Last Saturday evening, the Chamber and 20+ other groups headed to Ottawa University to attend the Ottawa Police Foundation’s 13th Annual Trivia Night. Our team was made up of Chamber staff and volunteers who dubbed the name “Somebody Has to Come in Last” (team picture here). This name represents some of our most recent experiences at the OPD trivia nights, as our team has consistently come up short… by a lot. But, every dog has its day. And last Saturday night, the Chamber team didn’t do too shabby!
Going into the final question on the night, we were sitting in a modest 12th place. Derek Chappell, the MC and Question Master, gave everyone the opportunity to wager points for the last question. Holding on to what we had, we bet zero points. We did this hoping to jump up a spot or two if people above us wagered and missed the mark. What ended up happening was that almost every team wagered nearly all their points. Though some might say by default, we actually ended up in third place! We don’t have any physical proof of this accomplishment, as the event only awarded plaques for first and second place―so you’ll have to take me at my word! Regardless of place, what a fun way to help fundraise for DARE Camp this summer.
Say Cheese
On Wednesday morning, the Chamber board and staff got dressed up for picture day. I have seriously slacked off on updating our boardroom photos annually. It’s also tricky to keep our board members' photos on the Chamber’s website updated. To help combat any further procrastination, we worked with local photographer, Steve Steele of Steele House Photography, to get these headshots taken (pictures here). Steve brought all of his equipment to us and finished up in about an hour. If you or your organization need to look into updating staff photos, there isn’t a more convenient process! Check out his website here for contact information (click here). A good chunk of our board members participated, and they looked great from the small glances I caught on the camera! I look forward to updating our boardroom and website once these come in.
Small Biz, Big Ideas: AI & Marketing Hacks
This week, we held our first Small Business Seminar of the year. This event is in partnership with the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) out of Lawrence. Their team of four can help with all aspects of running a small business, including business planning, cash flow management, financial analysis, sales and business development, hiring and HR, marketing and social media, and business valuations. Another resource their department can offer small businesses is market and consumer research. They showed some examples of these online tools during the seminar, which you can see here (check those out here). To access this tool and more fantastic business advice, reach out to any of their staff to start an in-person or online consultation for FREE (view their contacts here).
This quarter’s event was titled “Supercharge Your Marketing: A Workshop on Alternative Strategies & AI” (pictures here) We live in a world where AI is talked about so much, and everyone says that you should be utilizing it for one thing or another. But much like any tool, it takes technique to get the best results. One of the strategies they shared, regardless of whether you’re using ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity, is a formula to follow for targeted answers. This includes four steps: persona, task, trait, and output.
For example, what should I ask if I’m looking for advice on how best to send an email to a potential new customer I met at a Chamber Coffee? Start by giving the AI a persona. In this case, stating “you are an email writer” so it knows how to approach your question. Secondly, give it a task: “who is formatting an email to a potential new customer named X, who I met at this Friday’s Chamber Coffee.” Third, what traits it should have when answering; “make sure and be quippy while staying succinct.” And lastly, how should the prompt be structured; “the email should be no more than five sentences long, start with a greeting, include a call to action, and end with a friendly goodbye.” Utilizing this structure ensures that the AI language understands your request and outputs precisely what you’re asking for. With practice, these prompts can become second nature and help with far more than just writing emails.
Future CEOs in the Making
I had the chance to volunteer as an interviewer for 4th and 5th-grade students at Lincoln Elementary this week for an upcoming field trip to JA Biztown (pictures here). This is a hands-on learning program in Kansas City that provides financial literacy and career readiness through an immersive experience of running a business in a town. Each student gets to share their preferences on which industry they would like to work in and then “apply” to three of those businesses. As an interviewer, we got to review their resume and ask why they chose this business, their strengths and weaknesses, and what makes them a good candidate.
I always asked at the beginning whether they were nervous, and most stated that they were. But once we got going, so many seemed right at home, sharing about how their experiences in class or at home contributed to their abilities as reasonable candidates and team members. One question asked what makes a good team member, and another asked about what makes a quality business. Nine out of ten times, I heard that kindness was key. My favorite answer of the day was when I asked a young boy about his greatest strength. With a straight face, he responded, “My muscles.” When asked how he might relate that to this role, he replied, “I can pick things up and move them.” He stuck to his guns; we’ll see if he gets the job!
Franklin County’s Young Entrepreneurs
The day following the Biztown interviews, the Franklin County E-Community hosted the annual Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge (YEC). This is a competition for 6th-12th graders who have a business or a business concept that they are willing to share through a handful of different means. This competition includes an executive summary that must be completed before the event, which contains their business plan, financials, and other supporting documents. The summary piece is graded along with the in-person activities they do on the day of the event. This includes a trade show where they show off their business to community members, a formal presentation they give in front of a panel of judges, and an elevator pitch. All of these aspects are scored to find our Franklin County YEC winners. All of the businesses that participated this year are listed here (pictures here).
Ottawa University has been a great partner for this program for the past two years, giving these students the facilities, technology, and resources to have this impactful event. The Franklin County E-Community believes that the YEC journey positively impacts these students and plants seeds for entrepreneurial success throughout their lives. They also believe in incentivizing those who participate, and they do that with cold hard cash! Over $2,000 was awarded to participating teams throughout all the winners of the various parts of the YEC. With every participant winning money and first place even received 1k in cash. Along with the money, the competition winner automatically gets awarded a spot to compete at the statewide YEC event in Manhattan. This year’s winners were a group of OHS boys with the business Protein Bombs (winners pictured here). We look forward to watching them compete on K-State’s campus in April!
Leading with Love: Welcoming AdventHealth’s New CEO
This morning, Chamber members gathered at Ottawa’s local hospital, AdventHealth Ottawa, to meet the new President/CEO, Brendan Johnson (pictures here). Brendan joined AdventHealth after a couple of decades of working in healthcare, having served in administrative roles in every hospital department and even the broader health system. He and his wife have hopped around the US, spending time in Colorado, the West Coast, and eventually the Northeastern Coast, which is where they have spent the last ten years. He and his family (including his son and daughter) have now made the move to the Midwest, where he will be leading AdventHealth Ottawa.
I had the pleasure of hearing from Brendan at our local Rotary meeting this week and at this morning’s Chamber Coffee. And from these two opportunities, as well as talking with some of his employees, and really, everyone who’s had the chance to meet him, I've gathered that AdventHealth chose the right guy for the job. Servant leadership seems to ooze right out of him, and when he talks about how he cares about patients, his staff, and his neighbors, he talks about love. AdventHealth’s mission involves “extending the healing ministry of Christ.” Brendan seems more than prepared to live out that mission, as he has for his whole life. I look forward to seeing how he can love on and care for our community through our local hospital.
I wanted to pass along a story that Brendan shared this morning that warmed my heart. It was one of his family’s first experiences in Ottawa after starting this role. Having come to Ottawa in January, he’s had the opportunity to experience one of the worst winters we’ve seen in some time. One of the first things Brendan did with his family in Ottawa was to stop at our local Price Chopper. On one of the bitterly cold days, he was looking to park. As he was about to pull into a spot, a gentleman was about to hop into his car. Instead of jumping in, he moved out of the way and waved for Brendan to pull in first. Brendan, aware of the cold, motioned for him to go ahead and escape the bitter temperatures. This went back and forth a couple of times until the gentleman finally got into his car. As the Johnsons parked and exited their vehicle to go inside the store, the man pointed and waved him over to his window. Brendan walked that way, and when he did, the man rolled his window down and said, “I was about to fight you!” Brendan was taken back at first; then he asked what the man meant. The man went on to say that he was in a fight to see who could be the nicest and that he had seceded, and Brendan beat him. The man said he hoped he would have won the fight of kindness, but he gave in. Brendan’s reaction was perfect: Everyone wins when you fight to be the nicest. Brendan went on to share that this interaction made him and his family feel like they made the right choice by choosing Ottawa as their new home. He said that people here are so kind that they want to fight you with niceness! I’m so glad he chose to share this. And I am grateful that people like this man in the Price Chopper parking lot are willing to be so kind that they are eager to fight!
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It's been great to get out and about so much after this long-winded cold spell. It was so difficult to do anything but curl up indoors since mid-January. Now, as you move through town, you see walkers and bikers, people sitting on their porches, kids playing in the yard, and folks making their way through our beautiful downtown. It’s been a great week to be in Ottawa! I know there are many more weeks like this in store for 2025. Talk to you soon!
Ryland Miller
President/CEO
Ottawa Area Chamber of Commerce
ryland@ottawakansas.org
785-242-1000
