Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and the future. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the supermind.
This week – the high street.
The High street – what used to be everyone’s favourite regular place to visit for all our needs from food to clothes, from bread to greetings cards. The lot was there. But now almost none of it is there as we flood en masse online instead for our buying. We are watching the slow death of what was once an institution for society so is it the end of the high street? Well this week let’s put our SuperMinds to high thinking use to see if that’s really true.
- Idea – online companies were legally made to provide every shopper with a high street style voucher to use on their local high street, that could help re-balance spending patterns back from pure online to bricks and mortar. Should we enforce some action like this on online companies to protect our high streets and downtown? Or do you have a better solution?
- Shopping has become a home comfort based activity from the convenience of our sofa. Why leave the house when you can get all you need in a click or two on your computer? It’s too easy. How could we make it more difficult to shop online so that high street shops (which are often local businesses supporting their community) can get some footfall back?
- Many high street shops are empty because they are large units once occupied by huge chain stores that went bust. Trouble is landlords who own them are happy for them to remain idle awaiting larger tenants. How can we encourage them to split these into smaller units at an affordable rental to help spur growth? What win-win might work?
- Quote by Scottish actress Karen Gillan – ‘Basically I go to vintage shops rather than going shopping for new clothes’. Could the high street be turned into ‘special zones’ with such type of different shops on protected rents guaranteed by governments to boost footfall in towns and cities? What would you put there?
- Finally it’s clear we need new ideas and visions for our high streets. Current retailers can’t make a reasonable profit there anymore. You can form THE committee with the power to bring suggestions to your Government and business leaders to reshape shopping areas. Be brave, what five types of people would you have on the committee with you (children, working Mums, sports leaders with management skills…different people than the norm)? What five would be best to come up with a strong plan for the shopping future and WHY?
Ok, SuperMInds, thank you for being here for the Saturday SuperMind time. Keep asking yourself these through the week to open up more of your mind to evolve its untapped power. Consider more, reflect more, think more, activate your connection to your personal mind more. Let’s work the SuperMInd and Super Think!
See you next time for more super thinking.