Can I Really Impact Denver?

That was one of the questions that ran through my head on January 14th, as I entered the first day of the Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation’s (DMCLF) Impact Denver class. I also wondered what could little ole’ me have to offer to the community? How will I make an impact and what exactly does that mean? Although I fully understand the power that people can have within their community, I was a bit unsure of my ability to make a difference beyond my company or my family.

During the past six months the DMCLF staff organized information-filled classes about issues and topics that impact our local community. My classmates and I heard from various speaker including Tom Clark, executive vice president, Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation; James Mejía, CEO, Denver Preschool Program; Anne Warhover, president & CEO, The Colorado Health Foundation; Jamie Van Leeuwen, former project manager, Denver’s Road Home; KieAnn Brownell, president, Metro Denver Sports Commission; and Councilman Michael Hancock, Denver City Council, District 11. Topics ranged from education and health and wellness, to sports and culture, to community service and board involvement. Regardless of the topic the message was always the same – the only way to make an impact is to get involved. By the end of each class the question was no longer, “will I make an impact,” but instead “how can I not?”

On our final day of class, Councilman Hancock asked one thing – forgo an hour of ‘me time’ each month and give that hour back to the community. Recently, The Denver Business Journal published an article about Denver ranking 12th among 51 large U.S. metro areas for volunteering. On average, Denver residents donated about 40.4 hours of volunteer community service a year, representing $1.6 billion a year in labor. Imagine the impact that would be made if each of us upped the ante and gave one hour of time each week and also financially committed to supporting one charity – maybe Denver would then be propelled to #1 on this list?

Last Thursday, the Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation graduated 49 members of the 2010 class of Impact Denver. In addition to realizing that I can make an impact, I will forever be bonded to my classmates through our shared experiences in our class and our future endeavors in our community. On graduation day, we voted on our class project. As a class, we have committed to using our time and talent to assist Denver Public Schools, Slow Food Denver, Sprout City Farms and it various partners in the launch of its school garden and school farm pilot program at McGlone Elementary. Over the next year, the Impact Denver 2010 class has committed to our hour per month, what are you willing to do?

~ Kristina

Food With Benefits: Do We Care About the Science Or Are We Just Suckers for Good Marketing?

We are bombarded with conflicting and confusing information about health and nutrition every time we click on media, pick up the paper or drive around town. Billions of dollars are dedicated to food research each year, but that research often takes a long time to trickle down to information consumers can really use. I think we all know we need to eat more fruits and vegetables and probably shouldn’t consume an entire bag of snack-sized chocolates, at least not in one sitting.

When it comes to marketing food with benefits, weeding through the science can be a daunting task.

Here’s an example on the science front from one of our clients. One well-researched and proven natural plant compound which has anticancer activity, sulforaphane, is readily available to everyone in its precursor (sulforaphane glucosinolate, often referred to as SGS) from broccoli sprouts. These sprouts are available in fresh produce sections of supermarkets. And let me tell you, they are great on salads and in sandwiches.

The real question is, do we, the consumer, care?

I attended Naturally Boulder’s Spring Fling last month and heard Michael Funk, chairman of the board for UNFI, a multibillion-dollar company and the largest publicly traded U.S. wholesaler of natural and organic products, speak about trends in functional foods. He said foods within the probiotics/superfruits category are selling very strongly. Gluten-free is also expanding into more categories. He pointed out that people are buying natural and organic for their babies before they buy for themselves. I must raise my hand and say “guilty” on that front. Actually, I think my dogs eat better than I do too.

But what really struck me was when he admitted that media attention is really driving awareness, creating trends and changing consumers’ eating habits.

Who wasn’t sold on milk after the “Got Milk?” campaign exploded on the scene in 1993? I think the campaign has lasted longer than the Energizer Bunny. The fruit and veggie industry should learn from this cornerstone campaign. As marketers, we can’t just sell the science. Science is the proof point but we need to do a better job of telling a story and close the distance from the field to the fork. Consumers are listening.

We all want to eat healthier and do the right thing for our families.

Last fall, GroundFloor Media conducted a media training session for The Children’s Hospital with several nationally known obesity/health and wellness experts. We also interviewed staff from the trenches. When Renee Porter, obesity clinical nurse coordinator, was up, she gave us a tip: “Don’t drink your fruits and vegetables. Drink your milk.” Sounds like a brilliant consumer marketing campaign to me. And I believe the science can back it up.

~ Amy

Taking Downtown by Storm

Last week I had an incredible opportunity to travel to Vancouver to spend 48 hours on the Downtown Denver Partnership’s (DDP) 3rd annual Urban Exploration trip. I had the chance to get to know an entertaining and energetic group of business and community leaders including David Kenney of the The Kenney Group who received the 1st annual Fellowship of the Explorers Award because of his creativity, tenacity, curiosity and longevity, as well as the fact that he hobbled through the entire city with a broken ankle and a smile on his face. As a group, we shared a great deal of caffeine, a few Band-Aids from the long walks and a greater appreciation for the staff of the DDP who managed to herd an extraordinary number of cats around an international city in the midst of a few rain showers.

We were prepared to get a behind-the-scenes look at a number of Downtown Vancouver projects that coincided with a few of the priorities of the Downtown Area Plan and the 2027 committee. “Downtown residential” is the mantra for urban vitality in the new century and we were there to see the city that has often been described as a living example of a successful and vibrant residential downtown. Yes, they had a boost from EXPO ’86 and the 2010 Winter Olympics, but the city did not disappoint.

As a newbie, I walked away understanding more about this beautiful downtown than I do the city I grew up in for the first 18 years of my life. I was struck by Vancouver’s confidence in setting – and maintaining – its priorities. “Living First” has been the strategy for growth in this city since the 80’s. It seems to have a formula that works. A few things to note…

1.) Pedestrians are first. Cyclists are second. Cars? A distant 5th.Vancouver limits the amount of commuters into downtown. There is no freeway system into downtown (which was a surprise) and therefore it forces multiple modes of transportation throughout the city that are all linked together.

2.) The city creates complete neighborhood units. Yes, they have schools, daycares, grocery stores and parks smack in the middle of the places people work and sleep. I considered moving to Downtown Denver several times and the only major reason that I decided against it was because of the lack of families. This is a wonderful goal for our city to continue to keep in mind as it grows.

3.) It creates a rich housing mix of residential and commercial. City planners and developers have also focused on “third places” where people gather after home and work to create a neighborhood. Cafes, art districts, street performers, all make up the mix of living vibrantly.

4.) The use of public space is unsurpassed. The city puts resources into their sidewalks, street art and unique lighting and signage. The sidewalks serve as living rooms. The open space is developed as carefully as the towers and townhomes and the water’s edge is always dedicated to the public.

There are nearly 87,000 residents that live in Downtown Vancouver (compared to Denver’s 10,000) and 40% of those residents walk to work every day. It is no wonder that its carbon footprint is one of the smallest in North America. More than 25% of its residential spaces are designated for families. They have schools, day cares, urban markets, dog parks, bicycle paths and its own gum removal machine (for $5,000 you can have one for your house too!). One of our presenters said, “If you offer residents clean, green, safe and schools, you can give them everything they get by going to the suburbs. They just don’t have to commute.

We left the city impressed by its unique urban design, sustainability efforts and generous hospitality. We will bring back ideas that will be turned into action as we continue to build an even more vibrant Downtown Denver. The best part? We live, work and enjoy a downtown that rivals Vancouver. Our strengths are different, as are our challenges. However, both downtowns share a passion of continuous improvement where, as Tami Door said as we departed, “our people come first.”

~ Laura

Back to basics - create a communications plan!

Have you ever found yourself wondering if the development of a communications plan is absolutely necessary? It can certainly be a daunting task, but a strategic plan that includes solid tactics provides a sound road map for you and your communications team. It is a must-have document that defines the structure for how you will work towards your goals and provides validation that the initiatives you plan to execute map back to your overall strategy.

Recently, I have found myself working with multiple clients to develop PR and social media plans. To start the process, we like to conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of current communications initiatives, followed by a discussion around PR goals and strategy, and then we can best determine the tactics to reach the agreed-upon goals. Everything from traditional and non-traditional media relations, to an SEO campaign and message development, to corporate social responsibility can be included in your plan, but if there is one tip of advice I can give you… be sure one of your tactics is to develop/revisit your crisis communication plan and incorporate new mediums, like social media. I think we can all learn a few lessons from the recent Pampers and BP Oil issues!

Once your plan is finalized, it is important that you measure your success and evaluate results quarterly, annually, at year-end, etc. It’s important to remember that good communications plans are living documents—no one should continue down a tactical path that upon following an evaluation, no longer aligns with the overarching goals or current landscape of your industry.

I would encourage all PR practitioners to use the month of June as a reminder to check in on your strategic plans. Whether you are a one-person communications team or a team of five, take a couple of hours to evaluate your plan. If you don’t have a communications plan, take a leap of faith and develop one!

To help get you started, below are eight steps that I like to follow when creating a plan. Remember, it can be overwhelming to pull a plan together, but once you have it, you will be thrilled to have your “communications guidebook.”

~ Jen Wills

Eight steps to consider when developing your strategic communications plan:

1. Conduct a SWOT analysis of your current communications initiatives

2. Define your overall communications/PR goals and objectives

3. Determine your key audiences – current and future

4. Develop two to four PR strategies

5. Define your internal and external communications tactics – including traditional and non-traditional media

6. Determine your budget

7. Set metrics. Include methods in your plan that you can use to measure and evaluate results.

8. Evaluate, redefine and re-align with goals

Overcoming fears; strengthening a team

I have a fear of heights. I also have a fear of snakes crawling all over me and of getting stuck in elevators with more than two other people. But I digress. To be perfectly clear, the actual ascent is not the problem. It’s the looking down – or the coming down – that makes my heart feel like it has been shot with a large syringe full of adrenaline. At one point in my life, I thought that if I went skydiving and bungee jumping in the same day, I would conquer this fear forever. I was wrong.

In 2003, our team started working with facilitators from Outward Bound Professional (OBP) to conduct off site professional development sessions in order to create collaboration, foster creativity, and truly ‘dig in’ to the good, the bad and the ugly to figure out what we could do to create an even stronger agency. We refined our mission and our vision and created a few BHAGs along the way. We have each asked the tough questions about our own personal growth, the partnerships we create with clients and how we want to work together to build a stronger team and culture.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) for me, I have a business partner who thrives on adrenaline. So Ramonna led the charge of turning our offsites – once conducted in a hotel setting - into an offsite conducted in a natural setting (translation: ‘naturally vertical’). Last summer, we spent the day with OBP on the high- and low-ropes course in Genesee. Last week, we repeated this insanity by rock climbing at OBP’s base camp in Leadville. I can’t say that I will ever feel the need to be suspended 50 feet in the air by a rope and a harness again; however, I can say that I learned – once again – that regardless of my fear, I have an amazing team that I trust will get me off the side of a giant rock through encouragement, laughter and teamwork.

These are the moments that you see the most incredible personalities unfold. As I watched colleagues volunteer to climb blindfolded (helmets off to Wendy and Carrie) while others volunteered to share their deepest fears, I am reminded that we are all human. We all have fears. We all need a team to help us get up the mountain safely and provide us with the strength and support to fall gracefully.

~Laura