Author Archives: Andy Boyer

Fudzilla Stakes Entire Reputation on the Line With Bold Microsoft Prediction

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

A Tech blog called Fudzilla announced on December 30, that Micosoft will be laying off 17% of its workforce, which comes out to be about 15,000 people.

Now, this is interesting because they don’t use the terms “speculate” “”could”, “might” or “possibly” to describe the layoff.  The exact quote is “The rumor that Microsoft was set to lay off people on January 15th, 2009 is no longer a rumor but a fact. Staff at Microsoft have been informed that the company is readying major layoffs to its worldwide operations and it’s not a small cut, either.”

Meanwhile Henry Blodget of Silicon Valley Insider Reporter reports today that Fudzilla is just that, full of Fud.  He says “A cut of this magnitude seems highly unlikely, although the targeted areas do make sense.”

I don’t know much about Fudzilla, but I do know Henry Blodget is on the speed dial of every person in Microsoft PR.  So it’s liekly that Blodget is repeating something he’s been told.  Either Blodget is lying, is being lied to, or Fudzilla received some faulty info.  

On Jan 22, we’ll see who is closer to the truth, the blog that originally broke a story, or a reporter breifed by a PR team.  Should be interesting.

9 Not Well thought Out Predictions for 2009

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

In no particular order…

1) Facebook will start charging $10 – $20 a year for company Pages, and no one will mind. Every small business has to pay $10 a year plus hosting for a web url, why shouldn’t they pay a yearly fee for a Facebook one?  Other companies like YouTube, MySpace and Twitter will attempt to follow suit.

2) Seattle sports:

  • Mariners’ youth movement is fun yet painful to watch.  Bedard and Washburn are moved to contenders in spring.
  • Since the Bidwill family owns the Cardinals, they make a huge off-season mistake and plunge themselves back to the NFC West cellar.
  • The Seahawks meanwhile make a brilliant off-season acquisition, and climb back through a weak division to 9-7 and the NFC West title.
  • UW football beats UCLA and guarantees Steve Sarkezian “hero status” for a year.

3) Layoffs at WAMU, Microsoft, Starbucks and other large companies create two phenomena:

  • A greater number of qualified, highly educated, intelligent, white collar professionals than ever apply for teaching credentials.  The Teacher’s Union immediately works to figure out a way to stop this from happening.
  • With a lack of full-time jobs and everyone fearful of the stock market, people turn to entrepreneurship, opening coffee stands, noodle trucks, photography studios and more.

4) Some state goes nearly bankrupt, and teachers and public workers get paid in IOU’s so that there is cash for welfare and unemployment checks.  This finally makes a segment of the voting population ask if things are out of whack.

5) New industries asking for government bailouts:

  • Ski Industry:  If Global warming is real, and the US is responsibile for Global warming, then the US government should pay reparations to the US ski industry for screwing up their climate.
  • Major League Baseball Players Association:  They’ve never needed a reason before, so they’ll ask for the fun of it.  And threaten to strike if they don’t get it.
  • Green Technology:  Anyone who invested in a green company, bought a green car or acquired a green investment fund when gas was $5.00 a gallon now wants money back, blaming the US foreign policies for bringing prices back down to a reasonable level.

6) In a change, a number of ordinary line workers employed by the UAW are caught in an expose detailing some sort of extravagance.  Since its not an executive scandal, but ordinary workers living lavishly on tax payer money, we see a huge backlash toward more bailouts.

7) A perfect storm of rising dollar and great airline deals make it cheap to travel to Europe – cheaper even than Asia.  Tourism booms to Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania.

8) With oil at $40 a barrel, this ridiculous winning streak the state of Oklahoma is on finally comes to an end.  Florida 59, Oklahoma 35. 

9) Thanks to the Sonics debacle and the host of other circus events coing from City Hall, people actually CARE about City Council elections this year, and a highly qualified pool of moderates and business people come in to take some of the spots. 

Got any predictions of your own?  Put them in the comments section below.  Happy New Year.

Happy Holidays

Posted by Andy Boyer in Creative Writing, Personal

Dear Santa:

This year I would like an additional 15 hours a month.  I certainly think it’s a reasonable ask, since if you would just give me an extra 1/2 hour a day, I could really do a lot more for mankind.

First off, I’d write on this blog more often, and while that doesn’t seem like it’s really going to benefit society that much, follow me on this.  If I write more, more people will continue to read.  And if more people read this, I’ll feel better when I look at the traffic numbers.  And if I feel better after looking at the traffic numbers, I’ll be less grouchy at the end of the week.  And if I’m less grouchy, I’ll be able to spread that joy to all your loyal subjects, or customers, or whatever you call them.

Now before you say no, hear me out.  Because I don’t need all 15 hours to write.  So, I’ll make you a deal.  Give me 5 to write, I’ll donate 5 to charitable causes, and give me 5 more to deal with work stuff – not the boring work stuff – but helping employees and clients to make sure they are all in a good mood too.  So then, that 5 hours you give me would pay itself forward to a lot of people, and then they’d all be in a better mood too.  It’s really a sound investment on your part.

This isn’t a whim, and I have the logistics all figured out.  With the exception of one weekend in Las Vegas that really shouldn’t count, I have not been awake between 4:30 and 5:00am for a long time.  So, all you need to do is let me repeat that 1/2 hour every day, which would then give me an extra 1/2 hour of sleep.  So, instead of my normal bedtime, I’ll go to bed 1/2 hour later, since I know I’ll get it back.  See, the plan’s simplicty is it’s greatest attribute.

So look, have one of your guys run the numbers on this, because I think you’ll see this is a win-win-win Xmas present.  More content on the blog, more smiles from the author, more smiles from everyone 2 degrees away, plus a healthy benefit for a charity (you can even choose the charity.)  It sure beats a BB Gun.  Let me know what you think.

Yours Truly,

Andy

If the Snow Didn’t Convince You…

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Social Media

Widespread economic panic, destruction of everyone’s retirement accounts, home prices through the floor, a holiday snowstorm paralyzing the country, and David Hasselhoff singing the national anthem at a bowl game.  If this wasn’t enough to convince you that the world is off its rocker, I bring you the Shorty Awards.

Thankfully, this is not a reference to the Hip Hop community’s favorite groupies.  But it is a ceremony for the best “Twitterers.”  Yes, if you can constantly come up with 140 characters of witty banter, you can be nominated.

So far I see Darth Vader and Peggy Olsen (pretending to be the Peggy Olsen from Mad Men) are nominated, along with many of the old Web 2.0 stand-bys that you’d expect to see nominating each other.  If you’ve never used Twitter, this might be a place to see what all the short-form hubbub is about.

Reporters vs PR Firms vs Blogs – The Battle Heats Up

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Social Media

I’ll make a few updates to this post as I think more clearly about it.  But aninteresting debate has erupted over at Techcrunch, where Michael Arrington has declared he will no longer adhere to embargoes (except from a few people he likes.) Furthermore, he has called out a 43 year PR executive in a follow up article, calling her an excessive spammer.

This argument is funny on a few different levels.  First of all, it’s pretty amazing to think that a blog no one had heard of 4 years ago now has the guts to tell the entir PR community that they will no longer play by the rules that the New York Times, Time Magazine, WSJ, and People Magazine have played by for the last 60-70 years.  

Second, for all of Arrington’s vitriol toward PR firms, there’s irony that he will only review companies that are on his own PR “A” List.  Techcrunch started as a blog that promoted new start-ups.  Over the years, as they began getting more invites to more high class events, their focus shifted to Apple, MSFT, Google and companies that are one degree away from the top rung of Silicon Valley VC’s and power brokers.  A few years ago, I did some work for a start-up whose CEO worked tirelessly to get Arrington’s attention. Understanding how the Techcrunch ego worked, he actually underwent a 12 month PR campaign to build the right connnections to get one degree away from Arrington’s circle.  The plan worked, and now he has access to him.  Same guy, same intelligence, same social circle, but now that Arrington sees him as a connected influencer, now he’ll open his emails.

I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.  It’s the way the world works – you naturally stop dealing with small fish when big fish are jumping on your hook.  But when you are working with the big fish, you shouldn’t start screaming and yelling at both big and small fish about which way they should attach themselves to your hook.

But on to anoher point.  The reason we are in this mess now, is that at some point reporters stopped being “reporters” and started being “relayers.”  years ago, a few PR firms figured out that a reporter could spend more time in a bar if the PR firm did the research, wrote the aricle, provided the photos and listed contact information if the reporter wnated to add his or her own sentence to the piece.  These PR firms started getting companies placed.  Pretty soon, all the PR firms started doing this, and reporters stopped looking for stories, and hired assistants to sort through the pitches.  Now comes the internet, and while it used to take a bunch of $.32 stamps to send out a pitch, one email can blast out to 10,000 reporters.  The reporters have created this mess where you have to send your relase to everyone, because everyone is sending everyone the release.  And no reporter is actively doing any research themselves.

So my synopsis is that PR firms should keep spamming the heck out of reporters until reporters start chasing stories themselves.  if they are just going to sit back and regurgitate releases, they should expect to get 1000’s of pitches.

(I’ll think about htis more and see if I still agree with it later…)  

Defending the Bowl System – To a Point

Posted by Andy Boyer in Sports

This post may sound blasphemous, but I’ve slightly re-thought my views on the College Bowl system.  I like the Bowls. Now, I still think the BCS is insane, but I’m going to defend the other 74 or 75 bowl games.

What was the catalyst?  Simply, Arizona was good this year.  Now I know Arizona will never win the national championship in football.  I’m not greedy – I’ll take the 25 straight trips to March Madness and sacrifice a chance to compete with Oklahoma, Texas, LSU and USC for football’s top prize.  

But this year, when Arizona was 6-3 with 3 games to play, I was hooked trying to figure out which game they would go to.  I prayed not the Sun Bowl or Hawaii.  But San Francisco, San Diego and Las Vegas all seemed like a great place to spend a weekend.

So now a number of my friends who can get a hall pass for a bowl game, but not a regular weekend, will all meet up in Las Vegas 5 days before Xmas.  If college football had a 32 team playoff, I wouldn’t care about the game. I certainly wouldn’t travel to Vegas to see them get stomped by Alabama.  But I’m excited about the chance that they could end the year with a win over BYU in one of the lesser Bowls.

Then next year, who knows?  Do they get better and get to San Diego?  Or worse and fall out of the system again.  But the chance for a Bowl certainly kept me watching college football this year, and will probably keep me interested in next year too.