Blog

Grocery shopping is one of those everyday chores that took on a tremendous significance during the pandemic.  With people--especially in urban areas--staying home and avoiding leaving the house, services like Instacart and Market Wagon took off. But what do those services look like and what do they mean for agriculture? Do they make it harder or easier for farmers to reach an audience of consumers and interact with potential customers?

Janice takes us through how online grocery shopping has changed in the face of the pandemic and how agriculture can leverage these changes.

The Growth Membership tier includes one-on-one consultation time with our founder Janice Person. But what does this mean? How can her consultations help you reach the next level?

Janice has worked at small, medium, and large companies (see her experience on LinkedIn). She understands that individuals and companies have different needs, but the reality is, all of us are being pushed to do more with what we have. The creative and resourceful mind of someone not living with a project or decision can be a gamechanger. Even if it is just asking you questions you haven't considered. That helps produce well-vetted plans, goals, and actionable strategy that really makes a difference. 

Consulting Tailored to Meet Your Needs

Whether you are an individual looking for help leveling up your influence game or a member of a larger organization looking to develop strategies to elevate the organization, Janice will bring her expertise to bear on helping you determine your next steps...

We recently sat down with Mary Emma Young of the Pet Foods Institute to learn how relationships with their pets has evolved over time and how the last year has accelerated that change.

While people on farms are well acquainted with working dogs, barn cats, etc., few of our counterparts in urban and suburban environments are unfamiliar with that. And they may even see cats and dogs as valued family members that are worth sparing any expense for.

The partnership with animals has deepened and intensified for many Americans. With the pandemic keeping people closer to home, even more folks adopted animals 

What does this mean for agriculture?

Mary Emma took us through the origins of pet food and animal kibble and through to the refrigerated food found even in big box stores.

You can watch the highlights here, and as always, the full recording of the event is available for members in the Grounded and Rising Community. You can click the button below to learn more...

When you want to share information with an audience, storytelling can be a compelling way for folks to connect with the subject on an emotional level. This storytelling course will help others internalize the new information and remember what you've told them.

By pairing emotion with a sensory experience or image and stack that with information, you can draw your audience deeper into what you are trying to share in a way that they will remember.

This 40-minute class will help you make your information sharing unforgettable and compelling with stories. We will:

• Explore why storytelling is so powerful and compelling
• Take a successful story apart to examine why and how it succeeded
• Examine the pieces you need to build your experiences into a story

At the end of the class, you will be able to download a pdf reference so that you can have the tools you need at your fingertips as you craft your stories.

So buckle up and get ready to tell your story. 

Note: We know that it can...

As the number of covid cases drops and as more Americans are vaccinated, the idea of returning to normal keeps being discussed. It's not just in the media, but as friends & family start seeing loved ones they haven't seen in some time.

For many students, this spring has seen a return to in-person schools and while many professionals continue to work remotely for office jobs, the discussions about how to navigate the change are starting. 

Many who have always worked in highly dynamic offices are longing for those days where colleagues take turns coming up with new ideas and jotting down possible plans on white boards. 

Pets & Stay At Home

But there are family members in many homes that do not necessarily want people to return... pets! Well, maybe some cats will welcome time alone.... But many animals loved having their humans at home. The frequent walks. The extra treats now and then. And pets have offered a lot of stress-relief for families. 

Working remotely...

Getting outside of our comfort zones can be so important. After all, isn't that what we are asking of consumers? "Step outside your familiar grocery store and explore where your food is coming from." So it makes sense that we should be willing to do the same.

For many of us, the SXSW Future of Food conference was well outside that comfort zone, but within the many presentations, there was a lot to be gleaned, a lot to be learned. 

Passion for Food & Farm

The attendees were passionate about food and further from the farm than those of us in Grounded and Rising typically are. If they were farm-connected, chances are it was more co-op for vegetables, producing edible insects for protein or something else that may not be the norm in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. They were excited about food, about making the world a better place and excited to hear new ideas.  Basically, they were me (Janice) when I was in college, grad school and the years when I was trying to find...

For our first LIVE session, we invited Rev Ciancio to help us understand the changes to the restaurant and hospitality industry since the start of COVID. The topic was so exciting & Rev is such an engaging speaker, we opened the session up to others. It gave people a sneak peek into the live events and recordings that are normally exclusive to members of the Grounded and Rising Community.

We've compiled a short highlight video with a few of the "AH-HA!" moments Rev had to share with us. 

• Survival Mode -- Restaurants work on narrow margins and most need to have a relatively significant number of orders to stay in business. With the safety issues and regulations about capacity, it required a lot of restaurants to shift. 
• Competing with National Delivery Services -- How do smaller restaurants compete when they can't get the celebrity endorsements that national applications can? They have to be able to take the orders from customers and they...

SO EXCITED to be chatting with hospitality marketing expert Dave "Rev" Ciancio who lives in Metro NYC/New Jersey. Rev is a hospitality marketing consultant, customer and technology evangelist with more than 20 years experience in B2B digital marketing and business development, specializing in hospitality marketing, content, local SEO, reputation management and influencer marketing.

He is going to help us get a deeper understanding of how the restaurant business has changed over the past year, what businesses are doing to reshape themselves for the world we are living in today, and what that may mean for agriculture.

Rev has a deep passion for food and can recommend the best burger joint or pizza place no matter what neighborhood in the metro area you find yourself in. And quite frankly, he probably knows the best burger in a bunch of US cities! He is also a former New York City bar owner and knows exactly how hard it is to operate and brand a hospitality business. Rev is an...

ST LOUIS (February 3, 2021) — Bridging the rural-urban divide can't just happen by having a small number of people sitting in on an occasional keynote. And yet, that divide may be one of agriculture’s most daunting challenges.  That is what led to the creation of a new community called Grounded and Rising. 

Grounded and Rising is the brainchild of Janice Person, one of the industry’s most active advocates. According to her, the divide has grown in 2020, and she wants to help reverse that trend. 

“The change that is underway in cities due to a combination of generational change and from people slowing down this past year is significant and offers both challenges and opportunities for agriculture,” Person explains. 

“Living in the midst of all that change, my head was spinning at first. I looked for research, data and opinions to try and understand it all. I started talking with peers, friends and more. It took a while to get...

Video is something of a superpower on social media, but for many of us, it can feel daunting. If social media is a part of your communications plan, it is time to think about how you can use video to reach the next level.

Learn the tools and best practices to make your content stand out and make you look like a social media pro!

In this course, Janice will help you gain the confidence and knowledge to start or improve your use of video in your social media or outreach program.

She will go over:

• Why including video in your social media and outreach plans is important, no matter your goals 
• Breaking through the barriers that are holding you back from video
• How to make your video impactful to your audience
• What equipment/apps you need to get started

You can purchase access for the course here. 

Founding members of the Grounded Community have access to the class as part of their membership.