Like just about everyone else who comments on energy, I was mildly embarrassed when one of the worst oil spills in history happened less than a month after this post on offshore drilling. As the Economist points out, though, the spill changes the politics of drilling, but not the underlying dynamics. Exporting drilling to countries with less environmental oversight doesn't help the environment or the long term energy picture.
If there is a silver lining, it is that the spill may help restate the case for clean energy, which has been battered by the combined effects of the recession and falling oil prices. And it will be a long time before anyone dares suggest that safety measures like remotely operated blowout valves are "too expensive." (Although, in fairness, it's not clear that a remote switch would have helped in this case.) If more intense regulation drives up the price of oil, that's one step toward making the price reflect its cost.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Fair winds and following seas
I was saddened to learn that Jean LeMoin, founder and president of MCA public relations, passed away early this week. She's been a fixture for as long as I've been in the semiconductor industry, dispensing good humor and wise counsel in equal proportions. I'll miss hearing her laughter from across the room, but also her quiet suggestions.
Traces of her most visible mentoring, of PR folks, can be found in the many marketing departments that are populated with MCA alumni. Just as important though, was her gentle guidance of multitudes of journalists and executives, myself included. She never asked journalists for more than a fair hearing and an open mind, and she always made sure her clients had something useful to say. She worked tirelessly to cultivate an environment where mutual respect is more important than spin. She'll be missed.
My sympathies are with my many friends on the MCA team, who are carrying on as Jean would have expected through what has surely been an impossible week. They've asked that memorial donations be made to the Jean LeMoin Women in PR Scholarship Fund, in care of the agency. Their announcement is after the jump:
Jean LeMoin
1956 - 2010
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
It is with great regret that we announce the loss of MCA's founder and president Jean LeMoin, who passed away suddenly on May 3, 2010. A true trailblazer in the communications field, Jean founded MCA in 1983 as a one-woman shop and grew it into a highly respected boutique agency specializing in the global semiconductor, flat-panel display and microelectronics industries.
Jean launched MCA with an initial focus on semiconductor equipment and materials - one of the first agencies to do so - drawing on her marketing communications experience in the industry to build her client base. Over nearly three decades, Jean and MCA have influenced the industry outlook on many important subjects, launching game-changing technologies and creating new opportunities for outreach and dialogue. In 1994, VLSI Research Inc named her to its Chip Industry Hall of Fame for "pioneering the concept that a PR agency is a mechanism for managing a company's image across a broad front... creating an image that is cohesive with the media, customers, and the financial community." This vision remains a hallmark of MCA's approach.
A believer in giving back to the community, Jean sat on the boards of several industry associations, as well as such non-profits as Ronald McDonald House, the Support Network for Battered Women and Rubicon - organizations to which she also donated agency time in order to help reach those in need.
Those of us who knew and worked with Jean will remember many things about her - her keen mind and technology savvy, her love of the arts and good books, her affinity for Oprah and chocolate, her humorous stories about her exploits with best friend and life partner Kevin McCoy, how she always drank Diet Coke from a wine glass and never put croutons on her salad... Jean was a unique and fascinating personality, and the mark she has left on the communications profession, and our lives, is indelible.
To honor her memory, the Jean LeMoin Women in PR Scholarship has been created to enable a deserving student seeking a career in public relations or communications to pursue her dream. As a respected mentor to young PR professionals throughout her career, Jean's wish was for this effort to continue on. If you are interested in making a donation, please send your contribution, payable to The Jean LeMoin Women in PR Scholarship Fund, to MCA, 2119 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043.
From the MCA Team
Traces of her most visible mentoring, of PR folks, can be found in the many marketing departments that are populated with MCA alumni. Just as important though, was her gentle guidance of multitudes of journalists and executives, myself included. She never asked journalists for more than a fair hearing and an open mind, and she always made sure her clients had something useful to say. She worked tirelessly to cultivate an environment where mutual respect is more important than spin. She'll be missed.
My sympathies are with my many friends on the MCA team, who are carrying on as Jean would have expected through what has surely been an impossible week. They've asked that memorial donations be made to the Jean LeMoin Women in PR Scholarship Fund, in care of the agency. Their announcement is after the jump:
Jean LeMoin
1956 - 2010
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
It is with great regret that we announce the loss of MCA's founder and president Jean LeMoin, who passed away suddenly on May 3, 2010. A true trailblazer in the communications field, Jean founded MCA in 1983 as a one-woman shop and grew it into a highly respected boutique agency specializing in the global semiconductor, flat-panel display and microelectronics industries.
Jean launched MCA with an initial focus on semiconductor equipment and materials - one of the first agencies to do so - drawing on her marketing communications experience in the industry to build her client base. Over nearly three decades, Jean and MCA have influenced the industry outlook on many important subjects, launching game-changing technologies and creating new opportunities for outreach and dialogue. In 1994, VLSI Research Inc named her to its Chip Industry Hall of Fame for "pioneering the concept that a PR agency is a mechanism for managing a company's image across a broad front... creating an image that is cohesive with the media, customers, and the financial community." This vision remains a hallmark of MCA's approach.
A believer in giving back to the community, Jean sat on the boards of several industry associations, as well as such non-profits as Ronald McDonald House, the Support Network for Battered Women and Rubicon - organizations to which she also donated agency time in order to help reach those in need.
Those of us who knew and worked with Jean will remember many things about her - her keen mind and technology savvy, her love of the arts and good books, her affinity for Oprah and chocolate, her humorous stories about her exploits with best friend and life partner Kevin McCoy, how she always drank Diet Coke from a wine glass and never put croutons on her salad... Jean was a unique and fascinating personality, and the mark she has left on the communications profession, and our lives, is indelible.
To honor her memory, the Jean LeMoin Women in PR Scholarship has been created to enable a deserving student seeking a career in public relations or communications to pursue her dream. As a respected mentor to young PR professionals throughout her career, Jean's wish was for this effort to continue on. If you are interested in making a donation, please send your contribution, payable to The Jean LeMoin Women in PR Scholarship Fund, to MCA, 2119 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043.
From the MCA Team
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Where are we?
Eek! I just realized that the new template doesn't include a link to the contact page. Better fix that soonest!
In the interim, you can find it at http://www.thinfilmmfg.com/admin/about.htm#contact
In the interim, you can find it at http://www.thinfilmmfg.com/admin/about.htm#contact
So you want to hire a writer...
I've been chatting with a number of new potential clients lately, and realized I'm having very similar conversations with all of them. So this is something of an FAQ for people who think an outside writer might be able to support their efforts. While you don't need to have the answers to these questions before you contact me, it will save us both some time if you've started to think about them.
1. What's the audience? What do you want to accomplish with this? An article for an industry journal serves a different function than a press release or a brochure.
2. What's it about? What do you want people to know after they've read it that they don't know now? What response do you want?
3. How long is it? A 100-word event listing is not the same as a 500-word news story or a 2000-word feature.
4. What's your budget? Your timeframe? These two questions define what is and isn't reasonable. If you have a ten hour budget, but need a twenty hour project done by next week, we probably don't have much to talk about. But if you're able to be flexible about delivery, small projects can often fit into scheduling gaps.
5. What's the best use of your time? Often, handing off a large project is more cost effective than handing off a small one. The reason is that any writing project has planning, information gathering, writing, and editing components. You'll need to be involved in the planning and information gathering pieces anyway, whether you delegate the project or not. The real time savings comes from handing off the writing and editing components, which are proportionally larger for longer projects. Those components are where I add the most value, too.
1. What's the audience? What do you want to accomplish with this? An article for an industry journal serves a different function than a press release or a brochure.
2. What's it about? What do you want people to know after they've read it that they don't know now? What response do you want?
3. How long is it? A 100-word event listing is not the same as a 500-word news story or a 2000-word feature.
4. What's your budget? Your timeframe? These two questions define what is and isn't reasonable. If you have a ten hour budget, but need a twenty hour project done by next week, we probably don't have much to talk about. But if you're able to be flexible about delivery, small projects can often fit into scheduling gaps.
5. What's the best use of your time? Often, handing off a large project is more cost effective than handing off a small one. The reason is that any writing project has planning, information gathering, writing, and editing components. You'll need to be involved in the planning and information gathering pieces anyway, whether you delegate the project or not. The real time savings comes from handing off the writing and editing components, which are proportionally larger for longer projects. Those components are where I add the most value, too.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Administrivia - Site Blog Software Upgraded
We've been seeing too much comment SPAM lately, so for the first time in too long a time (3 years), we've upgraded the Movable Type software which drives our blogs.
With Movable Type 5.01, we are now able to require commenters to sign-in order to reduce SPAM. We will not be collecting your login information, but rather relying on your choice of another web site (Google, Yahoo, AIM, Live Journal etc.) to verify you exist. (We won't see your password for that other site, they'll just us tell your name and maybe email address.)
The leap in software releases required us to change the look of the blogs; we're not done with Katherine's TFM blog yet. In addition, we MAY have broken some links.
Please notify of us any problems you have reading or commenting on the blogs.
With Movable Type 5.01, we are now able to require commenters to sign-in order to reduce SPAM. We will not be collecting your login information, but rather relying on your choice of another web site (Google, Yahoo, AIM, Live Journal etc.) to verify you exist. (We won't see your password for that other site, they'll just us tell your name and maybe email address.)
The leap in software releases required us to change the look of the blogs; we're not done with Katherine's TFM blog yet. In addition, we MAY have broken some links.
Please notify of us any problems you have reading or commenting on the blogs.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Drilling into energy policy
Much of the coverage of Obama's announcement on offshore drilling focuses on the politics. Yes, this co-opts a major Republican talking point ahead of the potential debate on carbon regulation. Yes, this will cause much consternation among environmentalists and will make oil companies happy.
But politics aside, this is just plain smart.
The "energy problem" is really two problems in one. The first problem is climate change, and you address that by reducing consumption of fossil fuels: renewable energy, conservation, carbon regulation, etc. Offshore drilling doesn't help the climate change problem, but it doesn't hurt it either, because the economy as currently structured burns the same amount of oil regardless of where it comes from.
Which leads us to the second problem. Oil is an increasingly scarce commodity, and large amounts of the world's oil are controlled by autocracies with unfriendly governments. As oil prices rise -- which they will as the global economy recovers -- those countries gain power far out of proportion to their overall importance. To gain leverage over those countries, you reduce the importance of their oil. That means reducing consumption, but it also means developing alternative sources, particularly sources controlled by the US or by other friendly democracies.
In the long run, switching the world to a post-fossil fuel economy would address both problems. Climate change policy and energy security policy have the same ultimate goal. But even the most starry-eyed optimists agree that such a switch will take far longer than a single presidency, and in the short term the US economy would be crippled without a secure energy supply. Hence the importance of clean coal, offshore drilling, nuclear energy, etc.
Yes, it's good politics, but it's also good policy.
Environmentalists are appalled, and not entirely without reason. The impact of offshore drilling can be huge. But there's a certain amount of hypocrisy in protecting Virginia's beaches at the expense of Nigeria's coastal rainforest. Until oil exploration is eliminated altogether, rigorous oversight is the best way to minimize its environmental impact. Democracies are much better at accountability and oversight than other systems.
But politics aside, this is just plain smart.
The "energy problem" is really two problems in one. The first problem is climate change, and you address that by reducing consumption of fossil fuels: renewable energy, conservation, carbon regulation, etc. Offshore drilling doesn't help the climate change problem, but it doesn't hurt it either, because the economy as currently structured burns the same amount of oil regardless of where it comes from.
Which leads us to the second problem. Oil is an increasingly scarce commodity, and large amounts of the world's oil are controlled by autocracies with unfriendly governments. As oil prices rise -- which they will as the global economy recovers -- those countries gain power far out of proportion to their overall importance. To gain leverage over those countries, you reduce the importance of their oil. That means reducing consumption, but it also means developing alternative sources, particularly sources controlled by the US or by other friendly democracies.
In the long run, switching the world to a post-fossil fuel economy would address both problems. Climate change policy and energy security policy have the same ultimate goal. But even the most starry-eyed optimists agree that such a switch will take far longer than a single presidency, and in the short term the US economy would be crippled without a secure energy supply. Hence the importance of clean coal, offshore drilling, nuclear energy, etc.
Yes, it's good politics, but it's also good policy.
Environmentalists are appalled, and not entirely without reason. The impact of offshore drilling can be huge. But there's a certain amount of hypocrisy in protecting Virginia's beaches at the expense of Nigeria's coastal rainforest. Until oil exploration is eliminated altogether, rigorous oversight is the best way to minimize its environmental impact. Democracies are much better at accountability and oversight than other systems.
Friday, March 5, 2010
A note about comments
Recently I've had a spate of comments making innocuous but generic and not terribly relevant remarks, from people with names or web sites pointing to stock promoters, Viagra sales, and so forth. I've been deleting these as spam.
If you are a real person and your comment has been deleted in this way, I apologize. Make a substantive comment under an actual human name (ideally, but not necessarily, your own), and point to a link that is even remotely relevant, and your comment will get through. Behave like a spammer, and be treated like one.
If you are a real person and your comment has been deleted in this way, I apologize. Make a substantive comment under an actual human name (ideally, but not necessarily, your own), and point to a link that is even remotely relevant, and your comment will get through. Behave like a spammer, and be treated like one.
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