Here in Canada, it’s Thanksgiving weekend.

Coming from the U.K. originally, I was always aware of the Thanksgiving holiday, but we don’t celebrate it. I didn’t even know Canada had its own Thanksgiving – I always thought it was just a U.S. holiday.

Having experienced it for the last four years now, I have to say it’s one of my favorite times of the year.

It’s a time that we can let all the crap in the world disappear, if just for a weekend, and look back at everything we have to be thankful for. We don’t do that often enough, in my opinion. So it’s great to be able to take dedicated time and really appreciate how lucky we are (even if we think we aren’t).

So I’d just like to share some of the things I’m thankful for this year, if that’s okay with you.

I’m thankful for having my health after a bit of a scare earlier this year. Good always comes from bad, though, and it made me realize that we only have one shot at what we do; we can’t afford to waste it.

I’m thankful for having the opportunity to do a job I love with a business partner I trust implicitly. It’s not often you get both of these together; the fact I’m lucky enough to enjoy both means it doesn’t feel like going into work. For that, I’m gratefully lucky.

I’m thankful for knowing that, as much as the world can be a bad place, it’s also full of people who believe in change. That individually, we can be strong; together, we’re a force to be reckoned with.

I’m thankful for having the most amazing blog community. Yes, I know every blogger says it, and they probably do – but I sincerely think you are one of the best period, and you prove that day in and day out. For that, I thank you.

I’m thankful for knowing you on all of your online and offline places. People say you can’t make true friends on the Internet – I say bullcrap. Knowing you, and interacting with you on a daily basis, just keeps proving me right.

I’m thankful for living in a country that offers so much. Much of what’s made me who I might be today has happened in the last four years; living in a country like Canada has been a huge part of that, despite some trials and tribulations along the way.

Most of all, I’m thankful for having three amazing women in my life.

I’m thankful for my wife’s grandmother, Ann, who’s been my unofficial mother since I arrived in Canada.

I’m thankful for my wife’s mum, Traci, who’s helped in ways she can never know when the chips have been down.

And I’m thankful for my wife Jacki, who’s been the rock behind everything I do and given me more than I could ever ask for. I’ve not always been the husband I should be; I’ve not always been “there” when I needed to be. But through it all, Jacki has been, and for that I can never be thankful enough.

To my Canadian friends, have a safe and very Happy Thanksgiving with you and yours.

To my other friends, here’s to this weekend being one of your best. I’m signing off for a couple of days; I’ll see you after my turkey fix.

Slainte!

image: sebastien.b

What I’m Thankful For originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

For those working the shop floor, it meant a long day of shoving and pushing and often bruised bodies at the end of the shift. The stories making the news from this year’s Black Friday are testament to why this craziness needs to stop.

What sales push could possibly be worth the death of a shopworker and the miscarriage of a woman’s baby? What does it say about both humanity and the greed of retailers?

The defining message in social media is that of sharing and helping others to better themselves. How many of the people that continued to barge by the dying shopworker are Twitter users, or Facebook members? Does the message of sharing and making ourselves better stop at social media? Doesn’t it have a place in the real world?

Many people have said that Barack Obama is “the social media President”. Not only did he use the medium to great effect during his campaign, he also offers a parallel to social media through his “Vote for Change” policies. Empower everyone, make the world around us a better place through caring and sharing.

If this is the case, he needs to make one of his promises more widespread. Instead of just focusing on corporate greed, he needs to look at why retailers hold back on prices until sales days like Black Fridays. If retailers can afford to offload so much stock at crazy prices one day a year, there’s nothing to stop them having these prices throughout the year.

I know it’s a tough market – as a business owner myself, I know profit is becoming even tighter as the economic bite kicks in.

But is any profit worth the death and injury we saw yesterday? People scramble for Black Friday sales because the retailers (and, to a degree, the manufacturers) fix prices throughout the year and offer less reasons to buy. Shoppers therefore wait until sales time, whether it’s Black Friday, Boxing Day or other sales periods.

We need to stop this process now, before anyone else gets hurt. Is that too much to ask?

Why The Black Friday Madness Has To Stop originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.