Scoring the Turf Wars The P-word has come up again lately, and that catches my attention because the last known marketing petition was something that involved me. I've come to the conclusion that circulating petitions is like putting socks in a dryer. If anything comes out at all, it's not the complete set of socks (or ideas) that went in. The short version of that long story goes like this: A few months ago, the CAPC voted to require "reciprocal links" from all web sites that had a listing on the official city site. Explaining what that means or why the CAPC thought it was necessary would make this a very long story. Suffice it to say that several tax-collecting citizens were upset. Some called the commissioners, some started a petition requesting the CAPC to hire Positive Idea as the "official" city web site provider. By the time somebody thought to ask us if we even wanted the job, the petition had several signatures, so we came out of political retirement and met with various commissioners to explain the technical details of why people were so upset. Meanwhile, a Texas company who represents several local accommodations on the internet got wind of the situation, and threatened to sue the CAPC and the City under Federal trademark and copyright law. This particular company had just won a couple million dollars and shut down a division of Newsweek magazine in a case very much like the one in Eureka Springs-it was a serious and legitimate threat. The CAPC decided that something needed to be done to prevent hostile phone calls and legal havoc from happening again, so they decided to form an "internet committee." They put consideration of the petition on their agenda for their retreat, and the petition was never heard from again. The internet committee was supposed to make recommendations and present them at the retreat. We hosted the lone meeting of the internet committee. Nothing much was discussed and nothing was decided, but I did see a one-line note in the paper quoting the only committee-member who wasn't at the meeting as saying, "Problems have been dealt with." A few weeks ago, another situation with the city internet site arose-one that had the potential to create big financial liabilities for a large number of private citizens. It's been dealt with, but interestingly enough, the same person (you know, the one who didn't even attend the only meeting) kept telling concerned citizens who called, "I'm on the internet committee and there is no problem because I'd know about it if there was." Bear with me while I cite another example. I have a point, and I'll get to it in a minute. 'Way back in the days of Martin Owens, we offered to give the Chamber a web site free of charge so that it could promote Eureka Springs as a "business destination." Martin thought that was a great idea, but he came back to us and said he couldn't accept because the board didn't want to give us a "monopoly" on Eureka Springs internet traffic. We later made the same offer to Rick and, at the time, we had a couple of out of state clients who were looking to relocate: year 'round, non-polluting, transportation-irrelevant employers. We pointed out that those folks appear on the internet horizon all the time and Rick's reply was, "Not interested. Eureka Springs is a one-trick pony and that trick is tourism." OK. So let's promote tourism. We have lots of clients who promote special events in Eureka Springs and pay us to do web sites, send press releases and so on. They can't seem to get their web addresses listed on official Chamber press releases or on the official Chamber web site without near-physical abuse. Why? Two Chamber employees who shall remain forever nameless told us that it's because "the 'political situation' makes it difficult to get Positive Idea web addresses listed." Interesting. It seems like our Eureka-related work supports the goals of the Chamber and I can see my official Chamber membership plaque from where I'm sitting right now. We spend a whole lot of time every day answering tourism calls that are referred by the Chamber. We have people who call from the pay phone outside--and they get our phone number from whomever is sitting at the front desk, theoretically answering the same questions that visitors call and ask us. We even have people call and ask completely non-tourist related questions about businesses in town like "who can I hire to do . . .[whatever]." Do we make snide remarks or fail to answer those questions? Nope. We have actually avoided several golden opportunities for public exposure. For example, back in February, we did a huge and enormously successful Valentine's Day promotion. Maybe you read about the results in various Arkansas business newspapers--it was talked about for months. Except, the results were attributed to "an enormously successful promotion by the Chamber of Commerce." Naturally, we were curious about how the Chamber got involved, and the writers of these articles said, "Well, we were at the Chamber and they brought up their web site on line and let me see. . . oh dear. That isn't their web site, is it?" We had three offers for printed retractions--and we turned them all down. Why? Because we've had the same goal for years: promote Eureka Springs. Does it assist our goal in any way to make a premiere local business organization look like lying fools? Nope. Is it difficult to stand by and let somebody else take the credit for something you've worked hard to achieve? You bet. Will we continue to provide ideas and advice and work and results . . .and smile indulgently while people who are "politically prevented" from acknowledging our existence steal the credit? Nope. Even patriotism and focus on the goal has its limits. I KNOW that there are people who work hard with limited means at the Chamber. And I know that the CAPC commissioners are volunteers with businesses of their own to run. And I know that the ad agency doesn't have the fairest of opportunities to show their stuff in a town where so much time is spent putting out political fires. I understand the present marketing food chain as well as anyone. I don't take the situation personally because we're not the only beneficiaries. Lots of people and organizations provide tourism information / services / events - and all those people I've talked to have their own versions of stories just like the ones described above. I could name quite a few people who have beaten permanent flat spots on their head by trying to "work with the system - not against it." We don't want to have a year 'round source of income? We don't want to prevent problems from happening? Ignore the problem if you can. If it comes up anyway, find a way to blame it on someone else. We don't want to listen to what people want and we're certainly not about to act on their requests. If you see someone trying to do something helpful, stop them if you can. Failing that, pretend like you're the one who did all the work. If all this demoralizes people to the point where they give up, so be it. They're just a bunch of whiners anyway. What is it that motivates this apparent death-wish behavior? Of course I have a theory and here it is: No overall goal and no buck-stops-here authority. (Surprise!) What would keep people from being overwhelmed by new information and changing conditions? A wee bit of structure to help them sift the relevant from the useless. What would keep people from fleeing decision making and problem solving? How about giving them a clue about what the right answers are? IF I RULED THE WORLD. . . I would be tempted to behave like Conan the Barbarian right now. I'd stomp down Spring Street in my sinew-wrapped boots and yell to everyone I met, "THIS is what we're going to do and YOU are responsible for the following tasks and if you give ANYONE any more grief I will FEED you to the mastodon!" As luck would have it, I don't rule the world. Eureka Springs may be a better candidate for the hip management style of the 90's-the Japanese way, wherein everyone has to agree before any action is taken. It's slow and inefficient. On the other hand, you're guaranteed that everyone is behind the decisions when they finally occur. If you've made it this far, will you make it one inch farther and answer a few of questions before you pitch this missive in the "Known Troublemaker" file or before you set out to deep-6 another petition? What is the most important thing about Eureka Springs? Who do you want to come to Eureka Springs? What do you want them to do when they get here? What are you (personally) unwilling to do in order to succeed? I'll tell you my own answers: I think the most important things are natural/historic beauty and great diversity among the people, attitudes and attractions. I want people with moderate to upper income and sophisticated/tolerant attitudes. I want these people to come from far away, far enough so that it is likely that they'll stay in town for several days. When they get here, I want them to have an adventure--no matter what someone does in their day-to-day lives, chances are good that they can do the opposite thing here. The only things I'm unwilling to do in order to succeed are illegal. End of manifesto. Kim Ridenour, September 1998 Return to "Papers" Index Return to Eureka People