5 April

Post Journalism Society

Instead of talking about why newspapers aren’t working let’s talk about why social media is working. We’ve come to the point in this decade-long conversation that I think we can stop wringing our hands about traditional journalism outlets and start celebrating the success of social networks. Should we care about the death of newspapers? Except […]

27 March

Let the CDC speak

Today our elected officials are making choices that impact trillions of dollars and millions of lives. Forget about 9/11 and the subprime mortgage collapse, COVID-19 is the biggest story in America since WWII. But where can you get unbiased, factual news? Among the 55 articles listed in today’s NYT top stories, 47 are about the […]

6 March

Fistbump and grind

Seattle has become the Wuhan, China of America. It’s the first city to report a Covid-19 infection, the first city to report a Covid-19 death, and today is the first city picked by the Trump Administration as destination non grata for virus-free Americans. Don’t visit Seattle, they said. How does it feel to operate a […]

6 March

Macy’s: A tale of two coffees

Macy’s pulled the plug on its downtown store last month. Macy’s, and before that the Bon Marche, had acres of Hanes T-shirts and countertop appliances at 4th and Pine downtown. Some people are wringing their hands over the end of department stores, but not me. I welcome the Amazon world. Coincidentally AWS leases the top […]

27 February

Seattle Art

Long ago you could find art studios throughout Seattle neighborhoods, including downtown. They might open their doors for First Thursday. More often they would host ad hoc shows. The Virginia Inn used to invite artists to come to the tavern and paint dishes. I recall sitting in the V.I. with those artists when a young […]

7 January

2020 Client Coverage

At Owen Media, we’re fortunate to work with some of the most influential technology companies in the world. Our media relations efforts focus on developing and telling stories that resonate with editors from print and Web-based outlets, across to television broadcast producers. December 18, 2020 / Database Trends & Applications: The State of Machine Learning […]

29 October

Pentagon Drops a Bomb on AWS

Friday’s surprise announcement by the Pentagon that it was selecting @Azure over @AWScloud for the #JEDIcontract war cloud caught everyone by surprise. Even Microsoft was caught flat-footed, asking reporters for more time to fashion a comment late on a Friday. This is the biggest deal in Seattle enterprise technology not because of the $10 billion […]

23 October

Have We Reached “Peak Cloud?”

Earlier this year analysts were falling over themselves to proclaim the end of accelerating cloud growth. AWS and Azure warned of slowing growth rates. It’s not that the market isn’t red hot, it’s just not as red hot as it once was. Half of all IT dollars went to #cloudcomputing in 2018, so adoption will […]

7 June

The value of being an outsider

Every client engagement starts blind. There’s always a period in the beginning where the agency knows very little about the client. Maybe there is a remit for strategy, messaging, or a plan, but there is no history or shared knowledge. The agency asks questions and identifies gaps based on inquiries and logic. This exchange has […]

6 June

Journalism Ascendant

News is making a comeback. New models of journalism are rising at sites like BuzzFeed, Vox Media, and HuffPo. These sites have staffs approaching 500 people and make hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and are part of the trend of aggregating news readers to a few national sites. BuzzFeed makes nearly $200 million […]