What About Your Other Terminal?

 

:) nice idea to promote an antivirus

Consultantism

consultantism
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours.

red-most annoying words a consultant can say

But hey, let's engage the client and make him think outside the box while we're singing from the same hymn sheet ;)

Deutschland

Rediscovering things nowadays... The images are nicely put together to the text of this self-ironic song. For those not speaking German, this the URL for English lyrics: http://german.about.com/library/blmus_prinzen01e.htm

Tagged: "Simply Successful Secrets"

"Compose a new blog post listing the top 5 to 10 things that you do almost every day that help you to be successful. They can be anything at all, but they have to be things that you do at least 4 or 5 times every week. Anything less than that may be a hobby that helps you out, but we are after the real day in and day out habits that help you to be successful."

•Staying informed – I use almost all information tools available via websites (RSS stuff: Google Feeds on my personalized homepage, blog feeds, news screening etc)
•Asking questions – almost risking to appear stupid but getting insight into matters of interest
•Quality Control – residing in my light obsessive compulsive disorder, checking and rechecking my work helps very much
•Being Curious – Doesn’t matter that I’m in professional services, I’m reading SF, love writings, technology columns, political commentaries, biology stuff, math articles, cooking magazines etc
•German literature – reading and re-reading studied works in German (Brukenthal Highschool reminiscence) helps drawing parallels between business, life and art

Tagged by Alina, tagging for Dana.

Take care of your brand

An internal memo written by Starbucks' CEO leaked and receives a whole lot of attention these days. Starbucks confirmed the authenticity of the text and stressed:

"We do not embrace the status quo and constantly push for reinvention."

The underlying issue is however a conundrum for each and every business in transition from start-up to corporation. How can you cope with growth? Is the organization behind you as a leader and contributing to the brand experience? Are you losing brand focus favoring revenue growth?
What do you do when operations run amok? Whaterver your answers are, the text bellow actually shows that branding and brand guardianship are top executives' responsability. In other words: business strategy.

Enjoy the text.

From: Howard Schultz
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:39 AM Pacific Standard Time
To: Jim Donald
Cc: Anne Saunders; Dave Pace; Dorothy Kim; Gerry Lopez; Jim Alling; Ken Lombard; Martin Coles; Michael Casey; Michelle Gass; Paula Boggs; Sandra Taylor

Subject: The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience

As you prepare for the FY 08 strategic planning process, I want to share some of my thoughts with you.

Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand.

Many of these decisions were probably right at the time, and on their own merit would not have created the dilution of the experience; but in this case, the sum is much greater and, unfortunately, much more damaging than the individual pieces. For example, when we went to automatic espresso machines, we solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre that was in play with the use of the La Marzocca machines. This specific decision became even more damaging when the height of the machines, which are now in thousands of stores, blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista. This, coupled with the need for fresh roasted coffee in every North America city and every international market, moved us toward the decision and the need for flavor locked packaging. Again, the right decision at the right time, and once again I believe we overlooked the cause and the affect of flavor lock in our stores. We achieved fresh roasted bagged coffee, but at what cost? The loss of aroma -- perhaps the most powerful non-verbal signal we had in our stores; the loss of our people scooping fresh coffee from the bins and grinding it fresh in front of the customer, and once again stripping the store of tradition and our heritage? Then we moved to store design. Clearly we have had to streamline store design to gain efficiencies of scale and to make sure we had the ROI on sales to investment ratios that would satisfy the financial side of our business. However, one of the results has been stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store. Some people even call our stores sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion our partners feel about our coffee. In fact, I am not sure people today even know we are roasting coffee. You certainly can't get the message from being in our stores. The merchandise, more art than science, is far removed from being the merchant that I believe we can be and certainly at a minimum should support the foundation of our coffee heritage. Some stores don't have coffee grinders, French presses from Bodum, or even coffee filters.

Now that I have provided you with a list of some of the underlying issues that I believe we need to solve, let me say at the outset that we have all been part of these decisions. I take full responsibility myself, but we desperately need to look into the mirror and realize it's time to get back to the core and make the changes necessary to evoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion that we all have for the true Starbucks experience. While the current state of affairs for the most part is self induced, that has lead to competitors of all kinds, small and large coffee companies, fast food operators, and mom and pops, to position themselves in a way that creates awareness, trial and loyalty of people who previously have been Starbucks customers. This must be eradicated.

I have said for 20 years that our success is not an entitlement and now it's proving to be a reality. Let's be smarter about how we are spending our time, money and resources. Let's get back to the core. Push for innovation and do the things necessary to once again differentiate Starbucks from all others. We source and buy the highest quality coffee. We have built the most trusted brand in coffee in the world, and we have an enormous responsibility to both the people who have come before us and the 150,000 partners and their families who are relying on our stewardship.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge all that you do for Starbucks. Without your passion and commitment, we would not be where we are today.

Onward…

“Hey, you know, we’ve never had to change that bulb…”

There's a light-bulb in California burning for more than 106 years. Wow!
However, I guess it will have to be replaced soon as both US states and EU are planning to ban traditional lightbulbs :)
via