Dennis Carmichael: Onsite ERT

Dennis your interview was very informative and encouraging as a life saving technology. The target market of fire departments seems ready and waiting. Having done a research project on Radio Frequency Identification I was excited to read about your application of it. I was most impressed with the goal of safety for the emergency staff and knowing that 30 seconds could make such a great difference in a house fire. One of the features of the system that stood out was the multi agency support feature where several individuals from different agencies can be tracked by one incident commander. I was able to peruse the website and found the flash demo to be very educational and a good marketing tool. The system’s ability to track the fire fighters as they arrive and in their positions was good. But to know when and where they had moved to was even better. Having the information about the conditions in the area like temperature would be able to clue EMT as to what to treatments to anticipate giving emergency personnel or others found. These reports would also come in handy for any inquiries about response time and also where search efforts were made. The “News” page with the latest news of how the Onsite ERT system was excellent not only a testimonial site but one that would serve as a chronicle for the progress of the company. I just learned about Ann Arbor Spark and the pre-seed funding that they help technical companies to find. Learning how you and you co-founder started off the project with your own money and support from family and friends was inspiring. Of course you know that you have a product that all but sells itself. A few things did cross my mind as to the liability taken on with such a product. How does one “guarantee” that the system will be active and working when needed? To what degree are the RFID tags water proof and heat resistant? Your marketing strategy seems well on its way. Some of the markets I was thinking of when I saw the interview were the oil industry and the mining industry. Many oil companies operate like small cities in foreign countries and have their own emergency personnel for fires, clinics and hospitals. I also thought about possibly networking with the manufactures of safety garments such as the fire suit or police uniforms, fire extinguishers and on to get more exposure overseas and have people come looking for your company. This is a needed product at the right time. Thanks for you innovation. Denise Dublin-Green

This is a very marketing-friendly business venture. With the 24-hour news cycle that we live in today, I wouldn't be surprised if FOXNews threw in some money in exchange for some gory incident footage. The news coverage that could be garnered from the lifesaving capabilities of this technology is basically priceless. That said, this reminds me of a few things. I think that the obvious and inevitable scenario that is conjured by this technology is 9/11. I thought immediately of the footage by those two French men who were filming a documentary on the FDNY, and ended up with some of the most poignant film of the attack. This technology could probably have saved many lives on that day, and surely enabled us to understand more fully what took place amidst that chaos. However, the same imagery also works against the idea a little. In Fahrenheit 9/11, the Michael Moore documentary, there were some very memorable scenes depicting the business world's response to the widespread public fear and paranoia garnered by 9/11. My personal favorite was a guy from Michigan, who ended up on the Today show hawking backpack parachutes that were targeted at corporate executives. Naturally, the guy demonstrated the ease with which a person could strap themselves into a parachute in an emergency situation. I don't think he even managed to put it on all the way before the segment ended. Granted, this technology is worlds above a backpack parachute, but it is preying on that same fear economy, which is off-putting.