How much do I love Nashville right now?

Submitted by Ian Rhett on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 3:37am

It's been 24+ hours since our 24+ hour (that was really more like 28+ for some*) no-slumber geekparty and I'm finding myself welling up with a profound mix of pride, gratitude and admiration for the Nashville web 2.0 community (for lack of a better term for this amazing intersection of marketing, web development, social media, advertising and design allstars) and it's graceful collision with Nasvhille's nonprofit community.  

I'm so proud of Nashville and how WE came together to create something(s) really amazing for such a noble and important cause -  keeping families together through transitional periods of homelessness and giving them a stable foundation to rebuild their life.  I'm so proud that Nashville HAS a shelter that actually does focus on the family, and a community of people who are committed to, and doing the work all the major religions instruct their adherants to do.

Something really magical happened this weekend.  Kate O'Neill said it best in the closing circle, saying something like "You could never have gotten 30 marketing and advertising professionals to agree to deliver all that in 24 hours, but there it is."   As a veteran of the ad wars, I know exactly what she's talking about.  And the results really are amazing on so many levels, it's truly awe inspiring (to me, anyway).  I love how everyone brought their special, unique talents to bear, and how it all worked and flowed together (except maybe not so much for the poor web dev team*).  

One of the themes we gravitated towards in the earlier creative strategy sessions was around affirming and appealing to Nashville's community pride.  Homelessness is a community problem with community (and certainly national) solutions. The fact is that (I can say pretty confidently) most of, if not all of the people in those strategy conversations LOVE Nashville, for so many reasons.  We love how this community can come together, and the inspiring results. We all got baptized together, in a way, surviving the flood and witnessing an incredible community response, further affirming our belief that Nashville really is a great place to live and work.  We thought "Everyone should be at home in Nashville."  While we all shared, I think, the sentiment, we weren't aligned on it as a marketing strategy for Safe Haven. We ended up (perhaps by coincidence) summarizing what we learned as a result of the designathon: "Family homelessness. It's not what you think."

The depth of Nashville's heart for service was evident in the commitment of 30+ volunteers and the Board, Executive Director and Staff of Safe Haven who worked as a unified team non-stop for 24+ hours on the six or seven various projects.  I mean... I think it's a big deal to put oneself through that kind of stress. It is NOT easy. (But it was so fun!)  It says a lot about a community (and an organization), in my opinion, when so many are willing to give so much for it.

I think the results of the designathon model are pretty remarkable and that it should be implemented in cities everywhere (we're excited to start planning a #designathon in Chicago at some point in the not-too-near future).  And I'm so incredibly proud that this has emerged in/from Nashville.  I love that volunteerism is such a part of Nashville and Tennessee's identity and that there are people like the the dozens of caring people keeping themselves awake and productive and positive all day and all night.

Nashville, I had a huge crush on you the moment I laid eyes on you.  But I think tonight I'm in love.
 
 
 
 
* Big Mad Props to the Web Dev Team (Brad Blackman, John Householder (lead), Kenneth White, Liz Fulghum) and Knight Stivender for being the last team standing (and/or sitting).  The website couldn't be populated and designed until everyone ELSE's work was done. Because of the late hour we achieved consensus on the creative direction, the web team was on hold for a while then totally crushed with a ton of content. Knight and the dev team lingered for probably another hour or two to make sure the status of everything and next steps were documented. Superhero Geeks, these.