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Convene in Green

Jen van der Meer Many Hats, Inhabitat Recent Posts

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July 6, 2009

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Affordably Build Your Brand

FedEx Global Brand Management Director Monica Skipper shares a cost-effective way to build a bigger brand for your small business.

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At the Personal Democracy Forum 2009 in New York, conversations centered on how we can best organize online – through existing social network tools like Facebook or Twitter, through email campaigns, or through unique social networking cites formed around a specific community of interest. While many suffer from social network fatigue, eco-min of you that are looking to convene with a group of likeminded eco thinkers in order to share information, get up the learning curve, and connect for a cause. Three social networks in particular have been formed to reward you for good deeds, reduce your carbon emissions, and commit to a greener lifestyle.  

Celsias is like a weight watchers group for people that want to make green-minded changes to their lifestyle, and be encouraged along the way. You are given a temperature setting of “zero degrees” when you sign up for the site, and the more you add activities that reduce your carbon footprint, the more your temperature increases. The idea is fun even though one should potential start with a high degree and work one’s way down to a cooler climate, but the fact that you can discuss actions and cheer on other Celsias users creates a community of likeminded change agents.   

Carbonrally works in the same vein as Celsias, but focused more exclusively on carbon emissions. People join teams and work together to sign up for challenges created by members of this social network.  

BigCarrot is a site designed to challenge people to fund innovation challenges, with the idea that we all need a goal in order to help the environment. It’s a mini X-Prize for people with a lot less than a million dollars to create an incentive for collective action. The failry active community on Big Carrot collaborates on prize rules, and additional contributions to prize endowments, giving everyone a shot at crowdsourced philanthropy.   

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