Network and community effects are always more powerful than individual efforts. Building communities around Green profiles makes a lot of sense. Treehugger here asks about whether people will be willing to put up with more intrusive but smarter metering. It seems to me that if social software teaches us anything its that people are more than willing to share information about themselves. Privacy is an incredibly complex thing and depends utterly on context and intention. makemesustainable is trying to tap into our willingness to share, to make us more sustainable.
Yesterday I wrote that at RedMonk has yet to formulate a policy to lower our carbon footprint, but I also said that tracking our travel via the DOPPLR service was one potential route to reporting on our footprint. Arguably using DOPPLR already contributes to better environmental effects- if it saves one piece of travel by allowing trips to be “batched” then we all benefit. DOPPLR already knows how far I have traveled this year- about 36,421k miles.
What is declarative living? Its the willingness to share. It will likely be a huge benefit for greener living. DOPPLR at first glance looks like a service for traveling more, but with the right tools in place we can travel less. Which is nice- with any luck we can all spend more time at home with those we love.
anyone have invites for dopplr?
Hi James.
A few random but related thoughts on the business travel bit. Joe and I were talking about cities earlier and the question of whether mobility will be less frenetic in the future… will we spend more time in each location, using it to catch up on old friendships/connections and explore new opportunities? So people don’t go to a city for just one meeting – they plan many to drive face to face interaction, with the majority of their relationship being managed online both before and after. What surely will become less popular is long distance (especially air-travel related) commuting. Not just because of CO2 but because airports are horrible interchanges. So might the common (yet expensive) habit of a company sending its executives off to countless meetings abroad at the drop of a hat. It just doesn’t make sense given the technology infrastructure now in place. I’m not saying face to face won’t continue to be the ultimate interaction – it’s just that its timing may not be so critical… physical interaction will maintain the bond, but most of the deals will be done via communication networks.
I also think the kind of places we stay may change. Much more flexible rental of apartments that are more like homes (in fact ARE people’s homes), as people try to maximise the revenue they can achieve from expensive city space, possibly driven via their relationship networks such as Facebook. So business travel becomes a more immersed yet relaxed form of regular relocation rather than a diving exercise between hotel rooms. Certainly for people without families.
We’re not sure yet – all thoughts welcome.