The Greening of Gavin

Seven News – Help to Reduce Your Cost of Living

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West garden featuring solar panels

For those who missed it, including all my international readers, here is the 1 min 48 second news spot I had on the telly last night.


You can read the article they wrote here; http://au.news.yahoo.com/vic/a/21907658/help-to-reduce-your-cost-of-living/

I had a great time during the interview, which actually went for about 50 minutes, and there was a full tour of the garden as well that took about another hour.  Not to worry that they didn’t show more, as they did capture the essence of how we live.

So, enjoy the video!

Looking for more videos about what we do around here, subscribe to my YouTube channel.  There are over 71 videos about sustainable living to learn from.

What did you think of the news spot?

Home Recording Studio Setup and Media Strategy

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Lots of people over on YouTube have asked me about how my home recording studio is set up.

Gavin Webber in his home recording studio

To that end, yesterday I decided to put together a quick video to show you all how it works, and I also wanted to discuss my media strategy in this blog post.

Link: http://youtu.be/qi4BUlhZHDs



Here are some details that you might have not caught on the video (note some links are affiliate).

All the home recording studio equipment is turned off when not in use, and uses a minimal amount of electricity.  Besides, my home is powered by GreenPower when the sun isn’t shining, and powered by my own solar PV when it is.

Lets talk a bit about my communications strategy.

I believe that to spread a message, a good message, you need to do it in the best way possible.  If the media that you produce is of dubious quality, then no one will watch or listen to it, therefore making the message mute.  Same goes for photos on a blog.  This is why I decided to use this tools to develop the three podcasts and many videos.  

I also have a media strategy of ‘be everywhere‘.  By this I mean all forms of media and social media, like audio, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram, all leading back to this blog.  If someone finds my green message on Facebook, it leads back here.  If someone finds one of my video Tutorials, it leads back here.  People then get to read more about our lifestyle and hopefully get some ideas to green up their own.

Something that Tanya Ha said during her podcast interview (episode 51) really struck a chord with me.  She said;

“There’s the idea of what I call ‘people like us‘  or ‘someone like me‘, and you know incidentally, just for your information Gavin, I am sure your listeners might be interested in this is that I was on the judging panel for the green lifestyle awards where we named you out as Local hero.

There were quite a few nominations for that, and one of the things that came up for a fair bit of discussion was that it is unusual that we get a male, someone like you, your age group and your profession, that cares about the environment so we recognise that the potential to reach an audience that isn’t reached say by the deep green environment groups or at the other end, someone like me.  That’s really important. So we liked the fact that you’re a guy living out at Melton, it was quite unexpected.  It wasn’t someone living in Brunswick or living in Byron Bay, and that’s really important.”

Tanya went on to mention that this was  her own communications strategy early on, and she reached out to people like herself and planted the seed of mainstream environmentalism in a subtle way.  Have a listen to the episode at around the 5 minute mark to hear more.

It might sound like I am blowing my own trumpet (maybe a little), but it is a simple communications strategy.  The best possible audio and video so that spreading the message to ‘people like us’ that is pleasing to the ear and eye, so that they like the look and sound of the message and take interest in what I/we have to say.  Spreading an environmental message to the masses is difficult at the best of times, so I try to make it easy.

So what do you think?  Is my media strategy working?  How did you find me, what led you to this blog, and how long have you been reading, listening, or watching?

I would love to hear from you via comment.

Peak Challenge by Linda Cockburn

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Peak Challenge is the next exciting crowd funded project being produced by Linda Cockburn, Author of Living the Good Life – How One Family Changed Their World from their Own backyard.

Some of you may have read her first book.  I have, and it help to change my world view.

I know that her’s was one of the first books that I borrowed from our local library very soon after my green epiphany way back in 2006.  It was my first inspirational introduction to sustainable living, and what could be achieved on a suburban block.  Not only that, it was hilarious as well.

Linda, Trevor, and Caleb

Linda also writes a blog about her new simple life down in Tasmania at Living The Good Life, which is also a good read.  She has documented the entire build of their sustainable house.  Very impressive.

Anyway, Linda sent me this email via my facebook page the other day, letting me know that she has a new project, and asked if I could help spread the word.  Here it is.

Hi Gavin, 

I’d like to share a 4 minute animated movie I’m working on, Peak challenge. The idea is to avoid preaching to the converted about our environmental woes, and try to reach people who know it’s big, but who feel reluctant to get involved. Though the first four minutes is the woe – it’s difficult not to start with the typical structure of woe followed by practical responses to it.

Which is what I plan to do. There are so many mind traps to fall into that stop people from being part of the change. The movie will explore 12 of those traps. It then goes into the four types of change required. Most of us are stuck on only one response to our issues, building resilience, and it needs to be a four-pronged approach. Most of you are high up there on direct action, one of the 4. 

Plus the movie will provide a way to create real change, not just the change your light bulbs and grow your own carrots kind of change, but a personalised, printable action plan for the kinds of change required to make a difference.

You can check out the first four minutes of movie at http://www.pozible.com/project/35124If you think the project has value if you could spread the word via your FB page would be great.
Thanks! 

Linda Cockburn



Well dear readers, I liked the first four minutes so much that I not only posted it on the TGOG facebook page, but I personally pledged $50 of my hard earned cash towards the project.  Linda is an excellent communicator, so I expect that the rest of the movie will map out the issues, and present a do-able action plan for all of us.

Looking forward to seeing the completed movie, however the project really needs your help.

If you think this is a worthy message to spread, then follow the link to the project page and pledge a few bucks towards the making of this movie.

Linda would not only be very grateful, but your pledge will help spread this valuable message in an easy-to-digest way.