Writing the next book.

My friend Janine Moon, an awesome business coach, gave a great insight.  “There are too many distractions in my office.  When I write I go to the local coffee shop.”

Day 1 – Starbucks – The words flow onto my laptop as my hot chocolate sits next to the iPod that is pulling it’s load of a gentle mix of movie soundtracks.  Outlets are everywhere as other business people sit addicted to their latest email fixes.  A fireplace radiates heat into the warm oak-paneled space.  Small and intimate.  I sit at an oak table with hot chocolate,  a special blend of dark European flavors which seems to flow hot, but not scalding . . . all in a $2.70 cup with the snazy sleave that keeps you from getting third degree burns.

Day 2 – McDonalds – I slide into a laminated table top and smack my leg on the square steel support pole.  They have to make it square so it has a sharp edge that raises a need for a tourniquet and immediate medical help (just kidding of course. . . but not by much).  The accoustics are awesome.  I can clearly hear the conversations of everyone within 50 feet as the sound bounces off all the flat and plastic surfaces.  I have just looked around for an outlet.  NOT ONE in 1,500 square feet.  NOT ONE!  The hot chocolate is ten cents less than Starbucks, but it does come with a high tech lid that takes a couple of MIT graduates to open.  The plastic seat tops are to keep you from getting to comfortable and I think they have embedded them with refrigerant coils so you will consume your stuff and move out in time for the next arrival.

I reflect on why they call it fast food.  It is because you don’t want to eat/drink it.  You just want to slam dunk it and move on.  Fast.

Lessons to be learned for us.

Walk a mile in your customers moccasins.  I am sure the McDonald’s people never ventured into their “dinning room” with a laptop.  Wifi?  Are you kidding?  They will connect together some drink cups with some string.

Starbucks has a fetish of improving the Customer Experience.  I recently read a article written by the CEO of Starbucks.  He confessed that he was re-reading Jim Gilmore’s tome The Experience Economy.  These guys get it and just for 10 cents more.