daily 11/25/2011

• What I Learned Building the Apple Store – Ron Johnson – Harvard Business Review

  • But you don’t need to stock iPads to create an irresistible retail environment. You have to create a store that’s more than a store to people.
  • But if Apple products were the key to the Stores’ success, how do you explain the fact that people flock to the stores to buy Apple products at full price when Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Target carry most of them, often discounted in various ways, and Amazon carries them all — and doesn’t charge sales tax!
  • There are lots of components to that experience, but maybe the most important — and this is something that can translate to any retailer — is that the staff isn’t focused on selling stuff, it’s focused on building relationships and trying to make people’s lives better.
  • Their job is to figure out what you need and help you get it, even if it’s a product Apple doesn’t carry.
  • He didn’t ask, “How do we build a phone that can achieve a two percent market share?” He asked, “How do we reinvent the telephone?
  • “How do we reinvent the store to enrich our customers’ lives?”
  • It’s not easy, of course. People forget that the Apple Store encountered some bumps along the way. No one came to the Genius Bar during the first years. We even had Evian water in refrigerators for customers to try to get them to sit down and spend time at the bar. But we stuck with it because we knew that face-to-face support was the very best way to help customers. Three years after the Genius Bar launched, it was so popular we had to set up a reservation system.
  • How to care is something that can not be taught.
  • Also, Ron’s capacity for information and data is mind blowi
  • It is my opinion that taking this job is not about making Money, it’s about legacy. Ron will reinvent big box retail. It would be foolish to bet against him.
  • Liking this approach very much: that mix of the sublime and the mundane, unicorn tears and pure human sweat, that is the elusive but achievable recipe to successful undertakings…

• TexAgs.com – A&M Football

  • The flag they gave us was one of the ones that was used in the Bonfire Game when they bowed their flags to ours.

• For its final act, Texas A&M leaves the Big 12 with a deflating collapse for the road – Dr. Saturday – NCAAF Blog – Yahoo! Sports

  • However shaky it looks in the process, Texas is inching forward

• SCOREBOARD — Early Grades | Barking Carnival

  • I give him a C+ on the strength of that scramble, which will become a thing of legend the longer we go without resuming the rivalry.
  • Ash didn’t do anything except look very confused the one time we tried to leave him in the game two plays in a row. Just don’t know with him.
  • The only plus was the “WildTractor” which consists of Cody Johnson physically lifting three people and carrying them forward for 3 yards.
  • Goodwin gave us a lot of effort and showed that he can be a good #3 slot guy, provided you have actual #1 and #2 WRs, which we don’t.
  • We got some momentum upfront in the beginning of the 4^th quarter which was effectively killed by a bad delay of game penalty. The one where Walters got up in Case’s grill. I guess he’s Team David?
  • Harsin/White gets an A for boiling bark and leaves into a nearly palatable paste, North Korea style.
  • We gambled when we could and laid up when we had to. We made something from nothing. Well done boys.
  • Whatever, we won, you can have a B.
  • He showed the ability to be a play or two ahead of the game, and that is a trait that is gold for a coach.

• One last A&M loss on the way to the SEC – Big 12 Blog – ESPN

  • These bitter rivals have undergone this joyous ritual 118 times in their history dating back to 1894. They won’t again for the foreseeable future when Texas A&M kicks off its SEC schedule next fall and the Longhorns stay behind in the Big 12.
  • This was the way it’s always been. In many ways, it was how it had to end. The Longhorns, aka Big Brother, getting the best of the Aggies, ripping out a heart flush with hope from a touchdown pass to Fuller that embodied clutch.
  • Land grant versus the flagship. All too cruel. All too poetic.
  • Instead, a tearful, silent locker room with nothing left to say and a future that’s looking all the more imposing by the day. One of Texas A&M’s most talented teams in recent history, forced to write 6-6 in the record books, complete with a loss to Texas.

• Texas vs. Texas A&M – 2011-11-24 – NCAA College Football Score – SI.com

  • “I told him: `Here’s where you become the guy and here’s where you take us down and win the game,”‘ Brown said. “‘Every quarterback  has to have a signature moment and this is going to be yours.”‘
  • At times the end of this bitter rivalry felt like a goodbye between longtime friends. The Longhorn band spelled out `Thanks  A&M’ while playing “Thanks for the Memories.” Earl Campbell, who the Heisman Trophy at Texas in 1977, and Texas A&M’s John  David Crow, winner of the award in 1957, watched the game sitting side by side in golf cart in the corner of the stadium.
  • “The Texas-Texas A&M rivalry speaks for itself,” Malena said. “(But) we’re going to the SEC next year, so we have bigger and  better things to worry about.”

• NCAA Football news, scores, rankings – College Football – SI.com

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• Poor Aggies? Poor Texas! | King Solomon’s Mind | a Chron.com blog

  • It is Brown’s standard line in such situations: “How does it feel to know you’re about to be a hero?”

• Kingwood High students stand up for Mr. Love – Houston Chronicle

  • So, when a freshman fired back a rude challenge to Love’s authority in class last week, telling him that he didn’t have to listen to the octogenarian substitute because he’d be dead soon anyway, students were stunned and saddened, and driven to action.

• Justice: A finishing kick for UT-A&M rivalry – Houston Chronicle

  • It was his twisting, turning, bruising 25-yard run that put the Longhorns in position for Tucker’s field goal. Texas did almost nothing offensively most of the evening, but when it counted, when it was winning time, McCoy made the play.

• This loss will dog A&M forever

  • Credit Texas and Case McCoy for getting it done with an offense that’s short  on big-play ability but long on gut. But the Aggies had at least a dozen  chances to close out their opponents on this evening. The personal foul call  on the final drive on safety Trent Hunter was questionable, but you can’t  pin this loss on a ref’s whistle.

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