After Having So Much Guilty Pleasures, Will Launch the Wikis Next Week
The picture of the cooking school business you see above is from Toronto near Yonge street. This would be a great business model in the hood and I bet classes will be filled up all year around. I have been to a lot of cooking schools and been on dates at cooking school and it is one of the best way you can date somebody. Black cultural cooking from crab cakes to gumbo to shepard pie and seasoned greens are a dwindling science and this is one way to each one and teach one and get paid.
As you see, we have spent the last week and the half going worldwide performing geo-intelligence in high density urban areas and documenting business models and business model clusters. I’m sorry, but this data collecting is actually the most fun and rewarding experience I had on this blog since we flew to Tokyo to study small format retailing and alternative payments models for the hood.
What I’m enjoying so much is the data shaping we are formulating for the hoods. We are not focused on one or two special business models; we are focused on creating low-cost startups in a clustered format that can spark economic activity in a high density hood in a short turnaround. See, if we get a lot of these small format models like even a cooking class, we can setup strategies to get these models in front of brothas and sistas who may never thought about these type of business models.
See, once we catalog something like the cooking school, then we can focus on documenting how the business model work, you cats contribute your experience and insight on the business model and we work together on the wiki writing material for brothas and sistas to take the information we created and do something with it. We empower our own people to do for self and their community and give them the information to get started. That’s how Black people supposed to use the Internet.
So in the locations section, we are going to focus on clusters and finding the best business models that’s can work in these hoods. Then we going to go in depth on the specific model on how to get it up and running and we going to keep documenting on how to stay afloat and be successful in that business model. I will launch all of this next week but when I launch, expect to see next to no content.
That’s because it’s up to me and you to create this content for our people. Yeah, you can sit there and try to read this blog only as a consumer. But I hope you understand what our people is going through in 2012 and it’s on us, no one else to change our situation around. The least you can do is at least help write up some of the content for the wiki. If you see something in a business book, or on About.com or eHow, then contribute that information and cite your source but let’s build up blueprints and background for each other to start something and get something going.
I’m being real with you cats, this is probably the most exciting project me and my crew worked on because we know exactly what we are trying to accomplish. Maybe somebody can start a cooking school in downtown Atlanta on Auburn Avenue and when you fly down to Atlanta with your date, yall can cook up some food together, flirting with each other putting on aprons and tasting the food and wine and ish like that. $70 for a night session per couple and 2 hours with a recipe book and photographs and sell spices and stuff. You damn right a hood-based cooking class business like that will sell out slots fast, even during this economy.
So next week, let’s get ready to start getting the data and information together. I will be putting out more information on how the wiki will be formatted. Also, I’m trying to see if I can involve many of you cats in the geo-intelligence process and may create a separate web site for some of yall to document your hood. This geo-intelligence is really something I strongly recommend you do just to see how other communities are doing it.
The next call-in conference will be a screencast on the wikis and we will discuss how gather and create data and the content. So next week, let’s honor the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr and after that, begin the work of economic empowerment in our communities by gathering the data, intelligence and information sharing for brothas and sistas to have something to execute something against. It’s up to me and you right here and right now to start building out the blueprint so we can start doing for self, our people, our community and something to hand down to our future generation.
I honestly like to browse business parks and different shopping centers in affluent neighborhoods and like to see what can be transitioned into the hood. My daughter just recently started sewing classes and they are held in a business park. Something like this could easily fit into the hood especially in some of the reformatted row homes because they could have a store beneath with classes above. Same thing with a general space like you have said before about using pop up stores, a general area where you can have art classes one day, photography, sewing, a culinary space where people can come in the evening and learn some cooking skills.
My mother knows a lady who owns a bakery and who does classes but she is in a horrible suburban location.