360DigitalInfluence

Jeremy Ames from the EPA just wrapped up giving a really interesting presentation recapping how his agency used social media to crowdsource the production of a video Public Service Announcement encouraging people to test their homes for radon gas.

The EPA launched a contest and asked film makers to submit their concepts, with the winning entry receiving $2,500. Getting this off the ground was not easy, according to Ames who was faced with the prefect storm of social media barriers: legal, technical, and budgetary. Let’s watch the winning entry and then we’ll look at how they did it..

Ames had to first overcome a bit of internal technical hesitation, as well as shoestring budget. But looming large was this huge legal hurdle: gov’t procurement. Tapping the collective creativity of the contest participants didn’t really fit within the old gov’t procurement model.

Undaunted, Ames and his team turned to DC’s Memorial bridge for the answer. As it turns out, Congress held a contest in 1927 to commission the design of a new bridge spanning the Potomac river with the contest winners receiving a monetary prize using tax payer dollars. The guys at the EPA used this as the precedent, essentially claiming that the government was using the contest as a way to procure the new Public Service Announcement, just as they would in responding to contract bids and just as congress did in building the Memorial bridge.

Combine that 80 year old government bridge project, a bit of internal social media training, and presto! - the EPA launched its video contest.

The EPA got a steller PSA at a fraction of the cost, but I think the real lesson here for anyone in or working with the government agencies is that persistence pays off. Congrats to Ames and his team at the Environmental Protection Agency, another great case study here at the Social Media and Government conference