From Greenpeace To Green Power: Sungevity CEO Danny Kennedy (Part 6)

SM: What do you think about small solar farms? Is that part of the industry’s future?

DK: Right now I think it is problematic because it is credit-dependent. When I see the future beyond the reign of coal oil, nukes, and gas, we will replace it with a distributed energy utility solution. Every appropriate home will have electricity-generating assets. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: Shipwire

Shipwire offers outsourced warehousing and shipping services for online retailers and small business clients. Businesses use Shipwire for on-demand e-commerce order fulfillment services through a global warehouse network. With warehouses in Los Angeles, Nevada, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver and the UK, Shipwire allows merchants to reduce shipping costs by locating inventory closer to buyers. This shipping solution integrates and adds order fulfillment and shipping for online shopping carts and inventory management systems. >>>

From Greenpeace To Green Power: Sungevity CEO Danny Kennedy (Part 5)

SM: We have discussed your interface with the customer. What is the process with your contractors once you have a qualified lead to provide to them?

DK: We call them pre-wrapped customers because they are not only qualified customers, but from our backend design system we have already developed the kit. We provide the specified system. We contact the local installer through our automated platform to tell them they have a customer. >>>

Future of Journalism

The Kauffman Economics Bloggers conference kicked off on Friday morning with a speech by David Warsh. David covered economics for The Boston Globe for 22 years and, earlier, reported on business for The Wall Street Journal and Forbes. The speech explored the historical and directional movement of the newspaper business, battered today by the loss of its primary revenue generator, the classifieds, a trend I have covered extensively in the last two years. >>>

Reconnecting with Economics

I haven’t spent as much time thinking about economics since college, when my second major was the subject on every mind these days. I have dedicated the last 15 years primarily to my first major, computer science, and my first love, entrepreneurship. But that has changed in the last six months.

I was invited by Tim Kane and Bob Litan of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the world’s largest foundation dedicated exclusively to the cause of promoting and fostering entrepreneurship, last week, to a small conference of economics bloggers in Kansas City. >>>

Designs of the Week: Blogs

By guest authors Charles W. Bush and Kathy Hwang of 3Strand Innovation, a brand, design and business consultancy.

Thanks so much for your feedback last week on ways to improve the user interface design for SramanaMitra.com. Based on your comments, it looks as though the recurring themes are:

1) Readability/Distraction Points: Use of flash, ads, font size and color, number of pages
2) Ease of Navigation: Header tabs, tags, related posts
3) Visual Engagement: Photographs, color application, layout and alignment
4) Social Networking: Connect to other readers, most-viewed articles, help facilitate discussions >>>

From Greenpeace To Green Power: Sungevity CEO Danny Kennedy (Part 4)

SM: Do you offer rebate information for all the states and regions?

DK: We are only doing business in California, but we do cover rebates for all the cities as well as all of the utilities. That is very complex, and some of the most difficult stuff we have had to do on the backend is build the global solar calculator. >>>

Redesign That: Online Personal Finance (Part 5)

By guest authors Charles W. Bush and Kathy Hwang of 3Strand Innovation, a brand, design and business consultancy.

This week we’re continuing with our redesign of Wesabe.com, a money management/social networking site. Shown below is our redesign concept for Wesabe’s member homepage. Catering to Generation Y’s needs, our design approach is to make the homepage feel simple, fresh and a bit playful. >>>