Intellectual sorbet
E79: Smartflower Solar, duct tape, SVB, languages by Spotify, WOP10
Changing the pace
What do The Story of Tonight (Hamilton) and Master of the House (Les Miserables) have in common with this week’s edition? They follow intense manifesto moments in the musical’s storyline — Hamilton’s strident My Shot and Cossette’s plaintive Castle on a Cloud respectively. With a different cadence, they offer light-hearted moments. The change of pace offers an opportunity for the audience to release that deep breath they didn’t know they were still holding.
Well, congratulations to all of you. Our last edition was a big lift - a lot of Future of Work ideas and perspectives. And you stepped up to the material and explored the content. It had a 58% open rate. Impressive. Thank you for sticking through to the end … and then engaging wholeheartedly with your opinions and feedback. Tribe Tilt in action!
As your reward, this week’s offering is an intellectual lemon sorbet to give you that breathing space. And give some time to those still churning through the essay (I’m looking at you, hubby 👀 ).
This is from my collection of feel-good, interesting (mainly climate) tidbits gathered over the past few weeks. Read this edition online to see the various photos and screenshots if your email system blocks them.
I spy, with my eye, a garden of solar flowers
If you happen to be driving past the Ford plant where the 403 merges with the QEW, you may have noticed a beautiful piece of architecture outside Siemens’ Canadian Headquarters in Oakville.
Surprise. It is not just art. It is a beautiful solar panel that, like the sunflower, follows the sun through the day, dipping and moving with the seasons.
Siemens Canada graciously hosted our FEO board strategy session in their Inspiration Center last week. (Thank you, Zaheer Muhammad). As we were there to discuss energy efficiency, we were treated to a demo of Siemens’ implementation of the Solar Smartflower. They have modified it to store energy in a battery, use it to charge their staff’s Electric Vehicles (EV), support the buildings’ needs, and return excess power to the grid.
I had a discussion with Salman Rizwan who works on Seimens’ Smart Infrastructure team that supports this project as well as implementations across Canada. Intrigued by the recent installations at schools and colleges, more people, particularly students, are engaging in the design, savings, and aesthetics Energy conversation. I was intrigued by the small footprint of the design compared with solar farms, as well as its ability to capture 25% - 40% more (I need to verify this stat) power than steady solar panels.
I expected the installation to run in the millions and was surprised to learn the approximate pricing, particularly when supported by local energy grants.
Learn more. DM me for information or visit https://smartflower.com/
A roll of duct tape and a can of spray foam
I was shocked when Parker Thomas writer of
told me that he achieved a 25% energy saving with just these humble items. Nothing to sneeze at when your house has been buried under a few feet of snow in southern California recently. It is not my experience to tell, so I will let him tell you the story which he unfolds beautifully here.Parker — like Elliot and Latham — is struggling with accessing information conveniently on how to electrify their single-dwelling homes. Audits. Grants. Loans. Hardware. Contractors. Our list keeps growing. (Intersectionally, this is one of the projects that is on the FEO list). We meet each week to discuss this topic.
Too soon?
And at the intersection of my past Wall Street life and my climate interests:
I should point out that Jim publishes a water-focused newsletter “To Know Water Is To Love Water”. I found him via fellow Tilter Adam Tank (At Water’s Edge).
Korean or Japanese? Learning language through music
My fingers were typing, my Radar Release of new songs on Spotify playing in the background. Suddenly I came to attention. “I can now recognize whether a new song is being sung in Korean or Japanese!” I don’t (yet) understand what is said, but I can differentiate between the distinctive cadence and rhythm of each language.
That was not true in January 2022. [Backstory for new readers: It is when my son’s interest in music led me down a music algorithm funnel that started with Harry Styles and ended with K-Pop and J-Pop.]
This realization relates to this tweet by Randy Garman a few weeks back:
I responded:
Do you have other ideas for Randy?
WOP10 Mentor
I am thrilled to be invited back onto the team that will help deliver a “Michelin Experience” as Write of Passage starts its 10th cohort in April. There are so many brilliant minds and warm hearts on this team. I am proud to call many here my friends. I may not have met them in person. Maybe someday. This group is drawn from previous cohort graduates who want to share forward their experiences. Apparently, so many more alumni raised their hands for these roles, a testament to the program.
If you are interested in learning more about the program that gave me the skills and confidence 79 editions ago to launch and stay consistent with this newsletter, DM me.
BTS (Behind the Scene) on last week’s essay
Cherry-picking some of the comments from readers across Substack, email, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. It was exciting to see the range of comments. If this essay inspired you in any way, please tag me when you share your writing, or DM me if you adjusted the way you or your family approach the changes ahead.
"But this is exactly what makes it exciting. We live on the cusp of new possibilities." Your on-going theme! Thank you for the HOPE! Love your courageous work, my friend,
— Joann (Author of Awake to Racism)
So glad you published! I know you worked very hard on this 😊
(he helped me move from version 1 to 12 on this essay)
—
It reminded me of sentences that first flowed from my pen in my Morning Pages:
If you are here from my LinkedIn family, click to read the full conversation:
Thank you for the engagement. I need the debate - particularly with those who are finding my work for the first time. It forces me to explain myself and my thoughts. Is there a particular topic from the essay that we should discuss further?
We welcome Akiko from Japan and Gary from Virginia Beach into our Tribe. Gary introduced himself with a lovely response to my welcome email. “I will not express any boundary for my topics of interest.” Our kind of people! You join a collaborative, vocal, and supportive community that believes we can make a difference to the people and places that are precious to us.
Interesting fact (consider it the garnish on the sorbet): Each person mentioned in this newsletter (except for Charlotte, Jim, Hamilton, and Cossette) is a member of Tribe Tilt. We are quite a collection of committed individuals!
Is this the first time you have seen an edition of this newsletter? Come join us. Please subscribe
I’ll see you next week.
Karena
Niiiice
Thanks for your support and encouragement since my first day in WoP 8, so excited to join you in 10!