I’ve said it before and I will say it again. When I worked at Microsoft, I found the technical team to be very solid and the marketing team to be pretty awful.
Here’s yet another piece of evidence of what I mean by awful. In the US site of some business productivity software it sells, Microsoft chose to use stock photography. Not a problem.
However, in the Polish version of the same site, Microsoft replaced the head of the black guy with the head of a white guy.
I found this on TechCrunch and had to post about it. It’s simply unreal. If you are in charge of a web site like this, how can you possibly think this is a good idea?
A lot of people are very much against Starbucks. But you have to give it to them. Unlike many small coffee shops, they don’t care if you spend all day in their stores in front of your laptop. Here’s what the founder has to say about this:
“We strive to create a welcoming environment for all of our customers. We do not have any time limits for being in our stores, and continue to focus on making the Third Place experience for every Starbucks customer.”
By the way, I think Starbucks is ok, as long as they don’t shut down all the smaller, independently-owned coffee shops around the country. I think that’s possible. Cities like San Francisco, Seattle and Boston have plenty of great small coffee shops that seem to be doing fine.
I also understand their need for a healthy customer base turn over throughout the day. The smaller places have to sell food in order to survive. If people come in, order an expresso and occupy a table for a whole afternoon, it’s hard to stay alive.
A little bit more info about this story can be found here.
Tim Ferris, of 4-Hour-Week fame, received an email from a long-time mentor and quoted parts of it in his blog:
While many are wringing their hands, I recall the 1970s when we were suffering from an oil shock causing long lines at gas stations, rationing, and 55 MPH speed limits on Federal highways, a recession, very little venture capital ($50 million per year into VC firms), and, what President Jimmy Carter (wearing a sweater while addressing the Nation on TV because he had turned down the heat in the White House) called a “malaise”. It was during those times that two kids without any real college education, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, started companies that did pretty well. Opportunities abound in bad times as well as good times. In fact, the opportunities are often greater when the conventional wisdom is that everything is going into the toilet.
Couldn’t agree more. Lots of challenges ahead, for sure, but a world of opportunities as well. Here we are in 2009, I hope you have a great year!
