MCC History- Year 2 the virus begins!
This is message 3 in the series. HERE is message 1 (In the Beginning) and HERE is message 2 (MCC History Year 1). Those two are shorter than this one.
We wrapped up 2007 in a strong way with the Red, Green and Warmth campaign. It was pretty obvious that from then on, community service would be a part of who we were.
In February 2008 it was brought to our Attention that Children's Hospital was in the running for a new "entertainment station" from Palmolive. It was a contest that pitted 10 children's hospitals around the country against one another. The hospital with the most votes would win. We created an "awareness campaign" and did an excellent job of getting the word out. When we learned about CHM was in 8th place. We beat out Dallas by less than a % point. It was pretty special. I have heard Dave Phillips of detroitnet.org was instrumental in making this possible. Thanks Dave.
On March 15, 2008 we made the move to the site you now know and love and officially closed the Yahoo! group. At the time we were generating an average of 550 messages a month. While that may not seem like much, realize that EVERY one of those messages was delivered directly to you. I laugh today when people complain about receiving "too many" messages. HA. We used to get 25+ a day (one month we did close to 900).
In addition to the crazy amount of messages, we really wanted a platform where we could "host" discussion topics (click that to see the diversity here). We chose this site because it was clean (easy on the eyes and easy to understand) had the right message threading, a calendar and a pretty cool profile tool. Special thanks to Shaun Callahan for being such a great advocate of our group and a better representative of Groupsite (formerly Collective X).
It was about this same time I first met John George of Blightbusters. I instantly fell in love with the man, his vision and what he DOES every day for our city. We will support his group for a long time to come. I hope you will join us as we spend some time busting blight in the future (they are the SWEAT in "blood, sweat and gear".
In April we brought our first BIG Name speaker to town. We had John Assaraf (best selling author and star of the movie "The Secret") and Murray Smith (co-wrote "The Answer" with John and they partnered on One Coach) present to our group. In all honesty, I'm still surprised that only 90 people showed up. I will never forget what John said to me as I was apologizing to him for the low turnout. He put his hand on my heart and said
"Trust that exactly the right people are here"
. I have replayed that message many times when I look around and think "Hey, where the hell is everybody?"
We did our first blightbusters event in late May and had about 30 people "sweating" it out with us. You wanna feel something? Check out
THIS VIDEO
. Many thanks to Mark Besh for putting it together.
We went from having one meeting in Royal Oak every 3-5 weeks to having a full calendar of meetings all over town. I think at our high point we were running 14 just networking meetings at lunch or breakfast. This didn't include happy hours, trainings or other special gatherings. This was a like a job, without all the pay HA HA. I used to carry two business cards. One for Networked Inc. and one for MCC. I would give my Networked card and say this is my business and I would give my MCC card and say
"this is my gift to Detroit"
. I still feel that way...often.
The rest of 08 continued to see explosive growth. We had many meetings, we had Josh Linkner, CEO of E-prize speak and Tom Wilson CEO of The Palace speak as well (Thanks Dean La Douceur for partnering with us on the latter). In early November, we crossed the 2000 member threshold. Utterly amazing.
As I look back at this time I remember doing my best to make money FROM this group. I felt I had earned it and more importantly the mortgage company was telling me they needed it. We started doing a lot of trainings and promoting them to the membership. For those of you who have attended, you likely agree that the $20 spent were some of the best training dollars you ever invested, BUT...
That wasn't the right thing to do for the group.
For that I am sorry.
At that same time we conceived the first "premium membership" level. As I look at that offering, that wasn't the right thing either. I'm not sure if those members even know that we never charged them for their second payment. It wasn't the right thing to do. I hope this next big idea I have for the group and the membership levels we will announce soon feel better for many of you and me too.
Well this was long ;-) If you're still with me, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to read it.
Again, PLEASE share your memories, thoughts, photos or anything else you deem relevant.
In December of 2008 the word TOSA came to me as a way to sign off on messages. I shared it in my holiday message that year and I feel it appropriate to share now.
TOSA (To Our Shared Abundance)
Terry Bean
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Nice recap! Hindsight is always 20-20. Good that lessons were learned and that you are always striving to improve, as we all should. Onward and upward! Looking forward to being part of the team that creates new memories while making a difference.
Lori Williams, Your Legal Resource, PLLC
I remember sitting around discussing the need to have something better that the Yahoo group. We all felt that we had grown past that. But the thought of telling everyone to switch systems was terrifying.
Do you remember thinking "if we have 300 members, and we switch to another system and lose half our members, at least we know the dedicated ones are involved" it was a quality not quantity way of thinking.
Well we were pleasantly surprised that we got both!
BR
I cut that paragraph Benji cuz this was sooo long already.
We had 332 members on March 15 in the Yahoo! group when we closed. On March 16 we had 225 here. We had been promoting the move frequently for 2 weeks, but we still lost a bunch of folks...for a while.
We grew to 650 people by April 22. The word was out and spreading fast...
Great recap, Terry -
Please stop apologizing for some of the things you say were "not the right thing to do." Life and business are trial-and-error, and you've done a magnificent job of envisioning and building this group.
We all love and applaud you. It's time for you to applaud yourself instead of making unnecessary apologies.
I, too, remember the day we made the switch from the Yahoo Group to Collective X - what a breath-holding day that was, and how awesome MCC has become as a result.
Here's to the next 3 years!
Linda
Lori, it's because of you we call still call those meeting MCC Live.
I just read this whole post because Motor City Connect officially turns 7 on November 1. While Mike Morley was the 2nd person to join the Yahoo Group, I know that this group would have been significantly less without your permission Linda, Benji and Lori. Thank you all.
Terry
Proud to be included, Terry!
Wow, 7 years! They call it the 7 year itch in relationships, and I think it applies to MCC too. In the 7th year people need or want to make a change of some sort. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. I'm happy that I was able to contribute in some way to the group.
I had forgotten about the Children's Hospital thing - it was SO inspiring to see MCC members come together, get the word out beyond MCC, and make it happen. My son was a patient at Children's for the first 17 years of his life, so it was extra important for me to see it happen.
And I remember what a great time we all had at that first Blightbuster's event - wow, you are stirring up the memories, Terry!
Linda
People MAKE Motor City Connect, and because of the strong leadership of Terry Bean, they came together many times over the years to MAKE A DIFFERENCE in the City of Detroit. The "Blood, Sweat, and Gear" initiative was one such example. It supported the American Red Cross (Blood), Motor City Blightbusters (Sweat), and Operation Kid Equip (Gear).
The first year (2009), a group of people 'sweated' with John George and "BlightBusters" to remove a dangerous, vacant 'drug' house (summary video link above in Terry's summary). Then, the next year (2010), many more people went back to the same area to finish the job (on the lot of the house that was taken down the previous year) and created something 'good' (a community garden), that had created so much 'bad' in the past. [ Summary video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm9cU1fFEF0 ].
Then, the next year (2011), even more people came out to help the "City Mission" group in the Brightmoor area of Detroit. With the help of WXYZ's (Channel 7) Steven Clark, his "#Backchannel" was instrumental in getting the word out about the event. An old building was torn down so City Mission could construct some new classrooms and a basketball court. [ Summary video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmg5TlO-jBc ].
Motor City Connect has proven that "many hands MAKE light work," and has made a BIG DIFFERENCE in the city of Detroit for the past 10 years! I commend Terry Bean for being so passionate and persistent!
CONGRATS, and may MCC have another 'impactful' 10 years!
Mark Besh
Visual Impact Systems