Archives for January 2012

Two Cups of Tea at the Dry Cleaners

(Jan. 22, 2012) – One of my new favorite books is Tom Peter’s “The Little Big Things.” I heard Tom speak about the book a couple of years ago at Debbie Weil’s “Sweets & Tweets” event at Baked & Wired in Georgetown. Tom was everything I imagined he would be in person – and so was the book.

The essential premise of the book is that often the small things that happen between people become the things we tend to remember most vividly. Interactions that are unique, personal, intimate and often unexpected stay with us long after we have forgotten many other things. Tom posits that it’s these small things that feed relationships, engender loyalty to businesses, and sometimes change the course of history.

Such a “little big thing” happened today at Young’s Dry Cleaners on Fairfax Boulevard in Fairfax City. Julia’s family took over the dry cleaner’s in 2004. It’s within walking distance of my house in Fairchester Woods and over the years I’ve developed a very friendly relationship with Julia and her mother – the only person I trust with my alterations.

I called Julia this morning to see if her mother would be there because I needed some pants hemmed and the sleeves shortened on a jacket. It snowed last night and the streets were messy so I wasn’t sure her mom would be there. Julia assured me she could do the pinning and she would be there until they closed tonight at 7 pm. Read More

by Catherine Read

The Future of Housing

(Jan. 19, 2012) Cardinal Bank and George Mason University hosted their 20th Annual Economic Conference at the Ritz Carlton in Tyson’s Corner on Jan. 13, 2012. It was a capacity crowd of 600 that required additional chairs in the ballroom.

The speakers included the Washington Post‘s Neil Irvin, Dr. Stephen Fuller PhD of GMU, several builders/developers and the EVP of Lending for Cardinal Bank. It was a lively and informative discussion about our region’s economy, the current recession, jobs, the global economic picture, forecasts for recovery and housing.

Scanning down the notes I took, there were some facts that surprised me:

There have been 11 recessions since WWII, with 4.5 years between the first 8.
In the next decade, 800k jobs will have to be “backfilled” because of older workers retiring.
39.8% of the Washington DC economy is dependent on Federal spending.
Federal spending is highest in VA, with $17k per capita spent in NoVA.
We have had 7 consecutive months of federal job losses.
It may be 2019 before unemployment is down to pre-recession levels. (Dr. Fuller)

by Catherine Read

The Next Generation – Gen WHY?

Allison at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, VA — Allison at the Capitol in Richmond, VA

(Jan 4, 2012) Making generalizations doesn’t work well. There are always exceptions and most of us can name at least one in any circumstance. I read something once (wish I could recall where at this moment) that resonated with me: “It’s not that stereotypes are wrong, they are incomplete.”

The generation that rules the world (in whatever age you care to name) seems to be consistently concerned about the moral and intellectual fabric of the upcoming generation that will take their place. From flappers to bobby soxers to video gamers, young people are the outsiders that somehow don’t seem quite up to taking their place at the helm when their time arrives. I’ve come to the conclusion that we are all suspicious of what we consider “other.” Young people are of course inherently different in their thinking because the times that produced them are different from the times that produced us, and the generations before us.

I have always been open to the idea of young people as leaders. Youth and inexperience in and of itself is not a handicap. There is energy, a sense of accomplishing what others think impossible, a resilience and optimism that are sometimes lacking in leaders that have accumulated more life experiences. We will often value experience over vision, yet the ability to motivate and inspire others is a core characteristic of a great leader.

Generation Y or WHY? deserves a place at the table today. The world is flattening and increasingly interconnected – in real time. The space-time-language-culture continuum is shortening and includes more and more people globally. Those that are leading the way are the ones who have spent the majority of their lives at home with the tools that make distance and differences melt away: technology and the Internet. I value the young people in my life and all that they bring in helping me to see the world in different way.