I’ve been finding myself in a lot of conversations lately about intercommunity commerce. I don’t even know if that’s a real thing, but you can certainly allow the conjunction of intercommunity and commerce.
We are a community and we engage in commerce.
But there’s a scary phenomenon taking place, and some of this goes back to my soapbox on the dangers of the suffocating wave of AI.
If you go back just 20 years, you’ll find communities, especially smaller communities like Fort Madison or Keokuk, or West Point even, where at least most of the lifeblood of these towns was commerce amongst ourselves.
We’re getting away from that very quickly. There are still people thinking about commerce being a local commodity e.g. using a local flooring company for those needs, using a local vehicle dealership, getting paint at the local hardware store, or using local financial services people.
Those people hire local help, which is indirect commerce. A lot of these bigger companies we have in the area can’t get the raw materials they need for their business from the person down the street so that part of their revenue leaves the area, but the wages are different. Much more of that money needs to stay local. And that has to be an imperative among future generations who use the Internet for almost everything nowadays.
Product delivery services are extremely efficient, and expensive I might add, but very little of that money stays local. When you factor in the delivery service you get from franchised restaurants, a lot of that money leaves there area, too – outside of wages.
And that certainly isn’t to say that those wages aren’t critical to the system of local commerce, they are the main source, but there are other things we’re seeing and doing that prevent us from healthy reinvestment of dollars.
YouTube has become a wonderful tool in do-it-yourself repair. But you can’t benefit personally, while hurting someone professionally. Personally, I hate plumbing and will always write the check for that work. I know it will get done right, which is a toss-up if I try the YouTube way, but more importantly, I know that investment will also get circulated in the community.
AI and Social Media, and this is where it gets a little self serving and I’ll justify that at the end, have added to the revenue drain of the news game. Creating and disseminating ads for local companies used to be under the purview of newspapers, radios, and televisons. Now that has almost become do-it-yourself and that will eventually put us out of business – unless we change the dynamic of our business.
And there’s something to the book and adage – change or die.
At the beginning of this year, I spent about two months wandering about the county talking to leaders about the value they place in local news. Almost all of them said Pen City Current was what they read every morning. But none of them subscribed to it, or advertised in it. So the questions then became what’s the value to it? You pay for eggs, because you need them even though you frown at the cost. But you buy them because of the value you place in eggs. People have forgotten the value of getting their news every day and that return on an investment.
So that takes me back to the change-or-die school of thought. If small-town America is going to get rolled up, and we are, in global commerce, which inevitably pulls away from local commerce – whether that’s using AI to create and social media to distribute your ads, or driving to the closest big box to get your paint, or using some New York company to handle your retirement when people here are exceptionally qualified, is bleeding local commerce.
I’m guilty, too. Just the other day I was out and about and The 372 was open. I told myself to stop in and grab breakfast and was going to do that after my errands. But then I ran by the local franchise, grabbed a breakfast sandwich, completely forgetting that I was going to stop in there. I got home, grabbed the bag from the passenger seat, and just stopped. Threw my head back and was disappointed in myself.
It’s just my opinion, but I think we need to regress a little bit. Especially those just entering the workforce and looking for residencies. The thing that drives communities are strong volunteerism (but it can’t be mandatory because those are conflicting energies – don’t get me started), quality of life elements, strong but reclusive government, and the recirculation of commerce amongst ourselves. I don’t know – Make Fort Madison Great Again?
Speaking of great things, the election cycle is heating up and we’ve been reaching out to the local compelling races. We think the District 100 State Rep. race between former FM Mayor and Lee County Supervisor Matt Mohrfeld, and current GOP incumbent and upstart Blaine Watkins, is going to be very compelling not just in campaigning, but spending, and we’re going to start watching both very soon. The District 2 supervisor race between former FM City Councilman Chris Greenwald and former supervisor Tom Schulz will get spirited, as well, and we’re looking forward to that coverage – but that’s all Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.
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