American Capitalism, Boo

Whenever Bryn and I get into a discussion about capitalism, we pretty much always end up on opposite sides. I know that he is very pro-capitalism and I tend to be more cynical about it. But I guess part of the problem seems to be that he is usually talking about how capitalism is intended to work and I'm talking about what is actually happening, which isn't really capitalism at all.

Anyhow, I just ran across a really good article by Eliot Spitzer (yes, THAT Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced ex-governor of New York) on Slate. He talks about GM for instance and how it specifically chose not to act competitively over the past 30+ years, resulting in the current mess that GM is in when it actually has a need to compete with foreign auto companies.

The real problem, according to Spitzer, is that we keep supplying protection from needed changes. And this is something that I would say can apply to a huge corporation or to a single individual.

Reaping What They Sowed

In case you think that I've spent too much time recently berating Starbucks for diluting its brand, I'll throw in another example. Yesterday it was announced that the British manufacturer of crystal and china, Waterford Wedgwood, was filing for bankruptcy. Sounds like another case of a company overexpanding in the neverending chase for financial success, only to hit a wall when the market becomes oversaturated and demand falls.

In fact, I'll use another example, that of Krispy Kreme. As an article by Kate Sullivan in CFO Magazine states:

"In its quest for growth, Krispy Kreme also squandered some of its mystique. "They became ubiquitous," says Jonathan Waite, an analyst for KeyBanc Capital Markets in Los Angeles. "Not just in sheer numbers of restaurant units, but also roughly half of their sales started going to grocery stores, gas stations, kiosks. Anywhere that consumers could be found, you could find a Krispy Kreme."

I'd brought up a quote by Issy Sharpe of "trust being a company's emotional capital" previously. This trust needs to be extended to both employees and customers. If a customer chooses a brand based on how it is promoted, only to find out that these claims no longer hold true, then where is the trust? If Wedgwood and Waterford are steeped with British and Irish history, but most of the porcelain is produced in Jakarta and crystal in eastern Europe, then the brand isn't living up to what it has been promising.

Venti Vidi Vici

Its been a while.

Yesterday I hung out with my friend Andy and we saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Definitely worth seeing. Even if the heartwarming story leaves you cold, the makeup and special effects in watching Brad Pitt go from an old man to a baby and Cate Blanchett from a young girl to an old woman are worthwhile.

We also went to Starbucks where I discovered that I was still able to order a "short" drink, even though they haven't been listed on the menu for years. You know, because "tall" is the new "small." We were also talking about "venti" and wondering what it really means. According to an online tranlsation site I found, in Italian it means "twenty" which probably refers to the size of the cup which holds twenty fluid ounces. Does anyone actually need twenty ounces of a Starbucks coffee beverage? I'm sure that, at the very least, sixteen of those ounces are steamed milk. But really, I'm a hypocrite. Starbucks pisses me off, and yet I still patronize them from time to time.

I'd hoped that something positive might happen after Howard Schultz's internal memo criticizing the company's massive expansion was leaked. (Daniel Gross wrote a really great article discussing the issue for the LA Times in 2007.) However, no such luck. The move to stop selling breakfast sandwiches was cancelled and now there is also oatmeal and piadinis to be had in addition to the other breakfast sandwiches. I don't know what the hell a "piadini" is, but I'm guessing it is some sort of Americanized pseudo-Italian made-up word. I could be wrong, but I'm too depressed by the fact that they are selling them to bother looking it up.

The Wisdom of Issy Sharp

My internet connection at home has been (I assume temporarily) interrupted, meaning that I am suffering from chronic internet withdrawal syndrome. Bryn has fixed it enough that his computer is connected, but so far the network remains down and he is crafty enough that he types on a Dvorak keyboard so I can't even use his computer either.

While I am posting at school though, I thought I would put up a quote that I heard in a video at a training I attended this week. I should also mention that this saying wasn't just from some blandly corporate training video, but from an award-acceptance speech given by the founder and CEO of a highly-respected international corporation.

Trust is the emotional capital of a company.

I found this significant because I can apply it to places of work I've been in previously, to situations I find myself in currently, and to where I see myself in the future professionally. It speaks to a disparity I see in many current business models where there is a lack of follow-through between what is presented to its target audience (public consumers) and what is actually carried out behind closed doors.

What I liked about it most was that it focuses the attention on what is really important. The people. A business generally has both employees and clients; both of these groups are integral to its success. And this idea of trust as emotional capital extends beyond the client/business relationship to the employer/employee relationship as well. In a corporation, having trust flow from the top down seems like a natural way to encourage a healthy and enjoyable work environment, which results in higher profits and the flow of trust back up the corporate ladder. It creates a stronger company that can more easily work in unison toward a common goal.

When it comes down to it, a business is really about transactions between people. The transaction can be for goods or for services, it can be based in the physical world or in the realm of abstract ideas, but it still is carried out through human interactions. I repeat, human interactions. Not money. And not things.

I don't believe there is any business out there that is perfect all of the time. But I do believe that there are businesses that strive for higher levels of integrity than most. This is what Isadore Sharp was talking about with trust as a business's "emotional capital," and also when he deflects comments about him being a "self-made" man as not telling the whole story. This is the direction I want to head in professionally. Knowing that I'm not willing to compromise my integrity or the quality of work I produce just to save a buck or close a sale.

(And for the record, since my blog may still be under some sort of surveillance, I'm also going to state that this post is not any sort of thinly-veiled attack on Julep Nail Parlor. While what I'm talking about here can certainly be applied to my experiences there--and my experiences there certainly have influenced the way I see and interpret issues like this--I'm more interested in looking at what business ethics mean on a much larger scale. And then to use these types of ideological explorations to formulate my own set of business principles.)

Starbucks vs. Julep Nail Parlor

To start out, yes, I do recall a blog posted in September when I said, "So. No more ranting about Julep." Not that I'm excusing myself for going back on my word, but this post is less of a rant and more of a commentary about two things.

1) There is an article I just read a couple days ago called Starbucks Blues that reminded me a lot of Julep. Why? Well, aside from the owner having been a former Starbucks executive, the issues that the article was bringing up about the way Starbucks was dealing with both the recession and their employees sounded rather familiar. For example, take the following sentence from the article referring to the general Starbucks store experience:

"The store atmosphere remains suffused with NPR-style high-mindedness."

Now, read a quote directly from the Parlor Games blog written by Julep's owner:

"I LOVE our earth-friendly ribbon - Recycled and Recyclable, with our elegant-but-cute-as-a-button leaf cluster printed with soy-based ink."

Sound a little high-minded? (To say nothing of greenwashing, but that's another post.)

2) The other thing actually fits right in with the article too. The main point that author Liza Featherstone had was that Starbucks was indirectly taking measures to thin out their employees by implementing a new human resources strategy:

"This new "philosophy" is called "Optimal Scheduling," and it requires that "partners" (Starbucks-speak for employees) must dramatically increase their own flexibility. If they'd like to work full time, they must be available to work 70 percent of open store hours. (For a Starbucks open 16 hours a day, as is typical, this means 80.5 hours per week.)"

After hearing about a mandatory employee meeting that took place tonight where Vernisseurs were informed of a sudden change in compensation structure (which involves moving from a guaranteed hourly rate to a commission percentage off of services done), I realized that this sounded oddly familiar. Moreso because some people were offered commission rates at ridiculously low percentages (low-to-mid twenty percentile) in what I can only assume was an attempt to get them to quit. (If not, then it was a blatant attempt to take advantage of them.) It also seemed like a fairly desperate move, especially considering that I've heard business is rather stagnant at the two new locations that opened this year. (With another store opening planned for the spring perhaps?)

When I finally found the Starbucks Blues article and read it again, I was able to put all the pieces together. I don't think of Starbucks as the epitome of evil, but they also certainly aren't as socially responsible as they'd have one believe. Nor are their espresso drinks particularly good, although I admit to being spoiled by living on a block directly between two Vivace storefronts. And as for Julep, it seems to me like a case where you can take the executive out of Starbucks, but you can't take the Starbucks out of the executive.

Silence That Lamb!

Are you at all familiar with Brooks Brothers? If not, it is a fancy schmancy clothing store geared towards people who use 'summer' as a verb. They do have cool suits and things, but they're clothing is definitely on the stuffier side for both business and casual wear. I was looking at their logo when I walked by the store downtown the other day though, and I became thoroughly confused. A sheep hanging from a ribbon? What does that MEAN!?!?!

Are they trying to say they only use the finest wools (and perhaps leathers)? It probably made more sense back in 1818, when the company was founded. I also noticed that an older logo had a skinnier looking sheep. The current sheep (above) is a little more puffy and cute. And it doesn't look as sad. But its still kind of weird.

Inspiration = No Sleep

Due in part to too much coffee at too late of an hour (5 pm) yesterday evening and a general tendency towards getting involved in new projects while avoiding the ones that have looming deadlines, I was up until 5:30 am this morning tinkering with my website and hashing out some art ideas. The website is looking better (www.anthonycallaway.com) but I still have to go into school and power through the stuff I really should have been doing. Namely, the digital presentation and physical process book that is due tomorrow. *sigh*

What I'm kind of excited about though, is the possibility of taking some of the prints I made at Pilchuck this summer (see example above) and creating postcards and magnets for resale. I could sell them directly on my website and also market them wholesale to gift stores and bookshops. I've taken the first steps toward putting this plan into action (which is what kept me up so late) and today will sneak in some time to work on getting better quality images of the pieces I like best. At best, it could turn into a venture that brings in some income while also shamelessly self-promoting my work. *crosses fingers* At worst, I wouldn't have invested too much into it and would have a bunch of things to gift to friends, family, and strangers.

Therapeutic Realizations

I had a realization last week when I was driving home on the freeway at 11pm on Friday night. For some reason, a scene from a couple of months earlier when I was having a meeting with the owner of the business I work for popped into my head. I won't go into all of the details, but she was listening to my concerns, worries, and ideas about the direction the business was going and she told me that it sounded to her like I was troubled by my youthful idealism when viewing the situation. To explain this, she used an example from when she was in law school at Yale or Princeton (I forget which was her undergrad and which was law school) where she saw all these problems with a system and used her passion and energy to write a huge report about what was wrong with everything and how to fix it. Of course after doing this, few of her suggestions were implemented.

In my mind, after hearing that I figured that perhaps I wasn't being fully aware of the situation and that maybe she was right and I was being unrealistic. I accepted her words at face value. But when I suddenly was remembering this the other night, I was also struck by a realization that she was wrong. Although I could see how she might dismiss my input as youthful idealism, especially since I'm in school right now, there is a difference. For one thing, I'm not 24. I'm 30 (close enough, it happens next week). There is also the fact that I was speaking to her with over four years of direct experience in the industry, plus another five-plus years of customer service in various capacities. I respect her viewpoint, but believe that she is wrong. The example she gave me was of a situation where she was trying to fix things using her newly gained knowledge. What I was doing was trying to communicate a perspective to her that included not only knowledge, but direct, applied, repetitive experience--also known as wisdom. (If I was trying to tell her what to do with the interior design, which I am in school for... well, that might have been more in line with her example.)

Now, this doesn't really have anything to do with her directly. Why I bring it up is because I was so happy that instead of unquestioningly accepting her word as correct, that I finally realized that I wasn't crazy, that I wasn't wrong, and that whether she wanted to listen to me or not, what I had to say was valid. It sounds trite, but I am really beginning to find my own voice. For me to overlook her anecdotal evidence, ivy league pedigrees, and position of authority/power as my boss and still believe in my message is new for me. Normally I might understand subconsciously that something was wrong with the situation, but I wouldn't have known that I was right in this instance and have been able to move past it. It would have festered and made me angry and unproductive.

At this point, while I see things happening with the business that I belive will ultimately have a negative impact and I am tempted to try and take on a larger role to help "fix" things, I know that it is best for me to keep my distance. It would have been a great opportunity for me a few years ago; however, as I transition into design I know that I would rather put my energy there. I can see something that is broken and leave it alone now. While I'm still working there, I will continue to do my best and leave a positive impact in my wake, but that is it. I don't need to worry about improving things on a larger scale because quite frankly, it isn't my responsibility. And I can make that choice.