More Retail Vacancy

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My wife just called me from the Harper Hill Commons shopping center at the corner of Country Club and Peace Haven Roads.  She informs me that the Starbucks that had been located there is closed and the Dewey's Bakery shop that had recently opened there is also closed.  I'd read that the Starbucks was going to close but Dewey's closure surprised me. I checked the Dewey's website and they list Harper Hill Commons as one of their holiday locations so it sounds like it was only planned as a temporary location all along.  I'd say it's a sign of the times that Dewey's could find temporary space in a relatively new and upscale location like Harper Hill, and of course it's not a good sign that both the Starbucks and Dewey's locations now sit vacant.

One More Reason to Love Costco: The Clif Bar Recall

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I'm an avowed fan of Costco.  I absolutely love shopping there and it is a sign of my adoration that I think my fraternity brother Kirk is a rock star because he's a buyer for Costco.  Another of our fraternity brothers is an actor with a recurring role on the original CSI (he's Archie in the lab), but I honestly think I'd ask Kirk for an autograph first.  If nothing else I'd ask to trade jobs with him before anyone else I know.  So yes I love Costco.

Today we received a robo-call from Costco, but unlike the calls I got from John McCain this one was welcome.  Their records showed that we'd purchased Clif Bars in a certain time period and they wanted to inform us that Clif Bars were being voluntarily recalled in connection with the peanut butter salmonella scare.  In other words they'd scoured their database and found any members who had purchased Clif Bars from them and then called them to let them know that they should dump those Cliff Bars.  They also provided a way to get information directly from Clif Bars about the recall.

Obviously not all retailers can do something like this.  They don't all have a membership database like Costco, but what's interesting to me is that many of them do have loyalty programs like Food Lion's MVP program.  I'm wondering if they have the capacity to mine their MVP data and see if any members have purchased tainted products and then contact those customers?  I doubt it, but even if they did I don't know that they'd actually think to do what Costco has done.  

Did I mention I love Costco?

If It’s Good Enough for the White House…

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The big news in the world of online geeks is that WhiteHouse.gov has gone the way of blogs. I'm sure much of the excitement stems from bloggers feeling vindicated after years of being denigrated and belittled by everyone from their siblings to the main stream media.  After all, if it's good enough for the office of the President then it's gotta be good enough for them, right?

Who knows if the White House blog will end up doing anything meaningful, but I'm a firm believer that public officials can do a much better job of communicating with their constituents if they utilize every means available and blogs are very effective tools to consistently get information out directly to constituents.  Heck, I feel so strongly about this that four years ago I offered to host a blog for any Winston-Salem or Forsyth County official who wanted to start a blog.  The only person that contacted me was Vernon Robinson, and he posted one or two items but then it kind of died off.  Still, I'm prepared to help any public official who feels the need to follow the White House's lead.  So I'll re-submit the offer: any public official in Winston-Salem or Forsyth County who wants a blog just give me a shout. I'll be happy to help.

The City’s Eyesore is a Man’s Treasure

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The city leader's of Winston-Salem would like to have the ability to use eminent domain to take at "fair market value" properties that they consider eyesores and then either raze it or rehab it as affordable housing.  I have real problems with eminent domain being used in this way because there have been cases in some cities where people have lost homes that they were living in because the city took them using eminent domain because they wanted the land for an office building or some other use.  To me this is plain un-American.

Another problem is that city governments are made up of people, civil servants, who are as apt to make mistakes as any other group of people.  When they have the power to tear property down, well, at some point they might tear down the wrong property as highlighted in this story from Detroit.  

Sure there are eyesores and negligent owners out there, but they should be dealt with using the already existing channels that the city government has at its disposal, like fines or condemnation.  I don't think we should punish owners who keep their properties in a habitable state, but that we or our government finds not so attractive state.  Remember, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

What Should the Kids Do?

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Last night the youth leader at our church asked us, the parents, for some ideas for activities for the kids.  This was a good idea for a couple of reasons; first, I'm a firm believer that you get better ideas from muliple people than from one, and second when people offer their own ideas they're more likely to get involved themselves.  That said, we were all pretty fragged last night and it was tough getting the creative juices flowing so I thought I'd put out an RFP for ideas for our church's youth group.  Here are the basics about the group:

  • Small, but powerful.  There are about 15 kids in the group and they range in age from 6th graders to 12th graders.
  • The activities should have some kind of tie to what you'd expect a church youth group to be involved with, but it need not be overtly spiritual.  For instance one of the most powerful things they do every year is a week at mission camp in Laurel Ridge.  While there they spend their days doing projects in the local community that are geared to helping people: fixing a shut-in's deck, painting a fence at a local school that doesn't have the budget for it, building a wheel chair ramp at a local home, etc.  At night they do a lot of singing and church related activities, but the main purpose of the week is to teach them service to others.  You can see where I'm going with this. 
  • The group gets together almost every Sunday night for two hours during the school year.  Many of the activities will need to fit this time frame, but they do sometimes step out and do longer activities at different times. 
  • One activity already planned is the Souper Bowl of Caring on Feb. 1, but outside of that we're pretty open over the next couple of months. 

Please feel free to share any ideas you might have, or activities you've seen other groups engage in.   

New Local Media Hierarchy

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As I last posted the Winston-Salem Journal showed me a little love on Saturday by printing an excerpt from one of my blog posts in their "Bits & Pieces" section of their editorial page on Saturday.  A commenter noted that I should see a spike in traffic to my site, which I assumed as well.  Here's the thing: my traffic went up this last Saturday and Sunday compared to the previous weekend, but only a little and it was still lower than the traffic I had on Friday.  In other words there was a little more traffic, but not enough that I'd say that the Journal's love had a real impact.  

On the other hand when Esbee links to me I see my traffic double, minimum.  I'm not trying to slam the paper here, after all I'd assume that Esbee's readers are more likely to follow a link to another blog than people who read the paper or visit the paper's website are to actively go and find my blog.  Still I think it shows that in the evolving world of online media the media hierarchy is different than in the offline world.  I hope local advertisers and marketers are paying attention.

Oh, and a word of advice to the Journal: there are these little things called hyperlinks that have been used online as long as there's been an online.  You might want to consider using them in your stories seeing as it's considered good manners in the online realm AND the search engines give you credit for it.

Greensboro Notorious

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A 32 year old man was shot at a showing of the movie Notorious at the Grand Theater at Four Seasons in Greensboro last night.  The movie's about slain rapper Notorious B.I.G. and the strange part of the story is that the actor who played Notorious B.I.G. in the movie was in the theater in Greensboro.  Nothing against Greensboro, but why would the guy spend opening night for the movie in Greensboro and not New York?  Weird.

H/T to Ed Cone.