Recently in people Category

I hope the new infusion of capital at Twitter allows them to hire some more staff and improve their abysmal customer support organisation.     

Last July the OpenSolar Twitter account (@opensolar) was suspended.  I was told that I had cross-posted duplicate updates across multiple accounts.  In fact, I had done no such thing.  Twitter just arbitrarily shut down the account due to a bug in their own system.   When I tried (on 5 different occasions) to raise a support ticket protesting their action - my tickets were immediately "Resolved" and then "Closed" the moment after I created them.   That's some quality support. 

I *did not cross post anywhere else.*  I was completely floored at being suspended.  It was particularly difficult because I'd spent the previous six months acting as an honest broker - making posts about misinformation and lies that were being spread on the web and places like Twitter by those who sought to greenwash or fool people.   For all my efforts, Twittter was able to singlehandedly destroy this reputation with a click of a button.  Or more likely, a bug in their system.

I can handle a computer bug here and there.  But a useless support organization that fails to address issues like this and worse even - tries to shepherd users through various steps only to get nothing back in return is too much to handle.  FAIL.  For me, this was a "Click off" moment when I really started to wonder why I had been investing so much time and effort using Twitter in the first place. 

I went through various stages - anger, denial, delusion, contempt, defeat and indifference. Today I tried raising another ticket with Twitter support and got back an automated message from them saying they'd be sure to try to look into it within the next 30 days.  Yeah, sure guys.

So to all the legions of "social media gurus" who appear to crop up out of nowhere, like fungi on a dewy grass - I say, think twice before investing too much of your time in Twitter, or Facebook or any single large new media entity.  You may think that you're "establishing your online identity" or something but the reality is that at any moment they can arbitrarily take that away from you for no good reason and you often have no recourse.  I guess you get what you pay for. If it happened to me, it could happen to you.

Happy Tweeting.

Yesterday we checked out the Solar Living Center in Hopland, CA.  I've been there before but always enjoy stopping by.  The place is really nice and the staff is very friendly.



It was my original visit to this place that inspired me to buy shares of Gaiam.  Those shares doubled in value quickly and I was feeling pretty fantastic about the whole thing.  Alas, then the real goods IPO split off the solar business and the Bush Depression did the rest.  Things did not fare so well for GAIA last year.



But the low stock price belies all the good, educational, family oriented solar fun that goes on here.  The Solar Living Institute offers a series of educational workshops, runs a popular internship program and hosts the popular renewable energy SolFest festival each year gathering visionary speakers, musicians, performers and concerned citizens alike.  Just a two hour drive from San Francisco, you'll be inspired by their example of solar living   Check it out!

Welcome to Open Solar.  The idea for this project originally began almost 18 months ago when the city of Berkeley started talking about an innovative financing program which would allow residents to install solar panels and pay for them over 20 years through their municipal taxes.  This would effectively eliminate one of the major obstacles of "going solar" - the high upfront costs.  The pilot phase of the plan has now been implemented and could eventually become a model for other municipalities across the United States and beyond.

But not everybody lives in Berkeley, and even with similar financing plans available, the task of buying solar panels, getting them installed and up and running is daunting for most people.  There are so many vendors, so many products and so many government programs to learn about.  The industry has really just begun to emerge from its infancy.  We need a resource that allows us to learn and share from each other. 

Whenever I buy a book these days, I make my selection based upon the reviews I find online at places like Amazon.com.   When I buy a new TV or home theater system - the customer ratings and reviews have an enormous impact on what product I end up purchasing.  Even when we bought our car a couple years ago - it was the positive customer feedback it had received that gave me the confidence to sign that loan agreement. 

No such resource currently exists for those interested in going solar.  Many companies have emerged which will help guide you through the process.  They can help answer questions you have, suggest a type of system based upon where you live and refer you to a respected installation company in your area.  But what I'm looking for is people.  People who have already gone solar.  I want to hear their story.  I'm really interested in learning everything about their experience with solar power. 

Open Solar will help connect people together so they can share information about products and vendors.  We're interested in any and all feedback from solar consumers, businesses and enthusiasts.  We're going to make it really easy to access the site from Facebook or MySpace, or using a Yahoo!, Google or OpenID account.  Finally, we will share the data we collect via a set of open web service APIs and RSS feeds that anyone can use to better understand the residential solar industry. 

Our core functionality is currently under development, but we'll be blogging about all things solar over the next couple months and keeping you apprised of all our developments.

Stay tuned and we look forward to hearing from you.