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  • NWEN First Look Forum – Connecting the Dots

    The Northwest Entrepreneur Network hosted one of its signature events last Wednesday, the spring version of First Look Forum.  (For those who want to know the whole format, check the appendix at the bottom of this post.)  In a nutshell, it’s a several month process that brings 12 entrepreneurs who have never pitched their business before, together with 60-70 VC’s and Angels.  Very cool format. 

    This year’s group of 12 finalists spanned the gamut from fusion to chocolate.  My colleague Shelley Whelan already posted a nice follow-up on the NWEN blog.  But Alissa Johnson from the Alliance of Angels had a clever idea for a blog post, and allowed me to steal it from her, since she is too busy at VCIC to put it together.  Her idea – explain how if all of these companies became successful, how might one use all of them in a single day.  So here goes, using me as the example.

    As soon as I woke up, I’d log into the dashboard of FLF winner Guide Analytics.  The company helps patients manage heart failure and avoid hospitalization through the continuous monitoring of edema.  Patients wear a bracelet around their ankle, measuring ankle size and relaying that info via bluetooth and wireless devices to the main computer.  Now I don’t have heart problems, but I’d be able to check on my aunt’s status, and make sure everything was ok.  The system will tell us when she is in danger of a heart attack, and lets us get her to the doctor before it happens.

    I’d get in my car and head to work.  I’d stop for coffee first at a certain store, because I could get some valuable points to help me in the BodSix game I was currently engaged in.  (This is still in development, so I can’t share too much here.)  But soon I’d get into the office and say hi to the staff.  One of my team members, a woman getting married soon, would be choosing bridesmaid dresses from Little Borrowed Dress. Her bridesmaids would be able to rent these silk dresses for $75, rather than spend $230 for some taffeta number they’d never wear again anyway.  Our happy bride-to-be is also showing pictures of the bridesmaid dresses to her fiance, who lives in New York, on their private page at SnuggleCloud, a personal online space for couples.

    We’d probably have a client coming in that day, and undoubtedly, there’d be some furniture issue in some hard to reach angle of the room.  Thankfully, we’d have our new Flipout Screwdriver, which would enable us to fix it.  Before the client got to our office, we would have downloaded the reports from ReadyPulse, a company that provides insight on what works best to grow your audience on Facebook and Twitter.  Our client – a software company – is probably using AgileEVM, a product that helps with agile software developments.

    We’ll want to take the client to lunch afterwards, so we’ll check UrbanQ a way for us to discover places and experiences we’ll like, from our mobile device.  UrbanQ might recommend a nice waterfront restaurant, where we notice all the ships using Fusion Engines developed by Woodruff Scientific.  These ships are actually sing sea water and the elements inside of it, to generate fuel through fusion.  The restaurant is great.  So I log into Meevine and ping my friends about it.  Hopefully we’ll all be able to pick a date soon.  

    It was a long day.  So when I get home, I open up a high-end chocolate bar I got from Chocolopolis, something that goes nicely with my Spanish Rioja, and that I’ll probably pick up more of for the dinner party I’m throwing later this week.  I end the day reading a book about baseball history that had been turned into an iPad application by Appitude.  I use this app because I get to do more than just read the book – I’m part of a virtual book club, chatting on my iPad while scrolling through the text and pictures.  Some of my real life friends happen to be reading, and I’m connecting with other baseball history fans. 

    That’s how I’d be able to utilize all the businesses who made it to the finals of this First Look Forum.  I encourage you to go check out the companies who already have products live, and signup to get ont he beta list for the others.

    ———

    Appendix: About First Look Forum

    1. Over the course of several months, about 70 entrepreneurs, who have never pitched their business plan to an investor group, apply to FLF.  Everyone who applies gets some business plan coaching from NWEN’s Exec Director, or someone from the investment community.  
    2. A screening committee then whittles those 70 plans down to 20.  More coaching.
    3. Those 20 get parsed to 12.  Still more coaching.
    4. Then the even itself.  Each of the 12 gets 5 minutes in front of the most influential group of VC’s, Angels and investors in the Puget Sound.  5 finalists are chosen for 2 more minutes of pitching, and then a judging panel selects a winner.

     

  • Timelapse of San Fran to Paris Flight

    If you read Mashable, you’ve seen this already.  Even if you are not a tech geek, you might still think this is pretty cool. Time lapse photography from a passenger with a camera and a tripod, condensing his 11 hour flight down to 2 minutes.

  • Supporting Data for Why Butler Couldn’t Do Anything in the NCAA Final Game

    Anyone who watched the NCAA Final on Monday – or more accurately tried to watch it – acknowledges that it was one of the worst performances in a championship game in recent memory.  

    Now, a few sports radio shows have lobbed theories that there was something wrong with the rims, whcih made the game unplayable.  And just about any sports organization that has reason to fear NCAA retribution has flat out denied that could be a reason.

    I think the problem could be bigger.  There’s a reason we don’t see a lot of basketball games in 70,000 seat football stadiums.  It’s a bad environment for hoops.  And you get stuck using a temporary floor and temporary rims for your 3 most important games of the season.

    This research is not complete, but here’s a first, albeit shallow, look at the last 10 NCAA Final games.  All I’ve done is taken the Team Field Goal % for the Winning and Losing Teams, and compare them to how the teams shot during the year on average.  Using FG%, and not Total Points, should take out some of the fluctuations that could arise from a shortage or abundance of foul calls during the game.

    Quick math shows that Winning teams see their FG% drop from around 48.3% to 45.7%  And the Losing teams drop from about 46.4% to 37.1%.  So, if both teams see their FG% fall during the only games in which they play in 70,000 seat stadiums, maybe we have to assign a little fault to these temporary rims.  And if we are going to assign some fault to the temporary rims, maybe it’s possible the guys who set up THESE temporary rims in Houston were a bunch of numbskulls.  More data to come this weekend.

  • Recap of My “Lip-O-Suction” Experience

    So here’s a post that has nothing to do with social media, marketing, the Sounders, Mariners, or pretty much anything I’ve ever written about.

    It’s been a pretty nutty year so far, and somewhere just under the “Super High” part of the Priority List, I had this nagging item that never seemed to get dealt with.  It simply said, “Get lip checked out.”

    It had started a few months back, when I noticed a few splotches under my lower lip.  After noticing it a little more, I had gone into the dermatologist to get some cream to make it go away.  Now here we were in February or so, and the splotches weren’t any better.  And when I finally got it checked out again, this time the dermatologist said, “It’s probably nothing, but it worries me a little, so why don’t you go upstairs to the surgeon and have them take care of it.”

    So the consult with the surgeon was interesting.  A seemingly nice, funny, likable guy told me that he wanted to carve into my face.  Well his words were that he wanted to do a biopsy on the tissue to make sure nothing bad was going on.  I really only heard, “Surgery” and “Biopsy.”  He said he could do a simple “punch” something, but would feel more comfortable just using a scalpel and taking out all of the discoloration in a simple procedure.

    Now I may be a giant sissy, but this was the first time I ever had to make any kind of crazy decision like this for my own body and I was a little freaked.  Option 1: Do nothing, assume that the discoloration was a simple anomaly that wouldn’t spread, and just deal with it.  Option 2: Take a tiny little sample, get a reasonably sound prognosis that the discoloration wasn’t a malignant tumor, and just deal with the spreading cells later.  Option 3: Go under a knife, take out all the discoloration, and learn for sure that the discoloration was or wasn’t malignant.

    I was a little grouchy and stressed for a few days last month while I weighed the pros and cons.  Then I finally decided to just have the thing removed and tested.  I made the appointment, and walked around with somewhat of an odd attitude for a few weeks.  I was 95-99% sure that this was going to come out all right.  But, I couldn’t help thinking that if there wasn’t a chance it was going to turn out poorly, no one would want me to go through the risk.  I hate to be cheesy, but it puts a few things in perspective for you.

    I’ve lived a pretty healthy life, so when my surgery day arrived last Monday, and I found myself sitting in the chair waiting for the guy to carve a piece out of my lip, I have to admit it was quite a new experience for me.  It’s not a subject that comes up in conversation at the pub, so I had no idea what the proper amount of fear was supposed to be.  So I pretty much had them stick the Novocain needle in, then I closed my eyes and listened while they went to work on my face.

    45 minutes later, the cutting and stitching was done, and I was on my way home with a bottle of vicodin, a bunch of gauze bandages, and the promise of test results in a week.

    And so for a week I tried to go on like nothing was different, except I was eating soft foods, trying harder than normal not to get hit in the head with a softball or soccer ball, and wondering why it takes 7 days for them to test a few little cells.  For the record, the hardest part of spending a week with a scar on your face is trying not to alarm anyone when they ask you what happened.  

    And so today my little saga finally came to an end.  The good news – tests all came back with “Malignancy result negative.” And of course in this case, negative is positive, because it means there is no tumor and any worry was for naught.  The stitches came out, and I should have a normal looking lip again soon. 

    As my friend Ari said, “Yup, we’re starting to get to that age where weird shit happens.” He may not be Voltaire, but the philosophy is still sound.   Thanks to everyone who provided the kind words of encouragement over the last month or so.  My favorite lines – “Well as long as they are there, have them fix the rest of your face.” And, “See if they’ll throw in botox for free.”  

    The shots below were taken to record “Before Surgery,” “After Surgery,” “7 days of Recovery” and after the stitches were taken out.

  • Social Media Kool-Aid?

    Paul Owen from Owen Media published a nice piece today in Xconomy.com, asking if Social Media was a fad that is going away, or something really hear to say.  

    Paul’s piece had a range of comments from other social media firms in town, so I don’t want to repeat everything here.  He did a nice job of grabbing insight from the agencies who specilaize in Community Management and outsourced Customer Support, while also getting input from more full service organizations.  

    Our viewpoint over at Social3i is you’ll only see more commerce through social channels, not less.  There’s a giant blurring between “Wb” and “Social” now, so that they are really one in the same.

    There’s another whole article on privacy to be written, but take that out of the mix and look at two companies that released product in the last week – Color and Zapd. Color has all the fanfare for the amazing (or outrageous) valuation.  Zapd made less noise but comes from a guy who’s launched a lot of startups in his day, Kelly Smith.  Both focus on instant content generation, and the packaging of such content.

    Color takes the idea of friends, and flips it on its ear, turnign everyone in your proximity into co-authors with you.  Zapd lets you take those random photos and turn them into a web page in 60 seconds, so you can share not just the photos, but the whole story, all in the time it takes to in line buying a beer.

    Combine these philiosphies with the GroupOn and Living Social commerce infrastructure, and you can see (well we think you can see) where this is all going.  Add in Facebook credits, more virtual currency, and One-Click purchase technology on the phone, and social becomes more than Facebook customer service posts and Tweeting back and forth at each other from the same party.

    Anyway, check out Paul’s article, and if you think I said anything dumb, feel free to lay into me in the comments section.

  • A Debate – What is Appropriate Fan Behavior at a Bar

    This blog has been a lot of things over the years. Of course, it’s also NOT been a lot of things over the years.  But, it has always strived to be fair.  If we criticize someone for absurd behavior, we’ll turn the focus on ourselves if we commit the same behavior.

    I’ve probably made fun of fans of other colleges at some point, so I thought I’d use an example from Saturday’s Elite Eight Game to spur some debate and show I can be fair.

    The setup: The Ballard Loft is a very UA friendly bar.  And Saturday the Seattle chapter of the UA Alumni Club gathered to watch the Cats vs UConn game.  I’d estimate there were at least 75-85 Cats fans upstairs.  Now, I don’t spend a lot of time with this group.  But suddenly all of the UW fans I usually watch hoops with lost interest in the NCAA Tourney.  (I can’t imagine why.)  And it was the biggest UA hoops game in the last 5-6 years, so I needed to surround myself with supporters.  Btw, this is what makes sports so great.  The ability to show up and have a common bond with total strangers.  But I digress.

    So imagine this scene.  You have a crowd of 75-85 energized UA basketball fans, decked out in UA gear, drinking beers, watching the game, cheering when appropriate and feeling anguish simultaneously….. And you have one guy in the corner.  He has a pom pom.  Every time UConn has the ball, he is shouting “Defense, Wildcats Defense.  Defense, Wildcats Defense.”  Every time Arizona has the ball he runs through one of his pre-programmed 4 or 5 A-R-I-Z-O-N-A cheers.  He is desperate to have the other 75 of us join him, but we’re watching the game.  Now every once in a while, the group of 6 people in the back would start a cheer and everyone would join.  And Wanna Be Wilbur would beem as if the crowd was “finally getting it.”  Then he would start up again and we’d all ignore him again.  Rinse, wash, repeat for 39:00 of basketball.

    The suddenly, with a minute left, Wanna Be Wilbur and his buddy actually turned on the crowd.  And I submit that this is why UA lost that game.  In a tight ballgame with everything on the line, as every other UA fan in the bar – hell in the country – nervously wondered what would happen next and frantically shared with each other what we though would happen, Wanna Be Wilbur started YELLING AT US.  He told us how bad of fans we were for not cheering with him.  He kept up with how lame UA fans were at this bar.  How he couldn’t figure out what he was doing with such lame people.  The poor schmuck seemed not to realize that we were in Seattle, about 1,200 miles from the stadium, and that no matter how loud we cheered, Derek Williams was NOT going to hear us.

    If you were at the Loft on Saturday you saw 75 drinking, cheering, excited UA fans enjoying a great basketball game.  You also heard an incredibly annoying UA fan yelling at his colleagues for not joining his one man Pom Squad.  The annoying UA guy broke all fan protocols by yelling at other UA fans.  I’d make fun or Oregon, UW, WSU, Duke, or Notre Dame if they had a fan who pulled that kind of behavior, so I have to make fun of us as well.  

    So my debate question – If you are at a bar watching your team play a game, are you less of a fan if you don’t chant and sing at the TV screen, even if one guy in the corner holding a pom pom is begging you to? I say there’s appropriate stadium behavior and appropriate bar behavior.  Objections?

  • LinkedIn’s Clever Nod to Early Adopters

    In Marketing these days, it’s all about “Influencer Identification.”  As in, “How do I spend as little money as possible to reach the most important people who will say good good things about me?” It’s a simple srategy and hard to pull off.

    On the flip side, there’s something you don’t see a lot of – the followup.  After spending all that time to get the early adopters to make referrals to the majority, many brands simply forget where they got their start.  That’s what makes this simple email from LinkedIn’s CEO so clever.

    Dear Andy,

    I want to personally thank you because you were one of LinkedIn’s first million members (member number 121884 in fact!*). In any technology adoption lifecycle, there are the early adopters, those who help lead the way. That was you.

    We hit a big milestone at LinkedIn this week when our 100 millionth member joined the site. 

    When we founded LinkedIn, our vision was to help the world’s professionals be more successful and productive. Today, with your help, LinkedIn is changing the lives of millions of members by helping them connect with others, find jobs, get insights, start a business, and much more.  

    We are grateful for your support and look forward to helping you accomplish much more in the years to come. I hope that you are having a great year.

    Now, this email did a few things for me.  I never really consider myself an innovator.  Occasionally an early adopter.  But I was #121,884 out of 100,000,000, and I needed to go into Excel to figure out that makes me in the top 0.122% of LinkedIn adopters.  Not just top 1%, but dang near the top 10% of the 1%.Telling me that little stat is a nice way of showing me some love without seeming insincere.

    Maybe more importantly, it also makes me realize and remember that LinkedIn has been an important part of my online world for a long time.  I may not go there every day, and I may not currently use it as much as I use other services like Pandora or Twitter.  But I needed that gentle reminder that while I had fun flings with MySpace, Shutterfly, Biznik, Ning, WetPaint, Lala, Digg, Delicious, Foursqaure, Gowalla, and 100 other intrguing networks, LinkedIn has weathered all the storms, making it through both the good and bad times.  It’s never been the sexiest or most interesting site, but it’s always there, does exactly what it promises, and occassionally provides me little unexpected moments of joy. It’s slowly turned into that trusted friend that you can’t imagine life without – something way more valuable than those little daliances into the new and exciting things that always disappoint.

    So it’s not often you get to say complimentary things about an old brand.  But I like LinkedIn’s nod to their longtime fans.

  • A Health Care Fairy Tale, Sponsored by Group Health

    Ok, it’s been a while since I ranted a little on here.  And truthfully, there’s a calmer gentler me who decided this is not a forum for ranting.

    So instead, let me tell you a story.

    Once upon a time, there was this guy, who was a partner in a small business.  Now, business is good, so the partners decide that they should start a health care plan for the team.  They do everything by the book, use a consultant to help them, and settle on a program administered by Group Health.  Now Group Health has to be reputable, because they sure do a lot of advertising that says they are.

    Now when one of these team members was under their own insurance, they were diagnosed with an issue that would need some special testing that would require a small procedure.  All of this previous work was done under the watchful eye of another insurance company and accredited physicians.

    This is where the fun begins.  Here’s a paraphrased transcript between Group Health and the patient.

    Patient: Hi Group Health Insurance.  I got a weird call from the surgeon’s office.  Even though I was referred by a doctor, they said you aren’t sure you will cover it.

    GH: Well was the referring physician In Network or Out of Network?

    P: Well I don’t know. They were covered by my old insurance company.

    GH: (Exasperated sigh) Well let’s see.  Well that physician is out of OUR network, so if you go to the surgeon, it counts as a self-referral.

    P: How could it be a self-referral if another doctor did the referring?

    GH: Maybe you didn;t hear me.  Because they are out of network.

    P: So what does that mean? Do you cover it or not?

    GH: Of course we do.  Don’t be silly.  We’re the greatest people on earth.  Even though you have clearly abused the system by going out of network, we – out of the goodness of our heart – are still going to cover 80% of the procedure, after the deductible of course.

    P: Well what would you have covered if I was referred by an In-Network doctor?

    GH: 80% after the deductible

    P: So whats the difference?

    GH: Nothing really.  If your surgeon has a contracted rate with us, he’ll charge the contracted rate and we’ll pay 80%

    P: Wait, what’s this contracted rate thing?

    GH: Oh it’s nothing really.  We work really really really really hard to get you the lowest rates from doctors, so that your 20% is nominal.

    P: What if my suregeon isn’t on contract rate?

    GH: Well then we pay 80% of what we WOULD HAVE PAID if the doctor was on contract with us.

    P: So who pays the rest?

    GH: Well I guess you would.

    P: So…..you are going to pay the same amount either way, it’s just in some cases I have to pay more.

    GH: But we negotiated these lower rates for you.

    P: But…..you pay the lower rate.  I pay the difference.  Actually, the lower the rate, the more I pay.

    GH: Well that’s ONE way to look at it I suppose.  Now, that’s only if you don’t see an IN NETWORK Specialist first.  It’s different if your surgeon is in network, under contract AND you get referred by an IN NETWORK specialist.

    P: And has a dog named Blue?

    GH: Huh?

    P: Never mind.

    P: Ok, so I guess I need do make an appointment with one of your in-network specialists so I can make sure my contracted, IN Network surgeon doesn’t charge me an arm and a leg.  No pun intended.  So, can I make an appointment?

    GH: Of course.  Not a problem at all.  I will get you down for the next slot we have open for an IN NETWORK specialist.  Now that will be the 2nd week in June.  Should I put you down?

    P: It’s March.

    GH: So would you prefer morning or afternoon?

    P: I’d prefer March.  

    GH: Well June is the next time we have available for an IN NETWORK specialist who can refer you to an IN NETWORK contracted surgeon.

    P: So even though a doctor suggests I get this tested, you want me to wait 3 months.

    GH: No, you can just go ahead and do the procedure.  Like I said – and geez are you frustrating – we’ll still cover 80% of Necessary and Usual costs associated with the procedure.

    P: Wait, what does that term mean?

    GH: (SIGH) What term?

    P: Necessary and Usual.

    GH: Well like I said before, we cover what we think is fair.  We can’t be responsible for any extra fees the doctor tries to stick you with.

    P: So let me get this straight.  You lowball the doctors into a “Necessary and Usual” rate in order to allow them in your sales pipeline.  Then you make the patients responsible for anything the doctors want to charge above that “Necessary and Usual” rate you’ve forced them into.  And the only way a patient can avoid those extra charges is if they are referred by an IN NETWORK specialist.  

    GH: That’s right.  

    P: BUT, AND A BIG BUT HERE, YOU DON”T HAVE ANY IN-NETWORK SPECIALISTS.

    GH: Well we do have one in June.

    P: Who’s on First?

    GH: Huh?

    P: Never Mind.

    Now lucky for mortals like our Patient, there are people at the doctors offices who are fluent in the language of insurance phone reps.  Those people can actually explain how to avoid the traps that companies like Group Health try to put in your way.  Not that the doctor’s office is any saint in this matter when you think about it.  They’re playing the same twisted game, allowing the insurance companies to claim “80%” coverage when really just being responsible for 33-50%.  In fact, they are the ones who actually lose out if the patient is able to find an in network doctor to make the referral, though you have to imagine there’s a back door way it all gets settled later.

    Anyway, here’s a toast to Health reform.  Thank goodness it’s taking such care to take care of the patients who need the care to begin with.

  • Rock and Roll Training – Week 4 (or so)

    So the other day I was accused of bailing out of the 1/2 marathon since my training had seemed to come to a halt.  Not so.

    Now I’ll admit, I’ve run into a few stumbling blocks.  I’ve had a few unexpected things pop up recently that have cut into my training time, but there’s no real reason to go into them here.  (I’m sure when I see you in person you won’t be able to get me to shut up about them.)  Plus, the every 2 year occurance of my back blowing out came about 15 months early this time.  So that has slowed me down a little as well.  But I managed to make it through the St. Paddy’s Day Dash thanks to an heavy dose of muscle relaxers.  God bless technology.

    Anyway, the race is still a good 12-13 weeks out.  I’m at a solid 4-5 miles at around 9:30/mile.  The next big milestone is the Seahawks 12k in April.  Shoot me an email if you are up for some runs around Greenlake or Lake Union, or better yet up on Cougar Mountain where there are some hills.

  • Fan Inspiration from Liverpool – You’ll Never Walk Alone

    So it’s just a week until the Sounders take their 1st kick at Qwest Field, starting their 2011 story against the same villains that dispatched them from 2010.

    Now we Sounders fans have a lot to be proud of, as we’re easily the best fans in the MLS.  So here’s some inspiration for what Qwest Field could look like in say, 2022.  This is Anfield, home of the storied English Premier Club Liverpool.

    When I lived in Manchester in 2005, I was friends with Portugeuse guy.  He told me the story of a Champions League game in which he went up to Liverpool, decked out in his home side’s colors, and brazenly walked into the bar across the street from Anfield.  He was the only fan of the opposing side, and wasn’t shy about who he was rooting for.

    He laughed and told stories and drank beer with all the Liverpool fans at the bar, and finally it became time for everyone to head over to the game.  Suddenly all the lights in the bar went off.  The curtains were drawn and the door sealed shut.  He felt hands on his shoulders in the dark and cramped bar.

    He literally had no idea what to expect.  And suddenly, the bar erupted in song.  The entire bar shouted the words to “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”  And when they were done, they rushed to the stadium.  By the end of the experience, my friend was literally rooting for Liverpool over his hometown club.

    Here’s a clip of what Anfield sounds like when 40,000 or so join a chorus.  Imagine if we could get Qwest to this level?

    Here’s a link to a better clip that includes the words.  But, it can’t be embedded.