A destination in Blue Mounds

Late September is the perfect time of year to take a slower drive through the Driftless Hills.

En route to our annual procurement of Crimson Crisp apples at Oakwood Fruit Farm near Richland Center, we decided to make a detour to Blue Mounds. What we found was diverting in the best sense of that word. Madison restauranteur and local native Christopher Berge welcomed us into his new establishment. He has resurrected a former Opera House that presented many musical acts and even the illusionist Harry Houdini back in the day.

For the same reason that house museums are fascinating, the Obertalvin Coffee House enchants with surreal details and thoughtful atmosphere (open Wednesday to Sunday 8 - 3):

Bathed in natural light and adorned with warm wood tones, ObertAlvin Coffee House features book lined walls and offers a cozy nook for every visitor.

Chris has created a salon. The book collection led to conversation about Anna Karenna and War & Peace.

---

---

This is not your drive by/order coffee via an app experience. The space is designed to reflect, chat and savor a salon style experience. The decor is eclectic and fun - a beautiful oil painting of Berge's mother holds sway in the main room.

We enjoyed coffee and a bit of tea along with a delicious slice of the day's cake (apple, naturally). Mostly, though, chatting with Christopher Berge was a treat. A true entrepreneur who has tasted the highs and lows that come with the territory, Christopher shared a bit of his path to Blue Mounds, the aesthetic choices made and the opportunity at hand.

Blue Mounds finds itself as perhaps the "schwerpunkt" with epic just 18 minutes to the east, Lands End 21 minutes to the west, Vortex and Duluth Trading a quick 7 minutes away and of course Blue Mounds State Park next door.

M.C. Escher tour: The second floor is ideal for events with a timeless stage and kitchen. I sense an opportunity for a best in market co-working space perhaps channeling Houdini's presence.

Later, while lingering a bit, a serious biker arrived from Middleton (52 mile round trip, she shared) seeking refreshment.

One can tell this establishment is the culmination of decades of experience in the restaurant business. A business devastated by the pandemic and related government restrictions. What Berge has created is a place for community. A group of "regulars" in the back room were solving the world's problems. Or, at a minimum enjoying one another's company and good coffee. Well worth visiting and revisiting. It will be fun to see how this place evolves and matures.

Oh, Smørrebrød is on offer as well.



Immersive scenes in amuz.

Morning Light: SFO

San Francisco International Airport is blessed with gorgeous geography and terrific golden hour light. The morning illumination is a terrific way to begin the day in transit.

















































The morning glow was dashed when I reviewed my rental car statement. $42.98 (53%) of the 81.00 two day rental charge was eaten in taxes & fees! Ryanair recently announced flight reductions at BER:

"costs in Berlin are out of control, with Aviation Tax and ATC costs double their pre-Covid level and Security Fees many multiples higher than those at other capital city airports.

Matera

Where did you go? Why? Tell me.

Ah, questions. I consider them when contemplating a route. Where, why, when? I also think about a story for the questions that arise later.



Amidst the beauty of Italy's far south sits Matera. It's very different from other places we've visited on the Italian peninsula and nearby islands. Diving in a bit, we discovered:

Matera’s obscurity ended in 1945, when the Italian artist and author Carlo Levi published his memoir Christ Stopped at Eboli, about his year of political exile in Basilicata under the Fascists. Levi painted a vivid portrait of a forgotten rural world that had, since the unification of Italy in 1870, sunk into a desperate poverty. The book’s title, referring to the town of Eboli near Naples, suggested that Christianity and civilization had never reached the deep south, leaving it a pagan, lawless land, riddled with ancient superstitions, where some shepherds were still believed to commune with wolves. Levi singled out the Sassi for their “tragic beauty” and hallucinogenic aura of decay—“like a schoolboy’s idea of Dante’s Inferno,” he wrote. The town’s prehistoric cave dwellings had by then become “dark holes” riddled with filth and disease, where barnyard animals were kept in dank corners, chickens ran across the dining room tables, and infant mortality rates were horrendous, thanks to rampant malaria, trachoma and dysentery.

Fast forward to the current era. The CBS Sunday Morning program published a Matera visit recently:




A few nearby stops along the way:

Exploring Naples: it would be criminal to miss it!

Trulli Houses and Taxes

Southern Italy Lodging: AR view

Explore in amuz on iOS, android and visionOS.

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. Update: Peter Holley considers X/Twitter's former San Francisco headquarters and a new Bastrop, TX facility.



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.