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In this episode, Wendy Coulter explores the hidden power of branding through the concept of the Hummingbird Effect, which posits that small innovations in branding can lead to significant results. Wendy is joined by Cyndy Yu Robinson, Executive Director of Cramden Institute, and Hannah Jernigan from Hummingbird Creative Group. Cindy shares her career journey, the importance of audience segmentation in their marketing efforts, and how seemingly small branding changes have led to big wins for Cramden. They talk about digital equity, sustainability, the social impact of e-waste management, and the importance of core values in shaping organizational culture. The conversation highlights the importance of inclusive storytelling, innovation in marketing, and the benefits of slowing down to enhance strategic focus.
00:00 Introduction to Brand Building
00:51 Meet Cyndy Yu Robinson: Bridging the Digital Divide
02:06 Cyndy's Career Journey
03:44 Audience Segmentation and Marketing Strategies
05:31 The Hummingbird Effect in Action
12:00 Internal Impact and Culture Building
15:07 Overcoming Resistance and Messaging Challenges
20:27 Innovation and Future Trends
22:53 Core Values and Team Empowerment
26:12 Advice for Nonprofits and Final Thoughts
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Thanks for listening!
Get Hummingbird Creative Group’s “20 Powerful Reasons To Brand Your Business.”
Schedule a quick 30-minute call with Wendy at https://calendly.com/ideastakeflight/.
Sign up for the Birds of Wisdom newsletter from the Hummingbird Creative Group.
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What is The Hummingbird Effect with Wendy Coulter?
Welcome to "The Hummingbird Effect," a podcast dedicated to uncovering the subtle yet powerful ways that small innovations can transform your business. Hosted by Wendy Coulter, CEO of Hummingbird Creative Group, this show delves into the stories and strategies behind successful brand building.
For over 25 years, Wendy has helped CEOs and business leaders redefine their brands through innovation and compelling narratives. In this podcast, she shares the insights and lessons learned from her extensive experience, exploring how a strong brand orientation can significantly increase the value of your business.
Each episode features engaging conversations with industry leaders, business advisors, and innovators who have harnessed the power of branding to make a substantial impact. Discover how focusing on core values, mission, and vision can drive your brand beyond mere marketing tactics, fostering a culture that resonates with your audience and enhances your business's reputation.
Inspired by the concept of the Hummingbird Effect—where small, adaptive changes lead to remarkable outcomes—this podcast aims to help you understand and implement the incremental innovations that can elevate your brand and business.
Join Wendy Coulter on "The Hummingbird Effect" and learn how to evolve your brand, attract more customers, and ultimately enhance the value of your business through strategic branding.
Wendy: Hi, I'm Wendy Coulter, and I help CEOs unlock the hidden [00:00:30] power of their brands. For years, business leaders have focused on marketing tactics, but what truly matters is building a strong brand.
Think of it like the Hummingbird Effect. Small innovations in branding can lead to surprisingly big results [00:00:45] like increased valuation, a stronger culture, and a marketing message that resonates. Today we're diving deeper into the world of brand building, and I'm thrilled to have with me a friend in business and Hummingbird Creative Group client Cindy u [00:01:00] Robinson.
She's a former business owner and now an amazing nonprofit leader. Serving as executive director at Cramden Institute here in the triangle in North Carolina. Cindy is on a mission to bridge the digital divide, empowering individuals with the [00:01:15] necessary skills and tools to thrive in an increasingly connected world.
Cramden has awarded 52,000 computers to people in need, trained 10,900 people and recycled over 2 million pounds of e-waste. [00:01:30] I also have Hannah Jernigan here with me today, and she works with me at Hummingbird in our account team, and she has worked with Cindy as well. So I'm excited to start the conversation.
Cindy's work with Cramden is a [00:01:45] perfect example of the Hummingbird effect in action. We're going to be talking to Cindy today about her work with Cramden, with audience segmentation and how she has seen seemingly small innovations in branding and marketing lead to big wins for [00:02:00] Cramden. Cindy, welcome to the show.
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Wendy: Absolutely. Absolutely. So to start us off, can you walk us through your career journey? How did you transition from working in public engagement for infrastructure [00:02:15] projects to your current role at Cranden?
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: Yeah, so I started out of ma a master's program in focusing on environmental resources.
So I went to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, was there for two decades. So I served in the public [00:02:30] sector and most of the time I did congressional and state relations and a little bit of public affairs. So when I left EPA, I wanted to pursue more environmentally conscious businesses, went to a short time I was in [00:02:45] Lenovo.
Then use really the, the public affairs mindset and marketing mindset to go to an infrastructure company. They needed someone in public engagement. And that is just really telling the general public what projects are [00:03:00] coming in your neighborhood, how it might affect you and your opportunity to, to tell folks your perspective, how will this impact your, your drive, your commute your property values and your safety?[00:03:15]
So public engagement was what I did for about 10 years and then had an opportunity to come over to camdon, which is dealing with surplus technology or some people call it e-waste. And it really was a good fit for my interest in both [00:03:30] non-profit. Volunteering, E-Waste Environmental protection. And what's really hot right now is digital equity, digital inclusion.
Wendy: It's such a, such an amazing organization that you run. Yeah. We love it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, [00:03:45] we've, we've loved learning about it and helping you so we were talking before the podcast, about audience segmentation.
Yep. And I'd like to kind of learn what were some pivotal moments or key experiences that shaped your [00:04:00] approach to audience segmentation?
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: Yep. So Cramden, being a nonprofit, we are trying to serve the public. And it's, it's really how do we define the public? It is right now, all North Carolinians, they're about [00:04:15] 328,000 households across North Carolina that still don't have a suitable device at home.
And so they are not all on the triangle. So how do we get that message a little further farther? Everyone says further. No, I mean, farther geographically, farther. So in [00:04:30] order to do that, to accomplish that mission, we've been talking about our mission of giving out computers and educating the public, but what, in order to do that, we need funding and we need donated equipment.
So that's where the [00:04:45] segmentation came in, is like we are talking, everybody wants a computer. Who's gonna give us a computer? So we really had to pivot our messaging to really the business audience. So when we talked about social media, I said, where are we present? Oh, we have an account on [00:05:00] Instagram and Facebook.
I'm like, but we need to be on LinkedIn, right? We need to be where the corporate decision makers are deciding to let go of their retired assets. So let's do more on LinkedIn. Let's write professionally. Let's have. Photos of our [00:05:15] volunteer groups. Let's have photos of our, our equipment so that it reflects the equipment we see in the, in that, that we want.
Right? So it really was kind of changing the message a little bit and changing the, the direction of where we're [00:05:30] shooting that message out.
Hannah: You mentioned that segmentation of your audience was the hummingbird effect in your marketing efforts. Yeah. Can you explain how you discovered this and what changes you
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: implemented? Alright, so how we discovered our, our hummingbird [00:05:45] effect, our little tweak was just really thinking one of our taglines and that we've been using for about three or four years.
That went over from our old brand. It became an actual official tagline. It shows up. In all of our branded printed [00:06:00] materials and our website is get tech, learn tech and give tech. So give tech, it's really two parts. It's will you give your time and talent to help us refurbish computers and will you actually give us your retired [00:06:15] surplus?
So we did it through. Where we were talking to decision makers trying to get more attention through articles on WREL and digital media. Trying to [00:06:30] be more present on television. We've had a couple of donation drives and I'm like, anytime I can be on TV to talk about cramden, I will I'll wear a branded shirt when I'm on tv, you know.
And then, the other part [00:06:45] was really changing our social media. Approach. So those are some of the things that we've done, and in terms of what effect it has had. Oh, we also did a campaign of 10 months on WNC, really talking [00:07:00] to during drive time, talking to commuters about what is cramden. And that we will schedule free pickups.
So with that messaging, we have seen a little uptick. I can't tell you exactly how many new customers, but that is one of our key [00:07:15] performance indicators is how many new people can we get, at least calling us and say, tell us about free pickup. Tell us about data destruction. Tell us about all the great things that you do, and can you be out here in like 24 hours or a week?
So [00:07:30] we have seen an uptick.
What were the small changes in your approach, like specifically the small changes in your approach to segmentation that.
Wendy: You feel like will really lead to major shifts in your engagement success?
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: , the [00:07:45] mo most important thing is to key in on the messaging, right? It's not just that we have free computers and we have free technology for students and adults. We actually need computers. So really getting that messaging [00:08:00] down, saying it every time, and not just talking about our past, but talking about our future.
So those, those are the, some of the key little things that we have to do.
Wendy: Can you give us some specific examples of how you tailored the messages? You talk about messaging, how are you [00:08:15] tailoring the messages for the segmented audiences?
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: Okay, so we actually have a print budget. We are, we're not completely digital, and we are an office that is all in person every day.
Everybody comes into work. So two key changes that [00:08:30] we made was if we were going to talk to business decision makers, we were doing more digital advertising, marketing, email conversations, zoom meetings, discovery meetings. Just do it on. By [00:08:45] virtual meetings. So that was one way. And the other thing was talking about the reasons why someone would wanna give a computer away.
Most people go, oh yeah, what a great mission. I have something in my closet I wanna bring to you. [00:09:00] And I'm like, okay, that's great, but will you also talk to the I-Team asset manager in your office? Do you work in a small, medium, or large sized business to actually ask 'em to take that extra step? So it's not just thinking, I can do this personally, but maybe I can motivate my [00:09:15] company to take action.
The small asks are, talk to someone in your company and give them my card so we can tell them about free pickup data management, et cetera. And then why people, I guess a third reason why, [00:09:30] why, how we tweak the message was we stopped only talking about our mission, our social mission, to bridge the digital divide.
We started talking about the environmental impact that we're having keeping, I love that devices [00:09:45] out of landfill. Like a hundred percent of all the technology that we get will be diverted from landfill. 25% will be given to community members who in need. About 20% is harvested for parts that we can resell, so that we can buy the [00:10:00] batteries.
It's usually batteries that we need to like make other things work, and then 55% is actually responsibly recycled. We're not, we're not shy about saying that we reuse first, then recycle. But all of it is diverted from landfill. So tweaking those [00:10:15] messages to talk about not just our social mission, but the environmental impact.
And the last thing is financial impact. So for a business decisions maker to say, wow, I could, I have a choice of just having my I team asset manager just deal with this stuff, this surplus, or I [00:10:30] can make a good decision. I'm gonna save time because they'll cramm and will pick up and I'll save time because I don't have to do data management.
So, so we're trying to. We, we tweak the message from being just social to be [00:10:45] more environmental impact and financial impact.
Wendy: Oh, I think that's great. I think that really exploring all the different impacts should lead to a bigger engagement from anyone. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. [00:11:00] So have, has that influenced your corporate
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: donors in any way?
It, it really does. And, and I'm, I'm saying these, these new messages, they're really based on the feedback we got from customers who said, no, [00:11:15] it's overcoming objections. Right? It's like that, that, that's right. That sales mentality of always be closing. But what are your objections? And the objections were, I could sell my computer for 20 cents a piece, but you're, you're spending time.[00:11:30]
You know, finding the, the person to pick up. You're maybe paying them for mileage. Why don't you just go with Brandon. So, yeah. So we, all these, these messages that we develop are really based on feedback from our customers or prospective customers. Yeah, love that. Or donors Voice.
Wendy: Voice [00:11:45] of the customer.
Something we talk about all the time. Right. In our case, the
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: voice of the donor. I think the triggers and attention grabbers could be more than the social mission, but the environmental impact of reusing technology and then the financial savings we have for our [00:12:00] prospective donors.
Wendy: So as we kind of look at the hummingbird effect in action and we think about these small changes, you've talked a lot about marketing and the donor's reaction and Mm-Hmm. The community's reaction, those kinds of [00:12:15] things. Can we look a little bit broader to the effect on things other than what you were expecting?
So has there been an impact internally on different areas, whether it [00:12:30] is culture or operations, that has been the result of understanding this segmentation a little bit better?
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: Yeah, I, I feel like since I, I personally don't know all the ins and outs of [00:12:45] computer refurbishing. When we talk more about, the Hummingbird effect, the little changes in messaging. I feel like I'm connecting more with the really geeky folks in my staff, on my staff. They really respect that. [00:13:00] We're talking about environmental impact. They have triggers too. They have attention grabbers for some of them. Sustainability is key. It is a it sustainability ranked very high in our list of values as a com, as a group, as a company, as an organization.
[00:13:15] So I think, talking to business owners has made it really comfortable for some of our more, financially savvy business directors our tech ops director, and really understands [00:13:30] why I'm going after that segment. And again, it's really improved our, our working relationship. And then overall we did our second employee culture survey, like a pulse survey.
And what ranks, number one, [00:13:45] both years was I am proud to be associated with Cramden. So they, they understand the environmental mission, they understand the social mission, and they're now, you know, understanding that we are part of the fabric. Of our local economy to be able to [00:14:00] take e-waste and do something great with it.
So there, there's a lot of pride that comes out of the messaging as well as like, you know, just being associated with our organization.
Wendy: Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I think, culture, building [00:14:15] the culture. Through the marketing messaging so everyone's on the same page. Mm-Hmm. And everyone understands and they can relate to each other.
Yeah. That's a really neat outcome right, from what you're doing with segmenting Yeah. That you never would expect to
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: come out of it. Yeah. [00:14:30] So when we launched our our new website. With a little bit of new branding and colors. There wasn't always agreement across the board, but there was a little something for everybody, for our team to be involved.
So we created a, a page [00:14:45] where we could talk to our webmaster and saying, I reviewed this page. I like this. I don't like this, or You forgot this. And so when we, we put it all together, everybody saw themselves or something that they're doing, not only. In our day-to-Day work with [00:15:00] each other, but on, on the website, I feel like they feel visible on a website.
Yeah, that's,
Wendy: that's really great. Mm-Hmm. Great job.
So Cindy, let's talk about resistance. Like did you have some resistance along the way with the team or [00:15:15] with messaging that you put out that maybe you had to learn from and, and adapt along the way?
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: Yeah, I think nonprofits generally struggle with how much do we share about. Our [00:15:30] recipients, our beneficiaries, right? How much of their story do you wanna tell? So we tell our story in cumulative numbers. We can't ascertain that a device is gonna change each person's lives, but we know that. We know [00:15:45] it does.
So when it comes to like a mission moment or telling about someone who recce receives a computer, usually will have. A photograph of a, a young individual, a K through 12 student, or an adult who is like, [00:16:00] wow smiling or like fascinated with what's on screen. 'cause this is now their device. So the resistance comes with how much I wanna tell the story from a people perspective.
Look at all the people who are getting devices to really the [00:16:15] truth behind. Who is this person, right? Do we, do we share much more about their circumstance? So there was a little bit of resistance, like how do we approach that marketing? How much do we tell of that story? It has to be truthful, but it can't be [00:16:30] too open, right?
It can't make this person feel feel, or if, if a person is featured that they, they gave permission to be featured and in the way that they wanna be perceived, right? Not as is. Low income individual [00:16:45] or this, like this kid in a school that did not have any resources, right? So we don't wanna like basically point out all the negatives.
So that was a little bit of resistance of like kind of where I wanted to go with, with marketing and segmentation and [00:17:00] changing. I think also word choice I've learned in this industry, you can, I think generally can talk about e-waste. You can talk about. Used technology or reuse of technology. A lot of [00:17:15] people will say, recycled, we're not recycling.
Recycling is taking a product and breaking it down into little teeny tiny pellets and then reconstituting something different, right? We're not doing that. We are refurbishing. So we're taking something that, that has already served [00:17:30] a three year useful life in a corporate sector and we're giving another five years just a little bit of like tuneup, right?
So. So refurbishing is a word of choice that I've been taught to use. We don't say e-waste, we say surplus [00:17:45] technology or retired technology, because that's what it is, is to you. It's, it's e-waste, but no one receiving a computer wants to think that they got someone else's waste. So using the words like retired or surplus or refurbished is a lot more [00:18:00] palatable.
So those are the little segments that. Changes and resistance that I've had to overcome is teaching myself this new vocabulary that works well for not only our donors, but also our recipients.
Wendy: What about your team? So like, as [00:18:15] you've worked into these segments, have you been able to give your team a framework to feel more comfortable?
Talking about the organization and then how does that, you know, I would think when I, when I first met you, I was like, oh my gosh, like Cindy is the [00:18:30] spokesperson. Are you still in that space or do you feel like maybe some of this has helped? Other people feel comfortable. Really? Oh, I,
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: I, I encourage everyone to represent the organization from [00:18:45] their own perspective.
There's so many people who've worked in this nonprofit and in this space, this industry, digital equity, much longer than I have. So I really encourage them to go to the panels, be at the conferences, to be on the, [00:19:00] on the calls. I will often refer to them, well, this person, our program director or director of technical operations will speak to.
The actual process of data management and they, are much better at the words. [00:19:15] They're very comfortable, but none of 'em say they like public speaking so often it's like, do you wanna do it, Cindy? But I always encourage them to do it, and I think they're, they're getting more and more comfortable. They see that I trust them with the message, and they have the message [00:19:30] they, they do.
And by going through our strategic planning process and really identifying those values. It was their choice. They chose sustainability, they chose community, they chose equity, and that helped, I think, empowered them to be their own sp [00:19:45] spokespersons. We don't have a policy of that. Only the executive director speaks to the media, but we try to make sure the right person is speaking to the public.
Wendy: Love that.
[00:20:00] [00:20:15] I wanna go a little bit different [00:20:30] direction with the hummingbird effect because of the words that you're using, right? Mm-Hmm. And, and talking vocabulary a little bit. And there's been a lot of change in just the world in general around words like sustainability. Mm-Hmm. And this [00:20:45] consciousness around that.
And I think that could be a great hummingbird effect for you. So aside from the marketing. What are you seeing trend wise that might create a hummingbird effect in your organization for the future? In our [00:21:00] organization?
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: I think inclusion, I think without even talking about having or not having a DEI Digital.
Yeah. Or like diversity, equity and inclusion program or policy. We [00:21:15] feel the effects of prioritizing equity and inclusion. It, it's, it's what we're doing. It's making sure everyone has the resources that we have to share, right? So that effect in itself makes [00:21:30] our culture much more inclusive. I. In, in the workspace.
We had a prospective donor walk through for a tour the other day, and it just happened as he was walking in about 10 minutes before his scheduled [00:21:45] tour, all of our employees were coming in and I'm like, oh, there's the, the gal who's making a career change from being a I think she was in physical or personal fitness and she's moving into technology and she.
Like [00:22:00] dress the part, right? And so this is great. And then we had our we had a lot of racial and ethnic diversity walk in the door and like that that's who we are as an organization and everybody should feel comfortable, safe, [00:22:15] and included. And I think that because we're working in the space of sustainability, equity, community.
And I introduced, I, I thought I was introducing the word leadership. I wasn't sure that they wanted to go there, but they [00:22:30] voted it in. We wanna be leaders in the digital equity space. We don't wanna do anything half-hearted. We wanna be the pioneers, we wanna take the risks, we wanna be the ones that can show the way in the digital equity space.
So I was really glad that they voted [00:22:45] in leadership as one of our values. And so I thought hopefully everybody can feel that as we lift, everybody rises. Yeah. Yeah. So
Wendy: I always talk about core values being such an important activity. Mm-Hmm. We, we meet with so many companies and [00:23:00] organizations who still haven't visited core values, and I find that really interesting in the world we're in today where everyone's talking about, you know, building culture and having strong values, that there's still so many companies that, that don't have their [00:23:15] values in place.
Can you talk a little bit about. What you feel like the bigger impact is of doing those core values activities with
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: your team? Well I think the first thing was because we have a lot of young staff who've not worked [00:23:30] in other places. We have some older staff like me but some of our younger staff, they've never been included in any kind of strategic planning process.
So for them to Multivoting was new. Brainstorming was new. The idea of a parking lot was new. Understanding [00:23:45] vision, mission and core values was new. So for them to be able to vote on values that we brainstormed, we came up with a list of 40 and we narrowed it down to five, and that they all had an opportunity to have input on that.
That was, I think, [00:24:00] very inclusive and empowering. Like we all matter. So that was, that was really cool and I'm glad we did it. I thought people were gonna be like, oh, grown, do we really have to do this? But they enjoyed it and it was, it was a good team [00:24:15] building event. Now we're very blessed to only have 19 full-time staff, so we're able to do that in a matter of you know, a half day or two half days.
But, in terms of companies that haven't taken the time to do core values, I think with a larger group [00:24:30] it would be very, very hard. I think every department has different processes and operations and they have a different culture. I think if you go from floor to floor in a big company, there's gonna be different culture.
Because we work together every day [00:24:45] in person, it's pretty, it's pretty obvious that there is a culture there. That it's fairly transparent and very level-headed generally. There's no one screaming, there's no one, you know, stabbing each other in the back. It's [00:25:00] all very like, let's try to work towards this mission together.
And then in, in terms of hiring new people, I feel the new people actually, change and modify the culture [00:25:15] 'cause they're contributing. Right. And the as it should be, we shouldn't be hiring people who are just like ourselves. Right. I just hire whoever is best fit for the job and has the best motivation to perform well.
And their interest and their perspectives, their life experiences really changed the culture. [00:25:30] So I'm, I'm seeing that right now. I've been with Cramden for about two and a quarter years, and more than half the people are newer than I, and all of the people are younger than [00:25:45] I.
Wendy: You've shared an amazing journey right from the EPA, the public sector and all of what you learned there coming into Cramden as a nonprofit and bringing what you learned [00:26:00] there. Then you've talked about segmenting which I think is really smart and I love the way you've really pushed that through at your high level messaging.
I think that's amazing. Tell me like what advice you [00:26:15] would give to others that they could take away from what you've done.
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: Wow. A couple of of takeaways I would say for people who are managing or directing nonprofits, first of all, you [00:26:30] need a marketing budget. You need a chief marketer. You need someone who's always championing.
Get the message out. We have such great people who are just hyper-focused on getting the work done that they have inclinations of. [00:26:45] Yes, we need to let people know about this. Yes, we need to do a, a blog post or a press release, but it never gets done. And so just with a little bit of background, you know, gorilla Marketing, I'm thinking about, Hey, we gotta tell our great story.
[00:27:00] So yet you have to have a marketing budget, you have to have a chief storyteller and go. Another thing I would say to nonprofits is, do what we did, which was recognize that we have multiple [00:27:15] audiences. It's not just the people who are receiving services and devices, computer devices in our case, but also who is giving to us.
We are. We do have some foundations and corporate sponsors, [00:27:30] and that's one message. But the equipment message is very, very specific. The in-kind message. So we had to really develop that and then to overcome objections, we also developed the very specific, reasons why your [00:27:45] impact, right? So you're, you're helping us with our social mission, you're helping us with the environmental mission, and you're helping yourselves with the financial savings mission.
So I would say really key in on that. And I would say lastly, listen to the [00:28:00] people that you work with. Because I didn't develop all this myself, right? It was just, I was listening a lot and then trying to capture what they've heard from perspective donors and then trying to build that into the [00:28:15] messaging.
So we, we have a long way to go, but it, it's been a really fun experience to really kind work with the, the caring individuals of the organization and then kind of morph it into a more [00:28:30] segmented message.
Wendy: So before we started, you said something about the hardest thing with marketing is getting someone's attention.
Isn't that what you said? Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I think that one last [00:28:45] thought on how to get attention.
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: I think in public engagement we talk about like if you're building a road that's going to impact driveways and intersections and it's gonna cost the city or the county money. It's still, everybody has a different [00:29:00] trigger, so getting someone's attention is the biggest challenge for anybody in marketing, communication, public affairs, public engagement.
It's getting someone's attention. We have so many different great nonprofit missions. [00:29:15] Causes nonprofit organizations. We have only 24 hours in a day. We have kids, we have our own personal wellness, we have our jobs, we have our families, we have our properties. It's just so many things, right? So I [00:29:30] think the, the, the easier the message, the, the more, impactful the attention getter and the easier you can find that trigger, and that trigger's gonna be different for different people.
Even internally, we found that [00:29:45] trigger was different for different members of our organization.
Wendy: Yeah. Back to segmenting. Yeah. So great, great thoughts. At Cramden, does innovation play a big role in what you do when it comes to [00:30:00] marketing and communications? Hmm.
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: I would say innovation plays a role in. Our everyday life because we're always looking at a quicker and more efficient way to refurbish a device. But when it comes to, and so we've, we've gone through [00:30:15] different kinds of software, different kinds of databases, different like paths of where our devices go and how to organize our volunteer groups.
But our volunteers help our staff get the work done. [00:30:30] I would say in terms of innovation and marketing we have used. A lot of online platforms. We, we have not gone as far as letting AI write any of our stories, but [00:30:45] we are doing, we're, we're capturing the spirit of ai. This summer, we're doing a four part series in, in tech topics for our.
Our members, our clients, anybody who wants to learn about ai. We have four [00:31:00] sessions coming up. So we, we do embrace innovation. But in terms of innovation and marketing, can I mention Canva? We, we rely on Canva quite a bit, right? Okay. So to make suggestions of how [00:31:15] things could be laid out, what color palettes go together, different fonts that make things look.
Bright and new. We picked a font suggested by Google. I think that that is, that we [00:31:30] thought looked very innovative and very tech, but not, and, and a little bit futuristic. So I think just going out there and exploring and discovering it's really important. So yeah, we've used a little bit of innovation, [00:31:45] but I can't really.
Pinpoint how innovation has helped in our marketing.
Wendy: , when I think about AI and Canva and all of the tools 'cause mm-Hmm, oh my gosh, there's so many of them, right? We use them every day at Hummingbird.
What I'm trying to do is [00:32:00] flip the switch in my brain that those are not the innovation. That those are gonna take over things that are keeping us from being innovative and allow the, the humans, the human creative people like you and me to be able to be innovative. Yeah. [00:32:15] Because those kind of daily tasks can be taken on and things can be templated and be easier.
Hannah: Right.
Wendy: And so that's just something like thinking about innovation in that way. It doesn't have to be. A [00:32:30] tech tool that makes you innovative. It's actually like, how do you think in a different way? Yeah. Because technology is helping you with other things that you really, you know, it frees up your time to be able to be [00:32:45] creative and innovative.
That's true, that's true. And so just a different way, a different way to think about that
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: so if the available technology tools are helping us with best practices, those best practices are existing practices.[00:33:00]
Okay. Innovation is new practices. Next practices things we haven't even figured out yet. So if tech tools are giving us what we already know, I, I agree with you. They kind of, put [00:33:15] a barrier between us and something that isn't known yet. So, when data mining was first being used to find, you know relationships between certain toxins, so I'm gonna go back to my EPA days when, [00:33:30] company IBM was say, was telling EPA, there's a difference between discovery and search. When you search for Pizza Parlor near me, you're gonna find what's out there. [00:33:45] Discovery is finding things you don't know yet. And so to your question or to your suggestion that tech tools help us do the tedious things.
And they keep us from innovating. I would definitely agree with you. I think innovation is not [00:34:00] just technology, but it is the way we approach things, the way we think about things. So I'm hoping that our organization has enough free time, enough, [00:34:15] positive. Synergy time to actually be innovative and not just be heads down.
Let's, let's get the devices out, right. But we, we welcome innovation both from the technology side and from like the social side.
Hannah: You have [00:34:30] touched on ai. You've touched on having someone in your organization focusing on marketing. You've slowed down your own organization to refocus everything and you've fully accepted innovation.
Can [00:34:45] you give some advice to other companies that also need to slow down but are afraid to take that step or wanna stick with the status quo so they can capitalize on their potential?
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: Yeah. I think, [00:35:00] having been a fairly financially steady organization has given us the time to do things like have coaches or muses.
So I think having we've, we've [00:35:15] had some consultants help us with messaging and web design and, actually fundraising techniques and, and thinking about how do we approach past donors versus prospective brand new donors. So [00:35:30] I, I feel like slowing down and, and being willing to accept outside advice is, is something that we are moving towards and we are very fortunate to have the resources to be able to do that, right?
To, to have a consultant or have a [00:35:45] coach. So those outside voices. If they're going to stimulate, I think, new thoughts and new experiences and new ways of looking at things. So yeah, I, I appreciate that question. I'm really glad that we are [00:36:00] able to do that.
Hannah: Wonderful.
Wendy: This has been such a great conversation. I wanna thank you so much. As we wrap up here, any more thoughts on the Hummingbird Effect?
Cyndy Yu-Robinson: Well, I really appreciate you [00:36:15] introducing that concept, right? This like little, small changes. I think they can't. Little, small changes will be felt over time. I think that's the whole point of the hummingbird effect.
Nothing's gonna happen overnight, but just introducing that idea has [00:36:30] given us a lot of excitement to kind of like, follow our intuition and make those incremental changes. It's, it's we're, I think it also feeds into our sense of. [00:36:45] Longevity, right? Sustainability in a longevity sort of way. Not eco sustainability, but what is going to last is gonna take incremental change.
So thank you for sharing the Hummingbird Effect with me.
Wendy: Absolutely. And thank you so much for being a [00:37:00] guest today. Yeah. And to anyone who's listening, thank you for your time as well, and let's find your hummingbird effect. [00:37:15] [00:37:30]