Edwin Link, M.Ed.’s Post

I’ve always been a bit intense. Many years ago we did an ‘away day’ where the leaders of the company spent the day with lots of kids from several primary schools leading a competitive sports day. The objective was to get the kids chatting with kids from other schools, promote fitness, and have fun. There were lots of events; welly wanging, basketball catching, hopscotching, etc. The teams were scored by counting catches, wellies wanged and hopscotches completed in 5 minute intervals. The teams rotated round each event. As you can imagine, there would be more basketballs caught in 5 minutes than hopscotches completed. My team were EPIC. They put their hearts and souls into it, egged each other on, worked out who would be best at each event, and did everything they could to get on the podium. We had chants, dances and special handshakes to make everyone included. We were keeping an eye on the scores and were doing brilliantly. We just had the basketball catching to go (which was the highest scoring event). So, you can imagine my distress when the organisers ran out of time before each team could do every event. They totted up the scores and announced the winners. We weren’t in the top three. Because every other team had been able to score hundreds of points more than us because they had done the basketball catches. It was a hard lesson for us all to learn - that life isn’t fair, and not everyone gets the same opportunities. I was frustrated, voiced my opinion - and picked up the reputation for being intense and competitive. I’m not a sore loser, I’m happy to be beaten fair and square. But I’m not happy to be treated unfairly. I use this story when talking about EDI. Do you think this was a great lesson for the kids to learn about life not being fair? Or do you think I should have done more to advocate for them - even at the cost to my reputation? What would you have done? #edi #leadership #hr #equality

The Brooklyn Yearbook is making headlines! Check out this TimeOut article to learn more about our event next week and how you can be a part of the experience 📕 #Brooklyn #NewYork #NYC #BrooklynYearbook

Blackness is more than culture: it is identity ✊🏿🎵 5 marketing takeaways you can learn from this shirt story: (1) honoring a local icon fortifies the club’s foundation (2) working with a local artist deepens the club’s connection to its community (3) cross-industry references help to reach new audience (4) embracing cultural heritage illuminates the club's core values (5) history transcends clubs // follow Storytelling Football Shirts for more shirt stories

As most of you probably know, it was International Women's Day last week, a day where our feeds are inundated with posts celebrating the occasion. Over the past few years, companies have started to see the value in celebrating the day, and typically like to make a fuss. But, there’s one thing they all have in common - they’re performative. That’s why I wanted to share my favourite IWD campaign from Molson Coors Beverage Company, a Canadian beer company that recently announced a multi-year partnership with the Women’s Hockey League. The brilliance of their campaign comes from the fact that they actually solve a problem. I’ve left the video below so you can see for yourself, but I’ll give you a quick overview. 👇🏻 👱🏻♀️ For a game played on IWD, Molson switched around their logo with the player's name, solving a long-standing problem - a female player's ponytail covering her name on her jersey. It may seem silly or trivial, but it’s yet another instance where we see that the game (and the world) isn’t designed for women. Do you think Lionel Messi or LeBron James would have their names covered while they play? 🏒 Molson wanted to fix this. Solving this small issue allowed each player to be seen and recognised out on the ice, and also feel valued by their team and their fans. Rather than superficially celebrating with Social Media posts or gifts, Molson showed their appreciation by actually solving a problem. It’s yet to be confirmed whether or not this will be a permanent solution, or a limited edition change to celebrate International Women’s Day. Let’s hope it stays, otherwise, is this yet another performative campaign? https://lnkd.in/ePRGbvhn

It's a big summer for Duplex Deli. It took a lot to get here, so as our team expands and great partners keep coming we wanted to share a little bit of the perspective on sports that has allowed us to succeed. It goes back to the beginning. For me, it was watching games with my Dad and this intense feeling that sports were cultural and powerful. Watching incredible athletic achievement was great, but what made it matter was a shared bond and something to experience - in joy or legit suffering - together. Playing sports in high school with no aspirations of a college career (due to lack of skill, to be clear) it was that same realization - this matters for the bonds, the bus rides and the community that came to watch my very mediocre self play sports. There is a cultural impact so much larger than wins or losses and if you can capture that, you can create something that transcends the game. There's more people trying to do that now but still just a handful that can get it right. Fast forward a few years from my high school days and Will Kiersky hits me up about VICE starting a sports verticals with that exact cultural frame of reference in mind. I was all in. This was long before the current landscape of off the field sports coverage being en vogue and it took a visionary like Will to figure out how to take something like that and move the market towards it. The rest is all history, as chronicled below. But none of it would have happened without Will. Read more about it Sandwich Club number 7. And as we continue innovate and push that brand of storytelling forward, you know where to find us. https://lnkd.in/ggGhbj_N

How exciting! Evolving on many levels

Now let’s talk Gohlke / Oakland and local activation: Sana Detroit 📲THE ACTIVATION: TBD given the video below. SANA Detroit is a retail company that captures southeastern Michigan sports history through clothing. They’ve previously activated with UMich and professional Detroit teams. 📍LOCAL / SMALL BUSINESSES: being sports integrated / adjacent, and with previous NIL engagement experience, Sana probably has a more robust NIL engagement playbook than most small businesses. When I was interviewing on the topic, the reasoning that came up was 1.) NIL is too new; general uncertainty around the rules and how to engage, 2.) lack of business capacity. I think this is getting better as the market moves towards ‘’standards’’ but still generally undercapitalized on by small businesses. 💥ASK AND YOU COULD RECEIVE: moving away from Gohlke and towards general student-athlete advice: reasons 1 & 2 above are why I, and others, encourage student athletes to DM or cold email brands you like. I’ve seen it work. If you approach them with a general idea of how you’d want to structure the engagement and a strong pitch, you’re taking part of the job off their shoulders and demonstrating how you could align with their business values & brand. Not only is it great to start to nail down your NIL & professional brand, but it’s also great practice for if / when you start job hunting. If you’re an athlete (or if you know one) who wants to do this, but doesn’t know where to start or just needs a little encouragement… reach out to me and I’d be happy to advise however I can. It’d be great to learn from you, too— I’m currently developing an NIL education series with one of the largest public school districts in Michigan to introduce, educate, and empower high school athletes so they have the fundamentals before getting to their college campuses. Would love to hear your thoughts on what type of content would best fit this audience.

Good morning, everyone! Here’s to another week of success! 🌟 How are you feeling about the week ahead? Embrace the opportunities and challenges that come your way, and make this week truly remarkable! Check this snippet from the weekends event in Warrington #goodmorning #warrington #warringtonmarket #event #entertainment #success #fun

“What is the story of St. Patrick’s Day?” It’s a question I probably ask myself every year. Every holiday has some kind of origin story, but some seem to stick more than others. St. Patrick’s Day seems to be an excuse for adolescents to pinch each other, people who love green to celebrate their favorite color, the Irish to proclaim their heritage, and those who like to drink to do so in excess. And even those who aren’t Irish get in on the celebration (see the video of my three-year-old grandson delivering the line his father taught him on St. Pat's Day). According to history.com, “St. Patrick’s Day observes of the death of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. The holiday has evolved into a celebration of Irish culture with parades, special foods, music, dancing, drinking and a whole lot of green.” It appears the music, drinking, dancing, and a whole lot of green were not in the original story of St. Patrick but were the evolution to the holiday in present times. Think about the stories of your business and your corporate culture. Are they clear enough that the purpose will last? Or will they evolve over time into something that drifts from the original meaning? I teach people that when they use stories to teach, lead, sell, and inspire, they need to start with the purpose of the story. What lesson are you teaching? What action do you want to inspire? What do you want people to remember and do after hearing your story? If we aren’t intentional about our stories, they may become something other than what we originally intended. So, be sure to imbue your stories with purpose so people remember their meaning and they have the impact you intend. Otherwise, you may end up with corporate legends that are different than you want. #storytellingforbusiness #teachleadsellinspire  #storiesmatter

Well done on this, Dr. Zachary Shutler, Ed.D - I bet these reflections would be helpful in all sorts of ways! Thanks for sharing your experience and insights