Upward and onward to 2023

As year’s end draws near, I’m not feeling the typical inadequacy of receiving greetings cards from friends, colleagues and clients and not having prepared one to make myself and Storefront Mastery present.

I’m gonna convince myself that this year I’ve been more efficient and thoughtful, so please consider this message a heartfelt greeting from my part for a joyful holiday season and a prosperous, happy 2023.

This has to be better than a card, so it will be a short thank you to clients who have believed in my work, to colleagues who have contributed and added value to it, and to friends who, of course, are indescribably happy to hear from me. And a few bits of insight I feel can be interesting to share.

2022 has been a year of growth for Storefront Mastery. I’ve been dedicating full time to develop a good product for my clients since December of 2021.

My first clients believed enough to call and listen to what I had to say by the second quarter of the year. By summer I was working full time with commissions and consulting jobs, and it has been like that the rest of the year.

I have learned with each new client, and each new local business owner I’ve met. The strategies I propose have become stronger, more solid and feasible, and more impactful, judging from the feedback I get and from the repeat calls.

This has come from constantly learning and applying new wisdom into what Storefront Mastery can offer.

So, in short, thank you. You are watching me build my business while I help you build up your downtown. Can’t think of a greater privilege.

Before I leave, I’m gonna let you in on a trend I’ve been looking into for 2023. I hope you find at least one of them interesting enough to write back and tell me what you think about it. Who knows, the next best idea may come from our correspondence.

Augmented reality is getting a stronger focus than the clunky Virtual reality/Metaverse. Machine learning has advanced so much in the last couple of years that I can confidently say that we will be able to have real time augmented reality for building or storefront design ideas, for downtown marketing, and for recruiting new players for downtown ecosystems. Think the chasing Pokemon game, but for local promotions.

AI design, in the same vein, is developing at warp speed. People are super happy having a bot create original visual representations of their ideas. Watching the results that engines like Midjourney or DALL•E2 are producing is astonishing, and they will only get better and more detailed as they learn more. Just as a small example, the title picture of this post was made by DALL•E2 with the prompt “A Perfect Storefront”.

I see 2023 as a breakthrough in how the best ideas will find feasible interpretations with detailed steps of action plans delivered to people’s desktops thanks to artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT.

Downtowns may see massive, beautiful, immersive experiences (what’s known as Location Based Entertainment) happen in their sidewalks. Various authors are identifying a trend of theater as an element of customer support, where bartenders, baristas or servers become part of the cast and the customer is immersed in a play that happens while they patronize a store or eat at a restaurant.

That is already happening in specialty stores like Camp, that has teamed up with Disney to create an Encanto experience, or bars like Oscar Wilde, that creates the most extreme seasonal experiences and transforms the entire establishment into a Halloween- or a Christmas-land. Google those two out, you might like it.

2023 will be a year of building. I thank you for helping me build in the past year and invite you to build with me in the next one. I couldn’t make it without you.

This has been a long greeting card. Before I go, let me send the warmest wishes your way. Hoping to see more of you in the coming year and help you make your downtown even more legendary.