The start page also features an advert with the tongue-in-cheek notion of “painting” with the PowerMeter.

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Yet another energy awareness savvy article appears this weekend in the New York Times.  It discusses the powerful motivator of friendly competition to modify energy use behavior.  When people have a notion of normal behavior, they tend to change what they do.

Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist at Arizona State University, studies how to get Americans — even those who did not care about the environment — to lower energy consumption. And while there are many ways, Dr. Cialdini said, few are as effective as comparing people with their peers.

In a 2004 experiment, he and a colleague left different messages on doorknobs in a middle-class neighborhood north of San Diego. One type urged the residents to conserve energy to save the earth for future generations; another emphasized financial savings. But the only kind of message to have any significant effect, Dr. Cialdini said, was one that said neighbors had already taken steps to curb their energy use.

“It is fundamental and primitive,” said Dr. Cialdini, who owns a stake in Positive Energy. “The mere perception of the normal behavior of those around us is very powerful.”

A couple of programs mentioned in the article:

BrainShift Foundation Energy Smackdown

Central College PODS Dorm

Quality Attributes Software Green Touchsreen used on the PODS Dorm

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Houston Chronicle photos

Two recent front-page articles in mainstream city newspapers covered the emergence of smart metering in Texas. I think it’s a good indication that these technologies and devices are nearing the mainstream here.

The Austin American-Statesman covered the installation from the perspective of utility efficiency and demand management. (Austin Energy has a pilot program for consumer meters, too).

The Houston Chronicle reported on smart metering from the consumer perspective, and while there was some fairly incomplete reporting on the costs — a lot about the costs to cover the new technology, and not much about potential savings — there were also a few interesting nods to customer experience in the article. For example,

[Reliant Energy CEO Mark] Jacobs thinks smart meters could change the way Americans use power for the better. The key is an intuitive user interface that doesn’t overwhelm the user, he said.

“It’s incredibly important we get the customer experience right with this,” Jacobs said.

The Statesman also published a smart Associated Press article that covered smart electricity from end-to-end.

It’s interesting to see some of the visual interfaces that the newspapers use to inform these articles. I have a thought that as these images begin to enter the visual vocabulary of the mainstream, the early impressions will shape what consumers will come to expect from these tools. Some of the earliest interactions — say, the ability to program your home to go low-power during the day, from your Blackberry — may also become conventions consumers will come to expect.

Austin American-Stateman photo

Links:
Austin American-Statesman:
Austin Energy installs automated electric meters
Brains for power grids

Houston Chronicle:
Power meters getting smarter

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The Victoria, Australia government is running an ad pitching
conservation by depicting an average household’s production of greenhouse
gases. Black balloons sprouting from appliances, lamps and electronics
each represent 50g of greenhouse emissions.

The quiet commercial feels slightly sinister, with the dark balloons
sprouting out of the empty house. It’s an interesting way to wrap the mind
around the gas we’re dumping out with our activities.

While there are now some interesting variations on household energy
monitors, such as DIY Kyoto’s Wattson, I haven’t run across any that depict personal greenhouse gas output. To be effective, the monitor would need to put emissions in context, and calculate emissions based on the energy source for your particular home. One solution would be a mash-up of networked home energy monitors with an online component calculating emissions.

Do you know of any gadgets or interfaces that are displaying not only
energy usage, but greenhouse gas production in realtime?

(link: information aesthetics)

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Visual readout of the navigation radio displays whatever power mode you are currently in: engine idle, engine power, hybrid power, regenerative braking, or battery power.

It sounds a little bit like the Energy Monitor screen on the Prius.  It shares the screen with sound system controls (AM/FM/XM Radio, CD, Aux), each accessible in different tabs.  

It’s notable that the screen is nowhere touted (that I can find) on the Chevy Hybrid website, but it’s the one feature visually called out (besides the vehicle itself, looking serene among the Redwoods) in the ad.   

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall as the marketers made their decisions about this ad.   I wonder why Earth Day brings this interface to the fore in its campaign, while it’s not really a part of the “standard” sell.     

How does the “visual readout” appeal to someone looking for Earth-friendly solutions this week, rather than any other week?  How does this type of interface function as a selling point for some audiences, and not for others?

Things are a little slow around here as I’m vacationing before beginning a new position at a design agency here in Austin.  Posting will be pretty low-key until I get settled back in to a work routine.  

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“Using persuasive technology to encourage sustainable behavior”, from a group in the Netherlands; “Taking the Guesswork out of Environmentally Sustainable Lifestyles” from a team in the US;  and a Swiss contributed paper, “The Potential of UbiComp Technologies to Determine the Carbon Footprints of Products.”

The workshop promises to address issues around the design of augmenting, pervasive systems that aim to persuade:

Providing people with environmental data and educational information – via mass communications such as film, TV and print and new media, or micro communications such as pervasive sensor networks - may not trigger sufficient motivation to get people to change their habits towards a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle. This workshop seeks to develop a better understanding how to go beyond just informing and into motivating and encouraging action and change.

This sounds right up our alley; I only wish I could avoid the long carbon-rich flight to Australia to justify attendance.   I hope the organizers provide an open format for publishing and sharing results and even encourage participation from remote participants.   

Do check out the workshop webpage for links to some good resources.

Speaking of conferences, this weekend is CHI 2008, the SIGCHI conference, in Florence, Italy.  This year the conference is “going green” — due to the encouragement of a few folks from the Sustainable CHI Google Group, I believe.

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After signing up, you’re asked to work through some questions about your lifestyle, to gauge where you are now, and where you can make an impact. This creates your Edenbee “Lifestyle Profile.” Edenbee immediately recommends some goals (”Take your next holiday close to home,” or “Use public transit whenever you can”) and then invites you to find more that match the changes you’re hoping to make.

This social goal-setting system is particularly interesting because it encourages discussions that are purpose-driven and relate directly to the environmental impact of “Lifestyle” and “Logbook”. People can tell stories and ask questions about any goal; for example, on the “I’ll compost all my food waste” page, people might trade tips on best practices in backyard composting. One can imagine even finding potential compadres who are working on making some of the same changes (And of course, groups provide a tried-and-true avenue to finding others). Like 43 Things, a pioneer in social goal-setting, Edenbee encourages not only information-sharing, but a way for people to cheer each other on.

It will be interesting to see how Edenbee puts the carbon calculator & log integrated with the site to new uses. When you combine a social network with familiar tools you can get some pretty neat things. From the synthesis we might see emergent behaviors, like a little friendly competition: the footprints of group members are averaged to create group footprints, and with a little flourish those can turn into teams, and tournaments. Throw in some collective goal-setting, and carbon footprinting’s a whole new ballgame.

If you’d like to try it out, comment here and I’ll send you an invite. Or, if you’re signed up already, let’s be friends.

*or as they like to say, “Beeta”.

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The downside of all that travel, of course, isn’t just an achey back, but a whole lot of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The beauty of Dopplr’s plans to integrate carbon calculation is that a user’s motivation to use the system — keeping in touch with colleagues — ostensibly has little to do with creating data about energy or emissions. The designers of the system made a value judgement, and added a new dimension to what Dopplr can be for its users.

It looks like there will be a graphical element to show cumulative as well as cyclical patterns, and an added social dimension, by way of sharing your carbon details with others. I’m looking forward to getting a closer look at this when it’s made public.

*I’d like to recommend Tom Raftery’s blog, where he’s covering a lot of fantastic issues, especially in relation to computing and climate change. Just this week he’s written on Microsoft’s new initiative in the energy efficiency market, and on carbon accounting software. I first spoke with Tom last November during the Web 2.o Conference in Berlin, where he gave a keynote on Reducing Carbon Footprint. He’s been involved in creating a hyper-efficient data center, and has a lot of expertise in the green computing realm.

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Data visualizations tell a story. When executed well, visualizations bring a level of clarity to an aspect of the world impossible otherwise. Here’s a very simple example, using a map.

Climate Progress recently posted about a Google Maps mashup that utilizes data from the California Energy Commission to show the rapid growth of solar energy (in particular, photovoltaic) in California over the last decade. It’s actually quite dramatic, and tells a hopeful story.

Climate Progress has some interesting points about the factors that made PV economic in California and New Jersey. (The states combined made up 80% of the market in PV in 2006. )

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