Hot water surprise

Just when you think people don’t care about the environment, when you pass your condo’s garbage dumpster and there is a pile of cardboard boxes on top instead of in the recycling bin and it makes you want to pull your hair out, 50 people show up to your condo information session about energy efficiency and hot water. Hot water!

Last night, I hosted a free information session to tell people about the research Ecopartner’s Tim Rudkins and I have done on hot water heating solutions for our building. As it turns out, although people don’t seem to care about proper recycling, they do care about how much their morning shower is costing them. And how much space those gigantic 60-gallon tanks are taking up in their eeny-weeny condos, heating water all day, every day, whether you use it or not.

Even more heartening was that although tankless water heaters don’t seem to be a viable option for our building (for an overview of tankless heaters, see the Home Depot website), people were just as eager to purchase the much less romantic energy-efficient tank heaters anyway.

Interestingly, our consultant Tim Rudkins, discovered that many manufacturers won’t even stake a claim on tankless being that much more efficient than an efficient tank heater over time. But regardless of which way people choose to go, they will save energy, reduce their bills and get rid of that infernal monthly Direct Energy heater rental charge.

More updates to come!

Talking yourself into a $500 jacket

At the advertising agency I frequently contribute to, we have a creative strategy that starts with “the buying conversation.” What are the drivers that make a customer purchase a product or service? How do they talk themselves into it?
I was reflecting on the buying conversation today as I pondered how a broke-ass, normally frugal, freelance writer like myself walked out of Lileo in Toronto on Sunday with a $450 jacket. Let’s take a look:
The store: Lileo, purveyor of high-end clothing and accessories. Have a twice-annual sale and that’s it.
The jacket: Rag & Bone, handcrafted clothing from NYC.
Katie: A Taurus who likes nice things but hates paying for them.

Katie’s internal buying conversation:
Logical Katie: Should I even go into the store? I have no money.
Crazy Katie: Yes – remember last year when you didn’t get anything during the summer sale? You kicked yourself all year.
Logical Katie: Did you say Rag & Bone is 50% off? That sounds like a good discount, but $450 minus half is still $225.
Crazy Katie: You can’t afford NOT to! Look how nice that jacket is! And think how cool it will make you look!
Logical Katie: yeah, but it’s still $250
Crazy Katie: Let’s try it on
Logical Katie: Don’t listen to the sales people and your boyfriend
Everyone else: That jacket is rad!
Logical Katie: It’s still $250
Crazy Katie: Of course you can take it to the sales counter while I look at other things.
Logical Katie: Well, $250 is a lot less than $450, do it!

Sigh.
But the jacket is rad: http://www.rag-bone.com/collections.php (Navy Anorak Treated Jacket)

-end-

Keynote this

Building this blog, I could only think of one image that I wanted to use in the header: the snow-filled backcountry of British Columbia. Yes, it’s the middle of summer and no, I don’t really wish I was standing in hip-deep snow right now, but it’s an apt image for the task at hand. Blogging, like the backcountry, has always scared me a little, somewhat irrationally. So much possibility, so much empty space to fill, and always the chance of looking like an ass. But this year I managed to get out in the backcountry, as part of the group of people perched on the ridge in the top right corner of the photo, and by golly, this will be the year I start a blog too.

I promise these posts will not carry the rather keynote-speaker like tone of this post–if I can climb Everest, you can do anything you put your mind to, Widget Buyers of Canada!–and that they won’t include too many detailed updates on my baby turtle Harold (okay, I can’t promise that). What I hope it will do is selfishly ignite my creativity through posts on topics about the things that interest me, from the environment to fashion and life here in Toronto. Writing can so easily become just a job–it’s time to take it back!

-KB