We are proud to announce a groundbreaking new partnership between Pollen, Minnesota’s leading professional community for civic-minded connectors, and Paper Darts, the saucy Minneapolis-based publishing press and arts agency. As of April 1st we ushered in a new era of Pollen with the launch of BePollen.com, a beautifully designed website dedicated to further evolving, expanding, and engaging the Pollenite community. Featuring new in-depth articles and member profiles, eye-popping graphics, and enhanced navigation, BePollen.com takes the professional community building that Pollen is known for and douses it in color, throws it on the Jumbotron, and injects it with a triple shot of espresso to boot.
It’s a cross-sector collaboration at its most innovative, organic, and inclusive. The result of an unlikely partnership between a principal of a Minneapolis-based executive search firm and young literary arts editors, BePollen.com represents a new intersection of the arts and business worlds. Lars Leafblad, creator of Pollen who was called the Twin Cities’ “Most Networked Man” by Minnesota Business magazine and Paper Darts, whose website, PaperDarts.org, was recently named “Smartest Website” in the Mpls. St. Paul Magazine “Best of the Twin Cities” issue came together over the mutual desire to connect, communicate, and inspire.
Though each publication serves its own unique audience, Pollen and Paper Darts are intertwined in philosophy and foundation. Both grassroots organizations are entirely volunteer-run, labor of love projects, and both firmly believe that ingenuity and inspiration are best achieved when born out of collaboration. This “do-it-together” spirit set the stage for BePollen.com, with each organization asking “What would happen if…?” and coming together to answer that question in an innovative and intuitive way.
By combining the professional pluck of Pollen with the imaginative moxie of Paper Darts, BePollen.com encourages the Twin Cities arts and business worlds to flourish together in a highly welcoming and member supported online community. Retaining the camaraderie of the beloved community-sourced newsletter, but stepping beyond the simple scroll of line-by-line updates, BePollen.com promises an experience representative of the passion of Pollen, Paper Darts, and the many people that make up their thriving communities, all centered in one new home.
Building on Pollen’s existing partnership with MinnPost, BePollen.com will provide members with a timely and dynamic resource to share jobs, internships, civic events, board openings, and career updates with each other and with the broader community.
Pollen + Paper Darts + MinnPost = BePollen.com
Join us April 1st on this new adventure.
About Pollen:
Founded in December 2009 by Lars Leafblad, a principal with Minneapolis-based executive search firm, KeyStone Search, Pollen is a digital community comprised of 4,000+ civic-minded connectors who share ideas, career and civic engagement opportunities, and peer-to-peer recognition to create positive impact and personal and professional growth for its members through a 2x monthly e-publication currently shared on MinnPost.com.
About Paper Darts:
Founded in August of 2009, Paper Darts has become much more than the original 24 page zine printed, assembled, and bound with a Singer sewing machine in the editors’ living rooms. Paper Darts is primarily a magazine, but also a book publishing press, a creative agency, a community, and an idea.
With a beer in one tentacle and a book in another, Paper Darts is taking back the lit scene, one lame pen and quill metaphor at a time.
Media Contact:
Jamie Millard
jamie@paperdarts.org
612-367-6126
Paper Darts
