University of Maine

We had a great little day off in Portland but the downside of staying in Portland was we had to wake up a little earlier to drive two hours up to Orno, ME the next morning.  University of Maine had a pretty nice campus, and it seemed it was similar size to Delaware about 20,000 students and about a 20 minute walk from one end of campus the other.  The venue however was a little different, it was a giant open field house, but had a similar feeling to a huge metal barn.  Being that we were as far north almost to Canada, it was not too warm inside either.

Today was going to be a pretty cool day, because Reverb had hired people to follow us around and tape our daily activities for a video they wanted to make about the Campus Consciousness Tour.  We went about our daily activities, and the camera crew just followed us around all day.  It was pretty fun walking to the town hall forum through campus, with the camera crew running around us to try and get the best shot.  I felt like I was either famous or on a reality show with the cameras following us.  The town hall forum went really well that day to.  We had a decent turn out, and I set up a little table with the Silk table cloth and samples for people to take, it looked very formal.

Later on in the day when I was setting up my booth the camera crew interviewed me.  They asked me a lot really good questions about Reverb and Silk’s relationship.  Also about sampling and people’s reactions, and the affect Silk’s message was having on them.  I got a chance to talk about all the reasons why Silk was supporting the CCT and all the company does to be environmentally sustainable.  Also later on when we had the eco-village totally set up, they filmed us in action.  They got some good footage of me handing out samples, and people drinking them.  In addition, they got my volunteers and I talking to students and educating them about Silk.  I’m excited to see how the video comes out, because it is an awesome opportunity to show how Silk is involved on the tour.  It also would be great PR for the company to show and promote!

That particular show I went through samples really quickly.  No one who I asked to try it turned me down except for one guy that gave me an excuse he was chewing gum.  I told him he’d love it if he just gave it a chance, then he asked me if I promised and I said yes.  Later he came back up to me and said, “you were right it’s really good.”  A lot of people started to drink it right away instead of putting it in their bag for later, which was good for the cameraman to get on tape.  The one thing that stuck out to me tonight was people seemed to be really receiving the message better about Silk’s green initiative.  A lot of people that I told about offsetting to wind energy were really engaged with the idea and I had long conversations with a few people about it.  It was really cool for me because a lot of the time people were initially surprised, but then just acknowledge the information and walk off.  I was happy to be getting questions about how exactly Silk offsets and other questions concerning wind energy.  I really felt like I was getting the message across here to more people, than at previous schools.

I guess I was in an interview mood because the school newspaper was doing a documentary/article and I caught them at the right time to do an interview with them.  I feel like as much publicity as Silk can get for this tour the better.  I mean that is predominately why I am here, to represent the brand and increase awareness to the people who I am around.  Definitely a hugely productive day, between the video, my interview with the newspaper, and in general the strong interest from people at the show learning about Silk.

Benj the bassist of the band is so awesome!  In his interview he told me he gave a big shout-out to Silk for being sponsor.  He has been the one in the band promoting campus consciousness tour’s message the strongest, and at the same time is a big Silk fan.  Thanks Benj!