[p2tech] from the event horizon: a cry for help

I am at the moment visiting Spokane, Washington, a mid-size city for whom I
helped prepare a sustainable financial statements analysis tool 3 years ago.
After a hiatus they are now back in business with funding for a new staffer,
who is a former banker.  Hooray!
Because we have been working on a horizon-bridging event:  
 
Get all the business bankers in town to give every business loan applicant a
reference sheet to the local TA and P2 resources, a sheet that includes
phone numbers and a check box, and the bankers tell the applicant that, next
time them meet, the bankers expect the applicant to have checked into all
the TA resources and at least have called them to learn what is possible.
 
Why is this a good idea:
 
Business people don't believe P2 types, they believe their bankers.  They
are afraid of their bankers.
 
A loan application means they are making a decision to do something new;  no
one likes to do P2, i.e. change something, in the absence of other
motivators, and as we know, just saving money thru P2 is not enough to
change most of them.  Make P2 incremental, not radical.
 
You can get the bankers to hand out the reference sheets if they are ordered
to do so by management.
 
In any average town there are less than 50 bank executives who are
"management" 
 
So, you P2 guys can exercise some state muscle and ask them to come in for a
meet, give them the reference sheet, and ask for their commitment to make
their loan officers give out the reference sheet.  This meeting will take 10
hours to set up, 2 hours to conduct, four hours follow up.  And if it works,
you will eventually access every business in town that needs loans.  That is
,  * all of them * 
 
I am working with City of Spokane right now, TODAY, to make this happen.  We
are going to succeed.   Who wants to join, observe, encourage, help, etc???
 
Scott, another phrase for "over the event horizon" is "the last mile" .  The
last mile in TA is getting the customer to pick up the phone and call you
for help.  If their banker tells them to do it, they will.  After all, they
want a loan, and it's in the interest of the banker to have the TA team help
the customer.  The CEOs are the key, they have to directly order the front
line bankers to provide the reference info.  And, hello, I have the names
and direct phone of every CEO of every bank in Seattle still in my outlook
contacts.  It would take any of you readers less than an hour to do the same
for your town.  Hint.
 
Burton Hamner
Cleaner Production International LLC
www.cleanerproduction.com <http://www.cleanerproduction.com/> 
206-491-0945,  wbhamner at cleanerproduction.com 
5534 30th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105
Fax 206-206-339-1686
 

  _____  

From: p2tech-bounces at great-lakes.net [mailto:p2tech-bounces at great-lakes.net]
On Behalf Of Vinson, Thomas
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 3:36 PM
To: p2tech at great-lakes.net
Subject: Re: [p2tech] from the event horizon: a cry for help



Right now the barrier seems to be more ideological than anything else.  We
have disseminated a lot of high quality information in some creative ways,
but most people have no idea of its importance.  

 

Like an accelerating particle throwing off X-Rays as it descends into a
black hole, we have a good signal, but is lost in the greater noise of the
debate over how to regulate, remediate and conserve natural
forests/wildlife. There is a lot more media attention given to polar bears
drowning than clean factories.  A lot more attention to an auto industry
bail out than the strides to make them more efficient.    Without more
attention from the mass media people just don't seem to get the significance
of our P2 approach.  In our workshops it takes about a half day to get past
these old conversations and into what P2 is and why it works.  

 

I think the technologies we need to apply are more sociological than IT.  We
need, and continue to struggle for a consistent message that will get picked
up and recognized. I think the Breakthrough Institute is on the right path
for energy, maybe we should do something similar for our group.   They
believe it is a question of framing the issue as an innovation/economic one,
not environmental.  

 

http://www.thebreakthrough.org/index.shtml

 

 

As to Facebook, LinkedIn etc.  I find them to be good tools for maintaining
relationships, but not so good for initiating.  As you well know, I mostly
use mine to talk about Star Trek, 60's rock and the weather.   Although I
have a lot of people in my account who are environmental professionals, we
only discuss the environment on rare occasions through social networking.
That may be a  good thing in that it helps build relationships and so makes
working with people easier.especially those of us who have national
networks.  But in the bigger picture, it is a small spark in a super nova
explosion. 

 

 

Thomas Vinson-Peng

Program Director

Zero Waste Network

UT Arlington 

Center for Environmental Excellence

9111 Jollyville Road Suite 111

Austin, Texas 78759

www.zerowastenetwork.org

http://www.uta.edu/ced/

 

(512) 904-2281 (MAIN)

(512) 904-2287 (Direct)

(512)904-2288 FAX

 

Tvinson AT uta.edu

  _____  

From: p2tech-bounces at great-lakes.net [mailto:p2tech-bounces at great-lakes.net]
On Behalf Of Eric van Gestel
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 4:07 PM
To: 'Miller, Gary'; 'Butner, R Scott'; p2tech at great-lakes.net
Cc: 'Paula Del Giudice'
Subject: Re: [p2tech] from the event horizon: a cry for help

 

I am attempting to use Facebook (and LinkedIn) to reach potential customers.
A few hits on LinkedIn; too early to tell with Facebook.  Please feel free
to give a call if you want to discuss in further detail.

 

Thanks, and best regards,

 

-- Eric

_________________________

Eric van Gestel, MBA, CRM

CEO

Enverity Corporation

500 Airport Blvd., Suite 100

Burlingame, CA 94010

(650) 342-5334

evg at Enverity.com

www.ghgTrack.com <http://www.ghgtrack.com/> 

 

  _____  

From: p2tech-bounces at great-lakes.net [mailto:p2tech-bounces at great-lakes.net]
On Behalf Of Miller, Gary
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 12:18 PM
To: Butner, R Scott; p2tech at great-lakes.net
Cc: Paula Del Giudice
Subject: Re: [p2tech] from the event horizon: a cry for help

 

Yes, and I'd like to know if anyone is using Facebook to try to reach their
perceived customers and, if so, what have been the results.  I heard the
Utah Geological Survey is doing that but I could not find anything about
that on their web site.

 

Gary Miller

 

From: p2tech-bounces at great-lakes.net [mailto:p2tech-bounces at great-lakes.net]
On Behalf Of Butner, R Scott
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 1:45 PM
To: p2tech at great-lakes.net
Cc: Paula Del Giudice
Subject: [p2tech] from the event horizon: a cry for help

 

Certainly by now, we all know what a black hole is - a celestial object in
which matter, usually a dying star, has collapsed under its own weight, and
(to use the vernacular) begins to suck so hard, that not even light can
escape.

This happens to massive stars which have basically burned themselves out,
and the burden of their mass is no longer counterbalanced by the radiative
pressure of the energy they produce.  

I think the analogy is pretty clear here, folks.   Rather than risk severe
depression from stating the obvious, I'll leave it to the very intelligent
readers of P2TECH to connect the dots.

So in any event, I am standing here (figuratively - actually I am SITTING
here in my cool new ergonomic chair that my employer bought in hopes of
retaining what little productivity I am still able to muster, for a few more
years) on my own event horizon, literally perched on the edge of obscurity,
trying not to be sucked in by the weight of my rapidly obsolescing knowledge
base.  

(yes, obsolescing IS a word!)

But obsolescing or not, every so often I manage to allow a new idea to
escape.  Just like a black hole can "trick" physics, emitting radiation as
it scours the local universe of matter, on rare occasion, through some sort
of social quantum effect, I will absorb all the collective wisdom of the
P2TECH community and attempt to toss out a new idea that's been forged from
all your hard work.

Hey, I never said it was a GREAT analogy..

And so I find myself, committed for better or worse, to helping to teach a
short program on Web 2.0 and the Social Web, at the upcoming Region 9/10
Pollution Prevention Roundtable (October 28-29 in San Diego --
<http://www.wrppn.org/> http://www.wrppn.org/ for details).   I am sharing
the podium with Rick Yoder, so I have to have something interesting to say
that he HASN'T already heard of - that's a tall order, trust me.  Rick has
great radar for emerging trends.

So with that as background, and with the knowledge that our presentation is
on the role that computing (and especially the web, and even more
specifically, the social aspects of the web, like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc)
might play in P2/Sustainability/technical assistance - here's the questions
I'm seeking input on:

-       Setting aside technical feasibility, how would you like to be able
to access information to help you do your job better than you can today? 

-       How can we more effectively use information technology to promote
the "P2 agenda?" 

-       Do you think that social networking will change/has changed/is
changing the way that you think about improving the environment?

-       OR, do you see online culture and trends as being a negative force -
one that impedes the P2 agenda?  

Answers taken offline or online, over a phone call or over a cup of coffee -
your choice.  I'll let them all fall past the event horizon, into the black
hole that is my brain, and we'll see if any virtual nuggets of wisdom emerge
between now and October.

Thanks in advance...

SB

__________________________________________________
Scott Butner
Senior Research Scientist
Knowledge Systems Group 

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
902 Battelle Boulevard
P.O. Box 999, MSIN K7-28
Richland, WA  99352 USA
Tel:  509-372-4946
Fax: 509-375-2443
scott.butner at pnl.gov
www.pnl.gov 

 
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p2tech is hosted by the Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN):
 
http://www.great-lakes.net
 
To search the archive: http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/p2tech/
 
All views and opinions presented above are solely those of the author
or attributed source and do not necessarily reflect those of GLIN or
the Great Lakes Commission.
 
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

 

 
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
 
p2tech is hosted by the Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN):
 
http://www.great-lakes.net
 
To search the archive: http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/p2tech/
 
All views and opinions presented above are solely those of the author
or attributed source and do not necessarily reflect those of GLIN or
the Great Lakes Commission.
 
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p2tech is hosted by the Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN):



http://www.great-lakes.net



To search the archive: http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/p2tech/



All views and opinions presented above are solely those of the author

or attributed source and do not necessarily reflect those of GLIN or

the Great Lakes Commission.



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