Tag Archives: EarthSayers.tv

Website dedicated to the sustainability movement highlighting the voices of sustainability, citizens from all walks of life.

Marketing Sustainability Events

EarthSayers.tv recently published to our Ecotourism special collection a selection from the presentations given at ESTC 2010, the EcoTourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference held here in Portland, September 8-10.  Also published were interviews conducted at the conference by myself and filmmakers, Barry Heidt of SustainableTV and Erich Lyttle. Post production work was provided by Tom Hopkins of Sustainable Today TV.    The sponsor of this event, The International EcoTourism Society (TIES), like others we have covered in the past, including the Seattle Green Festival held in June, was financed out of our own pockets. Why?  Because most organizations sponsoring green events invest in “pre” conference marketing with the backend or post conference a dead zone with no budget. We think this is seriously inhibiting awareness and adoption of sustainability principles and practices which is the mission of EarthSayers.tv.

Viewing events, especially annual events, in a linear fashion in the age of Web marketing is inhibiting the growth of the sustainability audience and, ultimately, has a negative impact on attendance objectives for organizations sponsoring sustainability conferences and events.

Dead Zones

Dead Zones

The Web is a timeless environment and needs to be seeded with content frequently. Relevant and quality content remains king.  However, accelerating the growth of an audience does requires the marketing process be viewed and acted upon as a continuum. Peppering the Web with content from one event to build interest in the next one should be understood as a requirement.

No Pre or Post

No Pre or Post

We bring to the sponsors of sustainable and green events not only the ability to produce content at an event in a more personal way – interviews as opposed to the pre-web practice of video taping presentations from the back of the room. We now are able to demonstrate the efficacy of our work as we not only produce content but provide the network, EarthSayers.tv, for distribution which along with our channel on YouTube. This positions the conference organizers and presenters as part of the sustainability movement and seeds the Web increasing page rankings for all involved and making the people and information easier to find. As we all know, searching is one thing, finding is another.

Social Sustainability

On Friday I attended a kick off meeting at Portland State University (PSU) addressing social sustainability. It is a  PSU Collaborative Focused on Improving Community Health and Well Being and it took place in the School of Social Work.  What is meant by social sustainability?  The definition for social responsibility refers “to both the processes that create, and the institutions that facilitate, social health and well-being both now and in the future, recognizing that attaining social sustainability requires achieving both economic and environmental sustainability.”

When we created EarthSayers.tv to highlight the voices of sustainability, the first thing we ran into was the lack of a taxonomy for the term so we created one. Actually, Dr. Joanne O’Brien-Levy is the author.  The taxonomy, called a content map, is used by us to classify videos as we add them to the EarthSayers collection. We have also found it useful in helping organizations focus on what they are going to do (action) given the length and depth of the concept and the inefficiency of doing a little of this and some of that.  Organizations need to put all their wood behind one arrow.

Content MapThe content map identifies four major elements of sustainability – Systemic Change, Planet, People, Prosperity – with twenty-three categories under these four elements. All keywords and phrases roll up to one of the elements e.g.  consumerism (keyword) to culture and consciousness (category) to people (element).

So, social sustainability I see as part of the element of People and in the category of cities and communities, with the keyword  being social. It also crosses with the category health and well-being which suggests two strong aspects of their work.  I wonder if the group sees it this way.  The Social Sustainability Colloquium is going to be discussing the Ethic of Accountability in an Era of Scarcity: Acting in the Public Interest by Jesse Dillard of the PSU School of Business (People:Governance:public interest), Community Resilience by Kristen Magis of the Leadership Institute, social sustainability funding and social sustainability and social work.  There is also a call for papers for an edited book, Building Social Sustainability in an Era of Scarcity,  featuring the work of the PSU Social Sustainability Network.

What I came away with is there is a very committed group of people, mostly in the school of social work, who have been  active over the years in building the concept of social sustainability.  They are seeking to include community groups in their projects through a network which supports their emphasis on community wellbeing and, to a lesser degree, health and wellness.

Given our economic collapse and deteriating planet there is sense that it is no longer business as usual and this is reflected in their upcomig programs.  Now if only I can convince the group to become EarthSayers and use video and audio to get their story out there, I will feel I have made a contribution.  The academic community is heavily book laden in their communication, but maybe since it isn’t business as usual, they may be open to using the Web more effectively to support people networks (more inclusive) and communicate sustainability principles and practices using audio and video.

I’ll work on it.