Leap Year Day 2008

Let’s tip it!

It’s not often that towns give money to businesses. Some folks, maybe even you, would say it nearly never ever happens. Well, I am here to say you are wrong. Yes, you are wrong. That’s exactly what the Arlington Redevelopment Board (ARB) is doing in March. Giving away $10,000 in free architectural services to up to 10 Arlington businesses to improve their storefronts. That’s not all.

It’s not often that banks make it easy as 1-2-3 for small business owners to borrow money at rates so low. Some folks, maybe even you, would say it nearly never ever happens. Well, I am here to say you are wrong. Yes, you are wrong. That’s exactly what Leader Bank, Cambridge Savings Bank and Watertown Savings Bank are offering in three exciting ongoing programs designed exclusively for Arlington business owners. Even better, the loans are not restricted to outside improvements. Want the skinny?

I am telling you, Kathy Keady’s phone call (See February 8 blog entry) was truly the tipping point here. For those of you unfamiliar with the term “tipping point,” let me have Malcolm, the author of the book with the same name explain it:

The word "Tipping Point", for example, comes from the world of epidemiology. It's the name given to that moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass. It's the boiling point. It's the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards.

The Chamber, the ARB, the business owners, the banks were all on parallel tracts, interacting in a number of ways, yet not connecting in concert. That phone call led to this wonderful confluence of causes, this fabulous alignment of purpose, this joining of resources and forces. The synchronicity of it all just tickles me on the soles of my feet. Kathy didn’t know what she started with that phone call about the conditions in Arlington Center.

“Ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. . . I'm convinced that ideas and behaviors and new products move through a population very much like a disease does. This isn't just a metaphor, in other words. I'm talking about a very literal analogy.” (Gladwell) Ed Tsoi of the ARB alluded to that yesterday at the close of the Storefront Improvement breakfast meeting, when he remarked that “good-or bad-design is contagious. So is enthusiasm, so is vision, so is what is happening here. I believe Arlington is poised for another tipping point (I think many of you may agree that the revitalization of Arlington Heights many years ago was one tipping point; allowing restaurants with 19 or more seats to serve wine and beer that led to our restaurant boom is another).

That $10,000 is available to any storefront business owner in town. Unlike the Constant Contact tutorials where you had to have attended the January breakfast seminar to be eligible for the email campaign tutorials, you didn’t have to attend yesterday’s meeting to apply. You don’t even have to be a Chamber member!

Attending in addition to our Town Manager, the Planning Department, Robbins Library, Cambridge Savings Bank, Leader Bank, and Watertown Savings Bank were representatives from American Alarm & Communications, The Arlington Advocate, Arlington Board of Health Services, ARTBEAT The Creativity Store, Artwear, Body Mind Systems, CNC Newspaper Co., The Costume Co., Picture Perfect Pets, Reading-North Reading Chamber, The Regent Theatre, Signs by Tomorrow, Town of Reading and Wanamaker Hardware.

Four of these business owners are submitting applications. What about you? Let me make it easy for you. On Monday, look for an email from the Chamber with links to PDF files of all the details including the ARB application, the banks’ respective loan details and applications.

“As a retail store owner, this is such an exciting program. It’s really heartening to hear the town and the business community working together. It’s very forward thinking,” said Jan Whitted of ARTBEAT The Creativity Store at the conclusion of yesterday’s meeting. “So often business owners feel up against the town when it comes to permits and regulations. Having the town want to make it possible for us to improve our businesses’ appearance and recognizing how that can help businesses grow is so encouraging. And the fact that the banks have lined up to offer affordable loan programs makes me want to clap my hands.” And she did. So did everyone else, too.

I hope collectively, collaboratively, contagiously, we infect as many business owners and town officials as we can with this renewed interest in and commitment to doing all that we can to make Arlington commerce as thriving and vital as it can be. Here is sneezing at you in hopes that the virus spreads. Let’s tip it!