Archive for January, 2009

A simple and delightful PSA produced by the UNC School of Journalism. It’s cute and effective — our hero does the right thing for the environment and gets rewarded with social approval.

Hat tip to the North Carolina Conservation Network blog for spotting this one.

Source: David Paul Olmer via Flickr

Harbor seals and polluted runoff are a bad mix, and the San Francisco Sustainable Watersheds Alliance, a project of the Earth Island Institute, is trying to clean up the waterfront in their namesake town. They’re pretty advanced in using the Internet to coordinate their activist coalition. For a while now, they’ve been using a Google Group to coordinate the activities of their various members, and recently they launched a Facebook group, as well. Both of these things should be standard practice for coalitions and smaller organizations these days.

So good job for that — but here’s the problem: The group has only managed to attract 62 members to its Google group and just 17 members to its Facebook group. And we’re not talking about a rural group here, we’re talking about San Francisco, a major metro area, with a large left-wing and high-tech population. It looks to me like SWAle is suffering from a serious lack of traction in its community.

And I bet the group’s name is a big part of the problem. Two of the five words in the name — “sustainable” and “watersheds” — have serious shortcomings with the citizens at large. Consider this finding from a 2007 market research study:

… just over half (54%) of consumers claim any familiarity at all with the term “sustainability” and most of these consumers cannot define it appropriately upon probing.

Source: Hartman Group, 2007

Or this one: The Roper Starch group, in a separate study, interviewed citizens about the term, and found

Negatively, ’sustainable’ and ’sustainability’ are ‘buzzwords/spin,’ vague or pretentious jargon. Several respondents said they didn’t know what the term means. More highly educated owners are familiar with the terms, but a number find them distinctly annoying.

And the term “watershed” is nearly as bad (Click here if you want some citations). So when you put these two terms together, you have a profoundly confusing combination. For all but the most committed elite environmentalists, the name “San Francisco Sustainable Watersheds Alliance” evokes a rousing “huh?” … followed by a shrug.

If Earth Island Institute and SWAle ever want to grow their membership beyond the highly educated environmentalist elite choir, a good next step would be to go back to the group’s previous name: “Alliance for a Clean Waterfront.”

Source: Despair.com

I would urge you stay away from sarcasm in your public communications, but it’s funny when you’re among friends.And there’s a flash of insight in this poster — people tend to believe their individual actions are of no consequence, and that any behavior that everybody around them is doing is OK.

This is true when we’re trying to motivate them to do something good, too. A major inhibitor to conservation action of any kind is this kind of nagging question right here:

if I’m the only one who does the right thing, what’s the point? One rain barrel doesn’t make a difference. One letter to a Senator doesn’t make a difference. One short shower doesn’t make a difference. My tiny little donation doesn’t make a difference. One less car on the streets doesn’t make a difference.

That’s why phrases like “make a difference,” “working together” and “doing your part” are on the words that work list. They are a reminder that you must be as generous with the encouragement as you are with the facts.

Source: Laptop Magazine, October 2008 issue

If you’re above a certain age (I am), there was a time you groused about cell phones and how people used to yack on them in public. Maybe you even swore you would never get one (I did). But now — if you’re like 84% of your fellow citizens — you have eaten those words and long since forgotten about it. And the phone you carry probably has a fair-to-middlin’ camera on it — and maybe even a primitive video camera.

And here’s an important implication for you: In a world where just about everybody is carries a color camera everywhere they go, there is simply no excuse anymore for the dingy black-and-white printed newsletters and bullet-point-only PowerPoint presentations I still see everywhere I go. You should be taking pictures every time you go out into the field — so you have plenty to choose from next time you need one.

Even if you’re not, the polluters and developers are.

It is as easy to learn basic image cropping and placement skills as it is to use Microsoft Word or email. In 2008, it’s a necessary skill, not a luxury. So invest some effort and keep up with the times.

P.S. My favorite photo editing tool is called SnagIt. It’s super easy to use and you can get a free trial by clicking here.