The McDonnell Group

by Nancy Broe

ATLANTA — September 13, 2010 —  Remember the Old School Dad?  He didn’t need to tell you he loved you; he put food on the table and a roof over your head.  He didn’t need to listen to you; everybody knew that “Father knows best.”  He didn’t abide criticism; it was his way or the highway, “my rules under my roof.” 

Witness today’s dad: by and large, modern American man has embraced the once disdained practices of diapering, dishwashing, and discussion as legitimate functions of his fatherhood.  He encourages his kids to ask questions; he may even listen to their input.

The energy industry faces a similar transformation.

Utilities haven’t traditionally spent a lot saying how much they care about the consumer:  their actions have been there all along -- delivering reliable, safe, relatively inexpensive power for almost a century.  There’s something to be said for this; what customer wouldn’t prefer getting good service without a lot of blab to getting a lot of words thrown at them to “spin” away poor service?

Written by Marc Marton

ATLANTA- August 2, 2010 - A day hardly goes by without news of some development boosting the profile of electric energy storage (EES) in utility and energy markets.  Sample headlines from the past week include a battery manufacturer receiving fresh private equity funding; a high-powered public/private consortium securing DOE funding to develop even better batteries; a flywheel technology company announcing a project to provide 7 MW of storage for a Fortune 500 company data center; and yet more DOE funds flowing to a demonstration project for compressed air.

This is all good and indicative of healthy activity in this piece of the energy sector.  EES is acknowledged as a fundamental building block of future smart grid implementations and the more investment made to develop grid-scale applications, the better.  Storage will not only be an enabling technology to merge renewable sources on the grid, it can improve reliability of power transmission, enhance energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Part 2 continues through the 10 Tips for Smart Grid Media Relations starting with Number 6.  Click here to read Part 1 and steps Number 1 through 5.

6. Consider the general public a key audience even if they are not your sales prospects.
When you are selling a transformative technology -- as the Wright Brothers were and as smart grid entrepreneurs are-- your target audience is much more than those who will actually sign contracts for your product.  While advertising and marketing dollars may best be allocated directly toward prospective customers, media relations play an important role in building acceptance, demand, and enthusiasm for the benefits of the transformed society your product promises.  Neglecting to communicate with smart grid end users has already provided early evidence of the need for individual vendors as well as the electric industry at large, to engage the hearts and minds of John Q. Public.

ATLANTA - Jun 4, 2010 - The Wright Brothers lived in an era of innovation as breakneck as our own.  As they built their company and arguably reinvented aeronautical engineering, making powered flight a reality, they were much in the press.  This smart grid blog post seeks to draw some parallels to today.

For smart grid entrepreneurs and utilities, much more needs to be done to articulate complex technology to business, consumer, and utility audiences, and to build a positive environment for the success and growth of smart grid.

There are moments when any entrepreneur can understand the appeal of a rough water crossing over facing “prying correspondents,” but the nearly 6,000 news clippings the Wright brothers generated from 1902-1914, reveal a media savvy that played a vital but little known role in their early success.