Sometimes it’s just as simple as good management that cares about the product.

This was the lesson I learned from Satya taking over Microsoft and it’s enlightening to see it play out at another company.

@carnage4life

Fantastic story! I think I’ll renew my B&N membership to support them more

@carnage4life

"The workers at the stores were more motivated and started genuinely acting like booksellers."

This sounds like the foundation for success! When employees are happy and motivated, shoppers are happy and motivated. I haven't seen the transformation in person yet, but fortunately my local store is still here, and now I plan to visit.

@carnage4life As a lover of #books and former B&N bookseller, this makes me so happy.

If Borders had tried this strategy in 2009, they would probably still be around. #bookstodon

@carnage4life Fascists left antisemitic flyers outside the Barnes and Noble here, they were collected and burned. A few days later they came back and threw a brick through the window.

Guessing they were triggered by a prominent pride display in the store.

I love this point “The key challenge, he claimed was to “create an environment that’s intellectually satisfying—and not in a snobbish way, but in the sense of feeding your mind.”
#curation

@carnage4life

Also wondering when Ted Gioa is going to make his way over here.

@carnage4life
Gosh, you mean if you cater to the customers, they buy things?

No! You don't say!

What an innovative strategy!

Sigh.

How did capitalism last this long?

@carnage4life Nice! Happy to hear this, I've been a fan and customer of #BarnesAndNoble for years.

I mean, TBH it's really more about being a fan of anybody who stands up to Amazon, but still

#books

@carnage4life I love mathematical textbooks. Not NYT bestsellers.

It’s something ‘Independent Bookstores (TM)’ cannot normally address.

(So I often glaze over at the usual social media haranguing.)

B&N at least used to be one of the places I would go to look for the book or put in a special order. (Borders was the other.)

@carnage4life
Very interesting read!

#Books #Bookstores #Management

@carnage4life Oh that's great! Sadly no B&N around here, but I also didn't bother going in to one when traveling recently because last I heard they were awful.

Would be great if our lousy Booksamillion was replaced by or competed with a local B&N.

@carnage4life I've seen a local bookstore chain going the other way, toys, awful books crowding the shelves. And everyday less and less people visiting them.

I guess "business management" and "finances" are contaminating and killing every corner of human activity. Not only in art related shops and businesses, but alps those related to technical stuffs. In the head are usually managers who don't care and aren't passionate about the activity the company does and only see cash projections.

@carnage4life Now if only he could figure out how to sell ebooks in-person, without requiring a credit card or permanent cloud account, he might actually give the Nook a chance against Amazon's Kindle.

Imagine a 10-year-old being able to take pocket money, walk into a store with their Nook, and be able to buy a book for it as easily as they can buy a physical book.

Imagine being able to gift an ebook to someone by giving them a card with a barcode on it.