The Energy Xchange-ASPO

The Energy Xchange is an educational initiative to promote understanding of the changing energy realities of the 21st Century and the opportunities and risks they present for the economy, national security, and sustainability. We foster thoughtful discourse among diverse perspectives in order to inform and illuminate a wise path forward.

The Energy Xchange was created to help illuminate critical energy-related issues that are often overlooked or under-examined by other media and information sources—especially how shifting energy trends may affect the broader economy.

Our goal is not to promote a particular viewpoint or agenda but to frame important questions and serve as a forum for information-sharing and discussion among leading experts to promote clearer, deeper understanding of these issues, and to help businesses, governments, and communities navigate and adapt to a changing world.

The Energy Xchange was developed with three strategic objectives.

First and foremost, the Energy Xchange will serve as a forum and an “honest broker" for thoughtful discourse. There is no shortage of information sources on energy, but most of them come from a particular angle or with a certain agenda. In today's fragmented media landscape, too many media outlets essentially “preach to the choir" and just reinforce the existing views of their audience. The Energy Xchange, on the other hand, aims to bring together many different perspectives in order to help our audience form their own judgments and gain a clearer understanding of the truth.

Second, energy issues are too often discussed in isolation—without addressing their broader context and wider implications for society. The Energy Xchange is not just about energy, it's about how energy connects to the issues that ultimately matter most—in particular, the economy, national security, and sustainability. The interconnections among energy and these vital issues are growing tighter and more complex, accompanied by fundamental changes that are creating, in essence, a new reality for the 21st Century. The Energy Xchange aims to help decision-makers in the private and public sector, as well as the general public, to understand this new reality and navigate a changing world.

Third, energy is a huge and vastly complex issue and many news and information sources attempt to “cover the universe." But covering the latest hot topic or whatever seems interesting at the moment, it's easy to lose sight of the most important issues. The Energy Xchange, rather, will focus on fundamental “big-picture" questions that often get glossed over or ignored by other sources. We are especially focused on how addressing these questions can inform actions by businesses, governments, communities, families, and individuals to create a more secure and sustainable future.

The primary resources and capabilities for achieving our strategic objectives are:

1. An extensive network of experts from a wide variety of disciplines and professional fields, based on eight years of conferences and research as well as the executive director's previous work developing education and outreach programs for the Environmental and Energy Study Institute in Washington DC.

2. Extensive staff experience in convening and facilitating meetings and discussions among diverse interests and viewpoints.

3. Technical capabilities for producing high-quality educational resources and effectively promoting them through different outreach channels--both traditional and online.

As of early 2016, The Energy Xchange has completed an initial development phase. In this phase, we developed our capacity to engage relevant experts and leverage existing information resources to create high-quality, value-added educational content. Continuing to develop and expand our network of contributing and participating experts is central to achieving our goals.

Equally important, we have developed and implemented the organizational infrastructure for engaging and building relationships with our target audiences. Much of this effort has been focused on developing our CRM database using Salesforce as our central platform, supported by a grant from the Salesforce Foundation.

Going forward, we are still developing and enhancing our capacity for marketing and outreach. Much of this development involves developing more robust and effective tools for online engagement with our target audiences--making greater use of social media, email marketing, and other mass outreach tools.

We are complementing our digital strategy with an ongoing program of live events and outreach meetings to directly bring our work to key individuals and organizations. Our primary target audiences are decision-makers and thought leaders in the private and public sector--including business leaders, civic leaders, journalists, and others. Direct person-to-person outreach is essential for engaging this audience. We are in the early stages of this outreach, beginning with a schedule of events and meetings planned for 2016.