Green Drinks: Hyphos and Environmental Activism

One of the great things about launching a website geared toward meeting people is that you get to meet a lot of really interesting people in the process. It seems like the idea of a social network that encourages people to actually be social resonates with a lot of people. Some have been so intrigued that they’ve joined the Hyphos team at UConn, and I’m really thankful to be able to work with such an intelligent, enthusiastic, and diverse group of people. Others are just excited to use the site because they see how they could use it to help them pursue their own passions– and they can’t wait for the time when everyone uses Hyphos so that they can find even more people who share their interests.

 

One such person is Shane– I met him on launch day when he flew past our booth in a hurry to get to class, with, as always, business-casual clothes, retro frames, and a goatee. He’d said he’d be back because he was curious about Hyphos, and I’m glad he kept his word. Just as we were packing up the booth, he strolled up and started talking. As soon as I explained the site to him, he immediately saw its application in his life: he’s all about environmental activism and loves to meet people who share his passion. So he agreed to talk more some other time when I wasn’t struggling to pack all our promotional materials into my roommate’s car and running late to my evening class.

So a few weeks later, I sat down with him over dinner in the dining hall, and he told me a bit more about himself and his desire do be involved in environmentalism. He explained that living off campus has made it much harder for him to get involved in environmentally-focused activities with fellow students, concluding frustratedly:  “I can’t be the only one who’s 26 and can’t come to campus at 9 PM for a club meeting, and there must be others interested in environmentalism here.”  But with the current social technologies, his ability to find those other people is significantly limited.  So instead of getting involved with things on campus, he went to some Green Drinks, environmentally-focused social gatherings organized through the website greendrinks.org.

Green Drinks are all about meeting people.  The About page on their site explains that, just like Hyphos, they’re trying to engineer what is normally left up to serendipity, those “oh-since-you-like-X-I have-to-introduce-you-to-so-and-so-who-knows-all-about-it” moments.  Basically, environmentalists in a city get in touch through the website and arrange a night out where they share the latest that they’ve learned from environmental blogs, network with each other, and arrange trips to protests and the like. Through social networking at events like Green Drinks, Shane was actually able to arrange a trip down to Washington D.C. to protest the Keystone Pipeline.

He believes that by coordinating with existing contacts he’s made through Green Drinks, and new ones he’ll make with Hyphos, he will have many more opportunities to engage with others in the Storrs community to promote environmental awareness. He thinks Hyphos can be a means for college students to merge with their broader community to work toward share goals. He’s just brimming with ideas, and I’m looking forward to talking with him again to hear all the new ways he’s thought of using Hyphos.

If you want to meet people interested in Environmentalism, or anything you’re passionate about, head over to Hyphos.com, and get social!