The Domino Effect
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DOES THE DEATH OF PRINT JOURNALISM MEAN THE END OF SMALL BUSINESS?
Earlier this week, my father passed on a poignant article asking the same question that’s been on the minds of thousands of small business owners across the country — Does the death of the newspaper mean the death of small business?
The stipulation being that without local dailies local businesses don’t have a place to advertise, announce job openings or spotlight their community involvement.
No doubt it’s a real threat. Newspapers in their current incarnation are fast becoming an ephemeral memory of the bygone days. Two-daily cities are dropping to one and many economists predict it won’t be long before a major city is paperless. Even more papers are now in talks to ditch the physical product for an online-only version.
Small business owners argue that without a local daily they won’t be able to reach their clients. They won’t be able to update the community on sales, the most recent addition to their menu or a community fundraiser.
But they’re wrong. Rather than a death sentence, the fall of the print paper is actually a blessing in disguise if small businesses are willing to make the necessary adjustments to the Internet.
Over 75 percent of Americans use the Internet, according to a recent poll by the PEW Internet & American Life Project. I’d bet a lot of money that not that many people are reading their local daily across the country.
Here in Santa Cruz, the Sentinel’s circulation has dropped below 25,000 countywide. That’s in a county of 250,000. I’ll be generous with the statistics. Let’s say only half of the county is using the Internet. That still means there are 100,000 more people in Santa Cruz County on the Internet than reading the Sentinel. Yikes!
If anything, small businesses will benefit by switching to the Internet. They’ll reach a larger and broader base (I know my little brother isn’t reading the paper, but he’s spending hours on the Internet every week). And it’s cheaper. An ad that costs thousands of dollars in the print edition of the Sentinel costs a fraction of that it in their online edition.
As for posting job openings, Craigslist, Monster and Santacruzjobs.com have all proven their value. They’re cheaper than posting in print classifieds and you can vet potential candidates electronically, which saves time and allows you to quickly eliminate erroneous applications. Again, using the Internet is easier, quicker and cheaper.
And there’s no reason that the Internet can’t provide a platform to organize and mobilize the community. Facebook, Myspace and other social networking tools have more than proven their usefulness around the globe. And it’s not like journalism is going away. If anything, it’s exploding. New startups are appearing across the country.
Non-profits, citizen journalism publications like the Cournalist and traditional companies who’ve made the move to the Internet will all still exist. They will still write about local events, companies and fundraisers. And they’re all going to be looking for advertising revenue in one way or another.
And opportunities for broader audiences and novel ways of reaching them will continue to expand on the Internet. No longer will advertising have to be one dimensional. Direct interaction between businesses and their consumers will soon be the norm. And it’s for the better. If a customer doesn’t like your ad or thinks it’s ineffective, he or she will have the ability to tell you immediately. No more guessing games for small business owners. They’ll be able to know exactly how many people their ads get in front of, and they’ll be able to follow it live.
Rather than write a requiem for small businesses, we should embrace the powerful opportunities the Internet provides. I sense the real issue is whether small businesses are willing to become more creative in their efforts to reach a broader community, because the tools for reaching them are here and they aren’t going anywhere.
Read more of Daniel Wilkinson’s work at his blog.
Gang Tensions Rising Across Santa Cruz
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Last night, Tuesday the 21st – around 11:30pm – a male in a truck threw a large rock at me & my partner while we were biking along the Westcliff pedestrian trail towards the Lighthouse. The rock hit the ground and tumbled between our bikes with dull, heavy clunks. The truck sped off, its occupants yelling back at us in unrecognizable words, then stopped at the next street (Columbia Ave.). The truck paused as if they were considering another sortie, then they yelled again and took off into the night.
We got off Westcliff onto the dark side-streets and quickly made our way home.
I called the Santa Cruz Police Department today to report the event. The officer told me that gang tensions on the Westside have been very high recently. There’s been a lot of Sureno activity, he said, and then mentioned a third gang (the Browncoats). The Westsiders are battling the Surenos & this other gang to keep their home turf.
The officer said there have been several incidents recently with people getting hit by rocks on Westcliff and sent to the hospital for stitches (consider us lucky). He said the local gang members are patrolling the Westside, and especially Westcliff, looking for suspected members of these rival visiting gangs. He told me not to wear brown, blue, or red (I was wearing a brown hoodie), especially at night.
Gang activity in town always swells with the Summer months. Tourist season brings visiting gangs and the Norteno-Sureno rival is California legend. Some come and clash with the locals, who are plenty eager to defend their beautiful turf. Others make alliances and extend business opportunities. After the alarming spike in violence during the Summer of 2006 (2 public daytime shootings, multiple drive-by’s, and the immolation of a van outside a Westside party), the SCPD stepped up its efforts considerably, committing more resources to street work and regular contact with suspected gangs across the Westside, Ocean, and Beach Flats. Aside from a random drive-by here & there, the past two Summers have been relatively benign. But gang activity is on the rise – enough that the SCPD recently created a Gang Task Force dedicating full-time attention to the situation.
The early rise in gang activity this year should be a warning sign that the Summer may see increased violence. Poor economic conditions are driving more kids towards the relative stability and loyalty of gangs. The border war in Mexico has emboldened US counterparts working across the same syndicates moving drugs & guns north & south. Many cities such as Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, and Los Angeles report direct ties between local gangs and those commanding the narco-insurgency across Juarez and northern Baja. The existing pressures for gangs to expand into affluent American cities are being reinforced by these potentially violent economic tensions.
As Santa Cruz City Councilmember Tony Madrigal notes, “we need to make sure any countywide efforts go beyond [county lines] and collaborate with efforts to address gangs in other counties”.
Summer heat pushes the inland crowds to come enjoy the cool Santa Cruz beaches. Local tensions rise with territoriality, but also with the visiting presence of much harder and more committed criminals from San Jose, Oakland, East Palo Alto, and Salinas, as well as Southern California. These elements put pressures on the locals to step up their game or lose their stake. If weather gets hot inland, things heat up at the beaches.
In my opinion, the best thing the SCPD can do is keep up the ground presence. Stay on the streets and get to know the kids. Make friends and confidants, gather intel. And start using social media to extend your sources, publish your data in XML, and help the citizens use technology to build community resilience.
Of course, city budget must work to reinforce this posture.
The Legend of Captain Groggy Swagger
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SANTA CRUZ — Captain Groggy Swagger was visible through a break in the metal fencing at the Santa Cruz North Harbor parking lot. He stood at the helm of a sailboat with Rock and Roll painted in block letters across the stern. He wore a floppy hat, loose breeches and a crimson coat that reached around his healthy paunch. By his side were two men — one dressed in a white button-up that fell to his knees and the other in an “I workout” t-shirt that had a picture of a Wii controller. His motley crew.
He barked orders at the two. “Grab that line,” he said. “Pull it this way.”
The two stumbled around the 27-foot sailboat trying to keep up with his orders. Together the men had logged only a couple of hours at sea.
“Keep pulling,” Swagger continued with a matter-of-fact look on his face.
Little did I know that for the next four hours I would join this disjointed crew as we raced and sometimes inched along the California coast on one of the first beautiful spring days of the year.
Thus beginning my introduction to modern day piracy. No Somalis, hostages, tankers or ransoms though. Only a lot of booze, bad pirate jokes and inexperienced sailing.
But let me back up for a second. Swagger the pirate is actually a 33-year-old native Santa Cruzan named Aaron Rhodes. By day he hovers over a computer and consults for an IT company on the East Coast. But when he’s on his boat, he’s a pirate. And so is everyone else. As he wrote on his blog in January, “The first rule on my boat is, if we go sailing you must be in full pirate regalia.”
Luckily, he made an exception for this unprepared reporter.
A Schooling in Modern Day Piracy
Rhodes didn’t seriously adopt his ulterior identity, Captain Groggy Swagger, until last November when he bought and began living on the sailboat. He founded the Santa Cruz Pirate Fest, an annual celebration of everything pirate, earlier that summer, but had never given serious thought to living at sea.
Back then, he didn’t have any clue that he’d like sailing or that he’d live on a sailboat one day. He knew almost nothing about it. He was hoping to buy a home at the time, but couldn’t find a banker who’d give him a reasonable loan.
“I made more than a lot of couples combined, but that didn’t matter to them,” he said. “They didn’t want to take a risk with someone who is single.”
So in an odd way, one might say he has the mortgage crisis to thank for his current living situation.
Regardless, one day while driving by the North Harbor after weeks of failed attempts to get a loan, he got an idea.
“I realized I could just live on a boat,” he said. “No rent.”
Thus began a serious journey to do exactly that. He started by reading books on the basics of sailing and shopping around for a boat. He had absolutely no experience, so he had to learn everything from scratch. Think learning where the stern, bow, starboard and port sides of a boat are.
“I setup an appointment with some guy who was going to teach me the basics, but he never showed up,” Rhodes said. “So I decided to just learn it all on my own.”
When he got word from a broker that a sailboat in his price range was available, he jumped on the opportunity. Before he knew it, he was the proud owner of a 1982 Catalina 27.
“I like it,” he said with a grin. “It’s my first boat.”
And the first home he’s ever owned. His mortgage on the sea.
He gave up his studio apartment and most his furniture and moved onto the $17,000 sailboat in November. He traded a bed for a mattress stuffed in a closet-sized room at the front end of the sailboat.
He was obviously willing to give up a lot of the luxuries of living on land, but he wasn’t about to leave behind his technology. He might be the only pirate in the history of the world to have his schooner outfitted with a flat screen TV, Xbox 360 and wireless Internet.
Beyond technology, the living side of the bargain has been a breeze.
“There have been no major issues,” he said about the transition.
During the winter months when temperatures can dip into the 40s at night he just hooks up a space heater. Electric and water access are included in a $500 a month slip fee (the rent to keep his boat in the harbor). Slip fee and a $250 loan payment for his boat means his monthly living expenses amount to $750. That’s dramatically lower than before when his studio apartment alone cost him $1,200 a month.
The sailboat is setup for cooking as well. “I eat lots of shish kabobs,” he said. “They’re easy.”
He showers and gets his laundry done at NextSpace, a co-working office space in downtown Santa Cruz where he also telecommutes for work. It also provides him with a mailing address. They allow him to use the office address as his home address when necessary.
“NextSpace filled in all the missing pieces,” Rhodes said.
Though the transition was seemingly easy, he hadn’t overcome his largest hurdle.
Learning to Sail
Rhodes bought his sailboat without knowing how to use it.
“I couldn’t get the boat home on my own,” he admitted.
Though he had spent hours reading books on sailing, he still didn’t feel confident enough to dive into by himself. Luckily his grandfather had owned a sailboat years earlier and volunteered to guide him for his first sailing trip.
“He answered all the questions I couldn’t answer with books,” he said.
In return, he allowed his grandparents on the boat without sporting the required pirate attire.
“My grandmother wouldn’t have been happy if I had asked her to dress like a wench,” he said.
After that inaugural trip, he has slowly been getting a feel for proper sailing. He still insists on having other people with him. He made one trip out on his own, but was a bit overwhelmed.
“I don’t want to do that again anytime soon,” he said.
Joining the Crew for the Day
When I joined the crew for the day, it was Captain Groggy Swagger’s sixth outing. We found ourselves trying to escape the choppiest waters he’d ever been in (about 5-foot waves), caught in a kelp field, making absurdly slow and clumsy maneuvers and caught deep in the wallows of inebriation. Swagger never lost his composure, but at points it was questionable whether any of us knew what we were doing.
At one point, we found ourselves with dwindling rum supplies — “A captain’s worst nightmare,” Swagger proclaimed with an empty bottle in his hand — caught in a kelp field with no wind. As other sailboats raced by riding on an ostensibly endless supply of wind, we inched closer and closer towards the shore.
“What did pirates do in the past when there was no wind,” asked one of the shipmates.
“They waited and they got drunk,” Swagger said.
In response, another shipmate popped his head out from within the hull of the boat and brandished a fresh bottle of red wine. Soon enough, we found ourselves back in the grace of the wind. Excluding a close call involving the main sail and a low bridge, we eventually found ourselves back at the dock.
After a few remaining orders from Groggy to clean up the deck and a quick dinner, the crew returned to their cars to trek back to their terrestrial lives. But Captain Groggy Swagger disappeared back towards the dock — a modern day pirate.
Read more of Daniel Wilkinson’s work at his blog.
Climbers Day Trip to Castle Rock
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Santa Cruz has a huge climbing community. This is evidenced by the fact that if you drop by Pacific Edge, Santa Cruz’s indoor rock climbing gym, on any given night it will be packed and almost every top rope will be in use.
I’ve been climbing at Pacific Edge for a few months now, but until today had never gone climbing outdoors. Today, with some friends I met at Pacific Edge, I went to Castle Rock to do some bouldering. For those of you who don’t know, bouldering is a style of climbing that imvolves climbing to the top of small to medium sized boulders without a rope and with a “crash pad” underneath you in case you fall. This differs significantly from top roping, which is where you have a rope attached to your harness and either a carribeaner or an anchor to suspend you in mid air if you fall.
Castle Rock is a perfect bouldering location, and it’s only 45 minutes north of Santa Cruz, located in the mountains of San Jose. There are a number of climbs and it is a mecca for climbers in the area, with chalk bags and crash pads and climbers huddling around all the major rock formations.
Even if you don’t climb, Castle Rock is an awesome place to explore. The location boasts many unique rock formations, caves, a waterfall, and other beautiful natural elements. Be sure to watch out for poison oak though.
Largest Portable Telescope Gives Glimpse of Saturn
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SANTA CRUZ — Pacific Avenue offered some excellent planet watching last night. The world’s largest portable telescope sat on the corner of Pacific Avenue and Soquel Avenue for all to use.
The largest portable telescope in the world might bring to mind NASA, astronauts and unnamed distant stars, but in reality, it’s a homemade rectangle designed by Steven Overholt. Think a ten-foot skeleton made of wood and cardboard.
But casting aside all doubts, it worked perfectly. Its magnification is set at 200 times the distance a human eye can see. That meant a shot of Saturn’s defining ring.
Overholt built it on his own in less than three months with grant money he received from a news reporter’s will in 2000. He now travels up and down the West Coast to educate people about the planets, stars and moon.
“Teachers talk the talk, but we walk the walk,” he said, ostensibly referring to himself and the telescope.
Indeed. Along with free viewings of Saturn, he had a telescope setup on the moon and passed out informational fliers laden with facts like if you put a quarter next to your head, it’s about the same size ratio as the Earth to Saturn.
Overholt transports the telescope in a van he claims gets 56 miles per gallon.
“Not a drop of oil money went into the building of this telescope,” he said with a smile. “No special interests.”
Instead, good ole’ education right on the streets of Santa Cruz.
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