The Coffeehouse Blues

Gitanajava = Gypsy Loves Coffee

(The original Rajah Coffee label was designed by Henri Meunier, 1897,

find it at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rajah-coffee-ad-1897-henri-meunier.jpg)

(This post was originally written, published, and distributed under the title The Coffee Canticle in December 2008.  Although the coffeehouse in question has long since passed on to the celestial heights, the thoughts and sentiments about what remain the same.)


Starbucks #6262, alias Lower Greenville Starbucks, officially closed 2 PM, Friday 19th December 2008.  Even before the farewell party ended at 6 PM, the guerrillas from Starbucks HQ arrived.  While the corpus delicti was still warm, they began taping sheets of brown butcher paper across the windows:  pulling the shroud tight.


When is a cup of coffee more than a cup of coffee?  What recombinant DNA transforms a mere java joint into a legend?

In Pursuit of Defining Yourself...

Senorita La Tinta, a/k/a Miss Inky, taking her photo opp

I was not looking for anything remotely like Ken Robert's essay when I stumbled across it in one of those blessed web serendipity moments.  La, la, la, la-lah, I was skipping along the 'net path, gathering posies, en route to some somber research for a client.

For we RPISH* entrepreneurs and contrarian thinkers wrestling the challenges inherent to re-structuring ourselves and our work, the scant few minutes it will take to read "We’re So Ashamed of Changing (This Is Why We’re Crazy)" at Ken Robert's blog, Mildly Creative, will be minutes well spent In Pursuit of Defining Yourself.

While you're there, check out KR's self-description, too.  If Ken's blog is food for thought, his About page is the whipped cream and cherry on top.  Read and ponder, Unicorns, read and ponder!

Appearing Soon at a Theatre Near You

In a day or two, in consideration of that whole re-structuring topic, we will return with some ponders.  Stay tuned!


*RPISH = Round Peg In A Square Hole

See you on the patio!

Bring Down Your Wall!

Building the Berlin Wall, August 1961

Don't you hate it when you read an article, blogpost, or book you know you shoulda-coulda written (but didn't)?  Yeh, this is one of those times for me.  I hope you'll permit me a short ramble, fellow entrepreneurs.

Today, I came across a nifty CNET article by Dennis O'Reilly, How to Use Powerpoint Effectively.  I started kicking myself.

Lotsa Communicating, But Less Connecting?

This image courtesy of Steve Kryger, CommunicateJesus.com

During the Get Javanated! workshops I conduct for entrepreneurs' groups, I use a chart not dissimilar from this one discussed a year or so ago at Steve Kryger's church marketing blog, Communicate Jesus.  Customised to the special needs and challenges of each audience, I also include an additional building block:  blogs.


The best blogs can be superior  communication tools, with a level of intimacy and authenticity varying by how well the blogger at the hub performs his/her role as presenter and moderator.  Readers' comments and interchanges with the blog author and one another act as the sine qua non of how successfully this momentary intimacy is consummated.

To extend your thoughts re people feeling more lonely than ever despite today's Social Media Wonder Tools, consider what Wayne Cordeiro, senior pastor of New Hope Church, Oahu says in a talk entitled "People Hiding in Plain Sight" (the vidcast version at  http://www.enewhope.org/videob... shows the title as "Hidden in Plain Sight").

In a pair of sermons on Social Networking delivered 11th April 2010 (BFF - Best Friends Forever, Pastor Elwin Ahu) and 18th April (Hidden..., Cordeiro), Cordeiro and Ahu re-define and most importantly, re-direct, listeners' attention to the fact that digital communications -- Facebook, Twitter, texting, et al. -- are most successful when --

• (A) we remember the tools are meant to serve us and our needs for friendship and community (fellowship), and
• (B) we use these tools with forethought and intentionality.

"In this socially connected world, *people* are still not connected....In this world of social connectedness, it [social media] can never become a substitute for F2F, face to face....I want to challenge you today, when you see this social networking increase...use it to motivate yourself to go face-to-face with people."

New Hope's well-designed website contains a wide array of digital media -- livecasts with a chat room enabling viewers to ask questions and offer comments; downloadable vidcasts, podcasts, sermon notes, and newsletter; a journalling process for personal faith-building and to share as devotionals through "Doing Life Together"; a "prayer wall"; and "iNeed", their own online classified ads (imagine a scrupulously cleaned-up Craigslist!) -- plus, thoughtfully deployed social networking, New Hope Oahu could be held up as a model for the faith community of a church who have adapted well to modern realities. But, as Cordeiro and the pastoral staff consistently point out, the tools and toys would be hollow and meaningless without "'ohana".

In Hawaiʻi, 'ohana is family - extended, adopted, blood relatives, or anyone sharing fellowship in Christ with one another for an hour, a day, or a lifetime.  And when you have 'ohana, there are connections, face-to-face and heart-to-heart.  The Social Media Wonder Tools are there to serve the spirit of 'ohana by building and connecting the New Hope family.


When you and I review our own whiz-bang technomarvelous tools, let's do a reality check:  what spirit are we building?  Are we deepening and strengthening our connections or are we just beating our drums louder and longer?


Just asking....

See you on the patio! 

Kahve: The Joys of Java

"Ca Phe Sua Da" on the verandah

Vintage Coffee Packet Label

The Coffee Tribe

Once upon a time in the U.S., a "good cup of coffee" had less to do with the coffee's roast, grind, brew or flavour, and everything to do with the beverage being hot, plentiful, and cheap.