The blog series excerpting my recently published book, Building a Brilliant Tomorrow, moves forward with a discussion of the fourth of Inovateus’ five PEACE core values: creativity. Inovateus not only has some very talented solar professionals but also counts a number of accomplished musicians within our ranks. I’ve been in bands since I was a kid and even minored in music in college. Because of this, we have a unique culture where creativity flourishes, both in the work we do for our customers and the music we play on stage. For us, creativity is about everything from forming a company band to helping get our name out there, to being strategic improvisers to ensure that every project makes the most of a client’s brand.
***
Leading Inovateus Solar is something like playing in a band. We have a team of people who have many different skills and talents, and when we bring those talents together for the good of a customer and a project, it’s a harmonious thing. In fact, many people in the solar industry consider Inovateus Solar to be one of the rock stars of the solar-energy industry.
I think it ties into our creativity. There are some very clear demonstrations of that creativity in our team activities. One of the more prominent examples is the Solar Battle of the Bands, an after-party event at the Intersolar North America conference, which is held the second week of July in San Francisco. A limited number of bands are selected by audition to play for an invitation-only crowd at the event.
A few years ago, when we heard about the event, my brother Tyler and I decided it was right up Inovateus Solar’s alley. In early 2013, we assembled a band among our employees and submitted our application to Quick Mount PV, the event organizer. We were accepted as one of the bands to play, and that year, at the conference, our band took the stage, playing against musical groups from some of the top companies in the industry, including SolarCity, Sungevity, and SMA Solar Technology.
When we took the stage to play before some 1,400 attendees, our logo was displayed on the wall behind us. Dressed up as members of the Beatles’ fictional Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, we played a 20-minute set of mixed songs we thought related to the solar-energy industry. We started off with “Taking Care of Business” by Bachman Turner Overdrive, and we then played “Fire” by Jimi Hendrix, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by the Rolling Stones, and “Bust a Move” by Young MC. We were well received. In fact, we took second place that year.
When we finished playing, a number of people came up to shake hands with us and tell us they liked our music, but most of them had never heard of Inovateus Solar, and they wanted to hear more about the company. So we shared our mission, goals, and passion with everyone who was interested. People found it very interesting that we were from the Midwest, because most of the companies (and bands) at the Solar Battle of the Bands were from California—many of them had headquarters in the San Francisco area.
The whole event kind of blew me away because I was playing and singing with our company band, but I’m also president of the company. Plus, the event helped us make more of a name for ourselves. We even made some special business cards for the group that went to the tradeshow. They included each person’s name and title, along with the instrument that person played in the band. For instance, mine read, “TJ Kanczuzewski, President, Keyboards, Vocals.” People really got a kick out of those cards and told us how creative they thought the idea was.
We’ve played in the Solar Battle of the Bands a few times now, which has created something of a fan base for us and is really a testament to the impact the activity can have. In fact, we’ve made new contacts and built solar projects based on meeting various company representatives at the Solar Battle of the Bands.
Our creativity with music has actually equated to business for us. For example, in the summer of 2015, we met with a group in El Salvador that was trying to initiate some solar-related engineering with us in that country. When the engineer saw the logo on our business cards, he remembered our band, Reverend Ray and the Everlasting Incentives, and he told us, “I love Reverend Ray. You’re one of my favorite bands.”
Now, being in a band really has nothing to do with solar energy, other than the fact that it demonstrates our creativity. It just goes to show that anything we put our minds to, anything we put our creative juices to, can be successful. We can even have a fan thousands of miles away in another country.
The fact that we can create a band within our company lets our customers know that we can, essentially, create all different types of projects with them. We can include them in our band.
And as we continue to grow, we must also grow as a team. That means bringing on new team members—new players in the band, if you will—who bring with them other talents we don’t currently have in order to provide more capabilities for our customers.
As our company has grown, we’ve continued to take on more projects, more customers, and new challenges. Every project that we work on with our customers conveys a sense of our creativity. One that comes to mind in particular was for the solar-energy EV charging stations that we built for General Electric in Connecticut.
That project was part of GE’s launch of electric car charging stations across the globe. Since it was a somewhat unique technology, it required some creativity on our part to figure out how to tie those electric car charging stations into solar-powered stations. Since then, we’ve built more electric car charging stations for GE and landed a very large solar project with Michigan State University that will be one of the largest university solar installations in the country. One of the really creative aspects of these stations is that we’ve set them up as branding opportunities by decorating them with the client’s logos.
So creativity, as it applies to Inovateus, is about everything from forming a company band to helping get our name out there, to being strategic improvisers to ensure that every project makes the most of a client’s brand.
In the next blog excerpt from Building a Brilliant Tomorrow, I will talk about the fifth and final Inovateus’ PEACE core value: esprit de corps.
By TJ Kanczuzewski, president/CEO, Inovateus Solar
