Last week, Carol Goland, Executive Director for the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA), emailed an announcement about upcoming events
in conjunction with OEFFA's 30th year celebration to be held at Whole
Foods in Columbus on July 23rd through the 25th.  The line-up
demonstrates OEFFA's longstanding commitment to establish a sustainable
local food system.  It also highlights OEFFA's leadership role in
strengthening key relationships along the field-to-fork value chain by
creating opportunities for producers, who supply fresh food for Whole
Foods in Columbus, to meet the consumers who buy it.

These events are important because they spread useful information
about local foods in Columbus to a wider audience and they expand the
network of connections in the value chain.  Both of these contribute to
the sustainability of the local food system.  While an organization
like OEFFA can utilize email and a website as effective online
communication media, how could other social networking tools reach more
people, create more buzz, and attract more participants to the events
and group activities related to local food systems?  Here are some
ideas:

Post events on the LocalFoodSystems.org (LFS) calendar. 
This site has almost 400 members and routinely attracts an audience of
over 800.  Whether members or not, most visitors have networks that
carry LFS messages far beyond the LFS community to countless others. 
In other words, an event posted on the LFS calendar may easily reach
thousands.  By the way, a hearty thanks to Carol Goland and other
members of the Leap into Local Foods Workshop
planning committee who had the foresight to charter the original Ohio
Local Food Systems Collaborative OLFSC) website in support of that
event.  The capability of the OLFSC to help people advance local food
systems was sufficiently evident even in its initial format to garner a
major grant from the USDA to offer more online features and
functionality, engage more people, and expand the scope of local food
systems through social networking processes and tools.  The LFS is a
direct outcome of that grant with much more to come over the next three
years!

Engage the LFS Storytellers group.  Dr. Ross MacDonald,
a research scientist at Ohio State and member of the USDA grant
implementation team, moderates the group.  The purpose is to establish
a cadre of online "reporters" who interview and write about individuals
and groups involved in local food systems.  The first wave of
storytellers is comprised of student interns from the Wooster, OH area,
but their ranks are growing.  No doubt they will become a sustained
presence on the LFS site!  Their approach is somewhat akin to an online
version of the Foxfire series
of magazine articles written by high school students under the guidance
of their English teacher and originally published in the 1960's and
70's.  While the Foxfire series dealt with Appalachian life and lore,
the LFS Storytellers are focused on local food systems.  If you have a
local food system story for others to know, send a note to Ross to
arrange an interview.  And if you have written a story for others to
read, post it to the LFS Storytellers group.

Setup a group on Facebook for your organization.  LFS has 400 members and reaches 1000+.  Facebook has over 200 million members.  Do the math.  Talk about viral marketing
opportunities!  Of course, to create a group on Facebook requires that
YOU be a member of Facebook.  Are you?  Is your profile complete and
up-to-date?  Have you connected with other individuals and groups who
share your interests?  Have you alerted others to what you are doing
and invited them to join you as a friend or fan?  There is no better
way to reach millions and garner their support to advance common
causes--and it is free!

Follow and be followed on Twitter. 
With participants on Twitter numbering in the millions, this social
networking medium continues to defy the odds and assert itself as one
of the quickest ways to alert others of what's happening as the action
unfolds.  The recent unrest in Iran
offers an example of the global respectability Twitter gained through
this type of ground truth reporting.  Whereas you may announce an
upcoming event on Facebook and invite friends and fans to attend,
Twitter "tweets" provide the real-time updates as events are underway. 
In combination the two are powerful social networking tools to reach
audiences.

Attract news media to report on your organization.  The July 12th edition of the Columbus Dispatch includes an article entitled Hope, gardens nourish town DHL left. 
The story centers on current efforts by residents of Wilmington, Ohio
to establish a local food system as part of an overall strategy to
build local green economy.  Their action is in response to the decision
by DHL to close its Wilmington operations by this summer.  DHL's
announcement to close made last summer, drew national attention to this
community.  The media continue to monitor progress in Wilmington for
the potential model of economic recovery in the midst of adverse
circumstances the community displays.  Social networking connections
like Facebook and Twitter keep the community's efforts on the radar for
media consideration.  It pays off.

In summary, an example: Last week's New York Times Sunday Magazine featured an article entitled Street Farmer about Will Allen and Growing Power, Inc.,
an urban farming organization in Milwaukee, WI. he founded in 1995. 
Mr. Allen's success as a community builder, educator, mentor as well as
urban farmer earned him recognition from the MacArthur Foundation as a MacArthur Fellow
in 2008.  Currently, he is using the $500,000 "no strings attached"
award to package his experiences into an outreach program that helps
urban communities in Milwaukee and elsewhere adopt his methods and
establish sustainable local food systems.  In addition to the website,
Mr. Allen draws upon many social networking tools such as Facebook, administered by Erika Allen his daughter and manager of the Growing Power, Inc. Chicago office, and Twitter to greatly expand his communication network.

The NY Times article continues to generate more interest in urban
farming, in general, and Mr. Allen's techniques, in particular.  To see
for yourself, download and install Seesmic Desktop
to view updates to your Facebook and Twitter accounts simultaneously. 
Create another column to highlight on a term / trend you want to
track.  One I use is "urban farming".  Following last Sunday's article,
the buzz showed up on Twitter the next day and continued over the next
three days.  The July 19th edition of the NY Times magazine will give a
report on the comments made about the article in the two weeks since it
was published.  No doubt this will launch another wave of updates and
tweets, but you don't have to take my word for it, you can see for
yourself!

Enjoy your immersion into the universe of expansive, vital, and
adaptive social networks.  Use that connectivity to get the word out
about yourself, your organization, and your cause!  Find others,
leverage each other's resources, openly share ideas, collaborate,
wisely utilize what is already available.  The results will benefit you
and all with whom you are connected.

Please let me know your experiences.  I am committed to give you
updates on mine on a regular basis.  We can learn together and from
each other!