Remember when we all went back-to-school shopping?

It was, at best, a bittersweet endeavor. 

On one hand, it basically meant that summer was over. Once the calendar hit August, we groaned as we embarked on the slow march toward the first day of school—which would be briefly interrupted by a little slice of retail euphoria. Get in the car, kids, we’re getting everything you need for the new school year and we’re going to do it in like, four hours. Our parents truly loved us, didn’t they?

It’s a slippery slope: As a retailer, media figure, or just a person with a social media account, you want to say something compelling and stand for something, but...you also don’t want to paint yourself into a box and only be about that one thing, especially as times and tastes change.

To not only survive—but thrive!—in today’s competitive retail environment, we were reminded at the CBUS19 retail conference that you have to (first) know who you are, so you can (second) do brave things that others can’t.