I called it, it doesn’t matter, and that’s okay.

An attempt at graphic art I made two years ago. What fun!

I’ll be that guy. I called it. Over two years ago, I wrote a “proposal” to Starbucks Coffee. You can read it here. In brief, I wrote a post describing a “Citi-bike for Coffee Cups” cup-sharing program that Starbucks could adopt to help mitigate their massive consumer waste problem. Participants could lease reusable cups and get extra stars as a result, but promise to pay a fee if they lost their cup. Participants would then swap out a dirtied cup for a new one, whenever visiting a Starbucks location, continuing the the sequence of reusing cups without the problem of cleaning them.

Now, they are bringing a reusable cup program to Seattle — just under two years after bringing one to London. It works the way I originally described, with the exception of a deposit being put in place to cover the cost of the cup (a good idea)!

Yikes, bitter much?

Actually, no! There is an almost certain chance that this idea did not come from my blog post. Given the lack of response from Starbucks’ corporate office (I did email them), I have to assume that their team came up with it themselves and actually ran with it. Good on them.

Okay… Why are you writing about this, then?

Two reasons:

1. I wanted to brag about getting this one right (or right enough that they’re trying it out). I probably shouldn’t care, but c’mon, it is kinda cool, right?
2. Ideas are cool. Execution is cooler.

I prefix a lot of my post titles with the phrase “Feature Request” because that is ultimately what they are. I think the world stands to benefit from Starbucks solving their cup-usage problem. I don’t care who came up with the idea so long as it happens.

This is not the first time I’ve “guessed” or “requested” a feature that eventually gets implemented. Spotify added a group listening feature I “suggested” a few years prior. Ideally, this will not be the last time either! These ideas are fun to bounce around, but ultimately, they are ideas. The real impact comes from the execution.

A Brief Conclusion

I am still chalking this one up as a win. To see a company like Starbucks start to work on environmental issues should be celebrated. To see them doing it with the way I hoped they would is a little confidence booster.

Friends in Seattle, you should try this out! I’d love to hear about it.