What’s with the Starbucks upsell?

You know you have rearranged your life to include 15 extra Starbucks minutes each day.  But it seems like the 40th anniversary ushered in an era of car dealer-like salesmanship. Is it just me?

Sample 1) I order a small coffee and the guy repeats back “tall drip?” Yeah, whatever. Then the upsell: “No breakfast with that today?” What’s with the no breakfast guilt attempt my friend?  Could you have me in that shiny new car today as well?

How about I order the Ham, Egg & Cheddar?

Guess not.

Sample 2) I order a small coffee and a large coffee. Upsell: “Make the Tall a Grande for 30 cents more?” No thanks, I’ll take a small and a large just like I said.

My friend had a good suggestion.  “Order a Trenta and there’s no where to go from there.”

I get it guys, you need to make money. But going to Starbucks instead of making coffee at home is a trade up for me already.  I may or may not be off base here. So I ask again, is it just me?

Thank you for letting me Venti.

~Mike

Can one tweet bring down the house?

I have one word for ya bud: decaf. Today an authorized admin on the @ChryslerAutos Twitter account let this one fly:

This wasn’t just a stain on Chrysler, it could be a stain on all of us who run corporate Twitter feeds and other social media platforms. Here’s a likely shakeout: clients and social media teams everywhere will have big sit downs about checks and balances. And every post from every responsible Tweeter could be subject to a corporate approval process that could slow down a great platform that’s supposed to be running at full speed. Mind you there are about 70 million tweets generated daily so good luck with that.

There are rumors that the Tweeter in question, an employee of New Media Strategies, meant to tweet it from his personal account. Well that Tweeter is now canned and I’d say unemployable. Maybe the guy with 2 million new Twitter followers would let him tweet it out. Not sure.

Here’s an easy way to avoid tweeting from the wrong account and it’s real simple (Tweedeck example- I’m sure Hoot and Seesmic have similar capabilities). Write your post. Schedule your post for 5 minutes in the future. It will then show up in your Scheduled Updates column. There you can proof it, have someone else on your team proof it, edit it, see which account it’s coming from and do a link check as well. Wouldn’t it suck if you uploaded that semi-nude of you to yfrog?

Live tweeting mobile? Bring your glasses and someone tell Apple to develop a spell checker that doesn’t turn “gravy” into “grab.” Wouldn’t that be nice???

I’ll take you back to Mark Twain who always wrote two letters when he was mad. Yeah he wrote one in the heat of the moment. But he always wrote one the next day. Not once in his infinite wisdom did he ever mail the first letter. So there’s that memo.

Your turn. What do you think will be the shakeout from the F-Bomb tweet? Will it hurt or help Chrysler? Did they do the right thing by firing the guy? How could this affect you? Have at it.

~Mike

 

Happy House, Sad House

It all started out with so much promise.

In about 2004 construction began on this house at 4191 Ingraham Highway in Coconut Grove, FL. It was an odd shaped lot and I wondered how they would plant a house there. But sure enough it started to go up and took shape.  Then the most beautiful day of all came.  The builders put up a tastefully done custom sign that said, “FUTURE HOME OF THE JONES FAMILY” and I thought it was a nice and personalized touch.

For a while after the house was done, life seemed to bustle there. Kids bikes were in the driveway, there was a basketball hoop, many balls and many other signs of a happy family in their new home.  Then came the collapse.

I don’t know what the circumstances that got the house where it is today. Irresponsible lending, borrowing, loss of job, whatever.

This is one of many stories we have seen all over the nation. And no it’s not news. It still amazes me how so many things like this that started out so happy and ended so sad. For now.

~Mike