yesterday i was shopping at

yesterday i was shopping at peet's coffee. on the counter was a 1/2 pound sack of jamaican blue mountain coffee. having sampled a pound of this rare, luscious coffee when i moved to california in 1974, i figured it would make a nice gift. then i noticed the price -- $39.99! whoa. no coffee beans rate that level of tariff. in '74 i paid $5 for half a pound of blue mountain beans at the farmer's market in el lay.

this got me thinking about how values change over time. money, sure. that's inflation. but also human values. organizational values. like trying to preserve the HP Way fifty years later. or clinging to command and control when even the military is poised to give it up. or only accounting for hard assets when soft assets have become more valuable. it's foolish to follow business traditions that date from before the PC, the net, ecological consciousness, and slow rates of growth.

by the way, the $5 of 1974 is equivalent to $17.99 today. the price of jamaican coffee has significantly outpaced inflation.