In this economy, it’s all about execution. Customer acquisition continues to remain expensive, so the question is, when a client chooses you, are you “giving the love back”? When you are a start-up and your competitor is an industry giant, this might be the only way to carve out your niche. Love your customer. Just ask MMIS and Mosaic Storage Systems from our last Entrepreneur Forum.
MMIS provides a cloud based secure collaboration platform within the enterprise and to external third parties. Their focus is the health industry federal transparency requirement. Effective January 1, 2012, certain medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers will be required to disclose payments or transfer of value to a covered recipient. What this means is that all of these transactions will be in a public database for the world to see. Thank you federal government, you have found yet another way to make public every dime spent by a bio medical company in the name of research. Business lunch? Yes, that must be tracked – who you ate with and what you discussed.
There are two problems with this, for the doctors in private practice; their every move can be tracked by watch dog groups. For life science, and bio/medical device companies, they have to identify what needs to be tracked and report it for the world to see. Michaeline Daboul, President & CEO of MMIS explained that their cloud based dashboard aggregates and posts data that is compliant with state and federal regulation to make this process more seamless through their secure PPN (Physician Professional Network). Their service essentially prevents inaccurate data from being reported by pharmaceutical and medical device companies to the government. Also, as a safety net, they can track and dispute payments before they are reported to the Federal Government and instantly become public record.
Our distinguished panel consisted of Michael Balmuth, General Partner, Edison Ventures Donald C. Crandlemire, Attorney, Shaheen & Gordon, P.A., and M. Weston Chapman, President and CEO, PCD Partners. Overall, the feedback was that security is a huge concern between providers and hospitals, so a cloud solution makes sense however for many health care professionals, these this type of reporting is not part of their culture. Training is a must. And no one wants to remember another password. Who is paying for this? So far it’s free to physicians, so the reporting parties would foot the bill which is an affordable $ 250K within three years with MMIS instead of per year. Finally, simplicity is a must. The channel strategy is AMA, who is interested in branding the platform. One final pearl of wisdom – find a well healed angel to complete the development and get the $ 32 billion market “love back” with a mammoth like Ascension Health.
It’s all about love for Mosaic, cloud based storage for professional photographers. Our second presentation was enthusiastically delivered by Gerard Murphy, founder of Mosaic, and a photographer himself. When professional photographers take thousands of pictures two things happen, they quickly run out of local digital storage and they have trouble finding photos once stored. What’s more, Mosaic has created a plugin to Adobe Lightroom, the de facto standard for cataloging thousands of digital images used in post-production and asset management workflow.
Digital file security, data integrity, and indexing are huge needs for busy photographers and most are not IT savvy. Mosaic takes care of this though enterprise level SAS 70 data storage, redundant data centers, RAID 6 in both locations, proactive hard drive failure monitoring and data synchronization using 128-bit encryption. For you techies, you’ve figured out that the secret sauce is in synchronizing metadata. Now let’s go take pictures.
Our panel of experts consisted of Gary Samson, Chair, Photography Department, New Hampshire Institute of Art, Bill Becker, President & Chief Executive Officer, Recordsforce Management, and Tom Elliott, Founder & Director of the Idea Greenhouse. The overall feedback was that the concept is solid. The challenge is convincing photographers to use the platform. A cloud based platform for digital photography is enviable; in fact, Adobe has announced this statement of direction already, making them the 800 pound gorilla.
Gerard Murphy walked away with some great advice from this panel who recommended that he find a Michael Jordon or in this case, an Annie Leibovitz of the industry to adopt Mosaic. Second, to focus on agencies and institutions who have a need for storing client images. (Imagine Harvard University or Dartmouth and the loads of images they keep in-house for historic purposes.) And finally, with Adobe on your heels, you need to “show the love” to your customers so they love you more than Adobe. Can Mosaic do this? Sounds like they are already on their way.
See you at the next Entrepreneur Forum!
Monday, November 28, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Musings on Leadership: The Mindset
Leadership is a privilege and not something to be taken lightly.
• Why? Because when we are put into the position of leadership, we are responsible for others and sometimes the “lives of others.”
• Are we inspiring them to act congruently with sound moral and ethical values?
Are we standing on truth?
• Are we setting the right example with our behavior when no one is looking?
As a person of faith, I believe we blessed. And with these blessings comes responsibility:
• To be the voice for people around the world who can’t advocate for themselves.
• To use our wisdom and passion to turn up the heat on legislation for important issues.
• To use extend our hearts to "the least of these" and show compassion.
Recently I had lunch with teenager that I am doing some mentoring with. She had razor blade slashes up each arm and the word "death" printed on her hand in black ink. It's moments like these when leadership kicks in and we find ourselves digging deep for inspirational words to change the tide. Can I lead by example to redirect her course or save her life? So far, so good.
The ROCK of successful leadership is built on TRUTH.
• Why? Because when we are put into the position of leadership, we are responsible for others and sometimes the “lives of others.”
• Are we inspiring them to act congruently with sound moral and ethical values?
Are we standing on truth?
• Are we setting the right example with our behavior when no one is looking?
As a person of faith, I believe we blessed. And with these blessings comes responsibility:
• To be the voice for people around the world who can’t advocate for themselves.
• To use our wisdom and passion to turn up the heat on legislation for important issues.
• To use extend our hearts to "the least of these" and show compassion.
Recently I had lunch with teenager that I am doing some mentoring with. She had razor blade slashes up each arm and the word "death" printed on her hand in black ink. It's moments like these when leadership kicks in and we find ourselves digging deep for inspirational words to change the tide. Can I lead by example to redirect her course or save her life? So far, so good.
The ROCK of successful leadership is built on TRUTH.
Musings on Leadership: job, brand, or character?
Leadersip is All Three:
Job John Maxwell’s 360 Leadership suggests that we can lead from wherever we are. What this means is that it doesn’t matter if you are “in charge” officially and people in your organization are being paid to follow you – you can influence people’s minds and hearts no matter where you are serving.
Example) As marketing director for a high technology start-up company,I received a phone call one day from a prospective business partner. She told me in confidence that one of our executives had approached her with an unethical deal. I was put in the awkward position of having to act. Sometimes we are put in the position of making tough decisions because they are the right thing to do.
Brand Leadership becomes our personal brand. Why? Because Leadership begets leadership. The more you lead, the more you get asked to lead, and the more you lead, the more you become known as a leader.
How do we become better leaders?
1. Read everything about leadership
2. Learn from other leaders
3. Community: Learn from other Leaders in action
4. Lead anything
What is the test of true leadership? Ask yourself, "Is anyone following you who isn’t paid to?"
Character Character is the root of leadership. It’s the rock we stand on, rooted in your beliefs or the tenants of our faith. Our belief system drives our character which in turn, guides our behavior. We “act”, lead, and behave according to what we believe to be right, morally and ethically.
Example) Trust is a huge part of leadership. When we donate to organizations we believe in, we do so because you “trust” the moral fiber and character of their leadership.
Conclusion: Leadership is our job, our brand, AND then it becomes part of our character
Job John Maxwell’s 360 Leadership suggests that we can lead from wherever we are. What this means is that it doesn’t matter if you are “in charge” officially and people in your organization are being paid to follow you – you can influence people’s minds and hearts no matter where you are serving.
Example) As marketing director for a high technology start-up company,I received a phone call one day from a prospective business partner. She told me in confidence that one of our executives had approached her with an unethical deal. I was put in the awkward position of having to act. Sometimes we are put in the position of making tough decisions because they are the right thing to do.
Brand Leadership becomes our personal brand. Why? Because Leadership begets leadership. The more you lead, the more you get asked to lead, and the more you lead, the more you become known as a leader.
How do we become better leaders?
1. Read everything about leadership
2. Learn from other leaders
3. Community: Learn from other Leaders in action
4. Lead anything
What is the test of true leadership? Ask yourself, "Is anyone following you who isn’t paid to?"
Character Character is the root of leadership. It’s the rock we stand on, rooted in your beliefs or the tenants of our faith. Our belief system drives our character which in turn, guides our behavior. We “act”, lead, and behave according to what we believe to be right, morally and ethically.
Example) Trust is a huge part of leadership. When we donate to organizations we believe in, we do so because you “trust” the moral fiber and character of their leadership.
Conclusion: Leadership is our job, our brand, AND then it becomes part of our character
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Did your Legos Spill?
If you’re an entrepreneur with a glimmer in your eye and an idea worth millions, we have some advice for you, “Don’t let them out of the office or else your Legos will spill.” Funny, that’s exactly the same advice CEO of Starbuck’s Howard Schultz gave at his recent lecture at Harvard Business School, but in his case it was coffee beans. Focus is everything. Revolution Energy and NextChoice were our guests at last month’s Entrepreneur Forum and they are all about focusing on growth.
Revolution Energy provides energy infastructure to reduce the carbon footprint with an unique twist – they own the equipment at your site and either sell it back to you or to the grid. You get energy credits and/or have the option of using your own sustainable energy at a reduced cost. Why? Because you don’t have to pay for the equipment. Clay Mitchell, co-founder of Revolution Energy explained that municipalities, non-profits, and businesses alike are seeking clean, sustainabile energy, but have found it cost prohibitive. Revolutionary? Americans take notice. China has 95% solar array’s atop every building and is now is the planet’s leader in renewable energy technology (537 Billion kWh per year 2008 vs. 393 for the United States.) One solar array is architecturally arranged to look like a giant dragon defending it’s skyscraper. We need to get creative and clearly, Revolutionay Energy has.
Our distinguished panel consisted of Tony Grappone, Partner, Novogradac & Company, John Harper, Founder, Birch Tree Capital, and Curtis Whittaker, Shareholder, Rath, Young, Pignateli. The question on the table was how can Revolution raise the $ 4.2 million it needs to grow the business.
Our expert panel made several key recommendations. First to simply the structure for customers so that it’s akin to home financing – the forms are filled in, just check the appropriate boxes, sign, and off you go. Second was to tap into local investors who have a stake in New Hampshire and want to see our state lead renewable energy initiatives for New England. Local investors equal local benefit. Third was to re-structure the financials vis-à-vis sources of debt, and tax credit programs, and lower interest rates generating a triple bottom line yield for investors. Now Revolution Energy just needs to focus on which dragon to sleigh fist.
Our second entrepreneur, Dick Andersen, President of NextChoice is delivering self-service technology to retailers. How much do you like to wait at the deli line on a busy Saturday morning? NextChoice’s Intelligent Self-service System (NISS) provides world-class interaction between the shopper and the enterprise-class computing power of national retail chains. What’s more, this technology is scalable so if you’re shopping experience is on an iPhone, kiosk, or drive though – you can place the order and pay lickety-split. The Wall Street Journal’s recent article entitled, “Check out the future of shopping” by Ann Zimmerman details all the gizmo’s we’ll be using as we zoom through the grocery store paying speed-pass style as we head for the door, bags and kids in-tow saving 20 minutes per store visit. According to the Journal, further automating the shopping experience creates the urge to spend 10% more. Would you like fries with that?
NextChoice integrates with retail point-of-sale systems and inventory management platforms so that when you order a ham and cheese sandwich, it can calculate the fluctuating price of pork bellies according to the commodities market. The have found a market entry niche today in supermarket delis. This gets their foot in the door for floral, bakery, seafood, or other counter-type venues where you have to take a number and wait, something we’re not very good at anymore.
Our expert panel consisted of Eduarto Alvarez, Founder and President, Vigix, Randy Dow, Co-founder, BDP Technology, and Tim Sweeney, Business Development Manager, Telequip Corporation. What impressed the panel the most was the ability for NextChoice to gather market intelligence about our shopping habits – something retailers want to know. By tracking our buying habits down to the deli counter, or the flower department – they can suggest items, offer incentive programs, and target consumer habits for overall marketing.
The panel was overwhelmingly supportive of the technology given that ROI is easily measurable for “productive vs. non-productive labor time”. If you can walk up, punch in your super bowl week-end deli order at a standing kiosk, finish your shopping, and grab your bar-coded deli order as you head for check-out, you’ve created a lean, efficient, and more profitable deli counter.
Furthermore, with airlines, grocery stores, and other consumer-centric self-service systems in place, the learning curve is almost flat. We are smarter shoppers and generally prefer to get-in and get-out. NextChoice’s challenge will be convincing the enterprise CIO to spring for a pilot. Dick Andersen and the NextChoice team might need to leap-frog to the iPhone app and leap onto the coattails of Scan It and others who are proving that point, scan, and bag is here to stay and that retailers are laughing all the way to the bank, affinity marketing data and loyalty card in hand.
Sounds like both Revolution Energy and NextChoice should heed our panelist’s advice about keeping “them” (engineers) in the office so the Legos don’t spill. This way we can sit back proudly and say, “Yep, I heard that started in New Hampshire”.
Catherine Blake, President
Sales Protocol International
cblake@salesprotoocol.com
www.salesprotocol.com
Revolution Energy provides energy infastructure to reduce the carbon footprint with an unique twist – they own the equipment at your site and either sell it back to you or to the grid. You get energy credits and/or have the option of using your own sustainable energy at a reduced cost. Why? Because you don’t have to pay for the equipment. Clay Mitchell, co-founder of Revolution Energy explained that municipalities, non-profits, and businesses alike are seeking clean, sustainabile energy, but have found it cost prohibitive. Revolutionary? Americans take notice. China has 95% solar array’s atop every building and is now is the planet’s leader in renewable energy technology (537 Billion kWh per year 2008 vs. 393 for the United States.) One solar array is architecturally arranged to look like a giant dragon defending it’s skyscraper. We need to get creative and clearly, Revolutionay Energy has.
Our distinguished panel consisted of Tony Grappone, Partner, Novogradac & Company, John Harper, Founder, Birch Tree Capital, and Curtis Whittaker, Shareholder, Rath, Young, Pignateli. The question on the table was how can Revolution raise the $ 4.2 million it needs to grow the business.
Our expert panel made several key recommendations. First to simply the structure for customers so that it’s akin to home financing – the forms are filled in, just check the appropriate boxes, sign, and off you go. Second was to tap into local investors who have a stake in New Hampshire and want to see our state lead renewable energy initiatives for New England. Local investors equal local benefit. Third was to re-structure the financials vis-à-vis sources of debt, and tax credit programs, and lower interest rates generating a triple bottom line yield for investors. Now Revolution Energy just needs to focus on which dragon to sleigh fist.
Our second entrepreneur, Dick Andersen, President of NextChoice is delivering self-service technology to retailers. How much do you like to wait at the deli line on a busy Saturday morning? NextChoice’s Intelligent Self-service System (NISS) provides world-class interaction between the shopper and the enterprise-class computing power of national retail chains. What’s more, this technology is scalable so if you’re shopping experience is on an iPhone, kiosk, or drive though – you can place the order and pay lickety-split. The Wall Street Journal’s recent article entitled, “Check out the future of shopping” by Ann Zimmerman details all the gizmo’s we’ll be using as we zoom through the grocery store paying speed-pass style as we head for the door, bags and kids in-tow saving 20 minutes per store visit. According to the Journal, further automating the shopping experience creates the urge to spend 10% more. Would you like fries with that?
NextChoice integrates with retail point-of-sale systems and inventory management platforms so that when you order a ham and cheese sandwich, it can calculate the fluctuating price of pork bellies according to the commodities market. The have found a market entry niche today in supermarket delis. This gets their foot in the door for floral, bakery, seafood, or other counter-type venues where you have to take a number and wait, something we’re not very good at anymore.
Our expert panel consisted of Eduarto Alvarez, Founder and President, Vigix, Randy Dow, Co-founder, BDP Technology, and Tim Sweeney, Business Development Manager, Telequip Corporation. What impressed the panel the most was the ability for NextChoice to gather market intelligence about our shopping habits – something retailers want to know. By tracking our buying habits down to the deli counter, or the flower department – they can suggest items, offer incentive programs, and target consumer habits for overall marketing.
The panel was overwhelmingly supportive of the technology given that ROI is easily measurable for “productive vs. non-productive labor time”. If you can walk up, punch in your super bowl week-end deli order at a standing kiosk, finish your shopping, and grab your bar-coded deli order as you head for check-out, you’ve created a lean, efficient, and more profitable deli counter.
Furthermore, with airlines, grocery stores, and other consumer-centric self-service systems in place, the learning curve is almost flat. We are smarter shoppers and generally prefer to get-in and get-out. NextChoice’s challenge will be convincing the enterprise CIO to spring for a pilot. Dick Andersen and the NextChoice team might need to leap-frog to the iPhone app and leap onto the coattails of Scan It and others who are proving that point, scan, and bag is here to stay and that retailers are laughing all the way to the bank, affinity marketing data and loyalty card in hand.
Sounds like both Revolution Energy and NextChoice should heed our panelist’s advice about keeping “them” (engineers) in the office so the Legos don’t spill. This way we can sit back proudly and say, “Yep, I heard that started in New Hampshire”.
Catherine Blake, President
Sales Protocol International
cblake@salesprotoocol.com
www.salesprotocol.com
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Dream, Believe, Dare, Do
If you’ve studied Walt Disney or read The Disney Way, you know that his four guiding pillars were: Dream, Believe, Dare, Do. What great advice for entrepreneurs. What’s important is clarity about what phase we’re in and making sure we launch (Do) after we’ve dared (ask for funding). SafetySpan and Trunity were our entrepreneurial stars at last month’s Entrepreneur Forum and found themselves in different phases of Disney’s famous continuum.
SafetySpan’s dream is to change how we construct buildings, one floor at a time. Doug Leonardi, CTO explained that the SafetySpan Building System is a mesh-like, modular, flooring construction system designed to offer affordable alternatives that reduce waste and lower carbon emissions. Why brand “safe” in the name? For a couple of reasons. For one, they claim to be collapse resistant, meaning that if an earthquake hits, or some other disaster, the floor flexes rather than cracking and collapsing, bringing the entire building down with it. (Does the World Trade Center come to mind?) Secondly, by using a more sustainable material than concrete, emissions are significantly reduced. Third, a flexible, light weight, honeycomb-like spaceframe can be assembled between steel beams or wall mounts of a building’s interior construction frame. The magic is in the geometric shape, designed by nature for phenomenal strength.
Today, most buildings are created with concrete flooring which is heavy, expensive, and inflexible if the earth shifts. On the upside, concrete is strong, but has a hefty environmental emissions consequences. SafetySpan’s design replaces concrete flooring altogether. Same strength at half the weight. It’s modular so that makes it easy to install, manufactur, and recycle. Each component is based on human scale making it easy to pack, ship, and install. No mixing required. SafetySpan’s targeted applications are commercial, residential construction in addition to temporary buldings for military installations, emergency response shelters, and interium housing for victums of earthquake and natural disasters. SafetySpan’s solution helps architects and civil engineers gain LEED accrediation, based on its sustainable nature (see USGBC United States Green Building Council www.usgbc.org). It’s also a great solution for datacenters with raised floor requirements. Think crawl space for cabelling.
Our distinguished panel consisted of Lester Hensley, CEO & President of EMSEAL Joint Systems, Wayne Siladi, PE, Associate Principal, Weidlinger Associates, and Andrew Connolly, Director of Finance for R.R. Keller & Associates. Andrew observed, using the Walt Disney vernacular, “You’re in the dare phase. You need to have more guts and ask for more money.” He applauded the concept, but felt that they should be more bullish and launch SafetySpan boldly. Most entrepreneurs we’ve seen underestimate what they will actually need and tend to be overly conservative financially.
Wayne Siladi, PE shared his firms impressive experience in vulnerability assessment; risk analysis; forensic, earthquake, wind, and blast engineering; soil/structure interaction; and sustainability. Weidlinger Associates’ portfolio includes marquee projects like the Shanghai Port’s International Cruise Terminal (80,000 ton capacity), the Georgia Dome, Jacob Javitz Center, and The World Trade Center Forensic Study after 911. He said, “Interesting product.” He referenced the Buckminster Fuller Institute that published an authoritative article written by SafetySpan’s experts where they noted that earthquake loads in particular raise havoc on large buildings, especially where concrete floor comprise 70% of the building’s dead weight. Seismic activity distributes tensile loads across rigid membranes or concrete floors. When dead weight swings and sways, buildings collapse taking human lives. Ideally, design engineers want seismic activity to “pass through” the building. SafetySpan just might be the conduit seismic experts are looking for.
Lester Hensley, President of EMSeal Joint Systems provides structural and architectural sealing products for construction projects such as span bridges, sports stadiums, high rise buildings, and parking decks. His advice was for SafetySpan to complete all testing of the product. This way ratings and results can be provided to civil engineers and architects. Concrete has been used for commercial flooring for decades; introducing new fabric will cause a seachange and shake up the entire building industry. Once embraced by the engineered product space, LEED savvy civil engineers, and architects, this could be the wave (pun intended) of the future. He felt the number one selling point is that SafetySpan prevents progressive collapse, something concrete can’t do. Like a spider web in a wind storm. (Dream, Believe, Dare, Do.)
Our second entrepreneur, Terry Anderton CEO of Trunity, introduced their knowledge-sharing platform which leverages crowd sourcing, or community based design, knowledge, and problem solving. This approach is trending in e-learning empowering virtual publishing, dynamic textbooks, rich content (video) and breaking news.
Trunity has harnessed 1500 scientists to contribute to textbooks delivered on-line through Trunity’s Virtual Classroom. Furthermore, Trunity has been awarded several NSF grants to develop this disruptive solution and is partnered with NASA, The National Academy’s of Science, The Encyclopedia of the Earth and the National Foundation for Science and the Environment. Now the “Do” part. They are working with IBM to deliver a commercial solution.
Our distinguished review panel consisted of Ben Bassi, CEO of CommonPlaces
e-Solutions, Bill Horn, Executive and Advisory Board Member of the RIMA Foundation, and Yvonne Simon, Chief Executive Officer, Southern New Hampshire University Online. Ben Bassi kicked-off the panel’s comments by recommending that Trunity focus on a 50:50 educations vs. commercial ratio for applications. He raised the question of “are you selling to universities or professors?”. Remember, universities are in the business of generating revenue for textbooks. Ideally, Trunity and Terry must find a way to make this a win-win for educational institutions, partner with publishers, or compete with them.
Bill Horn suggested that there may be wisdom in approaching new commercial markets such as bio/medical and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Both publish volumes of information that need to be made available world-wide. He also brilliantly suggested approaching LexusNexis, the global source for legal research data now expanding to universities (law schools) and corporations. The challenges are data related – unstructured data content can have legal and compliance exposures and who is responsible for managing it? These challenges might be overcome by Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that “develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.”
Finally, Yvonne Simon suggested that Trunity would really make their mark if they focused instead on becoming the replacement for Blackboard, the defacto standard for educational tracking and on-line learning today. She noted that professors need a way to contribute content quickly and Blackboard doesn’t allow this easily, is also not a social learning platform, or open.
Yvonne brought to light a progressive initiative led by Cable Green, Director of eLearning & Open Education for the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC). They just adopted an open licensing policy for the competitive grants they administer using “An Expectation of Sharing: Guidelines for Effective Policies to Respect, Protect and Increase the Use of Digital Educational Resources” and “An Evaluation of Private Foundation Copyright Licensing Policies, Practices and Opportunities.” Cable’s passion started as an initiative to drive down the cost of textbooks, many of which are sold in bundles, if you need them or not. Legislation followed and is moving state-by-state in favor of students who can’t afford to shell out hundreds of dollars they don’t have.
Do these trends democratize content, or create a via business model that Trunity can capitalize on? The Dream part is real – now students in Africa can have access to the same information that students in Boston, Manchester, or Durham have. All they need is a cloud and a dream.
In closing, you might enjoy finding out what “Dream, Believe, Dare, Do” blossomed into Disney Corporation - their 10 guiding principles. Or stars to sail by.
10 Disney principles*:
1. Give every member of your organization a chance to dream, and tap into the
creativity those dreams embody.
2. Stand firm on your beliefs and principles.
3. Treat your customers like guests.
4. Support, empower, and reward employees.
5. Build long-term relationships with key suppliers and partners.
6. Dare to take calculated risks in order to bring innovative ideas to fruition.
7. Train extensively and constantly reinforce the company's culture.
8. Align long-term vision with short-term execution.
9. Use the storyboarding technique to solve planning & communication problems.
10. Pay close attention to detail.
*The Disney Way, by Bill Capodagli & Lynn Jackson, McGraw Hill, 2007
See you at the next Entrepreneur Forum!
Catherine Blake, President
Sales Protocol International
cblake@salesprotoocol.com
www.salesprotocol.com
SafetySpan’s dream is to change how we construct buildings, one floor at a time. Doug Leonardi, CTO explained that the SafetySpan Building System is a mesh-like, modular, flooring construction system designed to offer affordable alternatives that reduce waste and lower carbon emissions. Why brand “safe” in the name? For a couple of reasons. For one, they claim to be collapse resistant, meaning that if an earthquake hits, or some other disaster, the floor flexes rather than cracking and collapsing, bringing the entire building down with it. (Does the World Trade Center come to mind?) Secondly, by using a more sustainable material than concrete, emissions are significantly reduced. Third, a flexible, light weight, honeycomb-like spaceframe can be assembled between steel beams or wall mounts of a building’s interior construction frame. The magic is in the geometric shape, designed by nature for phenomenal strength.
Today, most buildings are created with concrete flooring which is heavy, expensive, and inflexible if the earth shifts. On the upside, concrete is strong, but has a hefty environmental emissions consequences. SafetySpan’s design replaces concrete flooring altogether. Same strength at half the weight. It’s modular so that makes it easy to install, manufactur, and recycle. Each component is based on human scale making it easy to pack, ship, and install. No mixing required. SafetySpan’s targeted applications are commercial, residential construction in addition to temporary buldings for military installations, emergency response shelters, and interium housing for victums of earthquake and natural disasters. SafetySpan’s solution helps architects and civil engineers gain LEED accrediation, based on its sustainable nature (see USGBC United States Green Building Council www.usgbc.org). It’s also a great solution for datacenters with raised floor requirements. Think crawl space for cabelling.
Our distinguished panel consisted of Lester Hensley, CEO & President of EMSEAL Joint Systems, Wayne Siladi, PE, Associate Principal, Weidlinger Associates, and Andrew Connolly, Director of Finance for R.R. Keller & Associates. Andrew observed, using the Walt Disney vernacular, “You’re in the dare phase. You need to have more guts and ask for more money.” He applauded the concept, but felt that they should be more bullish and launch SafetySpan boldly. Most entrepreneurs we’ve seen underestimate what they will actually need and tend to be overly conservative financially.
Wayne Siladi, PE shared his firms impressive experience in vulnerability assessment; risk analysis; forensic, earthquake, wind, and blast engineering; soil/structure interaction; and sustainability. Weidlinger Associates’ portfolio includes marquee projects like the Shanghai Port’s International Cruise Terminal (80,000 ton capacity), the Georgia Dome, Jacob Javitz Center, and The World Trade Center Forensic Study after 911. He said, “Interesting product.” He referenced the Buckminster Fuller Institute that published an authoritative article written by SafetySpan’s experts where they noted that earthquake loads in particular raise havoc on large buildings, especially where concrete floor comprise 70% of the building’s dead weight. Seismic activity distributes tensile loads across rigid membranes or concrete floors. When dead weight swings and sways, buildings collapse taking human lives. Ideally, design engineers want seismic activity to “pass through” the building. SafetySpan just might be the conduit seismic experts are looking for.
Lester Hensley, President of EMSeal Joint Systems provides structural and architectural sealing products for construction projects such as span bridges, sports stadiums, high rise buildings, and parking decks. His advice was for SafetySpan to complete all testing of the product. This way ratings and results can be provided to civil engineers and architects. Concrete has been used for commercial flooring for decades; introducing new fabric will cause a seachange and shake up the entire building industry. Once embraced by the engineered product space, LEED savvy civil engineers, and architects, this could be the wave (pun intended) of the future. He felt the number one selling point is that SafetySpan prevents progressive collapse, something concrete can’t do. Like a spider web in a wind storm. (Dream, Believe, Dare, Do.)
Our second entrepreneur, Terry Anderton CEO of Trunity, introduced their knowledge-sharing platform which leverages crowd sourcing, or community based design, knowledge, and problem solving. This approach is trending in e-learning empowering virtual publishing, dynamic textbooks, rich content (video) and breaking news.
Trunity has harnessed 1500 scientists to contribute to textbooks delivered on-line through Trunity’s Virtual Classroom. Furthermore, Trunity has been awarded several NSF grants to develop this disruptive solution and is partnered with NASA, The National Academy’s of Science, The Encyclopedia of the Earth and the National Foundation for Science and the Environment. Now the “Do” part. They are working with IBM to deliver a commercial solution.
Our distinguished review panel consisted of Ben Bassi, CEO of CommonPlaces
e-Solutions, Bill Horn, Executive and Advisory Board Member of the RIMA Foundation, and Yvonne Simon, Chief Executive Officer, Southern New Hampshire University Online. Ben Bassi kicked-off the panel’s comments by recommending that Trunity focus on a 50:50 educations vs. commercial ratio for applications. He raised the question of “are you selling to universities or professors?”. Remember, universities are in the business of generating revenue for textbooks. Ideally, Trunity and Terry must find a way to make this a win-win for educational institutions, partner with publishers, or compete with them.
Bill Horn suggested that there may be wisdom in approaching new commercial markets such as bio/medical and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Both publish volumes of information that need to be made available world-wide. He also brilliantly suggested approaching LexusNexis, the global source for legal research data now expanding to universities (law schools) and corporations. The challenges are data related – unstructured data content can have legal and compliance exposures and who is responsible for managing it? These challenges might be overcome by Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that “develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.”
Finally, Yvonne Simon suggested that Trunity would really make their mark if they focused instead on becoming the replacement for Blackboard, the defacto standard for educational tracking and on-line learning today. She noted that professors need a way to contribute content quickly and Blackboard doesn’t allow this easily, is also not a social learning platform, or open.
Yvonne brought to light a progressive initiative led by Cable Green, Director of eLearning & Open Education for the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC). They just adopted an open licensing policy for the competitive grants they administer using “An Expectation of Sharing: Guidelines for Effective Policies to Respect, Protect and Increase the Use of Digital Educational Resources” and “An Evaluation of Private Foundation Copyright Licensing Policies, Practices and Opportunities.” Cable’s passion started as an initiative to drive down the cost of textbooks, many of which are sold in bundles, if you need them or not. Legislation followed and is moving state-by-state in favor of students who can’t afford to shell out hundreds of dollars they don’t have.
Do these trends democratize content, or create a via business model that Trunity can capitalize on? The Dream part is real – now students in Africa can have access to the same information that students in Boston, Manchester, or Durham have. All they need is a cloud and a dream.
In closing, you might enjoy finding out what “Dream, Believe, Dare, Do” blossomed into Disney Corporation - their 10 guiding principles. Or stars to sail by.
10 Disney principles*:
1. Give every member of your organization a chance to dream, and tap into the
creativity those dreams embody.
2. Stand firm on your beliefs and principles.
3. Treat your customers like guests.
4. Support, empower, and reward employees.
5. Build long-term relationships with key suppliers and partners.
6. Dare to take calculated risks in order to bring innovative ideas to fruition.
7. Train extensively and constantly reinforce the company's culture.
8. Align long-term vision with short-term execution.
9. Use the storyboarding technique to solve planning & communication problems.
10. Pay close attention to detail.
*The Disney Way, by Bill Capodagli & Lynn Jackson, McGraw Hill, 2007
See you at the next Entrepreneur Forum!
Catherine Blake, President
Sales Protocol International
cblake@salesprotoocol.com
www.salesprotocol.com
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
PEZ Dispenser, anyone?
As the legend goes, eBay started when one young man wanted to impress his fiancée, a PEZ collector. When he couldn’t find any through traditional means, he launched the idea that became eBay in 1995. What do PEZ dispensers and the New Hampshire High Tech Council’s Entrepreneur Forum have in common? It was the “sizzle vs. steak” panel discussion about our two recent presentations from iPlayerHD and Securlytics. It turns out, you need a savory balance of both! (Steak and sizzle, that is.) And a ground breaking idea.
iPlayerHD’s goal is to corner the market as the most affordable high definition video publishing platform. Unlike others, iPlayerHD’s strength is their high fidelity, clear, crisp video quality at high bit rates. They provide uninterrupted video content without the trailer ads, pop-ups, and other branded messages that can distract the viewer from the intended message. iPlayerHD’s competitive edge is huge storage (30 GB) capacity, and high bandwidth (40 GB) at an affordable monthly recurring fee. With video, the quality is correlates to the “broadcasters” horsepower. If you’re watching from a souped-up computer and the video is being broadcast from a bow-wow, the video quality will look fuzzy and unprofessional. The trick is to broadcast with as much horsepower as you can muster for close-to-TV quality. For $ 30 per month, you can broadcast away, and video is the number one content type that SEO tools look for to stoke your inbound marketing campaign.
iPlayerHD was founded by Wes Moore, serial entrepreneur and inventor. His presentation was robust, well architected, and masterfully delivered within the fifteen minute time frame. No doubt he’s the guy to make this happen, he’s the type of CEO you can imagine on the morning news in Studio One delivering the goods without skipping a beat. Wes is Sampson fighting Goliath, YouTube. Can he do it? His premise is that YouTube takes you elsewhere and when you’re trying to sell something from your web-site. Ideally you want people to stay on your site and not deviate into YouTube land keeping your message and your content pure and focused.
For the evening, our distinguished panel for both presentations was Edward Bender, Special Ops, Dyn Inc., David Cutler, President of Creative Business Development, and Bill McCullen, Director for LaunchCapital in Boston. The panel’s comments started with David Cutler who immediately made the steak vs. sizzle analogy. He advised that iPlayerHD needs lots of sizzle (marketing) on their rock solid steak. He also said, “the only way to go is up”, meaning that customers are willing to pay for the right combination of features at a low cost without the overhead of features they don’t want. David’s advice was to find a tribe of passionate people, such as recording artists, who will create pull though demand. (Oh, by the way, it runs on iPlayerHD.)
Bill McCullen made the point that if price is the only differentiator, then iPlayerHD could “own the industry”. Wes presented a nice, neat competitive analysis grid that demonstrated that his plan vetted not just YouTube, but others charging for this service and providing various iterations of quality, bandwidth, and add-ons. Bill added that he loves to see bootstrapped companies who are making it happen and gaining market share before asking for investment. This demonstrates traction (customers) and revenue (or proof) that the concept is functioning and viable. Cha ching.
Ed Bender of Dyn made the suggestion to plug into platforms such as WordPress to become the ubiquitous HD platform of choice. The masses will follow, particularly if you grab the mobile market, hmm. Ed, who recently moved to New Hampshire from New York City and joined DYN, had the brilliant suggestion to hook your star to a strategic VC firm. Here the cross pollination of strategy, best practices, and doing what works will buzz from firm to firm in the portfolio to iPlayerHD. Safety in numbers, perhaps or is it a rising tide mentality? We’re glad Ed’s back in New Hampshire. I like his brain.
The second presenter for the evening was Mr. Vasu Ram, CEO for Securlytics, a firm specializing in securing IP content. According to IDC this year, “electronic content will grow 44 times in volume and 67 times in file count by 2020.” Content is vulnerable to hackers who can destroy a business or threaten to take down a government agency. Securlytics’ Lytica™ Framework provides usage analytics, security, and access control to secure, share, and track your content no matter what file type or format. This platform also tracks who is using the content and for what purpose. Their initial target application is eLearning and testing where more remote education and testing are happening. With accreditation, eLearning is susceptible to audits due to unethical behavior. Securlytics’ Lytica™ can provide an audit trail that could solve potential student issues and revenue losses for an education provider. Just this year, Cornell University reported that, “failing to secure content reduces Major eTraining Company’s Revenue by $2.8M”. The eLearning market alone is projected at $ 520 million and growing at 12% per year, this is a logical place to focus.
Securlytics came to the presentation with a question to solve, to attack vertical markets serially or in parallel and then to raise between $ 1 – 5 million depending on the strategy. From the panel, Ed Bender of Dyn questioned if eLearning is the market to focus on when you have other opportunities like government, legal, scientific research and pharmaceuticals. He also suggested that rather than trying to sell to data storage companies such as EMC as a customer, that this offering should be packaged as an OEM offering with EMC’s products.
Bill McCullen suggested that the marketing should be all about scaring prospects into investing in this service. This can be done through education, statistics, and very dynamic marketing programs. He also recommended that requesting $ 5 million in investment might be better after they have built the product and have a portfolio of customers. Bill said, “create smaller milestones, and nail them” to show investors measurable success.
David Cutler noted, “it’s all steak” without the sizzle. His advice was to better define sales channels, clarify differentiators, and then come up with a sizzling scary story that goes viral. For example, diplomas are being sold on Craig’s List because your university’s eLearning program has been hacked. Can you imagine the video? Priceless!
For iPlayerHD, I mentioned to Wes that the “i” in the name was genius. He can ride the coat tails of you know who. In fact, maybe these are just the people he should be talking to. Securlytics needs to attach itself to a killer app, like patient records, to become a defacto standard.
Just remember, when these guys are all over the Wall Street Journal, you saw them here first! It was another fun and educational night at the now NHHTC Entrepreneur Forum, same great people, just a different show. Will you join us in February for our next Entrepreneurial Forum? Join us, bring a friend, or make a new one. And don’t forget your PEZ dispenser. See you then!
iPlayerHD’s goal is to corner the market as the most affordable high definition video publishing platform. Unlike others, iPlayerHD’s strength is their high fidelity, clear, crisp video quality at high bit rates. They provide uninterrupted video content without the trailer ads, pop-ups, and other branded messages that can distract the viewer from the intended message. iPlayerHD’s competitive edge is huge storage (30 GB) capacity, and high bandwidth (40 GB) at an affordable monthly recurring fee. With video, the quality is correlates to the “broadcasters” horsepower. If you’re watching from a souped-up computer and the video is being broadcast from a bow-wow, the video quality will look fuzzy and unprofessional. The trick is to broadcast with as much horsepower as you can muster for close-to-TV quality. For $ 30 per month, you can broadcast away, and video is the number one content type that SEO tools look for to stoke your inbound marketing campaign.
iPlayerHD was founded by Wes Moore, serial entrepreneur and inventor. His presentation was robust, well architected, and masterfully delivered within the fifteen minute time frame. No doubt he’s the guy to make this happen, he’s the type of CEO you can imagine on the morning news in Studio One delivering the goods without skipping a beat. Wes is Sampson fighting Goliath, YouTube. Can he do it? His premise is that YouTube takes you elsewhere and when you’re trying to sell something from your web-site. Ideally you want people to stay on your site and not deviate into YouTube land keeping your message and your content pure and focused.
For the evening, our distinguished panel for both presentations was Edward Bender, Special Ops, Dyn Inc., David Cutler, President of Creative Business Development, and Bill McCullen, Director for LaunchCapital in Boston. The panel’s comments started with David Cutler who immediately made the steak vs. sizzle analogy. He advised that iPlayerHD needs lots of sizzle (marketing) on their rock solid steak. He also said, “the only way to go is up”, meaning that customers are willing to pay for the right combination of features at a low cost without the overhead of features they don’t want. David’s advice was to find a tribe of passionate people, such as recording artists, who will create pull though demand. (Oh, by the way, it runs on iPlayerHD.)
Bill McCullen made the point that if price is the only differentiator, then iPlayerHD could “own the industry”. Wes presented a nice, neat competitive analysis grid that demonstrated that his plan vetted not just YouTube, but others charging for this service and providing various iterations of quality, bandwidth, and add-ons. Bill added that he loves to see bootstrapped companies who are making it happen and gaining market share before asking for investment. This demonstrates traction (customers) and revenue (or proof) that the concept is functioning and viable. Cha ching.
Ed Bender of Dyn made the suggestion to plug into platforms such as WordPress to become the ubiquitous HD platform of choice. The masses will follow, particularly if you grab the mobile market, hmm. Ed, who recently moved to New Hampshire from New York City and joined DYN, had the brilliant suggestion to hook your star to a strategic VC firm. Here the cross pollination of strategy, best practices, and doing what works will buzz from firm to firm in the portfolio to iPlayerHD. Safety in numbers, perhaps or is it a rising tide mentality? We’re glad Ed’s back in New Hampshire. I like his brain.
The second presenter for the evening was Mr. Vasu Ram, CEO for Securlytics, a firm specializing in securing IP content. According to IDC this year, “electronic content will grow 44 times in volume and 67 times in file count by 2020.” Content is vulnerable to hackers who can destroy a business or threaten to take down a government agency. Securlytics’ Lytica™ Framework provides usage analytics, security, and access control to secure, share, and track your content no matter what file type or format. This platform also tracks who is using the content and for what purpose. Their initial target application is eLearning and testing where more remote education and testing are happening. With accreditation, eLearning is susceptible to audits due to unethical behavior. Securlytics’ Lytica™ can provide an audit trail that could solve potential student issues and revenue losses for an education provider. Just this year, Cornell University reported that, “failing to secure content reduces Major eTraining Company’s Revenue by $2.8M”. The eLearning market alone is projected at $ 520 million and growing at 12% per year, this is a logical place to focus.
Securlytics came to the presentation with a question to solve, to attack vertical markets serially or in parallel and then to raise between $ 1 – 5 million depending on the strategy. From the panel, Ed Bender of Dyn questioned if eLearning is the market to focus on when you have other opportunities like government, legal, scientific research and pharmaceuticals. He also suggested that rather than trying to sell to data storage companies such as EMC as a customer, that this offering should be packaged as an OEM offering with EMC’s products.
Bill McCullen suggested that the marketing should be all about scaring prospects into investing in this service. This can be done through education, statistics, and very dynamic marketing programs. He also recommended that requesting $ 5 million in investment might be better after they have built the product and have a portfolio of customers. Bill said, “create smaller milestones, and nail them” to show investors measurable success.
David Cutler noted, “it’s all steak” without the sizzle. His advice was to better define sales channels, clarify differentiators, and then come up with a sizzling scary story that goes viral. For example, diplomas are being sold on Craig’s List because your university’s eLearning program has been hacked. Can you imagine the video? Priceless!
For iPlayerHD, I mentioned to Wes that the “i” in the name was genius. He can ride the coat tails of you know who. In fact, maybe these are just the people he should be talking to. Securlytics needs to attach itself to a killer app, like patient records, to become a defacto standard.
Just remember, when these guys are all over the Wall Street Journal, you saw them here first! It was another fun and educational night at the now NHHTC Entrepreneur Forum, same great people, just a different show. Will you join us in February for our next Entrepreneurial Forum? Join us, bring a friend, or make a new one. And don’t forget your PEZ dispenser. See you then!
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