Kansas City Originals

This is a good example of a local assocation to promote local independent restaurants.

Read more at www.kansascitymenus.com...

Reading leads to meeting

Written biographical and autobiographical material may raise as many questions as it answers, and this is a good thing

For example, after I wrote someone that I had Googled them and had learned a lot, they wrote back "now the mystique is gone." But actually, knowledge of these facts X, Y, and Z only made me want to ask her in person "How did you feel about X? What did you like about Y and Z?" etc. Information led to interest, which led to communication.

Might we view the entire human-readable portion of the internet as ultimately an introducer to real people? Going yet further, might we not say that even the goods and services a person provides are ultimately a set-up for that person's interactions with other people? (The "Nearish" project was inspired partly by the personal-relationship-as-center-of-life value embraced by the "people of the Book.")

To just be together and to "just live"--is the rest of life a means to this end, or to an end somehow like this?

Get your customers to write testimonials for you

As a consumer (and this is the view you should consider first), I'd like to see plenty of testimonials for anyone offering a product or service or idea.

As an employee, to receive testimonials from customers would be a perk that I would count as part of my compensation.

As a business owner, you can use the testimonials as feedback on what specifically you and your people are doing right. And don't forget to look for what you're doing wrong. You may be able to read this between the lines: In what ways are they not praising you?

The best testimonials are those written to a third party. Get them by listing customers as references. Ask your customers whether they would like to be on the list.

Read more at www.netterweb.com/searc...

Advertise under an umbrella

It might be more cost-effective for many small merchants in a neighborhood to advertise under one umbrella brand. By advertising as though they were a "virtual department sore" they could reduce their advertising overhead to something nearer that of a big box store. Of course they would retain individual ownership, management, creative control, and personal service. The brand's supporting web site should be built accordingly.

Google ought to advertise itself -- its own search properties such as Google Local and Froogle -- branded for local merchants' associations. Its recent acquisition of an ad agency could help:

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/bus...

Outsource to rural U.S.A.

If you must outsource, outsource to someone Nearish.

The market is beginning to encourage this: As economics would predict, the years of outsourcing to India have led to double-digit wage inflation there. Now the rural U.S. is beginning to look more attractive. One advantage is cultural similarity to employers and to clients.

Read more at www.google.com/search?q...