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Top Tips for Carbon Dating & the life and times of a clean energy provider.

12 Monday Jan 2015

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Caring about what people care about, Clean Renewables, Coal, Dating, Double dating, Ethical Business, First Dates, Flings, Flirting, Gas, GE, Identity, Integrity, Jeremy Clarkson, Life Long Friendships, Long Term relationships, Love Ins, Nostalgia, Oil, Old Mates, One Night Stands, Sentimentality, Small Businesses, Sustainable Brands '14, Ties that Bind, word of mouth

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The populist conversation around creating a clean energy love in seems to be going nowhere about as fast as Jeremy Clarkson in an oil-burning, coal-fired, gas-expanded super-car through a village of impoverished 3rd Worlders living on scorched earth!

So anyone out there in the world trying start a conversation with the unenlightened everyday someone around the idea of embracing clean renewable energy can be in for a cold start.

So which reframe might help us get people to more easily consider moving from a short term promiscuous ‘lowest price who cares?’ transactional relationship to a long term committed ‘that price I care’ value based relationship.

Reason? Glamour? EQ? IQ? Finding the hook can be tricky. So lets try looking at the problem through the everyday human condition – one that everyone can relate to.

The first time you meet a dyed in the wool cheap coal and oil energy user with a shiny new clean energy package you could say it is a little like a First Date.

So lets start there.

As with all dates, especially first ones, you need to be clear about your objective going in, as this defines the rules of engagement.

Do you just want a few dates? Or would you like a long term relationship with them?

If its a just a few dates, some passion and then goodbye; go in fast and furious. Thick skinned. Impervious. Immutable.

If it’s the long term relationship you want. That’s a different thing entirely.

That demands a more intuitive approach. Sensitivity. Respect.. Awareness.

So, when approaching a traditional coal, oil or gas burning energy consumer for the first time, here are a few tips and watch-outs to help shape a better first impression and relationship.

First Dates

1. Don’t assume that turning up bright eyed and bushy tailed with a shiny new something will get you straight to First Base.

Appearing with a clean renewable energy package will NOT immediately have them springing to click on the ‘change of provider’ PDF.

Putting aside old familiar and trusted things – however toxic they may be in reason – is not a given. Sentimentality and attachment are very strong emotions in the human condition.

2. Don’t assume that Reason aces everything.

Not everyone sees things reasonably: usually they will be quite the opposite – viewing life through a very human and subjective eye.

So Pointing out the deepest most destructive failings and flaws of their current energy choice may not only make them highly defensive of the choice they have made but also of themselves for making it.

Example: When you first meet a very old and good friend of your new crush, only to find that they’re truly awful: some recidivist throw back to a 1970s British sitcom with all the chauvinist, misogynist, racist paraphernalia that goes with it; you can do one of two things:

Either call out their dreadful-ness as loudly as possible, pointing out and highlighting every flaw, to then flounce off muttering phrases such as ‘How can you put up with that &*$%”

Or you can sit back, observe the relationship; assess it: for the depth of its feeling, and the integrity of its bond. This allows you to decide whether the presence of the friend is immutable and in turn a corollary to as yet unseen things to come in your crush; traits or behaviours that you have simply not registered through your lusty mists.

3. Be prepared for Double Daters.

Most people are unlikely to put all of their energy eggs in one clean renewable basket straight away. They will probably switch backwards and forwards or leave the big stuff as it is and just flirt with a clean and serene energy lifestyle to warm themselves up and test the edges of it. In that way the average Jane and Joe is not dissimilar to the average energy monolith. Just like GEs diversified energy portfolio – which unsurprisingly contains the smoky old faithfuls.

4. Get someone to put in a good word for you.

With most successful dates, the battle is one before it is fought. Someone ‘bigging you up’ prior the actual meeting can work wonders.It is also a way of utilising the grapevine that will be buzzing whether you like it or not. The odd whisper and aside and some furious txt-ing and calling will have already happened on the side between the two parties friends and acquaintances way before you get to the bar/restaurant/club/room.

Small businesses are always looking for smart wins in the efficiency and economies department. And they have a far closer eye on the way the business runs itself and makes money. Target the Owner Managers businesses, deliver for them and they’ll be singing your praises in the pub in a flash in very everyday and human sized terms.

So lets have a run at that and see if it enlightens the moment and sets us up for success or failure. And if that doesn’t work we’re just going to keep trying others. because we need to. So all ideas gratefully received.

Answers on a postcard.

NOTE This blog was inspired by a chat at Sustainable Brands London’14 with some super bright clean energy people around the topic of rewriting the narrative of the whole carbon issue – which to be frank currently reads like a Wet Wednesday, when it should come across like a Sunny Saturday.

Thrift shops, The Man Drawer & the lighter guide to sustainability storytelling.

06 Monday Jan 2014

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Jeremy Clarkson, Laughter, M&S, Micklemore & Lewis, Onesies, Shwopping, Smarter Lighter Living, Tech Disposal, The Man Drawer, Up-cyled & recycled fashion

ImageEven in the terribly outré, groovy, fame seeking world of fashion, we’re still surprisingly short of getting it right in regards to lighter sustainability storytelling on a populist scale.

When we set about the serious task of enlightening people to the benefits of up-cycling, recycling and reusing clothes, therein lies the problem. The ‘serious’ word: the first cousin of worthy, nephew of pious, uncle of heavy, stepfather of boring and the next-door neighbour to ‘I’d rather stick spoons in my eyes’.

We just seem to get wrapped up in the idea that the environmental and social benefits of doing it are enough to make it really really attractive to people and we forget to seduce and engage and inspire.

Recycling clothes with some panache is at least hanging in there Cali style. Andreas choice, at 2 million + Youtube hits uses her Valley girl whatevrrr guide to Britney style t-shirt recycling to tempt a large proportion of like minded girls and boys to check her out.  And the prize for how to recycle a t.shirt into a hoody dress at 316,000+ you tube views goes to GiannyL

But the prize for creative storytelling in regards to promoting thrift and granddad’s clothes must go to Micklemore & Ryan Lewis’ Thrift Shop at almost 479 million Youtube views. Okay, it breaks all the PC rules so perhaps doesn’t quite tick every do-good box. The sandpaper swearing comes with the territory.  There’s collateral damage in there; the B*&@h word always sadly present: a lazy street slang that not only degrades the recipient but also demeans the user. BUT.

Whether we like it or not, the sheer size of audience Micklemore Et Al attract is staggering – and if only 10% of that audience eschewed another piece of Primark tat for an old OXFAM onesie next time they went clubbing, that makes for 4.7 million people NOT buying a $30 T or skirt that will go from body fill to land fill in the inappropriate and possibly sexist wink of an eye.

The sensational intellect that threads up-cycle and recycle innovations in fabric and textile re-engineering and reuse into systemic process and practice strategies for smarter lighter clothing consumption are both laudable and impressive – but when it comes to creating storytelling to generate some infectious feel-good around them we still need to find the common touch more often.

M&S’s Shwopping comes super close, using the exceptional ambassadorial skills and unmitigated charm and integrity of Joanna Lumley. Her ability to communicate the benefits of recycling those old clothes for good with elegance and aspirational panache is wholly infectious.

So perhaps we just need to do a little gap analysis to define or reveal some smarter storytelling formulae to get us closer to what good looks like more often.

But lightening up is a great place to start.

Having just finished a conversation recently on the toxic nature of tech and battery disposal, I was reminded of the stand up comedian Michael Mcintyre’s Man Drawer sketch – a sublime stroke of observational genius.

With eye-watering clarity of purpose, he unearthed one of the most expansive, multi-site and otherwise invisible storage facilities for old tech and used batteries in the western world: Men’s Special drawers. Drawers packed with tat of every shape, hue, nature and function. A veritable treasure trove.

Now most Youtube stuff around tech and mobile disposal never seems to get beyond a few thousand hits.

But I’d venture that if we got Michael Mcintyre to re-task the Man Drawer sketch as the leading drive in ‘a how to smartly recycle tech and safely dispose of batteries’ campaign we may be in danger of even getting Jeremy Clarkson to think twice.

Suddenly, the content ideas that drop out of this topic also become a lot more interesting. I would love to create a real time infographic based upon the Man Drawer.

Imagine if, having run a small pilot sample to identify a standard unit of control for type, quantity and status of ‘stuff’ in the average Man Drawer, we took it city by city – estimating the number of Man Drawer men between 25 and 55  – and running the numbers to identify potential quantity, sources and scales of tech and batteries lying around – their potential recycle reuse and disposal values – their latent capability or functionality, even untapped energy and intel sources (the SIM graveyard and quantity of rechargeable batteries lying uncharged!). I can already see the real time dials spinning.

Back to the point though, ‘funny’ can unlock a rather arcane and not terribly seductive topic with a lightness of touch usually missing from the average piece of communication around what should be a smarter, lighter living strategy.

So, between leopard-skin onesies in da club, a man with a relentless-stride approach to illuminating the text of everyday life, and a more enlightened approach to how we story-tell, I do think we can get there.

We just need to remember perhaps that sometimes its OK for the messenger to get danced around or laughed at: it’s a whole lot better than being shot.

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