I'm outta here

I'll be offline for the next week without internet access somewhere in the jungles of Costa Rica.  See you when I get back.

(For those of you who think it's dangerous to say this on the Wide Open Internet where any whacko can read this, please note that yes, my home security system is turned on and yes, the neighbors are watching.  Oh, and now that a zillion of my blog-reading friends know this too, any Bad Guy who wants to try something nefarious while I'm out is going to find he is very outnumbered)

New Mercer Island School Superintendent Gary Plano

You have to respect a school administration official who cares enough to personally pound the pavement, waving a sign for our school levies.  Well tonight the school district has unanimously appointed him the new Superintendent of the Mercer Island School District.  Congratulations Dr. Gary Plano!

Watch me at the Small Business Summit

I'm doing a demo of Response Point, the super-easy phone system for small businesses, this morning (Tuesday) March 24th at the SB Summit web cast.

It's free, and the easiest way to watch is to follow the streaming video on the SMB Community Blog site.  Tune in between 10 and 11am (PST) on Tuesday morning, toward the last part of the hour, when I'll be doing a segment called "Phone it in".

update: Allen Miller just posted a downloadable version that you can watch any time.

Competition for Public Schools

Why would any parent drive their kid across the bridge through heavy traffic every morning just to go to one public school over another?  Seattle Times finds a bunch of people who gladly do that so they can get their kids into Mercer Island's supposedly relatively good schools.

The prospect of one district actively competing with another for students and the accompanying state funds strikes some school administrators as wrong. Edmonds Superintendent Nick Brossoit said he "wouldn't want to be a part of" a plan that used public money to market one district at the expense of another.

Funny how some people dismiss competition for schools as somehow "wrong".  What would happen if we "wouldn't want to be part of" a plan to market one grocery store over another, or for that matter one political candidate over another?  On the flip side, what if every school district had to compete heavily for each kid who enrolls?  Do you think schools would perform better or worse?

I'm actually not a huge fan of open enrollment, at least not unless I can carefully control which kids get in and which don't.  But at some level the best way to measure a school -- better than WASL scores, better than graduation rates -- is by seeing what happens when parents and kids actually have a choice on which one they attend. 

Clover Coffee Sells to the Man

The good news is that soon we're likely to see Clover Coffee machines everywhere, now that Starbucks and the Clover Equipment Company have announced plans to merge.  Like I keep saying, once you've tasted coffee from a Clover you won't want to go back to ordinary drip ever again, and I can't wait till it's much easier to find.

The coffee business is like a big long line with Starbucks at the front followed waaaayy in the back by everybody else.  If you care about flavor, atmosphere, value -- you will always prefer a good local roaster over Starbucks, guaranteed.  But sometimes life doesn't present you with other options and frankly, Starbucks is pretty good too.  In fact, maybe this will help improve the ratio of Starbucks per capita in the underserved Wal-Mart parts of the country.

Still, I know people who are disappointed that now it looks like Clover won't be able to sell to these smaller, superior coffee shops, which is a shame since these independent guys were what made Clover possible in the first place.

But my reaction is that this is all well-deserved goodness for Zander Nosler and his team, who can now focus on building a much more efficient production line, and new products including (Please!) a consumer-priced version.

I hope it also serves as a kick in the pants to the local VCs, many of whom were too risk-averse to invest in Clover.  There are people out there right now thinking up similarly wonderful product ideas, just waiting for the money and support to make them happen.

Mercer Island Chess Tournament

For the past several years, Kate Elliot Smith has organized a wonderful Mercer Island-only chess tournament for kids in grades K through 6th grade.  I like it because it promotes competition in a brainy way, as opposed to team sports which only emphasize athletics.  If your kid isn't the athletic type, or you just want kids to be exposed to an activity that rewards a good mind over a good body, you can't beat chess -- and we need way more of these pro-brain types.

Unfortunately Kate is leaving Mercer Island so we desperately need a replacement organizer.  My work keeps me too busy to devote more time to this myself (though I've been honored to be one of the judges for the past two events), but if you know somebody who can help, please let us know.

Meanwhile, the results for this year's competition are now posted online, so like last year I resorted the list to see the top 30 from K through 3rd grade:

 

DIERKES,	CHRISTOPHER	1230
CUMMINGS,	CAMERON	1196
EVANS,	JACOB	999
CHANSKY,	JOSH	961
HO,	JUSTIN	956
STEDNICK,	TRAVIS	926
LEE,	ANDREW	884
CHANSKY,	MATTHEW	856
BOKSEM,	LUKE	838
SHIN,	JOSHUA	802
BENSON,	NATHANIEL	800
BERNSTEIN,	OWEN	797
BENSON,	ALEXANDER	758
LACRAMPE,	NIC	752
TATUM,	ROHAN	734
MA,	NEAL	729
PARK,	JOSEPH	724
NARAYAN,	SAYUJ	713
BAUMAN,	HUNTER	704
BATALOV,	PAVEL	674
PADGETT,	MATTHEW	654
HASSALL,	JACK	651
GERSCH,	COLIN	644
SPRAGUE,	NATHAN	643
BURGER,	DAWSON	617
NOONE,	THOMAS	615
BI,	ALAN	613
KAELIN,	ALEXANDER	605
RICCI,	VINNY	600

Theo Chocolate Factory Tour

This month is my turn to host our local Y-Guide boy's club, so I arranged for everyone to visit the Theo Chocolate Factory in the Fremont Area of Seattle.  What a wonderful way to see (and taste) how chocolate is made!   I highly recommend it as a place to bring out-of-town guests.  Although they offer tours to the public each day, they are happy to arrange private tours as well at a cost of $10/person ($100 minimum).

When we arrived at their retail store, they warned us not to get carried away with all the free samples -- you'll get plenty during the tour, they said and I realized I was going to like this place already.  Then they started us on a short lecture, with plenty of props (and tastings) to give you a feel for how cocoa beans are harvested and shipped to their warehouse.  After everyone donned hair nets, they marched us through the factory where we watched the beans go from the destoner (which cleans them) and roaster, through the mill and refiner, where everything is crushed and then mixed with sugar and/or milk powder, to the conche (which circulates and oxidizes the mix), through a holding tank and tempering machine where finally it is deposited on special molds and through a cooling tunnel into your chocolate bar.  Yes, we were offered generous samples all along the way.

By the time the tour is finished, you'll be full enough that you'll better appreciate all the wonderful items for sale in the retail shop, including my favorite, the $6 Theo Venezuela Limited Edition Dark Chocolate Bar 91%.  The retail store also sells various wine pairing kits and other gourmet items that every foodie will love.

Throughout the tour you get a dose of the organic and Fair Trade philosophy of the company, which prides itself on how much they go out of their way to help local cocoa farmers and the environment.  I asked how much of that $6 chocolate bar actually goes to the farmer...and the answer is 2 or 3 cents, maybe double if it's really special beans.  The other $5.90+ goes to help all the distributors, marketing people, retailers, entrepreneurs -- everyone else who is making what is otherwise a foul-tasting and ugly tropical fruit into a wonderful pleasure to eat.