Posts by David Holder

CLARITY TO START YOUR WEEK In memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Some public figures are larger than life. Their personal brands extend beyond their deeds. They are engrained in our culture.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a prolific impact on freedom and social justice long before being appointed to be the second female Supreme Court Justice.…

CLARITY TO START YOUR WEEK In memory of Chadwick Boseman. Thanks to the imagination of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the acting of Chadwick Boseman and the creative talents at Marvel Studios, Black Panther and his mythical home of Wakanda came to life. As fictional as Wakanda might be, many wanted it to be real; some more so…

(The first in an on-going series to help you think with Clarity of Place) At the risk of adding to your mental fatigue, I am going to give a glance behind the curtain. Clarity of Place was created to provide a system to guide and measure a destination’s role in contributing to community value and…

(Post 5 of 5 in the “Don’t Say Recovery” Series) Let’s review. It all started with a virus. Yes, that one. No need to go into detail, but many suffered. Lives and livelihoods were lost. Industries were decimated. The impact on places and people was cataclysmic.  It seems like a thousand years ago that this…

(Post 4 of 5 in the “Don’t Say Recovery” Series) If the first two steps of the healing process, stopping the bleeding and clotting/scabbing, are awkwardly painful and uncomfortable to you, this step will likely feel more natural. The third stage is growth and rebuilding. For most economic development or destination leadership organizations, this is…

(Post 3 of 5 in the “Don’t Say Recovery” Series) Clotting and scabbing are gross. That was the working title for this post, but logic and respect for readers intervened resulting in a more appropriate title. You can thank me later. Clotting and scabbing are necessary. The second stage of the healing process is not…

(Post 2 of 5 in the “Don’t Say Recovery” Series) What you are about to read may disturb you. It really is okay if you need walk away for a little while. Trauma isn’t pretty, and 2020 has been overly traumatic. Disturbingly enough, the year isn’t close to being over. Our communities continue to be…

By nature, I am an overly optimist person. So, it naturally pains me to ask that we refrain from any additional use of the word “recovery” for at least two years. Recovery implies that business is building back to a pre-COVID point. Recovery assumes that we’ve reached a past state of normal. As long as…

June 23, 1989 is etched into my brain as Bat Day. Warner Brothers went all in with the superstars: Kim Basinger, Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson in the Tim Burton directed movie with a soundtrack from Prince. But the real heroes were behind the scenes, spreading the hype and building anticipation. The poster said it…

I love ridiculous phrases. My friend, Steve Butler is fond of saying “my hair is on fire” when he is overly busy. Another friend, Spike Herzig, uses “so far behind, I think I am first.” My wife’s former boss, Jan Newcomb would say “the merry-go-round is broken but it’s spinning too fast to get off…