Friday, October 30, 2009

A Tip for Dayton

I can't stand it when people get all indignant and can't see the humor in things. Nothing is more unappealing to me than when an individual or an organization is so self-focused that they can't or won't allow for any self-deprecating laughs.

That said, this farm wife from Dayton HATES, HATES the "cow tipping" shirts that greet visitors at the Dayton (we offer connecting flights to Canada) International Airport.

Oh, you haven't seen them? I tried to take a photo during my most recent trip:



Right after I snapped the photo I was told by the Paradies Shop cashier that I wasn't allowed to photograph the shirts--they are copyrighted, apparently.

The shirts greeting visitors to Dayton--our suggested last-minute gift items to take home to loved ones--they say "Nothing Tips Like a Cow." So you see my quandary. It is sort of funny. It says, "hey honey, look what I brought you back from the middle of nowhere." It's Ohio, nothing here but cows, get it?


Call me no fun, or boring, or unappreciative of our strong agriculture base (of which I am a part), but I can't stand these shirts. So much so that on the way home I snuck up and took more photos through the shop's closed bars, with a friend standing guard.

So what's my problem? Why does the farm wife, of all people, dislike these shirts? Because I also work in public relations and branding. Because Dayton is struggling. We are struggling to grow our business base. We are struggling to retain the companies we have. And when companies leave, what is their excuse for leaving--that no one sees Dayton as a business destination. You know, it is rumored, that the non-Dayton CEO of a certain Dayton-founded company calls his employees in Ohio "the corn people."

WELL MAYBE IF WE DIDN'T REINFORCE THAT WITH COW TIPPING SHIRTS AT THE AIRPORT IT MIGHT HELP. Sorry.

I did a mini-interview with the Paradies Shop cashier and asked her, since the Dayton Airport is owned by the City of Dayton, who decides what goes in the stores. She said that Paradies has a Dayton-based manager who does the purchasing.

Let me just put forth a crazy idea. What if we invested a lot of money and had an out-of-town branding company come up with a unique way to graphically represent our current vision for Dayton with also a nod to the past. If they came up with something good, it might catch on and become the basis for a city branding campaign.

Nah, Dayton would never do that...


Yeah, it's just too bad we don't have ANYTHING better to graphically represent our city than an up-turned cow.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Token Farmer

The fact that I straddle the worlds of corporate America and agriculture is a theme of this blog but it has really come home to me this week with the number of friends and family who have stopped us to get our opinion on Ohio Issue 2.

Some have been apologetic for "bothering" us about this, but really we're the only farmers they know. I have been happy to help via Facebook message or e-mail but at the request of a good friend and fellow blogger, I decided to post about how we are voting and why.



First, let me summarize by saying that we are voting YES. We have the sign in our front yard proclaiming our intentions. Second, if you disagree with me, then fine. I'm not writing this to change anyone's mind--only to reach people who are undecided and value our opinion as real farmers.


I'll start by pointing out that the vote-no-people, the Humane Society of the US, is a vegan organization who (by their own admission) have the end goal of eliminating consumption of meat and dairy. One tactic is to make farming so difficult and food so expensive that people look for alternatives. Also, they are NOT affiliated with any actual humane societies and spend only token money on helping dogs or cats.

Even though some materials say small farmers are opposed to Issue 2--that is simply not true. We are a very small farm but we are in favor of Issue 2. It's true, as the critics note, that this board was rushed into existence chiefly to keep the HSUS from imposing some draconian rules on Ohio agriculture (see motives above). But we truly believe that consulting large animal vets, the head of agriculture education at Ohio State and Ohio consumers (all on the proposed board) would be a better way to manage our livestock care issues.

Here's a real-life example of how the changes proposed by well-meaning animal lovers could affect pig farms... They want to eliminate gestation crates that don't permit the sow to turn around. Husband doesn't use these partly because we would have to build an entire new expensive barn to accommodate and we don't have the volume of sows to justify. BUT since he doesn't use them, he has to stay up all night, almost every night from December through February to make sure that the sows don't squish the babies as they are born and so they don't freeze to death (gestation barns are climate controlled). If Husband had hundreds of sows like a farm that provides meat to the grocery, this would be impossible to manage and every day piglets would be getting stepped on by their mothers--which is very painful and usually rips them open.

This is my long-winded way of saying that farmers came up with these methods not out of meanness but out of a desire to raise as many healthy animals as they can quickly and economically--something we enjoy every week at Krogers.

So tell your Facebook friends and your crazy neighbor who e-mails you about the evils of "factory farms" that you heard it straight from a farmer--vote YES on Issue 2.

Monday, October 26, 2009

What Farm Kids Do for Fun

Even when you live in a place called Farmersville, there is still a disconnect between farm life and the experiences of most people you meet. Fortunately, our children are happy ambassadors of rural living.



This most recent episode of What Farm Kids Do for Fun takes place at our annual fall party. With five "hosts" (my children and nephews), the party has grown bigger than last year's party. We had 23 kids, plus parents at the farm to navigate the straw maze, decorate pumpkins, and enjoy the hay ride (it's really straw!).


Farm kids and their friends know that something as simple as playing in the leaves can be the best way to spend an October afternoon.


My petulant princess and her two rakish pirate brothers enjoyed themselves immensely. Check out more photos of the day here:


Saturday, October 24, 2009

Congratulations from the Barnyard Animals

Sometimes when you are straddling the worlds of corporate communications and agriculture, you have conversations like this.

Me from work via cell phone: Guess what? We WON! We won a national PR award!

Noises coming from Husband's cell phone: OINK. oink, oink, snort. OINNNK.

Husband: That's good isn't it?

Yes, I'm very proud to say that our team won a PR News Platinum PR Award for a community relations program geared to introduce area high school students to careers in health care. The event included a cadaver lab and mock trauma in the ER.

I'd say it's a safe bet that the national PR agencies (Coyne, Ogilvy) and major brand names (Hard Rock, GE, Lego, Coca-Cola) that also won awards in this program did NOT spend 2/3 of their program budget on dead bodies.

But then it's also a safe bet that their PR team wasn't congratulated by barnyard animals.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

PR Idea of the Week

This week I had the opportunity to speak to some Intro to PR students at our local Community College (Chevy Chase was not there. Darn.). The adjunct faculty member and I had worked together years ago doing B2B public relations. She asked me to share a little about my career path and how I had now landed in non-profit healthcare.

Since I have also been asked to be on a social media panel for another local university's PR students, I thought I would use my blog to share the differences between working in public relations/communications in high-tech B2B and non-profit healthcare.

Why you love to work there:
Healthcare- Small department moves quickly. Ideas discussed in the hallway in the morning are underway by the afternoon. Management is all local.
B2B - Challenge of taking high-tech jargon and turning it into compelling media pitches. Tech trade journalists and national business pages can be tough to crack--but very exciting when you do.

Your biggest frustration on the job:
Healthcare - Highly competitive industry + Highly local industry = Highly personal issues
B2B - Endless, soul-sucking approval processes.

When you arrive at the office at 7:15 a.m...
Healthcare -You are already late for your 7 a.m. meeting.
B2B - You get a SWEET parking spot and a few hours to work before your colleagues on the West Coast start sending e-mails.

Team meetings include:
Healthcare - Sitting around the table with your team, interrupted by the paging of code blue--a reminder that life and death are part of your business.
B2B - Joining a conference call with your colleagues in three states and two countries. Have to stop typing e-mails and take phone off mute when ready for your report.

Perks of the job:
Healthcare - Good benefits. On-site pharmacy, chapel, gift shop, cafeteria.
B2B - Expense account. As many logo shirts as you can fit in your closet.

Access to your organization's customers and influencers:
Healthcare - Two floors down in surgery. Sitting at the table next to you in the cafeteria.
B2B - Industry conferences and trade shows. Expensive focus groups.

Colleagues from other parts of the business rush around...
Healthcare - Saving lives. Referring to folded up pieces of paper jammed in their lab coats.
B2B - Grabbing a quick break between conference calls. Clutching their BlackBerry in case something comes in while they are away from their desk.

Students, know that geography, interesting challenges, connections and plain dumb luck will play a heavy part in determining what industry you end up in.

Whether you're working for Disney or the local sanitation department, PR is all about identifying and connecting with your target audiences. My advice to students is to build your skillset and look for opportunities to do the interesting, innovative PR projects that drive you.

Friday, October 16, 2009

The Farmers and the Beach Bums Go to Disney

Last week--was it only last week, it feels like it's been months already--we hitched our wagon with all our belongings, tied a cow to the back for milk and headed out on a family vacation to Disney World.

Actually, we flew on AirTran, which made the journey a lot less pleasant for the cow.


We were so excited that our island-dwelling family could join us. All those days on the beach can really wear on a person, so we're really glad they could get away.


Is it just me or does it seem like any time you get a large group of people together, you spend 80 percent of your time eating. For us, this worked out great, because WE ATE FREE THE WHOLE TIME. Oh, yeah. Eat your hearts out Mommy Bloggers on special Disney mommy advisory panels, we had FREE food for our entire trip. See that breakfast at the Magic Kingdom--FREE.

We took advantage of a Disney promotion that offered a free Disney Dining Plan. We didn't even know what a great benefit we had until we did dinner for five with Cinderella and Prince Charming for $20 (we had to pay gratuity on sit-down meals).

This wasn't designed as an advice sort of post but let me give this one tip: If you have the opportunity to EAT FREE at Disney, take it. It's almost like you're losing money NOT booking a trip if you have that offer.

It's a little-known fact that the Blogger service agreement requires all Disney-related posts to include at least two tips. So here's my second: Eat at Disney's best-kept secret restaurant, Sci-Fi Dining at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

We found this fun place online--never noticing the restaurant before in previous (kid-free) trips to the park. This car is out front but inside there is a whole drive-in movie lot full of cars for dining and cheesy 50s "horror" films playing on the movie screen.


We saw lots of princesses, ate like kings, rode the Toy Story ride at Hollywood Studios at least four times, and sweated like Ohioans who had been dropped off in the jungle. I can't wait to go back.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Top 10 Dayton Media on Twitter

I took my popular Dayton Media Twitter list and did another analysis this week to determine the most frequently followed Dayton journalists on Twitter.

  1. WHIO TV7 - 1608 followers

  2. Dayton Daily News - Hal McCoy - 1462 followers

  3. Dayton Daily News - 1387 followers

  4. WDTN TV2 - 1286 followers

  5. Dayton Daily News - Ohio Politics - 990 followers

  6. Dayton Daily News - Mark Fisher Wine - 927 followers
  7. Greenville Advocate 360 - 903 followers

  8. WDTN TV2 - Kennan Oliphant - 794 followers
  9. WHIO TV7 - Rich Wirdzek - 676 followers

  10. Dayton Daily News - Mark Fisher Food - 611 followers


*Followers as of Oct. 10, 2009.

A few observations on this list:

To see how all the media on my Dayton Twitter list fared, see my spreadsheet.

Appointment Pooping

  NOTE: If you do not want to read about my healthy bowel movement, well too late you just did. I recently became you-better-get-a-colonosco...