The timing of the Great AOL Debacle couldn't have been worse for me. I have a lot going on right now and not much time to journal about any of it, let alone time to read or comment. I was barely keeping track of who had gone where, and and then today I deleted all the links on my new journal by accident.
Nevertheless...please come on over, add me to your bloglines, and give me a chance to settle in. I miss you all!
When I turned on the television in our Chicago hotel room Friday morning, a local station was doing a story on the Marshall Field's Department Store holiday windows. The eleven windows of the State Street store develop a fantastical story every holiday season, complete with elaborate design and animated figures.
(The Fairy Godmother Delivers Cinderella's Coach)
The exquisite detail and charm of the windows would warrant a news story each year entirely of their own accord. The interviewer spoke with the chief designer, and showed us the storage space housing decades of costumes and sets -- all interesting stuff. But the story has a different twist this year, since Field's has been bought by Macy's and the future of the windows is uncertain. People are unhappy about the acquisition of a local landmark store by a national retailer -- as we were out and about later in the day, I overheard one young woman telling the story to a companion and planning her own boycott of Macy's.
(The Baffled Prince Holding The Slipper After The Ball)
Why do these things matter so much? What difference does it make whether we shop at Macy's or Field's, at a Home Depot or a local hardware store, at a Walmart or a neighborhood retailer? What's good for business is good for America, right?
Oops -- that speaker was discredited over 70 years ago. Good business is good for America, and the world -- but what is good business?
We've obviously had a chance to reflect upon that over the past week or so in AOL Journal Land. And I think we all know that one of the things good business does is build community, or create a climate in which community builds itself. Certainly some of the apprehension felt by Field's customers has to do with their fears concerning the destruction of community.
The folks at Marshall Field's never had to create those display windows on State Street. They didn't have to continue thetradition decade after decade. People would still do their holiday shopping there, even if the windows were full of nothing more imaginative than plasma television screens and the latest in X-Box technology.
But the windows became a gift to Chicago, a gift that built community. Whether they are "consistent with Field's objectives" remains unstated -- but my guess is that they are. Community, good feelings, loyalty -- they are all precious business commodities as well as personal treasures. They are created by a business that cares enough about its customers to welcome them to its premises, year after year after year, and to treat them like royalty once they arrive.
(The Slipper Fits The Lady)
PS: For pictures of last year's windows, go here and here.
Most of the sandhill cranes in easern North America pass through the Jasper-Pulaski Wildlife Refuge in northern Indiana on their fall and spring journeys. There are probably 10-12,000 cranes in northern Indiana right now, although to see them en masse you have to be at the right place (J-P) at the right time (sunrise and sunset), which we weren't. Nevertheless, we saw several hundred in mid-afternoon yesterday. And we were treated to a view of a large herd of deer, a flock of wild turkeys, and four coyotes, all mingling in the fields far beyond the cranes.
******************************
PS: Don't these birds just look like they're searching for a convenient ATM?
The Pilgrims (including my I-don't-know-how-many-greats grandfather Digory Priest), who made an arduous journey across the Atlantic, mostly died in the cold and snow, and probably did not celebrate what we would call Thanksgiving Dinner with their neighbors, did so in order that they might create a society according to their own designs and, as a result, quite accidentally took the first steps toward the diversity and freedom we enjoy today.
They probably were't thinking that their sacrifices would bring us flash advertising. And the Wampanoag weren't realizing that they were on the verge of replacement by corporate America. But. . . just for today, just because we have made for a ourselves a day to pause and think of what we are grateful for instead of what we aren't:
I want to wish everyone -- including Joe, John, and my new colleagues at AOL Corporate, Bank of America, NASCAR, lovematch, and that pharmaceutical company that has showed up -- a lovely holiday ~ hope your drives and airport waits are not too long, your loved ones show up, your mashed potatoes are perfect, and you enjoy a long walk in the woods!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!
Just posted in Joe's Magic Smoke (I only wish I could choose my font size over there) but you can read it here, too, if any of you are left. I notice that most of the journals I read have gone private or departed. Not sure how the private mode helps, as my private journal is blasting a BOA ad at the moment, and the dearly departed are hard to find -- I'm working on it, I'm working on it. In the meantime, for those who have stayed, if you figure out a way to retain your labors of the past months or years in an acceptable form, let me know:
NEW ENTRY, ENTITLED "THE FINAL STRAW -- THAT OLD CAMEL HAS COLLAPSED"
ONE WOULD THINK. . .
that aol might be trying to retain and recover those of its unpaid contributors who might have gone elsewhere.
ONE WOULD BE MISTAKEN.
More than a week after the ads went up:
1. My archives still indicate 1 post per month.
2. The archives still go to the wrong month, so to find an old entry you have to go back into archives, click on the CORRECT month, and got to the date in question, and then start all over again for the next one, etc etc. . .
AND
HERE'S THE WINNER:
I have always backed up my journal periodically with hard copies. I have several notebooks worth. Today I decided to work on that task a bit. In the past I would simply open an entry and click "Print." I would get a nice clean copy of the entry, with photos or other illustrations completely intact.
BUT GUESS WHAT????????????
THE ONLY THING I CAN PRINT NOW ARE THE ADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOT my entries. NOT MY ENTRIES.
For the entries I have to painstakingly copy every single one into Word, save and print -- and the photographs all come out as about 1/10 the size of a thumbnail.
I hope the BOA commerical artists are happy.
I AM NOT.
Some of you know I've been posting my entries in the Comments Section of Magic Smoke while my own journal has been AWOL. Here's what I left over there today:
FINAL ENTRY: SWAN SONG
Well, it was nice, Joe. I enjoyed posting in your journal. But mine has been returned to me as of last night. The archives are still a mess and BOA still seems to think it has some kind of right to perch up there at the top, but at least I can post. And maybe I will. Or maybe not. Or maybe I'll post to both blogs for awhile.
I expect there's a lot of ambivalence around town, but maybe not. I seldom have my finger on the pulse of things. My journal doesn't get much notice and I think I know why -- I'm usually completely out of it with respect to contemporary culture. But some of the best writers around -- people who really care about words and expression -- visit me regularly, and I get to see what they are up to. And it was a delight to be a Guest Ed Pick last week -- just before the s--t hit the fan and consigned me to oblivion again.
I looked around at some other journal sites last night and sure enough, there are ads all over the place -- which only served to remind me again of how easily I see past much of the junk that pollutes our space in general. And I'm not so naive as to think that blogspot and typepad and livejournal might not someday do the same thing. Perhaps they are plotting even as I speak.
But here's where there can be no ambivalence as I see it: AOL, by providing no advance notice and no means or levels of choice, showed contempt for its customers, a contempt magnified by the lack of reponse from the "higher-ups." And the tech problems demonstrated an astonishing level of incompetence.
Contempt for the customer and technological incomptence are not foundations upon which to maintain a successful business. I had learned that from my very successful self-employed grandfather by the time I was five. I would submit that aol has some major repair work to do.
Good luck, Joe.
AND:
Sheesh. The last sentences of that last entry thanked you and John for keeping your cool and noted that it seems that you at least tried. But for whatever reason, they didn't appear. I rest my case.
