Submit your answers in the form below. ?
There was a city committee meeting recently where commissioners were talking about hiring a company to find out what type of businesses need to come to town. It made me wonder what we’re missing. There are certain types of businesses immediately come to mind when this comes up, and we want to get your input about those, but I’m asking readers to think about what Saline County is missing that it needs. Not necessarily a brand name, but a category of business. A business that you personally would use on a regular basis. Maybe it’s something you’ve seen in another state or that you drive to a nearby city for.
There’s a form below ? to submit your answers, but first… Think about how the yellow pages are set up. I know, I know – for many of us, this is a stretch to remember flipping through that alphabetized list of different types of businesses.
Actually, let’s digress for a few paragraphs of explanation, because new readers are showing up here every day that are too young to have ever searched the yellow pages at all. For the rest of us, consider this part nostalgia:
There used to be a paper catalog of contact info for everyone in a given geographical area. We just called it “the phone book.” There are still companies who print these catalogs, but to a much lesser extent. It was a thick book unless you lived in a small area. People would use it to stand on so they could reach cabinets, or for a toddler to sit on so they could reach the dining table to eat with everyone else.
The book had very thin white paper in one section, that listed resident names, their address and phone number. I could digress further about privacy issues from that practice but I won’t. There were literal yellow pages in this book, that had all the contact info for businesses. There was also the opportunity for businesses to place premium listings with their logo and more info. You could find government numbers listed as well, sometimes on blue paper.
In more recent years, with the prevalence of mobile phones and the privacy concerns I mentioned, the white pages are closing in on extinction or may be gone already. You might still see some yellow pages, but the book is smaller, with more businesses turning to the internet or other media for their advertising.
Alright, back to the present. Categories of businesses is what we were talking about. I could name a few businesses that we don’t have in Saline County, but I don’t want to influence the answers, so I’ll say it in the survey like I’m about to ask you to do. Remember, we’re not looking for names, but instead we want to know the TYPE or CATEGORY of business.
Submit one answer and then do the survey again for each answer. I’ll show the answers in a few days in a separate post.