I’ve got to say, this story strikes home with me; I’ve been repeatedly ignored by Twitter’s “customer service” every time I’ve tried to engage them about parked twitter handles. Now it appears that some major auto manufacturers are considering legal action to get Twitter to deal with username squatters in an attempt to protect their brand names.

Read more of this story »

A group of the Web’s leading environmental blogs, podcasts, and social media outposts today announced that they have combined to form a single environmental publishing and social media powerhouse. The resulting new entity, Simple Earth Media, includes top environmental media and publishing entities such as Green Living Ideas, Blue Living Ideas, Twilight Earth, GreenTalk Radio, EcoTech Daily and Natural Papa.

The brainchild of co-founders Sean Daily, CEO, and my friend Adam Shake, Editor-In-Chief and founder of Twilight Earth, Simple Earth Media is a new media and social media company whose brand mission is to create a compelling, organic, educational network of environmental online venues that engage an ever-growing audience concerned with sustainable lifestyle habits and business practices.

“Bringing the Green Living Ideas and Twilight Earth site networks together was a natural fit all around,” said Sean Daily, Simple Earth Media’s CEO and President. Daily continued, “Adam and I share a very similar outlook and perspective, not only on the type of editorial content that is necessary and relevant for the future of humanity and the planet, but also in regards to the types of companies we want to work with as sponsors and advertisers supporting our network. We are also really fortunate to have a combined staff of the best writers in the business.”

Read more of this story »

I am a big fan of Conservation International (CI) and have been for ten years ever since I worked with the NGO during my previous life at a multinational corporation.  I admire CI’s collaborative approach by accepting the world’s largest corporations as part of the environmental solution and not just the source of the problem.  Realizing the importance of the private sector, CI created the Center for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB) partnering with such companies as Starbucks, McDonald’s and Wal-Mart.

CELB’s mission is to leverage the power and reach of corporations to “improve human livelihoods through: innovative business practices that reduce companies’ ecological footprint, strategic investments in conservation opportunities and dynamic communications campaigns that engage consumers and employees worldwide to take action in their everyday lives.”

As part of their progressive communications campaign, CI recognized the influence and reach of social networking and social media.  And now, they are set to launch a groundbreaking tool designed to catalyze personal and collective action via the connective power of the web.  Are you ready for “Team Earth”?

Read more of this story »

So he did what any sane representative for a radio program would do: He Tweeted his disgust. He made sure to toss a few choice words in there, like:

‘crazy‘, ‘no shame‘, ‘rude‘. And don’t forget that ever-popular suggestion, ‘Can’t she go in back?‘

But this so-called radio personality, Tim Mihalsky, had standards, folks. It’s indecent to breastfeed in front of him. That is, unless…

if she was hot, it woulda been a different tweet

But people were watching. It’s the magic of Twitter. Use a term, and anyone following that thread can watch your foot-in-mouth disease as it gets progressively worse. That’s where he came up against Feminist Breeder, a former rocker mom who is from, as DJ articulate said,

Chicago or, some ghetto place like that.

Read more of this story »

Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues. That’s one of the reasons charities can benefit so greatly from being active on social media channels. But you can also do a lot to help your favorite charity or causes you are passionate about through social media.

Below is a list of 10 ways you can use social media to show your support for issues that are important to you. If you can think of any other ways to help charities via social web tools, please add them in the comments. If you’d like to retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

1. Write a Blog Post

Blogging is one of the easiest ways you can help a charity or cause you feel passionate about. Almost everyone has an outlet for blogging these days — whether that means a site running WordPress, an account at LiveJournal, or a blog on MySpace or Facebook. By writing about issues you’re passionate about, you’re helping to spread awareness among your social circle. Because your friends or readers already trust you, what you say is influential.

Recently, a group of green bloggers banded together to raise individual $1 donations from their readers. The beneficiaries included Sustainable Harvest, Kiva, Healthy Child, Healthy World, Environmental Working Group, and Water for People. The blog-driven campaign included voting to determine how the funds would be distributed between the charities. You can read about the results here.

You should also consider taking part in Blog Action Day, a once a year event in which thousands of blogs pledge to write at least one post about a specific social cause (last year it was fighting poverty). Blog Action Day will be on October 15 this year.

2. Share Stories with Friends

Another way to spread awareness among your social graph is to share links to blog posts and news articles via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and even through email. Your network of friends is likely interested in what you have to say, so you have influence wherever you’ve gathered a social network.

You’ll be doing charities you support a great service when you share links to their campaigns, or to articles about causes you care about.

Read more of this story »

You’ve heard of trail networks, well how about the network, Trails?  Sierra Club Trails, that is. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t because it’s brand new. On Thursday, The Sierra Club launched what is being billed as the world’s first-ever comprehensive hiking wiki. Like other wikis, the meat behind Trails (or the GORP, as the case may be) is crowd-sourced, user-created and user-edited content.

In terms of the new Sierra Club project, anyone can post their favorite hikes, trails, routes, etc., and anyone else can come in and edit the descriptions so that the trails are constantly up-to-date. Users could potentially update entries with current trail conditions (i.e mud, snow, etc.) or, perhaps, with seasonal viewing tips (fall foliage, wildlife, etc.,).

In addition to hiking and paddling trails, the site also features tips for hikers, a birding blog, photo contests, and Nature Notes, a series of audio features based on interviews with naturalists and Sierra Club Outings leaders.

Now I admit, the economy probably has something to do with that. With even the seemingly most secure job now looking a little shaky, people are flocking to upload their credentials on this site.

But for entrepreneurs and other freelance professional, Linkedin has always been a great spot to be. And there are quite a number of those active in the green world already there. So, if you haven’t yet joined or aren’t quite sure how to maximize your presence, here are a few tips.

1. Before you post a profile, take a look at a few of people you know. Try mine – notice how I feature an award I won for “green” in my professional headline. Other people include their phone number or email. Many in the sustainable businesses include their business name or if it doesn’t connote “green” add key words like “eco” or “green”. Google does pick up Linkedin profiles so including key words in your Linkedin profile means you show up in Google searches as well as Linkedin searches. Don’t’ worry if your profile isn’t perfect, you can update as often as you like and while Linkedin does notify your network that you have made changes- it doesn’t say what they were (helpful if you make radical changes to your job history.)

Read more of this story »

Editor’s note: This is first guest post from Max Gladwell.

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.

Read more of this story »

This post is, in Rob’s words, part of a grand social media experiment  to publish the first collective, simultaneous guest blog post from Max Gladwell.  Our goal is for it be published simultaneously on 100 blogs, thus inspiring 100 simultaneous conversations from various points of view. We have more than 70 confirmed with some of the biggest and coolest in the blogosphere.

Enjoy!

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.

Read more of this story »

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Max Gladwell.

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.

Please note this is not a top-10 list, nor are these listed in any particular order. It’s also incomplete. So we ask that you add to this conversation in the comments. If you’d like to Retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

Read more of this story »

These organizations use tactics varying from direct action to job training, but they all are working to protect the planet in a substantial way.

Through twitter, anyone can stay up to date with their latest efforts to restore and protect habitats, influence environmental policy, and curb climate change. Take the opportunity to tap into the thoughts of those pushing for change and perhaps find some ideas of how you can help.

Read more of this story »

Stay tuned to from us here at Crafting a Green World and follow us @CAGW

You get that? @CAGW

Now, like popular memes on blogs, a number of Twitter memes have gone weekly. The most well known is #Followfriday. To use it Twitterers simply list some of their favorite folks to follow and add the hastags #followfriday.

My first thought after reading this article was, “Wow, wouldn’t it be great if we had a #followfriday like tag for the green community?”

Over the weekend though, while I was playing around with ideas like #sustainable saturday and #greentuesday my blogger buddy and green web strategist, Rob Reed of @maxgladwell fame came up with #EcoMonday, which appeared early Monday morning and spurred hundreds of Twitter fans to recommend their favorite green Twitter streams.

To keep the momentum going, Rob has also set up an @ecomonday account on Twitter, where you can look for the most recommended green Tweople to follow. @Ecomonday will only follow those that follow @Ecomonday and those who are recommended in the meme.

Read more of this story »

Host Sean Daily talks with environmental politics blogger Tim Hurst, editor of RedGreenandBlue.org and publisher of Ecopolitology.org, about his writing and the role of new and social media in environmental politics and activism.

Click Play Below,or

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

What do CarrotMobs and sugar cubes have in common?   Other than finding their way into your Easter basket, they are the businesses and tools developed by Virgance to create change through consumer organizing.

Thus far, businesses dedicated to “doing good” have been the purview and passion of big names and big businesses.  Bono launched DATA and (RED).  Bill Gates started the Gates Foundation and Home Depot has become synonymous with Habitat for Humanity.   However this past Tuesday Virgance, a San Francisco start-up, threw a little party to celebrate the next stage of their Activism 2.0 model, the acquisition of Green Options Media Network.

Virgance was founded in San Francisco by two business partners interested in elevating activist efforts by connecting them with social networking tools and access to funding.    Not convinced that “for good” had to mean not-for-profit, President and serial entrepreneur, Steve Newcomb began “looking at activism as a potential start-up industry” because he wanted to do more than just start another technology company.

Read more of this story »

Click Play Below,or

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

We all know young people have a handle on the Internet like no other demographic. My generation grew up playing computer games, had PC literacy classes in elementary school, and secretly hijacked the internet for music pirating before we were teens. We have an intuitive sense of the web – its uses, its limitations, and its future.

The nation’s young people are now harnessing that power for climate action, and we’re beating coal’s dirty PR in ways that have industry front groups shaking.

The coal industry’s American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity has poured millions of dollars into online advertising to convince Americans that “clean coal” is the solution to global warming, and it’s planning a $20 million online push this year. But type “clean coal” into Google, and up pop progressive climate blogs, spoofs and news articles.

In my own search for “clean coal,” eight out of the top 10 organic results were web sites that completely debunked the idea – only Wikipedia and an AP news article held both “sides” up. Not a single site in the top 10 was a pro-clean-coal industry page. Industry front group have had to buy their way onto Google’s front page, thanks in large part to young bloggers.

Read more of this story »

(click to expand)

The Gort Cloud:
The Invisible Force Powering Today’s Most Visible Green Brands
by Richard Seireeni with Scott Fields
240 pp. Chelsea Green

It is like what Van Jones called the “invisible network of networks.” Everyone who is in it (and some who stand outside it) know it is there, but they just aren’t sure how to define it, or what shape it takes.

In a new book called The Gort Cloud, branding expert Richard Seireeni takes a stab at capturing the moving target of social networks, sustainability, and green business and captures it with the perfect metaphor — a cloud. But Seireeni doesn’t use any old cloud for his metaphor, the book gets its name from an amorphous field of stellar debris called the Oort Cloud. Seireeni writes:

“I began to think of this particular green network as something tangible with a mission and with a collective membership of like-mined people. It wasn’t a single community. It wasn’t a movement, It defied easy definition.”

Read more of this story »

]]> http://sustainablog.org/2009/03/31/are-you-in-the-gort-cloud-a-book-review/feed/ http://sustainablog.org/2009/03/30/monsantos-started-a-blog-conversation-with-critics-or-the-same-old-pr/ http://sustainablog.org/2009/03/30/monsantos-started-a-blog-conversation-with-critics-or-the-same-old-pr/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:41:29 +0000 Jeff McIntire-Strasburg http://sustainablog.org/2009/03/30/monsantos-started-a-blog-conversation-with-critics-or-the-same-old-pr/ Yesterday’s Post-Dispatch had a story on the front page of the Business section that immediately caught my eye: St. Louis-based agribiz giant Monsanto has started blogging (and Twittering and YouTube-ing).

That’s right: Monsanto, the company many of us in the sustainability sphere love to hate, has entered the conversation.

That, on the surface, is a good thing.

Of course, the devil’s in the details.  As occasional contributor Max Gladwell pointed out in “10 Ways that Social Media and Sustainability Line Up,” social media can provide a high return on investment for a business… provided its efforts are grounded in transparency. I’d add that such efforts must also be based in a genuine desire to interact: social media is conversation, and all parties have to both talk and listen. Without these elements, a corporate blog will strike its intended audience as just another effort at message control.

Monsanto’s blog also seems to validate another of Max’s points: much of the content so far has consisted of responses to grassroots criticisms of the company ventures into biotechnology, particularly genetic engineering of crop seeds. As blogger and public affairs manager John Combest told the P-D, “”There was this big conversation going on (on the Internet), and we weren’t a part of it.”

So, how’s the company doing in its initial forray into the blogosphere?

At this point, I’d argue they still have a lot to learn.

Read more of this story »

]]> http://sustainablog.org/2009/03/30/monsantos-started-a-blog-conversation-with-critics-or-the-same-old-pr/feed/ http://ecopreneurist.com/2009/03/26/ecostore-shows-how-to-effectively-cut-through-the-green-static-with-social-media/ http://ecopreneurist.com/2009/03/26/ecostore-shows-how-to-effectively-cut-through-the-green-static-with-social-media/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:00:15 +0000 Paul Smith http://ecopreneurist.com/2009/03/26/ecostore-shows-how-to-effectively-cut-through-the-green-static-with-social-media/ So often these days you hear about green and greening cleaning products. But beyond the trendiness and this vague notion of it being “better for the planet,” most of the time people don’t know how that’s so and why it matters.

The founders of Ecostore, a New Zealand based company, now with an American division based in Michigan, saw quite directly why using the usual cleaning products has an impact: They lived on a eco village where each of them was responsible for dealing with their waste water. When it didn’t just go down the pipe, out of sight, out of mind, but they directly saw the effect it was having on their pristine waterways, the need was apparent and the incentive there to do something about it.

Greater visibility of the impact of your choices is something I think many more people should experience. People generally aren’t purposely irresponsible in their choices, they just don’t know any better because of “invisible” impacts.

They set about finding people to help them create plant based, toxins free cleaners that would still be as effective as the conventional options, minus the petroleum and synthetics based ingredients that can have a negative effect both on the environment and the people that use them. Being rapidly biodegradable was also a priority.

One might think that the main people buying this were more green skewed people. But according to Ecostore,

“…testimonials from other parents (many of whom were unaware of the benefits of eco-friendly products) began to pour in with wonderful news of their children’s allergies and eczema clearing up. Many noted that any respiratory issues were healing, and many lingering chronic conditions were disappearing.”

Read more of this story »

]]> http://ecopreneurist.com/2009/03/26/ecostore-shows-how-to-effectively-cut-through-the-green-static-with-social-media/feed/