Some take aways from the 2009 NRUCFC Independent Borrowers Executive Conference in Tucson this week
I attended and presented Smart Grid issues and methods at this conference in Tucson. There was much exceptionally good content, and lots of opportunities to network with electric cooperatives and vendors. I heard several things in the presentations that I thought were particularly useful.
Keynote speaker Marcus Buckingham was simply terrific . . . great content and hugely entertaining. He suggested that, to succeed, an organization needs a single driving mission . . . “Who do we serve?” I firmly believe that the Smart Grid movement also needs some simplification in this regard. I believe that the principal focus and the primary beneficiaries of the Smart Grid should be the customers. Marcus also suggested that an organization, in order to succeed, needs to have a single, overriding metric for success. Again, the Smart Grid could benefit from this as well. I believe that the overriding metric for success should be whether customers are obtaining what they want from their electric utility.
In a breakout session, “Should Your Co-op Be on Facebook?” presenter Greg Brooks of Walton EMC said, “YouTube gives us our own TV station!” He observed that it is very unlikely that his utility will obtain live media coverage except when there is sensational bad news. But, YouTube gives customers the opportunity to find and view a variety of video information that they are interested in. All of the presenters suggested that utilities must rely more upon customers pulling to themselve the information that they are interested in, and doing it from diverse web resources, and less upon pushing information that the utility is interested in to customers through traditional media.
I’ll try to relay more of my take aways in the next few days.
Written by Steve Collier | Nov 20, 2009