We asked Leslie Carothers (@tkpleslie) ,CEO of The Kaleidoscope Partnership and Gardner White Furniture's social media agency, why one of our two major sponsors for our Detroit #140conf on Oct. 20th is a furniture store.
Here's her response:
"When we were first hired by Gardner White Furniture (@GardnerWhite), we were tasked with coming up with innovative ways to engage young families, their next generation of customers, with the Gardner White brand. The Gardner White value proposition has always been: "Providing value for families."
After listening closely for 3 months on Twitter to what people in Detroit were discussing, we could see what they really cared most about was the future of their city and whether or not there would be job opportunities there for them and their families so they could stay. It's no secret that Detroit has had major issues with unemployment which has resulted in the loss of many young families who have been forced to live elsewhere in order to create a secure future for themselves and their children.
We also could hear that many people in Detroit loved their city passionately and we saw that there were many grassroots efforts underway to rebuild and rebrand Detroit that were not getting any attention in the local or national press.
So, in the spring of this year, the owner of Gardner White Furniture, Barb Tronstein (@BarbTronstein) agreed to our idea to hold a "Brainstorm For Positive Detroit" meeting in Detroit. We had no idea if anyone would show up or not. The entire meeting was set up through Twitter and via phone with the local help of Eric of Urbane Apartments (@Eric_Urbane) and was held at his co-working space, @Urbane_Space.
On the night of the event, approximately 20 people showed up. Barb and I were both surprised at this turnout since neither one of us had ever met anyone who showed up. Barb and I listened and took notes. Afterwards, Barb and I discussed what she heard, and what she heard was this, "What everyone really wants to have are opportunities for their businesses so they can grow and succeed and stay here with their families."
Enter the #140conference. As everyone reading this knows, the #140conf is the most famous conference in the world about the impact of the real time web on businesses and individuals, attracts the world's best speakers in whatever city it is held in, and gets an enormous turnout-both online and offline.
We proposed to Barb that Gardner White sponsor the conference as a way to show that she really heard the group that night and took meaningful action. Why is sponsoring the #140conference taking meaningful action? Because the #140conf provides excellent networking opportunities for the people that attend. These networking opportunities lead to jobs. Jobs lead to Detroit's young families feeling confident enough to stay in Detroit, buy a home or rent an apartment and, eventually, furnish it.
Is this a huge leap of faith for a furniture store? Yes, but Barb is willing to trust us that you, the young Detroit families will *get* what she is doing , appreciate the guts it took for a 92 year old, established furniture store to go so far *out of the box* with social media and respond back to her in a way that allows a businesswoman to know the risk she took in investing financially in the #140conf and the personal time she has committed in this brand new way to *provide value to Detroit families" has been heard by and appreciated.
As Gardner White 's social media agency, what do we hope for? We hope the young families of Detroit will consider thanking @barbtronstein and/or @GardnerWhite publicly on Twitter and *like* their Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/
Ultimately, what Barb and Gardner White's support allows us to do is create a full circle of *wins* for everyone involved-the #140conf volunteers like @adrianpittman who is heading up the effort, @estrellabella10 who is doing an amazing job with speakers, @ericafinley @DaveMurr, @djmeph and all the other volunteers giving so generously of their time, the young families of Detroit, Christopher Barger (@cbarger) of @Buick (the other major sponsor at this time and the chief catalyst for attracting Jeff's conference to Detroit in the first place) and, lastly, Jeff and his organization for having the faith to bring the #140conf to Detroit and trust that his time would be well rewarded.
Lastly, Barb hopes her support helps the city of Detroit wins. She hopes the international attention the #140conf receives will put Detroit firmly back on the map in the minds of investors everywhere and let them know that Detroit is a viable and desirable place to invest so they will come to Detroit and help rebuild it for the families Gardner White hopes to serve for the next 92 years.
Gardner White IS changing and finding innovative new ways to "provide value to Detroit families." We're simply happy to be part of helping Gardner White create the *winning circle* using the real time web.
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