“We have shown through the actions that we have taken to date that we can have an impact and there’s that sense of optimism about being able to do things in the future,” says Glenn McAnanama, today’s interview guest. Glenn has cultivated a thriving community group called “Upper Greenside” in New York City in just two years, using two simple tools: a blog and a Meetup.com group. Let’s find out how he did it.

At first glance, Manhattan’s Upper East Side might seem like an odd place to find an environmental online community leader, but Glenn and his group call it home and see it differently. Upper Greenside first coalesced around an effort to find a location for green market where neighborhood residents could buy fresh, organic produce. After chalking up this first success, the group has broadened its agenda to facilitating alternate transportation, improving recycling, energy efficiency, and other local issues.

The group meets and seeks petition signatures face-to-face, but organizes its efforts and recruits new members almost entirely online using Meetup.com and email.

“I’m sure there are people we haven’t reached because they’re just not part of the digital community in the same way that others are,” Glenn says. “But at the same time, I’m not sure who they are.”

Glenn reports that Upper Greenside members generally found out about the group online, or by word-of-mouth from somebody who first found out about it online. Glenn reports that this online organizing has led to face-to-face meetings… and results.

“Based on the emails that I wrote, I got invited to meet my local city council person,” he says. “That was really the first interaction I had had with local government.”

The first, perhaps, but not the last. Glenn now sees email as something to open the door for a phone call, which leads to an in-person meeting – and the opportunity to get things done.

“We need to make the new media work for us so that we can achieve our ends when we’re in live face-to-face meetings and build those relationships. So that later they know us when we’re emailing them,” he says.

As with the other online community leaders profiled in this series, Glenn puts time into this effort – 5 to 10 hours per week, he says. But by using online organizing tools with skill and commitment, Glenn and his peers make it look like they’re a team of pros working 50 hour weeks.

Download or listen to the full interview: click here

To ask Glenn a question, leave a comment below

Just launched: Scitalks, a kind of YouTube for science lectures.

Why create a whole new website? Why not just put the science lectures on YouTube? I don’t know.

But they’ll get at least one viewer. This site looks like a treasure trove for your humble blogger, who is always on the hunt for important ideas articulated particularly well… or badly… to hold up as an example.

“I can see when my message is getting out to people who are in places where I would like to get that message to,” says Tom Elko, today’s interview guest. Tom writes about Minnesota’s environment and agricultural sector at his blog the sky blue waters report, and his audience – and influence — are growing steadily. So why does he do it? How does he do it? Let’s find out.

Asked why he started the blog, Tom answers simply “I saw a niche that needed to be filled, basically.” But before turning to the environment, Tom honed his skills in the highly competitive political blogosphere – and the sky blue waters report reveals the telltale signs of someone familiar with the medium and committed to it: a disciplined focus on the chosen topic, frequent short posts, extensive linking, and a wide range of sources.

“I myself deal with pretty serious, detailed issues,” Tom says.

And like other online community leaders profiled in this series, he is methodical at gathering material to sustain the effort: getting up each morning at the crack of dawn to cull through newspapers, trade journals, and other blogs. His efforts have paid off with a growing readership and impact on the debate in the state.

“The opportunity for feedback, that’s a huge part of it,” Tom says about the emotional rewards for this effort. As with others profiled in this series, he extends that desire for dialogue to those who disagree with him, recalling with pride when opposing interests have turned up in his blog’s tracking logs, or even written him directly. “It was nice that I could give my message directly to them.”

Download or listen to the full interview: click here

To ask Tom a question, leave a comment below

Two weeks back or so, I gave an Oceana video on bottom trawling a big thumbs down for being simultaneously depressing and unempowering. Today I’m giving the organization a big thumbs up. They just won a Silver Anvil award from the Public Relations Society of America for another one of their campaigns — “Save Flipper.”

So what’s so cool about this campaign? I have no idea. They seem to have taken it down off their website already. There’s just a single page with a link to some polling work they did.

So we’ll have to assume the Public Relations Society of America knows what they’re talking about and congratulate Oceana on their (presumably) well-deserved victory!