Academic

Why your dean wants you to go to Starbucks

By Eric Chiappinelli

I lived in Seattle for years and, of course, spent a lot of time in coffee shops. I found that they provided an environment wonderfully conducive to writing. I never really liked writing in my faculty office. There were too many distractions and those distractions were frequently long ones. A coffee shop had just the right mix of isolation and interaction.

I was so productive in coffee shops that I thanked Starbucks for its? ?free refills for law professors policy? in an article and also acknowledged them in my casebook. I wrote virtually all of my casebook in coffee shops.

Your dean wants you to be productive. Your dean wants you to go to Starbucks.

I was reminded of this because of Dan?s post last week (here) on an experimental design for a Starbucks store. It hit home, literally, because the Starbucks in question is the one that was closest to my Seattle home and in which I spent most of my coffee shop time. The Seattle Times describes the revamping in more detail here.

The plan is a particularly bold one because the clientele of that particular Starbucks (before they closed it for revamping) largely comprised people who buy one drink and then sit for hours. There are two other, local, coffee houses within two blocks with the same kinds of patrons. There?s also a bar literally next door to the Starbucks. I suppose Starbucks thinks the best way to test the concept is to open a test branch where the competition will be stiffest. It will be interesting to see how it fares.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on July 21, 2009 (boomark / email).