What’s the big idea?

Recently some mem­bers of the Day­ton Mar­ket­ing Com­mu­nity met up for the 1^st (of what will hope­fully be many) Big Idea Break­fast — some­thing I thought up a few days prior while writ­ing my morn­ing pages.   The con­cept for the event was as follows:

This meet­ing is part net­work­ing part inno­va­tion part caf­feina­tion part col­lab­o­ra­tion and all fun. Have a great idea? Share it with the world. Find peo­ple to help you bring this idea to life.

The meet­ing will start with open net­work­ing and social­iz­ing until every­one wakes up and gets fully caf­feinated. (let’s say 20 to 30 min­utes.) Fol­low­ing that each per­son will be given one minute to artic­u­late a “big idea.” That will leave us with a lit­tle time to talk about some of our favorite ideas and per­haps bring some to life… that part will be up to you.

The ideas could range from ways to advance your career, to ways to improve the com­mu­nity, to sav­ing energy, sav­ing money, sav­ing time, new tips, new busi­ness ideas, what­ever you want.

The big idea behind the big idea break­fast is that we all have a lot of inter­est­ing thoughts and ideas. By shar­ing them with oth­ers we are forced to more thor­oughly exam­ine these thoughts. By oth­ers hear­ing them, they may have a shared inter­est in bring­ing them to life. Because every­one is shar­ing, it may be that some ideas actu­ally sup­port oth­ers. This could rep­re­sent the seed for inno­va­tion and growth — the ideas that cre­ate our col­lec­tive future.

Well, the event was a lot of fun.  Not only were some great ideas shared by pre­sen­ters, but then they were made even bet­ter through the vibrant dis­cus­sion that fol­lowed.  I used my flip cam to film the pre­sen­ta­tions, and then chopped it up on my Mac and put it on the web.  You can view them here.

My idea was some­thing called “The Mar­keters’ Farm.”

The name is a take off on the Farm­ers’ Mar­ket.  The idea is more like a farm sys­tem in base­ball, but for young mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als in the area.  This would be accom­plished by assem­bling cross func­tional teams from area uni­ver­si­ties and pair­ing them with local non-profits and busi­ness men­tors.  They would then engage in a com­pe­ti­tion with the win­ning team receiv­ing pub­lic recog­ni­tion at the end.  The stu­dents would gain con­nec­tions and expe­ri­ence, the non-profits would get much needed help, and busi­nesses would get the chance to see young tal­ent in action — with the option to hire that tal­ent down the road.  This would be a very effec­tive way to keep col­lege grad­u­ates and other young pro­fes­sion­als in the area, a neces­sity for the long term via­bil­ity of the region.

Other ideas included — Bridg­ing Art and Com­merce, Local­ize, Men­tor Con­nect, Social Brand­ing, Twit­ter for Mar­ket Research, You Box, Coope­ti­tion Adver­tis­ing, Start-Up Fund­ing,  Cor­po­rate Image Con­sult­ing, Pos­i­tively Day­ton, Cen­tral Com­mu­nity Cal­en­dar, Home Ser­vices and Cross Sell­ing Cold Calls

The response from those who attended was over­whelm­ingly pos­i­tive.  Thanks to all who par­tic­i­pated.  I hope to get the next one on the sched­ule soon.