Micro Innovations

Often, with social change or any innovations, people focus on the big fix and miss the many small steps that culminatively make a difference--a kind of threshold effect just as in ecological systems. A San Francisco based start-up called Nebia a new shower head that conserves water, and that is designed to respond to people's needs. In theory, we all want to conserve water, but at the same time many of us love standing in a long, hot shower. Nebia understood that there was a gap between the type of shower experience people have come to expect and enjoy, and the limitations of the current low flow and conservation products available on the market. By totally changing the way we get wet, the company mimicked the level of enjoyment people want; the new technology atomizes the water and creates essentially a cloud of mist that allows the user to feel totally immersed while using only 70% of the water of a conventional shower head. Instead of offering people the concept of less as a real solution to resource management, they’re providing a new option that may not just be comparable to the luxury we are accustomed to, but is actually superior. Important lessons for those involved in trying to induce micro-behavioural change.

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