Nanosolar

My oldest son has been subscribing to Popular Science for years. When he was in high school I heard about the latest technologies third hand; the magazine disappeared into his room as soon as it arrived. I never got to read for myself about solo powered air flight, electric cars, and nanorobots. Now that he is off to college I get to read it myself. It is like reading a science fiction novel but it’s real: New gizmos and gadgets that would make the Jetsons take notice.

One perennial topic is solar power. Now I’ve been watching the development of solar panel for years, at least since I was in high school myself and clipped a solar cell to a bulb from a flash light and got a dim glow. The past few years have been particularly interesting. Several months ago I was invited by one of the investment banks on Wall Street to hear from the entrepreneurs on the cutting edge of this promising technology. They talked about new breakthroughs in materials science and design, but all delivered essentially the same message: We can produce power from the inexhaustible rays of the sun, but it will be many years before the cost of solar power is competitive with electricity from conventional sources. Translation: Give us some more investment tax credits and give our customers some tax incentives and we can do more.

So nowadays when I see a story about solar power I usually yawn. That is, until a couple days ago. A story in the Sunday New York Times caught my eye: “Start-Up Sells Solar Panels At Lower-Than-Usual Cost.” Now I’ve heard this claim before so I scanned the article quickly with the intent of going on to something else. That is, until I saw the “Lower-Than-Usual Cost”: $1 per watt. Whoa, I said to myself. That’s cheaper than a new coal plant!

It appears that a new company in California called Nanosolar has been launched with backing by some Silicon Valley sponsors including some of Google’s co-founders, according to the story. The company has built a factory which, it says, prints photovoltaic material on aluminum backing, reducing the cost of solar panels by more than 80%. In other words, with this technology solar power can produce cost effective energy for the first time since Prometheus stole fire from the hearth of Zeus. (Let’s face it, can’t get it much cheaper than stealing it – not a good thing, mind you, but it sure beat freezing in those long nights on Mt. Olympus.)

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Nanosolar’s new idea. It has the power to truly change the world. Sure, solar power cannot supply all of our power needs, unless we all plan to move to the Mojave Desert and go to sleep each night at dusk. But imagine if solar were efficient a mere 10% of the time. That would be enough to provide all the electricity we need to grow for years, certainly until new nuclear power plants are designed and developed. In the meantime, it could reduce our current dependence upon fossil fuels, thereby reducing harmful carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas fired generators and sulphur dioxide emissions from fuel oil and coal plants.

I used to like science fiction as a kid. Jules Verne’s “Trip to the Moon” was fiction until it became a reality. Isaac Asimov’s robots were fantasy until they appeared on the General Motors assembly line. The Jetson Family’s solar powered home was a cartoon…until Nanosolar. As one who lives and breathes energy on a daily basis, I feel like a guy riding on horseback when Gottlieb Daimler passed in his automobile, lurching and backfiring over the rutted road.

Now if I could only get my hands on one of those solo powered aircrafts.

Customer Care from the New York Times

I was rummaging around in my brief case for a pen when I pulled out a yellowing article from the New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/opinion/27friedman.html I had clipped it several months ago on a business trip. I intended to send it to our Customer Service Teams in Maryland and Florida. It was written by Thomas Friedman for the Times’ Op-Ed page. I had forgotten to write the date on the clip so I can’t be sure when it appeared but hopefully it was over the last year or else it means I haven’t cleaned out my brief case in quite a while!

Mr. Friedman is an astute commentator on everything from Middle East politics to globalization. In this story he recounted standing in line a couple years earlier at Boston’s Logan airport. He was buying a newspaper when suddenly a woman stepped in front of him and insisted that she be served first. He was incensed, but then woman turned to him and said, “I know who you are,” and so he backed off.

“If that happened today,” he wrote, “I would have had a very different reaction. I would have said: “Miss, I’m so sorry. I am entirely in the wrong. Please, go ahead. And can I buy your magazines for you? May I buy your lunch? Can I shine yours shoes?”

Why did Mr. Friedman say he would have been so eager to please the woman? Because today the woman might have whipped out a cell phone from her purse and, when he was protesting her rudeness, filmed the entire episode and posted the clip on YouTube!

Mr. Friedman – always with an eye to the global implications of everyday events – points out that in a world with instantaneous communications, we are all constantly on stage. Our attitude, demeanor, mood and tone of voice is not ephemeral as in the past. Rather, everything we do could become a permanent part of the collective consciousness. And while sometimes the global archive might be accurate, just as often the behavior that we take for granted can suddenly appear in a sinister and unflattering light.

This is important insight for every company in a customer service business. I am delighted to report that when customers call me directly, they may have complaints but they almost never tell me that our agents were rude or abrupt. That is because we train and coach our customers to “speak with a smile.” Believe it or not, you can “hear” a smile over the phone. Courtesy is not only good business practice. It’s also playing defense. After all, suppose the call is recorded?

Emails raise a similar risk. Say something nasty and write in capitals – i.e., shout – and the email may end up forwarded to a million readers by the end of the day. My personal hangup is typos. Write to somebody: “Yank you tor your bery nice Christmas tift” and you sound like you’re drunk and out of your mind.

Fortunately my blogs have a limited shelf life and are forgotten as soon as they are read….or are they??