On Monday, the Riley Institute’s Diversity Leaders Initiative class in Charleston contemplated the above, short-lived, Intel print ad. The class is filled with experienced South Carolinians who have seen a lot, but their minds were fairly boggled by this.
See if you can find, without Googling the controversy, how many ways the ad is racially offensive.
No, there’s no right answer, but ADCO’s Brad Warthen, a participant in the class, came up with three. With more time, perhaps he’d have come with more.
Intel withdrew the ad — which appeared in a Dell catalog — and apologized. Not surprising. What is surprising is that this thing ever actually found its way into print.
We liked this autorespond message that a guy named Josh Kopelman left for his customers while on vacation, according to Ragan’s PR Daily:
“I am currently out of the office on vacation.
I know I’m supposed to say that I’ll have limited access to email and won’t be able to respond until I return — but that’s not true. My blackberry will be with me and I can respond if I need to. And I recognize that I’ll probably need to interrupt my vacation from time to time to deal with something urgent.
That said, I promised my wife that I am going to try to disconnect, get away and enjoy our vacation as much as possible. So, I’m going to experiment with something new. I’m going to leave the decision in your hands …”
Nothing like honesty. Sure, you have the power, but really — would you want to interrupt this guy when he’s trying to wind down? After all, he’s thrown himself on your mercy. Can’t you spare a bit of that?
Wow! We knew Mary Pat Baldauf, sustainability facilitator for the city of Columbia, was smaller than she used to be (here’s where she blogs about her successful reducing campaign), but this is taking things to extremes.
OK — truth be told, it’s the recycling bin that’s out of proportion here.
The giant bin was on display in the Bi-Lo parking lot in Parkland Shopping Center in Cayce today. Mary Pat and others were on hand to announce that the city is entering into a public-private partnership with Coca Cola and Bi-Lo called “Recycle and Win” — a program to increase public awareness of recycling and boost recycling collection.
And what better way to emphasize that than to have on hand what organizers billed as the “world’s largest” recycling bin.
Doubt that claim? Well, let’s see you come up with a bigger one…
On this clip, you hear the very first thing Cameron Runyan said Wednesday after Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin endorsed him for the at-large seat on city council in the April 2012 election.
According to the Harte-Hanks Postfuture Index 2009-2010, email open rates declined to an average of 17% last year, down from 26% in 2009. The report examined metrics for over 2.8 billion email messages sent by about 100 companies in nine vertical industries. The company says that “… changing patterns in use of text and imagery… is having an impact on open rates, without necessarily having an impact on response.”
The study indicates that:
Delivery rates increased to 95% last year, up from 93% in 2009
Click rates were steady at 3%
Unsubscribe rates dropped from 0.32% to 0.19%
Bounce rates declined from 7% to 5%
The pharmaceutical and government sectors had the highest open rates, with both topping 25%
The technology industry had the lowest open rate at just above 5%
Retail continues to enjoy one of the highest delivery rates, says the report, with over 98% in 2010. Automotive has the lowest delivery rate at 90% in 2010, affected primarily by list quality. Since consumers are usually in market for a new vehicle after a number of years, automotive manufacturers and dealers are often sending to email addresses acquired one to three years ago, many of which have changed, observes the report.
EngenuitySC just drew our attention to this, from a forward-looking Brit publication:
Columbia Named a Top “City of the Future”
fDi Magazine, a London-based publication for foreign investors, has named Columbia, SC to its “American Cities of the Future” 2011-12 rankings. Columbia made the top ten lists for both “Small Cities of the Future” and “Small Cities Quality of Life.” Review all the rankings here.
We didn’t make the Top 10 overall, or the Top 10 Major Cities. Nor did we make the Top 10 Latin American cities, in spite of all those illegal immigrants Doug and others keep worrying about. But we did make those two “Small Cities” lists.
We’ve waited so long here in the Midlands. It’s great to know that in the future, we will finally be cool.
So congratulations to all of you bookworms for making us look good.
Oh, and hey, Atlanta — not to mention Charleston or Greenville or Charlotte, which are nowhere to be seen, or New York! — why don’t you pick up a book sometime? Sheesh!
COLUMBIA, SC – May 19, 2011 – Harvest Hope Food Bank announces that as of this morning, Thursday May 19 they have raised $304,455.38 since announcing the Southeastern Freight Lines matching campaign in early April, which qualifies them for SEFL’s $150,000 matching donation for a total of $450,000.
Combined with the $456,293.67 raised during their March matching campaign staked by Mungo Homes, Harvest Hope has now raised $910,749.05 toward their $2 million funding goal announced on March 8th. Harvest Hope now looks to raise the final $1,089,251 to reach its goal and ensure their ability to meet the growing hunger needs across 20 counties of South Carolina.
Harvest Hope wishes to thank Southeastern Freight Lines andMungo Homes for their generosity in each staking $150,000 toward the matching campaigns, and urges other members of the business community to follow the examples set by these community leaders and step up to pledge their own matching campaigns.
Lots of progress, but lots of money still to raise to meet the goal, and keep up with the mission.
Did you see the Steven Mungo op-ed in The State Sunday? In it, he explains why he and his family are such staunch supporters of Harvest Hope Food Bank and its vital mission of feeding the increasing numbers of hungry folks in the Midlands and beyond. And they don’t just do it as a feel-good thing:
We all do this not just because it sounds like a worthwhile cause, but because we believe Harvest Hope gets the job done. It’s efficient and effective.
Harvest Hope is a very lean organization, as I have learned from closely observing it. It actually does better than give a dollar’s worth of aid for a dollar’s donation. If everybody ran their business the way Harvest Hope does, a lot fewer of us would have gotten in trouble when the recession hit.
Don’t know if you heard (even though we were Tweeting it out every day), but the $150,000 match offered by the Mungos was double-matched as of April 1. And that’s a tremendous response by the community. Of course, it gets Harvest Hope less than a fourth of the way to the $2 million it needs.
So it’s great to see that another prominent local business has stepped to the fore to make an offer identical to that of the Mungos:
Harvest Hope Announces New Matching
Campaign by Southeastern Freight Lines
(Columbia) Harvest Hope Food Bank announces the beginning of a new matching campaign sponsored by Southeastern Freight Lines. The generosity of Southeastern Freight Lines will result in a $150,000 contribution to Harvest Hope once the food bank reaches $300,000 in donations.
Southeastern Freight Lines is headquartered in Lexington and has more than 6,600 employees. “Our commitment to employees has enabled the company to build a culture of customer service excellence over our 60-year history, and we are just as committed to the communities we serve,” said Tobin Cassels, president of Southeastern Freight Lines. “We recognize the enormity of Harvest Hope’s mission and want to do our part in making sure hungry families in our community have a safety net to give them hope. We are proud to work with Harvest Hope in an effort to put food on the tables across 20 counties.”
In March Harvest Hope announced that the combination of an increase in service demand and operating costs combined with a decrease in donations had resulted in a financial crisis and they issued an appeal to the public for funding help to raise $2 million. Almost immediately, Mungo Homes staked a $150,000 matching campaign if Harvest Hope could double that amount in donations.
On Friday, April 1 Harvest Hope’s donations reached $306,293.67 which qualified them for Mungo Home’s $150,000 matching donation. With over $450,000 in donations, Harvest Hope is now almost ¼ of the way toward their $2 million goal.
Harvest Hope wishes to thank Mungo Homes for their continued generosity, and is pleased to announce that Southeastern Freight Lines has stepped up to help them achieve their funding goal. With the completion of Southeastern Freight’s generous matching campaign Harvest Hope will have achieved half of its $2 million dollar funding goal.
About Southeastern Freight Lines
Southeastern Freight Lines, a privately-owned regional less-than-truckload transportation services provider founded in 1950, specializes in next-day service in the Southeast and Southwest and operates 76 service centers in 12 states and Puerto Rico. Southeastern has a network of service partners to ensure transportation services in the remaining 38 states, Canada, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Mexico. Southeastern Freight Lines provides more than 99.35% on-time service in next day lanes. A dedication to service quality and a continuous quality improvement process that began in 1985 has been recognized by more than 300 quality awards received from customers and associations. Southeastern Freight Lines subsidiary, Southeastern Logistics Solutions, provides expedited service and multi-modal transportation services across the nation through strategic capacity partnerships. For more information, please visit www.sefl.com.
For more information about Harvest Hope’s mission to feed the hungry in 20 South Carolina counties, visit www.harvesthope.org.
That was announced last week, and since then $42,405 has been contributed toward the $300,000 needed to match. This is good progress, but we as a community have a long way to go to meet the huge need.
