Article posted on Jan 27
It seems that nearly ever other email I get, or article I read lately is all about “How to survive in a down economy.” I’ve seen lots of tips, but I read an article this morning that captures one I really like:
Be freaking awesome at what you do!
I read an article this morning on PRWEB, talking about a local company called Westhost. I was shocked that I didn’t know more about these guys. I know several other hosting providers in the valley intimately, but as the article states:
“While other hosting companies may use massive advertising budgets and catchy branding to build recognition and customer loyalty, Utah-based WestHost has quietly used its own secret weapon to become a world leader in hosting reliability.”
In fact, in a recent report by Netcraft, it was shown that: “no hosting company on the planet beats WestHost for reliability – the single most important hosting metric… WestHost has topped such industry giants as GoDaddy, Rackspace, web.com, Verio, and others.”
This morning I gave WestHost a call, and found that what is covered in the press release is only the tip of the iceberg for exciting new on these folks:
In speaking with Brian Chambers, I was excited to learn that WestHost really is proving salmon-like success as it swims counter to the flow of current economic trends. WestHost is growing… and fast. They increased headcount by over 30% jsut last month! Additionally, they are scheduled to more than double their current staff in 2009 (planned headcount for end of 2009 is 100 people.)
As if that we’re cool enough, they are bringing the US headquarters for a global entity here to Utah. In October of 2008 WestHost was acquired by UK2 Goup out of London. UK2 Group has gone on to make several other key data center and hosting acquisitions around the US. Their intention is to us Utah as their US headquarters for this quickly growing entity.
Keys to their success: customer service, knowledgable people, and access to great talent by being right next to USU.
Nice job WestHost. I look forward to tracking your success.
Article posted on Jan 22
One of the things I have noticed as I have traveled and done business in other states and countries is that most communities tend to drink a lot of their own Cool-Aid. Which is to say that everyone thinks their own community is super cool, ahead of the curve, etc. etc. But sometimes its nice to take a step back away from the trees and take a good healthy look at the forest (that of course would be the forest that was saved due to so much of Utah going tech-friendly 
)
So, we like to think we’re a “techie” place. But are we?
Apparently so…
In an article yesterday in the Deseret News they state that, “A recent national survey ranks Utah No. 1 among states for its ability to utilize technology to transform government and provide services to residents.”
Apparently Utah County is 10th in its size category, and Orem is 5th.
In the article they quote Gov. Huntsman as saying, “The unprecedented Working 4 Utah initiative ensures greater accessibility to state government before and after the normal workday hours, and provides an increased awareness of the more than 800 government services online.”
For those not aware, the “Working 4 Utah” is the 4 day workweek that was rolled out for most government agencies. Okay, so to me, The above statement is a bit of an unfair spin to drum up support for the 4 day work week issue (which I am neither for nor against) by tying it to an unrelated win in technological capabilities. I mean, if people are become more aware of the online services, it’s because they are still going, “Crap! What do you mean it’s closed on Friday?! Dangit, there has got to be some way to get this done today.” Okay, stepping off my soap box
But let’s not let that detract from the fact that Gov. Huntsman really has done some amazing things, and really pushed the state technologically. Paul Taylor, the Center for Digital Governments’ chief strategy officer has not only spear headed really getting these things done, but has glowing things to say about the Governor’s support and vision behind them. It’s this type of drive and vision that have allowed Salt Lake City to climb to the #2 spot in the report, and has kept Orem in the top 5 for 3 consecutive years.
So are we ahead of the curve, or just drinking too much of our own Cool-Aid? We’ll… there’s a whole lot of folks in the rear-view mirror and a lot of open road ahead.
Good job Governor!
Article posted on Jan 14
I was reading an article this morning by Michelle Meyers titled “A storied role for technology at Sundance.”
In her article Michelle talks about a lot of things… First and foremost however, it discusses some of the significant changes in the film industry and how it views technology. In it’s simplest form this is obviously about technology, and it’s ability to not just enable effects, but to quite frankly, become the platform for production. In here article Michelle quotes Ian Calderon, Sundance’s Director of Digital Initiatives (which is pretty telling in and of itself) as saying:
“We’re finding that our artists are no longer looking at technology as a sort of novelty, a ‘Gee whiz, what can I do with it?’ They’re already fully engaged and what’s emerging is highlighted at the New Frontier. This is very different from some of the primitive video art you saw in the 1970s and 80s. This is a quantum leap forward because the tools are there, the technology is there.”
But I think it goes a lot further than that…
In Michelle’s article she makes note of the fact that “The art installation, located in the New Frontier on Main venue…, also pushes new limits this year, with two works, in particular, by technologists.” It’s very telling that we have seen technology become not only the platform for movies (e.g. Toy Story), but also now we’re seeing technologists emerge as the new “artists” in some of these productions.
Not only that, we’re seeing the movies portray real, plausible what-if’s in technology. We saw some great examples of this in the Minority Report, and also (although it was a REALY horrible film with great potential) I think that some of the portrayals of technological possibilities is Babylon AD were plausible and exciting.
But perhaps one of the most exciting things about this year’s Sundance is not a change in what technologies are used to create film, or who creates them, or even rather they depict new and exciting things, but that the film industry seem sot FINALLY be embracing the fact that the change in the way that the audience perceives consumption has changed, and that they cannot resist it forever.
One example of this is the real guts of what 2.0 event is. It’s social. It’s collaboration. None of us are entirely sure how this will play out in the building of movie content, but it was exciting to see this at least being explored. As Michelle notes:
“In We Feel Fine, for example, by programmers Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, the installation takes sentences every few minutes from recently published blogs from around the world that include the words “I feel” or “I am feeling” and visualizes them in six different movements.”
Will movies be “built” by their audience real-time. I don’t know about that… but consumption is more clear:
“Our filmmakers are no longer waiting to be called by Hollywood,” Calderon said. “They’re finding like-minded audiences, they’re building communities, they’re self-producing their own work. They know more about viral marketing than maybe even the retail industry. Our audience wants what they want, when they want it, and they want to take it with them. Schedulized programming is going to be a thing of the past.”
It’s good to hear the industry saying this. We all know it’s true. We have all known it is true for quite some time. But it has been amazing to watch how other industries have resisted change. I have watched many technologies struggle unnecessarily, or even die due to industries being resistant (e.g. Unified Messaging, premium Mobile content, the music industry.) It’s good to see that the movie industry has watched us all trade our mp3’s and our MPEGs and AVI’s and realizes that they need to address the demand.
It has been great to watch netFlix and other begin to stream content. I can’t wait to see where this pushes Sundance and this industry.
