Job to Be Done

We've added a number of interesting corporate locations to amuz over the years, including Apple Park.



** Oracle's famous hard drives make an appearance in the video as well, though the Company's headquarters has moved east. **

The explosion of remote work makes me wonder how important and effective these spaces are. In Apple's case, the facility is enormous and quite different than everything around it, as the amuz aerials illustrate.

Organizing people to work together effectively is surely one of the great challenges (and opportunities) over the next few decades. In person, remote, "hybrid", contractors, teams, "ai"/bots and so on. The choices are endless and no small hurdle.

Further, entrepreneurs must consider augmenting human skills, replacing them or organizing people around "ai" skills, as Neal notes:
There there is a much deeper problem that needs to be dealt with – the knowledge that underpins the organisation, that defines it, and its processes, is often a chaotic, self-contradictory mess of disconnected documents, fragmented files and siloed concepts.
amuz includes a number of headquarter, museum and corporate facilities from Toyota's auto museum in Nagoya, BMW Welt in Munich, the Harley Davidson Museum, Ariens Company Museum, the John Deere Pavilion in Moline, IL, Source Perrier in Vergeze, Kohler's Design Center, Kinze in Williamsburg, IA, Nikon in Tokyo, Fragonard in Grasse, France to the SAME Museum in Treviglio.

The Sign Museum in Cincinnati and Las Vegas's Neon Museum are useful complements.



Some, perhaps all of these are brand exercises. Will there be more? Do the facilities help or hinder strategy, tactics and cohesion? What are the essential "jobs to be done" over the next decade or two? Will they include branded bricks and mortar?

Regardless, I find the history of these places fascinating.

Finally, we've had a few related student projects including Milwaukee Tool, a boat company and the Pabst Mansion.

Explore in amuz on iOS, android and visionOS.











Built to last: Tony Hook and Carol (Orange) Schroeder

My introduction to the 9 September 2024 Madison Literary Club Meeting:
Driving from Yosemite to San Francisco recently, Nancy and I briefly visited an Oakdale cafe. The proprietor asked where we were from. I replied Wisconsin, Madison.

"Oh, great. I need to find great cheese, not the ______ we make in California".

I connected him with Hook's Cheese distributor.

That brief conversation made me wonder how Hooks cheese is made including the milk supply and people skills, how they created awareness around the Country, built distribution, their retail experiences including the Dane County Farmer's market and just how they keep it all going.

I've asked Tony Hook to discuss their story: the Art of Hook's cheese.

Another iconic entrepreneur plans to join us and discuss their retail business: Orange Tree Imports. I've asked Carol to give us a brief history of their business, brand building, including motivation, product and experience choices along with the big changes to retail over the past decades and how they have survived and thrived.

Finally I've asked both to reflect and share what they would tell themselves at startup time, knowing all they do today.

Learn more:
https://hookscheese.com

and

https://orangetreeimports.com
Enjoy the program below, or listen via this mp3 audio file.



Machine generated transcript.