F. Andy Seidl — Making your information assets findable

By Bud on July 3, 2007 TrackBacks (0) Comments (2)

Over the past 10 years, Andy Seidl has been developing systems to make information more findable. HIs company, MyST Technology Partners has been in existence five years and has several clients who are household names.

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Filed under: Ann Arbor, MI | Defining New Markets | F. Andy Seidl | Information Technology | MyST Technology Partners, Inc

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.

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2 Comments

Mary Cassista on June 1, 2008 8:11 PM
I am a college student taking an entrepreneur class. It seems to me that MyST Technology’s blogsite product would be an excellent venue for a group of entrepreneurs to market their products. For example, while watching Mr. Seidl’s pod cast, I was thinking about an article I had read in Crain’s Detroit Business several months ago about a group of retailers who were trying to re-establish successful fashion shops along a stretch of road in Detroit that had been previously known for its fashion retailers. It seems as if this group of entrepreneurs would be well-served by one of MyST Technologies blogsite products to help them pull all their disparate information together about their shops, their suppliers, the history of the area, etc. The blogsite would give this group of entrepreneurs a “presence” on the web that could enhance many things such as each shop’s name recognition to the improved reputation of that specific area in Detroit. Mr. Seidl’s interview comments lead me to believe that this web presence is a positive benefit of using his company’s product. Its blogsite seems to have done that type of thing for GFT Forex Trading. Mr. Seidl stated that they are not the top exchange company but do appear to be at a higher level because of the quantity of information on the web thanks to MyST Technology’s product. I don’t know if this service would be cost-prohibitive for young companies but it certainly does seem like a marketing option that needs to be explored. Mary Cassista
Brian Dickhart on June 10, 2008 4:40 AM
Hello Mr. Seidl, What a complicated way of simplifying things! Your MyST blogsite is a great tool for marketing. There are a lot of other weblogs out their for personal and business use, however they rely on that person or business to run it. Blogs are very popular these days. A business could market their product to new customers using a weblog. The services your site offers businesses the chance to make a blog that is similar to a personal one, and at the same time keep it professional. I would also like to add that your the business strategy for MyST is a good one. Your service utilizes the internet, which is a large pile of information and servers, to operate. So your customers do not have the overhead costs of things like buying servers or maintaining a website of their own. Keep on Integrating, Brian Dickhart, Eastern Michigan University

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