Author: Kokou

Concrete Jungle Blog Post #7

by Kokou

Greetings! With everything winding down, it’s been a hectic past few weeks, but it’s been great wrapping everything up. That isn’t to say there haven’t been challenges along the way, but no experience comes without its host of unique obstacles.

Something that was touched upon in my last post of mine was waiting on the necessary information we needed for the final phases of our project, and while we were able to get access and critical feedback from our contacts with the organization, the profilebank itself proved to be a challenge in terms of cold calling.

With college and reaching out to professionals in our prospective fields, there were expectations for how the cold calls would go, which were faced with the reality of:

  1. We’re dealing with an entirely different generation in a field that doesn’t require a “corporate aesthetic.”
  2. What type of information are we looking for from these farmers?

This isn’t to say that they were rude or anything, but I realized very quickly, going into cold-call scheduling and initial meetings, that my expectations for gathering the information we needed were going to need to be adjusted drastically.

The biggest obstacle in this stage was, honestly, just actually getting into contact with our respective farm contacts. Although our point of contact at Concrete Jungle played a huge role in facilitating things and getting the ball rolling in the face of a lack of response to Vic and I’s initial reachouts, the unfortunate reality is that we weren’t able to talk to everyone. From this, though, I learned the value of communication. Not just in the sense of knowing who you’re talking to and the way you need to approach communicating with them, but also in terms of making sure to keep in contact with your managers. Because we met and made our concerns clear to our managers, they were very understanding of the point we got to with our work, and acknowledged that they would do what they needed to do in their own time.

Aside from the challenges that came from that portion of the project, honestly, I feel as if this experience allowed us to accomplish a lot. I know personally, I learned a lot from Vic in terms of approaching Canva and am very thankful for her help with the templates they’ll be using across their organization. In addition, having the space to ideate and come up with so many ideas, and see concepts such as the Farmer FAQ and Posting Calendar come to life, was amazing!

It’s been an honour working on this project, and I’m excited for what comes next!

 

Concrete Jungle Blog Post #5

by Kokou

Hey everyone! As Vic and I approach the final phases of this project, it’s been great seeing the ideas that we started with really starting to get fleshed out, especially as we’ve been meeting with Concrete Jungle and aligning our products with their vision. Whether it be our farmer portfolio or Instagram, things have been going well, and I love the direction that we’re heading in.

In my last post, I talked a lot about the social media side of things and how we were figuring out how we wanted to target things towards our intended audience. Between Vic and I’s personal meetings, as well as a recent meeting we had with our supervisors at C.J discussing the progress we’ve made with our projects, we have a clearer vision in terms of where we want to go and how we want to set up these first few posts. A big help was getting an idea of what style of posts they want to see posted, in addition to getting some positive reinforcement with the ideas and calendar plan we talked through with them.

In Vic’s last post, she touched on our scripts and the prep we were doing for cold-calling farmers, and I’m proud to say that we’re starting to lean into that. Not only have our contacts been clarified, but we have all the necessary information we need to start pushing forward with interviews, as well as our actual portfolio database.

Reflecting on the whole experience so far, I’d say the only point of contention was perhaps waiting for details to be confirmed, which is to be expected. There’s a process for everything, but an initial worry was definitely getting access to the company Canva and fine-tuning the existing farmer database. It is really great that the ball is really rolling now, though. As things are wrapping up, it’ll be great to get our final projects wrapped up with C.J and start prepping for our final presentation.

The biggest highlight of this experience has honestly been the creative liberty we’ve been given with these projects. To be able to create something existing that will help Concrete Jungle with its initiatives has honestly been challenging, but has also opened the door to so many possibilities we never expected going into this project. It’s been an honor, and hoping to finish things out strong!

Concrete Jungle Blog Post #3

by Kokou

The past few weeks working with Concrete Jungle have been nothing short of fascinating, to say the least. Vic and I have been focused on planning out a fresh new direction for their social media, something that captures who they are and what they stand for in a way that feels natural and engaging. At the same time, we’re getting ready to put together a portfolio of the different farmers they work with across the South, which has been one of the coolest parts of the project so far.

With the social media side of things, it’s been really interesting seeing the differences between the platforms that they already have, since they have a page for Metro Atlanta and Athens. Since we’re focused on the South, we’re gearing to target an older audience, more so farmers, so it’s going to be interesting to see how things play out.

Most of our time has been spent brainstorming ideas, getting organized, and meeting with our team leads to make sure we’re all on the same page. We’ve talked through content goals, possible visuals, themes, and ways to bring more life to their online presence while staying true to their mission. It’s been a lot of prep work, but honestly, it’s made me even more excited to move into the creative part soon.

A part of this process that’s been keeping things interesting is learning more about Concrete Jungle’s mission and how that ties into our tasks. Their work with farmers throughout the South plays a big role in informing and fueling their more local projects, and it’s been inspiring to see how it all connects. Knowing that our social media and portfolio ideas could help tell these stories and uplift these voices makes the project feel even more meaningful.

It’s also been fun getting a better feel for how mission-driven organizations like C.J approach storytelling and community. I’ve realized that good content isn’t just about pretty pictures or catchy captions, it’s about creating something that reflects real people, real work, and real impact. Yes, we have a lot of creative direction with the work that we’re doing, but we can’t exactly slap some posts together and call it a day. There’s been a level of intentionality that we’ve been taking with the process that makes us excited for the final output.

So far, this experience has helped me think more intentionally about how to blend creativity with purpose, and how to plan out a project in a way that’s both thoughtful and flexible. We’ve got a solid foundation now, and I can’t wait to start bringing everything to life soon, so hopefully more of that pops up in my next post!

Introduction – Kokou Efou

by Kokou

Greetings! My name is Kokou Efou and I’m a Junior at GSU majoring in Psychology with a minor in Computer Science. I chose this course because I wanted to try something new compared to the seminar-style courses I had typically taken before. I saw the service learning aspect as a way to learn in a new way and give back to a good cause! I’m a very curious person and love new perspectives, so this class seemed like the perfect fit for just that. Professionally, I hope to pursue a Master’s in Human Computer Interaction alongside a career in UX Research! Aside from my professional interests, I’m a big fan of reading, music, cooking, and thrifting. I’m very much a big music lover and personally play 3 instruments (guitar, drums, and piano), alongside volunteering with the audio/technical team with my church’s college ministry.

For this course, I will be volunteering with Concrete Jungle, which is quite close to campus and focused on nutrition and food access. As a current intern with our campus library’s research data services, we’ve hosted a class before concerning food insecurity and food deserts, so there was a connection in wanting to engage with more work along that line. Going back to the work that the concrete jungle focuses on, not only do they work with various community partners to distribute fresh produce, they have their own farm (Doghead farm) where they grow produce for the community. In addition, they work to host nutrition workshops to ensure that community members have the knowledge to lead healthy and nutritious lives.

With my time at Concrete Jungle, I hope to not only be able to assist in the organization’s more technical projects and work, but also gain a better understanding of how nonprofit organizations work to both serve their communities, and maintain operations. I’ve had experience working virtually with non-profit organizations before, but to be able to first-hand gain a better idea of day-to-day operations would not only give me more insight into what goes into this work, but also a greater appreciation for what I’m doing. Ultimately, I’m excited to serve and am hoping the best for these next few weeks.