As a first time exhibitor at Michigan Recycling Coalition’s Annual Conference, I was pleased to be welcomed by such a friendly crowd. The folks at MRC and RRS treated me as though I was already a part of the tightly-knit recycling family in Michigan.
A number of Re-TRAC Connect programs were featured in the news last month. Here’s the recap:
How do I stack up against the rest of the sector? How do I determine our baseline in order to measure success or failure?
These are some of the questions that Rob Cook, CEO of the Ontario Waste Management Association (OWMA), set out to answer with the help of Re-TRAC Connect. He determined that the first step towards assisting his member organizations in answering these questions is to start with province-wide data collection from landfills. OWMA aims to expand the program to other facilities by the end of this year. Rob Cook was recently profiled in the Solid Waste & Recycling news.
Things are heating up in our office! Several Emergineers are competing this spring to see who can grow the best peppers.
To keep it interesting (like gardening isn’t riveting enough!), a PEPPER CHALLENGE has been proposed. The rules are simple – milestones in the lives of our peppers will be tracked and a point will be assigned to each milestone. The most points at the end wins and is crowned the Pepper Champion!
We developed a bingo card (Earth Day edition) with the goal of completing the whole thing so each of us pledged to complete a square. Some were easier than others (Cathie made sure she took the stairs to our fourth story office instead of using the elevator this morning) and I have pledged to ‘Slay vampire energy’ when I get home tonight.
When we encounter a challenge we typically:
1) Learn about the issue
2) Reflect on past issues to seek similar solutions
3) Brainstorm possible solutions based on all known criteria
4) Propose solution and come to an agreement with everyone involved
5) Implement
6) Schedule a future evaluation
The Re-TRAC Connect Blog is our solution to conquer the following challenge:
“How do we communicate new features to our 18,000+ users without overwhelming their inbox?”
The Program Details Page Gets a New Look
The details pages for all programs, directories, and tools has been redesigned so that their descriptions and geographic availability information have been moved to the top of the page. If you have already joined the program, directory, or tool, its description will be abbreviated so that your organizations will be displayed instead.
They say everything is bigger in Texas. Well, they weren’t kidding! We’re proud to announce that the Texas Recycling Data Initiative (TRDI) results are in and it was a BIG success. TRDI is a voluntary, collaborative, and confidential study that, with the help of Re-TRAC Connect, quantifies the amount of recycling that occurred in Texas in 2013 and establishes a baseline recycling rate to measure future progress.
Keeping Things Moving
Program Managers Only
The Move Responses feature can now be used for one-time only surveys.
We’ve been in love with data over 12 years and the relationship has never been stronger. As you know, February is the month of love – so in the spirit of sharing love, we’d like to take this opportunity to share some of our favourite stories about data. While these stories are attractive to the mind, we’re sure that you’ll also find them heartwarming.
Exploring Uncharted Territory
In addition to our many chart options, Re-TRAC will soon be releasing a new style that is based on national and state/provincial maps.
