While attending the Green Real Estate Conference in Toronto a few weeks ago (www.realestateforums.com/greenref/en/index.php), it got me to thinking about “work being the new home”, and as a result, how different the value-set may be when our landlord is more in control of what goes on in our space.

We might recycle at home, conserve energy, minimize waste and do our part for the environment, but what happens when we go to work? Do we consciously or unconsciously surrender control?

Do we bother to shut off the lights because we are not paying the bill?

Are we scrutinizing the ingredients in, and the packaging used for our lunches hauled back from the food court?

Do we care? Do we have a voice?

Shouldn’t we, since we spend so much time there?

Well, I thought so and I’d like to tell you about a break-out session during that conference that highlighted Cadillac Fairview (CF) – a progressive company that is making what some see as a ground-breaking move in the real estate industry. Engaging tenants (you and me) to help them make the workplace a more sustainable, cost-effective and comfortable place to spend the day. In other words, they are aligning the value-set of home, with the workplace.

Image source: Cadillac Fairview and Perkins+Will

How did they start? Simply enough it seems (in 2010) when CF asked some of its tenants to participate in a Green Council with a time commitment of an half day, once a quarter. A baseline was established at the first meeting to help Council members understand what CF was already doing in the area of sustainability. It was obvious – they were already doing a lot and it was important that everyone had an awareness, appreciation and build advocacy. A few impactful slides were used during the session to describe the essence of what they wanted the Council to ponder – “buildings don’t use energy”………”people do.” Interesting enough, but could a landlord and its tenants partner to change behaviour through small acts and get their respective companies to make an impact?

Image source: Cadillac Fairview and Perkins+Will

It would seem this grass roots approach has resulted in some big wins for CF. With the help of its consultancy partner Perkins+Will, the Council worked together on a number of campaigns to raise awareness and change behaviour. It also provided a forum for tenants to learn from one another and build networks.

The result: the firm has created an environment where lease renewals are partnership discussions and problem identification leads to proactive resolution. The environment and sustainability are now on the tenants’ radar and many within the Council have added these elements to their decision-making processes in construction, capital spend and facilities projects. Now, everyone is on a first name basis and no one seems to miss the labels (landlord and tenant).

In the conference closing panel, industry leaders from Bentall Kennedy and Oxford Properties mentioned that the forward-looking trends in the quest to “green the real estate industry” were:

1) investing in existing and building sustainable properties;

2) improving the ability to measure efforts and consumption, and lastly;

3) engaging the tenants of their buildings to help them make a difference.

Do you sense a trend?

As Earth Day approaches this Sunday, perhaps this is a perfect opportunity to GET ENGAGED, reach out to your landlord and ask them what you can do together to make work, a better place to live.

Image source: Cadillac Fairview and Perkins+Will

If you want to learn more about what the Cadillac Fairview Green Council accomplished last year, check out their report. Read on and replicate.

2011 OEP at TDC Energy Campaign Measurement Report

Nicole Popovich
Guest blogger

1. You’re only as good as your team.
Who is Scooter Braun?
Scooter is everything to Justin. Scooter not only discovered Justin after seeing a YouTube video he quickly realized that the only way Justin could become a star was by surrounding him with great people. Scooter connected Justin with a superstar, a vocal coach, a stylist, a dance crew and a social media director. All of the people around Justin helped to make him this successful.

The takeaway from this: surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. If you’re an A employee, hire an A+ player. Innovation and growth in your company will only happen when you begin to change and challenge the things you do every day. For this to happen you not only need motivation you need a challenge. Justin’s was selling out Madison Square Gardens.

2. Work smarter, work harder.
Whether you’re a brand or an artist to gain success you need to go out and work for it. This was one of the biggest preconceptions that we all had going into the screening of this movie. We believed that Justin’s star rose quickly: from YouTube to contact in mere weeks. Wrong.

Justin attended 143 different venues, going to radio stations, high schools, charity events, water parks and shopping malls. Then after all that he went on tour and did an additional 84 stops, living in a bus. He became a superstar because he and his team were relentless workers who believed in a common goal.

3. Social activation transforms listeners into lovers.
There are numerous times in the movie where you see Justin tweeting and interacting on social media with no guidance. Before watching the movie I thought that there would be more control over the daily things he did online. But instead, Justin is much more authentic and real than many other brands on Twitter. He gets sick, he says mean things and he is going to make mistakes and he’ll say sorry more than once over his career.

Every CEO and every business owner needs to be more social – truly, authentically social. If you were the head of company wouldn’t you want to know what people actually thought of your brand? Wouldn’t you want to engage with them where they are? A connection on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, Path, Foursquare or YouTube is worth something to the person you’re connecting with. It means that you’re listening and engaging with them on their terms.

4. Stay hungry. Stay open.
Justin listened. As we get older and gain more experience we struggle at times to remember how we got there. Sometimes it’s important for us to act more like 16-year-olds and be open to change. Our experience is valuable, but it tends to be coupled with doubt. This is when we hear ourselves say “we’ve tried that before,” or “they’ll never go for that.” Be open. Know that the world is changing so radically that new ideas and innovative problem solving are the best ways to be successful. At the risk of being too punny: Never Say Never.

5. Be human.
Justin makes extra effort to connect with people whether it’s on social networks, at concerts or during his off time. Him and his team give out free tickets to fans before every concert and make an effort to connect with fans one to one as much as possible. He respects the fact that millions of people care for him; therefore he returns the favor and thanks them for their loyalty.

One of the most interesting takeaways from the movie is the notion that he was successful because each fan had a personal connection with him. They believed that they discovered him first – before the record companies and before the marketing machine. He belonged to them. This is the difference between push and pull. This is what forms emotional connections with brands that go beyond reason.

Concluding, I want to end with a quote from Guy Kawasaki who was the first innovation director at Apple. “As a brand ask yourself; do we own the segment that were going after as well as Justin Bieber owns the segment of 9-16 year old girls?”

“It’s always close to you, its content is highly personal, it allows you to connect with friends and family (though voice, text and email) and most of the research participants would rather lose their wallet than their phone.”

So: if your smartphone was your lover, what kind of lover would it be? Bold? Light you up like a Torch? Or would you best describe it as B3310?

Brrr. It’s hard to imagine a lover more frigid than that. Yet that’s the relationship Samsung is trying to sell us with its B3310 mobile phone, just one member of a standoffish stable that includes the C3520 and B5722. It’s an emotionally-barren naming system that amounts of an enormous missed opportunity.

As consumers, we want to know what we’re going to get out of a co-habitation arrangement. Great names help us make that calculation. In fact, in our overcommunicated world, brand naming is simply one of the most cost-effective opportunities available for telling a story and connecting with shoppers.

To the makers and marketers of consumer technology: great names make it easy for people to understand who you are and what you’re offering. They make it easy for people to decide if they want to buy in or opt out, and for your advocates to tell the story to others. They are deep reservoirs of meaning that you can access for telling your story now, and long into the future as you write new chapters.

Names like B3310 fail on all of these dimensions. Names like Bold and Torch, both for BlackBerry smartphones, are a step in the right direction, because at least they connote something. But there’s still ample storytelling potential upon which to capitalize. As a product, which features or benefits of the Bold make it worthy of that name? I don’t know – and I own one. And how is it any different from the Torch? Again, this nomenclature leaves us wondering – especially in the absence of name-aligned messaging.

Apple’s iPhone, on the other hand, gives us an easy feel for the relationship we should expect: it’s going to be all about us, period.

Ineffective naming practices aren’t confined just to the smartphone corner of the consumer technology world. From the HC-V10 to the DMP-B200 to the PJ-TX100, there are a multitude of products yearning to connect with customers, but robbed of the language to do so. For technology makers and marketers, the solution must be obvious: give your products names that people love.

Andris Pone is principal of Andris and Associates and lead Brand Strategist for Philter Communications. He is co-author of the newly updated and revised Brand: It Ain’t the Logo (It’s what people think of you), soon to be available at Amazon.com. The current edition is displayed below.

Related Posts: Your relationship to your device

As the second largest users of loyalty worldwide, Canada has 92% of the population belonging to at least one loyalty program. Over the past 15 years Canadian initiatives have evolved from simple travel rewards to more everyday benefits and Canada is now considered a mature market for loyalty.

Michelle Ubell of Maritz Loyalty delivered proof that it truly influences the types of behaviour that marketers are looking for: 62% of those surveyed indicated that they were more likely to do business with companies that offered rewards and a full 47% would drive past a retailer to go to another with a loyalty program they participated in.

Interestingly, affluent Canadians are more likely to be members of loyalty programs, with an average of 12.3 different memberships per respondent and Quebec strongly under-indexed at 4.4 programs per person. We still lag behind the US average of 15 or more memberships per person.

At the Shopper Marketing conference this week, research was shown that said shoppers would still visit the same stores but less often if they did not have a loyalty program while 44% expressed total indifference to loyalty programs and would shop just as often.

Despite strong membership numbers, there are still reasons why some Canadians don’t join rewards programs, including little perceived value, complicated collection and redemption processes and privacy concerns.

Reward

Smart retailers are working to increase the acceptance of their programs by offering private shopping events and additional discounts through preferred status adoption. Others have offered rewards far beyond dollar values to their most valued customers including front-of-the-line ticket purchase options and special members-only events.

Bryan Peterson, President and CEO of LoyaltyOne, a more-than-frequent flier, shared that one airline helped him avoid an hours-long wait in an airport by calling him and offering the opportunity to move up his travel plans to catch an earlier flight. Now, that’s a perk with real value.

Recognition

The panel agreed that traditional loyalty programs must evolve from “do this, get that” to include rewards for intangible, but extremely valuable, behaviours like making recommendations or signing up friends.

Seeing this need, Philter recently presented to a Canadian retailer where we suggested several ways to encourage all their customers to engage with their brand more than ever and a scoring mechanism to reward those who are most active. For example, a regional test of their digital couponing has allowed them to learn who their biggest influencers are and they are now poised reward those people.

Counting on the direct correlation between advocacy and loyalty, chains like Starbucks are offering innovative ways to reward their customers for engaging with them in the social media space. Starbucks Frappuccino Community invites fans to share their ideas for new flavours of the coffee drinks and then rewards them with exclusive content around topical events such as New York Fashion Week, with exclusive celebrity interviews and back-stage sneak peaks.

Relevance

In order to benefit from the huge pile of data we already have, as marketers, we now need to use that information to create even more dynamic campaigns and to further improve the customer experience in both direct and indirect ways.

Although not everyone chooses to engage in the programs, all shoppers still benefit from the data with store-level improvements and product arrays being directly influenced by the opinions and behaviours of those who are willing to share them.

In turn, we need to speak to customers with properly targeted, personal messages and chose their preferred channels but we must also carefully guard that information in a way to maximally respect customers’ privacy.

Cooking up success in the Loyalty marketing means that we, as marketers, need to:

1. Ensure that we help you recognize your best customers
2. That all communications are relevant and in their preferred space
3. That we use the data collected the right way

Video Synopsis

EllisDon is also building LEED platinum offices that are more environmentally friendly than ever before. In 2010, the Canada Green Building Council gave four EllisDon projects LEED certification. Their features included thermally efficient walls and a rain-water collection system.

Smart technologies, particularly those that aim to protect the environment, are becoming the norm in many retailers around North America. Infrared motion sensors, solar panels that sell energy back to hydro companies and energy efficient light bulbs are a few of the commonplace innovations in Shoppers Drug Mart, Loblaws and Mark’s Work Warehouse locations across Canada. Office buildings also aim to become greener, particularly with their lighting. CB Richard Ellis, a Canadian turned international real estate company, has drastically reduced its carbon footprint in recent years (though they aimed be to carbon-neutral by 2010 – good effort), and has recently retrofitted many of its corporate clients with energy saving bulbs. Also taking energy consumption into account are institutions, like McMaster University where 34 watt bulbs have been replaced with 28’s – just as bright but using less energy.

Every year there are new building technologies that contractors use to appeal to smart-thinking tenants. One of the most impressive ways in which technology has reformed the workplace comes out of Mumbai in the proposed Cybertecture Egg. James Law Cybertecture International is literally laying the groundwork for futuristic design, including a “cybertecture reality” which allows office workers to customize the view from their windows by selecting a real-time scene from somewhere else in the world. Also, the building will be run on energy collected from wind turbines and solar panels on the building’s “sky garden.” The egg-shaped design also takes the environment into consideration, using 10-20% less surface area than conventional buildings. The humanist theme of the building is taken even further with the intelligently designed “cybertecture health” interactive mechanism that monitors occupants’ vital health signs like blood pressure and weight.

Energy efficiency is another one of those buzz words that’s become more of a must-have than a nice-to-have on most appliances. Though the concept is self-explanatory, what most don’t know is that using less energy to accomplish a task is one of the major factors in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (and saving money on your utility bills). With imminent global warming affecting the winters of Vermont, the Putney School had more than one reason to build its net-zero energy athletics building. By definition, the facility generates as much energy as it consumes, thanks to its super-insulated, energy efficient construction, which uses the sun for all its heating and electricity needs. In the summer (with 16 PV solar panels) the school actually earns six cents per kilowatt-hour with the extra energy it accumulates. Other eco features include low-water fixtures and composting toilets, as well as locally harvested wood structural material. As the first school with the net-zero energy stamp in the US, the design goes to show that environmental concerns don’t need to be kept in the private sphere.

Smart technologies have made their way into the hospitality industry too. Sure, you’re probably used to keyless entry and wifi (at a cost), but what about a hotel that is so technologically equipped that it barely has any real staff? Lookotels envision a (mostly) self-sufficient hotel, where every room is separate – architecturally and functionally. With self-serviced check-in and -out there is no one to make you wait for your room, and a 24-hour telephone customer service keeps guests safe and undisturbed. The individual pods are constructed with energy expenditure in mind, and also reduce the time and cost of construction. Best of all, the compact size and low operational costs allow guests to stay at a bargain price.

As mentioned earlier, wind turbines provide an unconventional source of energy that is smart both environmentally and technologically. In Portland’s proposed Smart Tower, the plan is to incorporate both solar and wind energy to make the structure completely self-sustaining – with excess energy left over to power lights at Waterfront Park. In this design, the machine is the masterpiece, as the turbine is featured in the building core not only as a functional, but also an aesthetic aspect. Upon completion, the 650-foot building will be the tallest in Portland, and possibly the most visually stunning too.

While even a proposal for this project is still in development, it’s still a very smart idea. The Revolution Door’s concept is like the turbine inside the Smart Tower – generating renewable electricity as it moves. Instead of otherwise-wasted energy going to no use, the designers at Fluxxlab figured the Revolution could capture it with gears and a generator. All that’s needed is simply a revolving door, a mechanical system that captures energy output and a device to monitor the harnessed energy. I guess it’s easier said than done.

With all this emphasis on conscious-consumption buildings, just the monitoring of power expenditure has become another area where engineers have become “smart.” Leave it to Vancouver-based Pulse Energy, who has developed an energy management tool that monitors a building’s real-time energy use. The intelligent system collects data from metering hardware on all energy sources in a building and sends it through a series of analytical and archival software that benchmarks the building’s overall energy consumption relative to other Pulse-equipped buildings in North America. That information is then translated for a web application that facility managers (or anyone with Internet access) can see on a website. With this system in place, anyone watching the website can respond to the building’s energy performance immediately, enabling the people inside the building to improve their operating strategies. Thanks to this system, energy savings of 5-25% are said to come from these efficiencies.

Smart technology not only eases building operations and monitors energy use, but also has been manipulated to synchronize various devices from household appliances to hybrid cars. That’s what Toyota is doing with their Smart Center grid system – an all-in-one energy management hub that coordinates plug-in hybrid car power with system-equipped homes. Information on how much energy is being consumed and stored in the house and how much the vehicle is charged can all be read on TV screens and mobile devices. Smartphone users can also remotely control either the car’s or their home’s energy – turning on the air-conditioning or tweaking car charging time from a removed location. To keep money saving in mind as well, Toyota’s system takes weather forecasts and utility charge-rate information for different times of the day into account to cut down on household costs. The system should be available by 2012 in Japan.

The more we become dependent on earth-friendly technologies, the smarter property managers and contractors are becoming – both figuratively and literally. The “smart” trend has trickled into all aspects of life. For example, there’s even a website that connects green-focused properties with the people who want to live in them. Suffice it to say, advanced technology and enviro-conscious design is the new benchmark for building construction, and it sure puts “The Clapper” to shame.

According to surveys from PriceGrabber, more than half of online consumers, 53% to be exact, currently own a web-enabled device. Among that percentage, 35% of them have used their phone for some kind of mobile shopping between June 2009 and June 2010
The survey also concluded that while the most sought after activity that these smartphone owners use their phone for is finding out the weather forecast, 35% of them have used it for online shopping.

Funnily enough, when asked what types of products mobile-shoppers had purchased from their phone in the past year, the majority of participants (61%) responded with digital content for their mobile phone (which includes items like ringtones, videos, and of course other phone applications).

In turn, the availability of retailers through mobile applications has noticeably increased the access people have to online shopping. A comScore MobiLens survey explains that between April 2009 and April 2010, the number of people who went to online retailers through their mobile phone increased by 47%.

With these facts, it’s obvious to see the benefits of brand-inspired applications. Not only do cell phones provide effortless access to brands, but also they allow brands to engage with consumers in a media-stimulated environment where they are more prone to appeal to brand messages. Branding on cell phones started with banner ads that were similar to those found on the wired Internet. The newer generation of mobile applications provide brands with the opportunity to uniquely work with a device’s functions to interact with and even entertain users.

For example, Charmin’s Sit or Squat application provides users with a map of the closest bathrooms in their immediate neighbourhood, along with a forum for users to share funny notes and videos about public washrooms (don’t worry, nothing too scandalous is revealed). The application was rated #2 in Forbes Magazine’s top 10 branded applications of 2009.

Also on the list was Zipcar, an iPhone application that gives users access to Zipcar’s car-sharing service. The app allows members to find rental car locations, browse the lot, reserve a particular model, and even honk, lock, and unlock a car right from their touch screen. The app can also give directions to where a Zipcar is in the lot, and extend and cancel reservations on the go. What’s more is that this app works around the globe, so Zipcar members can tap and go as efficiently as possible.

In and out of the world of branded applications, it’s amazing what services can be translated on to a phone using sensor, sonar, and touch technology. Here are a few incredible applications that not only make life easier, but they surpass the experience that their offline equivalents provide (the ones they were designed to mimic):

Bug Spray
There’s no escaping the fact that outdoor adventure requires some sort of bug deterrent. While I’m not advocating that mini-flat screens and laptops join you outside this summer, taking your mobile phone with this application will definitely be helpful. Ultrasonic’s Bug Spray application radiates a high-frequency tone that critters can’t stand. Also, this app saves you from carrying around smelly semi-toxic bug spray, let alone wearing it.

Light Therapy
Believe it or not, this application claims to treat acne, heal and cleanse skin, as well as give you more energy. Each treatment (or display of light) is carefully timed to provide optimum effectiveness. The Energy Treatment is meant to simulate natural sunlight by projecting blue, green, and bright white light. Though the lack of FDA approval and warning jargon throws me off, the idea is still pretty neat that a phone can do the same job as topical creams and medicines.

Flying Without Fear
Need someone to hold your hand through turbulence? There’s an app for that. This one is a bit subjective, but Virgin Atlantic’s “course” claims to cure fears of flying – with a success rate of over 98%! Specifically, the app provides a personal message from Sir Richard Bronson (because if anyone can talk you into getting on a plane, or jumping out of one…), an in-flight explanation of the activity of the plane from take-off to landing, and FAQs answered by the General Manager of Flight Operations at Virgin. Furthermore (and my favourites), the app also offers a selection of relaxation and fear exercises by a Relaxation Counselor (that exists?) and a “fear attack button for emergencies”(?). Users can also customize the program for future flights and receive 2000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Miles when joining. Even more enticing is the fact that Whoopi Goldberg has used this app to cure her fear of flying. Let the Flying Nun jokes begin!

On a web-enabled device, brands can convey to users their creative and valuable aspects, instead of their marketing intentions. Apps can act as an extension of campaigns, and further embed taglines, icons, and logos into the public consciousness. There’s a lot of fun to be had on new communication gadgets, and also a vast area for branding and marketing to occur. There is still an enormous demand for great applications, so brands are only limited by their ingenuity.

Outsourcing – the method of shipping a job to an external provider – has polarized those in business who believe it is either a) beneficial in a cost-effective sense or b) damaging to employee stability.

Crowdsourcing provides a similar dilemma – detailing a clash between the accelerated creativity of crowdsourced minds, and businesses’ economic need to have employees in-house that provide creative council. The reality of our slowly reemerging economy means that even business owners are finding ways to get more for less, and thus crowdsourcing will be a trend not-soon forgotten. Also, this avenue provides a means for unemployed workers to get re-involved with the industries they’re familiar with. At Philter, we haven’t gone so far as to crowdsource logos, names or winning product ideas, but it’s certainly something that is emerging faster than any creative director would like. Because if you start giving your products and services up to your customer to lead, then who owns the brand?

Online forums are where crowdsourcing can really take flight, and one such example is InnoCentive. Here, participants can brainstorm ideas from product design to product placement. The site helps idea creators, fact checkers, and capital providers all mingle in one place. Seeker organizations (companies) actually provide a monetary reward for Solvers (individuals) who can give a concrete solution to their business problem. I wonder if BP could use this at all…

Other sites include IdeaScale, which can be implemented on social media sites and online communities to help companies leverage the ideas of their customers. Something that both Dell and Starbucks have taken advantage of and made quite successful.

The idea behind My Starbucks Idea, a place where brand fans can come together and post ideas that would help enhance the Starbucks experience, came in response to some brand lovers and nay-sayers talking about the Starbucks brand on a myriad of individual blogs. With My Starbucks Idea, the company has centralized the discussion and can monitor and address negative feedback while responding to and acting on positive suggestions. Those cool green stoppers that stop the soy latte tsunami from spilling on your cream wool coat (yes, it has happened to me) – they were a crowdsourced idea that came from fans at My Starbucks Idea.

As a tool that represents public opinion, crowdsourcing has also been used to determine which authors get published. TenPages is a Dutch site where book publishers offer potential novelists a place to have their work judged and possibly bought based on the opinions of reviewers. Aspiring writers can register for free and post at least ten pages of their book on the site. When viewable, prospective shareholders can buy up to 200 shares in any book for 5 Euros each. A widget is available to help them publicize their favourites among their own social networks. The books that sell 2,000 shares during their four month stay on the site—garnering 10,000 Euros —get put into production at one of TenPages’ partner publishers (Pearson, The Workers Press and The House of Books). Authors get paid 1,000 Euros from the initial funds raised, while the rest is held for publishing and promoting the final book. The author then has eight months to write the entire book with the help of a professional editor.

Garnering help from one another is the basic point of crowdsourcing. It’s no surprise then that the method was picked up in a mobile app where people can report and update traffic trends while they – go figure – sit in traffic. Waze provides users with a free GPS-navigation system, simply by using the real-time information provided by crowds. The company creates this setting by tracking GPS signals on users’ phones, allowing others to see when traffic slows or if someone has posted an event like an accident that might affect one’s route. Drivers can update maps, and even gain “points” for miles driven, reporting traffic events, adding street numbers, and mapping new roads.

Fashion Stake is another pretty cool way in which crowdsourcing has been used to steer creative genius. As of September 1^st, this site will allow customers to choose which fashions move from sample to retail. Designers post pictures of their products on the site, and users can give a nod of approval by purchasing a $50 “stake” in the design. If the design earns enough stakes to fund its manufacture, the product is sold exclusively on Fashion Stake. In an effort to further democratize the world of fashion, the site promises that a portion of the proceeds are returned to stakeholders in the form of “clothing credits” that can be redeemed for items sold on the site. The site also plans on providing users and designers with a platform on which they can converse with one another about specific fashions.

Furthermore, a realm in which crowdsourced creativity is in no-short supply is the field of logo design. StockLogos is an online community where logos are available for purchase. Similar to the aforementioned websites, buyers can scan the site for intriguing images, while sellers can (at no cost) submit logos. Sellers are warned not to include elements of design that they don’t own the copyright to, as well as personal signatures, trademarked products, or anything recognizable. Buyers receive all rights to the logo once payment information is submitted, and the entire transaction is completely left to the individuals involved.

Though there seems to be less money to spend on in-house work, there’s still an abundance of creativity to be reaped from the crowds. Getting a pool of people to create, contribute, and design an idea can be fast and inexpensive. But it all begs the question, what happens to the experts? Are they no longer required? Is everyone now a self-proclaimed expert? Or worse, have we outgrown our need for experts because good enough, is now just good enough?