Check out this story from Inc. Magazine, where there is more:
"I don't care whether it's a political biography or a daughter's memoir or a novel about baseball," she says. "I just like good writing, and the readers who share that taste have always found their way here." Always, that is, until last September.
"Starting last fall, I saw a hunted look in people's eyes," Dyer recalls. "There was a fear that went beyond being cautious or thrifty. It was as if people had lost faith in the most basic things. They were frozen. Nobody was buying at any of the neighborhood retail stores."
September bled into an equally grim October and November. Thanksgiving came and went, and the slump deepened. Now, with December performing worse than the average February, Dyer doubted she could keep her doors open through January. In the midst of this figurative storm, meanwhile, a real one now bore down on Portland: a once-every-20-years pelting of maximum winter that threatened to shut down the city, drive shoppers deeper into their devalued homes, and pound a final nail in what appeared to be Broadway Books's coffin.
"It was time," Dyer says, "to think about an exit strategy."
But first, she decided to phone Aaron Durand, her 28-year-old son, who was working for the shoe company Birkenstock USA in Novato, California. She needed to talk to Aaron about a book on music that he had asked her to find. But mostly, on that bleak winter morning, Dyer needed to hear her only child's voice.
"I can't get that title for you," she told him.
"That's OK," he said. "I'm in no rush."
"You're not listening. I can't help you. My distributors don't deal with that publisher. You're just going to have to go online, do some digging, and order the book yourself."
"Mom?" he said. "Are you OK?"
"I'm sorry, Aaron, but I can't help you with this."
The next day, he shot his father an e-mail. "What's the matter with Mom?" David Durand broke the news to his son: Broadway Books was on the ropes.
Aaron was stunned. He had been 12 when his mother went into business. She was so devoted to the store that the family jokingly referred to it as her other baby. How could she stand losing it? Aaron wondered. He opened his laptop, logged on to his Twitter page, and, barely thinking, began to type.
If you're in Portland do me a favor??? Buy a book at Broadway Books. No wait, buy 3 of em...
He usually tweeted his friends on the song that he happened to be listening to or on the results of his latest round of disc golf. But now the words came harder. Then inspiration struck.
...I'll buy you a burrito the next time I'm in town, Aaron typed.
He and his friends used burritos as code. It was cooler to say "I'll buy you a burrito" than "I owe you five bucks." He didn't know where the idea came from to connect burritos to his mother's predicament, but he liked the way it sounded. He decided to develop the connection further on his blog, everydaydude. The site was lucky to receive 20 hits a month, and half of those came from his mother, but what sharper tool lay at hand?
The madness that is the current state of affairs in our economy honestly hasn't bothered me much...My CEO has promised openly that our company will not be letting go of anyone. Thus, I've just managed to go about my business as usual. I'm not afraid to spend money on things I want...I own no stocks, don't even know how to buy em. I generally live check to check and I like it that way...Sometimes it takes a slap in the face to wake someone up...Yesterday I was on the receiving end of the wakeup call.
Aaron typed on, explaining the importance of Broadway Books, both to the Portland community and in his mother's life. He related how he had learned that the store was in crisis. He reported that he had sat at his desk near tears, but then his despair gave way to anger and finally to resolve. He announced to the blogosphere that he had hit on a scheme.
So, here's the deal. I'll be in Portland to visit January 15-19, 2009. Meet me at Cha Cha Cha on SE Hawthorne in Portland on January 16 at 6 pm with a receipt from Broadway Books for over $50, and I'm buying your kind ass a burrito. I've got about a grand left on my one credit card -- told you I was a simpleton -- which equates to roughly 166 of you spending at least 50 bucks a pop....I'd never feel better about diving into a thousand-dollar hole...Pass this along. Getcha a free burrito! Support local independent business! Get off of the internet/your ass!
Aaron paused. He was no writer; in fact, despite his book-loving parents, he wasn't all that much of a reader. But he knew that his posting needed a clincher.
Understand that the economic sting will subside, will also fade into nothingness. If that seems a long shot, consider it optimism, a virtue I learned from growing up the son of my mother.
After logging the post, Aaron scanned the links lining the right-hand margin of his webpage: Jerk Ethic, Hidden Booty, huk lab, Kamp Grizzly, Ministry of Imagery, BikePortland, Woot, Hypebeast. Why not try to leverage his plea, beam it out directly to his friends in the Portland area? Even a few more sales would give his mom a psychological boost. She and the store could at least go down swinging. He returned to Twitter to put up a link to his blog entry, and within a few minutes saw that a friend in Portland had retweeted his offer. By that afternoon, it had been retweeted 30 times.
The story quickly jumped the firewall between private and public phenomena. Over the next three days, everydaydude hosted three times as many visits as it had received in the previous two months. Friends reported to Aaron that they had received the link to his blog posting from strangers. In the Portland offices of Nike and Adidas, the posting was pasted onto companywide e-mails. At the Portland ad firm Wieden+Kennedy, Jeff Selis, a producer and longtime Broadway Books customer, received an e-mail from his son's tutor containing a link to Aaron's blog. Selis immediately forwarded it throughout the company. Aaron's loopy, heartfelt plea, in short, had gone viral. Still, his mother remained ambivalent about the venture. "I wasn't sure I approved," Dyer says. "I was touched by Aaron's thoughtfulness, but at the same time I was sensitive about the state of the store."
0 Comments •
