Holiday Shopping Begins where it began...
The entire concept or idea of Christmas shopping as pontificated in many a Hollywood film is perfectly shaped in the form of your local downtown village.
Downtown Burlington is that culmination of Hollywood idealism and Holiday shopping with that crisp and honest germ killing Canadian winter air, that is only found in the out of doors when shopping along a sidewalk on a street where you can park a few steps from your favourite Pearl Street or Brant Street Boutique or Gift Shop.
When you've worked off that Holiday meal or worked up an appetite there is always a great place to eat in your Downtown, of which you may only find one copy of that special unique off beat or awesome treat for your stomach to seat, har I think a bit too many Christmas rhyme invaded my line.
The point being Downtowns our villages are the model that the malls are all trying to replicate now, look @ Appleby Mall in the East end of Burlington, their advisors, their marketing people all know and can see the wave of change that only the small proprietor the business owner who works in their businesses one and only retail location is capable of having a relationship with their clients in ways that no franchise or corporate store #1390 is ever going to be able to pull off. These days it's even getting easier for business owners of the small and unique and special kind, to keep up with the mega malls and corporate behemoths, the tools that large organizations reek bureaucratic quagmires over and never deploy are easily accessed and many times for free by the small business owner.
Many years ago, (and jokingly) some netizens of the early interweeb, (interweeb said jokingly of course) got together and said, "...HEY' .....the rules have changed,' 'those who have the biggest Network WIN!" of course referring the cliché "who ever has the most money when they die wins"
which in and of itself is rather asinine, regardless as it pertained to the new ERA, the digital era it made sense to colloquialise an old cliché with some modern cache. Now times have changed again, and we can become un-enamoured with our new tools and get the meat of the matter the truth of the new Digital ERA and what and how it enables that sweet little boutique that is able to keep better track of what you like and who you are and how you like it and even by gosh golly know you personally by name.
It's no longer and well of course never was about the "HE ( technology is so male dominated, that's changing too) who has the biggest network being the winner" it was always about how can this World Wide Web help the small businessperson the entrepreneur win, and the more sophisticated technology gets the more of a leg up that small business has over big business. Just think, every once and a while a technology or tech meme becomes so pervasive it actually creates the need for larger organizations to dedicate entire groups of people to understand analyse and figure out how to use, where as you or your local small business owner can simply Google something and get their act in gear and up to the 21st century in a matter of seconds. sure and perhaps many times after a quick e-mail to their trusted advisor geek friend or family member.
So as you set off to go shopping this holiday season, try to ignore the complicated round about stuff in the previous three paragraphs and remember shopping for Christmas started downtown and it's coming back downtown in a big way, so much so malls are going to emulate downtown more and more. So be a part of the wave of change and help make sure your local downtown evolves the way you want it to.
Merry Christmas - Happy Hanukah - Happy Kwanza - Late Happy Dilwali - Happy New Year and seasons greetings to all.
-UV
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