At the Ignite Boise event last week there was a great presentation called “FOOD, what is” by Amy Vecchione. She recapped the great local shops and eateries that sell "real" food in Boise (i.e. stuff that comes from the earth, not a machine or process).
During that presentation, there was a healthy dose of "Buy Local" and "Think Boise First" talk from her (and from the boisterous crowd too). This struck a nerve with me. I support the "Buy Local" movement as much as the next guy, but I think the phrase is incomplete. I think it should be "Buy local, but sell global."
Now, there is really no reason why we should be trading dollars exclusively with people in the treasure valley. Our economy isn't going to grow if I give my money to a local service/product provider and they turn around and do the same back to me for my services. There is no doubt that we need to support the local economy, and a great way to do that is to import $$! What do you think Micron, Ore-Ida, Simplot, HP and other do (or used to do) for Boise? And that money that people spend at McDonalds, Best Buy, and other mega-corporations? It's supporting a local economy too, just not ours.
For an admittedly mediocre example of buying local and selling global, take Valitics. We have made it a point to hire local independent contractors exclusively (i.e. buying local - bear with me...). Sure, we could farm out work to competent people in NYC, Seattle or India (put a web designer position on CraigsList and see how many foreign and national responses you get!), but we want to give the work to someone around here (perhaps someone who has lost his/her job recently at one of the great technology companies/agencies around town, for instance).
The second and more important part of the equasion though, and the part I think most people don't put enough emphasis on is the "..., but sell global" part. We are actively targeting national clients for our services. We know that when we sell a website packed with valuable features and functionality to a statwide organization in Idaho, we've just proven the value of that package for at least a major bulk of the 49 other state organizations out there looking for ways to promote their organization on the web. That is the gist of our most recent marketing campaign.
So, go out there and buy locally. There are tons of great places to do that. But don't forget to sell your products to people everywhere too!
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