I think all the talk about parents wanting to provide their children with the latest toys, or indulge their fantasies before the latest wide screen fantasma, is missing what has happened as retail moved to the roots via the intertoobz.

With many thousands ppl earning significant amounts of their income on eBay, the early risers circling the malls Friday were looking for something, anything, they could buy cheap and, within hours, post for resale on eBay. It isn’t Elmo for the toddler that fueled the frenzy on Black Friday. Rather it was the chance to score a profit by reselling those loss leaders. It’s all a game and the score is kept in $$.

Walmart knew that there were going to be large crowds and took no security precautions. They in fact feed the mob frenzy attitude through their marketing procedures. They release footage of shoppers rushing into the store, knocking things and people over, thus teaching their customer base the correct way to celebrate Black Friday.

Crowd behavior has been closely studied and is predictable. Other stores handle these sales differently, taking this knowledge into account. System security isn’t based on how well the system succeeds, but on how it fails.

Police had been called but not cleared the crowd or restored order. What the workers did (barricade the doors with their bodies) was a very bad decision (but since the man who was killed was a temporary maintenance worker one has to assume no one with knowledge of crowd control was on hand). The people coming to barricade the doors could probably be seen by the crowd, who thought that the doors were being opened. Word passed through the crowd, people at the back started pushing, the doors gave way and the human wall came forward into the store.

Why did people not want to leave? One of the things about big box stores is that they are specifically designed to feel safe, make people feel contented. That is why the ceilings are high and brightly lit, shelves tall, but not looming overhead. Retail spaces have a great deal of human engineering research behind them.

It is hard to convince people who feel safe that they are in danger – much of the same effect as people not evacuating for fire or hurricanes. There was a study after the Woodstock 99 festival that showed that making a large crowd situation too “safe” actually increased dangerous behavior. When there is a sense of danger, humans usually unify and start working towards the safety of the group.

Add in sleep deprivation…

One thing I found amazing talking to neighbors is that they no longer teach civil defense in schools. Apparently, all we had to fear was the bomb and the rest was window dressing. But just the knowledge that there is a right and wrong thing to do when shit starts getting bad and ugly is an important thing to know. I get the sense that people here know that a mob of 2000 people trying to get into a sale at 5AM is no where to be if you want to be safe. But a lot of people don’t seem to know that… and to assume that being in a Walmart means you are safe.

One last bit – stores have to get permits from the local police departments to open early – one hopes that the police will start to be more proactive about determining if they have adequate security plans.

I see responsibility on all sides, but I placed the company first deliberately.

It’s been real, I’ll say that.