July 2007 Archives

In this 10 minute podcast (download iPod compatible, 51MB), Peter Morville and I discuss how he has moved from a consulting and implementation role at the beginning of his career to one of thought leadership. This transformation has largely come about through authoring two books, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and Ambient Findability. This last book has been the subject of some recent notoriety and deals with issues of search and visibility beyond our current understanding of the Internet. As Peter mentions, things change when you can google your house and find out things about it.

The transformation Peter describes is not unlike the situation Jimmy Hsiao mentions when going from the US to China. In Jimmy's case, he talks about adapting US-created technology for completely different end-user behavior patterns in a different culture. In Peter's case, he is talking about changing a culture (in this case, the one in the US) by introducing completely new ways of doing things. The interesting point of convergence is that one of Peter's examples, mobile phone based services, seems to correspond to the situation Jimmy describes as already existing in China.

In our next episode with Peter, we will discuss how the transformation he foresees will be impacted by user participation, currently a hot topic that goes under the heading of Web 2.0.

Additional Links

• You can watch Peter's presentation at Google on Ambient Findability here.
• Peter and I began our conversation in this post.

In this 8 minute podcast (download iPod compatible, 42MB), Jimmy Hsiao and I continue our conversation by discussing some of the techno-cultural subtleties to doing business in China. Overall, Jimmy notes, U.S. companies have a lead on Chinese companies in technological integration. His business is built on translating U.S. technological integration strategies into something that will be effective in Chinese business culture. It's not just a simple matter of translating English into Chinese.

We discuss three major differences where it is easy for foreigners in China to make mistakes:

• The Chinese skipped over relying on personal computers for Internet communication. Rather, they rely on cell phone text messages and other mobile solutions. This has direct implications for doing things like creating eCatalog systems. The catalog must have a mobile interface.
• Distances from The U.S. to China are great and the data rates between them are restricted. Companies cannot rely on having Internet services from the U.S. easily available in China and vice versa.
• China has 56 distinct nationalities and a land mass that is slightly larger than the U.S. There is not just one China that you do business in but multiple Chinas.

Additional Links

• Jimmy mentions Ctrip, a Chinese travel agency. They have an Internet site, but they send all confirmations first by cell phone text message.
• As of 2004, as Jimmy notes, there were an estimated 320 million mobile phone users in China, more than the entire population of the United States.

In this 6 minute podcast (download iPod compatible, 32MB), Tom Ungrodt, CEO of Ideation, Jay Upell, Sales Administrator for Powerpass, and I discuss Ideation's PowerPass product. As we mentioned in our previous discussion with Bob Holland, Powerpass is a loyalty card product for small retailers. Loyalty cards reward customers who shop frequently at a store by giving them discounts. Loyalty cards give store owners data about their customers. We cover two major topic areas:

• Tom stresses the value to the individual retailer. They probably could not mount a loyalty card program on their own. Just by participating they get invaluable data.
• Jay discusses the value of combining programs among retailers in the same locality. We also discuss a little how that might be coordinated.

In our next podcast in the PowerPass series, we learn more about the history of the product's development and how competitors are positioning themselves.

Additional Links

• This wikipedia article provides and extensive discussion of loyalty card programs with many examples and a critical review of the pros and the cons.

In this 7 minute podcast (download ipod compatible, 38MB), Bob Holland and I continue our discussion of business and technology innovation by examining a company with which he is intimately familiar, Powerpass. Powerpass is an outgrowth of Ideation, a local Ann Arbor company, that made its original business 41 years ago by providing gift catalog services to small retailers. Bob has an ownership stake in Powerpass.

Powerpass is designed to help local retailers compete with national big box retailers like Walmart. It provides local retailers with a loyalty card that can be used at the retailer as well as with other retailers in the local area. Loyalty cards allow consumers who frequent stores to receive discounts as a reward for continuing to shop at the store. Most national chains offer them. However, small retailers are not in a measure, themselves, to create the infrastructure to support these cards. A challenge in creating Powerpass is developing a value proposition that appeals to a broad enough array of small retailers.

Powerpass seems to represent a case of innovation where the true value comes from blending technology with specific business opportunities. In a forthcoming interview, we'll speak with Tom Ungrodt, CEO of Ideation, and Jay Upell, leader of the Powerpass effort. They will provide an interesting operational perspective on working with small retailers.

In this 10 minute podcast (download iPod compatible, 52MB), Peter Morville and I kick off an interview with an overall theme of how to organize information on the web. Peter is one of the founders of the field of Information Architecture, having co-written the seminal Information Architecture for the World Wide Web now in its third edition, as well as Ambient Findability recently showcased in the Google tech seminar series. Self-deprecatingly, he describes himself as just a "crazy librarian".

In this segment, we discuss the state of modern libraries and how the Internet has transformed them. Some highlights:

• Peter first felt the world wide web would transform libraries in 1993, a time when it was still possible to find all of the world's web pages indexed on a single root page in Switzerland.
• Library traffic is up. More people use libraries.
• However traditional measures of library health are down. In particular, book circulation has plummeted.
• Libraries are moving toward something they refer to as Library 2.0 that essentially tries to enhance the library's role as a local access point for the global knowledge network.

In our next segment, we'll discuss the role authoring books has played in helping Peter shape the field of Information Architecture.

Additional Links

• In the podcast, we mention something called Web 2.0 which might be thought in an overly simplified form as web sites that capitalize on audience-generated content.

In this 8 minute podcast (download ipod compatible, 42MB), Jimmy Hsiao and I begin an interview on how he and his company, Logic Solutions, have developed a growing business in China. Logic Solutions is a software development company that focuses on the web and supply chain management. The company was founded in 1995, and 8 years ago, Logic Solutions established their first China office in Nanjing. The original goal was to increase their software development capacity during the software development labor shortage of the late 1990's.

Logic Solutions' China business currently consists of three distinct activities:

• Offshoring a portion of their software development, the original purpose.
• Helping other U.S. companies set up in China.
• Helping U.S. and Chinese companies find suppliers and set up supply chains between the two countries, the most recent line of business.

We conclude with some discussion about how Chinese Supply Chains are much less automated than their U.S. counterparts, leaving them with a lot of opportunity to learn. In our next segment, we'll focus on cultural and business issues that make setting up supplier relations between the two countries more than just a technical exercise.

Additional Links

• Jimmy Mentions Reynolds and Reynolds. They are a company that provides car dealership management software.

In this 7 minute podcast (download iPod compatible, 35MB), we begin a multipart series in which Bob Holland describes his experiences mentoring innovation among groups of CEOs as Chairman of TEC Detroit. TEC is part of a multinational organization called Vistage which aims to build better leaders who can make tough decisions and produce results. Bob took on his leadership role after 38 years building and selling IT businesses.

Bob deals with a wide range in size of businesses, from $1.4 Million to 1.2 Billion in revenues. In spite of this difference, he notes that they face the same problems innovating. Innovations often come from the passion of an entrepreneur, and how you inspire that passion is similar across size of organization. Further, the innovations must fill a recognized gap in the market place.

In our next installment, we'll talk about one specific example of a company Bob is involved with, Powerpass, that appears to be filling that gap.

In this podcast (Click here for 165 MB ipod compatible download), Dave Henderson, CEO of See Progress, discusses the phenomenal growth of his company. See Progress is actually an umbrella organization for three businesses: Auto Watch, the flagship offering and well established business, New Home Watch which is starting to attract major customers, and Select Repairs which should be ready in a year.

Dave's story is fairly unique for a technology executive. He started out and developed a long career as an auto body repair technician because he had a love of the work and cars. However, he also harbored a keen interest in technology. He bought one of the first IBM PCs in Michigan and took time off to develop a new idea for electronic vending machines. In the late 90's when he saw a customer with a digital camera, he knew he could make a business of letting people watch their body shop online, getting the shop to pay. The idea for the initial business, Auto Watch, had hatched. Dave's peers were skeptical.

Dave set out attending conferences hawking his service and trying to sign on body shops to provide better proof of concept. Eventually, he succeeded in getting a number of body shops. Then two paint companies noticed what was going on and started referring customers. After that, he was approached by Nationwide, the sixth largest car insurer in the US. He also managed to sign on Esurance.

The sales proposition to both insurers and body shops is improved customer service and viral marketing. A main complaint of auto body shop customers is lack of control over what is going on. Auto Watch gives customers the chance to see their cars and get a daily update on what is happening. They can also share this information with their friends who can then be enticed by the service.

A less apparent component of this value proposition is that, through a patented process, Dave is able to provide extensive record keeping for his customers, for instance letting claims adjusters monitor the progress dozens of cars from PCs. They also receive aggregate reports on repair performance.

New Home Watch offers similar value propositions to builders and home buyers. Select Repairs extends the Auto Watch concept to all car repairs.

As I listened to Dave, it struck me that See Progress is a perfect Web 2.0 company. Information collected from many sources is at the core of its operation and the foundation of all of its value propositions. It creates further value by allowing customers to share the information. The difference between Web 2.0 as practiced by Dave and as frequently touted in Silicon Valley is that Dave has had to self-fund his operations. He's figured out how to do Web 2.0 and make money through something other than advertising.

Additional Links

• See Progress is a "Michigan 50 company to watch", indicating that it is a second-stage entrepreneurial company, in a position to generate jobs and sustainable growth.
• D. R. Horton, a major homebuilder outside of Michigan, has been one of New Home Watch's flagship customers.
• Dave worked for many years at Art Moran Pontiac.

In this podcast (download ipod compatible, 175MB), Ron Suarez and I discuss his new venture, PromoVUZ, which took runner up in the Great Lakes Entrepreneur's Quest. In a sentence, PromoVUZ offers promotion and marketing tools for independent artists. PromoVUZ allows artists to track the audience that is listening to their promotional content and who is purchasing their songs.

PromoVUZ has partnered with Dick Huey of Toolshed, a digital media marketing firm, and Tunecore, a digital distribution firm, in developing and marketing his tools. Both partners also focus on independent artists. PromoVUZ and its partners offer tiered services to their clients with bargain basement entry level pricing. For instance, PromoVUZ will warehouse one song on the Internet for one year for $10. Tunecore and Toolshed have similar business models where they charge the artist for their services, often offering starter packages at very low rates.

Obviously, this business model differs from the traditional record label where the label signs an artist to a contract and then subtracts promotional and marketing fees from CD and other proceeds. As Courtney Love recently noted, the costs record companies charge back to artists are enough that most bands only earn very small wages for the albums they record if they earn anything.

When I asked Ron how he was able to do it for so much less, he pointed out that he had eliminated many middle layers that required significant compensation. It should also be noted that PromoVUZ has high technology leverage. Almost all of their entry tier services are fully automated, not requiring human intervention. PromoVUZ's more premium priced service offerings do require human intervention and are priced accordingly. Nonetheless, because of PromoVUZ's technology leverage, the overall cost still continues to be much less than may be typical of traditional labels.

Ron has an interesting background. Through an IBM program in the 1960's, he was exposed to computer programming while attending high school. Later he earned a doctorate in cognitive psychology at the University of Michigan, completing a post-doc and holding a couple of academic posts at nearby universities. During this period, he spent a lot of time automating the processing of wave form data and figuring out other ways to make lab work more efficient. He also briefly ran a Grateful Dead bootlegging operation (these were tolerated by the band which viewed them as marketing for their concerts).

When I asked Ron where he wanted to be in a year, he mentioned that he wanted to be in a position to sell the business. At that time, he thought he would be profitable from artists' fees alone.

Additional Links

• TuneCore, one of PromoVUZ's partners, was recently profiled in the New York Times.

In this video podcast (watch Quicktime ipod compatible, 199MB; watch Google streaming flash video), Andy Seidl and I discuss his mission to make his clients' electronic assets findable. Currently, his company, MyST Technology Partners, LLC, realizes this mission in their Blogsite product which Andy describes as a "blog on steroids". His clients include celebrities like the rock band, The Who, and established corporations like GFT Forex Trading.

Andy began working on the concepts underlying the MyST platform when he was at Starbase working on the "Elmer" project. At the time, Starbase had just completed an acquisition spree during which they had purchased Andy's and his MyST business partner, Bill French's, businesses. The CEO had reason to believe that he could increase his company's valuation if he was better able to integrate the range of acquired products into synergistic offerings for his customers. Andy was charged with taking the technical lead on the project and Bill focused more on the business process analysis, roles they continue to this day in MyST.

One issue with the Elmer project was that it's end objective was not well defined. Andy ultimately came up with a platform that could integrate everything, but the market had cooled. Starbase sold itself to Borland, and Andy and Bill decided to strike out on their own and form MyST Technology Partners, LLC. Each were accomplished entrepreneurs having started and sold several companies.

Still, when MyST began operations, its product set was not well defined. Andy and Bill decided to build a proof of concept and open it up on the web. Then, looking at how people used the platform, they would develop more focused products geared towards those needs. Ultimately, this process led to the creation of the blogsite platform. A key feature of blogsite is that it can be customized to pull data from clients' existing applications and make the information available on the web. It can also syndicate in data from a number of outside sources. Finally, it lets client authors blog and respond to their customers' needs.

We finish by discussing the general opportunity in making data more easily found.

Additional Links

• You can find the project that Andy and I first worked on together here. It's a class knowledge network that I have continued to develop here.
• I wrote up a case study of how the experience had worked here.