A friend recently alerted me to this great video presentation about motivation based on a presentation by Daniel Pink, whose new book is Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It got me thinking about how we make assumptions when we’re communicating about sustainability and marketing green initiatives.

Pink points out that research on what motivates people to excel at their work flies in the face of common assumptions when the work involves cognitive skill and critical thinking. Monetary rewards actually backfire; studies show that motivation comes from self-direction, mastery, and  making a contribution. I’d like to see more about motivation where sustainability initiatives are concerned. I hear anecdotes that “doing the right thing” isn’t enough to get people to act. Research I’ve seen about energy conservation behavior shows that’s true. But we don’t know enough about what does make people conduct their business in sustainable ways. It’s always assumed that the clincher always has something to do with money (you’ll save it or spend less) or effort (it’s easier) or competition (looking better than your neighbor).

It’s not that simple. In my work I’ve recently seen how sustainability goals unite employees and inspire them to go the extra mile. I also see customers making the green/sustainable choice because it’s the right thing to do. In both cases, these groups are active advocates. What can we learn about the other two factors, mastery and self-direction, that will help us market more effectively and change behavior—and bring about lasting results that will make a dent in climate change?

So I’m off to find a copy of Drive at the library. (And forgive me if this sounds like an ad for the book, which was published in December.) I’ll report back.

One last note: The video is incredibly creative—an artist draws cartoon illustrations on a whiteboard in time with Pink’s talk. It’s a production of RSA, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. RSA are brilliant (they’re British so I can say it like that), and so fun, progressive and insightful that you’d never guess the organization is 250 years old.

The e-newsletter Thinkshift produces for the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition made the Q2 2010 Vertical Response 500 list, at number 264.

The quarterly e-mail marketing award recognizes top-performing Vertical Response customers. To qualify, customers must send four or more e-mails and achieve average open rates above 20 percent and click rates above 4 percent. The newsletter typically gets open rates in the mid to high 20 percent range, and clickthrough rates in the mid 20 percent to high 30 percent range. The exception: the July 12 issue had an incredible 85.25 percent clickthrough rate.

I wish I knew how to repeat that. What I do know is that the consistently high open and click rates for this newsletter are driven by rigorously targeting content (including original reporting) to audience interests.

Why don’t energy efficiency technologies and strategies get people as excited as a Tesla roadster? On the face of it, duh. It’s the brains of it that make it a head-scratcher.

As the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy reported last year, economic data and the historical record suggest that “energy efficiency investments can provide up to one-half of the needed greenhouse gas emissions reductions most scientists say are needed between now and the year 2050″ and “investments in more energy-productive technologies can also lead to a substantial net energy bill savings for the consumer and for the nation’s businesses.” In other words, energy efficiency is probably the single most effective greenhouse gas reduction strategy we have, and it saves you money. What’s not to get excited about? Are people that distracted by bright shiny objects?

Yes, we are. Advocates have been lamenting the unsexiness of energy efficiency for some time: it’s the granny panties of the green economy. Many see the solution in language—what we need is a new term, one less evocative of slide rules and more inspirational. I’m all for motivating, send-the-right-message language—that would typically be my go-to solution. But I think what we need here is something more physical.

Energy efficiency faces two obstacles that strike me as more serious than its nerdy name: invisibility and implausibility. The beauty and the downfall of many energy efficiency measures is that they work in the background, without anyone being aware that they’re happening. And the potential savings from these measures often inspire skepticism more than any other reaction—remember how President Obama’s campaign opponents mocked him for suggesting proper tire inflation as a way to save gas?

People think that if a solution like that really were effective, it would already be standard practice—someone would have told us about it already. That assumption ignores the powerful forces of inertia and the culture of heedless consumption (most Americans haven’t worried much about saving energy because we haven’t had to—even the simplest strategies are easily missed if you’re not looking for them), but it’s powerful nonetheless.

I suspect that we need to make energy consumption a thing: people need to be able to see it happening. It has to come out of the background and be made concrete through web interfaces, dials, beeps, texts from your tires, whatever. That might compromise design simplicity (another efficiency value), or even slightly reduce energy savings, but what’s more effective—a theoretically perfect solution that few use, or something a bit too tricked out that gains mass acceptance?

It may pay to remember that out of sight often means out of mind.