Utah Tech Spotlight

Utah Tech Spotlight Events

CTO Breakfasts… food for the soul (or mind at least)

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 17

It’s been a few month’s since I made it out to one of the CTO breakfasts put on by Phil Windley.  I am pleased however, that I made it out to one this morning.  The caliber of people and discussions at these is just amazing.  Phil really does manage to bring the best of the best into these breakfasts (and a few of the rest of us managed to sneak in as well :) )

Topics today were all about the App Engine by Google, and EC3 by Amazon.  Odd to see these two be the players going head to head in this space, but I think we’ll all be the winners in the end.  They are really doing with hardware infrastructure what has been done with pipe and power in the past by the Datacenters.  The ability to have hardware not only managed and provisioned by someone else, but allocated near real-time when needed.  Additionally, the distribution is reported by some to be near as performant as they have seen from some Content Delivery networks… yet another problem solved as part of the outsourcing strategy presented here.  I think the key question is not if, but when will these solutions reach a price model that makes more sense for more mature, more stable platforms?  And do they intend to? (I personally think the answer to that is yes.)

Thanks to Phil for putting these together!  If you are reading this now, wondering if any local events are really worth carving time out of your calendar, and wondering if you will really meet anyone worth meeting, let me just shout a resounding YES for this event.  I never walk away hungry.

Local Review: Utah Technology Council: Marketing with Domain Names

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Mar 12

Yesterday I attended a UTC event at the Desert Star Theater in Murray.  I few notes before I event get into the topic or the speakers: This was my first time at the Desert Star.  It is really neat inside, plus even though it looks tiny from the street, there is a ton of parking in the back.  I am definitely planning to hit some of their upcoming shows.

This event was dedicated to the use of domain names, and how they can help you:

  • Market your business
  • Protect your IP
  • Make money by “squatting” (although the speakers felt that squatting was not the right definition… in my opinion I think it is.)

The speakers were Chris Finken, CIO and co-founder at Orange Soda, and Michael Taylor Alvarez from Ochoa and Taylor.  This was my first time meeting either of these gentlemen, but I found them both to be very intelligent, and extremely knowledgeable about the topic of discussion.

I want to pass along a few key items fromt he presentation that I thought were really good:

Keywords

When getting a domain name for your website, or a domain name for a secondary site about your company that then links into you main site, it’s important to remember that not everyone cares who the heck you are.  You ahve to ask yourself what they are really looking for.  If you think they will be specifically looking for your comapny by name, then a domain name that is your company makes sense.  But that may not be the case.  If for example you produce frozen meals that can be cooked quickly, even though you company name is Susan Foods, a domain name like “fastmeals.com” might make more sense for you, as that is what the customer is really looking for.

Additionally, even if you don’t get the value from a domain like “fastmeals.com” it is a domain name that someone else might want in the future and you might be able to monetize in other ways.

Missssspellings

You can protect your own company from losing intended traffic, and potentially capitalize on intended traffic for other domains by grabbing common misspellings.  What are some of the ways that people misspell you company, product or value proposition?  Grab those domain names to make sure people end up were you want them to be.

My opinion on the event:

My opion on the event would have to be that I was very impressed with the people they found to speak on the topic.  Very sharp guys.  I was also pleased with the presentation on domains.  But where I was left wanting a little bit was the narrowness of the scope.  Domains are very very key to driving SEO, which we know is Orange Soda’s specialty.  but since the scope of the presentation was just on domains, we never got into the questions that were right there, waiting to be answered in regards to URL structure, blogs, and so many other areas.  It was like we had a meeting to explore baking cakes, but chose to focus this first meeting on only discussing what eggs to use.  This may sound more harsh than I mean it.  The meeting was wonderful.  I just hope they follow it up with a few more int he “series” to round the picture out, and that as the series progresses there are recaps on the other, relevant data that has been presented.

All in all, nice job UTC, Chris, and Michael.  Also, thanks to the Desert Star.

Local event review: Utah First Friday… a bit about linked in

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Mar 10

At the end of last week I had the pleasure of going to hear Jason Alba from Jibber Jobber speak at Utah First Friday on Linked In.

Now, many of you have heard me speak before as to what a huge mentor on social media Jason has been to me over the last year, and I am pleased to say that he did not disappoint.  Jason realy does a great job of conveying some of the core key value propositions of Linked in.  He really cut right through the crap, and into the meat of the matter.  It was not a speech on “What can Linked in do?”… it was a speech on “What can linked in do for ME, and why the heck should I care?”

I am a very acive user of linked in.  I don’t mean that I have more connections that everyone else… because that’s counter to how I use linked in.  What I mean is that I actually USE it, and derive value.  If I am looking to hire people wit key skill sets, I look for them on linked in.  If I have a business meeting with someone later in the day, I first research them on linked in to find out about them, and possibly even call connections we have in common for more details.  Applicants?  I always call people who I know and have in common with them to find out what they are really like.  But tha’s just what I do.  Jason pointed out so much more.

Linked in is a great job finding tool, applicant tool, and marketing tool.  Additionally, Jason is one heck of an engaging speaker… although he is fairly new to this, and I know will improve with polish and time, it is his personality and wit, and genuineness that keep the audience engaged.  Jason, if you are reading this… I have a question:  I would guess that sales, marketing , and even HR teams in many companies could really benefit from a short, personal level perentation to their group on what you went over.  Is that something you’re interested in doing?  How might people contact you for that?

A few updates on local events and the Tech Spotlight

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Mar 03

Howdy all!

Wow.  I don’t know about everyone else, but altough there may well be a financial downturn around the corner, we are definitely not feeling it yet.  I have never in my life been busier.  But I did want to update you on a couple of local events that I attended recently, and an upcoming item for the Tech Spotlight.

40 under 40:

Utah Business Magazine held their awards luncheon for the annual 40 under 40 last week.  The luncheon was really nice, and it was a great bunch of people to hang out with.  I also really like how diverse the field was.  There were companies represented from all different areas from Tech, Financial, Health, Modeling, Outdoor, Construction, and pretty much everything else under the sun.  What I would really LOVE to see as a side benefit of this type of event is a quarterly Alumni type get together.  It was just so neat to hang out for a couple of hours with these folks, that it would be good to keep in touch.  UTC, here’s a suggestion for you, Utah Business, and Digital IQ: You guys do sucha great job with your CEO Peer 2 Peer meetings, and really get discussion and comradery going.  A similar event to get the 40 under 40’s interacting at that same level would be inredible!

Utah Entrepreneurial Challeng, Meeting of the Minds:

The Utah Entrepreneurial Challenge had their Meeting of the Minds event last week.  This is an opportunity to pair up local entepreneurs to brainstorm with these up and coming companies.  Officially, the entrepreneurs are referred to as “Mentors”, but I think I speak for all of us who were sitting at a table, brainstorming with our team, that the learning was definitely flowing both ways.  Perhaps, “older pupils” is more apt :)

I am working wit Qgia, a really exciting idea around video (sorry can’t share much more than that yet.)  I am really impressed with how events like the Entrepreneurial Challenge, Funding Universe’s Speed Pitching events, and so many of the student mentoring programs that folks like Alan Hall and others put in place to help grow the future innovators of this state.  It’s amazing how much some people are doing to ensure the futures of our children for generations to come.

You oughta be in pictures:

The last week of March I am having my crew ready to do a several video podcast sessions.  We will then be trickling these out once per month.  So if your company is super cool, or you know of one who is, let us know.  Will do a video with them, and have it transcribed (so anything said will also be searchable), and get them plenty of exposure, all for free.  Just trying to help bring more visibility to Utah and all the cool stuff going on here!

Local Review: EO Utah

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Feb 20

As followers of this Blog know, we strive at the Spotlight to bring more visibility to Utah in two key areas:

1- What cool companies and products are there in Utah.

2- What events and organizations in Utah seem to be worth attending to bring value to your business.

For this post I want to focus specifically on the second of those two items.  About a year ago I joined EO Utah (Formerly known as YEO, or the Young Entrepreneurs Organization.)  EO is basically aforum that allows fellow business owners to get together wit other business woners in a sae environment, and learn from eachothers’ experiences.  It has a very strict non disclosure policy, and is a wonderful,  safe environment to discuss things with people who have gone through things like what you might be facing.  It can be hard as a business owner sometimes… who do you confide in?  If you are troubled about your financing, or that new sales VP, or what have you, is there anyone in your company you can really discuss it with?  Do your friends or spouse really have any valuable insight?  Well, here is a group of a dozen or so people who will, over time become your closest friends, who have faced just those types of challenges and opportunities.

EO is no easy to get into.  You need to have $1m in revenues (amoung other criteria), and it costs $2k per year to be a member.  Additionally, it really takes time to get value out of.  Unlike most organizations where I can write a glowing or a scathing review after one or two meetings, EO really takes about a year to really hit your stride.

I can say that, becuase I feel I really have now.  If you had asked me even six months ago I would ave given EO a mixed review.  But having just come back froma  three day offsite with my group, I can say that this is one of the most valuable organizations I participate in.  I learn so much, and feel like I am building such valuable relationships with very special people.

Sorry, I can’t share much mroe detail than that… that’s what makes it safe, and that’s what makes it so valuable.  If you’re abusiness owner you should check it out.

As a note:  When I linked to the EO site, I noticed how terribly out fo date it is.  Please don’t judge it by that :)  after all, these people all ahve companies to run… just like you do.

Local Review: UTC PR event on New Media

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Jan 18

Okay, so as you guys have seen, I tend to give pretty darned good reviews to most UTC events.  Additionally, their attendance this year has really picked up, and I see that meaning even more of a reason to attend the events.  As to the PR event this week however, I think there were definitely some good parts, but I have a few nits to pick as well.

Let me start by saying that if you are wondering if the UTC is right for your company, I would say that the two events that I have been to thus far this year just show the UTC gaining momentum.  Attendance is up, and they always do a great job of pulling these together.  How anyone could not get sufficient value from these events to justify the meager annual fee is beyond me.  Definitely one worth joining.

Additionally, I have to say that the speakers knew their content.  And for the most part presented well.

My concern lies in the overall effectiveness of the event.  I’m not sure rather it was because there were three presentations, and they all needed to rush so fast that none of them could go deep enough, or what the reason was… But I feel like we walked into the room with a lot of PR people who were interested in, and concerned about New Media and how it affects their industry.  The presentations accomplished sending the message “Yes, New Media is cool, and is gaining power.  You should be scared if you don’t understand it.”

But that’s it… very little of that “understanding” was passed on.

I would have loved to have seen us go into enough detail on 3 or so New Media topics for people to have a take away.  Let’s just take twitter, blogs, and Stumble Upon as three examples:

While the meeting touched on the fact that blogs and bloggers are powerful and scary and you should be careful how you deal wit them, I would have liked to have seen something that imparted information more along the lines of:

If you have a client that you think should be blogging, or they think they should be blogging, do this first: Have them take a week and research blogs relevant to their area and value proposition.  Have them then take 60 days and actively read and intelligently comment on those blogs.  This serves a couple of key purposes: 1: you get comfortable with “blogging voice” and what people are responding well to, and 2: It actually turns your competition into your lead-gen.  Popular blogs that were drawing eyes of your potential customers are now actually driving traffic to you due to your comments that link back to your website.  Oh, and lest we forgive reason 3: you learn more about what people are thinking.  If at the end of the 60 days the company has not actively commented several times per week, and has not learned of a bunch more key blogs they were not even aware of due to their interaction over that time, then they should not start a blog.  Someone has to really be willing to be consistent to blog, and they need to understand that it is much more than just writing.  It includes a huge social component of link, and giving love to get love (link wise :) )

I won’t go so indepth in twitter or Stumble Upon, or this post will turn into a novel.  I would have like to have seen examples though.  Don’t just tell us twitter is cool…Give us an example of a sign that could be put up in a retail store, what it might say to get people to “follow” the merchant on twitter, and how it might be leveraged.  Perhaps use an example for a stadium, and how a solution like this could help fill seats at Jazz games or something similar.  Teach people rather than just hinting at it.

Okay, so enough ranting.  I want to wrap up in the positive here… There were about 40-50 people there.  Great crowd.  Great people to meet.  Sharp presenters.  I just think the format, or perhaps the goal asked to the presenters might have been tweaked a bit to add more value.

Local Review: UTC CTO P2P

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Jan 16

Last friday I attended a CTO function put on by the UTC.  The presentation was by Alex Barnett of Bungee labs who was speaking on “Trends in Software as a Service (Saas).”

The turnout was very impressive.  There was probably 50 or so local CTO’s in the room.  The interaction was intelligent an interesting.  The presenter was entertaining and well informed on the subject matter.  Honestly, the only thing I think I would have liked to have seen more of was a presentation on what Bungee is actually doing in this space.  Bungee is doing some really cool stuff, and developing some great tools to allow developers to leverage the new “componentized” trend of SaaS inside their applications.  Alex was so respectful of being objective and not hi-lighting his own company that I think we missed out a bit on those gems.  But it was still a great event.

My personal opinion on Saas: I think we are currently6 seeing a whole new trend in Saas… whereas in the past Saas has basically meant “My application can be used online”, and has since expanded to “You can get and put some basic data through my online API to sort of integrate with me,”  I think we are now seeing this being to become more granular, and companies are building “building blocks” as services to allow them to be part of a solution.  This is very very cool, but I see some hurdles:

Cool side: This allows companies to build things very quickly.  There’s no need to wait for hardware, or order servers.  It’s all just there.  Additionally, it allows for scaling up very quickly if needed.  The new services offered by Amazon as an example, even allow an application to “self provision” more copies of itself.  So if you get hit to hard your application can actually spawn onto more servers as needed.

Concerns: Pricing is definitely one.  I think companies will need to be very careful to look at when these building blocks become more expensive than just doing it yourself.  It may well be that they make sense in the early stages, or in an application that hard huge periodic spikes in usage, but it may be less cost effective in a mature application wit more consistent needs.  Additionally, I think there will be a la of a year or so in the acceptance of the VC world to fund companies who have their own IP that is then reliant on the “building blocks” supplied by other companies.  It can be a bit scary when a key piece of your IP is so very much out of your control.  I also think that companies like Amazon are really going to how to prove that they are reliable… as much as Salesforce.com is touted as a great example of Saas, I can tell you from personal experience that the reliability of the APIs at times have been terrible.

As a note, I am also really looking forward to the  event later this week on New Media and where it is headed.

Review: IT home runs, Utah First Friday, and Speed Pitching

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Dec 13

Salt Lake ValleyI was pleased to have the chance to attend several events here in the valley last week, and I wanted to take a few minutes and give you my review of them. My hope (especially with recurring events) is that this might be helpful for you in determining what local activities migh be worthwhile for you and your company.

IT Homeruns: There was an event on th Novell campus last week, that highlighted IT, and IT companies here in the valley. It appeared that the purposes for this event were two fold: 1 to educate people, and 2 to act as a recruiting tool. Now, I did not attend the entire event, but here is what It hought of what I did attend:

I caught a brief speech about Entice. Apparently this is a local company… but what they do or intend to do is completely shrouded in mystery… but they say will be huge. The presentation was entirely a recruitment tool. They touched on the fact that they give all employees free gym memberships, steak and salmon dinners, everyone gets a dual quad core computer with dual 24 inch monitors, and so on and so forth. I have to say… I might be jaded, but I was right in the heart of the bubble. I worked with Critical Path as the company bought everything that stood still long enough, fed everyone all of the time, had a massage therapist come into the office, and even had someone come and adjust the feng shui of the office once per week. This presentation seemed all too familiar to me. I will say again, however, that I have no idea what Entice does. If anyone from Entice reads this, and wants to blow my mind with what they do, then I look eagerly toward the chance to eat crow on this blog. Until then, I really don’t work at another company with an official “chill room.”

The rest of the event was great however (at least what I was there for.) I saw a great long-tail presentation by Phil Windley, and some really good Q&A with VC’s. Kudos to all who pull that together!

Speed Pitching: The IT Home runs event ended and rolled right into the speed pitching event by Funding Universe. The event was a bit smaller this time, with 6 presenters rather than 10, but I am guess that is because of the time constraints. You all know I love these events… but that aside, the real question is do they work? Well, I can say that several people I have personally heard present have gotten funding and follow-up meetings with investors from these events. Not only that, but I ahve heard incredible advice given out to these presenters. If I were looking for funding I would definitely present at one of these. The feedback is incredible, even if you don’t get funded from the specific event.

Utah First Friday: Okay, so I have not attended the Utah First Friday events for a while… It’s not because I think they are poorly done, it just comes down to who you are hoping to network with, or what you are looking to learn. UFF tends to get a good crowd (there were probably a couple of hundred people there.) But the crowd seems mainly made up of individuals, or very small businesses (a lot of SOHO) rather than small, mid, or large companies. If that fits what you are looking for, then these events are very well done. Otherwise, I would recommend the UTC or Corporate Alliance.

Final note: before I wrap up, I want to mention that Jason Alba, of Jibber Jobber (one heck of a bright person BTW) is making an effort to make everyone aware that Andy Sernovitz is coming to SLC on December 17th. Jason raves about Andy’s presentation, and Jason is one of those folks that if he tells me something is a don’t miss, I really believe him. Find out more about it here.

Park City Chamber, Speed pitch, and more!

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Dec 07

Happy Friday all!  Today we have a guest-post review from Eric Morgan for the Park City Chamber new member orientation.  This Chamber has some real interesting aspects of it, so expect us to keep a close eye on them.  Additionally, I attended a Funding Universe Speed pitching event last night, and the Utah First Friday Extravaganza this morning… so expect write-ups on both of those int he coming days.  But enough from me… here’s the good word form Eric:

Through attending a new member orientation conference with the Park City Chamber of Commerce you realize that they are somewhat of a unique chamber compared to most in Utah.

The meeting itself was very nice, located at the Stein Erickson Lodge in Deer Valley.  There were about 30-40 people there; all of which were new members within the last 3-4 months.  They provided a continental breakfast and there was no charge to attend the event.

I learned some cool facts and data about the organization; here are some key points that stuck out to me.  They are the 3rd largest chamber in Utah, most of their revenue, approximately 80%, comes from lodging taxes in Park City. Only about 7-8% of their revenue came from membership dues which is amazing. They also claim to have 1,100 members which was far more than I expected.  I am guessing that they have many members that are not located in Park City, such as us, to reach that number.

There was a very surprising variety of businesses in the meeting though; I was expecting hotels, lodging facilities, ski related organizations, restaurants, shop owners, etc.  In reality it was a very large mix of businesses.  A few examples were concierge services, dog training, office supplies, beauty products, banks, high end cabin builders, credit unions, insurance companies, non-profit organizations, car rentals, etc.  There were very few technology companies though and we were one of the only ones.

Through talking with others one of the most desirable benefits of being a member is that they provide their mailing list to any member free of charge, you can even use the chambers bulk mailing rate for mail pieces you may want to send to other members or you can obtain an email list.  They also provide member-member discounts that you can take advantage of on their website.  Plus the three major ski resorts give season pass discounts to chamber members.

Overall I think it was a good event, the networking was great as every person had the opportunity to introduce their company to everyone else in the room.  Many cards and brochures were exchanged at the end between different members.

Review: BYU Web Idea Competition

  • Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Nov 26

idea.jpgWelcome 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!

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