Andy Boyer

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.

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.

Seattle Craigslist Alternative Bonanzle

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....

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(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!

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.  

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.   

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....

I promise, if the Seattle Sounders do something like try to move to Oklahoma City, or spend $117 million on players I wouldn't add to a Fantasy baseball team, I'll complain about it.  But as long as they keep doing things that impress me as a marketing professional, I'm going to keep sharing how impressed I am.

This week, I went through the pleasurable and fun process of selecting my 2009 season ticket package.  In comparison, I've completely given up on using Ticketmaster.com due to its inflexibility and 75% Convenience charge.  It's amazing that you can't choose your seats on that site, but instead are held hostage to a weak algorithm that supposedly gives you "Best Available" in a certain section.  Plus, I honestly don't understand how I can order 5 books from Amazon Marketplace from 5 different people and pay like $15.00 total in shipping, but if I try to use Ticketmaster to buy 4 concert tickets, they want to charge something like $50 just to print out a couple of ducats and stick them at will call.  Why?  Are my tickets taking a limo from TM HQ to the arena? Is the paper laced with gold?  What could command $50 in service charges?  Anyway, now I just take the time to go to the stadium, pick out seats I want and leave happy.

But I digress.

The Sounders experience was as close to "Anti-Ticketmaster" as I can find.  Even if you don't care about soccer, I encourage you to go through the process at http://tickets.soundersfc.com/   .  Choose whether you want to sit or stand during the game.  Or if you want to be in a section that sings or not.  Take a virtual tour of every row in every section.  It's a very fan friendly experience, and trust me, the fans appreciate it. 

Let me know if you have found any other ticket places with convenient tools such as this. 

This Monday at 4:30pm, the Save Our Sonics Organization is hosting a rally on the courthouse steps  (700 Stewart St., Seattle). Sonics legends Gary Payton and Xavier McDaniel are confirmed to attend and speak at 4:30 pm. Other Sonics Legends have been invited and are expected to appear.

Now whether you are a die-hard fan, casual observer or don't even care and just live and work in Seattle, here are 5 (or 7) reasons you should show support.

1. For the first time ever, a city and state did not bow down to a league that demanded a new tax-payer funded stadium.  You should show that a league should not punish a city for this appropriate action.
2. Over 41 years, more than 20,000,000 people have watched Sonics games in person.  That's a piece of history that should stay - and I bet it's more than have watched the symphony, opera and ballet combined.
3. You cannot idly sit by and watch an Oklahoma Oil Baron (who is also a Republican) come rob the eco-friendly Pacific Northwest of one of its assets.
4. At least some of your friends care about this, so you should support them.  They contribute to your Sierra Club, Humane Society and kid's school's auctions.  This doesn't even cost you anything.
   
5. It's happy hour in Seattle - what an excuse to kill an hour off your work day on a Monday?  
   
6. David Stern is proving to be an arrogant, very bad man.  Don't let him get away with this without Seattle making some noise.
   
7. There's about a 1% chance the team survives.  If that miracle occurs, 34 years from now on the Sonics 75th anniversary, don't you want to tell your grand-kids, "I was at the rally that proved to be the turning point."
   

 Get there - do your part.  Make it a huge rally that gets on the national news. 

A few years ago, we had this crazy idea to build a monorail, that would start in downtown and brtanch out to two of Seattle's far flung neighborhoods, Ballard and Seattle.

By most accounts, the whole plan was run by the guys who drive clown cars, and the money guys needed an abacus to count sea shells on the beach.  It was the little engine that couldn't even though all of us have spent about $1500 in taxes for the train that never ran.

But is it time to dust off the powerpoint, and re-run the Excel spreadsheet with new numbers?  Interest rates have never been lower, so the money would be cheaper.  Gas prices have never been hire, but will be tomorrow (and the day after, and the day after that, etc...), so you can assume ridership will skyrocket.   And now we have a real crisis, and you see how civic leaders (i.e. Steve Ballmer) suddenly appear in times of crisis.

Sometimes great ideas have terrible execution, or poor timing, and all it takes is a different team on a diferent day to turn a dud into nirvana.  Think the Smarte Car, which 25 years ago was a dog called the Yugo.  Or the iPod, which in 1997 was a dorky thing called Diamond Rio.  The Newton never made it, but pieces of it came back into every PDA sold from 2003-2007. 

So, what do you think?  Why not revisit this whole monorail thing, with a new team driving the project? 

If you have not booked out every  Saturday or Sunday for the next 3 weeks, try to book some time to check out the All Nations Cup 2008. This is truly one of the most unique events in Seattle, and a great example of what makes the city a pretty cool place to live.

The All Nations Cup is an amateur soccer tournament where every player competes for their home country.  It's like the World Cup, but for amateurs.  (This weekend's schedule here.)

I've been sporadically over the last few years, and the soccer is always of high quality.  But the real fun is seeing the fans.  You have these small communities of people from Ethiopia, Bosnia, Gambia, etc....There may only be a few hundred in the whole city, but most of them come out to support this group of amateur players.  Everyone has their flags, songs, drums, etc...

All games are at Starfire down in Tukwila and it's like $10 or $15 or something per day.   With 4 games going on at once, you can shift from field to field and see some pretty strong players.

If you get down there, let me know.