Bloggle

Submitted for your approval, yet more evidence that baristas make great bloggers. I dont’ know if it’s the craft, the caffeine, or just the exposure to so much espresso porn.

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Frustrated with the foibles and shortcomings of Fair Trade certification — among them Fair Trade’s failure to address coffee quality, and its inability to contract with family farms or estates but only coffee growing coops — a number of boutique coffee roasters have chosen to go their own way. Some have made-do with suggesting their coffee is, “Fairly traded, but not Fair Trade Certifiedâ„¢.” As a slogan it makes for pretty weak tea… especially as it’s a catch-phrase oft plied by merchants who in an earlier age might have specialized in snake oil sales.

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Join me at Wentworth by the Sea for the Vermont / New Hampshire Direct Marketing Group’s 19th annual conference where I’ll be presenting, Get the “F” Out of Your Web Site.
“F”-patterns. “C”-menus. The “three-click” rule. The “8-second” rule. You’ve probably heard every one of these offered as …

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The Siren searches for a new song to sing. Something with soul.

So the leaked Valentine’s Day memo from Starbucks’ chair, Howard Schultz, has been authenticated. The memo reads as a frank and candid assessment of the coffee behemoth… and offers a few surprises along the way.
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.
Well, duh.

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