Thursday, April 30, 2009

A slightly different direction

Posted by Duncan Drennan at 10:30 Tags: ,
With 48 post over nearly three years, I am certainly not a prolific blog writer. My goal has never been to write a lot, but to rather explore issues from new angles and stimulate thinking and hopefully action. The positive side–effect of this has been exposure for my business, which was part of the original goal. In reality this blog has developed into much more than a marketing tool – it has become a platform for me to spread and amplify ideas, ideas which hopefully help to make the world a better place to live in.

Looking back over the titles of the blog posts there is a mix of mostly environmental issues and engineering. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the direction of my own life, as well as of this blog. There is a definite changing of season for me – a new and renewed direction and energy – and with that comes a slight change of direction for this blog.

That change of season has a lot to do with making a shift towards more "doing" and less talking. I have noticed that I draw the most inspiration from people who actually do (or try to do) important and interesting things, from David's fuel–to–electric vehicle conversion to a friend who helps get blankets to babies living in cold tin shacks.

For me that means spending more time doing some of the things I have talked about or had on my mind for a while (like developing some systems to speed up my design process), as well as engaging with organisations that are doing things that I believe are important (like this urban agriculture group).

This means that there will be a slight shift of focus in the writing here. There will be a stronger focus on how I am developing my company and design process, and I will try to open up as many of the inner workings as possible so that everyone can learn from what I am doing (and hopefully not make the same mistakes!) Even though the focus will change a bit, there will always be a strong environmental slant, as creating a cleaner and healthier place to live is important to me and a part of who I am.

For the foreseeable future my commitment to you is to write one blog post every two weeks.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me. I am glad to have you along, and would love to hear from you (and thanks to all of you who have contacted me).

Image courtesy of Colin, licensed under a creative commons license.

2 comments :

  1. Dave A5/02/2009 10:46 am

    Congratulations Duncan on taking the time to seriously consider what you want to do with your life, and then having the courage and drive to take action. Focused action is what produces results.

    You have done so much already to make the world a better place. I'm sure as you refine the art of influence, there are even greater things in store.

    It is a privilege to follow your progress on this journey.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jakes5/22/2009 5:28 pm

    I agree Duncan, we should stop talking and start doing.

    Most green-talking people want to do something but they don't know where to start. Converting your geyser to solar can reduce your emissions by 50% already! But the typical case with the average middle class environmentalist is that solar is too expensive to even consider. This is why I entered the solar industry myself - to solve the problem.

    Solar shouldn't be so expensive, why else is Namibia and Botswana covered with solar geysers? I believe I found the answer that will help us solve the problem: Solar Companies in South Africa cater for the upper class! After speaking to the MD of the largest solar company in South Africa I was shocked. They do not want to cater for the middle class! He believes that the middle class will not respond even if prices are lowered!

    I beg to differ! I provide solar products (of which a solar geyser is the most efficient) for the middle class. I do not charge too much. I do not want to make a living from one client. I want the middle class to save more electricity than what they have to spend on the solar geyser itself - while saving the planet! Your geyser uses about 50% of your electricity! Why not save money and the earth!?

    My company is dedicated to serving you affordably!
    Jakes (MD of EfTech)
    084 512 7511
    jakes@eftech.co.za
    www.eftech.co.za

    ReplyDelete

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