This edition of the informer is packed with some exciting news, including the release of Storm Center 3, deployments of several smartphone apps by our utility customers, and information on the latest happenings with Notifi. All of this comes on the heels of iConnect, our first annual user conference!  It is interesting to see the alignment between our products and solutions and the quickly evolving trends around customer self-service for utilities. Just this week I saw research indicating that up to 47% of utility customers would be willing to pay a small fee for access to smart grid energy data! Over the past month, a wide array of weather and flood events have led to short and long outages across the country, during a period that is generally not within either the summer or winter storm seasons. One of these events pushed messages volumes for a Notifi customer above 300,000 in a single month, delivering the equivalent of more than 100,000 customer service transactions for just pennies apiece. While the direct cost saving is exciting for iFactor and our utility partners, seeing this level of engagement by customers is what is really remarkable.  It seems we are finally seeing the results of the convergence between utility information systems, smartphone and SMS adoption by the mainstream, and growing demand for smart energy. 

At iFactor, this means that demand for our products continues to grow, while the breadth and scope of the required solutions grows equally. I suspect the same is true with each of you, especially considering the number of customer experience management, customer service website redesign, and proactive communications initiatives I have heard about in the past 3 months!

Smartphone Adoption Rates
By: Jamie Downing

2010 was an exciting year for the mobile phone industry, and 2011 is shaping up to bring us even more interesting new ways we interact with our mobile phones.  One of the most considerable and conspicuous developments has been the rapid adoption of smartphones.  While only 17% of mobile subscribers were using smartphones in December of 2009, this number jumped to 27% in December of 2010.  This doesn't seem to be an unpredictable trend, either.  A recent study of new phone purchases shows that the percentage of smartphone users will continue to escalate: the study showed that 41% of new mobile phone purchases were smartphones.  Future generations are clearly becoming more accustomed to smartphones as well.  With 33% of "young mobile users" owning smartphones, mobile phone expectations will be drastically different in the next few decades.

Reporting Streetlights: How Hard Can it Be?
By: Cassandra Chamberlin and Jamie Downing

"There has to be an easier way!" I find myself saying this often as I research and analyze the streetlight reporting process at municipalities and utilities across the country.   I've noticed some common obstacles in the streetlight outage reporting process, and have seen a few good ideas as well.  

The number one issue I have run across is: who owns the light?  It is impossible to report an incident until you know who owns the light.  

Storm Center 3 Announcement
By: Brad Sileo

We are really excited to announce the availability of Storm Center 3, the biggest product upgrade to date. SC3 is packed with changes to enhance the user experience and allow you to deliver more information to customers on a variety of devices. We started with an upgrade to Microsoft Bing Maps version 7, which offers new map tiles, improved map controls, and support for iPhone and Android web browsers. 

 
We carried the mobile support from Bing through to all of the libraries and features in Storm Center so that the new version is fully supported with the web browsers on iPhones, iPads, and all Android devices. This support goes beyond just "making it work"- Storm Center 3 includes pages and content which automatically optimize for the mobile device with support for dragging and pinching the map to zoom and pan, and touching the icons to see the current information about an outage. We have also integrated location-based APIs so that Storm Center on a mobile device can automatically zoom to your current location!

iConnect 2011 is a Great Success!
By: Rob Gilpin

iFactor's first annual users conference, iConnect, was a huge success.  The meeting took place at the beautiful Embassy Suites Paradise Village Resort in Scottsdale, AZ.  The weather was perfect and the views from the grounds were magnificent.

Over 17 iFactor customers were in attendance this year, with several clients attending virtually.  The festivities began the night before at Chase Stadium with food, fun, and baseball.  We had a full agenda, featuring a customer roundtable discussion on transparency in customer communications with interactive solution sharing and reviews.  Attendees also enjoyed iFactor product reviews including smart phones and mobile applications, Storm Center, StreetLightOutages.com, and Notifi.