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Let’s Change the World: A Review of Seth Godin’s “Linchpin”

January 13, 2010April 8, 2016 Rob Morris 5 Comments Ideas

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 Godin’s forthcoming Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? is one of those books.

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.]

The Spotlight Effect

September 10, 2009January 3, 2015 Rob Morris 2 Comments Better Lexington, Community, Customer Service, Fun Stuff, Ideas, Neighborhood, Streetscapes

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.

I have to admit, I support putting utilities underground, but am dubious of the “first impression” argument. The utilities are currently slated to go underground only on the Newtown Pike Extension. The existing stretch of Newtown will still have above-ground utilities. So a visitor’s true first impression will still be filled with wires and poles from I-75 to Main Street, as seen in this shot of Newtown from this afternoon.

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.

This past Tuesday, the city’s contractors showed up to clear the lot – less than one business day after my email and post. Pretty impressive by any measure. Code Enforcement hasn’t addressed all of the concerns I outlined (the main drain in the lot is still clogged). But, to be fair, they have addressed most of the public safety issues which accompanied the blight in that lot.

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.

Health care reform: A small business perspective

August 28, 2009January 3, 2015 Rob Morris 4 Comments Business, Community, Ideas, Lowell's

This week, we’re finalizing our shop’s health insurance requirements for the next year. Our policy will be 25% more this year for the same coverage. Last year, it grew by 16%. Compounded, that’s 45% in two short years. No other cost increases on that scale for us.

As a small business, the spiraling costs of health care hit us particularly hard each year. And the need for a new approach to health care is particularly acute, for us and for our employees.

I’ve been puzzling over health care for a long while – and I won’t claim to have the answers here. But I thought it could be helpful to step away from the town hall and cable channel histrionics and fear-mongering to share some observations on health care from a small business perspective.

Insurance companies are like casinos: The house always wins.
Insurance companies have received a lot of criticism during the
health care reform debate. But they are doing precisely what they are
designed to do. They make money for investors by taking bets on the
health requirements of their customers.

Insurance companies operate like casinos or racetracks: the table is
always tilted in favor of the house. They may lose big on a single
‘jackpot’, but across the full array of customers they nearly always win. And when they don’t win ‘enough’, they’ll raise the cost of making bets with them.

When we enter into agreements with insurance companies, we’re always taking a sucker’s bet that we’re very likely to lose. The only reason an insurance company takes our money is because they ‘bet’ that we won’t need that amount of medical care.

Ultimately, as with the casino, the house wins.

The oddity of employer-provided health insurance.
We don’t really question it much today, but it is just plain strange that something as personal and as private as health care is mediated by employers at all. We don’t usually involve our employers in house payments or banking or appliance purchases or car insurance. But, somehow, we’ve come to expect them to provide health care insurance.

Employer-provided insurance is an historical artifact from negotiations between General Motors and labor unions in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. Charles Wilson, GM’s CEO, saw it as a last-ditch concession to help prevent the ‘nationalized healthcare’ system that Harry Truman was championing – which Wilson saw as a threat to the integrity of the free enterprise system. (Funny how many things just don’t change.) Soon, other employers adopted health care coverage as a standard part of their benefits packages, and employer-provided insurance became the norm.

But, really, why are we employers involved at all?

Leverage
One reason that employers remain involved is that they often have more buying power than individuals. Over the past 60 years, we’ve been able to provide leverage which lets us negotiate somewhat better plans with insurers and medical providers.

But small businesses have scant more negotiating leverage than an individual. Often, our employees choose to get independent coverage rather than participate in our group plan.

When Lowell’s bid out to three other health insurance companies, the results were disheartening. The other three companies offered rates that were 200% to 300% higher than our current rates with Anthem. So we’re ‘trapped’ with Anthem.

Expanding waistlines, increasing costs.
As a nation, we’re getting a lot unhealthier. We eat more. We exercise less. We sleep less. We’re in worse health. We’re living longer. And we need more care.

We don’t spend much time, effort, or money on the preventative health care and self-care which would help eliminate the much more expensive catastrophic care. We’re too busy to exercise. We don’t want to pay for the mammogram. We don’t like waiting in the doctor’s office.

And we require more medical care as a result. Often, we get that
care after a catastrophe built upon years of self-abuse: We have a heart
attack. Our knees fail. The cancer spreads. (We see the same phenomenon with routine maintenance in the car business – put it off, put it off, put it off, then replace an engine.)

Health care is getting more expensive, in part, because we are getting unhealthier.

Rising expectations, increasing costs.
We’ve
come to expect more from our medical system. We expect our doctors,
staff, drugs, equipment, and facilities all to improve. And we should expect improvement as medical science advances.

But
those advances are costly. The astronomical research and development
costs for the medical ‘miracles’ of MRIs and cholesterol-fighting drugs
and ‘little blue pills’ have to be paid for in some fashion.

And doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies won’t simply absorb those costs. They will pass them on to patients.

Health care is getting more expensive, in part, because health care is getting better.

There are no painless solutions.
We’ve seen politicians, lobbyists, pundits, and fellow citizens all offer various versions of ‘painless’ solutions to the healthcare problem.

They promise that government should bear more of the burden. Or that government shouldn’t bear any of the burden. Or that we just need full, universal insurance. Or that insurance companies should pay. Or drug companies. Or hospitals. Or doctors. Or that we shouldn’t have to pay for the chronically uninsured. Or that we should just collar all the lawyers and their malpractice suits. Or we should just have more competition.

Nobody says that we must bear the responsibility. But we must.

If we refuse to provide insurance or government coverage for the roughly 45 million uninsured Americans, what happens to those who can’t pay? Hospitals and emergency rooms will still provide care. Their costs will go up. And they will pass those costs to other patients in the form of, say, an $8 dose of ibuprofen. We pay.

If we provide government-paid health care to them (or to ourselves), what happens? Our national deficit will rise. This week’s projection of a $9 trillion deficit over 10 years amounts to about $30,000 per man, woman, and child. Which will have to be funded through taxes. We pay.

If we have full universal coverage in a government program, what happens? Because they don’t bear the initial brunt of the costs, patients get more health care than they really need. And doctors and medical institutions will happily provide (or suggest) that profitable care. More deficit. More taxes. We pay.

If we squeeze insurance company profit (or put greater requirements on them), what happens? They will likely refuse coverage for the riskiest, least profitable customers. Unable to find private coverage, those customers will opt to go without coverage or to go with a public plan. More $8 (or, now, $10) ibuprofen. More taxes. We pay.

If we squeeze drug or equipment company profits, what happens? They have less to invest in research and development. They take fewer risks, and release fewer blockbuster drugs or fewer equipment breakthroughs. Improvements in our medical care falter. We pay.

If we collar lawyers and malpractice suits, what happens? Doctors’ malpractice insurance costs will likely go down. But a few careless doctors who commit malpractice may inflict injury or death without significant penalty. And who ultimately bears the cost of that irresponsibility and that injury or death? We do. We pay.

If we allow more competition between insurance companies, what happens? The insurance companies look at the same basic actuarial tables. They evaluate risks in the same way. They put a price on the ‘bets’ they are willing to take in the same way. And their prices remain about the same as without as much competition. We pay.

We want ever-better medical care. We are getting unhealthier. We want someone else to pay for it. But they won’t. We must bear the responsibility. We must pay.

Can government, insurance companies, hospitals, and doctors get more efficient? Sure. Are there opportunities to eliminate waste? You bet. Can we patients get healthier and do more preventative care? Absolutely. But it will cost us in some way.

There are no painless solutions. In the end, we all pay.

The moral obligation
“Is health care a right or a privilege?”

It is a question that we don’t talk about enough, and which underlies much of the national divide about health care today. Is health care a right to which all people are entitled? Or, is it a privilege bestowed only upon those who have earned it?

It is an interesting question, and the health care debate has hinged upon how people answer it.

Except that I think that it is the wrong question.

The “right or privilege” question presupposes that rights and privileges are somehow separable. I don’t think that they are.

I think of health care in many of the same ways as I think of citizenship or, even, to being a human being. As citizens and as humans, we have certain ‘inalienable’ rights. Heck, our country was built upon them – “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

But those citizen’s (and human) rights come with deep responsibilities. We must participate. We must act in certain ways. We must work together to improve our nation and our well-being. We can’t abuse the fundamental rights we have been given.

For me, health care comes down to a moral issue. I can’t tolerate 45 million fellow citizens living without a safety net. I can’t tolerate wasteful spending on needless tests and procedures on the public dime. I can’t tolerate 45% increases in insurance costs over 2 years. I can’t tolerate ‘competition’ which triples my existing rates. I can’t tolerate people (including me, unfortunately) who don’t take good enough care of themselves.

I can’t tolerate the status quo. Can you?

For me, health care is a citizen’s right. And an earned privilege. We must strive to provide health care for fundamental human needs whenever possible, while simultaneously striving to ensure we grapple with the responsibilities that come along with that privilege.

So to the politicians, lobbyists, pundits, and citizens engaged in the public debate, I say: Grow up. Step up to the plate. Quit attacking. Get realistic. Have adult discussions. Lose the scare tactics. Work together. Compromise. Take responsibility. Live up to your moral obligations.

Then, maybe, just maybe, we can build a better health care system. For our nation. And for one another.

What you told us: How Zappos would fix cars

August 14, 2009January 3, 2015 Rob Morris 3 Comments Auto Industry, Business, Customer Service, Fun Stuff, Ideas, Lowell's

This week we asked for your help in defining an astoundingly great car repair experience. We summed it up this way: How would Zappos fix cars?

In Wednesday’s post, we talked a little about what Zappos does and why customers love them, including the famous I Heart Zappos post. And in the past two days, we’ve gotten some really great responses on Twitter, Facebook, and here on the blog – including one response from a Zappos employee!

Over on Facebook, Joan commented that she thought that Zappos was actually the “Lowell’s of selling shoes“. (We heart Joan.) We love that sentiment and will try to live up to it, but still think we have a lot to potential to improve our own customer service.

On Twitter, Jim suggested that Zappos “would come to your house and fix it at night while you slept“. Allan and Mari joked about needing to buy parts online from Amazon (an allusion to Zappos’ recent purchase by Amazon.com).

But the strongest theme running through the comments: The need for greater transparency in auto repair. I’ll run through some of the comments, and then talk a little about what Lowell’s does (and what we could do based on your comments). On Twitter, Jupiter said he’d like to prevent that “being had” feeling, perhaps by getting greater detail on what was being repaired and why it was needed. Ace Weekly chimed in “They would spoon you before giving you the bill?” Here on the blog, Letha (a Zappos employee) shared a friend’s experience with a body shop which sent her daily text messages about the status of her car after a wreck, including a countdown to when it would be ready. Jim added this comment:

“The thing the frustrates me about car repair is the unexpected nature
and size of the expense. It would be nice to provide as part of the
service an educational piece that says here are the expected life
cycles for key systems for your car and what you might expect to pay.
And here are indicators of failure so we can start to diagnose these
issues BEFORE they happen. At some point, owners need to start
BUDGETING for system replacement and failure and that takes planning
and information.”

What’s clear from this last batch of comments is that automotive service is all-too-frequently a kind of mysterious ‘black box’ where a car goes in one side and nasty, unpleasant surprises emerge from the other.

At Lowell’s we try to prevent such surprises in the following ways:

On each invoice, we print a list of factory-recommended maintenance given vehicle mileage, including a rating of the severity or urgency of each one, and pricing. We try to review that list with our customers when they pick up or drop off their vehicle. We sometimes fail to discuss maintenance needs during busy pick-up and drop-off times.
We always get customer approval before doing work on a vehicle, providing customers with estimates of the costs before we do the work. If they are available, we’ll also offer less-expensive alternatives, like fixing or cleaning a part instead of replacing it. (Ace, we try to reduce the need for ‘spooning’ whenever possible.)
When we call a customer to get approval, we tell them what a technician found and explain why action might be needed.

Based on your comments to us, here are some ideas of what we could do:

Explainers. For frequently-done maintenance and repair service items, we could provide detailed “explainer” sheets, including text and pictures regarding what the service is, why it is needed, and what a part might look like when it needs replacement.
Schedules. With ongoing maintenance, it is easier to implement Jim’s suggestion
that we provide more of a roadmap of service. And we do that, to some extent,
with our list of factory-recommended maintenance. But it is very
difficult to predict with accuracy when something will break and
require repair, and for many repairs there are few warning signs until
something breaks. When visible, we’ll tell customers about signs like
brake or belt wear or engine leaks. One idea: We could take pictures of the actual parts that are wearing or of the places that are leaking, to show the thing that needs service.
Convenience. Not sure yet how we might do something like this, but Jim’s other suggestion of working on vehicles overnight is interesting. Perhaps we could pick a car up and have it back in the morning for very basic items, but a big part of our process is communicating back to customers about what we find (and they probably won’t welcome updates at 2 in the morning). But Jim’s suggestion got us thinking: Are there other ways we could make getting auto service easier?
Updates. As a mechanical shop, most of our repairs are completed same-day, so we almost never have the 20-day delay in getting completed that Letha’s friend had at the body shop. But Letha’s post got us thinking: Are there other ways you’d prefer to be contacted? While the phone is our usual way of updating customers, we do frequently find ourselves in a kind of phone tag during the service approval process. We could provide more contact alternatives: text messages, Twitter DM’s (direct messages), etc.

Which of these things would matter to you? What other things would create an astounding car repair experience for you?

We really appreciate your thoughts, and please, keep giving us ideas on how to improve.

How would Zappos fix cars?

August 12, 2009January 3, 2015 Rob Morris 2 Comments Auto Industry, Customer Service, Fun Stuff, Ideas, Lowell's

We spend a lot of time thinking about how to make our shop a better place for our customers and our community. We feel like we're pretty good at the basics. Just a few examples:

We have an expert staff who know how to get cars fixed.
We have a lot of nice touches for customers who wait on their vehicles: 5-cent Cokes, complimentary coupons for a drink and snack at Third Street Stuff, and we encourage customers to take our waiting area magazines with them.
For customers who can't wait around, we have a complimentary shuttle to take them back home or to work. For longer repairs, we provide complimentary loaner vehicles.

These (and many other) touches have helped us a lot.

But "It can always be better" is my personal motto. This isn't some pessimistic, glass-half-empty statement; it is a fundamental belief that we can always improve the way we do things.

So we've been thinking about companies that really excel in customer service, and one name keeps popping up: Zappos.

Zappos is a world-class online shoe and clothing retailer who has gained a fanatical customer following because they do a lot of things right:

They offer free shipping (both ways). While not promised, the shipping is often next-day.
They have a 365-day return policy. If your shoes don't fit or don't look the way you expected, return them at no cost.
They have round-the-clock customer service.
They have a positive culture which puts a premium on providing astoundingly great customer service and having fun.
They have an enthusiastic staff which has permission to make things 'right' for customers with frequent pleasant surprises like this one.

Zappos recently agreed to be acquired by Amazon.com, and there has been a lot of concern about their ability to maintain their unmatched customer service.

But for us, Zappos presents an interesting question:

How would Zappos fix cars?

What would an astoundingly great car repair experience be like? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

We can't wait to see what you come up with.

UPDATE: What you told us.

Pretty to Gritty: Thoughts on Lexington Streetscapes

August 4, 2009January 3, 2015 Rob Morris 1 Comment Better Lexington, Community, Ideas, Neighborhood, Streetscapes

Last week, Lexington’s Downtown Development Authority held a “Downtown Improvements Public Forum” to share plans for renovating streetscapes along Limestone, Cheapside, Vine, and Main Streets. (Controversial renovations on South Limestone are already underway.) More ‘open house’ than ‘forum’, the lead agency for DDA’s plans, Kinzelman Kline Gossman, had ringed the room with posters showing artists’ renderings of what the streetscapes would look like and detailing guidelines for street and sidewalk construction. (Large PDF of the DDA streetscape plan here.)

Walking through the door, there was a telling moment. There was an artist’s rendering of what South Limestone would look like after the streetscape project was finished. It was beautiful. Except that it wasn’t South Limestone. The lone rendering of a South Limestone streetscape, while pretty, included non-existent buildings and storefronts.

Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to manage relationships and to interact with numerous creative agencies: design firms, ad agencies, industrial designers, consultants, and the like. I’ve had many opportunities to witness their creative processes at work. I’ve also seen the common pitfalls of such creativity. And Wednesday’s open house struck a familiar chord.

One of the most common pitfalls of creative work is to focus disproportionately on ‘the pretty’. ‘Pretty’ is creative work in its purest, most idealistic form. Pretty designs are often, as their name would imply, beautiful and inspiring. And as long as inspiration is their primary goal, pretty designs can be useful.

But too often, pretty designs are seen as some kind of end point in the creative work. After producing a a creative product, the agency – or, worse, their clients – see the work as complete. They frequently choose not to get ‘dirty’ with the unglamorous implementation of the project. Many design firms see implementation as too mundane, too pedestrian. In their view, they should focus on the pure ‘art’ of their creativity; it is then up to the engineer, the website coder, or the construction foreman to do the arduous task of making the project match the pretty design.

And that is precisely the problem with pretty designs.

When the pretty design meets schedule constraints or cost constraints or other real-world constraints, it can fall apart. When the engineer or construction worker runs up against physical realities, the pretty design often gets severely compromised, and becomes something considerably less pretty.

While pretty creativity gets accolades and awards, it usually only accounts for a small fraction (I’d guess 5 to 10%, based on my experience) of the real creative work on a project. And that real creative work is what I would characterize as ‘gritty’ creativity: the practical, streetwise, action-oriented creativity which actually drives the project forward and finds creative solutions to real-world problems. The success or failure of complex projects depends in great measure on how much ‘gritty’ creativity is employed within those projects.

The disconnect between pretty and gritty is the most common cause of failure in creative projects.

What I saw at the DDA’s forum was an abundance of stylistic and architectural details. They had detailed guidelines for how to design intersections and sidewalks. They had beautiful renderings of what downtown streets could look like after the designs were applied. They had very pretty designs for the future of our downtown.

But what was missing from the forum was any substantial gritty design work for the actual execution of the project.

In the wake of the uncoordinated and under-publicized closure of South Limestone for streetscape improvements, I – and many others in attendance – expected many more practical, gritty details about how the rest of ‘Phase I’ (Cheapside, Vine, and Main Streets) would be implemented. Indeed, I had also hoped to find out more about how future phases would affect my business and those of my neighbors on North Limestone.

The disconnect between ideal (“the pretty”) and implementation (“the gritty”) was troubling: Could we be headed for another South Limestone?

In the South Limestone closure, many businesses seemed to have little time to prepare for losing a big chunk of customers for a year or more. Commuters had little time to adapt to drastically altered traffic patterns. While the city made some public parking available, that parking was a pedestrian-unfriendly 4 to 5 blocks away from some of the affected businesses. In short, South Limestone needed some gritty design for the implementation and coordination of the project.

The pretty planning for downtown streetscapes has been underway for years. But real-world work on Main, Vine, and Cheapside is slated to begin in just 3 to 4 months. This short timeframe creates added urgency for understanding how the rest of the streetscape project will really work. And the utter lack of gritty planning details in last week’s meeting makes answers to the following questions even more important.

Could all three streets, as with South Limestone, be completely closed?
Which sections of which streets will be closed? For what periods? What is the planned sequence of closures?
When can each business on the affected streets expect their businesses to be interrupted?
How long will such business interruptions last? What will those interruptions look like? Where will they be most severe?
How can we accelerate the project where business interruptions will be most profound?
Can we sequence closures around business cycles? Could retailers be least affected during the holiday shopping season? Could work near outdoor cafés be completed by spring?
How will the city or DDA assist businesses during the closures? How will such assistance be more effective than what was done for South Limestone? Targeted ad campaigns? Special events? Shuttle services from parking garages?
Will drivers need to find alternate routes (as with South Limestone)?
What are the likely sources of project delay? How will those be mitigated?
What, precisely, are the future phases? When are they slated?

To avoid the chaos that accompanied the South Limestone closure, the DDA and the city must begin mapping out the gritty planning of how this project gets executed. And simply throwing such vital details to a construction contractor isn’t acceptable.

The streetscape project is certainly a pretty design. But, if it is to be a successful urban development project – if it is to help us build a better, more vibrant city – then it must get much more gritty as well.

LexMobs on South Limestone?

July 22, 2009October 16, 2015 Rob Morris 1 Comment Business, Community, Fun Stuff, Ideas, LexMob, Lowell's, Neighborhood

The South Limestone streetscape project gets underway this morning. Using Twitter, Lexington’s Mayor announced that the closure will result in traffic delays of up to 45 minutes.

From a public point of view, the closure seems hastily and poorly planned, although the promised streetscapes look wonderful. The project stems from a noble goal: to better connect the University of Kentucky campus with downtown Lexington.

But businesses lining South Limestone (SoLime) had little time to adapt to the closure, and I wonder how many can survive being starved of traffic for so long. When Lexingtonians realize that there is a “mess” surrounding SoLime, they will stay away in droves. (With a business just off of North Limestone, I’m concerned about the disruptions to our southside Lexington customers making it in to Lowell’s.)

There are a lot of great businesses along SoLime that would be a shame to lose: Sav’s, Pazzo’s, Tolly Ho, Failte, Sqecial Media, and many, many others. Some (maybe all) of these are Lexington institutions.

How long could they operate without significant customer patronage? How long could they retain employees? How long can they make debt / rent payments? How long can they pay bills? How long can they survive?

So, here’s a challenge for our readers: Let’s go out of our way to demonstrate that we care about those businesses.

Beginning today, and continuing through the next month, let’s pick one or two businesses to “flash mob” each day. Let’s get together to show, with our feet and our wallets, that we want those businesses to survive. Let’s show up. And eat. Or buy. Or drink. Let’s refuse to let these businesses fail.

If our LexMobs get too big, that’s OK – I’m sure that the plentiful nearby businesses would also love some of our overflow business.

Will this effort be well-organized and well-thought-out in advance? Not a chance. Will it be messy? Yes. Will it be chaotic? Absolutely. Will it be inconvenient? Certainly. Will you be too busy to interrupt your day? Undoubtedly.

But that is precisely the point: to go out of our way to demonstrate we care for these businesses.

So… Let’s LexMob South Limestone. Look for more details on Twitter with the hashtags #LexMob and #SoLime. See you there!

Update: The inaugural LexMob will be Wednesday, July 22nd @ Pazzo’s Pizza Pub at 11:30 AM near Euclid on SoLime. Can’t make it? We’ll try for other times and places with future LexMobs!

Toward a Better Lexington

July 9, 2009January 3, 2015 Rob Morris 0 Comment Better Lexington, Community, Ideas, Neighborhood, Rants

"It has taken five years on Council to understand what we can and cannot control."
Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council Member Kevin Stinnett, 7/2/2009

How do we make Lexington a better city? Really better? I have some ideas, but first we need to understand some of Lexington's fatal flaws in order to design something better…

A Broken City
As a relative newcomer to the inner machinery of our city (but a lifelong resident), I have spent a few months trying to figure out how Lexington 'works'. As a downtown business owner, my focus has been on how we craft a functioning, vibrant, and livable city: How do we create a better Lexington? And it has been a maddening exercise. The more I delve into how decisions are made in Lexington – the more I understand what is actually going on – the more perplexed I become. I am forced to conclude that our city is deeply, systemically, and utterly broken.

Lexington is an uncoordinated tangle of overlapping agencies, boards, task forces, committees, departments, rules, and processes. Within this messy system, each organization is charged with its own distinctive – but often overlapping or conflicting – mission, mandate, authority, ability, accountability, and expertise. Some of the organizations consist of long-term government administrators, some of elected officials, some of volunteers, others are quasi-governmental public/private agencies, and still others are fusions of all of these.

This highly fragmented machinery yields a city which fosters turf battles, redundant effort, convoluted processes, secrecy, uncertainty, and, as we have seen most recently, corruption.

The ultimate result is a profoundly inefficient city with an effectively paralyzed government.

Scandalous
Lately, our local news has been rife with scandals and poorly-conceived,
-designed, and -executed projects:

Out of control spending sprees at
the Airport, the Library, the Kentucky League of Cities, and the Kentucky
Association of Counties.
The scar of CentrePointe's failure with its phantom
financier, phantom tower, phantom business model, and phantom jobs.
The seemingly hasty and disorganized pending closure of South Limestone.

All of these scandals fit a disturbingly regular pattern: Inadequate
oversight which leads to lax controls which permits gross mismanagement
and/or outright waste of taxpayer dollars.

Behind this pattern of scandal and appalling inefficiency lies Lexington's deeply flawed governing apparatus. And when we observe that apparatus in action, we can begin to understand the root of the scandals.

Laurel and Hardy
Many Urban County Council meetings bear an astounding and troubling resemblance to a Laurel and Hardy "Who's on First?"
sketch. A prime example of this was last Thursday's Economic
Development Task Force meeting (See Ace Weekly's wonderful reality-show spoof here for further examples). A central question of last week's meeting was "Who is (really) responsible for economic development in Lexington?"

At the outset, one councilmember stated, "It has taken five years on Council to understand what we can and cannot control." Re-read that statement, because it is a profound indictment of our city's overcomplicated decisionmaking infrastructure. Five years. It takes five years for a councilmember to "get it" when they are steeped in it day-to-day? How long will it take for an ordinary citizen?

And by the way, despite the councilmember's assertion, I don't think the Council yet understands what they can and cannot control, as the ensuing conversation demonstrated.

The Task Force (Consisting of Urban County Council members) debated the Council's role in economic development relative to Commerce Lexington ("CLex", Lexington's semi-private chamber of commerce) and the Downtown Development Authority ("DDA", a corporation commissioned by the city and charged with helping redevelop downtown). Both CLex and DDA have a board of directors and a staff of professionals.

What emerged from the discussion (chronicled best by Debbie Hildreth on her new blog about acclimating back to Lexington) is that the councilmembers have little clarity and little agreement on the respective roles, responsibilities, plans, and accountability of the Council, CLex, DDA, and the CLex and DDA boards. Reading through Debbie's transcript, the councilmembers' statements are filled with stale bromides, helpless complaints, quick answers and utter confusion. It all becomes tragically comic when you see how our elected officials are not even remotely on the same page.

And it is no wonder that our Council is befuddled. The situation is actually far more complicated than just the Council, CLex, and DDA. Within the Council itself, there are a bewildering array of committees and task forces, all of which could lay legitimate claim to economic development. There is, of course, the Economic Development Task Force. But there is also the Infill and Redevelopment Task Force. There is the Planning Committee. But there is also the Budget and Finance Committee. And the Outside Agency Oversight Committee. And the Corridors Committee. (But wait, there's more!) There are staff professionals within Lexington's Division of Planning. There are volunteers who serve on the Planning Commission. And with CentrePointe, there is the Courthouse Area Design Review Board, which issues the building permits for the site.

Within this ridiculous balkanization of our government, who has the jurisdiction, the responsibility, and the accountability for building a better Lexington? Everyone and no one at once. And therein lies the problem.

All of these organizations can claim they spearhead Lexington's development into a better city. All of them "own" a piece. But ultimately, none appear truly accountable for actual on-the-ground progress.

The Lyric
With a noble project like the restoration of the Lyric Theater, who is in charge? Who takes the lead on coordinating and executing the Lyric's redevelopment?

The Lyric could plausibly fall under the auspices of the DDA. Or CLex. Or the Infill and Redevelopment Task Force. Or the Economic Development Task Force. Or the Planning Commission. Or, even, the Corridors Committee. Ultimately, though, responsibility fell to another shard in the splintered machine: the Lyric Theater Task Force (who, by the way, appeared to do a great job).

And while the Lyric task force optimized the project for the theater's redevelopment, it isn't at all clear where this project falls within the wide array of potential development opportunities in our city. It isn't clear how the Lyric was connected to our other urban initiatives. In a fiscally-strapped economic environment, was the Lyric the best possible allocation of public funds? We can't really tell, because we haven't really prioritized such development projects by return on our public investment.

Destination 2040: Destined to Fail
Some councilmembers have pointed to the Destination 2040 report as a roadmap for Lexington to follow in its development endeavors. Destination 2040 is an admirable vision of the future constructed by our citizens. It is filled with interesting ideas and initiatives to help improve our city. But it is most certainly not a roadmap.

Destination 2040 lacks clear prioritization of the initiatives it proposes. It fails to identify adequate operational details of how to fund, structure, and execute the components of the Destination 2040 vision. And, most of all, it fails to address the profound structural inefficiencies within Lexington which have long hampered such well-intentioned visions.

Toward a Better Lexington

What kinds of structural changes are needed in Lexington? I have a few ideas. I hope that you will add more.

Transparency
When I began to look at how our city works, I quickly joined the
chorus of advocates for greater transparency in how decisions get made
in Lexington and throughout Kentucky.

And that advocacy has
begun to pay dividends (whether the results of our actions or not). As
local officials take their first baby steps on Twitter, and as more of
our citizens engage in local decisionmaking through attending meetings
in person, watching them on public access television (GTV3), or
following vibrant discussions on Twitter, one fact has become
abundantly clear to me: Transparency is not enough. Not nearly enough.

While
transparency has helped reveal the scandals and issues facing our city, transparency alone won't really solve them. Don't get me wrong – we're now starting to see into the machine. It's just that we're learning that the machine is completely dysfunctional.

Comprehensive Urban Development
Whatever 'system' we have in place today, it isn't one which promotes sustained urban development. I use the term urban development purposefully here: It is more than mere city planning; It is more than simply promoting our city; It is more than just economic development. Urban development looks at our city as a functioning engine of economic and social progress, and strategically deploys our city's 'fabric' – spaces, corridors, amenities, people, businesses, buildings – to maximize sustainable advancement in our economy, in our social lives, in our physical environment, and in our aesthetic surroundings.

In short, it looks at how we intentionally design a better-functioning, vibrant, and livable city.

Simplification
It is clear that the splintered approach to bettering our city is failing. Our continuous scandals and perpetual lack of progress cement that conclusion, as does the bewildering overlap of dozens of separate well-intentioned but poorly-conceived organizations.

My proposal: Eliminate today's governmental tangle by collapsing the DDA, Planning Commission, the Division of Planning, and the LFUCG Economic Development Office (for starters) into a single, centralized, and well-staffed organization with the clear mandate, clear authority, and clear accountability for successfully implementing our city's urban development initiatives.

Focus
Concentrating urban development authority in a single organization will only work if we provide them with crystal-clear priorities on what is important. With dozens of possible initiatives, visions like the Destination 2040 report lack clear priorities. In essence, it declares that everything is important. And in trying to do everything, we'd fail to accomplish anything.

We need to provide such an organization with guiding principles on what's important (and what isn't). Is the organization designed to maximize tax revenue, jobs, infill, downtown density, or something else?

From out of these principles, we should set realistic and quantifiable goals: "3000 new jobs by the end of 2010"; "$30 million in new tax revenues by 2012"; "10% higher residential density in downtown by 2014"; etc.

My initial thoughts are that the core principles and the goals attached to them should be outlined by the Urban County Council. That said, I'd like to see a way to balance continuity and change: As a city, we probably don't want long-term initiatives derailed by short-term political changes. But we also don't want to 'lock in' failing projects merely for the sake of continuity.

From these principles and goals, staff professionals should derive the best 4 or 5 initiatives for achieving the established goals. Would the Lyric Theater have emerged as one of the 4 or 5 best possible urban development projects? I don't know, but I have my doubts. It doesn't appear to scale very well on "jobs" or "revenues" dimensions. But, of course, neither does CentrePointe at present. Would we risk destroying surrounding businesses to "beautify" South Limestone's streetscapes? I don't know, but I have my doubts.

Accountability
When the Economic Development Task Force met last week, councilmembers bemoaned the $400,000 provided to Commerce Lexington to bring new business to the area. To date, there's little proof that this 'investment' has paid dividends. How much business? How many jobs? What new tax revenue? CLex really isn't accountable to the Council, so there's no real penalty for not delivering. Where'd the $400,000 go? The Council would like to know, too…

When we make the transformation to a simplified and focused urban development authority, we must have accountability for progress on these development initiatives. Do they adhere to our principles? Are they meeting our goals? Are they successful? If so, who gets rewarded? If not, who gets fired?

Do I expect my proposed system to be adopted? Not really. But I would like for our leaders to begin to discuss seriously reforming how our city's decisionmaking machinery functions. And the system which emerges must be more transparent, more simplified, more focused, and more accountable. It must help us build a better Lexington.

A modest proposal to end blight

May 27, 2009January 3, 2015 Rob Morris 1 Comment Better Lexington, Business, CentrePointe, Community, Ideas, Lowell's, Neighborhood, Rants

Comprehensive Care Parking Lot

Every morning when I walk into work at Lowell's, I see 8-foot-tall tree-weeds growing through unkempt hedges and spilling over into the public sidewalk. I see a planter adjoining our building, burgeoning with weeds and grass and the massive stump of a long-dead tree. I see a pitted, crumbling parking lot with clogged drainage.

Many customers assume it is our lot. It does adjoin our building. And they can't see the sign declaring "Comprehensive Care Center Parking Only".

116 Mechanic Street

Across the street I see a tiny old shotgun house with a gigantic half-rotted tree looming ominously over both the house and the main Lowell's parking lot. After the ice storm and other storms this spring, downed branches lay in the asphalt front yard of the house. For over two months.

Absentee owners neglect both properties. Neighboring businesses have conducted the most of the maintenance on the properties over the past couple of years. In effect, they are abandoned.

As a business owner, I worry about the effect it has on Lowell's famously loyal customers. Even if they cherish us and the service we provide, I'm genuinely concerned about the ability of such eyesores to repel visitors to the shop.

I often talk with nearby business owners, who share my concern for the negative effects of these properties on our neighborhood.

* * *

Many folks have wondered why I have been so vocal on the CentrePointe mess. There are many reasons, but one of the biggest is that the abandoned properties surrounding Lowell's have given me firsthand experience the negative effects of blight like the CentrePointe scar.

There are many such highly-visible, blighted, non-productive and apparently abandoned properties in Lexington: CentrePointe in Downtown, Lexington Mall on Richmond Road, and Continental Inn on New Circle at Winchester are some of the most apparent. But there are numerous smaller examples littering our city.

Just like the properties surrounding our shop, the absentee owners seek to avoid any and all expenses. They avoid capital gains taxes by refusing to sell their properties. They avoid maintenance expenses by refusing to invest to make their properties economic contributors to the community. They avoid property taxes by refusing to improve their decrepit real estate.

Such abandoned properties generate near-zero direct contributions to the economy. Moreover, they generate negative economic effects for surrounding properties and businesses: They drive away business and drive down property values.

* * *

It is time for such neglect to end. It is time to make sure that lazy landowners are motivated 1) to improve their holdings and 2) to transform their properties into contributors to our community's economic engine.

My modest proposal: Implement a 'blight tax'. Lexington landownders whose property qualifies as 'blighted' would have to pay a moderately severe annual blight tax.

The definition of 'blighted' would need to be worked out, but should include an assessment of the property condition, as well as proof of substantial progress on needed improvements. We could start with Division of Code Enforcement standards.

To overcome their avoidance of maintenance expenses, property taxes, and/or capital gains taxes, I'd propose that the blight tax have some teeth: Say, 35% to 50% of assessed property value per year.

In the CentrePointe case, the blight tax would generate $8 to $12 million per year of revenue to the city until the developers improve their land. When historical buildings were demolished to make way for CentrePointe, many rationalized that the old buildings were greater eyesores than the pit which remains today. I disagree. But a blight tax may also have helped prevent the demolition-by-neglect which occurred on that block over the years.

I would imagine the former Lexington Mall and Continental Inn properties would generate amounts similar to CentrePointe, given their sizes and their locations on busy thoroughfares.

Such tax revenue could be specifically allocated to offsetting the effects of blight: community improvements to sidewalks, bike paths, streetscapes, parks, community centers, business incubators, community ventures, and the like. If property owners avoid the blight tax by making their properties more valuable (i.e., by improving them), then all the better.

To create a vibrant city, we need to ensure that Lexington doesn't have the economic scars that blight leaves behind: dead spots which contribute little (or which actually destroy) monetary value in our community.

My proposal is the blight tax. What's yours?

A better brand for Lexington

April 28, 2009January 3, 2015 Rob Morris 4 Comments Community, Ideas, Rants

Lexington's leaders are busy picking a new brand for our city.

Sorry, gang. You don't get to decide.

Last week, the Urban County Council's Planning Committee considered the city identity possibilities of the blue horse that Pentagram
(an international design firm) crafted for the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau. The committee forwarded the discussion on to the full Council.

Unfortunately, the Blue Horse Debate is a waste of
time, talent, money, and attention.

Our
representatives fail to realize that Lexington's brand is largely out
of their hands. And it certainly isn't in Pentagram's hands. Whether
they choose
to promote a blue horse or a spotted yak is irrelevant to Lexington's
brand.

Telling versus Earning
Marketers (and leaders) suffer from a kind of conceit. The marketers' conceit is that they can tell us what their brand means. They fail to realize that brands are reputations which are earned.

A brand isn't a
declaration. It isn't an intention or a vision. It isn't what leaders say it is, no matter how well it is designed and researched. It isn't
a great ad campaign or a really slick logo or a lyrical tag-line. It is certainly
not a marketing function.

Brands arise from all of our experiences with that product or that city,
not from what the leaders of any company or city want them to be (or say they are).

The best brands don't tell people they're great. They earn greatness.

If
people believe that Lexington is a boring town, then (unfortunately) that is part of our
brand. If people believe that we are a technology backwater, then that,
too, is part of our brand.

This is scary because our brand is
pre-set in peoples' minds, and it takes a lot of hard work to be good enough to dislodge entrenched perceptions.

It is scary because it isn't about saying we're better; it is about actually BEING better. Really
better, not just in-our-marketing-plan 'better'. Not just
approve-a-message/logo/strategy-in-a-meeting 'better', either.

We have to earn a reputation for better schools, better businesses, better technologies,
better leaders (and not just at LFUCG, either), better conversations, better people, and
better visions of the future. And we can't buy that reputation from any design or branding firm.

To improve our brand, we have to truly transform Lexington.

Inertia
So why do our representatives persist in their silly pursuit of the blue horse?

Over the years, I've frequently witnessed something
I call institutional inertia. Institutional inertia happens
when individuals in an organization don't really feel
responsible for (or influential upon) the success of the organization.

In those cases, the easiest thing to do is just stay the course, even
if that course is doomed to failure… When inertia raises its ugly head, it is often,
maddeningly, the powerful (those who think they have the most to lose)
which become the most hostile to change and most determined to stay the
destructive course. Doing nothing is always easier than doing the
right thing, especially when doing the right thing is a lot of hard work.

And
paying someone to design an 'identity' is an easy-but-doomed course for
improving Lexington's brand. There is no 'magic bullet' for crafting a
better brand for our city.

If we want a better brand for Lexington, then make sure our city is
an attractive, welcoming place for our visitors. Ensure that our
people are knowledgeable, warm, and friendly. Create rich,
distinctive, and memorable experiences for both our citizens and our
visitors. Foster the growth of vibrant businesses and arts communities
that make Lexington a compelling place to work and play.

Then, perhaps, Lexington will earn the better brand we are seeking.

Update: 4/28 Cross-posted to both Ace Weekly and Transform Lexington.

Full disclosure: In a previous job, Rob severed his firm's relationship with Pentagram.

[where: 200 E Main St, Lexington, KY, 40507]

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