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[3/10/2010 SteppersUSA Daily News]
Stepping Market Dictates
By Markie Bee
National Chicago Style Steppers Day
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Today's Steppers Beat column is sponsored by: Steppers West Associates "A Memorial Day Weekend Jam" starting May 28, 2010 through May 31, 2010 at The Plaza Hotel and Casino One Main St., in Las Vegas, NV, 89101. They are offering a 4 Day Package Deal for $80!
The market dictates. That's been the rule in every business model in the beginning of time. Chicago style stepping is no different. We've seen companies attempt to tell the market what it wants and what it will accept through many schemes and plans through the years.
Recent examples in the broader world which come to mind are Apple computers restrictive and closed door censored approach to its apps store or Microsoft's multiple attempts to tell the public what it wants when they cram all sorts of garbage into a too expensive operating system. NBC learned the hard way that people didn't want to see the Jay Leno show in prime time. Cable companies limited what you could see and charged a premium price to watch TV so the Satellite companies offered more channels for less. George Bush had us fighting us a war we as a country learned in time wasn't necessary and went down a fiscal path the people didn't like, so they elected Barack Obama.
Hopefully you get the point because there are thousands of examples where the public realized they are the ones in power and they dictate what direction a company, an organization, a political party, or a genre like Chicago style stepping will go.
There are constant battles going on in some of our largest markets for "control" of Chicago style stepping. Some instructors


 

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attempt to control what's going to happen if a student tries to go to another instructor's class. Another prime example of this "control" is their general resistance to any type of certification of the basics even though the public has shown they are in favor of such a move.
Some promoters attempt to dictate what types of promotional activities happen in their city through creating some sort of an "artificial peer pressure" environment by telling (or not telling) the public they "approve" or "disapprove" of an event.
There are proponents of what I'll call "anti-event" promotions in Chicago. For example last year Casper planned and promoted his own World's Largest Steppers contest (I presume) to forward his own agenda of how a steppers contest is supposed to be run. We'll never know if the contest would have been a success because the event never came to fruition. When the market approves, they will attend and when the market disapproves of a contest they will jump off. There's always room for another contest that pays!
We all expend a great deal of energy on behalf of the genre but I see what I feel is there are too many people attempting to push the market in one direction or another. If these individuals would only step back and look and listen to the market they will see their efforts will hurt the genre and will yield undesirable results in the long run.
People don't like to be manipulated. As Americans we enjoy our freedom to choose but when we find our choices have been limited our nature eventually moves us to find alternatives to expand our choices. That's why the dance is fundamentally the same as it was years ago but has seen generational change.
What worked in the 1990's doesn't work in the 2010's. The market has broadened and changed because someone added something to the dance. What was added really isn't the issue (even though some try to make it the issue) it's what the market embraced. Hanging on to old outdated methods will eventually relegate the proponents to the back burner on a low flame.
Oscar Wilde once said, "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." When the steppers community realizes they don't have to march to someone else's drum beat (and eventually they will) we will see people making their own decisions and being quite public about those decisions. It's just like when you realize you can make the dance your own by adding your own style. You tell yourself now I'm stepping! The market works the exact same way. Honor the dance, love the dance, own the dance and make it your own and never let anyone tell you not to! No one can tell you where or who you can step with because if they do you really need to look into their motivation.
 

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