These days just about everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame. And in 2011, you don’t have to be a movie star to get there. With over 2 billion views per day on YouTube, it is obvious that regular, everyday people are picking up their home video cameras and sharing their world with the online universe—and people are watching. As a former TV reporter, one would think that I would be all about posting personal videos on YouTube. But I must admit, taking random videos of myself and sharing them with the world has never been my thing. I guess I don’t think I have anything that interesting to share with millions of strangers. But this summer EPA is hosting a challenge that promises to give us all a taste of stardom—with a positive purpose. It’s called the Be an ENERGY STAR Video Challenge.

Are you one of millions of Americans who make choices every day to use less energy? Using less energy means fewer greenhouse gas emissions, which helps protect our climate. This challenge is EPA’s way of thanking you and showing off the great things that you do. The hope is that by showcasing what you are doing, YOU can inspire others to change the world too.

So, what will your video feature? Are you changing out all of the lights at your home, school, church or business? Did you switch to washing clothes in cold water? We are looking for stories across the board, so pick up a camera and show us what you are doing!

This challenge is for people of all ages, so get the whole family involved. You can also feature what you are doing at your place of worship, your job or in your community. Just keep your video under 2 minutes long and upload it using the Share Your Story option. If you need a little inspiration, first click through the videos in the carousel. You will find examples from ENERGY STAR and great entries from regular people just like you.

All approved videos will be featured on Energy Star’s Change the World, and ENERGY STAR’s Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages. Starting September 17, 2011 we will have the online world vote for their favorite videos on Facebook and (drum roll please) those people will become the STARs of an EPA produced video released in October! We will release this video nationwide and we want it to go viral online! If you want to become one of the STARs of that video, you just need to send in an informative and unique video about your energy efficient feats. The deadline for submission is September 16, 2011.

About the author: Brittney Gordon has been a member of the communications team for the ENERGY STAR Labeling Branch since September 2010. The former television reporter manages ENERGY STAR’s social media pages.

So I have a question.

When was the last time you felt tree bark? Really, actually, felt it.

On my way home last night, as the subway screeched its way through the underworld, I was thinking about this and wondering if we highly evolved humans can even see the forest for the trees anymore.

Now that it’s summertime, I’m trying to soak in all the green I can find. Everywhere I go I find myself looking at the trees, taking in their shapes and sizes, or the silhouettes made by their branches and leaves against a sunset.

Not a day goes by where I don’t miss the sheer number of trees that I grew up around. Now living in an urban area, I’ve wondered how many of my fellow commuters do too.

Our lives are consumed by a constant hustle to the next thing, the next task. Is the environment a part of us each and every day? Do we WANT it to be?

One of the harshest realities I’ve seen working in communities is that not every kid has the chance to be near, or even become familiar with and curious about nature. Nothing has ever depressed me more.

How on this beautiful planet Earth, could we EVER do what is right to protect our environment, and our health, if we don’t feel a connection to it? Will we protect what we don’t know?

Few are lucky enough to see many of the world’s natural wonders in person, but pictures can bring the rest of us there. While 12.1 megapixels can make you feel like you’re standing there yourself, our environment isn’t just the faraway or protected places. It’s the roadside litter, and the raindrops glistening on a spider web too.

The first step you take out your door IS the environment. The collective state of it depends on all of our steps thereafter. Today, I’m going outside for 10 minutes not just because it’s beautiful, but because seeing others enjoy the nearby park is witnessing that connection that I so badly hope we all want. When I do, I’m submitting a picture to our Flickr group because, after all, it’s the state of my environment. What’s yours?

About the author: Jeanethe Falvey, State of the Environment project lead in EPA’s Office of External Affairs and Environmental Education, Boston, Massachusetts

Rather doubtful I’ve concluded. Honestly, look at them!

Excited “oh my goodness’s!” and in some cases squeals, were exchanged offices, halls and states apart. I haven’t been the only one to gasp over the tiny newt toes and the little orange (feet? my paleontology know how escapes me…).

Hugging newts has been just one of the many surprises we’ve seen since the State of the Environment call for photos began. If you think they aren’t hugging, well, to each their own opinion.

The first photo we chose to feature tells the other side of the story, that our environment needs help. A striking photo of an osprey in flight holds a black plastic bag securely in his or her talons. Speaks for itself doesn’t it? It’s our hope that these images will captivate and inspire all of us. If you’re reading this, you’ll probably agree that the environment isn’t isolated from any of our actions. It surrounds every one of us and the state of it is a responsibility shared by all.

We set up the Flickr group on April 1st and have enjoyed every entry. This is the really fun part. Not only do we get to see your best and favorite photos of the environment as you see it, but every photo is a window into the world of what you think is important, beautiful, troubling, in need of protection and deserving of widespread attention. It’s incredible to see what you see and we’ve only just begun this year long project.

As much as I loved the newts, the osprey, the breaching humpback, or the stunning artistic quality of the windmill against the Cincinnati skyline, my favorite photo so far is none of the above.

A little girl sits on a dock, with her sandals off and a notebook, backpack and water bottle handy for an afternoon of coloring. Swap out the cityscape in the distance and the swamp for evergreen trees in the deep woods of Maine and a few years ago that was me. After a double take and the conclusion that my parents did not learn Photoshop overnight, I just sat back and smiled. This, is what this project is all about.

About the author: Jeanethe Falvey, State of the Environment Project Lead U.S. EPA Office of External Affairs in Boston, Massachusetts

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

I’m constantly amazed at the wide range of newly emerging technologies and techniques to deliver rich media. I’m equally a fan of usability so it’s interesting to me when I see really well done new media (or rich media or multimedia, whatever the term du jour is) that happens to be usable as well.

So, recently when I was challenged to find a better way to present our multimedia to the public I looked to how we currently delivered content in other areas of the site as the basis. I felt we could give folks great content without reinventing the wheel and still make it visually interesting.

Like other agencies, EPA has been shifting our rich and social media publishing to sites that specialize in usable interfaces and specialized infrastructure. We found we didn’t need to build whole new photo hosting sites or video platforms, they already existed and our users were already there. These sites had already worked out ways to deliver fast content that is easily searched and deliver it full screen with well-known interfaces. Leveraging our existing relationships with other sites seemed like a slam dunk. Take a look and let us know your thoughts.

About the Author: Danny Hart has been with EPA since 2006. He’s the Associate Director of Web Communications.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

After spending many years working on waste reduction issues, I came over to a part of EPA that works on healing the ozone layer and teaching kids how to be SunWise. The ozone layer acts as a kind of sunscreen for the Earth, so while it’s healing, we want to prevent skin cancer by teaching kids, their teachers and parents how to be safe in the sun.

We’ve been using the UV Index for years to forecast the strength of the sun’s UV rays—the higher the Index, the more important it is to be sun safe. Just this year, we developed a UV Index widget and put the Index on Facebook. So, you can check your friends’ status and the sun’s, and plan for a SunWise day.

Now we’re making it even easier for you to check the UV Index when you’re on the go with EPA’s smartphone applications. Of course, we’re hoping people download these free applications on their mobile phones.

I still enjoy the outdoor activities I did as a kid – especially biking – and am proud of my small collection of really nice Italian bikes. What has changed is that I am now SunWise and take better care of my skin. A lot of people are SunWise nowadays, too – including my kids. With tools like the smartphone applications, we are making it easier for folks to be smart in the sun.

About the author: Robert Burchard is a program analyst for EPA’s Stratospheric Protection Division in the Office of Air and Radiation. Robert is known for wearing his bike jerseys around the office and for speeding full-force ahead with anything technology-related, particularly when it’s about sun safety.

With decades of EPA service under my belt, I’ve been a part of, and sometimes led, dozens of workgroups aimed at improving how EPA does business. Almost all bore fruit—some with longer shelf-life than others—and it’s easy for me to say that EPA is a good place to raise and lend a hand.

Our initial experience this summer producing the Mid-Atlantic region’s series of podcasts shows what a talented group can do, from scratch and on a shoestring budget. We carefully chose the name “Environment Matters” for our podcast series, knowing that “matters” is both a noun and a verb: we’re providing diverse information about the environment and, we hope in an interesting way, convincing people that what they do everyday makes a difference.

What’s a podcast? Webcontent.gov says it’s “a way of publishing MP3 audio files on the web so they can be downloaded onto computers or portable listening devices, such as iPods …. ” (Please note that they can be video, too.) A best practice to grow an audience is to publish the podcasts regularly. We started on July 25 about saving gasoline, followed on successive Fridays with a unique environmental program for students, water quality monitoring at beaches, a baseball stadium built on a brownfields site, and back-to-school advice for the green-minded. We expect to post two or three a month, and so far there’s been no shortage of topic ideas (and if there’s a little healthy competition among our environmental programs to feature their topics, good).

Back to the collaboration that’s made our quick learning possible. I know, there’s an element of show biz that must be at work here. But “Star Wars” this ain’t, so that intriguing factor can’t explain the enthusiasm and creativity that a dozen people have brought to this environmental education project. The jobs and roles of our podcast team reveal the skills needed to launch “Environment Matters”: senior management for the go-ahead and (surprisingly modest) budget; managers in public affairs and IT to energize and select people for each podcast; communications experts to write scripts, host the podcasts, and coach subject expert speakers; web developers to design and feed our multimedia website; transcribers who make the content accessible to deaf people; and one aspiring movie director with an IT day job; he and his boss are audio editing mavens. (You don’t know your colleagues’ hidden talents until you ask.) And help from our headquarters gave us some needed encouragement. Most of us have known each other for years, but our podcasting has quickly boosted our teamness. Do I sound a bit gushy, after all these years?

Two requests of you: ideas for making better podcasts, and topics you’d like us to cover.

My favorite anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania years ago, David B. Stout (famously, in his playful words, “not a Leakey lover,” but that’s another story), insisted that scientists are culture bound by their own culture—unable to fluently interact with, or even fully understand, other cultures. This teaching came to mind yesterday during a meeting in EPA’s mid-Atlantic regional office to begin defining a new website about “green infrastructure;” make that “natural infrastructure;” no, perhaps it’s “limited impact development?” or was it “green communities,” or “green buildings.”

My sincere motto at such meetings, of course, is “I’m from the public affairs office and I’m here to help.” Indeed, as the regional web content coordinator, my job is to help make our websites useful, targeted communications tools that follow EPA’s web standards and best practices. One of these best practices is content coordination, to minimize repetition, confusion and gaps among related agency web content.

I tried not to show how much the conversation made my head hurt, among a group of earnest, cooperative colleagues who are eager to help developers, planners, elected officials, public works managers, environmentalists and the public guide sustainable development. With such a diverse audience, and so many EPA programs individually focused on different slices of the green development pie, it unfortunately wasn’t my first experience where web communications considerations (the tail) forced us to confront the overlap or gaps between policies and programs (the dog).  Shouldn’t it work the other way? Wouldn’t it better serve EPA, our stakeholders and the environment if related programs were more clearly defined, or combined before turning our attention to public outreach? (These questions aren’t rhetorical; please answer them.)

Our group yesterday didn’t know enough about policy integration our agency may be doing to bring the principles and virtues of these green initiatives together to better serve the many concerned external people. As a result–and this is more intriguing challenge than complaint—we’re seeking some manner of content integration as we conceive and write a new website.

Professor Stout wouldn’t be surprised by what we face, but may I ask, dear reader, do you, too, see what we face as the tail wagging the dog?

Wikis and widgets and blogs, oh my! “Web 2.0″ is about sharing content… your photos, opinions, links, and more. At EPA, we are trying to find ways to use Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis, blogging, news feeds, podcasts, or social networking, to improve how we reach out to and communicate with the public.

How would you use blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other Web 2.0 tools to protect the environment?

On Monday, June 23, “Ask EPA” hosted an online discussion about using Web 2.0 to protect the environment – read the transcript.

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En español: Cada semana hacemos una pregunta relacionada al medio ambiente. Por favor comparta con nosotros sus pensamientos y comentarios. Siéntase en libertad de responder a comentarios anteriores o plantear nuevas ideas. Preguntas previas.

¡Wikis y widgets y blogs, Dios mío! “Web 2.0″ se trata de compartir contenido…sus fotos, opiniones, enlaces, y más. En EPA, estamos tratando de encontrar maneras de utilizar tecnologías de Web 2.0 como wikis, blogs, “feeds” noticiosos, podcasts, o reds sociales, para mejorar la manera en la cual nos comunicamos con el público.

¿Cómo utiliza blogs, wikis, podcasts, y otras herramientas de Web 2.0 para proteger el medio ambiente?

About the author: Rob Lawrence joined EPA in 1990 and is Senior Policy Advisor on Energy Issues in the Dallas, TX regional office. As an economist, he works to insure that both supply and demand components are addressed as the Region develops its Clean Energy and Climate Change Strategy.

About 5 years ago, I had the opportunity to change jobs within our Dallas regional office. The Region recognized that we were facing new environmental challenges that did not fit entirely within one media division. Sure, aspects of an issue would be adequately addressed by a traditional media program, but no one had the larger view that included cross-program policies and requirements. In my case, the job was monitoring and coordinating energy issues in Region 6. Almost everyday, I get tasked to look at a situation that is not just about air emissions or water discharges or waste handling concerns. It is usually some of each and other factors like community views and economics thrown in as well.

And just what happens when no one takes a broader view? A fine example comes from my prior state service in Louisiana. A waste oil recycler had gone bankrupt and abandoned the operations, including a waste lagoon. After a heavy rain, the neighbors became concerned about the lagoon overflowing and the waste oil reaching their properties. The state water division sent inspectors to the site, determined that additional capacity in the lagoon was needed and issued a compliance order to draw down the water. Soon after some of the water was removed, the neighbors complained about odors coming from the lagoon. The state air division sent inspectors, determined that the exposed oily waste in the lagoon was the cause, and issued a compliance order to put water into the lagoon to serve as a cap on the odors. The next day the site manager called to say that he was in a Catch-22 situation: he could not meet the requirements of one compliance order without violating the terms of the other one. Clearly, addressing the particular needs of one program would not really address the broader environmental concerns presented by the site. Both media programs did the right thing from their perspective, but the situation was more complex than that.

More and more of today’s environmental challenges are calling for solutions with a multimedia or cross program perspective. How can we expect to address climate change and similar complex concerns without taking a broad view? We need to make sure that fixing one problem doesn’t lead to unintended consequences. One approach EPA is taking is with its environmental innovations program. Check out our website to learn more about how EPA is facing these issues from a different perspective.