Seattle-based provider of power management software, Verdiem, now offers a free product for individual technology users called Edison. You can download it from the company's Web site and try it out. Edison requires a slim 7 MB of hard drive space (the download itself is 28 MB), runs on Windows XP and Windows Vista, and displays in your Web browser. Verdiem states that Edison helps PC users "set their schedule" for energy usage, "save a little or a lot," and "see your savings." The claim is also that "With one little click, you can start saving energy and fight climate change." 
Maybe that's all that sophisticated consumers need to know to gain the motivation to give Edison a try. Considering that the product is free, maybe Verdiem didn't want to provide more information than absolutely necessary. But image telling a business manager the same thing, even about a product that doesn't cost anything except some time and attention is not good enough. Just as Verdiem does on the page dedicated to Surveyor, its main business product, you need to offer proof points and metrics, and describe how it works and what you can reasonably expect. Of course, businesses pay to implement Surveyor. But consumers are also ahead of businesses in how fast they can make decisions and how educated they are in terms of understanding environmental issues and the urgency of action.
Take a moment to recall all the information and thought involved in even making sense of a statement like "With one little click, you can start saving energy and fight climate change." You need to have at least a rudimentary understanding of where electrical energy comes from and how its production impacts the environment and our lives. You are aware that climates are shifting, largely because of what people did and do. You feel responsible, or at least interested. We may have forgotten, but it took years of education and consideration to get us to a point where we might believe that a software product could help us address environmental issues.
Albert Camus, who told us that we should imagine Sisyphos happy, would be proud. But would he try out the software, write about it in his blog, or tell other people about it in an essay?
I've been using Green Pulse by GreenRay for 4 months now and it really does it job better than LocalCooling or Edison.
Posted by: Miha Otrob | August 15, 2008 at 12:55 PM