Hack Your House: The Branding Challenge For Home Energy Efficiency

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By Peter Troast - October 5th, 2009

In "Trust Agents," a compelling and stunningly useful new book by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, the authors use examples stemming from their passions to illustrate their insights about building influence on the Web. Not surprisingly, one is gaming.

They cite an article by Douglas Rushkoff on BoingBoing.net examining the three ways in which kids relate to games. Rushkoff describes the approaches as "playing, cheating, and programming." Brogan and Smith examine the use of the word "cheating," below, and provide what they think is a more suitable alternative:

Rushkoff's article talks about "cheating" and that aspect of game play. But we don't think this is cheating at all, so we call it hacking instead. Hacking is usually used by the "mainstream media" to bring forth imagery of illegal activities, but to the Web community, hacking is more about finding alternatives for the traditional uses of a system. An example of hacking, as we define it, would be finding a way to heat your home cheaper. The word hacking is commonly used because it isn't considered cheating, but rather it entails modifying the conditions of the system you are in. (emphasis added)

I was struck by this point for a couple of reasons. First, because semantics - what we call something - continues to play an essential role in how we view it. (Consider my friend who couldn't bring herself to kill the swarms of lady bugs in her house, and tolerated them for weeks. When she was told they weren't "lady bugs" at all, but "beetles", she exterminated them in 15 minutes). This is a central tenant of branding, and one that marketers have understood for a long time. The second point is that we still haven't landed upon the ideal word for "finding a cheaper way to control the temperature of your house."

Professionals dedicated to increasing the energy efficiency of buildings are called weatherization specialists, home performance professionals, efficiency retrofitters, green builders, etc... There is not, as yet, a unifying terminology, and there needs to be.

I should be clear that I am not championing the term "House Hacking" but there is a lesson to be learned from the simple reality that "chores" have always been a drag, and "working smarter" is a burden, but "Life Hacking: Tips and Downloads for Getting Things Done... " feels so uplifting, a fresh opportunity to choose a better way - creatively, strategically, cleverly.... to "beat the system."

Which brings me back to gaming the heat, cheating the cold, and rocking mechanical ventilation. How an industry defines itself is essential to how it will be perceived and received. There has never been a more important time for the home-performance-weatherization-retrofit-energy-efficiency-green-building industry to define itself, so that we can get on with helping people hack their houses.

Comments

Peter, Very interesting post. Home Energy Magazine began as Ene

Peter,

Very interesting post. Home Energy Magazine began as Energy Auditor and Retrofitter. Our tag line, which we share with ACI, is "Advancing Home Performance." I remember being very excited when President Clinton recently mentioned that he had an energy audit of his home, and Al Gore mentioned RESNET in his movie An Inconvenient Truth.

I had settled on "home performance" as the term to describe what the industry is all about. I liked the idea of using language we usually associate with cars, to describe houses. We do love our cars! But I am rethinking that. For now, I'll keep using "home performance" "home performance professional" and "home performance contractor". And throw in an "energy audit" and "energy auditor" as well.

I'm very interested in what others think about this topic. What is the brand that will stick, and make the ideas behind energy efficient, healthy, sustainable, and affordable housing accessible (and interesting) to a majority of home owners?

Jim Gunshinan
Editor
Home Energy Magazine

Posted by jimgunshinan on Oct 14, 2009 8:55am

Jim, Thanks very much for chiming in. Given yours and Home Ener

Jim,

Thanks very much for chiming in. Given yours and Home Energy's long history, and your own brand in the category, your point of view carries a lot of weight. I don't in any way want to come off as against Home Performance, which I would agree is the contender, but from our perspective interacting with consumers of residential energy efficiency products and services, none of the current names have much penetration. There's also a good discussion on this topic going on over on the LinkedIn BPI/RESNET group here:

http://www.linkedin.com/newsArticle?viewDiscussion=&articleID=75079131&g...

I plan to continue writing about this.

Posted by energycircle on Oct 14, 2009 1:31pm