Better in the dark

A new social media campaign, launched as a result of the Powered by Nature Awards - an initiative of IUCN CEC and ALCOA - encourages people to turn off their lights and turn on their senses. With cheeky humour and simple graphics, the campaign “Better in the Dark” invites community contributions to the question: What things are better in the dark? Stargazing? Hide and seek? Sleeping?

Once appliances are switched off, so the story, we can finally see the stars and connect to  nature and the people around us. Ultimately, this will help us to save energy and take better care of our environment. Mostly, “Better in the Dark” is an invitation to engage playfully with sustainability and experiment: What happens when we turn the switch?

The accompanying video provides one possible answer (skinny dipping). For those that need more light in this situation, it continues, LED torches might be the way to go. From the campaign description: “When the time for new light comes, we will waste no rays. The sun shall power our lives, and no longer will we burn up the dark energy from deep below.” Check out the “Better in the Dark” campaign at www.betterinthedark.com or on Facebook and Twitter.

Communicating climate change realities

Introducing Reality Drop from Climate Reality on Vimeo. Social media can help unmask climate change myths and denialz. The Reality Drop website highlights 106 of the most common myths about climate change, and provides easy, succinct ways to respond with the truth. The site is an innovative social media tool that educates users about the reality of climate change and also uses modern gaming techniques to combat climate denial. 

Make the politicians work

The power of social media.

Awareness raising

Through a facebook posting I came across this example of a picture saying more than 1000 words. There was a question about who initiated the campaign, so I googled a bit and came across three sites that are interesting for environmental communication. Wildaid aims to end the illegal wildlife trade by reducing demand through public awareness campaigns and providing comprehensive marine protection. Poor Planet raises eco-awareness by bringing news, articles and opinions on famous and not-so-famous environmental issues. Categories are nature, energy, climate change, pollution, destruction, making a difference. Awareness seems high on the agenda - assuming information will lead to behaviour change. Advertizers without borders is an international network of advertising professionals. Their profession leaves little extra time but as their site shows it is enough to donate public service campaigns that impact local, regional or global. Campaigns are about health, human rights, environment and have a clear action component.

Website usability

How user friendly are our websites? Relevance of information for the user is not evident. Images that don't help to sell. Text is hard to read. Navigation doesn't privilege buying. Where is the "Buy" button? These are some of the conclusions of a study of 15 Brazilian e-commerce websites by CEC member Mercedes Sanchez. User behavior research is important to identify needs and wishes of website users and turn visitors into buyers or activate them otherwise, e.g. in the non profit sector. These are some of Mercedes' advices: "websites should prioritize what is relevant for their users. They should show the way to find what the user is looking for. They should not push their products. Use customers vocabulary." Today on Biodiversity Day I wonder how much this is also true for conservation websites...!

The footprint of websites

A usable website has a navigation which can be used intuitively by its customers. Design and lay out should help a user to stay on track and find the information he is looking for. As a regular user of environmental websites I often get very annoyed when looking for information. It is much easier and faster to use google or Wikipedia. High time for these organizations to invest in usability research? Usability is a new discipline that focuses on human-computer interaction, communication and engineering. It helps to improve websites, mobile phones and other new media by testing interfaces, observing and measuring user behavior and factors that influence that behavior. It leads to advice how to increase user satisfaction. It also helps to reduce the footprint of the organization, says Mercedes Sanchez. She is specialized in usability research and wrote about the relation between usability in the private sector and its effects on the environment.

Ordering a website: homework!

When we hire a firm to design our website, we often discover during the process that things do not work out the way we had imagined. Mostly this is due to the fact that we did not do our homework properly, before assigning the firm with the project. Here are a few hints from the Getting Attention blog of marketing and communications consultant Nancy Schwartz. She suggests six steps. I summarize the main points here:
1. Develop a Site Development Request for Proposal that is as comprehensive as possible, use input from all disciplines in your organization.
2. Establish the following baseline criteria for firm selection: working with open source software; having three or more years in business; using a content management system and client-orientation.
3. Understand your choices: web development firms fall into at least five different categories. Make sure you select a firm from the category that fits your needs.
4. Research your options: ask around internally and externally what recommended firms are. Surf the web.
5. Interview your top picks to establish your shortlist: first an email, followed by a phone call to firms that seem to be a good fit.
6. Select three firms for a Request for Proposal and compose an internal team to select the best proposal. Make sure all disciplines in the organization are properly represented.