Greenversations

About the author: Jeffrey Levy joined EPA in 1993 to help protect the ozone layer. He is now the National Web Content Manager.

Ever notice that link on the right of our blog pages that says “Follow us on Twitter?” Twitter.com lets people get short, real-time updates from other people who are also on Twitter (it’s called “microblogging,” and there are other sites besides Twitter). Most of it is friends chatting or colleagues sharing tips. And that seems to be the best possible use for microblogging.

But another way to use it is to post your headlines. It’s like RSS plus: no feed reader needed and you get everyone’s feeds in one window.

Our friends at usa.gov put post titles from their blog, GovGab. on Twitter a few months ago using their RSS feed. It took them only a few minutes to set up, and then it ran by itself. That seemed like an easy way to check out this system, and it’s free, so Greenversations has been on Twitter ever since. And boy, were we surprised at what happened.

With no advertising, 25 people started following us, making us wonder what would happen if we made it easier. So we added the link on the right. On Wed., the 300th Twitterer started following us: @thegreenscene. And a few more pile on each day. With that success, we decided to try our news release headlines on Twitter, too.

This is a great example of using a Web 2.0 tool to put information where the people are, instead of making them come to us (speaking of which, have you seen our Question of the Week widget?). As of today, most of our blog’s traffic is people reading on this site. But between Twitter and our RSS feed, I think that will change.

Changing gears a bit, I’d like your help if you’re a Twitterer. You all have people following you, and some of you have hundreds or even thousands. Let’s try an experiment, to see whether people who already follow us influence people following them. If you’d like to help:

1. Please tweet us (post on Twitter). It could be as simple as “Check out EPA’s blog on Twitter: @greenversations” or “EPA’s tweeting its news releases: @usepanews”
2. Leave a comment here introducing yourself.

And whether you’re on Twitter or not, tell us how you use Web 2.0 to stay in touch with what’s going on with EPA, this blog, and environmental protection in general.

I’ll be checking our numbers and will report back with what happens.

About the author: Jeffrey Levy is the Greenversations Editor.

Yesterday, we observed completing a year of EPA blogging by asking whether you’ve been inspired or surprised, or learned anything from our blogs. As usual with our questions, we got some thought-provoking answers. I’d like to thank everyone who’s commented so far. We really do appreciate hearing your thoughts, both positive and negative. Without anyone criticizing, we lose the nudge to keep trying to improve.

The comment that started me writing this post was from “Seagul,” who asked how much time the blog takes, wondering whether it was a waste. I could spend some time developing an estimate of how much time we spend on the blog, but to what purpose? Even if it was only one hour a week, someone would still think it was wasteful. The good news is that we’re getting more efficient at managing the blog.

A more important point is that this blog is part of a much broader exploration of how best to use available tools to carry out our mission. Our regulatory, enforcement, and science staff continue with the important work they’ve been doing. Here in the communications area, we contribute primarily through education and outreach. Aside from the blog, we’re looking at podcasting, wikis, photo and video contests, etc. Admittedly, we’re a little slow compared to some of the private sector, but we’ll get there. And you’re helping us with your feedback.

Over the past year or so, we’ve launched a bunch of new things on our Web site. Have you seen our widgets? We’re looking at widgets as a way to get information to people who might never come to our Web site. The one that provides a daily environmental tip was seen 363,000 times in June, which is more than any single page on our site other than the home page. An example of new blog concepts is that last week, we launched Science Wednesday in the blog.

Reasonable people will always disagree as to whether a particular project is worthwhile. But rest assured, we’re looking at the least expensive, simplest way of doing all of them, to the point we won’t do a lot of stuff. Some of what we do try will work, and some won’t. That’s how it works when you try new things.

The upshot is, we’ll continue to learn and explore new options. And that, I think, isn’t a waste.

For Earth Day 2008, Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock ended his blog “Flow of the River” to join Greenversations, this new agency-wide blog we’re launching today.

You can still read old posts on “Flow of the River.”