Four months into my move into climate tech, the last 11 days of January lasted about a year, and were not the best days, but we beat on, boats against the current, borne forward ceaselessly into the future, to interpolate Fitzgerald.
Highlights
Predictions: I published my 2025 sustainability predictions on LinkedIn, my personal blog, and Overt Impact. Spoiler: I published the last of them on Friday January 17, and a couple of them started aging poorly after the new U.S. president was sworn in on Monday January 20. Publishing a bunch of LinkedIn posts is of course the best way to see what resonates, gets shared, gets engagement, and gets a little attention.
More publications: I put together a list of the sustainable web measurement and data tools I’m using, considering, or researching.
In Real Life: I went to a real live in-person happy hour that kicked off planning for the 2025 DC Climate Week (which is in late April / early May). I wrote about it on LinkedIn. It was great, terrifying, intimidating, welcoming, comforting, etc. It was an opportunity, and I’m glad I took it.
Volunteering: I joined the W3C Sustainable Web Interest Group as an Invited Expert. Which is apparently something one can do. My main contribution will be editing the Hosting, Infrastructure, and Systems section on a small task force.
By the numbers
13 calls with colleagues, friends, neighbors, climate tech founders, and online acquaintances who I’ve crossed paths with at conferences and webinars and newsrooms and happy hours over a remarkable number of years.
4 Job Search Council meetings with my Never Search Alone group.
9 webinars. Sometimes when I do these I’m learning something new (e.g. Electrical grid software companies using AI to help route and track renewable energy!), and sometimes I’m listening to how one of my target companies pitches and frames their product.
2 job interviews. Even when the hiring process doesn’t go beyond a call or two, I’m learning so much about different corners of climate tech, data centers, renewable energy, and lots of other topics when I research companies, markets, and technologies to prep for interviews.
Remarkably few full days of school for my teenagers, thanks to snow, ice, holidays, and the polar vortex. Seriously, I think they had two full days of school and a couple delayed starts. Not a banner month for structured learning on their part.
19 job applications, almost double the December number. 18 were climate-related; I allowed myself one additional application where I think sustainability could be part of the role.
Reading
- Finished: A Questlove book I’ve been in the middle of for months.
- Continued: Making good progress on The Grid, up to the 1970s and 1980s now, learning about regulation, monopolies and monopsonies, deregulation, and misguided early attempts at wind turbines in California.
- Started: The Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs, which somehow counts as a guilty pleasure?
Listening and Learning
- The Founders podcast continues to be a rich deposit of history and insights. Inspired by The Grid, I’ve been binging the Thomas Edison-adjacent episodes and the cautionary tale of Samuel Insull.
- Really happy for Doechii. Start with her Tiny Desk if you want to ease into it, or just if you need some joy today and don’t mind a little spicy language.
What’s Next?
Interview prep! These things come in pairs, and I have two exciting conversations coming up soon.
Previously: December 2024, an account of the ongoing campaign