His clothing hung from his body, label-less and threadbare. His dark skin cracked, weathered and worn from exposure to the elements and to life. I doubt he had much if any savings, let alone a few pieces in his pocket.

But there he was, content.

He took a bowl of local drink, a sedative of sorts made from a plant root. It makes your mouth numb upon first drink. Tastes like soil, looks like muddy water. Its consumption is ritualistic and communal. It is a fine thing.

I had a few bowls too, while we sat in the dirt and grass taking in the evening. A squall came through, but none of us moved. The rain fell. We got wet. Some minutes later, the rain left. We dried off.

I cleaned dried droplets from the lenses of my glasses, Kame ManNen, made in Japan. My blue gingham Rapha shirt wicked quickly the wetness from my shoulders. My Macbook, iPad, iPod and two Blackberries stayed protected next to me, tucked into my Jack Spade oilcloth satchel.

It was hard not to be aware of it all. He wasn’t. He just looked on and talked, in and out of an English I had to focus on to understand. Then he asked me: "What do you think of the world?" At least, that’s what I thought he asked me.

So I said: "Well, we have to end apartheid for one. And slow down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless, and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights, while also promoting equal rights for women. We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values. Most importantly, we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people."

His expression revealed that my answer was not related to his actual inquiry. He approved just the same and said, “Good, good. Me too."

"Do you like Phil Collins?" I then asked. He nodded: "This singer? Yes, yes. I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual."

I smiled, because I only pretended that was his response. He actually said, "No, I like Michael Jackson."

But there I was, content.

Stop making bizarre-looking, futuristic concept clothing and start using your fine tailoring and technology to save us Washington, DC professionals from the weather—just like you do for mountain climbers and the armed forces alike.

Right now you’re following down the path of Nau—the ill-fated eco-brand started by well-intentioned Patagonia refugees. A great concept poorly executed. They too created drab, lifeless clothing (and still do, I believe). I’m sure the aesthetic aspects of your Veilance designs are suitable to someone, but I think it’s diluting your brand and not staying true to your mission. As my friend Pete Hult says: “Sure, they get a designer’s creative juices flowing and remove traditional design barriers, but they are not grounded in usability.” And what is Arc’teryx about if it’s not about usability?

You obviously do an exceptional job with technical wear. I personally own your Alpha SV jacket, Alpha SV gloves, Beta AR pants and Bird Cap. So I know what you’re capable of. The Alpha SV jacket is better tailored than my Burberry suits. Each of your technical products is an exceptional piece of equipment—which I, like many of your core customers, push to the limits of design and functionality.

Why then can’t you help me out when I’m not climbing mountains? Instead of high-concept, how about real-life. The extremes of Washington, DC weather offer day-to-day challenges to one’s wardrobe that Arc’teryx would understand better than Zenga or Tom Ford. Let’s get practical.

As a “humid subtropical climate zone,” the summer brings piping heat with average daily relative humidity of about 66%—standard business wear doesn’t cut it. In a wool suit I’m toast. Sure, I can supplement my business attire with linens, cottons and seersucker, but that only goes so far. And then in the winter, howling winds cut right through you. That same humidity makes walking through frosty air akin to plunging into an ice bath. Tweed can only get you so far, especially when moving back and forth from street to boardroom, cab to bar.

As a point of reference, prior to air conditioning, Washington, DC was actually considered a hardship posting by the British Foreign Office. It’s diplomats received hazard pay for living here. As noted in a current British expat guide: “Summer remains ferociously hot and humid outdoors, and icy cold in the ubiquitous air-conditioned indoors.” In the old days, the British at least allowed their diplomats to dress down in these conditions, in an outfit consisting of shorts, knee-high socks and lighter threads over all. How my colleagues and I envy the idea at times.

Enter Arc’teryx.

Arc’teryx has fabrics and technology that would make standard work clothes more bearable to wear in the summer months—lighter, wicking, breathable. Same goes for the winter. I don't necessarily need a thick coat most times, but a little wind-stopper in my suit jacket would go a long way. To have a durable, well-constructed ensemble that looked and felt to the touch like a fine suit, yet accommodated realistic climatic conditions and fashion trends would truly be something to behold.

The only company I see out there doing anything like this is Rapha, which makes exquisitely designed clothing—partnering with Paul Smith for some pieces. However, Rapha serves its niche cycling market. I see opportunity on a broader scale—a creative, technical approach to business attire beginning with the fabric that complements Arc’teryx’s brand attributes and extends it’s brand identity among those who could be in its non-core sportswear user group, as well as in decision-maker positions for its specialty products.

This is Washington, DC. We got 99 problems. Don’t let a stitch be one. 

If you are not familiar with stikman, he is the subject of an anonymous street artist who has made this figure well known throughout DC and numerous other cities, from Los Angeles to Boston.

Stikman resides mostly in crosswalks—a reflective vinyl robot staring blankly upward. He comes in several colors, and as traffic and weather run over him, his permanence is solidified by conditions that simultaneously disintegrate him entirely—like a traumatic event seared as a memory but faded overtime, from fixture to abstraction to amorphous reminiscence, and then gone altogether.

I’ve snapped photos of him before, but have never acquired one. I’ve only ever enjoyed his place in the urban landscape—a simple, humorless figure who looks up and says, “Hey, you’re walking on me.” I smile and move on. In hand, though, I sought to learn more.

Aside from many photos, I found a Washington Post article by Stephen Lowman from 2008, in which he wrote about his own exploration of stikman:

I Googled him, half expecting to find out that stikman was part of a viral marketing campaign to get me to the theater on Halloween to see a robot slasher flick. Instead, I found other admirers sharing their fondness for this mysterious figure whose creator was anonymous.

Oh woe for the artist whose work is mistaken for marketing! Is this not the nature of art though? Look at Shepard Fairey’s now ubiquitous “Hope” portrait of President Obama. It may offend the artist to have his or her methods adopted for commercial or political purposes, (Fairey, notably, was an Obama supporter), but I would take it as a compliment that you’re contributing to the expansion of how we can communicate with one another. The tenuous relationship between art and commerce may never be resolved.

With stikman, however, I just feel guilty. I have denied the masses exposure to this simple figure. In art, meaning is derived from context; and with street art, every piece is site-specific. I have in a sense robbed some life from this particular piece. Nor do I feel right replacing it, now that I’ve removed it. Like a baby bird held by human hands, it may not be accepted back into its nest, its stickiness gone. It would then be sweet justice if I was arrested for littering or defacing property in an effort to restore him.

So here I am in my office trying to mash stikman into the carpet—the only sensible way I think he can be displayed. On the wall won’t cut it. I only fear the cleaning people may remove him.

Full disclosure: A modified version has been posted on my company's blog.

It has the feeling of an ancient tomb, musty and sacred. Three rambling floors of titles and tomes—piled up on the floor, falling off makeshift shelves, arranged using no traditional scheme. They populate narrow stairs and tiny rooms. It is bookstore as destination—as much a feast for the mind as for the senses. And I believe, I hope, this relic of Paris can provide some understanding of what the future holds for bookstores.

The demise of the big booksellers is hardly a new story. In Washington, DC, one of the most educated, literate and wealthy communities in the country, Borders has shuttered almost all of its locations. The reasons are obvious—competition from online vendors and ebooks has combined with a decrease in disposable income as a result of the economic recession. Sales dry up, business is business.

It is as true here as it is throughout the world. Just this week, Australian Minister for Small Businesses Nick Sherry even made a bold declaration about the death of the bookstore: “I think in five years, other than a few specialty bookshops in capital cities, you will not see a bookstore. They will cease to exist because of what’s happening with Internet-based, Web-based distribution.... What’s occurring now is an exponential take-off—we’ve reached a tipping point.”

In my opinion…maybe. There’s no doubt consolidation will continue to take place. What exists, though, is an opportunity for large booksellers to reinvent how they market themselves—to rethink their approach to the Thinking Class. And it has everything to do with the experience they present.

Barnes & Noble, Borders and the others had in recent decades become a sterile alternative to the convenience found on the Internet, providing little reason to wander in and make a purchase. It is the same with Starbucks, entirely lifeless in presentation; yet, caffeine can be a rather powerful influence when it comes to purchasing decisions. Few people claim to be addicted to literature.

The question then becomes anthropological. Do books possess an inherent nature that appeals to humans? Or, is our desire to be around them rooted more in nostalgia or to be associated with something intellectual? While it is difficult to say, demand does still exist for bookstores, and there are ways large booksellers can retool their marketing to cultivate demand and re-grow sales:

• Commit to an Experience: Shakespeare & Company is but one example of the type of experience a store can offer—old world and unpretentious. The Strand in New York City is just as special, but almost exactly the opposite—a labyrinth of metal shelves. There’s Red Emma’s in Baltimore, a socialist enclave of considerable character. San Francisco offers a number of funky places in the Mission off Valencia. I go out of my way to check these places out. Without becoming some themed hell, like a Clyde’s Restaurant, the big stores can embrace the local or regional aesthetic and culture and create an experience that would be authentic and bring people in the door.

• Curate to the Community: Bookstores are, yes, about books. One of the best examples is right here in Washington, DC: Politics & Prose. It is not much of a place to visit, though does have some folksy charm; however, the staff does an exceptional job selecting books relevant to their readers and holding events that people want to attend. Again, the large booksellers can use their considerable catalogs to craft finely tuned collections that speak to the local audience, all while offering the convenience of a broader selection.

• Become Distribution Points: Apple is all about the Internet…but it still has stores. There are a number of reasons why—immediate gratification, tech support and the opportunity to kick the wheels of products before buying. Bookstores should adopt a similar model, bridging the gap between the online and offline world. Kindles and iPads are not going away. It will be important to find ways of becoming relevant in this new world. For example, book retailers should work with publishers and authors to create destination-specific products. Ubiquity is a product of the web. We need more ways to offer uniqueness and something special.

Old-line companies need to take risks and dive into the demand that still exists. It is a turbulent time for justifying costs and growing the bottom line; however, innovative marketing and creative communications—combined with smart business decisions—can do a lot to create new business. 

Full disclosure: I posted this on my company's blog as well www.qorvis.com/blog.

So from a stormy graduation meant to get us looking ahead, to a stormy reunion meant to get us looking back, what I ended up seeing is that it is most important to simply look around. For in every life there's the passing and breaking of storms, but its about who we let inside and weather them with along the way that makes the difference. 

A hundred feet above the tree tops a fiddler’s tune made its way up to me on a warm summer breeze. I sat alone on a bench of granite, setting up an anchor to belay my friends far below. I jostled aluminum bolts and cams. I flicked away flies to untangle and tie my knots. I worked methodically in silence. Slowly my breathing found a rhythm. The sweat accrued from the climb up dried off my brow. And upon the wind notes hinted, like a ghost whishing about the trees’ leaves and rock wall. I looked up to think about the person scratching out this gentle song, and I saw a dozen miles out into the blue—a roll of mountains, groves of pines, ancient farms, and the bend of a river that cut through it all.

Hours earlier, I had sat down there in the morning sun, drinking coffee on a farmhouse porch. There was music there too: the murmuring of voices in a house; gravel crunching under a car’s tires; the snap and clap of a screen door. These are all the sounds of summer in New England—empty notes…that fill the spaces between the waist high grass, that tip over the rock walls, that gurgle and boil in the streams, that evoke my childhood scrambles through the woods. And here I am still, decades on, with my same friend, clambering about the wilderness in search of such songs on the wind—faint scratchings that serve as the score for man's place amidst the wild beauty and dangers of nature, whether today or two hundred years ago. To a climber on a wall, a violinist on a river is a beautiful thing indeed. 

“Men come tamely home at night only from the next field or street,” Thoreau wrote in Walden, “where their household echoes haunt, and their life pines because it breathes its own breath over again; their shadows, morning and evening, reach farther than their daily steps. We should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience and character."

And so we sat, two business travelers in our hotel restaurant—a fairly elegant place: white linen table clothes, a chef overly taken with reductionism (but thoughtful in presentation) and fine service.

Whereas I’m normally outgoing with respect to engaging people while traveling, I’m fairly tired at the moment. Lots of running around and long days. So when the waiter brought my wine, it went straight to my head—fatigue compounded by not having had a drop in a week because I was in dry Kuwait. The inclination to chat up the young woman seated across from me appeared for a moment, and then vanished.  

I could tell she was unprepared for solo dining, having put on a lovely dress, looking quite cheerful and lacking any distractions whatsoever. I had on a t-shirt and khakis, with iPad in tow. I knew to have myself seated by a window, facing away from the majority of the restaurant. She obviously let the staff seat her—to watch everyone else in the packed place eat, including me…who she looked at directly.

The awkwardness between us—because I could play Scrabble on my iPad and she could only stare across the room at the side of my head—was accentuated by an inverse sort of awkwardness nearby: a group of traveling coworkers.

Polite jokes among a mixed table of eight. Laughter too loud, followed by silences in the conversation. Tepid discussion of sports and careful conversation of non-present colleagues. A hotter hell I cannot imagine.

But the young woman by herself remained cheerful. She made a few phone calls to bide her time, but didn’t get through. She left messages describing her trip, from Ireland to Australia and how this was her first time in Dubai. I could hear it all—said to no one but voicemail. When once her phone did ring, it was a salesperson she tersely dismissed. And then on she looked, contemplating the contemporary flatware and rolling the legs of her wine.

I finished my desert and departed.

When traveling, the inclination is to make the most of every moment—as it is rare to be in a different place that offers exposure to different experiences and different people. Sometimes, though, it is just nice to act like you belong exactly where you are and passively absorb all that's around you. I think I'm having one of those trips.