KatieP
commented
11 years ago I started making a thermometer widget that members automatically get on their profile pages. Each state in the USA (and maybe other places too) as a carbon dioxide emissions data. So the thermometer shows current co2/capita and the goal. Ranks the state by nation and by world. Gives recommendations to the user on how to reduce CO2 -> some to news, some to products like solar, some to tips/groups/projects.
Gamifies the process like a football team for the next round of data and re-ranks all the thermometers and ranks. Some will go up, some will go down.
Widget should be available to facebook and other member based apps also.
Show all the states thermometers on one page. Try and get people psyched to change them.
I have this idea for business strategy that we focus on achieving environmental goals via web applications, as opposed to achieving 'technology business goals' like members, users and clicks. It seems self-serving/in vein to chase the user when our real higher purpose is actually helping save the environment. If we can't actually help create real tangible change, then we are really just another time-wasting app.
There are 5 main environmental issues facing the word - all the others can fit under these main issues.
It's a neat brainstorming how the web can best be use to solve these problems. So I did a big mind map and considered how all the branching solutions could fit into my current web app. It totally transcended my thinking on the function of the application.
It's part of 'The Golden Circle' methodology for brand/ business strategy that I found extremely compelling. Why, how, what of your product. We all get stuck in the 'what'. The author emphasise how this is the worst thing to focus on. You need to focus on the 'why first, how second.
Our 'why' is solving environmental issues using the web. The how and what will be ever changing. The first thing to do on this journey is to get the environmental data out, decide on the goal for the environmental data, then make a plan from here to there. Building a strong online community is a big part of that, but it is only part of the ultimate agenda, and by no means a goal in itself.
The question "How do we get 100,000 members?" is a much less interesting problem to solve than 'How do we use the internet to bring atmospheric carbon dioxide from 400 parts per million to 350 parts per million. The first makes me think of hanging around 'digital marketing conferences' with 'social media experts'. The latter, now that is the stuff Star Trek level of imagination is made of. My mind salivates and toes tingle at the complexity of this exciting problem to solve.
I had always thought that all business owners should think of their businesses as software companies. it raises the thought-bar to a new level, when you think about non-technical problems that way. But what if we thought about the world's biggest environmental issues as if they were software problems? How differently would we see the solutions?
I found this nature of thinking gives birth to whole new 'distruptive' ideas (sorry I hate that word, but it fits in this context). Multi-faceted social engineering problems that involve the data of matter (energy, trees, bricks), government process, civil engagement, the data of people - not just a micro-cosm app to helo some minor efficiency. Lets not imagine simply disrupting industries like 'the book market'. Lets expand solutions to bigger problems, ones that reach outside of SV.
The point is when I think about my business goals in terms of the usual web metrics of users, page impressions, clicks, SEO, I feel my brain starting to shrivel up. When I think about how to solve a significant social-environmental issue, my imagination turns on like Christmas lights. That's the kind of headspace you need to make cool stuff, so cool, it actually does change the world.
//The Strategy of Software's Higher Purpose // "We help solve environmental problems with the internet".