Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas and today we're exploring how innovation can power the AI revolution while protecting our planet. You're watching now Media tv.
Welcome to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas. Today I want to begin with a reality that every innovator eventually faces. A breakthrough does not change the world. If people cannot understand it, trust it and see themselves in it.
In energy, that challenge is massive. We're talking about artificial intelligence, energy demand, renewable systems, waste diversion, carbon negative infrastructure, circular economies, and the future of how civilization grows. These are big ideas, they're complicated ideas and big ideas need to be clear stories.
Joining me today are two guests who are who understand how ideas move and how stories are told.
Stephanie Perucci is the founder and CEO of Perucci Publishing, a boutique nonfiction business book publishing and marketing agency. Helping authors turn books into authority, brand growth, high ticket offers and business profitability. Welcome to the show, Stephanie.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Thank you for having me, Todd.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Also joining me today is Angela Costa Samoes, an author, communications consultant, podcaster and founder of Risso Books, whose works sit at the intersection of storytelling, culture, language, community and audience connection.
Also, Angela has been doing PR and comms for Woodchuck since our launch, since day one. She does a fantastic job and drives oversized exposure and awareness for Woodchuck. And she's become a close personal friend. So Angela, thanks so much for being on the show today.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: Thanks for having me, Todd. Good to be here.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: So Stephanie and Angela, welcome to Abundant Energy.
As we start, I want everyone watching to think about what are the ideas you believe in? Is it clear enough for people to repeat?
Is it human enough for people to care? And is it strong enough to move people from awareness to action?
So Stephanie and Angela, we're talking about the role of storytelling in the future of clean energy, innovation and public trust.
So Angela, when you look at big ideas like clean energy, circular systems and sustainability, why do so many important messages fail to connect with the public?
[00:02:35] Speaker C: I think it comes down to a lack of understanding. And because those are such big challenges to solve, you know, people sort of naturally think it's, it's a hard story to tell. And even if you're creating a solution that is a B2B solution or, you know, not something that's going to touch consumers directly, it's still important that consumers understand how the trickle down effect will affect them.
And so, you know, there's the universal truth that the time old truth that people fear what they don't understand.
And so, you know, we're in a time where people have increased energy bills. They see building happening all around them. They see all of these things happening. That feels kind of overwhelming. And oh my gosh, all these companies are taking over and it's not being communicated to them.
Yes, this can be scary, but here's how it's going to make your energy bill cheaper. It's going to benefit your community in these ways. You're actually going to see a better quality of life in these ways. And I think that's the big miss that happens when companies are creating these solutions for whether it's cleaner energy or alternative energy, they forget to communicate those things directly to the consumer.
And so there's a lot of misunderstandings. I hate to use the word misinformation because it's used a lot, but I think that's kind of what it comes down to.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Thanks, Angela. Stephanie, in your opinion, what separates an expert who has information from a leader who has true authority, true credibility in the marketplace?
[00:04:27] Speaker B: You know, one of the things we talk about continually with the publishing company is that your book is a business with four corners. And I think what people fail to take into account when they are launching a book, when they're looking to establish that brand or that authority in the marketplace through a book, is this holistic approach to the entire brand.
So as opposed to maybe getting on every single social media channel and just posting AI garbage all day, really connecting on one channel in an authentic way, so maybe a big podcaster that you can think of right now, and there's many like this because they're smart. That's how they got to be big famous brands and podcasters. They don't really try to spread themselves too thin. And so getting one authentic message in front of the right audience is, I think, what people miss when they're using their books to create authority and credibility. If you have a very small niched audience and you do an exceptional job with that audience, then you've won the game.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: So for a business person that's doing a nonfiction book today, what are the top platforms that you'd recommend in terms
[00:05:54] Speaker B: of distribution or in terms of social media?
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Both.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: I mean, it depends on the launch, it depends on what distribution is already in place. So if you are, for instance, the CEO of a large organization, and you have an entire organization of people who are going to be distributing or marketing or they're going to be, for all intents and purposes, ambassadors of that book, then you've got a lot of word of mouth distribution.
And there, there was a great study, a book called Contagion came Out. I think it might have been Jonas berger at least 10 years ago now, but it talks about how important that word of mouth is even in an age of social media.
That said, the easiest places to share information that I've seen with regards to actual converting into book sales. We like X and Substack. Substack forces you to really create thoughtful arguments and thoughtful contributions to the marketplace. We were all in on podcasts for a little while with everybody starting a podcast. We've petered back a little bit with our brands and we love Amazon. But you cannot neglect getting out there, rolling up your sleeves, and making sure you're getting into physical bookstores as well.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Thank you, Stephanie.
Angela, when you were helping people understand a story across culture, community and language, what makes that message feel human instead of abstract?
[00:07:40] Speaker C: You know, it's the same advice that I would give a corporate executive who wants to start a thought leadership plot campaign. Right? You have to have an original thought. You can't just regurgitate things that are already in the, in the world.
So think about why you started your company. You started your company because you had an idea, you saw a problem, you came up with a solution, and you have a unique point of view on how to solve that problem. And that's where your platform comes from. And so how having a unique personal point of view that you can talk about, I think comes across to Stephanie's point as being more authentic. Right.
That you will talk naturally about. It won't seem forced, and it will just naturally be prolific. You won't have to force yourself to think about things. And what am I going to say this time? It will just sort of naturally happen, especially as things happen in the news, new developments, new other new technologies.
From a cultural and community standpoint, there's, you know, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there's, you know, lots of festivals. There's, you know, maintaining language, you know, those kinds of things. And so being able to connect your story, your personal, I guess, mission, if you will, to what's happening in the world, it makes also very timely and relevant. So I think that's the, the biggest piece of advice is that whatever you're going to communicate, it has to mean something to you and come from a place of, you know, that your original thought.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: So it sounds like that takes a little bit of making yourself a little bit vulnerable to speak that way.
Do you find that's a challenge with new authors or young entrepreneurs launching a business?
[00:09:39] Speaker C: I think it can be. But again, once you get over that fear, I think they discover that they're better at it than they thought. And so, and then once they get feedback from people that they really liked what they heard, oh, I, you know, felt like, oh, I didn't know that. That's really interesting. I, you know, now I better understand the situation. When it's well received, it helps them keep going and not be so fearful.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Thanks, Angela. So, Stephanie, kind of along those lines, what does a powerful story make possible for a mission driven company that technical data alone cannot accomplish?
[00:10:19] Speaker B: One of the biggest struggles that companies have is the human resources and the personnel. And so what I love about the story, the book for a nonfiction author, is that you're putting not only a lot of color, adding a lot of empathy for your business, your startup, maybe how difficult it was to launch or sustain the startup, losing clients, losing investors, all those stories are very compelling. But the other thing is when your staff understands your story, there's a, there's more retention in store for you. And retaining great staff, as we've read over and over again, is, is really invaluable.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, Stephanie and Angela, thank you much for being with us.
We'll be back and we'll continue the conversation. Thank you very much.
We'll be right back. With more solutions shaping the future of energy, infrastructure and intelligent systems.
Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is abundant energy on now MinyaTV. Let's dive deeper.
Welcome back to ABUNDANT Energy.
Stay connected to this show and every NOW Media favorite, live or on demand, anytime you like at NowMedia TV or download the free Now Media TV app on your Apple device or Roku TV or you can catch the podcast version on Spotify, Apple, iHeartRadio, YouTube, or the platform of your choice.
I'm continuing my conversation with Stephanie Perucci and Angela Costa Samoes. And now I want to talk about authority.
This segment focuses on how books, publishing, public relations, podcasts, and strategic communication can help leaders build credibility and authority around complex ideas.
Stephanie, when an expert has deep knowledge but little market visibility, what is usually missing from their authority? Strategy. Strategy.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Well, one thing not everybody likes to hear is that there are really brilliant authors who don't do well on radio and they especially don't do well on tv. And so periodically we do have a brilliant author and I'm thinking of one in particular.
He's the founder of so many of our modern economic strategies and methodologies. Brilliant man out of the UK but can't show up on a podcast. So how does he take this extraordinary message and get it out there. If he's not fit for keynotes, he's not fit for camera. And so that was a moment where we had to strategize now other people using his IP or his thoughts for their bigger brands. And so we launched a series of projects where he was a co author as the expert for other people who were frankly going to get on TV for him.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: Excellent. That's a good strategy.
Angela, how does communication strategy help people trust a message before they fully understand the technical details?
[00:13:55] Speaker C: I think the, the strategy has to be, I think we talked about this in the previous segment. Segment, you know, it has to be authentic. It has to be something that you truly believe in.
And I think that, you know, breaking it down into understandable bytes of information, right? So instead of, you know, mass texts of content, you know, maybe it's, you know, a short video, maybe it's an infographic, maybe it's just a few bullets, you know, but repeatedly. And so you, when you break it down into digestible bits of information that people, when they read it, they feel smarter, they feel like they've learned something that they didn't know before. Maybe they are, they're even entertained by it.
Those kinds of things have, you know, are really important in a communication strategy. And that can be done via social media, it can be done via a newsletter, it can be done in a lot of different ways. And, you know, we've done that with, with Woodchuck quite a bit where we've taken all this information that you have gathered, Todd, all these stats, and there's this big gap, you know, where a solution needed to be created to solve this challenge. And. But nobody knew about it or nobody sort of said out loud, oh, that's actually a challenge. So now we have to educate, right, that why is it a challenge, why is it a problem? And then how are we going to solve it? And once we solve it, here's how you, the consumer and businesses will benefit, right? So there's a lot there to communicate. You can't do it all at once. So you have to break it up.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: So people talk a lot about the shrinking attention span, right? And we're seeing changes in how information is conveyed. Newspapers are disappearing, magazines are on the decline, and social media and podcasts are, you know, that's really how people get their information. Now, even the articles that we do together for Fast Company, we're limited on how long it can be, not how short it can be. There's a limit on the total number of words that we can put into those. So as these little chunks of media or these chunks of educational material that you're putting together seem to get smaller and smaller, what new challenges is that creating and getting the stories out?
[00:16:26] Speaker C: So you're absolutely right. When it comes to written text, you know, and whether you're scrolling and reading a post or you're reading an article, Yes, I would say the attention spans are, are shorter. And the challenge there is to get the most important pieces of information up front. Because if they only read the first paragraph, what do you want them to, you know, of everything that we're going to communicate, what's the one thing I want them to remember from this piece if all they read is the headline in the first paragraph? So figuring out what do we want to present first.
But I will say, you know, long form podcasts have become quite popular and I think that's because people can listen to them while they're doing other things, while they're driving, while they're cleaning the house, perhaps even while they're working or working out. And the benefit of a long form podcast is that people feel like they're getting the truth. Because, you know, when you, for example, with, with politicians, if a politician is on a 32nd spot on the news, they can very easily spin their answer right. And it's very easy to, to just say, not answer the question, but still sound like you said something good. Right. On a long form podcast, you can't do that. You, you have to get into it and you have to have a conversation.
And if the host is a good host, they're going to ask you some tough questions. And so by the end of the hour, people that have listened to that podcast feel like they actually know that person better, way better than they would ever know that person had they just heard a 30 second spot on the news.
And so yes, while the written content is shorter attention spans. And so that's challenging because you have clickbait and what's the title and all those kinds of things.
There's a lot of success and benefit to the long form audio and population. Podcasts or even videos, right? Because people listen to YouTube, they may not be watching the video, but they're listening to it while they're doing other things.
So I think that's why we're seeing a lot more podcasts come about and more YouTube is having a resurgence in, in these types of interviews and, and storytelling because, you know, people can feel like they're getting more real information and not just spam in.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: That's really interesting. And I think kind of that same argument can apply to, to books. While newspapers and magazines are disappearing, business books are still doing really well.
So, Stephanie, how is it that books are surviving and still bringing value in this, you know, in this environment?
And what does that mean for a founder or thought leader that's trying to establish credibility and authority?
[00:19:16] Speaker B: You know, when you're, when your kids start reading and they find a series they really like and they're hooked, you think, oh, my goodness, if it weren't for Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Dogman or whoever, the, you know, Cat Kid, Comic Club, whatever it is. Or then for my son, it was Harry Potter. After that, when you see them get into a series, and a child even who struggles with English language arts in school, if they are engaged in a subject, they can take a 450 page Harry Potter book down in a weekend because they're really engaged with the content, the materials, the characters, the story, the bad guys, the villains, what have you. And I think what we have noticed, especially with business nonfiction, I'll take as an example, is that the people picking up a business book, they really don't care about the author. Author until the end of the book, usually, but they really don't care about the author's company unless they want to invest in it or they already are invested in it. But business has an interesting model in that we're telling people we're going to help you make more money.
And categorically, almost every single human that you could ask, if they're being honest with you, they want to make more money. And so business books, they do well because people are trying to figure out, oh, man, how do I make this company? How do I get this company to do better, how do I make my employees happier, how do I raise more money, you know, how do I handle this investor, et cetera, et cetera. Business books do very well for that reason.
In terms of the long form, in terms of the long format with books, I don't at all think that people are afraid of long books or. But what I have noticed is that there are a lot of books, mostly because of AI that stuff a lot of fluff into the books. And that's why when you read through an actual publisher's contract, you'll notice a few things in there. And this has been standard for at least 20 years that I know of, probably more. But I've been looking at traditional publishing contracts my entire career.
And they tell you to bring things, such as an index. They tell you to bring things you, you create a work cited pretty thorough. You have to have 20 images in nonfiction, so charts, graphs, et cetera. And those things were originally created to build authority.
Today, they're proof you didn't use AI and most publishers can tell if you used AI and they'll tell you no. This is a bunch of fluff. You're repeating yourself constantly.
We've heard this in chapter one. They'll reject the manuscript altogether. But some of the old school nonfiction elements are safeguards to make the book a higher quality. In nonfiction.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: That's really interesting. I love that. And you're right. I think people are pretty used to recognizing AI patterns now. So it's becoming more and more important.
Now we're about to wrap up segment number two here and I want to tease. We have some new real time news that we're going to drop and share with everybody later in the show. So stay with us. We'll be right back with Stephanie and Angela.
We'll be right back with more solutions shaping the future of energy, infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on NOW Media tv. Let's dive deeper.
Welcome back to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas and I'm here with Stephanie and Angela. And now I want to talk about something I believe leaders often underestimate communication as infrastructure.
We build physical infrastructure to move power, water, people, data, but we also need communication infrastructure to move ideas. Because if an idea cannot travel, it cannot scale.
The clean energy future depends on people understanding why change matters, how new systems work and what the role they can play in it.
That is especially important when we talk about AI, the huge energy demand increase, renewable recovery, waste diversion, circular systems and carbon negative solutions.
If you are building a company, leading a mission, writing a book, or launching a new technology, this is the part of the conversation to lean into.
The message is not decoration. The message is part of the system.
I'm talking with Stephanie Ferrucci and Angela Costa Samoa and we're exploring how communication helps innovation move from the lab to into the marketplace.
Stephanie, when a great idea is poorly explained, what gets lost before it ever reaches the market?
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Well, everything. There's no way someone's going to buy something that confuses them. And part of that actually comes from their ego. If something is feels like it's over your head, you want to get as far away from it as possible because it's hard for people in general to admit.
Wait, I don't get it. Can you explain that again? So that's actually really difficult. There's this old analogy that we use in the publishing company, maybe every day, some weeks.
And it's this, just this classic example of a founder or an inventor who gets in front of a group of potential investors in a boardroom and he's explaining the features. My technology does this, my technology does that.
It's so cool. Look at this widget that you can use to log into it from remotely.
And do you know what the operating system looks like? You can't believe the machine involved and nobody cares. And their eyes glaze over and they're like, oh my God, please, I don't want to talk to that guy ever again.
But if the same guy is sitting in that boardroom and he says, do you know what problem this is going to solve? Hey, Mike, I bet this morning you had this pain, man, your wife really got irritated. I can solve that questions, you know, like, and, and, and now it puts him in a. It's a different dynamic. And so that's, that's sort of an old analogy. We go back to time and time again when we're talking about the importance of clear communication. It isn't about being concise necessarily, but it's about allowing others to not only listen, but participate in the education process.
So are we clear on step one? Great. I'll move to step two when you're ready. Or in a better scenario, please tell me more.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: That's really interesting. As you were telling answering that question, it reminded me of advice I've heard several times about startups or young entrepreneurs that are pitching VCs. And a lot of times that the young entrepreneur has this new innovation, they're really excited about it, and they spend their entire pitch talking about the product and the back end of the product and how it works and how it's engineered and same thing, the VC's eyes glaze over and they don't care. What they want to know is, how is this going to make them money?
And so, yeah, you love your product and that's great, but not everybody else does. And they don't need to. Right. They need to understand how are you going to make them money. So when you get that chance and you get in front of the vc, introduce your product and then move into what they care about, how is this going to make them money?
So, Angela, what have you learned from storytelling across communities and cultures that applies to communicating complex innovations?
[00:27:26] Speaker C: You cannot use the same exact message for every audience, you know. So whether you're talking to a vc, whether you're Talking to a group of customers, whether you're topic talking to consumers, whether you're talking to some partners, you know, the message is going to change a little bit with each audience because they're all going to care about different things, right?
And so your, your home base message can be the same because that's essentially your cause, right? What you believed in, why you started this company, what you're trying to achieve, that stays the same. But how you communicate it to these different audiences does have to change. It changes the language, right? You're going to be more technical with some audiences and use layman terms with others.
Maybe you'll be a little more extensive in your explanations with some audiences. Maybe you'll have to be a lot more concise with others.
And I think there's also the challenge of where you reach these audiences, right. Because you can't be everywhere all the time. And so being strategic about, you know, do you, you know, which social media channels you, you communicate with?
Also, what kind of in person events do you communicate with?
Are you creating a solution that's going to affect cities? So does it make sense to, you know, try and get an appearance at a city hall meeting or a town hall meeting and speak directly to residents? You know, especially with things like AI infrastructure, there's so much misinformation and fear around building AI data centers that if you asked most residents where that is a potential for their community, most people will say, not in my backyard, I don't want it. It's going to make my water dirty. It's going to, you know, use up all of our energy.
This is not going to be good for us. You know, you're going to ruin the landscape. And, you know, there's an opportunity to have a town hall meeting, even though you're a technology company, to dispel some of those myths and explain exactly how you will avoid those negative outcomes that people just automatically assume. So I would say you really do have to modify your message to the audience for sure.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: But that's absolutely true and certainly we see that very clearly at Woodchuck. So Woodchuck, of course is a waste diversion company, but we have, we have different audiences even within a client. Right. So typically Woodchuck works for a general contractor. And when we're talking to a general contractor, if we're talking to the sustainability team or the PR and marketing team, they love the whole climate impact story and the fact that we're reducing CO2 and we're generating renewable energy and they get excited about that and they like that. And they want to talk about that. When we're talking to the operations guys, you're talking to the project manager.
They don't care about that. No, they want to talk about. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They want to talk about job site efficiency, reduced waste, reduced traffic, cost savings.
Same message, but talked about very differently. Differently so. Yeah, very differently so, Stephanie, when you're writing or helping people to. To position their book, you need to have these different messages all within, you know, this. This final format. Right. It's all got to be in there. How do you help authors, I guess, identify who the right target audience is? And if they have multiple audiences, how do you make sure that that book can address each of those audiences?
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Well, one of the things we dissuade people from doing is having too many target audiences, because when they're trying to make too many people happy, nobody is happy. So I'm a big fan of. Of niching books to a target audience. And I'm just going to give you one example. When I launched the investigation in the Lahaina fires, I said, look, I think there's funny business, there's writing on the walls. All this, you know, political stuff was going down right before the fires. Is this a land grab? I didn't even come to a conclusion during the book, but I said, here are all the questions people are asking. And then I marketed the book for people who wanted an honest investigation, not people who are saying, oh, it's, you know, this conspiracy or that conspiracy, but people who really wanted to know what the heck happened to this beautiful place. And so when we launched it, we then summarily chose podcasts with audiences who were invested in the investigation, not the, you know, tunnels under the ground with, you know, whatever. I could go all day into the conspiracies, but people who wanted to know what the heck happened? How do we make sure it never happens again? And how do we get the Hawaiians their land back? Hundred thousand dollars our first day of launch on the first podcast that we appeared on.
So this. This is exactly the method I want all of my authors and not just my book. I could give a lot of different scenarios where, if you're.
If you're really careful to tailor your. Taylor. Taylor. Wow. Tailor the book. Sorry, I have such a cold. If you tailor this book to a niche, that niche is well defined. Those people are interested in the story or the investigation. Really, almost every book that we write, we identify as an investigation. Right? Because that encourages the author and the writers. Most of our books are Ghostwritten in fact, 90% of all nonfiction books are ghostwritten. That encourages everyone to dive into the story beneath the stories. So we kind of identify everything as an investigation. But guess what? It's not going to be an investigation for all audiences. So I gave an example earlier. I had a, a doctor write a book about this new syndrome that nobody is talking about, nobody is treating. It's called Ashram syndrome. And he said, well, this is a book for doctors, but it's also for the patients and it's also for veterans. I said, nope, you got to choose one. I'm sorry. Because if you're trying to spread it too thin, the voice will not be compelling, it will not be authentic.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: I have a question for Stephanie as a follow up. So in a case like that, would you see it as an opportunity to then write some follow up books? You know, maybe one that does target veterans or one that does talk target, you know, doctors. Right. So you have different audiences. Is there an opportunity to do something like that?
[00:34:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So he's started a series now.
You're exactly right. You went the same.
His, his daughter wanted to call it the Conscious Consciousness of Mortal Moral Freedom series. I shot that down. I'll continue to shoot it down. So we're going to have something a little more clever.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much, both of you. We've got one more segment and yes, we still have a surprise to bring to you.
So we'll be right back.
We'll be right back with more solutions shaping the future of energy, infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on NOW Media tv. Let's dive deeper.
Welcome back to Abundant Energy. I'm with Stephanie Perucci and Angela Costa Samoes. And as we close, I want to connect this conversation to the larger mission of Abundant Energy.
Angela, what does it take to turn a mission driven message into a movement people want to join?
[00:35:20] Speaker C: Well, people will need to feel, have a person, they'll need to have a personal connection to it somehow. Right. So again, going back to what we talked about earlier, how do you communicate that your mission is going to affect people directly or indirectly?
It could be a trickle down, but again, you know, are their energy prices going to be affected?
Is their quality of life going to be affected? Cost of education, the, you know, quality of their water, all those kinds of things like how is it going to impact them directly?
And once you find that hook, then that's where you continue to have that conversation and generate new perspectives and continue to educate them. And that might be for that audience. Right? And then as we talked about in the previous segment, then there's another. A different audience and it will be a different message. And you have to find out what hooks them. And so it takes a bit of work, right, because you can't just blanket everybody with the same message.
Different people and different audiences are going to value different things. And so it's really a matter of finding out what, what are they willing to take time out of their busy schedule, you know, invest their hard earned dollars, their time, everything. What is going to make them, you know, join your movement. And so I think that's the, the big challenge for companies is to figure out what is that, what is that hook for them.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: So, Stephanie, how can a founder or a CEO use a book to create that momentum, to create long term influence?
[00:37:09] Speaker B: When an author writes a book that has somewhat of a promised land message, people are very invested. I believe people in their hearts are good. I tend to think humans are great and awesome, even though we don't see a whole lot of that.
Trauma, maybe clouds so much of who we really are in our essence. And I think people are invested in a better future. And that's why I really want my authors to paint that portion portrait sort of of that promised land.
Well, the other problem is we're never going to get to perfect. And so something that makes a book timeless is providing that ability to continually paint that portrait, show us what that promised land could look like. And that's something where people want to tell their communities about it. So there was here in Colorado, we had a really horrible political situation over the last few years. It brought so many people together around this case.
And then once the case was tried and once the verdict was read, it brought people together around the circumstances around the case.
And what happened is that story, which we're still writing, that is going to be sort of the template for other communities, other states, other areas that want to see how a grassroots movement starts.
The author, the person, the protagonist of the book, that story is no longer really going to be in the news. It's not really relevant.
But the lesson from that case of a grassroots movement of people who pulled together from every little mountain town in every little corner of Colorado to support this movement and this initiative and this legislation. Now that makes it a timeless piece and a timeless story that people will study. I think we will not be able to study modern Colorado state history without understanding the ins and outs of that case.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: That's really interesting.
Now we have a fairly, not necessarily Timeless, hopefully timeless, but certainly timely topic that is certainly dear to my heart and I know important to both of you two and really central to the theme of abundant energy. And Angela, you've touched on it a couple times today.
The growth of demand for AI and the need to build AI data centers to support that and the need to grow energy production to support that.
That's a huge topic right now. And we're seeing community pushback and we're hearing lots of different voices jumping into this discussion.
So the big reveal is we've got a book, a new book that addresses this subject head on. It talks about AI energy demand, how it can affect communities, and the need for a transparent conversation so that AI data center developers and communities can have an open and honest dialogue and come up with solutions that are a net win win for the developer, for the local community, and for everybody that needs AI.
So in our series of abundant energy books, we have a new book coming out.
That book is called Starving for Innovation.
And this book is a little bit different than the last four. It has a different focus. And Stephanie, I wonder if you can tell us a little bit more about the new book and how it ties into the old books, but how it really takes a different pitch as well.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that you did in the first four books was lay a groundwork for, unfortunately, a pretty desolate landscape. Okay, so if this was a science fiction novel, we're really waiting through that bombed out, collapsed civilization and we're going, oh, how do we work our way out of this energy crisis? Because our demand and our needs are much greater than our capacity to fulfill. So then you start to tease out sort of what the promising solutions are.
And in this fifth book, what I love is that you don't need to go back and tell us who maybe the potential heroes are of the energy revolution. But you can actually describe how you've been in several different companies in several different scenarios, pushing great technology through, sometimes well received, sometimes not as well received, and all the lessons you learn to solve the energy crisis through various different technologies and companies. So it's a personal look at someone who is carrying the torch and saying, I want to help the future become more energy independent and sovereign.
I don't want to see us collapse under the weight of our energy needs with everything being electrified, et cetera. But what's really exciting about it is your entire life for a very long time now has been this sort of troubleshooting the issues, the technologies that people are finally going to adopt and so that's where we finally, in part three of your book, get to learn about Woodchuck, why it's successful, why it's going to continue to be successful, and how everyone can sort of get on that bus and ride that, that wave with us and create some real solutions.
[00:43:26] Speaker A: And I think just last night you launched the, the new website Starving for innovation dot com.
And can people go to that website and pre order their book?
[00:43:38] Speaker B: It's ready. It took my credit card. Should take yours too.
[00:43:43] Speaker A: And what's the timeframe for the actual book? When do you think the book will be available?
[00:43:47] Speaker B: We're gonna benchmark fall of 2026 for your publishing. People are really getting back into a routine in September, So we'll benchmark October 1st and then we'll have a really great run over the holidays. You know, that people are gonna be particularly excited to share it, but I think you should expect around October of 26.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: Fantastic. Now, Angela, I kind of want to jump back to you for the genesis story of not just this most recent book, but really all of the books and really the entire exposure and awareness campaign for Woodchuck.
The initial kernel that launched all of it came from you. Can you tell us a little bit about that story?
[00:44:32] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:44:33] Speaker C: Well, when you let me know about Woodchuck and this company that you were starting and, and why you were starting it, I learned a lot about the recycling business and construction waste business. And some of the things really sort of blew my mind. One in particular, that some states truck their waste to other, across state borders, to other states, landfills. I mean, that just seemed like such an inefficient process.
And, you know, there's got to be a better way. And, and so, so many things that I was learning and if I didn't know, I know that a lot of other people didn't know about it. And so there just seemed to be a huge opportunity for education in a space that again, you know, construction of a data center, while it doesn't affect the consumer in the immediate term, it actually kind of does. Right. Because it's taking resources from the community. It's going to then be in the community. So how will it affect the community? Where does the waste go? Do people really want, you know, more landfills that's going to pollute their, you know, the land? So there were all these things that we needed to address, and the best way to do that was through contributed articles where we write educational pieces for trade magazines and even regular newspapers and Fast Company, as you mentioned, and so it was this huge education campaign and Todd, you happen to be quite prolific and so and have some really great original points of view. And so we just ended up with a huge amount of content that then I think someone suggested, you know, you should really take all of these articles and put them into a book.
And then you know how it happens once you have one idea, then the other idea and another idea, another idea and it just starts to snowball from there. But yeah, it really started from the need to educate people on why this is a challenge and how it's not sustainable from a, like we can't keep going this way. Right. Not the fact that it's just not green. We're going to run out of space eventually. So we have to, we have to find a way, we have to find a better solution. And so that's really where it started.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: Thank you so much. And unfortunately we're running out of time. So Angela, if someone wants to follow your work and you've got your own book series that you've written, I think eight different books, where can people follow you? Where can they see your work?
[00:46:58] Speaker C: So yes, so they are not technological technology related but you can go to risobooks.com r I s o books.com and they are bilingual in Portuguese and English if that is of interest to you. But yeah, that's what I've been doing on the side. In addition to promoting Woodchuck
[00:47:17] Speaker A: and Stephanie, if people want to follow you and learn more about Peru publishing and all the fantastic books that you're promoting and publishing, where can they Follow you?
[00:47:26] Speaker B: It's PeruciPublishing.com
[00:47:32] Speaker A: thank you so much Stephanie and Angela, really great conversation. Enjoyed the day. Thank you so much for coming and sounds like we're going to have to have you back in October.
[00:47:42] Speaker C: Sounds good. Thank you Todd, really appreciate it and congratulations.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: Thanks so much.
Thank you for watching Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas. Join us next week as we continue powering the future and protecting the planet. Only a now New Year TV.
