collisionbend.com

So, my bride and I just returned from our trip to Connecticut, where we had virtually no Internet access (well, there were some extenuating circumstances) — I was able to check email and post here only once the whole week — and I return to town to George responding to Seth Godin’s thoughts on a recent trip to Akron. (Actually, it was George’s RSS feed that alerted me to the discussion, not George in the middle of it.)

See, Seth supposedly thinks Akron is dead — or dying; others think not. And here I return to the region from arguably the busiest city in the world (New York) with an interesting perspective: I can see both points (which is really only one point, anyway).

As a life-long resident of the area — indeed, as a member of one of the area’s oldest families — I can tell you most assuredly that neither city is dead; far from it: you just have to know where to look for signs of life. You do, indeed — as Seth correctly points out — have to venture out of your hotel room (or your emotional shell, as the case may be with some folks).

It is truly unfortunate that Seth went to an event at that particular hotel. Or is it?

His point (and George’s, even though he was attempting to take the opposing viewpoint) was that the hotel employees were beaten down. Is this a corporate side-effect? Quite possibly.

In fact, quite probably.

For some odd reason, Cleveland is infected with a corporate mindset: “Unless it’s from a big corporation, it can’t be any good.” One excellent example of this is restaurants: we have virtually no independent restaurants here, save for Michael Symon’s excellent Lola Bistro (and its related restaurants), George Hwang’s beautiful Pearl of the Orient in Rocky River and Shaker Heights, and a couple of minor players like Molinari’s in Mentor, the Tangier in Akron and a few others.

Other than these few, the rest of the restaurants in the Cleveland-Akron area are chains dishing out average food and average service at best. We don’t talk about how “Mama Maria’s on Slingshot Street has the best Spaghetti and Meatballs with Marinara on the planet”; we speak of how good the food was at Bennigan’s — or Applebee’s — or Olive Garden — or __________ (fill in the blank).

It almost like having an independent restaurant in Cleveland is a curse.

In contrast, the New York/New England area is rife with independent restaurants, almost as if it was a way of life there (hmmmmm…); my bride and I ate at several. Interestingly, the vast majority of them are staffed with eager, energetic, and enthusiastic employees waiting to give you excellent service to accompany their excellent food. Like Seth points out about Starbucks, they choose to create the ultimate customer experience.

Admittedly, very few large corporations with satellite locations staffed with more than 8 or 10 employees can create that kind of enthusiasm.

And that’s where we — as a community — fall down on the job.

(Incidentally, it seems like there’s a Starbucks on every fourth corner in Manhattan — and virtually no independent coffee shops like our own Arabica or Phoenix — way to go, Ohio!)

Where we have Slyman’s on St. Clair, New York has the Stage Deli on Broadway — and probably 100 more like it within a few city blocks. What’s the difference between a Slyman’s corned beef sandwich and the same from Stage Deli — outside of location and fame? About 2 ounces of meat and 12 bucks.

Seriously.

But the folks at the Stage Deli are going to make damned sure that your sandwich is the best meal you’ve ever had: the service is impeccable, the environment clean, and the staff is incredibly friendly. Frankly, the best experience I’ve had at local delis has been, “Here’s your sandwich; that’ll be 8 bucks. Thank you, have a nice day (and don’t let the door…).” And I’m a decent tipper, too.

The funny thing is that we’re totally satisfied with this. We’d never let our children be this way, though.

We raise our children today to think freely; we encourage their creativity and then are astonished when they choose to leave the area for greener pastures. We complain about “brain drain” when we can’t even see Lake Erie for the waves on the beach: we’re telling our kids to “do as we say, not as we do” — and then wonder why we can’t get things to work properly here.

Then our kids come home and suggest a new way of doing something and we reply with a gruff, “Nah, it’ll never work.” We’re literally driving our best creative minds away from us, as if we were somehow less deserving to be blessed with their presence; we’re blind to how blessed we truly are, and in this regard Seth was bang-on target:

…the story has little to do with the economic reality and everything to do with self-image.

For those that have mis-read or mis-interpreted Seth, the above quote is what he has been talking about all along, even when he is talking about Starbucks or some other purple cow: marketing is about self-image, yours, theirs and mine. And our self-image here in Northeast Ohio, in general (but not in all cases), leaves a lot to be desired.

His trip to Akron was indeed unfortunate — from both his standpoint and ours — but quite telling nonetheless: he’s not saying that Akron is dead; he’s saying that someone’s self-image is dead, which can either be disastrous for the city — or it can serve as a wake-up call for the entire region. It’s one man’s perception, one city’s outlook; that’s all. You have to ask yourself the obvious question.

Now mind you, there’s an enormous difference between New York and Akron — or Cleveland, for that matter. And thankfully so; comparing the two areas is like comparing apples and oranges in every sense. The Northeast Ohio area cannot — and will not ever be able to — compete with New York, so just get that thought out of your head right now.

We can, however, make this area a much nicer place to be; we just have to start in the right place: ourselves.

As I’ve said here before, we in the Northeast Ohio area need to get out of the self-limiting box we fold ourselves into every day and start thinking in new, more creative ways. We need to work together to foster innovation and entrepreneurialism — not just do our usual and give lip service or create some cronyistic, nepotism-laced program designed to employ friends and family of the political powers-that-be.

Only then will we truly begin to healthily grow as a region again. Only then will we be able to shake ourselves from giving experiences like Seth’s in Akron. Only then will we lose the tag of “The Rust Belt.” Only then will we be able to give our neighbors and guests that genuine, spontaneous and heart-felt “Midwest smile.”

In other words, we need to wake up and smell the coffee.

6 Comments

• by Adam Harvey 20 Sep 2005 at 10:41 am

  

  Will, I’m gonna have to disagree with you about “we have virtually no independent restaurants here.” A quick list that I’ve eaten at: Udupi, Phnom Penh, El Tango Taqueria, Empress Taytu, Sage, Parallax, La Dolce Vita, Mama Santa’s, Max’s, Stevenson’s, Heck’s, Johnny Mango’s, Great Lakes Brewing Company, Two Amigos and Fulton Bar and Grille. Cleveland is crawling with independent restaurants.

• by michael feigenbaum 21 Sep 2005 at 6:55 am

  

  i think you limit yourself, we have hundreds of local independent restaurants, unfortunatly most local consumers belly up to the chains by the thousands and the locals get the crumbs. the reality is that is the facts,a wall-mart grocery dept. single-handed outsells all the farmers markets in the area combined, the cheesecake factory is pissed because they only gross 5 million per year in legacy village, i own a local bakery that has survived for 48 years but we have stayed open running on fumes for the last few years. we have been on the food channel, featured in better homes and gardens, bon appetite, and many local papers. we support and vend at the north union farmers market, we sell more product at one 4 hour market than all day /all week in our store (holidays excepted) the conundrum is hard to ignore. this is not bitching, negative or limnited thinking. it is real life facts. outside the box? look at my website and let me know if you think it rates as fresh and top-shelf.
  michael@lucy’s.

• by Will Kessel 21 Sep 2005 at 5:33 pm

  

  Finally, a couple of folks who get it!

  To both of you: of course, there are many more local independent restaurants than I have listed here — many of them quite good (I even left out my favorite, the Beach Club Bistro in Euclid). I was speaking of a ratio rather than an absolute number, however; perhaps I didn’t make that as clear as I should have.

  I do note with interest your comment, Michael, about running a local bakery for 48 years, the last few on fumes; that’s exactly what I am talking about: we tend to see the chains move into our area and give up almost immediately. I give you a lot of credit for hanging in there. Plenty of those independent restaurants, groceries, bakeries and such have either fallen by the wayside, or — as you said yourself, Michael — are running on fumes.

  It’s not the chains’ fault; one look at the West Side Market will tell you that the little guy can thrive with virtually insurmountable competition right across the street. Very few at the WSM gave up when Dave’s moved in; they dug in and did what they had to do — and if you ask them today, they’ll tell you that they have no fear of Wal*Mart at Steelyard Commons.

  Why? They honestly believe in themselves. They don’t have grand delusions about how difficult things are. They’re not in a state of denial. They don’t complain at the first sign of struggle. They see what needs to be done and they do it. They welcome the challenge rather than complain that someone’s targeting them.

  Such is the level of their self-esteem, their self image.

  And *that’s* what Seth Godin was talking about — and nothing else.

  (Michael — you didn’t leave your URL, so I couldn’t take a look at your site; if you want to send it over to me, I’d be more than happy to take a look at it.)

• by Chris Varley 23 Sep 2005 at 12:26 pm

  

  Will, I mentioned your commentary in my own take on Seth’s visit, as I think you present the most balanced and articulate view on the whole issue (I used mine to make a few other points, and was intentionally a bit flip in the process).

  I’d appreciate your thoughts on what we’re trying to do with TechFutures, and to meeting with you personally at some point. url = http://www.techfutures.net

• by Will Kessel 23 Sep 2005 at 8:14 pm

  

  Well, my thing with Seth is that… see, I read him every day. I know what he’s on about; he’s one of the only marketers out there that understands that the marketing target’s self-image is at least as important — if not *more* important — than the marketer’s — if a marketing campaign is to be successful. He encompasses the emotional/spiritual end of the issue as well as the logical/technical/business end of it. He’s obviously a smart guy.

  After reading that statement, I was positive he made an unfortunate choice of words; dissing an entire area for one or two people’s actions/attitudes just ain’t his style. My big problem is with the response the NEO area gave to what to me was a simple, if not rather unfortunate, error: it made us look like a two-year-old that just had their dewie taken away. Seriously. David Geffels said it, too, (account or Bug-me-not required) and in the Akron B-J no less.

  What kind of image does that convey? To me, it means that my beloved hometown area has a severe inferiority complex, and we’re quite touchy about it.

  Touchy enough, in fact, to respond in a totally puerile fashion (pronounced: “pure’ -isle”; it means ’seriously childish’ or ‘immature’). I was appalled and embarrassed, truthfully. Think about it: NEO bloggers are the self-appointed ambassadors to the rest of the world; we have the power and technology to enhance — or discredit — our area with the simple, lightning-quick click of a mouse. And this is how we respond? Totally puerile.

  Not necessarily incorrect, mind you, but puerile nonetheless. We need to stop and think before we fly off the handle next time (and, yes, there *will* be a next time — unfortunately).

  OK, enough pontificating; the event is over; let’s bury it. ;-)

  So… now to techfutures.net… Ummm… yeah… I took a quick look at your site… finding it a bit familiar-looking, I decided to View Source… hmmmm… yep! there it is, just as plain as day! You’re a client! I can tell an Optiem site from a mile away! ;-)

  I’m not sure how involved I can get with the process without talking to my higher-ups first. I also have a significant lack of free time for the next 3 or 4 months, so I’m not too sure what I can do anyway.

  Talk? I can do that anytime. ;-)

  I’d be more than happy to meet with you; let’s get together some day after work and quaff a beer.

• by Ralph Bormet 16 Dec 2006 at 11:25 am

  

  Dear Mr. Kessel:
  I stumbled on this thing about the death of Akron a few days ago and, after adding it to my Favorites column, I finally read it. As an ex-Akronite who moved to Florida 32 years ago, I agree with your analysis (though I only came back once in 1986). After that trip, I wrote an opinion piece in a now-defunct weekly newspaper based in Oviedo, Florida called the Oviedo Outlook. In it I relayed my disappointment with the attitude I saw in Akron merchants and employees. I recommneded that a campaign called “Thumbs Up Akron” be started that would mimic a camppaign done by a bank in Orlando called “Thumbs Up Florida”. In a nutshell, I recommneded:
  1. Inventory the assets you have in hand.
  2. Forget about any glory days from the past; focus on the present while planning for the future.
  3. Project an attitude of pride, confidennce and gratitude to each and every person (especially customers).
  4. Use the greatest resource you have–your brain–to imagine the future you wish to create.
  5. Then, just do it! (But make it an area-wide effort).
  Sincerely,
  Ralph Bormet