On Friday, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States before a crowd of about a quarter of a million people gathered on the National Mall.

The following day, half a million people took to the street's in our nation's capital for the #WomensMarch in order to "stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families - recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country." 

Along with the central march in Washington, DC, there were another 2.5 million people participating in 600 sister marches world wide.

The largest marches were in Los Angeles (750k), Washington, DC (500k), New York (400k) and Chicago (250k). It is not surprising the biggest crowds were in the three most populous cities and our nation's capital. 

The top ten largest marches* were:
Los Angeles, CA: 750,000
Washington, DC: 500,000
New York, NY: 400,000
Boston, MA: 100,000
Chicago, IL: 250,000
Denver, CO: 100,000
Madison, WI: 100,000
Portland, OR: 100,000
Seattle, WA: 100,000
St. Paul, MN: 90,000

BUT, when we look at the size of the march compared to the city population, rather than the raw numbers by city, things get interesting. 

Washington, DC comes out on top, with number of  participants equivalent to 75% of their population. [Before we move forward, let's break that down: Washington, DC has a population of 659,000 people. They had 500,000 marchers. So the percentage of marchers, as compared to the city's population, was 500,000/659,000 = 75.87%.] But many people traveled from all over the country to participate in the central march.

Second to DC, the clear winner of marchers by city population was Madison, WI with over 40% turnout!!!

When rearranged for turnout ratio, the top marching cities are now as follows:
Washington, DC: 75.87%
Madison, WI: 41.15%
St. Paul, MN: 30.51%
Los Angeles, CA: 19.23%
Portland, OR: 16.42%
Boston, MA: 15.5%
Denver, CO: 15.38%
Seattle, WA: 15.34%
Chicago, IL: 9.26%
New York, NY: 4.76%

Great work Madison, Wisconsin. Way to represent your values.
Check out some of the great social content from the day at #WomensMarchMadison.

*March sizes sourced from The Hill.
Population size is based on city limits and sourced from the Google Knowledge Graph.

This awesome infographic was created by iCandy-Graphics and Web Design. Follow them on Twitter @iCandyGraphics1.

A little while back, I had the pleasure to edit the riveting tale of one young man who had achieved the American dream, only to realize it was not his American dream.

He worked hard through college and got a good job as a programmer with a Fortune 500 company. Things were fine. But he didn’t want to settle for fine—he sought adventure, excitement and a life that would never stopped inspiring him.

He paid off his debts, saved up his money, did his research, quit his job and bought a one way ticket to South America. He then spent the next 2.5 years climbing mountains, biking down the world’s most dangerous road, canoeing a river up the Amazon and so much more.

That’s man’s name is Dan Perry. He is a Madison local (via a few other Midwest locales) who currently lives in China. He will be in town this weekend and I figured what better time to highlight this awesome guy and his exciting book!

Check it out on Amazon today (the other Amazon). And if you ask real nice while he's still in the area, I bet he’ll even autograph it for you. In the meantime, check out his website, where he continues to blog about his many great adventures.

Recently I went into Madison Sourdough (on Willy St. on the Near East side). Great restaurant, amazing bread (obviously!).

For those who haven’t been, it’s a pretty simple ordering process: you walk in, order at the counter, get a table number and then they bring your food to you. Nothing novel or groundbreaking.

But their table number got me thinking about how a business can use (or fail to use) all of their available real estate.

Here was my number:

Many restaurants would simply hand out a sign with the number on it. What a waste of valuable real estate that would have been!

Rather than simply serving as a function of the ordering process, this placard worked to both inform me that Madison Sourdough is online (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest) and to encourage me to post about them using the hashtag #MadisonSourdough.

Many customers are going to automatically post pictures of their meal online anyway. You might as well make it easy for those happy customers to give credit to the restaurant. And for those who might not have thought to snap a picture of their lunch and put it online, you get a chance to offer a little nudge in the social media direction.

So here’s a question: what real estate is your business/organization utilizing? And more importantly, which opportunities are you missing?

People are going to post about you and your brand regardless, you might as well be working with them.

This is a current Dr. Pepper display, in the entranceway at the Hy-Vee on East Washington Ave.

Simply using cases of Dr. Pepper (red) set against cases of Diet Dr. Pepper (white), they found a really creative way to show their Wisconsin pride.

They didn't need special bottling or a massive banner; they simply incorporated their own message (love of Wisco) into their regular display.

A sign declaring that "Hy-Vee loves Wisconsin" would certainly have come across as pandering.
But it's hard to imagine this display creating anything but positive impressions. Where most would have simply stacked their cases, Hy-Vee saw an opportunity.

Striking the balance between inauthentic and genuine is the hardest—and most important—thing that any brand will grapple with. What are some ways you incorporate your story into your displays? How do you navigate the path between authentic and contrived? Share in the comments, on Facebook or on Twitter.