Milwaukee Biz Blog

Everyone has been buzzing this week about the big national Super Bowl commercials, from the cute dogs and major celebrity endorsements to the laugh-out-loud babies and funny kids.

There are hundreds of websites and blogs measuring the various campaign successes. Social media continues the buzz with conversations and social syndication: rebroadcasting and linking to commercials on YouTube, Blogs, Twitter and Facebook.

However, did anyone happen to notice the three local Milwaukee ads that were sandwiched in-between the $3.5 million dollar national spots before half-time?

Don’t you recall that non-descript actor in a television and appliance sales ad or the voiceover selling some tools for a local hardware store chain? Surely you remember the cellular phone guy on a couch whining that he doesn’t get rewards from his provider?

These commercials were part of a small series of local ad blocks shown between the local NBC/TMJ4 News bumpers. Did anyone even notice these ads?  Is anyone talking about them? (Other than the fact that it was such a huge missed opportunity on so many levels).

These companies could have really done some amazing things to stand out and show off their brands as well as some of the local advertising and marketing talent Wisconsin has to offer. 

The core problem is that these commercials seemed to be an afterthought, as if they were plucked from a generic Tuesday afternoon lineup. Call up any Wisconsin production agency, digital creative house or independent media professional and they would have given their right arm for a chance to produce, develop or even collaborate on a local market Super Bowl commercial.

Shockingly to the companies who paid for the spots, the creative professionals probably would have all done all the work for free! What agency or professional wouldn’t want a Super Bowl commercial as part of their creative portfolio?

The detractors will say that the commercials were only seen in a smaller, local market, so why bother? Given the reach and power of social media, local is now global — depending on how good your ad is in the first place.
Ironically, Old Milwaukee ran a local commercial featuring Will Ferrell. It was only seen in one regional market with 15,180 households: North Platte, Neb. Business Week reports that the 52-second commercial has gotten more Twitter attention than Cadillac, Lexus and Century21 who all ran the expensive national spots. Now that is powerful exposure and buzz you can take to the bank!

William Caraher is a corporate chief information officer and a part-time, adjunct professor at Marquette University; teaching real-time social media marketing to graduate MBA students.  His thoughts and musings here are his own and not reflective or representative of his employers. He can be followed on Twitter at @WilliamCaraher.

Competition in a free market economy favors the lowest-cost business model as markets mature and price-driven shoppers grow in size. Design a business model that delivers unique benefits, on the other hand, and you must also focus on efficiency. Because customers only pay price premiums for unique benefits, any inefficiency costs come right off your bottom line.

Is it any wonder then that on-line retailing is growing by leaps and bounds, steadily gaining share against in-store retail? E-commerce is far more efficient, something Amazon understood in disrupting the book industry. In addition, on-line sales lower consumers’ indirect costs by saving time and gas money and, during the busy holiday season, avoiding the frustration of fighting crowds.

Nevertheless, efficiency and convenience won’t overcome frustrating on-line shopping experiences. So how successfully are on-line retailers satisfying the increasingly demanding consumer?

Better and better according to ForeSee, a pioneering consultancy in analyzing customer experience across channels and customer touch points. ForeSee just released its 7th E-Retail Satisfaction Index (U.S. Holiday Edition), a survey of 8,500 consumers conducted during the Thanksgiving to Christmas holiday shopping season that shows 2010-2011 satisfaction gains with the top 40 on-line retailers (by sales volume, according to Internet Retailer). Since on-line sales peak in the holiday season, customer satisfaction during the holiday period is a great time to capture how well or poorly on-line retailers are performing.

ForeSee’s data matters as customer satisfaction is a great predictor of consumer spending and brand loyalty. Furthermore, higher customer satisfaction also generates higher financial returns according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, upon whose methodology the ForeSee survey is based.

At the same time, the drivers of customer satisfaction vary across brands, as they should. According to ForeSee’s President and CEO Larry Freed, “There is no standardized, cookie-cutter approach to e-commerce. The days when there was a checklist of what constitutes the ‘best’ website, business model, or e-commerce solution are well behind us now. Different companies have different kinds of relationships with their customers, different kinds of pre-existing images, different sets of expectations, and so on. Expectations alone can affect satisfaction: people expect lower prices from some companies and better service from others. By understanding the impact of specific aspects of a website on overall satisfaction, e-retailers can save costly investments in upgrades that will not influence satisfaction and behavior and focus their efforts on the changes that are likely to matter most.”

And the winner is…

Amazon wins the competition with the highest customer satisfaction score (88 percent), five points ahead of other leading contenders and up two points from its #1 rating last year. Does this suggest that highly automated service and using data analytics to make customer recommendations will guarantee satisfied customers? Hardly. Netflix’s business model is also automated and includes customer recommendations. But its customer satisfaction plummeted after being tied last year with Amazon for the #1 spot.

In fact, Netflix’s satisfaction dropped seven points this year in the survey results to 79 percent, the average for the 40 e-retailers as a set. Netflix’ price increase and a decision (since overturned) to split its on-line business apart from its DVD-rentals business (thereby forcing many customers to hold two memberships) angered many customers. The anger served to lower customer satisfaction (by 8 percent), a dangerous situation as Netflix faces a growing set of competitors. According to the ForeSee survey, the drop in satisfaction also lowered Netflix customers’ likelihood of using Netflix for similar purchases in the future (down 10 percent), recommend Netflix (down 11 percent) or return to the Netflix website (down 5 percent).

With Amazon and Netflix now in the same market space for on-line movie and TV show viewing, I know which stock I’d bet upon. In an e-commerce war, customer satisfaction is like the highest hill on the battleground, conferring welcomed advantages in the battles ahead.

Kay Plantes is an MIT-trained economist, business strategy consultant, columnist and author. She served as chief economist for former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Lee Dreyfus. Plantes provides expertise in business model innovation, strategic leadership and smart economic policies.

Farming teaches you a lot about perseverance, especially in these hard times.

You plant for a harvest that you hope will come, but that is not guaranteed. As I reflect back on our work together this year to build a new food system, I see our progress and am filled with hope that the fruits of our labor are within reach.

At Growing Power, we composted more than 40 million pounds of food waste in 2011 — more than ever before — and transformed it into healthy soil. We maintained 13 farm stands in the city, providing fresh food to urban communities with few healthy options. We hired more staff at living wage salaries. We trained 1,500 beginning farmers through our weekend workshops. We acquired more than 100 acres of new land to grow more food. We graduated 43 people from our Commercial Urban Agriculture program. Thirty-six of those graduates were people of color, women, or both.

In Milwaukee, we have strengthened our organization’s infrastructure, allowing us to grow and distribute fresh food for all in our community. We are approaching the day when I will be able to say that everyone in Milwaukee has access to the same affordable, fresh food.

However, we are still in the infancy of what I call “the good food revolution.” Even so, as I have traveled around the country, I cannot help but feel encouraged. I see communities across this country that are opening farmer’s markets in former food deserts. I meet people who are growing food in their backyards for the first time. I meet children who are teaching each other and adults about growing food and eating healthy. It’s inspiring to say the least!

At Growing Power, we are working together to create models for a local, sustainable food system that can be replicated across the United States — and the world. We need to continue to work together to make this happen.

I believe it’s possible, especially when I see:

• More young people who want to be farmers, and who want to lend their talents to the mission of building a better food system.
• More schools that are willing to participate in Farm-to-School programs, and to expose kids to local, fresh produce.
• More corporations that want to open farmers’ markets for their employees, or recycle their kitchen scraps for compost, or donate money to help build our grassroots movement.
• More people of color who want to enter agriculture, and who no longer associate the practice with the painful legacy of slavery and sharecropping.
• More people in the medical field who see fresh, local food as an integral part of the healing process and of good health.

In 2012, we want to take this good food revolution to another level. We will support those who are working for needed improvements on the 2012 farm bill. We will make sure that the bill offers support to small farmers, who are the backbone of a more sustainable food system. We will continue to test and refine our fish and vegetable growing systems, to make them economically viable for those wishing to start microenterprises in urban communities. We will offer more jobs to young people of color who have been shut out of the traditional workforce. We will lead the way in showing other American communities how to create a food system that is good for all of its people.

Please give what you can.

Will Allen is an urban farmer who is the chief executive officer of Growing Power Inc. in Milwaukee. To donate to the cause, visit www.growingpower.org.

It seems like every year we have this bogus semantic debate about the marketing of Christmas. Or the holidays. Whatever. And every year, I roll my eyes and ask, “Haven’t we got more important things to think about?”

This year’s version of the annual flare up was cued by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who recently declared that the tree with the ornaments at the Capitol in Madison is a “Christmas tree,” not a “holiday tree.”

Here’s the deal. Call it what you want. I don’t care. It’s a tree.

Just like every year, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly goes off on a rant about the “War on Christmas.”
Here’s the deal. There is no war on Christmas. No holiday is celebrated or revered more widely in America than Christmas. None. You don’t believe me? Try calling a plumber, a banker, a doctor or even an exterminator on Christmas Day. Crickets.

Now, you can make the case that the true meaning of Christmas gets loss in the hustle, bustle and materialism of the season. No disagreement there.

But as a Christian, you cannot convince me that Jesus Christ cares whether J.C. Penney, Target, Wal-Mart or Sears puts the word “Christmas” on their advertising flyers and commercials or uses the word “holidays” instead. In fact, the case could be made that the Good Lord would not want to even be associated with the commercial peddling of electronic gadgets and Snuggies in His name. Anyone remember the moneychangers?

Some companies make the calculated judgment to use “Christmas” or “holidays” in their promotions. That is their right. I don’t care.

And if you object to whatever those retailers choose, as a consumer in a free society, you have every right to decide not to shop at those stores. Go ahead, vote with your feet and your wallet! I do not care!

I am not taking sides here. I think the people who freak out because politicians and retailers want to use the word “Christmas” instead of the generic “holidays” are equally askew.

Notice a theme here? I don’t care. I’m like the Honey Badger. (If you didn’t understand that last sentence, go ahead and search for “Honey Badger video” on Google. Then report back and laugh as you finish reading this column.

This whole debate is a waste of time.

We should be more concerned about turning this economy around so we all can have a more prosperous New Year. And with that, I wish peace for all and to all a good night!

Steve Jagler is executive editor of BizTimes Milwaukee.

Burger King has struggled for years to capture market share from McDonald’s. Let me propose a winning new business model for Burger King.

While driving to Door County, Wis., for a short holiday, Nick and I stopped at a McDonald’s to quench our thirst. I love McDonald’s iced tea as the chain provides real lemons and the drink is always cold.

Or so it used to be. Unfortunately, McDonalds replaced my usual 12-ounce plastic cup with a behemoth disposable cup containing more iced tea than I can drink in a day.

The first sip confirmed my worst fears – there was so much iced tea in the container that I tasted no lemon, and the drink was on the warm side.  In this case, more product provided less consumer value.

Far more important, the “32-ounce drinks for $1” promotion also reduces societal value, as Robert J. Stone, a food and fitness blogger hints: “You can get a large (that’s 32 ounces) Coke, Sprite, Sweet Tea, or even a Hi-C Orange Lavaburst, for only $1. The Coke will deliver 310 calories and 86 grams of sugar to your stomach, while a Sweet Tea clocks in at a slim 280 calories and 69 grams of sugar. For the most bang for your buck, get the Hi-C Orange Lavaburst for 350 calories and 94 grams of sugar. For comparison purposes, 94 grams of sugar is equal to 23 sugar cubes! 3.3 ounces of sugar. That’s just shy of 1/2 CUP of sugar. Isn’t this just what America needs? Cheap, quart-sized sodas for a buck so we can fill our bellies with high-fructose corn syrup?”

The United States is an obese nation. Our No. 1 fast food company, a company many argue contributes to the rise of obesity in the United States, is only making the situation worse. Its “32-ounces for $1” customer deal is a bad one for its customers’ future health.

The promotion is also a bad deal for McDonald’s long-term success. Michael Porter, a renowned Harvard Business School strategist, argues that winning companies of the future will be those that create shared value – they increase societal value, not just customer value by what they provide or how they provide it. In other words, they benefit the community at large beyond customer value and income generation.

Porter is right. In today’s copycat economy, companies that advance society’s interests will attract the best talent and build winning brands. McDonald’s therefore is off-trend, looking to me like the successful cigarette companies of the 1970s. More important, McDonald’s, in my book, is finally open to another assault on its market share. The last worthy assault came when Subway lured McDonald’s customers away with fresh and lower-calorie meals.

Burger King could grab share from McDonald’s by re-branding itself around healthy choices for parents who want to raise kids with healthy eating habits, and adults who want healthy fast food options. If Tata can figure out how to make a car for under $2,000, then a fast food restaurant can figure out how to create an affordable healthy meal.

A fast food hamburger meal could be much healthier – whole wheat rolls, limited condiments, low-fat ground beef, baked sweet or russet potato chips replacing greasy fries, and refreshing drinks with no corn syrup. The business model innovation rests in defining processes and creating partnerships to offer affordable and healthy consumer solutions.

I can see the advertising strategy that positions Burger King right up against McDonald’s. Show an obese Ronald McDonald, with print copy reading: “Is this what you want for your children’s future?” Show cool, thin kids leaving Burger King in their team uniforms next to fat kids sitting at McDonald’s looking bored. Redesign the Burger King space to hold dance parties for teenagers from 8 p.m. to midnight every Friday and Saturday and fun workouts for moms and toddlers every morning from 9:30 to 11 a.m. Provide literature with every meal offering tips for healthy home-cooked meals. Form partnerships with healthy drink brands, like low-calorie flavored water companies. Offer low-fat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on fun-shaped whole wheat bread for the toddler set.

Behind our rising health care costs lie America’s growing waistlines. These costs contribute to our rising federal deficit and, because many employers provide health care benefits, rising unemployment. Our regulators won’t stop dangerous practices like the “32-ounces for $1? promotion. McDonald’s has too much money in Washington, D.C., shaping federal farm, legal and restaurant policies to advance its interests.

The only power to create change rests in consumers who vote with their dollars. The sooner Burger King or another existing or new fast food chain sees the hole in the market McDonald’s behavior creates, the better off we all will be.

Kay Plantes is an MIT-trained economist, business strategy consultant, columnist and author. She served as chief economist for former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Lee Dreyfus. Plantes provides expertise in business model innovation, strategic leadership and smart economic policies.

Love Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. or hate it, you have to admire the consistent business model strategy its leaders followed to emerge as the world’s No. 1 retailer. They dramatically improved distribution productivity – in fact, supply chain as a revered specialty arrived with Wal-Mart, as did a measurable bump-up in U.S. productivity due to Wal-Mart’s efficiency.

They then leveraged growing power over its suppliers to fulfill Wal-Mart’s compelling value promise – “everyday lowest price.” It took decades for competitors to figure out how to stop the Fortune 500 company’s march.

Did leadership hubris then lead to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s weak post-recession performance? Wal-Mart stores open at least one year lost .75 percent revenue each quarter over the past year while Target, Costco and Family Dollar saw same-store revenue climb. Wal-Mart’s decline is about more than post-recession consumers shopping-up. The American consumer is still highly price-sensitive, but looking outside Wal-Mart for better deals or better products.

Wal-Mart leaders have a game plan to recover, according to a recent Associated Press article. But could they have avoided their current troubles? CEO Mike Duke should post these three lessons on humongous billboards heading into his Arkansas corporate headquarters.

#1 Align everything to our value promise.

Wal-Mart promises lowest everyday prices on everything. A new pricing strategy, according to the AP story, in which low prices were used to lure people into the store only to sell them market-priced products was not just greedy, but stupid. Whatever Wal-Mart gained in near-term margin they lost in customer goodwill and profits going forward.

The most important element of your business model is your value promise – the unique benefits (or lowest costs, in Wal-Mart’s case) that lead customers and prospects to select you over their alternative options. Every element of your business – from strategy to pricing tactics to culture – should be aligned against that value promise.

#2 In addressing competitive threats, don’t forget our value promise.

Wal-Mart’s problems started when they tried to recapture market share lost to Target, now about one-sixth Wal-Mart’s size. Attempts at “design-look” clothing failed. Next tactic: reduce brands and SKUs to widen aisles and improve the in-store experience.

In the process, Wal-Mart forgot why their customers shop with them: for everyday low prices on everything they want to buy. Target customers trust Target to pick out the best merchandise, which enables Target to also offer a higher-end, less cluttered store experience.  Not so with Wal-Mart customers. Unable to find what they wanted at Wal-Mart, they turned elsewhere.

Wal-Mart should have improved its customer shopping experience in other ways (e.g., alphabetic ordering of brands within the category’s shelves or pre-ordering as Bed, Bath & Beyond so successfully accomplishes). Target was much savvier in beating Wal-Mart at its game without leaders forgetting Target’s value-promise. By offering 5%-off the bill with Target credit card usage, Target’s competitive tactic will generate a financial services revenue stream for the corporation.

#3 Don’t let anyone capture our value promise.

When the price of gas shot up over $2/gallon all Wal-Mart stores should have gone on red-alert. The overall time and money cost of a trip to “dollar stores” (Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, Dollar General) versus Wal-Mart improved because of dollar stores’ more convenient locations and smaller footprints. Family Dollar leaders moved the way a Green Bay Packer or Pittsburgh Steeler runs right past his opponent’s line towards the end-zone when a hole appears in the line.

Wal-Mart’s “smaller store ­– closer in” strategy is too late in arriving.  Furthermore, there were alternative strategies to deal with the higher price of gas before changing the real estate: more aggressive online ordering incentives (like Amazon’s Prime) and gas cards for loyal customers.

Could it be that Wal-Mart Stores’ leaders were acting like Sears, ignoring the competition?

Overall lesson

Ultimately, your business model boils down to answers to the five most important strategy questions facing any leadership team:

• Who are we for?
• What business are we in?
• What’s our value promise?
• Why will this promise be hard for competitors to copy?
• Why will we be profitable?

Look at Lessons #1, #2 and #3 and you’ll see success is all about the value promise. The answers to your five interdependent business strategy questions should result in a hard-to-copy value promise that appeals to a large enough target market willing to pay a high enough premium over your costs to make you wildly profitable.  Be in whatever business lets you do just that with your current and potential skills, knowledge and resources.

If you can’t be the Wal-Mart of your industry, avoid becoming its Sears with a totally confusing value promise. Carve out a niche that your industry’s Wal-Mart can’t easily copy, as Target, Costco and Family Dollar have done facing the #1 retailer in the world.

And if you are the Wal-Mart of your industry, never forget it.

Kay Plantes is an MIT-trained economist, business strategy consultant, columnist and author. She served as chief economist for former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Lee Dreyfus. Plantes provides expertise in business model innovation, strategic leadership and smart economic policies. She resides in Madison.

In the high-testosterone game of Chicken, two drivers race towards each other at accelerating speeds. The first driver to veer his car off the path loses the game. Clearly win-win solutions fail to exist in this game. Either one player proves his cowardice, or both players crash.

A physically safe, but economically lethal game of Chicken is at play in the airline industry right now with American Airlines in one of the drivers’ seats. American wants travel agencies to bypass booking on Global Distribution Systems and instead use American’s own direct-connect network to book tickets. Global Distribution Systems (GDS) consolidate and keep up to date hundreds of airlines’ fares and schedules, presenting them to travel agents and online travel agencies like Expedia. GDS companies earn revenue from the airlines for any tickets booked on their system, sharing some of the revenue with the booking agents. Many GDS companies own on-line travel agencies. For example, Sabre, the largest GDS, owns Travelocity and, prior to 2000, was owned by America Airlines’ parent.

American says it’s trying to work with the middlemen; it wants tickets booked directly on its system so that it can “up-sell” customers with services that add fees (more leg space, extra points, etc.), thereby improving American’s average ticket price.  The middlemen like Expedia smell a rat and are playing their own game of chicken, delisting American from their sites or giving its flights much less attractive billing. Like unions that knew the first auto company contract set the tone for all that followed, the GDSs and Expedias of the world aren’t going to give an inch. American reported Monday that it earned a temporary injunction keeping Sabre from downplaying American flights on Sabre’s search results to travel agents.

Many companies have cut the middleman out, or reduced their role, to reduce costs. “Big box stores” for example are such a big part of our vocabulary, landscape and economy that we sometimes forget life before them. Walmart, Office Depot and many other companies eliminated independent distributors – once dominant in connecting retailers and manufacturers – from their value chains. The resulting cost advantage over local retailers helped big box stores wipe out a ton of ma and pa local retailers.

As consumers, we should be concerned if GDS companies disappear. Their role in creating price transparency is vital as they advance price competition among airlines. But rather than focus all your anger on American, consider that GDS companies deserve some of the blame for the current crisis.  Airlines are a vital strategic customer and GDS companies should have been working proactively with airlines to help them execute their marketing plans through the GDS channel.

What advice does this strategist have for American? Avoid being penny wise and pound foolish.

In a great blog post, Swiss Patrick Stähler questions the easy “outsourcing” decision so many companies make. Often they’ve outsourced skills or partners that they later regret losing. Here’s but one of Patrick’s examples:

Hong-Ta Corporation was the manufacturer of the innovative Palm Treo 650 or of the Compaq iPaq, one of the first smartphones. Today,  HTC as the firm is known today is very strong in smartphones and was one of pioneers in phones with Google’s operating system Android. Interestingly, Palm and Compaq are today irrelevant in the growing markets for smartphones. And both former pioneers are now part of Hewlett Packard.

Value chain decisions should align with your value promise.  Southwest bypasses the middleman. The decision made sense in creating Southwest’s “lowest cost for short routes” business model. Yet Southwest may need to rethink its use of middlemen as it seeks to attract more business travelers and moves into some international routes with its acquisition of Air Tran.

American is not Southwest, however, as American relies on international travel revenue and has a strong position with business travelers.  It may lack the market power to force its desired booking system onto its partners. Rather than play chicken, it should engage in a win-win conversation with its channels.  I say this after booking a ticket on Expedia today and only after-the-fact realizing that American was not even part of the consideration set now that Expedia has de-listed American from its site.

In other words, design your value chain to both enhance your value promise and make that promise harder to copy. Align everything to your value promise and you’ll win any game of chicken.

Kay Plantes is an MIT-trained economist, business strategy consultant, columnist and author. She served as chief economist for former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Lee Dreyfus. Plantes provides expertise in business model innovation, strategic leadership and smart economic policies. She resides in Madison.

Sometimes, the system works against the greater public good, and well-intended projects get sidetracked or even derailed. Then there are those other times, when the system works exactly like it’s supposed to work, and the right thing gets done in the end.

The latter may very well be the case today when the Milwaukee Common Council voted to approve a proposed $50 million, 200-room Marriott hotel project in downtown Milwaukee.

In the end, all of the parties involved in the controversial project acted in their own self-interests, and in the end, the council did the right thing.

The developers for the Marriott project, Jackson Street Management LLC, acted in their self-interests by proposing the project at the southwest corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Milwaukee Street.

The Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission did its job by demanding the developers alter their proposal to preserve the facades of the buildings on Wisconsin Avenue. The commission went a step further and demanded the facades on Milwaukee Street be preserved and that the hotel plan be changed to include 15-foot setbacks.

The developers reacted in their own self-interests by refusing to preserve the unremarkable Milwaukee Street facades and refusing to concede to the setbacks.

Some people suggested that the members of the Historic Preservation Commission be removed by the mayor, who disagreed with the very people he had appointed. However, to do so would have completely neutered the commission’s role in the process and rendered it useless.

Meanwhile, The Marcus Corp., owner of the nearby Pfister Hotel, acted in its self-interests by protesting that new hotel developments should not receive public subsidies to create competition for existing hotels.

Greg Marcus, chief executive officer of the venerable Milwaukee company, raised a very legitimate concern: “If we are going to get more rooms, how are we going to fill the rooms? That’s the question. What’s the game plan?”

The council then weighed the concerns from the preservationists and The Marcus Corp. against the 350 to 450 temporary construction jobs and 175 to 200 full-time permanent jobs to be created by the new hotel.
In the end, a super majority of the council approved the project.

In the end, there was no Jewish “cabal” that stopped the project, as one talk radio blowhard had opined.

And in the end, the new hotel will be built in downtown Milwaukee. Now, it’s up to the rest of us do what we can to grow the region to create the demand to justify that hotel’s existence.

Steve Jagler is executive editor of BizTimes Milwaukee.

Over the last two years, we have experienced one of the worst economic periods of our lifetimes. We have seen people lose their homes, deplete their savings, and struggle to afford basic necessities.

Who is to blame? It is easy to take shots at people, but I don’t think that will help. I choose instead to think about how we are going to lift ourselves up. I think ahead to a new economy that is good for all the people. And

I feel this process of renewal is going to begin with the most important thing in our lives: food.
It’s something that we all share as human beings - black or white, young or old, rich or poor. We all must eat to sustain ourselves.

Our industrial food system has led us down the wrong road. It has brought us fewer jobs, unhealthier diets, and a centralized system that makes people feel powerless over their food choices. I think we all feel this. There are more food-related illnesses in this country and in the world than ever before.

We can’t rely alone on governments or large corporations to fix our bad food system. We can’t rely on others to improve access to healthy food in communities of need. We all have a responsibility to work together.

As I travel this country, I am filled with hope. I have seen young, middle-aged and elderly people taking control of the food systems in their communities. I see people growing food on balconies, side yards, back yards, and community plots. I see new gardens and farms in urban, suburban and rural communities. I see people raising fish and plants inside buildings, and people who have employed creative techniques to grow food year-round in even the harshest climates, as we do at Growing Power in Milwaukee.

We need everyone at what I like to call the Good Food Revolution table. We need corporations. We need medical folks. Universities. Politicos. Planners. Educators. Dieticians. We need architects to design our new small farms and community food centers, and we need planners to design sustainable communities to transform food deserts into healthy neighborhoods for all the people. We need people with expertise in the areas of public policy. We need technical experts. Contractors. Composters. And most importantly, we need our wonderful farmers.

What encourages and inspires me in the progress of this good food movement is that more young people have embraced farming. More people of color have also been willing to enter agriculture once again. However, to truly change our food system, we must have 50 million new people growing food in their local communities. This will take time and patience is one of the keys, but we must commit to action now.

Let’s set some goals together: In the next year:

• We will build over 100 hoop houses to grow food without chemicals in the city of Milwaukee.
• We will train over 1,000 new farmers in 2011 - and over 5,000 in the next five years.
• We now have 52 employees at Growing Power. We will hire over 50 in the next year.
• We will host over 20,000 people at our training center on Silver Spring Drive in 2011 - helping to spread our knowledge of intensive growing both nationally and internationally.
• We will take the lead in developing a new local food system industry. This effort will, in time, create thousands of jobs of all types.

As the First Lady Michelle Obama says, “Let’s make sure that everyone in our communities and in our nation has access to good food. (Let’s Move!)” It can be done, and it must be done for our survival. This movement is about creating healthy people and a healthy world. It is about social justice.

Will Allen is a farmer, founder and chief executive officer of Growing Power Inc. in Milwaukee.

Two vastly different news stories, one about Alzheimer’s and the other about dollar stores, together convey an important strategic leadership lesson about the importance of alignment with partners in achieving an organization’s goals.

Dollar stores (Dollar General, Family Dollar Stores and Dollar Trees) are growing rapidly at the expense of Walmart. Recently, the dollar stores have added a lot more branded products e.g., Kraft, Heinz and others. Better packaged food selections, plus dollar stores’ closer (than Walmart) proximity to low-income neighborhoods has attracted new customers and larger shopping trips as rising gas prices increase the cost of driving to Walmart.
Lipton Cold Brew Iced Tea and Jello No-Bake Cheesecake in a dollar store? I suspect that after decades of Walmart’s ruthless purchasing practices, consumer goods companies seek any opportunity to diversify their channels to gain supplier power to fight Walmart’s Herculean purchasing power.

Two recent examples demonstrate Walmart’s incessant drive to secure lower prices:

Walmart recently told suppliers that Walmart’s fleet would soon pick up its purchases. That’s great for Walmart, lowering its shipping rates, but it will raise shipping rates to Walmart’s competitors. Volume drives shipping costs after all.

This past week, I learned that a leading branded product – an esteemed brand whose name is the name of the category – sells every Walmart unit at a loss. Why? Walmart’s “Take this price or we’ll carry a different brand” purchasing philosophy is to blame. Because losing the Walmart volume would price the company out of other channels, this company takes Walmart’s win-lose deal. (Confidentiality precludes my sharing the name of the brand.)

Switching gears, scientists in academia, the U.S. government, drug and medical imaging companies are sharing data as part of an unprecedented “collaborative effort to find the biological markers that show the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain.” The 10-year old project now serves as a model for efforts to cure other diseases, like Parkinson’s.

According to one participant in the Alzheimer’s work, “…we all realized that we would never get biomarkers unless all of us parked our egos and intellectual-property noses outside the door and agreed that all the data would become public immediately.” Terrific findings are being generated, with the prospects for better (patent-protected) drugs and diagnostic tools around the corner.

I love this example of collaboration because our culture increasingly contains an “eat what you kill” norm, in which everyone seems to be out only for himself and those he loves. One measure is that social outcomes unacceptable in decades past – unemployment rates of 50 percent and more for black youth and many middle-class families using food pantries – are now taken as unsolvable problems.

The scientists, on the other hand, recognize that in most cases we are stronger together than we are apart. Collaboration with partners to achieve a common goal enhances shared success, which then circles back to make us stronger. Medical companies in the Alzheimer’s project will likely find leading positions in billion-dollar markets.

Walmart, on the other hand, dictates terms and cares not about the carnage. That approach worked when they were the lowest-price game in town. It spells trouble now that dollar stores, Tesco, Aldi and Amazon are building business models that challenge Walmart’s lowest-cost position.

Our nation faces thorny problems whose solutions will create new markets but likely require many organizations’ expertise. Walmart’s approach, I suspect, will leave it isolated and less competitive in an economy requiring collaborative efforts. Winning companies in the new economy are not just aligned internally around their value promise. They are aligned with all their outside partners to build a stronger overall value-chain.
Strong business models are anchored in hard-to-copy advantages. Collaboration with outside partners, as well as internal alignment gained through a collaborative culture, builds stronger advantages. What are you waiting for?

The rock bank legend Three Dog Night’s observation – “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do” – applies to business, not just love.

Kay Plantes is a Madison-based consultant and author of “Beyond Price: Differentiate Your Company In Ways That Really Matter.” She is an expert in business model innovation and was the keynote speaker at the BizTimes CEO Strategies Breakfast in April.