In last month’s blog, I discussed the wide gap between words and deeds among Colorado energy companies on the issue of stakeholder engagement, and how that disparity finally caught up with them in last year’s election. Sooner or later, I believe that same tendency to favor talk over action will hit providers of electricity. I’m talking about the critical role … Read More
Value or Price? Yes! It’s been an extremely rainy 2023 here in Denver: In the first six months of this year, we got more rain than we typically get in an average year. When I speak to my friends from the Pacific Northwest, I tell them we have had their weather and we’d like to send it back. It’s been … Read More
I’ve always loved the saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” I first heard it 20 years ago, in business school. Since then, I’ve been able to personally experience the truth of that statement, and I have spoken to innumerable people who have similarly experienced culture’s bite. Whether it’s a leadership change, a reorganization, a merger, a shift in strategy or … Read More
Last month’s blog post asked whether your utility could be headed for a culture-based disaster. To help you answer that question, we proposed a simple and easy, albeit qualitative, diagnostic tool: is there a gap between what your utility says about customers, and what it does? Most utilities “talk the talk” about customers, stakeholder engagement, transparency, the importance of communications, … Read More
Who are you writing for? Successful writers start by thinking about their audience. Stephen King doesn’t write for the same audience that reads Jodi Picoult or Philippa Gregory. That’s not a dis on any of those oft-published, fabulously successful fiction writers. But it is a restatement of the First Commandment of Writing: Know thy audience! In my experience, that commandment … Read More
As more of us shift from remote work to hybrid work schedules or even a full-on return to the office full time, it may take us a while to fully reconnect with colleagues — or even connect with new ones who were hired during the COVID-19 pandemic but whom you have not yet met face to face. Maybe there’s … Read More
Roughly 60% of subscribers to EEC Perspectives are women, and many of them are in a relatively early stage of their careers. For that reason, we asked three women at NorthWestern Energy to share their views on skill sets and career paths in communications and marketing within a utility, internships, innovative approaches to organizational design, and communicating during a pandemic. … Read More
Employee engagement continues to be a high-interest topic among our readers. As a more contagious and deadly variant of COVID-19 emerges, utilities and energy companies are trying to decide when office workers will return to the office, and under what conditions. What work policies need to be updated? How shall we perform work going forward? Will our organizational culture help, … Read More
When developing content to market customer programs, there are several options for energy company marketers and communicators. One approach is straightforward, fact-based and quantitative: “You will save about $250 per year if you enroll in this program.” Another is the lifestyle pitch: “You can shift your energy use to off-peak periods of the day and you won’t even notice it.” … Read More
Millennials are not easily frightened. When stumped by a question or assigned a task they don’t know how to perform, they Google it. I am sure members of the Boomer, Gen X or Gen Y generations would have done the same thing, had Google existed in those far-off days. Members of those generations tended to learn by doing (unless you’re … Read More
