I continue to find myself deeply frustrated with the portrayal of the electric utility as a central villain of society, or at the very least, the adversary of the everyman. Obvious biases aside, my intuition tells me that this is a counterproductive casting of the antagonist role. Does it truly serve societal interest to operate inside such a narrative?
Let me be clear: I’m not at all suggesting that utilities, or any corporation for that matter, are beyond scrutiny or shouldn’t be held to the highest standards. However, I am proposing that fostering a culture where something fundamental to every aspect of modern society becomes derided and ridiculed does not benefit us in the broadest context. Where might such an unfortunate collective attitude take us?
Delving into the deepest trenches of that topic exceeds the scope of a single blog post and, frankly, that of a single book. I am opening this post with it because it leads to an interesting question. For a significant portion of the population to arrive at this conclusion, there must be some underlying factors at play – something more nuanced an insightful than simply blaming the media. What could these factors be? And how might we remedy them?
User Experience
We live in a world surrounded by ecosystems that prioritize user experience. This makes the concept of user experience a highly relevant frame for exploring the nature of the problem. There’s a verbal riff that I coined more than a year ago that continues to resonate with me due to its simplicity and applicability. It goes something like this:
“How would you describe the user experience of the electric grid?”
Admittedly, it’s a leading and almost rhetorical question, one that most people struggle to answer immediately (which is perfectly fine). As such, I often follow up with:
“Let’s make it easier: would you consider the user experience of the electric grid to be positive or negative?”
(A good engineer would say, “That’s a matter of convention!”… If you get it you get it.)
This usually elicits a response. Even if individuals aren’t overly opinionated themselves, they can easily make the leap to assert that the user experience for many is negative.
How peculiar. Why is this?
Further probing usually leads to the conclusion I’ve reached myself. My thesis is that the user experience is largely negative is because the average user predominantly experiences “the grid” under two scenarios:
- When receiving the monthly electric bill – at best, this is a semi-neutral experience, if not outright negative, regardless of the dollar amount.
- When the lights go out – undeniably negative experiences in almost every circumstance. While candlelight and a distraction-free environment might offer a nice change of pace, power outages are generally, at the very least, an inconvenience and, at worse, a life-threatening situation.
Bonus: One could argue that interconnection requests, both residential and industrial, constitute negative experiences (as those who have endured them would likely attest). However, I argue that (1) these experiences aren’t representative of the “average” user experience, as they are infrequent and of limited interest to most people, (2) serious residential interconnections often stem from individuals seeking an alternative lifestyle, and (3) industrial-level interconnection is heavily influenced by policy and market dynamics, often leading to perverse incentives. Therefore, I exclude these from my analysis.
In reality, it’s the absence of user experience rather than the presence of these two experiences that allow us to characterize it negatively. But if we flip this coin over, I believe this means two things.
Firstly, it is evidence of tremendous success. One of the hallmarks of the highly successful technologies is their ability to fade away into the background. From a UX perspective, the best interface is no interface. In other words, the fact that most people seldom think about how they use the electric grid (while it has negative side effects) is actually a testament to its success. Essentially, the safety, affordability, and reliability of electricity is so good that most people never even think about it except in the two circumstances mentioned above. Achieving “five 9’s” of reliability for as much energy as you need, when you need it, all at the cost of a day’s wages or less, underscores this point To put this into perspective, a hard days labor of one man is approximately equal to one kilowatt-hour. You can purchase this at anytime, anywhere, for approximately 12 cents. One might argue, “But Kevin, in some areas in the country the cost is three to four times higher!” to which I would say, “So what? A Kennedy half-dollar instead of a Roosevelt dime…”
Secondly, it is a sign of a cultural gap. A cultural gap? What do I mean by that? At this point in the discussion, I typically point out to people that every single aspect of our experience of that moment (we’re usually in an office building, for instance) is made possible because of the energy delivery platform we call the grid. In fact, nearly every single aspect of our modern existence is based on an implicit assumption of ubiquitous energy availability. This allows humans to focus on living their lives, pursuing higher aspirations, and fostering human flourishing. The true user experience is embedded in virtually everything around us and in everything that we do. Consequently, there is much to be grateful for. Our sustainability culture emphasizes understanding the origins and destinations of goods and services, and our reliable, affordable energy should be no exception. I’m in agreement that understanding the dependencies of our existence to the best of our ability is a good thing. However, I see it as a basis for gratitude as opposed to one of shame or inaction.
Sidebar: It’s worth noting that the knee-jerk reaction to somehow manufacture a user experience with an “app” or through expectations to obsess over optimizing your energy usage is not the right approach. Believing that addressing this cultural gap is best achieved by emulating the strategies of the attention economy strategy is misguided and, frankly, foolish. People don’t want to ponder their electricity usage anymore than they want to ponder the inner workings of gravity. I’ll make a case for when and why we should consider it, but generally speaking, we have better things to do than obsess over our energy usage just as we’re encouraged to obsess over our social media feeds.
I’m Just As, If Not Even More, Guilty
I’ve worked directly for an electric utility for over a decade and have been closely affiliated for another half. Through those past 15 years, my perspectives on the utility have come full circle. In the beginning, I was filled with exuberance because I had secured employment that co-optimized my two criteria: job-security and starting salary. This enthusiasm was fueled by my graduate work developing a commercially viable linear state estimator (not-so-humble-brag). However, after the honeymoon period ended (approximately 18 months into my full-time employment), I began seeing cracks in the facade. Individual personalities and structural impediments made accomplishing anything (in my opinion) incredibly difficult, certainly more difficult than it needed to be. This led to frustration and disillusionment, very nearly resulting in an abrupt career transition to the tech sector. At this point, even as an insider, I viewed the grid and the utility as if it were a psuedo-villian. However, perhaps due to fear and stubbornness or perhaps (preferably) due to patience and resilience, I powered through. And as a result, I stayed long enough to see the seeds that I planted, the things that I invested in, grow into meaningful changes for the company, the industry, and often times in the lives of individuals. I stayed long enough to understand why things are the way they are, where change is really needed, where it is not, and developed the patience to navigate the complexities of a national, albeit distributed, institution. The last few years have allowed me to come full circle and to be grateful for the choices that led me to this point, rather than jumping ship for “greener pastures”. A major component of this was an emergent understanding of the importance of excellence at an electric utility for the broader society. There is now harmony in my understanding of each level of my impact on the world.
You say, “Kevin, this is not a user experience; this is an EMPLOYEE experience!”
Yes. But I believe there is something common between a healthy employee experience and a positive user experience. They share a common need for an understanding of the importance of not simply all infrastructure but rather this infrastructure in particular to our society. While I eventually found this clarity in my own work, what’s needed is an equivalent for the common man. Fortunately, the path towards a better user experience is much more easily attainable.
A Better Employee Experience
There is a common parable that speaks of three brick layers. It goes like this:
A man was walking past three brick layers on the city streets as they perform their duties. The first of the three men appeared slow and sulken, seemingly lagging behind his peers in productivity. The man stopped and asked the first brick layer, “What is it you’re doing here?”. The first brick layer responded scowlingly, “I’m laying bricks!”. The second of the three bricklayers appeared noticeably more productive but still showed signs of weariness. The man, continuing on his walk, asked the second brick layer, “What is it you’re doing here?”. The second brick layer responded confidently, “I’m building a wall.” The man continued down the street until he encountered the third bricklayer. Anomalously, this bricklayer moved swiftly and energetically from one task to the next, outpacing both of his peers in his productivity. The man’s curiosity was peaked and therefore asked the third bricklayer, “What is it you’re doing here?” The third brick layer smiled, placed his tools on the ground, wrapped his arm around the man, and said, “Come. Stand back and look with me. Where you look right now, will eventually be a grand cathedral. Today, I’m laying the bricks for this corner facade, but before long I’ll have moved on to many other features of the cathedral, and when we’re all done, every member of the city will come inside to worship. The cathedral will be a foundation for the community and will serve the them for hundreds of years. And I get to be a part of that with each brick I lay.”
The first brick layer could only see what was right in front of him. As a result, he suffered. The second brick layer, while equipped with a broader understanding of his role was still constrained by his limited perspective. The third bricklayer’s perspective was in harmony with each level of his impact on the world. His understanding of and connection to this eventual outcome gave him deep, energizing satisfaction with his work.
So, what is the equivalent of the “cathedral” in the work that I do? One might first leap to a direct physical analogy and say that the cathedral is the grid itself. Ok, fair enough. However, I would suggest that his is an insufficient analogy because it doesn’t take into consideration the characteristics that allow the grid to disappear into the background nor the transcendent nature of its impact on our society. The reasons are, I’ll reiterate, its safety, affordability, and mostly, reliability. Yes, the cathedral that I am building is actually reliability. Reliability is the sufficient condition that, as my close friend and mentor likes to say, “enables the sum total of all human flourishing” in our modern world. In the same way that the impact of the cathedral on the community transcends the cathedral itself, so does the net effect of reliable electricity on our modern society.
A Better User Experience
So while I’m laying my bricks in the electric cathedral, what’s still missing are the doors and seats that enable the community to come inside and join in worship – the means for a user experience. However, I don’t think this has to be complicated. Worship, in this case, can be simple. Each user only needs to manifest the tiniest moment of mindfulness and gratitude (opening a door) when they reach for the light switch or iPhone charger or any one of the myriad of electric miracles that populate our modern lives and then look around at the safety, comfort, and magic of our lives (taking a seat to admire the beauty of the cathedral).
Now, as I rush to mortar this metaphor together, I’ll close by saying that while it may seem that I am suggesting this change of mindset and behavior to serve the institution of the utility, or even more crudely, the grid itself, I am not. Just as worship is not for God but rather the for the benefit of the individual, so too are these suggested moments of mindfulness regarding our relationship with electricity not for the grid but for its “users”. And when done properly, that benefit comes directly and systemically through an improved user experience.
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