The places I’ve been…

I know this blog has gone dark over the last year, but I promise I have been busy.  I hope to do better at sharing my learnings and experiences here once again, because while the last couple years have been intensely valuable, they have also been difficult, but I can now see how they have led me to where I am today.

Where am I today, you ask?  Well, I am at Montgomery County’s Department of Environmental Protection, serving as their Senior Energy Planner.  (Montgomery County is part of the Washington metropolitan region, sharing its southern border with DC and its western border with VA.)

If you’re a planner, what do you do?  It means that I have the honor of serving as the county’s resource on energy efficiency and renewable energy, as it pertains to programs and policies.  I’m currently working on implementing their benchmarking bill for commercial buildings and look forward to contributing to an up-and-coming commercial property-assessed clean energy (PACE) program and other initiatives.  

How does this fit in with community-based social marketing, energy, community, and leadership – the mixed bag of topics this blog tends to represent?  Montgomery County is an incredibly forward thinking community – they are a leader in sustainability and are working to implement innovative programs to advance clean energy.  They also have a very engaged community and host of organizations that support the county’s energy work.  To that end, they expect nothing short of effective and engaging programs that result in measurable outcomes and cultural change towards sustainability.  My training with the Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship and MN CERTs are a core inspiration as I go about my work.  If you want to learn more about Montgomery and my work, you can start with the blog I wrote when I started with them: Joining DEP: Finding an Energized Community

What places have you been and how do they fit with what you’re doing now?  For this opportunity, I need to thank Montgomery County DEP for entrusting me to this incredible opportunity and responsibility.  I also must also acknowledge the important lessons, perspective, and experience gained at ACEEE and Loudoun County.  At the former, I gained a very important perspective on all the resources available nationwide and the role of our federal level agencies and organizations to help compile these lessons.  Loudoun County provided a deep-dive orientation into the ins and outs of local government, the crucial role they play in our communities, and what it means to work with others across topics, departments, and priorities.  And yet another special thank you to the organizations that have called on me as a consultant and researcher, which taught me new ways to value myself as a professional and stand on my own two legs.  Lastly, but never least, I owe my community, those back in MN (CERTs, Pirate Kickball, etc.) and those here who have always rooted for me, supported me, and cheered me on.  Thank you to all those who contributed to these valuable experiences!

Community-based social marketing: A simple summary

It occurred to me earlier today (thank you to one of my readers who pointed it out), that the post I have been referring back to, here, describes what I find most compelling about the community-based social marketing (CBSM) framework, but does not actually explain the framework itself.  

This post offers a very basic and succinct summary of the CBSM framework.

CBSM is a research proven approach to achieve sustainable outcomes in your community.  

Trial by fire: Community-Based Social Marketing for Small Non-profits

Over the last few months,  I’ve led several presentations and workshops about community-based social marketing (CBSM) and facilitated several conversations with an array of smaller non-profit and public organizations about how the framework can be used to enhance their work and the difficulties they face or anticipate.  

One of my goals in my fellowship is to understand how MN communities/organizations/institutions can use CBSM to enhance their work around energy and sustainability.  I’m interested in learning how CBSM works “on the ground” and what is needed to make this an accessible framework to enhance the effectiveness of community projects.  This post summarizes a couple of challenges and benefits my experience so far has uncovered… (If you are less familiar with the CBSM approach, I invite you to visit my previous summary blog here.)

BECC Day One: Game on! A lesson in gamification

Hello from Washington, DC!  I am at the end of my first evening at the Behavior, Energy, and Climate Change Conference.  I think I’ve died and gone to heaven–there are so many incredible people here, with so much experience, and who truly understand the task of changing culture and behavior to meet important environmental and community outcomes.

In the opening evening of the conference, early-arrivals gathered for a social desserts-only networking event.  I’ve already run into several individuals I only hoped to meet and have time to chat with here, and had a wonderful discussion with Cool Choices (see previous post) and a programmer from University of Hawaii about “gamification” for energy savings.

For our networking activities, we played different games, including “two truths and a lie” and even Charades.  As Kathy Kundt from Cool Choices pointed out in her opening talk, games are fun.  “Fun” isn’t necessarily how we’ve branded energy efficiency.  But games can bring that element to the work we value.

Engagement, in new light: MCN’s Annual Conference

This afternoon I attended the first set of workshops at the MN Council for Non-Profit’s Annual Conference.  This event was recommended to me by several peers for its focus on leadership and the opportunity to network with others working on community issues.  My afternoon of workshops was really about ENGAGEMENT, the value of it, how to increase it, and how to mobilized engaged individuals for further action.