#HowICommute Project
An ideal community would see sustainable transportation as a healthy and economically friendly lifestyle choice. With the rapid evolution of digital media, the launch of a Transmedia project alongside a social media campaign would be desired way to inspire the movement of sustainable transportation to improve sustainability and quality of life. Transmedia is a form of storytelling where multiple platforms tie together to tell a common story, the story of sustainable transportation.
Each community will tell the story of sustainable transportation by sharing how they commute using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Email and publishing their content will be filtered and published in a published and eBook. This book will be a collaboration of each community sharing their favourite sustainable ways to commute using images and words. The book will act as a story documenting and sharing the personality of each community. It will sit on coffee tables, waiting room counters and be the topic of conversation for everyone who is published in it. How do you get published in this colourful masterpiece? The answer is easy, by sharing how you use suitable transportation on social media.
The project will grow from the hashtag #HowICommute followed by the city they are in (Eg: # HowICommute #Whistler) and used on Twitter and Instagram. They will share pictures of themselves walking, taking transit, carpooling, cycling, inspiring places they see on their route and anything else that inspires them in sustainable transportation. They are also able to share how they commute by email or on the project’s Facebook Page. All ways shared will be 140 characters or less.
There will be a deadline of when they have to share until and they are not limited to the amount of times they share. We (a chosen panel) will choose which pictures/tweets will be published (a few thousand). Both pictures and tweets will have the owner’s username and city, along side them. This book will have a yearbook/collage layout with sustainable transportation facts spread throughout. We would make sure to inform all users who are chosen that they will be chosen to be published.
The book will be created through a self-publishing website such as lulu.com or blurb.com. Upon completion the eBook and printed copy can be purchased by donation. Promotion of this project (before, during and once published) would be through traditional public relations efforts, social media buzz, marketing (budget depending) and word of mouth (people will be so excited that they are featured in our book they won’t be able to stop talking about it). Budget for this project can be raised through kickstarter.com or a sponsor. This book will inspire the community to try alternative ways of sustainable transportation and hopefully convert new users.
The Youth Summit will help deepen my understanding of sustainable transportation and provide me the tools to inspire that lifestyle in Whistler and Pemberton. There haven’t been any delegates from Whistler in the past and I know that the lessons I learn will help shift the community. Also, I’d love to test out the proposed project within B.C. because it sounds like a fun and creative project!
Note: The above is a project proposal. Would you take part?
