Hi, I'm Jamie Nolan, a clean energy communications consultant
and this is Energy Empire. And today I'm coming to you with
my first ever solo episode and I'm interviewing Rosie Jewel,
who is a graphic designer and visual artist who actually
designed our brand for Energy Empire.
So our very cool logo featuring the Statue of Liberty.
And she is Jigger and my former colleague from the US Department
of Energy Loan Programs office, which is how we first met her.
And so today we're going to talk about kind of Rosie's approach
to design, how she got into it, what the design process looked
like for Energy Empire and what our collaborative process was,
what we were going for. And you're going to see some
really cool behind the scenes footage of her design process.
And then we're also going to discuss clean energy
communications and branding and some of the issues kind of
facing our sector in those areas and what she and I think might
make a difference and set us in a better direction.
So I hope you enjoy it and thanks for being here.
Hi, Rosie, welcome to Energy Empire.
Hi. Thank you so much for having me,
I've been so excited about this. Well, also, thank you for being
my first guest for my first solo episode.
I'm really excited. It's just me and you.
OK, so we have to start with this.
Our listeners have feelings about our logo, specifically the
fact that our power plug only has two prongs.
Like we did not know that we were going to offend so many
people. We've been getting called out of
LinkedIn and some people are telling us it's not safe.
So this tiny detail got a really outsized reaction, which tells
me branding matters more than people and energy sometimes
admit. So what was the story there with
the two prongs? I don't know if there have been
more comments since I last caught up with the controversy,
but I mean, the honest answer is just that it looks better.
I tried it both ways and I'm sorry, like call it artistic
license or whatever, but especially because this needs to
function at such a small size. It's just clearer if it's two
prongs. To go even further into this
controversy, what we really should be asking is what is
attached to the end of the power cable.
Because the Statue of Liberty is like a lightning rod, right?
She's made of copper or she's coated in copper.
She gets hit by lightning something like 600 times a year,
and it just courses, like, right over her body and then goes
straight to the ground, which is what keeps her safe.
But if she's standing out there in the rain with, like, a janky
appliance attached to this power cable, that's not going to be so
good. So I did a little drawing to
show you what the outcome of that might be.
And yeah, let's just say I don't see how that could possibly be
controversial. Sure.
I mean to me it's the toaster or something, right?
It's like they're meant to like represent a regular electrical
appliance. I think people were like well
for PV and and all of these like random references for us about
electrical safety of course, like the grounding prong and the
importance of it etcetera, etcetera.
I'm sure all of that is very important.
But most importantly, should we be worried about the electrical
safety of our brand? Are we at risk?
I think. We're fine.
I also, like, I come from the UK where we have, I think they're
considered the safest plugs in the world.
So I just want to state for the record that I do care very
deeply about electrical safety. But yeah, we don't need to be
quite so literal with the Statue of Liberty holding a plug.
Sure, it's all for fun and and it's it's art, but it's meant to
be fun and light so I love it. I love it so much.
I'm so excited to dig into how it all came to be.
But for people who don't know you, how did you end up
designing the logo for an energy podcast?
Give us the short version. Yeah.
So, well, you and I know each other because we both worked at
the Department of Energy in the loan programs office.
I was there from 2023 to early 2025.
And we both worked kind of almost directly under Jigger in
the front office in the External Affairs team.
And you were the media PR guru, obviously.
And I was one of the people who made stuff look pretty, I guess.
Let's dig into that a little bit more, our history and your
background. You're a designer from Dartmer.
Am I saying that right? Dartmer, England, Dartmoor So
much more elegant when you say with your English accent, we'll
let you do that from now on. And you ended up with the US
Department of Energy Loan Programs office, which I do not
think is an obvious career path. So kind of how did that happen?
I don't want to give you like the extremely long version of
the story, but I grew up on Dartmoor, which is if you can
kind of picture a little bit like Scotland or a little bit
like the landscape in Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, like
these gorgeous rolling hills. It's very bleak and barren in a
way, and just very dramatic and beautiful.
I had a really, really strong attachment to that landscape as
a child, was in the middle of nowhere and I was like literally
roaming the Moors on foot on horseback.
I grew up painting and Dartmoor was like an endless inspiration
to me. So just that is like some
context as to how I ended up here.
But it was definitely a securitus route.
So I studied French and Spanish literature and came out of
university thinking that I would do something in kind of human
rights and I was really interested in women's rights.
I met my husband at university and we decided to move to LA
together because he was interested in becoming a
filmmaker. And I'm going to say as well,
I'm a pretty risk averse person, which it's going to sound kind
of weird because this was one of the like big risks that I took
in my life where we just decided to move to LA sight unseen, trek
across the country from his parents place in New York.
But when we got here, the first job that I had out of college
was actually with a nonprofit urban design firm.
It's a really cool organization called KDI.
And I was the development and communications person there.
So I did mostly a lot of grant writing and a lot of bid writing
and they are based in Los Angeles and in Nairobi.
Basically their model is working with underserved communities to
Co design public infrastructure that layers environmental,
economic and social benefits. And so because of the projects
that we were doing in Nairobi in particular, flood risk is
something that comes up a lot that people have to deal with.
Like the poorest communities live in these informal
settlements alongside rivers, and they have to deal with the.
I mean, as we've just seen in the news with Nairobi, I think
several people have just died from the flooding there.
So KDI builds these public spaces with the community that
like layer flood protections and green infrastructure, along with
social and economic programming. And so that was like my first
kind of exposure to the world of climate change and climate
resilience. And coming out of that job, I
really realized this is the overarching problem.
And like the big challenge of our time is to deal with this,
this threat and this risk. So 2020 is when I left KDII
mentioned that I grew up painting and have been a sort of
artist on the side all my life. But it was something that I had
very much been oppressing in my professional life and thinking
like, from a very young age, I decided, you know, this is not a
sensible pathway to take. I should be academic.
I should pursue more stable vocations.
But I realized in 2020 that I really needed to scratch that
itch. So I had this opportunity come
up where a person that I had volunteered for suggested that I
could come and work with him just as a contractor on kind of
communications consulting. And that gave me the opportunity
to transition out of KDI and start building up a design
portfolio on the side. So I did that for a few years
and built up this design portfolio from scratch.
I taught myself design on LinkedIn and YouTube with all of
the arrogance of somebody who just like doesn't know what they
don't know. I was like, I can do this.
I'm an artistic person, right? And most of my clients in design
were in the the, the climate advocacy space.
And so towards the end of, I think 2022, I was talking with a
really good friend of mine and saying, I feel like I've spent
so long looking at the problem with climate.
And obviously it's really important, this role of
advocacy. But, you know, where are the
solutions? How can I, like, find out about
what we're actually doing to mitigate this issue?
And this person was Lucy. She was also at the loan
programs office. And she said, well, we're
looking for a designer, so why don't I put you in touch and see
where that goes? And yeah, that's how it
happened. The rest is history.
I found myself in the team with with you and yeah.
Yeah, I think I interviewed you for that job.
I did. Yes.
A lot of us spoke with you and you were so clearly a good fit
with the really strong culture we had an LPO and Jigger very
much so of course believes in external affairs and the
importance of communications and marketing and invested a lot
into growing our team so that we had all the tools that we
needed, which I think we'll talk more about the importance of
that type of work a little bit later.
But one thing from your story that really resonates with me is
kind of the influence of like a, the place that someone grows up,
because I have a very similar story.
I I grew up in the Eastern Shore of Maryland and in this region,
actually, I currently live in the DC area and grew up on the
Chesapeake Bay. And my dad was a boat mechanic
and electrician and he always worked in a boatyard.
And so we always owned one to three boats.
So we were out on the water a lot.
And so, yeah, just all my most vivid childhood memories
involved the Chesapeake Bay and kind of like the influence of
natural spaces on the values of a young person I think are
really important and kind of also led me to pursuing this as
a career. So it was fun to hear that about
your background. When people think of DOE, I do
think that what comes to mind for them is scientists or like
policy specialists, but they may not think about designers and
visual artists like yourself. And people like you play a
really important role in DO ES work.
So what was it like being a creative there?
It was great. Honestly, I think, yeah, that
might be like a strange thing to hear and and goes against the
what most people would assume. But one of the things that I
love, like you said, Jigger was really overseeing the office at
a time of expansion. And the phrase that we all kept
saying to the point where I'm most tired of hearing it now is
that we were building the plane as we fly it and we were putting
all the things together. So there was this amazing kind
of startup mentality almost. And I'm definitely a generalist.
So I love working in a small team with other like smart
generalists. And I get a real kick out of
working with people who had like total nerds about their
particular area of interest. So I got to interface with
people, you know, who were explaining like how loans are
structured to me and what is credit subsidy and got to like
understand about the, some of the technical aspects of the,
the projects that we're working with.
So I just found it a really dynamic and inspiring
environment. I definitely learned something
every day. Everyone really valued what I
did and what we had. Our other designer, Lee Farrell,
who big shout out to Lee. I should say I have an anecdote
here. So I went to a wedding a couple
of years ago and I mentioned that I was a designer at LPO to
an energy journalist. And his eyes widened and he
went, did you do the posters? Like people love those posters.
And I had to tell him, no, that was the other designer, that was
Lee. So he was incredible.
But I think people really did value what Lee and I were doing
and, and the, the importance of design and visual communication.
Overall, the most fun thing is when someone comes to you with
this, a really important point that they're trying to make, but
it's complicated and it's like there's layers to it, layers of
context and complexity. And you help them kind of strip
it down and figure out like, what is the point that we want
to make it? What is the story that we're
telling? And like how do we you know if
it's a chart, for example, on a lift off report, can we make the
heading of the chart tell you what the chart is explaining to
you so that you don't have to do the work?
What were some of your favorite and most impactful design
projects that you worked on over the years of DUE?
It was. Definitely deploy.
So I had a hand in various other bits and pieces and was kind of
a general graphic designer and you know, people would come to
me to do A1 pager or a deck, but deploy was the definitely the
thing. So it started with Kyle, our
boss, and the external affairs team saying we're gonna be
putting on this conference this year.
Maybe you wanna put together a couple of logo options to send
and you know, we'll see, see what you come up with.
I sent like 10 different ideas and started getting feedback
from this mysterious person called Susan Kish.
And then it just snowballed from there into developing the entire
brand identity for the conference, doing all of the
environmental graphics. I got to start working with
Jason Ramos, who is also still a colleague.
He's the the chief architect at Constructive, which we'll we'll
talk about later. Yeah, doing the environmental
design, doing all the promotional design, doing the
decks, doing the social media graphics.
And I think by the 2nd year with Deploy 24 where we went like
much bigger and much better. And we had the exchange and I
think we had three times the number of attendees that year,
which was just so exciting. And I really by that point was
kind of Co creative directing it with with Jason, which was just
such an incredible opportunity and and such a blast.
And I mean, we got such great feedback for Deploy 24
especially, people told us that they got so much work done.
They had like 60 meetings that it really was like the front
porch of the Department of Energy.
And this moment where people could see the full continuum of
how like all these different offices fitted together to
support projects from R&D stage all the way to deployment and
they could meet all the people on the way that that would help
them get there. And of course, the programming
was amazing. There were like, I think 130
hours of programming over the two days, lots of like really
pragmatic conversations and yeah, it was just really special
to help create the environment for that.
I think the the plenary stage in particular, like I had such a
thrill watching people filter into that dark room.
I mean, you saw Jennifer Granholm presumably giving the
closing speech and, you know, not a dry eye in the room.
It was just so powerful. And to get to see that on a
stage that I had Co designed with Jason was unbelievable.
It was awesome. It was very specific moment in
time and anybody who was there for those two years that we put
on that conference will know that it was something special.
And I love that. I mean real deal making was
happening in those two like projects got built because of
the connections that do we help to foster not just with with our
offices but also among private sector partners.
So yeah, it was really special. It was, it was such an
incredible team to be a part of. And I think one thing that is
evident of how how just just how special it was, is that we have
all continued to try to work together as much as possible.
I have, I have a client that is a former colleague.
I have many, many colleagues that I work with across my
accounts as a consultant who are former colleagues.
And I, you know, we all, I think, seek any opportunity to
work together because we built such tremendous trust amongst
ourselves during those years. And the culture was so special
and the teamwork was so special, and everyone that came into the
organization was so talented. Yeah.
And I feel really lucky to have been a part of it. 100% I
actually remember you saying at one of our all hands meetings
that among the external affairs team that there was this like
really high level of emotional safety amongst us.
And I remember that was like the exact phrase that you used.
It's something that we don't talk about enough with teamwork,
right? And how we collaborate.
Like it has to start from this basis of comfort with each other
and, and a sense of safety. And that like we can share
honestly with each other. And that, I think is like one of
the reasons why we are as, as you say, forever.
Colleagues, we really are. So when it came time to build
the brand for Energy Empire, of course you were the first person
who came to mind. You and I reconnected.
So when I first came to you with the idea, first of all, the
podcast had a different name. It was not at FirstEnergy
Empire. We had a different name, but it
was too common. So we switched over to This is
our brand. When I first approached you
about it, what did you think I was trying to make this feel
like, with the understanding that you didn't immediately love
it? I knew that you meant energy
empire in the sense of like a business empire.
And it was about something like a confident narrative, A
narrative that is optimistic that we're putting out, you
know, something that works against the doom and gloom.
And it's like we're going to build an energy empire that's
based on clean energy, that's going to change the world and
change the course of humanity. I got all that, but you have to
understand that. So I'm British American and I
have like 2 wolves inside of me. There's an American wolf.
And that was the one that understood what you meant.
And it's like, whoa, let's go. And then there's the British
wolf that was like, should, should, should we be doing that?
Like empires kind of a loaded word.
And and then Venezuela happened and then I felt like I had to
say something. But, you know, you guys know
what you're doing. You know your brand and yeah,
you, you were right. So like we can calm that British
wolf down. The American wins for today.
And it's memorable. You know it.
The alliteration works. And I, yeah, I think like
everybody knows, knows the phrase energy empire now.
It's so hats off to you. Thank you.
I appreciate that. I know you briefly referenced
the LPO posters and of course the LPO kind of the visual
language of those posters was an early reference point for us.
So what was it about that work that we wanted to carry into
this? And maybe for our listeners who
aren't familiar with that poster series, can you just kind of
explain it a little bit? Yeah.
So I think there was an original series of posters in maybe like
2009. Hopefully Lee isn't going to
message me after this and say actually it was 2011.
The LPO did this series of posters of different
technologies that that the office was funding projects in.
And then they were kind of resuscitated, I guess, when
Jigger arrived at the LPO and we did this kind of second series.
So there was like a poster showing geothermal energy.
There was an EV1, there was like a supply chains one, nuclear
one, and they were in the style of the like WPA screen printed
kind of like the national parks posters.
So like flat colors, very epic landscapes.
And you can see like energy workers often in the imagery,
they thread this needle between being really down to earth and
like really connecting with regular people, but also be
incredibly optimistic and they capture that forward-looking,
you know, very American mindset that we will recognize and love
from those vintage posters. So one of the ideas that we had
was to kind of do something similar, like a scene of some
kind where you could see energy workers or construction workers,
you know, building some kind of industrial plant or doing some
kind of clean energy project or maybe climbing a transition
pole. But we ended up deciding that
obviously, because as I said earlier, this is an artwork that
needs to work at small scales and it needs to be iconic and
memorable that doing a scene probably wasn't quite the right
direction. But we did keep the the visual
style of that, like screen printed solid colors and a kind
of vintage feel. Yes, as well as kind of the
color palette we really we yes, which was really important and I
love how bright and kind of unexpected and anti B to B clean
energy startup kind of feel, but it has I love those posters so
much. They're so meaningful to me.
People still talk about them and I know you were you told your
poster anecdote and I have to tell mine, which is I happen to
be in Ashland, VA one day for a random unrelated reason, but I.
Popped into Dominion Energy's Co working like startup incubator
space that they have there in Ashland.
Just seeking a desk for the day. And I walked in and I guess this
isn't something that people do like they have startups that are
like residents there. And I didn't realize that.
I thought it was just a Co working space.
But I walked in and kind of explained who I was and I was
like, can I just crowds here for the day and like to use your
Wi-Fi? And they were very gracious and
they set me up with an office. I walk into the office and it's
just wrapped with the LPO posters.
And yes, and this was a couple of months after we had left
after the end of the Biden administration and so many of us
had departed, including myself had left LPO at the end of the
administration. We had this very cohesive team
and we all felt very close. And there was very much so a
feeling that we were breaking up the band and we weren't ready to
go. Like it was a very sad moment
when we left the building, the Forest Hall building.
And so I was still very emotionally attached.
I still am emotionally attached to to LPO, but I was very
emotionally attached to the work that we did.
So it just was very powerful for me being completely out of
context in the most random place and just walking into this
office and like seeing the posters, I was delighted.
I texted a few people. I don't know if I texted you,
but I definitely took photos and sent them to multiple people
from our team. And that has happened in other
places too, that I have hopped on a Zoom call with someone I've
never met before, and one of our posters is framed behind them on
the wall. Happens all the time.
Yeah, they're really cool. I'm going to send this to Lee
because I really, I hope he hears this like.
Yes, shout out to Lee Farrell, who I believe is still doing
some work for that office and we like fully support him and not
and the folks that are still there.
So as we were designing the logo, one tension we kept coming
back to was that I wanted something that was symbolic and
resonant, but not too literal or too on the nose.
We also spent time trying to make this feel American and
powerful without tipping into it being cheesy, cliche, or weird
empire slash Rome energy, which is actually a direction that we
went in at one point. So what kind of felt hardest to
solve there? It's a great question That kind
of goes back to your first question of what did I think
about the name? Like, I think the word Empire
was the sticking point, and it's both the, like, the success of
the name, but also it was the thing that we had to work
hardest to get right visually. The reason why we mentioned Rome
and, like, started throwing that around as an idea was because I
think it was Simon, our producer, your producer, sorry,
who said, you know, maybe we could do something with Roman
architecture because there's all this neoclassical architecture
in DC and it speaks to kind of the connection between
government and energy. And yeah, we threw a couple of
ideas around. There was like, a plinth with
the sun on top of it that didn't have legs.
And I knew it didn't have legs, but one of my first questions
when we talked about the name was how comfortable are you with
imagery that is American like? And I threw out the idea what if
we did just spitballing like a flag with lightning bolts
instead of stars, which again was a terrible idea.
I don't know why I even threw it out there because I'm very anti
lightning bolt. Are you very?
I didn't know that. I did the branding for Deploy
action and I had this whole thing with Ana, but I was like,
please don't make me put a lightning bolt in it.
Like there are lightning bolts everywhere.
It's time to put down the lightning bolt.
We can get into that later as well.
The like the imagery generally and clean energy.
I had a sleepless night where I was thinking about all these
different American symbols because you were keen.
You were like, yeah, let's make it patriotic.
We don't want this symbolism and this imagery to be completely Co
opted. And you know, we, it belongs to
us too, right? Like we're Americans and clean
energy, like these technologies come from America.
And so we wanted to signal that. So I had this one sleepless
night where I was like making a list of all these different
symbols that we could draw on, like the American eagle, cowboy
hats, flags, stars and stripes. And each one I was just like,
Nope, Nope, that one's not going to work.
Process of elimination. And then the Statue of Liberty
just popped into my head and it felt perfect.
Like it's the perfect symbol of America because it hasn't been
Co opted by left or right. It's still something that speaks
to all of us universally. And it's something that speaks
to the like the highest ideals of America, right?
Like it's enlightenment. She's holding this torch is like
a beacon of progress and light. It was the first thing that
people saw, you know, when they arrived at Ellis Island that
welcomed them into America. It just, yeah, that felt like
the best angle to go down was a no brainer.
And also, not to get super philosophical, but she's holding
this torch, right? That's like light and heat.
It's a form of energy, and energy is the story of progress.
And that's something that's all, like, very intimately wrapped up
with the story of America. So it just felt like the perfect
kind of continuation of that. But the first idea was to have
her holding a lightning bolt. I'm nothing if not completely
inconsistent with my views because that was like kind of a
just an evolution of the torch, right?
Like she's just holding the symbol of energy more generally.
But I raised that with you guys. We had our first feedback call
and we felt like we hadn't really found anything to any
threads to pull on and we needed to kind of go back to the
drawing board. And I was like, well, what about
this one with the Statue of Liberty?
And you guys are like, yeah, we like it, but it's a bit earnest.
It's a bit too serious. So then I was like, OK, what if
she's holding up a power cable? And Simon immediately went, I
like it. It's cheeky.
Yeah. I mean, I think for me, I what I
liked about it, I do think that even from the first round, and I
know that we're going to cut into this video like some of
your early design options. I think early on, I really loved
how you had to look at it for a second to realize that it was
Lady Liberty because you just see like the very top of her
crown and her hand. But then it was so clearly
brilliant once we figured out like, oh, this is what we're
looking at here. And I think we maybe inched her
up a little bit. So you got a little bit more
crown. So it was like slightly more
clear what you were looking at. It's the perfect combination of
very American Ericana, very patriotic.
We weren't shy about the empire piece of our name.
Each word in that name is working very hard.
And I know we felt comfortable leaning into it because one of
the things that led Jigger and I through our journey as we were
frankly working on this podcast for all of last year, trying to
figure out what it would be, is that the clean energy industry
continues to act like it is this small sector without a lot of
power. And that we want to see clean
energy step into its power. And that when we think about
what we're building it, it truly is an empire.
And we really are transitioning in changing the planet for the
better. I mean, combating the biggest
global challenge that is, is facing our generation and
climate change and also building tremendous wealth on, you know,
doing something good that we need to do in order to protect
the future of this planet. So I think it's a powerful idea.
And we wanted to lead with a powerful symbol, visual symbol.
So for people who aren't designers, kind of give us like
a brief overview of what your process looks like.
Yeah. Well, you mentioned that you had
come to me originally with a different name earlier last
year. So I'd already had an
opportunity to like take on some of the background and the
context with your thinking and let that bake on the back
burner. And then I think we had our
first call about energy empire right before the the Christmas
holiday. So again, it's like the more I
work as a designer, the more I realize that it's very much
about like the overall process. If you look at it, it's like
you're digging a flower bed and you, you know, like you're
adding stuff to the soil and you're getting it all ready.
And then you have to like walk away.
And then when you come back, a seed will have magically
appeared in the flower bed and it will start growing.
But you, you have to like, have the process of walking away and
letting it just bake and develop like a Stew in the back of your
head. Because if you try and force it
and like push it forwards, you just, you start going around in
circles and you get frustrated with it.
So I came back to it like very fresh in January.
And as a first step, I with this kind of like illustrative work,
I like to come to you with just pencil drawings.
Like keep it really sketchy. You have to kind of give a
client like one problem at a time to think about South.
Instead of showing you something in full color that I've spent a
ton of time on that might not have legs, it's showing you
something kind of quick and dirty that encourages you to
like bring your imagination to it as well.
And I want you to focus on just like the idea to start with and
maybe the composition to some extent as well, but not talking
about color, not talking about fonts, just which is the idea
that we want to develop here. And then it's just iterations
from then on out, right? So we'll show you some of the
behind the scenes pictures, which I never thought would get
public viewing. So they're not great to look at,
but that's not the point, right? It's, it's about the idea
developing. So I started to introduce a bit
of color and just show you some like low res versions of what it
could look like. And we played around with
different compositions. We tried showing more of Lady
Liberty. And there's one version in
particular where you see like almost all of her body.
I think that was just getting way too serious and like
detracting from the humor of the option that we finally went
with. So it's just testing different
things. But a lot of the time I know in
in the back of my head which is the best idea and which is the
best direction. And you're showing other options
almost to just convince the client that the, the, the right
way is the right way, if that makes sense.
And also to do with due diligence and like, make sure
you've turned all the stones over.
But half of the thing with being a designer is the actual skills.
And then half of it is the process.
And like refining your own process and making the right
judgment on when to put out another option or when to put
out your professional opinion that this is the way to go.
So always learning. Awesome.
So now it's out there and it's it's, I mean, I'm really
enjoying it. I love it.
I am. My favorite color is yellow.
So I'm very happy that my yeah, I got my yellow font, my yellow
name. But what's it like now?
Seeing people engaged with the brands and having opinions about
it, including about the number of prongs on the plug, which was
one of the first criticisms we got.
I know like, calm down guys. You know, it's great.
I mean, it's always scary. Like sharing ideas are scary and
sharing finished work is scary, but it's just really exciting to
see how much it does resonate. And I think it it has achieved,
you know, the the brief that you just laid out about putting out
this positive story and helping clean energy step into its
power, but also it being a very human symbol and something that
we can all relate to as Americans in our own way.
So yeah, it's great. Well, one reason I wanted to
have you on is making this brand made me think a lot about how
stale a lot of the visual and editorial language of energy can
be. A lot of the brands can feel
visually interchangeable, so I was adamant that for our first
meeting I wanted this brands to clearly stand out, which I think
we achieved. One thing I really cared about
was making the show feel legible beyond energy insiders.
So how does visual identity help with that?
Yeah, this is a a really great question and I think the entire
industry is doing a lot of soul searching around this.
We're aware that there's a problem, and I also think that
we are beating ourselves up maybe a little more than we need
to because to some extent, I feel like there is a question of
just timing, right? The history of science is like
full of examples of ideas that didn't take flight because it
just wasn't the right time for them.
And communications has a role to play in making it the right
time. But there's also just to some
extent, we're now, you know, in this crazy, like as we speak and
record this video, an absolutely crazy geopolitical situation
where, as James was saying in your, I think most recent
episode, the clean energy has never looked so good.
And to some extent, like we're just now in this situation where
the costs are down, the Security benefits are obvious.
And it's like the moment that we've been waiting for, but I do
think there are like sort of two buckets of like issues with
communication that I see with clean energy wire.
It's like, on the one hand, it's an incredibly complicated
sector. Like I feel like I've been in
the sector now for about 3 years and I feel like I'm still
entering the learning what I don't know phase of energy and
how it all works. And, and then we add to that mix
like all of these acronyms like SMRS and VPPS and PP as, and it
just, you know, washes over most people and, and it's, it's
really hard to connect with. So I think we can work harder to
just bring it back down to earth.
And I wanted to shout out what's the T here, which is this new
series on LinkedIn by our ex colleague Zenab Mirza, who is
also LPO. And they're like a really good
example of how they'll talk about the like, lofty
complicated energy policy or whatever it is, but then they
tie it to what does it actually mean for everyday people?
And they use like pop culture references to make that
translation. So that's such a good example.
And then the second bucket is like the moralism and the doom
and gloom and like climate in general.
It's been this like issue of if you don't realize that this is a
problem and see it the way I see it, then you're a bad person.
Like, how can you not want to fight climate change?
And there's this, you know, if you've got a solar panel on your
roof, it means you're a better person.
And you know, we call it a climate crisis.
And I think to some extent there's like an appropriate
level of urgency there. But it's also any psychologist
will tell you that operating from a place of fear and
negativity is like not a good spot to be making decisions in,
right? So moving away from that
baggage, I guess at this, especially at this moment now
that we're seeing that the moral and the environmental reasons
for clean energy are obviously still important.
Like it's a no brainer. Of course we want sustainable
energy because the alternative is whatever the alternative is.
But the economic arguments now and the the energy security
arguments are so salient that I think that's what we really need
to focus in on. This is kind of like a follow on
to the same question, and I have an answer here as well, but I'm
very curious to hear what you have to say.
If you were advising the biggest clean energy companies, what
would you tell them to do or to stop doing immediately?
OK, I have two things. So one, we don't need to see any
more like bland pictures of green woods and solar panels and
wind farms and like, you know, beautiful pristine landscapes
that don't actually mean anything to the people looking
at them, right? Like if you are a utility or a
project developer like you, if you're a place based company,
then use imagery of that place. I think that's so powerful.
Like we were just talking about our own connection to the
landscape that we grew up in. And this is something that I've
been thinking about for a while and I've talked with Zenim about
as well. But I read this book a few years
ago called How to Be a Conservative by Roger Scruton,
because I wanted to like engage with, you know, a really good
argument for conservativism. And he has a whole chapter about
environmentalism and this concept of oikophilia, which is
the the word oikophilia comes from oikos, which is Greek.
It's the root word of eco, like in economy or in ecology and
Philly, obviously his love of, so it means like love of the
home. And the point he makes is like
conservatives are wycophilists and he can't like understand why
conservatives aren't the owners of environmentalism because they
should be. Like there's a whole kind of
Nexus here of wanting to protect the landscape that you grew up
in that's specific to you and your identity that I feel like
clean energy could really be tapping into.
It's like placemaking and place keeping and really drawing on
the narratives of that local people have about their
communities and, and why their landscapes are worth protecting.
So like moving away from generic imagery would be good.
And the other thing is just, and this might be a bit of a hot
take, but I think net 0 is not the most inspiring phrase and we
all know it. And I, I would love to see clean
energy just like move away from the idea of net 0.
This is my American wolf beating the the British wolf in me and
saying like net infinite clean energy is like the printing
press. It's like the steam engine.
Like this is a step change in how humans produce and power
like everything in our lives. And it's putting us onto a
trajectory where, like, there's this book Interstellar, that
says that clean energy is one of these technologies that's going
to, like, get us to the next level where we become an
interstellar civilization. And that's such an exciting
narrative. And I feel like we could really
lean into that and take Khalif out of Elon's book as well.
And just, you know, he made electric cars look really sexy,
so we should be doing that as well.
Yeah, I love it. I mean, I'm with you and moving
away from centering everything around climate change and
instead focusing on the fact that these are superior
technologies in every way. Exactly.
Are and so we do not need climate as our backstop in order
to compete. And and so I think that that's
something that in general our sector should move away from
because it can turn people away. I mean, I think for me advising
clean energy companies, the number one issue that I see and
it's what you're you, you gave an artist answer and it was so
beautiful, Rosie. And I am going to give like a
consultants answer and like an executives answer, which is that
I just think that companies dramatically under invest in
communications and marketing dramatically under invest.
We are just not spending enough or doing enough.
I can't even tell you how many companies I have engaged with
that have one mid level communicator with like 8 years
of experience doing 12 jobs. And there's no budget for visual
anything with a related to visual identity.
So when you're talking about having photography, like any
type of visual assets associated with the places where their
projects are actually built doesn't exist.
And they have one person that's doing all their social media,
their website, their branding, their media relations and all of
marketing, all of the marketing functions as well, all of their
events, everything. And then wondering why no one
has ever heard of them. It's wild.
And I think that there's just a lack of understanding of the
role of communications, which I believe should be an executive
level function and a communications experts should be
sitting in every boardroom and reporting directly to the CEO so
that we can, you know, help to mitigate risk as well as help
companies to embrace every opportunity in front of them.
And so when we are relegated to a supportive function and
dramatically under invested in, we are not going to build power
as a sector and. You know who's doing a great job
with us? Oil and gas, Oil and gas.
I wish I had the numbers, the tip of my fingers.
This is when I miss Jigger Shaw, who his brain is an encyclopedia
and he would be like, the oil and gas industry spends 50 times
more than the clean energies. It's something like that, y'all.
I'll look it up and share it later in the show notes or
something. But it's a chronic problem.
And to give a couple of examples, I've been very lucky
to be involved with some really powerful storytelling,
particularly at the time that I was at LPO and for the biggest
moments that we had as a brand. So, for example, Jigger appeared
on the Ezra Klein Show with Rob Meyer.
We did one of Scott Galloway's podcasts.
I pitched the Ezra Klein Show for three years.
Wow. I reached out.
I was turned down. Ezra Klein turned me down on
multiple occasions with multiple different ideas.
He shut the door in my face. I got very close multiple times.
But meanwhile, I had fostered a really strong relationship with
Rob Meyer. So when he had the opportunity
to guest host that podcast, he reached out to to us, Scott
Galloway. That took more than a year.
It took repeated follow-ups. Mind you, the producer did not
acknowledge any of my outreach. It took multiple very, very well
considered and thought through and deeply researched angles.
I believe it was actually my one of my colleagues, Molly
Morrissey, who ended up actually like nagging that first response
from somebody there after I was like, I've already tried three
times. We need to try something new.
Maybe you send the e-mail, who knows, Maybe they're sick of
hearing from me. It takes a long time.
And so you have to have the team that has the expertise that can
invest the amount of time that it takes to do that work and it
takes a lot. And it was, that was after
hundreds and hundreds of media hits in the trade media and
growing a media profile with four people working full time on
media relations for years. And we had a $400 billion
budget. So you would think that it would
be easy to get in those rooms, but it wasn't.
And that's what it takes. And so, you know, I think I have
a lot of times when I talk to prospective clients, their
expectations are just very unrealistic.
Like, you know, I cannot come in for 20 hours a month to support
you and, and land you something like that.
Like the it's, it's so much work, so much, you know,
thoughtful narrative building over such a long time.
And, you know, it's the same thing with visual identity.
It does take a lot of shoulder and a lot of commitment.
So I would just really like to see companies take it more
seriously and really, really invest and then see what comes
from that. Yeah 100% and and please stop
using AI to generate images of janky wind turbines with 2 1/2
blades. So every time you do that, an
Angel dies. Oh my God, I'm dying to see
that. If that is real, have.
You seen these? They're all over my LinkedIn.
Oh my God. OK, so now you're doing this
work at Constructive, which is specifically about building
alignment across the energy and climate space through strategic
convenings and network building. So does that experience kind of
inform how you see this gap in comms and branding in our
sector? Yeah.
I mean, I see it all as it's all on a continuum.
It's all like to the same end. So Constructive's mission is to
build alignment and to basically create like infrastructure for
collaboration to happen between the public and private sector or
kind of between government, industry and finance.
Like those are the big three and all the other enabling actors as
well. Like I mentioned earlier, we
were talking about psychological safety and you know what, what
kind of mindset you need to be in to like work with somebody,
especially across the aisle or whatever, you know, whether
that's politically or because they are a buyer and you're a
seller and they have like the opposite mindset to you.
So to get there, you, you need people to be in a space of, of
comfort and curiosity. And I think from my perspective,
and I know we, you have more of a media relations perspective
and I'm more of a like branding perspective, but I see my job as
kind of getting people onto that shared wavelength.
That's like a tunnel between where you are and where you want
the people to be and where they are currently.
And you're not just like building the shortest tunnel.
That's the widest tunnel. And they can see like straight
where they're going so that they get to the same place that you
are at. Like you want to build a tunnel
that is appealing. Like if you were out walking on
a trail and there's a fork in the trail, Like what makes you
choose one fork over another? It's not the one that's like the
straightest and most straightforward and like you can
see right through to the end. It's the trail that like goes
around a corner and there's like dappled light and it looks
interesting and it looks like an adventure and you want to follow
the trail and see where it goes. And so I really see my role at
constructive and our our role is a very design forward nonprofit
as creating that pathway, like architects, literally to get
them to that spot where they can then collaborate constructively
towards deploying clean energy. So we have a chief architect
who's the the four of us, we we will work together on deploy.
This is how it happened. So Susan Kish, Jonah Wagner,
Jason Ramos and I kind of talked about spending this off and
making it an independent nonprofit after the change in
administration, obviously. And Jason and I really worked
together on creating these shared experiences.
When we say, like, architects of collaboration, we don't mean,
you know, puppet masters pulling marionettes and like, telling
people how they're going to work together.
It's about getting them in a space and taking them on a
journey, telling them a story. It's all like blended together
to architect the experience. I hate using the word architect
as a verb. I.
Think it's beautiful that kind of the legacy of the deploy
conferences that we put together that we discussed earlier were
just such a special moment, not just for our team, but also for
attendees and folks in the industry.
And you all have really carried the DNA of those conferences
forward into Constructive and in the events that you're helping
to design now. So before we let you go, what
are you working on now? What's what's constructive got
coming up? We have DeVos states locked in,
so we're collaborating with the DER task force again to Co
produce DeVos this year, which as everyone knows is like the
most exciting energy event on the calendar, lots of hot takes
about distributed energy. So that's going to be September
17th to the 19th in New York City, again right before Climate
Week. So make sure you sign up for
updates for that. And then we also have a couple
of things coming up in London that we, we haven't announced
yet, but we're going to be doing a summit in May with the WRI
Polski Energy Center on meeting energy demand with, with clean
energy generation. And then we're also partnering
with Ember in June to do a summit on Electrotech, which is
super exciting. It's not just convenings and
like big large scale events. We're also developing dialogues
that kind of like continue the legacy of the deploy dialogues
and the lift off reports to some extent.
So more to come on that. But we are, we have kind of
upcoming programs that do deeper dives into specific technology
areas like clean firm power and how to scale up deployment of
those. That all sounds great otherwise.
I know you're also a very prolific visual artist and I
love it when I see your art pop up in my LinkedIn feed.
But where can people find you and follow your work?
Well, I have a website you can check out. rosiejewel.com
definitely needs an update. I'm off of Instagram because I
just can't deal with the prospect of AI stealing all of
my artwork. And you can't turn it off in
this country. There's like no way to just opt
out. If I was in the UK, I'd be able
to, but fun times. And then Constructive's website
isconstructive.org, so you can find us there and sign up for
our newsletter to hear more about the events and convenience
that we have coming up. Awesome.
Thank you Rosie so much for joining me.
It was so great to have you. And thank you for being here for
my first solo episode. It was nice to have a friend on
the other side. Such a pleasure.
The pleasure was all mine, Jamie.
Thank you for having me.