Congrats to Hugh Acheson

Hugh Acheson, the shining star of the Athens culinary scene, is a finalist for the James Beard Foundation's Best Chef Award (southeastern region). The Beard Award is one of the food industry's most prestigious awards.

Locally, you can sample Acheson's cuisine at Five & 10 and The National. The food is always good, and unlike many Athens establishments, the service is consistently top notch as well.

The Classic Twitty

As a recent Facebook convert, I've extended the boundaries of my social media sphere by starting a Twitter account. If you're not familiar with Twitter, it's also been called microblogging and gives users 140 characters to answer the question "What are you doing?" Inboxer Brian blogged about the growing popularity of the application back in January.

Among those I follow on Twitter are friends, co-workers, PR gurus and media outlets. Being relatively new to Twitter, I sometimes find the conversations hard to follow and never know whether anyone could actually be interested in the fact that I'm writing a press release at the moment. But there are those who've gotten the hang of it. In fact, Twitter Grader has a list of the Twitter Elite in Athens. Among them are UGA professor and social media maven Karen Russell and former Jackson Spalding interns Katherine Strate and Lizzie Azzolino. If you want to be tweeting with the who's who in Athens, check out the list and follow their lead.

Getting Creative

I love it when an uber-traditional brand gets outside the box. While consumer brands have gotten somewhat comfortable with this, real estate and resort destinations have been less inclined to take marketing risks.

That could be changing. One of the most hallowed destinations of the South, the Grove Park Inn, has apparently decided to step beyond classical music, slow panning video, old-couples-smiling-at-each-other-in-pool-pictures and obligatory sunset shots. I say good for Grove Park. While I'm not sure this approach totally fits with their brand (try reconciling the corporate site here with the microsite listed below, for example), it is sure to get attention and drive page views in an era of stodgy resort advertising. Throw in the neat story and microsite, and it is sure to get a little new- and old-media attention as well.

Winterville Native Up for German Ambassadorship?

According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Winterville native Tom Harrold is being considered by the Obama administration for the ambassadorship to Germany.

Harrold, a quarterback for Athens High School in his youth and an Athens Y Camp alumnus, is known as one of the state's top international and economic development attorneys. He began his career at Fortston, Bentley & Griffin before moving to Atlanta (there he practices with Miller & Martin) and has been politically active for years.

Harrold, who characterized his candidacy as a "long shot" in an interview with the Chronicle, would join Mercer Reynolds and UGA Law Professor Don Johnson as the only individuals with strong local ties in recent years to serve as ambassadors that the Inbox is aware of.

Could Local Cable Get Worse?

Apparently, in the wake of confusing my Tivo and ruining my plans to see the entire Duke-UNC game last night, Charter has decided to file bankruptcy. Obviously forcing thousands of Charter subscribers to watch the game on Raycom rather than ESPN was the straw that broke the camel's back. I wonder if they will give the judge a five hour window of time when they may or may not appear to actually file.

In all seriousness, Charter is the cable provider in Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties, so it will be interesting to see if their operations are impacted, or if other cable companies will try to grab a piece of that monopoly. The company also provides high speed internet services to a number of households in the region.

Higher Education Funding

Just a quick note, but if you have time, check out President Adams' testimony to the house higher education subcommittee from yesterday. It offers a fascinating summary of the challenges faced by institutions of higher education and the steps they are taking to deal with them. It is amazing how much money UGA has to raise on its own to run our flagship university.

Inbox Goes Nuts

Ever since the peanut butter-salmonella scandal broke, I have been waiting for someone from the Peanut Corp. of America to step forward and 1) take the blame and 2) provide a resolution that the media can latch onto and provide an opportunity for forgiveness (and eventually, forgetfulness).

Apparently, this family-owned business is getting some conflicting legal advice, or just isn't getting good advice at all. Their relative inaction has probably doomed their company and is putting one of Georgia's largest agricultural industries at risk. The deaths and illnesses attributed to the contaminated peanut butter are tragic, but there are some concrete steps the company and industry need to take in order to help these families recover and the public to regain confidence in peanut butter.

The story so far: poor cleaning and inspection practices at a plant in South Georgia allowed salmonella to contaminate peanut butter that was used in more than 1,800 products nationwide. The FDA has said that PCA knowingly shipped peanut butter that was contaminated. Today, the headquarters of the company in Virginia was raided, and another plant in Texas was shut down. To date, 8 deaths and at least 550 cases of illness have been linked to contaminated peanut butter.

In looking at PCA's website, it is apparent that they are trying to get their message out. But their web page is archaic, with no background on the company or multi-media elements. The news page is simply a series of statements, etc. And the statements are too long and not attributed to an individual. There appears to be no proactive outreach. In short, this is crisis response circa 1988, and not surprisingly, the company's message is not getting through. If comments from PCA are used in any of the escalating and increasingly shrill coverage, they are buried.

This is not a time to sit back and issue statements about the past. The peanut industry needs to take dramatic action to show it has a commitment to a safe product and demonstrate concern for those impacted before an entire product's reputation is ruined.

Taking a page from Tylenol, it would behoove the industry to do the following: immediately close all PCA plants until they are inspected and certified as safe. Recall all peanut butter products aside from jars of peanut butter. Pay for healthcare for all those affected. Adapt safety standards and develop an icon that highlights that peanut butter used in a product passed a "quality test" of some sort. Proactively encourage and welcome government inspectors at all peanut butter factories on a weekly basis, and support legislation for stronger inspections. And when things have calmed down, implement an aggressive advertising and multi-media campaign to educate consumers about the facts around the issue and to convince them that peanut butter is safe once again.

Georgia grows nearly half of the nation's peanut crop. I would imagine that Georgia's peanut industry, major candy and snack food organizations, along with JIF and everyone else are ready for a resolution to this story (recognizing that part of this will be driven by various federal and state investigations).

At this point, it is probably too late to save PCA. Who, after all, will be buying from them in the future? But for the good of those who enjoy peanut butter, the entire industry and our state, let's hope peanut plants are cleaned up and the narrative begins to change -- and quickly.