Comments on: “You Will” 1993 AT&T Commercial of Promises and the Reality http://tomparish.com/you-will-1993-att-commercial-of-promises-and-the-reality Tom Parish - Social Business and Social Content Strategies and Production Sun, 05 Dec 2010 22:05:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Tom http://tomparish.com/you-will-1993-att-commercial-of-promises-and-the-reality/comment-page-1#comment-272 Tom Sun, 25 Jul 2010 22:12:39 +0000 http://tomparish.com/?p=866#comment-272 That's a coolidea Sherry and it's THAT kind of think that is necessary to move forward. The legacy of the electric industry is to provide solid consistent power and plan ahead for growth. Well sorta like the old ATT business model. Just keep promising what will happen but for now let's focus on what's important - generate reliable power. Makes sense but it just doesn't set the stage for real innovation. I think Len Hause is 'spot on' in his observations in working with utilities the last couple of years. They just don't really get it and have other priorities. The innovation around smart grid technology will come from outside of their industry and likely the consumers themselves. If a utility would send out a steady Internet signal letting people and machines know during every minute of the day when the best time is to run heavy electrical loads at home (say AC, dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer ...) then the consumer can set up strategies for running those devices at low demand times reducing their bill AND reducing the peak load problems. Everyone wins. We just need need some entity to make that kind of information available on the Internet via web browser and or API calls. You get the idea. It ain't that complicated. Folks would do it manually until they had cheap devices at home that could receive the digital info and automatically adjust when loads are run. That’s a coolidea Sherry and it’s THAT kind of think that is necessary to move forward. The legacy of the electric industry is to provide solid consistent power and plan ahead for growth. Well sorta like the old ATT business model. Just keep promising what will happen but for now let’s focus on what’s important – generate reliable power. Makes sense but it just doesn’t set the stage for real innovation. I think Len Hause is ‘spot on’ in his observations in working with utilities the last couple of years. They just don’t really get it and have other priorities. The innovation around smart grid technology will come from outside of their industry and likely the consumers themselves. If a utility would send out a steady Internet signal letting people and machines know during every minute of the day when the best time is to run heavy electrical loads at home (say AC, dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer …) then the consumer can set up strategies for running those devices at low demand times reducing their bill AND reducing the peak load problems. Everyone wins. We just need need some entity to make that kind of information available on the Internet via web browser and or API calls. You get the idea. It ain’t that complicated. Folks would do it manually until they had cheap devices at home that could receive the digital info and automatically adjust when loads are run.

]]> By: Sherry Lowry http://tomparish.com/you-will-1993-att-commercial-of-promises-and-the-reality/comment-page-1#comment-270 Sherry Lowry Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:22:19 +0000 http://tomparish.com/?p=866#comment-270 Tom, what a provocative and well-thought out post! Great research also! So...now I'm wondering if our own Perdenales utility fiasco -- were it simply leveled and reinvented completely, could not become the first USA such complete redesign experience. It serves a huge, outlying and partly-rural population and they are all people who would welcome almost anything, I'm betting, beyond what they've had in the expensive (!!) Texas brand of "business as usual." If LBJ could get electricity to them in the first place, wouldn't it be something if they could be first on the block to get the benefits technology can now deliver early-adopters. Tom, what a provocative and well-thought out post!

Great research also!

So…now I’m wondering if our own Perdenales utility fiasco — were it simply leveled and reinvented completely, could not become the first USA such complete redesign experience.

It serves a huge, outlying and partly-rural population and they are all people who would welcome almost anything, I’m betting, beyond what they’ve had in the expensive (!!) Texas brand of “business as usual.”

If LBJ could get electricity to them in the first place, wouldn’t it be something if they could be first on the block to get the benefits technology can now deliver early-adopters.

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