Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

header image
Buy Now

Blog

We interrupt this pandemic to bring you a Memorial Day message

by

This is my Memorial Day column with a coronavirus pandemic component, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Reasonable people disagree on the exact origins of what is now called Memorial Day. But most accept that the practice of decorating the graves of Americans who died defending their country began in earnest by women of the South during and following the Civil War.

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, National Commander of the Army of the Republic, was the first to make Memorial Day official. With General Order No. 11, he stated in part that “the 30th day of May 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.”

[Continue Reading]

The New Regular: In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic

by

This is the third installment of my New Regular series (seen anything normal lately?).

The first was about customer expectations and cheese, the second one was about paradigm shifts, tiny and not so much. The goal is to establish perspective and maintain focus on whatever is coming at us in the post-pandemic marketplace.

This offering is about identifying the implications of a pandemic shutdown. In that quest, another book came to mind that perfectly reveals the power of gaining 2020 perspective clarity from the 20:20 hindsight of history. In the Wake of the Plague, by the late Norman F. Cantor, chronicles the bubonic plague pandemic of the Middle Ages. Don’t leave – you’ll thank me later.

[Continue Reading]

The New Regular: Your pre-pandemic paradigms are shifting

by

This is the second column in my “New Regular” series (“normal” checked out in February). The focus is on how familiar, pre-pandemic customer relationships are likely to morph into less familiar post-pandemic customer behavior and expectations.

You’ll hear those twin-terms – pre- and post-pandemic – more and more, perhaps for the rest of your life. Like December 7, 1941, the date that lives in infamy as it marked a global generation, the events of 2020 will bisect memories and lives for decades.

In thinking of that pre/post bisect, another book comes to mind: Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future by my friend Joel Barker, one of the great futurists of our time. Joel didn’t invent the paradigm concept, but his landmark book and companion film reestablished it in our modern consciousness.

Barker: “A paradigm is a set of rules – written or unwritten – that establishes boundaries within which we learn how to be successful.”

[Continue Reading]

The New Regular: Your Cheese Has Been Moved

by

These are rough days on Main Street. Business owners are experiencing extreme stress and anxiety, unprecedented in cause, abruptness, velocity, and impact. 

Just now we’re dealing with a one-two punch to our lives and livings. The first blow was from a novel coronavirus pandemic and the second from the shutdown response to it. 

The shutdown punch – however necessary and politically-variable – has dealt a devastating financial blow to millions of small firms. And as the arc of the disease danger seems to be descending, business owners are increasingly struggling with an unprecedented internal conflict I’ve termed “Owner’s Choice”: Having to daily reassess the risk of a deadly disease against ongoing damage to their family’s financial future.  

[Continue Reading]

It’s time for America’s Main Street to go back to work

by

America’s small business sector is currently on an emotional roller coaster. Let me tell you a story about how far back we have to go – over 240 years – to find comparable unprecedented circumstances imposing similar anxiety on Main Street. 

During the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), colonial business owners, who were also American Patriots, were up against that conflict’s ebb and flow as it overlaid their marketplace. In any given month, the Continental Army would be dominant in a region, allowing the Patriot’s business to operate with its owner’s politics on display. But when the British later occupied that region, patrolling Redcoats would create a different atmosphere, as the King claimed military and political dominance. 

During that unprecedented period, the life of any Patriot entrepreneur became extremely complicated. As they attempted to claim liberty, they simultaneously had to balance the risks of their business with a very real threat to their lives and beloved families. And as they contemplated these factors, surely they had to allow for the possibility that the revolution might fail. On the subject of risk management – more safety or more liberty – Franklin offered this immortal truth: “Those who trade liberty for safety deserve neither.”

[Continue Reading]

The special sauce created by small business and community banks

by

America is fortunate to have two marketplace sectors that also happen to be unique in the world: 28 million small businesses and 5,000 community banks. Let me tell you a story about why we’re all even more fortunate – especially during a pandemic – that these two groups are next-door neighbors and close friends.

There are many differences between a small business and a big business. But the most dramatic is something you won’t find on Wall Street: small business special sauce. When this rich blend of ethics, values, and value is slathered over Main Street America, it manifests as one of the most powerful forces in nature: high-quality, enduring relationships built on a foundation of trust. 

And these aren’t like your affinity for a big business brand or product – they’re old-school relationships between human beings operating in a new-school marketplace. 

[Continue Reading]

Categories

Archives

Share this page with your friends and followers