Andy Boyer

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  • So Let’s Talk China

    Ok, so I’m a bad travel blogger.

    Some truths: 

    • I had no real mobile capabilities to upload blog posts from my phone.  Sorry, my fear factor regarding AT&T dropping a $2,000 bill on me was just too high.
    • We were either on our tour bus, getting shoo-ed onto our tour bus, or within sight of our tour bus from about 8am to 9pm every night.  So when I was done with the tour, I could either sit in my hotel room and write about what I just saw, or I could hit the streets and spend 2-3 more hours seeing cool stuff on foot.  Guess what I did.
    • Now, I *could have* written stuff down on my iPad or iPhone notepad apps during the day while on the bus, then uploaded those docs at night, and then gone out to see the towns.  Instead, I spent time conversing with my travel companions and taking pictures through the bus window.  I think I chose wisely. 

    So, we’re here 10 days later, and I need a clever gimmick for spewing out some China related content.  And since I can’t write this daily log style with any sense of authenticity, we’ll move to Plan B.

    Let’s start with some overall transportation / travel impressions.

    1) Jesus it’s big.  I mean, sure, duh.  But I mean, it’s really freaking big.  You know when you are in Europe, and you look at a map and see where the subway stations are and pick the one closest to where you are going?  And then you jump on the subway, get off, and walk 5-10 minutes to your spot? Well it doesn’t work like that in Beijing (or Shanghai actually).  In Beijing, you get off at your spot and start walking.  Then you kind of realize that all of the side streets you are walking past might not actually be on your map, and that your map would have to be the size of a tent to include them all.  And now you’re 20-25 minutes into the walk and thinking, “Well hell I must have missed the street.”  And even though you *know* you didn’t miss it, you turn back anyway, or wander down a side street because your brain just can’t comprehend that you’d be walking THAT FAR from the subway station and not reaching your destination yet.  So you’re lost.  Then everyone you are leading on the walk yells at you.  Good times.

    2) However, to solve that problem of it being way to big of a city to walk around in, they have made the cabs extraordinarily cheap.  40 minute cab ride, 15 bucks.  Problem solved.

    3) Unfortunately, the cab drivers don’t speak any English, nor can they read a map.  And even if you can give them the name of the place in Chinese so they can read it, since everything is so new and the city is so big, it’s a shot in the dark that they’ve ever been there.  New problem.

    4) Now, should you actually get a cab pointed roughly in the direction you want to go, there’s almost a guaranteed chance that your cab will cease being a transportation mechanism, and become more of a comfortable but stationary shelter from the elements.  You see, in Beijing they have a highway system that a city like Seattle would be envious of.  However, given that Beijing has roughly 11x the amount of people as Seattle, that highway system becomes less of a model of progressive ingenuity, and more of a simple game of 4-wheeled musical chairs.

    5) Now, should you find the proper time of day when cars are actually moving, you witness another phenomenon.  Every intersection and road has 5 sets of travelers.  You have the tour buses, the cars, the mopeds, the bikes and the pedestrians.  I sat mesmerized watching how these groups interacted with each other, and here’s the agreed upon rules as far as I can figure them out. 

    • Pedestrians have the complete right of way everywhere, provided that you don’t get hit by any moving vehicle (including bikes, mopeds, cars or buses.) If you do get hit, it’s your fault.  They confuse you at first by painting lines that one would think are crosswalks.  But in reality, these are merely targets for the moped riders to use when looking for pedestrians to hit.  However, if you make it across, you are both welcome and invited to continue your journey.  
    • Bikes seem to have similar rules.  However, it appears that bikes have the added responsibility of keeping pedestrians alert and on their toes.  Bikes will come flying out of alley ways and around the backs of buses just to keep pedestrians awake.  
    • Now the mopeds are an entirely different breed of animal.  Mopeds don’t ever have to stop at stop lights, which makes stop lights more or less decorative than anything else for these folks.  And if you are a pedestrian and not aware of this little rule, well you are likely to be sitting in someone’s front basket as a confused but unfazed Chinese person takes you for a little trip down the boulevard.  So picture a 5 way stop, with some random selection of 2 of the lights green and 3 of them red.  Now watch pedestrians walking in any direction, bikes slowly meandering across the middle, mopeds driving in a straight line without changing speed whatsoever, and the cars and buses obeying the lights.
    • Overall, I think the cars get the short end of the stick.  It’s not bad enough that they have these little two legged and two wheeled things buzzing around them, but they really have to watch out for the buses.  
    • Because the buses – oh the buses.  The bus drivers could parallel park an aircraft carrier in a Hydro pit.  These guys will take any little edge they can to sneak ahead a few cars at a time.  You can just see the car drivers steaming.  “I’m not letting him in.  I’m not letting him in…. Damnit! He got in!”  A little shimmy here, a little shimmy there, and these guys get you to the next stop.  I actually think the bus drivers are allowed the right to take out cars, mopeds and pedestrians, as part of a population control program.  Because everyone fears the buses. 

    I think this is a good spot to leave off.  It appears that this may turn into a general journal taking on several themes across different cities, transportation being the first one that pops to mind.  I suppose we’ll make obligatory stops in the categories of food, shelter, battling with untrustworthy shop vendors, the crazy Chinese government controlled Tourist industry and a few random thoughts at the end.

    Now, if I get my act together, I’ll upload a bunch of pics and make some slideshows.  In the meantime, you’ll have to catch a few random ones on Facebook.

  • First impressions

    A couple of early thoughts.

    1) Merry Christmas everyone –  It’s a little funny that we’re well into Xmas morning and some of you guys are still getting a few last minute gifts in at 4pm Xmas eve.  

    2) No WordPress access in China? – So I have an alternate spot set up for this blog, but am having trouble getting to the Wrodpress admin page.  Very odd.  Is WordPress blocked in China?  

    3) Beijing is gigantic – My first impression of Beijing was totally wrong, in that I did not understand how humongous it was.  I’ll write volumes on this shortly.  But think of the biggest most spread out city you’ve ever seen, and add 30 story buildings everywhere.

    We’re headed out the Great Wall now and I’m getting hurried out the door.  More later.  Merry Xmas.

     

  • The Great China Adventure Begins

    16 people – including 7 kids, 7 adults and 2 Grandparents.

    4 cities in mainland China, over 10 days (or 11 depending on how you count that whole first day International Date line issue.)

    I’ll have a whole new blog set up shortly with details of the trip, so email me if you want the address.  But for now, we’re done with night one in Beijing.  I’ve never been to mainland China, so I won’t lie when I say I was disappointed, when the first thing I saw after customs, the first thing I saw in the hear of the capital of china, was a KFC and Starbucks…

    But, the real show starts today.  More to come as we set up for 11 days in a foreign land.

  • Recap of Startup Weekend

    A few quick notes on a fun event I attended the last few days.  Startup Weekend is a 54 hour event that provides the networking, resources, and incentives for individuals and teams to go from idea to launch.

    In a nutshell, I was one of 80 people to show up on Friday evening, where 28 people pitched ideas for products/companies that they wanted to build in the next 2 days, with this event being focused around mobile and gaming.  We whittled the 28 ideas down to 13, and everyone split into teams to tackle the projects.  

    The crowd was an eclectic mix of developers, designers, database guys, product managers and a few random biz dev and marketing guys thrown in.  I’ll admit I was a little nervous venturing into this crew.  I’m a marketing guy, so I get pretty intimidated by guys who have the technical firepower to make things suddenly appear.  But the goal of something like this is to surround yourself with big brains and meet people who inspire you through their expertise and accomplishments, so I tried to dive right in and meet as many interesting people as I could. 

    The product ideas ranged form the ridiculous to the useful, to the obscure to the just plain odd.  But at the end of the weekend, a few groups had launched some pretty cool stuff.  And even though some of the projects weren’t fully baked by Sunday night, there were definitely a few things to watch out for.  A few highlights:

    (Keep in mind that these projects went from an idea to execution in 54 hours…)

    Nubi Nubi: A bunch of talented artists and dev guys created a little app where a little avatar would dance to the beat of music you picked for him.   You could change the dance moves by clicking on different buttons.  Cool revenue opps as you buy more avatars, dance moves, music, and more.

    Doodle A Doodle: The winner of the event, this iPad app is designed so that kids can learn to draw (or trace) by tracing over images on the screen.  There’s a social network component that parents and kids can enjoy.

    Hold It: The crowd favorite for humor.  In this game, you are a Men’s room Attendant, and you must coordinate what people get to use what stall in the john.  Some characters need privacy, some need space, some are obnoxious, etc…  But you must use your skill to gain points by putting people at urinals and toilets they feel comfortable at.

    Happy Food:  Think a cross between Foursquare, Yelp and Urbanspoon.  This app allows you to search for restaurants that cater to special diets, such as Vega, Gluten Free, Nut Free, etc…make recommendations, and provide useful feedback.

    Task Me: I dug this organizational app, even though it’s not done yet.  I spend enough time using iPhone’s Notepad as a To Do list, that this would be huge if they get it done.  Please do it guys…

    There were a ton of other cool ideas, and the density of super smart people and knowledge sharing was something I hadn’t been part of for years and years.  It was amazing to see such a spirit of collaboration amongst people who don’t know each other.  Plus, many of the people there were actually doing pretty interesting things with their real job.  

    Startup Weekend is one of those events where you can just go and get energized by the spirit and collective intelligence of the people in the room.  On one hand, it’s a great place to get humbled, as you see people doing things in real time that shouldn’t be possible to do that quickly.  On the other hand, you get an ego boost, because you are able to make an impact and provide your area of expertise to a group of people whose skills you admire, but who have no ability to mimic your own abilities.

    I have 100 good stories to tell you about my team.  My group’s leader was a fascinating guy by the name of Michael Crick.  He would tell these random stories all thru the weekend, and many of them would make me stop what I was doing, look over with a curious stare and say, “Shut the h— up, you did not do that.”   Here’s a teaser.  I was trying to bang out a marketing plan, while Michael offhandedly told a story of a video game he built long ago.  I almost broke my neck when I asked, “Wait a sec.  You wrote the spec for the original Madden Football?” I can’t even do the rest of the stories justice in print, but trust me, they are worth buying me a beer to hear.

    Moral of the story.  Whether you can market, develop, design, or whatever other talent you have, get yourself to a Startup Weekend.  Because anything else you have planned for the weekend is less fun, less interesting, and will get you less satisfaction.  Bring a good idea, build a team, and make cool stuff happen.

  • “Targeted” Marketing

    Not joking here – I actually heard this ad on Sacramento radio after NFL football on Sunday evening.

    “Acme Store (can’t remember real store name) wants to remind you about California’s 10 day waiting period to buy firearms.  So if you are purchasing a handgun for a Christmas present this year, and want to have it wrapped by Christmas Eve, remember that you’ll need to complete your purchase by December 14.  

    Remember, ammunition and other supplies are not subject to the 10 day waiting period.  But to make sure you complete your holiday list in time to put everything under the tree, make sure you come in before Dec 14.”

    Now, there was more ad copy here, but for obvious reasons, my brain was not able to concentrate any further… Definitely my favorite ad of the month.

  • U.S. and England Lose World Cup Bids – What Went Wrong?

    Ok, I’ve had 24 hours to be mad about about this.  It’s easy to say, “The vote was rigged.  Qatar and Russia bought the Cups.”  And while that’s probably true, I don’t think you can just end the conversation there.

    For one thing, we’re a country in which college alumni will pay $200k to have a 20 year old quarterback come play for their school.  It’s not as if we’re above the whole corruption thing.  If the World Cup was up for sale, we were certainly making our own backroom deals.  So let’s not pretend we’re innocent angels who weren’t prepared to fight dirty.

    Also, we need to look at FIFA.  This is an organization that oversees soccer confederations on 6 continents and hosts 12 different soccer tournaments across the globe. Sponsors include companies like Budweiser, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Emirates, etc… Source: Wikipedia.  This is a huge company.  They aren’t just running the Poinsettia Bowl and taking bribes to give Notre Dame a bid.  This is a multi-national, multi-billion dollar organization, whose chief motivation is to make make money for everyone involved in the group.  So, for the sake of argument, let’s assume these guys aren’t idiots.

    So, making these assumptions that we were ready and prepared to bribe officials, and that FIFA is made up of smart guys, why did England and the US get shunned?  Here are some reasons I can imagine:

    1) The U.S. story is old – Look, I love Morgan Freeman too.  And Bill Clinton has charm.  But we came out with the message of, “Look we have a lot of stadiums already, and lots of hotels too.  Plus, we have a diverse population.  It’s a slam dunk, no risk, low-hanging fruit alternative.”  It’s kind of the same argument the Hyatt gives you when you are planning a wedding. “Look, we have a big boring conference room, you can have a choice of steak or chicken, and there will be plenty of parking for the guests.”  Not very interesting.  Meanwhile Qatar came in with an entirely new message. “Sure we have no stadiums and no infrastructure.  But we have money – and lots of it.  So we’ll build shiny new carbon neutral, solar powered, soccer specific stadiums that we’ll take down after the event, hook them up to a futuristic transportation system, and develop a giant version of Sim City that the world will marvel at.  Think Disney World for Soccer.”  That really is a more interesting wedding than one at a hotel.

    2) The Perceived Decline of the West – These games are being held in 2018 and 2022, not 2010.  And the rest of the world looks at the U.S. and says, “Hmm, I don’t see where they are making their comeback.”  I mean when the city of Detroit is eating itself block by block to get rid of unused buildings, I’m not sure where you see that the U.S. is a solid bet to be thriving in 2022.  Meanwhile, Qatar and Russia have all that gas and oil money.

    3) The Nobel Prize Angle – On one hand, I kind of think FIFA should be congratulated for taking such a giant risk.  They are telling a country in the Middle East that they have faith in the region.  Now, at least someone has the responsibility for keeping the lunatics at bay.  Anyone involved with the 2022 World Cup, especially Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, will have Mid East leaders on speed dial every time they start to get itchy trigger fingers.  If the World Cup brings some level of stability to the Mid East, which in turn brings some sort of cooperation between West, East and Mid East, then give Blatter and his guys the Nobel Prize.  

    4) We don’t have the most money anymore – Let’s face it, this election was bought.  And that’s an election style we used to like, because we had the most money.  We don’t anymore.  This is an international economics story, not a sports story.  Maybe now we can admit it’s time to change the way we do things.

    I’m sure I’ll add to this post soon.

    (Additions)

    5) One thing that surprises me is that FIFA has now made it impossible for China to get a World Cup until at least 2034.  And who knows what the world will look like by then.  

    6) JR makes a good point below that diversification could be a reason.  But, diversification doesn’t explain going all the way to the limit of Qatar.  You could have solved the diversification point with any of the candidates – Australia, Spain/Portugal or Netherlands/Belgium.  

    7) To expand on a point I was trying to make above, it’s an absolute pity that the U.S. couldn’t make any kinds of claims to have carbon-neutral stadiums and an efficient transportation system 12 years from now.  Doesn’t that seem weird and sad that it doesn’t even cross our minds that we could lead the world in architectural and transportation innovation?

  • World Cup Announcement Tomorrow

    If you are downtown tomorrow morning at 6:30am, I suggest you swing by FX McCrory’s.  There, Mick will be serving breakfast and hosting a live viewing of the selection of the host countries of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.  RSVP here. 

    This should be exciting and slightly nerve-wracking for everyone hoping the U.S. is chosen for 2022.  It’s been a pretty dirty selection process thus far, so even though common sense says that the United States would be a better host than Qatar, well, money talks and Fifa’s selection committee members are human beings who like money and the items money buys.

    If you want to watch the US Presentation, lead by President Bill Clinton, you can watch it here.  (Sounders fans, skip ahead to 16:45 or so if you want to see how Seattle is presented as a sign of soccer’s growth in the US.)

    http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/bidders/live/newsid=1343822/index.html

     

  • Xmas Season Begins…Now

    I don’t care about Black Friday. I say Christmas season starts the day the tree comes home from the farm…

  • Social Media for Folks About to Give Brith

    So with my sister due to give birth any moment – or not for another week – I’ve had a chance to revert back to the way people used to communicate, via phone. It made me think about a few things.  

    1) The whole social media experiment breaks down when there are a few weak links in the network.  Once you realize Aunt Betty doesn’t have an always on internet connection, the phone needs to be part of the plan again.  

    2) Without an efficient one-to-many communication system, poor dad is stuck repeating the same message over and over to everyone who calls.  

    So here’s what a digitally savvy couple needs in order to communicate with both their digitally savvy and non-digitally savvy family and friends.

    • Some app that will allow them to leave voice mails that other people can check.  Maybe a Google Talk number would work for this.  Does anyone have a good solution?
    • A dedicated Twitter account that they can use for baby-only news, and a mobile Twitter application to upload the data.
    • A Foursquare account so we all can follow where they are checking in.
    • Most importantly –  it would be nice if some airline allowed you to buy a “Baby Birth” package which allowed you priority Standby access during a certain time period.  Looks like this baby is going to come a little early, and changing travel plans has become quite expensive for the family.

    Any other thoughts?  What would make communication more efficient?

  • #ParkaParty Taking On Life of its Own

    Congrats to @Roosiehood.  What started as a little project to raise a few hundred bucks for local food banks is taking on a life of its own.

    #ParkaParty is in full effect in the Seattle Twittersphere, and shows no sign of letting down.  If you haven’t jumped on board yet, this article from MyNorthwest.com should explain it all.

    Now I’m just waiting for my #ParkaParty avatar to arrive…….

    In the meantime, here’s a fun little Flickr slideshow from the web site to show some of the folks who have donated.