The old adage, “The path to hell is paved with good intentions” is not relevant anymore. The path to hell is found at an airport. 
I had enjoyed an exciting couple days with my luxury client’s best ambassadors. Lots of leading, learning, and laughs. Got it? I was jammin’, juiced, joyful. Continue reading A Preview of Retail Hell »
It’s coming at you from a bunch of MIT engineers. It’s called Presto.
Slate covered this product in an article called, This Waiter Doesn’t Need A Tip that said in part , ”It works like this. You select what you want to eat on their souped up tablet computer and add items to a cart. You can make special requests, like “dressing on the side” or “extra bacon.”
When you’re done, the order goes directly to the kitchen, and the Presto tells you how long it will take for your items to come out. If you want a drink? Just add it on the console, and wait for the waiter to bring it. Bored with your companions? Play games on the machine.
When you’re through with your meal, you pay on the console, splitting the bill item by item if you wish and paying however you want. And you can have your receipt emailed to you.”
This is another example of how people are racing to embrace cold technology in a misguided idea that bringing the Internet to retail or in this case the restaurant is a good thing.
It’s not… Continue reading Tablets Not Table Servers – What’s Lost With Technology Is More Than Tips »
I was on the MSNBC Your Business program for their Halloween show. Yes, that’s me in the devil cap with trident below.
They wanted me to take a few principles from my book, The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business (Wiley) and give advice to do the opposite.
It was a bit hard at first to get my head around since four of the points are:
I’ve been thinking about this whole Steve Slater phenomenon. For those of you in back –to-school mode or hidden under a rock, this is the JetBlue guy who allegedly was abused by a customer, grabbed two beers and exited down an emergency landing slide at JFK last week.
I was contacted about being on TV to talk about it. They wanted me to represent the side he should not be in jail. Here were the points I was prepared to make:
Within 2 hrs the appearance was canceled due to the stock market dropping 200+ points. That afternoon people were calling Slater a “hero,” wishing “I could do that,” and lifting him up as an “everyman.”
He got a Facebook fan page; his 15 minutes of fame spread.
His actions allowed a bunch of people who feel stuck and trapped in their lives feel better about the fact they are doing nothing to change. That’s when I decided to start digging further; something just didn’t ring true.
Slater was called a name by a passenger and then over the loud speaker demanded an apology? She didn’t. That’s why he snapped?
As I saw video interviews with him, I heard him say that “I’d been thinking about doing something like this for 20 years.”
Hmmm. Continue reading Do You Have a Lunatic Working At Your Retail Store? »
An article in today’s WSJ profiled jetBlue airlines employees – 10% of which were previously firefighters or cops.
