Social Proof To Reduce Energy Use

From the Innovation files of BusinessWeek comes this report about how software startup Opower is partnering with utilities and applying behavioral psychology to reduce energy consumption.

"In the past 18 months, Arlington (Va.)-based Opower has partnered with 21 utilities to incorporate neighbor comparisons into gas and electric bills. Based on the success of pilot programs in Sacramento and Washington state's Puget Sound area, Opower just added two high-profile clients to its roster in October: National Grid of Waltham, Mass., and Seattle City Light. About 1 million households currently receive the reports, which show them how much energy they are using vs. similar households in their neighborhood. (To establish "comparable neighbors," Opower looks at the square footage of the home, its type of heating system, whether there's a swimming pool, and so on.)

The result: Customers in the program have reduced annual energy usage by an average of 2.8%, or the equivalent of 280 kilowatt-hours per year. In its test with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, the effect has been biggest in households that were the biggest energy hogs pre-Opower: They've reduced consumption by more than 6% on average."

Opower's Chief Scientist is none other than Dr. Cialdini.

Read the full article.

A Masterpiece: Jim Collins LIVE!

You can't really argue with the fact that Jim Collins' Good to Great is the most influential business book of the last decade. His research-based examination of what separates companies that thrive vs. those that fail broke new ground in its analysis of peak performance, and the concepts he introduced (e.g., the Hedgehog, the Flywheel, First Who) have become standard operating principles in Fortune 50 and start-up cultures alike. Granted, he has detractors, and yes, his content has such wide appeal that you almost have to question why. But with three best sellers, including Built to Last as a precursor and this year's How the Mighty Fall as a follow-up, Collins really has no peer in today's business world.

He selectively chooses to speak but 18 times a year, and a few weeks ago at the Gazelles-Fortune Small Business Summit, he spoke for an unprecedented 4 hours (2 consecutive segments of 2 hours each with a break in between). It would be unfair, not to mention impossible, to summarize even a fraction of what he covered, but there were obviously some nuggets that hit harder and deeper than others.

Opening with the concept that sweeping ideas come along once per generation but that we don't see or notice them until much later, Mr. Collins spoke of the latest one: entrepreneurship as a discipline. And it is the entrepreneurial mind that forgoes a paint-by-numbers, albeit safe approach to life, in favor of starting with a blank canvas - a much scarier choice, but the only option that provides the opportunity to make your life a masterpiece, a creative work of art.

So what were his most thought-provoking questions? Here goes:

1. Are company founders able to actually build a company beyond start-up, i.e., be able to go from telling time to being clock-builders?


2. For what percentage of the people in key seats (the leadership team) at your company do you have empirical evidence that they are the right people?


3. Why do truly great companies have the discipline to leave growth on the table?


4. What are you doing right now so that you and/or your company can seize the opportunities presented by the current economic tumult?


5. How do you conduct blameless autopsies in an organization that values individual accountability?

And a few choice quotes:

• "The point of disagreement is to provide clarity, not consensus. Never in the history of great institutions has consensus been the goal."


• "The ultimate throttle for growth is having the right people in key seats. Great companies are more likely to die of indigestion of too much opportunity than starve from too little."


• "How you fail has more to do with what you do than what the world does to you."

After 4 hours, Mr. Collins was kind enough to share his ultimate management and leadership reading list, the books that have had the greatest impact on his thinking over the course of the last 20 years. You won't likely come across this list anywhere else simply because it's not something Mr. Collins normally shares. Enjoy:

Jim Collins' Top 10 Books on Leadership and Management
1. The Second World War by Winston Churchill

2. Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro

3. Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin,

4. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter Bernstein,

5. Moneyball by Michael Lewis

6. The Iliad by Homer

7. The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker

8. Self-Renewal John Gardner

9. Assault on Lake Casitas by Brad Lewis, 

10. Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester

Secret #11: Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming

Vintage Persuasion Clip

Dr. Robert Cialdini discusses the Principles of Persuasion, vintage-style.
(Excerpt from a psychology documentary about "Social Reality" with Philip Zimbardo)