Over the past few days I have been trying to get Athens’ Own’s twitter up and running again. I think that twitter is an easy way for local businesses to connect with students, the majority of which use this form of social media. I first went through and followed a large number of local businesses, made some connections between the Facebook and twitter account, and then began posting a few tweets about dry aged beef.

I was looking at some of my favorite twitter accounts, the majority of which are social issue based. I noticed that a lot of these pages had graphics that they used to show statistics and facts about the causes they were passionate about. Having some graphic design past, I decided that a post about why eating local beef could be something that would work well for Athens’ Own Beef.

It wasn’t until Con was asking me about where this project could be useful that I started to think about the big picture; thinking about other small business in the area that I realized that we didn’t simply need a graphic for Athens’ Own, we needed a campaign for local foods and products. A campaign that could:

1. Have multiple different graphics that could be placed around Athens. Each could have a similar slogan and graphic styles, so that if they were all placed in windows, people walking down Court Street would see and recognize they were together. Think this could get a conversation or at least an action out of these students.
2. These graphics can be generalized to the big picture of eating local. This means that Athens’ Own could be providing resources for other local businesses to have an easy and free way to market their businesses. This will just further increase the community wellness and resilience that Athens’ Own strives to achieve.

So what products could use this?

Of course Beef, which I had already started on. But other products and businesses that Con partners with could be Beer, Cheese, Coffee, Produce, Baked Goods and a variety of local foods in restaurants that could benefit from a graphic about helping local businesses rather than just a local product.

While making my graphic I was trying to think of a campaign name that would work well. It would need to be spunky and grab attention, and in today’s marketing world, the shorter the better. I finally thought “what will it take for people to Get It?” and there was my slogan. Get It? We Do.

Using a tad of subliminal messages, this is kind of like saying “This is easy to understand, did you not already shop locally? Wow thanks dude.” It won’t outright make the consumer feel stupid, it would only kind of tug at their intelligence my making it sound like they missed out on some great smart and trendy way to be a good buyer. And by ending it with a little quip saying that as a business we do, means that the customer will want to associate themselves with the brand, or at least use it as an outlet to make a local purchase. It’s then that the delicious product seals them in, and they are now a faithful customer.

I think that though this may be a great way to get consumers interested in buying local, it’s still important that this campaign is going to be a way for sellers to have access to graphics and advertising they may not get to use if they are either not familiar with graphic design, or if they don’t have a way to get marketing for their small business.

After I have a few good graphics for specific businesses, my plan is to go from business to business on Court Street and ask them if they would be interested in putting the literature up in their window. Then the next step would be using social media to start moving the campaign out of Athens, and maybe utilizing some social change or other twitter accounts to get it moving.

I think this may be a good way to “get the conversation started” on resilience and community wellness. Starting a marketing campaign that’s free for local businesses could spark interest for people who wouldn’t think of just giving their work up, and trying to tell them that it’s the big picture that matters now.

I took a minute to think about the impact of the FEMA Incident Response Training, and how it could apply to a business. It reminded me a lot of how my job at Chipotle was ran, with different managers for different employees to respond to, and a type of horizontal and precise lineage of command. During the busiest dinner hours, we had to remain at our stations, no exception, and those who were prepping had to do so according to the most recent shortage.

Though this is not and identical concept to using ICS for disasters, it did help me put in to context how FEMA is so efficient. If everyone reports to their job and their manager, then things will move much more smoothly and there will not be as many accidents as people know their specific job and how to do it. And often when people are faced with disaster they can be freaked out or may not function as well without a specific plan or chain of command to follow.

For Athens’ Own, this could mean responding to local incidents or product issues quickly by having a commander give distinct directions. If thinking about Resilience, this could be even more useful because sometimes the actions put forward to promote sustainability are not executed to their full ability because no one has a distinct job or goal.

If there were to be more direct actions and committees that were working to create a more resilient community, like how Athens’ Own is, and they were to use the leadership patterns described in FEMA, there would be much more progress. Community leaders would be able to designate assistance to certain areas of need, and there wouldn’t be efforts lost in translation. In order for there to be real change or progress there needs to be clear goals and there needs to be people working towards that goal. I think that FEMA’s ICS training could be an invaluable asset for organizations and businesses.

Con and I spent the day driving from business to business collecting payments as well. Aside from having the opportunity to get a full tour of the Jackie O’s Brewery, Con also gave me some insight to how he keeps track of sales invoices and how he keeps record of Accounts Receivable. Though we have spent plenty of time in Accounting class talking about accounts receivable, it was interesting to see the documentation at work for an actual business. It was also great to meet the people and businesses that are affected positively by Athens’ Own, and in general meet some of the lovely people in Athens.

I began my day at the Broadwell Hill Learning Center being greeted by Shiloh and Tala, and of course getting covered in hair as they begged for attention. Once they got their hellos, I began talking with Kathy about how she raises her worms and the concepts of verma-compost. I had never known that worms could be so picky about their environment. They hate light, need the right amount of moisture, and like certain foods.

This was also the first time I learned how Athens’ Own takes a lot of food waste from local businesses to create multiple different composting bins. I think this is a great method, and I think in the future if larger businesses could begin employing this form of off grounds composting for their food waste, this could be a great way for local farmers to build composting businesses, and to slowly heal the earth we have been filling with trash for the last century or more. It was around this time that I joined Constantine to talk while he replaced the wheel bearings on the Athens’ Own truck.

We began our discussion with the topic of how to use my Holistic Goal. Constantine talked about how creating a personal holistic goal can make it easier to align community and team members together. By seeing where each others goals are similar, you can create plans together to help one another achieve those goals. An example could be how my holistic goal includes having meaningful work; work that helps others. Because Athens’ Own has the goal to help community members and to create a better local economy, our goals are parallel and can work together to help reach those individual goals.

Con also used the term “compounded interest”, a common financial term, but he used it to describe how a person can “invest” in another person’s human capital, and in the long run this can lead to them receiving “interest” off each other, by taking in interest in one another. By taking the time to help one another, you can in turn benefit yourself. This works in to the marketing world by showing how taking time to include people in the marketing discussion, who may be without a business major, can make a marketing team stronger. Application of this could be using biology and conservation science students to help create a marketing plan for Broadwell Hill and Kathy’s verma-compost business; using students with Journalism or Communications majors can help a marketing team plan different ways to publicize a company like Athens’ Own. I thought this was a great way to think outside the business box, by creating a team with multiple different backgrounds. This can help to stimulate compound growth by utilizing human capital.

A specific discipline Constantine took particular interest in was that of an actuarial. This discipline uses numbers and statistics to help create an idea of what the future might look like; specifically for Con, what the world will look like for my generation’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren if people continue to take our forests and environment for granted. There needs to be a push for people to realize that the health of their communities and the Earth is a necessity, , and for people to start thinking about how to get the word out to millennials especially, because we are the next people to work for the world.

In the context of the Athens’ Own, Con describes it as being “in” internship, rather than being at an internship. The difference is that Athens’ Own wants to create a work experience that is indicative of the real world and that helps those who are “in” internship cultivate new thought paths while on their malleable journey towards the Worker Readiness Certification. Con described the opportunity to use modern gaming styles as a way to get students more involved in an internship experience, and also to get them involved in the revival of Earth. This game would have levels, one could be an individual project, such as reading At Home with Holistic Management, and others could be team based, such as a project similar to Ohio University College of Business cluster. Each level would use different incentives and goals to help keep the “player” motivated, but also to help them build up interest in the community and economy around them.

My main takeaway from our discussion was the importance of teams, and how the way to make influence is to work in groups, even if they’re not your typical persons. Thinking outside the box, and trying to find ways to get millennials involved with each other and with their surrounding communities is the only way we’re going to be able to insight change. Before I left, Constantine was putting back together the wheel bearing and began to explain to me how you would typically tighten the final bolt that much, but for how the car had aged that’s what was appropriate. I took this in my own small metaphorical way of thinking of how certain teams, like the parts of the bearing, will fit together differently, and just like our discussion about making unique teams, the car needed its own unique touch to work its best. I also learned that I should never over tighten a wheel bearing if I ever need to work on one in the future.