“Buy Local” is not a new phrase, but in this economy, it has new meaning. Lots of businesses could go under unless something suddenly changes for the better, a turn-around no one is predicting. Do we want those locked doors to be on the streets of the Pioneer Valley? Do we want to lose restaurants, stores, jobs and the many service providers who call us by name and bend over backward to help us out?
“The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. And really, if you think about it from your point of view as a customer, you want everything: a wide assortment of good-quality merchandise; the lowest possible prices; guaranteed satisfaction with what you buy; friendly, knowledgeable service; convenient hours; free parking; a pleasant shopping experience.” – Sam Walton (1918-1992) My most recent experience with the culture that Sam built that supposedly makes me No. 1, was a great example of Lip Service Innovation. I was in search of what amounts to plastic shoe boxes. The Walmart in Amherst, Massachusetts had two good choices, but not enough of either to get the set of 8 I needed. Without a matched set, stacking when empty would always be a problem.
A recession, a slowdown, tough times – whatever you want to call it, things are not as bad as they sound. Consider the following: More than 9 out of every 10 people are still working. In the US alone, over 300 million people are still spending money on things they need and value. I ate out 3 nights in a row this week. Two restaurants were empty, one was packed. (Which do you suppose is focused on value and marketing?) The death knell for print media is repudiated by “The Week,” which “continues to grow at a healthy clip” according to Executive Editor Eric Effron.
It has been decades since I heard the recording “All circuits are busy. Please try your call again later.” Way back then, maybe as far back as the 70s, this would happen on Mother’s Day or other holidays when everyone was trying to place long distance calls at the same moment. Those long distance calls were rarely critical, so it was just an annoyance. In the last few weeks, I have heard this message three times when trying to call my daughter’s cell phone. I don’t know if the bottleneck is a cell phone issue or land line issue. What I do know is that there is something more ominous about this. Long distance calls were quite rare back in the 70s. Phone calls today are ubiquitous and frequent. We depend on them, probably too much, whether land line or cell.
I would have reported sooner on the “Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Today’s Economy” conference that I attended last Thursday at the Log Cabin in Holyoke, Massachusetts, but the ice storm that hit the Northeast set me back to the middle ages. Suffice it to say, it was a long weekend and blogging was not an option. At the conference: I spoke about the three types of people in the world:
Our solar panels are up and have been producing since June! Most days are net positive. I love it when the meter arrow points toward the street, the preferred direction of energy flow! Greater self-sufficiency just plain feels good. We are giving back, not taking. On the rare occasions we used the AC this summer, we just smiled. We are partially protected from rising energy costs.
The pigeon got on the train at DC. He strode up the aisle almost to the front, changed his mind and returned to the rear. Still unsatisfied, he passed my seat for a third time and followed the conductor into the next car forward. No panic. No ruffled feathers. Is this customary behavior? Does the train just look like a crowded park to him? Or has he been drinking too much of our pharmaceutical-tainted public water supply from the DC fountains? Come to think of it, everyone was pretty smiley, calm and helpful in DC last weekend. Maybe it was the gorgeous weather or the fact that I was smiling so much. Or maybe everyone was drinking the same water as the pigeon. I didn’t see the pigeon again. I think he got off at BWI.