Greetings and happy Friday! Looks like another gorgeous day out there!
Here’s our update from this week –
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Suzan’s week:
* Messages (staff, former director’s email & phone)
* Clean/disinfect office
* Post office/sort mail
* Staff meeting
* Processed membership
* Updated database & xls
* Thank-you cards
* Updated board’s member list
* Updated email contacts
* Updated shared calendar
* Minutes
* Started FDIC spreadsheet
* Cut checks
* Friday list
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Paul’s week:
Meet and Greets – I continue to meet the “head and shoulders” of community and business leaders via Zoom and other video calls (so odd to not be able to see folks’ body language!) and next week, the reach out will turn to municipal leaders. Thanks to all who have taken the time to share their thoughts and wisdom! I also did another Newport Chamber virtual Business After Hours and next week, the Lincoln City CoC will have an online BAH.
Business Oregon – Melissa Murphy and I spent quite a lot of time this week discussing Business Oregon programs and upcoming opportunities and challenges in Lincoln County. She is going to be an incredible ally and partner. Next week, we’ll be meeting with Carrie to explore some options for the aquarium in light of the lottery bond sale being put on hold.
Executive Committee – We has an Executive Committee meeting this week via WebEx and hammered out some final budget questions. We also had an in-depth discussion on re-engaging with government leaders so we can better work together moving forward. I’ll be presenting a draft plan to the Executive Committee next week and I’m sure we’ll be discussing things in our next board meeting.
EDALC Internet – (AKA “We’re Halfway There!”) Spectrum came in for an install this morning and Curt and I were on hand. For some reason, there is now a lock on the gate to the back of the building (it wasn’t there last time) – but someone came and got things unlocked. All got set up and all looked good… then it wasn’t. The new Spectrum modem would wig out after 5 minutes or so. Long story short – Curt thinks we’ve got stuff set up, but the Spectrum modem may be bad. We are listed as a “priority case” but who knows if they’ll make it back today. Hopefully next week, we’ll be up and running!
Software Tools – Curt showed me some ways to better integrate several MS Office 365 tools together, plus outside tools, so now I’ve got Trello, OneNote, SharePoint, MS Planner and our calendars all humming along together within MS Teams. Woo hoo – I’m getting to be a power user!
Our Website/Branding – Work started in earnest this week on getting our new web site’s page style in place. Since we’re using Avada within WordPress, we are basically building our own theme out of components. I’ve got the design elements planned out for what a page will look like (not the front page yet – that’s a special beast), and am starting to build it out. I also did some work developing a complementary color palette by sampling some images of the Oregon coast to capture the blues, greens and rock colors.
Also added to the to-do list this week is creating a professional Linked In page for the organization. Suzan and I are also starting the process to get MailChimp set up to use as our email correspondence tool (newsletters, e-invites, etc.).
Planning – This week, my planning energies focused on trying to get a picture of the larger economic support ecosystem in the county – who is doing what and how do those efforts relate and dovetail. I don’t feel like I’m 100% there yet, but I feel close – I’ve attached the Mind Map for you to look at – please ping me back if you see something I’ve missed or incorrectly identified.
Economic Vitality Report Card – We started work this week on one of the first “data streams” that we’ll bring into the report card – money on deposit in Lincoln County banks. I put together a process for Suzan to research and pull out the data from the FDIC databases.
RAINmaker Accelerator – This week, the accelerator focused on customer identification – who, exactly, are our customers? Our exercise next week is working on customer personas and it’s a great tool to help me identify the multi-layered audiences for our website and communication channels.
Interesting Read – Here’s a pretty cool article on how the Willamette Valley vineyards are managing the heath needs of their seasonal workers in the time of COVID-19:
Reminder – We will have our August BoD meeting on Thursday, August 6th. Info and packets will be forthcoming.
Also, just a couple of quick personal notes for those of you who are interested: We are FINALLY closing on the sale of our house in Michigan on Monday (the buyers bank was dragging their heels) – we signed the docs and had them notarized and sent off yesterday. Susan and I are going to be participating in the “bio blitz” of tide pool species identification for the marine reserves next week – using the iNaturalist app to log species varieties – so cool!
Have a great weekend, stay safe and wear those masks!
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂