Frightening Publicist Jobs

Maybe it's the recent full moon. Or the last week before Halloween. But things have been pretty scary for some communications people or publicists recently. Forget about things that go bump in the night. Imagine how scary it would be to represent these people: Rhode Island Gubernatorial candidate, Frank Caprio, who decided to publicly attack a standing president who did not endorse him out of loyalty to his independent opponent who had backed Obama over McCain: "He can take his...

A discussion of the clean tech market in New England

The 5th Conference on Clean Energy will be held in Boston next week, on November 12 & 13. Once again, LP&P's clean energy practice, which I co-lead, has partnered with the Conference on communications. The conference, sponsored by the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center and the Massachusetts Hydrogen Coalition, focuses on the hot topics driving clean energy innovation and growth in New England. There will be panels featuring representatives of the region's clean energy companies and venture capital firms. Additionally, forty...

Eating Your Own Dog Food - The Energy Dept. Forgets Basic PR Lesson

I think it's fair to say that most companies or organizations at some point have experienced disconnect between what they sell and how they operate - it can be challenging to keep the causes aligned. Earlier this week The New York Times reported that The Energy Department has not implemented basic smart meter thermostats into its own buildings, which if installed properly, could power 9,800 homes each year and save the agency $11.5 million in energy costs! I don't know...

Waiting on the Superpowers

Today in Italy, our world leaders are meeting at the G-8 Summit to try to solve the world's major problems, with global warming being one of Obama's core initiatives. I can't imagine how those conversations must be going -- would love to be a fly on the wall -- yet I doubt their posh quarters have flies buzzing about. The developing nations are trying to rise out of poverty and create industries and economies similar to the world powers, yet...

Houston, we don't have a problem here

I couldn't help myself with the NASA reference in the headline, what can I say. NASA might have placed humans on the moon, yet now we're busy developing technology to clean up our own planet. Crazy how times have changed. I'm sitting in the press room of the George R. Brown Convention Center looking out over the Houston skyline after spending a day talking to companies at the Clean Technology Conference 2009. My first impression after arriving yesterday was that...

IBM Jumps into the Water

In January, I was sifting through clean tech press coverage for our quarterly meeting with the Austin Clean Energy Council and I couldn't help but be amazed by the frenzy of optimism (otherwise known as market hype) in the business press related to smart grid technologies. I can't help it, I'm a sucker for new, exciting markets with growth potential. That is probably why I'm in the PR technology profession. Back to my point, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Wired, The New York...

Lighting a Fire Under Clean Tech

Yesterday, President Obama initiated several more steps to help the U.S. become an energy independent country. It is a task several U.S. Presidents have tried to accomplish in the past, yet we all know none of them have had any luck so far. I'm optimistic that we'll see progress in this area over the next few years and anxious to see how this will impact the clean tech sector. Venture capital funding has taken a hit across the boards for...

Renewables - Investing and Building Gets Us Only So Far

Om Malik's post today on the group think mentality running rampant among technology venture capitalists. I just visited a some VC firms in the Bay Area a few weeks ago, and it was interesting to hear the complaints about the recession and see the similarities in the questions and interest levels between the firms. But one of the more uplifting things noted in Om's post was speculation about clean tech investments. It still looks positive for next year, despite the...

Keeping it clean

Earlier this week, LP&P collaborated with Xconomy on a podcast with several participants in the 4th Annual Conference on Clean Energy. In the podcast, host Wade Roush asked the participants about the state of VC funding in the sector as well as their thoughts on what an Obama or McCain win means for clean tech. You can give it a listen here. UPDATE 11/3: Wade Roush published a post on Xconomy this morning with the podcast.

Bringing Renewables to the Mainstream

Today the Austin City Council is reviewing a proposal by our utility Austin Energy to build a $2.3 billion biomass power plant in an effort to get our city funneling 30 percent of our electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2020. It's great news for Austin. Though, it seems like the more I learn about energy, the more I realize that there are a great deal of established technologies already available for the taking that just haven't been capitalized on...