The Obama Foundation on Twitter: "Only two days until civic leaders like @aimeewoodall gather at the inaugural #ObamaSummit. Be a part of it: https://t.co/WdBQALg9je… https://t.co/AYdRSHVyq1"

Sometimes, we take our inspiration from in-house. Today we look no further than our very own fearless leader, Aimee Woodall.

Thanks, Obama [Foundation Summit].

Condensed

Ferrari 512 BBi Is A Piece of Art - Petrolicious

Putting Purpose in the Driver’s Seat with Ferrari

The 1981 Ferrari 512i BB has a horizontally mounted direct-injected V12 engine that produces 335hp, 333lb/ft of torque and has a claimed top speed of 179mph.

RESCHEDULED: A Community Gathering and Human Rights Conversation

Our world today is full of daily struggle and strife. But we didn’t need to tell you that—you’re living and breathing, too.

Our world today is full of daily struggle and strife. But we didn’t need to tell you that—you’re living and breathing, too. Each week, the already long list of tragedies and injustice grows longer and longer. For things to change, we must better understand where we fit in the fight for equality, access and justice, and learn how we can join those organizations that are taking action to make a bigger impact.

Ode to Working Women: American Business Women's Day

Regular

It’s Okay To Talk Derby – Hard Hitting PR Lessons from Houston Roller Derby

If you’re familiar with roller derby from the 70s, you probably remember gigantic wooden-banked tracks, hardcore body slams and over-choreographed rail flips. Today, though, the game is more of a sport than a spectacle. After reemerging as an “old game, new sport” in 2003, contemporary roller derby has made considerable efforts to rebrand itself. And we have to say – these ladies have been on a serious roll.

The Houston Roller Derby Championship Bout is September 21 and we’ll be there, front and center. Sure, there’s always the risk of becoming a landing pad for a projectile derby girl, but who are we to shy away from anything?

Whether you’re wearing skates and taking names or trying to revitalize a PR campaign, we think you should listen up and take a few hard-hitting PR pointers from our own derby gal, intern Katie Thomson – or Betty Watchett. This gal GOES HARD.

This Ain’t Your Mama’s Roller Derby
Just as the game has reemerged into a more youthful, athletic and empowering sport, a good PR campaign should show a little rebellion, too. Textbook methods insist that you stick it to the old techniques and follow history’s classic marketing formulas. DON’T. It’s okay to try new moves by jumping the apex, especially if you can wow your audience AND stick the landing. Do something new and fresh. We’re not suggesting you completely reinvent the wheel, but try getting your “roll” on in a different fashion.

Great Jammers Always Get ‘Lead’
In roller derby, the first jammer (point scorer) to get out of the pack is awarded a special privilege called “lead jammer,” which allows her to stop the jam at any time. If she gets lead, she retains control.

If you get YOUR lead in a PR campaign, you’ll be racking up the points, too. The key to success is breaking out of the pack to get ahead of your competition. Take risks and do things no one else is doing by finding those holes. It may feel scary, but it really gives you the upper hand as a leader in the game.

Play the Star
The objective of roller derby is to block the opposing jammer – who wears a helmet covered with stars – out of bounds, while trying to balance getting your jammer past the other team’s blockers. All the while, you’re dodging hits and trying to keep up with everyone on the track. While it may seem intimidating, sticking to your guns is something every PR pro can get behind. Set your goals from the beginning and stay laser-focused. Do everything you can in your power to block out interfering details or issues. Multitasking and tangential thoughts can slow you down. Always push ahead and you’ll maintain your lead to be the big winner.

Roller derby shows us that you can reinvigorate your PR campaigns with new energy. Taking a step towards a new image might be risky (and some might always latch on to your old brand), but the outcome of a fresh perspective can inspire a new identity and appeal to a completely different market. Roller derby never remarketed itself as a completely new concept — it just promoted itself as a youthful, energized community and became a culture more fans could be a part of. Take some risks, step out in front of the competition and stay focused on what you want to convey.

If you find yourself sitting in the front row at Houston Roller Derby’s big game next Saturday, see the action up close and take some notes on rebranding. Remember, it’s okay to talk derby every once in a while – just prepare to cover that beer if a skater lands in your lap!

It’s Okay To Talk Derby – Hard-Hitting PR Lessons from Houston Roller Derby

Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time

Breaks on a bus, brakes on a car
Breaks to make you a superstar

Rap Battle: Storytelling on the Beat

But these here breaks will rock your shoes

As writers, communicators and marketers working in a cause-driven field, we are no stranger to the importance of untold stories.

War Stories: A Voice For The Voiceless

As writers, communicators and marketers working in a cause-driven field, we are no stranger to the importance of untold stories. We use our words and creativity to create urgency and inspire action. Sometimes these stories are lost in a noisy world. Unheard.

Hung Up on a Rung: Ladders, inference, assumptions and YOU!

If you’re anything like me, your mind moves a mile a minute, and not always in a good way.

If you’re anything like me, your mind moves a mile a minute, and not always in a good way. You know that saying about assumptions? The one about you, and me, and a less pleasant term for a donkey? Yeah. Been there—painful. 

“We’re all going to have big losses in our lives, maybe a job or a career, relationships, love our youth.

The Beautiful Awful

“We’re all going to have big losses in our lives, maybe a job or a career, relationships, love our youth. We’re going to lose our health, people we love. These kinds of losses are out of our control. They’re unpredictable, and they bring us to our knees. And so I say, let them. Fall to your knees. Be humbled. Let go of trying to change it or even wanting it to be different. It just is.”

Black Sheep has been working with BakerRipley (formerly Neighborhood Centers) for a long time—nearly since the inception of our company.

HUMAN, A BakerRipley Campaign

Black Sheep has been working with Baker Ripley (formerly Neighborhood Centers) for a long time—nearly since the inception of our company. It’s impossible to enumerate the effects they have had on our agency.

When you give the right old man an Instagram, he’s going to want to post—a lot.

When You Give an Old Man an Instagram

When you give the right old man an Instagram, he’s going to want to post—a lot. And when he wants to post, he’s going to need content. And when he needs content, a masterpiece emerges and the universal cuteness meter is blown to smithereens.

Locally based Brazilian graphic designer Renata Senna had a vision for our chalk wall as soon as we contacted her. Merging feminism with gorgeous illustrations and graphics, Senna envisioned a mighty image of Supergirl combined with a strong statement. Between us gals (And guys. And everyone.), this is one of our favorite Blank Slate pieces. Ever. It’s simple but packs a powerful message: The future is female.

Blank Slate — To Femininity And Beyond!

Locally based Brazilian graphic designer Renata Senna had a vision for our chalk wall as soon as we contacted her.

To Femininity and Beyond!

Wholesome Humor and Weird Twitter’s Jonny Sun

Internet culture is alive and real and moving and sometimes it scares me.

Internet culture is alive and real and moving and sometimes it scares me. But if I’m honest, I spend most of the time that I’m breathing on Twitter. I’ll never apologize. It’s part of me now. I sit down, fish my slightly-broken iPhone out of my pocket and get lost in the depths of Weird Twitter, basking in the never-ending bad memes that somehow leave a gross taste in my mouth and refresh me simultaneously.

Why an Out of Office Retreat is Good For Camaraderie

The Lady Gaga Guide to Forming Emotional Connections

You know that feeling when you jump out of a building? Nope.

You know that feeling when you jump out of a building? Nope. I haven’t either. Sheep rarely jump off stuff—that’s why you see them up so high in the mountains, surefooted and attached to the ground at the hooves.

Find Your Values, Let Them Lead You To Action

Values have become a checklist item. Behind “Mission” and “Vision,” they’re the next thing to tackle before you startup, rebrand or launch a new culture handbook. But they really shouldn’t be. Real values are baked-in to your DNA. They’re like eye color—natural, striking and permanent. You can throw on contacts, but the truth remains behind the lens.

ONE BILLION IMPRESSIONS. One billion. It’s an incredible amount.

ONE BILLION IMPRESSIONS

ONE BILLION IMPRESSIONS. One billion. It’s an incredible amount. It means that we’re on to something. That the right eyeballs are finding their way to Better Make Room’s message. That we’re breaking through to those we serve. Our journey to a billion has been wildly important for education around America, and to us as an agency.

A few years ago, I read the book Brilliance by Marcus Sakey.

Pattern Recognition

A few years ago, I read the book Brilliance by Marcus Sakey. I don’t want to spoil it for you by giving away the plot, but something stuck with me—enough to read this book again for inspiration—was how the characters in this novel have special abilities. Realistic ones. One character could visualize the movement and patterns in crowds, giving her the ability to seamlessly weave through people for quick escapes. Another man was blessed with infallible emotion-recognition skills, making him a human lie detector. They had super powers but not necessarily supernatural ones, as Jess helped me summarize. (Thanks, Jess!)

He doesn’t need an introduction, but we’re going to give him one anyway: The Convoy Group’s Mark Austin is the man to talk to when you want to understand the current state of the Houston music scene and how important Record Store Day is to independent record stores.

Record Store Day: Q&A with Mark Austin

Pardon Our [Old] French, But Charity is a Four-Letter Word

The word charity conjures up Dickensian ideas of people struggling. Small street urchins in newsboy caps or little red-headed orphans singing their heart out. It’s not our favorite word. Not because the sentiment isn’t spot on—it is. The idea of charity is based on an Old French word, charité, meaning “benevolence for the poor.” It’s a beautiful thought: To be charitable is to be kind. To be kind is to care for your neighbors. And to care for your neighbors? There’s no more Houstonian trait than that. But the word “charity” itself comes with a lot of baggage. Like TSA, we’re here to open up that luggage, unpack it and repack it with a deeper meaning.

No matter your impact space, the last few years have taught us that our causes are interconnected. Researchers are now dealing with what the White House calls “converging crises” across industries. As a purpose-driven organization, we’ve spent years discussing everything from environmental racism and climate change to education and housing. But until recently, we hadn’t yet looked into an issue that’s affected by all of the above: food insecurity.

Food insecurity affects millions of all ages and backgrounds across America, particularly impacting the BIPOC community and hitting kids especially hard after millions have lost access to free school lunches. 

The pandemic has only exacerbated the fragility of the inequitable American food system. In 2022, the Census Bureau reported a 41% increase in households saying they did not have enough to eat after Congress stopped pandemic relief programs. 

That's over 40 million people who are experiencing hunger—or the fear of hunger—on a regular basis. With rising food and housing costs, that number is only expected to grow. 

Food insecurity is the lack of consistent access to enough nutritious food to maintain an active and healthy life. This can include not having enough money to buy food, living in an area without access to healthy food options or experiencing disruptions in food supply due to natural disasters or other crises.

According to Feeding America, the causes of food insecurity are complex and include:

Systemic racism and racial discrimination

The devastating effects of food insecurity

Access to fresh, healthy food is a basic human need and a social determinant of health and wellness. Without equitable access, we see an impact on:

Health: Without nutritious foods, people are at an increased risk for chronic health conditions like diabetes, heart disease and mental health disorders—particularly as many turn to cheap, caloric-rich foods in lieu of fresh, prepared meals.

Education: Children who experience food insecurity are more likely to have lower academic achievement, be suspended or expelled and suffer from behavioral and emotional problems. 

Financial wellness: Food-insecure households often spend over 25% of their income on food, making it challenging to budget other expenses like housing, healthcare, education and utilities. This is more harrowing given that food-insecure households also spend more on healthcare due to their poor diet.

Words matter. Food deserts and food apartheid are related terms you have probably heard but are distinct concepts.

Food deserts refer to geographic areas where residents lack access to affordable, healthy and fresh food, often due to a lack of grocery stores or other food retailers. These food deserts can occur in both urban and rural areas and affect people of all races and income levels.

Food apartheid, on the other hand, refers to a systemic and intentional form of discrimination in the food system that leads to unequal access to healthy food based on race and income. This terminology recognizes that food access is not simply a matter of geography but a result of historical and ongoing inequities in the food system, including racism, poverty, and systemic inequality. 

There are organizations across most major cities to fight these issues, namely urban farms and dedicated neighborhood markets. However, given the multiple converging crises, issues like food insecurity are often overlooked in favor of more hot-button issues. That’s where all of us can step in.

What can social justice-minded people do to help solve food insecurity?

While food insecurity offers no easy solutions, there are many ways to get involved.

Poverty USA offers some smart systemic change recommendations:

Reduce food waste - we throw away 30% of the food we produce

Here are a few ideas you can engage with at the individual level:

Find your nearest co-op (like Plant It Forward) and volunteer and shop there

Call your representative to advocate for policies that support access to healthy, affordable food.

Support local farmers and community gardens

Educate yourself and others about the causes and consequences of food insecurity

Donate to organizations that are working to address food insecurity, such as Feeding America or the World Food Programme

Food insecurity is incredibly complex, but it’s one area we can actually make great progress on as individuals. Supporting these local, fresh food sources improves the entire community’s health—AND it means more delicious, interesting meals on your plate. That’s a win for everyone. 

What is food insecurity and what can we do about it?

Food insecurity is a complex issue affecting millions of Americans, with systemic factors like poverty, racism, and geography playing a major role, but there are steps we can take to combat it.

The Black Sheep blog is turning up the volume on community engagement, social media strategy, Houston happenings and what it means to lead a purpose-driven life.

The Black Sheep Agency | Social impact and nonprofit blog

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We're not shy.

The Politics of Food Access