In the summer of 2008, during the then upcoming Presidential elections, T. Boone Pickens, a Texas oil man, introduced himself to the world with a series of television commercials driving people to his website powered by Ning.
Ning is a social media software network that enables community builders to establish a collection of conversations online that support a consistent message or cause. This is important to know because it applies to the evolution of business and marketing. Ning is serving the needs of many good causes and organizations.
Pickens however is about alternative energy, but not with out a plan. Thus, PickensPlan.
The original PickensPlan revolved around the idea that the U.S.A could be a wind farm that would replace around 30% of our natural gas consumption presently being utilized for non-transit fuel. Then with the surplus natural gas we could subsidize our foreign oil dependency by using it for transit fuel and retain upwards to $300 billion a year from going overseas, particularly to rogue nations. That’s about 40% of our annual spending on foreign oil. (Hope I got my facts right. I will double-check them later).
Today, PickensPlan focuses more on the natural gas aspect but the goal still remains for this era being a stepping stone to reducing our dependency on foreign oil.
The movie preview below captures the essence to what I am referring. It was shared with me by Mike Johnston whom I know from PickensPlan. Mike puts a lot of time and energy into rallying the troops on Pickens’ Ning network and it is tough work, but it is efforts like his inspiring people like me to share the message with my friends.
There is no doubt that the USA is moving socially, politically, and economically into domestic, alternative, and renewable energy solutions. The last decade was a total transformation into digital communications. 2009 exposed the ugly face of political corruption in our capitalist society.
I believe that the coming year 2010 is the year of domestic and alternative energy. Translation…independence from foreign oil. This is not a pipe dream, but we may need to come together as citizens to trump any hindrance to doing so. Pickens pushes for this and I am committed to the Plan because it offers what we don’t see clearly enough in Washington – a real solution.
Go Pickens. Go Ning. and Go Energy.
