‘”Parla come magni,” which in Italian means “Speak the way you eat” or “Say it like you eat it.”  It’s a reminder — when you’re making a big deal out of explaining something, when you’re searching for the right words — to keep your language as simple and direct as Roman food. Don’t make a big production out of it. Just lay it on the table.’

Thanks to J for text-messaging this quote from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love.

I woke up this morning from my T-Mobile cellphone alarm, ate a quick breakfast of some brand of cereal I don’t remember with a banana from the supermarket and that red box of raisins, spoke over the Verizon landline with Michael, rode the MTA train into Manhattan for a meeting in Grand Central, used my Compaq Presario laptop to show a video I’d made on a digital camera, ate in the food court, rode the MTA train to Gramstand cafe where I’m writing this now.

Retail is present in our lives.  So when I try to decide whether “Retail Makeover” is the name I want for my business — whether it clearly describes a hook of why someone might be interested in what I do – I think about J.H. who doesn’t like retail, who feels manipulated by it.  I think about E.L. who feels manipulated by businesses like the oil companies and the food and clothing companies.  I think of the emphasis businesses place on selling.  I think about how I care most deeply that people who work at a company can decide what they are responsible for, what they do, and why.  I know my experiences don’t match up with a typical view of retail. 

Manipulation — how many of my friends feel about retail – reminds me of how Clotaire Rapaille found that in America, seduction in personal relationships is associated with an underlying theme of manipulation.  Selling as seduction.  I’ve never been a fan of seduction.  I prefer flirting, or friendship, or family.

I guess that’s one way of describing why I think it’s so important for me to work with companies.  Companies which sell to the general public are a great focus for me, because of the first paragraph above — nine retail companies influenced my day this morning.  They are the touchpoints of my morning.  Aside from the retail companies, my day was made by the people I met and connected with, and my own self.

Change from seduction to flirting, friendship or family, and we move from manipulation to connection.  And along with connection, more fun and peace in our lives, too.  At least that’s how I see it.

I’m reluctant to change the name of what I do, but as M.Z. says, I need to package what I do, and put it in a box with a ribbon around it so people “get it.”  I can continue doing what I’ve been doing, or I can kick it up a notch.  I’ll also get more physical peace, fun, and connection too.  That’s why I do this stuff, this storytelling, ethnography, organizational democracy, retail makeover.

Retail makeovers have been more fun for me than my work when I was a theater producer, felt more right, and felt more real.  Retail is a good match for me because there are real-time results — what we do at a company can be measured two weeks later.

It’s a hard balance, the line between better retail and better relationships between people.  Luckily I’ve had wonderful times bringing the two closer together in fascinating ways.

I’ll leave the light on for organizational democracy, and make it happen with retail makeovers.

On Wednesday I did a customized store safari, part of a retail makeover, in Union Square, asking people, ”What do you think about the internet?”  The goal was to discover themes of what people want from the internet, and what they associate with the internet.

The man in this video has never used the internet.

My goal in this session was to focus on people’s underlying excitements, frustrations and confusions.  One thing I found was that the first 10 people I interviewed associate the internet with “research” and/or “connection.” 

To know why people do or don’t use the internet, you can instead ask why people do or don’t do research or connection.  Sure, there may be other big themes, but I haven’t found them yet.

What people say, and why, is a starting place for my client to know what people think, to write text and put pictures onto a single page of paper.  It helps me and him describe his service by telling people the truth about how they’ll get what they want from his product.  Next, I’ll take that paper around and ask people for their advice on how to improve it.

Which people?  In this safari, I talked to anyone and everyone.  The goal was to find out what New Yorkers want and think about the internet.