volunteers needed to map out environmental, clean energy news sites

[Lerner]

We at LPP will be participating in a public event on June 11 (no advance publicity allowed) that we expect will generate a lot of public notice for focus fusion. We want to be ready to spread the word through the web. Could some people volunteer to start finding websites now where we can post this news after June 11, and be available to do that? What we want is well-visited sites dealing with clean energy and environmental issues, as well as the usual high-tech ones.

[zapkitty]

Blogging sites that cover news and current events?

While social and political issues tend to dominate such, any news about energy and the environment tends to get attention and commentary.

[Francisl]

I listen to NPR National Public Radio. They have national coverage and are well respected. The link to the Contact Us page will allow you to submit a press release or a story item. They may want to verify your story before they release it and they may request an in depth story.

I also follow Science Daily which is a daily online science news magazine. They normally re-publish articles and press releases that have been verified. It seems to be followed by TV news stations because I see the same story that I just read online.

[Francisl]

You may want to contact your local TV stations to send reporters to view your event. If the story is good enough they will send it to the major networks. They want a short story with impressive eye candy.

[Lerner]

We know the obvious stuff. What we really need is some work making a list of the many (dozens at least) of sites that specialize in clean energy and environmental news. Yes, it will be great if NPF covers us or better yet the New York Times, but we still need to get the word out to the people who are most concerned. This is a list FFS could use as well. I think it will be a few hours task, surfing the web. Not too arduous. We just don’t have the time ourselves. Busy preparing for this event and creating the next breakthroughs in the lab.

[benf]

Here are a few that would possibly be receptive:

http://www.treehugger.com

http://www.greencarcongress.com

http://insideclimatenews.org

http://www.cleantechblog.com/category/cleantech-news

[zapkitty]

Lerner wrote: We know the obvious stuff. What we really need is some work making a list of the many (dozens at least) of sites that specialize in clean energy and environmental news.

Okeydoke… suggest that we crowdsource it where feasible and post suggestions and candidate sites on this thread.

Also suggest that sites devoted to energy and the future in general be included, such as the Oil Drum…

[Breakable]

I think social and Facebook sites should be good as well, but we would need to coordinate positive promotion such as liking, up-voting so that it receives more visibility on the frontpage due to this activity.
One social site could be:
reddit.com/r/energy

[Breakable]

Social site slashdot.org also usually responds well to fusion, but it needs to be promoted in a very short timeframe.

[Patientman]

I have been collecting several sites on energy and the environment. These include blogs and media. The idea of having as many sites as possible is a very good idea. I believe you need to be as strong as possible and go as big as possible. Communicating through so much noise on the web requires generating as much interest as you can. Would you like the list posted on the forum or emailed to someone specific.

I also agree with the statement of having a story to go along with the announcement. This should be multi-part so that there are click-throughs.

[vansig]

Pinterest is a site that already crowd-sources this kind of info, by topic.

http://pinterest.com/sczumbiel/alternative-energy/
http://pinterest.com/climatecentral/alternative-renewable-energy/
http://pinterest.com/mncee/
http://pinterest.com/greenandglobal/
http://pinterest.com/indianachamber/energy-environment/

[Patientman]

I have identified approximately 80 other sites, where the information/announcement/story could be posted as an email in a contact us form. If a precise marketing type of description was cut and pasted into the form field, you would hit those addresses fairly quickly.

If you want some examples:

http://thinkprogress.org/contact
http://thinkprogress.org/contact/page/79331 (Ryan Koronowski) Environment
http://thinkprogress.org/contact/page/79501 (Kiley Kroh) Environment
http://thinkprogress.org/contact/page/78963 (Rebecca Leber) Environment
http://thinkprogress.org/author/joe/ (Joe Romm)Environment

They write about interesting energy and climate related issues. The only way to get their attention is to send a form through their system.
I have a list of journalists such as Bill Moyers from PBS as well.
The best places are Face Book, Pinterest, linkedIn and number of other places as well. I think if you diversify the direction of the information, there will be a lot of ground covered. The most important thing is to have the same message. It may need to be told in different ways but the message is the same.

One other suggestion, it is a well know fact in advertising and marketing, a consumer does not cognitively register information in the first two “Flashes” of information. A consumer requires at least three to five “flashes” before drawing their attention to information. Same message 3 to 5 things just to get their attention.

When I did email marketing for a sporting goods company, I sent out 27,000 emails and received a huge response for the next few months. By the end of three months, I was down to less than 5,000 interested customers in that period of time A single email campaign would end in three days, the orders for products would go flat. This is process of numbers. It comes down to how many locations and how many people do you have to contact. Start with 7 billion and hope you get .01% to notice. 🙂

[Lerner]

This all looks good–thanks to all! Right now, I doubt if a million people in the world have heard of our effort. If we could just get that up to around 5 million, we would probaly be fine. So I guess that is 0.1%.

[Breakable]

We are the 0.000001 %!

[Patientman]

There are several questions that come to mind.

Will this announcement require time sensitive action? Does need to go out the same day?
Is there a need for a specific contact (person or email) communicated to the target audience?
Do you have a teasing article to get traffic to the chosen web site. (Lawrenceville Plasma Physics) Unless it is the web site of the event, or Focus Fusion.org?

A automated response email (sort of) Thank you for your interest we will be getting back to you soon or..
Thank you for your interest, check our FAQ page to get more answer
Thank you for your interest, we are discussing investment interests at ..????

A central article(s) that explains the scientific information in simple terms (why do they care?)
Are you giving them the same information or something new? Hopefully it will be something new, interesting and in-depth to keep them interested.

Help will be needed to post the actual announcement on each of the specific web site addresses, if it is a time sensitive matter.
Response to inquiries through email should have some guidelines set up in advance. This should be according to interest (investor, general, engineer, scientist, volunteer, etc…).

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