Content Management Systems

I have begun to use Joomla, and obviously like the online version, but a few comments from people who are professionals in this strategy, point to a different scenario too, take your decision :

1.  Content creation should keep privacy in mind, propriety content should not be available to any third party vendor.
2.  Content creation also requires a concern for organizational concerns, there might be multiple content developers working together to get a site up.
3.  Collaboration requires a software that can share data across a team based in locations across the world.
4.  Team work and Quick Response to the success of any website.

Based on these feedbacks, I decided to write more about the other strategies available for a Content Development Team.  The first point I mention was crafted by Kapil, who leads a team of skilled Financial Consultants in India, it has to be said though, that he is a very hands on gentleman, and a pro when it comes to webmaster techniques.  "There is a skill set that everyone must work towards, it is a skill game after all, the more we work on a skill, the easier it gets for the rest of the team.  Mandy, I need you decide on what  is worth taking a risk on," he said getting his almost bald headed lean frame out of his chair.  He moved to the drawing board with a marker in his hand.
"The blueprint you gave your Content Developers, says it all," I said almost stopping him midway and regreting it immediately.
"Yes, I know."
"Content Management consists of content creation and publishing.  If content is the king, then the king must dictate the Site Design and not the othe way around," I repeated what he had told me two days ago, and was very proud that I had been taking notes while he spoke.
I referred my notes, walked over to the drawing board and took the marker from his hand and quickly wrote on the board :

Service Design
1.  Build a Scenario and Story Telling.
2.  Task Analysis.
3.  Prototyping.
Service to Business
1.  Visualization of the Actual Content.
2.  Innovation.
Innovation Design
1.  Visualize.
2.  Assess.
3.  Innovate.

He, at that point took the marker from my hand and changed a few things on the board, drew three large circles, marking them as Content Design, Business Content and Designer Toolkit
"You design the service before anything else is done, I know you write, and write well, chose the service that you want to offer to the customer, the Site Creator."
I understood what he was trying to tell me and looked at the research that I had done earlier, before I had met him.  I understood that I was just a salesman today, selling my wares to the best possible buyer and here I had a team of people who wanted my product.  As a salesman it was my job to talk and talk and talk to figure out what was going on in the organization.  So from the Content Creator in my team to the Web Designers, I had to talk to bring it all together.  The Content Creator might have a thought in his mind that was required to be passed on to the Web Designer and the Sales Team may want their own inputs on the creation of content.  The Marketing team might have got its inputs from the Finance Department that said, the budget for the project was less 30% of the initial estimate. It was all about learning, a learning organization never fails, the curve need not be steep but it needs to be on a constant rise for development to happen.

"Go for the best you can deliver within the constraints of the organization, voice out the need for quality content, yet tone it down, sober it down to the budget." he sounded very sure of what he was talking about.
"I understand Kapil, that the 3 process's, Content Design, Business Content and Designers Toolkit are not a serial in process, they might happen concurrently as well," his confidence was infectious and I could feel myself beginning to talk to reality.
"You will further are required to do the  following things to bring content alive, plan every detail of the content, what to write and when to write and when to publish.  Set a very strict deadline to it and stick by it.  Your project though large should not take more than 2 months of writing to accomplish," I knew that  he made this barb because he had seen me go crazy writing stuff on my blog.

He walked to his chair, the office Aircon was blowing cold air on this hot summer evening, it seemed like the smell of leather was overpowering, I had already undergone one project before this where I had analysed and solved a problem for a sales team.  The content that I really wanted to write about was Sales, thats where my experience lay, I had worked during the past 4 years getting Techno-Commercial teams together, it was no means a coincidence that today I qualified as somebody who could write a book and sell this book around the world.

 The second comment had come from Jyoti, who was the Area Manager for another large company, who believed that there was nothing in this world that was more important than the organization, it made the world move.  Team work made the world tick and " I believe we should understand that writing content for a large organization should be a team effort, which requires Collaboration, Combination and Cohesion, the three C's of teamwork, it makes sense to involve people who are really feel for your project, who emote and feel the pain of success and failure."
He suggested the following softwares relevant at the time of this writing :

1.  Pligg ver 1.2.2
     requires MySQL and PHP

2.  Drupal
     Apache Webserver and MySQL

3.  OpenCMS
     MySQL 5.0.15 or higher
     PHP

I could feel all this coming together now, and I was on my way, Adsense was the way and I would go that way.  To earn money while developing an idea was worth trying, it was like saying I invest in a project and earn while I pay the EMI of the project, worth a thought isn't it ?
All successes come with time, thought and hard work.

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Keywords and SEO

 Been trying to get traffic to this blog for a while, and in the process came across a lot of people who had attempted a few things to get visitors on to their site.  One of the best ways to do this is to use Google Adsense and Adword, a much underrated and yet today the best way to generate traffic and make money at the same time.  In an attempt, to check this out, I have started the following process :

1.  Booked a domain on Joomla
     This is a content management site, and offer a 30 day demo for their online software, which allows content developers to create and develop content and place it in appropriate template for their website.  It takes away the content creation mechanism from the actual creation of the website. Apart from this, after    the 30 day trial, they offer domain booking or transfer, if you already have an existing domain it can get transferred on to a partner server who host the website, which obviously will have Joomla Content Management Features.

I found this very interesting, because as a content writer, I often get distracted by the soft wares that go into the actual creating and publishing of content.  The soft wares are supposed to be a means to achieve an end not the content itself, which obviously for me is the king.  In any case, I signed up for the 30 day trial and pretty smug about it, unlike a Desktop Content Management Software this Online Content Management Suite offers a hassle free installation, no need to install and configure mySQL or PHP or any other database connectivity module.

2.  Creation of 4 web pages
Started work on 4 webpages simultaneously which I will host on Joomla, all these 4 pages are identical except that they will be spun to change certain keywords in each.  Once these pages are up on Joomla, obviously similar in content, I will run them through Adword and Adsense engines to get traffic on to the website, and then keep track of how many hits each of these pages is getting, thereby getting an idea of the keywords that generate most traffic

3.  Adwords Account
     Created an Google Adword account, this is the first step in getting traffic onto these pages, so in affect I will be running 4 campaigns that will tell me exactly what people look for, when they look for a product in my niche.

4.  Keyword Creation
Started the process of creating keywords for Google Adwords, now understand this, the Google Adwords keywords are totally different from the SEO keywords.  SEO is targeted at search engines while Google Adwords is targeted at Google Adsense which is an online advertising mechanism which is aimed at generating traffic as well as income for the advertiser based on the CPC model developed and now adopted by Google.  Google Adsense in instant and track able, unlike SEO or email marketing that takes time and difficult to track

With the above process in place I hope to be able to get an approximation of the keywords that will be critical to conduct business in the segment or niche that I have chosen to write a book in.  The business of writing a book in only part of the business of making money, it is important to get this right, in my mind and in the minds of the readers, to understand the various intricacies that go into creating a successful business model for an E-Business.  Now that I have understood what it takes to write with a Content Management System, it will be easy to deliver it to the readers.

The following questions still need to be answered though, and I am hoping that someone could help me out with them :

1.  What region should I chose for my segment, my intended target areas are India, Middle East and Africa, and right now the E-Business activity in my segment is very low ?
2.   How does one write the keyword into the article or web page I create ?
3.  How many keywords should I create to begin with, in Adwords one can create 10,000s of them ?
4.  Should I start the SEO and Adword campaigns together

My next post will be on these questions and I need to research them before I write again.
Old Chinese saying, "When an opportunity presents itself, take it."

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Tracking Those Hits

So you have a new blog or website, there are visitors coming on to the site, you want to make this site a big success, ideas are brewing up in the head, ten thousands of them.  Before you take the next step, remember to always acknowledge all your existing readers.  A common refrain that comes to that is,
----------
How do I do that?
I don't even know who they are?
Blogger doesn't help me identify those people, my site can only show me number of hits.
----------

That is a correct assessment if you continue to use freeware, for me however, it was important to know these faceless people who have found something on the blog that interested them, wanted to know what they were looking for.  These are real people with faces, families, lives and work.  For the last two months I have been curious to figure out these answers and here is why :

1.  I am writing a book on Solar Sales and Social Media is a very real part of it.
2.  If my readers were to develop a website, they would want to know who saw the website.
3.  It is important not only to share with the Social Media, but to also track your followers.
4.  This helps you track who your followers are sharing your posts with.

Given these questions, I had my answer after a bit of research of other blogs on the web, FEEDJIT.  A tool that brings to you a real time view of who has been to your website. Ricky wrote in from Gurgaon, regarding this tool, he is ardent blogger and a consultant to many research firms.
"I don't believe in writing in isolation, we always must connect to our readers, if it takes a collaborative effort then so be it, this tool I tell you about, is remarkable in its approach to being writer friendly.  I had faced the same dilemma many times, how does one know who is visiting the blog, this is the answer," he said in his mail.  I downloaded the software immediately and found it very useful.
 Below is a detailed look at the visitor profile on this blog.

If we closely analyse this picture, it shows us who came in to visit from which location to view the blog and what they are viewing and for how long.  Apart from this there a host of other criterions that are available to understand how users behave on your blog.  Feedjit gives the following options to track readers and their profiles :

1. Live Traffic
2. Email Alerts
3. Site Graphs
4. More Graphs
5. Page Traffic (Image on top)
6. Referrer Traffic
7. Search Traffic
8. Geo Traffic
9. Language Traffic
10.Browsers and OS

Using these graphs, its easy to analyse the website with respect to Content, Users, Regions, Languages and OSs.  Getting users on the website is only half the task, the other half is retaining them and that's where FEEDJIT comes into play.  This has been a remarkable learning curve for the last 1 week and I hope more people write in with their comments at info@freshenergy.co.

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Design Innovation

Going back to my post on "Innovation in Solar", there are a number of things that need to be exchanged with you, one for instance what is the Total Load as opposed to the Total Watt Hours (Whrs).  Solar deals in kWhrs or kilowatthours which comprises one unit of electricity.  Every time the meter in the house turns a unit it has consumed a kWhr.  Re-posting my original writing here as below :

10 CFLs = 10 * 20W = 200W * 8 hours                   = 1600 WHrs
1 Aircon =  1 * 5KW = 5000W * 2 hours                 = 10000 WHrs
2 Ceiling Fans = 2 * 50W = 100W * 8 hours             = 800 Whrs
1 Clothes Washer = 1 * 3600 W = 3600 W * 0.5hrs = 1800 Whrs
1 Computer/printer = 1 * 500W = 500 W * 2hrs       = 1000 Whrs
                                                                               ==================
                                                                                    15,200 Whrs

Now selling a unit that generates 15,200 Whrs or 15kWhr will require a design based on our basic methodologies, which incorporate Array Design, Battery Design and Inverter Design, which I write as is, based on a mail received from Bhagavandas Bhandary based out of Bangalore.  Bhagavandas works in Su-kaam and is an expert in the field of Inverters and their design.  "There is no foolproof methodology to calculating load, a lot of it instinct."

I details out my strategy as described by Bhagavandas to me in his mail, though not comprehensive but very thorough detailing has been provided by him including detailed specs for smaller systems, which I am sure you will find interesting :

I    SCP - Mini Home

-------------------

1. Design
-----------
A home consumes 81 w * 3 hrs = 243 whrs/day

PV
---
243/5.5 = 45 whr/day = ideal array size

45/0.72 = 62.5 W PV

Battery
-------
243 Whrs/day (Avg daily load) / 0.9 Inv Eff
= 270 Wh/day

270 Wh/day / 24 DC system volts = 11.25 Avg AH/day

(11.25 x 1.11 battery temp multiplier x 2 days

autonomy) /0.5 Battery DOD
=60 Total System AH

Charge Controller
-----------------
15 Amps

Inverter
--------
81 W total AC load = min inverter continuous watt

Inverter size 240 VAC 100W

2. Final Specs
-------------
PV 100W
LMLA battery 24 v, 60 AH
Charge Controller 15 Amps
Available Energy/day Whrs 250
Inverter Capacity 600 VA
Autonomy 2 days
Price : Rs 50,000 ex india

3. Load as given below
--------------------
15w x 2nos, 11w x 3nos, 9w x 2nos running for 3
hours per day

-----------------------

II   SCP - Small Homes

----------------

Final Specs
------------
PV 160 Wp
LMLA 24 V 100 AH
Charge Controller 15 Amps
Inverter 350 VA
Available Energy/day 450 Whrs
Autonomy 2 days
Price : Rs 75,000 ex india

Load
----
15W x 3 nos, 11W x 3nos, 9W x 2nos for 3 hrs/day
90W ceiling fan x 1no for 2 hrs/day
80 W 21' col tv x 1no for 1 hr/day

--------------------------------------

I have other systems available, which would be for larger homes, do let me know if they interest you. These would be the SCP - Medium Homes and SCP - Large Homes
Also for higher than 2 kW systems, I will have to design the systems according to your need.

Interesting read this one, as also the pricing, set my immediately buzzing, thanks Bhagavandas, and for anybody else he is available at bbhagavandas@ymail.com

I am compiling a list of emails to the contributees to this blog as also their contribution that I will share with you as the list goes bigger.  My immediate reaction on receiving this mail was :

1.  Is this data correct ?

2. Can anybody validate it ?

3. Is alright to trust a designer solely on his qualifications ?

4. Can I find better designers ?

5. If yes, where do I look for them ?

If you answers to the following questions, mail them to me at info@freshenergy.co
Looking forward to hearing from you.

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Many a Slips before the Sip

There was a time, when I would sit and talk with a client purely on what they told me was the prospect for a particular region and go by their hunches.  Today, I am alright having lunch with them, but wouldn't entertain them for more than a couple of hours, if my intuition told me that there was an insurmountable gap between reality and expectation.  Last night, I was up making all the presentations for the Middle East Orders, and while I was drudging up old slides, I came across one such presentation that said Bahrain.  Instinctively I opened it up, and there was this 40 slides I had made for a Bahrain client, in 2010, all glossy and concise, to the extent that I was left wondering whether I had indeed ever made this one.

Pankaj Sehgal, the man from Bahrain, of Indian origins of course, was a brilliant mind, sharp and ruthless, he had seen a scope for Solar and had immediately invited me to Bahrain for a survey.  He had started his career in India and had then moved on to Bahrain working as a Delivery Service Owner, before making it big in the Computer Networking Business.  By 2010, he ran multiple businesses out of Bahrain, with a few beautiful villas in the country, as also a beautiful East European wife.  When I landed in Bahrain, it was my first trip to the Middle East, Manama had a relatively small airport, though the city looked clean and then we took a taxi to the suburbs and I saw dust and sand everywhere.  The township was built, as most Middle East economies, on oil and as I later found out, as we were driven to the outskirts to see the oilfields, that nobody dare touch the oil except the sheiks.  The country had a rich economy, an open culture which belied its muslim dominant populatin, allowed pubs and discotheques as also dance bars which I did sample during my stay there.

As I perused the slides, the learning's of those days came back sharply to me, and I do have a short memory these days as also a short fuse.  When I picked up the phone to call Ranjan about this latest inquiry from Middle East, I knew what I had to tell him.
"Hi ! how are you ?" he asked in a pleasant and positive tone.
"Rocking and you."
"Did you get my message, price is the key to this inquiry," he said sounding like he had put me under a road roller, his voice was pleasant as always and little distant.  Five Star hotels do that to voices and the Hilton, Double Tree, in Noida was a deluxe category hotel, I was sure he was enjoying his stay there and probably had used the in house massage service to good use.
"I did and I have news you will not like."
Eyes opened wide, " Tell me, Kya hua ? What happened ?"
"The order is not feasible, the oil prices in the Gulf are too low to compete with the Diesel Generator."
"The Chinese are doing it, they are selling panels for as low as 50 cents," he sounded gruff, and I almost felt that I didn't know what I was talking about.
"Ranjan, prices are as low as Rs 8-10 to a litre of diesel, that would peg the per unit cost of Diesel Electricity to about Rs 4, I can only guarantee you Rs 10 per unit with a Solar Energy System."
That stumped him, he should have done his homework, these were raw facts and they stared him straight in the face.

I was thinking, as I put the phone down, those slides were about 2 years old and yet they were well researched.  They had saved me a trip to Noida, as also spending too much time on a deal that was based solely on his hunch. I have often mentioned the advantages of understanding the 2 months away, ready to deliver baby to a 9 month itch.  This was a lifesaver, and I thanked myself for having backed up that presentation to an external hard disk, this is a Seagate 500 GB that I carry with me.  Sometimes life take us down new territories where only memories pave the road, I can still recount what it takes to design the Solar Energy System on my finger tips, the Array Sizing, Battery Sizing, Charge Controller Sizing to Inverter Sizing, I don't need a design book to design a system for any need.  What I do need is for someone to tell me, how to sell this system, what do I do to find someone who genuinely needs this.
Ahan, said the Solar Guy, I like this Trojan because it counts the AH.

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The Client Wishlist

Most Sales people indulge in a little bit of fantasy, a little bit of mind play, around which they build their orders.  I for instance dream of my 10 million that I will make sooner than later, and it will be soon when I have my dream come true.  Imagine a world where nobody dreamt, people abusing each other and fighting for every single new thought, resorting to being penny wise.  It would really be a very Non-Utopian world, if ever there was a word as that, because it would set free on us the demons that kill every single innovative thought the human mind can envisage.  So, when I walk into a clients office, three things run in my head, is it a woman I am dealing with ? God, let it be a women, I am much better off with them, do they want a product right now or a demonstration of the brand ? and is there a game we can play here to keep it light and  above the board ?

Friend of mine, and a very good friend of mine, once said to me, "I refuse to work with you, even if you need me, you and I will never work together."
"Huh ?"
"You are too emotional, I need people with me who are smart, street smart and wise at the same time," she said, mentioning a few other friends of hers who she thought fitted the role of a partner, boss or colleague.
"But I am street smart," I tried brushing aside her argument.
"The why the f**k are you being so indulgent with me ?" she poured out more venom, her hair was bristling and face was flush with anger, red and fiery.  It was true, I was too indulgent with her, and reasoning with someone would be detrimental to me.  I must have been a total buffoon to not understand people and their reasoning in choosing work partners, I mean it must be easier than choosing bed partners and I am sure that's where all their street smartness goes into, deciding who to employ.  That day changed my whole attitude to life, actually changed my life, I realized what it took to find customers and I saw I didn't have it me.  I had known this women for a while now, about 4 years and life just took a turn into the nearest ditch, probably because those days I didn't take criticism as well.  But she was right, as she always is, I had come to notice, people are not what they seem, the smile on their faces doesn't signal acceptance and tears not necessarily mean somebody hurt them.  God bless you woman, thank the lord everyday that you are still with me.

Occasionally, actually very often, I meet customers who are as adamant on an opinion, obstinate and obdurate, to the extent of being confused and yet firing all cylinders.  I treat them as my nine month plan, a baby will be born, but it will take its time, it probably hasn't even decided what it wants to be.  More often than not, this kind of client yells at me, degrades me and wants to run my nose in the ground,

"You creep, where is the quotation ?"
"You SOB, didn't they tell you I am the one shelling out the money here ~!!~"
"Where the hell have you been all these days ~!~"

Actually, sales is about treating everyone like a client, you don't hate or love a client, a client is a client, to be favoured and understood to mutual satisfaction.  Getting too close is unfortunate and a deviation from the some established well understood successful methodologies.  If my sales skills and techniques need a lot more honing, then there will be a better salesperson you will find soon, though these words are best not mentioned in meetings, every single dollar counts and it is important to harness all the goodwill one can get, till we connect with the customer we just keep on trying again and again.
No abuses please, it kills my creativity.

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Innovation in Solar

So, you have an idea, the Web is a medium to sell and then some, there are a million of people waiting to see what you have got, the Government has all the legislation in place, the market is just right for the product and the Sun shines everyday now.  You know, for instance that there are 1000W in a KW, that the Generator rating is in kVA and how to calculate the Total Load of any given site, for instance, the load in a house might be as follows :

10 CFLs = 10 * 20W = 200W * 8 hours                   = 1600 WHrs
1 Aircon =  1 * 5KW = 5000W * 2 hours                 = 10000 WHrs
2 Ceiling Fans = 2 * 50W = 100W * 8 hours             = 800 Whrs
1 Clothes Washer = 1 * 3600 W = 3600 W * 0.5hrs = 1800 Whrs
1 Computer/printer = 1 * 500W = 500 W * 2hrs       = 1000 Whrs
                                                                               ==================
                                                                                    15,200 Whrs

You know a lot things that you didn't know earlier, and I am sure it makes one feel proud and rejuvenated.  The idea is that a lot of things life are like this, serial in nature, some parallel in nature and lots of them are a combination of both.  We derive our sustenance from nature, as a matter of fact, we are nothing but a putty in its hands, the food that we eat, water to drink and air to survive.  Last night I was watching one of those old Star War movies "Attack of the Clones", and it was natural to presume that we would overcome all that I mention here within a duration of time.

We have the ability, or shall have the ability in years to come, to generate synthetic food, water and air.  Sunlight is free and to put it to good use is like producing synthetic energy.  Since the conventional forms of energy have always been fossil fuel, sun energy is obviously synthetic energy or as many call it Alternate Energy.  Much has been written about it, not too much success though has accrued, or at least not as much success as it should have garnered and if I try and analyse the reasons they fall into two categories :

1.  Commerce
     Commercialisation or Business leads to a mindless pursuit of money. If we are here to sell only then we forget part of the ethic story and the concept of creating viable Solar Businesses.  Communities are formed on ethics and good business practises, they are a natural progression from having spent time analysing the business.  We are Sales people, and for us the talk is everything, to figure out what is going on in somebodies mind or region, and then provide them with the product of their choice.  I for one, and number of people I talk to understand the difference between a Poplar tree and the Mahogany tree, why the leaves turn golden brown in fall and what is the significance of rotation of the earth around its own axis.  If I were to sell a solar system at the lowest price available it would be of no consequence, I could for instance get a 80Wp Solar Panel for as low as Rs 3200 or 70 dollars, combine 12 of these Panels, with a Battery Pack and Inverter and get a 1kWp system for a super price of $2500.  Now this would make sense to everyone except for yours truly, the author of the blog, I somehow don't believe that price is the thing holding back customers.

An understanding of the Solar Product is what the client is looking for, they would want to know what it entails to buy this product.  Choices there are many and if lighting and water heating were the only two solar energy systems to sell then they may not want to buy the system.  Quality systems fall into the culture and ethics of the client, the systems have the ability to satisfy the client in any way which they seem fit.  For instance, I sold a system to the Rama Krishna Mission in Mathura, at that time I was working for Suryadhan Energy Pvt. Ltd., now the Swamiji was adamant that I stay at his Ashram for 7 days to understand his philosophy of work.  We all come with our minds free, and then our systems get programmed to what we want to do.  Swamiji and I came from different worlds and yet here I was listening to him talk about a meat free diet and the advantages of abstinence.  No garlic and no onions, avoid tea if possible, sleeping on coir mattresses, simple and yet elegant living, far from the cities I was used where a cup of capacinno costs Rs 80 and a evening out for four would dent your pocket by 10Ks at least.  Swamiji was far removed from the bars and discotheques of a city, living a spartan life, isn't it what they call, "Simple Living, High Thinking".  Talking to him opened my eyes, I knew instantly what I had to do, develop a product that the client wanted, not sell what I wanted to sell.

2.  Low Emoting
     Sell, sell, sell and very little to learn, that seems to be motto nowadays, once I get my pitch right, I ain't going to care for anyone as long as I get my pitch right, I will meet my targets.  Solar Sales is not only about sales target but some community targets as well.  Combine the Community targets with some Environment targets and the commercialisation boat will rock and then some.  So how is Solar Sales different from other kinds of sales, for instance FMCG sales :

      a.  You are selling Simplicity.
      b.  You are selling Change.
      c.   You are selling Retrofits.
      d.   You are selling Accolades, that is, success stories
      e.    You are selling Post Sales  ..........................................SCRAP model

Simplicity, Change, Retrofits, Accolades and Post Sales, the four factors that lead up to the sales.  But before I make the sale, I must highlight and promote all the four factors, as also emphasis the brand YOU.  Do I have what it takes to be a brand ambassador for Solar, does my life and lifestyle map out to the established thought process or am I trying to do something to change what has been.  The brand YOU is most critical of brands and takes a long time to build up.  You must focus on this and the rest will fall into place.  

In an endeavour to enhance the understanding of Solar Sales, I invite professionals to contribute to this blog, I have stated my understanding of the facts and if your thought process differs, do write into info@freshenergy.co.  I do not know how to publicise this blog, my immediate thought, is to write a book on Solar Sales and this could well serve to be the "Introduction" to the book.  Any ideas would be appreciated as I am a total novice, just a writer who is trying to write a book with the help of like minded people.

A few questions I need answer to, and I hope that the book will answer the questions for all aspiring salesmen of solar :

How to write a book on Sales ?
How to promote the blog ?
How to get like minded people on board ?
How to have an electronic discussion ?
How to run an e-business on Solar Sales ?

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Internet Marketing Skills

Last night I started with a goal in mind, to get the CD/DVD project on track, its been delayed due to my own laziness and some technological glitch that I hadn't been able to resolve in the software.  Well, all that was in the past, as I started work on Macromedia Authorware 7.0, and as spoken about earlier, it's premise is ICON based authoring.  So as I moved from icon to icon, trying to perfect the Splash Screen, I thought, the logo with a small company text box would look fine on the first screen, I realized that there was going to be a battle royal between my SEOs (Site Engine Optimization).  I have been speaking to a few of them, for promoting the Fresh Energy Co blog, and all of them seemed eager to work with me.  One particular gentleman by the name of Mohammed Badruj, was particularly keen on this project, in fact he also suggested, that I turn the blog into a portal.  My immediate thoughts on that were as follows :


1. Expensive.
2. Lot of back end work.
3. Low Return On Investment.
4. High Wait Time.

With the following thoughts running in my head, I decided to leave the splash screen where it was and turned my attention to the SEO work.  I distinctly remembered Badruj telling me some about the various SEO software that were available in the market and how they fit into the overall picture.  Here is a summary of what he had told me :

1. Text is the Currency of the Internet.
2. Content is the King.
3. Link Relevancy is Important.
4. Tie together Popularity with Relevancy.

Given that I have been writing for over two years now, there was no doubt in my mind that I could write quality content, and as I had seen over a period of time "Content is the King".  The main issues were with links in the quality content, it meant that link relevancy is the "natural phenomenon that works when people link out to other content on the web."  When I start reading on the net there are a lot articles that interest me with respect to my own writing, and while linking to them is something that everybody would do, however the exact link they would use would be different.  For instance, linking to an idea generation blog from my blog I could use the link "New Product Development", while another person might use "Solar Idea Generation", the exact link used and the hits on that would determine the Link Relevancy.  Therefore it becomes important to use the competition analysis tool in SEO as this would tie Link Relevancy to Link Popularity, which is a combination of Domain popularity and Page popularity.

Understanding this had been hard to me, but now that I got the concept right in my head, I got around to writing and connecting links that made sense to everybody on the web.  Internet is a public medium and different people access it, you could chose high volume over low volume and personalized content to get the maximum number of hits.  It also occurred to me that I was not too concerned right now about selling on the web, I was here to deliver quality and validated content to the readers.  The selling part would happen later, probably in two months, when I made my mark with pulling customers.  A list of SEO software, I researched last night appears below, though this is not an exhaustive list, it is enough to make a choice :


1. Niche Finder - worth a try
2. Micro Niche Finder
3. SEO Power suite Enterprise - didn't work
4. SEO suite ver 8 corporate edition - didn't work
5. Scrapebox 1.15 and article marketing robot
6.No Hands SEO v 1.7.60 - worth a try
7. iDevAffiliate v5.1 platinum - couldn't download
8. Wild SEO - worth a try
9. Syndk8 SEO link pro 1.0.1.0
10. xGen SEO 1.0.89 enterprise
11. SEO Report v100279
12. SEO studio enterprise edition - didn't work
13. Seo Elite
14. ASEOPS v7.1.1 Multilingual
15. Venom SEO - Not supported anymore
16. SEO NUKE 6.36
17. The BestSpinner 2.0.8


Don't make the mistake of writing in Isolation, Connect.

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The Chef's Special

Interestingly, with the meeting with a client fixed for Wednesday, I still haven't got the time to make presentations, ideally, I would have preferred the traditional approach, make some presentations, carry brochures, costing and pricing details and a proposal template to clinch the deal on the spot.  Normally, an approach to the client involves talking to the client and his colleagues, and often enough, there is not enough time to convince them on the product quality.  The talk centres around the Product Pricing, most clients are so price specific that they will not deviate even 5% from the target in mind.  So my approach is to present the product and then have four or five pricing themes ready. I think, I have become very Chinese in my approach.

 Friend of mine from Darjeeling, a state of India very close to China,

Prasanna Subba, taught me to be cool under pressure, we were working together for Dell International Services then and the work pressure was immense, from taking calls, to calling back, updating the specifications mentally and then handling the tension that the Area Sales Manager would dump on us.


Prasanna would sit on his workstation at least 15 minutes before the shift started, he would seem to be working, but mostly he would be on Opera Mini, the mini browser from Opera, that would bypass the security set up by the administrator, talking on Facebook and browsing the net.  I believe the Network Administrator had left that open so that he could himself browse the net and then the word got around and Prasanna, the networker that he was, got around to using it.

"Hi ! good morning, how are you doing ?" I said to him as I passed his workstation.
"Too you to, sir." with a pleasant face that never changed.
"Did you get my message that I was going to be late ?" I asked him, knowing he would feign ignorance as he had probably forgotten to tell Vikram, the Manager about me coming in late.
"No," he said predictably with the same poker face.  Sometimes I felt like punching that face, but I was in love with this guy of Chinese antecedents.  He made my day, with the perfect smile and composure, spoke in hushed tones to everyone and evoked in me the same thought process.  While Prasanna was around I never lost my cool or spoke in a high tone voice, we were probably people with similar mindsets who valued their peace of mind more than anything else.  In 2007, Dell was our office in Gurgaon and we had started to work together, certainly friends and two people who admired each other.

This morning too, Vikram was throwing a tantrum, "You guys have no integrity with respect to time, no value for my words and total disregard for authority."
"Vikram, the cab was late," I spoke to him coolly, knowing that the detached approach always worked better with him.
"You should have told me, there is nobody on the floor and the clients are screaming hell, you are my best man and I expect some more responsibility from you," he shouted back.

Immediately, I remembered the last time I had asked him for a sick leave and how agitated he had become, as if to fall ill was a cardinal sin. Prasanna had come to my aid with this thought then, "Stay home, don't call him, let him call you."  Well, I certainly wasn't going to call him and disturb my ride in the cab, and I just messaged Prasanna who had conveniently forgotten about it.  His Chinese antecedents were more than a match for anyone, he would take it easy, but his mind would be in full swing.  Even when we would talk to the clients he was always thinking of making one big sale, all the talk would go into convincing the client into buying that one big item that would make his numbers and bonuses.  Going for the big one was in his blood and he would stop at nothing achieving it.

Though I lost touch with Prasanna after I left Dell, I believe I inherited some of his sales acumen then.  So, if today the presentations aren't ready, it doesn't scare me, for I have the gift of the gab apart from all possible documentation ready on the Notepad, my preferred writing device on the laptop.  Its like each Notepad file is an item for my storyboard, one on Inverters, another on PV Panels, another on Batteries, everything in bits and pieces distributed in a folder called Solar.  I wish for a program that would allow me to port Notepad files into a presentation, sought of batch process, then my life would be a lot easier.  People often ask me why I use Notepad and not Microsoft Word or even Wordpad, they think it is a little primitive writing in Notepad.  But I kind of like the stickiness of a Notepad, and the so called primitive interface is simplicity divine.  There is no formatting to worry about except "Word Wrap" and it is fast and slick program that can be opened in a small window while taking notes and items from websites or other documents.

My product pricing, which as I explained is so critical for any business meeting is simple, the model being a USA based one, the pricing totally Indian.  Compare a Rs 108/watt USA based pricing to a Rs 40/watt Indian counterpart.  This would imply that a 1kW PV array System that would cost approximately $11,090 in the USA could be got at approximately 2/3s the price in India.  There was a time in India that the pricing was at Rs 225/watt but over a period of 4 years there has been a sharp drop in the prices of cells and manufacturing costs have come down as well.  So my Costing Notepad says, Indians are better than the US panels in pricing, however interesting there is still no talk of product quality.  Since the specifications have not been adequately supplied, it seems fairly difficult to understand what product quality is preferred.  Therefore my Notepad has three prices, Grade A, B and C.  Take your pick, I will supply you with the one best suited for your budget.

Ever since I got into Sales I have realised that my job is talk about the product and keep it entertaining while at the same time while keeping it efficient as well.  I don't worry about the Sales Pitch, as much as I worry about keeping the minds of all concerned in a state of constant thought.  There is precious little that can be achieved if we don't have positivity.  All the talk and game will keep the persons engaged and will give me time and space to think.  So dream up some nice game and integrate it within the presentation.  Last, I remember in one of my research presentations I had built in a golf game as a model.  The presentation had all gone too well, till one of the clients potted a hole-in-one.
Its game time folks, let the ball roll.

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Present Tense - Future Perfect

I have been working on this post interminably, the last two days were spent trying to figure out what I wanted to achieve.  Obviously not an easy task, knowing that the industry is still in a nascent stage here, even though Alternate Energy has been around for over 40 years.  My mind has racing, ever since I realized that the next 5 years are very critical, to the extent that they will be the commercially defining years for renewables in India.  We have seen the world progress and there is a lot to learn from them.  Here, in this post, I define the steps that one must take to create a viable renewable business :

1.  Create a Blueprint.
2.  Map out Existing Products in the Market.
3.  Define New Products to be created.
4.  Prototype the Products.
5.  Identify Markets.
6.  Extricate Customer share of the competition by research.
7.  Implement the S&M plan.

I walked over to the office of a gentleman by the name of Mohit, 12 years back, he a real estate developer based out of Gurgaon, the scope was and is still immense, Gurgaon is a bustling city in downtown Delhi, with development activity happening in every nook and corner of the the city.  It is based in Haryana, the one state in India that has promoted Solar Energy extensively, by way of subsidies, be at state or federal, capital or immediate.  I had last had a constant interaction with Mohit years back, and I have known him for a good number of years, actually 12 of them.  Last when I had met him, he had been adamant that my proposals wouldn't work.

This is way too expensive," he had expressed kindly, a man of gentle words, he seemed not to want to hurt me. "All the probabilities point to the government accepting Nuclear as the "de-facto energy mechanism.  The point here, Maninder, is that I don't understand why you want to push Solar on us, we are perfectly happy the way we are."

"Mohit, do you care about the future, the future of our children ?" I had fired back.
He nodded knowingly, he now saw me as a crusader of the lost environmental cause.
"See, when the money is flowing in, none of us want to change."
"What if the government proposed a plan that punished polluters and conventional energy usage."
"We will see when that happens, there's always a around in this country," he sounded like he had seen the world turn around a few times on the same axis.

Now for me the sun had never risen from the same spot, so my definition of the axis remained as confusing as the Axis forces of World War II, my country having been a slave to the Britisher during those times.  I did understand though that if Hitler chose to exercise his rights, there was fairly no chance that anyone would escape the assault without a third party espousing there cause.  The North Americans and the Europeans were with us, the Environmentalists this time around, and when the the Congress came to power some 10 years ago, the policy shifted to one of support for the cause.

Now, I was a technologist then, and today I am just a Sales Person, I understand that I have to talk and talk to reach an understanding with the client and the promoters, if I don't talk then I don't understand what are the issues in the region.  My normal Sales Pitch lasts for about 15 to 25 minutes, depending on what I have gathered during the first 10 minutes of listening and with Mohit I had gathered that he was a die hard traditionalist, steeped in the old school of thought, something that I call the Buchanan Syndrome, of having acquired his initial wealth by way of inheritance.  What else do I know about Mohit, that he and me are poles apart, he is slow moving sleepy giant who could buy a Ferrari tomorrow if he got his full quota of family money.  Yet I had taken a liking to this man, and I kept trying to poke him into accepting my point of view, even if in disagreement.

This time when I met him at Azad Apartments in Delhi, he had put on a little bit of more weight of which he had plenty in the first place.  I had a new proposal for him and this time it included a sizable share for his pocket as commission.  I was also going to give him all the marketing material to peruse and use, and I was ready for all arguments.  The government had come down heavily on polluting conventional fossil energy, coal was to be disbanded as an energy material in the coming years and it was proposed that by 2020, there would be 20GW of Solar installed, the installed cap as of today was 1000MW.  Wind was already hitting 18GW installed cap and add to it other sustainable technologies like Tidal and Wave, Hydro and Biomass and India was sitting on 25 installed renewable cap.
GW

Interestingly, this time around, Mohit was interested in me, new projects had taken a beating and lot of them were under pressure from the government to get NOC (No Objection Certificates) for renewables else get scrapped.  I am a realistic man and this time I understood his enthusiasm this time around, I wasn't going to take his earlier negations upon my ego, I gave him all the data he needed and provided him with supporting presentations to buttress my argument.  All was going to well, it was obvious, this thing had turned and turned around it had, my last 10 years seemed to be well worth the wait and if it took another 5 to make it a commercial success I was willing to go the way of the renewables.
"The feeling of possession is nothing compared to the more intense emotion of imminent or actual loss."

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The Psychology of Solar Sales

As a first step to my last post, I decided that today was going to be the day I would begin my latest big project, been thinking about this for almost 2 months, collecting data and content, writing and rewriting how I think solar should be sold.  We all start as Consultants, I did too, before I went on from Regional Manager to General Manager to an Associate Vice President.  It is still a cottage industry today, and if I talk to someone as an employer, the first thing they want to talk to me about is a fixed income.  Now, I am not against showing them the money, but this is a field that you don't know about, the normal rules of sales don't apply here.

Lead generation for most people is about talking on the phone and setting up meetings, while some dude does the hard work for them at the back end and gets them the numbers of people to talk to.  Impossible as it may sound, I have worked for renewable companies without a fixed income, worked on targets and commissions, proven a point or two about who I am and what I get to the business and then demand my dues.  I believe in a lot of smart work today, for instance last night I thought about how I would redefine my strategy for business.  This was of course much later after I had written my last post "A Purchase Order for an Idea".

I walked into Mr Behl's office the other day, "What do you want now ?"
"Sir, need your feedback on how to sell this product."
"I don't have time for this now," brusque and to the point, I do appreciate directness.
And I gave him a direct one liner, " Would you appreciate if I gave you a CD/DVD with a thought about how to sell the product ?"
" I might be." but his eyes were open and ears cocked, listening.
"But I need brochures and hard copies of price list first," he wasn't going to give in easily, at least I had his attention.

He stays in a sparse dwelling which he calls his SOHO, but for a rich man I daresay he has 3 more villas in the same locality.  He runs a PG accommodation for girls, where they are served food and get to stay in dingy rooms, ideal for hard working women, a righteous man of morals, I haven't heard of a single misdemeanour at his PG.  A narrow staircase leads up to a sparkling SOHO.  I sat there sipping my coffee that he had so graciously offered me, his wife himself had made the cuppa.  He lit himself a cigar and sat down in front of me with a cup of green tea, nothing less for a sophisticated man like him, it was left for lesser mortals to have the black coffee with a spoon of sugar in it.  I had thought of asking for milk but had refrained myself, I was a guest out to please the host.  At the bottom of a staircase I had seen a newly developed restaurant chain in Delhi, "Wah Ji Wah", he had rented his ground floor to them for a hefty sum.  Obviously he didn't need the money from sales, he was more interested in the thought of making it big in solar. The Sales CD/DVD had him interested, there is something about technology that props up most old men, me included, though I am at least 15 years younger than him.  So everything he ever wanted from me on a DVD, what better way to begin on the track to being a Consultant.  I had him convinced there, licking out of my hands and I had a gut feel, that this could be a big idea.

So last night, I downloaded Macromedia Authorware 7.0 from Adobe, a software I had worked on during my stint as a content developer more than a decade ago, those days of course Macromedia Director and Flash were the in tools to develop sparkling content, this though is a great software engine, it allows me to author content in the way that I want.  The whole of last night till 5am was spent looking up and testing this software, mind you folks the trial version expires in 30 days.  From content to training to quizzes it allows everything that one can dream of as an author, I could write previews of my book, if I ever got down to writing a book, on this software and burn to DVDs and hand it out to people.

So here's the thought for the day, I want people to start off as consultants in this industry, I often get questions regarding salary, "How much will you pay me ?" "Is it worth it ?" "I am good sales person, trust me." etc.  I ask them straight on their face, "how much do you want ?"
The answers are less obvious, " See, I was making 20K at my last job, I would be happy with 30Ks."
Going for the jugular, "I will pay you 40Ks but the job you do will be all mine."
In short, your A** is mine.  Not such a happy thought for most people content in the traditional thought of fixed income, and the comfort of 9-6 job.  I am here to employ consultants, unless you have already made a mark in the industry and then we will reverse roles, I will work for you while you tell me where to look for the bank.
Show me the worth, and I will show you the money.

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A Purchase Order for An Idea

Been at it, getting an order has not been easy, especially in the segment, renewables, where everybody thinks its about getting some electrical wires together to fit.

The approaches have been many, and they fit in tightly into a model, that I call SCALA.  New product development means the following :

1.  Simplicity

2.  Convenience

3.  Accessibility

4.  On the Ledge product

5.  Affordability

People come to me and say, "Oh ! you still at it, what have you achieved in 6 months, no bank balance, what is the point of being in this field."

I have been often disturbed by these thoughts, enough to trash the whole idea of renewables, yet I have hung on, "I totally totally believe in this thought and will carry on.

I tell them, " My journey to renewables started in 2001, when my life went through the biggest turmoil ever, I was 32 then, I required all the help that I needed and yet I was too Khuddar to give in."

Mr Behl, touched his long beard and told me, " Khuddari chodd aur hamarey pass aa ja.":

#Leave your self respect behind and come with us, we will make money#

I had then seen the bees and the birds decide when it would rain and when the sun would shine, the trees would talk to me, and the moon would shine in the night if I ever got caught up in darkness during my walks through that forest, I still remember.  The waters of Rishikesh had lifted this dead soul, who had no strength to walk, and the rapids had given me the courage to see the next few years.  I would not and did not give in, to Mr Behl or his likes.  Money earned without satisfaction gives, no pleasure nor hope.

After all these years of wait for a big break, it came today, a call from Saudi Arabia, suggesting that there was a need to install 2KW/3KW/5KW systems on the rooftops in Iraq.  When Ranjan called, and I have known him for near 20 years, big shot in some telecom firm in Dubai, my first thought was, "Am I being pulled into something I don't want to get into ?"

My soul refused to believe that good things could finally happen, after all it had been 10 years of wilderness, but the thought was overpowering enough for me.

"Yes Ranjan, I am game."

I have known Ranjan for 20 years but he has really got to know me in the last 6 months, know me enough, to give me the first hand information about the order  and suggesting that I meet him on Wednesday/Thursday the coming week to discuss this order when he lands from Dubai.  I understand there will be cultural differences, but then we are nothing if we don't talk about it.  I always talk nowadays and try and figure out whats going on, sales is about the ability to convince stakeholder, normally I listen for the first 5 minutes, before I begin to talk which is about 15 minutes or so, then take some questions and that is after I have reached a conclusion with the talk.  Most of the questions are about discounts and leverages on the price, I don't bother too much about them, a 5 percent discount is as good as 10 percent to me, I am here to build a bond not talk money with a client which in any case the client will pay as long as I give him a SCALA product.  We are trained to always think leads, while we should be thinking prospects.  Hard work happens in trying to convert Suspects to Prospects, that is where the big game is, the smart work happens in converting Prospects to Leads.

Suspect -------> Prospect ---------> Leads -----------> Orders -----------> Paybacks

"Am I on the right track? " I asked myself today scratching my flowing hair, which I leave loose nowadays.

"Damn right," she said.

Life, she talks to me lately, and Mandy listens.

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League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-

I have been researching renewable energy for a while now, and found a few things, that I list out below, that I have assumed you will find very interesting. It all began with my meeting with a gentleman called Atam Kumar, a gentleman par excellence, and a pro in the field, consulting to many companies, at least as many as I can count on my fingers.

I was ushered into his office, and as I slipped into a chair, “Sir, how are you doing ?” I said shaking his hand.

“Very well very well.”

He made me absolutely comfortable, “How may I help you ?”

“Sir, I have been in the renewable sector for over 4 years now, and, I figured you were the best person to talk to on this.”

“Yea sure,” as he casually brushed his bald head with his hand and then got a hanky out to sniff his nose.
“Water heating is no longer a profitable proposition,” I was sure he would acknowledge this.

And he did, and what he further said surprised me, “Neither is Solar Lighting.”

My eyes opened wide, “ Really ?”

“Yes, think of it this way, the Germans have the infrastructure, the Chinese the hardware manufacturing capacity and India must sell services and tailored products.”

It really set my mind racing, he was talking and my mind was racing ahead, what he said made sense, we must sell tailored solutions.  Wasn’t it the other day I had heard somebody say, that a Solar Powered ATM would do wonders and what about Solar Air Conditioners, a still untapped market.  Many today would say, an untapped resource, but I tend to believe marketing a tailored product will bring customers in.   The office had air gushing out of the airconditioners, and the computers hummed to a new tune that only the quietness enhanced.  It was a plush office and one that anyone would love working out of, the leather chairs and coffee table with two comfortable looking chairs by the window were fantastic.  Add to this the aroma of cigars, Atam Kumar obviously loved his smokes, were overwhelming, it gave the feeling of power and psychologically that was an aphrodisiac for any man.

“………. And so we must do the following things,” he finished off as I finished taking notes, which I elucidate as below :

The Eight Stages to Product Development

----------------------------------------------------

1.        Idea Generation

2.       Idea Screening

3.       Concept Development

4.       Business Analysis

5.       Beta Testing and Market Testing

6.       Technical Implementation

7.       Commercialisation

8.       New Product Pricing

-----------------------------------------------------

This would sum up my the de-facto best renewable energy experience vis-a-vis an expert.  I have met a lot of them over a period of 5 months now, including Mr Narsimhan, Mr Jain, Mr Gopalan to name a few, all big shots with enough muscle to run through any product and that’s what they normally do, no beating around the bush.  However, if you understand my job is to talk and get a feel of the market and unless I talk I have very little by way of understanding whats happening at the client end.  A few dollars or rupees here or there and a discount that ranges from five percent to ten percent doesn’t hurt me.

But a new product gives remarkable facelift to the company and this is what I intend to do first of all, idea generation.

An Idea An Idea, For An Idea I live.

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Whatever Will Be will Be !!!!

I have been solarizing for over 2 months now, have travelled the lengths and breadths of the country, incredible India as it is called.  The one common strain I hear across is
"Is it viable ?" said the farmers in Odisha and then in the North Eastern state of Darjeeling.
"Seems uncanny." I began to wonder if I was the only one who saw otherwise.
"See that pump, it uses solar energy, hasn't worked for over 2 years now." said Kishan, a rich farmer in Odisha.
He sounded despondent, like his dream had gone bad, "It worked for 6 months and now it hasn't for over 2 years."
"Kishan Ji, this thing works and I have seen it work for years and years." I pleaded

with him.
"Toh kya karen hum ab." he sounded equally ill at ease with the topic.
I immediately backed out, I wasn't here to pass on advice, but to solve problems.  Raju was with me, he immediately pointed to the piping, it dilated up and down, there were NRVs installed everywhere near the system.

"Sir, ismey, shayad pani atack raha hai." he said, and I was sure he was right, the water was getting stuck somewhere, increasing the pressure on the pump which failed often now. Raju was always right, a hard working man with an incredible practical knowledge about plumbing.  He had started his career in a carton manufacturing firm in Dubai, and worked there for 6 years, during which time he had also picked up plumbing as a part time hobby.  I had always admired people who took up part time hobbies while they worked full time.  The landscape in Odisha was stark, so stark, that one could admire the greenery whenever it appeared.  This was a poor state, I could see from the Naxal activity around the parts we were in.  An occasional encounter with an armed villager was not unusual here.  I stood up on a mumpty created over the pump and looked far and deep into the country side.  There were the usual well marked paddy fields with boroughs marked for water.  Most of the fields were watered, in the far distance I saw the outline of the hotel we were staying in, Bhubhneshwar was a bustling town and I could almost hear the honks of angry cabby's and autowallas as they tried to get around the rickshaws.  The hotel bellboy had forewarned me about overcharging and I had made sure that I took the public transport, which comprised of rickshaws and dilapidated buses into the rural landscape adjoining Bhubhneshwar.

Raju was walking towards a particular water diver tor, and I quickly walked behind him.  He turned the NRV off by turning the handle anti clockwise, and then examined the diver tor, Kishan ji was hovering right over our shoulder.  Using a spanner he opened up the smallish piece of equipment, it was used to divert water depending on the requirement, to a particular pipe or the other.  We both examined the equipment and found it to be defective, too much mud in the water probably, Raju quickly cleaned it up and installed it back to the satisfaction of Kishan Ji.  He moved the NRV back in position.  This had to be done for ever diver tor in the circuit and even the timer valve that was installed next to the pump.  Took the whole day, identifying all the diver tors and cleaning them up.  I had in the meanwhile climbed up the panel installation to clean the electrical, the wiring was intact and yet had to be pruned and refitted into new crimps.  I wiped the sweat off my brow and I finished wiping the dust off the 5 KW solar pump installation.  The panels sparkled and water was gushing through like a glacier had melted on the mountains.  The sound was blissful to both me and Raju.
Touche, its all in the days work. 

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Fresh - X, March Edition

March 2013 | Fresh Energy Co | +91 9990256661
For Subscribing or full version write a mail to : maninder.s.kumar@gmail.com;info@freshenergy.co

Fresh-X

Privatisation of Power - How It Helps In India the opposition to privatisation are plenty and many and more so, with the privatisation already happening in  a few states in the country and the latest initiative by the Bihar Government in four of its towns.  I believe  and know for sure that it is a popularly accepted fact that privatization leads to greater customer satisfaction.  With privatization come the Greater efficiencies, Net Metering and Smarter Grids. The one thing that we solar producers have been ignored for a very long time is that net metering will bring benefits to all us and the states where privatization has occurred.  Delhi and Mumbai were the first cities to have privatised power distribution in the country.  Apart from these metros, the states of MP, Odisha and Gujarat have privatised power across their cities. Net metering ensures that energy generated at home does not go waste.  While you are away, your house is generating energy but you are not using it.  Meanwhile at night while you have the lights and TV blaring, your solar system is sitting idle.  You could buy an expensive battery to store the extra energy you generate during the day, but there's another option that allows you to send your extra power to the grid in exchange for banked energy credit that you can use when you need it.  It's called net metering Innovation in Solar Creative minds not necessary mean innovative mind and the Indian Renewable Energy has lot to adapt from innovative techniques around the world.  Innovation could be the key to India becoming world leader in low cost renewable energy solutions.  There are two techniques that are applied to innovation, there is the "slow and build" approach of say a Bell Labs as opposed the face book's "fast and break" approach.  Seemingly the idea may take a long time to germinate but when it does then there is a revolution. The temple has an annual income of more than $340M and a footfall of 50,000 - There is a revolution going on in India and no better thought comes to my mind the one that happened in the holy town of Tirumala in Andhra Pradesh 1,00,000 people daily.  Obviously this heavy footfall takes a toll on its resources of water, food and electricity. The temple has an annual income of more than $340M and a footfall of 50,000 - There is a revolution going on in India and no better thought comes to my mind the one that happened in the holy town of Tirumala in Andhra Pradesh 1, 00,000 people daily. Obviously this heavy footfall takes a toll on its resources of water, food and electricity. So the temple used Eco-social innovation to get around its problems, one for instance it has installed rows of solar dishes which serve the community kitchen.  This equipment generates 4,000kgs of steam a day at 180 deg C and as a result 500 liters of diesel is saved per day.  Badal Shaw, Managing Director of Gadhia Solar Energy System which set up the solar cookers estimates that this has resulted in reduction of 1350 kgs of green gases to the atmosphere thus ensuring gold standard certification in carbon credits. India has to move from a consumer of technology to a becoming a producer of technology.  After being defunct for many years, the Solar Energy Centre is showing promise and the II Ts of Mumbai and Jodhpur are keeping the youth in touch with solar.  Here are a few takeaways, if India could become the hub for developing DE-central solar energy solutions which would impact the poor and un-electrified villages as also the fast developing urban and commercial centres, it would rapidly overtake the solar manufacturing centres in China. Going Green in a Big City For years I have lived in an independent house where it was easy to install and run energy efficient off grid solar energy system.  But I don't currently live in a villa or a kothi as you may call, I live in an apartment in the centre of the city where it is easier to transit and most of all you get high speed Internet.  This change has left me reflecting on how difficult it is to go solar in an apartment. Think of it this way, if I wanted solar water heating for my apartment, passive or active or if I wanted an off-grid application, I would probably have the following difficulties: -           Common Terrace  -    Lack of Space     -   Plumbing and Electrical I have been thinking on how to surmount these difficulties and it’s not been easy thinking logically through them.  What really has to be done to ensure that I maintain a green footprint is to first calculate the terrace area that is available.  Even with the available terrace area, it might be more difficult getting a level terrace in an apartment block with space divided between areas around the entry and the mumpty which is more like the area over the staircase.  In case of an apartment block it is most essential to use all the space that is available.  Typically after the space has been calculated remember the following calculations: 1) One panel of water heating in India requires 2 sqm of space and 100 Litres of water heating requires 1 panel and a mounted tank, in total roughly 3.5 sqm of space on the terrace 2) Off grid solutions are easier to manage and require 5 sqm for a KW of generation on the terrace. 3) Plumbing and Electrical work is best left to the professional though it would be prudent to involve yourself with the quality of the product for instance GI pipe or CPVC pipes or the gauge of the wire.

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