Andy Boyer

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Author: Andy (Page 24 of 29)

EURO 2012 Predictions – A Political View

June 2, 2012 /

So I may change these in the coming week, but here are my early thoughts and predictions for Euro 2012, based on no actual knowledge of international soccer, but completely relying on what I believe about FIFA and global politics.

Group A: Poland, Greece, Russia, Czech Republic
FIFA has shown in the past that they’ll do whatever they can do put a home side in the semi-finals of the World Cup (See South Korea v Italy 2002). But that was FIFA’s way to open up the Asian market. Poland’s not Asia, and FIFA already got what they needed from them. Meanwhile, Greece has done enough to annoy everyone in Europe that no one needs to put a fix in – the European refs will take care of it on their own. Russia actually HAS money, and has shown they like to pour it into European teams and drive up the prices of the EPL stars. Russia wins the group, Czech Republic slips in because someone messed up and put them in Group A by accident.

Group B: Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Portugal
The Dutch never lose in the first 3 games. I don’t know why, but they don’t. Denmark could play spoiler in most groups, but the Dutch don’t lose, and Germany doesn’t choke. If the Danes surprise anyone, they surprise Portugal and this becomes an anti-climatic group in which Germany and the Netherlands half-heartedly care who finish 1st / 2nd, until Germany realizes that winning the group sets up a sweet run to the final and turns it on in the last 10 minutes. If the Danes go down to Portugal, then Ronaldo has to lead his squad over Germany to advance in what becomes one of the best 3 games of the preliminary round. I’m trying to remember a game when Ronaldo has done that before. Germany wins, Netherlands second.

Group C: Spain, Italy, Ireland, Croatia
Poor Ireland. They get screwed out of World Cup 2010, and now see Spain in the First round of Euro. It’s obvious some drunk Irish guy did something to some FIFA muckety-muck and they are doomed forever. Ireland goes 0-3. Spain is undoubtedly the best team in the world, so as such, they’ll do something dumb, like lose to Croatia. The Italians always seem to have some crazy choke game. Plus, it’s coming out that the entire Serie A is basically fixed by the refs. The only organization stronger (and more corrupt) than the Italian Mafia is FIFA. FIFA flexes its muscles and suddenly Croatia finishes second, or even wins the group while Spain settles in the other slot.

Group D: France, England, Ukraine, Sweden
France was an embarrassment in World Cup 2010. Simply a farce. They will think that FIFA will let them waltz in to Euro with an attitude of, “Quoi? 2010? Ah, we will fuhget abooot that. Zat was sooooo long ago. We are all friends now. Viva La France!” They will be wrong. The worst call of the tournament will go against France. It will be such a bad call, we will begin referring to such calls officially as, “Getting Henry-ed.” That leaves England as the traditional powerhouse. And when I say powerhouse, I mean, “powerhouse in the minds of their fans.” They will stutter and stumble and make it to the next round, because that is what they always do. So the last spot comes down to Sweden vs the Ukraine. Winner take all. I can’t remember if Russia still hates the Ukraine. I think they do, which is a knock against them. Meanwhile, Sweden isn’t part if the Euro, and will be the only country in Europe with any money in the next decade. FIFA likes money. Sweden wins.

Quarter-finals:
(A1) Russia vs (B2) Netherlands: Logic dictates Netherlands win this game. But the good mafia money says Russia. Bayern Munich inexplicably lost to Russian owned Chelsea in the Champions League Final. Que the encore. Russia wins.

(A2) Czech Republic vs (B1) Germany: Czech Republic is not advancing past this round. Germany gets another easy win.

(C1) Spain vs (D2) Sweden: Spain brings it’s junior team, and their ball boy gets to play in the 85th minute. Spain advances.

(C2) Croatia vs (D1) England: All logic says this is England’s game to lose. Which they do, because they are England. Somehow John Terry is involved. After the game, Rooney gets asked about Terry and replies, “Seriously, the guy is the biggest wanker I’ve ever met.”

Semi-finals:
Spain vs Russia: You will know how badly FIFA is corrupt by who refs this game. If you have a game where Russian players are allowed to beat the hell out of the softer Spaniards, then Spain curls up into a ball and Russia guts out a 1-0 win. If it’s a fairly officiated game, Spain waltzes.

Germany vs Croatia: Croatia has no business making it this far. Clock strikes midnight.

Finals:
So if all lines up, we have Germany vs Spain. Can Spain repeat their World Cup run?
Soccer wise: Spain should win. Fan wise: Spain should win. Politically: Europe needs Germany. It’s a close call. In an upset, Germany avenges their club Champions League loss, and wins their first major cup in 16 years.

And that is probably the worst set of EURO 2012 predictions you will ever see.

“First, Ten”

May 31, 2012 /

Old Seth Godin quote that I recently was reminded of:

“First, ten. This, in two words, is the secret of the new marketing. Find ten people. Ten people who trust you/respect you/need you/listen to you…Those ten people need what you have to sell, or want it. And if they love it, you win. If they love it, they’ll each find you ten more people (or a hundred or a thousand or, perhaps, just three). Repeat.”

If I Was The NFL Pro Bowl Director

May 17, 2012 /

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything here.   If only there was a tool that helped people write coherent blog posts…

Well no one asked me, but here’s what I would do if I had to make something out of the NFL Pro Bowl.  Keep in mind the following items:

  • The game is atrocious
  • The NFL needs it as a way to spiff their advertisers
  • Players dig the Pro Bowl because they get bonuses for making the team
  • The game now happens on that dead Sunday between the Championship games and Super Bowl.

So here’s my dumb idea.

High Level: Make the Pro Bowl a week long television extravaganza featuring all the TV shows on the network hosting the game.  Send the producers of all that network’s shows (that make sense) over to Hawaii to film programs that feature Pro Bowl players.  Heck, you can even create shows.

Let’s say that CBS was televising the Super Bowl.  Without doing too much thinking you could have some sort of episode of:

  • Amazing Race, where a bunch of sets of teammates are competing or players get teamed with a regular person.
  • A Survivor spin off
  • A live “taping” of one or two of their sitcoms
  • Plus Pro Bowl specific hows such as a Jeopardy like game show with Linemen vs Quarterbacks. a “teammate” version of the Newlywed game,  skills competitions, etc…

All of these shows could involve Joe Fan, and reach a cross over audience.  But here’s the kicker: You get to charge new advertising dollars for NFL related shows.  Super Bowl sponsors would have more ways to extend their Super Bowl buy into earlier in the week, and companies who can’t afford Super Bowl ads would have a way to invest marketing money into the game.

And really, I don’t really care what they do with the game.  You could still play it, but instead of 3 straight hours of dreadful football, you’d have mini-bites of content from some of the shows that just aired, and some that are going to air that week.

This is a kernel of an idea, not a well thought out plan.  Would love to get your thoughts.

The Reach of a Tweet

May 1, 2012 /

So I work in social media.  I teach some social media.  I play around in some social media channels.  I own a blog with my own name as its url simply so I show up in Google searches.  Through all these years playing around in social media as a profession, I’ve never really made it a huge focus of my personal life.  Maybe I’ll make a connection here or there.  But nothing substantial.

And yet today, a simple tweet seemed to strike a chord with people.

All day long Occupy Seattle mayhem shut down streets downtown.  People couldn’t get home from work.  Rogue anarchists broke windows.  Children couldn’t be picked up from school.  Store clerks feared for their safety.  Middle class parents – and their bosses – had to figure out what was best for their kids, their businesses and their co-workers.

I was unaffected by the chaos despite being right around the corner from it.  I took my wife home from her surgery but thought to myself, “Thank God this mayhem didn’t affect us getting to the hospital, or home from it.” I tried to rid my mind of thoughts of how angry I would be if I was stuck in traffic due to a protest, while my wife sat groggily in pain in the passenger seat of our car.

I scanned the Twitter stream and noticed that people who supported OWS had lost patience with OccupySeattle.  OccupySeattle wasn’t about a revolution anymore.  What started with good intentions but no real purpose, had transformed into an incubator for people with negative intentions and directed purpose. The movement had created a dark side, or at least allowed the dark side to breed.

And so I said:

Dear #OccupySeattle. The 99% has gotten together & decided we need better representation. Thx for the effort.  Good luck w/ future endeavors.”

It was exactly 140 characters.  My point was pretty clear.  Whatever goodwill the original Occupy movement had generated had been pretty much decimated here in Seattle.  The most liberal town in America was saying, “WTF are you guys doing? You are totally destroying this.”

Meanwhile,  my most nagging thought as I hit “Tweet this” was whether I should be using “has” or “have” for the verb.  I was out of characters, so I went with the former. It was a quick line, and after I sent it, I had all but forgotten about it.

A few hours later, it’s become the most retweeted thing I’ve ever sent out. For the first time ever, I started trending in Seattle.  People we retweeting this because they agreed with the sentiment.  And yet two tweets back at me stand out:

To the 1st repsonse I counter, “I agree. To the normal everyday 99%, the rogue hooligans have nothing to do with OWS.  However, Occupy Seattle has little to do with OWS as well.  Somehow OccupySeattle has developed an identity of its own, and not in a good way.”

The 2nd response made me realize I had struck a nerve with some folks.  I run a small business, invest in a startup and teach at a University.  I enjoy creating commerce and inspiring others to do the same.  More commerce means more transactions.  More transactions means more jobs.  More jobs means more wealth for everyone.  But to this person, I was simply “snarky.”  Trying to build small businesses and encouraging entrepreneurship isn’t enough. I’m evil because I don’t want to join or represent a revolution with no goal or purpose.

It will be interesting to see if this tweet fades away into the night as May Day passes.  Maybe more and more people will agree with the sentiment and retweet it.  Or, will we see more of the negative side of #OccupySeattle come out tomorrow.   Either way, it’s a great social media lesson in progress.

Why Doesn’t Google Buy Delicious?

April 15, 2012 /

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

April 9, 2012 /

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.

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