Postcards

Power Point: Be a good neighbor

"Business is essentially like a neighbor in your community, only it happens to be a very wealthy neighbor."

--Jerry Greenfield, founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream with Ben Cohen. Unilever bought their business and has preserved the founders' socially responsible approach. And today is just one example of how Ben & Jerry's continues to be a good neighbor: It's Free Cone day! I recommend Chocolate Macadamia. It's made with sustainably-sourced MORE

It's time to reinvent

Tech companies are rethinking their identities. IBM may buy Sun Microsystems. Cisco (CSCO) is moving into the server market, and also mightily into the consumer space. The latest move by Cisco CEO John Chambers--whose family reportedly owns eight Flip cameras--is a buyout of Pure Digital Technologies, which sells those ultra-simple videocameras. (I love mine.)

Powerful people are busy rethinking their identities too. My  last two stories in Fortune are about ex-CEOs MORE

Betting on Starbucks' lofty prices

My Fortune colleague Geoff Colvin writes in our March 2 issue that a few companies--DuPont (DD) and Colgate-Palmolive (CL) and McDonald's (MCD), to name three--are working overtime to preserve their brand equity in this downturn. Instead of discounting, they are, in some cases, actually raising prices.

Another company loathe to cut prices: Starbucks (SBUX). As I've noted on Postcards, CEO Howard Schultz told me last year that the smartest decision he MORE

Reinvent your firm, not your values

Reinvent!

Every manager is supposed be doing that these days. You know, there's a lot more risk in reinvention than just the uncertainty of your fancy new business model. In your rush to reinvent, you could well leave your core values behind.

I've been contemplating this lately for several reasons. For one, I'm sold on the wisdom of Jim Collins, the management guru who was part of a recent Fortune cover package MORE

Taste-testing Starbucks instant

By Beth Kowitt

The company that brought premium java into the mainstream is now selling instant coffee. Is this the latest sign of the apocalypse?

At an event in New York today, Starbucks (SBUX) introduced the result of its biggest research investment to date: Starbucks Via Ready Brew, available in individual servings (a three-pack sells for $2.95; a 12-pack for $9.95).

Before you start accusing the iconic retailer of desperate measures, give Via MORE

Marketers strive for value

Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain compares this economic crisis to the one that triggered the Great Depression: Look back to the 1929 period "to see the kind of slowdown we're experiencing now," said Thain -- who sold his firm to Bank of America (BAC) -- at a conference yesterday. Thain's outlook is scary--and marketers are getting his message. Have you noticed how some of the big-brand companies are adjusting to MORE

Starbucks' Schultz needs to get real

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz needs less optimism and a stronger dose of reality in his brew.

Monday's fourth-quarter earnings report -- net income down 97% to $5.4 million on revenues of $2.5 billion, which were up 3% -- missed expectations. Same-store sales, down 8% in the United States and 7% globally, were worse than Wall Street predicted. Moreover, $170 million in restructuring costs to close 600 U.S. stores, as detailed by management MORE

In defense of the expense-account lunch

I went out to lunch today. Really. Even as you've read this week about the slashing and shrinking inside my company, Time Inc. (TWX), and across the magazine industry (even Conde Nast, the proud, privately-held protector of privilege and perks is axing), I have to eat. I have to schmooze. My job depends upon it.

Allow me to defend the expense-account lunch. Here are my rules of (lunchtime) engagement, honed over MORE