Category: Personal (Page 12 of 47)

Well now I get to learn what it’s like to be called names on twitter by the uninformed.

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.

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.

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.

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

>>

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.

Interesting quote at the bottom of this article about Jorge Posada’s retirement:

“Swinging with pine tar on his hands, and without batting gloves, he was a five-time All-Star, caught David Wells’ perfect game in 1998, and played in 125 games in October. He is a borderline Hall of Fame candidate, but his legacy as a Yankee probably means more to him.”