Energy Awareness Month - What you need to know

Home energy use is something that we all know we need and many times just take for granted that we'll use electricity and natural gas, paying the bills when they come in the mail. In Ohio, October is Energy Awareness Month. Having worked for an agency where energy usage was the main topic I had the opportunity to write and guest column about energy awareness which you can read below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Save money and energy with a few simple steps

Guest Column – Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel

Knowing what you can do to lessen your energy usage without sacrificing your comfort is important to also lowering your monthly utility bills. In honor of October as Energy Awareness Month, the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) wants to help you learn how to control the energy you use in your home and also connect with incentives offered by the utility companies for home energy audits, appliance rebates and more.

The first step is to identify what areas of your home need work in order to reduce the amount of heating or cooling you are losing to the outside. This can be because of lack of appropriate insulation in the walls or attic, old windows that leak or insufficient caulking around windows and doors. To learn exactly what you need to do in your home can be as simple as scheduling a home energy audit or home energy walk-thru. Qualified energy auditors will search for ways that energy is escaping from your home and offer tips on how to avoid this from happening. Some companies even offer rebates on contractor fees to have recommended work done.

Another way to lower energy usage is to remove old, outdated appliances, such as refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers and clothing washers in favor of newer, more efficient models. Many utility companies offer rebates or incentives to purchase and install newer appliances. Some even provide free removal of your old refrigerators, as long as they are in working order. This also helps to make sure your old appliances are recycled and don’t end up in the landfill.

If purchasing new appliances is not in your budget, there are still many upgrades and repairs you can do, or even simple habits you can change that will save on your checkbook each month. One of the easiest is to replace old light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs that give the same about of light but use less electricity. Another way is learn the best way to use landscaping and drapes to help heat and cool your home naturally. Make sure that you do not have any water leaks inside or outside your home. Even a slow leak can amount to huge water bills. Installing a programmable thermostat to help regulate the temperature in your home at various times of the day makes a big difference as well.

To learn more about energy efficiency visit OCC online at www.occ.ohio.gov and click on our Smart Energy page. You will find energy efficiency tips, information about Vampire Power, a step-by-step guide to conduct your own energy audit and more. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 In addition to OCC, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has information on energy efficiency and other utility topics. To view its press release about the 2014 Energy Awareness Month visit http://www.puco.ohio.gov/puco/index.cfm/media-room/media-releases/october-is-energy-awareness-month2/#sthash.O3bX2wUL.dpbs.  

 

"the first phone call from heaven"

It's amazing how one of the first blog posts I started writing for 2014 has turned into one that I kept meaning to get back to but did not. Weeks turned into months and here we are in August and I am just now getting back to it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of my goals is to read at least 52 books in 2014 (average of one per week). You can see a partial list of the books I have read in an earlier post at Books - Borrow or Buy (Update: I have now read 54 books so I can say that at least one of my goals for the year has been completed 8/2014. I'll post an updated list at the end of the year). My first completed book of the year is one my husband and son gave me for Christmas: Mitch Albom's newest book "the first phone call from heaven." Just like his other books, once I started reading it I had trouble putting it down.

Without giving too much away, it was great to read another book that had some positive notes to it. People thinking that they were speaking to loved ones in heaven. Although there is a twist toward the end, the whole premise was that of helping people through the hurt of losing someone they cared about. Which of course got me to thinking who I would like to speak with if I could get a phone call from heaven.

First would be my grandmother. She passed when I was in middle school and to this day I miss her. We would spend hours together, not really doing much but just being near. Of course there are others family, friends and even people that I have never met that I believe would be interesting to talk to. I guess this idea of getting calls from heaven is like the question "If you could sit down and have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?"

So, who would you like to get a phone call from heaven from? 

Creativity: Comes from many places

I recently read a post called "61 Online and Social Media Resources for Motivating People to Create" on Brainzooming's site. I won't rehash all of them here as you can read them for your self, but it did get me thinking about where I get creative thoughts from.

When I was younger, I was able to write a lot more creative thoughts and stories. As I made the choice to go into Public Relations I ended up following more of a path of news writing. Put in all the facts and leave the "fluff" to a minimum. Reporters don't want to read flowery language in press releases. So my creativity waned. This led to difficulties in a previous job where they determined after I started that they wanted more of a marketing style of writing (think catchy advertisements). I struggled to do so and in my focusing on the type of writing made errors in other areas that I had never had trouble with before.

So, fast forward a couple years to when I started working on my Master's degree. Several of my classes relied on storytelling as part of the projects. Thankfully we were able to submit drafts and I was able to obtain generous feedback from peers and instructors to help me learn to add the "fluff" in order to make writing more conversational.

Having the skills of both styles of writing has been and continues to be beneficial. But back to the idea of where creativity comes from. I have found that many of my ideas come when I am not sitting in front of the computer. Unfortunately it is typically when I am not in a position to write them down (driving to work, in the shower, as I am falling asleep). No matter how many times I have tried to remember a thought, phrase or idea to be able to write it down when I get paper and pen, I never get to it in time or remember bits and pieces but not enough to make it sound good.

Do you ever have this problem? What do you do to combat it? I have taken to using the voice record feature on my MP3 player to record while driving and keeping a pad of paper in my nightstand to record those evening thoughts. However, and wherever you get your creative thoughts, make sure to write them down. You never know where they might lead you.

New Job, New Language, New Challenges, New Opportunities

In mid-July I was fortunate to begin a new chapter in my career by joining the Center for Outreach Services at the Ohio School for the Deaf. Like any new situation, I had a variety of feelings over this change from being excited at the new challenges and opportunities that awaited to being nervous (along with some self-doubt) to going somewhere new where I need to learn a whole new language and culture to ensure continuation of my position.

 Now to be fair, I did take a couple years of sign-language in high school. However, that was close to two decades ago that I studied it. So with excited trepidation, I began my new journey. In the four weeks I have been here I have discovered that I remembered more than I thought and that I have a ways to go in my learning before I have to take my Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) next July. Luckily, the SLPI is more about personal life issues (family, hobbies, vacations, etc) than technical topics like job skills. I am hopeful that between classes I am looking at for fall and beyond, tutoring sessions with deaf/hard of hearing co-workers and having the staff and students back in a couple weeks I'll pick up on it more.

 For once though, I did not doubt my ability to do the job from a public relations/communications point of view. I knew that I had the KSA's needed to help with the redesign of the web site, creating handbooks and manuals, branding forms and other publications, and the development of a quarterly newsletter. I am optimistic about the future here and look forward to meeting the challenges head on.

What types of challenges have you had with a new job? Have you ever been required to learn a new language in order to perform you job? I'd love to hear you answers to these questions.

Reputation Management: Essential to fulfilling your mission

Note: Several years ago I was asked by a supervisor to write about reputation management. This is what I developed, but taking out the specific info to the agency I worked for at the time. 

Managing an organization’s reputation is about more than interacting with clients. It is a reflection of what is said and done. An organization’s reputation dictates the level of credibility associated with it and reflects the likelihood of clients turning to it as a reliable source. This is even truer as advances in technology continue, where comments about companies are posted online at all hours of the day, seven days a week. We need to remember that a strong, positive reputation takes years to build and only seconds to destroy. (http://repfixers.com). 

Before, negative comments were limited to word of mouth within localized geographic regions, but with sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp and various search engines, those comments can go worldwide in a matter of seconds. Word of mouth is no longer considered just spoken words but includes the online community. This can instantly damage an organization’s reputation to the point that clients begin to turn away from it for a source of information.

Negative comments or reviews can turn into a loss of credibility and trust causing clients or partners to turn elsewhere for information. For a state agency, this can mean obtaining less information about consumer issues or needs to utilize in developing programs or using in cases to argue points that both positively and negatively impart Ohioans. It also can mean a loss of strong partnerships with other organizations that support the organization’s mission and distribute information directly to Ohioans on behalf of the agency.  

Engaging in reputation management will help to dispel the negative comments by reaching out to those who have posted, working with them to reach a positive outcome. By personally addressing concerns or complaints, the organization can be seen in a positive light allowing us to be in a better position as a trusted authority of utility issues that is reliable and credible.

According to a 2011 survey by Weber Shandwick (a global public relations and reputation management company), 70 percent of consumers avoid buying a product if they don’t like the company behind it. What does this mean to a state agency? Negative online or media presence can lead Ohioans to determine that they do not trust the agency, causing them to avoid turning to the agency for information. This can lead to decreased support from the public and other organizations when the agency needs it, for example during the budget process. 

While reputation management should be a concern within all departments/divisions of a state agency, most are equipped with experts in communications or related areas who can address these issues and provide the resources necessary to avoid experiencing a reputation crisis.

What other items need to be thought about with reputation management? I would love to hear from 

Other items to think about:

1.      An organization must work together to preserve its reputation from top executives down.

2.      Plans must be in place to respond quickly to any incident that could damage your reputation.

3.      “Validity” + “Reliability” + “Positioning” x gossip = Reputation.

Books: Borrow or Buy

Diving into a book can bring about learning something new or just allowing yourself to escape to a different life for a few hours. Reading has long been a past time I have enjoyed and tried to make time for no matter what else was going on. 

However reading can be an expensive hobby and one that takes up a great amount of space as is evident from the hundreds of books we have at home (some of which have been passed down to my son). In the past several years I have learned the joy of reserving and checking out books from the library. And yes, I am one of those people who still enjoys, and prefers, to have an actual book in my hand and not read on an electronic device.

So in reference to the post title, I think that it depends on the book when it comes to whether it is better to borrow or buy. Like many movies my family enjoys, we like to borrow first and if we really like it and think that we would want to watch it over and over we will end up buying a copy. Books are that way to me. I love to read, but there are definitely some books that I enjoy reading once but know that I will never read again so I am glad to not own them.

After two years of not reading much other than the books assigned to me by professors in my master's program, I decided that I would try to read at least 52 books during 2014. I think that I am off to a good start. Below is a partial list out of 26 books that I have read this year so far:

1.       The book thief by Markus Zusak

2.       The first phone call from heaven by Mitch Albom            

3.       The lady of the rivers by Philippa Gregory

4.       The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

5.       Longbourn by Jo Baker

6.       Almost Amish by Kathryn Cushman

7.       Accidentally Amish by Olivia Newport

8.       Head in the clouds by Karen Witemeyer

9.       The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory

10.   The White Princess by Philippa Gregory

11.   The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory

12.   The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

13.   Changeling by Philippa Gregory

14.   Outlander : a novel by Diana Gabaldon

15.   Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

16.   The virgin's lover by Philippa Gregory

17.   Gone girl by Gillian Flynn

18.   In Plain View by Olivia Newport

19.   Taken for English by Olivia Newport        

 I have others at home from the library and am waiting on more as well. (Love being able to reserve books but not make the request active until weeks or months later).

So if you love to read but shudder at the thought of trying to find room for all those books at home, check out your local library. They truly are a treasure.