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Q – How does a right-brainer survive in a left-brain environment?
James – Initially, I was intrigued by the notion of that. I really felt that I could make a contribution, even though my colleagues said I was totally whacked and crazy and that it wouldn’t be fulfilling for my creative energy. I did not trust that. My wife felt the same way – that there was more opportunity for what I had to offer in my career and my life. At that time, I was going on 48 and I had really explored the whole retail scene from my days as a window trimmer, both in London and New York City, working for great, old emporiums that had lost their way. I could see that there was a change happening. The fashion of the time was really not fashion itself any longer. It was technology. And the power of that was more of a tool to really do good, and do well. So I felt like I might be able to make a contribution in a space that really didn’t get any attention from the design community. And I said, "Why not? Are we so jaded that the practice of design can’t go there, too? If customers are going there because of what’s being offered, why shouldn’t the design community start to embrace that?" So that was intriguing. I was just following my nose, so to speak.
Q – To keep in touch with your right brain side, you’ve said that you stay close to customers, women and the GLBT community. Why these groups?
James – I’ll get to the root of why I believe that. I was stumbling through something that I really loved and wanted to do which was, first and foremost, to be a singer. I was fascinated with opera at an early age. Once I got to music school, I was intimidated by the talent. You can’t just major in voice. You have to major in voice, piano and conducting. That made it even more of a struggle for me. Luckily, my girlfriend, Deborah – now my wife – pointed me in the direction of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York. I really came to understand what it was like to be in the minority. FIT was saturated with the GLBT community. It was multicultural. It was just a Technicolor raincoat. And it was an interesting time when our whole generation was questioning anything that was establishment-driven. Whether it was music, politics, fashion, you name it – it was all suspect. And then, being embraced by the GLBT community when I was one of the token “straights” in that world. It became a bit of a crusade centered around the thought that, “Hey, a straight guy can have good taste, too.” So there was that sense of, “Okay, I’m going to learn from you and you’re going to learn from me, too.” I learned a lot from that experience. Women have a natural intuitive sense similar to the GLBT community – and I know and love them both for their honesty, humor, and candor. And they both love to shop!
Q – What did you learn that you’ve been able to apply to the retail space?
James – The art of creative storytelling. The art of composing, constructing and putting elements together that is not necessarily male or female. They were genderless. But they were done with incredible style. In this room [James' office at Best Buy], you are surrounded by the person who gets the credit for the art of storytelling in window designing. And that’s Gene Moore. All window trimmers learned from him even if they didn’t know him. The art that Gene created lives on. Because it’s really part of the fiber of Tiffany and Company today, and the beautiful windows that he did at Tiffany’s.
Q – Best Buy was created, built and designed by men for men. With women influencing 89 percent of all purchasing decisions in consumer electronics, how do you see Best Buy changing to meet the needs and expectations of women customers?
James – This is why I feel my time has come. I can make even more of a contribution now because of the education and schooling that I’ve had through and with people like Gene Moore or great merchants like Dawn Mello at B. Altman & Company, who became Bergdorf Goodman’s president and then later turned around an old man’s business and re-invented Gucci to what it is today. A female did that after it was passed on by generations of male owners in the family. And I say, yep, 89 percent of the women are influencing all technology product purchases and this company is no different. It had better start to listen and embrace and invite women into the conversation. Because every man that wants a plasma and surround-sound TV in his living room is making sure that he gets the vote of the chief operating officer of the house before it goes in there. So why shouldn’t we listen to women about what they think about the Best Buy environment and experience? Do you think that the men will leave? Absolutely not. It will validate that it’s okay for women to participate in the experience with them.
Q – How do you see this increased emphasis on women changing Best Buy stores?
James – It’s change in a really good way and it won’t be transformational. It won’t be the flip of a switch. But I can see them doing it already because we’ve opened ourselves up to the possibilities of that point of view. The metaphor I’ll use here is taking a warehouse and making it a lovely residential loft. Instead of the cold, hard elements of Best Buy of the past, you see a more softened environment that has a new color pallet that’s more of a carpeted feel as opposed to a concrete feel. It’s got different tiers of light so that people actually look good in the space as opposed to the warehouse lights taking away from the product such as flat screens. It’s almost like it’s telling us what to do, if we would just open up and listen to it. And I think that’s the role of design: to really listen to those voices and to invite them in and to get those multiple perspectives so that we can share in the beauty of the diversity of the audience, and really be representative of the communities that we’re actually serving by having them at the table with us.
Store within a store concepts such as this Magnolia Home Theater
at Best Buy Shanghai deliver a level of distinction and provide
inspiration while building trust in the Best Buy brand globally.
Q –The Hispanic and Asian communities are growing rapidly in the U.S. and even constitute the majority in some cities. How do you see Best Buy changing to meet those specific ethnic needs?
James – If we’re going to put a store in a neighborhood – whether it be Asian or African-American or Hispanic – the representation of that community had better be in the people that make up the employee base of that store so that they can speak the language, understand the culture, and adopt local nuances to a scaled environment. All companies have got to have that flexibility built into their model or else they will fail. |