Park Bench Pitch is Full! Now what?
An amazing response on Climate Week, where we are one week out!
Welcome to our newsletter on electrifying fossil-fueled stuff! We cover:
Investing in and around energy storage - The Batteries Included Fund
Electric vehicles, especially smaller ones - Night Shift Bikes
Going electric when it makes sense for you - My Next Electric
Today it’s post 3 on Park Bench Pitch — an experiment we’re running during NYC Climate Week, September 23-27, 2024. (1, 2)
A couple of weeks ago, my new colleague Lydia Nichols came up with an antidote to NYC Climate Week FOMO — get outside, meet new people, cover what they want. She called it Park Bench Pitch.
It was a damn good idea….
Park Bench Pitch is fully booked!
Every one of our 25 Park Bench slots is taken; our waitlist is growing daily, and we’re reworking our calendar to make time for more.
Most of all, we’re psyched to meet these clever, curious humans…
And while we aren’t sure yet if or how we’ll fill orders, we have solid data on what everyone’s drinking. Shout out to everyone honest enough to own pumpkin spice. 🎃
I’m grateful to Lydia for this whole thing. Not just the idea, but for the way people are already experiencing it; she’s setting this up to be delightful for everyone who’s had the courage to try it out.
Speaking of Lydia, it’s time you got to know her.
Meet Lydia Nichols, Architect
It was early August and I was feeling unsure of the whole NYC Climate Week thing. I posted a few links and a two-line ask for help on a local job board here in New Orleans. Two days later my 30-minute interview with Lydia turned into a two-hour deep dive on everything from my last job to her evolving work on the water/culture intersection and her acclaimed environmental storytelling.
48 hours later, we were working on Climate Week together. We’ve got lots of good stuff brewing, some of which we’ll save for next week. For now, here are two fun details.
Park Bench Vibes
Does your biz card have a park bench on it? Ours do.
Electrify, Giggle, Repeat: The squeakquel
Two years ago, I was making swag for My Next Electric, where I attempt to help not-climate-nerds navigate electrifying their personal stuff. Carbon footprint? Ebike? EV? Hybrid? Induction stoves? Solar? Batteries? WTF?
The My Next Electric thesis went something like this:
Help each person find a cheap, easy way to experience electric,
See how much fun they have,
Pick the next best thing that makes economic sense to electrify.
At its most complex, that process led to something like this — a detailed decade-long plan on electrifying your stuff.
At its simplest, it went like this — Electrify. Giggle. Repeat.
So I put it on a t-shirt.
After spending time brainstorming — and $7 on electrifygigglerepeat.com — Lydia and I decided this slogan and the t-shirt it rides in on will be making a comeback in New York next week.
Here’s hoping it’s a worthy squeaksequel.