This week on the news, I saw Congress grill social media executives. I heard about the spread of fake news and the negative things that social media has wrought. There was lots of focus on young people and how they use these forums – I even heard one report when an expert being interviewed mentioned that he was an undergraduate.
I won’t disagree that there are negatives about social media, but I do want to point out a different perspective that comes from my work.
My industry and the population we serve are often considered out of the loop on technology. But, the truth is social media has become a huge benefit in the lives of many people old enough to be that undergraduate’s grandparents.
Today, we take for granted how easy and seamless it has become to conduct business with one another and trade online. We order food on a mobile app from almost any restaurant and it arrives at our door within an hour; we get in a stranger’s car for a ride across town; we spend our family vacations in some other stranger’s home. It’s all so normal now -- no big deal. But in 1995, when Mark Fraser of Salt Spring Island, Canada, sent $14.83 to a person he’d never met (Pierre) —never even spoken with —to buy a laser pointer he saw on a website, it was a remarkable act and started an even more remarkable movement.
As the first volunteer for Refuge Coffee in Clarkston, Georgia – an area that hosts the most diverse square mile in the country and is home to over 60 native-spoken languages – Karen Guess brings together people from all walks of life over the universal language of coffee and tea. She moved to the area at the same time as Refuge Coffee founder Kitti Murray, who had a dream of creating just such a communal place.
A start-up company may be well on its way to even more success after winning $75,000 in the FedEx Junior Business Challenge. Five student teams around the country competed against each other to see who had the best original business idea.
National Grid, a leader in developing innovative energy solutions to meet customer and community needs, will install a 48 megawatt-hour battery energy storage system, or BESS, on the island of Nantucket, 30 miles off the Massachusetts coast, to help address some unique energy challenges.
The newly released 2017 Strategic Directions: Natural Gas Industry Report by Black & Veatch examines how organizations are planning for long-term, sustainable operations that can accommodate rising supplies and deliver them to markets eager to use natural gas as a cheaper and cleaner power generation source.
What’s your big idea? That’s one question that more than 200 businesses have been answering as part of the eBay StartUp Cup Challenge, a global series of business model competitions currently underway in four cities. The competitions were made possible through an eBay Foundation grant to GriffinWorx, a nonprofit organization that helps early stage entrepreneurs with any type of business idea to design, test and build a viable company.
As automakers continue to bring new electric vehicles to the marketplace, electric utilities are grappling with the challenge of deploying adequate electric vehicle charging infrastructure to ensure that vehicles can be charged reliably. A new analysis released today by the sustainability nonprofit organization Ceres and M.J. Bradley & Associates finds that the benefits of increased investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure outweigh the costs by more than 3 to 1.
Jens Hildreth is a fun-loving 8-year-old. He smiles a lot. He is on the move – a lot. And he asks questions – a lot! Sam, when is the kid’s library open? Hey Bill, when is your partner coming to the security desk? Jens seems to know everyone at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital (HDVCH) in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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