Up

What does Up, MSN, George Tiller have in common?

They all have a very good plot/story/Intention, but somehow failed in the middle of their endeavor to that ultimate success. Up is about motivation, adventure but a bit too violant for children who have been attracted to it due to balloons and 3D effects; MSN consumed billions of dollars of shareholder investment and falls far behond rival Google; George Tiller believes in helping to stop unintended pregnancy but was shot dead in front of his church.

World is full of unintended but well meaning endeavors. Sustainability certaintly has more and more of the attention from all corners of the world, even China and India are devoting investments into cleaning up their pollution at the expense of rapid industrial expansion. I wonder what makes these efforts "successful" is not really the end outcome that are measured by their original targets, but it is the story, the journey and the people that are influenced/touched along the way that makes these efforts memoriable and enduring.

Friday thoughts

I saw an interesting article that talks about Greenspan use the sales of man's underwear as a key indicator of if the economy has bottomed out. And the conclusion is yes, it seems. I find this theory interesting - man thinks their underweare as the first disposal item to go when things go bad because people rarely sees it. And there this is a leading indicator of how other bigger consumer goods are going to behave if the trend continues.

But I am quite puzzled by the fact that utility fund taking a huge hit together with the rest of the industries, this is a commodity that in good and hard times people would have to consumer in order to make ends meet. Tangible hypotheses for how this could happen is mild winter (relatively speaking) and less commercial activities while residential side has less to fall. Utility industry has the interesting issue of de-coupling, which mean the profitability is relatively capped/fixed ahead of time, and utilities are not incented to sell more (therefore generate more green house gas, etc) in order to make profits. The pre-arranged profitability is negotiated with public utility commissions so that any revenue short fall is recoverable from the public as a whole, which implies higher prices, which in turn implies incentives for more energy efficient consumption behaviors. It is a convoluted way of thinking, but it makes sense at aggregate levels. At individual consumer level, unfortunately the "taxation" is flat - even if you may save more than me in terms of consumption, you will be paying the PUC the same amount of "tax" to support the utility's pre-fixed profitability levels.

Boppy

My dear friend is going away from Denver to Bentonville Arkansas, with her husband and two young kids. I won't be able to see them very often any more because Walmart is not likely to hire consultants.

Consultants and emerging players are a major force behind Smart Grid - the field is exploding with new solutions, new ideas, technology, challenges that no one has dealt with before end to end. Consultants and start up companies such as Control 4, Grid Point, Silversprings, etc are propellers behind the change and are critical to provide various components of the solution. It is a fast changing environment where inter-operatability doesn't exist due to the lack of the standards, but innovation is created and cultivated exactly such an environment where competing technologies and solutions will find the appropriate places in the value chain to survive and thrive.

Saturday's Thoughts

Walking on the hiking trail in the mornings is the most beautiful thing, showy downiniga blossoming everywhere, fresh oak leaves remind you the smell of the nature, birds chirping cheerfully to welcome the hikers on the road...is nature so sophisticated that's beyond our imagination or is it so elegantly simple that remind us to slow down and smell the roses once in a while.

Increasingly folks are interested in environmental issues, for a variety of reasons including jobs creation, stimulus funding, to the ultraistics who simply want to save the environment. How fast will this wave of fad catch on or fade away, is this the train that will pull the world out of the recession, what’s your role in this evolution, and what are the economically viable solutions that will help balance the needs between shareholders and environment, and people?

No, I don’t believe this is a fad, it is here to stay. Those who lead the thinking and more importantly, execute on their beliefs will find the right role to play. It is those who stand by and watch that will be left in the dust one day and tell the hindsight 20-20 story that how they have cleverly stayed out of another bubble.