TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

I interviewed embattled Count Me In Chief Executive Terry Drayton yesterday at the company's offices in Bellevue. Near the end of the 90-minute discussion, the 48-year-old tech executive said talking about Count Me In's many problems was cathartic.

Drayton -- whose company owes more than 200 youth sports organizations across the country about $5 million -- certainly wanted to tell his side of the story. With public relations executive Mark Firmani by his side, Drayton fielded a wide range of questions -- talking about his weaknesses as an entrepreneur, concern about criminal charges and why he appeared on the recent cover of Seattle Business Monthly. He also talked about the possibility of selling Count Me In's assets, going so far as to say Microsoft should buy them.

To prepare for the interview, I asked affected youth sports directors for questions, I reread the TechFlash blog posts and comment threads and perused emails to me from former Count Me In employees. Read on for extended excerpts.

After 14 months, Peter Quinn is stepping down as executive director of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network next month. The former HouseValues and Western Wireless Executive plans to take a job at the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend.

"My reasons are strictly personal. If there were a way to stay I would," Quinn writes in a blog post. "NWEN is an important cog in the entrepreneurial wheel. It’s mission is an important one and I look forward to watching it continue. I leave with nothing but good wishes for everyone involved. I will miss it."

There's one less publicly-traded company from the Pacific Northwest to kick around. Zones Inc. today announced that Chief Executive Firoz Lalji has completed a "going-private transaction" for $7 per share in cash.

Three Alaska sports clubs that are owed money by Count Me In have filed a petition to force the Bellevue online registration company into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage, Campfire USA Alaska Council and Matanuska Soccer Club -- which together say they are owed $174,401 -- filed the involuntary bankruptcy petition Dec. 22.

Embarrassed. Apologetic. Hopeful. Those were just a few of the emotions expressed today by an effusive Terry Drayton as the embattled CEO of Count Me In described how the Bellevue company lost nearly $5 million in registration fees and donations for 220 non-profits and youth sports organizations across the country.

In his first interview since news broke earlier this month about troubles at the online registration company, Drayton apologized for his lack of financial oversight and pledged that he would continue working until the outstanding funds were repaid. He also admitted that the donations and registration fees collected on behalf of youth sports programs were comingled with the operating funds of Count Me In, a mistake that Drayton now fully acknowledges.

Even more illuminating was the admission by Drayton that Count Me In did not keep basic financial records until recently.

"I take responsibility for it -- full stop," said Drayton. Asked how an experienced executive could operate a company for so long without basic accounting procedures in place, Drayton said that he's always been an innovator who focuses on the big picture.

"I suck at details," he said.

RealNetworks ranks among the worst places to work, somehow even getting a poorer employee satisfaction score than embattled Washington Mutual, according to a survey released this week by Glassdoor.com.

Real, which laid off 7.5 percent of its staff earlier this month, ranked 45th on the Glassdoor list. At least it wasn't DHL, which had the worst employee satisfaction rating. Meanwhile, RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser boasted an approval rating of just 27 percent. That was better than WaMu's Alan Fishman, whose approval rating in Glassdoor stood at 0 percent.

Steve Ballmer (Microsoft photo)

What does Steve Ballmer have in common with Dale Chihuly? Unless the Microsoft CEO has been taking glass-blowing lessons on the side, the answer is that each has contributed the maximum $50,000 to President-elect Barack Obama's Inaugural Committee

The committee's website also lists "William Gates" for a $50,000 donation, although it's not clear f that's the Microsoft co-founder or his father, who are often confused in elections filings. Melinda Gates is listed separately for another $50,000 donation, as is Ballmer's wife, Connie. That's $200,000 total from the Gates and Ballmer families, for anyone keeping track.

It's time once again for tech companies to provide a glimpse of what they've been cooking up for the year ahead. TechFlash will be covering the Macworld Expo in San Francisco and the big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week.

If your Seattle-area company will be showing new products or technologies in conjunction with these shows, we'd like to hear from you. Please drop us a note at techflashtips@bizjournals.com.

Glenn Kelman

Glenn Kelman: The year is nearly over, and anyone who has walked through the snow has had a moment to reflect on whether he has made the world a better place.

After three months of blood-letting-money-scrabbling-self-flagellation, few of us have the heart to ask that question aloud. Making the world better was once what every entrepreneur talked about at every opportunity. But now the Segway-riding idealists who ushered in Web 2.0 are in retreat, and the hard-nosed mercenaries are chasing after us.

It might have seemed that the local tech community had reason to be proud this week when Seattle tied for first place with Minneapolis in a new ranking of the country's most literate cities. After all, Internet readership was one of the main categories used in the Central Connecticut State University study, and we like to think of our region as one the most tech-savvy in the country.

But the real reason is much more low-tech than that.

Amazon.com announced this morning announced that the 2008 holiday shopping season "finished as its best ever." The result is notable in light of the economic downturn.

But such announcements have become a tradition for the Seattle-based online retailer. What was unusual this year was its peak sales date: Dec. 15. That's noticeably later than in years past.

Bothell stem cell research company CellCyte Genetics is on the brink of collapse, reporting in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday that it had just $5,734 in cash on the books as of Sept. 30. That's less than what some people have in their personal checking accounts.

Monday: The Good: What went right in Seattle tech in 2008.

Tuesday: The Bad and Ugly: Where things went wrong, and how they got worse from there.

Wednesday: What to watch in Seattle tech in the year ahead.

What bears watching in Seattle technology in 2009? That's easy. It's the economy, of course. The global financial crisis is continuing to ripple through the regional tech industry, forcing nearly every company to adjust to a new economic reality.

But in reality, the answer is a lot more nuanced and interesting than that. And apart from the economic turmoil, there will still be plenty of promising technologies to monitor, big corporate moves to anticipate, and geeky gadgets to drool over.

These are some of the areas we'll be tracking in the next year.

Monday: The Good: What went right in Seattle tech in 2008.

Tuesday: The Bad and Ugly: Where things went wrong, and how they got worse from there.

Wednesday: What to watch in Seattle tech in the year ahead.

The ongoing financial meltdown has the tech sector on its heels, with layoffs and other cutbacks dominating the headlines as 2008 draws to a close. The economic turmoil defined the year, and perhaps the era.

But even without those problems, many Seattle tech companies did just fine screwing things up on their own.

In fact, the past year was like a soap opera. It started with the local software giant's ill-fated bid for one of its biggest rivals. Later we had two executives at a local startup admitting to concocting the financial statements presented to their board. Now we have allegations that another local startup is wrongfully keeping hundreds of thousands of dollars from youth sports programs around the country.

Not to mention those weird Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld ads.

And the bison slayings.

Seems like only question at this point is who gets the movie rights. So brace yourself: Here's our review of The Bad and The Ugly in Seattle technology in the past year.

Anirudh Koul, via Flickr

Seven hours. That's how long my fellow passengers and I spent waiting on the airport tarmac Sunday as an uncharacteristic winter blast brought SeaTac airport to a grinding halt. My wife and I consider ourselves lucky. Our snowy flight to Detroit actually made it out despite repeated failures of a malfunctioning de-icing truck.

Given the grim forecasts, we came prepared. Armed with enough tech gadgetry to support a small office, we boarded flight 210 with a fully-charged iPhone, two laptops, a digital camera and a video camera. Email flight notification alerts, supportive Facebook messages and constant use of Twitter helped pass the time and deliver critical information.