Article posted on Mar 10
One of the things I have always tried to do on this site is to share information about local events as I attend them. not just notification of the fact that there is an event, but my feelings on which ones I have found to be worth while (or not.)
On that note, I want to mention the Social Media Club of SLC (that’s #smcslc for us twitter geeks.) This will be the third meeting of the SMC here. I attended the last one, and it had about a hundred people from all different cross sections of social media usage. Definitely an energetic, exciting crowd (install summizeer on you iphone before you get there!!)
The upcoming meeting is outlined as something of an “open mike night”, where everyone can learn and everyone has something to share. Based on the diversity of the crowd I think this has the potential to be pretty eye opening.
The event is Thursday, March 19th at 5:30. To register and see more details go to the SMCSLC meeting details here.
Article posted on Mar 09
We all have one in the family… You know, that nephew, cousin, or sibling. The one you’re pretty sure ate flakes of lead based paint? The one you felt was completely out of control, or seriously broken as a kid. Then just backward and obnoxious as a teen, always out to get attention. Then as they began to grow toward adulthood, you’re still not fully convinced, but it’s shocking to see some of the value and depth of them begin to shine through.
No, we;r not talking about me here. I’m talking about twitter.
I started on twitter the same way I am sure a lot of the readers here did. I was an early adopter, and started doing it all from my phone over SMS. It did not take long at all to realize that was a big mistake, and that I was getting spammed at inopportune times with meaningless crap about who was parking their car, or going to lunch.
Others may have taken different routes at this point, but I opted next for IM. I couldn’t stand the updates to my cell, but my Instant Messenger client seemed like a better fit.
Until I realized that normally an IM is someone who actually needs my attention fairly quickly. I found myself sprinting over to my desk to see who was IM’ing, only to find more meaningless drivel.
I never have liked the web interface for twitter that much, so I started shopping for other solutions. I tend to like twitterific, and Event box (my FAVORITE by far for managing social media.)
But still, I watched twitter’s usage go through to phases of:
- Early adopters getting a feel for it and using it much like an SMS chatroom
- Coolness spammers who don’t really use it to connect much at all, but use it more for their personal mini-billboard to advertize what cool person they’re meeting with or what neat aricle someone told them to read, so they’ll pass that info along to look insightful.
- “Social Gurus” who appear to be pretty good at building their own social network, and claiming to be experts, but never seem to be able to provide a strategy to companies or business to actually monetize it in any way (not to imply that everything has to make money to be worthwhile.)
To where we are now.
Up until now we have watched the recognizable pattern of that akward cousin. But was it paint chips, or brilliance bubbling just under the surface of that weird grin?
Enter hashtags and search. Enter Twitter Hawk and Summizer.
I’m not saying that twitter has nailed it, or that this one is sailing out of the park… but dang, that awkward girl from high-school just got kinda pretty.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with what I’m talking about here, imagine Google, but on a smaller, manageable scale, that lets you follow trends, topics, and your brand real-time. It let’s you see what people are saying right now, and interact with those people. Further, it lets you see what topics are currently hot.
Twitter is flooded constantly with people expressing their thoughts in immediate, concise ways, and to react to thought blips of others. New tools let you easily tap into this, learn from it, and react to it.
You remember in the latest Batman movie, how he turned all of the cell phones in Gotham into his own personal way to hear (and through sonics, “see”) everything going on in Gotham? Then he had the computer monitor for specific voices or phrases. It’s kinda like that.
Several of my nieces, nephews, and cousins have now grown to adulthood. I am really impressed with the people they have turned out to be. It sure looks like twitter, and the way a lot of people are using it, is turning that corner.
Article posted on Feb 20
Yesterday afternoon I attended the Mountain West Capital Networks’ luncheon to honor Alan Hall as the Entrepreneur of the year.
I am sure there are probably several news articles, or blog posts that will be covering Alan and all of his business successes at the moment. But that is not what I will be touching on here. That is not what I found so striking about Alan.
Unfortunately, although Alan somewhat, and have had a small number of discussions with him, I can’t claim to know him very well personally, so much of what I say here is from the perspective of an impressed observer, rather than a long-time friend. But I have been none the less touched by Alan (rather he knows it or not.)
My first exposure to Alan was at a Funding Universe Speed Pitching event in Kaysville. I sat at a table with Alan, and a student from Weber State that is part of the program he has helped star there to foster Entrepreneurs. I was so struck by the talent of the young student. But I was more struck by Alan’s interaction with the Entrepreneurs presenting to us. Not just by the insight of his questions… I have sat with a lot of folks with great business insight. But by his kindness. Alan was gentle, and supportive to everyone. Even if there were areas that most of us might have berated them for their lack of preparedness, Alan gently and, dare I say, lovingly nudged them in the right direction.
Since then I have heard wonderful stories of Alan helping businesses, programs, and the like. I don’t wish to diminish this at all, but I am guessing that many of you have heard or read about it lately anyway… so I want to move on to something else.
I have had the true pleasure of hearing Alan speak many times. the most striking thing about hearing Alan speak is not the fire in my belly that I walk away wit, or the great business ideas, or the efficiencies I now understand. When I hear Alan speak I walk away, really and truly knowing that I need to be a better person. Alan has a wonderful way of giving you relevent business advice while using words that have unfortunately become so foreign int he setting. Words like Love, Kindness, Charity, and God. This is not to imply that everyone needs to share Alan’s religious views to walk out of the room really touched. He is just a good man.
At the end of the luncheon people were lining up to shake Alan’s hand. I was one of them. When Alan turned to me he looked me in the eye, grasped my hand, and asked me how I was doing. That may sound like nothing, but it was. The way he held the handshake, the eye contact, his tone. I knew that Alan was not just saying, “hi.” He had given me his full attention. It was just he and I for that moment… he made me feel important enough to be fully focused on. I knew that when he asked how I was, that he really and truly wanted to know.
As I watched, Alan treats everyone that way. He cares, and loves, and makes sure that you can feel that he knows that you, and everyone are important enough to really gets his attention.
Alan, thank you. Thank you for always showing me, and all of us what we can and should be.
Congratulations. You deserve it.
Article posted on Feb 20
I have been asked to let everyone know that Josh Coates, founder of Mozy, will be doing a lecture series next week. Before I post the details, let me throw my two cents in here… Obviously Josh is a successful Entrepreneur. But what really strikes me about Josh and my interactions with him has been something else, or more appropriately, something in addition to his Entrepreneurialism and success.
Josh is from outside of Utah. Now, that may sound like no big deal, but spend ten minutes wit Josh and you’ll know what I mean… He definitely brings a Non-Utah perspective (which is not to say he doesn’t “get” Utah, just that he has a broader view.) That, combined with a sometimes shocking frank, and candid style is sure to jolt you, awaken you, and make you think a bit during this series.
So, enough of my insights 
On to the details:
Starting Tuesday, February 24th, Josh Coates will present a weekly lecture series on how to build a successful Technology Startup. Coates is a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has experienced both spectacular success and dismal failure in the arena of the technology startups (but mostly success!) This six-part lecture series will provide candid advice about how to navigate the well-worn path of venture startups:
– Technology and Fundamental Business Concepts (Feb. 24)
– Raising Capital: The Simple, Well Understood Path (Mar. 3)
– Pro-active Product Development for the Enterprise Market (Mar. 10)
– Hiring the A-Team: Rocks and Clowns (Mar. 17)
– Practical Internet Marketing (Mar. 24)
– Personal Liquidity and Financial Exits (Mar. 31)
Please submit your attendance intentions at this link to ensure we have seats available for everyone
This lecture series will be hosted at the Novell Cafeteria (Bldg G.) “We are thrilled to be able to host the Coates’ lecture series again this year.” said Shauna Theobald, Program Director for the Technology Center at Novell. “Attendees from last year’s series raved about the positive impact Josh’s advice had on their businesses. Josh has firsthand knowledge of how to lead a tech-based venture to success. ”
This free lecture series is open to the public every Tuesday from 12-1:30p.m., starting Tuesday, February 24th. Sponsors include the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum, the Provo Technology Xelerator, the Technology Center at Novell, and SiliconSlopes/Omniture.
About Josh Coates: Josh began his career doing research in parallel computing at UC Berkeley and went on to found two venture backed startups related to large scale data storage technology. His extensive experience ranges from high performance computing and data center operations to venture funding, financial modeling, marketing and mergers and acquisitions. Coates has been honored for his innovation by MIT and Ernst and Young and featured in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. He currently volunteers as an adjunct instructor in the Computer Science department at BYU.
Article posted on Feb 05
For those of you who haven’t heard, Fusion-IO, a Utah based company is making some real waves. Fusion-IO (doesn’t roll off the tongue, does it… They’re gonna need to get a cool nickname soon… Fusio or something) has been spear heading some pretty cool stuff with Solid State data storage devices (as described fully in an October Press Release.)
Additionally, they have had some really impressive news to announce of late in general… Looking at the specifics kinda gives one that same feel of breath-holding awe as when you see the shuttle engines just starting to fire, and are ready to see it start to launch upward. Specifically, the have announced:
September 8th: At DEMOfall, Fusion-io Introduces the Evolution of Enterprise Flash Storage
October 3rd: Fusion-io Puts Ultra-High-Performance Data Storage into Hands of High-End PC Users with the ioXtreme
October 9th: Fusion-io Achieves Record Sales in First Quarter ‘09
Fusion-io Experiences Record Q2 2009 Sales PerformanceArticle 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.
Article posted on Dec 19
A couple of days ago John Dragoon, CMO of Novell announced that Novell will be canceling Brainshare, which they had plans to hold this march (and, which was still planned to go forward as of Nov 12th, when I received an announcement reminding us all of it, and I blogged a reminder as well.)
Brainshare has been running in Utah for over 20 years, and is really the big tech event of the year here. But times change.
It seems that the more things we have to make our lives easier, and help us get things done quicker the less time we actually seem to have to live our lives. The mentality of the world really is changing. Information, training, and even entertainment needs o be available instantly, no matter when or where I am. Many people don’t know this, but the popular web site, DIGG, actually comes simply from DIG, which stands for Digital Instant Gratification (Actually, I just made that up, but I like it  )
We have learned to Tevo, Wiki, and Youtube, not to mention that we have learned to them all from our mobile device. Training like was given at Brainshare needs to be available instantly, regardless of location or timezone.
John calls out (and Slashdot seems to agree), that people and companies are under increasing pressure to control costs (and get more done with less people), and as such John and Slashdot see this as a step forward.
Article posted on Dec 09
Technology, how we use it, and what pieces we build, buy, or abstract continues to be a changing landscape. I still remember trying to get my brain wrapped around the first Object Oriented program that I ever wrote (what’s worse, it was Object Oriented Perl… wow, that was not fun stuff initially.)
We have moved to outsourcing our datacenters, outsourcing our OS and database platforms development to the communities, and now, even outsourcing our computing muscle. It’s Cloud Computing. If you haven’t followed it you should, and if you have, then you might be interested to know what its footprint is here in Utah currently.
Voonami is going to be hosting an Open House of their new Canyon Park facility on December 10th (Ya, that’s tomorrow… sorry for the short notice, I just found out) from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Everyone is invited.
Basically, the low down is that Voonami is opening a datacenter in Orem that will house up to 100,000 square feet of space that they describe as, “…part of our broader, adaptive computing eco-system with the required power capacity delivered in an green-friendly environment with unlimited configuration flexibility and on-demand services that corporations demand today.” Additionally, they have announced plans to build two more datacenters, one in Sandy, and another in Utah County.
“Our hope is to be the leader in next generation computing, including platform as a service (PaaS), high performance computing (HPC), efficient power management and monitoring, disaster recovery, virtualization and customizable dynamic capacity”, said Ben Bush, President of Voonami. “Our infrastructure will enable Voonami to offer services on the Voonami Trusted Cloud (VTC), the perfect marriage of public and private clouds.”
There is really no question that a lot of attention is currently on PaaS, and its ability to jump start proof of concept platforms, as well as it ability to help companies manage peaks and valleys more dynamically without having to overbuild their own infrastructures. I’m excited to see how Voonami stacks up in the cloud computing world.
Also, I just spoke to Ralph Yarro, Chairman and CEO of Voonami a few minutes ago about scheduling a followup podcast for any of you who want to know more. Look for that in the next couple of weeks.
