Starbucks France celebrated last week (July 1st) the opening of its 50th store in the country, with all the Starbucks high brass in attendance.  Located in the Disney Village at Disneyland outside of Paris, this store is the first “eco-responsible” Starbucks outside of Seattle, where they have already opened two such eco-concept stores. 

The concept and design of this Eco-Responsible Starbucks is “an evolution of the Third Place concept,” whereby, according to the company, Starbucks would be the third “go to” place behind the home and the workplace.

In keeping with a Sustainable Development approach, the design of the store was conceived by using as many local partners as possible (furnishings were all provided by businesses within a radius of 30 km of the store) and to be strongly ingrained with the local [“Disney”] community.

One of the highlight points was that this Starbucks store is LEED certified.  Now recognized in some 90 countries, LEED has become an international standard for benchmarking energy consumption and CO2 emissions.  Three pillars to the eco-conception: natural ventilation for the air conditioning system (-30% reduction in energy), LED and fluo-compact lighting (-90% in electricity consumption in the public zones of the store), and various water reducing mechanisms (mousser, sensor systems…) which are expected to reduce water consumption by 49%. 

 

This Disney Village Starbucks features a number of recycled materials and objects, including using wine racks for lighting (pictured) and ceiling decorations, wood from wine barrels, airplane carpeting and used leather from jettisoned cars. 

I spoke with CEO and founder, Howard Schultz who was on hand to cut the ceremonial ribbon, and asked about when Starbucks would make it to coffee-paradise Italy?  He said that there were no definitive plans, but that Italy’s day would come some day.  Meanwhile, in another coffee-loving country, Turkey, Schultz was quick to say how well Starbucks has done there. 

Around the store were plaques that made for casual reading and reaffirm Starbucks’ official policy regarding its community involvement (pictured left) and environmental stewardship.  In all, the Starbucks store continues to provide a different way to enjoy coffee and clearly the Starbucks employees (“partners”) were enjoying the new concept.  Starbucks plan to generalize this concept throughout its network for all new stores and any renovations.  Read here for more on their own news wire.

Irony of the opening ceremony was how hard it was to get served a coffee.  A little “pull” and I was served.  After the store opening ceremony, Starbucks “partners” in France were invited to a 5-year anniversary party in a big tent behind the 50th store.  I took a sneak preview and enjoyed a few words with a woman there to teach about Starbucks’ philosophy regarding bean selection and coffee-making.  Kudos to Starbucks France Managing Director and fellow INSEAD grad Philippe Sanchez.

If you think you are getting state-of-the-art in personalized service when Starbucks can offer you a selection with up to 19,000 different varieties, try this one out for size.

Mike Keen, who runs a small barista (coffee shop), called Studio 6 Coffee House, in Denver, provides a personalized portrait of the coffee client on the top of their latte. Read up on it here in the Denver Post article, Sandwiches, lattes make impression amid galleries (May 20, 2009). Mike Keen is also Director of the Denver Gallery Cuvée and runs the Untitled Art Show.

Here are a few examples of Mike Keen’s work (from his website).

Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP): Implementation that is a whisker too long?

Microsoft has launched this ad campaign for its MDOP in France. I took a couple of blackberry photos (sorry for the quality) in the metro (tube) station at l’Etoile /Charles de Gaulle in Paris. The poster comes as a double header (so to speak), with the partner below.

I am hoping that there are a few of you out there thinking what on earth is a Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance*. If I were not geeky enough to understand the English (this ad execution is for France), I certainly do not think I am geeky enough for the Cro-Magnon creative, either. I am assured by this infraops blog that there is “a lot of great stuff” in MDOP and that we will surely be hearing about this soon… And, if you are not sure whether MDOP is for you, you can find an ROI calculator for this pack here (ditii.com).

The question I have is what on earth are the advertisers thinking putting these B2B ads in the Etoile metro? Is it because of the large number of international travelers — which would explain why they left the top in English? Is it because the metro at l’Etoile goes to La Défense which is a mini-hi tech area in the Paris region? Maybe, there’s an inside joke that I fail to understand. In which case, I feel free roam to come up with my own take. Despite the French rugby team’s recent lacklustre performances, they are recruiting Sébastien Chabal, featured above in the UK rag newspaper, The Sun in October 2007, to warn the other Five Nations of France’s baby devouring forward.

Part II of Cro-Magnon Man:

The MDOP part II creative reads:

11,762 coffees,
319 sandwiches,
56 white nights,
3 tubes of vitamins …
One implementation a whisker too long?

Don’t you think, in an air of collaborative marketing, that they might rather have hooked up with Starbucks (take it Philippe!), Subway sandwiches (that would seem like a shoo in given the context) and a European Lucky Vitamin or Vitamin Shoppe? Now THAT would have been news.

Between the recent Microsoft store idea, the Virtual Microsoft Windows Marketplace and this MDOP ad creative, I am beginning to have serious doubts about the Microsoft strategy. And, if they were looking for a geeky viral campaign for their MDOP, then surely the efforts should have been online — the presence of which I have failed to find after a quick googling.

Anyone think differently about this Microsoft endeavour? Do come and speak up!

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*Directly from the Microsoft site, here is their description: “Enterprise IT infrastructures are increasingly complex to manage. The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance addresses the need to increase manageability and reduce complexity. It is a dynamic desktop solution, available to Software Assurance customers, that employs innovative technologies to increase desktop manageability, reduce the total cost of ownership, and improve overall infrastructure satisfaction.” And if you want to read on, there is an Official MDOP Blog (by the MDOP team).

A woman, named Lee Redmond, with longest nails in the world suffered a bad car accident over the weekend and lost all her nails.  It is hard to imagine, but she had not cut her nails since 1979.  The combined total length was nearly 9 metres, with the longest a thumb nail at 90cm.  The Guinness Book of World Records will need to find her successor.  (The GBWR site doesn’t allow you to search for more details, but google does)

Apparently, Ms Redmond was not the only Salt Lake City long nailed woman.  Here is another “famous” SLN (Salt Lake Nail, as opposed to SNL) case:  Barbara Wing Long Nails.  And there is quite an underworld in the long nail community — whose existence had completely skipped my attention previously.  Read here for more of the famous women, long in the nail.

Not sure that Chanel is ready to switch ad campaigns just yet, but points for originality.  All the same, I hope that Ms Redmond has a speedy recovery.  I am sure that the trauma of having normal-length nails will be hard to contend with: imagine the world of unexplored opportunities that will lie ahead of her, such as dialing the telephone herself, putting her fingers through the coffee mug handle, and so on…

I have often wondered how my life might have been different had I not learned to type quickly and accurately. I will never forget a lecture I attended by Lester Thurow, former professor of Economics and Dean at MIT, back while I was at Yale (around 1986). He said that typing was far from an insignificant skill to possess as an executive. For many “older” executives–especially those who were not born into the need to type their school papers–typing is not a noble skill. There are still many executives who consider it below themselves to know how to type (much less how to use the computer, Outlook and internet…); those who think that typing themselves is a loss of time.

Au contraire, I find that typing fast and accurately is a tremendous skill and competitive advantage. Just to answer once more the question “how do I find the time to blog so much?” I say, first, that I make the time (part of my philosophy on time). But, right after that, I say that it is thanks to the fact that I can type up to 70 words per minute without (too many) mistakes. When combined with having the word retrieval (from the brain) stoked by some good coffee beans, the posts come fast and furiously for me.

On the professional front, this means that typing up memos, meeting recaps or e-mails is substantially less of a chore. That said, there are no shortcuts for rereading and proofing your written word. Of course, reading emails is another kettle of fish and knowing who to put in copy, etc., in your replies (managing the politics…) is a little more cumbersome. Nonetheless, typing faster is a competitive advantage anyway you cut it. It even helps me finger out my messages on my Blackberry. But my typing skills did not come “out of thin air.” I had to apply myself to learn how to type — and I did so consciously early on, without access to any of the fun ways to learn that now exist.

Among the fun typing games out there (and there are many), I enjoyed this one from Jon Miles, called Fingerjig. Of course, you can also play Fingerjig on Facebook and find out if you’re a better typist than your friends. It doesn’t test you for upper case, etc., but it is a reasonably fun and engaging way to see where you stand — and see if you need to improve!

So, if you are a student at school, the need to learn to type is pretty much obvious. A done deal. One of the areas I have been working on is finding ways to encourage our children to type quickly — and online games are clearly a great answer. Below are a few solutions that I found (even if some reside on a platform that has other painfully silly games) for kids and adults.

A good reference point is at “Only Typing Games” which has a nice little selection of online games that encourage typing skills.

-For the beginners…and of a younger age: Typing Monster from PrimaryGames and Dance Mat Typing from the BBC.
-For the “older” kids, where one can challenge oneself to whichever level one has in typing, Crazy Keys or QWERTY Warriors & QWERTY Warriors 2 (the latter of which play on the aggressive killer instinct) from Crazy Monkey Games
-And, still for kids, there’s Alpha-Attack (from Miniclips)
-Then, for the less game inclined typer, a few “serious” sites courtesy of Touch Typing post from a prolific, if currently dormant, JEETBLOG. You can test your speed, or do some online tutoring here: TypeFaster or Keybr.

If you want to try your hand at your own typing speed, try this. It takes just one MINUTE!

70 wordsTypingtest

I would like to share with you with a little thought today.

There used to be a time when I thought it desirable to live life in the fast lane. What does that mean? Well, by my understanding it means living with time whizzing by, memories blurring, names & faces forgotten and years merging into decades. Surely, going to lose your mind… Oops, might have plagiarized that from somewhere (call it my Eagle eye).

Now, for many of us, life in the parking lot seems to be all we can handle. Between having to crane your neck (it’s so stiff) around as you reverse in the ever smaller spaces and watching out for the piping hot coffee in your lap, while answering the cell phone and inserting your earpiece and, simultaneously, turning down your music… life in the parking lot is sometimes as fast you might want life to be.

Then again, life in the odd lane might be the more fitting route these days. The search for the rarity and the personality. I came across this charming site, typically Canadian in a way, Life In the Fast Lane.ca. And what is quirky in this “Life in the Fast Lane” post is that everyone is walking with heavily laden horses to visiting the Hukuo Waterfalls of the Yellow River in China. And while I’m at it (nice one Deborah), here is a hoot: The new Hooters Calendar 2008. I attach this month’s oogle hooter to ogle.

In terms of riding in the fast lanes in cities, it does seem that the special bus or taxi lane is getting slower every year. As much as the traffic jams get worse, the fast lane slows down too. In large part, that is because there are too many deliveries and odd obstacles in the special lane, not enough police patrolling of the civilian infiltrators and, finally, because the special lane must merge with the plebeian (normal) lanes all too frequently. Enough to say, that life in the fast lane isn’t what it used to be, certainly not what it is cracked up to be and should be fastened onto memory lane, so that we can,–slowly and deliciously–enjoy our every day at the speed we can handle.

If you are needing a mundane definition of the idiom: try here: life in the fast lane.

Now back to my piping hot coffee. Have a great day. Oh yes, and Happy Easter 2008. (Don’t mind the Easter Chick).

This is not a Grinch who stole Christmas or a post about Uncle Scrooge, but it does have to do with money (economics) and service…

During the last public transport strike in Paris in November, I avoided as best I could taking a taxi. Aside from the staunch traffic jams and eco-guilt*, I was not keen on padding the taxi driver’s pockets. Instead, I hoofed it as frequently as I managed my timing. Adding the practical (exercise) to the ecological.

One day, I was forced to cab it. Not that it was quicker, but the bags obliged. I happened upon a talkative and, possibly frank, driver. We struck upon the topic of profitable rides. What is a profitable ride for a Parisian taxi driver? By the judge of how many rides I have been refused, I assumed there was an unwritten rule not to take passengers like me, whatever I may look like.

As we may yet enjoy more strikes in Paris in the new year (are you kidding me about the subjunctive?), I recount what I was told about a taxi driver’s profit motive. There are no fast rules as the traffic will vary with great inconsistency. [I did not get to discuss the different fare zones according to time of the week, area of Paris].

For the trip to the main Charles-de-Gaulle Roissy Airport (27km north-east of Paris), the typical fare is 45-50 euro for 35 minutes work–”well worth just heading back into town empty,” said the driver (rather than waiting the 2-3 hour wait at the airport). I can infer that 45 E for 70 minutes (minimum) translates into a good hourly rate (38.6E).

Naturally, as with any trip, the fare and duration depend entirely on the traffic. The driver recounted that intra muros Paris with the strike in full swing meant 30E for a 60-minute fare stuck in traffic. Plus, there is no “rest” (as in need to deal with a client). And there is the added stress of the constant gridlock and unhappy co-drivers.

That said, the economics of the taxi have been steadfastly manipulated. Courtesy of a Vox on-line article entitled, “The price of suspicion,**” I discovered that there used to be 25,000 taxis in Paris…in 1925! I quote from the article: “For fear of competition, those concerned latch on to a Malthusian system (25,000 taxis in Paris in 1925, 15,000 in 2005) – of which we know the result; users can’t find a taxi when they need one, and drivers practically have to bleed to death to get the famous taxi-badge – a clear example of a lose-lose outcome.” Clearly, market supply has been carefully strangled.

From another article, “Paris Capitale Taxis,” I find the statistic that, “…in 2005, each day 15,200 taxis carried more than 350,000 customers, i.e. 190,000 trips per day.” This means that each taxi (the car itself, as many cars are driven by multiple drivers), has 12.5 trips per day on average. If the average ticket (including tips) were about 13E (1 ride to the airport and the remainder at 10E), the daily revenues would be 185E or 55KE over a year containing an arbitrary 300 work days.

I am not in a position to know the costs for the driver (cost of the license currently estimated at around 200KE, fuel, insurance, amortization, etc.), so this is not an economist’s analysis. What I wanted to do was get into the taxi driver’s psyche–his/her top of mind profit motive.

Meanwhile, I still can’t figure out the reason why the counter must be set to begin at 2.10E, yet the minimum fare is 5.60E. Why not just begin at 5.60E and let it sit at that price until such time as the distance warrants the uptick? It just doesn’t make sense to have a metre read 4E at the end of an ultra short (and totally profitable) trip and yet be obliged to pay 5.60E minimum anyway.

In any event, there is talk of change of the regulations…as per this recently published French Journal de Dimanche article “Revolution en vue pour les taxis parisiens” in order to encourage more taxis back into Paris. The JDD article says that there are now 15,600 taxis in Paris. Hopefully, the new year’s resolution will also include making more as well as nicer cab drivers.

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*As with many expressions I make up, I think I’m being orginal, but it turns out, as usual, that the term eco-guilt has been broadly used across the Net. I cite a couple that I enjoyed:
Coffee, tea… eco-guilt? A not so complementary view of Virgin Atlantic’s ploy…
The twitch of Eco-guilt… the guilt of enjoying a holiday in a non eco-friendly location such as Dubai

**This article, written by Professors Algan and Cahuc, presents a (very cogent) history from which has growns the current state of affairs in France (worth the read).