Exclusive: Thanksgiving Tribute: Finding hope in Harvey & The Houston Astros

BY BRANDI SMITH

Growing up in rural Southern Oregon, there wasn’t much in the way of TV to watch as a kid. Our giant antenna, which was mounted to our house, only picked up two channels: the local CBS affiliate and PBS. As a result, my after-school TV programming was usually some combination of Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

I gleaned important messages from each of those shows, but what might be the most influential piece of advice came from Fred Rogers when I was older. He recalled that when faced with scary situations, his mother told him, ‘Always look for the helpers.’

 

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Emerging Evolution: How Retail Is Adapting To The Changing Market

BY BRANDI SMITH

It was the merger that made international headlines: Amazon purchasing Whole Foods, a marriage of e-commerce and brick-and-mortar that acknowledged and leveraged the powerof both kinds of retail.

Grocery being the largest category of consumer retail, the move is being viewed by experts as a power play for Amazon, a way for the giant online retailer to tap into a new revenue stream. It was also a public and financial admission by an e-commerce behemoth that it is still worth investing in a physical store to win the war of retail.

“To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of the death of brick-andmortar retail are greatly exaggerated,” says Marshall Mills, President and CEO of Weitzman. “… retail’s alive and well …”

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