Advancing Common Grind and creating a brand
By Chris Weaver • Sep 9th, 2008 • Category: Common Grind NewsFirstly guys, quick update. chrisweaver.co.uk has been taken down. Common Grind can now be found at www.commongrind.co.uk. Links will still work from chrisweaver.co.uk as there is a 301 redirect up there. Please update bookmarks etc.
Well after Common Grind: Tales from the Drip Tray doing better than I could have hoped. It has become time to start developing the concept (or coming up with a concept to be more accurate.) and turning Common Grind into a force to be reckoned with. Ideas have started flying about, and features, improvements, and scary new concepts have started manifesting themselves.
At the beginning, Common Grind started life as “Musings of a Professional Barista”. A place for me to vent steam, vocalise my ideas and thoughts about coffee, and try to document life in a coffee shop. But rapidly this grew stale for me. And I decided to press on with a dream, to start the UK’s first mainstream coffee podcast. And as such Common Grind was born. With the monthly podcast, and a regularly updated blog. But now I don’t feel this is enough.
I’m seeing a big spike in traffic after each podcast release, and then a mediocre stream of traffic for the rest of month, so I decided to come up with ideas to make things more interesting and spread out across the entire month. Also, I want the Common Grind brand to resonate in the same way Coffee Geek does in the states, and even in the UK.
There are a number of avenues I aim to pursue. Developing the brand is high up on the list, with a possiblity of events (a dormant idea, re-ignited by Seamus of thirdwaveuk.blogspot.com), cheap branded merchandise, including freebies, maybe tee-shirts, but designed well, and of high quality. Maybe some tie-ins with other areas of the UK coffee scene, and just generally trying to supplement uk coffee as much as possible. Secondly I want to grow Common Grind online into something bigger. With the consideration of a couple more writers, maybe aimed towards food, and drink. And also I’m contemplating a short, fortnightly food and drink podcast.
Basically, what I’m saying is, watch this space. Things are happening, and happening soon!
Common Grind: Tales from the Drip Tray
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Sounds great! I’ve been looking at selling stuff as well, but we’ll see.
As for events, keep me updated. Dane and I are seriously looking at a Newcastle Barista Championship, using a different style of competition to the WBC. On top of that we’ll probably be doing consumer events as well, so there’s always some possibility of a tie in there for Common Grind, or vica versa. Anyway, just a thought.
Cheers,
Seamus.