*Especially ironic when the coverage here is in an American business magazine so near death.
*BEST BUY is trying to turn itself into a tech incubator and social network, which is a great high-concept,
only it's probably easier for tech incubators and social networks to set up a store these days, than it is
for a store to set up tech incubators and social networks. Given that all its competition is horribly dead, BEST BUY could turn into a shambling Gothic High Tech zombie and nobody would notice or care. "Weird" compared to what? There's nobody left to serve as a reality check for BEST BUY.
*You really have to wonder what the United States of America will look like in ten years.
So many multi-generational mainstays of middle-class suburban life are being rapidly swept away that there's a Gone With the Wind feeling about American society. Pretty soon it'll be like those heartrending scenes when Rhett smuggles Scarlett a pretty hat from Paris and she puts it on backward.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_51/b4160050951315.htm?link_position=link4
Why Tech Bows to Best Buy
As the last major electronics retailer standing, the chain has unparalleled clout. And CEO Brian Dunn means to use it, shaping technologies and helping to develop products
By Cliff Edwards
For the past four years, employees at Best Buy (BBY) have taken regular tours of what the company called its "retail hospital." A group of about a dozen would don white lab coats, walk a row of real hospital beds, and scan charts describing the maladies afflicting each of the giant retailer's major competitors. But this fall, Best Buy staffers made their last trip to the darkened room on the company's Richfield (Minn.) campus. The retail hospital is closing because all of Best Buy's major rivals have succumbed to terminal illness. ((((Gothic High Tech! Gothic, Gothic, Gothic High Tech! It's like some Monty Python scene where they're piling plague victims on a cart. Amazing to think of real people, corporate functionaries, engaged in this kind of death theater.)))
"It's kind of like ultimate fighting," says Barry Judge, the company's chief marketing officer. "One retailer goes down, and then who's next?" (((I dunno. Maybe you better check the full-page newspaper ads and find out. Oh wait. No newspapers. Well, how many SUVs in their parking lot? They're not driving. Employee headcount? We've been thinning those out.)))
At least for now, Best Buy stands as uncontested champ. (((Robinson Crusoe, master of all he surveys.))) It's the last major consumer electronics retailer in the country this holiday season, after the liquidation of Circuit City earlier this year. But Brian J. Dunn, who became Best Buy's chief executive officer in June, isn't taking success for granted, especially with rising competition from nontraditional rivals such as Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) and Amazon.com (AMZN). (((Uh-oh)))
So Dunn has ambitious plans to take advantage of Best Buy's newfound clout: He wants to go beyond the typical big-box retailer role of selling commodity products such as televisions and personal computers and become a central player in determining which products come to market and how big-spending customers choose the latest gear. (((I've lived long enough that "selling commodity products like personal computers" is old and boring. No gloss, no futuristic cachet there, can't make a living at it. I knew it would happen, I always knew it would happen, but then it goes and it actually happens. Does anybody still wonder why cyberpunks always liked steampunk so much?)))
The plan is already under way. Rather than waiting for electronics makers to ship Best Buy the same products that its rivals get, (((what rivals?))) Dunn's lieutenants are walking factory floors with executives from companies such as Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Toshiba, influencing product development and design. The retailer is pushing suppliers to use standardized software and digital services so consumers can listen to music or watch movies on any device. And Best Buy has set up its own venture capital fund to pour millions of dollars into startups from Silicon Valley to Asia.
(((Hello Asia! Hope you guys aren't wasting too many resources building highways and box stores. You don't wanna get into that "Asian exceptionalism" thing. Try and learn a few cogent lessons from the decade that just passed.)))
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/us/05iht-currents.html
The goal is to shape development of new technologies in promising fields such as green vehicles, digital health, and home monitoring. "We are talking to players deep into engineering the future," says Dunn. "It leads us nicely to a space where we can make a real difference to consumers." (((One wonders why they didn't do that 80 years ago when industrial design was first invented.)))
"AVANTE GARDE"
Shoppers wandering Best Buy aisles this holiday season (((all twelve of them))) will see the difference. Along with the latest flat-screen TVs, digital camcorders, and computer games, the company's shelves are stocked with exclusive items. Among them: the thinnest laptop on the market, a motorcycle that runs solely on electricity, and a watch-like gadget you attach to your wrist to monitor daily activity and sleep patterns. "We want to become a digital playground where people come in, experience it, try it, and find out how all these things can work together around their life," says Dunn....
(((How hard can that be?)))
