Category Archives: Seattle

Remembering The Tuba Man

Posted by Andy Boyer in Seattle, Sports

To answer a question many Seattle fans have asked lately, “Yes, apparently it can get worse.”

Losing a lot of games is one thing.  But the inexplicable murder of a Seattle sports icon is just downright nauseating.

He was’t an athlete, owner or executive.  He never threw a picth or wrote a scathing article.  But chances are high that if you attended a Seattle sporting event, you passed Edward McMichael – though you only knew him as, “The Tuba Man.”

He was a harmless street musician who sat outside stadiums and played a rusty tuba.  You didn’t know he was a classically trained musician.  Sometimes you threw him a quarter, sometimes you didn’t, but you always noticed him.   But unlike some of the unsavory characters walking around that area, he was not someone you ever feared.  Instead, the people you usually do fear, packs of street thugs wandering aimlessly through the night, proved why you should stay frightened.

According to reports, 5 people described as “gang members” attacked the Tuba Man for no reason at about midnight on Oct 25..  They beat him mercilessly, and he died about a week later.  Speculation is that they did it to take whatever change he had in his tuba case. 

It’s senseless.  Horrific.  It makes me sick.  No one took the Tuba Man to another town, and he wasn’t arrested and sent to Walla Walla.  Stupid little punks beat him to death.  They’ve caught two of them, but three are still at large. 

There’s talk on some comment boards about erecting a statue of a Tuba in front of one of the stadiums.  I think it’s a fabulous idea.  I’ll donate.  

I never formally met the Tuba Man.  But it makes me sad that one more piece of Seattle history and tradition has suddenly disappeared.

Added Notes:

The PI reports that Ian Newhall and his wife, Ailisa, set up a Web site Tuesday to announce a brass memorial for McMichael.  It will be held outside McCaw Hall at 11 a.m. Saturday. The repertoire: Taps, Tequila and the University of Washington Fight Song.  

There is also a Memorial fund to help cover teh costs of the funeral.  If you want to help, you can visit any Bank of America branch, Box said, or send donations to:

Edward the Tuba Man McMichael Memorial Fund 
P.O. Box 4985 
Federal Way 98063

Bonanzle on KING 5 TV

Posted by Andy Boyer in Entrepreneurism, Marketing, Seattle

Frequent readers of this column may remember Bonanzle, a fun young company that you should check out if you are selling or buying things this holiday season.  

Most small companies believe they need huge expensive PR firms to get on local TV, but this story proves that an entusiastic customer base can bejust as  valuable for generating new PR opportunites

Check out this Bonanzle company profile produced by KING 5 this week.

 

5 Tips for Pitch Decks

Posted by Andy Boyer in Entrepreneurism, Marketing, Seattle

I’ve started reading the Seattle 2.0 blog a little more regularly, especially now that people that I know and am friends with seem to be writing the bylines on a fairly regular basis.  

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to add the site to my blogroll for a while.  And this article written by the Alliance of Angels’ Rebecca Lovell is a good reason to send people over to check out the site.   Let me know if you disagree with any of Rebecca’s points.  

A Loss for the Seattle Community

Posted by Andy Boyer in Seattle

Sad news spread quickly thorugh the Seattle business and technology world earlier this week.  Keith Grinstein, a successful lawyer, executive, entrepreneur and investor had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away of an apparent heart attack.

I only had the pleasure of meeting Keith a few times, but those meetings tell me a lot about what Seattle has lost.  The first time was around 2002, when Keith was the CEO of Coinstar and I was hosting a charity fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club, a panel discussion where we hoped successful executives would come speak to a crowd of 20-30 year olds about getting ahead.  I randomly sent an email to an address I found at his VC firm’s Web site, Second Avenue Partenrs, and invited him to be a panelist.  Within a day or two, I didn’t receive an email from his assistant, marketing person or PR handler explaining why he couldn’t make it.  I received a short response from him that said something like, “Sounds fun.  Just tell me when it is.”  He gladly gave up a few hours of one of his evenings to talk to about 100 young professionals, and raise a few bucks for the Boys and Gils club.

The other couple of times I met him were also around chraity events; I think a black tie auction and a Sonics related event that raised millions for Breast Cancer research.  I don’t know if he would have been abe to pick me out of a lineup, but he was funny, engaging and extremely interesting to talk to.

In addition to his success in the wireless world, the company he most recently ran, Coinstar, is the correct answer to the age-old interview question, “Tell me a company with a business model you admire.”  An executive of another company once told me that Coinstar was his favorite company, because as he put it, “The customer gives them a dollar, and they immediately give the customer 93 cents back.  No model beats that.”

Keith had a pretty lasting influence on me, and I only met him a few times.  I’m sure those that were close to him are feeling a gigantic loss, and my thoughts go out to them. 

Philanthropist, entrepreneur, Angel investor, successful executive, all around good guy – We could use more Keith Grinsteins out there, not one less.

Bonanzle Review – “The Best eBay Alternative We’ve Seen”

Posted by Andy Boyer in Achievement, Entrepreneurism, Marketing, Media, Seattle

Bonanzle, a young and exciting company we recently started working with, just received a fantastic review from Ecommerce-Guide.com.

An alternative to Craiglist and Ebay, Bonanzle is designed to make it easier for people to buy and sell products online.  Given the state and direction of the economy today, any way to make it easier to move used merchandise is positioned to do well.  Some choice quotes from the article:

“You get Bonanzle
— an eBay alternative that is quite simply, the best I’ve seen in my
four years of reviewing and writing about start-up marketplaces aimed
at taking sellers away from eBay.”

The Bonanzle platform was designed in-house from
the ground up, so not only does the site look very different from other
alternative sites, but this is the reason why the tools and features on
this site are so radically different.

The best way to experience Bonanzle is simply to log
on and try it. What you will find is that Harding and his team of
self-titled “action-minded experts” have managed to offer sellers more
features in this one site than any alternative to date, yet keep the
entire site and selling process simple, compact and super-easy to use.

Check out the whole article, and please Digg it or add it to Delicious if you would be so kind.

Seattle Craigslist Alternative

Posted by Andy Boyer in Entrepreneurism, Seattle

Seattle Craigslist is a favorite place for millions of people to buy and sell used items online.  As they say in their tagline, Seattle Craigslist “provides local classifieds and forums for jobs, housing, for sale, personals, services, local community, and events.”

 I’ve recently come across an alternative to Seattle Craigslist, at www.bonanzle.com.  (Full Disclosure – I like their idea so much, I am helping them with some marketing.)

While Seattle Craigslist is simply a text based classifieds section, Bonanzle is built on Ruby on Rails, and offers easy image upload, advanced communications between buyers and sellers, easier ways to create stores, and a host of other useful features.

So if you use Seattle Craigslist, and are looking for an alternative with more bells and whistles, check out Bonanzle, and let me know what you think.

Seattle Craigslist Alternative Bonanzle

Behind the Scenes at an Original Planning Meeting for the White River Amphitheatre

Posted by Andy Boyer in Personal, Seattle

I recently attended a show at the White River Amphitheatre.  I was curious how the thing was conceived, so I found some notes from an early planning meeting….

——————-

(Setting: Starbucks, 2001)

Melvin: Well, Tommy,
Carline, you say you have a proposal for the new outdoor concert venue?

Tommy: We do.  Can we show it to you now?

Melvin: Please do.

Carline:
Thanks.  We couldn’t get our printer to
work, but we sketched it out on these napkins.  Will that work?

Melvin: Perfect – not a
problem at all.

Tommy: So first off,
thanks for the opportunity.   We have
really thought about this a long time. 
And after careful review, we think we have the perfect location for a
concert arena marketed to Seattle citizens.

Carline: Yes, the
perfect spot is………..halfway between Auburn and Enumclaw.

Melvin:
I’m intrigued.  Please explain.

Tommy:  Well you see, Seattleites never go to Auburn
or Enumclaw.  They have this impression
that it is either too rural, or too far away. 
By forcing people to attend shows down there, we will raise the profile
of these vibrant towns.

Melvin: I see.  Now, I’m concerned about the fact that there
is only a single 2-lane road from Auburn to the proposed arena site.  Walk me through how this would work from a
traffic perspective.

Carline: Both Tommy
and I feel very strongly, that part of the problem with today’s society,
especially the young people, is that people are in too much of a hurry.  If you have one lane in, people will be
forced to take their time and really enjoy the camaraderie of being together.

Tommy: Yes, there is
an old proverb – “The joy is in the journey, not the destination.”

Melvin: Does that
tie into putting the arena on Muckleshoot land?

Carline:  Exactly.

Melvin: So that
proverb is Native American?

Carline:  No not at all.  We think it’s Buddhist.  But Buddhism originated in China, and India is
close to China.  Native Americans here in
the US have been referred to as “Indians.” 
So this ties together ancient teachings and wisdom of both
spiritualites.

Melvin: Yes, that’s
very moving.  Please continue.

Tommy: Plus, The traffic
situation will encourage carpooling, so every concert attendee will leave a
smaller carbon footprint on their way to the event.  And since they won’t be able to drive more
than 4 miles per hour, everyone will get much better gas mileage than if they
were driving on a freeway.

Melvin: That’s
really fantastic.  What about public
transportation?

Tommy: We kind of
figured that neither Sound Transit or local metro buses really want to deal
with crowds that may be drinking at the event. 
So again, having one way in and out makes a bus route unnecessary, and
even silly.  We were afraid that if we
build buses or trains into the transportation plan, we’d get pushback.

Melvin: Yes, that
was really smart.  Now, who would handle traffic
control?  Is that Seattle PD?

Tommy: Actually no.
SPD has a ton of experience organizing traffic flow around Mariners, Seahawks
and Husky games.  Do they really need to
handle anymore?

Carline:  I mean, it really isn’t fair.  When you think about it, the King County Sheriff’s
department doesn’t get any chances. 
Because SPD steals all the big gigs, the King County sheriffs have no
skills, competency or ability to handle traffic flow.  How
can they be expected to grow professionally if they are denied these chances?  It just – just – makes me so mad.

Tommy: We talked to
them, and they said if they had the chance to run traffic for this, in about
15-20 years they would have developed the intelligence and competency to handle a 5,000 person
event. 

Melvin: Well it’s
clear they deserve the chance to learn.

Carline: I’m glad
you feel that way as well.

Melvin: Do you think
that could create problems on the roads?

Tommy:  Well, we think we can alleviate some of the
road problems, if we make sure there are only 2 lanes out of the arena parking
lot.  If we limit it to let 2 cars out every 5
seconds, then that’s 24 per minute.  On a
night with 12,000 cars, it would take about 500 minutes to get everyone out.  That should really keep the roads from being
too clogged.

Melvin: That really
is clever.

Tommy: Carline, tell
him the best part.

Carline: Ooh, ooh.  This is
what I’m most excited about.  We can have
the King County Sheriffs direct people down different country roads, having
them wind around for no apparent reason, and completely devoid of logic. 
But from the air, what you’ll see is this amazing array of parking and
headlights that will create organic, wonderful shapes along the ground.

Melvin: That sounds
beautiful.  Will people like it?

Carline: Like it?!
They are going to love it.  Close your
eyes and imagine this with me if you will. 
You start the day with a 2-3 hour long drive with your close friends and
family, communing with each other through a marvelous journey of patience.  Then you enjoy music, art’s purest form.  The love spills out into the parking lot,
where you sit for hours reminiscing about the magic you have just been exposed
to, sharing your feelings with strangers and friends alike.  And then, on top of it all, you are
transported into a real life piece of living art.  You are now PART of the art of the evening,
one set of lights among a giant sea of red and white bulbs.  You are at the same time an individual, and
part of something much bigger than yourself. 
It will be truly nirvana like.

Melvin: Oh I’m
tingling just thinking about it.  How do
we staff the parking lots?

Tommy: Again,
embracing the art has wonderful business results.  In most lots, with multiple exits, you’d have
to hire people with reasonable skills in deduction, logic or basic
organization.  But in this set up, since
the art of chaos is the end-goal, we can hire a much different set of
employees.

Carline: Yes, we
felt that we need Yin and Yang together for perfect harmony.  And if the people attending the events can
afford expensive tickets, we needed poorer employees to balance that out.  We can employ anyone, regardless of
education, income, ability to speak, or really, even to see.  All they need to do is hold a flashlight and
point people towards nothing.

Melvin: So they
would offer no advice or facilitate the exit in any way.

Carline NO! THEY CAN’T!!!!!
I’m sorry.  But for the art to be truly
free-forming, people must be allowed to choose their own way.  They have to actively decide to get in the
line.  If they are told to skip the
lines, the entire chain would be broken. 
We can’t allow the employees to have the ability to be helpful at all.

Tommy: Plus, from an
economic perspective, this gives you the chance to hire people who really have
no other ability to work.  It’s very
socially conscious.

Melvin: I love
it.  Great for the soul, great for the
economy.  I gotta say, you guys are
really knocking the cover off the ball here. 
One last question.  I notice in
your design of the building itself, you have the stage amphitheatre face one
direction, with a closed back.  But then
you put all of the food and drink all the way behind the stage.  I’ve been to shows before where they put the
food courts high and far away, but in front of the stage, so people could walk up from their seats to buy food and drink and
still watch the show.  Walk me through
your idea here.

Tommy:  Well there are a couple of thoughts.  One, it’s really just rude to get
up and leave a performance and go order food and drink.  The artists train for years for this,  so we really don’t want to encourage people
to be distracted.

Carline: Also, we
have a severe problem with over-eating in this country.  We can cut down on the number of calories the
attendees consume, by making it nearly impossible to buy food.  You’ll also notice that there are not nearly
enough stands to accommodate everyone, and that buying food would require at
least a 30 minute wait in line.

Melvin: (Laughs) Oh
I noticed that – very savvy move.

Tommy: But I bet you
did not notice one other little part of the design.  There’s not enough storage to hold food to
feed 25,000 people.  So even if they
wanted to eat fattening food, were willing to walk behind the stage, AND wait
30 minutes, we have it set up so when they get to the front of the line, all
they can order is a coke.  You see, there’s
just no way to serve everyone.

Melvin: Wow, you are
right, I completely missed that.  And I
thought I had you guys on that one.  Well
played.

Tommy: Thanks.

Melvin: Last
question.  Suppose Seattle builds an
outdoor amphitheatre?  Would we suffer?

Tommy: We looked
into that.  An outdoor concert venue inside
Seattle proper is necessary, would be profitable, and could easily be part of a
larger overhaul to Seattle Center.  It’s
a project that makes sense both socially and fiscally, and would benefit
hundreds of thousands of people,  so
there’s really no threat that the City Council will ever consider it.  Right now, they are focused on self-cleaning
toilets that a few homeless people might use. 
That’s really more the kind of project they are interested in.

Melvin: Great
point.  Well I’ve seen enough.  Everything seems perfect.  When can you guy start work?

Tommy:  Well I need to talk to my mom, but Carline
and I get done with school at 2:40 every day. 
So, if one of our parents can drive us, we could be here by 3:00. 

Melvin:
Perfect.  Let’s get this project moving!

 

Rossi vs Gregoire Radio Ad War Begins

Posted by Andy Boyer in Media, Politics, Seattle

I love political season.  Nothing better than a good old fashion radio ad war being waged by people who don’t normally write radio ads.  Today on KJR, I heard what may have been the funniest 20 minutes of political radio the all-sports station has ever run. 

1) At about 8:20am, Steve Sandmeyer interviews Dino Rossi.  In the 10 minute interview, Rossi addresses the issue KJR listeners care about most, mainly the Legislature’s inability to make any kind of decision on the Sonics situation.  Rossi restated his previous positions, that all Gregoire and the Legislature had to do was AUTHORIZE King County to extend the current tax that tourists pay on rental cars, hotels, etc…past 2011 when it currently expires.  They didn’t have to vote to extend the tax, they had to vote to authorize King County to vote for the tax.  Rossi continued by saying that he knew it was a political hot potato, so to make sure Gregoire wouldn’t take a fall, he publicly endorsed it before her. That way she could endorse it without him being able to use it against her.  Then he got a nice jab in by calling Frank Chopp the “pseudo-governor” and that Gregoire is too afraid to do anything without his approval.  Score multiple points for Rossi.

2) Interview ends at 8:30 or so, and in the next commercial break, you get a response ad from Team Gregoire.  Basic text of the ad – “Rossi is like George Bush because he cut back on child protection services, is anti-abortion, votes against gay marriage and cut transportation funding.  See, he’s just like George Bush.  And did we mention he is like George Bush?  So, you obviously don’t want George Bush.  Paid for by friends of Gregoire.”  Gay marriage and abortion rights?  The Sonics have just been ripped from the city, fans blame you for this, and 8 days later you run an ad telling sports fans that Rossi is against abortion rights?  Really?  That’s the most compelling argument you have to make to sports fans feeling pain?

3) 10 minutes later, you hear a Rossi ad that has been playing a while. The ad quotes the Seattle Times, “Gregoire showed the leadership skills of a rookie Point Guard.” The ads also says that when Gregoire had a chance to do something extraordinary, she chose to sit on the bench.  Ouch.  Ouch again.  Score more points for Rossi.

4) As if this wasn’t enough, the Gregoire campaign found it necessary to run the same ineffective ad a second time 10 minutes later.  I guess they really wanted Sonics fans to know that Dino Rossi is anti-abortion.  It’s like walking into Capitol Hill and talking about policy on shipping tariffs.  Or going to the Apple farmers to discuss H1B visas.

The KJR vote is going to Rossi.  So I’m not sure Gregoire’s play here.  She either has to be loud and vocal about pushing through the new stadium legislation this session, or just ignore those voters and spend money somewhere else.  But if I won ana election by 2,000 votes, and an entire segment of people who never vote just learned how to register, I’d be nervous.  

Seattle Loses A Piece of Itself, What Does a Fan Do Next?

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Media, Seattle, Sports

Well there you go. 

A region with Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, Boeing, Washington Mutual, Safeco and Weyerhauser couldn’t find enough tax dollars to keep a piece of history intact.  An international talent pool of software executives, engineers, bankers and real estate moguls, with more college graduates per capita than anywhere in the nation, couldn’t find a few people to hammer out a suitable solution.

So who do you blame?  Sure, you want to blame Clay Bennett.  While he may be a liar, he’s simply a guy who is going to be given a hero’s welcome and key to the city in his hometown.  He never again has to fear taking a wrong turn and running into a homeless heroin addict drinking a latte on Broadway.   Given the chance to take your two-bit town and and make it a major league city, wouldn’t you do the same thing?

So now try to blame Howard Shultz.  He got snookerd into selling to Bennett.  But he didn’t want to sell.  He did everything but beg for some money to renovate Key Arena.  The team was losing money like there was a hole in the bottom of its bank account.  And here’s the dirty secret.  It wasn’t Howard that was getting killed.  His 50+ partners, the guys who retired from Microsoft and thought the stock market would never stop rising, were the ones who needed to stop writing checks every year to cover the losses.  So they went to Olympia, and Olympia gave them the finger.

So is it Olympia’s fault?  The City Council’s?  Well of course, but there is a bigger culprit in all of this.

It’s the fault of the fans who live in and around Seattle. It’s at least partly our fault.

We did the famous passive-aggressive Seattle shuffle.  We complained, but took no action.  How many of us vote regularly, or ever, in a City Council election?  How many of you know your District Rep or State Senator in Olympia?  One day we all looked up and realized some pseudo communist named Nick Licata, who starts meetings about the Police budget with a poem, was in charge of the team’s fate. And even then, we relied on the Save Our Sonics guys. (Great effort guys.  I exempt you from this.  You really did all you could, and we should commend you.)

But scroll through the list of successful executives who live in Seattle, and then match it to the backgrounds of the people on OUR City Council.  It’s a shame.  It’s embarrassing.  We voters have all been asleep at the switch.

Now let’s take it one step further.  It’s just basketball.  There are really WAY more important things than basketball.  Like Schools and  Transportation to name two.  These are complex problems with many variables.  The Sonics situation was a simple problem with a single variable – how do we creatively make a fiscally responsible decision that also helps the owners of the team?  Simple problem.  Give me and 10 friends a night at Dad Watson’s with all of the relevant data and we could come up with something.

But OUR elected officials couldn’t handle something this simple.  Now, what makes you think they can handle Transportation or Education?

The team is gone.  For most of us, it’s the first time we realized our leaders were so inept.  But it’s our fault for not paying attention.  We should have clued in after the Monorail debacle, and we all paid $500 for car tabs for a mode of transportation that didn’t exist.  We should have clued in when our gas tax skyrocketed and the roads got worse.  Now maybe we’ll get it.  Do some research.  Personally, I don’t know much about Drago, Godden, Licata, Curly, Larry and Moe, but I will certainly find out. 

If the loss of basketball in Seattle pains you, then realize this Council, this Governor, and this Legislature, WILL hurt you again.  Blame the first pain on your own naivety, but blame any upcoming pain on being inactive, and not working hard now to correct who is "representing" you.   

The Best Seat in Pro Sports

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Personal, Seattle, Sports

This comes to us from the Stanwood division of Andy Boyer.com. 

This is what happens when your marketing team doesn’t check things out with the legal team. Or maybe they couldn’t reach the lawyers, since the whole legal team was in court trying to make sure the Seattle based Marketing team would be out of a job in a few weeks….

bestseat.jpg