SoapBlog 3 - Volunteer to Make a Difference
JB Kropp

Cincinnati is a great place to get involved in the community and volunteer your time with a non-profit.  In my opinion, the size of the city and the number of volunteer opportunities make it easy for you to get involved and make a difference.  According to data provided by Volunteering in America, Cincinnati ranks 17th among the top 50 largest cities.  However, there is clear room for improvement.  Below is an outline of how we stack up with our neighbors.

City	Volunteer Rate Ranking	Average Volunteer Rate	Volunteer Hours Ranking	Avg. Volunteer Hours/Resident
Columbus	6	34.70%	14th	43.1
Pittsburgh	11	32.10%	20th	38.7
Louisville	15	30.70%	22nd	38.1
Cincinnati	17	29.90%	43rd	27.3
Indianapolis	21	28.80%	4th	46.8
Cleveland	22	28.50%	36th	31
Chicago	37	25.60%	44th	26.9

Rankings are based on a 3-year moving average.                                      

Source: volunteeringinamerica.gov

As you explore the options we have, here are a few charities that I have been actively involved in, as well as others worth considering.

Starfire Council enables individuals with disabilities to become actively involved in the community.  Their mission is “to enrich the lives of teens and adults with developmental disabilities through unlimited opportunities that build independence and community inclusion.”  Starfire is lead by a great group of enthusiastic people who are making a huge difference in the community.
Tim Vogt
5030 Oaklawn Dr.
Cincinnati, OH 45227
www.starfirecouncil.org

Starfire U is a new, post-secondary opportunity focused on providing relevant educational opportunities for young adults with disabilities.  The program combines Starfire's expertise in advancing socialization with traditional special education techniques. They are just entering their second year and already making a noticeable difference.
Tim Vogt
5030 Oaklawn Dr.
Cincinnati, OH 45227
starfireu.org

UGIVE is a relatively new organization that is helping build the foundation of the next generation of volunteers.  Currently, UGIVE is focused on the high school level but has plans to expand into other age brackets.  
Joe Hansbauer
9380 Montgomery Road, Suite 207
Cincinnati, OH 45242
ugive.org

Mercy Young Leaders is part of the Mercy Foundation that is under the Mercy Health Partners umbrella.  The Mercy Young Leaders is a group of young and energetic volunteers, who help promote the mission of Mercy Franciscan at St. John in Over-the-Rhine, which provides many different types of assistance to individuals and families living in the Over-the-Rhine area.
Todd Lindley, President of Mercy Health Partners Foundation
4600 McAuley Place
Cincinnati, Ohio 45242
ehealthconnection.com

Give Back Cincinnati probably has the largest number of active members who are involved in up to 10 large projects every year to help better the Cincinnati community.  One of their most popular events is Paint the Town, in the spring, during which volunteers go into parts of the community and help repaint houses and give the yards a “spring cleaning.”

Jared Simmons
312 Walnut Street, Suite 3600
Cincinnati, OH 45202
givebackcincinnati.org

Smart Money Community Services is an agency located in Over-the-Rhine whose mission is to “provide financial services and economic education to underserved individuals in Over-the-Rhine and Greater Cincinnati Communities.”
Lisa Roberts-Rosser
19 West Elder, 2nd Floor
Cincinnati, Oh 45202
smart-money.org

United Way of Greater Cincinnati is another great resource to find volunteer opportunities.  More information can be found on their website: uwgc.org

Seeing the difference I can make by giving a little of my time has been personally rewarding.  I encourage you to make a commitment to volunteer throughout the year. Let's try and move Cincinnati up the ranks.  Good luck with your pursuit.

JB Kropp
SoapBlog 2 - Social Media 101

People always ask me: "How should my company take advantage of social media?"  I am going to use this blog entry to share some of the things I have learned along the way. Social Media can have a very generic definition, so I am going to try and cover the basics.  

Social Media, in my own words, is the medium where consumers can come together to share, discuss and communicate about a certain topic or idea.  A blog, like this, is a very simple example.

As you begin to explore ways your company can take advantage of social media, there are many tools to consider that provide a way to share your thoughts and ideas with others – blogging platforms (Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad), social networking services (Ning, Kickapps, Vitrue), commenting functionality (JS-Kit, Disqus) and sharing tools (ShareThis).  Many of these services are free to use and provide great ways to experiment with the different outlets.

Transparency is key.
Another thing to note in the world of social media is that transparency is very important.  Your consumers want to experience the good and the bad, and they are smart enough to know that everything is not always perfect.  At Flycast, we had some server issues that prevented us from serving banner ads.  [Imagine having thousands of websites that rely on you for revenue and we did not serve a banner for almost 2 weeks.]  It was a true test of customer service.  But in the end, because we were honest and proactive, every site stayed with us.  That was a critical point in the company because we knew that having exceptional customer service – and being transparent -- was what was going to make us successful.

Create tentacles.  Be proactive.  
As you build your online communities, make sure you have a dedicated person who is in charge of all the profiles and interaction on the sites.  It is important that they submerge themselves in the communities so that they can provide an authentic experience for your consumers. Instead of focusing all of your efforts on bringing your consumers to your website, create tentacles whereby you can deliver the information to the sites where they spend time.  Here are some outlets to consider leveraging:

• Blogs. Create a blog that has fresh content daily or at least 3 times a week. Don't just create a few posts and forget about it.  Keep it updated.  Your consumers will want to hear the inside scoop, from what the CEO is thinking, to some of the latest technologies your CTO is evaluating. Bring in your consumers and let them know that you are continuing to innovate and trying to stay ahead of the curve.  Allowing your consumers to feel like they have ownership in your brand will cause them to become brand ambassadors for you.

• Social Networking Sites.  Make sure you establish a presence on some of the top social networking sites, such as, Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Cucina, Flickr, as well as Twitter (more on this later). Profiles are helpful, but the only way they work is if someone is proactively updating the content and interacting with the other members. Don't let your profile get stale.  Your consumers are members of so many things that you have to continue to fight for their attention; your goal is to become a part of their daily routine.  As an example, Soapbox does a great job keeping their Facebook group updated; check it out if you have not already.

• Twitter.  I am specifically highlighting Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, because not only has is been getting a lot of attention (they recently closed a round of $35M of financing), but it can be very powerful, if used correctly.  Twitter is a micro-blogging services that allows you to send out short messages.  It has become an efficient way to share thoughts, ideas, events -- you name it -- to a community in an indirect way.  Make sure you establish a Twitter profile and send out 'tweets' on a regular basis.  Don't just be self-promoting, but be the expert in your field and provide value.  John Atkins, founder of PimpMyNews.com, does a great job keeping people in the loop on what he is thinking, as well as interesting companies he comes across.  Here are some worthy Cincinnatians to follow: Dave Knox, Tim Schigel, Michelle Letz, Kevin Dugan, Chris Beiting, Mark Celsor, Monika Roberts and Jackie Reau. Also, here are some organizations that are using Twitter on a regular basis: Cincinnati Zoo, Cincinnati Art Museum, The Enquirer, CincyChic and Soapbox to name a few.

Measure the Buzz
To help determine the effectiveness of your social media efforts, you can use tools to measure the online buzz of your brand. This will provide valuable insights as to what your consumers are doing and how you might need to shift your efforts.  Here are two tools I find useful to help analyze the data:

• Vitrue's Social Media Index.
• BlogPulse

Hopefully this will get you going as you plan your social media initiatives. Good luck.

Can't find your ideal job? Create your own.

The title of this post probably sounds like something you read from a flyer taped to a telephone pole, but hear me out.  

Prior to moving back to Cincinnati five years ago, I was in San Francisco working on a couple start-ups - Flycast and WebVisible. I always knew I liked incubating ideas, but during my time at Flycast, I really got a good dose of the start-up world - and that is where I caught the start-up bug.  That was 1996.

When I moved back to Cincinnati in 2004, I was a little disheartened by the lack of enthusiasm toward start-ups.  Local investors and entrepreneurs still seemed a little affected by the dot-com bubble bursting.  I figured time would heal those wounds. Cincinnati is a great place to live and grow up for so many reasons.  However, at the time, I realized that if I wanted to stay in Cincinnati and remain in the internet industry, I needed to make my own path and start a company.  

Enter Sharkle.com.  Sharkle was one, if not the first, of the online video sharing communities.  Trevor Wright, a former Flycaster, called me with the itch to start a company.

Trevor had a head start on the Sharkle concept, so we joined forces and gave it a shot.  

Starting a company in Cincinnati has many advantages.  It is very easy to get people to listen to your idea, which is important as you continue to develop your business model and marketing initiatives.  Surrounding yourself with people that will challenge the idea and make sure you are not drinking too much of your own KoolAid is critical.  I call these people my smart dummies; make sure you have some.

Cincinnati is also a great town in which to network and build relationships with some of the top executives in the world.  P&G, Cintas, Kroger, Cincinnati Bell, Chiquita, Scripps and Convergys are all great companies that, if networked the right way, can be very advantageous as you try taking your idea to reality.   As we were building Sharkle, I continued to network and tell my idea to anyone who would listen.  A couple people I met along the way that helped were George Molinsky (Partner at Taft) and Tim Schigel (CEO, ShareThis and former Partner at Blue Chip Ventures).  Since I was removed from Cincinnati for some time, I needed to reemerge as quickly as possible - George and Tim helped me navigate the entrepreneurial scene.

Getting press as you start your company is important as well, and Cincinnati has many accessible technology writers.  Laura Baverman, now with the Cincinnati Enquirer and an active blogger, was the first journalist who covered Sharkle on a local level.  We had already been growing extremely fast, but her story helped generate a lot of local buzz.  Michelle Lentz is also another valuable resource, who writes for a well-known Web 2.0 blog, bub.blicio.us.

If you are in the process of starting a company or contemplating a new idea, making sure you surround yourself with the right people and leverage Cincinnati’s resources can make starting your own company relatively easy.  I encourage you to give it a shot.

Stay tuned for the next blog: Social Media 101.