Purpose

Last night was a bad night, a lot of weird issues, things I couldn’t fix on my own and couldn’t get what I needed to fix it.  I asked the question to myself of “Why am I doing this?”

The first thing that lured me to Best Buy when I had lost my job with dell and was looking for work was that I could sell, and I’m a “Gear Head”, or tech junkie, geek.  However you want to say it me and technology click.  It’s something that’s been since I took apart my first VCR back when I was 6, fixed the gears in it with parts from my Erector set and put it back together in working condition. 

So why choose Best Buy to stay with?

I realized that for lack of any better terminology, we’re entering the Star Trek era.  Look at what we have around us.  E-Readers which are going to become a big part of everyday life, a book is now technology, something that was as simple as drawing on a wall.  We have AMOLED displays on devices now. GPS is able to be incorporated into anything.  Look at your cell phones, Look at mine even, it’s a Computer, GPS, MP3 player, Camera, Camcorder and a Phone and all of that fits in my pocket.   Look at GPS technology itself it’s evolved to the point of lane guidance and some units you can pull out and get the best walking directions.  Car audio for that matter as well, we can have an orchestra in our own vehicles, beyond that we can have a whole theater in our vehicles if we so choose.  With car technology we even have sensors in some vehicles that can detect a collision before it happens and engage our brakes.

In Home Theater we have the newest displays, look how thin the LED TV’s are. Look at the resolution now, and the image clarity. Soon we will have 3D TV, 2k x 4k resolution; right now with the proper setup you can control your house through your TV.  That’s the power of Security Systems, Baby Monitoring, The lights in your rooms, the curtains even, and it’ll tell you your shopping list as it talks with your Refrigerator.   Now a system like that is currently crazy expensive, but it’ll be coming to consumers at some point and will one day be common place, much like the Microwave had once been a High Luxury Item.

Speaking of refrigerators look at LG, they market themselves as “The Digital Appliance Company” Go check out the Samsung with the LCD Touch Screen that will give you conversion rates and a library of nutrition facts right there above your water dispenser.  We used to have a set of GE Profile Smart Laundry which would determine the correct amount of detergent and softener and then tell the dryer the amount of moisture being sensed and the clothing type to setup an exact drying cycle.

In computers, check out what they can do now.  You can plot out an entire sky scraper, render it in 3D virtually walk around in it and then run simulations on it to test its structural stability and its fire safety. They can control your digital media from music to movies and pictures and allow it to be accessed by a multitude of devices in your home. You can even take your pictures from it, load them on and SD card and display them on your TV and your Refrigerator.  The computers of now and tomorrow have the power to unlock the secrets of our own DNA.  They will be the brains of our entire homes.  Even in DI some cameras are offering built in GPS and wifi so that images can be Geo Tagged and then when you get near your house they can be offloaded to your PC without you doing a thing.

With built in network access you can also access this content almost anywhere from a simple MP3 player.  They now have features where you can hook into wifi and soon they will include chips in them to access cellular networks at 3G + speeds so that you can always stay connected with your home, family and digital media.

So by now you may be wondering why on earth I’m talking about this entire crazy super high end in some cases bleeding edge and current edge technology.

Simple, we’re the forefront of it all, and unless you’re like me and spend almost every waking hour immersing yourself in it then you won’t know it. Neither do our customers. We have all the tools in the toolbox that if we can use them effectively we can help people transition into this new “Star Trek Era”.

Seriously, look around at whatever department you may frequent. If you’re in PCHO how many people do you still get that don’t understand the wifi technology that’s been out for how long now?  If you’re in Home Theater how many people do you see that still think they can just hook up a new LCD to a coax RG6 line and get a good picture?  CarFi how many people do you get that still don’t understand why they need a separate box just to keep their door chime?  Appliances how many people still don’t quite know what Energy Star is and how front loaders work?  Gaming how many people still don’t understand how to connect their wii to a wifi or set parental controls on an Xbox 360? MP3 how many people do you still get per week that get screwed over by DRM controls on their iPods or lose all their data completely.  DI how many people have you heard that don’t know how to get their pictures on/off their computers, or talk about wanting to take pictures faster but don’t know about the different memory card speeds.

With all of Best Buy’s resources:

Best Buy (US, Canada, China, Europe, Mexico)

Future Shop

Magnolia A/V

Geek Squad (US, Europe)

Five Star Appliances

Napster

And our other brands that I just can’t think of right now.

We are in the best position possible; we have every tool we need to help People, not just Customers but People to stay better connected with each other, to learn more, to save their time so that they can spend it how they want. Whether it is our Geek Squad to hook things up, Me and You in store to help unravel what they want to do and get them what they need to do it, or even to help them imagine what they can do.

This might sound extreme here but if you know me I’m not one to take the easy road; We can help people reshape the world and their lives.