Ep067: Conner's Solo Episode Experiment

Catching Up with Conner and Nick

Ep067: For the first time in the history of this show, Conner will be hosting all by himself. Nick is in Africa this week hosting Founder's Live and isn't able to jump on the phone call. So instead of canceling the show all together, we handed the microphone over to Conner to experiment doing the solo show. Conner started a brand called Find Me in Seattle where he explores the city telling stories and sharing videos about the people, places, food and experiences that make our city interesting. This week Conner visited Oyster New Year by Elliot's Oyster House and also voted in this month's Seattle election. He also talks briefly about the Seattle Sounders hosting MLS Cup. But in true Catching Up style, we want to make sure we still focus on technology, startups and marketing, so Conner has two topics for the week. The first is related to the birthday of Alexa devices. Conner, and many others, received a random package from Amazon this week that contained a coffee tumbler with the writing "Alexa, order coffee" on it. It was a nice gift to receive from a relatively stingy company, but what surprised me the most was the thought about how voice could be the next big search engine. When you say "Alexa, order coffee," what coffee does she actually order? This is going to make branding so much more important, because unless you pay to be the default, you're going to lose a lot of sales unless the customer specifically asks to order your brand. Secondly, we learned about a unique approach to promoting movies by releasing them city by city and promoting them through events and thought it was a really great idea. It's being done by Kevin Smith, and his new movie "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot," is being promoted this way.

We hope you enjoy Conner's solo episode and experiment for releasing a future Find Me in Seattle Show. Please let us know what you think!