Of (P)interest, at least for a moment

It’s not every day that an American internet entrepreneur of worldwide acclaim sits down for lunch at a restaurant on the Gallatin square. But it happens.

On Sept. 13, Ben Silbermann, the co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, met with six local “pinners” for lunch at Grand & Market on the south side of the business square. Restaurant owner Heather Garlick was in the know. But otherwise, most folks had no reason to suspect anything unusual about the 10 souls sharing sandwiches and conversation around a dinner table.

Pinterest, which is valued at over $12.3 billion, lets users organize images, links, recipes and other things to share with others. The app/website allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections called “pinboards.” Examples include events, interests, hobbies and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘re-pin’ images to their own collections.

So, how was it that Mr. Silbermann found himself visiting Gallatin, MO?

In August clerk Hattie Bailey took a phone call at city hall from a Pinterest representative at San Francisco who expressed a desire to organize a Pinterest user meeting in Gallatin. The idea was to gain feedback from Pinterest users to revise features and review functions for improvements on the app/website.

Hattie proved to be the right contact person since she is an avid pinner. Before long an initial visit to Gallatin was set for Aug. 15 during a business trip that began at the Iowa State Fair and ended at Parkville near Kansas City. A pair of Pinterest marketing experts met at Grand & Market with Hattie and Jill Steward, an active pinner to promote her JPEG Photography Studio.

This first visit was a scouting mission. The Pinterest staffers emphasized they wanted no publicity that might sway or impact what honest opinions might be shared. Heather made sure the guests from San Francisco left with a dinner roll made from a McDonald Tea Room recipe to snack on during the remaining trip to Parkville. They also visited Foster’s Shoe Store and heard about the rotary jail before departing.

During this initial visit, one of the Pinterest experts mentioned how it was not at all unusual for co-founder Ben Silbermann to participate in these casual “fact-finding” visits.

Silbermann was raised in Des Moines, graduating in the Des Moines Roosevelt High School Class of 1999. Although a Yale University graduate and having studied at the Research Science Institute at MIT, Silbermann has never forgotten his Midwest roots.

Last Thursday Silbermann left Des Moines en route to Kansas City but intentionally stopped for lunch at Grand & Market in Gallatin. He was accompanied by three staff members — Naveen, Kacy and Jessica — to visit with six local pinners using numerous pinboards on a regular basis: Hattie, Jill, Macon Schweizer, Matt Pottorff, Cindy and Will Grady.

When the locals expressed surprise about being invited to express their viewpoints, the Pinterest staffers explained they were looking for grassroots opinions from a variety of perspectives. They chose Gallatin because towns even the size of Cameron are considered too big for these meetings; Hamilton was not selected because quilt enthusiasts already use Pinterest extensively.

According to a report posted a year ago, Pinterest reached about 200 million users monthly. According to Pew Research, nearly half of all women online (45%) are Pinterest users. No wonder the Pinterest folks visiting here were particularly interested in what Will and Matt had to say. They also took some video of Hattie at her residence which may or may not be put to some promotional use.

So, for about 90 minutes last Thursday, one of the kingpins of the virtual world paused to meet and greet some Gallatin folks. And no matter whether you’re a pinner or not, it’s nice to know that what people here think still matters.