“Chocolate causes certain endocrine glands to secrete hormones that affect your feelings and behavior by making you happy. Therefore, it counteracts depression, in turn reducing the stress of depression. Your stress-free life helps you maintain a youthful disposition, both physically and mentally. So, eat lots of chocolate!”
Starbucks has just launched its new instant coffee, Via, to great fanfare. I tried it when it was in test markets a few months ago. The idea is certainly a good one, as millions of people drink instant coffee every day. Additionally, Starbucks claims that by making a better cup of instant coffee available, it will enable people to enjoy coffee more frequently because all that is required to make a cup is hot water.
Howard Schultz proclaimed that the Via process of making Starbucks instant coffee took years to perfect. Amid all of the hoopla, people taste Via now. It is expensive for instant coffee. Packed in individual serving sachets, each one costs approximately $1. The Via I tried tasted better than traditional instant coffee, but as a coffee drinker, I wouldn’t trade it for a cup of freshly brewed. Even if that is Starbuck’s Pike Place Roast.
What remains to be seen is whether Starbucks consumers will trade taste for convenience and buy Via or whether they will simply forgo their coffee fix when it isn’t convenient. I’m frankly skeptical, but it is still too early to tell. For Starbucks’ sake, and for the future of instant coffee, I hope I’m wrong.
Chocolate was such a prestigious luxury that the French Ruler, Louis XIV, also known as the “Sun King,” established a court position entitled Royal Chocolate Maker to the King.
“Make a list of important things to do today. At the top of your list, put ‘eat chocolate.’ Now, you’ll get at least one thing done today.”
I am proud of the unique company culture that we have created. My team of a dozen people genuinely seems to enjoy what they do and get along well with each other. We have a level of camaraderie in our office that I find refreshing both because it makes it pleasant to work closely with people who like to be there and also because I believe it creates an efficient company where everyone pitches in to help.
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, delivered the keynote address at this year’s Inc 500/5000 conference. Zappos is an online retailer that sells shoes and clothing, and was just purchased by Amazon for $928 million dollars. However, Zappos is famed for its customer service and willingness to deliver an exceptional experience to its customers. Much like Nordstrom’s was revered as having employees do literally anything to ensure that a customer was satisfied within its stores, Zappos has expanded that concept to millions of online customers that it never meets. The basis of their service promise is the telephone. Hsieh spoke of the longest call they had ever received, occurring just recently when a woman was on the phone with the customer service rep for almost six hours. Certainly a long time to talk to someone to order shoes!
Underscoring that commitment to customer service, however, are some tenets and ideas that the Zappos team use when hiring. First, every employee must pass two reviews, the first for competence and the second to ensure that they are a good culture fit for the company. As Hsieh noted, the smartest, most capable people will not be offered a job if the recruiting team doesn’t believe they will mesh with the company and its values. Those values include:
Famously, after initial training of employees, new hires are offered $2000 to quit. To date, not a single person has accepted the offer.
We are in the middle of recruiting for a key position within our company, and have received a number of résumés. Some of the candidates have very strong technical backgrounds and we will interview some of them as a team. However, I am always concerned about maintaining our company culture. I have hired people in the past that had technical ability, but didn’t fit our company culture and I always had to let those people go. As these next interviews begin, I will use some of Zappos’ questions — two favorites are “How weird are you?” and “How lucky are you?” to try and make sure my next hire has not only the technical skills to do the job, but also fits within our unique, offbeat, company culture.
Chocolatier Michael Szyliowicz is an innovator who crafts quality syrups in his Denver lab. Michael's adventurous spirit takes him around the globe in search of trends and best practices. He shares his musings, observations and experiences.
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Book Review – “Molecular Gastronomy” by Herve This
Molecular Gastronomy is a fast-growing part of the culinary world and one I enjoy. The idea is to understand the science of cooking and be able to use commercially available products such as gums and gels that are normally incorporated into food processing in a culinary, restaurant setting. Using these products allows chefs to create [...]
“As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.”
“As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.”
