Today Fight and Portland General Electric launched Operation Switch, a small program aimed at changing the way that people use power.
Emphasis on small.

We all have some idea that putting information out into the world can help people make positive change.  But we also know that just putting the information out there will only go so far.

So we’re doing an experiment: We’re giving people something small to do and asking them to announce when they’ve done it.  We call each thing a “Mission”, and each Mission runs for one to three weeks.  At the end of each Mission, PGE will announce – via their PortGen_Save Twitter account – what the total effect of everyone’s participation is.  The hope is that over the course of a few Missions we’ll see more significant numbers of people completing each Mission, and the total impact done by everyone will become large.

Will we be able to build a movement?  We hope so, but we don’t know for sure.  So we’re starting small as well.  If the project fails, then we’ve learned something important (the project is set up to provide us with specific answers to assumptions that we have).  If it succeeds, then we are achieving the project objectives and have a stronger case to build out the program further.

And, of course, you can help.  Check out the Operation Switch site, and try out a Mission or two.  Then let us know what resonated with you and you think that things could be better.