Rhode Island Nexus

Carl Dunham, CTO and Founder of The Search Agency(TSA), can tell you anything you need to know about optimizing online media campaigns and frequent flier program miles.

The second time I walked into the Santa Monica office (our third in two years), I was shocked at how packed it already was. Only a couple of weeks earlier, on a tour with the agent, it looked like more space than we would need for a long time. I think of that now as I walk into the East Greenwich office, and realize that we need to buy more furniture. Where is it all going to go?

The Search Agency started as a favor to a friend. The company he worked for was having a hard time managing search campaigns, and the tools that existed at the time were not going to help him much. They were one of the biggest spenders on GoTo (later called Overture, and now a better part of Yahoo), and he and his team were spending all their time running numbers through spreadsheets, and losing the big picture. He wanted me to build him some technology to reign in the chaos, and help make sense of all the data, bidding and everything else. He was actually doing me a favor as well. I didn’t have a regular job.

What we came up with worked. It worked so well, in fact, that he left his job to join me, and make a real company out of it. Three years later, we’re trying to figure out where to put everyone. Our client list has grown and we are managing 100 times the spend. The company has been marginally profitable the whole time, which made it easy for us to go raise capital when we finally decided to take things to the next level.

This kind of growth is not without its challenges, many of which are well documented. We had a particular problem, in that we chose to grow the company simultaneously in two places. We would be purposely keeping technology development and the rest of the company 3,000 miles apart. We had to ensure from day one that we stayed coordinated and on task. What resulted was a culture of cooperation that has led to some great breakthroughs, and shrunk the distance in the process. Much if this was done with very little technology other than email and cell phones. We don’t even have a video conferencing system (yet).

I hope you can join us at the next Providence Geeks Dinner where I'll be presenting a lot more about TSA. In the meantime, if you're interested in joining us, check out the following job opportunities:

• Software Engineer - User Interface
• Software Engineer - Java

Did you know that approximately 23,000 Rhode Islanders, or about 5% of our state's total workforce, are employed by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-owned corporations? Those figures put Lil' Rhody a strong 11th in the country for the share of workforce supported by U.S. subsidiaries.

This is a good thing. Foreign direct investment provides many economic benefits.

• U.S. affiliates of foreign companies tend to pay higher wages than other U.S. companies. On average, U.S. subsidiaries of foreign firms pay 25 percent higher wages and salaries than that of all U.S. establishments.
• Affiliates of foreign companies (majority-owned) spent nearly $32 billion on research and development in 2005 and $121 billion on plants and equipment.
• U.S. companies use multinationals' distribution networks and knowledge about foreign tastes to export into new markets. Approximately 19 percent of all U.S. exports ($169.2 billion) come from U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies.

So fittingly, last week was a time to celebrate not only our mothers, but also foreign direct investment. The U.S. Department of Commerce's Invest in America Week featured a series of site visits to foreign investor-owned facilities across the United States.

In Rhode Island, the site visit was to the West Kingston headquarters of APC, a subsidiary of French electrical giant, Schneider Electric. Governor Donald L. Carcieri, Laurent Vernerey, APC's President and Chief Executive Officer, Saul Kaplan, Executive Director of the RIEDC, and approximately 40 members of APC's senior management team, were joined by William "Woody" Sutton CAE, U.S. Navy (Ret.), the U.S. Commerce Department Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing and Services.

At the event, CEO Vernerey announced not only APC's decision to stay in Rhode Island, but also their plans to renovate their South Kingston facility at an estimated cost of between $3-4 million. A reflection of our changing economy, the former manufacturing facility today houses over 1,100 employees, many of whom work in software engineering and research and development.

Other notable foreign-owned info-tech companies in Rhode Island include:

• Providence-based GTECH - owned by Italy's Lottomatica
• North Kingston-based Hexagon Metrology - owned by Sweden's Hexagon AB
• Providence-based Simulia, - owned by France's Dassault Systemes

The U.S. Department of Commerce launched Invest in America, the first federal-level U.S. investment promotion effort in a generation, last year. Invest in America coordinates across U.S. Government agencies to promote inward investment and address federal issues that may impede investment. Through Invest in America, the Department of Commerce promotes the United States as the best place in the world to do business and reinforces our nation's unequivocal and long-standing commitment to open investment policies.

I just got out of an afternoon working session for the GPCC and Providence Foundation's Knowledge-Based Economy project. To set the mood, Richard Seline, the consultant running the sessions, played the following video. Despite the hokey music, I think it's a brilliant metaphor for working together to take our local economy to the next level. Honk!

Tomorrow I'm going to be speaking at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce's Business EXPO 2008.

I feel honored to be included in the lineup the Chamber has put together. This year's EXPO has a ton to offer entrepreneurs and innovators, and especially those of us in the info-tech and digital media fields.

Below, I highlight some of the goodness scheduled for tomorrow, and remember - it's all "FREE with a business card". (Note this is just a small selection, check out the full two-day calendar here.)

10:30am Associate Director of MIT's Media Lab and RISD President-Select John Maeda kicks things off with his keynote - "The Future of Technology, Design and Simplicity." This will be Maeda's first public address in Rhode Island since his appointment.

Maeda's keynote alone is reason enough to attend the EXPO, but there's much more on tap - now on to the line-up dubbed "Innovation Afternoon":

Noon Online strategist David Meerman Scott will present, "The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to use news releases, blogs, viral marketing and online media to reach buyers directly ." Last year, Scott wrote a best-selling and highly-regarded book of the same title.

1:30pm Management Consultant Jack Derby tackles "Sales Planning in a Tough Economy." Jack leads Derby Management, a top Boston-based consultancy with deep experience, expertise, and relationships in the info-tech and digital media sector. The Chamber has engaged Jack and Derby Management to lead its upcoming Entrepreneur Launch Pad, so this is a great opportunity to check them out.

3:00pm And then at 3pm it's yours truly on "Tapping RI's growing Geek community to win on the Internet." It goes without saying that this is going to rock. ;-)

4:30pm Topping off "Innovation Afternoon," is the announcement of the winners of the 2008 Rhode Island Business Plan Competition. Over $170,000 in cash and services will be awarded. Among the finalists are a couple of very promising info-tech and digital media startups: Digital Wingman and MissingPatient.com.

It's going to be a great day. I hope to see you there.

Tiffany Edouard, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Virtual & More, a Providence-based Internet & digital solutions provider and the developers of FotoRetina, is a young innovator who secretly wants to own an eclectic/unique tea cafe... something that has never been done before.

Recently, my business partner - Abdul Muizz - and I were surfing the internet when we came across a banner flashing, “ATTENTION PHOTOGRAPHERS!” The link led us to site hawking a professional photo management system - it had average aesthetics and weak technology. After sizing up some of the other online showcase options for photographers, we realized that we had the creative and technical chops to create something much better.

Requirements were gathered. We had discussions with numerous photographers about how they worked and what kind of website they wanted. We also tried to find out why some photographers were not willing to establish an online presence.

Overall, this collaborative process with these creative professionals was extremely fruitful. We set benchmarks and started the product design process.

During the design process, we shared our creations with the photographers. They gave great feedback which deepened our understanding of them and their audiences.

Initially, we did a very minimalist design, but found that we were missing a few key features due to our emphasis on compactness.

Here are some of the "challenges" that we faced:

• Initially we were only loading thumbnails for every image. The app was a little sluggish, and we realized that there was a need for sequential loading of images (both full size and thumbnail versions) to support a faster browsing experience.
• We also had to create a module to display images fully, no compromise on height, as well as perfect the image panning feature. Feedback from photographers enabled us to implement these changes successfully.

And, what is the product?

FotoRetina is an “editable interactive website” for photographers to showcase their work online. Features include adding and sorting images, supporting multiple clients, creating galleries, adding & editing content pages, and styling the homepage with different options. In addition, website visitors can play slideshows, control playback speed, and download images.

A few weeks ago, I posted about how many of us in Rhode Island's creative community were trying to create more "connectivity" between the state's many different "circles" of designers - architects, graphic designers, urban planners, industrial designers, software architects, product designers, information architects, user interface designers. These professionals have more in common than they don't. We all share an understanding of the creative process, an apprection for the value of collaboration, and, most obviously, a deep love for good design.

In that spirit, Matt Grigsby and Andy Cutler have organized what promises to be terrific event:

We're cross-pollinating social networks in a way that only Rhode Island can. The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), The American Institute of Architects (AIA), AIGA Rhode Island, plus the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU ), plus Providence Geeks and RI Nexus are having a casual gathering at the Wild Colonial Tavern in Providence to get acquainted... share ideas, and get have a great time.

CONCENTRIC (like circles - get it?)
May 8th, 5-11pm
The Wild Colonial Tavern
250 South Water Street
Providence, RI 02903
RSVP to party@ecolect.net

You won't want to miss this!