First Crack 63. Coffee Technology with Timothy Tulloch of EuroRoast.com

Timoth Tulloch, CEO and Roastmaster at Minnesota-based European Roasterie (EuroRoast.com), and I talk coffee technology, from brewing to packaging, and why he’s aggressively moving into the single-serve coffee pod program (declaring the Black & Decker Home Cafe the best pod brewer). We wrap up with the culture of specialty coffee and how independent coffee shops can win against Starbucks.

I’ve been really enjoying their Mulawi and the new theme song is by Jeremy Piller.

Listen to Coffee Technology with Timothy Tulloch of EuroRoast.com [27 min]

Help, Help, I’m Not Being Oppressed

There’s a renewed DIY/independence/hacker vibe going around, Dave Slusher says it needs a name. I agree.

From my perspective, this vibe is about all of us making effective use of cheap tools – to serve our own individual/custom purposes first, and offering the finished product to others to extend and enhance. I hesitate to use the phrase “finished product” – for the end result is not a static, defined product – it’s another tool.

I’ve done enough home renovation to know building materials and tools are not expensive and the renovation is not extraordinarily difficult. It simply takes time to do.

There’s a tinge of Populism in here, but without the belief that the common person is being oppressed by the elite. It’s not socialism or communism – for despite the people owning the means of production we are acting as individuals, not a collective.

My library has far too many Ayn Rand books on it not to consider Objectivism. But it’s not, because everyone expressing the vibe in question places value in being starchy rational and subjective and emotional.

All this digging around makes me wonder if the formative philosophies of our time were defined around striving to get something – rather than what to do once you have it.

Back to the problem at hand….

In the television cartoons of my youth, the “good guys” always seemed to be more unified, more of a collective, more in unison than the disorganized albeit nefarious “bad guys” (the phrase “Herding Cats” comes to mind). Considering how we’re all working in parallel (not unison) on this and in honor of the Dave for throwing down the gauntlet, I suggest the moniker “Evil Genius“.

And since those of the cyberpunk/diy/hacker vein are not without their backup, I also offer: “MacGyver“. ReadyMade Magazine has a regular MacGyver Challenge.

On third thought, perhaps “Dennis” from Monty Python’s Holy Grail, he inspired the title of this post.

Amazing Race 8 – Episode 2

On a good note, the suitcase-exchange Road Block in the Tidal Basin is one of Amazing Race’s best challenges; it’s place appropriate, anyone can do it, it’s sexy, and success is a random process of elimination. As always, a good road block like this shakes up the rankings.

It feels like the teams are spending 80% of the time driving around New England. I’m sure its pretty, it doesn’t seem as exotic nor as entertaining as flying around the world.

On tonight’s elimination; if you read a map and send your team the opposite direction down the freeway – be man enough to admit it right away. Don’t blame your son for missing an exit you never passed. Yes, Rogers Family Dad, I’m talking to you and thanks for owning up to it in the end.

Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites

  • Lintz – #2
  • Aeillo – #5

This Email is Bloggable Signature

I’ve been thinking about when to send an email verses blog. I’ve decided on a loose guideline: if more than 3 people would find something useful, I’ll blog it. If not it’s an email (or, even better, an instant message)

Somethings, like mailing lists, don’t map well to this guideline. To cover that, I’ve followed Ross Mayfield’s cue and added a “this email is bloggable” flag to my email signature.

This message is blog-able:
[x] yes [ ] please don’t

Notice this is a simplification from Mayfield’s 3 checkbox version – to me “please ask” really means “please don’t”. While reading his Email 2.0 post, I realized the sig could be simplified further. To minimize confusion, I don’t include the bloggable flag in private or “please don’t” messages anyway. That, and “please don’t” never felt right. In addition, if I don’t explicity grant you permission to use a private or semi-private email message publicly – then well, you won’t. Cause that ain’t Web 2.0 cool.

Thus, I’ve revised my flag to read:

— Feel Free to Blog This Message —

Starbucks is Ideal for Lazy Vacationers

The wife and I spent this past weekend in the middle of Wisconsin. We’re both particular about our coffee and we both enjoy joking about measuring distance in Starbucks. At home, we prefer local roasters like Dunn Bros or White Rock.

But you don’t know the relief we sighed when Wausau got their first Starbucks. Like McDonalds, Starbucks’ offering are consistently mediocre. Yet, they are still leagues above the native coffee shops in terms of quality, they’re the only place in town with a wireless network, and the only coffee shop open on Sundays.

This makes Starbucks the obvious answer for grabbing a decent morning cup while out of town. As much as I’d prefer a quirkly, quaint, local roaster.

Now, with 2 Starbucks in the area, we also had our first “Best in Show” moment – meeting people at Starbucks…just not the same Starbucks.

This post was inspired by The Excess of Access over at Brand Autopsy

Help Me Look Back on a Year of the First Crack

In celebration of First Crack’s first birthday, I’m putting together a show looking back. Since I’m way too close to it, I’d like you to tell me what you like and dislike about the podcast, what your favorite episode is and which ones were completely un-listenable. Send over all those hurtful and heartfelt statements you feel when you hear my voice. Think of it as a best-of and worst-of the First Crack Podcast as declared by you.

Email text and mp3 audio comments to: firstcrack@gmail.com.

You can also leave a voicemail by dialing 206-20-BEAN-1.

Yes, I’m asking for it. All the ugliness. Send it over.

First Graders With Plastic Butter Knives Are New Threat

Somehow the remote got stuck on local Fox News this evening. Leading to a long armchair parenting conversation about the appropriate punishment for an 8 year old unwittingly bringing a butter knife to school.

In western Wisconsin growing up with all sorts of guns, bows, and arrows in the house, I’m comfortable with the responsibility these items bestow upon parents. To me, declaring any knife a weapon is a slippery slope to outlawing pencils sharp enough to practice writing the alphabet with.

But I digress, for this seems to be an emerging issue with elementary school-age terrorists. First in Richmond, VA – sane parent, insane administration. Then in, Youngstown, OH – administration gives kids plastic flatware then punishes kids for reuse. Finally in Omaha, NE – administration realizes zero tolerance might be a bit insane.

Given the recent history of bad things that have happened in middle and high schools, the restriction of funding, and the No Child Left Behind scorched-earth approach to education, public schools have been slapped punch drunk by the neocon administration. I can see where administrations might be acting a tad off.

Unfortunately, the more administration consider the butter knives used benignly an actual problem, the more parents with the means will pull their kids and their money out of public schools thus privatizing America’s future. Well…unless the parents with means also believe in Intelligent Design. Then I’m cool with it.

Apologies to anyone that clicked the Omaha, NE link earlier and got a coupon for instant biscuits. Not sure how that link got in there, either way – it links to the story now. Thanks to DH for brining it to my attention.

Support Your Podcast By Encouraging Listeners to Unsubscribe

It’s Wednesday and I’ve already had 3 conversations this week on advertising in podcasts or somehow monetizing podcasts to support thousands of thousands of podcasts listeners.

If a podcast is so popular that it’s running out of bandwidth on a regular basis, there’s a really good chance the vast majority aren’t listening – even though everyone is downloading. This means that even if the podcast is supported by an underwriter/sponsor/advertiser the sponsorship message won’t be heard. Putting us back to wasting (at least) 50% of our ad dollar.

Downloading and not listening to a podcast is bad for everyone involved. It hurts the podcaster by artificially inflating their listener-base and eating up their monthly bandwidth. It hurts the listener by unnecessarily filling up their hard-drive. Throwing an advertiser into this will only hurt them – and if this statement from the media buying community is any indication – advertisers are no longer interested in throwing away ad dollars (finally):

“It’s not about reaching every consumer, it’s about reaching the right consumers.” – Carat North America CEO David Verklin

If you’re struggling to cover your podcasts bandwidth bills, I recommend 3 options before exploring advertising or switching hosting plans.

  1. Include a “if you’re not listening, please unsubscribe” liberally throughout your website and shownotes.
  2. Pursue your niche so aggressively that some listeners will fall away and unsubscribe naturally.
  3. Offer a BitTorrent version of your podcast.

If you’re not listening, it’s time to start unsubscribing (or at least stop downloading). You’re taking up downloading slots from people that are listening. On my end, I’ve just flipped the switch in NetNewsWire from automatically downloading audio files to not. Then, I reviewed each of the 40+ podcasts I’m subscribed to and checked ‘use custom setting -> automatically download audio files’ for the handful I listen to regularly. In iTunes, you can do the same by selecting ‘do nothing’ in the ‘when new episodes are available’ pulldown menu under podcast settings.

Take a moment now and support your favorite podcaster by unsubscribing.