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| April 14, 2010: Communicator of the Year Award presented to Juliette Cowall  Juliette Cowall, marketing director for Godwin Plumbing, was presented with the Interchange Communicator of the Year Award by Interchange president Juanita Vorel on Wednesday, April 14, 2010. She was chosen for this award in recognition of her of her innovative approach to developing a new kind of professional women's networking group.
Three years ago Juliette recognized the need for a professional group that was exclusively for women. Women-to-women networking was not new, and small, loosely organized groups of women existed throughout West Michigan, but Juliette saw a much larger opportunity. Instead of creating a formalized association with dues, a board, and a static meeting location, Juliette’s vision was to create a group of professionals that could communicate their products and services in a friendly, non-threatening atmosphere of peers! The result is what Juliette calls Girls’ Lunch (http://guidedcomm.com/Girls_Lunch.html).
Unique to Girls' Lunch is the “everyone is the speaker” format. At each lunch attendees are encouraged to bring something that they can give away (with no strings attached). With that small offering, the “giver” is entitled to a 30 second “commercial” about her business, service, or product. Those 30 seconds provide a chance to network… with everyone in the room. Juliette then showed how they would do a 30-second promotion and did the gift giveaway by drawing business cards for her gifts. A liquid fertilizer sprayer was given to Craig Clark of Clark Communications, and a free ticket to a future Girls' Lunch gathering went to writer Sharon Hanks. BOOK DRAWING: Juliette Cowalls book choice for the April 2010 book drawing was "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Search Engine Optimization" by Michael Miller. The winner of a gift card to Schuler's Books went to Sherrie Willson, senior communications specialist at Steelcase. March 10, 2010: Bridging 96, featuring Carole Valade of Grand Rapids Business Journal Carole Valade, editor of Grand Rapids Business Journal and Gemini Publications (www.geminipub.com) and associate publisher of Grand Rapids Family Magazine, was our presenter for the March 2010 lunch program. She told how 27 years ago publisher and owner John Zwarensteyn was asked to provide business news for Grand Rapids. It was another 10 years before the Press had a business section and a business desk. Carole shared some of the successes and lessons learned from her past partnership in "Bridging 96" with professional colleague Mary Kramer, publisher of Crain's Detroit Business. The online news magazine, geared toward a niche audience of CEOs and company owners, was an ambitious project that had its last issue released in October 2009. Carole and Mary were unique in that they were the first two women in the country to be named as editors of business publications. Carole pointed out that in an effort to include news from various parts of the state, the smaller local news would be excluded for space. She and Mary soon learned that people didn't appreciate the aggregating of statewide business stories at the expense of not getting all the local news. Another lesson learned is the personality differences between the west and east side of the states. The perception among business leaders across Michigan is that Grand Rapids is more closely aligned with Chicago and Minneapolis, while Detroit is more closely aligned with Cleveland and cities to the east. BOOK DRAWING: Carole Valade's book choice for the March 2010 book drawing was "When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan" by Peggy Noonan. The winner of a gift card to Schuler's Books went to Holly Higginson, marketing/PR assistant for Grand Rapids Art Museum. February 10, 2010: ArtPrize featuring Ginny Seyferth Ginny M. Seyferth, public relations counsel for ArtPrize and president of Seyferth & Associates Inc. (S&A) (www.seyferthpr.com), spoke to a sold-out gathering of Interchange. She discussed the ways the community got behind this first year of the biggest public-vote ArtPrize competition that Rick DeVos called "an experiment." She told of social media users who promoted ArtPrize during the event as they walked around and saw the artwork, creating an extra buzz of excitement. She told of lessons they learned that will help improve the second ArtPrize event in September-October 2010. One is adding more large gallery type venues, after realizing that about 80,000 people visited the two large artwork display sites last year. That same day, Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk of the Grand Rapids Press, who was there, wrote a summary for mlive.com the Interchange meeting. (To read his article, click here.) BOOK DRAWING: For this month's drawing, a red "Ask Me" ArtPrize volunteer T-shirt was given to Jeff Christians, from Gilson Graphics, and a gift card to Schuler's Books was presented to Joann Reeves, who does public & media relations and freelance writing. January 13, 2010: Jennifer Maxson on nonverbal communication Jennifer Maxson shared the three channels of interpersonal communication, how audiences rate you, and what it takes to quickly make a good first impression (hint: breathe!) Maxson, Practice Group Leader, Consultant and Coach for Varnum Consulting spoke about what goes into communicating with impact, beyond a focused and organized message that contains clear, concise points and motivating, inspiring language. She pointed out the importance of sustained eye contact with individual members of your audience (at least five seconds) to make a true connection with them and increase their interest. She also told how posture, professional dress, and purposeful, descriptive gestures can enhance your professional and personal credibility. BOOK DRAWING: Jennifer chose the book "Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln (21 Powerful Secrets of History's Greatest Speakers)" by presidential speech writer James C. Humes. Because a copy was unavailable for purchase, a gift card to Schuler's Books was presented to this month's winner of the drawing, Eva Sitek, production management and design of print materials. December 9, 2009: Andrea Robyns & social media policies Andrea Robyns, Marketing Project Manager for the Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention & Visitors Bureau spoke about encouraging employees to use social media to be advocates for your organization or business while also maintaining guidelines for their use. The overarching rule? "Be smart." She pointed out two areas as examples of industries where a privacy policy and a more stringent set of guidelines regarding social media use would be very important: those who work in the medical fields or in human resources. %20011.jpg) Many questions, comments and concerns came from those in attendance. The fact that whatever is posted to the Internet lives there forever was a good reminder. The temptation for social media, because of its informal style, is to turn off the internal editor. This program was a word to the wise. Thoughts about employees posting a response to a critical blog or tweet (on Twitter) was discussed. Opinions covered letting the organization itself post an official statement to the ethical need to identify yourself as an employee, rather than posing as some person out in the public, when defending a business, product, service or organization. The atmosphere of the gathering allowed for a positive exchange that was interactive and beneficial for all present. BOOK DRAWING: Andrea Robyns chose the novel "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, to which someone commented it is "good winter reading." Congratulations to this month's winner of the drawing, Amy Sawade, public relations specialist for Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. November 11, 2009: Seth Getz on marketing  Seth Getz, small business coach, founding director of Alliance for Entrepreneurial Leadership, and owner of Business Mastery, brought a lot of humor, reviewed real life business marketing success stories, and offered some straight-forward, practical advice. He gave our group some good pointers such things as how to identify your ideal customers, target your messages, choose the medium that works best, and produce postive returns on your marketing efforts. Seth even took it one step further and concluded our time by offering to those in attendance a free one-hour phone consulation for anyone who would fill out and fax to him the marketing plan strategy sheets he brought along. BOOK DRAWING: Seth Getz chose two books -- "The E-Myth" by Michael Gerber (won by Grand Valley State University student Leah Zuber) and "Mind Capture" autographed by co-author Tony Rubleski (won by Dave Hunt, business owner of Doody Calls Pet Waste Clean-up and of Two Men and a Truck along the lakeshore). October 15, 2009: Mickey Graham & the 5/3 Burger
 Mickey Graham, marketing director for the West Michigan Whitecaps, shared how the idea of a huge burger came to introduced this past season as just one of five new menu items at Fifth Third Ballpark in early March. It drew a few local stories, but after a blogger wrote about it and it caught the attention of a writer with a national following, the unique angle about this beast of a burger -- dubbed the "minor league concession food of the year" -- was picked up by media outlets all over the country to become a news sensation.  Mickey keyed in on what drew media attention -- the fat and cholesterol content, that is, its unhealthiness, which he leveraged into a novelty story of a 4-pound (with trimmings), 4,800 calorie burger that caught play in newspapers and TV news across the nation and even internationally. What surprised him was that it also drew the ire of the health-conscious public, as well. Mickey's response? "This isn't for everybody. It's a gimmick. If you think it's unhealthy, then don't eat one." Just to be clear, the burger is meant to be shared by a family of four or more.
However, to get the 5/3 Burger T-shirt with unhealthy stats on the back, more than two dozen individuals have polished all the behemoth single-handedly. In fact, the Fifth Third Ballpark Burger became another of the many huge food eating challenges faced by Adam Richman, star of "Man vs. Food" on the Travel Channel. The special ballpark edition aired on Sept. 30, 2009 - ironically after the close of the Whitecaps baseball season. NOTE: The Grand Rapids Press ran an artice on Feb. 17, 2010, about new food items that are being put up for a vote by the public for the 2010 Whitecaps season. Fans can vote through Tuesday, Feb. 23 -- and the top 2 or 3 vote-getters will go on the menu this year. BOOK DRAWING: Mickey Graham chose a book by Malcolm Gladwell called "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference," about how word-of-mouth trends get started and grow. | |
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