First, a few words on The Sharper Image. It was for many years a very cool store. I went to their original store in San Francisco way back in the 1980s when I was a student at Cal (GO BEARS!) I frequented their store on Market Street right near the Powell and Montgomery BART stations and a short walk to either the California or Powell Street cable cars.
What made the store so attractive to me and my geek friends were the gadgets. Cool gadgets that you couldn’t find anywhere. Granted these gadgets didn’t do anything, but that wasn’t the point. They had a cool replica of the Walther PPK James Bond carried, life-size Darth Vader statues, full-size pinball machines, and all sorts of useless but very neat electronics.
When I came back to Miami, and they opened their first store in Florida at Bayside there were waiting lines to get in. A store at Dadeland Mall followed and it was the same thing. People were banging their doors down to get in. Then, slowly over time, they changed. More useful, practical things. They lost their cool factor. Basically, they turned into Brookstone. I love Brookstone. If I want Brookstone, I go there. Sharper Image lost their caché. All my friends, and me, stopped going there. They forgot who their customer was. The most important thing in business is to know your customer and what they want. Sharper Image decided we wanted pillows, massage chairs, luggage, and air purifiers. They just didn’t ask us, their customers. And the sad part is they’re blaming all sorts of factors on their failures, but that isn’t why they failed. It was Bad Management because they lost sight of their goals and what the customer wanted.
Medical Update (1): More on the car accident from previous posts. My upper back and shoulders and neck are killing me. The x-rays are negative, but something is wrong. My chiropractor thinks it’s whiplash but that’s got nothing to do with my mid-back. And now I’m getting these random pains in my kidney — short, sharp pain that lasts a few seconds and vanishes. (On the plus side my hip isn’t hurting any more…)
Medical Update (2): I went to the eye doctor yesterday. I got the worst diagnosis possible. I was there because my eyesight is deteriorating at a noticeable rate. The diagnosis: I’m getting old. He said there’s nothing wrong that wasn’t wrong before. My left eye is shot and always has been. My right eye is no longer perfect. It will continue to get worse and there’s nothing I can do. He gave me a new prescription but told me not to fill it until I can’t stand this one anymore. I’m going to try and go until my birthday if I can. I still try and not use them to read books and such — plain black on white and it’s not too bad.