AISO Launches New Rebranding Efforts Along with “Total Eco Web Server” Technology

 

 

Environmentally-Friendly Web Hosting Company Uses Water Cooling to Go Beyond PV Panels and Maximize Solar Energy

Romoland, CA – March 4, 2009 — AISO.net launches its new website and brand identity with the announcement of the “Total Eco Web Server”™, or TEWS™ as it has been nicknamed. AISO.net, the first and only 100 percent solar-powered web hosting company, launched its new brand identity, symbolizing its commitment to the environment.

“Our new logo and brand identity shows the transformation from being just solar-powered to having a complete hosting ecosystem that is environmentally friendly. This new look reflects the values that AISO.net has been known for in the business community, while also representing our new strategic direction for a complete environmentally-friendly hosting solution,” says Phil Nail, CTO of AISO.net.

AISO.net is located in Romoland, CA, a few miles south of Riverside, CA, where the annual rainfall is minimal and the sun is out over 70 percent of the year. “We have been able to power our office and servers without using the local energy grid via on-site solar power. Even cloudy days can collect the sun’s power and with the new TEWS setup we combine solar power, recycled rain water to cool the data center, air for Internet conductivity, virtualized servers, and other great eco-friendly technologies,” says Nail.

AISO.net recently added four 2,500 gallon water tanks behind the data center to harvest the annual rainfall and nightly condensation. The tanks were installed 20 days ago and they have already harvested 6,000 gallons of rainwater. AISO.net has plans for adding four more tanks which will result in over 20,000 gallons of water collected. The water collected will be used for two things: landscaping and cooling the data center. Special air units from Coolerado use this recycled rain water which acts as a cooling agent to cool the hot desert air down to a cool 67 degrees all using less than 600 watts of power.

“To stay ahead of the industry we have to act and look like rock stars,” states Nail, who always seems to have a smile and his sunglasses. “That is why we chose Thunk to help with our re-brand and strategic business development. They get it. The IT industry is not a glamorous world but we believe our way is how data should move through the Internet. It’s logical and environmental, and that thinking has helped give us exposure. We are in a sweet spot right now because our infrastructure is built on solar panels so the more energy we can get out of 120 panels the easier it will be to scale – and we plan to scale. All it takes is another 120 panels and more efficient technologies and we keep staying ahead of the demands for data.”

“Solar web hosting is not a novelty, this is serious. There is no excuse for companies to use data centers and hosting providers that have old infrastructures and antiquated models with fancy websites that brag about buying energy credits,” says James Tucker, founder of Thunk, Inc. in San Francisco. “Consumers need to be smarter than that and realize that these data centers are sucking the earth dry of resources. I discovered this working on a rebrand for a large data center company and was inspired to shift my clients, company and mission to use alternative energy for web hosting. Fossil fuel hosting companies are going to need to make radical changes – and fast. This comes at a time where change is expensive but the consumer demands companies make the change or they will go somewhere that aligns with their business philosophy.”

“I am glad people choose us because we are a solar web hosting company, but in business, it has to go beyond that. We want people to come to AISO.net because of our service, reliability, uptime, and customer service,” says Nail.

AISO.net also uses LED lighting, solar tubes, thin client computers and other unique green techniques which allow more capacity without having a large physical footprint housing hundreds of servers and cages. The dedicated servers offer high availability and are extremely scalable. All data resides on fiber drives and all data is backed up hourly. The servers utilize NetApp for the data storage and VMware to maximum server uptime. This same solution is used by 95 percent of all Fortune 500 companies.

“Companies like Discovery Channel and Indianapolis Zoo love our dedicated server solution because it gives them piece of mind knowing their data is secure,” says Nail.

 

About Thunk, Inc. - www.thunkinc.com
Thunk is an interactive team located in San Francisco that works with start-ups, agencies, marketers, and directors as a creative resource for web, application, print, video, and Flash projects. We specialize in information architecture, project management, content development, rapid prototyping, strategic lead generation campaigns, and branding.

 

About AISO.net - www.aiso.net
AISO.net has been a trusted name in environmentally friendly web hosting since 1997, providing a level of service that is unmatched in the industry. All network and server hardware is fully redundant with 24×7-automated systems monitoring to ensure the highest possible uptime. Using solar panels to power its data center and network, AISO.net is the first and only 100 percent solar-powered web hosting company. Customers as far away as Kenya, East Africa, rely on the service and reliability offered by AISO.net. For more information on Coolerado, visit Coolerado’s website at www.coolerado.com.

Filed under: Creative Direction, Environment, Positioning, Thunk News , aiso.net, green hosting, press release, solar hosting

Future Trends in Advertising

Here is a clip from Leo Burnett. A very slick presentation style with a powerful way to communicate ideas along side the talking head.

Filed under: Creative Direction, Differentiation, Positioning

Genealogy and Family Social Networking

I have been using Geni.com for over a year now and never thought the site would have such an impact in my life. Facebook is a bit uninteresting to family members and though they have privacy features it is still difficult to master, control, and trust. It makes so much more sense to have a site dedicated to families to communicate and document past and future events. I am uninterested in ‘living online’ with social network sites and more interested in ‘living outside’ with friends and family so you will find this review coming from someone who spends little time on these network sites but just enough to keep them active.

I am actually feeling a bit guilty writing this now but I hope that someone else finds this personal experience interesting and wants to keep family close – but not that close. 

Usability
I do miss logging in and seeing the visual tree but the Facebook-like feeds of activity is very interesting and comforting. The site is easy to use for a six-year old and a 66-year old. I have my daughter using the site to view photos – and now videos – of family. She is also more interested in the family tree than I ever was. My grandmother is a huge genealogy nut and has written several books on family names but I never shared her enthusiasm until now. If you have formphobia like myself, then you will appreciate the polite, clear, and engaging way the Geni website collects data. It as not as demanding as you may think and before I knew it I had a lot of info, photos, and a growing tree after a few other family members got motivated to post their family info. 

Friends
I hope Geni gets enough feedback on this because I see some hints of adding friends to the network and I am concerned with this idea. There are photos and details that I would not mind sharing with close family friends but I have more public websites for that, Flickr, Ofoto, Facebook, etc. This is not a public website and the differentiator is that very fact. The black and white ‘family only’ format gives me the peace of mind to use and ask family members to trust. The only way to allow godparents or very close friends of family is to have approval by 10 or more other family members. Friends could only see that immediate family info because other family members may not want to be contacted by this person who could abuse the trust of this family network. 

Videos
Finally! This should have been added at launch but I know priorities are all part of the launch and beta process. I have been using Vimeo.com for posting private videos and HD footage of family events and will continue to use that for HD but then post a version for family to see on Geni. Vimeo password protects the videos but it is clumsy and if someone forgets the password I am bothered all the time. The videos can be posted from your hard drive or created on the fly with a webcam which is great for those times you want to capture a moment and a video camera is not as handy as a laptop or cam.  Once downside is all videos are posted as public and you cannot send someone a video greeting like a Happy Birthday! message. It is also a bit lackluster experience to watch the status of the video upload/encoding process – but it works and a small video clip is there. I will still use Vimeo for my HD versions of the footage.

Business model
I can forecast a few ways to make money from members but whatever they do a bit of resistance will be normal. If they can continue to build trust with the product and not violate privacy concerns then I am sure users will be keen on a minimal fee for upkeep. Advertising would feel like a violation of trust if the ads were targeted based on data that was submitted. Sponsoring areas by certain brands would be the most tactful and valuable method to associate a brand with a trusted site. Demanding users to click outside their path is asking a lot and I would feel much better about a company who spends their ad dollars on the Photos section of Geni rather than invading content space. 

Summary
Overall, this Geni product has been a great way to connect with the people I care about most: family. Like a lot of families, everyone is scattered all over the place and it’s nice that we have phones, email, etc. but when I want to ‘reach out and touch someone’ I like to create a video, photo slideshow, or make a card with my daughter and send it. If Geni can look at the real world experiences and mimic those on their site it will be a lot more personal and a great alternative to connect.

• Surprise birthday on webcam. Now they have video capabilities it would be awesome to have family from all over the world to get online at one time and wish someone a happy birthday. 
• Send real gifts and not these silly icons without a message. 
• Send personal video greetings.
• Donate in a family members name.
• Sponsor events, walks, and other things to raise money.
• Post needs and wants. 
• Allow embedded content.
• Encourage family reunions – this would make ‘create an event’ a bit more confusing though.

Filed under: Differentiation, Positioning, Positive Change , family, genealogy, social network

The greatest infomercial ever masking as a social enterprise

It’s almost disgusting how T. Boone Pickens can spend millions on TV spots to have people go to a website that looks like he is a social enterprise. It is a well crafted site with visuals and a whiteboard tour that mimics ZDNet start-up entrepreneurs.

In fact the mission is to encourage Americans to think natural gas and wind. This will then feed investors and energy companies to support his wind turbine farms. I am not saying it’s wrong, I think it is genius and in the historical sense, the greatest innovations of the last centuries came from moguls and their way of thinking that persuaded the messes. 

Tires over train tracks. Combustion over electric.

This is one great pitch.

Filed under: Environment, Positioning , natural gas, pitch, social-enterprise, turbine, wind turbines

The $200 iPhone for change

What an opportunity that was missed by Apple to be able to have $100 – $200 of the dollars that was padded for profits in case the phone did not meet expectations to go to worthy causes. Look at what Good Magazine is doing:http://www.goodmagazine.com/subscribe

Then we have the One Laptop per Child program and to be honest, I am sure these children in rural areas would rather have an iPhone. But either way, a create the $200 iPhone or a step up to the current positive change plate and promote that a portion of proceeds that go to an organization of your choice. That would have been a much better idea than to pad the phone and then surprise people with conditional rebates.

Shame on you Apple. And after the critisism and reply for environmentally sound practices and manufacturing you should know better. Look at the products that people are supporting because they can buy their gadgets and feel good also. Didn’t you have a “Product Red” iPod Nano?

http://www.joinred.com/

I hope the next generation iPhone is as globally concious as the current generation iPhone users.

Filed under: Differentiation, Positioning, Positive Change

One Laptop Per Child – Plus One for You, Too!

Today, the OLPC Foundation announced the campaign that will allow the donor to get their paws on one of the XO laptops when they get pony up $399 to the non-profit organization. This was done after they had positive results from a focus-group study conducted with children aged 7 – 11 years-old. It surprises me that this was never done already and the study was just done with American kids.

What do kids in Puru really want? Is it really a laptop? Maybe it is but I would like to see more initiatives bundled with the laptop to make sure it is actually useful and not a selfish technofan donation. I have visited remote places in the world with extreme poverty and limited resource, power, fresh water, and farming. If I imagined a box with 10 of these laptops landing in a rural village as the OLPC Foundation imagines this is what my reaction would be if I were in the village:

• “How will I power this thing?” It would be wonderful to combine solar technology to power this laptop. Since it already is incredibly energy efficient, how about support the thing with an easy way to juice the toy-looking device?
• “What happens when it falls off my canoe?” This is promoted as extremely rugged but will it survive one day getting from the location it s shipped to the remote village across the rivers or reefs? Trying to get a camera to these areas with a drybag is challenging in itself and usually the bag is piled under items instead of on top so it will not fall off first.
• “Will this help produce clean water?” In an age today where Americans forget that clean water coming from a faucet is still an amazing technological advancement to some cultures, what priority is this to parents who need to have their children help with basic needs of the day?
• “Wow, is this in my native language?” How is a laptop with an English keyboard going to teach them anything?
• “Is open-source software putting food in the bowl?” Will their be videos on how to farm more productively or how to use the Internet to ask for donations to build a wind turbine to power their laptop and all the peripherals they want to order?
• “What, what is the Internet?” Only a handful of places have a decent connection with a phone line that needs to do other things than to be tied up with a 56K modem. Has a global broadband provider been, um, provided?
• “Can this robot keep pesticides from being dumped over my village?” A majority of these villages are not far from corporate or political control and they do not have the knowledge or understanding of how these entities work. How about a documentary or educational materials that are created for then to learn about their rights. Do they know about human rights organizations?
• “Will it bring us good or evil?” Introducing things like this needs to almost have missionaries that can preach the benefits – if there are genuine – and ensure that the community will support the children who want to use and and the others who want to steal it and create conflict. With the women concerned about rape on a daily basis, how is protecting a laptop going to help matters?
• “Where is the nearest Genius Bar?” Sure it’s not an Apple but where is the support when this thing shows a blue screen or a clicking sounds comes from the hard drive? Will Skype work and does UPS really ship that worldwide?

The organization and contributors to the building of this laptop are surprised the sales of this laptop have not taken off since the initial announcement. $200 is not a lot of money for a laptop, that is for sure. What I – and I am sure other people as well – want to know is: will this bring good things or complicate matters in cultures that have more important things (i.e. basic needs) to worry about than how to install Halo on Linux?

How many kids will fight over this unsupervised program? We might as well dump a box full of soda and candy bars and see what happens. What, I know what happens I have seen it. Coca Cola and cigarettes are able to find remote parts of the world and people work and steal just to destroy their lungs and rot their teeth. What happens when they get hooked on Internet porn? What happens when they get credit cards from tourists?
Maybe I just don’t see it and I read their FAQ, mission statement, and press releases. Maybe I need to see how this really works. Maybe I go with a DV film crew and see how this laptop can bring positive change to developing countries. Anyone interested? I need to see the contents of these machines and not the specs. Who really cares how it works but what it can do to save them from natural disasters, starvation, disease, and chemicals seeping into their water supply?

For more information visit:

XOgiving.org (FAQ)

New York Times article

Filed under: Positioning, Positive Change

Tradeshow Noise

It’s funny how a creative company who is doing innovative things cannot explain what they do in a single sentence or a even in powerful concept that grabs you. Recently at the Dwell on Design 2007 event, I was impressed with the EcoSteel product and their process which was not communicated at all when walking by their booth. They had a 20 x 10 booth in a high traffic area but nothing invited me or intrigued me to ask about what they did.

Their booth was so hodge-podge that nobody felt welcome in the space and there was no central message. After talking to Lynn Chadderdon, who is in operations and not sales, she told me, “EcoSteel buildings contain recycled vehicles, appliances and industrial scrap metal.”

Wow, that is cool. Where does it say that in the booth? Why don’t you shout that to everyone: “Where have all the junk yards gone?” This would get some attention, maybe even show a building or house and say how many cars it took to build these. 80% recycled steel to make beams and Frank Gehry inspired architectural structures is a great story that can be communicated better.

Filed under: Differentiation, Positioning

85% Shift

For the last 10 years I have made sure that at least 10% – 15% of projects and time is spent on volunteering, non-profit projects, or other positive change initiatives. This is challenging because the IRS is not very generous to businesses that donate time, only goods. Since we have services and not have goods this part of the business always was criticized but I stuck to my guns and now the entire business is shifting from 15% socially responsible projects to a whopping 100%.

Our new statement goes like this:

Thunk is a socially responsible design agency where creative thinking is used to craft solutions that make positive impacts on the social and cultural concerns of today. We are dedicated to collaborate with passionate people and help realize their vision using design, media, advertising, branding, and marketing strategies to make the world a better place.

We are only taking on projects that contribute to the positive change movement in these particular areas:

 

• Alternative Energies
• Sustainable Communities
• Environmental Issues
• Green Architecture
• Poverty
• Exploitation
• Health and Wellness
• Education
• Organic Farming and Agriculture
• Simple Lifestyle
• Local Issues

It’s a huge risk but there are so many people with great ideas and passion – these were the projects that made me feel more fulfilled and with the experience Thunk has it can be applied to much more important issues. I am sticking with planet and people on both local and global levels. Wish me luck!

Filed under: Positioning