posted on March 02, 2010 13:33
By Dace Koenigsknecht
Economic Restructuring Specialist
Michigan Main Street Center
Michigan State Housing Development Authority
I’m an avid reader, a dozen books in this New Year, currently anything from self-improvement to historical fiction. The Big Moo by The Group of 33, edited by Seth Godin, was a quick and inspirational read; a collection of short essays revolving around change and making you/your business remarkable. One sentence from one essay from this one book helped me define the answer to the question most asked of we Michigan staff: how do you get resistors on-board with Main Street? In short, you don’t. The decision is up to them. It all comes down to a bottle of champagne.
I assume it safe to say that all of you are familiar with the extravagant cork burst from a well-shaken bottle of champagne, whether you have held one at a party or watched your favorite Nascar driver spray the crowd from the winner’s circle. The fermentation process creates gas and pressure, a lot of pressure, within the bottle, requiring the little metal cage that covers the cork to prevent premature eruptions. It is precisely this pressure, however, that creates the dramatic cork off the ceiling, the gushing foam on the carpet, and the sweet smell of celebration that we all desire.
Agitation of the champagne bottle produces bubbles, a physical and visible representation of the pressure – or force – within the bottle. You, my dear reader, are a bubble within the bottle known as your local Main Street program. Due to the finite space of the corked bottle, the initial number of bubbles may be limited, as it was with those few die-hards in your comm
unity that started Main Street.
The answer to the question above comes at the millisecond the cork becomes dislodged from the neck of the bottle. As the cork accelerates, as it gains momentum, a nearly infinite number of bubbles appear within the bottle. Each one manifests the force behind the cork, building and pushing it in the desired direction, guided by the bottle and its sturdy neck. As it is with Main Street programs; people are inherently skeptical and wait until the cork begins moving before contributing their bubble of change. As more bubbles appear, the greater and more dramatic the burst, and the further the reach of ‘us’ bubbles to impact the environment beyond the bottle.
There are, however, the skeptics and curmudgeons that continue to resist or neglect the value – and velocity – of the Main Street cork. Unfortunately, these critics have made a decision to stand in the way of the cork, rather than to contribute their bubble of change to it. Not the most desirable place to be once the reaction commences. There is no stopping the cork, its mission is underway, and it packs a large punch. A small object, pushed by seemingly harmless bubbles, puts scores of people (large objects in comparison) in the hospital each year as a result of the impact.
With that, don’t worry about the curmudgeons, as the laws of physics will take care of them. We ALL have a choice to make as to which side of the cork we’re on: the relatively safe, exciting, rewarding interior of the Main Street bottle forcing the cork of change forward, or in front of said cork where the treading is less safe.