Stickyworld has joined 19 other innovative "cleantech" and sustainability companies on the Clean + Cool Mission to San Francisco.
The mission is an opportunity for our CEO, Michael Kohn, to meet US customers, partners and investors, learn lessons from current innovation and breakthrough models emerging from the US, and also share stories from our UK energy and cleantech customers who use Stickyworld for their stakeholder engagement.
Michael will be posting more on his findings in US in a future post. Read on to learn more about cleantech and why cleantech projects such as Project SCENe are implementing continuous stakeholder engagement to help achieve a successful project outcome.
"Cleantech" simply stands for "clean technology" and brings new ways of combating environmental issues and the use of natural resources. Examples include technologies which make use of sustainable sources of energy such as wind power. In addition, technologies which support pollution reduction or recycling are also in this category. To read more about each of the 20 cleantech companies on the mission, click here.
The role of stakeholder engagement in Cleantech.
The need for continuous stakeholder engagement is often a given, but traditionally it's been hard work and expensive to implement effectively and transparently. Stickyworld simply makes this process much easier for busy professionals and teams, enabling them with online tools to present, explain and discuss projects at key stages, and capture valueable ideas, knowledge and feedback, through a series of time-limited participatory websites.
Done right, this process helps teams remove inherent risks of user adoption by capturing data from target stakeholders informing decision making, and ultimately helping to create more user-centred and customer-centric solutions.
Stickyworld supports several customers in the energy and utilities sector and a growing number of examples of UK cleantech projects using online engagement. Michael will be sharing these examples with the Silicon Valley cleantech community during his visit this week.
The Project SCENe example
Project SCENe (Sustainable Community Energy Networks) is one such example. It aims to encourage the adoption of "off grid" energy, i.e. minimal or no use of the national grid, in the UK. A new housing development in Nottingham's Trent Basin is the test bed site, and this will have around 500 homes when complete, and a estimated 1300 inhabitants in the completed community. So right from the start, it was recognised the project needed a smarter way to engage, explain and discuss the concepts and technologies involved making Trent Basin work off grid with a range of interest groups. This means working closely with the existing Trent Basin residents, engaging the prospective house buyers, growing a research community of interest, and ultimately sharing lessons learned with the wider public. Each audience requires a specific context of engagement.
The project team has set up a Stickyworld portal to engage these different stakeholder audiences in different online rooms, where the ideas, proposals and opportunities can all be presented and discussed. For instance, current residents can engage with the management of the Energy Savings Company (ESCO), ask questions or share concerns about any aspect of how the ESCO might work for them in a dedicated focus group room. In another online room, University of Nottingham researchers are engaging residents about the design of special in-home equipment being provided to their homes and collecting feedback to help them design a user-centred system. To visit the Project SCENe website, click here.
If you'd like to know more how Stickyworld can support stakeholder engagement for your energy or cleantech business, we'd be delighted to show you in a short 30 minute online demo. Simply click below and complete the request form.
The Clean + Cool mission is organised by Long Run Works and backed by Innovate UK, involves an intense programme of visits, workshops and networking events designed to open up the ambition of the UK Cleantech companies.
Clean + Cool was created by Long Run Works, a communication and innovation agency that helps good ideas grow faster by developing new connections, thinking and platforms. Clean + Cool is backed by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, and supported by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. For more information on Clean + Cool please visit the website. To read about all the 20 companies on the mission click here.