Monthly Archives: March 2011

Social Media Kool-Aid?

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Social Media

Paul Owen from Owen Media published a nice piece today in Xconomy.com, asking if Social Media was a fad that is going away, or something really hear to say.  

Paul’s piece had a range of comments from other social media firms in town, so I don’t want to repeat everything here.  He did a nice job of grabbing insight from the agencies who specilaize in Community Management and outsourced Customer Support, while also getting input from more full service organizations.  

Our viewpoint over at Social3i is you’ll only see more commerce through social channels, not less.  There’s a giant blurring between “Wb” and “Social” now, so that they are really one in the same.

There’s another whole article on privacy to be written, but take that out of the mix and look at two companies that released product in the last week – Color and Zapd. Color has all the fanfare for the amazing (or outrageous) valuation.  Zapd made less noise but comes from a guy who’s launched a lot of startups in his day, Kelly Smith.  Both focus on instant content generation, and the packaging of such content.

Color takes the idea of friends, and flips it on its ear, turnign everyone in your proximity into co-authors with you.  Zapd lets you take those random photos and turn them into a web page in 60 seconds, so you can share not just the photos, but the whole story, all in the time it takes to in line buying a beer.

Combine these philiosphies with the GroupOn and Living Social commerce infrastructure, and you can see (well we think you can see) where this is all going.  Add in Facebook credits, more virtual currency, and One-Click purchase technology on the phone, and social becomes more than Facebook customer service posts and Tweeting back and forth at each other from the same party.

Anyway, check out Paul’s article, and if you think I said anything dumb, feel free to lay into me in the comments section.

A Debate – What is Appropriate Fan Behavior at a Bar

Posted by Andy Boyer in Human Behavior, Sports

This blog has been a lot of things over the years. Of course, it’s also NOT been a lot of things over the years.  But, it has always strived to be fair.  If we criticize someone for absurd behavior, we’ll turn the focus on ourselves if we commit the same behavior.

I’ve probably made fun of fans of other colleges at some point, so I thought I’d use an example from Saturday’s Elite Eight Game to spur some debate and show I can be fair.

The setup: The Ballard Loft is a very UA friendly bar.  And Saturday the Seattle chapter of the UA Alumni Club gathered to watch the Cats vs UConn game.  I’d estimate there were at least 75-85 Cats fans upstairs.  Now, I don’t spend a lot of time with this group.  But suddenly all of the UW fans I usually watch hoops with lost interest in the NCAA Tourney.  (I can’t imagine why.)  And it was the biggest UA hoops game in the last 5-6 years, so I needed to surround myself with supporters.  Btw, this is what makes sports so great.  The ability to show up and have a common bond with total strangers.  But I digress.

So imagine this scene.  You have a crowd of 75-85 energized UA basketball fans, decked out in UA gear, drinking beers, watching the game, cheering when appropriate and feeling anguish simultaneously….. And you have one guy in the corner.  He has a pom pom.  Every time UConn has the ball, he is shouting “Defense, Wildcats Defense.  Defense, Wildcats Defense.”  Every time Arizona has the ball he runs through one of his pre-programmed 4 or 5 A-R-I-Z-O-N-A cheers.  He is desperate to have the other 75 of us join him, but we’re watching the game.  Now every once in a while, the group of 6 people in the back would start a cheer and everyone would join.  And Wanna Be Wilbur would beem as if the crowd was “finally getting it.”  Then he would start up again and we’d all ignore him again.  Rinse, wash, repeat for 39:00 of basketball.

The suddenly, with a minute left, Wanna Be Wilbur and his buddy actually turned on the crowd.  And I submit that this is why UA lost that game.  In a tight ballgame with everything on the line, as every other UA fan in the bar – hell in the country – nervously wondered what would happen next and frantically shared with each other what we though would happen, Wanna Be Wilbur started YELLING AT US.  He told us how bad of fans we were for not cheering with him.  He kept up with how lame UA fans were at this bar.  How he couldn’t figure out what he was doing with such lame people.  The poor schmuck seemed not to realize that we were in Seattle, about 1,200 miles from the stadium, and that no matter how loud we cheered, Derek Williams was NOT going to hear us.

If you were at the Loft on Saturday you saw 75 drinking, cheering, excited UA fans enjoying a great basketball game.  You also heard an incredibly annoying UA fan yelling at his colleagues for not joining his one man Pom Squad.  The annoying UA guy broke all fan protocols by yelling at other UA fans.  I’d make fun or Oregon, UW, WSU, Duke, or Notre Dame if they had a fan who pulled that kind of behavior, so I have to make fun of us as well.  

So my debate question – If you are at a bar watching your team play a game, are you less of a fan if you don’t chant and sing at the TV screen, even if one guy in the corner holding a pom pom is begging you to? I say there’s appropriate stadium behavior and appropriate bar behavior.  Objections?

LinkedIn’s Clever Nod to Early Adopters

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Social Media

In Marketing these days, it’s all about “Influencer Identification.”  As in, “How do I spend as little money as possible to reach the most important people who will say good good things about me?” It’s a simple srategy and hard to pull off.

On the flip side, there’s something you don’t see a lot of – the followup.  After spending all that time to get the early adopters to make referrals to the majority, many brands simply forget where they got their start.  That’s what makes this simple email from LinkedIn’s CEO so clever.

Dear Andy,

I want to personally thank you because you were one of LinkedIn’s first million members (member number 121884 in fact!*). In any technology adoption lifecycle, there are the early adopters, those who help lead the way. That was you.

We hit a big milestone at LinkedIn this week when our 100 millionth member joined the site. 

When we founded LinkedIn, our vision was to help the world’s professionals be more successful and productive. Today, with your help, LinkedIn is changing the lives of millions of members by helping them connect with others, find jobs, get insights, start a business, and much more.  

We are grateful for your support and look forward to helping you accomplish much more in the years to come. I hope that you are having a great year.

Now, this email did a few things for me.  I never really consider myself an innovator.  Occasionally an early adopter.  But I was #121,884 out of 100,000,000, and I needed to go into Excel to figure out that makes me in the top 0.122% of LinkedIn adopters.  Not just top 1%, but dang near the top 10% of the 1%.Telling me that little stat is a nice way of showing me some love without seeming insincere.

Maybe more importantly, it also makes me realize and remember that LinkedIn has been an important part of my online world for a long time.  I may not go there every day, and I may not currently use it as much as I use other services like Pandora or Twitter.  But I needed that gentle reminder that while I had fun flings with MySpace, Shutterfly, Biznik, Ning, WetPaint, Lala, Digg, Delicious, Foursqaure, Gowalla, and 100 other intrguing networks, LinkedIn has weathered all the storms, making it through both the good and bad times.  It’s never been the sexiest or most interesting site, but it’s always there, does exactly what it promises, and occassionally provides me little unexpected moments of joy. It’s slowly turned into that trusted friend that you can’t imagine life without – something way more valuable than those little daliances into the new and exciting things that always disappoint.

So it’s not often you get to say complimentary things about an old brand.  But I like LinkedIn’s nod to their longtime fans.

A Health Care Fairy Tale, Sponsored by Group Health

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

Ok, it’s been a while since I ranted a little on here.  And truthfully, there’s a calmer gentler me who decided this is not a forum for ranting.

So instead, let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was this guy, who was a partner in a small business.  Now, business is good, so the partners decide that they should start a health care plan for the team.  They do everything by the book, use a consultant to help them, and settle on a program administered by Group Health.  Now Group Health has to be reputable, because they sure do a lot of advertising that says they are.

Now when one of these team members was under their own insurance, they were diagnosed with an issue that would need some special testing that would require a small procedure.  All of this previous work was done under the watchful eye of another insurance company and accredited physicians.

This is where the fun begins.  Here’s a paraphrased transcript between Group Health and the patient.

Patient: Hi Group Health Insurance.  I got a weird call from the surgeon’s office.  Even though I was referred by a doctor, they said you aren’t sure you will cover it.

GH: Well was the referring physician In Network or Out of Network?

P: Well I don’t know. They were covered by my old insurance company.

GH: (Exasperated sigh) Well let’s see.  Well that physician is out of OUR network, so if you go to the surgeon, it counts as a self-referral.

P: How could it be a self-referral if another doctor did the referring?

GH: Maybe you didn;t hear me.  Because they are out of network.

P: So what does that mean? Do you cover it or not?

GH: Of course we do.  Don’t be silly.  We’re the greatest people on earth.  Even though you have clearly abused the system by going out of network, we – out of the goodness of our heart – are still going to cover 80% of the procedure, after the deductible of course.

P: Well what would you have covered if I was referred by an In-Network doctor?

GH: 80% after the deductible

P: So whats the difference?

GH: Nothing really.  If your surgeon has a contracted rate with us, he’ll charge the contracted rate and we’ll pay 80%

P: Wait, what’s this contracted rate thing?

GH: Oh it’s nothing really.  We work really really really really hard to get you the lowest rates from doctors, so that your 20% is nominal.

P: What if my suregeon isn’t on contract rate?

GH: Well then we pay 80% of what we WOULD HAVE PAID if the doctor was on contract with us.

P: So who pays the rest?

GH: Well I guess you would.

P: So…..you are going to pay the same amount either way, it’s just in some cases I have to pay more.

GH: But we negotiated these lower rates for you.

P: But…..you pay the lower rate.  I pay the difference.  Actually, the lower the rate, the more I pay.

GH: Well that’s ONE way to look at it I suppose.  Now, that’s only if you don’t see an IN NETWORK Specialist first.  It’s different if your surgeon is in network, under contract AND you get referred by an IN NETWORK specialist.

P: And has a dog named Blue?

GH: Huh?

P: Never mind.

P: Ok, so I guess I need do make an appointment with one of your in-network specialists so I can make sure my contracted, IN Network surgeon doesn’t charge me an arm and a leg.  No pun intended.  So, can I make an appointment?

GH: Of course.  Not a problem at all.  I will get you down for the next slot we have open for an IN NETWORK specialist.  Now that will be the 2nd week in June.  Should I put you down?

P: It’s March.

GH: So would you prefer morning or afternoon?

P: I’d prefer March.  

GH: Well June is the next time we have available for an IN NETWORK specialist who can refer you to an IN NETWORK contracted surgeon.

P: So even though a doctor suggests I get this tested, you want me to wait 3 months.

GH: No, you can just go ahead and do the procedure.  Like I said – and geez are you frustrating – we’ll still cover 80% of Necessary and Usual costs associated with the procedure.

P: Wait, what does that term mean?

GH: (SIGH) What term?

P: Necessary and Usual.

GH: Well like I said before, we cover what we think is fair.  We can’t be responsible for any extra fees the doctor tries to stick you with.

P: So let me get this straight.  You lowball the doctors into a “Necessary and Usual” rate in order to allow them in your sales pipeline.  Then you make the patients responsible for anything the doctors want to charge above that “Necessary and Usual” rate you’ve forced them into.  And the only way a patient can avoid those extra charges is if they are referred by an IN NETWORK specialist.  

GH: That’s right.  

P: BUT, AND A BIG BUT HERE, YOU DON”T HAVE ANY IN-NETWORK SPECIALISTS.

GH: Well we do have one in June.

P: Who’s on First?

GH: Huh?

P: Never Mind.

Now lucky for mortals like our Patient, there are people at the doctors offices who are fluent in the language of insurance phone reps.  Those people can actually explain how to avoid the traps that companies like Group Health try to put in your way.  Not that the doctor’s office is any saint in this matter when you think about it.  They’re playing the same twisted game, allowing the insurance companies to claim “80%” coverage when really just being responsible for 33-50%.  In fact, they are the ones who actually lose out if the patient is able to find an in network doctor to make the referral, though you have to imagine there’s a back door way it all gets settled later.

Anyway, here’s a toast to Health reform.  Thank goodness it’s taking such care to take care of the patients who need the care to begin with.

Rock and Roll Training – Week 4 (or so)

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

So the other day I was accused of bailing out of the 1/2 marathon since my training had seemed to come to a halt.  Not so.

Now I’ll admit, I’ve run into a few stumbling blocks.  I’ve had a few unexpected things pop up recently that have cut into my training time, but there’s no real reason to go into them here.  (I’m sure when I see you in person you won’t be able to get me to shut up about them.)  Plus, the every 2 year occurance of my back blowing out came about 15 months early this time.  So that has slowed me down a little as well.  But I managed to make it through the St. Paddy’s Day Dash thanks to an heavy dose of muscle relaxers.  God bless technology.

Anyway, the race is still a good 12-13 weeks out.  I’m at a solid 4-5 miles at around 9:30/mile.  The next big milestone is the Seahawks 12k in April.  Shoot me an email if you are up for some runs around Greenlake or Lake Union, or better yet up on Cougar Mountain where there are some hills.

Fan Inspiration from Liverpool – You’ll Never Walk Alone

Posted by Andy Boyer in Soccer

So it’s just a week until the Sounders take their 1st kick at Qwest Field, starting their 2011 story against the same villains that dispatched them from 2010.

Now we Sounders fans have a lot to be proud of, as we’re easily the best fans in the MLS.  So here’s some inspiration for what Qwest Field could look like in say, 2022.  This is Anfield, home of the storied English Premier Club Liverpool.

When I lived in Manchester in 2005, I was friends with Portugeuse guy.  He told me the story of a Champions League game in which he went up to Liverpool, decked out in his home side’s colors, and brazenly walked into the bar across the street from Anfield.  He was the only fan of the opposing side, and wasn’t shy about who he was rooting for.

He laughed and told stories and drank beer with all the Liverpool fans at the bar, and finally it became time for everyone to head over to the game.  Suddenly all the lights in the bar went off.  The curtains were drawn and the door sealed shut.  He felt hands on his shoulders in the dark and cramped bar.

He literally had no idea what to expect.  And suddenly, the bar erupted in song.  The entire bar shouted the words to “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”  And when they were done, they rushed to the stadium.  By the end of the experience, my friend was literally rooting for Liverpool over his hometown club.

Here’s a clip of what Anfield sounds like when 40,000 or so join a chorus.  Imagine if we could get Qwest to this level?

Here’s a link to a better clip that includes the words.  But, it can’t be embedded.

Team “No Runner Left Behind” Back for 2011 Beat the Bridge

Posted by Andy Boyer in Personal

It’s that time of year again – time to get out those running shoes and prepare to do battle with the University Street Bridge, all in the name of charity.

Team No Runner Left Behind will be back again, putting together another strong showing for race time fun and psot-race champagne breakfast in Wallingford.  We encourage everyone to join us.  

 If you can figure out the Beat the Bridge Web site, regsiter here on our “Team Page.” But also swing by our Facebook Page, – a new page that is different this year than last year’s “Group Page.”Like the page and make sure you promote the team to your friends and colleagues who may want to join us.

See you all on May 15th.