Starbucks, the giant US coffee chain, has used its muscle to block an attempt by Ethiopia’s farmers to [trademark the names of] their most famous coffee bean types, denying them potential earnings of up to £47m a year, said Oxfam.

Starbucks, the coffee beans and the copyright row that cost Ethiopia £47m, The Guardian, October 26th, 2006.

I received a card from Oxfam to send to Phil Broad, the managing director of Starbucks, yesterday. It asked me to deliver it to a Starbucks store, who would then hopefully forward it to their head office. I did a double take when I noticed the head office address was in Parson’s Green, just next door to my local tube station.

Having been to enough meetings in my time I thought I’d drop down there and see if I couldn’t blag my way in through the door. I had to go buy milk anyway. So I took a walk, wandered into their reception and announced that I was there to meet to Phil Broad. Their receptionist quickly made me up a visitor pass, asked my name and put a call into Phil. Phil was in Seattle. OK, then, how about somebody in marketing. Scott was selected. Scott was a bit busy so instead of sitting down with me there and then, he asked if we could meet later. A meeting was scheduled for 10:00 on Wednesday the 31st.

I expected to be turned away at reception when it was discovered I had no appointment and Mr Broad was not expecting me. I expected perhaps to be seen briefly by somebody, to air my views and to receive some platitudes. I did not expect to be invited back! Credit to Starbucks, although I can’t help feeling it was by accident rather than design.

This was my first social engineering exploit. This phrase is used by computer security experts to describe when a person exploits the trust relationships other people offer up. The receptionist expected me to be one of the other tens or hundreds of people who show up for meetings each day. Scott trusted that somebody else had already vetted me, and slipped into the default of treating me as a colleague in the world of business. He made the comment that it was a shame I hadn’t booked a meeting ahead of time. That would normally be the case, and would make his normal life easier. I would never have got a meeting if I had called or emailed of course, but by physically showing up, they had to do something with me and their be-polite-to-guest reflexes took over.

Now I just have to plan my agenda for Wednesday. I have Oxfam to help out and they are forwarding me some more information. I want to know what Starbucks next move is, whether they intend to sign the voluntary licensing agreement and if they will support the USPTO application. And what they will do about this in the future. Reading through some articles covering their policies towards coffee producers on their website, Starbucks have obviously changed their policies drastically down the years and are keen to be seen to improve the situation their farmers find themselves in. It’s strange therefore that this hiccup should have occurred.