I've never had coffee from Starbucks. I am not huge on coffee to begin with. I do manage to pass the store each day when stopping at the local strip mall after work. In fact there are two Starbucks. There is the store itself, and then there is the kiosk inside the front of the Safeway supermarket.
Each day when I arrive at around seven or so, often to buy blueberry muffins or deli turkey, I always take a quick glance to see who might be sitting there actually sipping a coffee in the small little seating area that is most definately not the ideal spot to kick back.
After all, people are walking in and out, whizzing left and right, with carts in tow. The beefy security man is strolling about too, oblivious to personal space. The only people you really see seated trying to recapture the Starbucks experience (if not Paris) in a supermarket seem to be goofy nerdy looking men with baby pot bellies. That there is actually a real Starbucks 40 yards away lets you know they are in the supermark more to oggle the attractive women coming in from work than to enjoy a peaceful beverage.
Today I looked down my nose at them as I walked by, mildly miffed that the Wall Street Journal was gone. I picked up a USA Today. After all, a paper is a paper, and I had every confidence that USA Today could help explain the complicated shenanigans (and so close to Patty's Day) that resulted in the whole world of Bear Stearns being held in the god-like hands of J.P. Morgan's Jamie Dimon by Sabbath.
After picking up some cranberry juice and muffins, and trying to decide on whether to buy a $10 bag of shrimp, I arrived home, kicked off my shoes, ran a bath, and grabbed the paper. Right there, page 3B was Jamie himself, humbly refusing to be deified. But that's not what got my glaring.
It was the lead article in the Money section that annoyed. It profiled Howard Schultz' return to Starbucks, and his hope to bring unground beans of healing to stores everywhere. I am not a total cynic, and I can appreciate when leaders are willing to do something different--whether tackling a stumbling bear or going back to in-store bean grinding--in order to restart, expand or capture business.
What made the article near useless was the inclusion of suggestions from several consultants, who offered a few light as air soundbites. One in particular managed to wander into my mental forest of darkness, where one ought not to wander unarmed with deep thought.
I will quote the words of one Christopher Muller, who is the director of the Center for Multi-Unit Restaurant Management at Orlando's University of Central Florida (a university that has, in fact, created many of the greatest business minds in imaginary villages everywhere).
Says Chris:
"E-mail is out, Facebook is in.... Starbucks should take a page from Apple and move to a post-Internet mindset and toward social networking."
Now perhaps the author of the article sliced and diced what was initially a more useful observation, but as is, this left me confused. After all, this was all about coffee, and presumably how to increase sales by making customers happier.
So I ask, dear reader, what is a post internet mindset? And if such a thing can be defined at all (outside of imaginary villages), is Apple the best example of that? If you think about it, take away the internet, and Apple has no products. Hell, take away the internet and you have no social networking either. I suspect what Mr. Muller probably meant to describe was a post-desktop computer world.
So it would seem that our dear professor is just flinging about phrases without much thought of what he is actually saying, or thinking hard, and unable to express himself in a utilitarian way.
His point about email being "out" is the type of trite comment that has been repeated over and over by certain people who I suspect are trying to sound as if they are on the cutting edge (of life in an imaginary village).
For if anything, email is not out. It is just used for a specific purpose in the same way that every other technology has its specific applications. Thus, if I want to send a friend an mp3, chances are, that's traveling as an attachment by email, or I might have a friend download it off of a personal website or myspace page. If I want to hook up with friends, or need to know something RIGHT NOW, then I am probably going to text them. But if I have something really long and detailed to say, that's not happening by text. I might use IM when I am finally home, or email, or the phone. For every purpose a technology.
(In fact, one of the few technologies that is actually dead is the CD, but I imagine the good director still uses those)
Another consultant offers:
"Starbucks coffee houses are a real-world mash-up of Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.....Starbucks should observe these groups to learn what products and services they're willing to purchase."
Is the comment above a suggestion to turn Starbucks into a youth oriented Walgreens, with just really really good coffee? What in the world is he talking about?
and still more consultant wisdom:
"Social networking could create "a deeper emotional connection" with its customers", says Kevin Higar, a consultant at Technomic.
Hmmm. You see, they make these statements, and they use the popular tech jargon, but does it really apply? Will any of that help Starbucks increase sales? Maybe, just maybe, the Starbucks concept is as big as it can get here in the United States and nothing will increase sales by leaps and bounds.
So, if you are now holding your USA Today, join me in rolling it up. We are forming a cabal. A posse. A reckless troupe. We are going to find these consultants with their useless two cents, and beat them until we jostle their brains into right thinking.
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