other sectors

Objectified-The Movie

A movie that looks at industrial design through designers explanations and theories. Well worth your time. You might be asking, why is this a post on a public market blog?
I believe that engineering of the market space itself is something in which many market organizers and vendors excel. Add to that how many innovate by designing/inventing new systems or appropriate tools when necessary.

So, designers? Yes, another title for a market organizer…

Two great quotes from the movie:

“If we understand what the extremes are, the middle will take care of itself.”

“Let’s put great design into everyday things.”

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Super Cooperators

Am reading a new book by Martin A. Nowak titled “Super Cooperators” which explores the ways and reasons humans cooperate. I picked this up because it seemed to correlate to the work I was involved with when at marketumbrella.org, measuring social capital with their NEED tool. NEED (still in pilot but I believe getting closer to an online tool like SEED) measures the quality and quantity of transactions within market communities (included neighbors who feel its impact) to get at levels of trust. Trust is a proxy for social capital. Adding social capital to markets is important because it means behavior change is possible.
So, in markets, engineering cooperation is the main activity used to add trust. The market organization is essentially using direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, and spatial laws to add levels of cooperation-all terms learned from this book.
I like the author’s definition of cooperation:
The willingness to give something up in order for someone else to receive a benefit.
In a sentence, this may describe the positive transactional nature of markets rather than a roadside stand or a storefront. The multiplicity of vendors often directly competing yet cooperating, shows a sophisticated awareness of the need to offer choice to shoppers and on another level, cooperating as a community to add innovation or programs lead markets to a more successful future.

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Corporations pick up on “shared value”

Harvard Business Review recently published an article with some language that sounds an awful lot like the stated “triple bottom line” of Farmers Market Coalition, marketumbrella.org and others in the public market field. Shared value is the new concept to deepen corporate social responsibility to include social progress as a measurement for their company. Seems like markets need to use the language and idea to find ways to connect with Main Street more…
Harvard Business Review

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Proper procurement

One of my “go-to” organizations to learn from and to pass along ideas to others is the New Economics Institute which was formerly known as the E.F. Schumacher Society. The Society is housed on a hilltop in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in the middle of one of the many land trusts that the society has helped build.
Taking labor, currency and land out of commodity thinking and practice is the fulcrum of their work and may I say they do it beautifully. Or to say it in a positive way, ” to promote the building of strong local economies that link people, land, and community.”

This audio is one of their excellent lectures and is something to listen to while typing, while sipping that morning coffee before diving into the pile of work. I say that after you read it, gift it to your local colleges and universities to hear on their own. In my mind, this is the way to tackle behavior changes everywhere- thinking about the responsibility of use of any and all resources in each small world. And, if you want to understand what a campus goes through to make changes, this might help you.

And if these ideas sound right, go procure a copy of ‘Small is Beautiful”, Schumacher’s landmark book. Then go back for many of their publications because I think, you might find they add to your perspective.

Audio

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Localism Index from The New Rules Project

This amazing list is from The New Rules Project which is:
A program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, the New Rules Project started back in 1998 and continues to bring fresh new policy solutions to communities and states to ensure that they are “designing rules as if community matters”.

Localism Index

A version of this appeared in the April 25, 2011 issue of The Nation.

Number of new independent bookstores that have opened since 2005: 437

Increase since 2002 in the number of small specialty food stores: 1,414

Increase since 2002 in the number of small farms: 111,839

Number of farmers markets active in 2010: 6,132

Percentage of active farmers markets started since 2000: 53

Average percentage of shoppers at a large supermarket who have a conversation with another customer: 9

Average percentage of shoppers at a farmers market who have a conversation with another customer: 63

The complete Localism Index

There are some good numbers in there for our work, but I say we need more!
I can tell you the impact that the 3 Crescent City Farmers Markets (the markets that are run by my organization marketumbrella.org) has on our city of New Orleans and its region by using numbers from our 2010 SEED report. This was done with our web-based tool called SEED which stands for Sticky Economic Evaluation Device and uses the government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis multiplier for our region.
The multiplier is a term for tracking how money is spent and re-spent in a regional economy in any one sector. Obviously, when local businesses make money (like our market vendors), they re-spend that locally. How long it stays here before “leaking out” depends on what businesses they have available to them, whether its only Walmart (where the money is sent to their home base of Arkansas more quickly) or Joe’s Nursery, which spends that money locally again.

2010 SEED
Market impact: $6,717,630.32 Sales in the market, and the amount of money generated by those vendors spending it again. The BEA multiplier we used was for our region was 1.9% and was for the retail sector.

The impact the market has on its surrounding areas: $3,217,727.94 Again, this is shoppers telling us if they were going to spend money in the businesses around the market while there. That number multiplied by the regional BEA number.

Sales tax from sales at nearby businesses to the market: $151,620.69 Those who grow their own food and then sell it directly in Louisiana do not collect sales tax. However, the market does add sales tax to the city and state’s coffers because of the sales at nearby businesses that happen when our shoppers go there.

Overall economic impact $9,935,358

From three 4-hour markets each week.

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Open-air market dot org

I just posted some information on the street vendor project in New York, so thought I’d better also send this link for the Open Air Market Network. The site bills itself as “The World Wide Guide to Farmers’ Markets, Street Markets, Flea Markets, Street Vendors, and the Informal Sector.”
open air market network

It has not been updated in some time, but still has loads of pieces from all over the world and all type of markets to check out. Dr. Morales, who many markets know from conferences and listserves among other places, is one of the folks behind this site and a few others sites like Streetnet.org. His work is researching and writing about the informal networks of vending and is a must for any market organization to know as a reference. Just like our friends at Projects for Public Spaces, he links our markets to academics, city planners and social scientists. I know he is currently working on a book covering how markets take part in furthering community. I look forward to that coming out.

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Appropriate technology for the industrial food system shopper

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Don’t just think about the traditional grocery stores when comparing prices

Dollar stores might be where some of our shoppers are also shopping: This report talks about the biggest increase in their shoppers are among households earning over 100,000 a year.

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Good explanation how to see The Tipping Point in context

Was recently chatting with Stacy Miller of Farmers Market Coalition about the book, The Tipping Point. She was asking if I thought it had relevance to our work. I found this quote from the author that explains what I think makes it useful to read, although with a caveat that we are not trying to start a social epidemic in markets, but to actually make long lasting economic and behavior changes. So limited relevance.
In any case, the language is useful to see how one might use word of mouth to spread a piece of your message…

it takes theories and ideas from the social sciences and shows how they can have real relevance to our lives. There’s a whole section of the book devoted to explaining the phenomenon of word of mouth, for example. I think that word of mouth is something created by three very rare and special psychological types, whom I call Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. I profile three people who I think embody those types, and then I use the example of Paul Revere and his midnight ride to point out the subtle characteristics of this kind of social epidemic.

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Adding incentives for healthy living

Another sector heard from on how to reward behavioral changes: The fitness/gym world. By adding discounts up front, they reduce the costs to join. But talk about “conditional”: they charge you 10 bucks per day if you sign up and don’t use it! Can’t imagine farmers markets ever getting that punitive…

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