Time Magazine: Michael Dell on green

Michael Dell is the opening Q&A in this week’s issue of Time. The theme:

In the past year, though, rivals have gained on him. So this year he’s going for a green advantage: he wants to erase some of the environmental cost of running computers by offering a way to neutralize the carbon dioxide emitted by a PC.

Assuming there is more to the story for Dell, they could have used this opportunity to lay out a clear plan of what they are doing internally, not only that they are giving consumers a chance to spend more to offset the environmental impact of their purchase. Coming at this with a critical eye, it’s similar to if an auto company looking to sell more SUVs says, “hey, we’re not doing anything to make our SUVs more efficient, but don’t worry, you can buy a carbon credit and that will be enough to clear your conscious and then we (auto company) don’t actually have to do anything on our end to improve.” To give them credit, Dell does mention an energy calculator for consumers but I just typed it in on their home page and nothing relevant popped up in the first search results.

My point – Dell must have more to their green story and they could have spelled it out in a few bullets. Is Dell changing the amount and type of material used in production and packaging, do they have a consumer awareness program educating the public about ways to save money and energy using a Dell PC, are they increasing X percent of R&D for energy efficient design, have they developed any breakthroughs that serve as a best practice for the industry? Consumers would probably like to know this stuff, and after following the lead of GE Ecoimagination and now companies like Wal-Mart, investors may also respond well to a computer companies green roadmap.

Maybe the problem is that everyone is so quick to jump on any big company when they come out with a green story. It’s never enough for a lot of people. Instead of rewarding them, we bring out our critical eyes. As I just did. Incremental progress is progress. More trees are great. And a company the size of Dell can probably plant a whole lot of trees. But we need to be tough on people so that the improvements get bigger. Leaders recognize accomplishments while continuing to push people to their potential. Maybe that’s where we are. Recognize, reward and keep pushing.

The PR side of this. If you have a story, be honest and tell the whole story (or as much as you can recognizing the needs of your shareholders). Here’s where we are, here’s where we can improve and here’s where we’re going. People are going to be critical. Don’t leave gaps for questions. Considering Dell had less than half of a page for this, he did a good job. But I still have questions.

WorldChanging and communications

It’s my holiday vacation and I’m trying to dig into some of the latest green reading. I’m on page 24 of what I hope to be a great new book summarizing, “the most innovative solutions, ideas and inventions emerging today for building a sustainable, livable, prosperous future.” It’s called Worldchanging: A Users Guide for the 21st Century.

One thing has already stuck with me, as it is a nice way of describing what got me thinking about the role communications needs to play in bringing clean technology to the mainstream. It’s WorldChanging’s central premise for its book, summarized in four ideas:

1. We need better tools, models, and ideas for changing the world. Luckily more are being created every day.
2. The more people know about these tools, models and ideas, the better their own ideas will get, and the more ideas will become available.
3. Anyone can join the conversation, and the more people do join, the better it gets.
4. The better the conversation gets, and the more people use the tools, the more exciting the adventure becomes, and the more likely its success.

If you understand PR, bells should be ringing. How do you get the conversation going? How do you put current products and ideas in the hands of the right people to drive the adoption required to get better products, more ideas and new solutions? We have an important role to play in each of WorldChanging’s 4 ideas. And it appears that the industry is in its infancy with its approach to communications. This is understandable given the climate: solar companies can’t keep up with demand b/c of current silicon shortages, and then you bring in the ups and downs of legislation and subsidies; ethanol and alternative fuels are hot one day and in the garbage the next; wind farms are praised in places and shut down in others, etc. Add to this the immense confusion generated by the constant flow of new entrants into this industry (VCs from the tech industry with little energy background, entrepreneurs from the same, PR and marketing people ditto), and you get a PR environment of mediocrity.

The opportunity for companies to take leadership roles and move past the confusion of today is where the excitement is. What happens when silicon supply catches up with demand? The companies that sat idle b/c they were too busy keeping up with day-to-day demand run the risk of being left in the dust by the few companies and people that built their brands, educated their audiences and took a leadership role in getting the conversation going.

There is a lesson in building and paying attention to a community. It supports all of the 4 ideas above. If you look at companies like eBay, Amazon, Yahoo and Google, all of them have in some way embraced an outside community for innovation. Many of them have opened up their technology platforms to allow outsiders like you and me (although probably more tech savvy than me) to build things that can then improve the experience for their communities; i.e. tools/services that help people buy and sell on eBay or search on Google. There are hundreds of blogs discussing how these communities grow. The interesting part for me is how we can provide the right forums to ignite and grow a more mainstream community interaction around clean tech related concepts. Everyone in the sustainable and clean tech industries can only gain by more people getting involved. Clean tech is, from what I’ve observed in a short amount of time, a growing but still tight knit community. Let’s use smart PR to open it up.