Life Cycle Analysis and Green Business Development

Posted by Deb on Thursday, October 20th, 2011 , Posted in Brand Strategy, Clarity Posts, Entrepreneurial Marketing, entrepreneurs, environment, Environmental Marketing, Featured, Green Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Reputation Management, Sustainability , No Comments »

Melissa Winters from the EPA came to UW Tuesday to talk to my Environmental Innovation Practicum class about Life Cycle Assessment, also known as Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). She talked about an assessment Proctor and Gamble did its Tide brand in which they discovered the greatest environmental impact happened when the product was used in the home. Hot water washing. So they reformulated Tide to create a cold water only detergent.

Melissa also mentioned an ebook analysis I’ve written about before. I’d discovered the analysis through Conservation Magazine, a favorite of mine, but it originated in a New York Times op-ed piece written by the folks who did the analysis, Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris, both well known names and leaders in LCA work. Norris founded the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, which is a tremendous resource (check out this LCA on algae biodiesel as an example).

When I wrote about the e-reader analysis in July, I noted that you needed to read 40-50 books a year to make an e-reader the better choice over paper books, based on the report in Conservation Magazine. Melissa commented that if we took greenhouse gas emissions into account, it was actually 100 books. If we looked at human impact, it was somewhere in between those two numbers. My iPad is a lot more than an e-reader to me, but I still glanced at it guiltily.

Since Melissa works with the building industry, the whole conversation reminded me of a TEDTalk I really enjoyed a while back, so I want hunting. It’s Catherine Mohr on building green and I think it’s great! It playfully but powerfully demonstrates that obvious answers for what’s the “greenest” choice is often very wrong. Or as she puts it: “Sometimes the things you least expect … have a bigger impact than any of those things you’re trying to optimize.”

The next morning, I spotted a story from dexigner.com on how the Cascadia Green Building Council had commissioned an LCA study on the “Environmental Impacts of Wastewater Treatment Strategies” and had just released the report. It’s a good read for anyone connected to the building industry or anyone who just wants to get a handle on what a life cycle analysis can uncover.

From a marketing perspective, a life cycle analysis does two things: 1) it’s an insurance policy that you know the up and downsides of your product before a competitor figures them out and uses the latter against you, and 2) assuming you do well in the analysis, it’s a grabbag of positive messages you can take to the market. From a business plan perspective, it’s an insurance policy to demonstrate you know the risk associated with your business and a grabbag of positive messages to take to investors, employees and business partners.

The trick for cleantech and other green entrepreneurs is the cost. Conducting LCA is pricey. For startups, a true LCA may be out of reach. But you can still do a significant amount of digging for data, look for comparables in your industry or adjacent ones, and make informed decisions. You can get a primer on life cycle assessment on the EPA’s website and well as a list of resources to serve as a starting point for research life cycle assessment on any product or service category.

Get as smart as you can about the potential environmental impact of your products or services. It’s smart business.

5 Tips for Entry-Level Job-Seekers

Posted by Deb on Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 , Posted in Brand Strategy, Clarity Posts, Featured, Marketing Communications, personal branding, Public Relations, Social Media , No Comments »

In a tough job market, a lot of college students and new graduates are tempted to apply for every position they spot. It’s hard to blame them. But it’s not necessarily a good strategy. When it’s a hirer’s market, there will be a lot of resumes coming in for every position. Most employers are looking for a particular set of abilities in candidates. They have a set of reasons for who they select for advancement to interviews. Applicants, you should know why they should hire YOU versus someone else. If you can’t find a good reason, ask yourself if the position is a good fit for you.

I was reviewing a batch of resumes last week for a client who’s hiring a communications intern. It’s a paid position, so there are lots of applications. The intern will be responsible for social media, writing, blogging and blog management and PR. I think it’ll be great experience for the intern!

I was totally blown away by some of the applicants and a bit dumbfounded (if you can be that in degrees) by others. Only two of the applicants followed the client organization on Twitter. The same two had liked the organization’s Facebook page. If the job you’re applying for includes social media, checking out the hiring organization’s social profiles and following them seems like low-hanging fruit for scoring points. It doesn’t matter that you just did it. It shows you’re paying attention. Little things do get noticed.

When the job involves writing for the hiring organization, makes sure yours is good! Carefully proof read your letter and resume. One resume looked promising to me, but the applicant used “lead” where she should have used “led,” the past tense of lead. “Lead” pronounced “led” is a heavy metal you want to avoid in paint and such. The English language has lots of those little traps. You should know them.

That led me to think maybe I should write about this in the hope of helping others seeking entry level positions. So here are my 5 tips:

1. Assume you’ll be checked out online. I made the first cut strictly on resumes. If the resume didn’t make me become interested in the candidate, I went no further with them. The next step was Google and from there Facebook and Twitter. One candidate had a profile on about.me with links to all her social media profiles. Smart.
2. Save the hiring manager time. Assuming you’ll be checked out online, you can do the hiring manager a favor by giving them links to all the places they will find you: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (if you don’t have a profile there and your job hunting, get one! It’s an online resume) and wherever else you may be. It shows you get it and favors rarely go unnoticed. Also realize internships aren’t about teaching you; that’s what school is for. Internships are about getting real-world experience. Some cover letters talked about how interested candidates were learning about social media or public relations. But we need interns who can DO social media and public relations tasks with little direction. You, the candidate, have to walk in with the core skills. The internship is a chance to build upon them and gain great references.
3. Understand there’s nothing social about social media. That tip is courtesy of Jenni Hogan.  One candidate’s Twitter account followed a few dozen celebrities. I guess that’d be good if she was applying at Hollywood Reporter, but it doesn’t help us. Despite warnings being written in a lot of different places, I still found most candidates to use Facebook for connecting with real friends with no regard to how they’d look to potential hirers. The picture you chose for your profile says more about you than you may think. So choose it with purpose.
4. You are a brand. Just like Nordstrom and Microsoft and REI. And just like any brand, your brand needs to be managed carefully to have the greatest value. If you Google your own name, what comes up? How many of the results on the first page are really you? And are ones that show up ones you want potential employers to see? Think about what messages you are sending about yourself. You will never be associated with a brand that’s more valuable to you than your own. Manage it wisely.
5. Go after THAT job. Do your research. Understand what the organization will need from this hire. Tailor not just your cover letter but your resume. It’s all electronic so how hard can that be? When you can demonstrate some knowledge about the organization and make yourself relevant to the hiring manager or screener, you’ll stand out. If you’re really not interested, don’t apply. You’re wasting both your time and the screener’s. Besides, why set yourself up for another rejection letter? Apply for positions you truly want and then really go after them.

Building My Brand Name, Literally

Posted by Deb on Thursday, October 13th, 2011 , Posted in Brand Strategy , No Comments »

A million people have asked me what’s up with my name. OK, maybe only a couple dozen or so, but enough that I decided to answer in writing so the curious can get their answer.

Early this year, I switched everything that uses my name to what’s been my legal name for decades. Everyone who’s known me since I moved here in 1996 was totally confused. That is unless they knew me from UW where I’ve had to use my “real” name since I started teaching there 5 years ago. And that set the stage for the change.

I was unintentionally doing what I’d advised countless companies over the years not to do — trying to build two brands simultaneously. It all hit home for me when social media maven and KIRO-TV traffic anchor Jenni Hogan was teaching a social media class and commented that we should each own the entire first page of results if we googled our own names.

I didn’t.

The only result on page 1 was UW — and it had my full hyphenated name. Worse, another Deb/Deborah Hagen had done a great job of promoting her name. I’d have to unseat her to own it. And still UW would be there always having way more hits than I could ever hope for showing a different name for me. It was time to stop neglecting my own brand, my personal brand, online. The rebranding began.

The timing of the decision was important. Finally, after being in business for years, I was putting up a website. Part of the delay was my resistance to positioning me, which you read about if you read the old featured post on my home page. In advance of getting the site up, I changed my name on all my social media profiles. Every electronic reference of me would now match my UW profile and class descriptions.

All that stuff was easy. What wasn’t was making the verbal switch myself. Decades of saying one name is a tough habit to break. Especially when a 2-syllable name goes to 4. It was easier to keep working under my maiden name, which was one of the reasons I’d done it in the first place. The other was my stubborn independence, which will surprise no one who actually knows me.

But the switch is permanent. My husband always joked he didn’t have to claim me if he didn’t want to because our names were different. That was true. No more. Now he’s really stuck with me. Next trick: getting everyone I’ve known for the last 30 years to help me rebrand me!

Entrepreneurial Opportunities in “Reinventing Fire”

Posted by Deb on Monday, October 3rd, 2011 , Posted in Brand Strategy, Clarity Posts, entrepreneurs, environment, Featured, Sustainability , 1 Comment »

Rocky Mountain Institute’s CEO, Michael Potts, will be at UW in Seattle Oct. 11th for the Environmental Innovation Speaker Series to talk about the concepts in a brand new book by RMI’s Chairman and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era, and the opportunities these create for entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors. The speaker series is part of UW’s Environmental Innovation Practicum course, which helps teams prepare for the regional Environmental Innovation Challenge UW organizes in the spring.

“Rocky Mountain Institute has been, and remains to be the seminal thought leader in the field of energy efficiency,” says David Allen, EVP of Seattle’s McKinstry. Asked to preview the chapter on Buildings before the book went to the publisher, Allen also says, ”Reinventing Fire successfully makes the case that working together conservationists, policy makers and the business community can solve the big problems surrounding energy, while creating jobs and economic opportunity.” You can read my interview with David on his talk at UW, which will be Nov. 1st, in this earlier post.

RMI created an infographic depicting the big picture — literally — of Reinventing Fire. At right, I inserted a snapshot of the part of the graphic that paints the picture of where we can be in 2050 if we chose to reinvent fire.

I had a chance to interview Michael and get his perspective on opportunities for entrepreneurial innovation and to get a flavor for his upcoming talk at UW. Here’s what he had to say:

Q: Among the many opportunities for innovation outlined in Reinventing Fire, where do you see the greatest potential for entrepreneurs versus established organizations?

Michael: Unlike the high-tech boom which introduced many entirely new services, the shift to an economy based on efficiency and renewables will in large part replace products and services that we already enjoy today regarding mobility, comfort, manufacturing, and convenience.  In fact, many people understandably will consider it a great achievement if we can just maintain what we have (and hopeful distribute services also to less privileged citizens) when our inevitable energy transition has completed.

Accordingly, you can expect that some core products and services will likely flow through the big, established organizations that already access capital and scaling capabilities necessary to drive infrastructure change.  Automobiles and electricity, for example, are highly regulated, also relatively concentrated, and require huge investments to drive change.

For example, some analysts believe that electric cars will scale quickly, with much more speed than current “conventional wisdom” project.  If this happens, it will likely be big companies that crank them out in volume–although those companies may well be from countries other than the US (for example, the Chinese government has invested heavily in electric and hybrid vehicle development).

To take this automobile example further, such a shift to electric cars would dramatically and quickly transform the massive auto “after-market.” New businesses will emerge in a different eco-system creating many products and services such as battery swapping, different tires and thermal comfort strategies, charging methods, and innovations we can’t possibly predict.  This vibrant side of the industry will be like the “wild west,” with many of the spoils going to the fastest and most creative innovators.

You can expect big changes in the building and manufacturing industries, especially as electricity prices increase nationwide due to long-delayed infrastructure renewal.  These vital sectors are less concentrated than transportation and electricity in ownership and approach, so you can expect faster innovation (arguably already happening) and more room for energized entrepreneurs.

Q: Are there new skills or new ways of thinking that these entrepreneurs and inventors will need compared to those their predecessors needed?

Michael: Our energy transmission and application systems are wildly inefficient.  As we built out the US infrastructure, energy was so cheap–nearly free–that it was uneconomical to invest time and effort designing cars and buildings and power-lines in a way that avoids waste.

This dynamic is changing quickly, and the science of efficiency offers a news set of skills and perspectives essential for the new energy era.  Shameless plug:  these principles are at the core of RMI’s latest book: Reinventing Fire.

Q: If you could give all of UW one “assignment” to help reinvent fire, what would it be?

Michael: Push efficiency first.  I can’t tell you how many projects we see where, for example, well-meaning decision-makers bolt solar panels on top of a leaky building.  Wasting electricity from the sun isn’t any better than wasting electricity derived from coal–it’s all waste.   Help people understand that our first task is to make a system efficient.  “First you cool it, then you fuel it.”

Come join us at UW for the Environmental Innovation Speaker Series. See what ideas they can spark in you!