I wrote the post below titled "Keeping it Simple (and Smart) for Solar Hot Water" for our blog at Renewable Energy World but I thought I'd share it here as well.  In almost every industry (web design, especially) there is desire for simple, efficient solutions to common problems.

There are many radio shows and podcasts we follow to keep an eye on trends in technology, culture, science, and ecology. Recently, one of our favourites "The Age of Persuation" with Terry O'Reilly covered the world of green marketing.

Starting and running a small business is quite an intimidating project. Over the last five years we've grown from a one-person company (Holden Creative) into CartaNova.

Along the way we've read a small pile of business-advice books.
Here are top three books we recommend for small business or social initiatives.

Renewsing (motto: Reducing, Reusing, Recycling, ReNEWSing) is a project of Canvas Dreams, whom we work with to offer wind-power web hosting to our clients.  The site aggregates RSS news feeds from the many participating green companies who host their web sites on wind-power.

The site is a fantastic source for green news - covering everything from eco-social responsibility news to the green construction trade.  You can find us in the design & marketing category.

As I type this sentence there are thousands of web sites being launched.  Some of those sites may be from your competition. In the age of globalization, social media marketing and general information overload, how can a small business get noticed?

Our answer: By being REMARKable.