My name is Matt Keene and I work with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Evaluation Support Division, where I help to coordinate the Environmental Evaluators Network (EEN). The purpose of the EEN is to advance the field of environmental evaluation through more systematic and collective learning. The EEN’s 5th annual Forum will be held in Washington D.C. June 7-8, 2010.
A hurricane is a powerful and complex system. As it spins and gathers strength out over the ocean, some of its energy is transferred to the water’s surface… stirring it up, causing chaos. But nature seeks stability. 
The new energy in the ocean organizes into waves that move away from the hurricane’s eye and toward a destination where it will get to work on a rocky point or a sandy beach.
Hot Tip: Join the EEN LinkedIn Group to connect and collaborate. I like to think about the Environmental Evaluators Network as part of the organizing process existing mainly in the space between the eye of the storm and the coast. Demands for evidence of ‘what works’ have stirred things up and the resulting groundswell causes some to float and some to sink though they may be distant from decisions to measure and evaluate. There are many and diverse interests in the space between storm and shore. The EEN facilitates more efficient self-ordering in that space so that we are more systematic and purposeful in channeling information flows and surfacing goals and incentives that sustain a more effective environmental community. Join the EEN LinkedIn Group at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1773788&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr.
Rad Resource: Have a gander at the website www.nfwf.org/een and agendas, presentations and participants of past and future EEN events. The emphasis on evidence is not exclusive to one country or one organization but is globally disperse, so – naturally – EEN nodes are forming. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and The George Washington University Trachtenberg School as co-sponsors. And in addition to the annual Forum in Washington D.C., Environment Canada will host its 3rd EEN event in September 2010, while planning is underway for 2011 events in Europe, Mexico and the Hawaiian Islands.
Rad Resource: Check out journal editions written and edited by EEN participants.
- New Directions in Evaluations – Environmental Program and Policy Evaluation: New Directions for Evaluation, Summer 2009*
- Evaluation and Program Planning – Challenges in Evaluation of Environmental Education Programs and Policies, May 2010
Cool Tricks: Getting to work as performance requirements pound the coast…
*If you are an American Evaluation Association member, you have free electronic access to all past volumes of New Directions – just sign on to the AEA website using your AEA username and password and navigate over to the journals under the Members Only menu.