Getting off our Hackneys
I often think of this when I am cycling to work and find myself behind a big van, and I'm closing my eyes and nostrils as much as possible to fend off the exhaust. I talk myself down from frustration: At least I'm not riding a horse. At least I'm not in pre-Clean Air act London. And at least I'm not in Beijing, where people are deserting their bikes for cars so they can sit in traffic. Ah, the joys of living in London, one of the most successful cities in the world!
But really, it's not ok. The internal combustion engine was an innovation in 1905, but in 2007, it's a fossil, burning other fossils. I know that it's done amazing things for the human race. But it's time we thought of something else. It is no longer really solving mobility problems - commuting in congestion is adding to stress as well as pollution - and its creating too many others to be worth the effort.
But most people are not thinking about providing alternatives to the service of mobility - they are breeding the Hackney horse, ie: Efficiency. In spite of the fact that we have alternatives - electrics, hybrids, or other wild ideas - those don't become widely used.
I don't think it's the technology that's the problem. it's the way we think, and the fact that so many of our services and systems have been built around the car as the mobility solution.
Everett Rogers points out that diffusion of innovations often relies not just on awareness or trying it out, but on a cluster of technologies all complementing each other, so that there is a tipping point in the uptake of each. "...innovations diffusing in a system at about the same time are interdependent".
Or what if a change (social, political or technological) in a completely unrelated area of the economy ends up applying pressure from surprising places?
Which brings me to case study I was doing for the Disrupters project yesterday - on Green Homes, a service that is part of London's Climate Change Action Plan. I talked to Andrew Long about his experience trying this out. The prototyping phase has been useful so far in all the ways they expected (gathering data from energy audits of homes to see where people think they use energy, how they can improve, etc).
But they didn't count on not being able to park their vehicles when they arrived at a home to do an audit. The scheduling and logistics of the whole experiment have been, well, a challenge. So Andrew is thinking of using electric cars to deliver the service, which can be parked anywhere, and hey, no congestion charge.
This could have a big impact. Already he reckons they may have sold a few Prius, because when they drive a Prius to a home audit, people inevitably ask for a testdrive. So Green Homes may end up sending out fleets of green cars, and people get interested in those, even as they hear about insulating their roofs or replacing boilers. Word of mouth, small changes with viral appeal. Virtuous circle. (note: cars are still cooler than boilers).
It all sounds very small scale, but I think this is how we'll end up getting off our Hackneys and participating in a sea of small changes that are positively reinforcing.
But I'm still waiting for smart car 2.0...