Robert Paterson's Weblog

What would telecommuting save?

If the 40% of employees who could work from home did so half of the time (approximately the national average) it would reduce Gulf Oil dependence by almost 60% and save Americans $40 billion at the pumps (http://undress4success.com/research)

Another source I rely on is The Oil Drum - this is a headline from a comprehensive article on the value and also the barriers to Telecommuting.

This tells me that if most of the Provincial and Federal Employees on PEI telecommuted - we too on PEI may cut our imports by about 60%. It also puts big money back into the pockets of Islanders.

The barriers are essentially cultural - this is surely a large enough win to learn how to manage by outcome? This is surely a large enough win to learn how to set people up back in their communities - what about schools, Access PEI offices, Community Centres, Tourism Offices?

If we heated with wood and telecommuted much of the pain and financial drain would go away.  If we heated with wood and we telecommuted, community would return and so would many jobs.

Wood vs Oil - a Sutainable Heating Future for Atlantic Canada

Roy MacMullin is one of the people I follow - He brings deep understanding and knowledge to the practical aspects of what confronts us on the energy front.

In this important article he makes the case that with the decline of logging and paper, that Atlantic Canada has the wood supply to support all the regions heating needs. Even better he shows how, by keeping the money in the region and by creating a major business in this field builds our wealth as we contain all the money inside our own realm:

80% of homes in PEI, 25% in New Brunswick and roughly 65% of Nova Scotia use oil as the heat source. Approximately 1.3 billion liters of fuel oil are burned each year in Atlantic Canada. At last years price of 91 cents, that was $1.2 billion. At present day prices of $1.43 / liter, the new bill is $1.86 billion, a difference of $660 million. Next year, who knows? If families locked in a good price last fall, the sticker shock will only hit them later this year

To put our oil refugee’s plight into perspective, 1.3 billion liters of fuel oil is equivalent to 11.5 billion kWh’s or 11 times the annual usage of Saint John Energy. It is 61% of the output of NB Power’s system. The peak that it would create on the Atlantic grid would be 2500 MW or more, which is equivalent to four new Lepreau 1 units or 2.5 units of the new AECL 1000.

Looking at a wood alternative, we would have to cut 2.8 million cords of wood to replace this volume of oil. To compare, the existing residential usage of hardwood in New Brunswick is roughly 500,000 cords each year.

Using wood as a solution requires an additional 332 thousand cords to be harvested annually to displace the New Brunswick fuel oil requirement. This shouldn’t be a problem with mills shutting down. Pellets and briquettes can use softwood that is compressed to provide the same heat density of hardwood, with less moisture content.

Wood heat could very quickly meet the requirements of a conversion program. The reduction of oil purchases of 943,000 barrels would retain $137 million a year in the New Brunswick economy as opposed to sending it offshore. Over the years, this would be the equivalent of investing over a billion dollars in the local economy. If Efficiency NB extended their offer of $2,250 to oil heat customers converting to wood, it would go a long way toward alleviating the problems of oil prices. The cost of the providing stoves would be $135 million (60,000 x $2,250), probably spent over a number of years.

The use of EPA rated stoves ensures an efficiency of 70% and emissions that are less than 10% of previous generation stoves. In urban areas, the use of pellet or briquettes may have to be mandatory with round wood as a rural option.

We are at the beginning of an emergency, perhaps a low intensity war. This change from low cost energy to high cost energy will sap our resources, leave us poor and eventually cold. If we fail to adapt to the heating oil challenge as well as the other aspects of peak oil, we lose. Do you see the leadership that we need to ensure that we don’t freeze in the dark?

As we struggle to find our way in a world we cannot control - this is more than a ray of hope.

Sub Prime - Now Prime

It's not over yet - get ready for the Prime Crisis (David Hirst - The Age)

Now, as subprime fades, the prime mortgages come into play and they will extinguish subprime's significance. From $US300,000 homes, we move into the $US1 million range, now worth perhaps half that and falling. That is the cause of Dimon's grief and warning.

A defection from prime to foreclosure has begun and JPMorgan's books show the trend. Dimon and others clearly fear that this will be the driving force behind balance sheets of financial institutions in the US and the world for years to come.

As last week's run on the now bankrupt IndyMac so graphically illustrated, Alt-A is the mortgage class to watch next. This, the class between subprime and top prime, triple A, is now showing all the hallmarks of a rerun of the subprime debacle. IndyMac distinguished itself as an Alt-A provider. By early next year, we will see subprime fading from the charts only to be replaced by Alt-A foreclosures.

As we begin act three, as nervous fingers reach to the hot stove to remove the pudding, we will find the proof. That is just part of the climax. If we concur — and I do — with Bridgewater Associates' statement that subprime will soon be behind us, we must now attempt the near- impossible task of determining what is in the remaining mix.

Dimon is almost desperately signalling that Alt-A is not the only cause of coming pain by saying even prime mortgages will see significant deterioration.

As observers digested his comments over the weekend, they began looking at other classes that have shown evidence of falsification and exuberance that were evident on the upswing.

The obvious classes are commercial real estate, as mentioned, construction loans, leveraged loans, credit card and car debt, high-yield corporate debt and emerging market sovereign debt.

All this to the backdrop of scarce political leadership, the twin problems of war and oil in the Middle East and a mood on Wall Street best summed up in an email I received at the weekend from a senior staffer at one of the majors who, of his office, quoted Stalin's line: "It takes great courage to be a coward in the Red Army."

But the daddy of all the problems is still housing.

Until we see that illusive bottom, all talk about recovery and catastrophe is but talk.

So the show just must go on. It could be a very long third act indeed.

Follow us at KETC tonight on the mortgage crisis on Twitter

Tonight KETC will run an hour show on how communities are reacting to the ripple effect of the mortgage crisis. You can follow the show on Twitter @ketc

We will have the video on YouTube on Wednesday

BPP - Who wants to live forever

BPP - The Show Must Go On!

Gaming - A model for Pub Media - Shift the power

As the Curmudgeons push back, as NPR cancels BPP as MPR lays people off, as station leaders look at the numbers with fear, the need to nail the new business model becomes extreme.

So let's remind ourselves - we know that the model is. The model has been proved. The model is not up for debate anymore.

So the real barrier is organizational. The real barrier is cultural. We don't know how to get there and the power of the old, our inertia holds us back.

In this post - I will spell out again the model, a model that has been proved. I will then spell out a second model of adoption that is also well established. It is the model of the founding of America itself and it is a model that I have lived through as I was part of the shift in banking to investment banking.

Diane Mermigas reminds us that we know the model for the new - we see it delivered very successfully in gaming:

The video game industry’s new initiatives work because they understand and embrace many of the growth catalysts of the new digital marketplace: User-generated content, social networking, viral marketing, globalization and value-added engagement. It owes its creative vibrancy to its constituent gaming communities that increasingly utilize development kits that inspire pro-am gaming and publisher upgrades. Video game software publishers don’t just monetize their target consumers–they learn from them, and make then an integral part of the creation process.

Industry analysts and zealots were understandably dismayed when the recent annual E3 video game conference rendered no “game changing” software. While diversity of titles and playing experiences is key, the video game software publishers enjoy an easy, cost-effective, enterprising production formula that other media and entertainment players may not be able to immediately emulate.

The co-op and online game play that is increasingly incorporated into all genres to extend the life of new releases and generate new revenue streams are endemic to the video game model and its unique consumer relationship.

Not a surprise is it? New Realities informed us back in 2006 that this was the way - we know the model. How far are you in going here? Not far. What is the chance that you might be there in 2-3 years? I see no sign of more than a handful of stations getting there. What is the price of not getting there? Oblivion I fear. Do you see this too? I think you do.

So you know where to go. You know how important it is. You know the price is death if you don't. You know that time is short.

SO WHY AREN'T WE GOING THERE.

The issue is I think POWER.

The Curmudgeons want nothing to do with any of this. They rule. They control the conversation and the decisions in the stations and in the producer - funder community. The job I think now is to shift the organizational power to people who really live the new.

First of all a reality check - how many people do you have in your organization are 2.0 natives? One? Two. Even in NPR there cannot be more than maybe 10. How many in PBS or CPB? One - Two?

How can you take an organization to the 2.0 world which is an entirely new way of seeing the world if you have no natives? It's like the early colonists - without the natives helping you, you are going to starve. A way of seeing what to do is to recall how America was settled - this is the time honored process for adoption.

So Job One - get more natives. If you can't hire them - then do what WOSU have done, as did the early colonists - reach out to the bloggers in your city and ask for their help. WOSU now have a large group of committed bloggers working with them - they are now part of a large and vibrant community in Columbus that can and will help them make the move to a 2.0 world. They are finding out that these people are not "wild" but valuable.

Job Two - get natives on the payroll - How can you take the organization to the new if you have no one who lives in that world on the payroll? You have to have people in the organization with formal roles that can propose and defend the new. Andy Carvin's hiring was a catalytic event for NPR. But NPR needs lots of Andy's as do all stations. Where are the Andy's in CPB and PBS. When I say Andy I mean a person who not only knows what is going on but is seen in the wider community as a player. Not enough to have a person who can put up a wordpress site - you have to have someone who when they speak, the community listens.

Job Three - get help - Get a Terry Heaton, a Jeff Jarvis - even someone like me - to come in now and then and support the new. Have your Mountain Men or Guides. Have people from the outside who have lived this life speak from Truth and Power at your table - use them to support you in your internal struggle to shift power. Use projects to make all of this real - so that many can experience the new. I see this like a wagon train - most of the organization start in St Louis as Europeans or Eastern Farmers. They have to cross the continent with guides. In so doing, they become pioneers.

Job Four - Give a Key Person the Power Seat at the Table - Who was there to defend BPP? No one. The CEO does not count. The Organization has to have a top person whose job it is to get the job done. The Mission to get to the new has to be the Primary Mission. It has to get the resources to get there.

Getting to the new is not a sideshow. It is the show.Now you are building the transcontinental railway that will take millions with you to the new frontier.

What kind of person do you need for this kind of job? I think here of General Groves (Wikipedia) who built the Pentagon and then ran the Manhattan Project. Groves was not a scientist but by God could he get things done and few would have the courage to face him. His job was not an academic experiment - his job was to build a bomb that could be used in no time at all.

Though his conservative, rigid temperament and cold, blunt manner alienated some of the scientists he worked with, he also (against the advice of everyone he consulted) took the risky step of putting J. Robert Oppenheimer (a leftist intellectual and Groves' opposite in almost everything) in charge of Los Alamos, where the bomb was designed and assembled, trusting in the physicist's abilities. Groves' choice proved inspired, for Oppenheimer's brilliant, charismatic leadership was decisive in creating workable designs and getting them transformed into usable bombs.

Groves' greatest contribution to the Manhattan Project was in imparting his own driving energy and determination to get the bomb built as quickly as possible. He was the key leader in transforming what had been a slow paced, poorly coordinated, theoretical and laboratory research effort of a few universities into a fast moving, highly articulated, truly massive juggernaut involving thousands of scientists, engineers, technicians, workmen, and soldiers, as well as hundreds of companies and governmental organizations, spread all over the United States and the world.

Your person at the table does not have to be a Native - his/her job is political. They have to command respect and get the job done. When CIBC, had to make the cultural shift to Investment banking, this step was the breakthrough. We had to have this capability from a zero base in less than 5 years. At CIBC, this person was Paul Cantor. Paul was a lawyer. But no one was going to fool with Paul and Paul understood his brief. Like Groves and Oppenheimer, Paul surrounded himself with Natives of the Investment Banking world.

Paul and General Groves natural power was enhanced by having THE MISSION. In CIBC's case, the board had made it clear that CIBC had to go there. Groves had the unlimited support of his president. All doubters and curmudgeons knew that.

Like Groves, this person has the Mission - to make your organization viable in the 2.0 world in 3 years time. If you are not there in 2011, I think you are going to die for sure. This is the main mission. This is Mission #1

If you have not made this mission your #1 mission - then why not? If not what is? If not what are you doing with your board?

What are you doing with your board. Many have told me that their boards don't get it. Whose job is it then to help them get it? Are they going to get it on their own? Of course not - this is your work.

Job Five - All else is subordinate!!!! What about the old where you now make all your money? Isn't this important? Many tell me that they have to starve the new because if they took their focus off the old for a moment they would die. This then gets translated into - we have to starve the new to keep the old going. Now you read these words - don't they sound odd?

How much time do you have? Does not the story of newspapers tell us that fudging is not a good plan? They tried to keep the old and fiddle with the new - look at them. Tell me why this should be different with you?

For let's be honest - if Mission #1 is not achieved there is no traditional business in 2011.

So you have to choose between life and death. To choose life, you have to choose to make a viable 2.0 world your priority. Business as usual = death.

So the news division at NPR has to fit the new. Not the new fit the news division. In your station the traditional has to fit the new. At CPB and PBS, the old has to fit the new.

Yes the old is important but it is subordinate to the new.

So where does the new report in your organizations? If it reports to the old - trouble! Who is responsible for the new? If if have no one or a middle manager, then you are in trouble.

The unofficial motto of the French Foreign Legion - is March or Die.

Testing the fix?

Is it working now?

KETC - The Engagement Begins

KETC, a client of mine, the Public TV Channel in St Louis, has been chosen by CPB to test how well a public TV station can be in Convening the wide community of its city to come together and help each other cope with a giant crisis. Here is a link to the background.

I am writing today to offer up an early report. This week we held the first on air/web town hall meeting.

For the first time St Louisans could see that they were not alone. The room was full of all sorts of people. St Louisans could see the enormous amount of help that was there for them. They could hear stories of all the things that could happen for bad or good. They could feel hope.

The show (links part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4) was masterful. First of all it set the context - it gave the whole story. Then the full range of risks and remedies were explored.

As I watched this show, I felt as I had after Robin's cancer diagnosis when we met the wonderful team of people who saved her life. I felt that while the situation was dire, that I might lose not my home but my wife, that we had the benefit of a great team and of the best that medicine could offer - we knew what we were up against. We knew that we had a chance. We had hope whereas before we had only fear.

I thought that I knew it all before the show. But I didn't. In an hour, Ruth had covered the full story.

The last segment was for me the most gripping. Here the show is opened up to the audience, to callers and those on the web. The dignity of the people and the panel was something to behold. The barriers between the helpers and the helped were eliminated.

The full impact was also revealed.

This is much more than a person losing their home. This is about the ripple effect that kills blocks, kills communities and in the end can doom the city. The ripple effect affects us all.

Next week we have a second show. This time we will focus on the the ripple effect - how can St Louisans work together to protect their communities? How can the people save their city?

Of course what you see on TV is merely the surface. If you look at the video, you will see The Swan - You will see the show but behind the scenes the feet are paddling hard under the surface.

The guys at KETC are paddling like fury all over the city and the state connecting people to help and more important connecting the help to the help. Have a look at the credits at the end of part 4.

This is the hard graft - many organizations, I call them Nodes of Trust, are meeting each other for the first time and seeing how much they can do to help each other do a better job.

Many are also seeing that the mortgage crisis itself is only part of a much more dangerous threat, the Ripple, that has the power to take the entire city down.

Many are starting to see that many who got caught were not foolish but unfortunate or worse exploited.

St Louisan are starting to feel that they might have a chance of beating this - a chance not because of false hope or exhortation but hope drawn from meeting other good men and women and seeing that together they can make an impact. Seeing that they are not helpless.

I think that KETC is on its way to prove out the hopes of CPB - that Public Media can be seen as a powerful force for good in their community. For who else can do this work? Who else can act as the convenor in these tough times?

PEI - It's Happening

The work to make PEI more self-reliant begins!

In the last week there are a number of actions by the Province that are encouraging. They are both experiments in coping with structural issues such as how are we are going to heat our schools - and also in immediate issues such as how are many going to make it through the winter of 2008/9.

Beginning in the fall of 2008, École Évangéline in Abram-Village will be using a pellet-fuel furnace as its primary heat source, with an oil-heat system used only to supplement the pellet-fuel system. The school now spends approximately $100,000 per year on heating oil, but expects that the addition of the system which burns pelletized wood will dramatically cut its annual bill.

“This burner uses fuel that can be supplied from forest resources or from plant sources grown specifically as fuel, with a carbon emission level much lower than that resulting from the consumption of heating oil,” said Minister Webster.

“The fact that this system can be installed with very little renovation to an existing building suggests that, if this burner performs as we hope, renewable fuel heating systems could be an option for similar institutions hoping to save money while reducing their environmental footprint.”

The $180,000 heating unit is being funded by the provincial government through the Trust Fund for Clean Air and Climate Change.

This installation will be one of a number of biomass systems to be installed in public institutions prior to the 2008/2009 heating season.

This is a small school - $100,000 is a large heating bill. What if it were $200,000? Could be likely in the near future. What if there was a war in Iran and there was no oil for months? This is obviously a great experiment.

Beginning August 1, four new or amended programs for existing homes will be available through the Office of Energy Efficiency. The programs are budgeted at $1 million, with money coming from the Trust Fund for Clean Air and Climate Change. An energy audit will be required to be eligible for all of the programs. The new programs include:

Low Income Loan Relief – Low income clients who wish to take advantage of the Prince Edward Island Energy Efficiency Loans Program, will now be eligible for up to

50 per cent loan relief. Up to $15,000 in income - 50 per cent of loan will be written off; between $15,000 and $30,000 in income - 25 per cent of loan will be written off. The program provides loans for home improvement measures recommended in an ecoEnergy Energy Efficiency Evaluation Report.

Renewable Heating - Renewable heating systems (wood, wood-pellet, solar, etc.) will be eligible under the Prince Edward Island Energy Efficiency Loan Program, to a maximum of $10,000, as long as the client makes efficiency improvements to the home as well.

High-Efficiency Oil-fired Heating Systems - An additional subsidy of $300 will be available for Energy Star Certified oil fired heating systems installed in combination with an indirect water heater or an outdoor temperature reset control. This will be supplemented by an additional $1,200 already available in other incentives and grants.

A successful program from last year will be returning:

Home Energy Low-income Program (HELP) - Reinstatement of this program will provide low-income homeowners with free assistance in completing comprehensive air-sealing, installation of energy saving devices and free furnace cleaning. Homeowners who have previously utilized this program will be eligible for the enhanced HELP program. The 2008-09 program is particularly focused on controlling air leakages - the major cause of home energy loss.

These programs are in addition to the Prince Edward Island EcoEnergy Audit Assistance Program and the Prince Edward Island Energy Efficiency Loan and Grant Program that were announced in March of this year. Under these programs the province pays half the cost of a home energy audit for households earning more than $30,000 and the full cost of audits for households earning less than $30,000.

Information on these programs is available on the Office of Energy Efficiency web page at www.gov.pe.ca/oee.

The province is doing it's best to get at the root of the problem - everyone has to be able to reduce their demand. Merely giving money to keep us all living as we were will end in ruin for us all. But there is also room here to take into account that some have no room financially.

My hope is that over the next 6 months we will see more and more ways of also using the knowledge of the community to help each other reduce our demand and also use the community itself to help us all with the work. Barn Building!