July 18, 2006
Dr. Roger Yu
Northern Boulevard
Balding House, Room 200
Old Westbury , NY 11568 8000
Dear Dr. Yu,
I am writing in regards to the contributions of Assistant Professor Paul Lipsky to the 2005 Solar Decathlon.The Solar Decathlon is a competition that provides faculty and students unparalled, applied research opportunities. To do well in the competition, teams must be interdisciplinary. Students and faculty of architecture, engineering, and communications must work together to create a successful project.
The Solar Decathlon includes a dedicated communications contest that requires teams to create Web sites targeted to a consumer audience and to open their homes to visitors during the event. Hundreds of thousands of people have toured team houses during the past two events, and the team Web sites have reached many more hundreds of thousands of visitors on line.
Through Assistant Professor Lipsky's research, he and his students created a multimedia presentation, which displayed on donated hand-held devices. The same content was available via an interactive DVD, which played on a donated Sony television and on the NYIT team Web site. Visitors could walk through the NYIT house and via a variety of methods—tour guides, hand-helds, and/or DVD—familiarize themselves with the components and operations of the house and its systems. Assistant Professor Lipsky's applied research experimented with using technology to demystify technology, an experiment unique to that team.
The success of the team's efforts was evident. NYIT placed fourth out of eighteen in the communications contest, which contributed to their fifth placement in the competition overall. Professionals in Web site development, marketing, and public relations in the building industry judge the communications contest. They know what works and what doesn't work when it comes to experimental communications efforts. The house tour judges were particularly impressed by the delivery of the multimedia presentation and the knowledge and approachability of the tour guides. Success was also evident in the longer-than-usual lines of visitors waiting sometimes more than half an hour to see the NYIT house.
Superficially, one may think that the communications role in the Solar Decathlon is minor—that communications efforts exist to support the architects and engineers in fund raising and explaining their projects to others. Every organizer and sponsor of the competition would say otherwise. At its core, the Solar Decathlon is about growing markets for solar energy and energy efficiency technologies, which are not yet in widespread use. Cost and consumer acceptance are two critical barriers to widespread adoption. To bring down price, we must create more markets. To create markets, we must grow consumer acceptance. The communications efforts of competitors such as Assistant Professor Lipsky are critical to growing consumer acceptance and building markets for solar energy and energy efficiency technologies.
The Solar Decathlon is the first experience many visitors have, be it in person or on the Web, with these technologies. Making these technologies interesting isn't easy. They're technically complex, and as much as we hate to admit it, they're not very “sexy.” Consumers warm easily to amenities such as finishes and appliances—they're accustomed to making those sorts of choices—but solar panels? Energy-efficient insulation? How do you make those attractive? We think the NYIT team successfully experimented with some very important methods of communication that go a long way toward expanding consumer acceptance of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, and by extension, to grow markets for those technologies.
I sincerely hope you will further consider the importance of the communications research undertaken by Assistant Professor Lipsky and his communications team, which contributed so significantly to the larger NYIT team's success. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any further questions.
Sincerely,
Ruby Nahan
Solar Decathlon Communications
NREL Program Support Office
CC:Dr. Edward Guiliano
James Fauvell
Paul Lipsky |
