CubeSpace - Mobilizing a Community

CubeSpace is a unique and innovative workplace community in Southeast Portland that hit a lot of radar screens in the last week because the owners, Eva Schweber, a nonprofit consultant, and David Kominsky, a rabbi, made a direct appeal to their constituents and stakeholders with an open letter detailing their struggles to keep their business alive. The response from the community, thanks to press coverage, an "organic" viral campaign on Twitter, and old-fashioned outreach, was enough, as Eva and David put it, "to put them on a path out of the woods."

I completely empathize with Eva and David, as Dessert Noir Cafe & Bar continues to get "beat down" in this recession. Like with Eva and David, I, too, cannot count on the banks for assistance through these challenging times. As I've said many times before, they're not interested in doing the right thing, even after receiving billions and billions of taxpayers' dollars through the TARP.

In the meantime, the bills are piling up, revenue is down an average of 18 percent each month over the same period in 2008, which was already down about 20 percent over the same period in 2007. I held out some hope in May as the month got off to a strong start with the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Trek, but I can always count on something to derail things. This time it's the weather. The first signs of warm, bright, sunny days in Portland are a killer for my business, especially when they coincide with a holiday weekend.

I commend Eva and David for "putting it all out there." It inspires me to take a similar approach with my own customers, for we have some unique challenges out here in the suburbs in Beaverton where people have really gone underground, fearing for their economic security. Rightfully so as these are tough times for a lot of people.

However, we've got businesses going under left and right. At Cedar Hills Crossing Shopping Center, we lost Joe's, a regional retailer whose tenure at the center dates back to the early 1970s. About a mile down the road, we lost the Kingstad Center, a meeting facility that also featured local art, comedy, and theater. Others surely will follow if we don't rally around these entrepreneurs like folks did for CubeSpace to reinforce the importance of these businesses to our community. We must invest resources and spend time and money patronizing them. Our landscape is already changing drastically, and would-be entrepreneurs will surely think twice about bringing innovation and new businesses to our area if they don't perceive there's an opportunity to be profitable for the long term.