Strategic Relationship Engineering Both On & Offline
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As we wrap up 2009, we wish to extend sincere holiday greetings to each of you. In addition we want to welcome new relationships; thank our stakeholders, clients and partners and generally give thanks to a very intriguing first six months.
Chalkboarder.com Client News
It’s been a very busy six weeks since we last released a chalkARTblast. We’re busy with some new clients and had to dive right in. Here’s some of the more intriguing things coming up on our calendar for the first quarter of 2010.
Filming “Deadly Claws” Aboard An Oregon Dungeness Crab Boat
We were approached by a Dungeness Crab fishing vessel the F/V Harvester sailing out of Coos Bay OR, to sail with them, blog about off-shore crab fishing and do some cooking dockside with the freshest Dungeness Crab you ever had. Well, one thing has led to another and its become a full-fledged video documentary. Now we’re planning (and writing the storyboard for) an hour long production for WebTV, telling the “farm to table” history of off-shore crabbing, the canneries and the danger. They’re going to put me to work as a deckhand in February catching crab for a day in the cold wet swells and then I’ll don a chef jacket and do some cooking at the cannery. The Captain states that this is twenty times more dangerous than “Deadliest Catch”. As an adventurer and complete extrovert, who is passionate about where our food comes from and cooking – its right up my alley.
I hope the Coast Guard Rescue stays close by!
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Marsha Collier Requests Chalkboarder.com Research Collaboration
Marsha Collier, author of “eBay for Dummies”, with over 1 million copies in print worldwide and the top-selling eBay author, requested Chalkboarder.com’s assistance and collaboration through two methods.
Marsha has been commissioned to write a book due in June 2010 on Customer Service, with a chapter on restaurants. After reading our “10% of USA Restaurants Using Social Media” study (September, 2009), she requested us to redo the study in March 2010 for inclusion in the restaurant customer service chapter.
Additionally, Marsha and I are launching this next week a Twitter-based discussion on customer service. This discussion will be weekly on Tuesdays at 9 pm eastern – you can participate by following #custserv.
FohBoh.com Conference on Social Media
We’re still waiting for confirmation of this one – but Michael Atkinson, CEO of the largest social network, FohBoh.com, for the restaurant industry internationally, invited me to participate as a panelist in a conference sometime in 2010. If the conference is confirmed, I’ll be joining Guy Kawasaki and the founders of LinkedIn and Ning.com on-stage to discuss how the social web can and does impact the restaurant industry. I’m extremely humbled and flattered by the invitation and do hope the conference happens.
“Branded” – The Legacy Five Generation Montana Rancher
We’ve been in dialogue with the oldest cattle ranchers association in the USA, Montana Stock Growers Association, for a long time. I started this relationship in 2007 when we were talking about bringing a line to the national restaurant industry of natural Montana beef, raised and processed from birth to box in-state.
Over the past three months we’ve been in dialogue with them about their social media strategies. Again, one thing has led to another and now we are talking about another hour long documentary exploring “farm to table” and what it means to be a five-generation Montana rancher. More danger! The ranchers want to bring me and the filmmaker out during spring branding, put me on a horse, make me handle a rope and possibly make a few Rocky Mountain Oysters (yes, cutting). At the end, after documenting the history of Montana cattle ranching and exploring the myriad issues they face today we’ll do some cooking of beef.
We have much more news below…
ADVERTISEMENT
Customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty are
built from the table up.
Your food, service, management and corporate identity meet the customer in the restaurant. So why wait until customers leave to measure their experience? Through Rewarding Feedback your customers can articulate specific experiences that are important to them. Rewarding Feedback allows your managers to “hear” what customers are saying while they are still seated and at the height of their dining experience.
Rewarding Feedback
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The Oregon Truffle Festival
Seattle’s top food blogger and restaurant consultant, Traca Savadago (http://seattletallpoppy.blogpost.com) and I are headed out to the vineyards of Oregon at the end of January to blog the Oregon Truffle Festival. Willamette Valley Vineyards just seeded 16 acres of truffle spoor and Oregon truffles are rapidly edging out European truffles for reputation. Traca will be with the chefs in the kitchen over the two days while I am video-blogging the two day “Train Your Dog to Hunt Truffles” workshop.
Coffee Fest
We just started a year long relationship to handle all of Coffee Fest’s social media. As part of this, I’m seeking certification as a barista. Coffee Fest is the most respected tradeshow for the specialty coffee and tea industry internationally, with shows in Meadowlands NJ, Minneapolis and Seattle.
We’re launching an internationally comprehensive social media strategy for Coffee Fest, to increase attendance, exhibitors and overall show experience. A very intriguing part of this relationship is that we’ll be live web streaming the Barista Competitions at all three tradeshows! We decided to call this “bean-casting” (instead of sports-casting) the competitions. In addition, I’ll be speaking on the social web at each Coffee Fest Executive Summit during the tradeshows.
Renaissance Gourmet
We’ve been working with Renaissance Gourmet (British Columbia, CAN) on clarifying their casually elegant lifestyle brand and market the past month and finding them sponsors. As part of this, we’re helping to create and develop a strategic brand/concept in WebTV, e-Books, blogging and other content. The market for Renaissance Gourmet is international female 25 to 55, with significant existing traffic (over 125,000 views per
month) coming from the USA, Australia, Canada and the UK. This project also involves international strategies in social media to grow viewership and further monetization of the brand.
Renaissance Gourmet offers casually elegant lifestyle advice, simply upscale gastronomy, travel, farm-to-table documentaries and just shot a pilot for a non-exclusive series on the Australian Lifestyle Podcast Network.
Challenge Issued to USA Restaurant Industry
We’ve tossed a challenge down to the restaurant industry in the USA. With 945,000 restaurant operations in the country, we think we’ve got a great challenge.
We asked the industry to put over 100 marathon runners into the 2011 Boston Marathon, each sponsored with over $1000 in pledges. The fund-raiser would benefit Share Our Strength, a twenty-five year nonprofit working to end childhood hunger domestically by 2015.
We caught the interest of Share Our Strength, which referred the challenge to its Great American Dine Out steering committee and other C-Level industry leaders. Really, all this is my effort to get myself running again J. Just teasing… I’ve been involved with Share Our Strength since 1994.
Rewarding Feedback
Strategic networking on behalf of Rewarding Feedback (Toronto, CAN) continues. We’ve introduced them to several potentials on both coasts of the USA and are waiting for the crush of the holiday chaos to end to close these deals. A very intriguing inquiry occurred from an 87 unit restaurant outfit with four brands from South Africa. It’s really tough to coordinate communication between North America and South Africa.
Event Mingle
Event Mingle is a social web based community platform for trade shows. With extremely robust metric analytics and structure, it empowers tradeshows to largely expand the return on investment for both attendees and exhibitors participating. We’ve crafted a relationship with Event Mingle to introduce and refer them through our deep proprietary networks off line.
Great American Spice Company
Great American Spice Company is a large web-based retailer of spices. We’re spreading the word about them to consumers through a social media strategy.
Social Grub
Social Grub is a robust Facebook application for service industry businesses. This application has powerful back-office tools and empowers businesses to use the social web to offer promotions, coupons and broadcast of events and news both through smart-phones and personal computers. We’re in a mutual relationship with Social Grub, referring their product while they refer us.
Other News & Pursuits
In the first quarter of 2010, we’ll be combining our two identities (Chocorua Group and Chalkboarder.com) into one brand under the Chalkboarder.com logo and identity. We’ve asked a few diverse peers to provide us critique during this process.
We’re waiting for a yea/nay decision on a pitch we made a few weeks ago to the PR firm handling 1800 Tequila (a brand of Cuervo), 5WPR in New York City. This proposal laid out a six-month global social media strategy. The PR firm indicated to us they were taking the proposal to Cuervo and we’re standing by.
We’re in negotiations with a former client in KennebunkportMaine, Old Vines Wine Bar, to strategize and execute their social media.
We’re in negotiations with Wind Horse Coffee in MilwaukieOregon to strategize and execute their social media.
While there are other negotiations underway across North America and internationally, we just don’t feel comfortable yet sharing them.
Well, that’s all the news that we see fit to print this month. We’d like you to know that chalkARTblast will be distributed monthly from here on – distributed sometime right after the 15th of each month.
Peace On Earth and Goodwill To You!
Jeffrey J Kingman
Happy Holidays from Judith, Bill and Jennifer – partners.
chalkARTblast is produced and distributed by Chalkboarder.com
Copyright Ó2009 Chalkboarder.com LLC
(503) 305-6397
info
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Welcome to Chalkboarder.com’s chalkARTblast! Inside you’ll find ~
And other goodies we liked from last week J
ADVERTISEMENT
Customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty are
built from the table up.
Your food, service, management and corporate identity meet the customer in the restaurant. So why wait until customers leave to measure their experience? Through Rewarding Feedback your customers can articulate specific experiences that are important to them. Rewarding Feedback allows your managers to “hear” what customers are saying while they are still seated and at the height of their dining experience.
Rewarding Feedback
Chalkboarder.com Client News This Week
Old Vines
Mike Farrell, a client of Chocorua Group from a couple years ago, reached out to Chalkboarder.com for assistance in both social media and an operational consult. Meeting next week.
Great American Spice Company
The story of The Great American Spice Company is the story of freshness. A meal, like anything else, is only as good as the quality of its components. Which is why we offer nothing but the freshest, highest-quality spices. It’s a difference you can see, smell and taste.
Rewarding Feedback Inc,
Headquartered in Toronto CAN with a US Sales office in Las Vegas, Rewarding Feedback retained Chocorua Group and Chalkboarder.com to collaboratively strategize and execute market penetration into the USA.
As part of that process, they and Chalkboarder.com are developing an extended eight month social media campaign.
Update II: We’re introducing Rewarding Feedback to some restaurants and lodging operations in New Hampshire over the next two weeks.
Twitter = @rewardfeedback
Facebook Page
Social Grub
SocialGrub allows restaurants and retailers to create coupons, instant offers, discounts, and other promotions once and then automatically distribute them through their own branded Facebook and MySpace applications, as well as on Twitter and other micro-blogging sites and through widgets.
We’re just getting started with the folks at Social Grub and will be developing a comprehensive strategy to introduce them and their products. This relationship is unique in that their services depend on their clients using social media – so we’ve become the referral Social Grub provides to potential and existing clients.
1337 Wine & 1337 Wine TV
Following a conversation with Marc Fusco, Owner of 1337 Wine, we’re sharing his Skype Wine Tasting Series over social networks. An amazing idea bringing Vintners to a tasting through Skype from around the world.
UPDATE: We’ve negotiated a virtual winery in Second Life to host the first ever virtual/real-world wine tasting. Well announce the Winery, date/time and sl-url in Second Life when we know. Stay tuned for roll-out of social media campaign for this client, starting next week.
Jenee Halstead
Update II: Jenee’s Holiday mailer is almost done and ready for printing.
Tapwater Music
Update II: We’ll be meeting this week with Tapwater on strategies for winter. Wrapping up development of their new website.
Savant Culinaire
Savant Culinaire is offering a sweet package gastronomic tour of Chile in late March of 2010. Chalkboarder.com is executing the social web networking and promotion of this amazing itinerary.
Update II: Started heavy promotion via social media of this amazing gastronomic tour of Chilean wine and food. Reservation inquiries beginning.
Chocorua Group
Chocorua Group (a sister company of Chalkboarder.com) offers strategic brand and concept development for organizations.
Update II: Chocorua Group was introduced through LinkedIn to a potential strategic brand national roll-out client based in Los Angeles. Stay tuned.
Social Web Clippings ~ Our Favorites From The Last Week
Mashable: Tweet Humor: 10 Twitter Users That Crack Us Up
FOHBOH: Why Urbanspoon’s Rez is no match for OpenTable..
Mashable: International Domain Names Coming in 2010
Chalkboarder.com News
Employment Announcements
We are in second round interviews with very talented applicants for NYC and Atlanta.
Negotiations This Week
Publishing, Speaking, Seminars & Conferences
Jeffrey was invited to present a seminar on social media at the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Massachusetts on Dec 29th.
Jeffrey J Kingman, CEO, was invited to present a seminar on social media/web at Coffee Fest in NY/NJ, March 4, 2010.
Jeffrey and Dr. Ola Ayeni of M-Dialog are co-producing a video webinar on social web applications to the hospitality industry, scheduled for Nov. 16. This panel dialogue will also include Paul Barron, Publisher of Fast Casual Magazine. Dr. Ayeni, through a personal relationship, is asking the Chief Marketing Officer of Facebook to moderate. Stay Tuned for further details! RESCHEDULED FOR JANUARY
Jeffrey and Bill Bridgmon (VP of Sales, Chalkboarder.com) are attending the International Hotel/Motel/Restaurant Show in NYC November 7-9 for networking and potential clients.
Jeffrey will be attending (with a media pass) People Reports Best Practices Conference in Dallas, November 10-12. This conference brings together hundreds of CEOs and HR Directors from the major multi-unit restaurant chains in the USA. Networking opportunities abound.
Jeffrey will be attending the annual New England conference of Professional Association of International Innkeepers, November 16-18 in Nashua, NH.
Jeffrey is posting his third article on FohBoh this Thursday as one of their ten featured front-page contributors. All content posted on FohBoh is also cross-posted on our blog – and Jeffrey is a fairly active writer!
Noted Blogs
Beautiful design can make your guest experience amazing!
Video Of The Week
(for fun)
Burger King and Windows 7 launch in Japan
chalkARTblast is produced by Chalkboarder.com
Currently published Mondays, except on federal holidays.
Future publishing will be daily.
Copyright Ó2009 Chalkboarder.com LLC
(503) 305-6397
info
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