InsideFurniture

ONCE UPON A TIME: Telling the furniture story with passion and honor

Blognote: A couple of times a year, I feel compelled to remind all of us just what busines we are in and the attendant responsiblity to serve the greater good to assure the personal goodness.

Once upon a time, a wise furniture manufacturer sat a few of his favorite retailers on his knee and told the great story of how they all have a responsibility to help people — men and women, boys and girls— live a better life.

“It’s really a sacred responsibility we have, and few of us recognize what we’re really supposed to be doing in the marketplace,” he told the doubting, yet curious and squirming merchants who only wanted to go back to their stores and sell furniture.

“Be patient and quiet for a few moments, boys, and I’ll help you recognize that selling furniture alone is insufficient. All of us are really in the business of satisfying people. Working hard to satisfy instead of selling actually produces stronger business because it impels people to seek our counsel within a trusting and respectful context.”

In response, one retailer blurted, “That’s all well and good, but it’s mostly warm and fuzzy mental stuff. I’m in business to make a profit, and that comes from selling furniture, old man! I discount my merchandise and advertise regularly that we have low prices.”

Putting his arm on the vocal boy’s shoulder the avuncular manufacturer said, “Young man, sure you’re in business, but your primary responsibility is to know that the homemakers who come to your store are there for an important purpose. They come not to be sold something or anything, but to be satisfied, to fulfill their dreams to live better.

“Remember, you can do almost anything to make a profit, like shouting low prices, as many retailers do so reflexively. But to satisfy people seeking legitimate value, a lasting relationship and an overwhelming desire for honest guidance and satisfaction requires a more thoughtful approach”

Sell beauty and comfort. The manufacturer’s explanation calmed the anxious, eager and excited retailers who stopped fidgeting and finally settled into an attentive state of awe. Then, the manufacturer continued his tale about how homemakers across all socio-economic levels wanted and deserved comfortable and attractive interiors, filled with the furniture they can best afford.

Looking into the retailers’ eyes, the manufacturer said people, “your customers,” respond well to credible stories about how furniture makes their lives better. That works better than concentrating on how much money they can save or how they’ll pay for it.

“We all have stories in our minds on how we want to live in our homes,” he said. “We develop those stories from our own experiences and build upon them with what we see in friends’ homes, furniture stores and various publications. All of us are attracted to the better life and assume that when we find it in the furniture we want, the retailer will find a way to help us pay for it.”

As time went on, the manufacturer continued to provide rich and vivid examples to his retailers that confirmed his premise: That merely telling the right, potent stories, instead of selling to homemakers, actually created loyalty, authority, credibility and a sense of involved compassion.

“Remember, a real story has merit and commands attention because your customers can visualize how your furniture improves their lives and helps them attain their dreams, wishes and aspirations,” he stressed. “You can’t honor people and retain them as your customers for life if you shout at them, command them with blandishments to come to your store or otherwise force your way into their minds. They will resist, especially during uncertain economic times."

Welcome to the real world. In the real, rough world of furniture retailing, mostly detached manufacturers feel their primary responsibility is only to provide merchandise to retailers whose job, the vendors believe, is to sell it quickly and often. If that approach were sound, consumer discretionary spending on furniture would be rising.

Virtually every other consumer goods industry tells people “how to live better with our product” stories. Only the furniture industry misses this message. Sure, a minority of furniture manufacturers and retailers recognize the verity of telling solid stories, and do so, but obstreperous “buy now” and “no-no-no” gimmickry messages are the sales-and-relationship-robbing norm. That onslaught contaminates the minds of yearning homemakers and alienates them from the very products that can improve their homes and lives.

Comparatively, furniture is presented to homemakers as a self-evident commodity, whose attributes, virtues and exponents are presumed to be known. Despite all the prattle at industry conferences of finding better ways to connect with consumers, a reality gap exists. That gap prompts prominent manufacturers to declare at conferences, in plaintive mea culpa tones, “She (homemakers) doesn’t trust us.” Duh!

Yes, a better way exists and all the furniture industry needs to do is incorporate the simple concept of pervasive story telling. Of course, not any story will do, and that’s where precision and guidance is necessary. The best sources of that guidance should be industry trade associations.

Obviously, if story telling were that simple, an industry that flatters itself with emulation of styles, methods and policy, would seize the power of conveying passion and enjoyment to homemakers who desperately want guidance and direction. Telling a good story requires constant and perceptive training to otherwise impatient, “don’t confuse me with the facts” personalities. Most manufacturers and retailers need to be coached to tell effective stories about furniture.

And now the rest of the story: The wise manufacturer told his now attentive retailers that they, too, could learn to tell “how to live better with furniture” stories.

“Boys, open your eyes and pay attention to what your family and friends do and how they think. Take note of methods and procedures that automotive, beverage, cosmetics and consumer electronics industries use in their stories, and emulate similar images and concepts.

“Know that this investment will reward you with dividends of more business built on satisfying homemakers. And you will live happily ever after.

RISKY OR RISQUÉ BUSINESS?: Most furniture stores are too uptight and could benefit from loosening up with a little more floorplay

Repost from December 28, 2007

Sure, more furniture merchants could exude, even ooze romantic allure, as natural inviting appeal to stimulate and validate dreams we all enjoy about living better and more comfortably.

Unfortunately, most stores are too uptight, stiff and hesitant for a little acceptable frolic and roll in the, “Hey, look at that luscious, comfy bed where we could . . .” You finish the thought with your dreams, desires and inclinations, just as most consumers want to do when they're shopping.

No need for any more alienation of mercantile affection in stores, where women go when the intensity of their romantic home furnishings dreams can’t be contained and prompts passionate action.

For retailers, here’s where and when a little responsible floorplay can turn torrid desire into profitable passion and an endearing relationship. Making love to consumers is good business, not risky business but acceptable risqué business.

As a terrific in-store invitation to dream, a bed and its enveloping and attendant furniture — case goods — is the right metaphor for acceptable risqué furniture business.

To be sure my insight was in reasonable focus, I checked with my alter ego and friend, Gale Steves. She’s keen observer and arbiter of home furnishings trends at the consulting group Open House Productions, New York (click on her name to send an e-mail). If you want a fix of her bravadoh!, just check into the Finding Your Sales Voice she conducted recently with Home Furnishings Business.

My sense is the way retailers present beds appeals to our conscious and unconscious emotions. We’re invited in or not. We linger and dream or we stay awake and walk away.

Typically, beds in most stores are, as Gale observes, “overly made up, as in women wearing too much make up . . . with a wretched excess of pillowing” or beds that are too perfect, as if they have been poured into an untouchable and unreal mold.

Conversely, an unmade bed in a store can be merchandising dread. Or as Gale explains, “A badly made bed is far worse than an impeccable one. In a store, a woman seeing an unmade bed represents work undone, a form of untidiness which is a misdemeanor in her world order.”

The merchandising art and craft of creating an inviting bed nuzzled into furniture is a form of mercantile stagecraft and, of course, visual floorplay to stimulate desire whatever that may be.

“If the bed is a place of relaxation and repose, create an environment that says that here is where your dreams come true,” Gale observes.

In our conversations, and e-mail exchanges, we agreed that an inviting bed is slightly undressed, relaxed with a romantic tussle of the covers, without being lewd, unkempt or sloppy.

Think of the inviting bed as an element of a store’s mercantile résumé, prompting a consumer to say, “I want to hire that look for my home,” for rest, hope, refuge, redemption, frolic, romance, somnolence and fun.

THE HOME, STUPID! Yes, Yes, Yes, Know, Know, Know the home as the powerbase for home furnishings direction from the power of local search online

Repost from November 22, 2006, with slight modfication

Insulting, isn’t it? For me to suggest in such an inflammatory headline that pockets of decreased vision and intelligence could possibily flourish within the furniture industry.

Omigod! What an outrage! What heresy! And, oh, yeh, where is the outrage?

With the power of online shopping (fact-finding and discovery) — NOT BUYING!! — growing so exponentially, I am dumbfounded (maybe just dumb!) and befuddled over the gross misuse of the commercial power of the Internet.

Hey, the Internet ain’t your father’s sales-mobile! It's your snazzy, souped up platform as a destination to a self-qualifying shopper's search mobile.

The high touch, high feel factor of furniture demands that shoppers develop a comfortable point of reference — the butt test or drawer pull — to confirm or validate a buying decision.

But first they have to discern the best store to visit, and with costly fuel that precludes just driving around, shoppers don't want to be fooled online. And if they are, they ain't never gonna go back.

The challenge is howya gonna get 'em into the store when  shoppers are seeking information and many retailers are delivering online sales patois that is usually  warmed over newspaper bombast?

This is mercantile limbo. How low can they go? Remember, you can take the sale out of the ad, but can't take sale ad out of the retailer, even though online prowess becomes the wind for successful merchant sails.

Remember, all furniture is local, and that means virtually all furniture buying is local. So, when shoppers search for authority online, they dismiss sales drivel that they inherently know contains some kind of too-good-to-be-true catch.

Anyway, women are the decision makers, and they innately know what retailers (men) want with unrequited mercantile love.

So, how will retailers and their vendors comport themselves online to change the perception of home furnishings? Well, it won't be evolutionary. But, instead, the change will emerge from intelligent design. That means knowing what people (code word for women) want, and to be ready with the trusted information when they want it, and that’s all the time in full Twenty-four/Seven responsiveness.

InsideFurniture comment-meister and online marketer Mark Wax of SellPoint.net, observes:

“The next business downturn will be so vicious, forcing such monumental changes in the way consumers buy and act, that only the smartest, savviest merchants and manufacturers will survive. And that's the kind of merchant shoppers want to do business with right now and in the future, for sure.," Wax explains.

In a torrent of cheaply made merchandise flowing in from all over, how will consumers know the difference when they search and shop online. Believe me, they will because the smart merchants will become evident. Intelligent water seeks its own level.

Yes, shoppers will buy in a store, a significant fact that many furniture executives may not have appreciated and wonder why they are not generating sales online.

The nonlinear and counterintuitive merchants and vendors will succeed. Of course, we know Ikea is leading the pack in that arena, but what about the goods at the high end? How will those purveyors distinguish themselves?

They will have to do so when gasoline, as it should, goes to $5 a gallon and forces all of us to become more efficient. And as we do, the home will become more of a familial and friendship base, prompting primordial desires for damn good looking and functioning nests, our homes.

The future of furniture in the home will be in the plasma screen eyes of the beholders. And just where will be the night on the town? In a friend or family member’s home, where comfort and satisfaction reigns.

The experience will not be the plasma screen and the enveloping super electronics, but in the context in which the equipment operates and influences. And that is in our homes where the totality of experience is the message and experience that soothes and comforts us in a special place we known as our haven.

So back to the future: Competition on the false idol of low price, in a desperate race to extinction, will continue to compell simplistic followers. In stark contrast, leaders will breakaway and lead shoppers to better living, and that long journey begins with a short mouse click.

Make love online instead of R.O.A.R. (Retailers Obfuscate Authoritative Reason).

SEE CHANGE: An antidote for bad business is a good dose rugged individualism and honest recognition the eventual turnaround starts locally

Yes, the turnaround begins in the store and studio now. So get moving . . . because no quick solutions exist, except for the continuing process of reinvention.

Change is hard and demanding. It requires refocusing on the needs of others to satisfy the needs of the merchant, designer and manufacturer.

Or as the poster, left, declares: Change . . .  When the winds of change blow hard enough, the most trivial of things can turn into deadly projectiles.

The ripe, consistent message constitutes productive marketing. Telling your story consistently from the perspective of those you serve is the strongest message.

Forget about what is for sale. The message for people embodies where they want to be and how comfortable they can be when they are there. That means there is a there there in romantic marketing.

The resonating and magnetic power of living better unburdens the beast and attracts the heart. All other entreaties are evanescent mercantile perfume, always lacking substantive sustainability.

The impulse is living better in comfort, a passion play playing on earnest emotion of personal discovery of transforming the doldrums into the turnaround of triumph.

Again, the turnaround begins locally right out of an open head and mind, both recognizing that change is an individual contact sport.

Good business comes from good karma. Visualize what you really want in comfort and living better, then deliver the message and possibilities with passion.

Oh, one more factor: Be the change you want to see in your business, which is a variation of a empowering declaration from Mahatma Gandhi.

PROBLEM OR PREDICAMENT?: Harness creativity and innovation to solve the economic challenges as a fun game

Consider the current economic malaise as a problem to solve with ingenuity not a frustrating predicament over which our control is either fleeting or nonexistent.

Alexander Green of Spiritual Wealth challenges us to convert insoluble predicaments into a soluble problem, as if we are contestants on a reality show.

Requiring our full attention and brain power, we can look at our problems as enjoyable challenges, a mental shift that can open new possibilities.

What’s the sense of complaining about bad business? It’s nonsense, isn’t it?

Savor the letter below, gleaning from it a fresh perspectives.

The Psychology of Optimal Experience
By Alexander Green 

We all have troubles. In many ways, they define our lives.

But, according to philosopher Abraham Kaplan, we can deal with them more effectively if we recognize them as either problems or predicaments.

The difference? Problems, says Kaplan, can be solved. Predicaments can only be coped with.

If you work in downtown Baltimore, for example, you may be worried about crime. This is a predicament, not a problem. You can install a security system in your car, avoid the worst areas after dark, or arrange a transfer to a different office. But these are coping mechanisms. You are not going to "fix" crime in Baltimore.

A more serious predicament we all face is the occasional death of a loved one.

We can spend time grieving with family and friends, join a support group, or take up new activities to keep our minds from becoming preoccupied. But death itself cannot be bargained with.

Fortunately, most of our troubles are not predicaments, but problems.

You may worry, for instance, that you haven't saved enough for a comfortable retirement. If so, you have plenty of company.

According to the 2007 Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), 36% of workers have less than $10,000 in retirement savings. Another 13% have less than $25,000.

Clearly, this is a problem, but one with a straightforward solution. You can make more. You can spend less. Or you can earn a higher return on your investments. (Doing all three isn't bad either.)

Or, you may be one of the millions of Americans who struggles with obesity. If so, it is probably having a detrimental effect on your health, your self-image, and your quality of life.

For some of us, this is both a problem and a predicament. After all, genetics determine your basic body type. As you learned in fifth-grade health, you were born an ecotomorph, a mesomorph, or an endomorph. You cannot change this.

But anyone can eat better, exercise more or both. Not easy, but there is a solution.

Why is it important to label the trials you face either problems or predicaments?

According to John C. Maxwell, author of "The Difference Maker," "When people treat a predicament as a problem, they become frustrated, angry or depressed. They waste energy. They make bad decisions. And when people treat problems as predicaments, they often settle, give up, or see themselves as victims."

Understand this and you've taken the first step toward dealing with your predicaments and solving your problems.

Nielsen Media Research tells us that Americans love reality shows where contestants are put in high-pressure situations and challenged to "win" using every bit of intelligence, cunning and resourcefulness they can muster.

Why not view your own problems the same way? If you have a boring job, an inattentive spouse, or a looming financial setback, why not use all your smarts, imagination and creativity to turn the tables?

My guess is that if you were in front of a national television audience - and in danger of being voted off the show - you'd come up with something pretty good, something that would surprise the people around you.

In fact, this is exactly what you should be doing, according to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience." He argues that the quickest way to increase your life satisfaction is to quit seeing your problems as difficulties and start viewing them as an enjoyable challenge.

(He isn't the first to articulate this notion, incidentally. For centuries, Buddhists have embraced difficult people and situations as opportunities for spiritual development. Without them, what chance do you have to practice compassion, tolerance, or forgiveness?)

Facing your problems this way requires just two things: a bit of imagination and a positive attitude. The payoff, in turn, can be huge.

Whether you want to start your own business, lose 30 pounds, or get out of debt, you can begin by relishing the challenge.

You might surprise yourself, too. Not only by achieving your goals, but by seeing how much satisfaction you get just moving toward them in a disciplined way.

Think of it as your own reality show. (One that, ironically, actually deals with reality.) The obstacles in front of you give you the opportunity to show the world - and yourself - what you're made of.

Just remember that your predicaments require interpretive thinking and must be endured. Your problems require analytic thinking - and cannot withstand the sustained assault of creative thinking and positive action.

So why not attack yours today with a fresh mindset and a new attitude?

You have nothing to lose but your troubles.

Carpe Diem

THE WHETHER REPORT: Ferocious winds of change likely to determine whether many retailers and manufacturers can weather the mercantile storms

For furniture, the coldest winter is the current summer in business! As old man mercantile winter sucks enough air and continues to blow away many leaves on furniture’s tree, all thoughts turn to the whether.

The prevailing whether report is just that: Whether retailers and manufacturers really know how to weather the weather striking hard and fast in a devastatingly democratic way.

Big and little are blown away along with a strange complacency and addiction to unprogressive action and fear-generated paralysis.

The reasons are a known combination of factors: greed inspired housing disaster and and its drag on an uncertain economy, the cancer of me-too merchandising, backward thinking and lack of sustained institutional leadership.

The storm striking so fierce has been predicted here, there and everywhere, even predicted in this Cassandra-like blog. Despite some of the predictions and truths within this space, the doubters have become believers.

(In Greek mythology, Cassandra (Greek: Κασσάνδρα "she who entangles men") (also known as Alexandra) was a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy those beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy. However, when she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions.)

Aside from the economy, most of the impediments to sustaining solid business can be overcome with sturdy commitment, vision and determination. Oh, one more factor is essential: Counterintuitive thinking and action that finds new and innovative ways to achieve good marketing's objectives.

Contrast counterintuitive marketing to repeating the same action or task over and over again, yet expecting different results. That's what Albert Einstein called idiocy, which is no theory of dumb relativity.

The bitter fruit of blind repetition is lethal and is taking its toll. As we know, unfortunately, some big names in manufacturing are teetering. You know them. If any disappear, as some are destined to go, the sad fact is consumers may not miss them.

That will likely mean dark showroom spaces after, and possibly before, the upcoming markets in Tupelo, High Point and Las Vegas whose brand of business botox and mighty application of showroom cosmetics could not cover the this summer's toothless smile of vacant and market only space. It's too bad for everyone.

The proverbial winds of change are blowing hard. Despite the damnable business climate, opportunity exists for companies smart enough to invest in shrewd marketing combined with essential operational belt tightening. Working smart is always good.

Detractors always want to read good news, shouting that the truth is just unnecessary gloom and doom. Okay, here's the good news: The survivors will be stronger and likely to embrace progressive ideas.

The bad news is some people won't like the good news.

In the business cycle, you know when times are good you need to prepare for when times are bad, and vice versa. Now is the time to plan for the good times however they emerge. They will, but probably differently. Be ready.

The pendulum swings back, but not the same way, and it will be guillotine for some.

Preparedness means merchants and, especially, producers need to change how they inform, guide and educate consumers.

The same-ole, same-ole ways are tantamount to being outmoded floppy disks in the age of flash memory. If the metaphor is strange, better check the “whether” for stormy weather.

As mentioned emphatically in previous postings, the role of the internet (local search), plus identifying the consumer attraction from other direct methods, events and experiences will determine the winners and losers.

All the new marketing tools are available. It’s just identifying and using them to their potential. Of course, you may need professional assistance and counsel, just as you do for legal, financial and medical matters.

Here’s a food for thought analogy: Two people can visit the same grocery store with the same casserole recipe, yet produce two different dishes in appearance, taste and texture.

What’s the difference when they had the same recipe?: Technique, choice of ingredients, attention to details, preparation, following instructions, et cetera.

For shelter in the coming storm, it comes down to baking the right business casserole. It's time to cook!

Repost from November 29, 2006, with some modifications

FIRST RULE OF HOLES: Stop digging and start filling to get out of the hole

Stop digging is the obvious action, and the first rule of holes, if you're stuck in a hole, especially a hole you've dug yourself!

The furniture industry is stuck in a hole of its own doing. More like a cavern, but still a big hole that most single-minded and somewhat benighted merchants and manufacturers have dug for themselves.

Wittingly or not, they have dug the hole, a hole of missed opportunities, for themselves. No new products or furniture trade shows can lift the industry out of its holiness.

Yet, amazingly, despite a frenetic desire to escape, they keep digging and digging. That is, they keep doing the same things — selling instead of marketing — and expecting different results.

Invoking the first rule of holes, stop digging, already!

Take heed: The next step (important word, step) is start filling the hole, not to bury an old industry, but with disciplined action to establish a new foundation and firm footing to climb out with a new appreciation and desire to promote satisfaction, comfort and better living.

The fill material is commitment and desire to expand the industry's knowledge and refine its approach to the people it serves.

For a better perspective, the following Native American tale tells it all:

One day an old Native American's donkey fell down into a deep hole. The animal cried piteously for hours as the Native American tried to figure out what to do.

Finally, he decided the animal was old and the hole needed to be covered up anyway. It just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his clan people to come over and help him. They all began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down.

A few minutes later, the old Native American finally looked down the hole and was astonished at what he saw.

With every handful of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing!

He would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the hole and trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt! The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. 

Each of our troubles is a stepping-stone. We can get out of the deepest holes just by not stopping and never giving up!

All we have to do is shake it off and take a step up.

Morale of the story and predicament: When your ass in a hole, stop digging! Start filling with thoughtful action not reaction.

Repost from February 26, 2008

HOME CENTRICITY: The smartest merchants appeal to consumer comfort and better living aspirations not their own

Eager retailers bent on getting great deals for no other reason from vendors interested only in sales confirms those would-be merchants’ detachment from actually satisfying the needs of people we call consumers.

From online clicks leading to the bricks of studios and stores, those people want to consume a comfort-style-design-function experience to bring home for all it delivers.

With a gnawing pent up demand for and dreams of living more comfortably, consumers want to invest in furniture providing greater livability conforming to their lifestyles and worldview, not the retailers’.

Unfortunately, some retailers only want to sell their desires, a selfish tactic producing fewer buyers, as it broadens a credibility gap filled with grumbles, disdain, disappointment and distress.

What sells is what people want. They want to live their dreams. They will invest if they can attain dividends of sustainable value, quality and design. Consumers resist prodding and shoving by price points and little else.

As long as vendors and retailers believe they can herd consumers with price without a comfort context, discretionary income will flow elsewhere.

No matter the argument and its wisdom, the current fear and loathing blinds most retailers unable to think beyond how to get the next sale. Like mercantile dogs in heat, they bark hard for awareness. Their palpable fear mandates a narrow rigidity otherwise known as a R.U.T.: retailers under tension.

Again, the antidote is the courage to inform, guide and educate consumers about how their lives can be more comfortable now that the home is more of the haven from the maddening world.

BAIL TIME?: Tough times prompting more industry people to consider alternatives

Sad but true, the unhappy business drama afflicting the industry becomes gripping theater in a tableaux entitled, Stop the Whirl, I want to get off!

Across all sectors, a common refrain resounds fear, resignation, vexation and high anxiety. In slight variations, the encapsulated feeling is, in a simple listless sigh, “It’s just not fun anymore.”

From retailers to vendors to suppliers, the tension is depressingly thick, the frowns are many and the dispositions uneasy and raw. Everyone is working harder and enjoying it less.

Long time industry veterans are unable to recall “a time like this when interpersonal relations are so tense and, unfortunately, toxic with levels of distrust and dishonor I've never seen. Some of the younger people are bailing, and that’s not good because none of us old farts have the strength anymore,” an influential executive responds.

Says another high placed executive, “Sales calls and even markets aren’t the same, anymore, no matter where they are, and the people are on edge all the time, with permanent frowns. This industry isn’t fun anymore, and I would leave if I didn’t like it so much.”

Clearly, an amazing, even paradoxical comfort zone exists as a powerful magnet, producing vexing stages of simultaneous positive and negative addiction. Call in the shrinks, please.

Like a battered child still unconditionally seeking an abusive parent’s illusive affection, many people in the home furnishings industry want to ignore the reality in the belief a sincere handshake, back slap and tight smile will end the misery. Surprise, surprise is a common feeling, and that's regrettable.

Home furnishings people struggle to keep a positive disposition, but freely admit to an enervating daily grin to grind out a living, a mind-bedning odyssey at best.

“This is wearing on me, my vendors and friends,” says a fatigued retailer. “In my position, I just can’t pick up and leave, but would if I could.”

Those with transferable skills are looking elsewhere where the "sustainability really means something economically and assures a more surefire path to surviving." You'd.— you'd be surprised to learn just how many are actively looking.

A veteran industry friend characterized the current, prolonged malaise as an attitude and not a sign of industry morbidity, saying, “But even so, I’ve never seen people so dyspeptic and bummed out. Like a bad case of economic influenza, this, too, shall pass.”

A normally vigilantly optimistic friend countered, “Yeh, it will get better, but it will really be different, and that difference will bring a new wave of both positive and negative tension. Getting out can surely seem like the path for some,” he observes.

Now is a good time for a return to halcyon days. Where’s Doris Day when we need her to bring us back to reality with:

Que Sera Sera

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich
Here's what she said to me.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

When I was young, I fell in love
I asked my sweetheart what lies ahead
Will we have rainbows, day after day
Here's what my sweetheart said.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

Now I have children of my own
They ask their mother, what will I be
Will I be handsome, will I be rich
I tell them tenderly.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.