Posts Tagged ‘Grassroots and Groundworks’

Building Community with Corned Beef Sandwiches

May 19th, 2010

The highlight of the Grassroots and Groundwork 2010 Conference for me, last week, was Paul Saginaw’s keynote speech.  Paul is co-owner and founding partner of Zingerman’s Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Paul’s speech left me inspired in a number of ways, but one specific piece of advice he gave is still ringing.  He described that as a new business owner, he made community a priority.  He knew he was going to give back from the start, and he has accomplished that in more ways than one. 

It takes money, honey

In the company’s spreadsheet, alongside salaries and wages, benefits, utilities, insurance and a host of other operating expenses was the term “community.”  Money allocated to this line item was used to strengthen community in greater Ann Arbor Michigan along with helping staff when they faced difficulties. Many businesses owners look to give back after they achieve a level of prosperity.  What’s special is that Paul and co-owner Ari Weinzweig built this financial contribution into their business from the start.

Community and opportunity for employees

Paul described that he and Ari’s business mantra from the start wouldn’t allow for reproductions of Zingerman’s Delicatessen.  But, after ten years of successful operation, they realized that expanding the business was necessary so that growth opportunities existed for staff.  They did this by making their staff partners in an expanding business, dubbed Zingerman’s Community of Businesses.  The Zingerman name now includes a total of nine companies with 590 employees and fifteen partners, including a bakehouse, creamery and candy shop. 

Feeding their community

Not many for-profit businesses can say they’ve started a nonprofit, but Zingerman’s can.  In 1988, the company’s philanthropy founded Food Gatherers, a nonprofit that redistributes food from restaurants to those who need it most.  Today, Food Gatherers redistributes more than seven tons of food a day and feeds almost 44,000 people each year. 

 

There are more, but I’ll stop at three.  We often believe that building “community” is the responsibility of nonprofits, economic development groups, and government entities.  Paul Saginaw and Zingerman’s Community of Businesses proves that businesses can contribute to community in powerful ways, if they’re willing to take the challenge. 

 

Photo credit:  Ashley Dinges-Flickr

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Community Development, Economic Development | Comments (0)

Lessons Learned: Using Social Media to help Rural Entrepreneurs

May 12th, 2010

Lindsey and I have had a lot of fun this year helping businesses in Miner County, SD establish social media strategies.  On Thursday of this week, we have an opportunity to present what we’ve been doing and what we’ve learned doing it at the Grassroots & Groundwork Conference in Portland, OR. 

The title of our presentation reads “Using Social Media to Support Entrepreneurship in Rural Communities.”  But what does that mean?  What are we talking about?

Regular readers know that we’ve used a three-part process in working with local entrepreneurs:  (1) Skill building training sessions on how to use tools like Facebook and Twitter;  (2) One-on-one technical assistance with interested business owners on developing their strategies;  and (3)  “Social media networking” events where people talk about the problems they are facing and learn from each other. 

We’re not going to give away our presentation — at least not yet. But we want to share a few lessons we have learned from our efforts. 

Lessons learned…

1) Start small. It is tempting to jump into the social media pool with both feet, but we’ve learned that dipping your toes in the water is a more manageable way to get started. Pick one tool, and master it before you try to take on others. Starting small also allows you to better manage the time you’re investing in social media.

2) Social media is not about advertising. It’s about building relationships, building trust, engaging your customer base, and being a resource. This is a paradigm shift that some businesses have struggled to embrace. New ways of doing things take time.

3) The Curse of Knowledge can be a barrier to teaching. Dan & Chip Heath write about this in their book Made to Stick. The more we know about a subject, the more difficult it is for us to communicate the subject effectively with our audience. It’s important to communicate with people at their comfort level.

4) Branding work should come first. Social media is a great tool for building stronger brands, but if your business or organization doesn’t understand it’s brand, social media isn’t going to help,

5) Push through the discomfort. It’s tempting to stop (or never start) using social media when you realize that you are opening yourself up to the world in a new way-”you mean people can write whatever they want on our wall?” But, often rewards await those who push through the discomfort of the unknown. You can always change your settings if you encounter a problem, but in the mean time you may be surprised at the trust that is built with your customer base if you are open and willing to talk about the good and bad sides of your businesses. Where else are you able to hear what people are really thinking? Use it to your advantage to build better products and better service.

Helping businesses in our community with social media strategies has been fun, but it’s been challenging. We’re not social media experts, so we feel like we’ve extended beyond our skill level.   Whenever these inadequacies get me down, I just remind myself; “At least we’re trying!  If we don’t help, who will?”

That’s why sharing opportunities like Grassroots & Groundwork are important.  We’re willing to stick our necks out and share what we know with the hope that others will share with us.  That’s what we mean when we say “building a deeper conversation about rural.”  Whether you attending the conference or not; whether you are a social media expert or novice; whether you work in rural or urban community;  you have valuable information to contribute.  And we hope you’ll take this opportunity to share a bit of what you’ve learned by leaving a comment.

 

Note:  I’ll (@Michael_Knutson) be tweeting from the conference using the hastag #G&G2010.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Rural, Training and Events | Comments (3)