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The Solar-Powered 8-Ball (or why Eastwick believes in solar)

April 26, 2012 in Uncategorized by Ellen Leanse

Let’s face it: none of us can predict the future. We can speculate, call on past experiences or histories, cite business cycles or run algorithms or confer with experts…or just trust our guts. But at the end of the day, nobody knows. A researched thesis or a Magic 8 Ball? Who’s to say which is better at validating an outlook?

So take these thoughts for what it’s worth, and consult your own 8-ball. But I’m writing about why I’m bullish on cleantech, and most specifically, solar.

Lucky me. I arrived on the personal technology scene early, in 1981, not early enough to watch the Steves debut the Apple II at the Homebrew show (reenacted here), but not far after.  So I remember the days of skepticism and doubt, of fringe crowds gathering at ragtag shows and meetups, of financial wariness and audience resistance. Owning a computer then meant risk, not to mention financial outlay. It also meant uncertainty about the future: early Apple buyers couldn’t know if the geeky little boxes on their desktops would become agents of the future or relics of a would-be past.

Certainly Commodore, Franklin, and Apricot caused buyers to believe in the demise more than the potential of a sea change – or a market opportunity. But their failures didn’t signal the end of an industry.

Back in the day, when Apple would invest in showing up at a trade show or similar event, I’d often be there in the booth, watching people’s eyes widen at their first view of Visicalc or AppleWriter. Hah! How I laugh now. Most people today can’t imagine the sound of a world cracking open at the first sight of these early apps, carefully inserted into a “floppy disk” slot on the face of a textured beige wonder-machine any more than they can imagine lugging a two-pound, $4,000 cell phone into their DeLorean.

Looking back, it’s easy to see many expressions of a vision – bringing personal technologies to the masses – appearing on the scene, most of them destined to glimmer for but a moment in time. But look across the “portfolio” of expressions – start-up companies clamoring to gain traction, and big companies moving in to throw their weight at the opportunity – and even then we knew: something big was going to happen.

In solar today I hear an echo. Not just the crowded showroom floors, cluttered with me-toos and false starts, dotted by a few bright points of innovation and vision, together in the risk-mix. Looking at most of the booths, I think “no.” Most of them won’t make it, will confirm the belief that solar is a bad investment, too big a risk.

But looking at the industry, at the momentum of the total portfolio, sparks a different thought: that this industry is here to stay, or at least to shape something that will stay, in a way that causes a few future shapers to win big.

If that’s true, and my 8-Ball tells me it is, then the question becomes: what will it take for those few to win big, and for those of us who are betting on solar to identify them early?

For that, back to the ‘80s. The companies that will win are those driven to lead and to reshape, to blow through assumptions and to think different. Companies that aren’t bridled by the limitations of solar today – solar that I believe will one day be seen as “legacy solar” – but who innovate as they look to ways to harness the power of the sun.

Our good friends at Enphase – “the Apple of solar energy,” as Xconomy dubbed it – and other microinverter suppliers? They’re looking for new ways of making energy capture and management more efficient, safe, and intelligent.  Companies that streamline installation or integrate solar into non-traditional settings? They’re directly confronting the cost and practicality obstacles to choosing solar. Big thinkers attacking conventional assumptions about solar production? They’re taking on the production cost and material consumption parts of this equation and (as our client Twin Creeks is proving) catching their breath as they witness the results.

As I look to the future of solar, experts and 8-Balls probably agree: a point will come where the value exchange clicks into place, and some group of companies is going to win big. When? Don’t know. How? Judgment reserved. But here’s what I believe: the breakthrough will be driven by engineering, design, and innovation, and will emerge from companies committed to thinking differently about the way they use technology to solve problems and improve lives.

That’s a pattern we at Eastwick know well, and that’s why we’re committed to building our solar, and overall cleantech, practice today. The entrepreneurs who are pushing the edges of today’s solar are likely to be the ones who also redefine its financial outlook, too. We’re believers, and we know how to help. It’s our mission to help tomorrow’s most future-shaping companies connect with the audiences who matter most. Today’s cleantech visionaries deserve this, and – much as we helped some of IT’s leading companies find their way through uncertainty and doubt, we’re committed to contributing to their impact and success.

 

 

 

 

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CIO Evolution: a predictor of future success?

April 9, 2012 in Best Practices, Culture, Industry by Ellen Leanse

The Evolution of the CIO? (click to view larger)

Ramón Baez stood in the spotlight near the main stage, his face shining from massive hanging screens, amplified words resonating through the packed auditorium. The audience leaned in, tweeting, taking notes; untold others followed via simultaneous webcast.

Baez echoed the still-warm words of Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, who spoke via video to the 10,000+ attendees at Salesforce’s recent Cloudforce gathering in San Francisco. Discussing the critical role of IT in accelerating the collaboration between companies and customers, Ahrendts – who has nearly quadrupled Burberry’s share price since her arrival in 2006 – said, “You have to be totally connected with anyone who touches your brand. If you don’t, I don’t know what your business model is in five years.

Watch for yourself (1:51 viewing time).

In his Cloudforce demo, Baez, CIO of Kimberly Clark, showcased his company’s take on the critical nature of the customer-enterprise connection. Scrolling through screens of tweets, texts, and comments, he pointed to the various touchpoints where customers can get “in” and information can get “out” of his organization.

A winner of the CIO Executive Council’s Leadership Award (roughly the equivalent of the CIO Oscar), Baez wasn’t the only IT lead to stake this claim. CIOs from a variety of companies also took to the stage, showcasing the ways they connected with customers: reading and responding to social posts, geolocating callers as Customer Support conversations began, talking face-to-face – even looking at the problem – over ChatTime.

The message? That companies that will thrive tomorrow need to connect directly with customers today. And IT is leading the movement to that connectivity.

This isn’t just about consumer brands. Companies that sell to enterprises – where, of course, decisions are actually made by people (increasingly young/tech savvy people at that) – are also proving that point-to-point conversations streamline sales and attract valuable input on deployment and development. Not to mention the impact on loyalty.

In past years, we’ve all heard IT professionals bemoan the challenges of enforcing controls and keeping social conversations out. Often, resistance was driven from the top, with IT being asked to maintain the moat, so to speak, that forced customers to know, and stay in, “their place.”

That “us vs. them” mentality is reflected in the web blockers, last-gen firewalls, and enforcement policies we all dealt with a few years back. But the irresistible forces of social platforms, mobile proliferation, and BYOD have moved these immovable objects. Today’s leading enterprises defined more by their willingness to open up and collaborate than by their ability to keep things safe and closed in.

Is that, as Ahrendts asserts, a key to future sustainability?

If so, can we make a connection between the companies that are increasing their openness – via active two-way communities, enterprise social networks, and collaborative business ecosystems – and these companies’ future relevance and success?

If we can, does that suggest that IT innovation might be an indicator of future value?

And if so, is the IT lead a “litmus test” of sorts that we should look to as we test what companies will succeed best over time?

I don’t have answers but I’ll tell you right now: the companies I’m banking on over time are future-proofing themselves by increasing the way they interact with – and converse with – customers. They’re equipping themselves to learn faster, communicate more openly, and shape decisions based on the wisdom of the people who matter most: the ones who buy their products.

And at the helm of all that? The CIO.

Makes me wonder. What can we learn from a CIO and his or her power to shape a company about the way that company will perform in the future?

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Breaking Through the (Hyperconnected) Noise

March 5, 2012 in Best Practices, Culture, Industry by Ellen Leanse
Creative Commons image

We always value the insights in our friend Francine Hardaway’s thought-provoking blog, and an entry last week, exploring the long-term impact of an “always on,” always connected life on teens and young adults, inspired a response. Her insights rang especially true since I’m engrossed in David Rock’s outstanding Your Brain at Work, which reveals the way the brain – and specific parts of it – activate and interoperate during different types of tasks. I’ll never look at multitasking the same way again.

Although there’s probably no way to decide if “hyperconnected lives” are good or bad (and even if we did, what difference would it make?) the important takeaway is that people today are increasingly shifting between modes, managing parallel tracks of complex information, and engaging their prefrontal cortex (the late-to-evolve “thinking and reflecting” part of the brain) and the basal ganglia (the habit, repetition, and sometimes even veg out part of the brain) in a complex on again, off again dance that’s probably never been precedented (except for short bursts) in human history.

Plastic/elastic wonder that the brain is, it adapts accordingly, actually altering functions to optimize for this new way of interacting with information.

Back to that takeaway. To reach audiences and communicate effectively, we need to be aware not only of hyperconnectedness, but of the need for that brain to take a little break from deep thinking and processing and refresh itself with a bit of low-stress engagement.

That’s important for every business to understand, even enterprise: witness the rise in humorous or playful content from nearly every leading B2B brand.

This isn’t a cop out or a sell out, it’s smart science. You will strengthen your engagement by aligning your modes of communication to address the multiple parts of the brain that today’s decision-maker is optimized to use, adapting your content and placement to connect to their new way of thinking.

Imagine your way back to an earlier time: an executive in a quiet office, a stack of papers before him (yes, him), photographs and diagrams and detailed information waiting to be read, understood, and processed as he moves along a linear gameboard to a purchase decision. His secretary takes his calls: wouldn’t want to be interrupted! His back is to the window: wouldn’t want to be distracted! He takes notes or underlines as he moves through the pages.

Fast forward to today. I’m commuting on SF MUNI now, focusing (thank you, prefrontal cortex) on writing this post, but glancing up occasionally (hello, basal ganglia) to notice the many young professionals standing in aisles or sitting in close-quartered seats, fingers sweeping across iPhones or tapping on keyboards.

Most wear earphones; some nod subtly to the beat. We’re underground, offline ‘til Powell Street, so no one is texting (contrast to the stop where I boarded) but people are tapping in notes, scanning downloaded content, or flipping through pages of printouts, sometimes folding corners or scribbling in margins. They move aside uninterrupted as people come and go at stops. And every now and then one of them will fold their notes into a Timbuktu bag or backpack, slip the phone into a pocket (or not), and step out of  an exit doors just as the train stops. Without missing a beat.

Better or worse? Who am I to say? My own stop is coming so I feel an urge to wrap up, probably triggered by a jolt of adrenaline fired by some unconscious awareness in my basal ganglia that the words “Van Ness Station” means three minutes to my exit. I didn’t really even hear the words, yet here I am preparing for my stop.

As I prepare to close my laptop, a list of the morning’s priorities stages itself in my prefrontal cortex, a process I prepared for when writing down tomorrow’s to-dos on my schedule last night. I glance out the window as my train slows, Banana Republic and City Car Share ads blurring by, not read or really seen but certainly recognized. Registered. As I save this file a text pops up on my phone (we’ve passed Powell Street) and I plan my response even as I prepare to shut my computer.

There, in three minutes: everything a communicator needs to know about breaking through the noise.  Engage with multiple modalities, optimize content for focus and space out, and remember that learning is cumulative and sometimes unconscious.

And realize that today’s hyperconnecteds are simply doing what people have done since the beginning of time – trying to make the most out of the complex stream of information constantly barraging our brains, and relying on those brains to help decipher this information and find a way to thrive…or at least exit the MUNI at just the right stop.

Francine’s post appears below. And thanks to David Rock for the neuroscience; hope I’ve understood enough not to botch it.

Stealthmode Blog

Entrepreneurship, Current Affairs, Tech and Our World

Hyperconnected Lives: Are They Good or Bad?

I was invited to participate in the Pew Center on the Internet and American Life’s survey on the Future of the Internet, and they gave us a link to the online results this morning.

Net-net: it’s almost a 50-50 split on whether young people will be positively or negatively affected by their always-on environments.

Half the respondents think that by 2020 the brains of young people will be wired differently, making them short term thinkers, multi-taskers, and instant gratification junkies who can’t retain information and lack face-to-face personal skills.

The other half think that although the brains of young adults will  be wired differently, “they do not suffer notable cognitive shortcomings as they multitask and cycle quickly through personal- and work-related tasks. Rather, they are learning more and they are more adept at finding answers to deep questions, in part because they can search effectively and access collective intelligence via the internet. In sum, the changes in learning behavior and cognition among the young generally produce positive outcomes.”

So we did a big study of “experts,” — meaning invited participants, not random participants — and the outcomes is “nobody knows.”

There was consistency on one thing: the brains of millennials are adapting to their environment. You would hope so. Otherwise,we’d be discrediting Darwin.

Also, the most desirable life skills in the future will be “public problem-solving through cooperative work (sometimes referred to as crowd-sourcing solutions); the ability to search effectively for information online and to be able to discern the quality and veracity of the information one finds and then communicate these findings well (referred to as digital literacy); synthesizing (being able to bring together details from many sources); being strategically future-minded; the ability to concentrate; and the ability to distinguish between the “noise” and the message in the ever-growing sea of information.”

Oh, and lest we forget: education has to change.

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The blog is dead. Long live the blog!*

February 9, 2012 in Best Practices, Clients by Ellen Leanse

Last week I chanced upon this article when I signed in to Twitter:

RWW covers the University of Mass study

See the full article here. You might also want to view the entire study.

I read the study behind the article and walked away more convinced than ever of the power of a blog – the RIGHT blog, that is. The shakeout explored in the UMass study reflects a range of issues – social growth above all. But the fact that all blogs are not created equal, and my belief that most business blogs stumble for a preventable reason, sparked me to write. Read on, and you may take away some ideas that differentiate your brand from the pack through the power of the right business blog.

But before we begin, let’s go to a party. It’s a relaxed, comfortable gathering in a good friend’s home. All of your favorite people have shown up and you can’t wait to catch up with them. How do you make the most of this opportunity to tune in to friends and make sure they hear your latest?

Imagine the options: you could find one person to talk to and go 1:1 for the evening. You could circulate the room and have short conversations with lots of different people. You could stay quiet and just observe, sip your drink, head home early. Or you could mingle with groups of people sharing relevant conversations and really talk with them. Share some thoughts. Ask some questions. Go home with them – and even you – understanding each other more deeply.

I made that pretty easy. Clearly, the one who monotones or rants or the one who doesn’t talk aren’t going to be the life of the party. The one who chats around the room, short bursts with big crowds, may end up making some good connections. But the one who aligns with peoples’ interests and adds relevance – THAT’s the guest who gets my vote.

Let’s take that thinking to the UMass study. The law of averages suggests that the sample set included some blowhards (those who effectively publish ads on their blogs, or drone stiff corporatespeak) and some non-talkers (those who start, but don’t refresh, their blog). It cites the impact of social media, which is analogous to the party chat mentioned above. But it doesn’t probe the value of blogging that’s tuned in to the right audiences, open and generous, and receptive – even inviting of – input.

THAT, to me, is the RIGHT way to blog…and I’m willing to bet that the outliers on this longitudinal study are gaining real value from the open dialogs they’re creating with their blogs.

A few years back, at Google, I managed a highly followed blog. This forum helped us directly deliver important information to customers…attract and identify our most active users…even learn from the real-world insights of customers who cared as much about our products as we did ourselves. We planned our blog as carefully as we did any other sort of communication, but left room for on-the-fly updates, news from key customers, and other information that enriched the natural, open conversation we were trying to build.

It worked. We were able to share “primary source” facts with audiences that loved to speculate about us – critical when communicating about tech. We could provide real depth on products or features in ways that prepared targets – media, partners, even sales leads – for our follow-ups. And we had the confidence that if we ever needed to get information to key audiences fast, that we had a built-in platform for doing just that.

I wouldn’t wish anything less for any of our clients. At Eastwick, we ask clients to blog for all of the reasons implied above. We believe that a company should be the primary source of data-backed information – facts and future vision, not opinions – on their business and products. That conversation is an ideal way to create access and get “permission,” in the Seth Godin sense, to ask for favors (like “help us share this”) or feedback. That tech innovators deserve to be recognized for their vision and leadership, and that a blog provides one of the best vehicles for communicating that.

If you read the UMass study and thought that maybe you really should throw in the towel on that not-so-active blog, read the following suggestions and ask yourself what might happen if you did, say, 5 of them. I propose that you might buck the longitudinal trend and find yourself, digitally speaking, a bit more like the life of the party.

    • Use your blog as a place to share big thoughts and visions – and ask people what they think.
    • Bring in one customer a month to provide a guest post – making it easy for them with guidelines and templates that get the right story out without heavy lifting.
    • Simply share a relevant story and a short commentary from time to time.
    • Plan a “not a press release” version of a product announcement and post it as your news goes live: personal perspectives that deepen understanding.
    • Bonus points: cue up a link to your blog post and add it to your release.
    • Make one of your blog posts just questions. That’s right. Questions.
    • Make your next blog post your response and appreciation to answers to those questions.
    • Come up with 10 questions that will guide people to talk about your product – either inside or outside of your company. Get employees (engineering teams, product people) to answer a few of these each month. Instant blog post.
    • Keep an editorial calendar and manage it closely. Set realistic expectations and expect, even motivate, delivery.
    • Make occasional blog contributions part of job descriptions. Then track, measure results, and learn.

Yes, I may be talking about more effort than some companies are willing to contribute. But that might be a key insight. I believe that those who are willing to create an active, strategic, “right” blog might be the ones who increase momentum – and claim their turf – as the other guys dial back.

How do you weigh in? Is your business blog working for you? We’d love your answers – or your questions – as a comment below.

* re that title: see “The King is dead! Long live the King!”…with thanks to Wikipedia.

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The CES of Things

January 17, 2012 in Culture, Industry by Ellen Leanse

Endless aisles, countless booths, and enough iPhone cases, it seemed, to supply every Apple fan with a year-round wardrobe. This year’s CES was The CES of Things.

That feels different than, say, The CES of Innovation. Yes, we saw enhancements to market standards – 3-D plasma TVs, brave new tablets, phones playing catch-up with market leaders (some smart enough to get into MIT) – but breakthrough innovations? Not so much.

iPhone cases…a few of the THOUSANDS.

CES 2012 hit me as the “ripple effect” CES, the one that saluted top technology but tossed few new stones into the pond. From a true “consumer electronics” perspective, this year’s show was about repetition, not revolution – about even-betters of things that were already pretty darn good.

I hesitated to write that. I mean, who am I to say we don’t need another level of excellence in plasma TVs, devices, or accessories? After all, this PluggedIn writeup describes a CES that’s “littered” with innovation, TV-wise, but maybe that “littered” word is just the point. Showgoers on the zippy Las Vegas monorail gushed about LG’s innovations, OLEM TV, new motion-activated screens and at-home 3-D. But some I spoke with – like the two engineers from Dish Networks I cabbed to the airport with – didn’t +1 the additive levels, declaring that what they had at home was already enough. Dish, by the way, won a lot of love at CES for their big-news Hopper and Joey announcements.

Which kind of fits in. I felt less interested in the iterations to televisions, phones, or tablets and more inspired by the innovations built upon them. Many of us feel that we have the tech we need in our lives, and the next wave of innovation will be about how we use it. Take the iPad. We sensed its potential moment we touched it. On some intuitive level we knew “This changes everything” and began slinging our Angry Birds while we waited for the real innovation to emerge.

And CES did hint to real change, even if you had to look beyond the iPhone cases to find it. The Digital Health aisles, for example – and the add-on Digital Health track held upstairs from the show floor – showed at what’s to come as entrepreneurs put our favorite technologies to work on health.

The bustling Digital Health corridor.

Entrepreneur Sonny Wu, who raised the bar on personal medical testing with his iPhone compatible blood sugar monitoring device, hinted at new ways of leveraging established technology to address health challenges with Misfit Wearables, his next startup, backed by former Apple CEO John Sculley (whose keynote drew parallels between the emerging Digital Health field and the early PC days). Sculley also advises Audax Health, creators of Careverge, a social network supporting positive health habits – another healthcare innovation shared at the show.

A few cleantech announcements shone. Ford’s gorgeous new Fusion concept, due to market in 2012, hinted at the design and green value coming to the EV category. Our client Qualcomm’s new Halo – which charges EVs through induction, removing the need for plug-in charging (you simply park over the charger) – was a non-traditional star and a big cleantech attraction.

Halo charges underneath an EV chassis.

Our new friends at Ooyala echoed the theme of “extending platforms,” showcasing how big-name studios are using advanced analytics to make ad placements more relevant, actionable, and well-timed for media viewers (they weigh in on CES technologies here). And Seagate, a perennial CES favorite, won big yet again for their advances in storage and media access technologies.

I did have one jaw-drop moment, thanks to Vidyo’s dazzling videoconference capabilities. Vidyo shone at Verizon’s booth, with live conferencing so vivid and natural I can’t even compare it to other services – a whole new level. I actually asked my conference partner if she was really conferencing, to the chuckle of the helpful Verizon engineer guiding me through the booth. I also liked cool little cameras like the GoPro Hero. Taut design and the contagious appeal of their user-shot content (mountain bike descents, epic surfing, parachuting free falls) made me linger in the booth (and ask once again what Cisco was thinking when they closed shop on the Flip).

Now I’m talking myself out of curmudgeon-dom. Yes, it was The CES of Things, and honestly – there were just too many iPhone cases. But even a thing-muddled CES is still a hotbed of innovation, as CNET’s sparky “Best of” list shows. Maybe Microsoft’s exit from CES and the that-fast booking of their prime booth spot by Dish and a Chinese device manufacturer Hisense is a sign of the times. Like at this year’s show, CES 2013 will again push the consumption of things while showing the power of innovation to make these things more useful, relevant, helpful – and fun – in day to day life.

 

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