Shiny Green Button

Three keynotes, three stories
I kicked off my CES hearing Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally talk loosely and repeatedly about innovation. It was comparable to a behemoth company in a staid industry that notoriously stymies innovation telling a different, highly innovative industry that, what do you know, innovation is essential. Actually, it wasn’t comparable to that. It was that.
Takeaway: Apparently there’s a revolution going on, and it has something to do with a Ford Taurus and hands-free parallel parking.

Intel’s Paul Otellini closed out Wednesday with show-and-tell. He showed us how to shoot 3D home movies, that my clothes will apparently be chosen by an in-store computer and that someday everything really will be connected … in 3D. Basically, 3D will save the tech world—the more complex the content, the more processing power needed.
Takeaway: The revolution will require a lot of processors.

Best in show goes to Nokia’s Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. In a nutshell: The developing nations have different needs than the developed world. If we continue to throw the same gadgets (mobile phones in Nokia’s case) designed for customers in Tokyo at customers in Kandahar, nothing good will come of it. Bad business is bad for people. Good business is good for people.
Takeaway: If we don’t listen to the people, there really will be a revolution.

Green machines
It was hard to tell at times, but sustainability is on the mind of the industry. Several key players devoted whole sections of their booths to eco-conscious solutions. The catch is that these “green” displays were all too often about potential solutions and not about real products. It’s great that a company, Panasonic for instance, has developed super-light, energy-saving insulation. But what does that mean if it’s not being used in any products? It’s especially deflating when, just five feet over, the TV exhibit is sapping enough juice to power a small planetary system.

There were a few companies with interesting eco products, though. My fave: Miniwiz. Their portable, compact solar- and wind-powered chargers looked both useful and, more importantly, cool. They get added points for their Solarbulb, a gadget that stores and then uses solar power to act as a lamp and a water sterilizer.
Takeaway: Energy efficiency is cool, but nobody is doing anything revolutionary, especially compared with those awesome 3D TVs.

Did I mention 3D?
CES’s main message was basically this: 3D TV is real, it’s here and it’s pretty amazing, regardless that it’s expensive and there’s hardly any 3D content and you have to wear goofy, disorienting glasses. I couldn’t really tell one 3D TV apart from another 3D TV. What made the biggest difference was what the TV was showing. Nature docs and movies? Meh. Sports and video games? OMG. And I wasn’t alone in this reaction. Any 3D TV showing mountains and underwater scenes had a handful of viewers. Those with 3D sports or video games could have been mistaken for Lady Gaga from all the attention they got.
Takeaway: The revolution will be televised … in 3D.

On Wednesday, I attended the Sustainable Industries economic forum in downtown Portland. Paul Hawken was the keynote. He focused his talk on the challenges we face transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Although this was familiar ground for most in attendance, Hawken brought new perspective to the issue, delivering both a sobering (perhaps depressing) and hopeful message.

He cautioned us to think of the unrelenting news about climate change and other urgent environmental issues as neither good nor bad. It’s just information—and information is the engine of opportunity. In other words, it’s what we do with the information that matters. Rather than see the worst and be overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness, we should feel inspired by opportunity and empowered to act.

Yet Hawken pointed out there is a place for climate change pessimists, which he called “doomers.” They exist, he said, to make the designers of solutions brilliant. Designers are motivated to prove the doomers wrong, to do what’s necessary and figure out later whether it was possible.

The bulk of Hawken’s talk took its cue from what he called the Red Queen dilemma, namely that “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place” (from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll). While we need to drastically cut our reliance on fossil fuels to slow the rate of climate change, we also need to increase our consumption just to maintain our current quality of life.

That’s because we need more energy to extract increasingly marginal resources that keep civilization running until renewable sources of energy can be produced on a massive scale. The largest new oil fields are under miles of ocean and sand. The easy veins of copper, zinc and other vital metals are tapped; we’re working with declining, less productive mines. We have to drill deeper and deeper into aquifers to get our water. And so on.

The problem is, the rate of bringing new sources of energy online in time to mitigate the worst of climate change seems almost impossible. I didn’t capture the specifics Hawken rattled off, but it essentially requires us to begin adding staggering numbers of solar panels, wind turbines, wave generators and even nuclear power plants every minute for the next 25 years.

At this point, all the air went out of the room. There was a palpable sense of doom.

But Hawken was undeterred. “You should all be smiling,” he reminded us. “Think of the opportunities.”

Industries need to organize to accelerate progress, he said. The U.S. building industry, for one, is the largest green NGO in the world, and it is having success creating a new industry around green standards. (Hawken acknowledged you could debate whether they were going far enough.) Where are the similar organizations for the banking, chemical or other industries, he asked?

And there are emerging technologies that don’t limit us to current constraints that make a daunting challenge seem impossible. For example, a solar panel made of more efficient but less toxic and energy-intensive materials that can be printed could leapfrog our ability to generate energy from the sun. Just 70 minutes of sunlight, Hawken said, is the equivalent of the entire world’s energy use.

There are enormous opportunities to reduce energy use, too. While increasing the supply side of the equation is sexy, lowering demand is where the real action is, Hawken said. There are countless innovations to be discovered and huge money to be made. It’s all there, everything we need, in the information. The rest is up to us.

At the Going Green East conference in Boston this week, CEOs of green technology businesses have been mixing it up with venture capitalists. They’re debating best practices, discussing emerging trends, and looking for the perfect match between innovators and investors. It’s exciting stuff, but three days of bigwigs throwing around big ideas might get a little stuffy, too. Enter our very own Betsy Henning, with 15 minutes of fresh air.

When a technology glitch left her without the slides for her presentation, Communicating Green, Betsy had no trouble winging it. She simply followed her own advice and delivered a memorable, concise, story-rich discussion of how to authentically and effectively communicate a company’s efforts in the green space.

Her first piece of advice for the audience at Going Green: Don’t be green. Instead, be remarkable.

Be the purple cow in the herd of regular old cows (mental image courtesy of marketing guru Seth Godin, who Betsy loves).

Her other purple pearls of wisdom:

Put a value on it. Weave your greenness into your larger story—that means social responsibility, how you treat your employees and the core values that define your company.

Face the facts. Tell real stories about how you can affect real people’s lives.

Finish strong. Discover what’s memorable about your company, cut away the other noise and stay on message. (A good editor is your best friend.)

Don’t take my word for it. Your customers don’t care what you say about your company. They care about what other people say about you. Cultivate a tribe of evangelists and reap the rewards.

Betsy’s 15 minutes were much anticipated and well received. Proof? Just before Betsy spoke, about 65 viewers were following the conference online. When she took the stage, that number spiked to 250+.

Betsy Henning at GoingGreen East 2009

You may have seen the recent video spots by the Reality campaign and wondered, “What was that about again?” The first one takes viewers on a tour of a nonexistent clean coal plant:

This ad winks at the audience, asking us to acknowledge that, like the emperor’s new clothes, clean coal doesn’t actually exist. But as Joseph Romm points out over at the Climate Progress blog, the first Reality ad manages to repeat the words “clean coal technology” seven times, possibly leaving viewers with the idea that clean coal is, after all, a reality. And that’s exactly what the people at Reality don’t want us to come away with. Sadly, for an audience accustomed to soundbites and sloganeering, subtlety and sarcasm can make for flimsy messaging.

The second ad presents a smug, clearly deceitful coal executive perpetuating the myth of clean coal:

This ad, like the first, seeks to debunk the idea that economically viable clean coal technology actually exists today. Again, the helpful Joseph Romm gets to the heart of the matter, this time on Grist: What, exactly do the smart and good-hearted people at Reality want us to do? Are they against the idea of clean coal, or just against the coal industry implying that we have the technology in hand? Should we try harder to develop clean coal or abandon it?

Stepping back from these spots, we can see the larger challenge of communicating about a new era of alternative energy. What exactly is the brand for the new green future so many of us want? What new, desirable reality does the Reality campaign seek, and how should it be represented? The lesson of these ads, it seems to me, is that (to lapse into a sports analogy--sorry) you shouldn’t hide the ball, if you want your team (and your fans in the stands) to follow your game plan.

Over Thanksgiving, I chatted with my mom as she drove from downstate New York to Buffalo. “I wonder if we’re going to hit snow?” she asked. I didn’t even have to check Weather.com—I already knew. Earlier that day, I’d seen Facebook status updates from friends in Buffalo. They were remarking on the snow that was starting to fall. “Drive carefully, mom,” I said as we hung up.

A few days later, I read a story about how Google can predict flu outbreaks two weeks before the Center for Disease control, based on search activity for flu-related terms.

Cool stuff. All these new tools to make sense of this massive amount of information. “I wonder if we could use these tools to solve some real problems?” I thought. “Like climate change, or hunger?”

And then I remembered something I’d seen awhile back. There are people trying to harness this collective intelligence for the common good. They’re called gamers.

No, not your stereotypical trench-coat, combat-boot wearing gamer. Gamers like Jane McGonical, who are creating games with the intent to save the world.

Take for example, McGonical’s game World Without Oil, a massive online role playing game that asked players to envision what they would do in the event of a global oil crisis. 1,900 people joined together to collectively imagine and find ways to deal with such a crisis. Real ways of dealing with it—that can be used in the real world.

So if you’re feeling guilty about spending too much time online, updating your Facebook status and living your Second Life, don’t sweat it. You just might be doing good in the process.