On a personal note – Rethinking strategy for ThinkGeoEnergy
Whiteboard dashboard on ongoing work on key strategic pillars of ThinkGeoEnergy
Alexander Richter
25 Jul 2019
A week into work on reevaluating the strategy for ThinkGeoEnergy, I am sharing today some of the key elements that I have been working on. More to follow soon.
Last week, I shared that I am about to embark on a reevaluation of strategy for ThinkGeoEnergy and its business and I have been pushing forward on that work making good progress.
Today, I wanted to share with you details about the process and directions the work has taken me so far.
But first of all, for those of you that don’t know me that well, maybe here a short overview on my activities might be helpful to set things into context. I operate ThinkGeoEnergy as the news platform it is for the global geothermal energy industry today. This entails sourcing news on a daily basis, writing articles, sharing it on social media, engage with companies and the market, attending (and flying to) conferences world wide, while also engaging on promotional partnerships for advertisements etc. That includes also the work with the people that help me in operating our Spanish language platform PiensaGeotermia and the Turkish platform JeotermalHaberler. Apart on liaising on news postings, it also entails solving technical issues from time to time. With my German partner, Enerchange, I am also involved in organising two geothermal conferences together, IGC Turkey – the key geothermal conference & exhibition for the growing Turkish geothermal market (JeotermalHaberler is part of that), as well as IGC Invest Geothermal – a geothermal finance & investment forum. Beside that I am working on various consulting arrangements from time to time, e.g. on business intelligence and development. Last but not least is my engagement on the Board of the International Geothermal Association, where I am currently President. This is a voluntary position that I have been elected into and work closely with the great team at the Secretariat and my fellow board members to push and promote what geothermal energy has to offer. So you can see there are always many things going on.
In a first phase – which actually started already in April/ May of this year – I started collecting all kinds of ideas and thoughts I had of the things I wanted to revisit with regards to what ThinkGeoEnergy stands for, what it delivers, where it could excel, how it positions itself – but also mostly on how to operate it sustainably. What does sustainably mean in this context? Well, naturally it has to make financial sense for me, as I run ThinkGeoEnergy as a company that pays my salary and is fundamentally my sole source of income. On another level, sustainably also means in the broader context of time, mental state, health, family, family life, etc. – so essentially work-life-balance, as cliche as it might sound.
The last few days, I compiled all the different elements and structured them into the key elements that are at the core of ThinkGeoEnergy’s activities: Content (sourcing and writing), the Delivery of that Content (website, newsletter etc.), and Revenue Generation (advertisement, services/ products). I am now finalising the structure of these things, nailing down a few details in what they would entail and how they could impact the work and income structure of ThinkGeoEnergy.
While sourcing and writing content is an elementary part, the approach to how to deliver it is naturally a key element, also as it includes exploring ways to monetisation. When I established ThinkGeoEnergy in December 2008, it was always the plan to create a free website providing access to news on what is going on in geothermal worldwide. I still consider it paramount that it stays free, while at the same time I have to explore ways to make money to keep it operational.
I am planning to share further details in a survey that I will share widely soon. There I hope to get some feedback from the readership of ThinkGeoEnergy, but also partners and friends in the industry and beyond.
For a first few key elements that I am evaluating, see the article on LinkedIn I shared here.
The article touches only upon a small fraction on the elements I am currently going over and a lot of things are either too early to share (or a bit too sensitive).
I appreciate the feedback I have got so far and would like to thank for the offer of support. I will be in touch with you soon on specific elements that I am seeking help and honest feedback on. If you would like to help as well, please comment below or contact me directly at news@thinkgeoenergy.com.
Alexander Richter – Founder & Editor of ThinkGeoEnergy.com
