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Residents and Tytan Pictures Shine a Light on Peachtree Corners

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On the Town Center during filming, left to right, Jim Stone, CEO, Producer and Director at Tytan Pictures; Rennie Curran, three-time all-American/all SEC at University of Georgia; and Actor/Director Drew Waters. Photography by Duwan Justin / Tytan Pictures

When Peachtree Corners City Manager Brian Johnson wanted to publicize what was happening in the city, he knew where to turn. “I’d worked with Brian 10 or 11 years ago,” said Jim Stone, CEO, Producer and Director at Tytan Pictures, an award-winning production company based in Eatonton, Ga. “He came to me 2½ years ago, when my business had become more of a lifestyle marketing company producing short-form content and feature films.”

Johnson asked for Stone’s help with promoting the young city of Peachtree Corners and its vision. “Johns Creek and Alpharetta were doing a better job of attracting businesses and residents at that time,” Stone said. “They were much more visible.”

Jim Stone

Instead of bringing in a large team and a plan that would cost several millions of dollars, Stone wanted to take a different approach. “For a fraction of the money and people, we created unique content using a YouTube network with four programs.”

The programs include:
The Corners, videos that run under 10 minutes and cover food, fashion and fun topics with a hip, edgy and energetic vibe for people from 13 to 50.
Peachtree Positive, 10-minute and less videos of insight and information on what’s new in Peachtree Corners, and,
Momentum, an interview format show that covers charities, companies and organizations with videos that range from 5 to 30 minutes long, “but without the investigative ‘gotcha,’” Stone said. “We’re here to bring positive light.”

Peachtree Corners Kids
Proposed creative from the Peachtree Corners Kids show Courtesy of Tytan Pictures

He said that PCN focuses on delivering professional quality content. “We stay agile and appropriate. We don’t get political, and all our content is G- and PG-rated.”

Stone also played a big part in the Veterans Monument on the city’s Town Green. Bob Ballagh, executive director of the non-profit Peachtree Corners Monument Association, brought him into the project to film the stories of local veterans.

“Though I’m a civilian, I’ve done a lot of work with military special forces,” Stone said. “I knew they wanted the monument to be interactive, and they asked me if we could do something like that. We created the interactive aspect of the monument.”

Karli Brown, from a recent Instagram post from Tytan Pictures

Peachtree Corners Kids on the horizon

There’s a new project that Stone is working on for the PCN, too. “Peachtree Corners Kids will cover the community through the eyes of kids and teenagers. I’m very excited about it.”

There is one person already cast for the show, according to Stone. “That is 15-year-old Karli Brown, a wonderful young actress who has been interning on the Tytan team and working with us in Peachtree Corners this summer.” There are plans to send out a casting call in Peachtree Corners soon to cast more kids for the show, he said.

Connecting through social media

As good a publicity tool as PCN is, Stone had just begun. He turned to social media, and specifically to Instagram.

“None of the younger set watch TV,” Stone said, “and, after all, attention is the new currency. Social media outlets, like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, have 50 times the viewers as CNN, FOX and NBC combined. Social media was obviously the way to go.”

He shared some impressive numbers: it took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners; television reached the same number of viewers in 13 years. The internet got to that level in four years. Instagram hit the 50 million user mark in 19 months, and YouTube got there in just 10 months.

Stone and his team began producing many of the Instagram posts and programs for #PeachtreeCorners and #PeachtreeCornersGA. But he wanted to get more activity on those accounts.

“The City of Peachtree Corners only has two people whose duties include working on media and public relations for the city—Judy Putnam and Mike Powell—as opposed to the many full-timers at other nearby cities,” Stone explained. So Stone decided to take a different approach and came up with a ‘smart’ concept.

The people of Peachtree Corners tell their story

Tytan Pictures, Peachtree Corners GA
Tytan Pictures Assoc Producer Haylee Skye @haylee.skye reviews a workshop attendees’ composition during a Saturday class in Peachtree Corners.

“I thought, let’s let the citizens be the spokespeople, and we’ll teach them to tell the story better,” he said. Residents were not just asked to upload photos and videos; they were offered the skills to do a good job at it. “This way, we’re energizing everyone!”

When his business transitioned into becoming a full capacity production house, Stone spent a great deal of time and money learning cinemaphotography from the best in the business. He decided to share what he’d learned with Peachtree Corners residents at no charge through free photography and social media workshops.

“We began offering seminars to teach people to how to film and photograph at a professional level,” Stone said. “Generally, we have 20 to 25 people a seminar. However, our women-only seminar was standing room only!”

The gamble paid off big. Stone said that there’s a core of about 20 to 25 people who’ve been supplying a steady stream of photos and content to Instagram. And the accounts have been tripling and quadrupling their followers steadily.

“We’re crushing things as far as growth now,” Stone said. “With #PeachtreeCorners and #PeachtreeCornersGA, we’ve pivoted on Instagram and we’re continuing to push it very hard. Now we’re leaning into LinkedIn.”

Stone did make it clear that Alpharetta and Johns Creek still have larger numbers for their Instagram accounts, since those cities are more established.

“The City of Peachtree Corners is working very hard, and it’s paying off. Curiosity Lab is the first of its kind, and it’s drawing big names in the commerce, transportation and communication businesses,” he said. “The world is watching.”

Stone is motivating the residents of Peachtree Corners to make sure the world gets a close-up view of the good things that are happening here. ■

Drew Waters, left, and Rennie Curran on the set during filming. Actor/Director Drew Waters has recurring roles on NCIS LA and Agents of Shield; he’s also known for his role as Coach Wade on Friday Night Lights. Waters will be a guest star on Peachtree Corners Kids to talk about acting and modeling. He is also helping Tytan Pictures produce a film on Curiosity Lab that will be shown in Barcelona this November. Rennie Curran, three-time all-American/all SEC at University of Georgia, played for the Tennessee Titans before starting his mentoring career which focuses on athletes, business leaders and kids. Curran has authored several books and will be a recurring guest star on Peachtree Corners Kids.

Movies and TV series shot in Peachtree Corners

More than 200 locations in and around Peachtree Corners and Gwinnett County have been used in films, TV shows, reality shows and commercials. Peachtree Corners film productions include:

■ Barely Lethal, 2015 film
■ Blind Trust, 2017 film
■ The Darkest Minds, 2018 film
■ Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, 2017 film
■ Dynasty, TV series
■ Game of Silence, TV series
■ Greenleaf, TV series
■ Halt and Catch Fire, TV series
■ Heart of Life, 2019 TV movie
■ Holidate, 2019 film
■ Lodge 49, TV series
■ Mother’s Day, 2016 film
■ The Neighborhood Watch, 2018 TV movie
■ Ozark, Netflix TV series
■ Sextupulets, 2019 film

Contributing Editor Kathy Dean has been a writer and editor for over 20 years. Some of the publications she has contributed to are Atlanta Senior Life, Atlanta INtown, Transatlantic Journal and The Guide to Coweta and Fayette Counties.

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Consultant Al Simon Explains How Peachtree Corners Businesses Can Leverage AI

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Al Simon has a message for businesses: if you’re not using AI, you’re as far behind technology as using candlelight instead of electricity.
Sales consultant Al Simon // Photos by Tracey Rice

Al Simon has a simple message for business owners: if you’re not using AI, you’re about as far behind technology as if you’re using candlelight instead of electricity.

This was the core message of his talk at the January Peachtree Corners Business Association’s After-Hours Speaker Series. As a consultant for sales management with Sandler by Neuberger, Simon focuses on small to medium businesses with sales teams of 35 members or less and revenues up to $200 million.

He works with management teams and trains salespeople to improve sales revenue, gross profit margins, and other business metrics.

“Overall, it helps people thrive in their sales and sales management roles,” he said.

His topic, artificial intelligence for selling, involves teaching managers how to use AI to gather and interpret data. A simple Google search uses artificial intelligence, he said, but he also teaches salespeople how to use that information to improve their skills and processes.

Boosting sales enablement

Simon explained that AI could be used for pre-call planning. It’s not difficult to prompt a generative AI program to give you what you need.

A sample query for ChatGPT could be: “I’m a sales rep in the plastics manufacturing industry, and my prospect is an injection molding manufacturer. What are the three best questions I can ask their plant manager?

He emphasized that when prompting the AI, it’s vital to include the role you’re playing, the role of the people you’ll be meeting with and the challenge at hand.

“A prompt that has those components in it will be very effective in terms of coming back with three specific questions to ask,” he said. “It’s pretty cool.”

The biggest advantage of using AI is saving time, he said.

Even though the pre-call planning questioning strategies are important for sales reps, they should also gather information that they can use based on the prospect organization itself.

“I did one for a client of mine, a nonprofit, and … I asked the prompter how this organization can get revenue?” Simon said. “I got a great response —five or six bullet points on exactly how they get the revenue stream.”

He explained that the information is available in other ways, but by using AI, you can save the time it would take to weed through hundreds of pages of documents and reference materials.

“It’s a great way to quickly and efficiently and in a usable way get pretty complex information,” he said. “Back in the day, I hated searching through all those public documents trying to find information.”

Sales management uses for AI

On the sales management or even executive leadership side, Simon said there are many tools that gather metrics and interpret data. He mentioned a platform called Gong that uncovers what’s happening in customer conversations so revenue teams can do more of what’s working and set themselves apart from the competition.

“It analyzes a sales call by looking at how many questions you asked, how much talking you did and how much talking the client did,” said Simon. “You then start to build a database of your sales calls. You’ll be able to see trends.”

The manager can then help the employee ask enough questions or ask the right questions that are important to the sales call.

“Those kinds of things come out of a tool like that,” he said.

He also recommends utilizing a platform that measures close rates for salespeople.

“How often you win deals when you’re not talking to the main decision maker is important data,” he said. “If you’ve got someone who is consistently not calling high enough, so they’re always presenting proposals to a recommender who then has to take the proposal to their boss, it will decrease your close rate.”

Management can review the data and give the salesperson tips on connecting with people higher in the company.

At the end of the day, Simon said those who embrace AI technology will have a leg up on the competition because they are saving time and making better use of resources.

“The whole reason for these management tools is to coach the reps to be more effective,” said Simon.

One of the most valuable investments a business has is in its people, and making them better – even incrementally – can have a significant impact on business, he added. Even if the business is so small that the owner is the primary salesperson, there’s a lot to learn from AI.

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Deflecting debilitating blows one Guardian Cap at a time

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A Guardian Cap in use courtesy of Guardian Sports

With football season in the rearview for most players, the effects of injuries–especially those blows to the head–can alter careers and live well after the final play.

A relatively new piece of equipment manufactured in Peachtree Corners helps alleviate much of the impact from those hits that a helmet alone can’t deflect.

Husband and wife team Lee and Erin Hanson started Guardian Sports in 2011 with one goal: innovating equipment to better serve athletes. But one must go back even further to understand the science behind their technology.

“[Our initial company] really had nothing to do with sports,” said Erin.

She and her husband started the Hanson Group, a material science company, about 30 years ago.

“The Hanson Group solves problems for other companies–material science problems,” she said.

“Lee is a chemical engineer from Georgia Tech. … [He created] things for the military and all kinds of applications for all kinds of Fortune 500 companies. If they need something done quickly, they come to the Hanson Group and we try to solve their material science problems,” she explained.

By chance, someone from the helmet industry came to them looking to make a more flexible helmet.

“We saw the data behind what it could do to flex the exterior of a helmet,” she said. “And even though that company didn’t make it, we decided that if we could retrofit any football helmet inexpensively, we could cut down on the impact that all players were feeling.”

Making football fun and safe for all

When the idea for Guardian Caps came together, the Hansons weren’t considering adding another division to the company.

The drive to make the helmet accessory grew from the passion to help the game.

“Quite honestly, Lee and I were pretty far along in our lives. We had raised five children, and he had been at the Hanson Group for at least 20 years by then,” said Erin.

The couple questioned whether they wanted to launch something new and revolutionary. There was nothing like it on the market.

“We felt like if we’re going to go direct to consumer, we’re going to branch off to a whole new company and just go for it and see if we can make a difference,” said Erin.

Through trial and error, Lee and his team analyzed data that showed what a softer helmet exterior could do to reduce impact, which would translate into reducing injury rates.

“And how can we do it in a way that’s affordable and could be available for mass adoption?” Lee said during an interview with the city of Peachtree Corners.

“How can I make it affordable to that mom who’s already buying all that equipment for her child to play youth football? How can we create a one-size-fits-all?” he recalled.

He said they worked with a cut-and-sew facility and seamstress and made up the first prototypes before testing them in a laboratory.

Their son and his teammates at Wesleyan became the first to practice with the new equipment.

In 2012, The University of South Carolina and Clemson were the first college adopters, and the company experienced solid grassroots growth after that.

Joining the Peachtree Corners business community

By 2014, the Hansons moved their company to Peachtree Corners to benefit from the pro-business, family-friendly community and strong Georgia Tech connections.

The Guardian Cap is now used by over 300,000 youth high school and college athletes nationwide and mandated by the NFL for all 32 teams.

The cap dramatically reduces the force of impact upon collision, as experienced by football and lacrosse players. This topic has come to national attention due to CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and its relation to concussions.

According to company literature, in 2017, Guardian won the first NFL HeadHealth TECH challenge to “develop new and improved helmet and protective equipment.”

While the football helmet itself has undergone many changes since the early days of the small leather hats that only covered the tops of the head and the ears (no face mask and nothing to absorb blows from tackles and other hits), Guardian Caps are an accessory that builds upon modern technology.

Some college and professional players wear helmets made so that the interior conforms to their heads. Guardian Caps adds a layer of protection on the outside, absorbing shock before the impact even reaches the helmet.

“Now, obviously, safety is a concern amongst athletes. So, Guardian Cap has come up with this soft-shell layer that goes on top of the hard shell of the helmet,” said Lee.

In 2018, testing done by NFL and NFLPA-appointed engineers revealed that Guardian Caps made a statistically significant improvement over hard-shell helmets alone, company literature said.

By August 2020, the NFL allowed its teams to wear Guardian Caps during practice. The Jacksonville Jaguars were the first to do so. In July 2022, Guardian Caps were featured at NFL training camps for all 32 teams.

This year, the NFL mandated that Guardian Caps be used for the 2023 season in all pre-season, regular season, and post-season practices. Players in position groups with the most head contact will be required to wear Guardian Caps in addition to running backs and fullbacks, as well as linemen and linebackers.

No one-hit-wonder

Genius doesn’t take a timeout, and Guardian Sports isn’t resting on the Caps’ success alone.

“We’re constantly evolving, and although Guardian Caps is our flagship product, we’ve got others,” said Erin.

Their son Jake was a lacrosse goalie at Georgia Tech, dodging rock-hard projectiles flying at him at 93 miles an hour.

“So, we said, ‘You know, why don’t we make lacrosse balls out of rubber?’” Erin said.

Thus, Lee created a urethane ball. Called the “Pearl,” it is now the official ball of the NCAA lacrosse tournament.

The Hansons have also developed infill for artificial turf fields that isn’t made of used car tires.

Without the chemicals and carcinogens of rubber tires, the smoother pellets are puffed with air, cause fewer abrasions and lower the temperature of the field by as much as 30 degrees.

“As we see things, it’s really difficult not to want to solve things when you see our children being affected by it,” said Erin.

Investors initially wanted to sell Guardian Caps at $1,000 each, but the Hansons knew that families couldn’t afford that price tag for youth sports. At the end of the day, they are a dad and a mom who are looking out for the safety of kids.

“The NFL is really cool, and they’ve helped us with exposure, but, you know, we’ve got a real passion for helping those young developing players, for sure,” she said.

Guardian Sports
3044 Adriatic Ct NW
Peachtree Corners, GA 30071
guardiansports.com
770-667-6004

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Axon Accelerates Real-Time Operations Solution with Strategic Acquisition of Fusus

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Real-time crime center

Axon, a leader in connected public safety technologies, announced it has acquired Fusus, a pioneer in real-time crime center (RTCC) technology.

This news builds upon a successful strategic partnership launched in May 2022, marking a decisive leap forward in Axon’s mission to Protect Life.

This acquisition also further catalyzes Axon’s growing presence in retail, healthcare, private security and the federal space.

Fusus excels in aggregating live video, data and sensor feeds from virtually any source, enhancing situational awareness and investigative capabilities for public safety, education and commercial customers.

This acquisition provides Axon with technology not currently in its existing network, and facilitates seamless connections to critical data sources such as camera locations and video feeds from both fixed and body worn cameras during incidents.

Fusus’ technology propels Axon’s real-time operations product roadmap, addressing critical challenges faced in public safety.

It empowers law enforcement professionals with location mapping, escalation alerts, livestreaming, real-time and post-incident visibility, allowing swift decision-making, and responsive actions.

“Throughout our long-standing partnership and investment with Fusus, we’ve witnessed the impact of collaboration in achieving remarkable results for law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve,” said Ran Mokady, Axon’s Senior Vice President of Real-Time Operations.

“This acquisition is a significant milestone in our mission to protect life as it further enables law enforcement and emergency teams to better deter and respond to escalating situations,” he added.

“Our collaboration with Axon has helped Fusus raise the bar on how first responders can affect positive outcomes through open and interoperable systems,” said Chris Lindenau, CEO of Fusus.

“As one team with a shared purpose to protect life, we are poised to rapidly expand this vision into the way law enforcement agencies, governments, businesses and schools work together in support of community safety,” he explained.

Real-time crime centers provide public safety with a centralized facility equipped with advanced technology and data analysis tools that enable law enforcement agencies to monitor and respond to incidents in real time.

These centers can integrate various data sources, such as cameras, sensors, social media feeds and other information systems, to provide a comprehensive and immediate view of ongoing criminal activities or emergencies.

Ultimately, by aggregating all of this information into a single pane of glass for public safety, real-time crime centers enhance situational awareness, improve response times and support proactive crime prevention efforts by leveraging up-to-the-minute information and analytics.

To learn more about how real-time crime centers can increase safety in any environment, see Axon’s latest blog post.

“Real-time crime centers serve as indispensable assets for agencies, offering unparalleled insight and actionable intelligence in one open and unified platform,” said Marshall Freeman, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for the Atlanta Police Department.

Just like Axon, Fusus and its products are built from the ground up with an explicit focus on ethical and equitable design.

As a joint organization and in partnership with Axon’s Ethics and Equity Advisory Council (EEAC), they will continue their relentless commitment to build solutions that make the right things easier and the wrong things harder, every day.

The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Axon was advised by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP and Fusus was advised by Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in connection with the transaction.

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