By Menachem Wecker
When Zixiang (Max) Chen attended his first Friday Forum at Provost Steven Lerman’s house last January, the rising sophomore in GW’s Business School quickly realized he was the only attendee who hadn’t dressed up.
His t-shirt, which declared “Don’t be trashy, recycle,” turned out to be semi-appropriate, though, as the speaker was Frank Sesno, director of the School of Media and Public Affairs and founder and host of Planet Forward.
“It was so awesome to listen to such a wise person speak to us students in a casual setting,” Mr. Chen said.
Later that day, Mr. Chen emailed Mr. Sesno to tell him that he was going to Greensburg, Kan., a town totaled by a tornado in 2007, for Alternative Spring Break.
“Since Greensburg is rebuilding itself as one of the ‘most sustainable’ cities in America, I wondered if he’d be interested in having me do a project on Greensburg for Planet Forward,” Mr. Chen said.
Mr. Sesno emailed back to connect Mr. Chen with some staff members at Planet Forward, who showed him how to film. At the time, Mr. Chen simply knew he wanted to spread the word about the “really cool things going on in Greensburg,” which he believed had “such a huge message for the world.”
He had no idea how large his story would become.
In Greensburg, Mr. Chen filmed a lot, particularly interviews with pedestrians. “To get people pumped up about the project, I told them that it could be possibly featured on TV,” he said. “Though to be honest, I hardly believed at the time that just a small project could amount to something so large.”
When he returned to Washington, Mr. Chen worked with the Planet Forward team trimming and editing the footage. After completing his final exams, Mr. Chen started an online communications internship at Planet Forward to complement his internship in GW’s Office of Sustainability.
But when the Planet Forward team posted a three-minute clip to Mr. Chen’s Greensburg project on YouTube, it only attracted mild interest. “I was quite disappointed actually,” Mr. Chen said.
But Mr. Chen chose not to quit. Instead, Greensburg’s greatest fan emailed Mr. Sesno and reiterated the importance of the city’s story and its connection to other natural disasters, like the ones in Joplin, Mo., and Japan.
Mr. Sesno discussed the story with the rest of the Planet Forward team. The story was such a big hit that Fuzz Hogan, executive producer of the program, called PBS that afternoon to pitch Greensburg. PBS was excited.
“Within just that one day, my idea went from being just a lonely YouTube video to being scheduled as the next PBS Nightly Business Report special featuring Planet Forward,” Mr. Chen said. “Needless to say, I was incredibly excited.”
The “phoenix-from-ashes” story of Greensburg that Planet Forward produced for PBS, which ran on June 16, used clips from Mr. Chen’s original video, he said. The piece focused on the corporate perspective, specifically the LEED Platinum-certified BTI-John Deere dealership in Greensburg.
“Whereas ‘going green’ is oftentimes an ethical decision, the Nightly Business Report showed how it can be an economically beneficial decision as well,” Mr. Chen said.
“I never dreamt that my project would get featured on national television,” he said. “I just wanted to help spread the word about the amazing stuff that is happening in Greensburg, because they have so much to teach the rest of the world.”