Greenversations

Growing up outside of Baltimore in the late 70s, I spent the summers at the pool, cutting lawns in the neighborhood without a shirt, and riding my bike for hours. I’m paying for it now. I’ve had seven basal cell carcinomas (the least dangerous skin cancer) removed in the past five years, including three from my forehead. I’ll be going to a dermatologist twice a year for the rest of my life. You know that young men like to compare scars – well, add my childhood scars to my skin cancer scars, and I can top anyone.

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.

Last fall, I wrote about this blog’s Twitter account, @greenversations. Since then, several folks across EPA have been trying out Twitter, with varying approaches.  Today, I got this question from Randa Williams, a researcher at the University of Washington who’s looking into best practices for businesses on Twitter:

I wonder when you will start having conversations rather than just broadcasting on twitter…Lots of EPA broadcast channels on Twitter, exceptionally few conversations. I know, engagement is more work, wondering if you had thought about expanding into this area.

It was such a good question, I thought I’d respond publicly as well as emailing her.

Randa is right: the gold standard is conversing on Twitter and other social media sites, not just broadcasting. But she’s also right that it takes resources.  Not just someone’s time, but also having the right person, who’s plugged into what’s going on around EPA and who knows how to speak to the world on EPA’s behalf.

There are also different ways to use Twitter, and we’re experimenting with most of them.  For example, we’ve done a little live tweeting, with plans to do more.  There are also different approaches to who to follow, how frequently we can commit to posting, etc.

We do have a couple of good examples of interaction for content on a smaller scale than “all of EPA:”

• @EPAregion9 – Wendy Chavez in our San Francisco office.  I think Wendy is our best tweeter at the moment.
• @EPAespanol – Lina Younes at headquarters.  Lina leads our multilingual communications task force (have you seen all the languages in the upper right corner of our home page?), and she tweets in Spanish.

While we figure out the gold standard (interaction), we’re doing what we can on what I call the tin standard (broadcasting). Given the number of followers, it seems a decent number of people appreciate even that.  Here are some of our other accounts:

• @EPAgov – our main account.  Primarily our automated news release headlines and blog posts, plus a few web updates and manual tweets.  This account combines content that’s also split into individual accounts, and is also available on normal Web pages:
  • @EPAnews – news releases (same info as shown in our newsroom)
  • @greenversations – blog (same as the blog itself)
  • @EPAweb – updates to epa.gov (same info as shown on our recent additions page)
• @EPAlive – we’re occasionally experimenting with using this for live tweeting
• @EPAowow – Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds
• @EPAairmarkets – market-based regulatory programs to improve U.S. air quality
• @EPAregion2 – regional office in New York
• @EPAregion3 – regional office in Philadelphia

We’re also working up some conventions, like starting our account names with “usepa” and using the same seal as the avatar.

Not quite in the same category, some of us are also tweeting professionally. We’re not “representing” EPA per se, but we’re using it as a professional network and information source.  For example:

• @levyj413 – this is my Twitter account, and I use it to discuss social media in government (especially EPA)
• @suzack777 – this is Suzanne Ackerman on our web team.  Suzanne uses Twitter to research projects like blogger outreach, and uses Twitter to make contacts and discuss related issues.

So thanks, Randa, for reminding me that we need to communicate more about what we’re up to.  Stay tuned for updates about our other social media efforts, too (in the meantime, join us on Facebook!).

Jeffrey Levy is EPA’s Director of Web Communications.

About the author: Lisa Jackson is the EPA Administrator

Today, we’re celebrating the biggest Earth Day in history. One billion people – almost one in every six people on the planet – will stand up to show that protecting the Earth and those who live on it is our responsibility. How amazing is that?

This Earth Day, EPA is on the job, and working hard to protect human health and the environment. But we need your help.

Our web folks have updated our EPA page with a special Earth Day Pick 5 for the Environment Project. We provide 10 activities. You pick 5 and commit to doing them.

Once you get started on your Pick 5, you can share your stories in Facebook, photos on Flickr, and videos on YouTube. We’ll also have special blog posts here in Greenversations where you can talk about how you’re doing and help each other.

This is a defining moment. Some of the best opportunities we’ll ever have to make a change and save our planet are happening right now. The actions we take – or don’t take – are going to affect what happens today and for generations to come. That is our reality right now. But, there is plenty we can do.

We really can show that environmental protection and economic growth work hand in hand. We don’t have to choose between a strong economy and a clean environment, we just have to be smart enough to work for both. That will open the way to millions of green jobs in a low-carbon economy.

We really can lead the world in clean, homegrown energy sources, cutting emissions in the air, lowering energy costs for families, businesses and government, and ending, once and for all, our dependence on foreign oil. It’s a way to make the world not only cleaner but safer.

And we really can stop the rapid advance of climate change. We should be responsible enough to leave the world a better place for our children and grandchildren. But it takes a commitment from all of us.

Grow the economy. Strengthen our national security. Save our planet in the bargain. It sounds ambitious – because it is. But it’s a future that’s within our sights.  All we have to do is help each other to get there.

Okay I have to plug our project one more time. Visit http://www.epa.gov/pick5 to join our Pick 5 for the Environment Project and be part of the one billion people taking action this Earth Day.

We can do more to protect our communities and our planet than ever before. It’s up to you.

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

Two weeks ago I wrote that we’d hit 300 people following us on Twitter. I invited them to mention us, to see whether our follower count would jump, and promised a follow-up.

Only one person did tweet us, as far as I could find on Twitter search. Thanks, wingy22!

Yet in the past two weeks, we’ve picked up another 100 followers. Six months from 0-300, two weeks from 300-400. Errr … 401 … 402 … umm … wait a sec … 403 … make that 408. Anyway, @wormlady was #400. I put her name in the title because that’s about all that actually shows up in Twitter’s 140-character posts, so I’m hoping she’ll notice her name the next time she logs in.

Anyway, the sudden jump amazes me. Was it as simple as noting we’re on Twitter in a post, as opposed to just having the link on the right?

Let’s try the same thing on Facebook and MySpace. We’re not doing much there yet, but we have big plans, and knowing there’s interest helps. If you want to know when we do get going, become our fan on Facebook and MySpace.

How to engage the most people isn’t an idle question. The first time, for example, that we take comments on a regulation via social media, we’ll want to get the biggest bang for the least effort (efficient use of your tax dollars, doncha know).

What do you suggest?