Experiment – Steamboat Blogs Dot Com

Written by on July 27, 2009 in Marketing - 2 Comments

logowhitebgSo I recently started an experiment to see what it would look like to aggregate all the stuff people are posting about Steamboat from around the web. Photos, tweets, blogs, etc all in one place. It’s still in alpha mode but you can see it here:

www.steamboatblogs.com

It’s far complete so if you have a blog or know of one that should be included let me know in the comments below. In watching this develop over the past few weeks it’s been interesting to see all the positive things posted about Steamboat.

I’m totally open to suggestions too (like I’m not sure this is the final look & feel).

You can also subscribe to updates via email. You’ll get an email once a day with all the new stuff posted over the past 24 hours.

Subscribe to Steamboat Blogs – What we are saying about Steamboat by Email

It’s far complete so if you have a blog or know of one that should be included let me know in the comments below.

Photos: Welcome Home

Written by on May 27, 2009 in Photography - 6 Comments

I had the opportunity to shoot an amazing home here in Steamboat last week. Here’s a couple of the shots (click to enlarge):
Gallery & All Welcome home

What’s The Right “Formula?”

Written by on April 11, 2007 in Competition, Create Value - No Comments

In 1980, the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Superbowl with offensive linemen whose average weight was 252lbs.
The 2007 Superbowl winners, the Indianapolis Colts, had offensive linemen weighing in at 306lbs on average.

In the 1968 Presidential Election the average sound bite was 43 seconds.
In 2000 it was 9 seconds.

20 years ago you could run a 30-second television commercial on any of the 3 major networks and be guaranteed to reach a huge portion of the American Population.
Today you need to advertise on 92 channels to reach that same audience.

As a market gets more competitive, winning by the traditional rules gets more and more difficult. Some choose to try harder, some invent new markets and some leave. But it’s the freedom of our markets that decides what works and what doesn’t. Walling off a portion of Steamboat or creating an artificial funnel only certain businesses can pass through (i.e. the formula store) is not the answer to dealing with new retail opportunities as they come online in Steamboat. Competition makes for a better market place, a better consumer experience and a better economy. Could you imagine how ASC would have run Steamboat Mountain if there were no Vail, Aspen, Copper, Whistler etc.? The proposal of a “formula store ordinance” is a step in the wrong direction in that it seeks to regulate business and competition in a very subjective manner.
The organizations who created the additional 90,000 square feet of retail space should be applauded for taking the risk to add such opportunities to the Steamboat marketplace. The market should be an open playing field so those who take the risks to improve Steamboat have an economic incentive to do so.
Development risks such as these are what will keep Steamboat growing in the right direction. Let the free markets decide who stays and who goes, what the leases should be and what gets built. I believe this can be done within the context of preserving the Steamboat experience.

Personally, I would welcome additional opportunities to spend my money in Steamboat. I’ll probably spend less when beautiful retail space remains empty simply because businesses who fit the formula are not allowed.