Berkeley, a funny story…
Have you ever been so tired when you were in Lausanne because of the hills? It’s nothing compare to Berkeley… Don’t worry, it was hard but worth it! Berkeley is a huge University and you get easily lost if you are alone. Fortunately, we had the opportunity to be guided by a student from Berkeley. Did you know about the statue of Pappy? Yeah, me neither. He was the football coach of US Berkeley, named the bears. Our excellent guide told us a funny story about him and her. Let me explain to you: when she had her interview for this job, they asked her what was her favorite statue of the campus and she answered “Pappy”, and when they asked her why, she had no idea who was Pappy. Yeah, funny story… There are a lot of rules on Berkeley’s campus. For example, you can’t step on their Berkeley sign that’s on the sidewalk. You have to go around it. But the most surprising thing is that she as a guide couldn’t have accepted tips. Weird, right? Because we all know that’s the U.S policy. Last thing, if you ever complained about the tuition of University in Switzerland, keep in mind that’s 70x less than Berkeley. 😉
Buck’s Restaurant in Woodside, CA
To end our Silicon Valley Day Tour, we went to Buck’s Restaurant in Woodside for dinner. What might look like an Ali Baba’s cave is really a wonderful place to enjoy a burger while looking at a funny collection of random items. The Treasure Hunt Buck’s provides kids with a great treasure hunt, listing more than 20 items displayed in the restaurant, such as: San Francisco in shaky Jell-O, Miss Liberty with hot fudge sundae, Huge hand prints, Five green iguanas, ON AIR over door, a “Part plane, part tiger, part shark, look out !” the Back Door And yes, even if the treasure hunt was made for kids, are we not all big kids? The History of Buck’s of Woodside The owner, Jamis MacNiven, opened Buck’s of Woodside in 1991. He has a collection of random items which he fancies or which were given to him. From things with real value (historic or monetary) to gifts, each item of the collection has an interesting story behind it. The place is well-known in the area for being the place where venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs meet in the Valley “to hammer out the Information Age”. Over the last 20 years, Buck’s of Woodside was the site of monumental moments, from the first demos of PayPal – which secured its funding there – to the foundation of Tesla and Hotmail. Fun facts Steve Jobs is one of the few Silicon Valley icons that never set foot in the restaurant. However, there is a picture of him hanging somewhere on the walls. Paradox : Buck’s was the first place in the country to offer a public wifi spot but still use a 27 year old point of sale system (which happen to be the oldest in the world). The only customer who had a meal named after him is Dr Perkins, a local ear surgeon who used to order the same thing every time : omelette of egg whites, Boca Burger soy patty, green onions and fat free Swiss cheese Buck’s has the world’s largest Swiss Army Knife, worth $1’200! Learn more about Buck’s Restaurant and its owner here.
Two weeks in two minutes
You might be interested into the adventures we had in San Francisco. Well, there is so much to read on this blog, this might be too much for you. So if you only have two minutes available – have a look at our video «Two weeks in two minutes». This will give you the idea, what really was going on over there… It is a condensation of about 60 gb photo and video data, showing all the main points of our trip! Have fun, and before pressing the play button: get ready!
Berkeley
Beginning of the day, we arrived at Berkeley neighborhood. Ladies seems ready 😉 (Nelsia, Camille and Sabine)
Team SMC: A day full of challenges
Part 1 – Emerging trend: Check We were looking for an emerging trend in the food field. As we stopped by for a coffee break at a cafe with a wifi connection, there we discovered it seems to became a trend to order your coffee and your cookie online and then just pass by to take it. Bags with the orders were ready in a shelf, waiting for the customer who ordered it. It was a little bit like in a library. Posters and ads across the city – especially in the bart stations – are attracting customers to order meals and food online. So it is a service to avoid queuing when you are in a hurry. Orders can easily be made while commuting to the working place and picked up just at the right time. There is a high chance that this model will also be adapted in Switzerland soon: the technical devices needed are all there (everyone has his smartphone), restaurants, cafés and take aways have just to set in place a tight workflow to handle the orderings and to create a place where food is placed to be picked up – with a certain control that the right person is picking up the right thing – and that food is paid in advance when placing the order. Finally: everybody hates queuing, so if there is a way to avoid it, we should propose this service to the clients. Part 2 – Try different food: Check As we are close to Chinatown, we decided to discover this district and the typical atmosphere. We spend time in the shops where we found typical Chinese stuff. It amazing to see how you can switch from San Francisco to a China city within a few second, only by crossing a road. It is like a county in the country. It was lunch time ! We found a typical Chinese restaurant with plenty different menu. Finally we go for the day menu that was composed of a curry and rice bowl with a famous miso soup, which was by the way excellent. Even for the drink we tried something new, a lychee lemonade with strange bowl on in, which seems to be called buba guy (we are still not sure what it really was). It’s now time to continue the challenge. We had a very nice lunch break all three together. Part 3 – How is work life in SFO: Check Working in San Francisco doesn’t mean to live in San Francisco. Like Filipe who is working in a Hilton Hotel as a Laundry worker. For the rents are way too expensive, he is making a one-hour trip to go to work. That is quite a common thing. Keisha, a school bus driver, can’t afford a place to live downtown. She told us though, that her work allowed her to spend time with her little boy Douglas. Long trip, time consuming, might be the price to be paid. Entering in a FedEx office, we got to meet Kevin. This young boy is one of the exception. For a 9 on 9 feet room he spend 900$ a month. These three people work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. As Swiss people, how much can we relate to them? Do we drive that much to save money and tend to “survive”? Or do we make such distances only for good money? Part 4 – Swissness in the USA: Check On that part we tried to understand how swissness is perceive in the USA and especially in California. Chocolate, watches and swiss army knife are the most common word people think when we ask them what swiss product they know. Swiss products are mainly perceive as high quality product which last long but the consequence is that the products are expensive or at least are perceive as such. When we talk about innovation, swiss made is not what comes out of the discussions. Switzerland in perceive as a traditional country with hand made and quality manufacturing but not as an innovating country. If we sum up, swiss products are high quality, made with precision and will last longer than products, which are common in the USA. People are proud to have and show off that they have Swiss product… Part 5 – Find innovative entrepreneur: Check “Find entrepreneurs and ask them what innovation is in their perception”. What an easy task. How come can we even guess who can they be? Especially in a city like San Francisco where the following statement rules: ” do not trust appearances. “. We should not only look for people wearing a suit and drinking their starbucks coffee. Therefore, we decided to call them, hopping one would answer. A Cardboard a pen and here is a tool to look for them “Innovative Entrepreneurs?” talk to us! The first lady that stopped by, got curious on our way of doing. We chatted for a little, but her lunch break was getting to an end. Have a look at the video: Find innovative entrepreneurs. Terris, but call him “little” even though he is very tall, was the second person we talked to. He was an entrepreneur, back in days. He opened a place to eat chicken and fries. That man for sure loves Chicken by the way. After a few words on his life he summarized entrepreneurship as trying and falling, and trying and falling… We asked him how he perceives innovation. “Innovation is change. ” He gives us the example of a smartphone, where he got to change his whole way of doing thing to gain a new habit. There we thought that the same example is definitely the one that explains disruptive innovation all around the world. After some good talk (and good laugh) with Small (yes we got quite intimate after a few minutes), we continue our way. When suddenly, out of nowhere, those three Spanish guys jump in