Juneman 1 Samantha Juneman 12/1/11 Hanson Hosein Dr.

Malcolm Parks Final Blog Paper

Living in an urban neighborhood with six other college students was not an easy situation to be in and stay oblivious to what was happening in the dumpsters right outside of my apartment. Originally I once thought that the term Dumpster Diving was limited to finding furniture or house accessories in dumpsters next to student housing; pertaining to only junk most of the time. I had no idea that there was a subculture, right here in my own neighborhood, of groups of Divers. These Divers were collecting and consuming food products from the trash of local businesses in the University District of Seattle. This surprised me, because taking junk from the dumpster is one thing, but taking food (and eating it too) brought it to a whole other level of discomfort. The first time I ever went diving was with my new roommate Giulia. She had been living and diving in the University District for three years now. I was new to both, and was shown the ropes by new roommate soon enough. A couple of times she had mentioned that she was going diving and would be bringing back some bread for our house. I never really thought too much of it until the night she woke our house up and told us we were all going diving together at midnight. I was completely up for the adventure, but wasnt exactly sure how I felt about consuming food from the trash. I just couldnt imagine the items she claimed to find on her normal route being in any kind of condition I would be comfortable with. After our adventure, the twenty-pound brick of chocolate, and the twelve loaves of bread we found, my perspective was drastically altered. To my surprise, we found dumpster after dumpster full of perfectly good and clean food being disposed by businesses for various reasons. Those reasons were almost never because the food was inedible. Not only did I discover this was happening, but I noticed that many people in the area were aware of this and took advantage. After that experience, I was telling everyone about how I went diving and found all of this great stuff. Even though I was so excited

Juneman 2 about this, most of the reactions I got were disgusted and worried. I realized that I had previously reacted the same way to my roommate and suddenly felt the urge to make people aware of the reality of the situation. Its not that I wanted to convert people into becoming divers. I wanted them to become aware of the waste that was happening in their own neighborhood, and that it was possible to personally reap the benefits of it. The blog Skipping and Diving was created to start building awareness of the Dumpster Diving culture in my neighborhood. I admit that I wanted more people to become aware of this activity so that I wouldnt encounter so many adverse reactions when talking about my own experiences. The initial Action Idea for Skipping and Diving was to document my exploration through the diving culture and provide evidence to change behavior and attitude within my community. However, I later discovered that the scope of my intentions was too broad to accomplish in the short time I had for creating the blog and would not be able to make it successful in 7 weeks. I then decided that the goal of this blog would not be to inspire change in attitude1 and convert negative impressions into positive ones. I realized that even after showing my audience evidence that changed my own perspective, it would not necessarily change theirs too. Alongside that, I also realized that changing my audiences behaviors1 (in terms of food consumption and waste) would not successfully be the goal of the blog either. Although inspiring behavioral change would be a great outcome of the effort being put into Skipping and Diving, it would not be something I would measure success by. Knowing that readers assume that these same stories might exist not simply to report on that condition, but as a catalyst for changing it,2 I deducted that the behavioral change would probably result from the readers own impressions, however the blog was not initially going to use its content to help readers change their behavioral patterns. After redefining the action idea and narrowing it down to the goal of simply creating awareness, it was important to constantly look back to previous action ideas. The contrast between the first action idea and . Parks, M. (2011) Persuasion and Influence [Power Point Slides] retrieved from https://uw.instructure.com/courses/150377/files#EVOLUTION%20AND %20TRENDS%20IN%20DIGITAL%20MEDIA%2FWeek%205%20Slides %2FCom%20546%20-%20Parks%20-%20Class%205%20Fall %202011.ppt
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. Selbin, E. (2010). Revolution, Rebellion, Resistance: The Power of Story. London, UK: Zed Books. Pg 26, Chp 2.
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Juneman 3 the last revision of it was helpful in seeing what I didnt have time to accomplish, and what I did have time to accomplish. The similarities in those actions statements were helpful to inspire ideas for the content of the blog. Things I knew I wanted to explore, regardless of the goal, were evident in both action ideas and kept me fueled for content.

The ultimate question is, How can you measure the success of your blog? After two months of blogging, experimenting with engagement, and thinking carefully about my audience members, the blogs success can be based off of these things: 1. Audience members who took the time to express their impressions of the subject (whether or not those impressions were different from their views before). 2. Audience members who participated in contemplating the subject (acknowledged they were thinking about their opinion on the subject matter-did not necessarily state this in writing) 3. Audience members who participated in sharing the information and spread awareness to their own networks. 4. Audience members acquired outside of the Internet (became aware of the blog through physical meetings and word of mouth) These examples of success can be analyzed by comments (responses) to the Skipping and Diving word press blog3 ,Likes on the word press blog, Facebook responses to Skipping and Diving posts4 Facebook shares of blog content, Facebook impressions, Poll results, physical audience member meetings, and emails. All of this successful evidence illustrates the effectiveness of the blogs multifaceted strategy. Below, I will dissect the each example of effectiveness along with the strategy that accompanied it. As the main goal of Skipping and Diving is awareness of the Juneman, S (2011) Skipping and Diving [Word Press Blog], Retrieved from http://skippinganddiving.wordpress.com/
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Juneman, S (2011) Skipping and Diving [Face Book Fan Page], Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/pages/Skipping-andDiving/211454002255994
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Juneman 4 subject, one of best examples of success would be of those audience members who have put forth the effort to express their opinion on the subject through any of the blogs mediums (This includes Word Press, Facebook, Posterous, Twitter, and Tumblr). Although many of the blogs audience members expressed their opinions to be that of a changed perspective, not all were convinced by the contents evidence and expressed that their opinion did not waiver from their thoughts on the subject before they had read the blog. If providing convincing evidence were a strategy for changing a readers attitude, having proof of a readers unchanged perspective would be proof of failure. However, these readers whose attitudes remained the same, were not a lost cause. Their awareness of the subject was in fact heightened after being exposed to the content of the blog. For a reader to decide that their opinion remains the same on the matter, they would have at least looked at the evidence presented by the blog. Looking at the evidence can make a reader aware of the issue, but it will not necessarily define their attitude about it. Therefore we can conclude that those audience members who proclaimed their unchanged attitudes about dumpster diving had become aware of the subject; at least enough to bother to share their opinion on the matter. The strategy in getting readers to respond to the blogs content was to share interesting and eye opening evidence into the food waste matter in our neighborhood. The very first post published on Skipping and Diving was a first hand account of my first diving experience. In the post I included pictures and descriptions of the incredible amount and quality of food we found that night. Among the things we found (to quote the blog post) were 8 loafs of bread that were perfectly good and a 20lb brick of solid baking chocolate5.

Juneman, S (2011) My First Dumpster Diving Experience, Skipping and Diving [Word Press Blog Post], Retrieved from http://skippinganddiving.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/my-first-dumpsterdiving-experience/
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To have readers become aware of the food being wasted in the University district of Seattle, the strategy was to share compelling evidence. This strategy was incredibly effective in getting the readers to share their reactions with others showing their newfound awareness of the subject. Below is a comment found in the post mentioned above5, which illustrates their reaction to my first diving experience.

A clip from the post My First Dumpster Diving Experience (http://skippinganddiving.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/my-first-dumpsterdiving-experience/) This snippet illustrates the evidence of a monumental chocolate find with an interesting description and an entertaining picture

A clip from the post My First Dumpster Diving Experience (http://skippinganddiving.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/my-first-dumpsterdiving-experience/). This snippet illustrates a readers impression on the compelling evidence being presented in this blog post.

The reader, Jose Mendoza, makes an effort to express his impressions on the act of dumpster diving; making the assumption that

Juneman 6 college students are mainly participating in the act. He also mentions that he is uncertain of the safety of the act and the location to which my team and I were diving. This concern of his wouldnt have arisen unless he was presented with a narrative full of compelling details into the subject of dumpster diving. The reader also mentions his impression on how much food is being wasted and remarks on a particular piece of evidence. This particular post was most effective in sharing interesting evidence; at least enough to spark a conversation. Just this post, with 5 comments, 122 views, and 149 Facebook impressions, created awareness in over 200 readers. Finding readers who were becoming aware of the subject was not as simple as looking at the comments section of the blog. There were other readers who were reading, acknowledging they were reading, but did not necessarily publish their thoughts about it. Measuring the extent of their awareness is not possible through this analysis, but we can still count their acknowledgement as some form of awareness, no matter how big. One post in particular that looked deeper into the food waste of one particular chain grocery store, attracted readers unattached to my personal network. Although readership numbers are rather high for Skipping and Diving, most of those readers are within my personal social network. However, with this post, the blog attracted readers from all over the place who were not connected to me personally. The strategy in attracting these people was to dive deeper into a specified issue, and attract those readers who are not necessarily interested in dumpster diving, but are interested in the grocery chain we investigated. Along side this effort, it was important to categorize and tag the post with key words relating to the specialized topic, and then reach out to those community members who were interested in the controversy of the specific grocery store chain. The results of this strategy were enormous and new readers were acquired like Belchdini from Norfolk, VA.

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A clip from the post Trader Joes Dumpster Diving and Halloween Cookies (http://skippinganddiving.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/trader-joes-dumpsterdiving-and-halloween-cookies/). This snippet illustrates a new reader acquired outside of my own social network that acknowledged his presence in the discussion without stating his opinion on the matter.

These readers acknowledge their awareness by clicking the Like button on the Word Press post or clicking the Like button on the Facebook post. The strategy in reaching out to other niche communities proved effective by discussing topics they were also interested in. Making the post easily findable to those readers was the key to getting them to acknowledge their presence in the discussion, whether or not their opinion on the matter was expressed. Awareness was also created by those readers who felt compelled to share the information of Skipping and Diving to their own personal networks. This is among one of the most effective strategies to gain awareness in networks outside of your own. Connecting certain people to Skipping and Diving, who I knew as effective media sharers, was the key to this strategy. I selectively spoke with people who were usually willing to share good information with their audiences, which almost always read their content. These specific audience members reached out to their own social networks and acquired new members from other states and interests creating another large leap in awareness. Here are two examples of audience members with an evidently large Eigenvector Centrality6, meaning they are not only 1. Parks, M (2011) Measuring Centrality [Power Point Slides]. Sourced from https://uw.instructure.com/courses/150377/files#EVOLUTION %20AND%20TRENDS%20IN%20DIGITAL%20MEDIA%2FWeek %202%20Slides%2FCom%20546%20-%20Parks%20-%20Class %202%20Fall%202011.ppt
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Juneman 8 connected to a lot of people, but are connected to people who know a lot of people. The first example is an undergraduate composition major in California who shares his humorous insight into my project to his own social network.

An audience members Facebook share of the Skipping and Diving blog, resulting in a spike of almost 100 new views of the post that day

The second example of my networking strategy was a fellow blogger who is well connected in the Seattle area (an advantage I could not provide on my own). She shared the Skipping and Diving blog with her well-connected network and spread awareness to a number of new readers.

An audience members Facebook share of the Skipping and Diving blog, resulting in a spike of almost 75 new views of the post that day

An interesting result of having the second media maker share my blog with her network, was that I ended up meeting people out in Seattle who knew me from my blog that this reader had shared with them. Not only did this bring up the opportunity to speak with them face-to-face about the subject, but it also increased my chances in

Juneman 9 spreading awareness through Word-of-Mouth7. Spreading awareness through Word-of-Mouth is extremely important because it allows the marketing message to be passed along with the sharers own credibility, and translated into the norms and culture of their community8. These people I spoke to often ended the conversation with a statement regarding their plans to share the blog with other people they knew who were interested in the subject. The strategy of reaching out to key people to access their separate social networks was a great success. It was incredibly effective to reach people in other networks, physically, and through Word-of-Mouth7. Meeting audience members in public was a great experience in understanding how effective the power of Word-of-Mouth7 was for the blog. An even more powerful realization was that engaging in the physical community that Skipping and Diving was trying to reach was just as important as interacting with the digital community. The strategy in engaging more dumpster divers, who lived in the area, included planned dives, meeting people by the dumpsters, and presenting the faces of real people to my digital audience. The initial goal of the blog was to focus on dumpster diving in the University District of Seattle. However, in the beginning stages of the blog, the readers were mostly people from out of town or state. Connecting my readers to the physical place of action was becoming increasingly important. The next couple of blog posts involved both meeting members of the community who were diving and also bringing new members to Training Sessions. For readers to understand how much the dumpster diving scene was growing in the University District, I needed to show the faces of those who were a part of this community. Providing my readers with a narrative complete with characters would be even more powerful and might help those readers feel more inclined to share the story with other people. With a reason to share the blog, it was becoming easier to spread awareness through current readers. In the first attempt at sharing the story of another group of dumpster divers, Kozinets, R., Valck, K., Wojnicki, A., Wilner, S. (2010) Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities. Journal of Marketing, Vol. 74 (March 2010) pg 71-89.
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Parks, M. (2011) A Word About Word of Mouth [Power Point Slide] Retrieved from https://uw.instructure.com/courses/150377/files#EVOLUTION%20AND %20TRENDS%20IN%20DIGITAL%20MEDIA%2FWeek%203%20Slides %2FCom%20546%20-%20Parks%20-%20Class%203%20Fall %202011.ppt
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Juneman 10 the blog was able to present a story and pictures about meeting fellow divers in one of the most popular diving spots in the neighborhood. This post was particularly effective because it was able to show the community an example of what else is happening in their neighborhood. Alongside with giving readers new faces to look at, the post displayed evidence of our findings which stirred a large amount of discussion over the types of things being thrown away.

A clip from the post Trader Joes Dumpster Diving and Halloween Cookies (http://skippinganddiving.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/trader-joes-dumpsterdiving-and-halloween-cookies/). This snippet illustrates the blogs strategy in displaying real people who are part of the dumpster diving community. It also displays evidence of our findings.

Alongside meeting people in action, Skipping and Diving hosted a training session for those readers who wanted to give diving a try after seeing interesting evidence on the blog. Those readers were taken to three popular spots that have been already featured in the blog. During the training session, readers were given safety tips, shown where to go, and what to get. These training sessions were hosted for those who were interested in diving to learn more about the subject past the written information listed on the blog. The strategy in educating these readers outside of the blog was to give them practical knowledge so that they might spread awareness themselves. Giving the readers their own experience to share with a digital community only created more discussion and awareness. Not only was this effective in creating more discussion on the topic but the group of readers was able to meet divers of the community in action.

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A clip from the post Dumpster Virgins (http://skippinganddiving.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/dumpster-virgins/) This picture shows the Skipping and Diving readers during a training session along with friends they made while diving at Theos Chocolate Factory

Bringing physical community members together with digital ones was a great strategy to strengthen readership, involvement, and discussion. When audience members were given insight into the specific details of diving, they were able to connect with the people they saw on the blog, understand the appeal, and become more aware of every aspect of the action (both danger and appeal). During my creation process, I was very fortunate to have found a number of effective strategies that worked well for my blog. However successful they may have been, I feel that those strategies have more potential than what was gained from them. Converting physical community members into digital ones was a great way to gain more readers and spread awareness to a new network within the community. The place where this strategy fell short was the follow up. After meeting these people, there was no way to involve them in the process later on in the blog. It would have been more effective to plan something like a testimonial section where these people could share their stories and answer questions from the readers. Anything to keep them involved in the blog past the initial meeting would have been more beneficial to maintain discussion and viewership. Also taking advantage of those readers, that shared the blogs content with their network, would have been more effective as well. After their first share, it would have been a great idea to keep those key people more

Juneman 12 involved with the blog, that way their network would come across Skipping and Diving content more frequently and would be more inclined to get involved. In the short time I had to develop the blog, there were so many ideas that were not able to come to fruition. Continuing the blog with a longer timeline will help me develop these strategies, mentioned earlier, a lot more thoroughly. If more time and resources were permitted, I would have spent more time investigating food waste in the neighborhood. In the future, I would like to conduct interviews with store managers in the area discussing food waste and their stores donation policies. Involving the local businesses in the awareness would be rather effective. Discussion would start in their business and resonate through their customers and into the neighborhood. In the future I would also like to spend more time getting involved with the digital communities of dumpster divers in other areas as well. Getting involved with knowledgeable community members will allow me to post more original information for readers to digest. Overall, creating awareness is not possible without discussion. The more often people are talking about the subject, the more they are becoming knowledgeable of it and are sharing that information. All of the effective strategies of this blog were successful because of this discussion element. Without having people share their thoughts, tell their friends about the blog, or meeting people physically, the readership of this blog would be very low. Spreading awareness to the neighborhood is done to benefit those individuals. If those individuals werent being reached, than ultimately the blog would be unsuccessful. However, due to these engagement rich strategies, many of the neighborhoods community members have become aware and hopefully even more will join the discussion in the future.

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Citations 1. Parks, M (2011) Persuasion and Influence [Power Point Slides]. Retrieved from https://uw.instructure.com/courses/150377/files#EVOLUTION %20AND%20TRENDS%20IN%20DIGITAL%20MEDIA%2FWeek %205%20Slides%2FCom%20546%20-%20Parks%20-%20Class %205%20Fall%202011.ppt 2. Parks, M (2011) Measuring Centrality [Power Point Slides]. Sourced from https://uw.instructure.com/courses/150377/files#EVOLUTION %20AND%20TRENDS%20IN%20DIGITAL%20MEDIA%2FWeek %202%20Slides%2FCom%20546%20-%20Parks%20-%20Class %202%20Fall%202011.ppt 3. Parks, M. (2011) A Word About Word of Mouth [Power Point Slide] Retrieved from https://uw.instructure.com/courses/150377/files#EVOLUTION %20AND%20TRENDS%20IN%20DIGITAL%20MEDIA%2FWeek %203%20Slides%2FCom%20546%20-%20Parks%20-%20Class %203%20Fall%202011.ppt 4. Kozinets, R., Valck, K., Wojnicki, A., Wilner, S. (2010) Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities. Journal of Marketing, Vol. 74 (March 2010) pg 7189 5. Selbin, E. (2010). Revolution, Rebellion, Resistance: The Power of Story. London, UK: Zed Books. Pg 26, Chp 2.

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