Fashion is viral in nature. Some forward thinking individual starts wearing something that looks ridiculous. Then a few of his or her friends start dressing similarly. These people walk by strangers on the street who pick up on the new fashion, then some musicians or movie starts pick up on the trend, and it takes off. Before you know it, your mom has adopted the new fashion, and it’s not cool any more. Fashion is inherently viral, but the Gilt Groupe is a company in the industry that uses viral exclusivity to woo customers. They’ve taken a well adopted business model and put a Web 2.0 spin on it. They’ve already secured funding, and from what we hear, they are doing very well. Continue reading about Gilt Groupe…
Sometimes stories are too good not to repeat. “The Birth of a Shoe Company” as told by Kenneth Cole is one of them.
Twenty years ago, I wanted to open a shoe company with limited money. From experience I knew one had to get in quickly because so often new companies run out of cash flow before they get the chance to conduct business. I also knew it was easier to get credit from factories in Europe who needed the business than from American banks that didn’t. So I lined up the factories, went to Europe, designed a collection of shoes, and returned to the states to sell them.
At the time, a shoe company had two options. You could get a room at the Hilton and become 1 of about 1100 shoe companies selling their goods. This didn’t provide the identity or image I felt necessary for a new company, and it cost a lot more money than I had to spend. The other way was to do what the big companies do and get a fancy showroom in Midtown Manhattan not far from the Hilton. More identity, much more money too.
I had an idea. Continue reading about Kenneth Cole…
Columbia Sportswear Company
Posted on Thursday, May 8, 2008
I’ve been through a lot with my Columbia jacket. I first bought it for a high school “team building” trip that included a hike up a mountain in November. I was on the hefty side back then, so the hike was quite a trying task. By the time I reached the summit, I was a bit overheated to say the least. The jacket came off, and I enjoyed the much easier hike on the way down not realizing that my brand new jacket was still at the top of the mountain. I thought my Mom was going to kill me, because going back up to get it was not an option. Luckily a guide from another group grabbed the jacket and brought it down for me. That was almost 10 years ago (which is really scary, by the way I feel old and I’m only 23). Since then I’ve used the jacket to slide down snowy hills on my stomach on the way back from class and sneak fish into the Cornell-Harvard hockey game. The jacket is still in great shape, and goes to show that Columbia Sportswear Company makes one hell of a product.
One Tough Mother
Besides the fact that I like Columbia for their great jackets, Performance Fishing Gear, and Reel Stories videos, I also like them for their Chairman of the Board, Gertrude Boyle. She is the star of many of Columbia’s television ads, where she is best known as “one tough mother.” Columbia is run by the family that started it, but they are now publicly traded, which means that the investor relations section of their website offers a plethora of material to research. It’s pretty amazing that the whole company was started by a couple who fled Germany for Portland, Oregon and bought a hat distributorship.
Will You Be One Tough Intern?
Although Columbia makes great sportswear, they don’t know how to put together a decent Careers site. Or maybe we should say that Taleo, their Applicant Tracking System provider, doesn’t know how to put together a decent Careers site. Either way, all Columbia has is a job search function and a list of benefits. The most frustrating thing is that their job search function only turns up one of their internships, when we’ve found 4 by digging a little deeper.
You knew there was a reason that you subscribed. It’s probably because we find the internships that you would never find. A search for “internships” on Columbia’s Careers site turns up one listing (while a search for “intern” turns up none). The easy to find internship is in Apparel Sourcing. The saving grace is that Columbia has an RSS feed for job search results, so if you search all jobs and then click the RSS feed, you can find a couple more internship listings. We found two internships (here and here) in Industrial Engineering at their Distribution Center. The last internship that we found is not listed on their website, but was posted yesterday on a closed job board that we have access to. It is in Promotions, and is perfect for someone with an interest in Marketing or Public Relations, as long as it’s still available (if you’d like more details about this internship, leave a comment with your real e-mail address in the e-mail box - nobody can see it but us). We also found a now defunct listing from 4 days ago about a Footwear Internship, but we couldn’t find any more details about it. All of Columbia’s internships are located in Portland, OR.
Despite Columbia’s lackluster career site and relatively boring descriptions on their internship postings, we still think they’re a pretty cool company. They’re worth a look, especially now that it’s May.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
- Columbia.com
- Careers and Internships at Columbia Sportswear
- About Columbia Sportswear
- Columbia Sportswear in the News
- Columbia’s Investor Relations Page
- Columbia’s Management Team
- Columbia’s Television Ads
What’s your experience with Columbia Sportswear?
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