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Corporate mission statements have come in for a lot of ridicule recently because they represent the problem of supposedly very human communication, that's designed by committee.

Not that I have anything against CVS/Caremark, but this is a pretty good, but typical statement of mission, vision and values.

Our Vision

We strive to improve the quality of human life.

Our Mission

Above all else … our mission is to improve the lives of those we serve by making innovative and high-quality health and pharmacy services safe, affordable and easy to access.

Our Values

Our Customers

We are passionate and relentless in our goal to continuously innovate and improve service to our customers … every day, every way and every customer.

Our Colleagues

We work as a team. We are committed and act with integrity. We all deserve respect as well as a supportive work environment that recognizes and rewards our contributions ... we accept nothing less.

Our Contributions

In the end, it’s all about results - achieving our financial goals as well as giving back to the communities we serve. We hold each other accountable for all aspects of our performance … without exception.

Compare this to the statement from Wieden and Kennedy at the top of the page- this was basically a drawing a 6 year old kid did in David Kennedy's office years back that the agency appropriated.

I also found a list of values from a pretty new start-up, Asana..

"Reason, Action in the face of fear, Honesty and transparency (internally and externally), Leverage, Pragmatism, Craftsmanship, Chill-ness, Being a mensch,  Company as a collective of peers (vs. command and control hierachy), Investing in People, Perseverance, Admitting when you are wrong, Diving in and fixing problems, even if they are not yours, Intellectualism, Trust in wisdom over rules."

It's a little wild, chaotic and unstructured and tells you they are obviously not your typical corporation.

There are two huge trends that are shaping the way corporations need to think about how they talk about themselves and how they define what they believe in.

1. A new generation in the workforce who are looking for a different type of relationship with their employer and a different career path. Overall, they have very different expectations of what work should be from previous generations.

2. The rise in direct communication from corporations to consumers with Facebook and Twitter suggests that real people from companies are talking directly with their customers. This means the relationship is less abstract and more human.

While I am not suggesting that every Fortune 500 company adopts a Wieden or an Asana approach to their vision, mission, values statements, but they do need to take a look at them closely and make sure they obviously say something meaningful, but most importantly are compelling enough to make a connection to employees and consumers.

Posted by Ed Cotton

Having written a post about what brands can learn from San Francisco's Mission Street Food, I decided to track down the founder, Anthony Myint and ask him a few questions.

1. Tell us a brief history of how Mission Street Food came into being?

The current incarnation of MSF came about in a rather piecemeal and organic way.  I was happy working at Bar Tartine, but had been there for a long time and had learned each station and seen the chef's repertoire for more than one cycle through the seasons.  I started to think about ways I could still work at BT, but keep learning.  I sublet a taco truck which, historically, parked near my house on Friday and Saturday, on Thursday--my day off.  Some friends wrote food blogs publicizing the endeavor and, much to my surprise, there was a line before I had even set foot in the truck.  After a few weeks of increasing popularity a real estate mogul complained and basically harassed us and continually called the police.  We decided not to get into a fight about it, and went door to door in the neighborhood looking for space to continue.  After the Chinese restaurant operation was successful we decided to invite guest chefs to join us--as both a way to keep things interesting and also to make things manageable for me (in terms of sheer volume of food preparation--I was working full-time during this whole process).  Eventually I left BT amicably to pursue MSF full time and opened for a second day.  We also introduced the charitable element, which I'll address later.

2.  Do you see Mission Street Food as part of a new movement for eating out and do you see it being replicated in other parts of the country/world?

SF has already seen the emergence of gourmet street food or occasional restaurants, which is not surprising, given both the current economic climate and that it is a natural niche.  I have a received a few emails from people interested in starting similar things, and asking for advice, so maybe.  In terms of what we have called "an indie chef movement" though, I don't know because we are not even overwhelmed with interest by cooks.
 
3. If you had more resources available to you, what would you do?

I originally wanted fine dining experience to make good (technical) but affordable food in a chain setting with the profits going to charity.  MSF was never intended as a realization of that goal--just a thing on my day off.  As it grew in popularity we just added that charitable element.  That said, I would love to expand, and in doing so, possibly start a movement in which charity is the next "green"--that is, a viable marketing strategy.
 
4. How do you select the non-profits you work with and why do you feel this is a vital part of what you do?

The specific non-profits are hunger related because it seems like a good resonance with a food business.  Also, I don't know if we try to reinforce this line of thinking, but if it were like cancer research, a customer's donation might account for like 0.0000000001% of an eventual cure or progress, whereas with hunger it's like your meal just bought a family groceries for a week or something.  Like I said though, we don't really talk about it because it seems maybe a little preachy.
 
5. Who and what inspires you?

I don't really know.  I think being disappointed in a lot of things (like say sandwich shops in SF), or just seeing a lot of overrated things (like MSF has become) motivates me to try and do some of those things better.  Maybe also the desire to do some kind of good, even if only an arbitrary one--you know ease the ol' conscience for living a cushy middle class American life while half the world suffers.


Posted by Ed Cotton In a world where incumbents seem to be getting usurped on a daily basis, there's a temptation to throw in the towel and give up. The pressures of trying to survive in a changed marketplace become too much and over time the incumbent gets strangled. However, in many situations, the incumbent has had fair warning of the forthcoming change, but is unable to re-imagine a new future.

For incumbents stumbling out there, it would be wise to take a look at Bi-Rite, a San-Francisco-based grocery store that was recently named one of Monocle Magazine's Top 20 retailers worldwide.(registation required)

Bi-Rite has been in business since 1940 and is still a family business. It looks from outside appearances like a typical neighborhood grocery store, but if you look underneath the surface you can see how they have changed and adopted to survive in the world of grocery store giants.

Here's are 5 things that make Bi-Rite different:

1. They celebrate food- They are not in the business of just selling food, they celebrate and nurture it. The focus is on organic, sustainable and local foods.

2. They stretch beyond basic grocery- They also operate a bakeshop and a hand made ice cream store that uses local organic dairy products

3. Quality matters- They hand pick every item in the store and place an emphasis in making sure the staff knows their stuff. They go beyond typical grocery retail and provide health insurance for every employee.

4. They are part of the community- Instead of just operating a store, Bi-Rite manages a non-for-profit gallery 18 Reasons to create a dialog between art and food. At 18 Reasons, they host 18th Hour, a weekly happy hour for neighbors that features food and drink from the store.

5. Vertical integration- Bi-Rite operates its own farm, Apple Ranch in Sonoma where it raises produce that's sold exclusively in the store. Employees are encouraged to spend time working in the ranch, so they can gain an appreciation of where the food comes from and how its grown.

By focusing on the celebration of food, instead of just selling, Bi-Rite has built a platform that makes it interesting and relevant to people and one that allows to reach far beyond a typical grocery store.

Struggling incumbents could learn from this by spending time to understand what it is they are passionate about. Once they get this nugget, they then need to work out how to make this relevant to people.

Posted by Ed Cotton Giant corporations,leaders in their respective categories often come in for their fair degree of criticism.

There’s often something about the ubiquity and success that brings out the haters, Coca-Cola, Levi’s, Starbucks, Nestle and The Gap have all found themselves targets.

However, fast-food giant McDonald’s has had a disproportionate share of lawsuits and vicious attacks. As a result, McDonald’s spends most of its days living on a PR tightrope.

In recent years, it’s been the movies that have threatened McDonald’s most, last year there was the potentially worrisome Fast Food Nation (an adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s 2001 book), but it took nothing at the box office and wasn’t a threat. Before, Fast Food Nation, there was Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me, an attack on the life threatening characteristics of fast food with a special focus on McDonald’s.

In 2002, a couple of years before the documentary’s release McDonald’s was in a slump, suffering from what many analysts considered to be a trough that Ray Kroc’s lovechild was never going to dig itself out of. With some smart insightful leadership McDonald’s did the improbable, turned itself around with a line of premium salads being the catalyst for this transformation that started in April 2003 and has continued ever since. It’s stock price has quadrupled in four years.

It’s even become very adept at managing its image, the Make Up Your Own Mind web effort in the UK, is quite simply one of the best examples of corporate transparency in recent times. On the site, users are invited to ask the company any question they like and they mean it. The company responds to everything, including allegations that its burgers contain horsemeat.

What’s fascinating about McDonald’s is how to so desperately wants to appeal to two contradictory constituencies; it’s hard-core loyalists and those occasional wannabe healthy mom visitors. It launches premium salads in 2003 and almost immediately after, the McGriddle; a syrup infused breakfast pancake.

Now, after urgings of it promised to give up on Supersize drinks and meals, in a way it has remained true to this, the recently launched oz drinks maybe aren’t called Supersize, but that’s the only difference, as the new Hugos weigh in at 42 ounces and contain 410 calories.

With ethical issues becoming more important and the environment coming to the fore as a bigger consumer issue and a money making opportunity, what’s a consumer to think about the belief system of a corporation that produces hybrids and gas guzzlers, or one that has an eco line of clothing and a non-eco line and another that challenges the morals of the beauty business while at the same time making a living from the same business?

Brands and corporations have thrived on giving consumers seemingly choices; skillions of flavors of spaghetti sauce, or washing powder of toothpaste to cater for different needs and audiences and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The new challenge is that environmental and health issues are now so big and blindingly obvious that they aren’t going to remain choices for very long, they are going to be “the choice”.

At the moment, companies are treating both issues as SKU opportunities and forcing themselves into a corner where they can easily look schizophrenic and worse, opportunistic.

The reality is that the issues of health and the environment are now so big companies are going to be forced to take a stand. In food, just look at the movement against trans-fats, a critical ingredient of many of the things we eat.

It appears we are at the cusp of a twin revolution that is going to force companies to radically overhaul their product lines, making them as environmentally responsible and as healthy as they can possibly be. As a consequence, there will be no confusion where they stand.

For all the schizophrenic corporations out there, time to start altering your mission statement.
 

Posted by Ed Cotton