Article posted on Nov 26
You know, when we think about Utah Technology, it’s easy to start think about bio-med, PDA’s, Server Farms, and Various other bits and bytes. But I think it is important to remember that for tech to be really valuable it should be able to do one of two things:
1- Make us more efficient.
2- To improve our quality of life.
It’s the second of those that I want to focus my post on today. Specifically, I want to mention snow making. This weekend I was pleased to be able to hit the slopes (Okay, I cheated a little… that picture is from last year. I didn’t bring my camera this weekend.) The snow was all completely man-made, and although definitely not the best snow I have been on, it was pretty darned good. Most important though, is that it really was a wonderful bonding experience wit me and my two teenage boys. I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather have been. Thanks to the Canyons! Definitely a tech application that improved my quality of life this weekend!
Article posted on Nov 26
Welcome to the second guest post here on the Tech Spotlight. Our good friend Nick, from Argon Gear did a writeup on the BYU Web Idea Competition. As a reminder, if you attend an event we haven’t and want to make sure people hear about it, please let us know.
Without further noise from me… here’s the review from Nick:
Last Friday BYU hosted a web idea competition that awarded a student with $3,000 simply for having the “best” idea for an e-business. The winner ended up being an MBA Student with an idea named “E-take.”
He invisions a future where individuals traveling to various locations will become package/goods deliverers as a part of their everyday life. People will create an online account, stating where they regularly travel to, and others will post requests for package delivery. This supposedly will be an answer to the pain of paying expensive shipping costs and out-of-the-way drop-off/pickup locations.
Well, why not? People are already traveling in their cars, motor homes, etc. Why not earn a few bucks on the side for simply adding a few things to your cargo? I must say that not everyone was convinced that this idea will ever fly, but that was not the purpose of the competition anyway. The purpose was to get students thinking up ideas for online businesses.
Although there were various questions regarding the feasibility of some of the ideas, Etak won out of four finalists. The other ideas included an online virtual team building application, a privately funded online student loan transaction interface, and a streaming music application for application in various usage situations. These other finalists brought home $5,000 in combined winnings.
The judges for the competition were none other than: Nick Efstratis (Wasatch Venture Fund); Morgan Lynch (founder of LogoWorks); and Ben Peterson (founder of MingleMatch). As for their decision, we can rest assured that the judges know what’s going on in the e-business world.
This was the first year that this competition has been held at BYU. The competition started because of a push by the BYU e-business center founder, Kevin Rollins (former CEO of DELL Computers Inc.), to increase the number of e-businesses coming out of BYU. He was reported as saying, “Why can’t the next YouTube, or EBay come out of BYU?” Well, these competitions will certainly help the chances of that happening and I look forward to other universities and organizations in the state to follow!
Article posted on Nov 19
As I mentioned in my blog post last week, I was planning to hit another event put on by the Park City Chamber of Commerce. If you’ll recall, my last experience with the PC Chamber was really incredible. I have to say though… that this one was less than worth the drive. The event was basically a couple of dozen booths, and many of them had very small companies, and in some cases even companies that really weren’t off the ground yet. In fairness to the PC Chamber, if I could have walked ten minutes to the event, I probably wouldn’t have minded. But the fact that it was a 40 minute drive, combined with the fact that my expectations were set so very high by their last event, really left me feeling a bit silly for spending a good chunk of my afternoon to, from, and at the event.
Now reading this, you might think, “Wow, Steve is being a bit harsh on the Chamber.” If so, let me clarify myself. The chamber did a nice job. They were clear in their advertising as to more or les what the event would be, and for what they had, they did a great job of doing it professionally. So no slight to the Chamber. If anything, this was a bit of a wakeup call for myself, and advice that I would give to others. Chambers, far more so than other groups, tend to have lots of events of differing sizes and shapes. It is very very unlikely that they will all be a good fit for your business.
Article posted on Nov 15
As all of you know, I am a huge fan of the Funding Universe Speed Pitching events. Last month the event was up in Davis County, and if you read my post you will know that I came away absolutely stunned at all that is going on up north. Well, this month they jump to the other end of our wonderful valley… December 6th will be a Speed Pitching event as part of Novell’s “Home Run’s in IT” Conference. Well worth your time. I have seen some really cool business ideas get attention from investors, and I have seen some businesses who, quite frankly have needed a bit of guidance get some invaluable feedback. Kudos to Blake Brock and his team who put these on.
But lest I appear to play favorites too much 
let’s poke our nose into a few other items upcoming:
Nov 15: Park City Chamber of Commerce. Tomorrow I will be at my second Park City Chamber event. The last one was amazing! Looking forward to it, and will let you know how it goes. Thus far however, I ahve to say that the PC Chamber really seems like one worth joining. If you’re at this event, please be sure to say “Hi.” I love to meet readers.
Nov 30: UTC Hall of Fame. I have not actually been to one of the hall of fame presentations before… So I’m not exactly sure what to expect here… anyone attend last year and want to give us some insight? Is this a good one for us all to hit?
Dec 7: Corporate Alliance. I hit my first Corporate Alliance meeting earlier this month. Eric is planning to hit this one, and give us a writeup to see how it compares.
Dec 19: UTC Sales P2P, “Compensation Plans and Sales Incentives that Work.” Okay, so I am excited to hear this. As a business owner, I constantly have to figure out how to incent sales people, but not short-change those around them (SE’s, Account Managers, etc.) and not create an environment where they can rest on their laurels, r jsut continue to work existing customers and never look for new biz.
As a note: my intention with this post is not to be a full community calendar… these are the events I am planning to hit, because I think it likely they’ll have a lot of value. Are there events that you have coming up that are so cool that we should be sure not to miss them? Are there events you attend that you would be willing to give us a writeup on, so we know what we missed out on, and can be sure to catch it next time? Is your tech so immensely cool that we should be Spotlighting it, so the world can know? If so, be sure to comment on this post, or send me feedback.
Article posted on Nov 13
Periodically we step away from local reviews, and throw up a post on what really makes us a tech person’s heart beat faster: Tech Toys. Well, one of my favorite tech toys is my iPhone. Since I tend to travel a lot, I spend a fair amount of time listening to music, and watching video on the device (BTW, I highly recommend the TV series “Mad Men” for long flights.)
Several years back I splurged on a trip, and picked up the Bose noise cancelling headphones. Recently however, I have seen earbuds in airports by Shure, that claim that Sound Isolation is a better model that noise cancellation (Basically, this means that the buds seal your ear like an ear plug.) Well, Shure has a pair of buds for about what I paid for my Bose headphones… so I decided to put them to the test. I fired up Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion (which ahs some incredible sound at the beginning, and compared.
My findings: The bose are VERY comfortable for long flights (they don’t actually touch your ears, which on a 17 hour overseas trip is a big deal), and the sound quality is stunning. The base in particular is very rich. The Shure ear buds? Tinny, silly, ill-fitting. How in heaven’s name can these people charge $250 for a product like this? If you have seen them in the airport and been tempted, just keep walking. The Bose are a whole different league at the same price.
As for Ipod players in the home however, I have to say I was less impressed by the Bose options. After a lot fo listening, I went wit the Klipsch Ifi. The sound clarity is absolutely stunning. Turn up the volume on a unit int he basement, and walk upstairs, and you will find you can still understand ever word, as opposed to other solutions that will just let you feel the base, and a lot of mumbling.
Any other cool iToys that anoyone would care to recommend?
Article posted on Nov 12
For those who were at the event with Unspam, you will know already that this local company does an awful lot more than the Child Protection Registry that got them their initial start. Unspam has got a lot of really interesting products that they are making available to folks (most of them for free) to help put a collar on this beast we call Spam. They have solutions to protect your web servers, and keep an eye on questionable users, and other solutions to track the email address harvesters that are at the head of the Spam food chain. Check it out. Watch for the Doba podcast in a few days, and look for some exciting announcements about upcoming events (we are planning to change things up a bit, to make sure that people get more value from the events.) Let us know what you think, who we should be spotlighting, and if there’s anything we can do better!
Listen Now (34.2 MB, MP3)
Article posted on Nov 01
 Many of you here in the valley have probably heard of Corporate Alliance. But what you may or may not be aware of is that they are in the process of opening a Salt Lake chapter (they have traditionally been down in Utah County.) I have heard good things about CA, so I jumped on board this opportunity and signed up my company. Although the chapter official opens in January, there was a big kickoff party earlier this week for the first 100 companies to join the new chapter (I guess Utah County has around 1600 companies in that chapter!)
Well, it was my first event with CA, so I wanted to let you know what I think… bearing in mind of course, that this was a “kickoff” event, and my first experience with them, so it may or may not be indicative of the norm.
Well, I have to say that CA puts on one heck of an event. There were a lot of people there, everything was very professionally done, and well organized. The mix of companies was everything from small to huge, and a huge slice of industries from banking to marketing, to sports teams, accounting, and darn near anything else you can think of.
CA was very clear that their goal was networking. They intended to ge good people and good companies together to meet each other. I have to say they do very well at facilitating that goal. They do more than just get everyone in the same room… as soon as you walk in the door they handed us a sheet of paper listing all of the companies in attendance. The goal was to get a signature from someone from as many of the companies as possible. The exercise really broke down barriers and pushed people to interract more than they would have otherwise.
Then, at our individual tables, they did “speed introductions.” Everyone had two minutes… during the first minute you needed to share a story about holiday traditions in your family. Then the second minute you told about our company. It was a great way to really get to know the people you were sitting with.
Whenever reviewing local groups and events, I feel it is important to point out that there is an element beyond good/bad, that makes an event stellar or ho-hum depending on your specific needs. As such, I would have to say that if networking is only one of the values you like to get from an event, and you also really want to learn something from a speaker or presentation, then this event might leave you feeling a bit like you had eaten dessert, but skipped the meal, and went away feeling a bit unfulfilled. If however, networking with an amazing cross-section of various industries, and various sized companies in an event that really makes networking fun and open is what you are looking for, then CA really hit one out of the park.
