Friday, April 30th

Mike Whelan and Matthew working out 'the shot' of Brad Fitter, with Ian Cull of KAPP (ABC-Tri Cities) looking on.



We’re on our way to the National Main Streets Conference!

It’s going to be a very exciting time as we learn about Main Street and what others are doing, but also to meet new friends.

Let’s rewind for a moment first, and talk about the last few days in review.

This past weekend we started gearing up for the trip. The first order of business was to make contact with several people we wanted to speak with on camera about the complexities of Main Street.

We’ll introduce each person as we shoot the interviews, so stay tuned as we progress through the conference.

After that we prepared for filming our first segment with Brad Fitterer of Fitterer’s Furniture, and coincidently our first news pickup with KAPP-TV (ABC affiliate) out of the Tri-Cities.

The shoot with Brad went well. Mike Whalen, who is our lead film student on the project setup a great shot using existing lighting in the store to maximize the scene, and we put together a small interview portion for Brad.

To introduce Mike a little more, he’s been working on a documentary film being put together for Anderson Hay Company, and is winding down from that project just in time to wind up in ours.

Mike has a variety of experience in film ranging from shooting news stories to corporate video documents. We’re very excited to work with Mike and we think he will add a very audience-centered point of view to the shooting.

Directly after the segment was shot, Ian Cull from KAPP interviewed us about the project and what our experience has been in putting it together and how do we personally feel about Main Street.

It was great to see the interest in our project, and Ian did a good job of capturing our view of Main Street.

Later that day we planned our days at the conference out with Timothy Bishop from the EDA. One of the subjects that is always stressed to us in the classroom is how we are using social media. Professors talk about personal use, but more so the use professionally. In the field of public relations, the use of social media for clients is important.

The majority of the conversation revolves around being able to evaluate which applications to use, what kind of messages to deliver to those audiences, and how to capitalize on with new audiences.

As we read the various workshops that will be hosted at the conference, we noticed there is a distinct emphasis on the use of these tools as well.
While it’s safe to say that almost all businesses would benefit from some social media, it’s not always realized.

We’re impressed by the fact that ‘Main Streeters’ as we’ve heard conference attendees referred to, are cognizant of the ever revolving ways we communicate with one another.

As we all know, you can have the greatest product in the world, something all could use. But if you can’t communicate the message, the story, and process of that product you’ll be lucky to gain an audience.

As we see it, Main Street is not current when it comes to social media. It’s ahead of the curve and in a very big way.

The audience is getting bigger every day that much is clear. In fact, we think it won’t be too long before we start seeing major research emerging showing that the majority of social media users are each following or engaging at least one Main Street program.

The next few days were research days on a variety of topics, along with a few planning sessions for filming.

This morning we secured our camera and we’re on our way out of town. First to Redmond for an unrelated event, and then Sunday we’ll be in the air most of the morning.

We’ll see you then!

Tuesday & Wednesday

We’re combining the entry for the last two days.

The reason for this is that classes have both started up for us again, and that takes away from our time spent each day to the project.

However, that does not impede our schedule, as we planned the project accordingly from day one.

On Tuesday we interviewed Kelly Parke, owner of Ace Apparel and Body Piercing.

We feel her story as a Main Street business is very compelling and really shows that determination and self-discipline will lead to prosperity.

That theme is consistent with all the businesses that we contact on Main Street.
Each business has a different purpose, a different owner, and arguably different values. No matter how we categorize each business, hard work and dedication are a constant.

And with that, we transition into Wednesday.

Today, we were able to speak with Kim Holland and Hildi Neff, co-owners of Lotus Clothing & Jewelry Design about their perspective on Main Street and committing to environmentally sound purchasing. They also have a commitment to working with other small companies internationally, rather than large factories, and in the case of American made goods in their stores, they aim to work with companies in the Pacific Northwest.

And for them, their business goes beyond passion. It’s a source of satisfaction. Both owners have a personal interest in world traveling, and though their work does not take them to every single place they’d like to go, it does afford them the opportunity to go many places on their personal checklists.

Getting back to Lotus’ commitment to buy from other small, independent businesses for a moment. We both find that this strategy is truly beneficial for all within a given “Main Street’ community. What better way to show your support for your own community but to buy from other independent businesses.

It could be a store next door that sells cleaning supplies that are created 50 miles down the road. Or from a little known company in Mongolia that sells commercial furniture. Granted these are fictitious examples, but the point being that when independent business supports independent business, the largest form of support in the chain is complete.

Next comes ensuring the customer base swells. If we believe that one good deed leads to another, maybe it’s only a matter of time.

But we still see Main Street in Ellensburg as a thriving commerce corridor, and so do the business owners.

It may not be ideal, but it’s in a very good position, and maybe because it’s not ideal makes it something worth fighting for.

Until tomorrow!

A New Week!

Happy Monday all!

Over the weekend the two of us worked on researching Main Street as a theory, specifically reading several books on the subject of small towns, independent businesses and how the two can sustain one another in harmony.

A few of the titles are Boomtown USA: The 7 ½ Keys to Big Success in Small Towns by Jack Schultz, The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Business Are Beating the Global Competition by Michael H. Shuman and Growing Local Value: How To Build Business Partnerships That Strengthen Your Community by Laury Hammel and Gun Denhart.

We have plenty of reading still to go, but we both get the sense of what has been working for small communities, but more importantly what hasn’t.

And that transitions us into a fantastic interview we conducted with Mia Peterson this afternoon. She is an extremely business-savvy woman and we both walked away from our time with her having learned something about entrepreneurship and the conclusion that she is a tremendous asset to Ellensburg, and could be an asset anywhere.

We’ve both been excited since we dreamt up this project, but not a day passes that we don’t reach a new level of excitement and the interview we had today only continued that trend.

Mia asked for our help with a small task related to her business as well, and we were happy to oblige.

And aside from her knowledge on her industry and retail operation, she is also extremely knowledgeable on building design, both interior and exterior.
And she also has great understanding of the concept of branding and what it means from a community perspective.

We’re looking forward to continue our work with Mia and seeing what she has planned for the future, because we both know that she is an important voice to this community.

We wrapped up the day working on press releases for some of the different organizations involved in our project and getting paperwork in order.

They say cleanliness is close to Godliness. I wonder if organization is included in that statement.

Until tomorrow!

Friday!

Hello again!

Today’s activities were a little more organizational than the rest of the week.
We started by conducting interviews with John and Brad Fitterer of Fitterer’s Furniture in the morning.

That went quite well, we received a lot of information about sustaining an independent business on Main Street throughout economic peaks and valleys.

We then had our weekly “wrap-up” meeting with Timothy Bishop, CMSM and the Executive Director of the EDA.

We then had a break in the action and posted two businesses to the Facebook group page found here Ellensburg Main Street 2010

We then returned to Main Street around 10:30 PM to photograph the street and store fronts at night.

We may return another time for night photography in the future, and we’ll keep everyone updated on that possibility.

The reason behind the night shots is just to show Main Street in a different “light” so to speak. It’s fair to say that any street in America lives one life during the day and another life at night.

When comparing to news reports on America’s financial outlook, I am surprised by the positive outlook by all the people we’ve come in contact with. If someone was to base their opinion of business in America off of the news, it would not be very good.
But what we are finding are business owners and employees who are excited by the positions they find themselves in now, and are ready to move forward.

The only time the recession has been mentioned is in past tense. Not one business we’ve talked to finds the situation to be impossible.

And with that, we sign off for the weekend.

See you on Monday!