While I indulge in my new pastime of watching friends and colleagues do Facebook Live sessions or get together for online happy hours, I keep getting the same message.
We need to be “creative”.
The last time I was going to ask the group to make another Live session to discuss the meaning of creative.
These days, creative to me means doing whatever the hell we can to stay afloat. Let’s try to bound the limits of “whatever” in order to define the “creative”.
First, a quick announcement in case the news has not gotten through. We have opted to cripple the economy because we are choosing to save lives.
This is how it is done. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But we need to be aware of the price if we are to undo the mess.
To uncripple our economy we will need more than guaranteed loans at 0% interest, a thousand dollar check from Uncle Sam or a moratorium on foreclosures, rents and student loans.
Cities will need to step up and respond by immediately legalizing the small. Starting with removing minimums and massively streamlining processes, they should move to allow small- and micro-scale agriculture, manufacturing and office uses By Right anywhere in town.
Most of these allowances will help small businesses to revitalize sidewalks and other public spaces. This will in turn revitalize city streets in a way no coordinated Top-Down strategy can.
As a bonus, it will prevent our streets from looking like a scene from I am Legend.
The scale of public decisions will have to be revisited. All that can be done at State level should be taken over from the Fed and all that cities can take over from State, they should.
All production that can be brought back home, should. Not out of patriotism but of the need for strong local links to replace the weak ones of globalism that fall prey to that most inhuman concept: geopolitics.
Architecture, production, agriculture and other areas will need to find (or rediscover?) tailored solutions mindful of geography, climate or culture. That is what local folks have been practicing for centuries until we delegated to homogeneity. And they will return.
The New Local will be the result of realizing that «shop local» is not merely generosity toward our neighbors but a necessity for ourselves and our community to rely on a scale we can control when the time comes and we feel insecurity in our food supply chains again.
New, smaller-scaled, economic development-oriented officers should be appointed, who will integrate with the large-scale Resiliency or Innovation chiefs. These “urban mechanics” will have to dive deep into the engine to fix a tiny contact, loosen a little screw and jumpstart our paused life.
There is so much potential hidden between the good intentions of our city codes that can help millions of businesses from extinction and thousands of families from starvation. And there is so much that can be changed with simple tweaks in code language and practices.
Small businesses, on their part, will have to implement two separate, cumulative strategies: first they will have to accelerate the transition to alternative channels that complement in-store sales. Online commerce will happen, either with their own or with public platforms such as Etsy, Locally or Beyond Main.
Reaching out to their customers also has to rely on alternative channels. Direct mailing, social media, messaging services are excellent alternatives, as I’ve discussed before.
Second, they make a transition to the store being the second, third or even fourth source of income.
The value that small businesses add is larger than the physical products they sell. Clubs, monthly subscriptions with courses, workshops or projects that enhance the products and build experiences around them should become the new norm.
I come from a bookselling family. Having a small, independent business is not an easy task and the uncertainty they are constantly faced with makes it imperative to find several sources of revenue that can complement if either of them lags.
We enhanced (and secured) the business by creating a few branches that provide related services and add value to what we sell.
We have started a publishing house, creative writing workshops, expert booksellers advice delivered directly to customers on an email list, online book clubs, an online store and activation of the space for our own and also hired book launches, cultural gatherings or poetry readings, among other presencial and remote activities.
Unforeseen events such as, say, a pandemic, that may force us to close and stop selling in-store thus do not present an immediate death sentence for the business.
The only way small businesses will survive the inevitable crippling of the economy is if we get creative. “Creativity” at this point is assuming that this is on us and doing whatever we have to to get over this.
That includes changing our business models, finding other lines of businesses, expanding our reach and our communications, learning new skills and letting go of old practices that will have no value in the post-lockdown world.
We will need help from local and national governments, but most of the shift will have to come from within.
The Cavalry isn’t coming. The Cavalry is us.