Hi Readers!

I have a variety of announcements to make, so I thought I would combine them all into one little blog post.

[1] DECLARE YOUR LEVEL SHOW – Seattle’s Best Coffee

First off, from the Seattle’s Best files, Seattle’s Best is hosting comedy on their Facebook page.  Here is their description of the event:

A virtual comedy smorgasbord will begin on April 13 at 1 p.m. Eastern when Starbucks-owned Seattle’s Best Coffee debuts the “Declare Your Level Show.”  The brand is teaming with world-famous improv troupe, Second City Communications, for this first-of-its-kind comedy and coffee extravaganza. Just like a traditional improv show, the Facebook audience will participate by providing content that will inspire personalized, one-of-a-kind sketches, songs, and one-liners.

Check the Seattle’s Best Facebook page to see what’s going on there:

http://www.facebook.com/SeattlesBestCoffee

[2]  THE STARBUCKS EXPERIENCE –  A book giveaway.

The publishing company McGraw Hill is giving away five copies of the book, “The Starbucks Experience,”  written by Joseph Michelli, and published in 2006.  Each winning copy includes a $5.00 Starbucks gift card.  More information is here:

http://apps.facebook.com/sweepstakeshq/contests/110745

I’ve read The Starbucks Experience and I wish it were required reading for every single brand new partner.  It’s such a great account of all the things that Starbucks does right in developing a premier brand and delivering the unexpected to their customers.  There is a very small Amazon.com widget in the right side column of this blog, and one of the few books that I highly recommend is this book.  If you purchase this book through my Amazon.com widget, you will also be helping to support this blog.  I fund the blog myself, and it is NOT sponsored by Starbucks.  If I can offset the expenses even a little, that would be great.

If you want to read my book review of the Starbucks Experience, click here.

[3] A NEW CATEGORY – Local Seattle Events

Once in a while both partners and customers tell me that they really enjoy reading about the local Starbucks-related things that happen in Seattle.  Granted, I don’t have a lot of those kinds of events on this blog, but for example, I am referring to when Howard Schultz rang the NASDAQ bell at Pike Place Market, or the Galapagos Islands coffee roasting event at the SSC, or the unveiling of the new logo at the SSC on January 5, 2011.  I added a new category for local Seattle events. This might make it easier to filter the blog just for those events, for those who are interested.  Here is the link:

Events in Seattle

And last but not least:

[4] BREW-LANTHROPY – Seattle’s Best Coffee

This is a giveaway where the grand prize is a $5,000 donation to a non-profit organization.  The grand prize also includes lots of coffee for the winning non-profit.  There are a lot of details on how it works, but essentially you can nominate a non-profit (nomination period ends April 29, 2011), and then there will be finalists which are voted on for the grand prize.  Seattle’s Best theme is “Giving great coffee to people doing great things.”

I really love the idea for this.  I actually work at a non-profit organization.  I’ve been meaning to get my nomination in but just haven’t had the time.  In my work, I really so a lot of the good work that local non-profits do for indigent, homeless, and others needed services.  I have to say though, I have been thinking a lot about nominating the local Seattle non-profit Team Child.  Team Child is small, locally-funded, and has a unique mission to help children get reconnected with education services and other services.  Many years ago, when I was a very brand new attorney, I had a brief episode of volunteering at King County Juvenile Court.  A child who has been expelled from school suffers an incredible disruption in his or her education and it means that the child is at a higher risk to drop out of school.  We all know that the more education we have, the more likely we are to succeed and thrive as adults.  The children I would meet (who had been expelled) sometimes had behavior issues.  Even worse, I realized these children came from  homes with parents (or a single parent) completely unequipped to advocate for the child to get him or her into an alternate school, or an alternate education plan.  The court-appointed criminal defense attorney could refer the child to Team Child, who then would step in and try to help reconnect the child to an education.  We are very lucky to have this kind of a unique non-profit in Seattle.  Their services are invaluable, and they’re poorly funded.  The children who get services young are less likely going to end up being my clients in adult court!

There are lots of deserving non-profits in Seattle.  I likely will pick Team Child to nominate because I believe in education, and that non-profit is poorly funded.  And besides, most attorneys are heavy coffee drinkers!  I would be happy to help bring good coffee to a good cause.  I recognize that not everyone will be sympathetic to Team Child’s mission, but I don’t want to give up on the education of young people under any circumstances.

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Thank you for reading through these announcements!  I know this is a little unusual of a blog post for me, but I thought that some of the above announcements would be of interest to all of you!

~Melody