A Cup of Conversation – by Michael Kell

This year we were asked by Oregon’s State Fair Division to be the title sponsor and director of the 2013 Best Coffee in Oregon Championships. It’s a big honor and even bigger responsibility to attempt such a large undertaking, especially amongst our peers who have trusted us to represent them in the utmost of professionalism and integrity. Oregon is the center of the coffee universe. If you’re merely good here, you’re the best of the rest of the coffee world. If you’re the best here, you’re quite simply the best but we’ll get to what that really means in a minute.

Truth be told, I was relieved to not have to compete with these brands of excellence one more year. The odds of lightning striking a third time to win was outside of my most unrealistic expectations so I’d rather stretch myself in creating the platform for another to shine and hopefully absorb some of the benefits from the fabulous publicity this event would generate. In plainer words, I could legitimately pass on having to compete but still take a share in the profits of another’s well-earned victory. I’m not the smartest kid on the block but even I could figure this one out.

So what does it mean to be the best, anyway? The best in something is human endeavor not necessarily good or bad but rather depends on good or bad motives. If being the best is a process of risk, honest effort and performance coming together as one, then being the best is good and enjoying the reasonable spoils of what that brings is only fitting. If truth and ethics are sacrificed at the altar of victory, then it is something altogether different. Unfortunately, we see far too much of the latter in the age we live.

King of the Mountain is a game we’d play as kids with the object of not only making it to the top of the small mound of turf while every other kid fought to do the same but then to defend it from all comers. Whoever could accomplish that feat was the best on the block. From a business perspective, being the best scores points in perception, the essence of marketing. This is why we see so many unsubstantiated, even outlandish claims from companies pushing themselves as the best at what they’re selling. Absent unbiased and quantifiable metrics to legitimize its claim, the boast becomes like the frustrated little kid in his superhero cape coming back alone in the dark to stand at the top of the hill with fists pumping in the air while basking in the faint glow of want to believe.

The irony is that best even if achieved is fleeting at best and always relative to something bigger and more important. In this world, nothing in victory or defeat lasts forever but merely recycles in the mechanisms of life. The irrefutable Second Law of Thermo-Dynamics says everything in the universe goes from order to chaos and so too the concept of best. Superstar athletes, mega-celebrities, iconic companies and evolutionists don’t spend much time on this law of entropy but maybe they should take a closer look. Until then you can find me and the boys down the street at twilight on the top of the small mound with capes flapping in the evening breeze dreaming about the thrill of victory until our moms call us home for dinner.

Be Good not bitter.

Posted July 27, 2013