Starbucks = Global Connectivity
I've been in England this week for family reasons. For most of the time, I was in Marnhull, in Dorset. However, on Friday morning, I headed up to London. Right now, I am sitting in Gatwick, ready to fly back to San Francisco.
While I was in London, I had a little time on my hands, so I went to a Starbucks. Two things struck me. First, Starbucks in the UK is much better than Starbucks in the US, because, at this time of the year, they have Mince Pies, Fruitcake, and Christmas cake. Maybe you have to grow up in an English family to appreciate that.
Second, I was struck by how easy it is, regardless of where you are in the world to turn on your Wifi and connect. With a little converter, my Dell laptop was easily plugged into the wall. WiFi is a global standard, and I was ready to go.
None of this is news or surprising. Europe has far better mobile that the US and London is as high tech as a City can get. But sometimes, to realize how truly standardized, globalized and flat the world is, you have to fly 5,371 miles, walk into a Starbucks and get on the net in 30 seconds.
Comments
Finally, something we can absolutely agree upon.
My favorite Starbucks hotspot story comes from a vacation in Florida two years ago.
My family and I were vacationing in Bonita Beach, FL in late January. My office was going through the final stages of closing our previous year's accounting books, a rather ardous task that comes complete with a nearly non reservible closing process in the accounting system. They started the close before they were truly ready to lock everything up...I was 1200 miles away. What to do?
Well a quick trip to a local Starbucks, a wifi enabled notebook, a VPN connection and the ability to launch a restore from tape of our SQL based accounting databases made it possible for everyone to get back to what they were doing in less than an hour, including me and my vacation.
Posted by: andy broyles | November 4, 2006 7:07 AM
I was driving in my car on the way to a meeting about 80 miles away from home when I got a call from my daughter's school that I forgot to leave a note that she was going home with someone else. "Can I fax you the note?" Sure. It takes about 5 minutes until I see a Starbucks. I walk in, fire up my laptop, compose a note and send it off to the school via my eFax account. Wait for the confirmation, then continue on my way.
Of course this was back when I was paying the $30/month for an account. $6 is a lot for a hit & run. :-)
Posted by: Judi Sohn | November 5, 2006 6:35 AM
Starbucks in England, has a head start on all of us if it's serving Mince pies, Fruitcake, and Christmas cake, and offering golbal connectivity in 30 seconds. What a great mix - Christmas, Starbucks, and England! Thanks for the headstart and terrific post, Rod!
Posted by: Ellen Weber | November 5, 2006 6:56 PM