We have a treasure chest of believers from Philips, Microsoft, Pepsi-Co, adidas and Unilever who have fallen over our transom and become part of our fiber over the past eight years. Most showed up thanks to this book, ready to hit the ground running.
As is the case with all consultants, I have colleagues with whom I exchange information, war stories and leads. Wendy Liebmann at WSL Strategic Retail is a goddess, Watts Wacker is a court jester, Marc Gobe is the eminent designer, Faith Popcorn is the trend spotter, Marshal Cohen is the retail sound-bite master, Kate Newlin is the reinventor and George Whalin is the wise coach. All are friends with whom I share e-mails, phone calls and good vibes.
I describe myself as a refugee from the academic world. That said, I have a few good friends still scattered across the teaching universe: Marianne Wolf at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Doc Ogden at Kutztown University, Ray Burke at Indiana University and my buddy Joe Weishar at FIT here in New York.
In the early days of Envirosell, I quipped that the major criterion for working with me was that you had to be an interesting person, so that if we got stranded at O’Hare we’d have stuff to talk about. Three people from that first generation of Envirosellers remain: Tom Moseman, Craig Childress and Anne-Marie Luthro. I am grateful for their years of service. All three have some connection to the University of Iowa—go figure.
The international chapters in this edition profile most of our foreign partners. I have no shortage of colleagues who live outside the USA. Abdullah Sharif from Dubai, Kenji Onodera from Tokyo, Alan O’Neill from Dublin, Jean-Pierre Baade from Paris and Mark Gillian in the Philippines are, again, just a few. United Artists, our gurus’ club, is made up of José Luis Nueno from Spain, David Bosshart from Switzerland, Martin Lindstrom from Denmark and Kjell Nordstrom from Sweden. We meet twice a year to eat, drink and talk. Those sessions are always the highlights of my year.
I also have the family that God assigned to me and the families I’ve chosen: my sister, Lisa, her husband Michael and their kids, Gabriel and Miranda; my mother, Savie; Paul and Kate Raymer and their kids; and others linked by blood and marriage. The three families who adopted and cared for me for more than thirty years are the Haymans, the Hewitts and the Lehners.
Every boy has his buds, and mine come in both genders. Joseph Guglietti, Rob Kaufelt, John Barkley, Patrick Rodmell, Hazam Gamal, Peter Kay, Stan Beck, Terry Shook, John Ryan, Rob LoCascio and Rick Moffitt are the guys, and Erika Szychowski, Haesook Kim, Sara Bowen, Dacota Julson, Medora Barkley, Susan Towers and Liz Gamal are the ladies.
My lovely significant only, Sheryl Henze, is an accomplished flautist who works nights and weekends. This book was constructed within those time periods in order to stay out of trouble.
About the Author
Paco Underhill is the founder and CEO of Envirosell, Inc. His clients include Starbucks, McDonald’s, adidas and Nokia. He is a regular contributor to NPR, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
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