Chocolate

An staff appreciation ceremony:

"This for X, it's valuable work, keep it up."
"I feel so appreciated!"
"Boss gave you a gift!"
"Well, cynical comments: women are easy. Men - you have to buy them a woman, and then you have too buy the woman chocolate anyway. Fuck that."

Quality Management for Marketing Managers

Track these three lists:

1. Marketing Programs
- Intention of Program
- Mechanism of Program
- Communication of Program
- Status
- Notes

2. CRM / External Feedback
- Date, Time
- External Party Name
- Contact Details
- Medium/s of Communication
- Message
- Notes

3. Internal Questions
- Date, Time
- Question
- Questioner
- Details / Answers / Actions
* When possible, ensure that questions have unique IDs, so that repeated questions can be identified.

Organisational Communications Guide

Following any general announcement, plan to meet every subsequent contstituency, to deliver a face-to-face briefing/coaching on items in the announcement. In order for this to happen systematically, keep track of a spreadsheet where each internal communication is tracked as follows:

1. What is the intended behaviourial change, that is targeted? (Control objective.)

2. What is the message, and strategic method of delivery for this message, in order to best achieve (1.)? (Comms strategy.)

3. What difficulties were encountered in implementing (2.) and (1.)? (Tactical review - including a matrix/table that tracks all her meetings per message per audience member.)

4. Before deploying (1.), (2.), and (3.), dates of review need to be set up in a calendar. The reviews will cover the success rates of (1.), (2.), and (3.) and planning for next steps.

Team 7 Already?

Me: "Have you heard the latest? Don't give me that look... Team6 took a casualty: the (talent) just quit."

"Well, this is what we get for having a team full of women."

Me: "Nah, it's just as nutty when it's all run by guys."

"That's what the cook said. Well, you're good with women. Figure it out."

Me: "Perhaps you overestimate my interest in women. If I was really good with women, wouldn't I have a girlfriend, or a wife? Perhaps, I don't care for them as much as you suspect I do... you know, masturbation is very easy, and sex is just masturbation with other people..."

"Women may not say what they care about, but they care about it anyway. Because, we are women."

Me: "People will do what they are prone to, regardless of gender. Some people will let it out, some will bottle it up, and it will affect their work in visible ways, and their relationships with coworkers. Same, same."

"Sometimes people want to feel appreciated by their organisation."

Me: "I tell people, if you're looking for hugs and kisses, get a girlfriend. Right? This isn't love, this is business. You don't need to like it - you just need to get it done, and take the money. I just had to advise someone to leave their emotions at home because they disrupting meetings with jokes."

"One can always do something, to negotiate. I don't think she wants to leave, she just feels imbalanced."

Me: "Clearly we don't have a lot of money right now, but that's why everyone's being pointed back to the cashflow model as the solution to their demands... if you figure something out there, it's: at least, feasible. I've spoonfed the entire spreadsheet for this... it's red... you just have to play sudoku with it and it turns green. Look at each payment on each date and ask why it's there, then move things around - get it right and you've answered your own questions about when you can get a larger budget for manpower."

"Things would be better if they had been fixed earlier. If only."

Me: "Well you're the sixth attempt, in nine months, so it's not like we've been sitting on our asses doing nothing. Such is life. And such is business, it is gamble - you can put money on the table, but be ready for it to go away. When you're out of resources, it is over. It is a pity, but that's the nature of things. Natural selection - hey, have you seen the "tryouts" scene from the Dark Knight? It sums this up brilliantly, in hyperbole."

"Let's see it."

Me: "I hope the internship's given you good exposure."

"This is worse than a Hokkien drama."

Yawn 7

(Ne, Ti, Fe, Si) types find (Ni, Te, Fi, Se) types to be lacking in self-knowledge, as the Ni type is viewed by the Si type as being incompletely analytical about the Ni type's own psyche. Whereas the Ni type is typically subject to the intuition that oneself is irrefutably complex, and anyone who perceives themselves to be internally transparent (the Si type) is a simpleton.

/

Increased protein intake is definitely helping to increase rate of repairs during sleep. Let's see how far we can push this before the next fasting cycle.

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Knowing that they're happy, makes me worry less. It applies to lovers, staff, and customers, alike. But ultimately, worry is a role to play, and all roles must be designed to be disposable.

/

Nap time :p

/

¥

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Cajole, cajole, poke, poke, chores, observations, data collection, listening to stakeholder concerns, change software configuration, write clearer directions, propose contingency plans, take a nap.

/

Down to one department on fire. But it's a mix of old and new fires now. Lol. Standby team7...

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Breakfast, and sleep, I think.

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AWDY, no? BRB, OTW.

/

I always forget before sleep, to scroll through my muscles from head to toe, and to disengage the conscious part of my brain from them. And then if I forget to do it closer to getting out of bed, it leads to all kinds of knots. I have not been as careful about managing my nervous system as I did when I was a student. Such is business.

/

Entropy Ascends

"So, now we just wait to see which of two sides out evolves the other, the team, or the market. It's like a little gladiatorial setup, filled with armour and wild beasts."

"It's devastating."

"I find it challenging to play a role, so evil."

"Really? I would have thought that you of all people would be able to do it without feelings."

"I find it challenging, and maybe some others might find it impossible."

"Perhaps not evil - chaotic neutral?"

"Maybe true neutral."

What Do We Miss?

"Sleep."
"No. Just finished work. Missing intimacy. But may go elsewhere to browse it. Good night good soldier. You have spoils of war to seek."
"Intimacy is honesty. Which you have more of than most people. What you probably miss is sex."
"You have feelings about honesty, which you lack. I am a fish in water here. I miss bodies, not necessarily sex. Sex is just cuddling and masturbation combined."

Well, both are best mixed with simultaneous honest conversations, I suppose, for hours on end.

WBC is a Farce

Well, that's the blunt notion. At least, the World Barista Championship is a woeful misnomer - as it is, it should be called the World Espresso Championship.

Here are two key observations:

Observation 1.
The competition as it is focuses mainly on one method of brewing. One would expect a barista championship to examine a breadth of brewing disciplinary competencies, not just depth in one.

Observation 2.
As it stands, there are too many free variables, mostly upstream sources that turn the competition into a money game - she whose pockets are deepest has greatest privilege by economic prejudice. The green bean's cultivation, its processing, and its subsequent roasting, are not really skillsets under the control of a barista. A barista is a bartender - the competition as named should focus on the skills of a brewer and server, not on business development skills.

Following the two observations, here is a recommendation. Have three separate competitons.

Competition 1.
The current WBC format should be renamed the "World Espresso Championship," and tweaked slightly to focus completely on the espresso-based in-cup results. This should be modelled after F1 motor racing, where there are stringent guidelines for what can be submitted, but unlimited freedom of business development in funding for upstream sourcing and R&D.

Competition 2.
Now if we loosen the format a little bit and admit the focus on specialty coffee should have great emphasis on cultivation, processing, and roasting, followed by an unlimited range of expression in brewing and mixologising, then we really want to have a "World Specialty Coffee Championship," that is modelled after the Academy Awards or Project Runway (whatever its professional equivalent is, I don't even know if such a competition exists in the fashion industry). Heck, if you model it after New York Fashion Week, or something like that... it just becomes a coffee expo that's focused on in-cup quality (or in-x, if you don't limit yourself to drinking from cups), with consideration for a celebration of the entire supply chain.

Competition 3.
The new "World Barista Championship" should really be modelled after Masterchef. The beans, milk, machines, and culinary challenges should be standardised to a greater degree. Emphasis should be removed from upstream sourcing decisions. Many brewing methods should be tested. By all means, keep and expand the performance component - service is after all, a performance art.

I comment here as a very casual observer who has done some business in the specialty coffee industry. I am not passionate about coffee, so I don't have a special love for it or the people who work with it. In advance of complaints, I would like to ceremonially apologise for any unintended butt-hurt which may arise from the reading of this article. The article is purely an opinion, and the opinion is wholly my own, and is not intended to represent the views of any other individuals or organisations which I have been affiliated with in the present or in the past.