I had the privilege of addressing the Organic Seed Alliance Conference this past weekend. I partnered with Matthew Dillon from Seed Matters to co-lead a presentation about the past, present and future of seed as a commons. To stand with the true protectors of the headwaters of the American food system was emotional and invigorating for me. This is a journey that began many years ago but reached an inflection point with the development of the COMMON Seeds idea. That idea blossomed further with a connection to Matthew Dillon. Below are the slides I shared at the conference. This is only the beginning and we look forward to attracting more interest and developing more understanding around the vital issues of seed integrity and the preservation of biodiversity. – @BBrosAdam
The headwaters of food.
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012Wood Type Love
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
oday Marty and I stopped in to visit David Shields, the overseer/educator/historian extraordinare at the Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection in UT’s Design Department.
I was seriously excited to see this, as it’s the largest public collection of wood type in the country, and it’s right in my backyard. I have over 6,000 digital typefaces at the studio to choose from, but to get away from the endless digital choices I make all day and to touch the artifacts; learn a sliver of design history, is really a treat.
The Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection is a comprehensive collection of wood type manufactured and used for printing in America during the nineteenth century. It is comprised
of nearly 150 faces of various sizes and styles, including examples of the most popular printing types in use between 1828 and 1900, and represents a period of history marked by a rapid transition to new printing technologies…Rob Roy Kelly’s research and education about his collection helped fuel a revival of interest in nineteenth-century American printing types, and
in doing so, helped save a valuable facet of American history.
Maintaining a collection such as this is a labor of love and oh-so necessary for our future. Back when technologies began to shift, some may have burnt these type blocks to keep them warm. I bet David Shields would rather freeze to death. Bravo sir, keep on keepin’ on.
Profit from loss.
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011The Butler Bros and sisters lost our dad a year ago today. It was a company affair. We are, after all, a family business.
Marty created this beautiful memorial video as a legacy for our dad. Travis from our office edited the piece. In the parlance of film people, “It holds up.” Take a few minutes to watch it. It’s for everybody that has a family, not just us. If it shifts your perspective and inspires you to accept the foibles of your earthly parents well then so be it. Acceptance goes a long way towards creating profit from loss. Thanks dad for teaching us this and so many other lessons.
Single tear.
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
Foodies we are!
Friday, March 4th, 2011
All The Butler Bros staff received our tee shirts and stickers this week proving that we’re members of the Sustainable Food Center SFC Foodie program. We’re excited to be a part of this fantastic organization. Join us.
Connection trumps consumption.
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010My late father always had an issue with hyper consumption around the holidays. He always wanted to yolk the season to the reason as they say. In our house that meant the birth of the ‘eight pound six ounce infant baby‘ Jesus. Whatever your beliefs there is no doubt a feeling that buying in December is your American duty. Damn near religious in proportions. The machine aligns to unlock your spending. And suddenly you relent. It’s no miracle.
With the wrapping paper recycled you my might find yourself with a little hollow feeling inside. A little consumer hangover perhaps? That’s what always bugged dad too, the aftermath. What did it all mean really? Why did we just do that? He knew we were wondering on some level.
My friends and parenting mentors Bernadette Noll and Carrie Contey, PhD have crafted a very simple movement that I think is a beautiful anecdote to this phenomena of post consumption depression. It’s not an indictment of buying things during the holidays per se. Rather it advocates for a more considered approach to togetherness. The idea is embodied in the phrase “Slow Family Living“. The intention that drives the idea is to turn off the expectations of the rest of the world and ask a profoundly simple question, “what will truly connect our family?” The mantra becomes “slow down, connect and enjoy.”
Let’s face it, in the rush to make a perfect holiday the first casualty is often our connectedness to the ones we are doing it all for. So grab your consciousness by the boot straps, set your mind above the fray for a moment and visualize being joyfully connected to your loved ones. What do you see? That’s your best version of the holidays you’re looking at. The only one that matters really.
In Proverbs it says, “with all thy getting get understanding.” Amen to that.
Merry Chrismahkwanzakuh.
The death of .99
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Sam Walton once said, and I am paraphrasing, ‘When you get confused go to the store, the customer has all the answers and the money.’ Hard to argue with that. We have an addendum to that which is proved brilliantly by the Business Week article The Accidental Hero. Our addition is this – ‘the store operator has lots of answers too’. The operator has instincts honed by daily interaction with customers that cloistered execs rarely hold, no matter how long they’ve been with a company. When our firm works with restaurant accounts we always spend time with their best franchisees. These folks are the field generals and they KNOW what is happening on the ground.
So back to the BW piece, which focuses on a Florida based Subway franchisee named Stuart Frankel. In order to lift sagging sales he tweaked his pricing to 5 bucks for a footlong. In the article he quips, “I like round numbers.” So do real people Stuart. You knew that though because you spend lots of time with them. Enough with the decimal points already…
As the national coverage of this story would indicate, Stuarts tweak trickled up to the brass in corporate and it is now a system wide promotion at Subway with national TV spots and mountains of collateral behind it. It’s literally become a 3.8 billion dollar idea. Pardon the decimal point.
Doubly bad entendre
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
When you live in Texas you get used to brands pandering to some mythic metaphor that we all theoretically march to like so many Alamo warriors. That’s strike one usually. Though it is occasionally played well by brands that are actually from the state, who have an authentic story to leverage and aren’t trying too hard to leverage it.
The reason this bus board ruffles my ventricles is the crass collision it creates in my mind regarding a very real public health crisis. Namely, that the leading cause of death in Texas is heart disease. So when I see this board I think, ‘you nailed it Mickey D’s, pump MORE beef in our hearts!’
Now, we are all free to eat whatever we want. We can dispassionately read the statistics about what kills the most Texans. We can browse the statistics about which cities eat the most fast food. We can ignore the correlations if we choose. We can throw hundreds of billions at health care without ever looking in the mirror. But when a brand practically taunts us with entendre and we don’t notice…that starts to feel a little too much like “Idiocracy“. What are you noticing?
Texas Tribune sparks up.
Sunday, July 26th, 2009
Witness the social networking bug, nay, the tip of truths spear, we created for the Texas Tribune. The full identity will soon be fully exercised. In the meantime we like the looks of the launch. For those who didn’t catch the NYT piece, the Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public media organization whose mission is to promote civic engagement and discourse on public policy, politics, government, and other matters of statewide interest.
If you are interested in keeping up with the Tribune as launch approaches become a fan on Facebook. They are also keen to tweet as you would expect. You can also register on the splash page for the site to be at texastribune.org. You did it Thornton, congrats!