#BTColumn – Embracing novel ideas

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Walter Edey

Good ideas travel and attract attention. Whenever a simple design or activity becomes complex, good things happen to the economy. Everyone wins.

Xhensila Reci is a User Experience Consultant at the LEGO Group. In an article, Reci posits: “Design is the rendering of intent.” Reci offered design as a problem solver.

Once, she said, a watch was mechanical and only told the time. Today, it is computerized, and does much more. Other experts call morphing the simple to the complex – adding value.

It appears this process has a new moment in time.Case in point. Barbados’ economy is at greater risk. External source markets are under heavy manners. Listen to Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the USA Federal Reserve Board.

“The cause of the economic downturn is different from earlier periods of history. It is not linked to a cycle of high inflation. The virus is the cause, not the usual suspects.”

Seven months after Powell made that comment, another series of COVID lockdowns are imminent. So, the stark truth is known. Things in Barbados may get worse before they get better.

That said, adversity remains the mother of invention. That is the silver lining of hope. Therefore, policy makers must, and should, covet novel concepts – and facilitate their growth. That is the right thing to do.

Thankfully, novel ideas are sitting on doorsteps, waiting for common sense and conscience to unlock the door.

They are creative persons on the move – wanting to live. They are vendors who sell food, snow cones and vegetables – neither bricks nor stones nor criminals. They are survivors seeking to reinvent their lives and lifelines. So why is there a reluctance to remove the chains?

Reci’s path from the simple to the sophisticated is not rocket science. Listen: (1) Accept that change is dynamic and self led. (2) Give up the need to control everything (3) Let needs and usefulness drive the process. (4) Discard and merge without doing harm.

Reci has an ally in Adrian Bejan’s 1997 law of physics. Bejan argues: “Good ideas travel and keep travelling; better flowing configurations, replacing existing configurations.”

Having established that good ideas flow, the integration of “Vending” into the formal economy is a logical step.

Spreading wealth is now a lifeline. Without jobs, the properties of the middle class will go on the auction block. That class will become a song of “sixpence”. Is that a bad or good idea?

Reci alluded to the amalgamation in her dynamic change process.

Vending assimilation into the economy should at least include access, training, rewards, rules and regulations. Namely: secure attractive vendor malls in high-traffic areas, manuals, rules of behavior and health best practices, vendor association’s models, advocacy templates and resource links.

What will it take to dignify the vendor class and give it the freedom it deserves? Is the expansion of the tax base and NIS scheme too small a carrot?

How about a testimony from vendors? Is Barbados shooting above its financial size because we were allowed to do it our way? Whatever works, the unmistakable truth will endure history. Good ideas travel and attract attention.