I was born and raised in the Detroit area, though I haven’t lived there for many years. I joined the Army in the 80s and left the Motor City with every intention of coming back when my enlistment was up. I ended up making a career out of the Army, marrying a Texas gal and ended up staying in Texas when I moved back into civilian life. Even though I’ve lived in Texas most of my adult life, I still keep track of what goes on in Detroit. I keep up with the news, I watch the auto industry and I’m still a Red Wings fan. What happens there is important to me not only because it’s where my roots are, but also because it’s where most of my family still lives.

I went to visit there this past January. It was hard to see all the empty buildings where businesses were thriving during my previous visit. The recent recession hit Detroit hard, just as the recession in the early 80s did – only this time it was harder. Even with the seemingly endless list of problems facing the area, I could see glimmers of hope here and there. It wasn’t something I could quite put my finger on until just last week. It finally came together in a piece I wrote  for the Du Detroit website.

Despite the hard times, there are people in Detroit who see the empty store fronts and vacant lots as canvases where a new Detroit can be created. There are entrepreneurs who are in the city carving out a new space for themselves. They are creating jobs and hope in a city which that needs both of those things. These are the people who are the future of Detroit. Some are native born and some are transplants. All of them have the attitude that failure is not an option.

Their story is being chronicled by Boston-area filmmaker Eric Proulx in a project called “Lemonade: Detroit.” Check out the trailer:

Lemonade: Detroit Trailer from Erik Proulx on Vimeo.

What’s a Boston guy doing making a movie about Detroit? Check out his story, “Why Me? Why Detroit?”

Some people may think we should just sit back and let Detroit go, to pass away peacefully. I think that’s wrong. Eric shows that Detroit’s story really belongs to many of us. It’s not just about “them,” it’s really about “us.” This is a story which needs to be told.

You Can Help
Watch the trailer and then please consider giving a donation to help get this movie completed. You can donate a little as a buck or as much as you like. It’s quick and easy through PayPal (you can donate via credit or debit card if you don’t have a PayPal account).

Watch for this movie when it comes out. I saw a 15-minute preview last week and I can see it’s going to be excellent.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how our local Discount Tire outlet wowed a friend of mine (and me, too) for helping her get her car going after she got a flat at the mall. I have since found out from others this kind of extraordinary service is not unusual from Discount Tire stores. I’ve heard quite a few stories about great experiences with them.

I want to touch on the subject again from a slightly different angle. This is more of a tale of giving back.

Any of you who have read more than a few articles in this space know I am a veteran. Because of this, issues dealing with veterans and members of our armed forces are regularly on my mind. Someone else, quite a bit more well known than I, who cares a lot about the members of our armed forces is Gary Sinise.

While his current role is as Detective Mack Taylor in “CSI: New York,” perhaps one of his most well known roles was that of Lieutenant Dan Taylor in “Forrest Gump.” In that powerhouse movie, he played a platoon leader in Vietnam who loses both of his legs and has to come to grips with that reality. His role in that film is interestingly prescient, that he now spends a lot of his time touring the world and entertaining troops with his group, Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band.

I had to opportunity to catch Gary and the band at their recent performance at Fort Hood, Texas. I expected a good and entertaining show, but they delivered much more. The singers and musicians are top notch in talent and skill. They played an ecletic mix of music ranging from Classic Rock to Country to Motown to modern Pop. The different styles of music are put together quite nicely and arranged in a way that a devotee of one style won’t have to wait around long to hear their favorite style of music. Considering their audiences are made up of people from everywhere with every conceivable taste in music, this is a challenge they rose up to very well. Overall, it was an excellent show.

It was also interesting to see how Sinise presented himself on stage. No doubt, as the most well-known person in the band, he is the “front man.” On stage, though, he was not the “star.” Rather, the entire band worked as a team to put on the performance. Gary often stood in the background and let the others have the spotlight. This is much to his credit.

What’s This To Do With Business?
One way businesses can give to the community and build clients is through excellent customer service. Discount Tire can give away stuff helping people out from time to time like they did with my friend. It’s hard for celebrities to offer customer service like this, though. “Um, Mr. Sinise … Gary, I think your performance on last week’s “CSI: NY” wasn’t very good, I’d like my money back.” It’s not like he can offer a refund on the time you spent watching an episode of his show. Customer service rarely plays out in the world of artistic endeavors.

What celebrities can do, though, is offer their time and talents to those less fortunate or those who need a champion. I’m not talking about going along with the “cause du jour” strictly for PR purposes. I’m thinking more about someone like Jerry Lewis and his neverending support of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. He’s been helping MDA since he and Dean Martin starred on the Colgate Comedy Hour in the mid to late 50s. It’s as much as part of him as his movies or stage acts.

This is the kind of support I see Gary Sinise offer to our service members and veterans. Indeed, David J. McIntyre, Jr., President and CEO of the USO Board of Governors said Gary Sinise has been called the “Bob Hope of our generation.” Those are some big shoes to fill, but I get the feeling if anyone is able to fill them, it is this man.

When Gary speaks, you can tell from his words and his presentation that he really cares about our service members and veterans. You can also tell this is true by the schedule the band keeps.

Now, I don’t know Gary from Adam other than I have enjoyed his performances in “CSI: New York,” “Forrest Gump,” and “Apollo 13.” I have recently learned to appreciate his attitude towards giving back. He has taken on and lent his name and a great deal of his time to a very worthy cause. Many celebrities lend their names to causes and some are more dedicated to their causes than others. The impression I get of Gary is that he is extremely dedicated to the cause of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and veterans.

My question to you is: What are you doing to give back to your community? What is your cause? I think it’s extremely important for people and businesses to support worthy charities and help those who need a hand. If you’re not doing this, you should. It will help you on a fundamental, personal level. And, it’s not bad for business, either.

A Pitch
I can’t let this go without putting in a pitch for support of the cause of our service members, their families and our veterans. I’m sure it costs a lot of money to put on a tour to entertain our troops all over the world. These shows are a tremendous morale booster for those who are in harms way. When you consider the hardships these folks endure on our behalf, helping fund a show like this is a very worthy cause. Please consider contibuting to the USO – you can donate online at their web site. On their behalf, I thank you.

Update: 11-11-11
Veteran’ Day was a very appropriate day for Jen and I to meet Gary Sinise. We were in Las Vegas for a conference and wanted to check out the “CSI Experience” at the MGM Grand Hotel. When we showed up, Gary was there signing autographs and promoting his concert to raise money for soldiers and veterans.

This past weekend a coworker passed away. For a year I have been following her valiant struggle against cancer through the group her close friends set up on Facebook. They chronicled her story. They started with some of her treatments, her participation in the Pink Heals Tour, through the ups and downs she went through, all the way through the funeral today. Another youthful life snatched away by the evil that is cancer.

Right now I have two aunts fighting breast and lung cancer, a cousin fighting lung cancer, my dad fought prostate cancer, numerous friends are fighting or have fought off cancers of various kinds. I’ve lost a grandmother, an uncle and a more than a few friends to this scourge.

Enough!
That’s why I’m raising funds during the month now known as Movember, to help the Movember Foundation fund organizations such as the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Lance Armstrongs LIVESTRONG so they can continue their work in helping educate and research in the fight against cancer.

Please go to my Movember Mo Space page and donate a buck or two or five or a hundred. It goes to a good cause in helping fight against cancer.

If you’re in Michigan, please also consider dropping by and donating a buck or two to my friend Scott’s Southwest Michigan Movember team. This is his first year joining in and I’d like to see his team do well, too.

Check back throughout Movember and I’ll post pics of my mustachioed self.

This post is cross-posted on my other blog the Musings of Řehoř

During our church’s recent 4th of July picnic, I had an opportunity to talk social media marketing with someone who has a different objective than most of us. Rich is not a business person, though he does work in business. Right now he’s just “passing through” while he and his wife work towards their goal of moving to Papua New Guinea to work with the Wycliffe Bible Translators organization to  support the efforts of linguists there to translate the Bible into languages which do not have printed Bibles.

Rich is active on Facebook and is just starting to get into Twitter. He asked me how he should use those tools along with his blogs to communicate not only with those who have pledged their support to his effort, but to reach out to others who might be interested in helping with their cause.

During our talk we discussed how he might use Facebook and Twitter to help promote his blog, which is where he talks about his cause. We also went over not doing the “hard sell”‘ to people because it turns them off. At one point, I mentioned he might want to read the post I wrote about Rob Snell’s Keynote at Pubcon this past March which I titled “Be That Expert.” I told him about how Rob and Steve Snell increased sales from their web site because they showed Steve to be an expert in his field of work and this credibility helped their marketing efforts.

I wonder, though, if that point was lost on Rich because I feel I may not have explained it very well at the time. After all, as an aspiring missionary to a land not his own, he’s not looking to sell anything or make lots of money. Or is he?

Think about it: Rich is trying to raise money to support him and his family in a foreign land for at least a year. He knows roughly how much he needs and is working towards banking that amount of money. In order to do this, he is working a full time job and he’s “selling” his idea to others in the hope they will contribute money to help him reach his goal. Is that really so different from the person running a company trying to sell enough banana guacamole to support him and his family as well as the employees who help him in his efforts and their families? While Rich’s motivations are slightly different, the goal is basically the same.

Nonprofits and charities have a different set of rules to follow. I’m not just referring to governmental regulation. In the case of nonprofits, they are selling a service which the people doing the actual paying will not benefit directly or tangibly from (except for, perhaps, a tax deduction). In Rich’s case, here’s what he’s doing:

• Selling A Product – Rich is selling Bibles, though he’s not selling them to the people who will actually receive them. Also, these Bibles do not yet exist because they need to be translated into a language which, at this point, may not even have a working alphabet. Lots of background work needs to happen before any actual printing is done.
• Adding Value – Rich is looking to add value to someone’s life. In this case, he’s not adding value to the paying customers. He’s attempting to convince others that paying for someone else to get the value is important.

So, what does this have to do with hunting dogs and equipment?
Good question.  At the end of the post I linked to above, I listed three tips Rob gave during his talk which can help someone develop a strategic social media plan. I pointed out that these tips don’t just apply to ecommerce web sites, and in this case they apply to Rich and others like him, too:

1. That you are an expert in what you do.
   • Rich needs to show himself an expert on Papua New Guinea, her people, culture and issues.
   • He also needs to demonstrate the expertise he has which will be put into use while he’s over there. People may be more likely to help someone who’s a skilled pilot (as Rich is) rather than someone who’s just going over there to wash dishes.
   • In his blog posts he needs to communicate the passion he and his wife have which prompted them to uproot themselves and their four children to go to a land half-way around the world. Passion sells – whether it’s banana guacamole or ideals.
   • He needs to communicate in a tangible ways how the people of that land will benefit from him going over there to do the work Wycliffe has for him.
   • It might not be a bad idea to offer up a list of things they need in order to be successful. Not only does Rich need to be skilled in the actual work part of being there, he and his wife also need to be skilled in how to take care of their kids’ needs, too. What will life be like there? Showing the challenges facing them will certainly add to their story.
2. That you have a product (or your product) is what your customers need. - Again, in this case the product or service is not something the person helping foot the bill will ever see. Rich needs to convince them that the value added to the lives of the people over there is worth supporting his efforts.
3. That they should (please) buy from you. - By showing he knows what he’s are doing and that  he has a positive contribution to make to the effort, Rich can make the case that supporting him is worth the time and money of those inclined to contribute to his cause.

You can learn more about Rich, his family and their efforts on their blog Reid All About It.

How about you? Have you worked with nonprofits? Do you have some ideas, tips or thoughts to share? Please feel free to drop them in the comments.

Within the social media talk you often hear the advice to give value to “The Community.”
This refers to adding value to the online social community(ies) one belongs to. While this is very important, I want us to reflect on giving back to “Our Communities,” namely the communities where we live. Our “In Real Life” or “IRL” communities.

There is a universal law which is summed up in the phrase “what goes around, comes around.”
Some refer to this law as “Karma” and others may call it “sowing and reaping.” Basically, the more good you spread around, the more good comes back to you. Conversely, the more bad you spread around, the more bad comes back to you. No matter what you name it, this law applies to our jobs and, I believe more importantly, life outside it.

Philosophers, scholars, theologians, and many other scholarly types have tried to explain how this law works. I don’t think anyone has a real explanation. Perhaps this is one of those instances in which there is no reason, that’s just the way it is.

My encouragement to you is to get outside your online world, get into the real world, make a difference to those around you and make this law work for you. Do more than just donate a few bucks to charities. I don’t mean for you to stop giving money, because that is important. But, I think you should look around and find something which needs to be done in your community and offer your time and talent to help get it done.

If you think you have little to offer, consider these if you lack the skills to do the primary work of an organization:

• Can you offer support, other than monetary? Perhaps you can do paperwork, cater (cook) lunch or go out and purchase materials.
• Can you do some pro-bono work along your regular business lines?
• Is there training available so you can get the skills the organization needs?
• Can you teach a class about something you do know about?
• Do you have connections which will help the group get professional assistance they might need?
• Don’t be afraid to “get your hands dirty” and get into some unskilled labor, too.

Regardless of the organization or cause you support, you have something to offer. Many times, just the desire to help is all that is required.

The Holiday Season is the time of year when many people open up their wallets to charities. My hope is you will consider stepping out and doing something in person, too.

By doing so you can benefit greatly, without necessarily benefiting your bottom line:

• You can meet some fantastic people you otherwise may not have met. Some of these can turn into very good business contacts, too.
• You can learn some new skills and knowledge. Anything you learn will profit you in one way or another.
• Along with that, you can do something out of your normal routine. This refreshes the mind and helps keep you sharp for when you are in the office. As the British say, “A change is as good as a rest.”
• You can be part of something bigger than just you.
• You can get that “warm fuzzy” feeling which comes only from helping someone else who can’t pay you back.

So, get out there and look around. Someone needs you, and not just because you’re a computer nerd or a marketing maven (or whatever it is you do for a living).

photo credit: woodleywonderworks