Transcript - Communities of Scale
Joshua Williams: Retail Revolution is a special, limited podcast created specifically for "Retailing and Service Design," a unique course that is part of the Fashion Management graduate program at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Each episode features in depth conversations with guest experts and omnichannel retailing with myriad perspectives: technology consumer engagement, data analytics, merchandising, and more. We pay special attention to the short- and long- term challenges and implications of COVID-19 and potential opportunities to rethink retail's future. Retail Revolution is produced by Joshua Williams and hosted by Christopher Lacy, both are Assistant Professors in the School of Fashion at Parsons.
Christopher Lacy: Hello. All of our Retail Revolutionaries. We just decided that we would want to do just a little side conversation with ya’ll. You know what we'll say this is a happy hour conversation. So, grab yourself a kombucha or a wine or a beer or a shot at tequila. And I'm here with Dr. Niz Safrudin, who we just completed a podcast with a really amazing podcast talking about technology and the impacts to COVID-19 and the responsibility of retail when it comes to creating communities.
So, Dr. Niz is with us and we also have Joshua Williams who is also an assistant professor with me, with the Retailing and Service design course and producer of the Retail Revolution podcast. Hello, lady and gentlemen, how are you?
Joshua Williams: Good
Dr. Niz Safrudin: Good. Thank you for the opportunity.
Joshua Williams: I've emerged from behind the curtain here, which is kind of fun.
Christopher Lacy: He's Oz.
Joshua Williams: I've come out of the podcast closet.
Dr. Niz Safrudin: It's the air's fresher.
Christopher Lacy: So, guys, look, let's hold up before we do that, I'm just going to pour this. Hold on. There we go. I'm just going to pour that and...
Joshua Williams: I love it.
Christopher Lacy: Cheers everyone.
Joshua Williams: Cheers.
Christopher Lacy: Look, how are you guys feeling about this right now? What are you thoughts? COVID-19. I know, you know, I'm feeling, you know, it's funny because I have yet to feel anxiety. I think I might be approaching this in a really odd way where I'm actually been really pleased to have to slow down, slow down relatively. I, you know, I've been really blessed and fortunate that I, you know, gainfully employed and have been able to work from home and have that ability.
So, I, you know, I am well aware that there are many people out there who would being in a state of anxiety because they do not know where their next paycheck is coming from. And for that reason, that that does bring a great deal of sadness, along with a few other things. But I would say, you know, just for me on a personal level, I've enjoyed this time to be able to step back.
Joshua Williams: Yeah, I agree. I've, it's interesting because I think I've been busier in the last two or three weeks than I have in a lot of months. But busy in a different way. I think that busy before the pandemic was mostly about meetings and sort of going from one place to another and in the last two or three weeks, it's really been, more focused on creating and thinking and getting, you know, like a podcast out in less than two weeks.
And, I mean it's kind of crazy. But it's kind of amazing when you're not having to go here and there and get on a train every morning and you know kind of deal with all those meetings, how much time you have. And no, I'm also grateful to be gainfully employed and to be able to not have to worry about that piece, but it's been extraordinary to have all this time to create.
Dr. Niz Safrudin: Yeah. Like yourselves. I also have mixed feelings, you know, it's like bittersweet on one hand, I do sympathize and emphasize with the folks out there who as you mentioned, right? Like who may not have kept their employment due to this unforeseeable circumstance. And also, I have a lot of respect for the frontline workers from the retail stores that are still open from the grocery to the pharmacy to you know even not even beyond retail, like, you know, hospitals and yeah transportation. And what have you, that being said, I'm also incredibly thankful for this moment of introspection and solitude. To be able to, you know, look within and I suppose with the way businesses are going or not going at the moment or trying to keep going. I think there's also applies to that at that scale.
And at some point, also, perhaps it is a shift of us moving off our comfort zone. Perhaps at one point, you know, we are at this moment of inertia and then, given now that we've these constraints and you know, that's the funny thing about constraints. Creativity is born out of constraints, you know, like well these constraints without knowing these boundaries, we wouldn't know where and how much to push.
So, it's like with you, Josh, right? And then Chris, and where you come up with this podcast because the students aren't able to attend in the school, but we still have to find a way. And that's the beauty of the human species where we're able to creatively find avenues that otherwise we wouldn't. If, because things were just busy, being busy, not really necessarily being productive.
And now we're thinking, okay, what's the best possible way I can still serve my community, with given the constraints that I have, and perhaps that would actually get people to step of their comfort zone and carry on this, creation and invention and innovation that emerges from this moment of necessity when things go back to quote unquote normal.
Joshua Williams: Yeah, I was, I was thinking about this the other day that as a professor, Oftentimes, I have to be the expert in the room in terms of, you know presenting information or working with clients or students, whoever it might be. And in having, you know, doing this podcast in the last two weeks and speaking with experts in the area of retail, realizing that, yes, we all do have a lot of, you know, perspective, insight, experience skills.
But a lot of us are also, you know, not sure what's coming next. And so, in a way, there's this sort of coming together of, Hey, we, we actually don't know. We really don't know what's going to happen. We can surmise, we can start to plan as well as we can. But you know, at this point we don't even know when we're going to be able to walk out of our, you know, our homes and our apartments.
Christopher Lacy: Yeah. I think that right there is just, I think it forces us to re-examine priorities, right. You know, we got up every single day and look for us, you know we live in New York and we have this ability to have pursued our dreams, whatever that might be. And knowing that our dreams have changed from time to time.
But the truth is, is that there were also moments where you kinda felt like you were on autopilot, or at least I did. And now I feel as though I'm in a place and I know that I was already getting there. I think this particular situation forced me there faster that I am now in a place of making conscious decisions of what I'm going to do next.
And how do I want my day to go? And granted, my day is now spent, you know, being excited to travel, you know to the curb, but you become creative about how you approach your day now, right? Like it's quite interesting, Dr, Safrudin just stated that, you know, this constraint has made us creative and I think that's the beauty in this. I think the thing that scares me is that whenever this finishes though, retail drives me crazy for this reason; it drives me crazy because you're only ever as good as yesterday's numbers. Only the people who are listening to this who either have worked at a retail store or in some form of it know what I mean. I hope that we don't get back into that because everyone is so panicked over the numbers that were lost at the end of Q1 and part of Q2. And then when we get back into it, we run everyone ragged again. I think if we do that, this would have been an entire waste.
Joshua Williams: Well, it's interesting you say that because the thing that I've been thinking about is that none of us are really going to come unscathed I don't think from this pandemic meaning, some of us might get sick. Some of us might know people who get sick or who even pass away and, you know that's already starting to happen in my circle of friendships. I have no close friends, yeah that have passed, but, but people who are sick in the hospital and might not make it. And I think that there is sort of the human aspect of this, that we're dealing with in a way that we probably haven't since.
You know a war period and where everyone is sort of dealing with the loss of life. And I, and I do hope, you know Chris that as we do go back to work that perhaps we're coming with a more humane, more humanistic, you know, approach or at least sort of connection to people beyond just the numbers, because you're right. I think, you know, typically Americans in particular we all sort of rally around in a time of crisis, but then you know, within a few months we're usually back to business as normal. And I don't know that you know that this will, I hope that it doesn't, it doesn't do that. I hope that there is some introspection going into the next phase, whatever that is.
Dr. Niz Safrudin: Right then I suppose the question is what can we do here? Right. And what is this all really teaching us? and that is then we can take from a, you know, a victim mentality to one that is of from a position of empowerment. Right. And I realized that actually you know, if you just look back in terms of this pandemic happened, say, you know, 50, 60 years ago, I think it would be a lot, much worse, not just in terms of the medical, physical, psychological side of things, but also, you know, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Now, you know, we can be thankful that we have, tools and technologies that allow us to also still be connected.
So, you know, back in the days, it was really about, you know, the age of automation and economy of corporations, where it's all about economies of scale, cost, efficiency, and analysis, you know. But now we're really in the economy of people where thanks to this age of digitization. There is this opportunity for, you know, mass like in the retail space, mass personalization, but also companies are able to be more revenue resilient and more, you can focus on being more design intensive.
So really focusing on the purpose of, you know, the existence of a particular business and revisit that and you know, reshape, redesigned recalibrate. All these other things. And I think when you come up with a plan at this point in time and the roadmap of who do you want to be, how are we going to get there?
What do we need to get there? If you stick to that plan? I'm rather optimistic with calculative risk of course, and the safeguarding plan to make sure that in the events such instances would happen, then we will be a bit more prepared.
Joshua Williams: It's interesting because I thought of this idea of like, instead of economies of scale, how about communities of scale, right?
How do we sort of scale community, in this timing? I think we're already doing that through zoom and, and through all of these other platforms that we're using to communicate. And I wonder if that, that could be sort of a key part of the plan going forward is community building as opposed to economy building.
Dr. Niz Safrudin: I was just going to say that whatever lessons that we take from here, like when this starts to subside, we, you know, we'll say like, Hey, you know, we did that thing when we were in lockdown and let's carry that forward. It's all, it's exactly what you said, like with zoom in communities. And because for instance, you know, I'm like now I'm doing a lot of online yoga, online meditation, online, you know, morning parties where we set the wind turned and all these other things. And I mean, that's already opened up a door of inclusivity for, you know, people who aren't able to attend to such a physical based event for instance. And, you know, I don't see that going away. I see that being carried forward.
Christopher Lacy: Yeah, it's I love that you had just made the statement of inclusivity and accessibility. And I think if retail is to take anything away from this, and actually not just retail, all of us, when we go creating communities and it becomes communities of scale.
What we really need to understand now is that this is something that's happening, that it isn't only affecting a particular race. It is not only affecting a particular gender. It is not affecting only people part of a certain political party. It's not affecting people who are in a particular socio-economic group.
It's something that's affecting us all. And I think the problem with us whenever we've tried to create community or tribes in any situation, it is based on what you identify with. You know, if you identify with a flag, if you identify with the way you wear your jeans, you and your group identify that way.
And then it makes you in some way better than it, than another group or less than someone else and better than in whatever. And that's always the tricky thing when we talk about building communities. What I hope comes from this is, as we go, we are the community. And that's it. That's just that statement.
It's just, we are the community and the community is for everybody there's inclusivity, because we were all impacted and we are all literally that fragile. It doesn't matter if you went to the gym every single day, I'm a healthy person. I didn't feel well for six days. Right. So I think when we talk about that, like that's where we, that's where the next mindset needs to be.
Dr. Niz Safrudin: Absolutely.
Joshua Williams: Yeah. Right.
Dr. Niz Safrudin: My favorite part of the day is at seven o'clock in New York city where people regardless of gender, you know, political party interests or religion or whatever it is, we just get together and let in throw windows, roll up the windows and start clapping and howling and whistling and banging the pots and pans in order to show respect and appreciation for the frontline workers.
And that is a sense of community. It doesn't care. You know, like who who's doing it, we're all doing it. And that just happened organically. I mean, isn't it such a beautiful thing. It's like.
Christopher Lacy: It is a beautiful thing. And it goes to show you that really, and I am going to say this, the universe knows what a group of people need and this force. Yeah, it forced us to be in that space.
Dr. Niz Safrudin: Our universe!
Joshua Williams: Right.
Christopher Lacy: So, hopefully we hopefully, you know, we can come away with nothing else. If we come away with that, then honestly something positive would have come from the loss of lives, the loss of jobs. and because of that, hopefully we can rebuild. I'm glad we were able to have this conversation.
Joshua Williams: It was great.
Christopher Lacy: I'm glad that you, that Josh came out from behind the curtain. I'm glad that Dr. Safrudin decided to stick around for our little happy hour, you know, and all of our listeners. You know, what we want you to take from this is really that there is going to be a better moment and we're all a part of that better moment. So, thank you so much for listening.
Joshua Williams: Thank you
Dr. Niz Safrudin: Thank you very much.
Joshua Williams: Thank you for listening to this episode of Retail Revolution. A very special thank you to everyone who has helped make this podcast possible, our guests, our students and fellow faculty at Parsons School of Design, especially in such an extraordinary and unprecedented time. Our theme music was composed by Spencer Powell.
Be well and stay tuned for our next episode.
