The Observer, July, 2009

Seldovia's Lewis is committee guru for web technology

Seldovia resident Savannah Lewis is a strong believer in the council’s mission. Lewis saw the recent reformation of the council’s Information and Education Committee as an opportunity to help the organization. By using her technical expertise in web design and her knowledge of online social networking, she hopes to foster public awareness of the council and oil-spill issues.

Committee and board members have long looked for ways to attract younger participants, and Lewis believes the place to do that is online.

The Internet has undergone a transformation since its beginning. While most websites once functioned as encyclopedias or libraries, new websites are a place to hang out, converse with others, and exchange ideas. Websites such as Facebook and Twitter have millions of members and, according to Lewis, should be a basic part of any nonprofit organization’s marketing and outreach. Also popular are blogs. A blog—short for “web log”—is a website that is regularly updated, with the most recent entry at the top of the page.

To demonstrate the usefulness of interactive websites, Lewis enthusiastically agreed to conduct the interview for this article via Twitter. Twitter is a micro-blogging website, where people, businesses, and organizations share short snippets—140 characters or less, including spaces—about current activities. Along with ordinary citizens, politicians, and Hollywood celebrities, organizations such as the Alaska Volcano Observatory, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and most news agencies “tweet” (as the practice is known) about activities and issues.

Lewis sees such online networking as a way to connect and build relationships. A sense of community is important to her, a value that was reaffirmed during the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez spill. Lewis and her husband Steve were sailing abroad when the spill occurred. Everywhere they went, the sailing community was concerned.

“I was living on a boat in Europe at the time, and having Alaska on the transom was a real attention-getter that week,” Lewis tweeted. “Because we’d sailed in PWS [Prince William Sound] before, we ended up in a lot of discussions on the (then potential) spill impact once the news broke.”

“What surprised me most was the strength of the sailing community and, hence, the effectiveness of developing community,” she tweeted.

Lewis is an active member of the community of Seldovia, where she volunteers for the public library. She recently re-cataloged the library’s entire collection using a new computer program. Lewis also developed a new website for the library in a blog format.

Lewis made sure the library’s volunteers and staff were all trained to use these new programs.

“Any updated communications mode also requires training users to feel comfortable and effective with it,” Lewis tweeted. “Adults, especially those who may be intimidated by the learning process, need demonstration AND practice to master new skills.”

Lewis believes that a full online presence for the council is vital for public awareness when considering the future of the organization.

“There are great tools available for free, for only the time put into using them, and that’s a phenomenal value per eyes reached,” Lewis tweeted. “The web not only reaches an entirely different part of our constituency but can engage them and bring them to a dialog with the org[anization].”

If you have a Twitter account, you can read this interview online. Just search for #obsint at www.twitter.com.

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