Most folk outside of Baltimore ain’t aware of an organization known as the New Day Co-Op. We organized East Baltimore and brought West Baltimore in with us as well. With Baltimore united and business moving smoothly, we had troubles coming soon, specifically with leadership. “Call it a crisis of leadership.” I always said. With this in mind I opted for spearheading the Co-Op. In no time, I was making myself known in the Co-Op.
In the end, I was the Co-Op president. I was bringing in the goods, and keeping the peace between all of us. Business continued to boom. However, we began to realize that business ain’t always gonna be so good. We needed to expand, but it needed to be somewhere else; somewhere out of plain sight. We needed to have an escape plan; so we met up to discuss. Immediately, people began to start aiming towards West Baltimore. After hearing the 2nd or 3rd support to that idea, I responded, “Why is it that every Baltimore n!##&# think that running the fuck away means crossing downtown? Shit, you should be in New York or Philly or some shit.” It was not until after the meeting that one of my crew told me about a place that was off the radar entirely. The Co-Op needed a good escape, but more importantly, if it was outside of Baltimore, we could expand without too much hassle. My boy hooked me up with some cat down in Fredericksburg, which was further than I expected.
I met this guy, who seemed to be good for supporting the Co-Op. The first thing we needed was a venue to meet at. So, we took a little walk, and I saw three spots:
We had suitable meeting spots and I decided it was time to get the Co-Op together, in Fredericksburg this time. It was not long till we met, and this time, I brought my boy from VA to meet with us. When the Co-Op gather, I was informed that some Five’O got the word on the package, and now the Co-Op was short on goods. Our VA contact believed it was a good time to begin in Fredericksburg; call it a back up plan so we could still make some money on the side. Seeing as how we were still unknown to the VA Five’O, the Co-Op decided we could hide ourselves by settin’ up a legitimate front.
In order to keep the Co-Op together against a much longer distance, we needed some communication. However, no burners, and no pagers. That’s when one of the Co-Op suggested we go online with this; no one would have suspected it. Since we now had some new assistance, it was time to see how dedicated he was to the Co-Op. I left him with some words of wisdom:
A couple of days later, after I returned to East Baltimore, he stops by the shop and shows me what he has for us.
“Now you’re lookin’ official. I got this joint set up so only the the Co-Op has access to this.” I was told. He had everything set up using some real secure shit. The site was set up to exclusively keep Baltimore and Fredericksburg on the same page. He knew me all to well. The next thing we needed was some boys to work for the Co-Op down in VA. I told him to keep it peaceful down there. “Scare up a hornet’s nest, no telling who’s gon’ get stung.” Was my advice. The youngin’ returned a simple nod, and hopped to it.
Little, by little, my board began to get cleaned up.
I got word on the package from Vondas later that day and called the Co-Op together once more, to ensure everything was moving normally again. I was gettin’ good news across the board. However, our new guy reported that we were now up and running in Fredericksburg VA. Hell, youngin’ even gave us a demo of his recruitment:
He said he had a full team up and ready to go. He never detailed how he got everything moving, considering Fredericksburg was way too quiet, but he said it was all good.
We managed to get stalled slightly in Baltimore when we lost that last package, but also managed to set up shop in VA as a fallback. After everything had been running, the Co-Op sent more support to VA, which brought even more wealth for everyone. I brought that good shit, and everyone benefited.
We stood together, and no one fucked with us.
—
<Process explanation>
This was beyond interesting (I don’t have a word for it really).
Using various applications (PowerPoint, Camera, Audacity, etc.) I put together this story piece by piece. Coming up with it was rather simple, but finding assignments that successfully aided the story was a different story.
For starters, I decided to go with a mashup that I made last week to begin the story. I figured I had to start somewhere, and this was the best place to start. Once I had that starting place, I began to think about what my character and organization needed. That was when it hit me! They generally met in a rather nice conference room, so I looked at buildings with good conference rooms and got pictures. No assignment was really connected to it, but they were grabbed from Twitter posts.
Following this, I looked for more interesting assignments to assist in story telling, and that is when I saw the spubble assignment. Rather than base it around me, I based it around me (Prop Joe that is). I think the picture worked out fine, and it did feel like it conveyed a message. The next step was for me to incorporate the website logo I had designed last week as well. This weaved into the story easily and worked better than creating an actual website (which was another option I considered, but then tossed out due to time constraints). With that done, the notes on the fridge or board assignment showed up, and I knew that would be perfect throw in towards the end of the story. Surprisingly, PowerPoint can really make the assignment simple and fun to do.
Lastly, I recall Jim stating he would love to see a New Day Co-Op commercial. Yeah, well that did not happen. However, I did want a radio ad. I based this one off of the ds106 radio commercial assignment, but again, I revamped it to be specifically based around the New Day Co-Op. I rather enjoyed making it, and I felt the need to have some form of audio in this assignment.
Once all the assignments were done, I tried to make a Joe-esque story (it was rather difficult, he is a man of few words that aren’t business related) and weave everything together. I think it turned out rather well, and I’d love to hear some specific feedback.
Assignments Used:
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/create-your-own-superpac/
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/post-it-notes-and-grocery-lists/
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/your-very-own-spubble/
http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/ds106-radio-commercial/
<End Explanation>
