Case Summary

At the 2007 Environmental Information Symposium, EPA's Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information, Molly O'Neill invited all Conference participants to participate in a two-day online collaboration, the Puget Sound Information Challenge, to assist the Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council in collecting the best information, Web 2.0 tools and ideas pertaining to the protection of this Pacific Northwest waterway.

The wiki site pulled content through RSS web feeds, which were then tagged through Flickr, YouTube and other selected sites. Although the initiative was not launched until just prior to the start of the Symposium without significant promotion, the results of the challenge were impressive, with more than 175 content contributions and over 18,000 page views.

Business Challenge

For the 2007 Environmental Information Symposium, Molly O'Neill, EPA's Assistant Administrator for the Office of Environmental Information (OEI,) wanted to sponsor a project that would allow attendees to experience firsthand the potential of Web 2.0. Bill Ruckelshaus, Chair of the Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council, subsequently approached O'Neill about his organization's pressing need for information collection ahead of a strategic plan to be written with the goal of raising funds to clean and restore this Pacific Northwest waterway. O'Neill and Ruckelshaus agreed that a collaborative site launched during the conference could be leveraged to achieve both of their respective organizations' goals.¹

Approach Taken

The Puget Sound Information Challenge was officially introduced by Molly O'Neill during the first day of the conference. A video presentation hosted by Ruckelshaus invited participants to identify and share the best available information resources, tools and ideas on Puget Sound environmental protection efforts.²

This is the Puget Sound conservation video presented during the EPA's 2007 Environmental Information Symposium.

While emails outlining how people could contribute to the wiki were immediately sent out to conference participants following her announcement, EPA did not engage in any further efforts to advertise this project.³

In terms of technical implementation, a wiki site was developed by OEI just prior to the start of the Symposium, and according to O'Neill was not accompanied by "a drawn-out technology assessment."⁴ The site utilized 'Really Simple Syndication" (RSS) web feeds to automatically pull news content and images related to the Puget Sound. The EPA also staffed a team of content and technology experts in a "mash up room" to manage and organize content and information as it was submitted. Content was tagged from selected sites such as Flickr, del.icio.us, YouTube, and blogs, and then harvested and added to the wiki.⁵

Results Achieved

During the course of the 36 hour challenge, the site received more than 175 contributions of ideas, data and applications, and over 18,000 page views. Notable submissions included a NASA employee who shared information on interpreting air quality data from space, and members of the U.S. Geological Earth Observation Community who offered guidelines for utilizing remote sensing data indicators to measure water quality. Also, an impressive example of intergovernmental collaboration occurred when EPA scientists worked with Transportation Department employees to develop an idea to equip Puget Sound ferryboats with environmental monitoring equipment.⁶

Lessons Learned

By offering a practical project for Symposium participants to work on, EPA's OEI succeeded in giving attendees a new perspective on both the advantages and potential obstacles for implementing Web 2.0 collaborative strategies. In regards to promoting new technology efforts, the high rate of activity in the Puget Sound Information Challenge site despite the lack of advertising showed how important social networking among an enthusiastic audience can be for increasing awareness of a new site.