The Land Use Control Board has approved a proposal to rename Linden between the river and Danny Thomas as Dr. Martin Luther King Avenue. Most cities already have a thoroughfare honoring the civil rights leader, and it’s fitting that Memphis now has one too, 44 years after he was shot at the Lorraine Motel. Why Linden? It’s a high-traffic area because of Beale and the FedExForum, and it’s near the Clayborn Temple where Dr. King rallied sanitation workers.
The Memphis Daily News has a great article called Preserving the Magic about A.Schwab’s, the “dry goods” store that has been on Beale since 1876. The new owners want to hang on to what made the store one of a kind, while adding new things like live music and possibly a coffee and soda bar. “What does the street need A. Schwab to be? That’s what we’re trying to respond to,” said one of the new owners.
Are you fluent in a foreign language? A recruiter I stay in touch with needs bilingual help desk analysts. It helps if you have a background in IT, but more than anything she’s looking for bright, motivated people with excellent communication skills. It’s a 6 month contract to hire gig. Email me at paul@paulryburn.com if you’re interested, and I’ll put you in touch with her.
Fried chicken lovers: WKNO’s show Local Color will discuss the best places in Memphis to get fried chicken. The show airs tonight at 6:30.
This next link, Worst use of social media in 2012 by Scott Stratten, the author of UNmarketing, should be required reading for anyone who owns or manages a restaurant, or a retail business for that matter. The owner of a restauant in Atlanta called Boner’s BBQ reacted VERY badly to a negative customer review on Yelp. He posted her pic to the restaurant’s Facebook Wall, publicly insulted her, and generated a ton of negative publicity. When he finally realized he needed to apologize to curb the public’s anger, he did so in such an insincere way that he made an already-terrible situation even worse. Business owners: If you tend to react with anger when a customer posts a negative review, you need to hire a marketing consultant to run your social media presence so you don’t do something as stupid as Boner’s BBQ’s owner did.
AutoZone Park will install a new video board in right field before the start of the Redbirds’ season. At 60×60 feet with 1,440,000 pixels, it will be the largest HD display in minor league baseball. It will show field action replays, stadium promotions, fan cameras shots and sponsor recognition. Daktronics, a video display maker, will install the board. It’s said to be a larger display than ones Daktronics has installed in several NFL stadiums.
All right, time to go out in the snow and get lunch. They say this crap won’t stick to the roads. It better not. This snow has failed to meet my definition of a “good snow,” which happens overnight and comes in massive enough amounts to close the office (but not the bars).