We know about the MyStarbucksIdea website, which Starbucks positions as a catch-all blog, customer feedback site, and social networking website. The reality is that website is an unfocused slush pile for customer generated ideas.
But how many of us know about Starbucks V2V? It’s a full-fledged social networking site to promote volunteerism with customers and Starbucks partners (employees). It’s under the radar at this point — participation solely by invitation — and has only been mentioned officially by the company as an update entry on MyStarbucksIdea.
Think Meetup meets LinkedIn and there you have Starbucks V2V (Volunteer 2 Volunteer). You can post a cause, an event, or an activity and have others join you. Easy enough to understand and simple enough to make happen.
Starbucks V2V has real promise. It’s clearly community-focused with a drive to making positive contributions to small corners around the world. By having profile pages for participants, it feels much more personal than does the way-too-sterile MyStarbucksIdea website.
If you dig a little deeper you’ll learn Starbucks V2V began in Brazil using technology developed by Comunitas. In a way, this is an International “best practice” that has been adopted by Starbucks North America. Cool.
My hope is Starbucks uses this full-fledged social networking site to endorse and develop a long-rumored “Starbucks Alumni” website. For years Starbucks has talked about setting up an Alumni network, but the job was always too daunting to begin. The technology clearly exists and the online usability is sufficient … which makes this Starbucks Alumni idea totally doable in 2008.
Why nurture relationships with ex-employees?
Well, many new hires at Starbucks were influenced by former Starbucks partners. Most ex-Starbucks employees had a positive time at the company and they’ve said good things to their friends about Starbucks. And for some of us, including me as a former Starbucks partner, we shared a common bond during our days at Starbucks. Reconnecting with former Starbucks colleagues on a company-endorsed website could potentially reignite the passions we all once had for Starbucks. That reignition of passion is something Starbucks could benefit from as it suffers through its “mid-life” crisis.
This sounds like a really cool project for Starbucks, and I hope it continues to grow. It seems like there could also be a strong Facebook opportunity here as well, with an app that lets Starbucks' partners proudly display their affiliation with the company and better showcase their work as volunteers to a network bigger than just those already in the V2V site.
Thanks again for sharing this.
Posted by: Ryan Moede | June 30, 2008 at 01:33 PM
This sounds like a positive, focused development. I think an alumni site for Starbucks would help the brand tremendously, especially since so many people used their employment in their stores as a stepping stone to other things. Wordpress MU (mu=multiple users) comes to mind, and it is already being used by Harvard, Le Monde and others according to the wordpress.org site.
Posted by: Holly from mobiEnthusiast.mobi | July 01, 2008 at 02:16 AM
Hey guys- I'm currently interning at Starbucks and will be going back to school in August. I'm actually on V2V and there's an alumni community already on there! When I leave Starbucks, I'm hoping this will be a great way to stay connected with the company and all the great peeps! Here's the link: http://www.v2v.net/actions/starbucks-alumni-community :) Jess
Posted by: Jessica | July 18, 2008 at 10:54 AM
Thank you Jessica for commenting. I'm thrilled to see someone associated with SBUX commenting on a blog.
Posted by: john moore (from Brand Autopsy) | July 18, 2008 at 11:49 AM
Great proactive effort from Starbucks to build on the foundation V2V has laid rather than trying to do it on their own. Too often brands are unwilling to participate unless they have full ownership. I know Wieden + Kennedy (SBUX ad agency) has developed several sets of materials for SBUX community volunteer projects, but the span of stores made it tough to have capitalize on the variation in locations and initiatives. Having a digital based network makes a ton of sense.
Posted by: GW | July 20, 2008 at 05:39 AM