Quinn Lewis

A few recent events have increased my awareness of technology incubators and their role helping to accelerate the development of companies (and the people and ideas behind them). 

It is interesting how these incubators are non-profit and location-specific.  Why? It seems strange that a non-profit organization would help a (new) for-profit organization succeed any better/differently than a VC.  As for location, it is funny that in this age of tele-everything, these incubators have a physical and local presence.  I know this is likely driven by city, county, and state governments looking to attract money, talent, jobs, and financial consumption to their area.  But is a for-profit required to be in the mix (right now a non-profit government promotes other non-profit incubators to promote for-profit companies)?

Today I read an article about Cleveland, Ohio as being a city for entrepreneurs.  Having lived near Cleveland, I was curious as to what would be the draw.  The article highlighted JumpStart, an incubator.  Maybe it is just a coincidence but the Wikipedia references for business incubator are Ohio-heavy.

Also, I recently participated in screening companies for the upcoming I.T./Web 2.0 Venture Forum, which is hosted by the Rice Alliance.  (I was excited that four out of my five top picks were selected to present their business plans.)  I know the Rice Alliance has ties to the Houston Technology Center (HTC), an incubator.  A few months ago I heard an HTC director comment on their services and successes.  I was impressed.  I had worked with one of the companies they were helping but had no idea this company had been receiving "outside help."  I would think the knowledge of a small start-up receiving additional guidance would increase its attractiveness to clients.

A few months ago I wrote about non-profits that contribute to software ecosystems but the focus was on sustaining for-profits and not creating them.  I'm happy to add another concept to my still developing mental model of technology organizations.
 

I happened to be traveling to Norway over Father's Day weekend, so I decided to take along The Father Factor: How Your Father's Legacy Impacts Your Career for the flight. I felt that in several parts of the book the author was trying to convince the reader (me) that the book was really about fathers and not just general pyschology or dealing with people. However, I agree with the basic premise that fathers matter.  Fathers influence their children (for better or worse). The book did offer some tools and ways to categorize (bad) parenting styles. It classified the "father factor" styles into superachiever, time-bomb, passive, and absent as the "wrong" styles and compassionate-mentor as the "right" style.  Each (bad) style had an associated set of issues (causing career roadblocks), including:  shame, self-doubt, lack of focus (avoidance), motivation, personal responsibility, emotional immaturity (anger), and fear of failure. 

The overall emphasis was on problem identification (why you are the way you are because of your father) but did end with the punchline that you can forgive and overcome your father factor.  Although my mini-review may seem negative, it did help me think deeper about my father and my role as a father.  It did encourage thinking and awareness.  I'm still scratching my head about the proposed compassionate-mentor father attributes (insight, understanding, self-confidence, security, courage, strength of character, compassion, and stability) and the comment that "... a young child's feeling of being loved is more important than how much he or she was in fact loved." 

The Audacity of Hope was a much more positive read, even if I don't subscribe to all of President Obama's views.  With recent thoughts of our country (due to Independence Day), the weighty political issues of our time, and the nomination of Sotomajor to the Supreme Court, I felt it would be important to better understand what is driving the current administration.  President Obama has quite the knack for writing.  Also, I think his work so far is very consistent with what he has previously laid out (for better or worse).  I know the Norweigans I spoke with have been impressed by his foreign policy approach. 

Last week I finished reading The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.  Overall, I enjoyed the read.  I thought it was a fairly evenhanded.  I particularly liked the historical context (e.g. overview of big cases) and some insights into how the court operates.  I'm not a lawyer or judicial expert but it seemed to over-characterize the justices.  The basic assertion seemed to be that decisions are determined by the common people, who pick the president, who picks the judges, who vote according to their political/social beliefs (of their backers).  Unfortunately, this seems to diminish the otherwise veritable court to a popular vote.  While there may be some partial truth to this, I'd like to think the Court is above this.


Even though I've read the Constitution, I don't think I appreciated how contested the different aspects of the First Amendment have been.  I found the Lemon test to be interesting (p95) and fierce debate among the justices even when they agreed on the result (p97).

When I think of software ecosystems, I think of Microsoft.  You can easily see how it has leveraged its common technology platform to create an entire shared market.  It has developed some fairly symbiotic relationships with individuals (e.g. MVPs), academia (e.g. Education Alliance), and businesses (e.g. Certified Partners).  It is enough to feed its own revenue stream as well as that of nearly 15 million other people.

However, one aspect of software ecosystems that I had not thought about until recently was the role non-profit standards organizations have in shaping for-profit companies.  You sometimes need a more financially neutral organization to level the playing field, build consensus, and provide a more collaborative working model.  I think non-profit standards organizations can help in the following ways:

• Codify business processes
• Establish data standards
• Build tools to enable success
• Create common knowledge
• Develop relationships
• Provide certification
• Increase interoperability.

This is based on my observations and experience dealing with examples from upstream oil and gas (Energistics), process control (OPC Foundation), and energy trading (EFETnet).  There are still issues (such as the length of time required to build consensus, catering to the lowest common denominator, dealing with various levels of commitment, etc.) but I think these types of non-profit technical organizations have their place in helping for-profit companies.

I enjoy seeing the different ways (computer) people create ways for other (non-computer) people to interact with computers. 

While trolling for some information about ergonomics, I came across cameramouse.org (which just had a 2009 release).  My (Lenovo T61) laptop has a built-in webcam, so I was up and running within a few minutes.  I was pretty tickled that the software could track my head movement and move the mouse correspondingly, although the mouse movement was a bit jittery.  (Perhaps my settings weren't configured correctly.)

Then I stumbled across someone who actually has developed something to track eye movement.  For me, I think this would be more useful.  Unfortunately, the software (or code) doesn't seem to be available yet.  Supposedly, it uses blinking to click the mouse.  Before I found this website I mentioned this same idea to my wife.

I speculate that one could make use of the UI Automation functionality (available in .NET 3.0) to provide extra information for positioning the mouse.  For example, often there is deadspace on a window (or webpage) and a handful of controls.  It may be possible and helpful to use the controls size and position to help "snap" the mouse to these areas.  (While using Camera Mouse 2009, I found it somewhat frustrating to have my head perfectly still and yet have my mouse cursor bouncing all around a hyperlink surrounded by nothing but whitespace.  The computer ought to know that the hyperlink was the only reasonable thing I would want to mouse over.)

While traveling through Missouri and Illinois over the holidays, I noticed a few things that caught my eye:

• Variable speed limit signs.
• Personalized/vanity license plates (everyone seems to have one).
• Tenth-mile markers.

This transportation infrastructure seems pretty progressive.  It looks like some of these ideas may have been stolen from Virginia.  I particularly liked the tenth-mile markers, although I'm a little doubtful how this could be cost-justified.  I wonder if they could make each marker a Wi-Fi hotspot?

Last week, on Election Day (November 3rd), I was at the polls before daybreak.  I felt grateful to be a participant in the voting process.  I left my house at about 5:40am with some flashlights, books, and a folding chair.  I was 4th or 5th in line and camped out at the doors of the local polling station until it opened at 7:00am.  Somehow I ended up getting signed-in fast and ended up being the first in my precinct to vote.  I was proud to be an American!

Exactly one week later (on November 11th), I'm talking with an individual from Canada.  He brings up the fact that it was Remembrance Day for them in Canada.  He went to to describe the day's origin and how he had been having trouble keeping his poppies together during the last week.  It sounded very patriotic and elaborate.  At no point during the conversation did I realize that that same day was also our Veteran's Day.  How ignorant of me not to recognize such an important day.  Or more important than the day itself, the valiant efforts of so many men and women in the U.S. and the connection we share with Canada.  I suppose that writing this is part of my penance.

None of this gelled until this morning as I was listening to a radio segment about geography on my way to school.  Towards the end of the segment it mentioned that "Americans are said to be geographically challenged."  It went on to mention that in a study done by the National Geographic Society "respondents from the United States were scoring absolutely at the bottom."  Truth be told, I had no idea Monaco was the most densely populated country in the world.

Since I'm not a geographer, this indiscretion is probably forgivable.  However, at a time when the world is looking for leaders, Americans (including myself) can't afford to be unaware of our surroundings (e.g. geography) or unfamiliar with our heritage (e.g. Veteran's Day).  I'm proud to be an American but I don't want to be a proud, ignorant one.

Yesterday I had the strong desire to just simply copy some text from my laptop and then paste it on to my desktop computer.  After mentally debating the different options (emailing myself, IMing myself, using a flash drive, or copying via a network share), I remembered how several years ago a fellow nerd had rigged up several (Linux) computers in a Computer Science lab to allow him to use his mouse to control the nearby computers.

A quick Google search turned up Input Director and Synergy.  I reluctantly (since I don't like installing software I've never used before) gave Input Director a whirl.  What a delight!  Within a few minutes I was not only copying and pasting between computers but I was able to use the same mouse to control both computers.  I'll no longer have to fight with the touchpad or the smaller keyboard on my laptop when I'm in my home office.  I was also surprised that some of my voice commands from my Vista desktop (using Vista Speech Recognition) would get routed to my laptop, which runs Windows XP.

I tried to show my wife how powerful this was but she wasn't as impressed as I was.  Kudos to the creative and dedicated people who make these sort of niche tools generally available.

Yesterday, I took a few coupons that my wife had given me in to a local establishment.  One was for a 20 oz. drink for only $1.79, normally $4.29.  When the girl behind the counter gave me the receipt, I noticed it said "Free 20oz" and "-4.29".  I pointed the mistake out to her, to which she replied saying, "we don't have a button for that."

This little phrase intrigued me.  Was it a matter of the young lady not having enough training?  Perhaps she couldn't remember the correct way to discount purchases and she could save face by blaming the system?  Maybe the user interface wasn't designed intuitively enough?  I'm highly doubtful that this company would distribute coupons that result in free items as opposed to discounted items.

I'm reminded of another story about my brother when he worked as a cashier at a popular fast food joint.  After my brother demurred a little longer than perhaps expected while taking an order, the customer condescendingly said, "son, just do what the computer tells you."

In the case of the arrogant customer and the generous cashier, both seemed to believe that the computer controlled the situation and that humans were hapless bystanders.  When did computers become so powerful?  Or more importantly, when did we let them become so powerful?  Science fantasy often portrays computers as getting smarter.  Maybe it should instead portray people willingly submitting their will to the machine.  This would indeed be gloomy... with both humanity and machine persisting in a symbiotic state of ignorance.

The main conclusions mentioned in To Read or Not To Read are indeed startling. "Americans are spending less time reading. Reading comprehension skills are eroding. These declines have serious civic, social, cultural, and economic implications." I also found several of the other points interesting: "TV watching consumes the most leisure time for men and women of all ages," "reading proficiency rates are stagnant or declining in adults of both genders" (declining for men which results in women leading men in reading ability), and "American families are spending less on books than at almost any other time in the past two decades."

The Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future report paints a similarly provocative picture about education as it relates to science and technology. Broadband Internet access worked itself into one of the answers to the questions: "What are the top 10 actions, in priority order, that federal policymakers could take to enhance the science and technology enterprise so that the United States can successfully compete, prosper, and be secure in the global community of the 21st century? What strategy, with several concrete steps, could be used to implement each of those actions?"

Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing ... Read this FREE online! Full Book | PDF Summary | Podcast

James Michener is credited with having said:  “A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.”

I usually don't take the time to respond on blogs because it takes me so long to write but I did post a comment to the question about the potential and actual benefits of Enterprise 2.0.  I didn't think much of it until today when I watched a video of Clay Shirky (that was Slashdotted), describing a few concepts from his new book.  He said that if everything he was talking about could be captured in a single bullet point it would be that "group action just got easier."  He also gave several examples of how "ridiculously easy group-forming improves: sharing, conversation, collaboration, collective action."  This helped me better mentally frame my own comments about how having a sharing environment opens up conversations to more people to break down (collaborate) imaginary silos to really make a change happen (collective action).

In the ForbesLife (April 2008) issue I was skimming today, I came across Bug Labs which sells products that allow you to mashup hardware more easily.  The article referenced Eric von Hippel's book, Democratizing Innovation.  My general professional interest is in providing standard and integrated solutions.  I have not considered how lead users (those who introduce more and useful innovation/change) impact the "manufactured" solution.  It seems that there is a natural tension between the degree to which you allow customization and what you keep standard that needs to be reconciled.  How?

While reading the Executive Summary for The Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008 from the World Economic Forum that I saw referenced on Slashdot and News.com, I had the somewhat random, tangential thought about transportation.  When (if ever) can we expect to see similar progress in transportation that we've seen with information technology?  We have cars that can park themselves and potentially drive by themselves.  Then there is the X PRIZE Cup and Rocket Racing League.  The the green tech movement and high oil prices have begun spitting out hybrid cars (and wreaking havoc on the airlines).  The maglev stuff seems fairly compelling and progressive.  

I guess I'm really hoping to see teleportation sooner rather than later (or never).  But 3D copying is good start for now.

Since Photoshop is arguably one of the best applications ever, I had to try the new Adobe Photoshop Express. One of the first things I noticed was the "Transferring data from api.photoshop.com". Similar to what others observed, you have to wonder where Adobe is going with this. Are they catching the mashup bug?

For now I think I'll stick with my Paint.NET at home for financial reasons. I've only used Photoshop (and never Elements), so can't compare it to much. But I did find the Express interface fairly straightforward and responsive.  When I hovered my mouse over my test image, I almost accidently discovered the "Photo Options", which touts a "Link" and "Embed" option.  Here's an screenshot of a screenshot of Express in Express as an embedded image that links to the version in my public gallery.  (That sure sounds confusing.)


I think there might be more value in doing this same sort of thing but with videos.  (And I seem to recall seeing a few sites that do simple video editing.)  Since it can take lots of horsepower to do video manipulation, I'd think you could do it "in the cloud" faster than on the average person's home machine.  Plus, if you are mashing up with other (video) content already on the Web, it might make more sense to leverage the bigger pipes of some Internet hosted application.

I realized it was taking me way too long to decide on a HAM radio, so yesterday I joined EchoLink and within 10-15 minutes I was in a conversation, no radio required.  It works over the Internet.  A number of folks on EchoLink use their normal radios or had them hooked up to the software.

I've also been wanting to get into astronomy for awhile.  I met a guy about a year ago that had tons of equipment for deep space photography.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), I'm not ready to commit thousands of dollars to telescope equipment.  (I still don't have my HAM radio.)  Then a few months ago I met another person that used to be a stargazer.  However, he said big cities are obviously not conducive to watching the heavens.  When I went to San Diego last month, I wasn't able to go to the Palomar Observatory due to the rain.  (Apparently, due to the recent fires, sometimes driving is difficult during and just after rain events because of rock and mud slides.)  Just when I thought the stars had aligned against me pursuing this hobby, I read a recent article about Google Sky.  I've also seen some info from Microsoft about the WorldWide Telescope project.  No telescope required.

About a month ago I played Guitar Hero for the first time.  (I've even seen Guitar Hero for the cell phone.)  While I don't have a HAM radio or telescope, at least I have a real guitar.  But after replacing some strings on my guitar and my son's, I thought it may be easier or more economic to just play a silly computer game (although probably not as rewarding).

It occurred to me that all three hobbies (amateur radio, astronomy, music) can be done "virtually" on the computer/Internet.  However, it isn't likely (or desirable) to only do these hobbies virtually.  Most likely they are augmented by the computer/Internet.  I think it also speaks to the pervasiveness of "the Net" and the spreading/integration of non-traditional devices... HAM radios, telescopes, and musical instruments.

Bird watching via remote sensing anyone?

I made my first post 7 years ago today.  I've posted at least one thing each year since then.  I have never really blogged for any particular reason other than I wanted some way to capture what I learned or thought.  In my "blogging", I don't mention very much about my personal life and I don't mention anything about work.  I tend to ruminate on technology and the occasional book, if there is any common theme.

I liked the Wikipedia description of personal blogs, "Personal bloggers take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them.  It is here that blogging becomes more than a way to communicate and becomes a way to reflect on life. ... Bloggers post about their day or their opinions on different matters.  Personal blogs may not be important to readers, but for the people who write them, they are works of art." 

I highly doubt anyone actually reads this blog regularly and this is definitely no "work of art" but it does help me remember (and later search) my previous thoughts.  I can more easily tie seemingly disparate threads of knowledge together or notice "temporal shapes" or patterns that manifest themselves over time.

Over the last number of months, I was always surprised by how “everyone” seemed to be selling various thin, large, and digital TVs.  Then one day I stumbled upon the FCC Consumer Facts that explained why the TVs were going digital.  In preparation for the February 17, 2009 cross-over to broadcasting in digital instead of analog, some hard dates (in March 2007) and regulations were set in preparation for the transition.  Earlier this week a saw a commercial on television about it.

When I got my cell phone (also within the last few months), I was delighted to find out my cell phone could obtain my geographic position which could then be used to have my wife track my location or for me to get maps based on my location.  I speculate one reason for this functionality is the recent Enhanced 911 (E911) rules which, under Phase II, require wireless carriers to provide the latitude and longitude of the 911 caller.  My guess is that Sprint wanted to make the most out of the rules, so began (along with others) to use this functionality for other purposes (e.g. innovative new products, services, and applications).

Since I was worried about not having phone access in the case of an emergency, I postponed switching to a VoIP solution.  With the cell phone, I felt I had more of a backup.  Plus, I had more features for less money.  I can use this money to purchase a HAM radio now that the FCC has granted me a technician license (call sign is forthcoming).  So…  I am able to use my fairly inexpensive and robust broadband connection and switch my existing local phone number over to Vonage, thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 2005.

I would not have been surprised by all of this if I had been familiar with the FCC strategic goals!  It seems pretty clear.
 

BROADBAND.  All Americans should have affordable access to robust and reliable broadband products and services. Regulatory policies must promote technological neutrality, competition, investment, and innovation to ensure that broadband service providers have sufficient incentive to develop and offer such products and services.

 

COMPETITION.  Competition in the provision of communications services, both domestically and overseas, supports the Nation’s economy. The competitive framework for communications services should foster innovation and offer consumers reliable, meaningful choice in affordable services.

 

SPECTRUM.  Efficient and effective use of non-federal spectrum domestically and internationally promotes the growth and rapid deployment of innovative and efficient communications technologies and services.

 

MEDIA.  The Nation’s media regulations must promote competition and diversity and facilitate the transition to digital modes of delivery.

 

PUBLIC SAFETY AND HOMELAND SECURITY.  Communications during emergencies and crises must be available for public safety, health, defense, and emergency personnel, as well as all consumers in need. The Nation’s critical communications infrastructure must be reliable, interoperable, redundant, and rapidly restorable.

 

MODERNIZE THE FCC.  The FCC shall strive to be a highly productive, adaptive, and innovative organization that maximizes the benefit to stakeholders, staff, and management from effective systems, processes, resources, and organizational culture.

While it may be true that few people directly think of the FCC, you can’t help but feel the impact indirectly.  You know the CEO of Best Buy is considering the risk of moving to digital.  The cable companies are trying to play defense against the FCC offense.  And even apartment managers can feel the impact.

When I read Co-opetition, I read how McCaw bought up the lottery licenses the FCC dished out in the 80s.  McCaw made FCC's objectives work for him.  How do businesses (small and large) work the FCC into their strategic plans?

I'd love to see how companies are dealing with the influence of the FCC.  I wish there was more comprehensive literature about the impact of the FCC on business.  The government is adding an interesting dynamic between the (semi?) free market and the masses.

 

For the last few evenings, I've been cobbling together a simple (Javascript) math application for my son to practice (and speed up) his addition.  He's been watching and beta testing as I've been coding it up.  (Once I had to leave for a second and was amused when I returned to find he had tried to change the number of problems to be much less.  He knew where the value was hardcoded but didn't realize he needed to save the file it was in.)

I thought about expanding the audience to perhaps other kids in his class but wanted to minimize my responsibility for creating and authenticating users.  I thought about using the Windows Live SDK but thought I'd give OpenID a try...

I was disappointed to not be able to get either of the .NET libraries listed on openid.net working.  (I'm thinking I should have never switched my hosted web site over to ASP.NET.)  Fortunately, I was able at least able to use my OpenID to log into the OpenID wiki to add my two cents that I thought there were only really 2 libraries (instead of the 3 that are listed).

I liked how straightforward it was to use my OpenID.  I think branding the OpenID "sign in" textbox with the little OpenID logo is genius.  (Although, how many of these cute little icons can a user tolerate before they become meaningless?)  I haven't played much with CardSpace but it seems it would be a little more daunting to users than OpenID.

Today, I may have found an OpenID implementation in C# and ASP.NET that will actually work for me, despite its deficiencies.

I few months ago I commented on how much I liked the Opera Mini browser on my cell phone.  I've since begun using Opera on my home machine (Windows Vista).  It is fast (just like they say)!  We (family) also have Opera on our Wii, since it provides the Internet Channel.  I can't get away from Opera, it's everywhere (phone, computer, Wii). 

A recent OSnews posting referenced a blog stating that Opera is a "huge missed opportunity".  However, as far back as 1998, Opera's vision of "the emerging Internet device market" seems to have been fomenting (or at least participating in it) which "materialize[d] in a project to port Opera to a multitude of platforms".  They make a good browser for the desktop but I think the Opera company realized long ago that non-desktop devices would be a big part of their future.  They've outlived Netscape.

Now for some constructive criticism... the Opera Mini needs some type of "Find" functionality.  It is too hard to find stuff on a tiny screen.

The news media seems to be placing Blu-ray ahead of HD DVD.  Toshiba is cutting prices on one of its player, hoping to drive up sales and demand for HD DVD.  Warner Bros. decided to go exclusively to Blu-ray.  Paramount does an about-face and switches to Blu-ray.

I recently read the Wikipedia entry about Blu-ray that mentions one of the technical debates was around the "Java-based BD-J interactivity layer instead of Microsoft's HDi."  The technical committee actually picked HDi in the battle but the war was lost to BD-J.  It is also interesting that Sony's PS3 is Blu-ray enabled while Microsoft's XBox 360 is HD DVD enabled.  Everyone is trying to push their agenda.

While the two camps battle it out for the hard media approach, I can't help but think the real war is/should-be/will-be around soft media. How close are we to just downloading high(er) quality media to devices?  No wires or CDs required.  Apple recently announced movie rentals via the iTunes Store and Bill Gates even suggested soft media might rule.  It is just a matter of time...