What is the value of local business? Readers of The Selective Echo are aware that this question is being explored with regularity on these electronic pages such as this post a couple of months. And, in fact, later this week additional posts dealing with this question will appear.

However, the blog editor was intrigued to see materials that apparently are being presented to local business owners by a group called Visual Cacophony whose tag line reads “circus stunts for a better world.” Ugh!

The group’s mission statement indicates, “It fights the geography of anywhere. It strives to preserve and celebrate the local by combining the power of art with the power of community. Visual Cacophony showcases Salt Lake’s local community by turning everyday people into performers and everyday places into theatres.” Ugh!

The materials are asking local business owners to participate in an event this coming weekend called the “Shop Outside the Box Social Sculpture Parade,” which intends to snarl traffic on a busy Saturday afternoon. Details could be shared but I hardly believe that there will be a critical mass to support this blatantly asinine, harebrained attempt at public spectacle.

Had one of my student teams in the public relations agency class presented such a plan, I would have marked failing grades for the offenders and would have strongly encouraged them to reconsider their academic options.

This is as extreme an example of grossly under-researched, awkwardly positioned, and falsely voiced campaigns as I have ever seen. And, it frankly makes a mockery out of local business owners, especially those who’ve smartly positioned themselves with well-grounded messages and comprehensive, realistic business plans.

The last thing anybody needs in the public citizenry venue is more circus. No more cutesy or feel-good slogans. No more costumed individuals clowning around like individuals who’ve missed their meds. No more events that do nothing to neither educate nor compel citizens to rethink their perceptions or officials to reconsider their policies.

And, perhaps the greatest infraction of all – at least in the single instance I witnessed – was when an event organizer approached a local business owner, ineffectually made her case, and then left without doing the obvious – making a purchase to underscore a sense of genuine commitment. So much for ineffective messaging and an improperly positioned appeal.

I also despaired at the typical sweeping generalities of fact in their materials. There is something immediately disarming when the first instinct is to envision a good vs. evil dichotomy in characterizing cities as “shouldering the burden of an unimaginative economy.”

Imagination is one thing and intellectual curiosity is another. A reader who goes through the posts in this blog will see that I am consciously and conscientiously building a case for smart local business planning. The city already is gifted with some smart local entrepreneurs and the capacity is in place to expand this critical mass of local entrepreneurship. However, what local business owners really need is not “visual cacophony,” but sensitive, thoughtful, resourceful community allies who possess the gift of intelligent persuasion and promotion along with a comprehensive understanding of the complexities of a contemporary local economy that necessitates the inevitable side-by-side interaction between local business and big box retailers and franchises. It would be welcomed if youthful energy would be channeled into the less sexy, albeit potentially more effective, pursuits of information gathering that is the foundation of a long-term transformational campaign of planning.