Local Review: Jason Mitchell from Wingate Web

• Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Jun 25

I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Jason Mitchell from Wingate Web recently.  Wingate is real force to be reckoned with in the event planning and management space.  They help some of the biggest brands in the world manage events all over the world, increasingly (as you will hear from the interview) overseas.

Once again, Wingate shows us how many real giants in their spaces are sitting right here in the valley around us.

Jason is also one of the forces behind Feed The Habit, an extremely successful site that reviews and announces cool stuff around the outdoor industry.

Please join me in watching the interview (or click through to the post with the video in it here)

(Also, please forgive us… we had some issues with the tripod :)  I promse the next video will be less wobbly )

• 1 Comment
• Posted in Cool Utah Tech, Events, Podcast

Jason Alba speaks on effective social marketing, and his books

• Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Jun 05

A couple of years ago I started looking into the local Social networking/blogging/twitter/etc scene, and wondering where to start.  What could I really do to get value, and build a helpful network without just spinning my wheels?  Many people here in, and outside of the valley were a huge help (far too many to list here now).  But one in particular seemed to really be able to cut through all of the crap, and ignore all of the hype, and point a valuable path based on experience.  Not only that, but he has always been so willing to share what he has learned, and so humble to deal with.

I know many others have shared similar experiences with Jason.  For those that haven’t, I hope you enjoy the video.  Give him a call… he;ll go to lunch with anybody!

• 2 Comments
• Posted in Cool Utah Tech, Events, Podcast

Utah Innovation Awards

• Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on May 29

Last week Stoel Rives and The Utah Technology Council held their 2008 Utah Innovation Awards Ceremony.  The eight winners this year were chosen after much deliberation by a committe of 60 experts from private industry, government, and higher education.  We from the Tech Spotlight were also pleased to have an opportunity to attend and get video with several of the winners.  The eight winners this year, and their respective categories include:

We hope you enjoy the footage as much as we enjoyed the event.  We will also be posting a full transcript in the coming days.

• 3 Comments
• Posted in Cool Utah Tech, Events, Podcast

Utah Researchers move toward faster computing with a “bug eye view”

• Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on May 23

How can we make the next big leap in computer speeds?  The answer: Using light rather than electricity.  But that has proven to be a huge challenge for scientists.  Enter a cool little Brazilian Beetle, Some Utah researchers, and some amazing possibilities.

Read the full post here.

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• Posted in Events

Speed Pitching Event

• Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on May 23

Last week I got the information on another of the Speed Pitching Events put on by Funding Universe.  If you read this blog, you’ll know that I speak about these events fairly often.  I want to make it clear to everyone however, that this is not because I am in any way involved or affiliated.  Quite frankly, I have built businesses before.  I have been, and am an entrepreneur.  I have labored over business plans, and wondered if I was doing it right.  I have wondered who the heck to talk to to get money.  That is exactly why I am so totally impressed with these events.

I cannot tell you how many people I have spoken to locally that have, or are trying to star up their own business.  I always ask them: “have you done one of the speed pitching events?”  Most say, “ya, we’ve considered it… I just don’t know.”  What don’t you know??  This is a non-threatening event.  The people there are so experienced, and so helpful.  To hell with funding… that’s just the icing on cake!  The ability to pick the brains of, and get the input of a whole room of brilliant people who know business, and have them guide you is TREMENDOUS!  Count yourself blessed even if you walk out without funding, but with a whole new set of insights, rather than just the guidance from your Uncle Ed, who once owner a toaster shop.  Add on top of that the fact that if your idea is good, and ready, that you may very well get funding.  Then add the fact that this is a local event, all in one afternoon, rather than a cross country roadshow, and you would be a fool not to go.

Anyway… in case you can’t tell… I really support these. :)  hope to see you there.

• 3 Comments
• Posted in Events

Livepitch and Networking event

• Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 24

You all know that I am a huge fan of the Speed Pitching events put on by Funding Universe.  Well, next week is a great opportunity for all of you to do more than just read about how cool these events are.  Funding Universe is putting on their first ever Livepitch and Networking event.  What is this?  Well, for starters it is a great place to come meet local investors and entrepreneurs in a social setting.  Each person attending will get a certain amount of “funny money.”  Like an entrepreneur’s pitch?  Vote with your dollars (or funny dollar int his case.)  Additionally, a panel of investors will be judging all of the pitches.  At the end, the two winners will be chosen: one by the investor judges, and one by you, the audience based on your contributions of “funny money.”

This is an amazing chance to see what is going on in Utah, and meet the people who are making it happen!  Don’t miss it!!!

When:  Friday May 2, 2008
Venue: Miller Business Innovation Center
Building: Karen Gale Conference Center
Rooms: Wasatch and Cottonwood
Time:  9 am - 10:30 am
Cost:  FREE! ($10 to apply to present)
Go to http://www.fundinguniverse.com/services/339/420/utah-livepitch-and-networking.html for more information or to register.

• 1 Comment
• Posted in Events

Untangle: An easy to use Solution for protecting your Kids

• Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 17

(Warning… Passionate rant and possible arm-waving begins now)

Last night I was fooling around with my DansGuardian server at home… again.  I have it running on a crappy little server that always seems to have problems.  Not only that, but I really haven’t been all that pleased with the lag from the squid caching, or the painful fine-tuning of Dans Guardian from time to time.  Plus, I did not have it inline with my network, so any intelligent kid could easily bypass it.  But I didn’t want to go to the trouble of inserting another NIC and setting up by Linux install for bridging… just a pain.

Enter Untagle.   Let me just say “HOLY CRAP!”  I went to the website (very professionally done BTW), pulled down an ISO (for free), and burned a disk.  I inserted the disk into a computer and booted from it.  The install was the easiest install I have ever done.  No hard questions… no troubleshooting.  It just worked.  My mother in law could have installed this!  I did have to throw in a $17 network card to ensure complete protection by putting it so it can’t be bypassed.

Done.  Within 10 minutes of EXTREMELY easy configuring I had virus protection, spam protection, spyware, adult content filtering, and a bunch of other stuff all running.  The UI is super easy to understand and use.  Once installed everything can be done remotely.  Performance seems great.  All of this at absolutely no cost.  These guys are amazing.  Seriously, I cannot recommend a product any higher than I can this one.  If you are, or know someone who is looking to protect their kids from porn, this is your solution.  I have shied away from pointing anyone at DansGuardian in the past, as I knew they would bug me for tech support questions forever on it.  It is just too difficult for a non-tech person.

Untangled.  Don’t have it?  Get it!  Curious?  Watch the video.

• 3 Comments
• Posted in Techno Rambling

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.

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• Posted in Local Review

Utah Entrepreneurial Challenge

• Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Apr 14

One of the programs that I really love here in Utah is the Utah Entrepreneurial challenge.  I was really pleased and blessed this year to have been given the opportunity to be a mentor to one of the teams.  The team I was working with is called Qgia.  Qgia’s product is pretty slick.  It’s a very inexpensive solution for companies (and even individuals in the case of yahoo or ebay stores) to be able to either upload video they have produced, or even point at video hosted somewhere else, and then have it played on their site/online store.  What makes it cooler though, is that you can upload images to be used as “buttons”, and tell how many seconds into the video there popup, where, and what url they should direct to.  So imagine a Convention/visitor’s bureau video that hi-lights Utah destinations, and then as each one is show there is a button right on the video for a call to action for that section of the video.  Further, this can be directly integrated into a shopping cart… so if the image is someone boarding at Brighton, the “buy now” button might jump right to a cart with a pass in it already.  I know their website is still under construction, but if you want to talk to these guys sooner, just let me know and I’ll help.  I know that Mark and his team are headed for grea things (Heck, I’m ready to star using it!)

Another company that I have written about several times is Klymit.  These guys have got a really neat product that uses Argo, among other gasses inside of a jacket liner.  Combine this with a small pressurized canister (the size of a  CO2 can that might be used ina  BB gun), a adjuster dial, andSHAZAM!  What you have is an unbelievably lightjacket (so they tell me… I am still waiting in line to buy one) that let’s you literally “dial-in” the appropriate level of insulation.  Dial it up while riding the lift up, dial it down when you’re carving moguls.  Cool stuff. (as a note: Nick Sorenson’s presentation was very polished.  Nice job.)

The winner this year was Amwell (not sure if they have a website… anyone know of one?)  Amwell is one of those companies that really makes you feel good to be a human bieng.  They have developed a product with innovative technology for vaginal application of medecines.  They use case they are headed into trials for is supposed to prevent pregnancy, HIV, and other STD’s.  I apologize that I don’t know more about it… but I’ll see what I can find out as far as web resources to point you to.

The winner this year walked away with $50,000.  Second and Third took $10,000 each, and the rest of the top ten walked with $2,000 each.  Not a bad jump to your business.  Good job to everyone involved, and a shout out to Qgia, good job for making the top ten!!

• 3 Comments
• Posted in Events

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.

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• Posted in Local Review