We wanted to call out some of the innovative marketing and PR activities solar clients are pursuing during Solar Power International 2011 (SPI) next week, and since the iPhone 4S just came out and everyone now seems to be permanently glued to their smartphones and mobile devices, we thought the first mobile app for SPI would be an interesting topic.
If you’ve ever been to SPI, you—along with the more than 24,000 solar professionals who are slated to attend this year’s event—know that it’s the place to be if you want to learn about the latest solar industry trends from enterprising and innovative companies working to build a competitive market around clean energy. Yet, as captivating as this four-day conference can be, navigating an enormous conference center with more than 1,000 exhibitors can be a difficult task, particularly when you’re searching for a specific company and only have ten minutes to find its booth. Clean Power Finance, a solar financing company that recently announced its $75 million Google Fund, is partnering with SPI to help all those sun-lovers in attendance locate key events, seminars and more through a brand-new SPI Mobile App.
This mobile app, the first of its kind to be used at SPI, is designed to guide attendees to maps, news and other pertinent information as it develops onsite at the conference. Everything you need to stay on schedule and connected is on this app, which is available at the iTunes app store (search “Solar Power International” to download it for free).
The SPI Mobile App includes the following:
• Navigating the event with an interactive floor map that uses GPS;
• Managing your schedule in real time;
• Searching exhibitor listings and products by keyword, and download company information;
• Viewing the schedule of conference sessions and special events;
• Receiving real-time show alerts and RSS news feeds;
• Interacting through social media;
• Accessing show documents;
• And much more!
SPI Mobile is available for iPhone/iPod Touch and Android, or as a web-based application for all other smartphones including BlackBerry. So take advantage of mobile technology while exploring the future of solar energy technology; make sure you stay up-to-date on SPI activities, hit up all the speaking sessions you want to hear, and don’t get lost in the crowd. Enjoy the show!
Tags:
Clean Power Finance,
Clean Power Finances' SPI 2011 Mobile App,
CPF,
Solar Power International 2011,
SPI,
SPI Mobile App
Posted by Corey Lewandowski on October 20, 2011 at 2:04 PM
| TrackBack (0)
President Obama, facing intense criticism over his handling of the Gulf Coast spill, resorted on Tuesday to an Oval Office address to the American people. This is a first for Obama, who has delivered momentous and stirring speeches about new initiatives and national security in the Rose Garden and other locales that tend to symbolize "the nation," but who had never, until now, used the power and symbolism of the Office as a backdrop. The Oval Office, compared to other frequent national PR and media announcement venues, projects a very specific, intimate image--that of the President as Commander in Chief, solemn, perhaps sorrowful, but ultimately inspirational--and forges a much more personal connection between the President and his country. As NPR's Liz Halloran pointed out on June 14's broadcast of Morning Edition:
"The President, in choosing the Oval Office as a setting for his televised speech, has given the oil spill the imprimatur of a serious crisis. Presidents in the past have used the setting to, for example, announce war, respond to national tragedies like the attacks of Sept. 11, and, in the case of Richard Nixon, to resign."
It is encouraging to note that, although the motivation for staging of this particular address may have been an effort at damage control, Obama nevertheless used this opportunity to issue a clarion call for a clean energy revolution. He spoke of the oil spill, the environmental and economic hardship it has created for Gulf Coast residents, flora and fauna, and he vowed to hold BP financially accountable. Using militaristic language and calling the spill an "epidemic," Obama labeled the spill "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced." But he went beyond mere posturing and finger-pointing when he double-negatively proclaimed, "We can't afford NOT to change how we produce and use energy." He candidly acknowledged that there will be financial burdens associated with the transition to a clean energy economy, but noted that the long-term costs to the United States' security and environment are untenable.
I'm generally skeptical of political posturing, particularly when it's set against a backdrop involving an American flag, but when the President of the United States makes a clear, compelling case for increased investment in and focus on renewable energy and energy legislation, it's hard to hold a little bit of PR scenery against him.
Tags:
cleantech+government+relations,
cleantech+pr,
cleantech+public+relations
Posted by Alison Mickey on June 17, 2010 at 1:08 PM
| TrackBack (0)
I love renewable energy and I love the New Yorker. So I really love that the last two May New Yorker covers have had renewable energy/climate-related themes.
The May 10 cover features a whimsical scene by Bob Staake, called “Tilt”: a rotund little person dressed in Pilgrim garb wielding a lance sits atop a frowning whale while charging a wind turbine—a brilliantly updated version of Quixote’s tilting at windmills tailored to the NIMBY Nantucketers protesting the Cape Wind project.
The May 17 cover, titled “A Novel Approach,” by Joost Swarte, and released in perfect concert with the de-clawed American Power Act, shows a series of vignettes. A bald Tintin-ish man in glasses reads a newspaper and smokes a pipe. His face—featuring a perpetually creased forehead—remains buried in his newspaper for most of the series. In the next frame, the man has put out his noxious pipe, but stands in front of a car trailing more pollutants than his pipe produced. A frame later, mouth agape in alarm at something he’s read, he stands in front of a semi truck spewing diesel fumes. Next, he gazes in concern at some smokestacks belching smoke, followed by a frame in which he smells the methane being released by gaseous bovines. Then, face buried again in the paper, he walks beneath a ferociously frowning sun. In the seventh frame, he looks up from his paper to see a family of forlorn penguins carrying suitcases. In the eighth frame, the man, apparently unaware of the danger, is about to be inundated by a giant wave, and in the ninth, he’s waist-deep in water and being doused by rain. Next, he’s floating in some sort of trash-infested seascape, but in this frame, he has an idea (cue lightbulb): in the penultimate frame, we see his idea brought to fruition as he dons a propeller-topped beanie, and in the final frame, he sits happily atop a cloud, still engrossed in his paper.
While the May 10 cover is satirical and hilarious, the May 17 cover conveys to me a sense of pathos as well as humor, perhaps because I can relate to the pathetic cartoon man. I often feel as though my head is buried in newspapers filled with dire warnings and gloomy prognoses, and that when I look up from the news, I find some other previously unconsidered climate threat staring me in the face. Swarte's cover mocks not only our misdirected attention, climate concerns and inertia, but also the fact that a propellor-powered beanie seems as good an idea as any we have, at the moment.
Nevertheless, it’s encouraging that climate issues have become so topical that two consecutive New Yorker covers have featured cartoons addressing the topic. And I love that I get to work for cleantech companies trying to figure out how to address the issues, despite the fact that sometimes, I'd like a beanie with a propellor, too.
Tags:
cleantech,
Climate bill,
climate change,
climate+bill,
climate+change,
energy,
renewable+energy
Posted by Alison Mickey on May 17, 2010 at 7:43 PM
| TrackBack (0)
Anyone in the PR business, the media business or just about any business you care to name knows the value of social media and multi-media campaigns. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are ubiquitous, and materials disseminated through these channels can often pack a serious punch, not just by going viral or delivering breaking news, but by offering the public the kind of powerful visual images that can't be conveyed as well through conventional media.
We've all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. Never was that more true than in a video posted by the non-profit advocacy group VoteVets.org. The organization's website states that it "focuses on nonpartisan education and advocacy on behalf of veterans and their families." The founders are Iraq War veterans, and they're putting their patriotic bona fides behind a message of support for climate change legislation.
The video illustrates in a vivid and shocking way the damage we inflict on our own troops when we spend money on oil from the Middle East. It's not a new refrain (several prominent conservatives and other less typical climate legislation champions are pro-environment because, self admittedly, they are pro-energy security), but it's the most striking visualization I've seen yet.
Cleantech companies and their PR firms should get creative in cultivating social media the way VoteVets.org did--creatively, succinctly and provocatively, although perhaps not with footage of IEDs in Iraq. Visual media programs don't take much money these days, and they reach people on a visceral level that bylines and text-heavy blog posts simply can't replicate.
Tags:
cleantech media,
cleantech+pr,
cleantech+public+affairs,
cleantech+public+relations,
social+media
Posted by Alison Mickey on April 30, 2010 at 6:12 PM
| TrackBack (0)
Washington Post business columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Pearlstein had an interesting column recently on what the passage of healthcare legislation may portend for climate change legislation. Pearlstein thinks that Republicans and Democrats alike received a hefty reality check in the aftermath of the healthcare battle:
"Democrats and their liberal supporters saw how much good could be accomplished by not allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. And Republicans and the business lobby were reminded of the concessions they could have won but didn't by their decision to abandon bipartisan compromise and instead trying to kill the legislation altogether."
In addition to apparent political momentum, people like Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman are moving beyond thoughtful Op-Ed pieces and laying out strong economic cases for tackling climate change (see Krugman's recent manifesto in the New York Times Magazine, titled "Building a Green Economy").
With John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham expected to introduce climate change legislation in the coming weeks, columnists like Pearlstein believe a new mood of pragmatism may be infecting all parties, from environmentalists to renewable energy associations and even the oil and gas industries.
Given the possibility--perhaps less remote now than before even in the face of a renewed focus on immigration and finance reform--of at least moderately meaningful climate change legislation, renewable energy companies and trade associations should amp up their cleantech government relations programs to secure their seats at the negotiating table. As Disraeli famously said, "History is made by those who show up;" or in this case, climate change legislation.
Tags:
cleantech pr,
cleantech+government+relations,
cleantech+gr,
Climate bill,
climate+bill,
climate+legislation,
green+pr,
green+public+relations,
paul+Krugman,
Steve+Pearlstein
Posted by Alison Mickey on April 22, 2010 at 12:38 PM
| TrackBack (0)
