AlwaysWoW! For a Great Great WoW in Life

Thoughts from me about things that are cool, that are WoW, that blow me away. Observations about businesses and people from a wide variety of life. Daily encounters - and thoughts outside the box, inside the box and without any box. New thinking, and challenging old thinking. Passionate about life, about respect, and about integrity.

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

I am back - and a story about Germay

And there would be lots of things to share of what happened in Germany. Can you imagine that an immigration officer is actualy in a good mood at 6.00 AM in the morning? And, yes, actually, not only one, but bot. Smiling, and joking. Germany is really changing if an immigration officer can smile!!

Otherwise, the situation is pretty gloomy. Unemployment high, no coordination between the different stakeholders in the progress to get things moving and on the same boat. During one talkshow that I listened to, one member of a panel said that Germans are always complaining, and negative about their life. And that he never saw a group or country in his life with such a negative attitude. Is kind of true. Malaysia and Singapore, for example, try to get things moving, when they are in trouble. Somehow. and somehow, it works.

Anyway, even in gloomy East Germany with a very high unemployment level of more than 20% - and this is only the official number and doesn't consider early retirements or long term unemployed, I discovered one light. There is this one dwarf park. Nothing special. Just dwarfs, and snowwhite and similar. Neatly arranged in a medium sized park, with a rail, one can find on fun fairs, going around, and where kids can go around with. With a restaurant aside, and a shop that sells dwarfs, and related things. A simple thing, but it works. I heard that a competitor once planned to open a similar concept in Dresden - a city in East Germany -but went bankrupt. A good strategy cannot be easily imitated. And this is a good one - a great concept, a simple business strategy, a good location and it attracts people to visit it. Compared to other locations in this part of the country, in which many companies and factories closed down after the unification back in 1989 for reasons, that I leave unanswered for now. But many of the citizens went for tourism, and nothing else. There are whole towns where one sign after the next is offering rooms. How original is that? And when it comes to a crisis situation such as the one now, where people simply have no money to travel, at least some are doomed to fail. While the few tourists that come, will visit the park, which in turn thrives.

Any comment? Send something, as usual, to always_wow@yahoo.com.sg

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