Andy Boyer

Blog

  • How Much Should We Blame the News Media for Donald Trump?

    There have been a lot of articles about how the media, needing a way to breathe life into this election 12 months ago, hooked itself up to the Trump Train and rode it through every area of chaos it went, cashing their checks whenever it came into the station to refuel. It really wasn’t until they realized that a Trump Presidency was becoming ACTUALLY POSSIBLE, that the media jumped off and then started blowing up the tracks ahead in hopes of derailing it.

    But that’s not the question I’m asking now. What I’m curious about is how much we should blame the collective news media for dumbing-down the news so much over the last 10-20 years? Was it only a matter of time before someone like Trump was able to attract the hearts and the simplified minds of “Soundbite America?”

    Maybe it’s not their fault. Maybe it’s ours for only being able to absorb 8-10 minutes before needing a commercial break. Maybe we need to be mesmerized with four talking heads each bringing their best two to three minutes of content to a discussion. In this format, no one ever has time to discuss a “How.” It’s only about the “Why” and you usually have a full screen of people with polar opposite opinions fighting to get in the best dig.

    But then, I could argue that IS the media’s fault for forcing that format down our eyeballs and earholes. What is the total cost of losing a few viewers to make sure that the people who keep watching get something more thorough than clever quips and cut downs?

    I don’t know the answer to that. Broadcasters are owned by public companies so they need as much money as they can get to survive this new media economy that forced them to lose their near oligopoly status. Yes, it is much harder to compete in a bifurcated market than to be one of a handful of outlets covering news. So I understand the need to dumb down the news to make it appeal to more people. But I’m not sure I’m happy with the results.

  • Friday Fantasy Question 4/1

    Imagine you landed in some Fantasy Land where you could take over any major league baseball team in 2016. AND you can bring any one past season from any one player into the lineup or rotation. What historic player and season would you choose to include in your roster?

  • Check Out This Sneaky Amazon Product Placement

    Q: If you are a TV show on the bubble between renewal and cancellation, what’s the best way to make the bosses happy?
    A: Make them more money.

    Undateable will never win an Emmy. It’s niche is that in its 3rd season (and basically out of desperation due to being moved to the Friday night dustbin), it decided to shoot every episode live. The result is a hyped up Friday night live studio audience that contributes to a show that is part script / part improv.

    BUT… that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be back for Season 4. So the show needs an extra revenue source on top of the normal :30 spots to secure its place in the Fall lineup.

    Enter Amazon, in what is one of the sneakiest product placement deals I can imagine. Remember, subliminal advertising is illegal. But subliminal product placement apparently is not. I counted about four different camera angles in two different scenes where the logo is visible. I’m going to estimate the logo got about 60-120 seconds of airtime. How much do you think that subliminal product placement is worth? More or less than a :30 spot?

    Can you spot it?

    Undateable and Amazon 1

    Undateable and Amazon 2

    Undateable and Amazon 3

    Undateable and Amazon 4

    Undateable and Amazon 5

  • Monday Morning Musings, March 28

    Global News
    At least 69 people Christians died in a suicide bombing last week carried out by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. No, not in Belgium, in Pakistan. The bomb went off in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest and wealthiest province and the political powerbase of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It didn’t get nearly the same amount of coverage as the Belgium bombings, but we should pay attention to non-European terrorism as well.

    Sports (and Conspiracies)
    Sure, the World Cup isn’t technically until 2018, but every country has 3 or 4 rounds to get through in 2015, 2016 and 2017 just to reach the final 32. The U.S. *should* be able to get through six games in a preliminary round vs the likes of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, and Guatemala, in which they only need to finish 2nd to advance. But ruh roh, Guatemala just beat the U.S. 2-0. There’s still time to right the ship, starting tomorrow with a Guatemala rematch in Columbus, OH. But an unexpected loss there suddenly means that halfway through the 2nd round, the U.S. destiny would be out of their hands. Now, we know soccer is corrupt, so do you think there is a chance FIFA is sending a message to our fair country for coming in and prosecuting them?

    Politics and Culture
    I’ve been watching House of Cards,Season 4. Is it just me, or does the show attempting to show politics in the most ludicrous light possible, actually seem tame and predictable in comparison to the actual Presidential election?

    Sports
    Baseball season starts one week from today. Things will finally seem balanced again. What’s your prediction for Mariners wins? Personally, I’m simply hoping for them to stay competitive until the Seahawks start playing regular season games. I hate when I’m forced to watch a pre-season game because the Mariners have already fallen out of contention and playing games that are equally as meaningless.

    Sports
    And finally….Syracuse in the Final Four? Syracuse??? Come on… no one wants to watch that boring zone in the Final Four.

  • What I Learned – 6 Business Lessons To Learn From Bruce Springsteen

    3 hours and 45 minutes. That was the amount of time Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played at Key Arena on Thursday night. What can a musician teach a business person in 4 hours? Here are some simple lessons of which I was reminded.

    1) Treat your customer right
    How do you get you most ardent fans, all who have seen you play multiple times, to spend hundreds of dollars to see you again? Deliver them something so over the top, that they can’t say no to you. Do something unheard of – like playing “The River” from front to back for 2 hours, and then delivering another hour and 45 minutes of your hits. No intermissions, no fake encores, just turn on the lights and start playing.

    2) Deliver consistent product
    Once Springsteen hit his groove, he continued to deliver what his audience wanted. Sure, he dabbled here and there with some things like Tunnel of Love, but for the most part he has kept driving updated versions of what his customers were clamoring for. And when he wasn’t producing new material, he was on the road reminding his customers why they loved him.

    3) Work with a strong team
    Look at the folks he works with, and those who have passed. Solid musicians who do things better than he can. You don’t see him doing a vanity song on the piano or sax to show us he can play any instrument. He has the E Street Band, who are a key part of his storyline, and critical to the customer’s overall experience. Oh – and don’t be afraid to bring on someone like Eddie Vedder for a freelance consultant role.
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    4) Let your team discover their own creative outlets
    I bet there are fans of Silvio Dante who has no idea he was the lead guitarist for Bruce Springsteen (while even fewer Lilyhammer fans had a clue.) And plenty of Conan O’Brien lovers didn’t know who Max Weinberg was hanging out with on weekends. These were creative outlets where the guys in the shadows could get some spotlight and be known for being more than, “That guy who plays in Bruce’s band.”

    5) Work harder than everyone else
    Did I mention 3 HOURS AND 45 MINUTES. Without a break. With stage diving. At 66 years old. You don’t just do that. You train for it. You eat right, train better, and have the will to get it done. You practice so that you know exactly how to be the most efficient with your effort. You plan so that you know how to give everyone a couple of minutes here and there to get some water (or whatever they need) to stay on top of their game. This isn’t stumbling onto a stage at Bumbershoot and goofing around for 45 minutes. Any half-ass band or company can fake it for a little while. But that’s why he’s been selling out stadiums for 30 years.
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    6) And of course, it’s good to be The Boss.

  • Monday Morning Musings, March 21

    A few thoughts from last week.

    Sports:
    If you are not a fan of March Madness, I really feel bad for you. All the talk around the water cooler today will be about the insane drama that unfolded over the weekend, including LITERALLY the greatest comeback in the history of college basketball.

    Coincidentally, I couldn’t fall asleep Wednesday night so I built a big spreadhseet with about 10 inputs that I tried to normalize in some way, in order to predict game results. It’s a mini-me version of what Bing, FiveThrirtyEight.com and EESPN.com do. (You can read about their versions here in Geekwire.) For the record, in the first round Bing was only 21-11, FiveThirtyEight.com was 23-9 and ESPN was 24-8. The Boyer algorithm came in at 26-6. 26-6! Take that Nate Silver.

    And yes Sounders fans, it is time to prepare your panic kits. Panic is just around the corner after this weekend’s 2-1 loss to Vancouver. If we’re not going to have speed, and we’re not going to have power, and we’re not going to have luck, we at least could have some help from the refs. Instead, we got the opposite. Here are the videos of the supposed penalties. Decide for yourself.

    Politics:
    Apparently Bernie Sanders was in town Sunday. I’m kind of amazed that my Facebook feed was not lit up with people planning pre-event parties or asking who wanted to carpool. But I guess he drew 20,000 people or so. It really would be fun to see him have some sort of role in an administration someday.

    Culture:
    Guess who is coming to down this week after Bernie Sanders? No, not Hillary Clinton. Better! Bruce Springsteen at Key Arena. It could be the last tour of his career. Very much looking forward to it.

    Have a good week.

  • Monday Morning Musings

    Somethings left over from the week behind, and a few things I’m looking forward to in the days ahead.

    Sports:
    God bless March Madness. The only thing that stinks about the NCAA Tournament is that I seem to get sick every year during the first Thursday and Friday, causing me to miss work. Such a bummer… And congrats to an Oregin State team lead by Gary Payton II. Very cool to see a kid with some Seattle roots make the long path through Prep school and Junior College to finally make it to the NCAA Tourney as a senior.

    More sports:
    Did you have a good weekend? I bet yours wasn’t as good as Russel Wilson’s. He got two of his favorite people locked down for the foreseeable future. First he put a ring on Ciara, then his bosses dumped a truck full of thousand dollar bills in front of his buddy Jermaine Kearse. Congrats to everyone.

    Even more sports:
    I’m not ready to panic about the Sounders yet, but I have to admit, I don’t like the fact that they have no one with scary speed. I always feel like you need at least one guy who can run past everyone. Otherwise, it’s way to easy to play defense.

    Politics:
    So this could be the last two days I’m able to keep making my ridiculously bold prediction that John Kasich is still somehow going to end up the GOP nominee. Here’s the blueprint: 1) Win Ohio 2) Rubio loses Florida and drops out for a wink wink nod nod spot as Kasich’s running mate 3) Trump doesn’t get 50% 4) A brokered convention in Kasich’s home state enables him to rally the GOP faithful into the “Anyone but Trump and Cruz” bucket.

    Media
    Need a harmless Netflix series? “Death in Paradise” is a delightful little British detective series set in the Caribbean. Good characters, ok plots, and a generally decent way to avoid being crushed by 45 mph winds.

  • Monday Morning Musings

    Happy Monday morning. Here’s a look ahead at a few things I noticed last week, and a few things I’m looking forward to this week.

    1) A couple of good events this week in the Seattle Tech world. Tuesday is the March edition of New Tech Seattle at Galvanize. Looks like 4 interesting companies will be on display. Over on the Eastside, on Wednesday, Startup Grind Seattle Eastside hosts Sally Bergesen, Founder + CEO of Oiselle.

    2) Welcome back Sounders. Tough loss to start the year, but they’re still delivering a top fan experience. The new mobile app is interesting, as they are trying to get rid of paper tickets forever.

    3) The Mariners started playing Spring Training games last week. What do you think? I’m walking the line with everyone else and thinking they’ll win about 81-85 games. I just hope they can be playing competitive baseball until September. I hate that I find myself watching Seahawks pre-season games in August because the baseball season is already over.

    4) Have a favorite marketing blog you like? I’m on the hunt for some new ones.

    EDIT / UPDATE:
    5) Check out this cool new product from the head of Startup Grind Seattle, Michael Grabham. Simple idea, crisp execution. I hope the Kickstarter campaign for Package Guard does well. Check out the Package Guard product web site here.

  • American Politics are Dead, and I Blame Social Media

    I hear the gasps now. “But Andy, your mortgage gets paid because of social media. How can ANYTHING be social media’s fault?”

    In the beginning, we all promised that social would lead to the democratization of media. Finally, one person with a great point could be heard by the masses, without the media getting in the way and distorting the message. That was the goal, the dream, the vision.

    But what do we have instead?

    Everyone in my Facebook feed who posts something political, made their decision who to support months if not years ago. I have yet to see a single post where someone says, “Here is a really well thought out article that discusses two sides of a complex issue. Please read it so we can discuss as mature adults in a reasonable fashion.”

    No, every political post is along the lines of, “Another example of how Trump sucks.” Or, “Here’s why Hillary is going to jail.” Or, “Look, GOP is imploding. LOL HAHAHA #DemsRule.”

    And really, this is our fault. We took a channel that we could own, and turned it into a circus. People complain about how biased FoxNews, CNN, and MSNBC are. But they need to look at their own Facebook and Twitter feeds. Individuals pander to their friends and followers worse than the media does. No Democrat reads an article about John Kasich and posts, “Hmm, I hadn’t thought about this before. He seems to make sense.” No, everyone moves on to the next article in their Flipboard hoping the headline says something like, “Donald Trump declares he likes to eat puppies.”

    Ari, Chris and I learned this in 2007 when we built MyElectionChoices.com (ironically we lost the url to some Chinese spam company). People were really happy when their results confirmed the beliefs they had entering into the survey. They were very displeased to learn that they had something in common with the opposite party. Sometimes I wish we could try that experiment again. But I bet we’d find the same results.

    So instead of a place to learn, social media has become an echo chamber where like minded individuals like each other’s posts, which triggers the algorithm to deliver more of the same types of posts that the same people can like even more. Social media is now built to make sure you don’t see a differing opinion, especially one that requires reading and/or thought. We’ve built a channel where everyone who believes the same thing can put on blinders and believe everyone sees things the way they do.

    And that is the exact opposite of what the democratization of media was supposed to be about.

  • Explaining Why the Sounders are Playing Tonight, in 30 Seconds or Less

    The Sounders play their 1st game of the MLS season on March 6. But today is February 23 and they have a home game that matters against a Mexican team called Club America. For you non-soccer fans, I will attempt to explain in the fewest words possible.

    1) In 2014, while the regular season was being played, the Sounders won a different tournament called the U.S. Open Cup. That made them one of 4 American teams to qualify for yet another DIFFERENT 24 team tournament in 2015 called the Concacaf Champions League (Concacaf = Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football.)

    2) In 2015, they played the “Group Stage,” where the 24 teams were split into 8 groups of 3, with the winner of each advancing to the next round. So the Sounders played 2 games against a team from Canada and 2 games against a team from Honduras. They won their Group, thus advancing to the final round of 8.

    3) HOWEVER, due to the weird schedules of U.S. and Mexican leagues, you can’t actually play the quarterfinals, semi-finals and finals of the 2015 tournament in 2015. So these rounds are being played in February, March and April of 2016. In each round, the teams will play two games against their opponent, one at home, one on the road a week later. Most goals after two games wins.

    4) Out of the 24 teams that qualified for the tournament originally, 4 were from the Mexican League and 4 were from the U.S. The other 16 came from all over Central America; Honduras, Trinidad, Guatemala, etc… All 4 teams from Mexico and all 4 teams from the U.S. advanced to the final round of 8. So if you are a math wizard, you are able to quickly see than ZERO of the 16 teams from the other countries made it past the U.S. and Mexican teams. In fact, when you look at the overall records in the Group Stage, U.S. teams were 10-5-1 and Mexican teams 10-4-2. Yes, in 32 games, U.S. and Mexican teams lost a total of 3 times.

    Now, you might ask the question, “Well if the U.S. and Mexican teams are the only ones to make it through the Group Stage anyway, why do they play meaningless games in 2015 and delay the Knockout rounds until a full 2 seasons after the teams qualified? Why not skip the Group Stage and just have an 8 team Knockout in the right year?”

    That’s a question I don’t really have a better answer for than, “Well, it’s soccer.”

    Adding to the lunacy of the whole thing, because each group has 3 teams, by mathematical definition all the teams in the groups can’t play in the same 24 hours, like every other tournament in the world would schedule games. So in a quirk of fate, last year the Sounders won their group BEFORE the other two teams in their group had played their final game. Thus, Vancouver had to fly to Honduras in the middle of the week to play a game that didn’t matter, wasn’t on TV and no one wanted to go to. I think they sent like 13 of their youngsters and were in and out in 24 hours.

    So that’s why the Sounders are playing tonight.