Environmental Outreach and Education Web Site Project

for the City of Longmont, CO

Teresa FosterENV 785 - Applied Leadership Project

M.A. Environmental LeadershipNaropa University

April 28, 2009

a

Intent

To research ways to organize and bring together Longmont’s environmental programs onto

a single Web page, thus assisting the city with its outreach

and education efforts

?Why

Motivated by my attempt to gather and create a summary of all Longmont’s

environmental programs

It wasn’t easy to do . . .

A picture te lls a thousand words

Sustainability HomePage

Links Web Page

Top

LinksWeb Page

Middle

Links Web Page

Bottom

Which Web page would be easiest

?to navigate

?This one

?Or this one

You decide

• No central location to find all the information

• The content for environmental programs is in departmental silos

• Content developed based on departmental organization

Problem

•The city Web site has evolved over the past ten years.

•There is only one person in charge of managing and overseeing the Web site

•Departments create and manage their own Web pages - they do their own thing

•The result is an inconsistent approach

Internal search function delivers mixed results

• What’s the purpose?

• How can the audience get the information quickly and easily?

• Is the site designed so people will want to come back and browse?

• Is the information clearly written?

• Is it targeted to all residents and business owners in Longmont?

There are many things to consider in making a Web page work

Important considerations

• The city Web site exists to inform the public

• The public is the audience

• “Understanding the audience is the most important factor to consider when designing a Web site” (R. Masterson, Webmaster)

• The Web site should be designed around the “likely searching habits and information preferences of the audience” (L. Francklyn, Web Designer)

Longmont is heading in the right direction. This page was designed based on the questions being asked.

But what about this Web page? It’s the home page for the Green Building program in Longmont.

The City of Longmont has made great strides in

becoming more sustainable

Environmental Sustainability in the City of Longmont

• Longmont identified Enhancing the Natural Environment as major policy direction in 2006

• Environmental Sustainability Coordinator came on board in spring 2008, overseeing development of Integrated Environmental Plan

• Instituted single-stream recycling at end of 2008

• Sustainable Harvest Fair city’s first outreach event in November 2008

• Recently passed resolutions: 1) Becoming a Zero Waste City and 2) Alignment with the Colorado Climate Action Plan

How can the city align its outreach efforts to convey its

?achievements

Applied Leadership Project

Methodology and Process

• Establish a baseline • Gather information through research and

interviews • Document and analyze the discoveries • Provide recommendations for action and

further research

Methodology and Process

• Survey and document existing Web pages

• Interview staff who manage environmental programs and record with digital voice recorder

• Transcribe and summarize staff interviews, extract and organize information into categories - Web, Key Messages and Talking Points, Survey, and Outreach

• Summarize best Web design practices provided by Web designers. Provide an analysis based on their comments

• Recommendations: Conduct an in-depth survey of audience, optimize key words for better search results, coordinate outreach efforts, pilot a database-driven Web site

Theory U

suspending

redirecting

letting go

Seeingwith fresh eyes

Sensing from the field

Prototyping the new by linking head, heart, hand

Crystallizing vision and intention

embodying

enacting

letting come

Presencing connecting to Source

Downloadingpast patterns

Who is my Self? What is my Work?

Performing by operating from the whole

VoFOpen

Will

VoCOpen Heart

VoJOpen Mind

Journey around the U• Suspending: Getting out of my own way

• Seeing: Noticing the difficulties navigating city Web site

• Redirecting: Intuitively knowing early on what the need was.

• Sensing: Turning on my “radar” and paying careful attention to city affairs

• Letting go: Accepting the unknown

• Presensing: Accessing my inner wisdom

• Letting come: Trusting that the emerging future would reveal itself

• Crystallizing: Tapping into the creative flow

• Enacting: The emerging web page design

• Prototyping: Experimenting with designs until I found one that resonated with me

• Performing: Presenting my project to the world

Crystallizing: Clarifying the vision and the intention of the emerging future.

It was at this point that I asked the universe for guidance. I had been thinking about what the portal might look like and began by drawing a circle. When I took that one simple action, the ideas for the portal design began to flow onto the paper.

I continued to tap into this creative flow that would come only after I turned off the computer. These ideas would appear in my mind and I couldn’t seem to write them down fast enough. I wrote them on post-it notes and scraps of paper, and then put them in a file folder for future reference.

(see collage of post-it notes)

The grand finale

Applying my learning, intuition, and connection with source

into enacting the future that wants to emerge

Whether or not anything is implemented is not the goal.

The focus really has been on the journey . . .

Teresa FosterApril 28, 2009