Discussion on:

I am Andrew Nusca, editor of SmartPlanet - AMA

You can ask a question here at any time -- including right now! -- but I'll be answering them all on Friday.

HI,

THE 3 in 1 Breakfast Station SHOWN AT http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ef68/

1. DOES NOT INCLUDE MFG BRAND NAME.
2. NOR, DOES IT GIVE ANY CONCRETE SPECS. LIKE WATTAGE OF EACH HEATER (2), PLUS EVERYTHING ELSE.

3. THINKGEEK PHONE REP UNABLE TO LOOK UP, SO SHE AND REFERRED ME TO YOU.

4. I'VE HAD NO SUCCESS FINDING SAME VIA GOOGLE.

5. CAN YOU FIND MFG BRAND NAME AND SPECS FOR ME?

6. I SUSPECT IT IS THE SAME UNIT SOLD BY HEARTLAND AMERICA, MFG BY Savoureux Pro Line
SEE http://www.heartlandamerica.com/browse/item.asp?product=3-in-1-breakfast-machine&PIN=149996&BC=5000&DL=CSP33

HOPE YOU CAN HELP.

THANKS,

THOMAS
DFIX9@YAHOO.COM
11-07-12.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry!

How does IBM's sponsorship of this blog influence the content? Will this blog feature IBM's products, or will it also include information about competitive vendors?

IBM is an advertiser like any other, but we call them a sponsor because they've purchased ALL the ads on the site. They get so much prominence because that's precisely what they want -- presence.

That said, IBM is still an advertiser. SmartPlanet is fully owned and operated by CBS Interactive, CBS Corp.'s digital division. So we're completely editorially independent, and IBM has no say whatsoever in what we publish. We do write about IBM from time to time (they admittedly do some neat things), but we write about GE and Siemens and Cisco, too (they do neat things as well). From an editorial standpoint, we like a nice balance because we think it's appropriate. But again, IBM has no input here.

Where you see IBM advertisements and links -- along the right rail, for example -- they are labeled as such. We try to keep that divide clear, because we think it's important for both of us.

That said, there remains some confusion. IBM has a major corporate initiative called "A Smarter Planet" and we're named "SmartPlanet" -- it's easy to confuse the two, and many people do. But we've had this brand since 1999, so we're going to do our best to clarify that.

Can you lay off using your articles as sales tools and pushing partisan politics?

...Andrew is hardly the worst offender.

Just most of the other writers.

'Most' suggests that more than half of our 40-some writers are writing opinion on this site. That's just simply not true.

Again, we try to keep opinion quarantined to certain areas of the site, but either way views expressed are an individual writer's, not the publication's.

I try to set a good example.

Our editorial articles make no push on behalf of advertisers, existing or potential. If we write about products, services, companies or people, it's because we find them interesting. There's no financial relationship here.

As for the politics thing, we have an opinion section ("The Take," which combined our three columnists in one place) but we generally avoid offering it elsewhere. I have seen some opinion in the short briefs posted to The Bulletin, and we do try to keep that to a minimum. But please remember that the views expressed there are the individual writer's, and not the publication's as a whole.

Why did you include the negative picture of Romney? Is it Smart Planet's intention to engage in politics and in a biased way? I don't want politics...I hope you will provide smart topics.

Then I agree, it shouldn't have been published on The Bulletin. It was off-mission and didn't belong there, and I told the writer as much.

(If you're wondering why it remains live today, it's because our policy is to not remove published articles.)

As for the picture, I think it illustrated the post's thesis well. If you're offended by clowns, then the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circuses are in big trouble. You make a fair point here, but don't take things personally!

What will be the impact of CNG in the U.S. economy, particularly as a substitute to regular gasoline, and what business models do you think will emerge?

Send him an e-mail by using the "Contact" link in his biography box at the bottom of any of his posts. He's quite open to ideas for future columns.

I appreciate that Smart Planet is apolitical, and I realize few topics are more highly politicized than Energy, but here's my question(s): How realistic is a truly clean, sustainable energy future? How would a smart, heavily populated planet be powered? And how long will it take to get there? thanks!

This article from Scientific American is a thorough answer to your question, written by (and based on a study conducted by) Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil & environmental engineering at Stanford University and director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program there and Mark A. Delucchi, a research scientist at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030
Also read 'Plan B' by Lester Brown.

We very much like it when you folks contribute to the discussion. We wish we saw more of this on each article!

But you're also correct in that we can't cover topics that can be construed in a political context. Our goal is to talk about policy without engaging in politics. Does that make sense? Covering politically hot topics is necessary -- energy, healthcare, government spending, infrastructure, R&D, private vs. public sector, economy -- but we can do so without slinging mud from either side, too.

To answer your question: A more sustainable energy future is possible because it is necessary. It's pretty clear there are a limited amount of resources on this planet, and we need to figure out how to use them more effectively, or we'll run out of them eventually. That's basic math. How much human population can our planet logically sustain? That's a question better directed at the experts working on this topic.

you may have been asked this many time, but when do you plan an iPad app? The articles make good reading, and having an iPad or an android app,makes it that much more convenient.

I was hoping someone would ask about our mobile strategy. Thanks!

This has been a pain point for us for some time, because we recognize how important tablets are (we use them ourselves) but we face big-company resource constraints, too. At CBS Interactive, we're lumped in the same business unit as ZDNet and TechRepublic. We love those guys (if you're a ZDNet reader, you'll know that I also write there) but it certainly makes it more difficult to iterate quickly when our resources are shared among three separate sites. (This is, for example, why we've updated the SmartPlanet mobile app just once in the last year while ZDNet's has been updated a handful of times in the last few months. ZDNet is orders of magnitude larger than this site, and so commands more attention.)

That said, mobile's on the radar this year for sure. I think we're all keen on it, and our statistics show that you all are, too. The discussion right now is whether to go native (e.g. iOS app) or responsive (so that the site works wonderfully on whatever device you have). It's not a discussion unique to us; most online publishers are working through this now. But because of constrained resources, our goal is to make sure that when our developers and designers finally turn their attention to SmartPlanet, we make the right decisions so that we're good when they need to attend to ZDNet or TechRepublic again.

Hi - I just wanted to say that:
a) I really enjoy SmartPlanet
b) I also recognize full well that SmartPlanet is apolitical and I encourage you to stay true: do NOT let some of these comments pressure you into avoiding topics/facts that - to Fox News viewers only - appear politically biased (ie. facts on climate science and CleanTech).

in this site prove it.

Virtually all of the articles take a left-leaning slant, no matter what it's about.

In reality they are simply inline with the science... Only the right wing fanatical moronic GOP Nazis think of smart planet as liberal...

Really? Is that how you want to portray yourself again? No one will believe you are over the age of 15 if you continue to talk that way.

...take the high road, dude. Kill 'em with kindness.

...let's not call each other names, OK? That's no way to encourage intelligent discussion.

See my other comments above on this topic. I've tried to be as clear as possible about our position as a publication, our position on individual writers' views and where we feel it's appropriate to put those views in the context of apolitical coverage, which remains the vast majority of what we publish.

The truth on the Internet is that most readers who are happy with a publication don't speak up. Silence often means contentment. So we appreciate you saying so.

As I said in reply to another reader's comment, we'll continue to cover important topics that can be construed as political, e.g. energy or healthcare or infrastructure. But we won't cover the political mud-slinging about them, only the policy and implications and all that.

We believe we can be adults and talk about topics without taking sides. The funding for bridges, roads and train tracks is a worthy topic regardless of your political affiliation. We can write about it without claiming that one way is morally right. (We'll leave that to the pundits.)

It is the same one every time, too. Do you think that people look at it? Especially your readers who come to your site daily? If you are trying to promote something with it, you've lost your audience, and it is now just another annoying pop-up to click out of.

We don't have true pop-up ads on this website. We do have an "interstitial" ad that shows up when you first visit the site -- the IBM video one, right? -- but it's programmed to not display if you're a previous visitor. I think it uses a cookie to figure this out, but I'm not sure.

At any rate, you shouldn't be seeing this on a daily basis -- that's not how it's intended to display. Drop me a line privately (use the "Contact" link in my bio at the bottom of this post) so I can ask you more questions and perhaps figure out why this is happening.

(The same goes for any of you who are seeing this. Drop me a line, please.)

Q. Do you support a solar payment policy that requires Utilities to pay anyone who feeds solar onto the grid $0.54 kwh?
This is the policy Germany has that allowed them to begin the journey to 100% solar & wind.

But you should ask columnist Chris Nelder about this, because I suspect he's got some numbers on hand that show the benefits and drawbacks of this policy.

It seems that, all of the reporting, and articles, take a heavily slanted position to the liberal side of all issues, whether on green energy or "climate change" or any other issue with political implications.

Why is that?

Go away... quit yer lame whining...

I asked for any and all questions, and I intend to answer them.

Check out my answer there.

What part of this sentence do you people don't understand? "Ill be answering questions here this Friday, November 9, starting about 9:00 a.m. ET"

That makes it clear that, the editor is looking for questions starting today, otherwise, why even post the invitation today?

READ, and understand.

None, I understand that perfectly. Thanks for asking!

Hi Andrew,
Their must be a lost e-mail somewhere. I sent Denise Richards an email and told her I was a member here. She should have sent you a e-mail requesting you to please hurry and contact me. With the dramatic sexual a lour this site must add to my persona she must be broken hearted. Please for Denise's sake find her email. That was at least 2 years ago. I have not heard from ether of you yet. It has to be a lost email.

I think the only person looking for Denise Richards is Charlie Sheen.

Always good to see (read) a little humor now and then.

Many times the articles seem like expanded synopses, could you go a bit deeper into the subjects? I realize that many of your articles deal with fresh research and initial announcements of products and processes. A little more detail would be appreciated even if it is just a review of the market and similar products.

Editorially, I've done a lot of work this year to diversify the types of articles we publish. "The Bulletin" is intended to be brief and newsy, while "The Big Story" is supposed to be long and meaty. (Indeed, those stories often exceed 1,500 words.)

We can't always get into the weeds on everything -- I've written enough articles about quantum physics in my life to know how this film ends (terribly) -- but we certainly can anticipate questions you might have about that research, even if we don't have an answer for them.

So yes, we'll try harder. You're right, though -- often, granular information is hard to obtain for the newest, earliest research announcements.

For me, I am just looking for a taste of almost everything that gets posted on SmartPlanet (not the full course meal). So I think the depth is perfect! However, there are times where I do want to go more in depth. Most articles have links that to other places that provide that depth. So I just encourage you to keep doing that on each and every post.

More relevant links is not a problem. Thanks for the feedback.

In North America, what are the "types" of major initiatives for limiting/reducing carbon emissions? By "type", I mean what form do they take (ie. carbon taxes, cap & trade, regulated limits, etc.). I get the impression there is now quite a range of initiatives being undertaken by individuals, companies, municipalities and state/provincial governments. However, there seems to be a definite lack of leadership from national governments in Canada and the Uniited States. Is there an opportunity here for entrepeneurs and investors?

...but there's no agreed-upon solution.

Interesting fact: both the corporate leaders I've interviewed and the environmental advocates I've talked to are calling for a price on carbon. The former don't like the market instability that a lack of one causes, and the latter obviously don't like increased emissions period. The lack of progress on this is political.

The largest companies will continue to reduce their (and their supply chain's) environmental footprints (because it affects the bottom line) and environmental folks will continue to reduce their consumption to keep their lives in line with their beliefs. But we won't see a true lockstep initiative until we get a little top-down regulation that forces everyone to get in line.

Then why so many spurious articles that are unrelated to that idea? Sometimes the content is frightenly light-weight, i.e., poorly researched, or, reads like a press release.
But I still read it every day; complaints or not.
Cheers.

I can't address your complaint without some proof!

(But thanks for reading; we appreciate it, every day.)

Andrew, would you be kind enough to comment on the mission of SmartPlanet? Is it to provide the reader with information regarding emerging technologies, innovations, and scientific achievements or is it a hyper-partisan site which wraps a far left-wing agenda in the cover of pseudoscience? The reason that I pose such a question is that previously it seemed that SP followed the former approach and that recently it has become increasingly partisan, political, and less science oriented.

...but not in the way that you framed it.

SmartPlanet is a publication about global business innovation. When we first launched we were heavy on the innovation (thus the science) but lately we've tried to address the "global" and "business" parts a bit more. So that's why you see dispatches from around the world, and that's why you're seeing more stories about entrepreneurs and new markets. We're trying to balance a bit.

What we're not doing, however, is running a "hyper-partisan" site. See my comments in reply to other readers for more on how we feel about politics.

" ...but lately we've tried to address the "global" and "business" parts a bit more. "

That would be nice to use country tags in this global mission of the SmartPlanet. If an article is about Vietnam for example, a "Vietnam" tag could be used. Having country tags displayed would enable readers to pick-up specific country articles!

It would certainly help mapping this ocean of articles to a more human footprint!

Roger Pilon, Editor
The Planet Fixer Digest

We've been struggling on how to actually *show* this worldliness to you readers. Listing out locations is certainly one idea.

I'm not sure how useful you folks would find it -- do you actually come to the site looking for articles about Vietnam, or do you just want to see a more diverse group of articles period? -- but point taken.

To answer your question, I have to look at the bigger picture. In a web site, should I say any websites, the goal is to offer as many access doors possible without having readers be switched to a "tilt" mode!

SITUATION
Regarding SmartPlanet, as it is now, you have:
1) the classic search form
2) one main front door - the nav-bar on the top of the site
3) a second small back door - the " Related " section you have at the end of each article.

QUESTION:
Is there room to offer readers a few more access doors without them being overwhelmed? I think so!

FIRST SUGGESTION:
Using geo-tags for all your articles would offer a new access door to your readers. Would I use a geo-tag for Costa Rica (where I am living now) if I would see one...probably! At the very least, I would have the choice to open that door or not. As it is, that choice is not available at this point.

SECOND SUGGESTION
Now we can push a little bit more the tags feature. Yes! You could use tags as it is used nowadays. Not a revolution here but it will give another access door to the readers. Let's take a fresh example. I love wine! Anything that talk about wines, is an automatic click on that topic. No question asked! As it is now I could:
1) type wine in the search form = hoping
2) have a peek at the "Food" section = guessing
3) or look at a Tags cloud (not the geo-tags) somewhere on the welcome page - no hoping, no guessing, no stumbling

THIRD SUGGESTION
I think there is a little room to add a little bit more sub-topics under the nav-bar. Not too many more but .... Let's take the Transportation category. Right now I see articles about:
1) cars
2) railway
3) bykes

These could become sub-topics of Transportation.

Bottom line, there are no perfect solutions for readers to get this "planetwise" feeling and experience. This said, combining these 1/2/3 suggestions would probably help SmartPlanet to get closer to this wonderful goal: blurring the virtual fronteers!

Roger Pilon, Editor
The Planet Fixer Digest

NOTE: there will be another feedback about this topic - 2 of 2 coming. Just need 24 hours to brainstorm it!

Andrew, I enjoy smart planet a great deal. However, I would like to know the degrees and qualifications of the reporters. Do they have journalism degrees or engineering and science degrees; or possibly both? You do not have to name particular reporters, a simple list of degrees and schools would do it for me. They all seem to be fairly sharp on their topics. Thanks.

We've got a real mix on SmartPlanet. (For the record, you can see anyone's background by clicking on the "Full Bio" link in the biography box at the end of any article.)

Most have a background in journalism because that's the primarily task here, but several have technical backgrounds. (For example, the lovely Janet Fang works in the lab at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York. And the wonderful Sun Joo Kim is a practicing architect in Boston.)

Many others straddle the line -- they may not have technical backgrounds, but they've worked for publications such as Scientific American or Popular Mechanics or similar. When I assign writers to beats, I try to emphasize their strengths and interests.

Simple question.

Why does SmartPlanet put across many supposed Evidence Based Research Articles, only to find out the evidence is of poor quality, badly researched, without much credible peer review and full on Zombie Statistics.

... The recent articles on Early Life Eunach's being a proxy for being a woman and having a longer life expectancy due to lower testosterone levels is a good example. It was an pretty good example of Cherry Picking an answer you went looking for, with little real discussion on other impacting factors on the general fact men have a lower life expectancy women.

A balance to this article would be the discrepancy of Gender expectancies between very comparable countries.

Why for example does the USA rank so poorly in global life expectancy amongst peer countries. We keen getting beaten up in discussions by Republican Agenda advocates that the UK's 'socialist' NHS is vastly inferior to the USA's Private Insurance based one. The stats do not seem to substantiate this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
Rank Country Overall Men Women
15 United Kingdom 80.1 78.1 82.1
37 United States 78.2 75.6 80.8

If it's entirely silly science, we don't write about it. (Haters take note: "silly" and "provocative" are not the same thing.) And if it's a small but interesting study, we'll write about it but make note that it's a small unrepresentative study and question a few limitations of it.

The article in question appears on "The Bulletin," which is a section that offers news briefs. What appears there is not intended to be a dissection of someone's research -- that's for elsewhere on the site. I can see how this would be misleading, because that article was too long to keep to this mission. But that wasn't the intention.

That said: if you have knowledge on the topic, add it in the comments section! "Smart" should describe our readership as much as our articles. So please, if you find fault with research that we didn't identify, say so. But don't shoot the messenger.

Q. Why is Smart Planet so US oriented ?

It's Smart *Planet* after-all.

I agree with you 100 percent. It's an ongoing battle, but we can definitely win it.

The majority of our writers are based in the U.S. and forget that they're writing for a broader audience. Ask them -- I regularly send them memos about this exact complaint. So we're working on being better at this.

That said, we *do* have writers on six continents. The "Global Observer" section is written and published entirely outside of the U.S. And we also have SmartPlanet.fr, which is a France-focused SmartPlanet.

Cross your fingers -- we'd love to launch SmartPlanet in other languages, for other regions.

Andrew, much appreciated.

- It is also appreciated, that you stuck your head up over the wall for pot-shots galore in your direction. Many would not have the kahuna's for this

Really, it's helpful to clear things up, I think. (Plus, you guys are fun.)

That would add some interaction between readers to have an EcoQuiz once a week. Example:
How May More Persons Could We Feed On This Planet IF Only We Were Using Brown Rice Rather Than White Rice?

...and so on!

Roger Pilon, Editor
The Planet Fixer Digest

I don't think we'd focus on "eco" topics, because we're about global business innovation, but we can certainly ask questions about sustainability or global food production or overpopulation. Noted!

For example in your navigation menu there is a category food. There could be, as you suggested, a quiz or a weekly poll about food or whatever main related topics from the Nav-Bar! I like very much this site that I just discovered recently. I have to do a lot of digging to find specific solutions for the Planet Earth, but this is part of the fun!

What's it going to take for voting to go totally electronic/online?

Albeit briefly:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/why-you-cant-vote-online-in-the-us-election/4682

HI.
I'd like for someone to design a good, cheap, closed greywater system for the home-a planter automatcally watered by sink and shower water, then a pipe to divert the rest of the water to the city systems. If there was a good design people could easily install self watering planters and grow their own food on apartment balconies, or add them to buildings as windowboxes or little interior greenhouses by the windows, or have them on the roof. anyhow, I think it would be a good idea.
Also, I'd like it if one could be dessicated (freeze dried) upon one's death (much more sustainable than cremation) and have one's remains mixed into concrete to make beach cones (LSU designed them, they build up coastlines). That would be great. If you can pass these ideas along to someone who could do them, thanks.

Hopefully someone better qualified to address them is lurking in our comments section.

(If they're not, share SmartPlanet with your friends! That's how we get more intelligent people in our community.)

I have yet to see a comparison of the TOTAL COSTS of clean tech energy along side all hydrocarbon based and nuclear generated energy, including U.S. subsidies. I do know that break through PV solar roof tiles are around the corner and will be installed at less that $1 per watt soon. This is significantly less than natural gas on total cost basis. Do you know of any university or think tank that has or is studying this total cost economics question?
Randomotion

Search for his name using the appropriate field in our header, then use his contact link to send him an e-mail directly. He's much more in tune to the specifics than I am.

Question; What did FEMA learn from KATRINA etc?

...that we haven't yet written. Noted!

... needs to be someone with emergency management experience?

Just giving a thank you, I discovered this website a few months ago and enjoy reading a few article before work every morning.

I am not sure if it already exists, but I believe a kick-starter style segment of the website would be great where innovative people with smart ideas in all areas can post videos and business plans to like minded individuals for endorsement and support. Just the general crowd this website attracts I believe there must be a few of us that have some ideas worth sharing that could help the planet for the better.

Cheers,

Ryan

We appreciate the praise very much. As I mentioned somewhere else in this thread, we don't usually hear from the happy readers, so we tend to get a negatively skewed view of how we're doing. So thanks!

As for the Kickstarter thing -- an interesting idea! I'll pass it along to our Product team, which handles the site-side stuff. (They architect all the parts of the site.) I agree -- you're all a smart bunch. I'd like to see you all contribute more, too.

Many of your stories detail products that will come to market in the future....please do follow up stories when these products are actually for sale, and then SELL them on your website, please!

Not something we've considered before, but it's great to know there's some demand for it.