Ingram’s January 2023

R E F L E C T I O N S

by Dennis Boone

At the Intersection of Business and Life

May the Expert Class Get What It Truly Deserves

Lord, save us from those who know better.

(Dial tone, as though one party has

abruptly hung up.)

A long time ago, in an entrepreneurial fantasy far, far from profit, I had this idea that I could make some pretty good English style ales and earn a few bucks selling them. That’s how the door to the wide, wide world of regulation flung open for me, with its introduction to the whims of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. They’ve since grown up as a bureaucracy to add “Explosives” to the monogram, but still tend to refer to themselves as the good, old ATF. That opening led to a journey that began with lifelong membership in the party of JFK and ended mere months later on the far side of the whackiest anti-government Libertarian sensibility you can think of. Why? Well, it wasn’t the strict processes required to document safety in ingredients in production methods—hell, I wouldn’t want to go blind drinking someone’s flawed recipes, either. Nor was it a city zoning maze to run to build a microbrewery in a state where none had existed for nearly a century. It wasn’t even the dopey state regulations compelling brewers to deliver products to the market via a system of state-sanctioned middlemen, distributors who had maxxed out political contributions to every legislator. What really got to me was beer-bottle label production and

We produced a few thousand kegs before our expansion dreams collapsed with bottling equipment caught up in an Italian dock workers’ strike for six weeks. That completely skunked the most conservative cash-flow projections, and a year later, the bank came for the keys. I think of those days as my three-year MBA, learning about supply chain, just in-time delivery and shipping, marketing, cost analytics, staffing, pay, benefits and much more. Truly, I wouldn’t change a second of it, despite the personal cost. The really big take-away was an appreciation for what transpires outside the Ivory Tower of Print (I was working for a newspaper at the time). And it primed me for a life of recognizing the limitless potential of government elites to complicate our everyday lives. As with the half-gallon pitcher on the bathroom sink at home, filled and dumped—five seconds into every flush cycle—to complete a task left undone by the 1.6-gallon tank, mandated by some genius bent on saving the world’s fresh water supply. Or the LED bulbs now mandated becuase incandescent bulbs aren’t as efficient. (Gee, why not do the same with our cars, based on MPG?) Or the laws that criminalize wine-makers who suggest their product has intoxicating properties, or outlaw skateboarding at the National Institutes of Health, or prohibit hunting of doves and pigeons with machine guns (all true). And just this month, word that they’re coming after kitchen stoves fired by natural gas. So my wish for everyone in this new year is for safety, good health and prosperity—and for the vision to recognize intrusions into their lives by the Faceless Ones, along with the righteous indignation to become vocal with objections thereto. Maybe, if we holler loud enough, someone will hear us, and start addressing life’s real challenges. But I’ll bet you a pint of English ale that’ll never happen . . .

approval, which made me a temporary ward of the ATF. The agency required full-size, four color labels to be submitted, along with every keystoke of text, for review and approval. Prohibited: The use of both “ale” and “beer” on any one label, lest it “confuse” the customers you’re trying to school on those distinctions. And if any corrections were ordered, it all went to Square One with the graphic artists, producing a new set of proofs. Rinse and repeat.

To one and all: A happy New Year filled with propserity—and completely lacking in bureaucratic nonsense.

All of this before digital imaging, Photoshop or desktop printers that could make such changes in a heartbeat today. And before an Internet that could allow same-day re-submission, rather than delivery left to the tender mercies of the U.S. Postal Service. Through the fog of 30 years attempting to forget the whole exercise in capital destruction, I learned that nothing rivals a federal agency for public-sector pettiness. A quick recollection of just one of many phone calls to Area Code 202: (Phone rings) Faceless Voice: “Bureau of ATF; how may I direct your call?” Me: “Can I speak with the person in charge of label approvals?” FV: “What letter does your company start with?” Me: “Uh . . . what?” FV: “Your company name—what’s the first word?” Me: “Miracle.” FV: “Hold on . . . I’ll connect you with the person in charge of the M’s.” Me: “The M’s? That’s insane. How many people could you possibly have reviewing beer-label applications?”

Dennis Boone is the edito rial director at Ingram’s. E | DBoone @ Ingrams.com P | 816.268.6402

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I n g r a m ’ s

Kansas City’s Business Media

January 2023