September 25, 2010 – Doing the Parade Thing

Today was the community celebration day in Marshalltown. There’s a couple of new groups in town that wanted to get some visibility.

The “Eat Smart, Move More, Live Well” is the name of the program.  Linda’s involved with a supporting group called Harvest from the Heart of Iowa – a local food group.  Eating healthy is just one component of the larger group.

Linda passed out flyers and Martin carried a local goat!

Even though the day was rainy, some people are perpetually sunny!

one year ago…”Photo Friday – The Face”

September 24, 2010 – U of M Public Relations Disaster

After an uproar, the Troubled Waters film I blogged about a few days ago is back on, according to the University of Minnesota officials, who all seem to be playing with a different playbook and set of rules as the reasons and rationale seem to change daily after a PR director stopped the release of the film.  Does every work of literature, poetry, film, publication, brochure, theatre production now require the imprimatur of the head PR person, or just those that she disagrees with?

Many questions remain – like how the head of PR at the university stops the film, and then is unavailable/unwilling to comment during the week the uproar rages in the newspapers while the University President is in Morocco (I’m sure there’s a good reason for the President of the University of Minnesota to be in Morocco during the first weeks of the new academic year!)

So this situation violates two “Intro to PR” principles. First, by disappearing while the story broke and unfolded – the “U” let others define the story by their lack of response and absence of the PR person not making statements, in this case for many days. Secondly, there is no better way to bring public notice to something you want hidden than to ban it and have ensuing firestorm bring the item to everyone’s attention, rather than just the few academics who might have otherwise seen it. The university is now adding additional screenings to accommodate a much higher anticipated audience than the film might have otherwise had!

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #178″

September 22, 2010 – FIRST Lego League Team Building

My “off-farm” volunteering this year includes a coach/helper for Martin’s First Lego League team.  We’ll have more about the team later, but today’s event centered around team-building.

The first step was to partner up the kids, blindfold one, and have the the “sighted” one guide the blindfolded one through the lego mine field.  This was a great activity and analogy for making a lego robot as the blindfolded kids represented the robot and the kids giving instructions represent the robot programmers.

Another activity was to raise and lower a stick with each kid always touching the stick with a single finger as it rises and falls (it’s harder than you might think!)

Who can’t have fun with moving a hula hoop down a line without breaking hold of the hand of the person next to you!

The final part of the day was to review the official board and rules of the robot challenge.

one year ago…”Golden Raspberries”

September 21, 2010 – Troubled Waters at the University of Minnesota

I don’t quite know how to explain this one, but here goes. Hey, I can chime in because I have two degrees from the University of Minnesota and am greatly saddened by the events of the last few days. Here goes a quick overview. Private donors give the University of MN money for a film documenting the impact of agriculture on water quality. They hire an Emmy and Peabody award-winning film-maker whose work appears on PBS NOVA series and other respected channels. The film shows the impact of commodity agriculture on water quality. The donors think the film is great.

Two weeks before the film’s premiere on campus and statewide public TV, a University PR person pulls the plug saying it hasn’t met the University’s scientific review. Well, it turns out it does pass the review (remember, it’s not a schlock filmmaker, she’s put out accurate, interesting work for years). OK, so that doesn’t work, now the explanation is that the film shows specific sustainable farmers that sell farm products, so the university can’t release the film because they will be promoting products by companies – and these are bad mega companies – an organic milk co-op and a grassfed beef company.

News flash to U of M – Hey, you know that new football stadium, I think it’s called “TCF Bank Stadium,” I’ve got a secret to let out of the bag – shhhh, the bank sells products. And about that Cargill Building of Molecular Genomics on campus, it might surprise you, but Cargill sells BILLIONS of dollars of products. And hey, you’ve gone as far as not only naming structures after companies, but entire university programs – that Carlson School of Management for instance. And by golly, what a coincidence, the Carlson company sold 38 billion dollars worth of products and services in 2008. I expect all those names will be removed in light of the new university policy that prohibits university mention of companies in any university-related publication or film, even if they aren’t funded by the U of M!

To read more about the bruhaha, check out the Land Stewardship Project page, with links to NPR, Star-Tribune, Pioneer Press and other media outlets stories on the film.

one year ago…”Barn Update”