Put Your Creative Energy To Work!

For some, my yesterday would have truly been a money-spending day.

I put more than 200 miles on my car driving home from my mountain cabin about 90 miles north of Atlanta and then driving from Atlanta to an antique auction in a small town about 70 miles to the east of the city.

Aside from some friends of mine that would have bid away the contents of their wallets at the auction, driving that many miles in a day right now is racking up the dollars at the pumps.

But for me, the driving was not quite as painful.

About two weeks ago, I signed the papers on a new BMW MINI Cooper that gets 35 miles a gallon in the city and 40 miles a gallon on the highway.

In some ways it was an economic move… in other ways it was my own personal demonstration of environmental responsibility.

During the weekend, I had a chance to listen to a good share of radio while in the car and also a chance to catch up on the stories of our local newspaper rag, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution or AJC.

Yesterday morning I listened to one of the talk show hosts interview a sociology professor from the University of Georgia that specializes in understanding rural, small town America.

A professor specializing in small town America is kind of like painting a picture of an oxymoron.

The story was all about the rising costs of gasoline.

The professor took the position that small town America was feeling the crunch more than its suburban and urban counterparts. He talked about how far the average small town guy has to drive to go to work every morning.

Okay.

My second-home log cabin is located in North Georgia in a little town of Cherry Log… an area that was actually featured in the housing section of Sunday’s AJC.

Ellijay is the nearby city and county seat.

Some of my local neighbors up there rarely leave the county. Some have never even driven the 90 miles to the “big-time city of Atlanta.”

While a number of small town residents drive into the cities to work, there is also a significant number that actually work the farms or have jobs in the local towns.

They also dine, shop and find entertainment, albeit simple selection and choice, in the same local towns.

This UGA professor talked about how the BIG OIL companies dominate the competitive landscape in these small towns and jack up the prices that leave these poor people digging even deeper in their pockets to survive.

Yeah…there may be a BP or Exxon logo on the gas station sign, but the guy or gal running the pumps probably graduated from the local high school and attends church with others from the community.

I don’t think academics fully understand the consequences of not following along with the concerns and rules of served communities… especially those in small town America..."Shotguns and Pickups" kind of towns.

To be honest, the biggest hit that small town America is facing with the soaring gas prices is probably tied more to the fuel it takes to plow the fields and harvest the crops. And rising food prices are examples of it.

In the 2006 BrandVenture Trendcast, one of the trends cited is termed “The Emerging Main Street of Authenticity.” With the rising costs of gasoline, everything from small towns to town squares to city centers to live/work is becoming hot.

Companies and businesses will have to change the way that they evaluate site locations and markets. Communities and associations will have to rethink how they physically operate.

Great case in point…

Harris County, Georgia and their economic community development group is a BrandVenture client. We have worked with them on creating a five-year growth and development plan to capitalize on the largest automotive plant in US history that Kia is building and the consolidation of US troops at Fort Benning…a base located just south of their county.

As part of their plan, they have worked to pass a new set of regulations that permit live/work and cluster housing.

Great thinking… something that too few do today!

In this Sunday’s AJC, there was an article about Milton, Georgia… a new “small town” created in North Fulton County… an area populated by those that fled the city growth for the purity of the farm land.

But “many of the Milton residents are determined to protect the rural charm of the estate homes and horse farms”… and believe that septic tanks as a requirement will “keep the bulldozers” at bay.

For those not into the mechanics of sewer systems, septic tanks mean that individual homes will have to have acreage around them in order to get their toilets to flush. As a result, condensed housing is out and sprawling housing is in.

God forbid the idea of cluster housing and the environmental push for keeping the vast farmland environmentally green!

And even more so… the cars stay in the garage and the bikes hit the street to live, work, shop and play!

At BrandVenture, we are very fortunate to live in an historic, urban, planned growth community. From our offices we can walk to restaurants, retail stores and the Atlanta rail line. Several of our employees walk to work. A scooter store shares space in the building where we have our office.

Organizations, entrepreneurs and brands that embrace this change will be the winners… old school political leadership, thinkers and academics will fade away and pay the price.

By the way, if you are really, really addicted to those testosterone SUVs… MINI Cooper is launching its own gas-efficient MINI SUV in 2010!

Now how much cooler can it get!