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My Local Resolutions for 2008
By Cameron Ferroni | January 8, 2008
OK, so it has been done before, but just because it’s been done before doesn’t make it a bad idea. With that - I thought I would share with you some of my personal resolutions for 2008.
1. Shop Local - wherever possible support the local small businesses with my purchase $$ - the local bookstore, the local toy store, the local wood shop etc.
2. Eat Local - once a week, do the 100 mile diet thing where everything consumed at a given meal comes from within a 100 mile radius (with perhaps the exception of salt, which as I understand is hard to find locally in Seattle).
3. Ride Local - I already take the bus to work most days that I don’t walk/run/bike, but extend this to taking it to shop, run errands, or go out, rather than taking the car or taxi.
4. Act Local - ensure that 75% or more of my charitable donations of time and money are directed towards the local community.
5. Build Local - ensure that Marchex provides best of breed local products and services for advertisers and consumers alike.
That’s a fine start. But I’m willing to take on other challenges - anyone out there want to throw out some other ideas (Locally focused of course….)?
Topics: Local Advertisers, Community |
January 8th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I think those are some fantastic resolutions! My wife and I aimed to shop locally as much as possible this past holiday season and we did very well. We’ve mostly stopped shopping at most big box retailers too. We’re fortunate enough to be in Boston, so it’s not hard.
I wonder though, Cameron, how is Marchex working hard for those locally owned businesses? How are you helping them compete with those with deeper pockets? The independent businesses are significantly under served.
January 9th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Well, normally I don’t like to use this space to highlight all of the cool stuff we are doing, but since you asked….
On the advertiser side, one of the key pillars of our company is to serve local advertisers. Through our relationships with companies like AT&T and YellowPages.com, we currently work with tens of thousands of small businesses across the US, helping them manage their ad campaigns and drive leads!
On the consumer side, our goal is to be the leading provider of locally relevant content - and we are well on our way with OpenList.com, and our network of Zip Code sites. When I saw your comment I decided to poke around and see just how far we reached in the “small and local” category. I pulled up the US Census data and looked for some of the smallest zip codes in the US (by population - funny how most of my searches actually showed me 00501 - which is the lowest zip code, used by the IRS - but that’s a different point). After a bit of poking around, I landed on 95937 - Dunnigan, CA, population 90 according to the 2000 Census. Seemed pretty small. So I went to our site - www.95937.net to see what kind of businesses were there. And wow - look at that - looks like people like Bill and Kathy’s restaurant, and there are reviews there for the Best Value Inn. And when it comes to “deeper pockets”, in this space, everyone is on a level playing field - all of these listings are free, and any business can go in, update their information, leave a review, encourage their customers to leave a review etc.
We still have a ton of things we can and will do to better connect local advertisers to local consumers - but as I said above, one of my resolutions is to “Build Local” - and we are definitely going to do it!
January 10th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Hey Cam - looks like you’re doing some amazing things at Marchex. Way to go CTO! Kayla wanted to say hi so I felt compelled to track you down and pass that on. Contact me if you get this.
- Allison