CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT Energizing Visual Cultures Socio-technical Processes to AchievE Customer Engagement and Behavior Change By Dr Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob, Covernance Energy Ltd. This article argues that designers of visual displays of energy consumption must take into account how humans engage with meaning if the benefits of smart metering are to be optimized. It draws on research and social science theories to explore smarter ways of achieving customer engagement and sustainable behavior change. Introduction This article seeks to add value to critical debates and innovations in smart metering and new smart home technologies. It explores the socio-technical relevance of visual representations of energy consumption. More importantly the article contributes to increasingly contentious debates on how smart metering can help achieve sustainable behavior change and customer engagement. Drawing on communication and behavioral theories, the paper argues that human senses evolve along with the technological enablements of the times. In developing smart metering artifacts and display units, therefore, designers must be mindful that energy consumers’ senses are constantly evolving along with the dominant technology they are exposed to. While there is a limit to the level of psycho-dynamic designs that is practically possible, design nonetheless needs to accommodate a variety of delivery forms, behavior patterns and practices, preferences and attitudes among consumers, which may vary within a given household and building, and between age demographics. This is essential if smart meters are to live up to our expectation of increasing customer engagement and entrenching new, enduring energy behaviors. Current smart metering customer interfaces and in-house display units have limited engagement and behavioral impacts due to their ‘anti-social’ character and weak visual communicative value. Visual communications enhance memory and memory in turn provides the basic ground work for imitation – a critical element in social learning and behavior change theories. Theorizing Behavior Change Theoretically, the paper draws on two relevant theories. Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory and Marshal McLuhan’s Medium Theory. Social learning theory basically states that we learn by observing and imitating others and by modelling our own behavior on what others do and/or what we see around us. A key social learning method of changing behavior is by modeling desired behaviors and getting the target audience to pay attention to the desired behavior. Then create an encoding system that assures the memorization and retention of the desired behavior. The next step involves having a system and the appropriate motivational appeal to assure the practice of the desired behavior. McLuhan’s Medium Theory provides an interesting conceptual framework for understanding the communicative functions of smart metering artifacts. Medium theory focuses on the characteristics of media. A medium is not simply a newspaper, television or the internet. It can also be an in-home display unit. 36 More critically, a medium is also the symbolic environment the communicative act conveys. McLuhan’s Medium Theory posits that humans co-evolve with their environment and adapt to their environment through a balance or ratio of their senses with the primary medium of the age. Every era brings out a particular sense ratio hence affecting the way people perceive their environment. For example, prior to television we engaged with news and other distant events based on the characteristics of the medium available at the time – we listened to radio and read newspapers. But with the advent of live television, our visual culture has evolved, as have our perspectives and perception of events around us. The visual becomes a dominant sense ratio for audiences in contemporary society. In today’s convergence culture, we engage with even more dimensions of visual media. “Doing this at school has helped me think about turning things off at home” McLuhan’s thinking on the interaction between media ecology and cognition, learning and the organization of social space offers an interesting illumination on how smart metering interfaces and artifacts can be better designed to deliver sustainable behavior change. When we see smart meters as communication media we deliberately privilege the central, defining role they play in customer engagement and behavior change. They become interconnected communicative entities and communities – capable of creating new forms of meaning, action and interaction between customers and energy. Secondly, we are able to humanize and socialize smart metering systems and embed them within relevant social contexts. Thirdly, we are able to foster new relationships between energy and the customer, and open a space for new and more effective forms of customer engagement with energy. Findings from a Covernance Energy research project in the UK provide some thought provoking insights. Research findings at two British schools In 2012 Covernance Energy UK carried out participatory action research projects at two schools in the United Kingdom to assess impacts of live visualization of energy consumption. Smart sub- monitoring systems were installed at an Academy in Bradford, United Kingdom to provide detailed monitoring of the school Library, Science Block, Arts Block, Design Technology Block, English Department Building, Language Block, Arts & Humanities, Food Technology Block, 6 th Form Block and two classrooms. There was METERING INTERNATIONAL ISSUE - 4 | 2013