Turning Experience into Innovation: A Utility Insider’s Perspective
When you spend 15 years inside a utility, you see just how much it takes to keep a promise as simple as “the lights will come back on.”
During my time at Southern California Edison, I led teams across key accounts management, customer experience, grid interconnections, retail energy compliance, technology integration, and outage communications. Whether it was improving the outage experience, stabilizing new CRM systems, or building stronger partnerships with Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs), one thing became clear, real innovation starts with listening.
Utilities sit at the center of some of the most complex operational and customer challenges in the world. Balancing aging infrastructure, climate impacts, and rising customer expectations means every change must be thoughtful, every decision data-backed, and every communication clear. Yet, inside the walls of a utility, innovation can often feel like a slow climb uphill, not because teams aren’t creative, but because the stakes are so high.
That’s why, when I made the move from utility to vendor, I brought those lessons with me. My goal wasn’t to sell technology for the sake of it, it was to help build the tools I wished I had when I worked inside the grid.
Seeing Innovation from Both Sides
Inside a utility, you experience firsthand how fragmented systems can slow down even the best intentions. Data sits in silos, billing in one platform, outage details in another, customer feedback in yet another. During a major event, those gaps show up in real time. Teams scramble to connect the dots between what’s happening on the grid and what customers are experiencing at home.
As Principal Manager in Customer Experience, and later in Outage Management & Communications, I led initiatives that reimagined the outage experience. We improved notification effectiveness, auto-enrolling all customers in notifications, achieving 98% successful delivery for planned outages and 85% for unplanned. We also launched continuous improvement programs that made notifications more timely and customer-focused, ultimately supporting measurable gains in satisfaction and JD Power rankings.
Those results weren’t about technology alone, they came from listening to customers and empowering teams. Technology followed that intent. That same philosophy guides how I approach innovation now at DataCapable.
Building What Utilities Actually Need
At DataCapable, I get to sit on the other side of the conversation, helping utilities identify and implement AI-enhanced software that strengthens outage status updates, provides threat detection awareness, and optimizes customer engagement with their utility.
But here’s the difference: the goal isn’t to push technology into the industry; it’s to design with the industry. Every utility operates differently, different systems, different customers, different challenges. Having been on the inside, I know that success doesn’t come from one-size-fits-all products. It comes from solutions that respect the operational realities of the people who use them.
When I talk to utility teams about real-time outage mapping or AI-based threat detection, I think about the people behind those dashboards, dispatchers, analysts, and communicators who are trying to do their jobs more efficiently and keep their communities informed. The tools we build should make their days smoother, not harder.
That’s why DataCapable’s approach resonates so much with me. It’s not just about showing a map, it’s about bridging the human and the technical; helping utilities communicate the story behind the outage, the progress, and the restoration.
Turning Lessons into Action
Every role I held at SCE had a common thread: improving how customers experienced the utility. Whether through grid modernization, interconnection management, or demand response partnerships, the goal was always to make the experience simpler and more transparent.
Now, in my role at DataCapable, I see that same goal reflected in the technology we develop. We’re using AI and automation to help utilities anticipate customer needs, detect threats faster, and close the communication gap between control room operations and public perception.
The industry is shifting quickly, toward data-driven engagement, real-time visualization, and proactive crisis communication. Having lived through those challenges firsthand, I can say this: the technology itself is only half the solution. The other half is empathy, understanding the people who depend on it.
Building with Purpose
Innovation in the utility sector isn’t about disruption; it’s about partnership. It’s about understanding the mission utilities live by every day, safety, reliability, trust, and building technology that helps deliver on that mission more effectively.
That’s why I’m proud to bring my experiences into a space where they can help shape the next generation of utility solutions. Because, the best innovations don’t come from the outside looking in, they come from those who’ve been on the inside, listening to the customer calls, and understanding what’s at stake when the lights go out.
Explore How DataCapable Builds with Utilities, Not Just for Them
See the innovation utilities asked for — and we built.
About the Author: Michael Williams
Michael Williams joined DataCapable to help utilities transform the outage experience through process improvement and the use of AI-driven tools that enhance customer engagement. With more than 15 years of experience at Southern California Edison, Michael led teams across customer experience, outage management and communications, grid interconnections, and key account management. Throughout his career, he has been dedicated to bridging the gap between utility operations and customer expectations—ensuring that complex grid events are translated into clear, actionable, and customer-focused communication. At DataCapable, Michael applies this experience to support utilities as they modernize systems, improve reliability, and strengthen public trust through transparency and innovation.
