 This is Think Tech Hawai'i, Community Matters here. And welcome to Business in Hawai'i with Reg Baker. We're a show that broadcasts every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 from the downtown studios of Think Tech Hawai'i in beautiful Hala Lula Hawai'i. Today we got a little bit of fog going on so people, sinuses are acting up, but generally it's a great place to be. We've got a very interesting guest today, actually two guests. And we're going to be talking a little bit about a transformation that's taken place. But before we get into that, what I'd like to just mention is that today I was just appointed a member of the Hawai'i Small Business Regulatory Review Board by Governor Ige, which is actually a great honor, at least for me, and something that's going to really help because I'm already at the federal level with the Small Business Regulatory Review Board. And now I get to also include the state. So working together, I can work to make sure that the rules and regulations at both state and federal level are conducive to helping small businesses thrive and get stronger, be more profitable, and their consistent. Sometimes they're disconnects and they don't always work in tandem. So hopefully now with this new role, we'll be able to be more effective in helping the small business community. Now with that said, the guest today is actually the East O'ahu Chamber of Commerce, formally known as Hawai'i Chamber. And they have increased their geographical footstep. Their footprint has gotten bigger. They include a lot more businesses than ever before. And it's an exciting time for the East O'ahu Chamber. We've got the President, Guindy French, here to talk. And we also have their Ambassador, which is Denea Self. And she's been involved for a long time with the East O'ahu. But thank you both for joining me today. Thank you for having us. So now these are exciting times. You've got a whole new geography that you're going to be dealing with. I mean, this is a whole, this is a lot bigger than just the Hawai'i Kai. This is the entire East O'ahu. It is. Although the interesting thing is that as the Hawai'i Kai Chamber of Commerce, our geographical footprint was larger than Hawai'i Kai. But people didn't realize it. So we would go out and visit our businesses and ask them for their input. How can we help you? Would you like to join? Make a difference? They say, well, we're not Hawai'i Kai. But so now, yes, instead of stopping, we want to include Moanalua Bay. So basically going to Kapa Hulu. Right, all the way to Kapa Hulu. But that also includes Kaimuki too, doesn't it? It does. Large number of businesses there, a large number of small businesses there, family owned businesses there. Right, and there's some large, I mean, Shamanot is inside that area too. Yes, we've got great schools in there. An interesting opportunity to get them on board and get them involved. There could be some interesting business school case studies done, opportunities for them to kind of get involved and get connected. So how are you going to begin the process of getting the word out, letting everybody know what's the marketing game on this? OK, that's directed towards me. Well, it's interesting, you know, like she said, our geographical area always covered a little bit more than Hawai'i Kai. But now that people can see that just within the name, what we'd like to do is have a series of events, obviously, now that we have members on board or who are of the media, a broad spectrum between Pacific Business News, PBN has been a great supporter. Element Media, excuse me, Element Media is also a supporter of ours. Right, that's the Pacific Edge magazine. Correct, Pacific Edge, Green Magazine as well. So they are definitely supportive and have been involved. We also have a couple of the news stations looking at us as well to possibly partner and create some buzz. So we do want to have kind of a small little gatherings all around East O'ahu, not just in geographical Hawai'i Kai, but I think if you spread the love around and people start coming to the different events and they start seeing with their own eyes the benefits and the new networking opportunities that are involved, this is a small island. It'll catch on. Town people will tell 10 people. Well, in a sense, this is almost like a startup type operation where you got to educate the people that it's not just Hawai'i Kai, it never really was, but now it's by definition and by name a lot bigger than that. Yes. And that's gonna be the fun part, the branding or rebranding, if you will. Correct, yes, we have the history of Hawai'i Kai and the years of community service and serving our businesses. And you've done a lot of good things out there over the years. I mean, there's a lot of aloha for the Hawai'i Kai Chamber and it's just a matter of expanding that. Absolutely, we've been involved, because we both went in together in what, 2008, 2009? I'm not sure. A long time ago. A long time ago, we were recruited at the same time. So we've really had a chance to really understand each other's working ability. We definitely trust each other and we get together on these things and try to figure out the best strategy to not only grow the name, but also grow the board. And I think that what you said is very poignant. It's a startup position and this is a very fresh ground level time to get involved where we don't have every policy put into place. And that's actually okay, because now we can actually talk about what's beneficial on both sides and instead of just creating a mandate for people to follow, now it's how can we create a win-win for the businesses to be involved, both on a board or committee level to a name expansion, top of mind awareness, branding. And really it's about the community behind the business. So what I mean by that, so say for example, Island Brew Coffeehouse. I think everybody knows that name. They've done a fantastic job. They've really expanded. They have two new locations opening. They've been great supporters of ours, members as well. We can go into their facility, host an event, and also sit down and actually talk about how to better get the word out, what we're doing right and what we're not necessarily doing right. How can we improve upon that? And they're just a one example of the type of community works that they're involved in. They always have fundamentals, fundraising going on, fundamental key issues to talk about at their actual location. And that's what makes I think a neighborhood type of chamber unique and different. You know, you look at the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce which I've been very active with over the years, but it's predominantly a business focus type of activity. When you start getting into the neighborhoods a little bit, you've got that element. It's still a business type of chamber, but you also have a community element to it. That's very important to us, very important to us. So things like Moanalua Bay, environmental concerns, working with the rotary on small things, Ducky Dash, Kaiser High School, raising funds, doing scholarships. It becomes something where, as she said, our businesses back our community, but without our community, we wouldn't need businesses at all. So it's something where we'd like to highlight that. Exactly, and you get to extrapolate that out to all the communities that's gonna fall into that East Oahu location. And so there's a lot of different activities that are gonna be going on. I just see a tremendous amount of opportunity there to really have those community events to support all the different schools that are in East Oahu, get them engaged, get to high schools, get shamanade. I mean, there's a lot of opportunity, I think. And there's what, two of you? We do have a board, we do have a board, but definitely we need people to come in and really we need high level ideas and we also need you to roll up your sleeves. And not be afraid to get your hands dirty. But it also, like you said, it's a great time to come in and put your print on the chamber. You get your fingerprints all over it, yeah. You know, it's bigger than all of us. One of us put together, all of us come together and we make the world a better place, right? Exactly, now how are you gonna go out and find these people? I mean, there may be a lot of people out there that may be looking for something to do and how are you gonna reach them and find them? That's a good question because there is only two of us. We're gonna start small and definitely go in and visit. I think it's important to know that we do actually go out and actually touch base with our members. We can this, we walk in, talk to you, have, let's possibly have coffee or lunch. Now, we don't have enough time in the day to touch on every single business. There's gotta be what, you know, eight to 10,000 businesses in East Oahu. So I think having small, intimate community discussions either early morning or maybe Palhalla after people get off work to sit and discuss certain aspects of how to really grow because we can talk about grow, but in what way? How do we grow? Who, who, where? Well, and there's certainly gonna be a lot of, I would think, venues to do that. I mean, think of all the restaurants that are in Kaimuki or Ainahein or New Valley and Noaikai. You can do a little coffee hour or something in all these different locations and get a lot of feedback and maybe find some very interested volunteers that would wanna get engaged and help support. And that's been historically the focus of our coffee talks. Eight, 10 weeks, Friday mornings, sometimes there are three people, sometimes there are 20 people, but really to come in and it's a time where we can really get together and discuss things. So you can talk, you can network in a group. We've had lunches of 120 with Paul Brubaker, but there's something different. There's a great dynamic where you can really have ideas, hash out events or. Yes, yes, I've always said intimate. You know, like you mentioned, even when you spoke last year, we have quite a few people at our Outback luncheons, which are more educational seminars, but I think you touched on a great point. It's the small intimate groups of getting to know you versus a hundred business cards in your hand going, my name is, my name is. And I think when we have it more of a grassroots that way and people understand what we're really in it for, then it becomes an interesting, well then how can I get involved? And that's what we're looking to do, starting now and we'll be continuing this through 2018. That's correct. I think starting with, there's a special insert in the Honolulu Business Magazine coming out in November. Where they focused on East Oahu. So the Kailua Chamber, myself, we sat down with the magazine and talked about not only advertising capabilities and the discount to our constituents, but also what are the interesting stories? You know the community better, you know the business is better, how can we highlight where you are? And that's another way for us, as you said, to get the word out. We're here, there's an expansion, a name change, this is the time to get involved. This is the time to tell us what you'd like to see, even if you can't get involved. There are probably people out there right now that might even be watching the show, and once we broadcast this on YouTube and get it on the website and others, there may be people listening and saying, you know, I wanna get engaged, I wanna get involved. How do they get in touch with you? Who would they reach out to and make themself be known? Definitely, I'm the foreman there. You can always reach out to Dinea or any of our other board members. We try to go out as she said in Canvas. Brian Zagami, our secretary and I went out two weeks ago walking through Kaimuki and just meeting people, getting to know that area. So you can definitely call me, our numbers on the website, not only the chamber number, but my cell phone number is on there. We have email, we have our website. It's definitely a great place to go. Well, yeah, my phone doesn't ring after nine o'clock or before five, but other than that, we check our voicemails. We're pretty accessible. Yeah, at the same time we are busy and have our lives as a volunteer board. Is there an email on there too that they can use if they wanted to write? Yes, yes, I'll email them. That is, I'm sure you'll have a flash up on the screen, but we have a new email address you want to maybe state that. East Oahu Chamber of Commerce at gmail.com. gmail.com, so East Oahu Chamber of Commerce, all spelled out. All spelled out. At gmail.com. At gmail.com. The other thing you can do is you can Google East Oahu Chamber of Commerce or still Hawaii Chamber of Commerce and we come up first thing. All right, very good. Let me, we gotta go on a quick break right here. We're gonna be gone for about 60 seconds and when we get back we're gonna talk a little bit more about what the East Oahu Chamber of Commerce does in the community using Hawaii as an example and show the some of the events that they're hopefully gonna be offering going forward. So we'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Hi, I'm Pete McGinnis-Marc and every Monday at one o'clock I present Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa where we bring together researchers from across the campus to describe a whole series of scientifically interesting topics of interest both to Hawaii and around the world. So hopefully you can join me one o'clock Monday afternoon for Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa. I just walked by and I said, what's happening guys? They told me they were making music. This is Reg Baker, business in Hawaii, at Think Tech Hawaii, broadcasting from downtown Halaululu. We have the East Oahu Chamber of Commerce with us today and we're chatting about how they have really expanded their footprint from Hawaii Kai and it was actually a little bit bigger than Hawaii Kai but now it's all of East Oahu which includes the Kahala and Kaimuki area and just out of curiosity does this also slip over into Waimanalo? Waimanalo has always been shared. I wanna be very careful and not step on any toes. We've always gone to the golf course. If you live in Waimanalo, you can send your kids to Kaiser. So we're not exclusive. We've had board members who live in the North Shore and have no businesses in Hawaii Kai or East Oahu. So we're not gonna turn you away. But Waimanalo kind of, Kailua kind of. It's more, yeah, Kailua has taken that one. Absolutely, I think what I usually state verbally is a sea life park. Sea life park. Yes, from Kaimuki to Sea Life Park is kind of our last following. I gotcha, okay. So Kailua can't touch cut and sea life park. That's our jurisdiction. All right, and now official everybody. We've never drawn lines. Well, but that'd be a great place, a nice venue for an event of some sort. I'd love to do something at Sea Life Park with a couple of musicians, entertainers, get a good draw, and also just kind of touch on some of the leaders, you know, it's, we've had a lot to talk about on the east side of Oahu over the last couple of years. Dare I say Noah? Just a lot of community concerns with regards to the water level rising, property tax issues, homelessness encampment, safety, break-ins, burglaries, high school making sure that we have enough funds for our programs. There's quite a few things that the east side of Oahu needs to really take a look at. And I wanna make sure personally that we don't get lost in the shuffle as other areas of Oahu continue to expand and grow, such as the Kampalei side of the island. And so I think it's very important to understand why the chamber is even necessary. It's like, well, I have an east Oahu chamber. We have the main Hamalula chamber. Why is it even necessary? Well, but it's a very good point because Kampalei and that part, that central location of Oahu, has been getting a lot of press recently and they've been opening up shopping centers in Alaska. Well, but we can't forget that there is a lot of opportunity in a lot of businesses over here. Maybe we should have something like the taste of east Oahu and have one of those little restaurant series that you can go to and have different things going on. Yes, different things. And I would just try to bring Tamoras involved. I'd love to talk to Tamoras now that we're in that expanded area. There's just a lot of opportunities. But really, it's really boots on the ground and it starts with our small board and we need to expand. Well, and that's, as I mentioned before the break, Hawaii Chabr has been around for a long time. They've done a lot of community things. And I think that concept is something that we're gonna kind of make available and try to encourage throughout the entire east Oahu. And there's different neighborhoods there and sometimes different issues that have got to be addressed. And you're gonna be working with those communities that try to offer these types of events for that community. For example, Manaloa Bay used to have fireworks. And I know that the Hawaii Chabr has been involved in trying to make that happen again. But there can be other things over in Kahala and Taimo Ki and different areas that you're gonna want community involvement. Hear what the issues are and work with them to support what they're trying to do. Absolutely, creating a unit and on top of that, when we're tackling these issues, obviously we can speak till we're blue in the face. But getting in there, like she said, rolling up your sleeves and getting it done has always been the toughest issue. So that said, and it's always difficult as well when you're doing it on a donation basis. We are a member funded board. So we have a small budget to work with. However, we are taking a look at the opportunities and applying for a grant because I do believe it's time. Well, and this grant, you're involved in doing that? That's my background position. So why I'm even up here since I'm no longer president and I have stuck down off the board. I'm just kind of doing some things in the background to help sustain the life and the legacy that we've helped build over the last 10 years. And if I can have that happen hopefully sometime in 2018, I mean we will keep applying, we'll never give up. It takes maybe three or four times to get quick statistics. There's 13,000 chambers, I look this up, 13,000 chambers that are registered in the United States. Only 3,000 of those chambers are actually funded. So the chances are relatively slim. However, I think that we make a very strong piece of that pie as to why we should be funded. I think between having it be Henry J. Kaiser's actual dream and when I say Henry J. Kaiser, I want people to recognize and realize that is our Kaiser Permanente. We're talking about the same gentleman. So who helped develop Hawaii Kai? He already has a legacy, number one. Number two, we have a huge demographic of the island of CEOs, CFOs, business owners that are actually right downtown here today but will turn around and drive back out and sometimes they often forget their own backyard and we're a way to not forget. But we're there to help remind them. Yes, exactly, exactly. And part of that can be with us reaching out and visiting more of the neighborhood boards, trying to let those people who have rolled up their sleeves for the community aware of us. How can we work together? How can we help you? You know, I think that's could be a very effective way of getting the word out and let me share with you that as you may know, I'm on the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board and so I go to the meetings and I sit there for a long time during these meetings and there's a lot of community announcements, community events, people come in and announce different things that are happening in the community. Now, if you multiply that out for every neighborhood board within that East Oahu area, there's gonna be a lot of opportunity for somebody to go out and announce when you're having a beach cleanup or a park cleanup or something that's community focused that's sponsored by the chamber, that's gonna get a lot of visibility. Yes, well, absolutely. As a matter of fact, I know that Revolu Sun does that every year. Sir Frider Foundation does an excellent job at keeping Sandy Beach and Malmolua Bay cleaned up and we definitely need more participants. I think you even often suggested bringing in the JC's, bringing in the youth to help that. I think it's a huge win-win for the youth to go out there and be a part of the cleanup. Yes, yes, and we want our youth to be involved anyway, not just where I force my three teenagers to be involved, but really allow them to reach out and have community involvement to show them their business people and how to operate as an entrepreneur and as a business person, expanding their horizons. I want to be a doctor. There are a hundred different types of doctors, maybe a thousand specialists, just giving that broadness and they can also come and help in events like that, but they can help check in people for events. They can send things out on Facebook, they can do SEO. A lot of opportunities to help for them all. YouTube, we need help with YouTube. So many of our members like to sign in for webinars. So let's just face it, we have a ton of meetings to get to every day. We can't always leave and drive out into the neighborhood that we have the meeting in. So it would be really nice to do a lunch and learn via webinar and or even like this program. Just out of curiosity, if you do a lunch and learn through a webinar, how are you gonna provide lunch? You bring your own. It's a good class. We'll provide the beer. I'm sorry, I'm just giving you a hard time. Giving me a hard time. I deserve it. I deserve it. I should have reported that. So it's your lunch time. It's my lunch time. It's your lunch time. Pizza delivery. Lunch and learns can be held. Let me back that up. Lunch and learns can actually be held at a facility, but my point is, is that so many of us need our information and small snippets. We just don't have time to go to every event. Well, you gotta make it convenient for the members to participate and get engaged. And making them come to a physical location all the time is not always the most convenient way to do it. Absolutely. That's true. And with social media, it really emerges and taking over. It really is all about social media and our visibility videos. I mean, grabbing the attention of these people within the first 15 seconds is really all you have. That's the critical. And so we may have the mastermind behind that, but we may lack a little bit of technical difficulty putting that together. But some of the youth, maybe that are just getting ready to graduate, need a possible internship, need hours. Well, and they can help explore. And some of this is trial and error. You gotta see what works and what doesn't work. Bringing the youth in to help out with this is great because they know the technology and they know how to operate it, but do they know how to connect with that target and market? Yes. And so there's, you're gonna have to try different things and see how it works. And we've done that even ourselves. When I came on, generally there were a few lunch events and maybe one night event a year. Now we've moved it so that people can come for a coffee talk. We can have some lunches. We can have some evening things because not everything works for me. Right now professionally, I'm available before six. In the morning. In the morning. In the morning. We can do a five o'clock meeting then. We can do a five o'clock meeting. So for me weekends or evenings are better, but three years ago was the exact opposite. Or even before that, when my children were younger, I wanted to be home and make sure there was dinner done. So then I pushed for morning meetings. Absolutely, yes. Well, that's one of the reasons why you need to have an engaged active board that you can spread this around and be able to have different people that have different schedules that can get involved and do different things. Definitely. Weekends are good for some folks, but not for others and weekdays vice versa. So you need to have that diversification of talent and skill. Yes, you do. Yep, definitely. Okay, so now tell me again, if they need some more information, there's an email address, right? Okay, go for it, Cindy. East Oahu Chamber of Commerce at gmail.com. You can also visit our website. You can find me, as long as you spell my name correctly, gindyfrench at gmail.com. It's on the screen, so that helps too. But definitely reach out anyway. Text messages, fine. And if all else fails, you can get in touch with me and I'll be happy to forward it on and we'll make this work. You can get in touch with me. It's just my first name at gmail.com as well. Between the three of us, I think we can all be in good communication. Definitely, and we have other board members who are out there or even people who know about us. No, we've got about a minute or so left. Okay. And so I wanna offer you the opportunity to talk a little bit about what do you think any events coming up that you wanna announce or anything that you're planning that people need to maybe save the date for? Oh, I found a calendar, yes. Day tuned. We do have something in the works. I don't wanna speak on it too much because it's not solidified in terms of the day, but we are looking at a brand-building concept for our members and it'll be a possible field trip. So it's something that everyone can come to because you're probably already going to be in town. It will probably be held in town at one of the facilities here, one of the member facilities. So I can give you that as a little tidbit and I can tell you that it probably will be televised. Wow, all right. So people need to go to the website periodically and check to see when it's there. Go there and join our mailing list. Yes, we do have subscription mailing list. Then we send out all of our newsletters everything about our events, registering for them, where they're gonna be held, what time, et cetera. Everything is on there. Yep. Very good. Yeah, we will also have a coffee talk the last week of October. Yes. Good, good. So that details for that will be coming up and definitely as we're working with Honolulu Business Magazine, if anyone's interested in advertising, telling us of a story, letting us know that something's going on, their editors are looking for stories. Just for clarification, is it Honolulu Magazine or is it Hawaii Business Magazine? There's two. Hawaii Business Magazine, that's all right. Okay, so Hawaii Business Magazine. Okay, just wanna make sure because there is a Honolulu Magazine out there. Yes. Okay, all right. So Hawaii Business Magazine, I know Steve real well, so we'll be able to work with him on that. All right, well, thank you very much for being on the show today. Thank you. Yes, thank you. You know, it was a pleasure to hear about the East Oahu Chamber and I'm excited about the opportunities. I love it that we're gonna be doing things at least on my side of the island now. Yes, we will show you. Yeah, outside of the neighborhood board. Everyone come meet us. Yes. This is a business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from two to 2.30. And we cover interesting subjects of successful people and organizations in Hawaii making small business work. Hope to see you next week. Until then, aloha.