Last Friday, February 27, I was sitting in the middle of the Greener Gadgets Conference in New York City. The second annual conference was a discourse in how we might inject sustainability into the consumer cycle (a conversation that often reminded me of Annie Leonard's film, The Story of Stuff).

Despite my best intentions, I couldn't live blog from the event because of a faulty internet connection (the irony of a gadget conference with no digital connection was not lost on me). But in my mind, it's always a good day to discuss how we might change the developed world's consumption frenzy. So, even if the conference is over, I'd still like to talk about some of the points that were raised there, starting with heirloom products.

The morning key note speech was by Saul Griffith, who holds a PhD in mechanical engineering and is co-founder of the high-altitude wind company Makani power (among many other companies). The high-energy Aussie-born, California surfer describes himself as a person with an unhealthy "obsession with energy and power consumption." His talk was full of slides showing things like his annual energy use (18,000 watts), teased out to the power his electric toothbrush uses and that used to make and ship his underwear. He said that everyday, Americans consume so much energy that it's like we are each using 12,000 watts of lightbulbs continuously.

Griffith had many points that stuck with me. The first one that I kibbitzed with him about after his talk was the idea of creating heirloom products. The entrepeneur (who questions the fact that people call him "an expert") says that we need to make computers and cellphones that are comparable to MontBlanc pens and Rolex watches. Heirloom products are meant to last a lifetime; they are consumer products that are so beautiful, so smart, so durable, that in 20 years we won't be tired of looking at them, and our offspring will be happy to take them from us.

The idea is great, but I'm thinking that in order for a designer to make an heirloom product, we as consumers need to be willing to buy it -- and keep it. We need to be accepting of a computer or cellphone that lasts more than two years. We have to not mind not buying a new product every season. MontBlanc and Rolex have gotten around this particularly foolish point of consumerism. How? That's not entirely clear to me. Is it because they advertise as the pen that you keep for a lifetime? Is it because they have created a hype around their product that us consumers buy into? I agree with Griffith, and most of the other presentors at GCC, who said that redesigning products is a socialization issue. The consumer needs to be reprogramed: It needs to become uncool to drink out of a plastic water bottle; the design of power strips needs to become "sexy" so we all start using them; and it has to be okay to have the same cellphone for twenty years -- the same way it has become cool to have a MontBlanc since birth.

But what makes something an heirloom, and how do you translate that into a product? My earrings aren't heirlooms because they were made a particular way, but because my grandmother gave them to me. My shoes are far from heirlooms, but I've kept them so long because I really like them. Apple can make the best MacBook in the world, but I don't think I'll keep it forever until it becomes something I attach emotion to. Maybe I'd attach emotion to my MacBook if it acquires a patina with age, rather than two soiled spots where the sweat from my wrists stains the keyboard. Or, I'd like my cellphone a whole lot more if within two years of buying it, the screen looked polished (and wasn't chipping off). It sounds like it's time for the Nokias and MontBlancs  of the world to pair up, and create some new, everlasting designs. But it's also time for us to not be shy about designs that are more than so last season.

[Photo credit: Treasure 8: My MontBlanc pen, by *spud* on flickr; http://flickr.com/photos/shaun/3004998013/]