[p2tech] from the event horizon: a cry for help

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 9:50 AM, <jscrogum at illinois.edu> wrote:

> Hi Gary. The Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR)
> has both a Facebook (
> http://www.facebook.com/pages/Great-Lakes-Regional-Pollution-Prevention-Roundtable-GLRPPR/101044918640?ref=s)
> and a Twitter (http://twitter.com/GLRPPR) page. Neither is hugely popular
> yet. We only recently put "follow us on" buttons on the GLRPPR home page
> near the news (www.glrppr.org). They're in relative infancy, so I think
> it's too early to tell whether they're having much of an impact. I'm not
> sure how we would gauge their impact really.


Scott always starts thought provoking threads. I'm a little late to reply,
but hopefully this will still be timely.

Environmental News Bits (http://lib.wmrc.uiuc.edu/enb) has had a Twitter
feed (EnvNewsBits) for several years (populated by the blog's RSS feed).
I've only recently started following like-minded enviros using that account.
I've also recently started retweeting (re-posting) from those people, which
has raised my profile tremendously. ENB currently has 369 Twitter followers,
which is up significantly from a few months ago. From this, I've concluded
the following:

-- Retweeting raises your profile with the people you retweet from. If they
begin following you, some of their followers will also follow you.
-- Following prolific enviroTweeters also raises your profile because their
followers use them to find new information sources
-- My Twitter followers are getting ENB plus because my retweets are
directly on Twitter and aren't being posted on the blog first
-- Most importantly, Twitter is *much* more than "what I had for lunch".

As an aside, using the word Followers makes me feel a little like a cult
leader. :-)


> To address some of Scott's questions--I'm on Facebook daily and Twitter
> pretty frequently. I consume so many sources of information as part of my
> job (email, RSS feeds, etc.) that I don't even bother checking some of them
> very often anymore (my Google reader misses me, I think) because I don't
> have the time to read everything that comes in through those channels.
> Things like Facebook and Twitter let me get a manageable dose of
> work-related stuff while I'm making time to interact with friends and
> family--to kill two birds with one stone, I suppose.


What Joy said. Google Reader misses me too. I'm on both Twitter and Facebook
every day, for most of the day (I have it open in a window while I'm doing
work). I also have Twitteriffic and Facebook apps for my iPhone. Twitter is
a nice way to kill time while I'm waiting for my daughter to do whatever
activity I've driven her to.


> More people will read my Facebook page than most blog posts I ever write or
> RSS feeds that I contribute to for my job, because everyone else is busy too
> and more apt to pay attention to information offered in a setting that
> serves more than one purpose--as both entertainment and information source.
> Efficiency is part of P2; I suppose you could see social networking and Web
> 2.0 as a means to efficiently offer and consume information in a world where
> we all receive more information in various formats than we could ever hope
> to process. Laura Barnes (my colleague and friend on both Facebook and
> Twitter) has talked about these tools as a way to deal with information
> overload, and I think she's right. The trick is to figure out how to present
> and get information in a way that is manageable and isn't just one more site
> or list of resources to check for the day. I think learning how to use these
> tools is a way for information and assistance providers to avoid being
> consigned to the pile of "more information than I can deal with right now."
> Get on the radar screen of the person with information overload, and then
> maybe they'll be interested enough to want to go to your web site or read
> your fact sheets, etc. Something to consider.
>

Twitter has turned out to be a great way (although not the only one) for me
to keep up with environmental information and redistribute it quickly. The
140 character limit makes it easy to skim headlines quickly. I'll be giving
a presentation on dealing with sustainability information overload at the
Midwest Environmental Education Conference (around the same time Rick and
Scott are trotting out the dogs and ponies at their talk). I plan to talk a
little bit about trusted information sources, but the main focus is going to
be using social networking tools to keep up.

I still use Facebook mostly as a personal communication tool, but the ISTC
Library does have a page (become a fan, please!). Several DOE labs also have
pages, as does the U.S. Energy Secretary. I think it's really important to
get information out to where people are. P2 programs may not be heavily
using Facebook and Twitter, but future P2 professionals are. This is a time
when sustainability information is being well-received. Social networking
tools make it much easier to get the word out to large numbers of people.

Hope this helps.

Laura B.

---
Laura L. Barnes, Librarian/Information Specialist
Illinois Sustainable Technology Center
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