Mass. Senate Passes Key Upgrades to Green Communities Act
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 | Leave a Comment
On April 5 the Massachusetts State Senate unanimously passed key energy legislation that advances the state’s efforts to lead the nation in the clean energy sector, as detailed by Janet Gail Besser’s blog for the New England Clean Energy Council.
I agree with Besser’s assertions that by acting overwhelmingly on S2214, An Act Relative to Competitively Priced Electricity in the Commonwealth, Bay State legislators have demonstrated their shared belief that the innovation economy is a critical tool for the region’s economic development and for the state’s job-creation efforts.
Passage by the Senate sends the bill to the State House of Representatives, where members will likely take up legislative debate in the coming weeks.
S2214 strengthens important tenets of the landmark Green Communities Act (GCA), which Governor Patrick signed into law in 2008 as nation-leading energy efficiency and clean technology legislation.
To date the GCA has provided hundreds of millions of dollars of net benefits to electric and gas ratepayers in Massachusetts, primarily through smart investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy. These investments have helped reduce energy waste and have lowered reliance on imported fossil fuels while promoting clean technology jobs.
Among the key provisions outlined in Besser’s blog, S2214 achieves the following:
- Preserves a framework for Massachusetts to enhance its nation-leading energy efficiency policy;
- Expands net metering opportunities, providing energy users with an incentive to install renewable generation and the ability to save on their energy costs;
- Opens net metering to anaerobic digestion, a renewable technology that reduces organic waste going to landfills, provides local economic development and reduces greenhouse gases;
- Extends and expands long-term contracting for renewable energy, reducing financing costs to developers and thereby reducing costs to energy customers; and
- Resolves property tax issues for solar projects, facilitating residential, commercial and industrial deployment of a technology whose costs are coming down.
I believe strongly that the Senate’s passage of S2214 is an important next step for our state. Do you agree?
Jay Staunton is Vice President, Account Services, at Greenough.
Trial by Twitter?
Thursday, March 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Image source: WSJ
According to a recent Pew Internet and American Life Project survey, approximately 66 percent of adult Internet users say that they utilize social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. And the evidence is everywhere. People are tweeting and posting from the sidelines of NFL games, NASCAR racecars, red carpet events, the bathroom (ew) and even delivery rooms. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that our social media addiction carries over into the courtroom.
I recently read Steve Eder’s Jury Files: The Temptation of Twitter on the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. Eder refers to a new study in the Duke Law & Technology Review where, he writes, “one juror responded to an information survey by saying ‘nothing’ could prevent her from communicating through social media during a trial.”
It is with darn good reason that courts are concerned about what trial participants (primarily jurors) might say on social media. Insider information could leak before details can be made public and biases (or even perceived biases) could be formed based on a tweet or post. Even benign social media updates could raise serious questions about whether the juror is discussing the case elsewhere and could call into question a juror’s judgment/ability to follow instructions.
Late last year, a Florida juror sent a friend request to the defendant of the trial he was involved in and he was dismissed from the jury. Sounds like a clever way to get dismissed the next time you’re called for jury duty, doesn’t it? Well this juror didn’t quit while he was ‘ahead.’ He posted this comment on his Facebook page in response: “Score…I got dismissed!! Apparently they frown upon sending a friend request to the defendant… ha ha.”
But the story doesn’t end there: His friend request, coupled with this remark, got the fool charged with criminal contempt of court and a three-day jail sentence.
While the potential impact of a juror accessing social media is huge, these seemingly small threats toward justice are difficult to detect. In a survey conducted by the Federal Judicial Center late last year, 79 percent of judges who responded said they had “no way of knowing whether jurors had violated a social-media ban.” Well, if judges don’t keep a firm handle on social media behavior during trials, you better believe that attorneys will be watching social networks like hawks, looking for even the slightest juror indiscretion that could open the floodgates to a mistrial, throwing out a conviction or an acquittal.
Before you think me hyperbolic, consider this: In 2010, the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed a death sentence in a murder trial because a juror was tweeting about the case during deliberations. In fact, the juror leaked the trial’s verdict before it was officially announced. Someone with the defense spotted the objectionable tweets.
At some point in the future, jurors may even be required to disclose their Twitter handle, Facebook page and other social media accounts as part of a “social dossier.” Until courts come up with a way to effectively manage the outbound (and inbound) streams of communication, lawyers are doing themselves a great disservice if they’re not deeply immersed in social media monitoring and staying on top of social media trends and developments.
Here at Greenough we recognize that lawyers want to be lawyers, not experts in social media monitoring, and that’s where we can help. Working together, we can ensure that no social media funny business will jeopardize the fate of a defendant…or the future of our legal system.
Anne Norris is a senior consultant, social media, at Greenough. Twitter: @anne_norris.
The Streaming War is on – Pass the Popcorn!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Gone are the days of going to the movie theater or renting a DVD especially now that Blockbuster has filed for bankruptcy. With the rise of Netflix and other companies that stream movies and television shows online, it makes it easier to watch new releases at home – and has subsequently started an online streaming war.
The New York Times recently reported that Netflix is the front runner in the online streaming world with its subscription service, Watch Instantly. With the ability to watch movies on a computer, television, iPad or iPhone, a whopping 61% of Netflix’s 15 million subscribers streamed movies in the second quarter.
The only downfall is that Netflix’s catalog of 20,000 steaming movies doesn’t include many recent hits because the company hasn’t been able to negotiate rights from all the Hollywood studios. Most of Netflix’s deals require the movie to be on store shelves for 28 days before it can be available on DVD or online.
Not having the most anticipated movies and television shows available to stream when they are released makes other options very tempting. For example, “Robin Hood,” is available to stream on Amazon, but will not be available on Netflix until mid October. The online video hub, Hulu, which recently launched the subscription service, Hulu Plus has the current season of “The Office,” while the most recent episodes on Netflix are from last season.
What side will you take in the streaming war? Will you stick with the leader, Netflix, or the up-and-comers who offer the most recent releases? I’m voting for the underdogs!
-Contributed by Jena Coletti. Follow her @jmcoletti.
Be Careful Where You Click
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment
There are endless reasons right now to dislike BP. The company will now always be known for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and its immense environmental costs, most of which have not yet been fully revealed.
In another Greenough blog post, Jennifer Eberline asks: Is it even possible to lead a strong communications strategy during a crisis like this? My answer to that question is: “not really.” Especially in the case of BP who is spending significant dollars buying up all of the “oil spill” terms on popular search engines like Google and Yahoo so users can “Stay Updated On BP's Gulf of Mexico Response Efforts.” See photo below, courtesy of the Mashable article, “BP Buys Top Google Result for “Oil Spill”.
Although the sponsored links are labeled as such, should BP have the privilege of giving anyone searching for information on this catastrophe its side of the story first? In my opinion, no! As someone who works in the PR industry, I can sympathize with how difficult a task it must be for their PR team to continually put out fires left in right – and there have been many. However, when clicking on the BP-sponsored “Oil Spill” link I find it insulting to watch Tony Hayward talk about how they have taken full responsibility for cleaning up the oil spill, let alone watching all the wholesome images of workers cleaning up the spill in their clean white shirts.
As one journalist said, “While it may take BP years, or even decades, to clean up the worst oil spill in U.S. history, the oil giant is wasting no time to attempt to clean up its tarnished image.”
When it comes to public image, what do you think (if anything) BP could do better? Would painting a more honest picture of the crisis (as Jennifer suggested) be enough, or should they tone down their PR efforts and lay low for awhile?
-Contributed by Chantal LeBoulch. Follow her @cleboulch
Is There Such Thing as a “Green-Hearted” Company?
Thursday, June 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment
The 2010 FIFA World Cup which kicked off in South Africa this past weekend, marked the first time in history in which many World Cup players sported sustainable jerseys as they proudly marched onto the fields for the much anticipated event. So which athletic apparel company came up with the idea for this bold marketing move? I’ll give you a hint: This company is very famous, it has four letters, and begins with “N”. You guessed it: Nike has done it again. The company’s marketing and PR gurus put their heads together, took the ever-so-relevant concept of sustainability, attached the Nike name to it and brought the idea to life at the most world’s biggest sporting event, The FIFA World Cup.
Nike, which is the sponsor of nine teams in the World Cup including the United States, designed and created the 100% recycled jerseys to be worn by these teams. Nike made the jerseys by intercepting at least 13 million plastic bottles that were headed to Japanese and Taiwanese landfills. These bottles were then melted down to create a type of fabric which was ultimately used to make the jerseys. This process reduced energy consumption by 30% compared to the process that is required to make traditional polyester clothing.
Nike was one of the first sporting companies to initiate efforts towards “greener” behavior. The company has a slew of green initiatives under its belt over the past 15 years, and this project is the latest example. On the one hand, there is no denying that Nike’s latest green project is a positive action towards environmental sustainability. However, the question is, how many people will view Nike’s efforts as a good step in the right direction, and how many people will view the efforts as just a publicity stunt and a way for Nike to gain some positive exposure and praise?
An article that appeared in the New York Times talked about this very topic, discussing Nike’s recent sustainability efforts at the World Cup, as well as sustainable initiatives other companies are making. The article explored the idea that for companies, sustainability is not only good PR, and a way to appear socially responsible, but actually a way to save a significant amount of money. According to the article, Wal-Mart saved more than $100 million in 2009 due to a switch to more sustainable cardboard for shipping purposes; Wal-Mart admitted that the sole reason for the switch was to save the company money.
This brings up an interesting point: do companies REALLY care about sustainability? Or do any and all efforts encompass ulterior motives? Most people, including myself, would probably take a more cynical view believing that big companies such as Nike could care less about being environmentally friendly. These companies only do what is beneficial to them, and any efforts that seem socially responsible at first glance actually help the company in significant ways which are not apparent to the public eye. However, it is also my feeling that you could debate relentlessly about companies’ sustainability efforts and where their true intentions lie and come to no agreement or resolution. But when it comes down to it, does it even matter? There’s no doubt in my mind that Nike marketing execs sat around and discussed how great this initiative would be for the company from a PR standpoint. And, I’m sure there are plenty of other advantages this project is providing for the company that we’ll never be privy to. However, at the end of the day, a sustainable initiative such as Nike’s recycled World Cup jerseys is, simply put, a good thing. By intercepting these 13 million plastic bottles, close to 560,000 pounds of polyester waste was spared from going into landfills – not to mention the amount of energy that was conserved during the manufacturing process, or the benefits associated with intercepting the plastic bottles in the first place.
Sure, a best case scenario would be that every individual and every company big and small pulls together and advocates for sustainable behavior, with the very best intentions at hand. However, this is a far from perfect world and I think most people know that this idealized solution is simply not feasible. So at this point, we’ve got to take what we can get. If a company such as Nike is willing to initiate sustainable efforts – even with a hidden agenda in mind - then great, we’ll take it. It’s coming to a point where we almost don’t have a choice. It’s a waste of our time and energy to argue intentions behind an effort like this one. Instead, why not give Nike a little bit of credit? Let’s encourage them and other companies to continue initiating these types of efforts and really step it up when it comes to sustainability.
-Contributed by Jessica Boardman. Follow her @jboards
The Check isn’t in the Mail
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I’m a packrat by nature. Hesitant to throw things away because I think one day I might need them. Especially when it comes to paystubs, bills, statements, etc. And I know I’m not alone.
Unlike the urge to cling to your acid wash jeans until they make a comeback, there’s no need to stockpile every shred of your financial paperwork and continue sending and receiving paper payments and statements.
The notion of going paperless makes some people uneasy and leaves them questioning safety and data accessibility. The reality is that a large portion of the kinds of security breaches that we worry about stem from offline incidents like the theft or loss of a check or checkbook. And come tax time, you don’t have sift through piles of financial paperwork. Since electronic records carry the same legal standing as paper records, you don’t need to keep a paper trail; your account statement is considered proof of payment.
Ultimately, paperless banking and payments can save you time, effort and money in addition to being an efficient and secure way to track your finances electronically.
One of the most recent paper abdicators is none other than Uncle Sam. Government payments like Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, and U.S. government benefits, among others, will soon be paperless. This week, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that all government payments to consumers (excluding those made by the IRS) will made electronically – either through direct deposit into a bank account or via Treasury’s Direct Express debit card.
The switch will take place over the next three years and is estimated to save more than $300 million in the first five years and over $120 million per year subsequently. Additionally, the new payment approach will cut about $48 million in government postage costs.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the federal government’s move will convince consumers to kick the paper habit once and for all. And finally, was the government just late to the game or could this switch ripple through the business community, prompted even more paperless preaching? We'll wait for the buzz.
To gauge the impact of your personal finance paper trail, visit PayItGreen’s Paper Financial Footprint Calculator: http://payitgreen.org/consumer/calculator.aspx
-Contributed by Anne Norris. Follow her @anne_norris
Choose Your Own Context
Monday, March 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment
What does the remix culture mean for business storytelling?
Last week, Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times wrote an insightful and thought-provoking commentary on how the “mash-up culture” of our increasingly digital age affects how we consume texts. I urge you to make time to read Kakutani’s piece, “Texts Without Context,” in full.
First, it’s well worth it. And second, part of Kakutani’s commentary is that our reading habits and attention spans have changed. Take her piece as a challenge; see how many times you’re tempted to look away, to open a new tab in your browser, to go back to whatever task was the previous victim of you short attention span (this blog post, perhaps).
The piece starts with a short review of David Shields’s book “Reality Hunger: A Manifesto,” which Shields created in its entirety by splicing together quotations from other works. You can read an excerpt here. But Kakutani’s commentary doesn’t dwell on written texts. It envelopes examples from literature to technology (e.g. Twitter, Google Wave) to reality TV (Jon & Kate Plus Eight, Jersey Shore) to art (a 3-D rendering of Picasso’s Guernica on YouTube), music and video games.
Interestingly, the UK’s The Guardian recently asked, “[Is it] time for a press award for crowdsourced journalism?
What is the result of this copy-paste-collaborate-remix culture on storytelling? To some degree, we’re already recommending this approach to clients when we suggest blogs or Twitter accounts with multiple contributors. But the cultural shift is not only about a new way of creating content; it also reflects a new way of consuming content. A consumer might read an executive’s short statement in one place, jump over to read a tweet or two, scan an outsider’s comment on the company blog and then skim the list of headlines on the company’s press releases Web page.
If content consumption has become like a choose-your-own-adventure novel, what’s the best approach to telling a business story? Do we jump on the remix wave and become ourselves collectors and splicers, combining customer quotes, reviews, etc? Do we feed the short attention spans of consumers by providing tiny morsels of the story in different places? Do we try to keep telling the story at all, or let consumers tell our story in whatever form bubbles up from the collective?
Let us know your thoughts. But first, go read Kakutani’s article. All of it. Trust me, it will be good for you.
Contributed by @c_morgan
NCAA vs. Productivity: How the Tournament Puts Corporate Culture to the Test
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment
It’s my favorite time of year again: March Madness. Each year, leading up to the NCAA tournament at the end of March, I begin signing up for various brackets and waging war against friends from “other” ACC conference schools, like
Initially, I thought only the most ardent NCAA fans were glued to sites like espn.com and cbssports.com for live-streaming games, but after reading some recent articles productivity and March Madness it looks like a much larger percentage of us are having trouble staying on task. According to a piece in the Boston Globe, this year experts are estimating that the total lost productivity, as a direct result of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, will reach roughly $1.8 billion.
Therefore, most companies are already planning to have workers wasting a portion of their day with other tasks – many of which probably involve online shopping or social media. I’m not about to try to track every productivity stat on the Web, but what I thought might be helpful and give us at least an idea of the magnitude of avid NCAA tourney followers.
Again, it’s an imperfect science, but I thought a good place to start would be to identify which sites have some of the best brackets and live-streaming videos, then work from there. Taking this into consideration I chose to focus on espn.com, cbssports.com, ncaa.com, nbcsports.com and foxsports.com. After plugging these sites on www.compete.com, a Web analytics tool, and looking at the unique visitors (that’s individuals visiting each site) per month, I noticed that there was a considerable spike in site visits during late March 2009 – up considerably from 2008.
Judging strictly by this spike in Web traffic, FoxSports had over 9.9 million unique visitors (UVs) in March 2009, compared to 6.8 million in March 2008 (according to Compete.com). In fact, compared to last year, every single one of these sports sites increased the number of online visitors, the most impressive spike coming from CBS Sports, which went from just over 230,000 UVs in March 2008 to a whopping 8.4 million in March ‘09.
How does this factor into productivity then? Judging by the spike in traffic for these respective sites each March – and continued growth in the volume of visitors during this period – you could assume that there have to be more people checking these sites during work hours. There’s a lot of speculation here and, even though the jumps in site visits are substantial, it’s extremely difficult to say what percentage are college-aged kids, retirees, current employees, etc.
Yes, we can speculate about lost productivity and the cost to companies, but the truth is what’s the point? It’s clear that reliable stats for the March Madness/productivity discussion are hard to come by and many companies, the smart ones anyway, should understand that workers are going to take breaks and waste time doing non-work-related activities each day. It’s a fact.
So, as the games get underway on Thursday, companies shouldn’t fixate on lost revenues and time wated, but take the opportunity to bond with fellow coworkers and use the competitive spirit of the tournament to boost morale. After all, how many of you reading this now can honestly say you aren’t part of at least one online bracket or highlight? Point taken.
-Contributed by: Gretchen Doores Follower her on Twitter: @canadiangal84
Banishing the Blogger Backlash
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 | 1 Comment
Earlier this week, New York City passed a law recognizing what most of us in the media industry already know—bloggers are journalists too. Until Mayor Bloomberg announced the new rules on March 2nd, access to city hall press conferences and similar events sponsored by the city were restricted to members of traditional media only. According to Norman Siegel, an attorney who filed the lawsuit resulting in the ruling on behalf of several bloggers; "Online journalists will now be considered as 21st century journalists and be treated equally to print, television and radio journalists."
Reading MediaBistro’s article on the news, I couldn’t help but wonder what took the Big Apple so long? The days when the majority of Americans turned to traditional platforms for breaking news updates are long gone. With the proliferation of smartphones and other devices, we’ve become increasingly reliant on non-conventional sources for the most up-to-date information. In fact, according to a new report out this week from Pew Research, 92 percent of Americans get their news from a combination of platforms, including traditional print, mobile and online. Only seven percent of those surveyed reported getting their news from a single platform, and those respondents pinpointed the Web or local TV news as their go-to source for information.
The Pew report further found that Americans view consuming the news as a social process; 75 percent of people who reported accessing their news online read it via an e-mail forward or post on a social network site, and 52 percent shared links with their social networks via email, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. For those of us in the industry, this finding too should come as no surprise. We know that a blog comment or retweet from an industry influencer can be just as compelling as a feature article in a traditional print publication. In many cases, the ROI resulting from coverage in a social media channel is more actionable, as it can be traced in real-time throughout the duration of its relevancy.
So, while New York’s City Hall is admittedly a bit late in their recognition of the bloggers’ legitimacy, the announcement is nonetheless an industry milestone. By granting non-traditional journalists the same access afforded to members of conventional media, the ruling enables New Yorkers to receive their news via the preferred combination of platforms. As the media industry continues to undergo rapid changes, I’m betting we’ll see other government institutions and organizations alike follow New York’s lead and banish the blogger backlash.
–Contributed by Kate Finigan. Follow her @PRKateFin
Social Media Not So Sweet
Friday, February 26, 2010 | 1 Comment
This time of year, it’s hard to walk two steps without bumping into an eager group of Girl Scouts selling their delicious cookies. Even if you bring your own lunch to work, it’s inevitable that a box (or 15) will creep into the office at the start of Spring. What started over 80 years ago in the personal kitchens and ovens of the members has since evolved from the traditional door-to-door promotion of the cookies to now include viral campaigns and online marketing techniques.
This year, not only are the Girl Scouts on every street corner, but their national organization, Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), is turning to social media sites, such as Twitter, Myspace, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube, to help gain exposure for the organization and with the hopes of increasing cookies sales (which were shockingly down in 2009).
This is a relatively new form of interacting for the scouts, and while the organization is embracing these techniques, individual scouts are prohibited from doing so. In fact, during last year’s cookie season, there was a huge controversy when one of the Girl Scouts tried selling the cookies online. To read about this, check out the New York Times article, “Girl Scouts Battle With One of Their Own.”
Since then, marketing cookies via e-mail has been given the thumbs up by the organization; however the use of other social platforms has been prohibited. To me, this seems contradictory. On one hand, the Girl Scouts Organization Is Going 'Viral', engaging with their community and creating an online voice. On the other, they're not allowing individual Girl Scouts to use social media. It seems to me that any organization that prides itself on teaching young women valuable life skills would recognize the value of teaching girls to email and use online tools.
I wonder if the social media initiatives that the organization is embracing this year, such as the YouTube video "What Can a Cookie Do?” (viewed 39, 235 since January 19th), will help the company increase sales this year. If these initiatives are successful, maybe the organization will re-evaluate. What do you think? Should individual Girl Scouts be allowed to embrace social media initiatives like the rest of the world?
- Contributed by Chantal LeBoulch. Follow her @cleboulch
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