I was particularly struck by Thomas Friedman’s column in The New York Times this morning that I want to share with you. We are in a different and changed economy that has seriously changed our business. The challenge for us is to rise above just processing work as in the past and to fire up our imaginations to re-gain our market. Here’s part of what he wrote:

“A Washington lawyer friend recently told me about layoffs at his firm. I asked him who was getting axed. He said it was interesting: lawyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just isn’t there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services, new opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the new untouchables.

That is the key to understanding our full education challenge today. Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables—to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies—will thrive.” (Thomas Friedman)

I’d like to think we are a theatre of the new untouchables.

–Wes Brustad, State Theatre President and CEO

Click here to read the complete column by Thomas Friedman.