15 Jan 2008 1319H

Macworld ‘08; Starbucks; Good to Great

No telling what’ll happen this week. Movie rentals on the iTunes Store? Eh. Would put a cork in the non-debate that is HD-DVD vs. Blu Ray, since frankly people are bypassing it all via direct downloads off P2P networks. So, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? I’d like to see iPhone rolled out to different carriers, the price dropped more, the memory upped, and be able to use different high speed networks for data, but hey, what do I know. A subcompact Mac laptop? Yawn. Who needs that? Admittedly we’re jaded because the hype in the last 7 years has been so ridiculous, and it’s paid off in major dividends for Apple, which was literally turned around by Jobs and his private army of heroes.

Speaking of which, look at Starbucks, which has lost its way, and its former CEO is coming back to try and bring a bit of the original magic back. Will it happen? Lots of things are wrong with Starbucks, not the least of which is that in the effort to become ubiquitous, it’s become commodified. So bringing back the uniqueness of Starbucks and keeping on innovating on what Starbucks is really, fundamentally all about, whether it’s the Third Place, great non-alcoholic drinks, ubiquitousness — whatever Howard Schultz comes up with next.

So tying this all together, I saw this documentary/extended commercial for Jim Collins’ Good to Great on PBS the other night, and while it was big on inspiration, one has to wonder in light of the recession how he might respond to some of the criticisms that not a few of the companies he considered as great companies no longer are so. Primarily I think my fault finding is that for every Level 5 leader we’re looking for is a pile of people under her who works overtime to get stuff done. Shouldn’t we really be talking not about discovering Level 5 Leaders but building a culture that constantly generates and supports Level 5 leadership?

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1 response to "Macworld ‘08; Starbucks; Good to Great"

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16 Jan 2008 0742H

K writes:

Okay, so maybe the Mac Air isn’t something we need, but I want! It’s soooo pretty! And light!

And now it's your turn.

Fire your weapon, soldier. Just be careful of friendly fire. NAME & EMAIL required.

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