The Innovation Continues - Part 1

by Danny Summers

Last fall, we introduced a new relationship between The Group and BoomerWrangle, under which we would reimagine both The Group and The Fall Event, starting in 2026. We have been hard at work looking ahead to what can help Group Centers excel into the future. Here are some of the areas we have been working on and introducing to you, our Group Centers.

Earlier this summer, we introduced several new resources to help leverage The Resources & Wisdom of The Group as well as spark creativity and inspiration. Here's a quick recap of these if you missed them:

The Group Intel Report

In May, Group Centers began receiving a weekly email through our GroupEs elist that is the results of an AI survey of the week's social posts and activities of a growing number of our Group Centers who have entered their social handles into The Group WebSystem in their Center's profile. This program is the work of Souny Kennedy – The Group's "Chief Data Magician."

The resulting report includes:

Market Overview,
Top Recommendations for Retailers (based on social trends and searches), Regional Trends, Top Plants and Products mentioned, Retailer Spotlights, Events & Workshops, Top Trends from Reddit, and more.

If you are a subscriber to the GroupEs elist, make sure The Group Intel Report is landing in your inbox. It normally arrives each Thursday, highlighting the previous 7 days.

The Group Knowledge Vault

The term Collective Wisdom could easily be considered a synonym for The Garden Center Group. The very reason The Group was created in 2000 was to take the very best ideas and practices and help every Group Center become more successful.

It's difficult to know exactly when the very first eList (email listserve) was created, but in 2015, we moved the one original eList to our new websystem and named it GroupEs. It is still our largest and most active, as members share all kinds of topics.

Since 2015, we have seen sharing climb in GroupEs with thousands of conversations to date. We have also added a number of other eLists, each designed to share with subsets of The Group Community on more specific areas of interest.

Today, we have 17 active eLists available for Group Members to subscribe to.

The amount of Collective Wisdom being shared across all The Group through our eLists each year is astounding.

The challenge has never been the lack of information. It has been finding it. I had mentioned to Souny Kennedy – The Group's "Chief Data Magician" our challenge in effectively indexing, summarizing, and easily locating a subject and a previous conversation. If you know Souny, what I am about to tell you will not surprise you.

She created an AI-assisted library, which summarizes and indexes all our eList conversations. We call it:

The Group Knowledge Vault - the Collective Wisdom of The Group

The Group Knowledge Vault serves as a searchable library of eList conversations, automatically organizing discussions and generating summaries to help members quickly identify relevant content. Rather than searching through years of emails, members can now browse conversations by topic, eList, or keyword and access complete discussion threads with a single click.

Accessing The Group Knowledge Vault is easy. Simply log in, and just above Welcome back [Your Name], you will see the link. Group Owners will also see a link to their Owners-Only Knowledge Vault.

And here's a third Innovation being introduced and will be ready for you soon to use everyday and with even special features for The Fall Event 2026:

Coming Soon...

The Garden Center Group APP

Memberclicks is the web platform we have used for The Group since 2015, and it not only houses all of our website content, including member profiles, resource tools, and blog content, but also our active e-list management – all 17 of our current e-list options.

And while we have grown and utilized all of these features, the next step in our ability to leverage all of its content and connections is to put it in the palm of our hands... on the phone we carry around all the time.

In the next few weeks, ahead of The Fall Event 2026, you will receive details and instructions on how to download The Garden Center Group APP. Your user login info will be the same as in our WebSystem.

The new APP extends our Memberclicks system, giving you access to all Group Contacts and much of the content in The Group WebSystem. With just a few clicks, you can find a contact and quickly connect with them through phone, email, or even a direct message built into The Garden Center Group APP.

The Garden Center Group APP will also have even more benefits in special event features during The Fall Event 2026, so watch for more details coming soon!

That's just three of The Group's new Innovations. There more to share next week. I will give you a preview...

Weekly Department Review - WDR v3.0
Coming later this year, a totally new "Your Dashboard" view for the WDR experience. This will add a new level to compare your Center to others in The Group.

And...

New Leadership Styles Benchmarking Project
In cooperation with BoomerWrangle. John Kennedy asked, “Is a correlation between strong cultures and great leadership with the top performing Centers in The Group?”

Introducing the Leadership Styles Benchmarking Project—to determine patterns of excellence coupled with The Group's top performing Centers. A fascinating use of technology, strategy, data, and benchmarking to create a new metric for The Garden Center Group. Your Leadership Quotient—LQ

Watch for more details on these two new Group Innovations coming next week here in GROUPtalk!

Have a great week!

Danny Summers
[email protected]
Tel: 678-909-7770
Cell: 678-761-7145

REMEMBER: Your interaction (by phone and email) with Group Service Providers such as Tim Quebedeaux, John Kennedy, Seawright & Associates, and of course Danny Summers are included in your retainer!