If you are looking for a fun way to spend a Wednesday evening, and especially if you are a Washington alum, come on down to the Douglas Forum at UW for an event focused on Social Media. Here’s the Facebook link.
I’ll be lucky enough to moderate this great panel:
– Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz.org
– Gary Kamikawa, VP Mktg, Mpire.com
– Justin Marshall, Social Media Architect, Zaaz
– Jessica Michaels, Group Media Director, Wunderman
The event runs from 6:00 – 7:30pm and is free.
Something must have been in the air this weekend. Because as Barack Obama was sweeping through the caucuses, two UW MBA Teams were busy shouting "Yes We Can" as well.
Down in California, the UW VCIC Team brought pride back to the program with a win in the Regional Championship. The team now preps for the International Competition in Chapel Hill, NC. The UW has won this event twice, back in 2004 and of course in the "dynasty" year of 2006 🙂
A mere 3000 miles away in Winston-Salem, NC, the UW won the Wake Forest Marketing Case Competition. This was the first win for the school, after a 2nd place finish in 2006 and 3rd place in 2007.
Aside from the pride and satisfaction these wins bring, the students also win cash, so now’s the time to hit them up for the bar tab. But more importantly, what is now a 5th year of success in VCIC and a 3rd year at Wake Forest, proves to be real proof that a foundation for success has been effectively laid. These aren’t "flash in the pan" single wins. The school is now establishing constant success at these regional and national events. And that is something the faculty, alumni, the Seattle community and current students can really take joint credit in.
Congratulations, all.
In the very early days of PC Casual games, you had to buy everything you wanted to try. But once the internet hit, and you could try out demo versions of the games for free, the market absolutely exploded.
Well, I think we’ve finally reached that moment in Mobile Games, thanks to our friends at Movaya. Here is their latest release:
The Movaya team is excited to announce the beta release of Movaya TryNBuy: the first off-deck, cross-carrier try-before-you-buy system for mobile game sales in the US.
Movaya TryNBuy is a patent pending licensing system that allows consumers to download games over-the-air to their mobile devices and try games on their handset. Upon purchase, the games are unlocked.
Try-before-you-buy was a major driver in the huge growth of casual games on the desktop and now Movaya is bringing this to the mobile marketplace.
Movaya TryNBuy is configurable on multiple levels including length of play, and number of plays.
Movaya TryNBuy is now available online at www.bustedthumbs.com and will be rolled out to Movaya’s publisher and merchant network over the coming weeks.
To get more information on Movaya TryNBuy, please visit our website.
So, I would love to go into detail about the NFL Experience, a giant travelling tradeshow attached to Super Bowl 42. And so I slogged out the 30 miles to God forsaken Glendale to file a report at 1:00pm on Friday.
However, much to my chagrin, the NFL didn’t have an experience for the public from 1:00 to 3:00pm. During those hour, it’s only experience is for season ticket holders and special guests. Since I had already burned a half day and $10 in parking, I gamely decided to see what else the NFL had for me.
Unfortunately, the only experience I was allowed, was Westgate Center.
Now I need to properly frame Glendale Stadium. And I think the best way to do this is to weave in a popular conspiracy theory. You see, 10 years ago there was this giant expanse of desert wasteland far west of Phoenix. The conspiracy theory is that a bunch of rich guys bought up this worthless property. Then, for some unexplained reason, a highway was built through this wasteland, a giant loop that ran around Phoenix, from I-10, all the way around the city and back to I-10 on the other side. Shortly thereafter, legislators decided all this open land with this convenient highway would be an ideal place for a new sports stadium. And since the stadium was so far removed from ANYTHING, the natural solution was to build a hockey arena as well, and build up the property around the stadium with hotels, bars, restaurants, condos and shops.So if you google Glendale, what you will see is 2 huge stadiums, a shopping mall, and then acres of empty land in all directions. Desert wasteland which is now worth a fortune.
But I digress.
Now I’m out amongst the cacti and my only option is to go hang out by the shopping mall and hope for the best. To be fair, Westgate is pretty cool if you are looking for a place to grab food and drink before a game. All the standard chain bars are there (Margaritaville, Bar Louie, Fox Sports, etc….)
But this really re-iterated the point that at Super Bowl Weekend, you need VIP or Insider Status if you want to do anything cool. Sure, they have parkinglot exhibits and stuff liek that, but without any kind of priority access, you are really getting about 10% of the total experience. That’s not a lament or complaint, just a realization. And now that I think about it, I kind of remember things like the NBA and MLB All-Star Game being the same way (but I had the access then, so I didn’t care…)
So, no great report from NFL Experience. I heard secondhand stories that it was crowded, there was no food and the exhibits were so so. So, i probably lucked out.
I know, it’s supposed to be a political statement from Italian Anarchist Artist Graziano Cecchini, as “Every ball represents a lie told by a politician.” But imagine if every one of these had your company’s logo on it? Now that would be good PR.
I don’t usually do this, but I’m plugging a charity fundraiser a friend of mine is hosting for another friend of hers. The event benefits a guy who did not have health insurance, and suffered a pretty severe head injury. In a lot of ways, this is a unique fundraiser because you can actually see and meet the beneficiary of your generosity. Heck, you can probably choose which bill you want to pay. Here are the details:
Location: SodoPop – 2424 1st Avenue South, Seattle, WA US
Date: Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 8:00pm
Here’s a link to the evite. And here’s all the info you need to know:
Hey all! This evite is a two-for-one deal (1) Join us for a kickass party and (2) Support our dear friend Orion with some seriously steep medical bills.
The party: Killer bands. Stellar DJ’s. A charming MC to delight and entertain. Drinks. Dancing. Friends.
The background: Orion (whom you may know from such favorites as North Hill Bakery, The Hopvine, Uptown Espresso, or just being an all-around sweet and stand-up guy) took a really nasty spill on his bicycle, losing several teeth and fracturing some bones in his face. Without insurance…we’re talking about five-figure bills. No joke- add insult to injury, squared.
The benefit: Stunning art will be auctioned. Incredible gift certificates will be furiously bid upon. Drinks are hosted but all tips are donated to the cause, capiche? So bring your checks and your cash, dig deep into your pockets, and with only a $10 cover for the best party in town, everybody wins.
Please forward this evite, and we hope to see you there. If you must send your regrets, you could also consider sending $! Simply make a check out to "Relief for Teeth," and mail to our PO Box at:
Relief for Teeth
1463 E Republican
Mailbox B55
Seattle, WA 98112
We’re still nailing down the final date, but the Spring Creek Group will be giving a "Social Media 101" seminar in early March, as part of the curriculum at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle.
The presentation will have a lot of the same components as we’ve used as a social media agency in Seattle working with our own local and national clients, and will include some real hands-on lessons. It’s likely to be ideally suited for the small business owner or professional who wants to learn what all the fuss is about blogging, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and other social media tools. We’ll talk about some famous victories and mistakes, some basic do’s and don’ts as well as some "rules of the game." Then we’ll help everyone get launched.
More details to come from both this web site and www.SpringCreekGroup.com.
A new site (at least to me) for viral commercials has been brought to my attention. I think I like the site, called Dropkick Monkey, because it sounds like a band I would play guitar and bongos in (well, if I knew how to play guitar or had any percussion rhythm whatsoever). Nonetheless, when I can’t tell if something is a web site or a gig at the Showbox, then I will probably like it.
It’s basically just a site that shows great commercials from around the globe, but in terms of mindless diversions, that’s more than enough for me. And if you recognize the character highlighted in the commercial below, then you are indeed old enough to read my site.
I hesitate to write this article because I am pressed for time and really want to do a good job on this one. But the topic is starting to get stale, so I really need to bang it out.
You probably heard that the University of Washington fired Athletic Director Todd Turner this week. It was a mutual decision, but one in which the school will pay him close to half a million dollars a year to NOT come to work anymore, before his contract runs out sometime in 2009. (Someone please tell me how I can get one of these gigs.)
I’m not a rabid Dawg fan or anything, but I do find the scenario fascinating. Because two weeks ago, this same University made a somewhat controversial non-decision by not firing the football coach they already had. Then a week later, out of the blue, his boss got the axe instead. So I want to look at this from a pure business perspective, and analyze this as if the UW was a public corporation.
So, let’s call UW President Mark Emmert the corporation’s CEO. Let’s say the corporation has 3 major divisions – Athletics, Academics and Research. Todd Turner is the Exec VP of Athletics. Turner has a bunch of product groups under him, tasked with a number of brand categories. The Director of Football is Tyrone Willingham. Willingham has a bunch of Product Managers (his coaches) developing features (the players) for his overall product (the Football team).
Now for a few years now, the product has stunk. And the main reason the overall product has stunk is that the features have not been all that great. Willingham was brought in 3 years ago to improve the features and get a better product to market.
Now the shareholders (the alumni) have been getting restless. They are tired of Oregon and WSU developing better products than them. They are tired of their grandchildren wanting to buy WSU and Oregon products. And a few key shareholders have been hinting at investing their money somewhere else.
So the CEO does what every CEO should do. He asks his Exec VP – "What’s going wrong?" Turner replies, "The current features are already built so you can’t change them. The product managers are working hard, so they should keep their job. And the Director of Football is a great guy who’s really trying hard, so we need to keep him as well."
Now the CEO has a problem. His shareholders are revolting, and his Exec VP has just told him, "Hey man, everything is cool here. Everyone is really trying hard."
The CEO retreats into his office and thinks. "Well, if this is them trying HARD, what happens if they stop trying? And why doesn’t my Exec VP seem to care that we never hit our numbers? Our biggest product in his department is continuing to underachieve, and he’s not mad – in fact he his proud of his guys for trying hard!"
In this scenario, the firing of Todd Turner makes perfect sense. Really, CEO Emmert had no choice. Underperforming product, no punishment of the low levels of management and no promises of improvement. The axe had to fall at the top.
Now, college football has different timing than a corporation, but if you follow this analogy, I think it’s easy to imagine that the whole division is going to be "reorganized" sometime after the new boss gets in.
