Andy Boyer

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Category: Business (Page 7 of 24)

Ben Huh Discusses Laying Off 1/3 of His Team

July 9, 2013 /

An interesting article ran in Inc Magazine this week about Ben Huh and the layoffs at Cheezburger a while back, “How I Live With Myself After Firing a Third of My Employees.”

At first it looks like it’s been written by Huh. But I read it and it sounded nothing like how the charismatic CEO speaks. Then I noticed that it was “written by Liz Welch, as told to her by Ben Huh.”

This fact made have contributed to the piece sounding self-serving to some. In fact, there was a mini-debate in a Private Facebook group I belong to about this very subject. Some people found the article in very poor taste, suggesting Ben’s attitude seemed to be, “Well too bad for everyone I fired, I don’t feel bad at all.” Having met Ben several times in the Seattle start-up scene, it struck me that this didn’t seem like it would be Ben’s general attitude at all. Even the people who were neutral on Ben’s comments seemed to think the piece came across staged, edited or worse.

I want to give Ben the benefit of the doubt here, since he didn’t write the piece. So we don’t know what was lost in translation or incorrectly quoted by Welch. But I took away a few points:

  1. “We were profitable until we took VC investment” = Don’t just spend money because you have money in the bank. You still have to make smart decisions.
  2. “The Board did not ask for this, it was my decision” = As CEO, you have to think about the 42 people you are keeping just as much as the 24 you let go. I made the mistake of growing too fast, I’ll take the blame.
  3. “To mitigate the risk of a leak, I called John Cook” = The info will get out anyway, so unless you want one of the folks who got laid off to pen an anonymous op-ed piece for Geekwire, call Geekwire first and give John the straight scoop.

What do you think about this article? Any comments? Was Ben wrong, or did the magazine just butcher the story?

Learning About Phoenix Jones, Super Hero

February 21, 2013 /

Phoenix JonesI’ll admit, I didn’t expect to like Phoenix Jones. I was excited to attend Sasha Pasulka’s Tech Show on Feb 20, but Jones was not the person I came to see.  I figured at best he’d be kind of uninteresting.  At worst, a complete joker. I was pleasantly surprised.

For example, I did not know that Jones actually wore the same body armor that our troops wear – and that he has been shot twice in that armor.  I also did not know that he works closely with Police, making sure he gathers evidence properly when he is at a crime scene.  Also, whenever a police officer orders him to stand down, he does exactly that.

Jones has an interesting stat in his corner.  Since he and his crew started patrolling, Police response times have improved – possibly to avoid the embarrassment of being beaten to the crime by a guy in a super hero costume.  Response times in Belltown on weekend nights were 29 minutes before Jones started his work.  How they are around 6.

You may not believe in vigilante justice.  But after hearing Phoenix Jones talk for 5 minutes, I believe the streets of Seattle are actually safer with him guarding them.

 

Jack Dorsey on User Narratives

September 22, 2012 /

It seems like such common sense when Dorsey says it, but too often, we start building products from the wrong perspective.  Dorsey reminds us that the product needs to be built based on a story of how each customer will use it.  Think about the products you regularly use, or places you regularly go, and see if there’s a simple story behind each one.

 

President Obama Hits Reddit

August 29, 2012 /

I’ve blasted the Obama 2012 team in the past for their relentless email spamming. So, I have to give credit to a little piece of brilliance that should go down in the campaign Hall of Fame.

While the Republicans are rallying their base in a conference center in Tampa, President Obama was holding court in the virtual world, hosting an AMA on Reddit. As of 3:00pm PDT the post had 17,378 points (62% like it), with 43,822 up votes 26,444 down votes. There were more than 12,000 comments.

It’s hard not to come away impressed that while the Republicans are involved in the “old way” of engaging people, Obama is leveraging the “new way” of reaching out to his base (and stealing eyeballs from them). The Republicans are kind of left without a way to fight back. If they put Romney on Reddit during the DNC, they’ll look like copy cats. If they don’t have Romney do a AMA, they look scared, like they don’t trust what he would say. That’s check and mate Democrats.

Meanwhile in Tampa, Google is reporting that they have received the most searches ever for the term “Reddit” from a single geographic area. (No, not really.)

Recapping Grow Conference 2012 (#GrowConf)

August 23, 2012 /

I love Vancouver. I think if you took the best things about Chicago and mixed them in with the best things from Seattle, then added in a touch of London for fun, you would end up with Vancouver. So, this report from Grow Conference 2012 is going to be tainted. It’s a great show, and if you read this blog, you are probably in the target market. So, I’ll try to limit it to the top 5 or 6 things I picked up there:

– Oh Canada! The country has a program where if you invest in a Canadian based startup, you can receive up to 50% of that investment back in tax credits.
– Oh Canada, part deux. There are a wealth of developers up here. Studies have found the AVERAGE Vancouver developer is stronger than the AVERAGE Silicon Valley dev. Now, they freely admit the TOP developers are in the Bay, but if you need competence, you can find it. Supply outweighs demand, so a decent dev comes in at $60-80k.
– The Canadian Angel scene is funny, because there’s a lot of money, but most of it was NOT made in tech. Tons of money in Calgary made by people in the oil and gas industry. Tons of money in Vancouver from the real estate industry. So lots of money sitting on the sidelines, bu the holders of that money don’t necessarily know how to invest in tech.
– I can’t explain exactly what made the Grow Conference more friendly than just about any other conference I’ve attended. There was pretty much no one that I talked to that I didn’t want to talk to. People were outgoing, lively and fun. It was probably the nicest – and maybe the smartest – mix of people I’ve attended a conference with.
– BTW, the train from Seattle to Vancouver is great. It’s about an hour longer than it should be, but a pretty easy way to make the trip and still be productive. Amazing views.
– From this point forward, I have a giant section of notes that I am keeping more private. Let your imagination wander. Email me if you want details.

Now if you want a play by play of all the speakers on Thursday, I suggest you head over the TechVibes Live Blog. It is a much better recap than what I could pull together for you.

If you get a chance, here are some companies I hope you will check out. I knew these guys before, but talking with their exec teams at lengths made me like them even more.
– Liquid Planner
– OfferUp
– 9Slides
– Freak’N Genius

Thanks to the folks at Geekwire for convincing me to go. Time well spent.

Pics to come.

A Quick Recap of Startup Riot Seattle

August 11, 2012 /

I took an afternoon this week to check out Startup Riot at the Sodo Showbox.  This was the second year the event was held in Seattle, and I’ll say both years I’ve had a great experience.  The event has some unique touches; sprinkled between the 30 3-minute pitches, are 2 keynotes, several networking opportunities, and a long lunch in which you can walk around and meet new people.

Rather than just recap the whole event, I took some notes on what start-up marketers could learn from some of the 30 presenters, both when pitching to customers, or investors.  Note, the majority of this post is also up at www.relaborate.com/blog.

—————-

It’s gutsy to take the plunge into the entrepreneurial waters.  It’s even scarier to get up in front of 250 people, explain your entire company in 4 slides and 3 minutes, and take 3 more minutes of grilling from some judges.

But that’s what 30 brave entrepreneurs did Wednesday at Startup Riot in Seattle.  To reward their courage, Startup Riot judge and keynote speaker Andrew Hyde asked everyone in the audience to blog about at least one of the companies.  Blogging – well that’s something we can do. So here are a few things we learned about marketing your company, from both the judges and the start-up CEO’s who took the stage.

1) Show your excitement in everything you do: More than once, the judges asked the entrepreneur, “Are you excited about this project?  If yes, then show us.  Prove to us with your passion that this project will work.” This means in every powerpoint, blog post and meeting you attend, make sure that your excitement for your idea is contagious.

2) What is your 5 second 1-liner?  Can you explain what you do in 5 seconds?  Cindy Wu described her company, Microryza, as “Kickstarter for Science.”  That’s easier to remember than, “We built a platform where people can fund scientific research, in an online market and where scientists can go and present their projects to try to receive funding.” Can you describe what you do in 5 seconds?

3) Prove you are the team to do it: Parend Paresh may be tackling an unsexy problem with VendScreen.  But, it is so obvious that they know what they’re talking about, I would invest in a heartbeat.  VendScreen is a touchpad that will be attached to vending machines and enable customers to pay for sodas or snacks by phone or credit card.  Neat idea maybe, but why will it work?  Well Parend explains his domain expertise, illustrates his partners’ domain expertise, and then tells a fact that all vending machines are going to be required by Federal law to put nutritional information somewhere on the outside of the machine.  The fact that he knows this obscure legislation demonstrates that he knows the market for vending technology, and knows how to capitalize on emerging trends.

4) Talk about your wins: iHearNetwork, led by Paul Simonds, is a startup with 3000 users.  Not only that, they have a 125 Daily Active Users and 250 Weekly Active Users.  Taskk, has 7000 users already in a totally different market, adding 2000 in the last month. When you are a startup, find a number that you can trumpet.  I don’t know if 3000 or 7000 users is a lot for the spaces these companies are in, but I wrote the numbers down. They sure sound good. And as one judge said to Placeling’s CEO, “If you aren’t bragging, you sound small.”

5) Show your product: Personify makes it easy for people to find social good opportunities and volunteer events.  They already have 500 users.  And yet through their presentation, they never showed us the product – which is actually quite lovely. People want to see that the product is live and working.  Don’t make them imagine what it will be like.  It’s too much work.  Show your product everywhere you can.  Your product is your story.

6) Explain the problem: Tim Hermanson of Arch started his presentation with a shot of a traffic jam.  He asked that since we all have these digital devices in our pockets, why couldn’t anyone, anytime, see something that was happening in a different location so that we could avoid these traffic jams.  If I was stuck in that traffic jam, why couldn’t I anonymously upload a photo from my location so others could see my pain and take another route?  With the problem framed in a simple scenario, I can now understand the solution. The product becomes real when there’s something I can identify with.

7) Understand your competitors: Shawn Burke of Crowd Picsell wasn’t just asked to name some competitors, judges wanted to understand what he did better then them.  If you are a customer, you want to know exactly what the benefits are of one company over the other.  Don’t make the customer guess. Be the best at something, and explain exactly what it is that makes you the best over all others.  It’s hard to lose when you are the best.

8) Tell a good, humanizing story: Jon Poland created Crowdegy, joining an already crowded survey space. But, he explained why his product would succeed by telling a story about his 5 year old. In his story, he shows his 5 year old how to use his product, and then the next day his 5 year old asks, “Daddy, can I play the dot game again today?” Jon got the point across: His product brings visualization to surveys, is fun enough to do over and over, and is so easy a 5 year old can do it.

There were a number of other startups to keep an eye on.  Check out the whole list at StartupRiot.com.  And if you were there, did you see any companies that stood out?

 

My Report From the Seattle Arena Town Hall Meeting

July 10, 2012 /

I couldn’t resist.  I needed to check out the Town Hall meeting to discuss the SODO Arena Proposal.  I had no idea what to expect.

The Town Hall was hosted by King County Councilmember Bob Ferguson, and Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien. I don’t have any previous knowledge of these two gentlemen, so I was able to enter this with an open mind.

  

In a word, the event was fascinating.  I now understand why so many dumb decisions get made in City Council.  You see, there are a lot of very old, very opinionated, very uninformed people who attend these meetings as a hobby.  They have the ear of the Councilmembers.  They ask questions  that are irrelevant, obtuse, confusing and just plain non-sensical. But they show up, and their voice gets heard over silent oppositon and common sense.

However, this Town Hall was filled with 150-200 Pro-Arena supporters (to go along with maybe 50-75 against).  And thanks to Sports Radio KJR, 710Sports.com, and SportsPressNW.com informing their listeners and readers with intelligent facts and data over the last few months, the Pro-Arena members of the crowd came across way more informed, way more intelligent and way more reasonable than those against it.  In some circumstances you expected the Anti-Arena person with the microphone to follow up with, “And how do we know they REALLY landed on the moon? Were you there to see it?”

That being said, it’s clear that while the arguments against the proposal aren’t 100% sound, they are loud enough to potentially kill the deal.  And with the Seattle Mariners, Seattle Times, and Port of Seattle working as hard as they can to stop it, you can’t just assume the deal will get passed because it makes sense.  There are clearly a lot of politics in the way. If you care at all, I urge you to attend the important meeting on July 19.

But I’m not an opinion writer and I’m not an expert on this subject. so I tried as best I could to transcribe the 26 questions that the crowd was able to ask Councilmembers Ferguson and O’Brien.  And I will say I was quite impressed with the two of them.  I thought they were reasonable, well informed and bright.

I captured the main points and tried to stay unbiased in my transcription.  I couldn’t keep track of which questions Ferguson was answering and which ones O’Brien was handling, so their replies are just mashed together.  Here are all the questions and answers they went thru in about 70 minutes, in order:

1. What is wrong with the Key Arena? Why would we build a new arena in an industrial area?
The Key Arena doesn’t work for NBA basketball.  It also doesn’t work for concerts. The proposal is to build a new arena in the stadium district. We do have to look at what effect that will have on our industrial area.

2. So is this deal for a stadium in SoDo or nothing?
For this proposal, yes. Chris Hansen has made it clear he’s not interested in building anywhere else.

3. Have the football and baseball stadiums worked out?
Yes (applause). However, we will have to ask, “Does the stadium reach a tipping point?”

4. Is 18,000 people at night a real traffic issue?
We’re analyzing. Independent reviews are being done to make decision based on data.

5. I’m not a sports fan, but why can’t you use the same footprint of the KeyArena?  We could bore straight down and dig out the ground and go as deep as you wanted to. (Crowd: murmurs and disbelief)
People at city have looked at this.  Not viable according to experts. I’m not an expert so I will have to rely on what the experts say.

6. Initiative I-91 passed to make sure we have no new taxes on sports arenas.  Also, how will you backfill the lack of events at Key Arena if a new arena is built?
The City operates Key Arena at break even.  We already wonder how long we will be able to continue to do so without giant improvements.  We don’t have a plan to support those kind of improvements.  This arena plan is also to support Key Arena.  If Seattle is awarded an NBA team, it would need to play for 3 years in an improved Key Arena while new arena is being built.  Mr. Hansen has committed to making improvements to Key Arena in this case, and those improvements would remain after the team moved to the new arena.

7. How can you submit to this kind of blackmail from a private property owner when the Port of Seattle is so important to us? (Crowd venomously boos this older woman.)
I hear your point on port.  This is not blackmail, its a choice.  Reasonable minds can disagree.  The Port’s point is important.  Reviews will be done, traffic and economic impacts. This isn’t an either/ or situation.  We are hoping to get data to figure out how to make it additive.

8. I am a Building trades member. I’ve heard that port will stay quiet if they get their overpass built. It’s them doing the blackmailing.  (applause)
We are all working on the (Lander St.) overpass issue.  It would cost $200m to build.  Mr. Hansen understandably doesn’t want to pay for it. If the Lander St overpass is most important issue, we will look at it. Impact of construction jobs can’t be understated.

9. Can you walk us thru the legal process of the MOU because it suddenly appeared without the knowledge of the public.
2 execs worked with Mr. Hansen and the Council was aware of what was going on. This wasn’t a backroom deal.  The Mayor and the County Exec have the authority to work on this without a committee.  That’s why we elect Execs.

10. A) Can we stop talking about Key Arena? (applause).  B) As someone who lost a job, I understand why the port complained. But traffic studies show there’s no traffic after 4pm.  Why isn’t the port on board with this?
There can be collaboration.  Disagreements now can be healthy and there may be chance to make changes.  Collaboration is taking place.

11. Has anyone seen any data from anywhere that backs up the Port’s claim that jobs would be lost?
(Raucous applause from crowd) No answer. (Note: Every time this question was asked, the Councilmembers tippy-toed around the obvious answer they didn’t want to say out loud.  That answer is – No, there is no data.  The Port is currently scrambling to pull together a report.  According to a source I trust, the port is not exactly nimble, so getting a study together at this kind of pace is causing them all kinds of hassle.)

12. In economic terms the Key Arena is sunk cost.  Key arena can make $1, new arena can make $2 .  Key arena is an asset now.  That property can be made into anything now. But this issue should go away. (No question asked)

13.  The Martin report says east side of port will be rendered useless. (No question asked)

14. How will you protect jobs of current Key Arena employees?
We have to look at how the deal will be set up.  We will look into ways that this is not something that would hurt Key Arena employees.  It makes sense to give Key Arena employees first shot at jobs at new arena.

15. A Sports palace should fund itself.  When the UW wanted us to build them a Sports Palace we voted it down and they got it built with tax dollars anyway. (Note: That statement was incorrect. The UW raised the money themselves.) We shouldn’t raise taxes to build a new sports palace.  When the Panama Canal is expanded, 1/2 the Port’s traffic will disappear.
There should be no absolutes on these issues.  This isn’t a tax it’s a bonding issue. (Note: No one seemed to understand the Panama Canal reference.)

16. Where does the NHL fit in? What are the safeguards if we don’t get an NHL team?
It’s not accurate to say that the arena deal needs the NHL.  Mr. Hansen is focused on NBA. Potential comes down road for NHL. Likely that in the 3 years of arena being built they would pursue a NHL team.

17. Please raise hands because our elderly friends are raising theirs better than us…..  It seems clear that the port is blackmailing us.  They say the arena will cost 100,000 jobs.  Where are they getting these facts?
We shouldn’t speak negatively about port, by insinuating they are blackmailing anyone.  The decision should be grounded in real data. We’re asking for this analysis and won’t consider a deal without seeing this data.

18. Note: Jason Rubenstein then brought the house down with a fantastic monologue filled with facts, figures and emotion that came so fast an furious I couldn’t keep up.  Well done, Jason.  Well done indeed.

19.  I’m hoping the council will consider what jobs will look like in the future arena. I don’t want to lose my family wage job in Key Arena.
The MOU states that jobs in new arena will be family wage jobs. No one is looking to outsource low wage contractors to replace current Key Arena employees.

20. The seawall repair will go to vote in November.  The Kingdome was a perfectly good building  (Crowd laughs in hysterics).  If the seawall needs to go to a public vote, why can the council make the decision on the arena?  After all, a seawall is a necessity, and a stadium is not. (Note: this man was 85 years old, so I don’t want to bash him too hard on the Kingdome comment.)
The Council can issue bonds, which are funds we need to pay back in some way. There’s no revenue model to pay back seawall bonds, so we have to raise taxes to pay it back.  Thus, it has to go to vote. Arena bonds are not reliant on taxes. Now, we do need to make sure we have the security to cover the bonds, but we don’t need tax dollars to pay them back.

21. Is the city evaluating the revenue the right way? The I-91 issue.
Onsite revenues and land value issues are hard to forecast. (I’ll admit I got a little confused at the response.)

22. Port of Seattle is responsible for 194k jobs. They are the widening Panama Canal.  I’m concerned about traffic.
(Note: Both the Councilmembers were perplexed by the non-question / unclear point the person was trying to make here, so they ignored it and moved on. It appears people against the arena are really concerned about this Panama Canal issue.)

23. The Stadium district is in the most transit rich area in the Pacific NW, and the perfect place to move people in and out of a stadium WITHOUT THEIR CARS. What’s the hangup here? (applause)
Relatively few people take mass transit to sporting events. While there is good transit, there will be 6000 cars going to games.  We need to examine the issue carefully.

24. The NBA didn’t treat us well.  How much money does the NBA have and why can’t they put the money up for a new arena?
If you are asking why the NBA won’t build an arena for us, well, that issue really isn’t on the table.  I opposed the last arena deal because all residents of King County would be paying taxes.  This deal is different.  We have plenty of private-public projects. I don’t take absolutes.  I don’t believe there can’t be public involvement in an arena.  There is a significant investment from private citizens in this deal. I am sympathetic to public investment, but there is city by city competition across the country and public investment in stadiums is part of that.  There are things to work on.

25. I live in West Seattle. There is so much construction these days. I can’t get home when I want to. Is a stadium the only thing that can go into the stadium district? Why can’t the stadium go in the Rainier Valley?
This deal is for an arena in the stadium district.  That’s the only place being considered in this proposal.

26. Why is deal different for one team (NBA only) than two teams (NBA and NHL)?
The ownership group is shooting for 2 teams. If they only get one team, then the city and council are only willing to put $125MM in bonds up, not $200MM. We’re hoping to get a win-win here.

 

Was anyone else there to check it out? Would love to get your slant.

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.

The Magic of Saying Nothing

January 13, 2012 /

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.

 

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