Agreed. I always hated that in the US. Strangely, in the UK we often don't have airconditioning in smaller offices. However, in the winter all of the shops keep their doors open. It has gotten so i think stores are closed when their doors are shut, but I shudder to think what this does to the environment.

I read once about an initiative in Japan to encourage men not to wear ties to the office in the summer, and they "warmed up" the buildings by 1 degree. What other signals could we send in offices or shops to encourage people to get behind a change in AC or heat? In London, we could simply have signs made up for shop doors to say they're open but keeping the doors shut for the environment.

Lovely idea. Pushing it further, what if that energy I generated meant I could switch on my computer or use the Nespresso machine... ?

Louise is being modest here - she spoke about MyFailTale and learning from failure very eloquently at a Greek conference in September and was a guest of FailCon in Paris. Well done, Louise, and keep us posted.