A new design for photovoltaic roofing panels could markedly improve solar energy technology by reducing current limitations in collecting the sun’s energy.

At the University of South Florida Polytechnic, Dr. Roderic Brame, assistant professor of education and director of STEM Education, Dr. Ralph Fehr, visiting assistant professor of engineering, and three undergraduate engineering students are creating a new roofing panel design that could deliver more efficient solar energy and improve solar energy collection by as much as 2 percent. Called Let the Sun Shine In: Photovoltaic Roofing Panels, the project encompasses multiple disciplines, student education, industry affiliations, business incubation, and patents – elements that form the basic premise of a polytechnic venture.

“USF Polytechnic students are involved every step of the way,” Brame says. “From start to finish, this project will have had multiple disciplines touching it, including engineering, physics, chemistry, business, manufacturing, marketing, and education. It is pure polytechnic.”

According to Brame, engineering students need to be involved with research and development and have internships to be competitive in the workforce. USF Polytechnic wants its students to be not only well prepared but also have experience working on the cutting edge of technology while understanding the economy of turning research into valuable products for society. Students Juliana Colon (project manager), Charissa Powell, and Richard Haggbloom have become valuable components of this research group.

Brame and Fehr earned a Faculty/Staff Entrepreneur Challenge Grant for the project last fall and wasted no time determining which approach offered the best outcome, taking the initial steps for gaining a patent, and beginning formal designs of a prototype. Working with engineering experts at Jabil Circuit in Tampa and optical lenses experts at VLOC Inc., in New Port Richey, Brame says a testable design for the prototype is expected to be ready by the end of January.

Following successful tests of the prototype, a higher precision prototype will be built, most likely with support from industry partners. Future applications and research will likely involve NASA and the National Renewable Energy Lab.

Currently, solar panels either move to follow the sun’s path throughout the day or remain fixed at an angle to allow cells to collect the greatest amount of the day’s light. Moving panels are an expensive option, and stationary panels can never collect all of a day’s light, Brame said. Regardless, current panels can collect a maximum of 38 percent of the sun’s energy.

Brame and Fehr’s design will have the potential to break the 40 percent barrier, crossing a point that to date has been unattainable.

Brame and Fehr are examining two avenues for their project: the surface material and geometry of the photovoltaic cells and incorporating photovoltaic cells as the roofing surface.

First, the shape of the surface would be much more geometric with a series of chevrons, which would provide angles that allow the sun’s light to reach the cells throughout the day.

Second, the chevrons would be incorporated into a shingle or roofing material that covers the entire roof, providing a much larger area for collecting the sun’s energy.

Photovoltaic is a way of converting solar radiation into direct current electricity using solar panels composed of a number of solar cells containing a photovoltaic material. With today’s growing demand for renewable energy sources, the manufacturing of solar cells and photovoltaic arrays has improved and increased considerably in recent years.

“The optical properties of these chevrons let more energy hit a target, thus collect more energy as electricity,” Brame says. “Improving the efficiency of current photovoltaic options will greatly advance renewable energy opportunities.”

Brame says the beauty of this project is not only its benefit to renewable energy initiatives but also its polytechnic approach to advancing usable, efficient, marketable science.

Some of you may know that the Citrus Connection, Winter Haven Area Transit, Polk County Transit Services and the Polk Transit Authority offer “Free Ride Friday” to help eliminate road congestion on the day after Thanksgiving (AKA Black Friday). Public transportation reaches all the major shopping areas and is a great way to avoid hunting for that dreaded parking space!

This year, to prepare to offset the cost of this “Free Ride” day, the folks down at PTA are wrapping two buses with the logos of companies who partner to to support their effort. For just $100, your company can reach out to thousands of “eyes” on a mobile billboard!

Public transportation in Polk County is critical to the continued success of our economy and to putting people back to work. Contact Dave Walters at (863) 534-6787 today to show your support and take advantage of this advertising deal!

Seth Godin knocks it out of the park again!

I was speaking with a social media-inclined friend about local SEO and how to respond to customers.  Here, Seth discusses how small businesses are at an advantage in these and several other areas.

Lessons from very tiny businesses:

1. Go where your customers are.

Jacquelyne runs a tiny juice company called Chakwave. I met her in Los Angeles, standing next to an organic lunch truck. Like the little birds that clean the teeth of the hippo, there’s synergy here. The kind of person that visits the truck for lunch is the sort of person that would happily pay for something as wonderfully weird as her juice. And the truck owners benefit from the rolling festival farmer’s market feel that comes from having a synergistic partner set up on a bridge table right next door.

2. Be micro-focused and the search engines will find you.

My friend Patti Jo is an extraordinary teacher and tutor. Her new business, The Scarsdale Tutor doesn’t need many clients in order to be successful. This permits her to focus obsessively and that gets rewarded with front page results on Google. Not because she’s tried to manipulate the seo (she hasn’t) but because this is exactly the page you’d hope to find if you typed “scarsdale tutor” into a search engine. Could she do this nationwide? Of course not. But she doesn’t want to or need to. Living on the long tail can be profitable.

3. Outlast the competition.

I was amazed at all the empty storefronts I saw in LA on my last visit. On one particular block, three or four of the ten lunch places were shut down. And the others? Doing great. That’s because the remaining office workers who used to eat lunch at the shuttered places had to eat somewhere, and so the survivors watched their business grow. A war of attrition is never pretty, but if you’re smart about overhead and scale, you’ll win it.

4. Leverage.

Rick Toone runs a tiny guitar-making operation. His lack of scale makes it easy for him to share. When others start using his designs, he doesn’t suffer (he can’t make any more guitars than he already is) he benefits, because as the originator of the design, his originals become more coveted, not less valuable. He leverages his insight and shares it as a free marketing device.

5. Respond.

This is the single biggest advantage you have over the big guys. Not only are you in charge, you also answer the phone and read your email and man the desk and set the prices.

So, don’t pretend you have a policy. Just be human.

The great Duct Tape Marketing blog provides us with this week’s Marketing Mondays post.  If you’ve been trying to figure out how to make facebook work for your business, consider utilizing the following:

1. Fan page – Facebook had personal profiles and groups from the start, but a few months ago they added to the function called fan pages and made them more business friendly. Any business on Facebook should create a fan page for their business and start optimizing additional content there. The cool thing about fan pages is that it’s now a lot like having another web site. You can add applications, newsletter sign-up pages and events and promote them to your friends on Facebook. When someone becomes a fan of your page, your updates on the page show up on their wall giving additional exposure. I wrote a pretty comprehensive post on the subject of Facebook Fan Pages here. Also, check out the Duct Tape Marketing Fan Page -http://www.facebook.com/ducttapemarketing – note the brand optimized URL – that’s pretty new and something you should take advantage of.

2. Custom HTML – this one’s a little more technical but when you create a fan page you will see that your page comes with tabs for various categories of content you create (each tab has it’s own URL so you can promote each section on your fan page around the web). Using the Facebook Mark-up Language (FBML) you can create custom boxes of HTML content, like newsletter sign-up pages, blog RSS feeds, and white paper downloads just like you might on your web site. FBML is a Facebook application you can get here. I’ve also done a quick little video showing you how to add FBML custom HTML here.

3. Special content – Give your Facebook fans a little something extra they might not find on your blog or web site. Upload images from your PowerPoint presentations, articles from the local publication you contribute to, or on the fly videos created using the Facebook video application. You’re bound to find some crossover from other social networks like twitter, so give the Facebook users something unique. I know some people caution about reposting twitter here, but I think it’s perfectly fine. I get lots of comments from people who just happen to like to use Facebook more than twitter and this way they still get updates.

4. Events, videos and apps – Use the heck out of all of the Facebook applications. (Here’s a post I did some time ago aboutsome of the best Facebook business applications, many of which are now compatible with pages.) Promote events, upload or record video, hold contests and polls. All of this extra engagement is so easy to do using pre-built tools. And don’t forget to integrate your Facebook activity back to your web site and blog using a Facebook Fan Box – I wrote about the Facebook FanBox tool here.

5. Ads for awareness – I think that Facebook has built one of the better ad targeting tools going. You can target ads to Facebook members on all kinds of criteria and run pretty low cost campaigns. The trick though is to run campaigns that are compelling and promote your FaceBook Fan Page instead of trying to sell something. Promote your white paper, events, and educational content – create awareness about your great content and your will get the chance to earn the trust it takes to actually sell something to someone. Here’s where you go to find more info about Facebook Ads. And, I wrote about using Facebook ads to create awareness here.

Even if you don’t sell anything online or provide support via email, you need to include social media in your marketing plan.  If you have any questions about using facebook or other social media tools for your local business, you can email Matthew Wengerd.