After a much-too-long hiatus from participating in the online world, we're going to fire up the keyboard again. Sorry to have been away for so long.
Look for more from us soon here on the blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook!
Get Your Blue On!
If you’re like us, you’re pretty excited about how well Kentucky is doing this season. New coach, new style, new successes – the Cats are finally back.
If you’re a Cats fan, we’ve created something just for you.
A 4×6″ Kentucky blue oval car magnet inscribed with “The Blue is Back, Baby!”, it is designed to help you cheer the Cats to victory.
They’re free to Lowell’s customers. You can get extras for $5 per magnet, with all proceeds going to the American Red Cross for earthquake relief in Haiti and Chile.
Show your pride in your team. Pick one up at Lowell’s today!
Thoughts on Toyota
You have probably heard about the many recent recalls from Toyota. Toyota's quality problems have received an enormous amount of press coverage. Today, Akio Toyoda – the grandson of the company's founder – will testify in a congressional investigation into Toyota's response to their quality issues.
If you own a Toyota-made vehicle, you may be concerned about your safety. You might be frustrated with Toyota's lack of clarity around the recalls.
We share your concern, and wanted to let you know where we stand with regard to the Toyota quality issue.
As an independent repair shop which exclusively services Toyota, Lexus, and Scion, we feel that Toyota's lack of transparency is frustrating, inexplicable, and, frankly, unacceptable. Anything which hurts Toyota's reputation can damage our business.
We wish that Toyota had been more forthright about each problem, its extent, and its severity.
That said, the issues with acceleration, braking, and steering still appear to be extremely rare: Thankfully, we know of no instances where a Lowell's customer has encountered these kinds of problems.
We don't excuse Toyota for their recent quality problems (or for their poor reaction to them).
But we do feel that the Toyota story has snowballed into an out-of-control overreaction. As emotionally-charged stories about Toyota's issues lead the evening news, similar recalls for rare, sometimes-deadly defects from Honda, Hyundai, Ford, and Pontiac have received comparably little press coverage.
Toyota definitely needs to find and eliminate quality problems.
But we would prefer that such intense media, congressional, and public attention be laser-focused on exponentially larger issues affecting American well-being – such as the many failures of our healthcare system or the loss of millions of jobs in the past two years.
Note to our customers: We at Lowell's have offered our assistance to local dealers in getting recalled cars fixed as quickly as possible. Currently, however, the only way to get a recall issue resolved is to go through a Toyota dealer.
Lowell’s Teams with Debra’s Social $timulus for Haitian relief
Lowell’s is joining Debra Hensley’s brilliant campaign to support Haitian earthquake relief efforts. Together, we will match the first $2000 that you donate toward helping the quake victims. You can drop off a check
at Debra’s office at 1513 Nicholasville Road or at our shop at 111
Mechanic Street in Lexington.
Texting HAITI to 90999 will donate $10 to the Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. If you donate by text message, forward a copy of your confirmation to us at:
debrahensley@insightbb.com
debrassocialstimulus.com
859-333-3431
Thank you for your help in this global effort!
*** UPDATE: 1/15/2010 ***
Thank you so much for your donations. Here’s how Debra said it:
We just delivered the first set of checks to the Red Cross. 100% of these
funds will get to the Haiti Relief Fund very quickly. You have also
supported – Doctors Without Borders, Food For the Poor, Salvation Army,
Oxfam America, and so many other fine organizations.
We asked you to step up and you did. We told you we would match the
first $2,000 and we did. We will continue to ask other like businesses
and organizations to join with matching funds for the need is so great.
As of this moment we have raised $6520, including our match. We will
post an entire list of contributors once we have cleared it with them.
Thank you, thank you and more later.
If you haven’t had a chance to donate yet, we will continue to collect your contributions – as you can see in the photos and stories emerging from the tragedy, the need is profound. Let’s do all we can.
*** UPDATE: 1/19/2010 ***
Your tremendous generosity continues to mount! Including our match, Debra and Lowell’s have raised over $9600 in relief from over 100 people. We just delivered another batch of relief checks to the Red Cross this afternoon.
If you haven’t had a chance to contribute yet, we are still collecting your contributions. Keep ’em coming!
Let’s Change the World: A Review of Seth Godin’s “Linchpin”
It was a few months before his third birthday. It was also the day before he started school, and he was thrilled to embark upon this new adventure. (He was also mighty proud of his new backpack.)
The sense of possibility radiates from his face: He’s leaning forward, ready for anything, eager to engage with the new world awaiting him.
::
What happened to us?
Once, we were like Carson is now. We sang without fear. We played with abandon. We learned at incomprehensible speed. We pretended. We asked difficult questions. We created things. We did things. We overflowed with joy. It was (and is) a magical time in a child’s life.
And no one “judged” our performance – we were just kids, after all. In this stage of development, only a cruel adult (or sibling) would declare us “bad” at blocks or singing or playing or creating.
But then, as we grew older, the regimen of school and critical teachers and vicious peers and numbing conformity drummed a lot of the magic out of us. We became more anxious about singing or playing in public. We became reluctant to stand out. And many of us lost that childish joy associated with learning and discovery.
Then we graduated and went to work. And the workplace actively stomped out anything which wasn’t structured and standardized and routinized. Our childish joy was smothered by conforming to the system. But we accepted the slow, imperceptible death of our joy and creativity and genius in exchange for security. Conforming, for all of its flaws, paid us well.
Until now.
Now, those standardized and routinized jobs that we worked so hard to “fit in” to can be (and are being) all-too-easily outsourced to someone else who will do them for less pay and less security. They are too easy to outsource precisely because the jobs are standardized and routinized and dehumanized and documented and commodified. And it becomes a race to the bottom: There is always someone willing to do a standardized job for less.
As the economy has disintegrated, millions of jobs are evaporating as they move overseas or are consolidated. And the sad truth is that many of those jobs won’t reappear when the economy recovers.
::
I love books. Especially business books. I have a couple thousand books tucked into the nooks and crannies of my home, my basement, my office, and my Kindle.
I also love learning, so the vast majority of my books are nonfiction, and most of them are business-related. There are the software development books, many of which are getting dustier than I’d like. There are the e-commerce books, the career-advice books, the business histories and biographies, the innovation books, the marketing books, the business-strategy books.
Nearly every book had interesting information, insights, or perspectives.
But only a few really stand out. Once every few years, I come across a book which rocks my worldview, which changes how I approach things and challenges me to do better.
Seth is best known for his contributions to marketing, where he systematically dismantled business-as-usual approaches to marketing. Interrupting and shouting at people (also known as “advertising”) with boring “me-too” products is discredited in large part because of Seth’s creative, insightful writing in books like Permission Marketing and Purple Cow. His blog is a must-read for anyone in business.
But Linchpin is different.
::
Many of the themes in Linchpin will be familiar ones to readers of Seth’s previous writing, but the scope and purpose of this book is much more grand (and effective): With Linchpin, Seth wants to do no less than help us change the world. He wants to help restore humanity, creativity, generosity, and artistry into our work and our lives.
When we are more human, creative, generous, and artistic, Seth shows how unique and invaluable we become. Suddenly, instead of being another easily-replaced drone in the workplace, we are the critical links – the linchpins – of our organization (and our community). We become indispensable.
Standing out is no longer dangerous. Standing out is now the single most effective strategy for not being replaced or being forgotten. Merely “fitting in” – once the source of our security and our income – is now the most dangerous strategy of all. The more we fit in, the easier we are to outsource and the more precarious our jobs become.
How do we stand out? By doing original, human, generous work. Seth calls it “art”, which he defines as “a personal gift that changes the recipient”.
The way for us and our work to stand out is to imbue it with artistry. Only by adding our personal insight, ideas, innovation, and genius to what we do – only by being more human – can we avoid becoming a disposable cog in the system.
::
Often, we have plenty of insight, and lots of ideas, and a surplus of genius. But we fail to see it through. We fail to produce our art.
What stands in the way? Usually, it’s ourselves. More specifically, it is our fear. Fear of failure. Fear of being judged. Fear of being rejected. Fear of success.
So we wait. We delay. We procrastinate. We go to the fridge. We scan our email.
And nothing happens.
In the most vital part of Linchpin (and the one which jolted me the most), Seth breaks down what really stops us from becoming great contributors. He shows how we get in the way of our most brilliant ideas or plans.
And then he shows why that fear-mongering part of us can’t be tolerated any longer.
We must confront our own delay tactics and call out our fears. We must deal with the things which scare us and overcome them.
Only then can we produce the art which will allow us to stand out and allow us to contribute meaningfully to our organizations and communities.
With his usual compelling and incisive style, Seth names each of these killers of our creativity, shows how they work, and demonstrates how to dismantle them. In a fifty-page tour de force, he decimates the fears which limit our contributions.
Ridding ourselves of these paralyzing dread-monsters (or, at least, bringing them down to an appropriate size) allows us to inject some of that creative, playful, innovative, childish joy back into our work. It allows us to connect more genuinely with others. It allows us to change the world.
::
We face a choice.
We can attempt to hunker down, fit in, and conform, and live in dread that the economic storm will sweep our livelihood away.
– or –
We can take control of our careers and our lives to create unique, remarkable, significant work – “art” – and be determined to change the world for the better.
One is a passive victim’s path, where the world – and life – “happens” to you.
The other is an active, creative, joyful, innovative, human path for those who are liberated to leave a footprint on the world. It is the same path that Carson is on right now.
It isn’t really a choice, is it?
::
As I was reading Linchpin, I struggled with how to categorize this remarkable book. Is it a self-help book? A leadership book? A business strategy book?
And then it hit me: It’s a Seth Godin book. And it’s his best work. And it will help you change the world – if you let it.
Let it.
[Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? will be released on January 26th. Mark your calendars.]
789 Free Oil Changes
Community Service was our way to say "thank you" for 30 years of support – and for making Lowell's Lexington's "Best Honest Mechanic" (Ace Weekly's Best of Lex Awards) and "Favorite Auto Repair Shop" (Herald-Leader's Reader's Choice Awards) in 2009.
As we start 2010, we're looking at other innovative ways we can serve
our loyal customers and our community – please let us know if you have
great ideas!
We thank you for supporting us for the past 30 years, and we look
forward to serving Lexington in 2010 and beyond. Happy New Year!
We love you, too!
One of the great things about working at a service-oriented company like Lowell’s is how much our customers appreciate what we do. Our hope is that treating customers with generosity will pay future dividends – we want to build the most loyal band of customers in the city.
And, occasionally, we’re able to do something which touches peoples’ lives for the better. We did that a couple of times last week.
J.I. sent us this note in response to our Community Service program (a FREE full-service oil change, with no strings, no catches, and no charge), our way of saying “thank you” to our community in celebration of our 30th anniversary:
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 3:45 PM
Subject: I LOVE LOWELL’S
I just wanted to share something with you. I have been experiencing a
bit of financial difficulty these past few months. I guess I too am a
victim of the bad economy. Anyway, my service light came on yesterday
and I quickly realized I needed an oil change. I decided to check out
your web site to see if I could get a good deal on an oil change and to
my amazement I saw the ad for a free oil change. I will be contacting
you to make my appointment! 🙂 I wanted to say thanks for the years of
GREAT service you provide Lexington and your decision to offer a free
oil change. It is a BLESSING to me! May you get all that you deserve in
return for being so honest and giving!J.I.
That same week, we got a bowl full of candy and this wonderful note from C.H., who used one of our 20-year-old loaner Camrys over the weekend:
Thank you so much for the use of the loaner car while mine was being fixed. I must admit that I panicked not quite knowing how to work out the details of not having a car. Your loaner looked better than any luxury car could ever look to me this weekend!!
You all truly deserve the reputation you have as giving excellent customer service!!
With gratitude,
C.H.
Both of these notes make us proud to be in the business of helping people. We’re always looking for ways to be an even better mechanic. It is really nice when you tell us that we’re on the right track.
We love you, too!
Announcing Lowell’s Community Service
On October 2nd, Lowell’s will also celebrate its 30th anniversary (For more on the founding of Lowell’s [the company] see this history, written by Lowell [the man], our founder and advisor). In honor of that occasion, and in gratitude for your enthusiasm and loyalty over the past 30 years, we’re going to do something special.
We’re giving back.
Beginning in October and continuing through the end of 2009, we’ll provide our full service oil change – FOR FREE. We call it Lowell’s Community Service.
And “free” means free: No Strings. No Catches. No Charge.
We do ask that you make an appointment, so that we may properly balance our workload and provide prompt service.
Regular oil and filter changes are the single most effective way to keep your vehicle running well. So, for a limited time, every lube, oil, filter change, and multi-point inspection for your Toyota, Lexus, or Scion at Lowell’s will be absolutely, positively free. (And, just in case you’re wondering, our prices for other maintenance and repair will remain the same.)
With the Lowell’s Community Service program, we hope to give back a little of what you’ve given to us over the past 30 years. And since you have read this post, you can take advantage of Community Service right now. Just mention Community Service when you schedule your appointment, and you can get our October surprise in September!
Thanks so much for supporting us,
Rob, Suzanne, and your friends at Lowell’s
The True Cost of South Limestone
The South Limestone streetscape project began with the closure of South Lime two months ago today, and the project is slated to continue for another 10 months. Meant to better connect downtown with the University of Kentucky campus, the project includes the widening of sidewalks, the installation of bike lanes, and the underground placement of utilities.
When the project started, we wrote about the chaotic process of closing the street and about the need for practical planning and design on South Lime and other urban development projects. How has the project evolved since then?
Not well.
Severed Artery
The closure dramatically impacted traffic patterns between downtown
Lexington and the south side of our city, resulting in gnarled traffic
on a number of alternative routes to downtown. At various points in the project, intersections with cross-streets (High, Maxwell, and Euclid) have also closed with little notice, adding to confusion and gridlock for downtown commuters and shoppers. In effect, the closure of South Limestone has walled off downtown from Lexington's south side.
Several businesses along South Lime have struggled to cope with the substantial loss of customers and the physical disruption of their businesses. Last week, Joe Graviss, the owner of the McDonald's on South Lime, pleaded with Lexington's Mayor and Urban County Council to add extra shifts or more workers to speed the project.
City officials responded that extra shifts will not accelerate the project. The project's manager noted that the city's concrete supplier closed in the evenings and that local utilities were already providing personnel to assist with the location and relocation of utility lines. At one point, he admitted that he had no ideas for speeding the South Lime project along.
Vice Mayor Jim Gray – the CEO of Gray Construction and the only councilmember to oppose the project – countered the project manager's claims. "It would be wise of us not to be extravagant in describing the difficulties of this project… With 2000 projects under my belt, I've never seen a project that couldn't be improved or accelerated."
At this point, most elected leaders and city bureaucrats seem unprepared to take significant action to accelerate the South Limestone streetscape project.
That's because they have been thinking about the impacts of South Lime on the wrong scale.
Estimates on the price of the South Lime project vary, but the early $5.2 million estimate has ballooned to somewhere between $13.1 and $17 million. The newer, higher price was partly meant to help expedite the project.
But, as we'll see in a moment, that price far underestimates the true cost of the project to our city, our economy, and to our future.
South Limestone's closure is not a mere inconvenience – it is a severed
artery that is bleeding the life from downtown. It demands an urgent response from our leaders. The cost to the city is too
dear to delay action, especially in this difficult economy.
Disruption: Anecdotes and Hard Data
A number of weeks ago, on the first day that the High Street intersection with South Lime was closed, I worked in my office and overheard two different customers from the south side of Lexington talk about the enormous problem of getting to our downtown shop – the confusion from suddenly closing the High Street intersection had made traffic especially difficult to decipher.
Then, we had an elderly customer from Nicholasville make an appointment for the next day, asking for directions on how to get to the shop with all of the construction. Concerned about getting lost, she decided to do a dry run the day before. After experiencing the jams, diversions, and delays, she called back and canceled her appointment.
Last month, I talked with another downtown business who is in our same industry. They were scratching their heads about why their August business "fell off a cliff". I talked with them again last week, and their business was still much slower than usual.
Yesterday, a regular customer who owns a shop in Festival Market came into Lowell's and opened the discussion with a flat "Business sucks".
When I started hearing these anecdotes, I began to think that the impacts of the South Limestone closure extended far beyond South Lime. I wondered about the effects of South Lime as a customer deterrent for our business:
- How many of our customers come from the south side of Lexington?
- How many of those south-siders might have chosen to stay away from "the mess" downtown?
- What could that data tell us about the impacts to all of downtown Lexington?
And what I saw in the data was astounding and troubling:
- About 30% of our customers come from ZIP codes which would use Nicholasville Road (which turns into South Limestone) as the primary corridor to downtown
- Since July 22nd – the date of the closure – we have lost one third of the business we'd normally expect from those ZIP codes. By comparison, the rest of Lexington is relatively flat or growing.
- The net of this was a loss of 10% of our sales (and a much bigger hit to our profitability) directly attributable to the South Lime closure.
I disclose these facts not as a woe-are-we pity party, but as a fact-based assessment of how "the mess downtown" affects one downtown business. Our business is a relatively healthy, well-respected business with incredibly loyal customers (Last week, we won "Best Honest Mechanic" from Ace Weekly readers). And, still, the closure of South Limestone accounted for a loss of a full third of south-side customers.
Ripple Effects
Can we extrapolate from just one business to the whole of downtown? Not with any degree of certainty. But my conversations with other business owners make me believe that my business' experience with the South Lime closure is not exceptional. Admittedly, not every downtown business is as impacted by traffic disruptions, but most are impacted in some fashion: lost customers, lost productivity, supply chain delays, etc.
Hard data for downtown Lexington is difficult to come by.
- Just how much of Lexington's $11 billion economy takes place downtown?
- Which businesses depend upon the smooth flow of traffic? To what degree?
- How many of their customers / employees / suppliers come from the south side?
Depending on the assumptions used, the estimate of impacts to downtown can vary wildly. Our best "conservative" estimate? Downtown Lexington loses about $360,000 each business day that South Limestone is closed. (Depending on our assumptions, the estimates ranged between $275,000 and $600,000 each day.)
That translates to between $7.0 to $7.7 million in lost business every month, or between $84 and $92 million for the year-long duration of the South Limestone project. That's around 700 to 1000 jobs which could evaporate from downtown Lexington, especially as the closure drags on.
Are these numbers absolute? Not by any means. But they do provide a ballpark idea of the true cost of the South Limestone project.
Much of the focus on the costs of South Lime have focused on either a) the direct taxpayer costs ($17 million) or b) the costs to businesses on South Lime. And while those South Limestone businesses deserve special attention for the degree this project impacts them, our estimates suggest that our leaders and our community have been thinking about 'cost' on the wrong scale. There is a much bigger, much more urgent cost which must be addressed.
The irony of South Limestone – as the cycle of lost customers, declining businesses, lower employment, and more lost customers continues – is that the project may well end up strangling the very downtown that the streetscape is meant to connect with.
Our leaders frequently assert the necessity of a vibrant, livable downtown. It is time for them to live up to their words.
With the South Limestone closure, they must now choose: Will they continue to choke off downtown from a significant portion of the city, or will they act with urgency and extraordinary effort to accelerate and improve the project?
Their actions now will determine whether the prediction from our Chaos post will come true:
"And the results of the chaos are easy to predict. Confused commuters
and shoppers stay away from 'the mess' downtown. Downtown businesses
die. And, after fits and starts, Lexington ends up with a beautiful
street. To nowhere."
Time to choose.
The Spotlight Effect
There’s an old saw in business: “That which gets measured gets results”.
I have to admit I’ve always been a bit dismissive of that saying (usually attributed to the late business guru Peter Drucker). In corporate life, I saw plenty of things that were measured which didn’t get results. The mere act of measuring something accomplishes nothing if effort doesn’t also go into improving that ‘something’.
But a couple of events over the past few weeks has me thinking about what does get results.
Newtown Pike Extension
The first event was the much-acclaimed burial of utility lines along Lexington’s Newtown Pike extension. After Graham and Clive Pohl (of Pohl Rosa Pohl Architects) highlighted the discrepancy between the pretty artists’ renderings of the extension and the actual plans for the construction that was about to begin. Instead of the beautiful, pristine streets promised in the renderings, the extension would have been littered with utility poles and power lines.
LFUCG engineers cited the high relative cost of burying the utilities, estimating that putting them underground would add nearly $900,000 to the project’s cost.
Since the extension will be a kind of “gateway” into Lexington, there was an outcry from many on the Urban County Council about how important it was for us to look good for visitors. Our Vice Mayor was quoted as saying “We’ll never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Local columnists and Lexington’s online community jumped on the issue as well, and it snowballed.
Within a couple of weeks, city leaders lined up with Kentucky’s Governor to announce that they had found the extra funds to put the utilities underground in the Governor’s contingency fund.
The Treeds Experiment
The second event was a little closer to home. In the Treeds Experiment, I decided take up a challenge from an Urban County Councilmember to see how long it took to get a response from LFUCG’s Division of Code Enforcement. So, last Friday – just before the holiday weekend – I sent an email to Code Enforcement about a lot next to our main building which had become overgrown with tree-weeds, or “treeds”.
At the same time I sent the email, I posted an outline of the experiment on my blog, along with pictures of the overgrowth. And I pledged to chronicle the responses I got from the city.
On Twitter, a couple of folks brought up valid points. Russell and Ann both pointed out that Treeds had an unfair advantage – because I talked about it publicly, that may have helped artificially accelerate the responsiveness of the city. (Indeed, within hours of my initial Treeds post, a city employee commented that the experiment would ‘fail’.)
The Spotlight Effect
These two events both benefited from the “spotlight effect”: When the public’s spotlight turns to a particular issue, and that spotlight begins burning intensely, ‘normal’ reactions and ‘normal’ timelines are no longer acceptable.
Russell and Ann were right: my experiment wasn’t ‘normal’, and the average citizen shouldn’t expect that kind of responsiveness.
And others would point out that the Newtown Pike Extension wasn’t ‘normal’ either – it was a one-time event which utilized one-time funds. We shouldn’t expect city officials to move that quickly to fix an oversight or mistake.
But we should.
Everyone should get prompt action on valid complaints. Everyone should expect city leaders to fix their mistakes, to do the right things, and to do them quickly.
But we can’t wait for our leaders to do the right thing. We need to push them. We need to build bigger, brighter spotlights, and we need to shine those spotlights on the things that matter.
It is up to us.
Building a Spotlight
What does it take to build an effective spotlight? I can’t claim to be an expert, but here are some of my thoughts culled from the past few days and weeks (feel free to contribute your own in the comments below):
- We must be more vocal. We tend to be indirect folks here in Lexington. It is awkward and impolite to complain; it is much better for the other person to do what they should. But they don’t. And we stew. And nothing much changes.
It is time for that to change. As out-of-character as it may be for many of us, we need to become much more vocal about what is wrong and what we expect. Only then can things improve.
- We must join our voices. When one person calls a city department, they are a complainer. When several people call – and are joined by bloggers, columnists, and media – that’s a movement.
And a movement is what dislodged the status quo of the Newtown Pike Extension. We need more movements in Lexington with more voices working in concert. We need to utilize our public platforms – Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and papers – to draw others to our cause.
- We must be more visible.
When one person calls one other person at LFUCG, there’s no spotlight.
No one else knows about the call, and no one else can amplify the
sentiments expressed there.
One of the reasons that Treeds got such a rapid response was probably
the ‘publicness’ of the experiment. That visibility helped the amplify
the spotlight and, in all likelihood, accelerated the response.
- We must measure. This statement isn’t about micro-measuring every detail of every issue. It is about documenting who we talked with and what they said, and holding them accountable for their actions (or lack thereof).
Any regular reader of my posts knows that I’m not shy. They know
that I’m not afraid to use my platforms to try to build a movement. In
the past few months, my blogging and writing has become fairly
visible. (And, for what it is worth, I’ve got some like-minded
friends.)
So if you need a spotlight, let me help you. If you see blight around campus or around downtown, let me know. If
your business is suffering from the South Limestone road closure, let
me know. If you have a great idea for our city, let me know. If you
see a problem which needs fixing, let me know.
Together, let’s be more vocal. Let’s join our
voices with others who agree. Let’s be more visible. And, then, let’s
hold people accountable.
I want a better Lexington. One where businesses aren’t squeezed out of their locations by poorly-planned year-long road closures. One where our government operates much more transparently. One where blight is quickly and effectively addressed. One which has a real (and realistic) urban development plan for downtown. One which has a thriving arts and business community. One which leverages its past to build a brighter future. One which will make my son homesick if he ever leaves.
If you want that too, then join me – or rather, have me join you. Tell me
what matters.
And I’ll do my best to help you build a spotlight. Let’s make a better, faster Lexington.
