Vol. 19: Social Sustainability & Empowering Creators

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Welcome to our third installment of our new monthly Behind the Bookcase Series! Each month, we will feature opinion pieces from people within our GreatCo Community to discuss a variety of topics that are near and dear to each author's heart. For those who may remember, the bookcase at the GreatCo office space many moons ago served as the backdrop to countless brainstorming sessions among some, indeed, Great Community. We would like to keep that conversation magic alive now by continuing to connect with each other on our most passionate subjects.  Next up, we are featuring a piece written by Nate Crommett! My grandfather was an organic farmer in the Midwest many decades before it was cool. One of my most vivid food memories as a kid is pulling a ripe carrot out of the soil in his garden, wiping the dirt off on my shorts, and taking a bite. At that moment, I got a taste of the depth & honesty of flavor – and it started me down a path of seeking food experiences at home that are simple, high quality, and leave a lasting memory.   On this journey, I have learned that every cooking adventure in the kitchen starts with three things: 1) a foundation - good ingredients, 2) guidance - a general idea of the recipe you’re going to use, and 3) the right tools (including bandages & gel burn pads). With these in hand, mind, and cabinet, respectively, the result will be a dish that is much more than “food is fuel.”    For ingredients, I recommend shopping at farmers markets, seeking out organic where it makes sense, and growing your own items that have a large flavor gap between store bought and garden-fresh (e.g. heirloom tomatoes, string beans, and an herb garden no matter your space constraints). Specifically, check out Professor Klee’s work with tomatoes at the University of Florida – and donate to get a few seeds of your own! Click Here for Professor Klee's Tomato Seeds For guidance, be inspired by films like Chef, Julie & Julia, Ratatouille, and The Hundred-Foot Journey. Learn from celebrities like Kristen Kish, José Andrés, Sohla El-Waylly, Alton Brown, Roy Choi, Giada, and your favorite contestant on The Great British Bake Off. Pick up a cookbook or two (The Cuban Table is the newest addition to my shelf). But most importantly, travel. Experience food from everywhere – this is my favorite way to immerse myself in a culture, learn, and bring inspiration back home to the kitchen.   For the right tools – we’ll save that for another day – but find what works for you, don’t clutter your kitchen, and stay curious. After installing a raised bed garden, tasting what a tomato can be thanks to Professor Klee, and riding the high of 2020's Thanksgiving turkey grand success, I feel more inspired than ever to continue my journey of memorable food experiences at home! ~Nate Crommett Have something to say? Interested in sharing an opinion piece? Reach out to us for a chance to be featured in Behind the Bookcase! We're proud to help introduce a new audio app that brings both iPhone and Android users together — Fam. Our team has been working closely with the Fam internal team to bring you a mobile app entirely focused on conversation. This app is undeniably inclusive, gives leaders tools to ground their communities, and intentionally develops a multi-gen audio access platform- capitalizing on the untapped potential in family, education, and music.  This idea came to life to make space for underrepresented communities, and to have a more dynamic base to inspire creative conversation. No text, no video, no scrolling, just a ton of virtual rooms that one can drop into randomly. GreatCo is proud to build on our relationships in order to create organic partnerships. Below are a couple of case studies in which we helped build both branding and community with our partners, PepsiCo and HBO! PepsiCo’s cultural innovation team, Creator, partnered with us here at GreatCo to reimagine the traditional approach to branded content creation and help large corporations think more like scrappy start-ups. Steering away from a conventional, transactional approach to building creative content, we developed a platform to empower and nurture collaborations between brands and emerging content creators from artistic and cultural backgrounds.  HBO Asian Pacific American Visionaries (APAV) is a short film competition that provides emerging directors of APIA descent the opportunity to showcase and celebrate their work. The goal for APAV is to become a platform for community and empowerment for the Asian American filmmaking community offering the winners a chance to screen their work on HBO MAX! Amidst the unpredictable year of 2020, we here at GreatCo developed and managed a strategy for APAV's fourth year, focusing on programming, messaging, and community cultivation of the four classes of Visionaries. We are excited to work alongside the HBO team and help cultivate this amazing group of creators as well as help bring APIA (Asian and Pacific Islander American) stories into the mainstream! We are powering up our creator services! This is a powerful alternative to traditional advertising and a very effective strategy for developing credibility and promoting/amplifying awareness of a brand campaign. From Creator Identification, Outreach, Contracting, Coaching to a long-term "always-on Creator" program development and management, furthering the reach through authentic amplification is now an essential part of our experiential design process. The community has and always will be the core of GreatCo's ethos and our Creator Engagement Programs will now be a celebrated part of our service offering. Email denise@ingreat.co for more information on how we can collaborate. In honor of Earth Day, we took some time to learn more on sustainable planning with event spaces. How can we be more sustainably minded from the beginning, the ideation phase, to the end of the event? Maybe it's using more biodegradable products, maybe it's reusing large old stage props from Facebook Marketplace or Offer-Up. The answer is, there are more options for this than we think. So what about social sustainability? This is about identifying and managing business impacts, both positive and negative, on people. The quality of a company’s relationships and engagement with its stakeholders is critical. Directly or indirectly, companies affect what happens to employees, workers in the value chain, customers and local communities, and it is important to manage impacts proactively.  Therefore, we have to look at social sustainability as a mission-critical way of doing business. When you provide safer working conditions, living wages, and job security, you create a more secure supply chain, and in doing so, you mitigate risk. You also create more inclusive societies, enhancing the empowerment of citizens, and foster more resilient and peaceful communities. This is how we expand more opportunities for all people today and tomorrow.  Climate Justice Alliance Environmental Justice is also an important conversation to be had — that means inclusion and diversity. In the past year and change, COVID-19 has hit BIPOC and low-income communities more acutely, with Black, Indigenous, and Latino Americans dying at a 2.7 times greater rate from COVID-19 than their White counterparts. This year, leaders and activists are using the day to shine a light on the injustices that have been illuminated and exacerbated. It's not the answer, but it's a start. Earth Day offers a special moment for individuals to use their voices and the spirit and tradition of the day to further spark action. 1% For The planet CA Environmental Justice Alliance Enjoying our newsletters? Check out our website updates for all past monthly issues! #InGreatCo