What does this mean?  Well, it’s kinda like this: When you drive your car you start in first gear.  That gear is geared “low” to allow you the most power to the wheels to get your car moving.  As you go through your gears, each one gives you benefit as you pass through it because it has the right “ratio” to transfer the energy to where it needs to be.

Now imagine that that first gear is so very low, that it allows even a much smaller, much more efficient engine to get the car moving.  Further, imagine that the ratio is always changing as you accelerate… Thus keeping you at optimal performance the whole ride.  This keeps your engine running at peak efficiency, and it also allows you to have the “gear ratios” such that you require less power from the engine in the first place.

Well, that’s what VMT has figured out how to do.

The full Infinitely variable Transmission press release can be found here.

But every one in a while you get that slap across the face… that wake-up call that reminds you, “Holy crap.  I am pretty freaking cool.”

One of those comes to us int he form of an article by Matt Storms, for the Midwest Technology Network.

In this article Matt explores how to create more start-ups based off of Midwest University Science and Technologies.  In his article he uses the University of Utah as an example of how to do it right.  Why?

“Regardless of whether they are called university spinoffs, spinouts, or just plain start-ups, the University of Utah sure has a lot of them: 23 that started just last year— that’s second best of all universities in the nation.”

This, in spite of the fact that (as Matt states):

“But, this is the land of the Big 10 and other top universities, whose R&D dollars dwarf those spent at the University of Utah. University of Wisconsin’s federal R&D expenditures are consistently in the top three of the country and are more than three times those spent at the University of Utah.”

So what are some of the factors that have helped the U of U consistently turn out an average of 20 new startups per year since 2005?  Well, based of his discussion with Brian Cummings, Executive Director of Technology Commercialization at the University of Utah, Matt tells us (among other things):

• The University of Utah established a seed fund named KickStart that was launched in April 2008
• The Technology Commercialization Office (TCO) is currently establishing separate specialized investment funds that focus on key high-value research areas within the University, such as interventional medicine, software, imaging, and energy. Each of these funds will focus on early stage technology companies and be roughly $20 million each. The money is being raised by the TCO from private investors.
• Management recruiting by the TCO (particularly of those folks visiting our ski resorts
• Venture Bench, a University-based accelerator, provides a suite of services for pre-revenue University of Utah start-ups.
• The Utah Fund of Funds, a state of Utah economic development program (currently, $300 million), was created to support early-stage and growth-stage companies in Utah.
• The University has implemented what it refers to as a “virtual incubator” program for qualified small University of Utah start-ups. Under the program, each company receives a voucher that entitles them to a $50,000 credit for sponsored research conducted at the University to further product and market development of a given technology.

This is awesome.  I’d love to get some insight into how some of these companies are performing.

20 new startups per year in this economy!  Isn’t it good to know that while so many people are fighting just to keep their doors open, we have people here opening so many new ones.

Sometimes it’s just good to kick butt!

I tend to be relatively active on Twitter, Facebook, and a few Blogs.  When it comes to these types of communication, people often refer to them as “Social Media”, “Social Networking”, or my least favorite, “New Media.”

Let me just throw a quick stone over at “New Media” before I get to the heart of my point: the name “New Media” implies that there was an “Old Media”, and that one is inherently outdated.  I believe that no mode of communication is, or ever will be 100% effective.  Your clients consume content in various ways.  Every medium has its place (though the market for interpretive break-dancing may be truly limited.)

What I really want to address however, is “Social Media” vs. “Social Networking.”  Are they synonymous?  I would answer, “No.”

The concept of “Media” is content.  The concept of “Networking” is a relationship.  It’s important to understand that what thinking of the different social networks and how to use them, and what to expect from them.

I ran a test earlier this week.  I have a similar number of friends on both Twitter and Facebook.  I put a message out on both, and asked people to please send me a direct message back if they read it.  no ReTweets, no Public Replies, no “comments” on Facebook.  The result? about 3% of my friends on twitter responded, and about 6% on Facebook did.  That was about what I expected.  Additionally, the Twitter responses were almost immediate.  The facebook replies were over a day and a half.  If I were to put a similar message on my blog, I would expect to get pretty good results, and spread over a longer period that either of the other two.

So this brings us two four factors of Social Media/Social Networking:

1- Attention to message

What is the likelihood that your target audience will even notice your message.  In the case of Facebook, people seem to pay more attention to rather or not their friends have any updates.  I don’t think that twice the number of my friends on Facebook cared enough to respond; I would guess that half as many of my friends on Twitter even saw my message at all.

2- Life of message.

How long is your message relevant?  On some networks your message stays around for days, weeks, or months.  On others, it is like the game we all played at parties, where you hit a balloon into the air.  As long as someone keeps bumping the balloon it stays flying and exciting.  If it goes neglected for even a moment it falls and is forgotten.

3- Intimacy of message.

The point is the real crux of “Social Media” or “Social Networking.”  to what extent does the consume feel that you have a real relationship, vs. to what extent you are really just publishing content?

4- Reach of message.

How likely is your message to become viral?  Who will read it that you didn’t explicitly attempt to reach?

Twitter:

-Attention: Poor.  Just streams by for many people.  Often ignored for a period of time.

-Life: Poor.  If it doesn’t get read immediately, most people won’t read it at all.

-Intimacy: Variable.  Some people have intimate conversations and connections on Twitter.  It seems that most usage is trending away from this though.  You may see short bursts of intimacy, but generally it seems more like “micro broadcasts.”

-Reach:  Very good.  Through searching of Hashtags, searching for company or brand names, and ReTweeting, there is the potential that a well crafted message or campaign could really go viral here.  I think we have all heard stories of a person mentioning a product they are having a problem with, and having the company contact them over twitter to set it right.

Blogs:

Attention: Hard to quantify.  In my personal opinion it seems as if there are fewer people sitting eagerly in front of their RSS reader prepared to consume the content.  But, the content is often better written, and more fully fleshed out.  That combined with the longevity of the posts means that over the long haul there may be a lot of people reading the article closely.  But it does seem that Blogs have less of an “edge of your seat” aspect… where fewer people are eagerly awaiting your next update (But maybe I’m just not Seth Godin

Life: Excellent.  A blog post is a web page.  It can drive SEO, traffic, and interest for you forever.

Intimacy:  Again, variable.  Some people have very active and involved comments on their blogs.  I would say this is generally the exception however.  I believe that for most people blogs are not as good of a way to buid a “relationship” than Twitter or Facebook can be.  But, do to the fact that the reader doesn’t need to “friend” you, it does allow for someone to passively learn about you and build an affinity over time.

Reach: Potentially good.  Especially if you are playing the SEO game.  Easy to show up in Google Alerts, searches, etc.  Also, if you write well others will link to you and drive more traffic.  More than the other networks however, you need consistency to pull this off.  If your blog content sucks, then it is unlikely that the one gem you write will get much notice.

Facebook:

Attention: Pretty good.  It seems that the intimacy level tends to be higher on facebook, and many people pay closer attention.  Maybe this is party because it seems to be more about real updates and personal info than the 140 character Twitter “Micro Broadcast.”

Life: Better than twitter, worse than blogs.  your message lives a couple days instead of a couple hours.

Intimacy: Arguably the best.  If you use facebook well you can forge real relationships.

Reach: Not as good as the others.  You really don’t see people using the “ReTweet” type of concept so much on Facebook.  The platform could do it, but the usage pattern doesn’t seem to do it much.  If you leverage facebook you will probably reach fewer un-planned eyes than on twitter or your Blog.

Social Media and Social Networking are not the same thing.  One is getting a message out.  The other is building a relationship.  You can do both at the same time, even on the same platform, and with the same message.  But different social networks are better or worse at one than the other.  ask yourself what your real goal is, and what helps you reach it best.

The project got it’s first official round of funding last week when President Obama approved $181 million to get it rolling (as part of a war-spending bill.)

So fire up those tractor’s folks, this baby should be the size of the State Capital building, with nearly $7 million just in perimeter fencing, and require about 65 mega-watts of power (but how do we get that into the Delorean??)

So why here?  Well, of course the access to large quantities of Jell-o play a part.  But there’s more to it than just that: Perhaps the primary reason is decentralization.  The NSA has had it Data Center footprint in Fort Meade, Maryland thus far.  But after Sept 11, they have looked to be less of a single target in the event of a terrorist strike.  Additionally, there are two significant power corridors running through Camp Williams.  Add to that the long standing relationship that the NSA had with the Utah’s unique linguistic units, and you have a great spot for a data gathering, data storage and analysis hackers paradise in the middle of the Wasatch Front.

NSA is also planning a similar site in San Antonio.

Brock Blake, CEO of FundingUniverse, understands the importance of angel investors in the economy.  “Utah has historically been a Mecca for entrepreneurs and start-up businesses. For the past four years FundingUniverse has provided a platform to help connect investors and entrepreneurs and, as a result, helped many companies receive angel financing to start and grow their business,” Blake said. “Through FundingUniverse’s relationship with the investment community, we understand the unprecedented importance that angel investors have in the economic growth of the local community and are excited to recognize these investors in a meaningful way.”

Event Details include:

• Wednesday, June 23, 2009
• 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
• Hilton Alpine Ballroom
• 255 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City, UT

To RSVP for the luncheon, visit www.investoroftheyear.org/buyTickets.html.

The landscape of communications is changing.  But it has always been changing.  Something that is new about this change however, is that it is fragmenting and picking up speed.  It used to be easy to be “pretty darned knowledgeable (PDK)” about various aspects of communication.  Let’s take a web site as an example:

6 years ago it wasn’t very hard to be PDK about the elements of a website.  How to do your HTML.  How to put in pictures, and have buttons and links.

Then email became more than a communications tool.  It became part of your marketing strategy.  It “tied into” your website.  Add analytics so your can track patterns between the two.

Enter search engines (ya, I know they were around before 6 years ago… but people didn’t start working to manipulate their rankings way back then nearly as much.)  Everyone is after “google juice”.  So now you have to know meta tags, the importance of domain names.  Link structures.  The best CMS.  How flash or video relates to overall SEO.

Add mobile to the mix.

Then Social.  Twitter.  Myspace.  Facebook.  Freindfeed.  Blogs.

Each one of these little fragments is a huge topic in and of itself.  Now you might be able to reach the PDK level in Facebook… but guess what?  You fell behind a bit in SEO, twitter, and something else in the meantime because they are continuing to fragment and advance as well.

It can all be a bit overwhelming.

But does it need to be?  Perhaps our real problem is the feeling that we really need to know everything.

It reminds me of when object oriented programming really started to catch on.  Old-school programmers hated it.  They were used to programming in languages where they know how everything worked and why.  Now they were being told, “don’t worry about it.  Just call the method.  It works.  You don’t need to know why.”

They were so sued to being grounded.  So used to knowing and feeling the landscape, that when they had to work with objects that they didn’t understand they felt they were drowning.

Perhaps we are the last generation with a hangup on needing to be PDK at so many things.  Perhaps we need o come to grips with not being grounded, and instead learn to swim.  When you swim you don’t need to know exactly where you are.  you don’t need to know the landscape or footing.  Just figure out what direction you need to head, and take the necessary actions to get there.

Instant access of data.  Power of search.  This things allows us to be smarter without having to know the information until we need it.

It may sound vague, but is this the future?  Are the best swimmers going to be the people best able to determine the current situation and navigate a course, even if they had perhaps missed out on being completely “up to speed” on a few elements of it for a few months?

I don’t know for sure… but food for though.

Launchup #2 presents “Today’s Mama” and “Amber Alerts GPS”

A couple of really exciting companies will be showcased at this, the second Launchup event.  I had the pleasure of getting a chance to meet with both of this companies last week, and I think we will all find ourselves intrigued and impressed.  Also, there are some reat opportunities for both of these companies, and great opportunities for us to all get involved and help.

After all, that’s what Launchup is really all about.  Come to see what cool stuff is going on in Utah, but also come to learn and to contribute.  This is a team effort, not just a sales pitch.

Event details:

Date: Wednesday May 27th

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Location: Utah Association of Counties Building – 5397 S. Vine Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84017 (or online)

RSVP: If attending in person, PLEASE RSVP. If on Twitter, tweet: I’m going to #LaunchUp, are you? If not on Twitter, email jeremy @ jeremyhanks . com and let me know you’re coming.

Event URL: http://doba.acrobat.com/launchup2/

The second event to take note of is the Funding Universe Livepitch Event.  I have to say, that as big a fan as I am of the speed pitch events that Brock and Funding Universe put on, I am an even bigger fan of the Live Pitch events.  This allows you a chance to see other entrepreneurs pitch their ideas.  But it also gives you a chance to see how investors react.  Want to know what an investors thinks?  Want to see what you need to be prepared for?  Want to see cool ideas being pitched by local teams?

If so, don’t miss this:

When: Tuesday, June 9th 11:00 – 1:00

Where: Omniture Headquarters

RSVP Here

A group that I ahve found to have very interesting events, not to mention an unmatched cross-section of various social media personalities, PR and Marketing people, and a bit of everything else is the Utah Social Media Club (SMCSLC).

This group has a couple of lunches coming up that I wanted to be sure to make everyone aware of:

May 13th:

Join Social Media Club of Salt Lake City program director, Pete
Codella, APR at this month’s Public Relations Society of America
luncheon for a discussion of how social media has forever changed the
role of public relations practitioners.
ur msg in 140 characters or less: How Social Media Has Changed Your Job

Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Time: 11:45 a.m.

Place: Squatter’s at 147 West Broadway, SLC

RSVP and more information: http://slcprsa.org

May 19th:

Join IABC for a discussion with Dave Allred, whose experience spans
work with the Utah Jazz and one of Salt Lake City’s largest agencies.
Lessons From the Field with Dave Allred

Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Time: 12 pm

Place: Biaggi’s at 194 South 400 West, SLC

RSVP and more information: at http://Utah.IABC.com

I have worked wit a lot of smart lawyers.  I have worked wit lawyers who will whip out tidbits of fact, and ways to look at things creatively that will astound you.  But by and large, those experiences are only within their realm of expertise: The Law.

I have dealt closely with Rand Bateman on several projects, and found that not only is he astute in the law, but it goes way beyond that.  Rand is the only lawyer you will likely see rubbing shoulders wit (and being respected by) bloggers, SEO experts and other technologists.  Not only does Rand understand IP law… Rand understands IP.  He actually “gets” what might be techno mumbo jumbo to so many others.  Not to mention that he is one of the most like-able, open, bright folks I know.

So, although I have not been to a Utah Genius Award ceremony before, I have faith that if Rand is behind it’s gonna be good:

Utah Geniuses to be Honored
Utah is a hotbed for innovation, patented inventions, and entrepreneurial activity. Now those Utah innovators who are driving the creative economy have an awards program where they can be recognized.

Utah’s top inventors and creative geniuses will be acknowledged at the Utah Genius 2009 Awards luncheon on May 12, at 12:15 p.m., at Little America Hotel. Dr. Dinesh Patel, longtime community leader and managing director of vSpring Capital, will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Presented by Bateman IP Law Group and UtahPulse.com, the Genius awards are meant to reward those who are helping to bolster Utah’s economy through their creativity. Awards will be presented in these categories:
·        The lifetime achievement award

·        Top 20 patentees for 2008

·        Top 5 cities by numbers of patents for 2008

·        Top 5 cities by patents per capita for 2008

·        Top 20 trademark registrants for 2008

Unlike most recognition programs, these awards (except the lifetime achievement award) will be based on objective criteria – data gathered from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Bateman IP Law Group. Nominations and applications are not required to receive the awards.

Keynote speaker at the event will be Dr. Jack Brittain, Dean of the Eccles School of Business and Vice President of the Technology Venture Development Office at the University of Utah. Gov. Jon Huntsman will also participate through a video presentation. Lane Beattie, CEO and President, Salt Lake Chamber, will present the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sponsorships for the event are available. Current Platinum sponsors include the Daily Herald and Rocketship; Gold sponsors are Utah CEO magazine and the Salt Lake Chamber; Silver sponsors are Lumin Publishing, Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum, Lassonde Center, Espiritu Design, and The Enterprise.

The public is welcome to attend the luncheon. Individual tickets cost $60, or $400 for a table of 8.  To RSVP or for more information visit www.utahgenius.com or contact Maggie Franz, 801.533.0321.

I had a really interesting phone call this morning with Michael Clark, the Western Region General Manager for Midmarket Customers for Microsoft (Holy crap, how’s that for a Title??) regarding a press release put out earlier this week by Microsoft, rating Us cities on how accommodating they are for remote workers.

In this study Utah ranks #4 overall, and #1 specifically for “How supportive is your boss or manager for remote working arrangements.”

The top 3 cities (from 1 to 3) were: Sand Diego, West Palm Beach Florida, and Buffalo NY.

In my conversation wit Michael, one of the things that I really wanted to know was why Microsoft had undertaken such a  survey.  Businesses tend to do things that benefit them.  Is this so that Microsoft can find the best cities to setup shop, or is it because they want to get out a marketing message?  The real answer from Michael was that (in relation to their customers) they want to  better “…understand their attitude on certain trends.”

Further, Michael discussed that in the current economic climate that companies are really looking to try to find solutions to three key questions:

1- How to I save money?

2- How do I become more productive, and innovate my way out of this dilemma?

3- How do I retain my best people (and attract more)?

Microsoft feels that in answering these questions, and solving these problems, that more and more companies are considering expanding their support for remote workers.  Michael expressed that Microsoft is working on a suite of products that helps to eliminate the need of facetime, and replace it with the ability to have “presence” (no, not presents… sorry folks.)

They have already (as the press release details) released drive encryption, and strong network encryption to help protect sensitive data, even in the event of a laptop theft.  Michael went on to state that we will be seeing a comprehensive IM, Email, security, Voice, Video and web conferencing pack that helps enable collaboration.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of it.  As an employer myself, I find that one of the biggest hurdles is how to really give me insight and piece of mind that remote workers are being productive, while not becoming even more busy work to track tasks and time, and not becoming so much of a “big brother.”  Maybe I should just require that all remote workers move back in with their mom, and get a note from her promising to keep them on task?