Crossing the Bridge for a Pail of Water?

PROLOGUE: My Business Engineering blog has evolved into something that allows me to explore and pursue my passions of art, food/wine (sustainability) and marketing all in one blog: In Search of a Personal Stability Zone to explore our collective aspirations…

NEWEST POST: In my last post, I discussed the Belgian surrealist artist Rene Magritte’s painting: Treachery of Images (La Trahison des Images) painted between 1928 and 1929. The singular image in the piece is a tobacco pipe. There is only a blank background and script under the image of the pipe - ceci n'est pas une pipe – in English it means this is not a pipe. It seems more like a tobacco shop sign than it does a piece of fine art. The combination creates a contradiction.

Sometimes the obvious escapes us. This painting then, is not a pipe, it is an image; a painting of a pipe. It is nothing more than one individual’s interpretation (the artist) of a subject or situation. Yet, it is or becomes more than it represents. On one hand, the viewer’s perception, regardless whether it is correct or otherwise, constructs a truth that may be accepted. This truth will persist until another perspective is offered or another perception further defines what is in front of the viewer.

With this in mind, please allow me to present the paradox on the New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge [Author’s Note: This blog offers another perspective and a photo. It is interesting to note how little there really is on this bridge in the Google organic rankings.] The bridge has been around for quite some time; over a hundred years in fact. It, as well as, its purpose has not changed very much. Its primary function is to connect. Yet, as the years have rolled on, it has been accused of doing more blocking and interrupting than anything else.

It’s not the bridge that’s the problem! The Old Norwegian folk saying of not crossing a bridge to get a pail of water holds true in this case. The bridge opens to water traffic closing the road to vehicular traffic. It does this on a set time schedule allowing commercial fishing vessels working out of the Port of New Bedford to leave on a trip or return with a catch, which combined represents the top-dollar value fishing port in the United States. The epicenter (there are either two or, depending on your point of view, one split into two) of this prosperous industry is located north of the reviled bridge. So then, if the industry had continued being developed south of the bridge where it began, in my estimation then, the problem would be moot.

The pipe is not a pipe. The bridge is not the problem. The problem is where the industry’s expansion was sited. Expansion is the result of the physical evidence or anticipation of growth. Increase the boat traffic and increase the number of bridge openings which impedes the flow of traffic on Route 6 between New Bedford and Fairhaven, Massachusetts. In actuality, the normal scheduled openings are not a problem if you are aware of them. The entire process usually takes, on average, just ten minutes. However, being constantly bridge opening conscious may be a problem as is working, living and traveling around that schedule. Of course, there’s no getting around the inconvenience of major bridge repairs which totally put a kink in everyone’s schedules, business and traffic patterns.

Taking a Zen approach isn’t something that I would suspect would be universally embraced. Being one with the schedule takes a specific character profile. Imagining that every time the bridge stops traffic is an indication of this community’s pride in being home to the nation’s number one fishing ports would only warm the cockles of the hearts of those associated with the industry.

From a marketing perspective and that of a self-professed marketing engineer, a solution is possible but not before really studying where the industry stands at present and where it may end up in the near future. To move industry operations to the south of the bridge would solve one problem and cause others. However, it is doable and does offer several types of opportunities. At this point in time and with the knowledge and information I have in hand (or, in head), the industry has the opportunity to evolve to the next level and solve other issues at the same time. Regulations, overhead costs and safety concerns come to mind. But, if selling fish is and always has been about freshness, then, please allow me to offer this idea, or scheme, up for your consideration.

Relocate a majority of the shore-side processing operations to at-sea or off-shore processing vessels. The result of such a move would be the reduction of shore or land based issues and an increase in product freshness. Day boats would unload their catches at these processing vessels, which would then be transported by helicopter either whole or in various states of processing to distribution points within 24-hours. This eliminates the archaic top of the catch concept. It reduces trip times. It increases cash flow. It reduces the strain on the old bridge. Traffic flows! And, we stop crossing the bridge to get the proverbial pail of water.