As a fan of all things Seattle and Boeing, this was painful to read. I’m hopeful that Boeing can fix this, but also recognize that it’s a monumental task of attempting to reboot a corporate culture against decades of history. Crises tend to provide solid energy to overcome social inertia. I hope Boeing is able to pull this off.
Boeing is still a company I love and admire. Sure, as a fan of things Seattle, and a lover of aviation, I hold a bias. Many, many of my friends and family have held Boeing badges. I deeply want the company to succeed. Yet in a sustainable manner. Erosions of trust at this level are very hard to overcome, and it can’t be done with a model solely focused on maximized profit.
I have news alerts for Lynnwood set up via Google. Today one came through that didn’t seem too significant at first glance “Lynnwood auto site sells for $13 Million.” But a quick glance made me see that there was something a bit deeper, more important…well, at least for me. The address looked very familiar: 18624 Highway 99, Lynnwood. It’s really close to my house and I just knew I’d see that address before. Well, a few years ago, it was a proposed site for low-income apartments: The Evergreen Village. This was a 231 unit complex expected to start construction in 2016. That never happened. Seeing the sale, though, made me take a deeper dive.
I’m not sure what stalled the project, but I see that that TCG Investments, the owners of the property who had proposed the development, sold to a company called Swickard Real Estate Investments back at the end of 2018. Then they sold to another company, Holman Lynnwood RED, LLC. This group looks to be part of the Holman Automotive Group located out of New Jersey.
I would expect, then, that they are planning on developing the site for another auto sales lot. Not at all a unique business in Lynnwood along Highway 99. Backing up against the old Cycle Barn site, where it looks like Sandberg Volvo is parking cars makes me wonder if Sandberg will be expanding into that space. Certain logic there, no? I guess we won’t know until someone finally submits permits on the site (I did check the City of Lynnwood’s permit site today and don’t see anything yet).
Just stumbled upon this post on Amazon’s website: “Meet The Dogs Of Amazon“. I was reminded of my brief stint with Amazon.
Back in the mid-90s (est. 1996) I did one temp project with them, back when Amazon was located on 2nd Avenue, close to Pike Place Market. I helped build a call center. I set up the dumb terminals for the inbound call reps. Not the most challenging work. I just pulled a monitor from a box, added the keyboard, pinged the mainframe, then off to the next one. It was just a few day project.
During my intro, I was given a tour of the building. On one floor, there was a corgi and his human. Every hour or so, the human threw the ball down the hall, the corgi chased it, repeat. I thought it was pretty amazing. It was my first experience into a more relaxed office environment. Eye opening and rather life changing. And my first experience with tech culture.
I can’t imagine that dramatic of a re-org will happen without layoffs.
With that, it’s hard to see through the fog in the crystal ball on this one, at least as far as layoffs go. I’ve seen Microsoft layoff plenty of people, who then get hired on in other business groups over time. How many of those folks will actually collect unemployment (if any) is hard to gauge.
It’s nice to see what was called “services” when I worked there getting serious attention.
So, I hope that the drama of this announcement creates little-to-no stress for you, dear reader.
I’ve had two conversations today that have me thinking about the area’s economic opportunities.
Seeing the potential from storage rental facilities, with RV spaces in particular. I know a builder who had nearly 100% occupancy shortly after pre-sales started. Complete hearsay, but I still trust it. Well, enough to be willing to do further research.
Storefronts in the City of Everett. Now, after some brief research, looks like commercial real estate vacancies are down. Yet, while walking along Colby a week or so ago, there’s quite a bit of storefront space vacant. I think Everett has a lot of potential, and that it will materialize at some point. I’d like to see a more vigorous effort to promote the downtown of the city. Especially as an alternative to Seattle. But, that’s just my notion.
Anyway, there are other potentials out there. What are you seeing?
It was a weird day to be at the Snohomish County administrative offices.
One: for some strange reason, tons of people were submitting plans/requests for permits. Not sure the causality of that. But the line was LOONNGGG.
Two: there was plenty of media presence, most likely due to this story: “Cascade Mall shooter dies in apparent jail suicide“. Mr. Cetin was being held in the Snohomish County jail, part of the admin complex.
Three: I heard that they were interviewing jurors for a major case. Not sure the whos or whats of that rumor, but there you go.
Four: I’m sure related to all the above, there was no parking in the county’s garage.
Last but not least, there was a gnarly accident on the corner of Oakes and Pacific, so Oakes wasn’t getting through, and people were being routed around Pacific.
Made for a slow moving day, but got some key stuff done. Not going to complain too loudly.
A few months ago (well, maybe a bit longer) Everett’s Trinity Lutheran College folded up shop. We have a new tenant moving into their old space: Funko, formerly of Lynnwood.
Looks like they’re taking the whole building, which, if true, will be great both for Funko and Everett. That’ll be a boon for the local businesses, restaurants and such.
I’m excited to see this change, though Lynnwood will certainly miss a great company that’s up and coming. Such is the way of things, I guess.
With 7 years working in Real Estate, I’m on tons of email lists. I don’t mind this much, as I get to see what’s going on out in the market. Today, though, got one that violates all my marketing skills, understanding and wisdom.
It was a jpg dropped into an email. I’m not a fan (mea culpa: I’ve done that in the past, mainly out of time, or, sadly, that’s all I had to work with).
In the jpg were several urls. Note: I don’t say “links”. The links were NOT CLICKABLE! Simply text in the jpg.
As I was interested in the property in question, I manually typed the links into a browser. Nope! No worky. Not even the bit.ly one. Not a single link worked.
I saw the project name in the email addresses in the “contact us” section. That was the right URL.
The creme de la creme, the piece de resistance (insert cliche of your choice here): there was no address. No city. Not even a state, region…nothing. When I finally made a url work, I could see that it was on the Washington Coast. Please note: this was for a new real estate development. “Location, Location, Location”?
It seemed like the creator of this campaign worked really hard to ensure I not only didn’t connect, but actually ended up annoyed with them. Amazing how well it violated every tenet I have for effective email communication.
So, do:
Location. Events: have a date, location (address, venue…at least a city), and times. Drives me nuts to get an email for a property that looks interesting, or an event that looks really cool and, well, sorry, it’s it Atlanta. And it’s not until I’m in the registration section that I find that out? Geez!
If you can at all help it, don’t just email jpgs. FYI, spam filters hate them.
Links. Oh. My. Gawd! Making me TYPE your link…from an email?
Links, part ii: Links MUST WORK. Test them! Most people won’t do anywhere near what I did. I was curious at that point and choose to dig. They may have got a click, but they didn’t get a sale.
Segment your market and sell accordingly. I’m not working the Washington Coast market. It’s hours of driving away!
Your main call to action cannot fail. If clicking on the link takes you to a Google page saying “sorry, sparky, no frickin idea what website you’re trying to find”, every erg of energy expended was wasted. Your goal is sales, right? Customers gotta get to your page. Gotta!
Keep your eyes on the prize, folks. Sales pitches to the right people, in the right way, is a splendid thing. Spam? Yeah, no.
Earlier today I read this piece from my friends at Geekwire: “Music service Rhapsody posts record $35M net loss even as revenues climb to $202M“. I’m not simply concerned about a long-standing Seattle tech company struggling, but also that entities like Spotify are also bleeding cash to keep their market share. The losses are not sustainable long-term. I’m really not a streaming-music industry analyst, so I can’t really speak to the timeline of the issue, and that’s really not my point or concern.
I’m wondering about the sustainability of the music business. Not simply Spotify, et al; actually, even more my focus is on musicians. I’ve heard from many sources (most notably Taylor Swift) about how Spotify is not providing a livable income. Now, if Apple, Google, etc, can pay more than Spotify or Rhapsody, that’s a particular issue. However, I think this is larger. It’s ultimately about the consumers, about me and you as music lovers. Perhaps $10/mo is not enough to for artists to make music and eat. And if that’s the case, maybe we need to think about more $$$.
There are many tools that individual artists are leveraging well. Kickstarter and Patreon come to mind first. There are several tools, though, that help. Many artists I admire, such as Amanda Palmer and Zoe Keating leverage these tools to good effect. However, they spend a lot of time managing their audience. It seems, for them, that they get a lot of positive energy from us. Which will certainly make it more pleasant. Of course, emails, blog posts, Instagram updates and all that take away from producing their art. Or, maybe, that’s part of their art.
Anyway, there’s much to consider with this. So, as a mediation, I’ll leave you with Zoe Keating’s closing at the 2016 Word Economic Forum meeting in Davos. She’s carved an amazing niche for herself. As a fan myself, and love interacting with her other fans.
