As a basketball fan, we just came through my favorite time of year. The University of Michigan had a great run, making it to the NCAA Tournament championship game, and we had a great high school season here in Rochester, too. Rochester High School went to the state quarterfinals and cross-town rival Rochester Adams finished with 21 wins and just one loss.

But, to me, the best high school basketball season took place over at Rochester Stoney Creek High School.

Last year, I had the good fortune to meet Steve Norgrove, the head coach at Stoney Creek. Our daughters played on a travel basketball team together and it was fun to meet a fellow hoops junkie who also has three daughters.

But as much as I enjoyed talking hoops with Steve, I was always a little hesitant to bring up his team. Last season, he went through what must be any coach’s worst nightmare. His team did not win a game – 0-21. It had to be difficult for Steve, but to his credit, I never heard a negative word about his team come out of his mouth. He just kept plugging away, week after week, working hard and preparing his team for each game as best as he could. It just wasn’t their year.

A month or two after the season, we were at an AAU tournament watching our daughters play. Steve started talking about the upcoming 2012-13 season.

“We’re going to win our league this year,” he said.

I admired his confidence and his commitment. But, deep down, I was skeptical. How do you go from winless to league champs in a year?

Steve and his kids rolled up their sleeves over the summer and got to work. Team camps, scrimmages, open gyms, individual workouts. Whatever Steve asked, the kids did. And more. In addition to working on the team’s skills, Steve went to work on their mindset, too. He showed a video of different championship teams, and talked frequently about what it meant to be a champion. He would ask his kids “Who are you?” And they responded, “I am a champion.”

This season rolled around and Stoney Creek won their opener. Just one win had to be a huge relief for Steve and his kids. The first half of the season was up and down, but wins kept coming. After 11 games, Stoney Creek was 6-5 and the league championship was looking like it could really happen. The team caught fire, winning seven of the next eight games, and delivering on what Steve had promised months before. A league championship.

They say sports teach great life lessons, and I think there is one in here for everyone. I’m sure everyone’s felt like they’ve had the equivalent of a losing season every now and then. Maybe it’s a lost job, or a failed relationship or just a run of bad luck. Whatever it is, don’t lose hope. Never stop believing. Keep moving forward and good things will happen.

When I think about what those kids at Stoney Creek did this year and I’m inspired.  I still believe, just like Steve did last summer, that great things are around the corner. Not just for my company and for my family, but for the auto industry and for Detroit. The best is yet to come.

As for Steve and the Stoney Creek basketball program? I’m sure they won’t rest on their laurels. I believe next year will be even better. More importantly, so do Steve and his players, and I’ sure their already hard at work looking to improve!  

And, the atmosphere in downtown Chicago was incredible. Thousands of people in their 20s and 30s, working hard and playing hard, too. Cool bars, great restaurants, amazing events, concerts, sports…just an all-around great vibe.

We moved back to Michigan primarily for family reasons and I always missed the energy level of an Internet start-up and a vibrant downtown. As much as I enjoyed my time at John Bailey & Associates and the five years since I’ve launched The DeVilling Group, I never really found anything that resembled the atmosphere in Chicago.

Until last night.

I attended a networking event at the M@dison Building and listened to a presentation about the many great things that are going on downtown.  They played the “Opportunity Detroit” video with Kid Rock that launched during last year’s World Series…they talked about the many buildings that Dan Gilbert has bought and renovated…the businesses that have relocated…the retail efforts such as Somerset Collection City Loft and the new Moosejaw store on Woodward…the bars and restaurants and concerts and sporting events…and they talked about the companies that are being incubated right there in the M@dison Building.

After the presentation, I talked to many friends who work downtown at places such as Skidmore Studios, Lambert-Edwards & Associates, Quicken Loans and DTE. They all love working downtown. And, they all love hanging out downtown. And, they all agree that downtown Detroit is a cool place to be.

None of this is happening by accident. Quicken Loans, Compuware, Blue Cross Blue Shield, General Motors and DTE have all worked hard to attract talent to their downtown operations and have provided financial incentives to get people to live there, too. Right now, the residential occupancy rate is 97 percent and there are waiting lists to get into several buildings. That would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

These downtown employers also have launched a collective effort to attract 13,000 summer interns for 2013.  The goal is to turn these energetic young professionals into ambassadors for the city. In addition to employment opportunities, they will also take part in many fun activities downtown, showing that Detroit is a great place to work…and to play.

I can’t wait for summer downtown. The Tigers will be making a run for the World Series, restaurants and bars will be bustling and downtown businesses will be bursting at the seams with energetic employees making the city great. There’s still a lot of work to do in the D…but it is getting better all the time. And, the vibe downtown is the best I’ve seen in my lifetime.

It was just an old hot dog stand on the side of the road in Troy, Mich. I think it dated back to the 50’s when Troy was just a quiet little farming town.

By the time I moved to Troy in the mid-seventies, the town was evolving into a booming, modern suburb. Bill’s A&W was already starting to look a little out of place among the strip malls and fast food restaurants that seemed to sprout like dandelions in the Spring.

But for a kid playing little league baseball in the summer of 1975, Bill’s A&W was pure magic.  Bill, the owner, handed out little orange cards for one free small root beer by the thousands. Parents passed around a coffee can in the stands during the game, everybody chipping in a buck or two. After the game, we’d pile into our coach’s giant suburban or a parent’s wood paneled station wagon and head over to Bill’s for a root beer and a foot-long hot dog or chili dog.

The place was always packed with kids from our league…we’d swap stories about who won, who had big hits and who pitched well. We’d brag a little and we’d tell our friends from other teams to watch out because we would whip ‘em next week.

I played ball in Troy until I was 17 and the post-game visits there were always special. Nothing beat a trip to Bill’s in the beat up Duster my dad bought to cart around our equipment.  On a hot, humid Michigan summer night, nothing celebrated victory (or took the sting out of the many losses!) than an ice cold root beer and a foot-long chili dog.

Back then, I didn’t know about things like niche marketing, brand building or customer relationships. I just knew I loved root beer, chili dogs and baseball. But, looking back now, I realize that Bill was a genius. He was probably the biggest sponsor of Troy Baseball Boosters, our local youth league. He always sponsored a team. He always took out a huge ad in the program and he was always there selling hot dogs and chili dogs on All-Star Saturday at Boulan Park. I’m sure sponsoring TBB was his one and only marketing expense.

But, his little orange cards and his constant support of youth baseball created foot traffic at his store and probably made him a very nice living. More important, he created a loyal customer base that truly loved his business and his product.

I never fully realized just how much we all loved Bill’s A&W until I joined a Troy Baseball Boosters Alumni page on Facebook. The founder of the page threw out the question “what was your favorite memory about playing TBB.”

Two answers popped up again and again…one was playing under the lights at Boulan Park. The other was going to Bill’s A&W.

Bill’s A&W didn’t just sell root beer and hot dogs. It made memories. And that’s an important lesson for any business looking to build a strong brand. Do you really understand your customers? Are you creating meaningful relationships? Any business that does it like Bill’s did will hit a home run!

And, blog on a regular basis.

Oops.

The fact that I haven’t updated this blog in about 600 days is inexcusable. The fact is, I got a little tired of hearing my own voice, so I took a little break. Then, we had an election year and it seemed every thought racing through my head was dictated by partisan politics. And, I promised not to post about politics. So, one day led to another…and suddenly, nearly two years had slipped by.

But, now I’m back. I’ve made it one of my goals in 2013 (thanks to an awesome Motor City Connect goal setting event!) to blog more this year. Once a week minimum. Business is good, my projects are interesting, I’m more involved in the Detroit PRSA chapter than I have been in years and I just have a lot more to say. Maybe I’ll even let my summer intern blog a little this year (can’t wait to introduce her this summer…I think she’s pretty cool, although I’m admittedly a little biased).

Anyway, enough for now…I’ll be back on Monday with the first of what promises to be may blog entries!

If you missed it (and it would be hard to do so if you spent even a minute online today), Abercrombie offered to pay some of the Jersey Shore goof balls NOT to wear their clothes. Truly, a brilliant PR move.

One of the keys to success in PR is understanding shifts in popular culture. In this case, the folks at Abercrombie realized that the 15 minutes are just about up (or should be, anyway) for the untalented, overexposed clowns who “star” on Jersey Shore.

The move has worked incredibly well in terms of overall brand exposure for Abercrombie. In one quick scan of my twitter feed, I saw stories in posts from Wall Street Journal, Forbes and CBS. There have been myriad posts on Facebook and this was one of the top 10 trending topics on Yahoo. Literally, I saw all this in under one minute.

Whatever Abercrombie is paying the Jersey Shore gang not to wear their brand, it is well worth it. Abercrombie is raking in millions (maybe billions) of media impressions today, and getting people to talk about their brand.

Well done, Abercrombie PR team!

Light Rail…right idea, wrong execution

I’m afraid Detroit’s light rail plans are ill-conceived.  A parking lot at the State Fair Grounds near 8-mile, with a train that heads downtown.  Why would I want to drive 14 miles, park the car, then take the train? 

A rail that runs the length of Woodward from Jefferson to M-59 in Pontiac, with stops in Birmingham, Royal Oak, Ferndale and a couple spots in Detroit would be ideal.  Costly, yes.  But, much more useful.  I know some of my friends are much closer to this initiative than I am…let me hear your opinions. 

Movie business – keep the incentives

I’ve spent a lot of time listening to both sides of the film industry incentives debate.  The rational, number crunching side of my brain fully understands the governor’s stance…

But, there is more to the film incentives than just the numbers.  There is something to be said for creating buzz and enthusiasm in the region.  Nothing has created more buzz in the region the past several years than the budding film industry.  Let’s keep the incentives…let’s build a fun industry that keeps young talented people here in Michigan.

Let me hear from you on this issue…both pro and con. 

Jim Tressel should be fired…

There I said it.  Are you happy Todd Krieger?

The Chevy Volt is priced to fail…

I love the look of the Chevy Volt, and it is an engineering marvel.  But, at $32,000 it is simply too expensive for mainstream America to buy in volume.  I believe GM’s heart is in the right place, but the Volt will go down as a painful, overpriced mistake.  But, I really hope I am wrong.  Your thoughts?

I hope Travel and Tourism does well this summer…

Michigan’s second most important industry is probably Travel and Tourism…I think Pure Michigan is one of the best marketing campaigns ever (though, I must admit, the Pure Michigan spoofs are good too!).  I also will be doing my part to stimulate the state’s economy with at least two trips up north this Spring and summer to Bear Lake.  What about you?  Do you have travel plans within the state this year?  I’d love to hear about your favorite vacation spots. 

Good luck Tom Gores…

I’d have rather seen the Ilitch family buy the Pistons, but at least the sale is done.  The past season, the entire organization was in limbo, and it impacted the product on the court.  It will take some time to get the Pistons back to prominence, but, hopefully they will start moving in the right direction next year.

Good luck Red Wings…

The playoffs are here.  Go Wings.  I wish I could grow a decent playoff beard.

P90X works…

You’ve seen me and Dave post about P90X a lot…that’s because it works.  Best work out/nutrition plan ever.  If you want to get started, let us know.  We have some friends who are BeachBody consultants who can get you started.

Marathon and Half-Marathon training…

I’m probably going to do the Brooksie Way Half Marathon this fall.  Training starts now.  If you can run 20 miles a week by early June, you are in good enough shape to take the next step and train for a full marathon.  If you are up for the challenge, I am always happy to be part of a runner’s support system.   Let me know if you need advice, encouragement, or even an occasional running partner.

Okay…now I am ready for Wieme and his dissenting opinions…

So, here goes.  It’s kind of like how a Bill Becomes a Law…but for news releases:

Somewhere in lab “A” at some large company in America an engineer or scientist is looking for an adhesive product that can make his product better. Of course, you think “tape is tape,” but this guy has to bet his entire professional career on what tape he picks. There must be a tape out there that has properties that are superior to other tapes.

There also is some raging a-hole in purchasing who also thinks “tape is tape.” And he will sell his soul to buy mass quantities of tape at a penny per pound less. So internally at this behemouth company, we have a conflict between good tape vs. cheap tape.

Somewhere else across America in lab “B” a scientist who has spent the last 20 years dreaming up better ways to combine chemicals to make things stick together has a breakthrough. Stickier (but more expensive) tape!

Lab “B” also has a sales person who gets paid a healthy commission for selling the more expensive tape, and he has to come up with a way to justify the additional cost for his product.

There is likely a trade show looming…we’ll call it “AdhesiveCon” in Las Vegas…it is the one chance for Lab B to prove to the scientist and his purchasing goon at Lab A that Lab B tape has superior properties.

So, the Lab B sales guy says “We need a press release!”

So, the corporate PR folks, who are too busy communicating about “shareholder value” and trying to justify the gynormous salary of their egomaniacal CEO, call the agency.

The agency CEO, who is busy trying to win new clients, is at lunch at the DAC, so he assigns the task to one of his trusty VPs, who then assigns it to a 25-year-old two years removed from (insert name of partying MAC school here).

The 25-year-old, who got into this business dreaming of pitching Hollywood Insider on Paris Hilton’s next celeb appearance, grudingly rolls their eyes, mutters “I can’t believe I’m writing about Tape” and whips out a news release.

Back at Lab B, the sales guy and the scientist edit the sh** out of the release, injecting endless jargon and just plain bad grammar. They send the release back to the VP who really has no clue about the chemical properties of tape, so is in no position to stand up to the client.

The release goes back to the 25-year-old who puts together a media list and emails the release to anyone who ever heard of tape, has possibly used tape or can spell tape.

And, that, my friends, is how crappy news releases are made!

One sunny afternoon, Mike was listening to the Mitch Albom Show on WJR-AM 760, and Mitch was deriding Twitter as a silly fad, inviting listeners to call in and share their Twitter stories.  Mike called, actually went on the air and told Mitch that Twitter was a pretty powerful tool, gave the example of how we were using it and predicted that there were going to be both personal and business applications for Twitter that people haven’t even thought of yet.

Of course, Mitch and his sidekick Kenny Brown listened politely, then launched back into their own thoughts like “What do I care what Oprah had for breakfast?”  Clearly, Mitch (and Kenny), in the early stages of Twitter was completely missing the point.

Undaunted, The DeVilling Group kept looking for applications where Twitter could help build businesses.  Dave Wieme joined the firm with a clear mission: utilize social media to give our clients a stronger voice in the marketplace, find ways to drive traffic to their websites, turn “fans” into “customers” and then into “ambassadors of the brand” and finally, figure out how to raise our client’s SEO (of course SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization or how popular/high up on the search list a company is in a search engine, like Google).  We’ve done a lot…we are podcasting, managing client Facebook Fan pages, we are writing blogs, and yes…posting on Twitter. We have even had success with SEO.

And, it turns out that Twitter is quickly emerging as perhaps our clients’ most powerful social media marketing tool.  Some recent examples:

• The Michigan Sports Hall of Fame used Twitter to promote an online fundraising auction. The Twitter feeds led directly to the auction items posted on EBay and produced an average of 5,000 hits per day in just a five day period. The Tweets also resulted in hundreds of additional bids and MSHoF raised more than double their projected goal for their two-week long, online event.
• Cattails Golf Club in South Lyon, used Twitter to promote their indoor golf simulators this winter.  Web traffic jumped by 400 percent and the simulators were booked solid the latter half of December. At one point, Cattails GC was listed third on a Google search for “indoor golf Michigan” and they are the number 1-20 result when you search “indoor golf Michigan” on Twitter.
• Levanto Financial launched a Twitter campaign this past weekend.  After the first 160 tweets, there have been nearly 1,000 click-thrus to the company’s website and they have increased their website traffic by more than 100% over a three-day period.   

We have found Twitter to be an incredibly cost-effective and powerful social media marketing tool. 

We recently researched some stats and found that Twitter has more than 300 million accounts with people joining Twitter worldwide at a rate of 300,000 per day. Twitter is the SECOND largest search engine in the world showing numbers of more than 24 BILLION searches per month. People use their smart phones to Tweet and the research told us that the number of smart phones in the world is expected to more than triple in the next year.

Social media, namely Twitter, is where people are and we are encouraging and helping our clients find ways to reach out to this huge and rapidly expanding audience. 

Oh, and by the way…Mitch has seen the light – TIMES TWO.  You can follow him at http://twitter.com/#!/freepmitch or http://twitter.com/#!/MitchAlbom.

Follow Mike DeVilling at: http://twitter.com/#!/mikedevilling

Follow Dave Wieme at: http://twitter.com/#!/DavidWieme

See you in the Twittosphere!

Now, before you roll your eyes and say, “There he goes again, bragging about one of his kids,” please hang in there…yes, I’m bragging a tiny bit.  But, I have a point and there is a lesson to be learned.

Seeing Taylor’s Algebra grade made me smile…and made tears well up in my eyes.  Taylor is a bright kid, but math has always been a struggle.  Everybody is wired a little differently, and Taylor just happens to be one of those people that needs a little more time for mathematical concepts to sink in.

But, when Taylor was younger, it was something that truly worried my wife Jana and me.  Should we get a tutor?  Is she falling behind?  What should we do?

When Taylor was in fourth grade and our fears were probably at their highest point, we were at parent/teacher conferences.  We shared our concerns with her teacher, and this is what he said:

“Well, college isn’t for everybody.”

College isn’t for everybody.  I can still hear these words hanging in the air as if it happened yesterday.  Now, it is true…college isn’t for everybody.  But, Jana and I were not about to give up on our nine-year-old daughter.

I don’t think we’ve ever shared this story with Taylor and if she’s reading this blog (hi, sweetie!), she might be hearing this for the first time.  In fact, I’m not sure Jana and I ever really discussed it.  We just went back to life as usual.  We created an expectation in Taylor and her sisters…work hard, get good grades, go to college.

As the years went by, Taylor simply grew up.  She became more focused.  She developed good study habits.  And, while math has never been easy, she’s always done okay.

A couple months ago, I went to the mail box.  There was a letter from the Central Michigan University admissions office.  My heart was pounding through my chest.  I yelled up the steps, “Taylor…come down here, there’s something in the mail for you.”

As Taylor opened the envelope, I was literally shaking…then, I saw a big smile cross her face, and tears of joy and relief began to stream down her face.  Jana and I ran up the steps and hugged her, sharing a good cry.  It was simply one of the most beautiful and proud moments of my life.

Taylor is in.  College.  Central Michigan University, Class of 2015.

And the great lesson to be learned?  Never, ever let someone’s negativity stop you from focusing on your goal.  Believe in yourself.  Work hard.  It might not be easy.  But, you can do it.

Great job, Taylor.  You proved him wrong.