Nearish Blog: February 2006

Sunday, February 26, 2006

An Outline of the History of Economic Thought

Stefano Zamagni, an expert in civil economy, has co-authored this book. It is available via a 30-day free trial of Oxford Scholarship Online.

The value of being Nearish, where Nearish = default: people don't think much

As I've said before, your relationship with your customer is valuable because you are Nearish (and Dearish?) in her mind. It can earn you a commission. Case in point: Google is paying lots of money to retailers so that its software and services are the default choices.

People don't think very much. They will find you if you are the Nearish choice along whatever axis they are searching. Chances are, if you are small, you can stand your best chance along the axes of geographic or social proximity. If you are big, you money may not even be able to buy such market intelligence as you would get by more intimate, Nearish interactions with your customers.

LinkedIn: search for nearish workers or work

LinkedIn is a very Nearish idea: when looking for a worker or for work, search first within your own professional network. here is my profile there.

Constructive Luddism with Mechanical Turk (replacing computers with people)

Amazon is making good use of an idea I've had too, and have been cooking up since 1995: Since humans are better than computers at many tasks, we should make it as easy to use humans as it is to use computers. Amazon Mechanical Turk "provides access to a vast network of human intelligence with the efficiencies and cost-effectiveness of computers. Oftentimes, the cost of establishing a network of skilled people to do the work outweighs the value of completing it."

Such ideas come naturally to one who has studied artificial intelligence, whose algorithms are inspired by real-life problem-solving in nature and in society, which has added its own wisdom, and which now can "honor its father and mother" by sending home some of the fruits of its labor to their proud "grandparents."

This site recruits people to transcribe podcasts. It's similar to an idea I had in June 2004, to organize the students in a class to create an audio version of the textbook used in the class.

Another idea I cooked up between fall 2002 and spring 2004 was to recruit people to interpret medical journal articles and codify them in formal computer language that is computable; this is related to "text mining" work being done in biomedical informatics. On March 25 of 2005, another guy published published the same underlying idea.

Technology is always a double-edged sword and the wisdom is in which way to swing it. To use it in favor of localism, Mechanical Turks must permit one to find Nearish talent!

What we are talking about here is essentially better Yellow Pages to reduce search cost. The less time we spend searching for what we want, the better off everyone will be. Yes, Professor Beals, making the search more convenient reduces the meaning of the search, but the personal interaction at the end of the search is even more meaningful.

Partnerships and referral fees help small business

The success of small enterprises in Emilia Romagna is attributed to their dense network of partnerships. Small firms are not afraid to take on large clients because they subcontract out to one another. Any small business could earn referral fees by sending business elsewhere. Amazon Associates exemplifies how this can be done; Booksense offers a similar arrangement with local independent booksellers. Between businesses, I expect there are better examples of referral fee arrangements and I will post them when I find them.

Links to co-ops, including health care

The University of Wisconsin has a Center for Cooperatives, which maintains a list of co-ops of many types, including health care

Bologna and Emilia Romagna - A Model of Economic Democracy

"If we wanted to find a region that had advanced its economic base and might well be the great economic democracy in the West, we would find it in Emilia Romagna."

"I have provided a great deal of space in this paper for the views of Professor Stefano Zamagni of the University of Bologna because he may very well be the seminal academic on the civil economy and cooperatives."

"It should be noted that Zamagni’s work in the civil sector follows a long grand tradition in the country. As Stefano himself notes the term “civil economy” was coined by one of Italy’s first great economists, Antonio Genovesi in 1753."

“Societies where private interest reigns and prevails, where none of their members is touched by the love of public good, not only cannot reach wealth and power, but also, if they have already reached them, are unable to maintain this position.” --Antonio Genovesi

"The Po River Valley with its rich agricultural lands was amongst the first in Europe to escape from serfdom and feudal times."

Quotes above are from this paper by Bob Williams of Vancouver's VanCity Capital Corporation.

2006 Bologna Summer Program for Co-Operative Studies:

Brochure , Syllabus (draft)

Thanks to Al Avans, a local man who blogs at ECODEMA and whom I met Tuesday evening at a showing of a documentary film ("Independent America") on local independent businesses. Al clued me into Emilia Romagna and also to Spain's Mondragon Co-operative. Thanks also to author Kim Stanley Robinson, whose Mars Trilogy
got me thinking in this direction last summer with its "Praxis."

If you're not convinced of the problems solved by co-op, please see the Canadian documentary film The Corporation.

Monday, February 20, 2006

The Wizard of Ads

Sign up for the Monday Morning Memo from the Wizard of Ads. It is credited as a secret to the success of my friend who is the top ad executive at the top radio station in her market of 100,000+. I can see why, too; when reading Roy H. Williams (not the KU coach) I very often smack my forehead and exclaim "yes--he's so right!"

Blogs And Reality TV: The Changing Face of America
Do you remember when America watched awards shows?

If you were somehow unplugged and didn't receive the newsflash, the combined strength of Paul McCartney, Madonna, U2, Mariah Carey, Coldplay, Faith Hill and Jay-Z wasn't enough to swing the hammer and ring the bell during this year's Grammy Awards. A frail 17 million watched these legends read their cue cards while a muscular 28.3 million cheered hopeful, nameless kids singing their hearts out on American Idol.

It was just one more indication of how we're moving away from the vertical hero-worship of Idealism to establish the horizontal links that mark an emerging Civic generation.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Find local bookstores with Booksense.com

Booksense lets shoppers find a local independent bookstore by ZIP code. It's just one of many associations of independent retailers--a good idea.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

The Declaration of Independents

Includes a long list of organizations promoting independent business, with contact information.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Be a metasearch engine

Your customer or client trusts you; that is worth something to them and can earn you a comission. If you don't offer what they're looking for, show them where they can find it. This way, they'll continue to come to you first.

As an example, put a web search box on your web site. Whenever your search engine finds no results on your site, have it query other local sources next. Store the query terms and use them to see what your customers would be willing to "buy" from you. This is market research. Use it to decide what products and services to offer and what alliances to make.

Yahoo! Local Events Browser Demo: a Maps, Events, and Search Mashup (by Jeremy Zawodny)

See this demo from Yahoo: It makes local events incredibly easy to find.

The web makes finding information EASIER. This has the effect of making NEAR things NEAR again. Nearish!

New Urbanism

"New Urbanism" is a whole architectural and urban planning movement based largely on a rediscovery of the value of a sense of place. Nearish provides information technology to foster that sense of place.

Are Downtowns Obsolete?

Reasons for downtowns' near-obsolescence are varied but include a few mistakes on the part of independent storeowners. Don't make the same mistakes.

One mistake includes viewing stores within your as competitors. Unless they are "category-killers," they are unlikely to be true competitors: why would a competing store enter a niche that's already filled in your neighborhood? On the other hand, shoppers can and do view neighborhoods as a "virtual department store," so neighborhoods can and should compete against one another for retail customers.This is a good idea for the same reason as is ThinkOneKC, a Kansas City economic development organization which seeks to get neighborhoods to stop competing and to cooperate. But ThinkOneKC's "market" is not retail customers but corporate relocations.Retailers should be attuned to the metro-area concerns but should realize that they are in neighborhoods. They do compete as neighborhoods, and they could do so better if they would take this into account.

National Register of Historic Places

"Beauty is more than skin deep. It is not only the façade and the streetscape, but what is inside the buildings, which makes Pipestone appealing to visitors."

I heartily agree with the above statement. Never mind your funky old building unless you--your unique business and your unique self--add valuable color to your locale. Be yourself.

American workways can sabotage communication

Your customers value you for yourself, not just for your product or service. It's part of how they know whether to get it from you or from somewhere else.

Given that, you may wish to read about pitfalls of "an affliction related to the Protestant work ethic, characterized by the expectation that one should be more impersonal and emotionally detached at work than in social situations."

Check your online driving directions

On your website, provide maps and links to driving directions. But first, check the directions from several directions.  If the online directions are wrong, few customers will ever bother to complain; you are the agent best motivated to do so.

‘Retail Armageddon’ e-commerce threat dismissed

"First there was Robocop - The Movie. Now comes Roboshop - Retail Armageddon. If a piece of machinery can take police off the streets, can computers do the same for shops?"

The gist of the article is "no." But you still need to be known.  Get a web site and advertise it and yourself.

MainStreet Cooperative Group //// http://www.mainstreetcg.com

I just discovered this group, whose idea is similar to mine: organize independent businesses to compete with chains.

Some amount of personality (the "author's voice") makes sites more attractive: users don't like bland impersonal corporate sites.

"Some amount of personality (the "author's voice") makes sites more attractive: users don't like bland impersonal corporate sites." -Jackob Nielsen

Biographies

Jakob Nielson recommends them.  See point #4 of his "Top-10 New Mistakes of Web Design:

"Users want to know the people behind information on the Web.  In particular, biographies and photographs of the authors help make the Web a less impersonal place and increase trust.  Personality and point-of-view often wins over anonymous bits coming over the wire."

How important is a web site, anyway?

"56% of US small businesses can attribute some portion of their annual sales to having a presence online. Particularly, over one-half think their site gives their company more credibility, while 33% say it is their strongest marketing tool."

Form an alliance

Chains have increased purchasing power and reduced marketing overhead, but independent businesses can compete by forming alliances.  Bike shop alliance YaYa! Bike, founded by FedEx cofounder Michael Basch, is just one example cited in this Inc. Magazine article.