Miscellany

At its scale, Starbucks has been for quite some time an infrastructure services business. They provide space for free, and charge inflated margins for lousy second wave coffee. They own the space business

With the injection of venture capital into the third wave coffee segment, Starbucks will face increasing pressure on volume, as demand for quality rises.

Third wave coffee shops must focus on providing quality spaces, regardless of location, in order to take Starbucks' market share.

Starbucks is faced with the following options over the next decade. It may capitalise on its core competency of space curation, and begin to collaborate with local artisanal edibles manufacturers on a store-by-store basis, in order to compete with the indie scene. It may instead, invest heavily in cannibalising its second wave coffee supply chain, to move 20-50 of its dry goods volume to third wave coffee. Or it will go the way of Subway and McDonalds.

If I ran Starbucks, I would be working very carefully on these items. But I'm not, so I'm just trying to get ahead on item 1.

smile emoticon

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There have been fireworks at midnight over Kuala Lumpur city, as August 30 transitions to August 31, every year - for many years. Do you remember the last year when they didn't have those fireworks?
This year, there were no fireworks. A few thousand people gathered to complain about the authority of one man, and that one man decided to punish the people by removing their fireworks. Too bad, so sad. But that was the clearest difference that year.
Everything else was the usual drivel. Everything else, that year.

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"I don't know how you want to use (digital postits), I do not care if you use, or do not use (digital postits), but I need you to generate a report with a current picture of the entire organisation EVERY DAY"

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Sick. But much remains undone. Hehehe.

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If you don't learn from fuck-ups, that's bad. If you don't let yourself fuck up quickly, cheaply, and frequently, that's really really really bad...

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Today before bed, I'm wondering which happens first:
- I walk in and find a rapidly cooling body on the floor
- we run out of cash
- we piss off a member if the public/sector
I guess I should forget about all that till the morning. smile emoticon

Not by Committee

"How do you fix the education system? If you gather a task-force, everyone will have differing opinions. The system is top-down, only because of the money!" said my friend on Facebook.

Therefore, you fix it with $$. Watch. We're going to try something a little different.

Screws

"Screw" on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw

"Screw Thread" on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_thread

Wood Screw Chart:
http://www.wlfuller.com/html/wood_screw_chart.html

Understanding Screw Sizes:
http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/13824/understanding-screw-sizes

Screws Explained:
http://handycrowd.com/screws-explained-gauge-size-pilot-holes-and-wall-plugs/

Grinds, Germs, and Steel

And copy compliance. (In Malaysia, a city council may require you to obtain for your shop sign AUTHORISED COPY from the Hall of Language and Books.

I'm going to see if we can get "Kafe Pustaka" signed off...