The Living Church Foundation also looks at environmental stewardship from another angle in its current issue, examining “viral marketing” through electronic communications with respect to how it’s helping the Episcopal Ecological Network get the word out about news and events.
An incoming e-mail announces an event of interest for members of the Episcopal Ecological Network (EpEN). The EpEN’s communicator reads the message and decides to send it to all network members. With a few mouse clicks, the e-mail’s contents are sent to recipients in some 25 diocesan-level and five congregation-level environmental commissions, committees, and working groups. These leaders, in turn, send the message to their members. In a matter of a few hours, more than 1,000 passionate and interested Episcopalians in the United States and overseas will have received word about the event.
Before the explosion of the internet, dissemination of such information would have taken days, if not weeks, to reach the same number of people. If the event were time-sensitive, such as a request to call a congressional representative or a notice about a special seminar, many individuals would not hear about it until it was too late.
Timely communication is one way that EpEN members are involved in caring for God’s creation, led by a working group of 14 individuals from 12 dioceses. But what is it about caring for God’s creation that keeps these individuals and groups talking and working together?
The rest, with specific examples, is here.