Sustainability: St. George, Utah

Reduced or Eliminate Carbon-Based Fuel Consumption

"Fire made us human, fossil fuels made us modern, but now we need a new fire that makes us safe, secure, healthy, and durable." -Amory Lovins

Ray Anderson said, " I remain troubled by the revised Ehrlich equation, I equals P times A divided by T2. That A is a capital A, suggesting that affluence is an end in itself. But what if we reframed Ehrlich further? And what if we made A a lowercase 'a', suggesting that is a means to an end, and that end is happiness -- more happiness with less stuff.

Fun Theory
How can we improve?
 -my score

There are so many things that we could be doing currently in our cities, but one of the most important aspects is getting people involved. The fun theory suggests just that. Our society is one that is networked. It is a society that revolves around technology. What if we used that technology, and our connectedness to make a a difference. St. George tried to reduce the use of carbon-based fuel consumption. In 2010, Mayor Dan McArthur and the city of St. George decided to build a photovoltaic power station. The plan for the solar farm was to start powering a few hundred homes, and as the farm increased the residents could start owning a part of it and receive energy credit based on how much they owned. The idea is to increase the amount of renewable energy while cutting down on CO2 emissions. The idea is long since abandoned; however, we still have the means to do it. The idea of the fun theory allows us to give people incentives to try something new. To have fun with the idea of doing good. 

In reality, the only thing that we could do with St. George is to help this community to have fun. Help them with understanding that doing good is part of humanity. That they shouldn't be afraid of being part of something bigger.

As for using technology and social networking it would be really amazing if there could be an app that helped you find ways during the day to reduce your carbon consumption and help us to calculate what we use everyday or month and how to cut that usage down just like how BP has the website dedicated to calculate carbon consumption within the home. I know that I would use that kind of app everyday especially concerning what I can do to reduce my carbon footprint.

Contextual Analysis

2011 by Ad Age

The Walking Dead has been one of the most viewed dramas in basic cable history. The television series has been the top trend since October 14th (4th season premiere). The television show is about zombies. More importantly the show is about the post-apocalyptic world and how the lives of the survivors. "Walkers, as the cast of the show calls zombies, are everywhere and the show centers around a group of people who have managed to survive this walker apocalypse.


AMC's The Walking Dead acquired 16.1 million viewers (The Wall Street Journal, para. 1) for the season premiere, but not just that AMC has done a huge push to involve their mass amount of fans through social media. They use Facebook, Twitter, Story sync, and a few other sites. AMC engages their fans, uses creative hashtags, re-purposes old content, and has made The Talking Dead to follow up on new episodes. They have used social media to incorporate fan interaction. With these different methods it allows fans to engage during the episodes and have a continuous social conversation through out the week until the next episode (Social Media Today).

The Walking Dead has become one of the most iconic roles in our society. It is completely entertainment based, but many people have become so enthralled with The Walking Dead. It has come to the point where people have become emotionally involved with the characters of the T.V. series. People would like to think what would they do in this post-apocalyptic world. How would their views, hierarchy, or life change because of this new world. How would they scavenge, take care of their family, or react/relate with other people. Certainly the situations presented in The Walking Dead are situations that people could imagine themselves in. The could determine the best course of action to take, or determine if the characters decisions are the same decisions they would make. Many tweets on Sunday consisted of "why would Rick make such a decision?" "Would I make that same decision? Why would I do that?" They involve themselves. The show has become a setting where people involve themselves. It has come to a point where it is the topic of conversation and a person is considered weird for not watching the show. It has become a bond of sorts between people and their friends, and even "friends" on the internet.

AMC has done an extremely good job at keeping fans engaged not just with an emotional tie, but also involving people through a temporal context. Each week when a new episode airs many fans get on the AMC website for The Walking Dead story sync. This allows for real time interaction with fans, interactive games and changeling others, and constant updates about the episode including pictures, polls, and interesting facts about the series. This keeps fans involved and engaged throughout the whole show. Another aspect of the temporal context is how through twitter or Facebook there are consistent updates as to what is happening on the show. Many fans who are following are also commenting about a certain scene or decision made.

I think that it is amazing that networks can involve so many people at once to enjoy a television series. I think it's amazing all the effort and work put into making hashtags and involving fans with polls, games, chat, and apps to fully engage each individual. I believe with this, since the main demographic is 18-49 year olds, AMC really hit the mark on including this specific demographic because they use social media almost everyday of their lives. I think it is a pretty smart marketing technique to make fans keep wondering and engaged through conversations all week so that they and maybe more people will be tuned in for the next episode that following Sunday.

Audience Stuffs

Here is my Facebook Audience stuffs

A lot of my facebook targeted audience is those who have time to give to help out, and to support this wonderful school. I first started out with just philanthropy, but it was too specific and wouldn't reach a wide enough audience. I had to expand my search to schooling, volunteering, and non-profit organization to gain a greater reach and to expand my audience.

Social Media Divide: Privacy Position

I find the idea of the social network divide very interesting. I love what Bob Sullivan said about avid Facebook users putting themselves into the category of "I have nothing to hide, so why worry" (New Concern: Social Media Divide, para. 7). I see that very thing often among my friends and especially family members who have Facebook accounts. I see posts that even I would think shouldn't be made public. Relationships, vacation areas, or even the littlest information to allow other people to know what they are doing or what is exactly happening in their life. For me, I would prefer not to know that information.

With concern to this privacy position, I would most likely be in the middle of the road/privacy elite. I don't mind sharing certain information, but it must be to people whom I know personally. I'm not necessarily at a point where I don't care at all about my privacy, I just don't mind sharing certain things. I am; however, huge on keeping certain aspects of my life to a complete minimum or even non-existent from an Internet/Social Media stand point. Currently I post on Facebook occasionally, and most of the time it is usually once a month or less. I always make sure my account settings on any social media site that I am apart of are set to private, or at least set to a certain level of privacy. I also like the fact that I have a brother who is technologically savvy because I am not in the slightest savvy with technology. My brother, when things go wrong especially with privacy, helps me to be safer through my social media encounters, and other things I do on the internet.