Utah Tech Watch

It’s hard to believe that it’s time for another Consumer Electronics Show, but it’s true.

As I sit at the keyboard this New Year’s Day afternoon, CES 2009 is a week away. Wow! Where did the time go?

Since September, several colleagues and I have been busily preparing to take Schwinn Bicycles (a SOAR Communications client) and their new Tailwind electric bicycle to Las Vegas next week, and it looks like we’ve about got everything wrapped up for the show. And we’re not on our own.

According to the official CES Website, 31 Utah-based companies are slated to exhibit their wares/services in Sin City. A complete alphabetical list of these firms is found below in this format: CompanyName, booth location & number, URL, and city. (An exhibit hall abbreviation key is found at the end of this post.)  

1. Alpine Innovations, Sands 73946, www.alpineproducts.com, Alpine
2. Card Access, South 1 21413, www.cardaccess-inc.com, Draper
3. Celio, North 3934, www.celiocorp.com, Salt Lake City
4. ClearOne Communications, Sands 72927, www.clearone.com, Salt Lake City
5. Clearplay, Hilton 569, www.clearplay.com, Salt Lake City
6. Control4, South 1 21407 & 21413, www.control4.com, Draper
7. EarHugger, Central 8759, www.earhugger.com, Lindon
8. Escalante Design, VT 30-129, www.escalantedesign.com, Bluffdale
9. ezGear, South 2 25321, www.ezgear.com, Murray
10. Heatshrink.com, North 5617, www.heatshrink.com, Ogden
11. iFrogz, South 1 21858, www.ifrogz.com, Logan
12. Isis Dei, Sands 73925, www.isisdei.com, Provo
13. IsoMike, VT 34-207, www.kimbercable.com/isomike, Ogden
14. JayBird Gear, South 2 26415, www.jaybirdgear.com, Salt Lake City
15. Kimber Kable, VT 29-210, www.kimberkable.com, Ogden
16. Locus Design Group, VT 31-119, www.locus-design.com, Saratoga Springs
17. On the Go Video, South 4 34533, www.onthegovideo.com, South Jordan
18. PowerUp Games, South 2 25332, www.powerupgames.com, Saratoga Springs
19. RBH Sound, VT 29-103, www.rbhsound.com, Layton
20. SE2 Labs, VT 31-232, www.se2labs.com, Draper
21. Skullcandy, South 1 20538, www.skullcandy.com, Park City
22. Sonicweld, VT 31-119, www.sonicweld.com, Orem
23. UniwaveTek, VT 31-203, www.uniwavetek.com, Salt Lake City
24. Wattgate, VT 29-210, www.wattgate.com, Ogden
25. WBT-USA, VT 29-212, www.wbtusa.com, Ogden
26. Wilson Electronics, South 3 30166, www.wilsonelectronics.com, St. George 
27. Wing Enterprises, South 2 25400, www.littlegiantladders.com, Springville
28. World HiFi Group, VT 30-129, www.worldhifigroup.com, Bluffdale
29. ZAGG, CentralPlaza CP12, www.zagg.com, Salt Lake City
30. Zatabit, South 1 21413, www.zatabit.com, West Jordan
31. Zu Audio, VT 30-122, www.zuaudio.com, Ogden

See you in Vegas. 

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Exhibit hall abbreviation key

Central = Las Vegas Convention Center, Central Hall

Hilton = Las Vegas Hilton Convention Center

North = Las Vegas Convention Center, North Hall

Sands = Sands Convention Center

South = Las Vegas Convention Center, South Hall

VT = Venetian Towers

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From the No. 1 ranked company to the No. 25 ranked company, 18 firms in this year’s “Top 25 Under 5″ awards program can be categorized as technology companies.

The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum (UVEF) has been running this program for nine years now, and the Top 25 Under 5 event is designed to recognize the top 25 companies in Utah that are less than five-years-old. {DISCLOSURE: I served as a UVEF board member at the time the UVEF decided to launch this program.}

This year’s No. 1 ranked company was Agel Enterprises. This three-year-old provider of gel-based nutritional and skincare supplements had $9 million in revenue in 2005 and closed 2007 with revenue of $89 million. Agel’s products are sold by independent representatives in 150 countries today, and the company predicts it will have sales of $150 million in 2008.

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One of the most interesting technology-related news items to come out of Utah last week was the fact that the Mormon Church has turned to a mixture of internet video and good-old-fashioned public relations to combat lingering misperceptions between “the Salt Lake City-based church and the polygamous group in Texas that calls itself the FLDS.”

In a news release distributed last week by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also commonly known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church), the LDS Church announced that it had published seven videos on its Website highlighting typical members of its faith who live in Texas versus “members of the isolated polygamous group.

According to the release, Texas-based Mormons featured in the videos include “a director of community theater, an orthopedic surgeon, a Justice of the Peace, a former Houston Oilers quarterback, a news anchor and a young woman with aspirations for medical school.”

By the way, although I had difficulty getting some of the videos in the LDS Church’s newsroom to play in Internet Explorer, I had no such difficulty in Firefox.

Several dozen additional internet videos from the LDS Church can also be found on the Mormon Church YouTube Channel as it appears the church began its YouTube-social media PR program nine months ago.

In addition to expected coverage of the story in LDS-owned media outlets, the Associated Press picked up the story (as shown in this USA Today article), as did Salt Lake City-based KSTU Fox 13 in this news report.

For a religious organization that is so conservative, it’s interesting to see the LDS Church begin to embrace Web 2.0 technologies and methodologies.

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Unless you’ve been locked in a cage somewhere, you know that the residential real estate market is suffering through its worst decline in decades.

Some forecasters have predicted that the outcome could thrust more than two million homeowners into foreclosure. Sounds like a tough time to be in residential real estate, right? Not if you’re the geniuses at Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK).

That’s why last week the company that gives consumers everywhere access to discounted retail products in all categories launched an online resource for researching and finding residential real estate, from foreclosed or distressed properties to homes available via short sales or auction.

Here’s the link for the text for the Overstock.com news release, while the page for the new Online Real Estate Resource can be found at http://realestate.overstock.com/. And it’s really easy to use.

Merely type in your targeted Zip Code (or the city and state you’re researching) and click on go. It’s that simple.

For example, within the 84092 area (my home zip code), there are more than 200 homes listed for sale captured from 31 Websites and ranging from a price of $169,900 to $6 million. In neighboring Draper, Utah (the 84020 zip code), there are more than 550 homes for sale.

And unlike the publicly available MLS (multiple listing service) Websites, the “For Sale” section of the Overstock.com site provides street addresses, which are crucial in identifying the specific location for a house or property.

In 84092, 22 homes are included in the foreclosure listing (priced from $234,900 to $699,00), while 84020 shows nearly 80 properties in foreclosure at prices ranging from $172,000 to $1.5 million. Other categories include listings for Distressed properties, Auctions and Online Auctions.

According to Bill Floor, Overstock.com’s real estate director, this new offering “allows the value conscious Overstock.com customer to find great real estate deals” whether someone is looking for a real estate investment or a dream home.

Obviously, Overstock.com is either scraping existing sites on the Internet aggregate the data or it has entered relationships with other companies to do the same thing.

Regardless, the bottom line is that Overstock.com’s real estate search application is a fairly easy to use site that can be quite helpful to a homebuyer or a real estate investor. Hence, I offer kudos to CEO Patrick Byrne and the entire Overstock.com team.

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Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and the Governor’s Office of Economic Development in Utah announced last week via a joint news release that the company would build a 200,000 square foot Global Information Technology (IT) facility in West Jordan, Utah, a facility that would eventually house approximately 100 employees at wages more than twice the Salt Lake County average.

The parties expect the company to break ground this summer and “go live” sometime in 2010.

Sure, it’s most likely going to be a glorified data center for Oracle and will probably house Web-based Software as a Service (SaaS) applications and data for clients around the world.

The Utah location is going to provide significant cost savings for the database behemoth, both in salary and benefits, as well as in general operational costs (think power, taxes, etc.)

Oh yeah, and the state plans to kick-in up to $15.1 million in tax rebates every year for 12 years once the facility is built, hires its people and begins operations. This was part of the State’s package to recruit Oracle to Utah.

Sounds like a sweet deal for Oracle, and it is.

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That was the thrust of Part 1 of a two-part news report filed for Salt Lake City-based KSL radio by Marc Giaque: “Addicted to Text Messaging - Part 1.”

Giaque’s story was triggered by an editorial entitled “Issues for DSM-V: Internet Addiction” written by Jerald J. Block, M.D. and published in the March 2008 edition of The American Journal of Psychiatry. (NOTE: Apparently, DSM-V refers to the fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is targeted for publication about 2011. DSM-IV is the current manual used by mental health professionals.)

Dr. Block suggests that excessive use of e-mail/text messaging is just one of three common types of Internet-connected “compulsive-impulsive spectrum disorder(s)” that “involve online and/or offline computer usage,” the other two being excessive computer gaming or “sexual preoccupations” (his term, not mine).

Each of these three Internet disorders exhibit four characteristics (Dr. Block claims), namely

1. Excessive use,
2. Withdrawal,
3. Tolerance, and
4. Negative repercussions.

For Part 1 of his piece, Giaque focused specifically on text messaging, and we had a long and wide-ranging on-the-record interview on the subject in our Draper, Utah offices about a week-and-a-half ago.

If you check out Giaque’s story online, you’ll note that there are more than 90 comments on the subject in a little more than 24 hours, meaning it generated a higher than average interest among KSL listeners.

Interestingly, none of the comments centered on Twitter, which was the main focus of my section of the Part 1 story.

It made me wonder if Twitter has yet to crossover to mainstream usage yet? Curious.

Chances are if you’re reading Utah Tech Watch you already use text messaging as another vehicle for staying in touch. But do you Twitter (or “tweet” as us Twitterians say), either as a user or a follower, as a way of staying connected and in touch?

If so, I’d like to hear from you. And if not, I’m also curious to hear why not. Thanks.

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UPDATE:

I guess I should have dug a bit further, as Part II of Giaque’s story is running today and is up on the KSL Website already at http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=3367797.

Hmmmm. It’s generated more than 25 comments already today.

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Amy Rees Anderson, chief executive officer of MediConnect Global, was recognized last Thursday (5-15-08) as the “Entrepreneur of the Year” by the MountainWest Capital Network.

Anderson is the first woman to receive Entrepreneur of the Year honors from the MWCN. Past honorees include Dr. Wayne Evans, co-founder of Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. (NASDAQ: ESCC), Ray Noorda, former chairman, president and CEO of Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL) and Alan Ashton, co-founder of WordPerfect Corp. (among others).

Speaking before an audience of close to 200 business/community leaders and professional colleagues, Anderson sprinkled her acceptance speech with humorous personal anecdotes and professional insights.

Born into a family of 10 children that moved frequently due to her father’s career, Anderson entered Brigham Young University at age 17 with the focus on leaving school with her so-called “M-R-S” degree. And by the time she was 19, she was married, having gained her self-coveted “Mrs.” degree.

As a young stay-at-home mom with two children, Anderson hit upon a new business idea and decided to hit up several relatives, including her father, for start-up capital. With a staggeringly small $23,000 in seed capital from her family, Anderson went on to establish PerfectPractice.MD, an Web-based practice management software company designed to meet the needs of physicians in private practice.

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South Jordan-based PC Laptops made news yesterday by announcing they will offer lifetime service & support to all owners of PC Club machines [Disclosure: a Politis Communications client]. PC Club recently filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and as a result left its customers high and dry.

Read the article about PC Laptops in the Daily Herald.

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My Experience with Twitter this Past Saturday (5-10-08) at the Republican State Convention

This past Saturday (5-10-08) found me and 3,500 of my closest friends –  ;-)  — jammed into the McKay Events Center at Utah Valley State College as participants in the Republican Party’s state convention.

This was my first time to attend such an event, let alone my first participation as a state delegate.

Although the doors opened around 7 a.m., I arrived close to 10, after spending several hours in the morning working on a new business proposal. And then for the next seven hours, I was swept up in the festivities of the Grand Old Party.

Shortly after arriving, I ran into long-time friend and associate, Phil Windley, former Chief Information Officer for the State of Utah. As a delegate for many years, he offered me some good advice and perspective on what to expect throughout the day. He also mentioned he’d enjoyed following my micro-posts on Twitter (known to those of us using the microblogging service as “tweets”).

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Last year we participated in the annual Blogging for Business Conference and it was a great event. This year’s event will be even better.

The theme this year is Engage. [Disclosure: Politis Communications is a sponsor of the conference] Isn’t that what we’re trying to do as marketing professionals? In most cases we want to engage customers, but to do this we need to first engage the media and with the advent of social media this includes many influential bloggers across the Web.

As a special treat, this year’s conference will feature a keynote address from GM’s Director of Social
Media, Christopher Barger. GM recently sent a shockwave through the ad industry by announcing that half of their annual ad budget, $3 Billion, would go toward online advertising.

The conference is designed for marketers, advertisers or public relations practitioners. Blogging can be a very effective tool, so whether you’re an agency, in-house or an executive this conference is the place to be to learn how to effectively Engage the media and your target audiences through blogs.

Read more on the Blogging for Business Conference’s official blog.

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