From the Editor

From the Editor
2010. Bring it on.

By Alison Embrey Medina, Executive Editor
February 12, 2010

As an editor of a publication, I receive beaucoup holiday greetings throughout December and January, some in the form of cards, some via e-mail, some by phone and some as small gifts. I appreciate them all, greatly. Not everyone stops to take a moment to reflect on the year past and celebrate the year ahead—and this year in particular, I found each note a welcome respite from the chaos of a typical workday.

My favorite New Year’s message that came in this year arrived via e-mail from .advancedMethod, a creative, brand and digital signage company based out of Seattle. The e-mail contained a graphic in the color and shape of what looks like a Campbell’s soup can, with the simple words “WHOOP-ASS” scrolled across the front. As a Southern girl at heart, I’m quite familiar with the concept of “opening a can of whoop-ass” (often recited at SEC football games and the like) as a battle cry to defeat an unwanted adversary, so my natural-born fiery personality was instantly amused. But the message below the graphic is what got me really pumped: “Twenty-ten. Bring it on.”

I’m adopting this as a personal mantra for this year. (Can’t you just see it on a T-shirt?) There is no room for those who choose to sit back with a “wait, hope and maybe we’ll see what happens” attitude. This is a year for proactiveness. Engagement. Inspiration. Creativity. Innovation. Risk. Reward. This is a year to take chances. A time to evaluate how we spend money, how we build stores, how we engage customers and how we run our businesses more economically, efficiently and—for crying out loud—more profitably.

We cannot sit and wait for the market to return to “normal,” or for our customers to return to their old habits. And we certainly can’t expect a return to normal sales figures just yet. Just as the magazine world has had to respond and react to the influx of “new media” (blogs, social networking, Twitter, etc.), so too has the retail world had to react and respond to “new retail” (experiential retail, customization, in-store touchpoints, mobile shopping, etc.). It’s a brave new world, but with plenty of room for new leaders of the pack. We cannot afford to passively wait for the future to happen. We need to grab hold of the reins and vigilantly create the future today.

As I write this editorial, snow is falling in Atlanta, where this magazine is published. It’s been a strange and unexpected winter already. Perhaps 2010 just might be a year of surprises yet. Make your mark in this year of uncertainty. Don’t wait for something good to come about—go out and make it happen. Hey, 2010…bring it on!

Alison Embrey Medina
Executive Editor
aembrey@ddimagazine.com