The blogosphere’s theme for the remainder of 2009 should be the Rahm Doctrine. Clearly we are in the middle of a pretty major economic crisis. Hopefully it won’t last much longer than 2009.  I also think we are in the middle of a more subtle social crisis that will likely go on for much longer. Don’t believe me? Think about the climate, income inequality, healthcare, increasing global conflict, rising food prices.

With so much in the way of crisis going on right now, according to the Rahm Doctrine at least, there should be plenty of opportunities. Especially for entrepreneurs.We’ve already highlighted a few of these opportunities, and will continue to do so.  Other bloggers are doing the same (everyone from Gary Vaynerchuk to Paul Krugman)

President Obama in his weekly address this morning confirmed this belief. What we’re going to see in the coming months is a global willingness to try new ideas out, mostly because many of the old ideas are broken. And we’re already seeing signs of it.  Americas workforce is switching sectors. We are investing in our homes to increase their efficiency (and stave off loss in value). For a great article on what some of the coming changes could be, check out this months Atlantic.

And if you have your own ideas of opportunities within crisis please share them with us. One of our favorites is here.

Branding a city

Brian Lehrer had a fascinating piece today on how the public sector took on a private sector strategy to save New York during the 1970’s. The city invested in Branding. Faced with a failing economy, rising crimes rates and a bad reputation New York officials created the iconic campaign “I Love NY”.

My main takeaway from the piece was the comment Miriam Greenberg made about branding. She said that branding is a combination of both marketing and material, that you need more than just a great message. I completely agree.

There’s a lot of discussion about what companies and governments should invest in during these times. There’s healthcare, or education, or infrastructure. If anyone said branding, I bet the suggestion was widely dismissed.  But if you take Ms. Greenberg’s use of the term, its really not such a bad idea.  Branding helps people identify with products and if anything needs support of the people right now, its the economy. Its our cities and local businesses.  Its going to be the new products.

So for every project that we are launching, stimulus or not, lets make sure we put a solid branding effort into it too.

A lesson for the public and private sector alike.

Quick - Post
Fast Company’s piece on Marine Energy is a good introduction to an area that’s often overlooked in our search for renewable energy.

Check it out here http://tinyurl.com/b9v4y4

I was catching up on old episodes of marketplace and heard a piece on the cotton industry and the subsidies they receive in order to keep up with China.  That’s usually enough to send me foaming at the mouth. Subsidies hurt small businesses,  and distort our expectations.  However, the end of the interview brought some insight from Blanton Godfrey (College of Textiles at N.C. State) that gave me hope for the American entrepreneur.

Historically, the US textile industry has been subsidized through import caps.  This helps limit supply and artificially float the price so that American Producers and Chinese producers are roughly at the same price. In the short run this might seem like a good thing, but in the long run there are significant costs.

Although textile production in the US has long been shrinking, it’s also been getting more specialized. Instead of socks and underwear, our producers now make specialized fabrics that are used in fire retardant tents for the US Airforce. Read the rest of this entry »

The Baseline Scenario had a somewhat snarky post this morning about the Annual World Economic Forum at Davos. Unfortunately, the sarcasm isn’t far from the truth. Davos is a joke. Current models for global coordination just aren’t effective. As Simon puts it, the important people are “stuck at home, doing real work.”

The last thing I remember hearing about Davos was something about various celebrities asking for pledges to combat AIDS and poverty. The UN can’t do much besides pass a series of resolutions that are usually ignored. And the WTO managed to let the Doha rounds collapse.

That isn’t to say that we should do away with all global agencies. Read the rest of this entry »

That our greatest challenges are our best opportunities for a sustainable future, if we all work together.

There are enough blogs today commenting on the beginning of a new era and the renewal of the American spirit. It’s enough to say that I by and large agree with them.

However, for Salvage this is a particularly poignant time.  Salvage is about harnessing the power of the diverse units that make up a community under a common purpose- a unity of purpose, as some have put it. We have been circling around this topic for sometime with our network of partners as a way to innovate and grow despite limited resources. Our network must now turn this conversation into a mandate and combine our collective efforts.

Salvage Research will be continuing to produce content, broad and deep, that covers how communities are able to come together and create new social capital. The next four years are sure to produce many chances for us to test and prove our hypothesis. We hope you all join us.