Author: Captain Obvious

What on earth are you talking about now Joel?  Is this the latest mass storage device concepts?  Or, are you referring to the trends with autonomous vehicles?  No … not at all.

I am referring to that energy that we used to admire in people … which now seems totally out of style.  Blend has replaced drive as the expected behavior… don’t make waves … just blend in and be a cordial part of the team, please.

Hog wash!  Drive is what characterizes the leaders of change and they simply do not take no for an answer.

Let me illustrate this with a critter we have encountered in our back yard that evidences true drive:  a racoon.

We have several bird feeders that we have noticed are being emptied overnight.  The critter left us a present on our deck that gave itself away.  That present is called scat … in this case it was racoon droppings.

We just weren’t sure though … I set the feeders on a skinny wire that I was certain the racoon could not climb down.  I was right, the racoon didn’t … it swung the bird feeder so that it could grab it and then emptied it.  I figured that out by buying a game camera so I could see precisely what the little devil was doing.

Here is a shot it took:

Technology enabled me to see just how much drive this racoon had … and told me precisely when it was doing its thing.  Tonight, we plan to put the camera in another spot to figure out what is taking a 20-pound bird feeder down from its protected perch that was designed to be racoon proof … we will see.

But, for the moment, I want to focus on the word drive.  Clearly this racoon is driven to find food and will not give up.  One of the video clips shows it hanging from a nearby tree limb by its rear feet and swinging to get the feeder.

My point with this is that we in the utility industry put out our bird feeders hoping to attract the right customers and do not assume critters will steal the bait.  The latest stupidity here is outsourcing programs to contractors and thinking they will do the right thing.  Nope … they will be driven for sure, just like the racoon … but not necessarily to do the right thing.  We must recognize drive when we see it and then wonder seriously why we can’t see drive in our own organizations.

More as we figure out what on earth a racoon is doing to take a 20-pound bird feeder off a 6-foot-high stand in the middle of nowhere …

 

 

Well, I am not a big sports fan, so who am I to weigh in on this one, but it

certainly seems the geeks of the world are sitting on their hands.

It appears that the game of baseball has changed but no one wants to investigate why.  Perhaps because the results are that the game of baseball has become more exciting to the fans?  More players are hitting home runs and rookies are scoring like pros.  Could it be that the ball has changed?

It certainly seems so: Watch the video on USA Today.

It is not rocket science to me.  When my daughter was playing softball, she asked me to join her at batting practice.  We went to one of those ball pitching machines and she practiced while I watched.  When she was done, she asked me to try … so what dad wouldn’t comply.  She set the ball machine to pretty slow pitches and I hit a few …

Then, for yucks she brought me over to the hard ball cage and let me try that.  I never saw the ball!  I just heard it hit the wall behind me.

Back on track though, it would seem to me that you could do some very quick testing here to know how balls break now vs. before.  This is not rocket science?  I use a ball machine to help my tennis game … hopeless as that may be.

Perhaps the game is afraid to really know because they like what they see in the stands … more fans.

Interesting

 

Celebrating Fathers Day this month made me think.  What is wrong with creating a holiday to celebrate fathers? And, was it created by the greeting card people … which, frankly, is what I thought.

There are two stories of when the first Father’s Day was celebrated. According to some accounts, the first Father’s Day was celebrated in Washington state on June 19, 1910. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd came up with the idea of honoring and celebrating her father while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon at church in 1909. She felt as though mothers were getting all the acclaim while fathers were equally deserving of a day of praise (She would probably be displeased that Mother’s Day still gets the lion’s share of attention).

The other story of the first Father’s Day in America happened all the way on the other side of the country in Fairmont, West Virginia on July 5, 1908. Grace Golden Clayton suggested to the minister of the local Methodist church that they hold services to celebrate fathers after a deadly mine explosion killed 361 men.

While Father’s Day was celebrated locally in several communities across the country, unofficial support to make the celebration a national holiday began almost immediately. William Jennings Bryant was one of its staunchest proponents. In 1924, President Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge recommended that Father’s Day become a national holiday. But no official action was taken.

In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson, through an executive order, designated the third Sunday in June as the official day to celebrate Father’s Day. However, it wasn’t until 1972, during the Nixon administration, that Father’s Day was officially recognized as a national holiday.

So, why did I think it was the greeting card companies?  The reason of course is because it would make sense for them to create a holiday and then cards to celebrate it.  Is that wrong?  Not really.  Unless you are in the energy business in most areas of the US.  It has been illegal for utilities to promote the use of their products.  The historical logic for this may have made sense when it seemed obvious that promotion was raising prices as more and more generating plants were being needed.  But, now that situation seems a distant memory.

So, is it time to think differently?  After all, it is entirely possible now that promotion might lower prices for all customers.  Who would have predicted that?  Go figure!

Most have heard the story of the beautiful woman who is asked whether she will go to bed for $1 million.  As the story goes, she says “Sure!”  The guy then asks, then how about $20?  She becomes indignant and says “What kind of girl do you think I am?”  The guy then quips “We have already established that … now we are simply dickering over the price!”

I think you will see the parallels when you consider the antics of this week’s special election here in Georgia.  It has certainly gotten in your local news.  It is the most expensive in history … by a wide margin … so, being the engineer that I am, I did the math.  The estimates are that $50 million was spent on advertising, not to mention the other campaign costs.  The number of votes cast were just over 250,000.  So, it cost $200 per vote.  And, given that most minds were made up long before any of this was battled out, the cost per vote changed was probably well north of $2,000 a vote.

I think a lot of those voters would have much rather received a check for the $2,000.  That would have circulated through the economy and who knows what good things might have emerged.  Instead, we Georgians have endured nonstop commercials for months now.   That is the one thing that now unites us all here: the ads will stop.  But, of course, now the media will go through a frenzy trying to figure out what went wrong for the Dems, whether the Russians interfered with the election, or whether the intense rain kept turnout low.

Thank goodness this is now over!

You never know what you are going to see online, especially on Facebook.  One of my friends at church posted his link and I was surprised to see it was from a utility (Puget Sound Energy).

Click here to view this important message from Puget Sound Energy.

It is interesting to see that Public Service Announcements (PSAs) are moving to video to get consumers engaged.  I thought this one was really well done.  But, the costs to script, staff, film, edit and produce this kind of video are high.  The result in this case is excellent, but it is overkill for all too many communication tasks … like explaining why a bill is higher than normal or as a PSA for an upcoming storm.

What we found through careful research is that production values (the excellence in producing the video) really does not matter and can actually backfire in some cases.  Customers can be resentful that you spent so much money trying to communicate a simple message.

In fact, what we found is that the message method (video), especially on phones, can be pretty low resolution and crude … just keep it relevant and interesting.  Use customer-friendly language … stop talking to customers like they understand the technical details.

My hat does go off to PSE in any event … who knew what to do if you hit a power pole?  I didn’t.  And, I am a veteran of the industry.