Items of Inspiration

Bees Motivate Gratitude and Giving

I’m into my fourth year of beekeeping and while I still consider myself a newbie, I do feel I’ve come a long way. For one—and an important one at that—I can now find the queen.

Finding the queen—or queenspotting, as they say—is huge in beekeeping. There are books on the subject, like this cool Where’s Waldo-style QueenSpotting, by Hilary Kearney, or #queenspotting challenges on Instagram. These are basically where I learned to spot my queens.

We all know how important the queen is. She’s the heart and soul of a honey bee colony after all, and because she’s the only one who lays fertilized eggs, she’s the prime indicator of its productivity. No queen, no colony.

But did you know the other bees are equally important?

A honey bee colony is a superorganism, meaning its three types of bees—workers, drones, and the queen—are dependent upon one another. Each engages in a specialized division of labor that selflessly supports the survival of the colony. We can liken this to Aristotle’s “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” but in plain, everyday speak, let’s just say honeybees work together for the good of all.

What great role models honey bees are for us humans!

A queen bee in her own right, this lovely lady walked ahead of me at an In Her Boots/Soil Sisters workshop. I love her message!

November is Gratitude Month and Giving Month

Inspired by my bees and in thankfulness for all my clients do for me, November is the month I pass it forward. Each year Adunate accepts two pro bono projects for greatly reduced or no cost. These are projects I strongly support and believe will positively impact God’s creation, his people, or his ministry.

My areas of focus include, but aren’t limited to:

  • Agriculture & Animals
  • Architecture
  • Arts
  • Children
  • Environment
  • Faith
  • History
  • Humanity
  • Food & Drink
  • Sustainability

If your caring organization needs creative support in the coming year, click here for an application. Then, to guarantee your project’s success, be sure to click here!

My deadline for submissions is December 31, 2019. I will let applicants know of my decision in January.

By the way, did you find the queen? Here she is, that royal lady!

Wisconsin Women are Go-Getters

I’m always proud to be a Wisconsin woman. However, this month my heart swells even more as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Wisconsin’s ratification of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote. On June 10, 1919, Wisconsin—movin’ people that we are— was the first state to take such action. We even beat the U.S. Congress, which didn’t ratify the amendment until the next year.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has a great exhibit on display in our beautiful State Capitol Rotunda all the way through November. My pictures don’t do it justice so definitely take time to see it for yourselves.

Certainly, a tip of the hat is due to those progressive thinkers of Wisconsin’s legislature. But the real heroes are the women who fought more than 70 years to bring the 19th amendment to fruition, women like these Wisconsin demigoddesses.

Women’s rights groups began forming in Wisconsin in the 1860s and they rallied for an array of social reforms such as anti-slavery, temperance, education, health, and married women’s property rights. The Wisconsin Women’s Suffrage Association (WWSA) was started in 1869. Besides campaigning for suffrage, these ladies fought to improve public schools. By 1869 they were running for school boards and by 1886 women could vote for issues “pertaining to school matters,” according to the Wisconsin Women Suffrage in School Matters Referendum.

Notice a whole lot of nurturing going on here?

“Bitches get stuff done.” — Tina Fey

When women rise up, they by nature don’t do so with self-serving ambitions. If we examine the motives behind what some label as “women being bitches,” we see they’re most often raising their voices for the welfare of others; family, children, the sick, the poor. Even 19th-century women’s quest for rights to their property was done with their children in mind; to prevent a drunken husband from taking a mother’s earnings or to will a woman’s inherited land to her own children rather than those of her husband’s second wife. Sometimes women being bitchy is the only way people listen.

Today I’m admiring…

These days inspiring Wisconsin women continue to stand up for the good of others. I’m thinking of several in my world alone, caring women who have dedicated time out of their busy lives to basically make things better in Wisconsin. Women like:

Be a Wisconsin Woman

Wisconsin women are gutsy go-getters. They get things done. But really, you don’t have to live in my beloved Badger state to be so emboldened. Just get up and go wherever you are.

And don’t forget to vote!

Earth Day and Double Duty Composting

Today, on Earth Day 2019, I’m thinking back to the roundtable discussion I was honored to lead at the MOSES Organic Conference. It was on marketing and it overflowed with interesting conversation. Today though, two particular points come to mind: composting and responsibility.

As we discussed innovative ideas to promote our farms, a woman whose name I missed (someone help me, please, I’d love to contact her) mentioned the composting campaign they’re doing for their CSA farm. They give buckets to their members and encourage them to bring food scrap compost to the farm each week where it will help to create fertile ground for next years’ crops. And I, whose marketing brain spins 24/7, suggested she be sure to put her farm name and website on the buckets.

Seriously though, isn’t a composting campaign a great idea in so many ways?

Full Circle of Sustainability

This year’s Earth Day theme is Protect Our Species and from bees to trees, good soil is vital for sustaining all of God’s creation. Composting is a small way to make a big impact on the enrichment of our soil. When we return scraps of food to the very soil from which it was taken, we complete a full circle of sustainability.

How cool is that for CSA members to participate in this full circle!

Responsibility + Ownership = Good Marketing

Marketing gurus tell us that allowing customers a sense of “ownership” is proven for building customer loyalty. We discussed this in our roundtable and how responsibility enables that sense of ownership.

The CSA farm’s composting campaign allows members to share in the responsibility of improving its soil for more nutrient-based produce. The result? These members become proud owners of the vegetables they helped to grow and they talk about them with their friends. Word of mouth marketing at its best!

What About You?

I’ve been composting for years and, gee, it’s such an easy way to put food waste to good use. Now, after touring the facilities of my newest customer, The Farmory, I’m inspired even further—maybe composting with worms?

What about you? Are you a business looking to heat up your environmental stewardship? Or a gardener wanting healthier soil? Earth Day is a great time to start composting—actually Earth Day celebrations last all week so you have time to find yourself a bucket.

So let’s get going and may the joyous rotting begin!

Want to learn more?
Soil health is a big conversation these days. Two recent and interesting articles are Compost, like the Earth Depends On It, from the Willy Street Co-op Reader and the Dirt Issue (Spring 2019) of Yes!

Michelle Obama Inspires a Cooperative Spirit

Let me preface this by saying no matter which way you lean, you can still read this post. I say this because if you have even an inkling of objectivity—no matter your politics—you have to admit Michelle Obama is one classy lady. And this post is about her.

This post is not about politics (to prove my sincerity, I also admire Barbara and Laura Bush).

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk Michelle Obama and her recent open letter.

“Failure is a feeling long before it is an actual result. It’s vulnerability that breeds with self-doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear.”

In preparation for the release of her memoir, Becoming, the former first lady recently addressed an open letter to the readers of the Chicago Defender, a newspaper heralded as the “national voice for black Americans.” Of course, I admire that she hasn’t forgotten her roots in Chicago’s South Side. And I love that she credits who she is today to her parents, the teachers who taught her, and the neighbors who looked out for her. But what I find most compelling is her message of hope and cooperative spirit in the face of fear and negativity. She encourages hope not just for a select group of people, but for the whole community—a community working together for the good of all.

“It’s why teachers stayed up late grading papers and summer-camp organizers dedicated themselves to kids all across South Shore. And it’s why my parents invested themselves so deeply into my older brother Craig and me. My mother became one of the most active members of the PTA at Bryn Mawr, raising money for new equipment, throwing teacher-appreciation dinners, and lobbying for classes and strategies that would better serve the neighborhood’s children.” —Michelle Obama

Sharing the Cooperative Spirit

Michelle Obama’s open letter is truly inspiring. When we stand up together, we can push aside fear. When we work together for everyone’s benefit, amazing things can happen.

Next Tuesday, November 27, is Giving Tuesday. It’s also the day I open my mailbox for pro-bono applications. Each year Adunate accepts two pro bono projects for greatly reduced or no cost. These are projects I strongly support and believe will positively impact God’s creation, his people, or his ministry.

My interests include, but aren’t limited to:

  • Agriculture & Animals
  • Architecture
  • Arts
  • Children
  • Environment
  • Faith
  • History
  • Humanity
  • Food & Drink
  • Sustainability

If your organization needs creative support in the coming year, click here for an application. Then, to guarantee your project’s success, be sure to click here!

My deadline for submissions is December 31, 2018. I will let applicants know of my decision in January.

Where We Talk About Women and the Difficulties of Self-Promotion

My cousin JerriLynn is an amazing woman. When we were both barely into our 20s, she was an audacious entrepreneur with her own whole foods store. Since then she’s succeeded in a variety of ventures, always with moxie and always with finesse. These days she’s in real estate and even though I’m a Great Lake away from her Lansing, Michigan market, I love following her work.

I’m bragging about my cousin because just about the time Lisa Kivirist and I were taping our In Her Boots episode on the difficulties women have promoting themselves, JerriLynn’s quarterly newsletter came in the mail. I was blown away by how skillfully she announced her latest achievements, all the while keeping to her genuine and unpretentious self (and anyone who’s met JerriLynn knows this is who she truly is).

No matter what industry you’re in, tooting one’s horn is a necessary component of running your own business. It’s marketing, after all. Interestingly, many women think of self-promotion as a necessary evil. Maybe you do too? I admit I have to push myself, but I’ve also learned ways to make advocating my work easier and more authentic.

So here’s our In Her Boots, episode 60. Lisa and I share great first steps for telling your story and effectively promoting what you do. Listen up and then share your own ideas!

Bringing International Women’s Day to My Office

Today is International Women’s Day and it’s a perfect time to show off my new office décor. It’s a print of the Hillside Club by David Lance Goines and, while I love all his work, I’m particularly fond of this piece because of what it represents. On top of that, when I ordered the print, I also received Hillside Club notecards—lagniappe at its best!

Hillside Club poster by David Lance Goines

The Hillside Club was formed in 1898 by three tea-sipping ladies from Berkely, California, who wanted to protect the area hillside from unscrupulous developers. Decades later in the 1960s, a new generation of Hillside Club ladies rallied to save the San Francisco Bay from developers who were filling it in for urban expansion. Today this region’s beauty reflects The Hillside Club’s success and the great things that happen when women get together.

These days we’re hearing a lot about the force of womanhood and how long-awaited issues are finally being addressed. We’re inspired by the many famous ladies who put themselves out there for the betterment of the others. But today, on International Women’s Day, let’s not forget the lesser known but equally important gatherings of women whose “getting things done” are motivation for the rest of us.

Like the Hillside Club.

How Fun – A Promotional Photo Series!

Vintage Needles and 1910 calendar

One of my goals for the year is to challenge myself with something new. That opportunity came along right away in January when my walking partner proposed a brilliant collaboration. Since then we’ve been busy planning, scheduling, designing, and doing whatever in preparation for a big opening this Friday, April 1. No April Fool jokes happening here!

In the meantime, I want to share some vintage advertising I found stashed in a drawer. For the rest of the week I’ll be posting these and a few more treasures on my Instagram. Be sure to check them out!

Art Nouveau in advertising

I’ve always loved art nouveau and according to this history, it was a popular medium for advertising from the 1880s until World War I. This is the cover to the 1910 calendar above.

Advertising copy for wright's Fancy Patent Flour

Who says copywriters aren’t fun? Or creative? This reminds me of the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder story contest in Anne of Green Gables!

Stay tuned until Friday!

Difference Between Giving and Taking? NYPL’s 187,000 Images

Dinner by Food and Cookery Magazine“DINNER [held by] FOOD AND COOKERY (MAGAZINE) [at] “THE MONICO, LONDON, [ENGLAND]”

Generally, professional designers don’t like crowdsourcing. We hold little enthusiasm for so-called “opportunities” offered by profitable companies to submit work—for free, of course—in hopes of winning their approval (like when Dog é Style Restaurant announced its logo contest). In most cases, crowdsourcing results in companies taking a lot for themselves and giving very little to designers.

That’s one side of the issue. Here’s another, more positive side:

The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library (NYPL) is “chronically underfunded,” as PCMag says in this article. Yet, the 105-year-old public institution initiates brilliant crowdsourcing programs that benefit the givers (doers) and much as the receiver (NYPL). Take, for example, What’s On the Menu?. Launched in 2011, this epicurean’s delight crowdsources the transcription of 45,000 historical restaurant menus, which, by virtue of their type and design, are indiscernible to optical character recognition when digitalized. To date, online volunteers have transcribed more than 1,331,929 dishes from 17,545 menus.

In return? We, the people, whether we volunteer or not, are given viewing access to NYPL’s magnificent collections.

Just last week, NYPL thrilled the world once again with this news release:

“Today we are proud to announce that out-of-copyright materials in NYPL Digital Collections are now available as high-resolution downloads. No permission required, no hoops to jump through: just go forth and reuse!”

That’s right, 187,000 public domain images for digital download. For free! For artists, historians, educators, scientists, well, for everyone, this is an unimaginable treasure trove. Oh, the glory of it all!

In celebration of this release, NYPL invites us to participate in its Labs Remix Residency. Yes, this is crowdsourcing of sorts (the PR will certainly generate donations). And yes, it’s a contest. But once again, NYPL puts the people back in public and offers us something in return—creative use of 187,000 images!

So here’s the dish:

NYPL invites us to brainstorm “transformative, interesting, beautiful new uses” of its digital collections. They’re looking for projects that use pre-existing works to create new things (you know, a remix). Maybe a menu? Maybe a quilt? Maybe a board game? They encourage us to surprise them!

Here’s another way NYPL is unique in its crowdsourcing: Participants are only required to submit a proposal of their project. From there, NYPL will choose two proposals and award them each a $2000 stipend for completing their project. How cool is that?

Start brainstorming! Proposals are due February 19, 2016.

Looking for ideas? Here’s a good article. In fact, any one of the NYPL blogs is a good article!

Want to show your appreciation for 187,000 free images? Consider donating to NYPL or your own local library. Libraries offer us so much!