Sidewalk Life

The Age of Honesty

I like this NY Times article about how going bankrupt might be the best thing for GM. 

The authors point is that old people are the ones concerned with heritage and stability where young consumers don't care.   If fact he suggests, young buyers might one day consider buying a GM car if the company owns up to past failures, puts it behind them, and restructures itself as something else for the future.  His rationale is that today's youth are forgiving of failure and are actually in favor of brand reinvention - whether you're a start-up, consumer brand or a President.  He points to Silicon Valley and the new entrepreneur spirit as evidence that failure is just a part of success today.

"Transparency and reinvention, rather than stability and regality, are the more valued assets in an economy where entrepreneurs expect to stumble more often than they succeed and where employees expect to have to change jobs (if not careers) multiple times. In the fastest-growing quarters of the economy, admitting your failures and remaking yourself is the new American work ethic."

He also uses  George Bush vs. Al Gore to reinforce his point here. The collapse of one by failing to admit mistakes and the success of the other by reinventing himself after a humiliating defeat.

The idea of failure leading to success reminds me of a great Jordan ad from years back.

Banking Irony

This is the sign my bank teller, Denise, made and put in her window this morning. 

Then she charged me a $79 penalty for closing the account. 

Awesome!

Why We'll All Be Bankers in The Future

Douglas Rushkoff wrote an article called Futurenomics for the Holland Herald magazine.  He looks at the role of money and banking in business and raises the question whether business needs banks at all and whether banking itself may be bad for business. 

"The problem is, more value is being extracted on each level than business can produce."

"The financial meltdown will help many businesses realize that their priorities have been artificially skewed towards making bankers and investors happy - and their communities less so."

He also proposes a new future for business and its need for money...We'll all be bankers.

"The beauty of this era - this networked, hi-tech and decentralized world  is that we no longer have to do everything from the center.  The laws and regulations requiring us to run our fiances and resources through tremendous industrial age corporations are more obsolete than ever."

"Once we accept the fact that the money and banks we have become accustomed to using are not the only ways to generate capital, we liberate our businesses and ourselves from a finance industry that has enjoyed a monopoly over our commerce for much too long."

He points to a real world example of a friend who couldn't get a loan from a bank to expand his restaurant business, so he went to his customers with an interesting proposition...

"He invented 'Comfort Dollars' that customers can buy at a discount of 20%.  If you spend $1000, you receive $1200 in 'Comfort Dollars' that can be spent at the restaurant.  John gets the cash infusion he needs to complete his expansion - and for less than the bank would charge him.  The community gets a 20% discount on food they would be buying anyway, as well as a chance to invest in making their town better."

Here's the pdf.
Download Futurenomics
Download Futurenomics2

Black Diamond Traveler Lanes

Here's an idea that's long overdue.  Separate travelers according to speed getting through security checks at the airport.  Longs lines at security are like car traffic on the roads.  One person's mistake/delay creates backups all the way through the line.   This is attempt to give fast travelers priority access to fast lanes.

Using ski trail rating standards as the design icons is also smart (if you know what they mean).  Green circles for beginners, blue squares for intermediates and black diamonds for experts.

The only problem with this solution is how to enforce it.  Just like on a ski run, the travel lanes are self-selecting.  And what we know from Tom Vanderbilt's book Traffic, most people overestimate their driving skill.  I imagine most people overestimate their traveling skill as well.

“Everyone needs help from everyone.”

Quote from the German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht who died in 1956. 

Could he have been predicting globalization and the collapse of the world economic system?  

He seems to have gotten it right, we're all in it together. 

Selling Less

"Everything is going bigger and more, so we are going smaller and less" says Bodo von Hedenberg about his Berlin bookstore Bildschone Bucher.  It's an extension of his online store 25books.com and its a strategy that seems to be paying off.  Monocle tells the video story. 

This American Banking Crisis

If you'd like to really understand the issue without the politics attached, Ira Glass' This American Life did a one hour show clearly explaining the crisis the US banks are in.  Key quote:

"If we let the banking system fail, no one will talk about the 'Great Depression' because this will be so much worse."

Listen to the podcast here. 

Wish I could give credit for image, but don't remember where I found it.