Andy Boyer

Author: Andy

  • Why Doesn’t Google Buy Delicious?

    So, I need an easy way to grab a url, and drag it to one of my groups. Google needs a reason to make me use Google Plus.  This seems like a no-brainer.

    Currently, I use my Delicious Button in my Bookmarks to keep track of links.  But how much more useful would that be if I could also share it and choose what circle to drop it in from that button? I could see a link and ship it to my Relaborate circle, or my softball circle, or soccer circle, or even my personal circle.

    It seems like Google+ isn’t going to win in the short term on the “status update battle.”  So, maybe they could win on the “indexing links battle.”  That seems more in line with what Google is good at anyway.

  • Congrats to a Few Biz Plan Competitors

    Since I graduated from the UW’s MBA Program back in 2006, I’ve been proud that I continue to have the opportunity to be a judge in the annual Business Plan Competition.  It’s truly inspiring to me to see what comes out of the minds of young entrepreneurs, especially those whose excitement has not yet been polluted.

    This year is especially exciting though.  For the 1st time, I knew a little about three of the companies that made it through to the round of 32 before they received their Golden ticket.  (No, I was not allowed to judge these companies.)

    So, before they prepare for their Investment Round battle in a few weeks, I want to congratulate the three teams that I’ve been able to get to know a little bit.

    1. Flash Volunteer offers a set of mobile and social tools to create, discover, track and easily share volunteer service events via a variety of integrated channels.
    2. GroBox aims to make it super easy to grow your own fruits and vegetables in a small amount of space.
    3. Splitpen is a creative online outlet for ordinary people of all abilities to come together and co-write stories with multiple plot lines, sub-plots and endings.

    Good luck to all three teams (and the other 29 of course), and we’ll see you in a few weeks.

  • So, What’s With All the Silence

    If I was Alannis Morisette, I’d use the word “ironic” to describe the lonely state of poor AndyBoyer.com.  But since I actually understand the definition of the word irony, we’ll won’t give another English major a bloody forehead.

    After all, I work for social media firm, am part of a start-up developing a product that makes it EASIER for people to blog, just taught a UW class where I forced students to turn in their assignments on a blog, and now teach a UW class where groups are building socialmedia campaigns for causes – and blog about them.

    If there is anyone on the planet who should have an active blog, it’s me.

    And yet, here we have what we have.  A lonely, neglected outpost, where 622 former blog posts sit patiently on an island, waiting for the next boat of posts to arrive.  Waiting for anything that will bring more visitors, more people who missed reading them when they were originally published 1, 2, 5 years ago.  Just sitting here…waiting.

    I mean, there was activity here.  We used to rail on Clay Bennett here.  We had goals of coming up on search engines for the term “Nick Licata.”  The blog may not have had aim, or a real direction, or heck, even a long-term goal.  But at least we had consistent content.  And every once in a while, it was funny.

    So what’s the deal?

    Well I have new respect for all the professional bloggers out there publishing non-stop.  How do you guys do it? I write all day, and then I get home and see more stuff I have to write, and then I finally look at my notes of stuff I want to blog about, sit down at my laptop ready to hack away, and ask myself, “I DVR’d Mad Men didn’t I?”

    I’m going to partially blame Twitter for this.  Before, if someone like the Mariners wanted to do something incredibly stupid that I wanted to take issue with, I needed to come over to my little .com outpost here and raise my tin cup disguised as a bull horn and start shouting.  Now, I can condense that thought into 140 characters and shoot it out via the FailWhale Telegraph and get immediate gratification with a Retweet or response.

    So yes, I’m blaming my blogging drought on a combination of lack of time, excess writing, and Twitter.  And Yuniesky Betancourt.  I’m not sure why, but I think it’s his fault somehow.

    But fear not.  I still have had plenty of issues that I want to vent about, including but not limited to:

    • The Washington State Republican Party selling my email address to Rick Santorum’s campaign.
    • The U.S. not qualifying for the Olympics in soccer.
    • The real meaning of Lost (the TV show). (I finally watched it on Netflix – another reason I didn’t have time to blog.)
    • Yahoo’s ridiculous patent suits and why that desperate attempt at maintaining relevance could have screwed a lot of people not responsible for Yahoo’s gross business negligence.
    • The Maloof (Malouf?) Brothers.
    • And more.

    Soon, this little piece of online real estate will become interesting again.  Hang tight.

  • Join Me at MarketMix 2012 Today

    It’s been a busy month over here as I share time on the UW, Social3i and the upcoming Private Beta of Relaborate.  Now, it may seem like I haven’t been writing anything.  But actually I’ve been producing more content.  It’s just hidden over at the unpublished Relaborate blog as we work on getting the product ready for prime time.

    But I’ll be at MarketMix 2012 today, showing a little sneak peek at what Relaborate has to offer – and more importantly – how we decided to go forth with the product in the first place.  So come say hi if you are at the event.

    And thanks to the folks from NWEN for the invite to join their panel.  If you have an idea that you want to pursue, there’s no better organization than NWEN to help you get it off the ground.

  • U-District Food Bank Fundraiser

    Wanted to pass this along this email from the U-District Food Bank.

    >>

    Hey Food Bank Supporters,

    I’m pleased to let you know that the 10th annual Neighborhood Grills benefit dinner for the University District Food Bank is happening, Wednesday, February 8th from 5 PM to 10 PM at Eastlake Bar & Grill and Greenlake Bar & Grill.

    It’s the same format as previous years. Go out to dinner at either Greenlake Bar & Grill orEastlake Bar & Grill on the 8th of February and at the minimum 50% of the cost of your bill will be donated to the Food Bank. Order off the special menu and 66% of your meal cost will be donated to the Food Bank!

    Our monetary goal for the evening is to raise $6,000. That’s essentially 50% of our food purchasing budget for the month of February.

    If you are unable to attend the benefit dinner please consider making a donation of at least $10 towards our February food purchases. You can make a donation to the Food Bank from our web page – http://www.udistrictfoodbank.org/donate.php.

    2011 was our busiest year on record – 55,000 customer visits and 2.3 million pounds of food distributed. Thanks to our community of support we continue to meet the increased demand for our services. It’s truly appreciated!

    Please feel free to contact me for a tour of the Food Bank. I’m always happy to show donors their donation dollars at work.

    What: 10th annual Neighborhood Grills Benefit Dinner for the University District Food Bank.
    Where: Eastlake Bar & Grill (2947 Eastlake Avenue East Seattle) or Greenlake Bar & Grill (7200 E. Greenlake Drive North).
    When: Wednesday, February 8th, 5PM to 10 PM.
    Why: Raise $6,000 towards our February food purchases.
    How: At least 50% of meal cost (66% if you order off special menu) will be donated to the University District Food Bank

    All the best.

    Sincerely,

    Paul Yunker
    Development Director
    University District Food Bank

    >>

  • Where to get Startup Content

    So I’ll admit, content generation on AndyBoyer.com has been a little less than satisfactory lately.  One reason for this is the time I am enjoying being back at school.

    No, I’m not back for a new degree, but instead I’m teaching Marketing 555 at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.  And while I haven’t been able to post too much content here lately, I’m excited to point you to a resource that should please anyone who likes marketing and startups.

    I encourage you to take a quick peek over at the MKTG 555 Blog, where 60 of the brightest minds in Seattle are contributing their thoughts on startups, entrepreneurship and marketing, on a regular basis.  The blog boasts about 150 pieces of content now, so there’s surely something there to pique your interest.

    Not to fear, I’ll ramp back up the volume here soon, mostly thanks to Relaborate – which is almost ready for it’s public debut. But until then, feel free to check out the thoughts and ideas of Seattle’s future entrepreneurs.

  • Teen Feed

    Catherine has been volunteering for a little while with a group called Teen Feed.

    Now, for a little while there, I didn’t spend too much time thinking about what Catherine was up to. But I have had the great opportunity to volunteer with her a few times in the last few weeks, and want to relay a thought or two.

    It’s hard to find something much more disturbing than a room full of 18-25 year olds with no home, no food and a pretty hopeless outlook. If someone is 40, you can put some level of blame on them for being in the spot they are in. But it’s kind of hard to fault an 18 year old.

    For about $100-$150, a Teen Feed organizer puts together a menu and buys all the groceries for about 50-60 people. Anywhere between 4 and 8 volunteers take over a kitchen of a neighborhood church, and prepare the meal. The kids arrive at 7pm, and dinner ends promptly at 8pm.

    The kids who show up for the free food have no place to go, and in some cases no other food to eat. Some just spend the entire hour taking advantage of the heat and chairs they are allowed to rest in. But they are all polite, thankful, and just happy someone cares.

    I’m going to write more about this over the next few weeks. But I really want to commend the volunteers of Teen Feed, and urge you guys to consider Teen Feed when you are considering where to donate some of your time or money. In my mind, 18-25 year olds are still save-able. We should be working on ways to do that.

  • 3D Projection Mapping

    You have no idea how much I want to work on a project like this someday.

    Sony PS3 Video Store – Realtime Projection Mapping – Part2 from The Found Collective on Vimeo.

    Hot Wheels

  • The Magic of Saying Nothing

    Sometimes, you generate interest by simply not saying anything.  All it takes is one person to be excited about the unknown, and that excitement can spread.

    I don’t know anything about Wendr.  In fact, here’s everything I know:

    That’s my old friend from New Orleans, Marc Calamia, seeming to be excited about Wendr.  I clicked through and landed here:

     

    They’ve told me nothing.  No reason for me to join.  But also, no reason for me not to.  So naturally, I signed up.

    Sometimes we just want there to be more cool things, and we’re willing to give up an email address to hear about them.  Moral: Don’t underestimate the fact that people want to like things.

     

  • Mark Cuban’s 12 Secrets for Startups

    Mark Cuban is one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, starting Audionet at the beginning of the streaming media generation, turning it into Broadcast.com and then flipping it to Yahoo for a fortune. In this article,  he shares his 12 secrets for startup success.

    I think Mark’s most debatable comment is a combination of his first 2 points:

    1. Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love.
    2. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.

    Mark’s basically implying that if you go into a business idea with an exit in mind, you won’t have the passion to see the company through to that exit.

    Whether you agree with Mark or not, it is important to understand what people like him believe are the keys to building a successful startup. In most cases, entrepreneurs will be approaching people like Mark for venture capital. Understanding what they are looking for saves everyone a lot of time and improves the probability of raising those funds.

    If I had the chance, I’d ask Mark when he thinks it’s necessary to think about the exit. After all, at some point the Broadcast.com team had to consider how to turn their nice little business into the $6B exit it became. Who made the company make that pivot, and when did it happen?

    I’d suggest anyone considering a startup should read all of Mark’s 12 points. It’s a great summary on entrepreneurial Do’s and Dont’s.