Hot Coffee Coming Through
March 29th, 2007
Howard Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks, visited the campus of the University of Notre Dame today to accept the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Award for Ethics in Business at the Mendoza College of Business. He is well known for making Starbucks a world-renown global brand.
I’ve seen him interviewed on 60 Minutes and most recently on PBS when Starbucks was profiled in the Good to Great show and books by Jim Collins (amazing book). Mr. Schultz is very articulate and quite charismatic – not to mention a billionaire. He humbly accepted the recognition distinguishing him as a champion of business ethics and corporate social responsibility. He also confidently and respectfully fielded questions from the audience about Starbucks—many of which were not easy.
It was a surreal moment for me because as I walked with my friends/colleagues Oak and John to the lecture, we were discussing (even debating) mockup designs for the new nd.edu site (we are working on this big project) and how this effort is going to present Notre Dame’s content, messages, stories, and contributions to the world in amazing new ways. This lecture was a true reminder of how significant of a responsibility this is to us as communicators, not to mention an honor. I realized how important this is to us because we spent the entire walk back across campus discussing innovative ways to capture such an event and how we can use the Internet to continue the dialog.
Also, while we were waiting patiently in the lecture hall, we each had our laptops running. Oak updated Howard Schultz’s Wikipedia profile to include the award and his lecture at Notre Dame. In the foreground of my field of vision was Oak adding this content to the wiki, and in the background was Howard Schultz preparing to receive the award. John took pictures.
One last note…lots of people swarmed Mr. Schultz on his way out, so Oak, John, and I got out of the way and walked out of the building. As we exited, Mr. Schultz (remember this is Mr. Starbucks) was right behind us in a hurry. He had to fly back to Seattle that night. John stopped, walked over to him, and stuck out his hand. What John did not realize is that Oak and I could see his “entourage” sizing John up in case something was not quite right. Thankfully, Mr. Schultz walked over to John and was kind enough to shake hands. Oak then asked, “How much did that handshake cost Mr. Schultz?”
