Community Management for NASA Partnership
LAUNCH was a joint partnership between NASA, USAID, Department of State, and NIKE. LAUNCH identifies, showcases and supported innovative approaches to global challenges. LAUNCH was listed by Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance as one of the “Top 25 Innovations in Government” in 2013. I served as the community manager for LAUNCH.
Every year LAUNCH held a competition to discover 10 game-changing innovations. Previous LAUNCH challenges have been themed around health, energy, water, and waste. This video helps to describe the LAUNCH partnership.
When I was brought on to support the partnership, LAUNCH had a nascent digital footprint. As the LAUNCH Community Manager I developed content to engage the LAUNCH community. The primary focus of my efforts was to create a dialog with potential applicants, engage journalists that cover sustainability news, and promote LAUNCH alumni.
LAUNCH online platforms included UStream, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Vimeo. To feed those networks, I took photographs, wrote blogs posts, and supported video livestreaming efforts through livechats and livetweeting at event locations. I worked with the partners to coordinate consistent messaging and engagement. Our strategies led to coverage on technology websites like PopSci.com and Mashable as well as sustainability websites.
One particularly satisfying experience was time spent at Nike World Headquarters attending ideation sessions on a gamification component for the LAUNCH2020 summit. The final result was the development of a tablet-based game used during the LAUNCH2020 Summit which announced the latest fabrics challenge to the world.