Television and traditional mass media gave hard working Americans (and westerners in general) a more or less useful and entertaining outlet for their curiosity after long days at the office (and coping with a rapidly changing world). Shirky discusses how social media, the Internet and the interaction it brings is replacing television - and the kind of productive time people might have on their hands as a result.

Shirky’s most recent book came out a few months ago and is titled Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Probably a good read for people in organizations trying to organized change from within those organizations.

My favorite go-to magazine, Women’s Health, wrote a feature about global warming/environmental issues about a year ago that was so popular with readers that they’re now including similar topics in every issue (because their readers asked for it, repeatedly!). There’s now an entire section of their website dedicated to “Green Living.”

A few months ago, a particular story caught my eye, in which several environmental/conservation organizations were mentioned, and it made me think about where TWS fits into the conversation. How can we position our organization for opportunities for exposure to audiences that are friendly to our causes but that aren’t squarely within our current target audience? The magazine’s demographics are surely appealing, and I’m sure there are many other publications - online and off - that could offer exposure to segments of people learning about our issues and inspired to do something, just as I was when I read that first article on the topic (and the many since).

Organizationally, I know these conversations are already happening. Let’s keep it up. TWS’ mission, goals, and programs have broad appeal to a mass of different audiences. Our work is incredibly relevant to so many of the big ticket issues right now. All we have to do now is let more people know!

Spread the word: “green is in, and so is TWS.”

We’re “greening” our offices, holding ourselves accountable for carbon expenditures by purchasing offsets, and exploring ways to cut back on daily commuting. We’re even poking around with ideas of how to relay the measures we’re taking to our supporters via the website and email messaging in the hopes to inspire more change.

A few weeks ago, The Wilderness Society released a new report on the huge carbon reserves held in forests. The report is great news. It’s exciting stuff! Yet, it’s also a scientific report and hence can be complicated in places, at least for this right-brained creature! So this got me thinking. What could we do to make the contents of this report a bit easier to digest for the average Jane like me? This is a question that I find myself asking on a very regular basis - one of the awesome challenges of working with a lot of brilliant people in a field that’s quite new to me!

I stumbled across an interesting website today that takes a bit of a different spin on this idea of an environmental footprint. It’s a subsite for Patagonia and it visualizes the footprint of several clothing products they sell. Now to be honest, this makes me - a bit of a shopaholic - a little depressed. Perhaps not what we’d like to go for…but the idea is solid - graphically showing the “footprint” makes an impact while keeping things pretty darn simple to understand.

There was also a little buzz about a map of the US carbon footprint that circulated last week, which, aside from the debates about its scientific merit, is pretty sweet to look at and evokes some interesting thoughts/questions/discussions.

This has gotten me thinking, are there things we could do within The Wilderness Society to make our good work stretch further, appeal to a larger audience, engage folks better and longer? Using some of these models to visually tell our story is definitely a potential solution.

What we’re NOT trying to do is the more of the same… one way email statements that tell someone to pass on a one way message to someone else. We’ve proven we’re good a that. Very good. And it can certainly have an impact (especially when one needs to toss around big impressive numbers).

But I deeply believe that what we better do - as a movement and an organization - is simply use these tools better to have actual conversations. Two-way, three-way, whatever-way. People need a to know we’re hard at work on the stuff they don’t have time to do. But we keep asking people what they want and we keep hearing - we want to do more, really we do.

Maybe it gets at the companionship deficit… which I’m not sure is a term coined by Bill McKibben but which Spike Jones does a nice job working into a related post about social communities.

Why not engage people and build community? Why not let people build companionship with these issues?

If it were only that simple. So many videos and advocacy messages try to be all things to all people, mix in a million details or address the concerns of a committee of experts. Or all that.

But, really, explaining difficult concepts in a way that is easy to understand is tough. Even with the web’s ability to pile on video, photos, links, comments and more. As smart people (well, not me, just you) we tend to have all the details and want to use them.
PresentationZen has a nice little post about using simple tools - pen and paper in a digital video in this case - to help bring clarity to complicated topics.

In this case, the subject is video produced by the folks at CommonCraft. There is even one embedded lower down on ecommarama about RSS. The CommonCraft videos do a great job explaining complicated online tools in just a few minutes. The videos are mostly pen and paper drawings with a voice over. Sorta like back of the envelope sketches of an idea that have been taken to the next level. Well worth checking them out and thinking about how to hone a message to its simplest pieces. If you can’t explain it with stickfigures then its still too complicated?

If you’re interested in how TWS might use some of these networks to advance our programs and issues, this might also be handy.

The only way to truly understand how these applications might engage our audience is to try them out yourself, so get busy. Give it a shot.

Look me up on Facebook, LinkedIn, DIGG, del.icio.us, Flickr, Plaxo, or twitter.

In the very same alert, one person might say the content was too long or specific. Someone else wishes we would have included more details or graphics. An activist wants to know how she can get involved on the ground locally? And another supporter disagrees with some portion of the topic or stance. So what in the world is the fix?

It seems the only real fix is allowing our subscribers to navigate through our issues and actions on their own terms. We keep our WildAlerts brief and interesting. We allow plenty of opportunities to drill down into meaty, engaging content on our website. And the real kicker - we tell our story and then allow opportunities for our supporters to jump in, add to it, talk amongst themselves, voice concerns, ask questions, truly feel a part of the community that surrounds them.

Through the action mailbox, I’ve been cursed at more than once. I’ve felt a little beat up after a day of responding to messages from frustrated folks. But you know what? For every really brutal message I’ve responded to, I’ve gotten several messages back from surprised supporters thanking me for my attention. Today I even had a man apologize for his admittedly harsh words and explain that he never expected to hear back from another human being.

I think we all get it. We want to be a part of something bigger. What better way to do that than to weave all our stories together, to talk to one another, to have a conversation. We’ve been talking a lot about telling TWS’ story and Betsy just passed around a great blog post with some suggestions on the what/why/how of telling organizational stories. That’s half of the battle. Once we learn to tell our stories really well, we can brush up on our listening skills and find out what our supporters have to add.

Such is the state of knowledge management when it comes to interesting online information. But a combination of your web browser, your finger clicking the mouse and buttons, and a site like Delicious make storing interesting website addresses and information in a group simple and quick. Using RSS or a quick visit to a site that stores these bookmarks and displays them makes sharing the information painless.

One way to do this is to use a “social bookmarking” tool like Delicious in your daily routine. I have been doing this for a while using an account (it’s free) for The Wilderness Society. I find an interesting site. Click a button at the top of my browser, enter a description, click submit and, voila… saved for all to see on The Wilderness Society’s delicious page, in the “Recently Found” sidebar of ecommarama.org or in an RSS reader.

So, let’s say you work for The Wilderness Society (and are somehow tied to this whole web revamp thing). You come across an interesting story in which a blogger talks about some new social network that we might want to look into. Or a cool online action done by another group. Adding it to this delicious social bookmarking thing is pretty easy.

First, get logged into the delicious account here. No shame in sharing the username - it is ‘thewildernesssociety’ (and is also in the url of our page on delicious so it is pretty public already. You’ll have to get the password via other means, though.

After logging in you’ll likely be on the main page for our account. This lists all bookmarks. You can add a bookmark on this page but who needs the hassle of coming to a different page to bookmark another site?

The nicest feature is little button (or bookmarklet it is sometimes called) that you can add to your browser. It will go up there right below the address bar. After adding it you just click the button, fill in a short form and, voila, you’ve added the bookmark to the site for all to see, share and learn from.

Well, how do I add the button, you might ask. The image below outlines the basics.

- go to the buttons page after loggin in.
- click the install buttons here link (assuming you’re running Internet Explorer - if running Firefox or another browser follow the aptly named “Other Browsers” link).
- let the button install itself. That’s it. The button stores our account username and password.

Adding a link…

So let’s say you find a cool page/site and want to add it to the delicious bookmarks page. Another diagram below helps you walk through it but basically…

After clicking your new button you’ll see a form like the one below.

The url and description fields will already be filled in. You can edit the description (which is really more like a title) and add some notes to give folks more background on the bookmark. Tags are helpful for finding and describing the bookmark. The list of ‘your tags’ below the form includes tags that have been used in the past by this account. Delicious may also suggest some tags based on what others have used to tag the same page in the past.

When done. Click the save button and you’ll be taken back to the page you just bookmarked. That’s it. The bookmark will be added to the list and you can see it in the Recently Found sidebar of ecommarama.org. If you use an RSS reader you can subscribe to the RSS feed using this link. If you don’t know what an RSS reader is take a quick look at this ecommarama post from about a year ago.

That’s it. Thanks and have fun.

Works online in particular. Read the whole thing here.

Particularly like to remember numbers two and five on that list, myself.

1. We have about a billion stories to tell - stories about current issues; stories about our history; stories about our staff, our supporters, and our eco-enemies; stories about how things are and how we want them to be. You get the picture.
2. We’re in a bit of a rut about how to share these stories in a compelling way.

We’ve got a bit of a challenge on our hands. But what’s really awesome is that most of us realize there’s room for improvement and we’re pretty pumped about the possibilities. There’s been a lot of internal buzz about videos, blogs, and interactive maps (all of which are great storytelling tools). But a new tool does not a good story make - or however that saying goes. Basically, without a good story, it doesn’t matter how cutting edge or interactive the tool is.

Let me guess? There are a few of you out there thinking our communication is on the verge of turning into a whole lot of fluff. We’re thinkers, scientists, strategists, and dang good communicators. We don’t need no stinkin’ stories to be effective. If this is you, let me point you to an interesting article that Betsy starting sending around in conjunction with the branding efforts. It should ease some of your fears. There’s a lot of of good stuff, but here are a few highlights:

• Stories aren’t purely about entertainment.
• We don’t have to lose our authenticity - a story can be authentic and compelling!
• A good story is about truth to the teller, the audience, the moment, and the mission (yes, lots of buzzword, but read the article if you’re curious and it’ll make more sense). Basically, if any element is missing, it’s just not that great of a story.
• And a story comes in many forms. You can tell a story in person, on paper, online, over the phone…the story can be oral or written…it can be based on words or images. There aren’t many limits.

So let’s hear it/see it/design it/read it/draw it/map it/film it. What’s your story?