Purpose Built Communities

I am spending my Spring Break reading through my literature for my doctoral dissertation.  The problem always lies in the fact that there are great stories behind each of the social entrepreneurs and social enterprises I read about that I am compelled to search further.  Today, this lead me to the Purpose Built Communities Organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

The story originated with a vision of change for a crime riddled, poverty stricken neighborhood called East Lake Village.  Many people just shake their heads in disbelief at the senseless deterioration of our society which makes for saucy headlines, breaking news and stark realities.  But some take charge and put change in motion.  Tom Cousins, a famous Atlanta real estate developer, sports enthusiast and philanthropist weaved a system of support now termed Holistic Community Revitalization which pools local resources across sectors to solve local issues and created a national model that is being scaled to other communities in need.

In a span of about five years (1995 to 2000), the progress from ground breaking idea to the launch of a renewed and sustainable model community became reality.  A historic golf club was the centerpiece to the revitalization and systematic private-public partnerships.  The story is retold in all its dramatic detail in a 12 minute video well worth watching.  This single initiative is now being scaled and applied in other communities through the sharing of knowledge and resources of the Purpose Built Communities organization.

Forced Relationships = Fun

One of the techniques I often use in the classroom is Forced Relationship (Also known as Forced Analogy).  You take two words or pictures and try to come up with creative combinations.  First you can list attributes and categories of each and then start to play around with your imagination of how the two sets of data can be linked.  I find lots of examples in many different forms.  Its now pretty clear to me the endless combinations and when I stumble upon the pairings it always brings me ah ha moments.  The image above illustrates a small news piece I read on one girl who took 3 years to make her prom dress out of duct tape.  A skill she learned in girl scouts and a creation she will wear to her own prom along with her date dressed head to toe in duct tape creations.  This is not a new concept to the brand managers at Duck brand duct tape and they have made it into an annual contest.

Opening new doors with Johan Ronnestam

Johan is on his way to the airport by now but my mind is abuzz with all the new info he transferred to me and a room full of my students and ad people from the region.  The good people at Best Marketing put on another wow conference and the participants will no doubt benefit from the knowledge this approachable and forward thinking curator of information deposited.  I am a fan.

For those of you who were not so lucky, I will pass on a summary and fascinating links that are worth sharing and give some value back to my network...

1. Everything is Social!
2. Transparency is allowing users to compare, verify, reference and choose in short cycles.
3. Traffic without conversion is a missed opportunity.
4. Content, technology and distribution are being democratized.
5. The meaning of Mobile is every expanding making transactions.
6. Create with a customer centric passion to connect sustainably.
7. There are markets at the extremes of low cost and high end, opportunities are a plenty in filling the gap.
8. Keep it clean, simple and user friendly with room for the educated consumer to engage.

These are the take aways that I gleamed from my notes on the conference.  He also supplemented his presentation with meaningful examples and inspired me to mix in some of my own:

Design is nice but content rules over style...Amazon.com, Facebook.com, Youtube.com
The price comparison business model is not just for C2C or B2C but also B2B in categories such as concrete and beyond: Getprice.com.au, Compricer.se, Comparethemeerkat and you can even compare comparison sites.
Brand communication is at its best when its not manufactured but personalized...with a capacity for manageable responses..Forum.hr, Koletiva.hr, SocialKiva.com

Be open to the conversation in the Art of listening, learning and sharing care of Brian Solis.
Youtube sensation Keenan Cahill and who he gets to watch him lipsynch in his room;)

The amazing talent site to find or be found that is Elance.

A few new doors have been opened and I am off to order my ipad and iphone, relaunch my twitter account and start to be a more fierce blogger.  Ronnestam set out to inspire us to keep on learning and all the gifts he gave today will go to great use.  I invite my students in attendance to comment as I am sure Johan would like the feedback and I certainly am interested to see what they took away as it applies to our current course CRM at ZSEM.