Free to fail

It looks like offering free coffee helped Detours Coffee Shop avail itself of one of the fundamental freedoms of the free market: the freedom to fail.

I checked out Detours last fall because I'm always up for a non-corporate cuppa, and because the over-the-top enthusiasm of its young owners made it nearly impossible to stay away. I found the place sparsely, even uncomfortably furnished, but they had great comfort food such as breakfast burritos and burgers.

On my second visit, the coffee was free. The new business plan: having become profitable on the food, Detours would give coffee away in exchange for a promise to "pay it forward" and do something nice for somebody else. The owners were fond of saying that somebody tiled somebody else's bathroom after receiving a cup of their coffee.

My third visit was my last. Even if I fully intended to do something nice later, I felt too uncomfortable taking the freeby. They staunchly refused to accept money for the coffee. Actually paying, it turns out, is not an acceptable means of paying forward.

More disturbingly to my sense of liberalism, I was turned off by the clientele the free-coffee offer had, perhaps predictably, attracted: homeless men. H1N1 panic was in full force, and one of the consequences of living in a country that rations health care is having to keep oneself in a constant state of semi-quarantine. The men looked sick, and I didn't want to be in a room with them.

Detours clearly had fans -- here they are on Facebook -- but with fans like these, who needs enemies? Today the place is shuttered (actually not even shuttered -- trash bags line the picture windows), the shop's own Web site has gone dormant, and the phone is disconnected. The beaming owners have been beamed away. Confusing values with value seems to have doomed a hopeful Colfax Avenue business.

Toyoduh

Toyota's public-perception problem isn't what you think it is. It may not even be what Toyota thinks it is.

My heart leapt when I heard about the recall and production shutdown involving eight potentially fatally flawed models. Like the owners of runaway Toyotas, I, too, have yelled into the abyss trying to get Toyota to own up to a faulty gas pedal. (In our case the car would stop uncontrollably rather than go uncontrollably, a less scary but also dangerous phenomenon.) So the company's dramatic actions struck me as a blow for accountability over indecision.

My heart sank, however, when I saw that all the factories being shuttered are in North America. In other words, heads already have rolled, and they belong not to home-office executives but to host-country laborers.

I'm not quite cynical enough to suggest this is the point of the shutdown, but I think I know how it will be interpreted in Japan: Despite decades of tutelage, Americans still can't make a car; company leadership has been forced into this painful decision to prevent Americans from killing each other with their sloppiness.

In 1994 Tom Clancy published Debt of Honor, the plot of which involved a Japanese-American war sparked by popular outrage over exploding gas tanks in Japanese-made cars. Now that Japanese cars are American-made, laying blame across borders is harder to do -- which was precisely the p.r. brilliance of opening plants here.

But prejudices die hard, and I expect Toyota to come under fire not only here for making mistakes, but at home for allowing foreigners to make them.

All's swell that ends swell

Some things, you want them to be long and hard. Not a job hunt. After nearly eight months, mine came to a successful conclusion this evening when I received an offer to write and edit at DaVita, a provider of dialysis and, in my newly formed opinion, the world's best company. If I can pee in a cup, and if the pee meets quality control standards, I start Feb. 1.

I wouldn't go so far as to recommend unemployment as a character-building exercise, but I did find a few positives to temper the obvious negatives. The tagline of this blog -- communication, commerce, community -- betrays what I was longing for when I launched it, and I found all of them among the generous people who helped me with my search. Here's a roll call of some of them:

• Beth, for introducing me to Kathryn.
• Kathryn, for telling me about Brian.
• Brian, for interviewing me.
• Jason and Paula, for hiring me.
• Sandi, for unwavering encouragement.
• Mark, Danielle, my mom, and sometimes even a few people I don't personally know, for reading my blog.
• Becca, Shawna, Evan and Steve, for finding something positive to say about my time in their employ (say, there's a movie you might enjoy, "The Invention of Lying"...)
• Steve (other Steve), Evan (other Evan), Phoenix (only Phoenix) and Nikki for part-time gigs.
• The Public Relations Society of America, the Colorado Healthcare Communicators, and Andrew Hudson for world-class networking.
• Diane, for introducing me to Jacque.
• Jacque, for introducing me to Catherine.
• Catherine, for offering me the job I would have taken if I hadn't taken the job I've taken.
• Patricia, for the HR viewpoint.
• Ernie and Pat for trying their hardest to initiate me into guvmint work.
• Jewish Family Services, National Jewish Health, and Saving Antiquities for Everyone, for keeping me occupied with volunteer work.
• Carrie, for the eye-catching cards and Web site.
• Whoever at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment had the idea to have the "hold" guy say, "We know you're frustrated."
• Noah and Maddie, for agreeing to drink water instead of soda when we go to Noodles & Co.
• And most of all Karen, for not losing her job -- or her cool!

Road worrier

The other day I met a fellow whose office went "virtual" to save money. My first thought was: What a blessing to have an employer that downsizes by shedding real estate instead of people! Upon reflection, though, I'm not sure I'd like to be one of those people.

The same technology that makes it possible for us to be mobile also happens to suck. I wish I had a euro for every time I had to listen to someone walk me through a painstakingly detailed account of why they weren't getting their e-mail and where they think the e-mail might be and when they think the e-mail might start arriving again and the succession of workarounds they've tried and abandoned. Talking on a cell phone requires yelling and repeating oneself. WiFi is just going to be replaced with something else, so why make the commitment?

Conducting business in coffee shops, which my acquaintance is now going to have to do, carries risks greater than having your laptop or your seat nicked when you get up to pee. Without an office door to close, you've got to assume that everything you say and everything you write will shortly be known to competitors -- yours and your client's.

"As long as the checks clear" is a perfectly valid rejoinder to any complaint about work short of harassment or violence. Maybe the office is an artifact of the 19th century that overstayed its welcome in the 20th, and good riddance. If Zappos can be productive letting call-takers take calls at home, jolly good for Zappos. But I predict the office is going to make a comeback, not merely as a status symbol but after some business review publishes an article showing a link between privacy and productivity. (Face it, business reviews will publish articles showing a link between anything and anything else.) Commercial real estate may prove to be a good investment yet.

Public elations

One of the happier aspects of my job hunt has been learning that public relations professionals aren't ogres, but -- a thought that would not have occurred to me while I was a reporter -- my kind of folk.

Networking my way from one informational interview to the next, many of them set up by impressively collegial competitors, I have been heartened to hear words like "writing" and "thought" uttered in all seriousness. As a reporter I had the impression that p.r. people spend all day, every day, phoning reporters and saying, "Did you get my fax?" Some do, but for most, the bulk of the work consists of arranging ideas. This actually is what I went to college for.

Gina Seamans of JohnstonWells, for one, told me that most of her day is dedicated to writing -- a task that, for me, is equivalent to thinking. Larry Holdren of Pure Brand Communications commented that publicity tactics should come easily after the real work -- deciding what the client wants to be famous for -- is done. Karen Morales of Communication Infrastructure Group told me about some of the nuances among subspecialties that would escape the uninitiated, such as the distinction between public relations and public affairs. Brad Bawmann of The Bawmann Group told me not to fret about being "midcareer" because I have abilities that new grads can't and don't have. Steven Shapiro of CSG recognized my interest in education and gave me some work with his education practice!

And I'm not done yet... people have been so generous with sharing contacts, I have meetings scheduled two weeks out.

Some firms have sleek offices meant to communicate a sense of style; others have no office at all, and instead "co-locate" staff at clients' locations or work out of home offices. Either way, I'm learning, it's what's upstairs that counts. And that is a place where I feel perfectly at home.

Lamentable

I've spent the morning mired in shame (or is it guilt? -- I never could keep those two straight). Now that Facebook is in my life, sometimes, when I think of something I consider clever, instead of annoying my family with it I'll annoy my Facebook friends with it. It happened this morning, and as usual I got a couple of replies showing that folks got the joke and basically supported my right to crack wise on the 'net.

This morning, however, is the morning we found out how awful the earthquake in Haiti was. My wisecrack sits on my home page surrounded by expressions of sorrow and support. Even to myself, I look like an insensitive fool.

I got to wondering about the etiquette of being jolly online while sad things happen around us. There's no time when sad things aren't happening, of course. If it isn't a soldier getting blown up it's a Sri Lankan journalist getting locked up or scam victims getting hit up or the atmosphere getting heated up. It's a sad, sad world. Should we feel obligated to comment upon each and every bad thing that comes to our attention? Should we refrain from silliness for a time? If so, how long? Does it depend on the scale of the disaster, or how close we are to somebody directly affected?

Serious organizations are using Facebook to build support for serious causes, as well they should, but I think it's appropriate to ask whether a medium originally meant for friends to share light moments together can also be the right place to get heavy.

Tight!

I've just been told I have one of the tightest houses in America.

GB3 Energy Solutions has been here for two days installing insulation and correcting random gaps left by our "green" (but evidently not totally observant) homebuilder seven years ago. While our house already was tighter than the vast majority of homes, it now has an air exchange of about 16%, according to GB3 -- better than 99% of our compatriots' residences.

Toward the end of the work day co-founder Bill Lucas, a former teacher, took a few moments to explain why our project, which cost less than $3,000, was a smarter idea than the $30,000 solar panels some of our neighbors have. All the energy produced by a roof-full of panels could instead be saved by replacing 10 lightbulbs, he said. But producing something will always be politically and psychologically more satisfying than saving.

By coincidence, my son is working on his science fair project, which involves finding out if solar panels could be used to power small household objects instead of AAA batteries. So far, the answer is no.

Remediation work will never have the sex appeal or curb appeal of panels, but with the temp forecast to be below zero tonight, I'll sleep better!

What I learned on my recently concluded trip to South America

• It was very clever to tilt the Earth's axis in relation to its orbit, ensuring a fair distribution of summer. Not all planets have this feature.
• Doesn't the fact that some countries have better ice cream than others, and that these discrepancies can endure for decades, disprove the efficient market theory?
• It's frustrating trying to find the bathroom light switch when you're someplace where they put the switches outside the bathroom instead of inside, but kind of funny to watch someone else go through it.
• Hot-bloodedness is a lifestyle choice and I think I could do it with enough practice.
• Breakfast is about the right time for a party to end.
• I wonder how many ball-point pens are in my house. (This has nothing to do with the trip, but it is something I wonder about.)
• While I'm not a convert to the Eagle Creek packing system, I respect the right of others to practice their packing faith.
• Yes, there are the Starbucks; the clean, quiet and efficient Metro; and the plentiful examples of forward-looking graphic design by public, private, and public-private entities. But what really distinguishes Santiago from other Latin cities is that it has sidewalks that can be walked on.
• Horseback riding in the Andes is very cool.
• Sometimes service is included, sometimes it isn't. It depends, but on what, I couldn't say.
• All buses should be first-class sleeper buses.
• Just because a person is from someplace doesn't mean they know what they are talking about. The laundress from Viña del Mar who told us that Valparaíso and Santiago are dumps to be avoided at all costs is really good at laundry and should stick to that.
• Dulce de leche: the condiment of now.
• My Spanish has improved to the point where I can discern when my wife, instead of saying "Excuse me, where is the bus station?" says, "Excuse me, I have a small question, would it be all right if I ask it? We're tourists from the United States, me, my husband, and the two children, who go to a special school for the arts in the state of Colorado, where we're generally pleased with the schools though we do wish there could be more funding for them, and we're visiting this place for the first time. Oh, how we love it! It's beautiful, my goodness, just beautiful, you must love living here. Did you grow up here? My parents were from Buenos Aires -- well, from Lomas de Zamorra -- well, my father was born in what was then the Free City of Danzig and is now the Polish city of -- yes, that's right, Gdansk! Do you have family from there too? They escaped when he was seven, first to Paraguay and Uruguay and finally Argentina after his grandmother, my great-grandmother, I was named for her, bribed the Nazis with a life insurance policy backed in gold. She rapped on the floor with her cane and said, 'In my day, when a lady was present, an officer offered her a chair!' and the Nazi got all embarrassed and got up for her. I guess that's where my daughter and I get our nerve from, huh? My parents spoke Spanish to my brother and sister and me, except when they didn't want us to understand, when they spoke German or Yiddish, which explains why I only know curses like 'Go crap in a lake' in those languages. We visited Argentina several times as kids but this is my first time back in, what is it? Goodness, 12 years. And as I mentioned it's our first time in this particular place, where the people are just so very nice. If you don't mind my asking, where is the bus station?" but not to the point where I can ask for the bus station myself.