The closure of Woolies cast a shadow over my Christmas – it saddened me but it really hurt my wonderful and brilliant children, who have grown up with Woolworths as part of their lives, a place where they could ‘pick and mix’, get cool things, sort out ‘last minute birthday party for friends’ panics, and much else besides.  From time to time over Christmas, they said how disappointed they were that there would be no more Woolworths.  Disbelieving, this was probably their first experience of the vulnerability of our economy and society.

In our all knowing cynicism it is all too common to dismiss the value of brands and of shops as a place where real human exchanges take place and value is created.  Chatting to Woolies staff selling stuff at a discount knowing that they were about to loose jobs, felt both moving and, well, weird.  Those conversations between people – customers and staff – cut through the normal bounds of the customer relationship, they were telling indicators of the cold winds of recession that are now blowing through the high street.

Brands do have value, shops matter, high streets are important.  To say this is not to fall victim to false consciousness or prey to consumer advertising.  Sure I hope our green accounting initiative means that as customers and citizens, when I buy toys or whatever, I pay the full price of the carbon impact I am pushing down the supply chain to China, or wherever; and that our work on the OECD Guidelines and other such frameworks I can be as certain as possible that I am not contributing to poverty, child labour or human rights abuse.  (Sure, we can debate the falsehood of crazy consumerism in due course, and the change in mindset needed so we learn when ‘enough’ really is ‘enough’)

So when I got chatting with the irrepressible Ted Cantle, who has the kind of ‘form’ on community cohesion that you can only respect and hold in awe, and we found we were both thinking the same thing about the way in which Woolworths stores could become the new beating heart of the high street as market and skills hubs of local business, trading and enterprise, well, imagine my excitement.

Which led to us writing to the Times, the Times publishing it, and one of their columnists writing  “If you readers want to put forward brilliant ideas on our letters page, I will be happy to rip them off shamelessly here.”   It is not every day that something you write gets written up as “this inspired epistle”.   And he did!

What has been interesting is the way in which the media have picked up on it, as Ted and I have done a whole number of interviews – with some early indications that the idea has ‘legs’ as others express their interest (including one local Woolworths store manager …)

What gets you thinking is the other ideas that spin off from this

• working with Chambers of Commerce, local government, community groups;
• recognising the drive of the Transition Towns movement, and the argument for greater local resilience;
• high street stores offering advice and support on converting to renewable energy - if only you could plug into the kind of 'smart grid' advocated by President Obama, tomorrow's satellite TV and mobile phone shops
• microfinance and social business ventures, respecting, trusting and building local citizens and communities, challenging business as usual assumptions 

What has also been seriously moving has been some of the comments this has generated, in response to the Times articles:

My son had suggested our walk through Woolworths should become a market hall for local businesses - the idea works on so many levels. Woollies are usually on prime sites and their fate will affect the personality of the towns they're in.

Great Woolies idea

Brilliant idea! Woolies was a market hall itself in the 60's when I worked there. You could buy ANYTHING from broken biscuits to lino. Bring back High Streets with individual character unlike those we have now. Make shopping an adventure and not a chore.

It’s the PS that ‘knocks it out of the ballpark’: “We love Spam!”.  Speaking to an era when Spam meant something rather different than it does today, reminding us perhaps, that sure, the Woolworth’s business model may well have been teetering on the brink for years – but that does not mean that it can’t be reinvented, a springboard for creating sustainable value through investing in social capital, community cohesion and business. 

Which, after all, is what Tomorrow’s Company is and has always been about.