1. OPOWER CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
Scaling Behavior
Change: Lessons from
Opower
Rod Morris
SVP Marketing and Operations
Opower
May 15, 2013 – Stanford d.school – ME380
15 May 2013
2. OPOWER CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT DISTRIBUTE Who am I?
Why am I
here?
• Run marketing
and operations at
Opower
• Been there a little
over 3 years
• Built the team that
ran most of the
consumer field
tests at Opower
• SaaS and info
svcs dude
• Stanford MBA ‘02
• First job: Peace
3. OPOWER CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
Opower’s mission: Motivate everyone on earth to use less energy
10. OPOWER CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
The reptilian brain
1015 May 2013
Hey! You eat 38%
more crickets than
your neighbors
Mmm,
crickets
11. OPOWER CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT DISTRIBUTE 1115 May 2013
YOU,
designing an MVP
The average case:
I know what’s most
important for this user.
Every case:
I don’t have space
in my brain for this.
12. OPOWER CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT DISTRIBUTE 1215 May 2013
I can just ask
customers what will
work for them
and build that,
right?
Wrong.
YOU,
iterating on a product
13. OPOWER CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
Tailoring can help reach diverse
audiences
1315 May 2013
14. OPOWER CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
Utility
Systems
Tailoring at scale is hard
1415 May 2013
Insight
Profile
Data & Events
Management
Content
MDMS
DW/CIS
CMS
OMS
Unified
preferences
DRMS
Analytics & Insight Engine
Normative analytics Energy pattern analysis
Data
integration
and
cleansing
Targeting
Event Services
Alerts Scheduled Ad Hoc
Segmen-
tation
Content
Mgmt.
System
Dynamic
Rate
Engine
Mobile
framework
UI widgets Layout
server
Web
framework
Delivery
Generation
Mail Email IVR SMS
Outbound channels
$
GridPlatformBusinessLogic
Customer
Interface
APIs
15. OPOWER CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
Behavioral science drives all Opower
product design
15
» Noted behavioral scientist
Robert Cialdini on Opower Advisory
Board from inception
» Hundreds of A/B field tests of
different feature sets, messaging
approaches, and program designs
» Largest ongoing consumer
survey of utility customers in the world
after JD Power
» Only major UX team dedicated to
modifying energy consumption
» Largest body of smart meter
consumer data studied by any
vendor in the world
Behavioral science DNA Opower design principles