t have the most active twitter account at the moment, but usually have some good info on on renewables and community development.

@evcast – Hands down the BEST resource, podcast, blog, news whatever you want for information about electric vehicles. I’d say they’re the Energy Circle of Electric Vehicles, or maybe it’s the other way around? Regardless, if you want to keep up to date on what’s happening with electric vehicles (my vote if on Better Place) follow these guys

@reworld – Like @evcast and @energycirlce, Renewable Energy World, in my opinion, is hands down the best renewable energy news resources that exists on the planet and they are located close by in New Hampshire.

Well, that’s my list. I agree, whether twitter is actually a useful tool or not is arguable and it depends on an organizations business model and who their customers are. I can say without a doubt that twitter has changed my life for the better and I’ve met some amazing people through it.

For those green, renewable energy, clean tech folks. Do you use twitter? Why?

If yes, how do you think we can use twitter to drive the movement forward?

Since I starting the blog a month ago, I’ve received a couple requests for information on green private equity companies, green VC, and green angel investors from friends, and colleagues that I went to Babson with.

This list will be valuable for entrepreneurs looking for funding, or those who are interested in ‘green’ investing, financing or consulting.

First, you should know that the word green private equity may or may not hold any water. It will depend on the firm and how they define the word ‘green’. I have done very little vetting of the list.

The list is not separated between private equity and venture capital. You’ll have to do this research on your own. If you find mistake, broken link, a company that a missed, or a company that clearly should be on this list let me know.

Enjoy! The list currently stands at 250 companies.