Now here’s the pricing of all the songs on the album, if purchased individually:

I don’t always do the math, but when I do, I get… $1.57 in savings if you just buy the songs separately. It’s either the case, therefore, that:

a) Amazon’s magical pricing algorithm is able to calculate optimal album pricing, no matter how many songs on the album or whether or not the album price is lower/same/higher than individual song purchases;

b) Amazon’s magical pricing algorithm doesn’t care about number of songs on an album, and prices albums according to some record label guidance or other intractable price floors;

c) Amazon’s magical pricing algorithm doesn’t pay attention to number of songs on an album or their price points, and instead prices the album when purchased as a whole at a particular price point based on demand or other factors, while pricing the songs at a fixed level of $0.99 based upon record label guidance or intractable price floors.

Given how complex Amazon’s magical price algorithms presumably are, I’m sure there are more options than the 3 posited above… but I bet it’s one of those 3 (at least in this case). 

In any case, interesting to me (since I’m an ecommerce algorithm nerd, by virtue of being an econ major with just enough knowledge to hurt me when it comes to pricing art + science stuff)…

******

UPDATE:

Well holy awesome, @amazon and @amazonmp3 are certainly ‘actively listening’ to social media posts it would appear!  Very shortly after I posted this, and it auto-propagated a stub to my @claymcdaniel (usually useless due to its randomness) Twitter handle, the good folks @amazonmp3 pushed me an @-Reply indicating that the full album pricing was a mistake somehow, and that they would be ‘fixing it shortly’.  Lo and behold, just went back and checked the site.  New and improved pricing equivalent to sum of individual song pricing now live:

Color me impressed with the speed and specificity of this.  ‘Needle in a haystack?’… Not if you’re looking in the right way (eh, @amazonmp3 ?  cc: @johnyurc )  Also: I will now reward your active Twitter listening and rapid-response program with my purchase. Cheerio.

Here is your website’s main home page:

Why would I *not* want to “Launch Website”? I have navigated to your page on the World Wide Internets because, presumably, exactly the thing that I MOST wanted to do in the whole universe at this moment is to… Launch Your Website. I believe this is how the whole Having-a-website-so-that-people-can-visit-it thing works these days, unless I have missed a global memo on the topic. Is this a subtle warning that something terrible, something baaaad, is going to happen if I “Launch Website”? Are you deliberately trying to make me want it more… to make me work for your digital charms? Did someone tell you that wearing masks will make you mysterious, oddly appealing? I’m confused.

Also, in case your web designers have cracked the secret SEO code, this home page strategem is not helping the rich or useful nature of your organic search results. By virtue of your digital meta-data goodies being held behind this odd “Launch Website” click-wall, this is what your search result listing looks like:

“loading>”  Not exactly the gold standard in site Title and Description helpfulness for the Bings and Googles of the world.

All in all, a big dose of hmmmm…

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gameloft.android.ANMP.GloftTOHM&utm_source=Amobee&utm_medium=Advertising%2BCampaign&utm_campaign=Oregon%2BTrail%2BAmobee%2BCampaign

I know, i know, sacreligious for the head of a social media marketing agency to suggest such a thing, but…

Really? Who is a fan of a fast-foodcourt? Who wants regular text based updates of all the latest happenings at an airport foodcourt? 

I am dooming my company’s business prospects with the NY/NJ Port Authority I guess, but I just.dont.getit.

Maybe i should follow  this particular foodcourt for a while to try and crack the code here…

Ok, so I love picking this one apart by the stats. 

First, self reported a year after last violation action. So somebody noticed something, alerted someone else, its a ginormous public university so a year is the minimum amount of time it could reasonably be expected that the inquiry/evaluation/assessment/decision/recommendation/notification cycle can play out here. (Think I’m being facetious. Look how long this cycle took at Enron, and it’s a public company.)  Point in Nebraska’s favor.

Second, do the quick math and we’re talking about an average of $2000 in textbooks and school supplies per sport over 4 years, so $500 per year per sport, which means about 4 textbooks and a 10 Comp books per sport per year. Or 50 copies of Gravity’s Rainbow, if everyone at Nebraska takes Modern American Lit. On a per sport / volume of bad action basis, not exactly the Ocean’s Eleven of collegiate athletic malfeasance.  Split decision. (I’m ethically opposed to all athletic economic malfeasance, no matter how large or small. But, this is pretty small. It’s a wash.)

Third, we are talking about free textbooks and college supplies for active student athletes here. Yes, everything has value and free stuff for one group that’s not free for others is clearly unfair, uncool, and demonstration of bias. But, really, if you’re going to break the rules (at very modest levels, and self-report it as soon as people in power find out and validate that it happened), isn’t it better to break them in the form of surreptitiously smuggling the tools of knowledge and learning into the hands of the subset of the collegiate population who has the most time-sucking distractions? (How often do you think the starting center attends Thursday morning lectures if she or he is playing away against archrivals away on an ESPN televised Big Wednesday late game?).  Split decision.

NCAA sports programs, don’t break the rules. They protect student athletes and they try to ensure not only a level playing field for athletes across colleges, but a level academic field within colleges.  But if you do break the rules, break them like Nebraska just did. Just try to find out about and report it sooner than they did.

Ok that’s all I got for now.

The same network effects are happening (by my observation at least) within the King County Public School District in Seattle proper. This isn’t true at all school locations, or necessarily at all levels, but within my small scope of visibility there are numerous thriving public elementary schools which deliver amazing value to both young learners *and* to their parents. When I try to assess the drivers of this value, it keeps coming back to the network effects of having a large, committed, active community of stakeholders in the particular schools that are thriving. So it’s not *just* great educators committed to their classroom’s success, or *just* active and involved parents who are willing to fund the long-term outcomes of the schools by the contributions of both their time and their money (when needed to make up shortfalls in funding which inevitably occur in certain areas of a diverse public school curriculum), or *just* the kind of accountability and support system that comes from parents, educators, and volunteers all knowing each other and saying “Hi” and chatting each other up via coffee socials and on the sidewalks before and after the school day. It’s the combination of all 3 of these factors — the nexus of individual families and administrators and teachers coming together and forming a tightly nit community of people with shared focus on mutual outcomes.

Which brings me to my experience as a business professional and leader of a company operating here in the Pacific Northwest with my company Spring Creek Group these past 5 years.  Ordinary companies – those with a clear mission, value proposition, and profitability goal – can thrive in most geographic locations these days, with the efficiencies that the Internet and SAAS software and mobile productivity devices have introduced in recent years.  True, specialized skills are available in greater density in certain cities or regions — so starting particular types of businesses can look more appealing ‘a priori’ in certain locations, versus others. But with the benefit of some hindsight and momentum, I’ve come to realize that once you’ve assembled a small critical mass of talent around almost any particular area of focus as a business enterprise, you can make almost any type of business thrive in almost any location across the U.S., if you have the strategic vision and the operational discipline.

Extraordinary businesses, however — the kinds of businesses that seek to *not only* be profitable and sustained, but which *also* seek to deliver a culture of learning and growth and respect for its employees *and* to deliver above-average community and social impact as a corporate citizen of its place and culture — these businesses require something more.  Increasingly I’ve come to believe that what extraordinary businesses require, in order to realize their potential, is a community.  The kind of business community I’m describing is one that first of all respects and rewards experimentation — through informal industry associations, meetups, ‘beer-storming’ social sessions, and a willingness on the part of business leaders to share contacts, networks, and introductions to other leaders who can support or assist a colleague when needed (and not necessarily because it will benefit themselves or their businesses directly to do so…).  The kind of business community which seeks different models of supporting entrepreneurship and experimentation — like what Founders Coop and TechStars is doing here in Seattle under Chris Devore and Andy Sack’s leadership, or what organizations like the Technology Access Foundation are doing to prepare youths from underserved communities with vocational and technical skills which prepare them for placed summer internships with innovative companies which provide the start of a resume on which they can build their careers later as young adults.  And the kind of business community in which energetic leaders spontaneously create social outings and ‘chat and chew’ events which incorporate seeming competitors, who agree under ‘FrieNDA’ to share unvarnished war stories, learnings, and advice with each other after hours, even though they may be directly competitive with each other during their workaday lives.

It takes a special sort of leap of faith to agree to lay down your competitive swords and shields and to engage in respectful conversation over local micro-brews… the sort of leap of faith which is based upon a commitment to the health of the larger business community and region, at a level at least commensurate with your commitment to the viability and success of your own business venture.  I am presently participating in several of these informal business-community meetups, and I consistently marvel at how much richer my own perspective on the larger business environment and how much more nuanced my own view of my company’s strategic strengths and weaknesses has become as a result of these private and unvarnished conversations.  These informal meetups remind me of a term I heard in b-school: “co-opetition”.  Finding the productive middle-ground wherein ordinarily competitive business professionals can get together and agree to cooperate by sharing personal learnings, insights, and opinions with each other is not a simple task… because our livelihoods – money – are on the line.  However, the essence of any vibrant healthy community is in the ways that costs fall and value increases when all the actors agree to occasionally set aside personal ambition and to instead focus collectively on communal ambitions, goals, and ideals.

It’s such a pleasure to strive to build an extraordinary – rather than a merely ordinary – business in this city, and in this part of the world.  The network effects of a rich community of people who share a similar passion accrue here to rock climbers and fly fishers and parents and cyclocross racers and ultra-marathon runners and jazz musicians and single-moms and community organizers and so many other groups here in Seattle… but they are in full effect for many different business verticals here as well. And I think that these small but committed business community assemblies, where collective learning is exchanged and many Manny’s Pale Ales are drank, are an important part of what compels entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest to focus on what might make their companies something more than just successful by ‘ordinary’ measures.

The pride of place I’ve developed in Seattle during the past decade is in large part connected to the vitality that emerges from a shared set of community values. In my estimation, it’s not just some arbitrary result of a cloudy place somehow making people more personally and professionally altruistic. Instead, I think that more of the innovative minds who have established their place in the Pacific Northwest have chosen to cement in their foundation here because its Values help make it such a great value.  The business community here actually feels like, and operates like, one.  I couldn’t have anticipated, but I also couldn’t have asked, for anything more when I decided to take my own leap of entrepreneurial faith here in Seattle more than 5 years ago.

Warm autumn regards as the cool cloudy skies return again to all of us here in Seattle… and to anyone else who may have stumbled across this post from elsewhere, come out to Jet City sometime soon and we’ll pull together a few folks over beers who love to do whatever combination of things you love to do with your own personal and professional time.  I’d be happy to add you to a few of my favorite communities here, too…

A strange kismet occurs when I feel at peace with a particular place. It has only happened a few times in my life. The diversity and display of individuality attracted me to New York City, and will always draw me back like a magnet for visits… though never again to live. The vitality and persistence of London makes me long for experience with more of its neighborhoods, no matter how many I walk. The flat rivers hold the noise of motion and the chemistry of insects, which feed the trout, which bring me to them… though I always want to stay longer for the choir of the slick rocks and the comfort of knowing I will return to the river when the rest of my bodily water is gone. The green cities of the Pacific Northwest breed a particular sensibility that rewards thoughtfulness, sometimes guardedness, and humility. And the Vermont of the Puget Sound currently just feels right.

“I love it here” is usually stated to declare a connection with the culture and the people. For me a place feels personal when I feel a connection with the geology and the climate and the rhythms of life. I feel lucky to have found a few of these places, and to have had the good fortune to be able to spend more time than perhaps I would have expected at them as I could have predicted as a younger man.