We did our first edition sequestered in the quiet of the CR-7 studio and talked about the new social conversation platform called Namesake. The company was founded by a couple of ex-Myspace execs, Dan Gould and Brian Norgard and written up in Techcrunch back in Sept 2010. Last week there was a sudden explosion of users and my inbox got flooded with followers. What was once an invite only access was now open to the public. I love the clean interface and the fact that it has all the real time hooks. It’s a little bit of Twitter, Quora and Google Wave all wrapped up in one site, IMHO. I find myself going back to it each day either because I have a conversation I am following or someone has endorsed me. Namesake’s persistence is winning me over and the community right now is quite vibrant.

Our second video was about Square, a big disrupter in a very little package. They been out for about a year but just got written up in Fast Company for their strategy to go after the retail register market. They elevated themselves from a novelty to a potential game changer. I started off using it just to sell some t-shirts at the last Unconferenz. Obviously Square has a lot more potential that a guy selling t-shirts out of the trunk of his car. Any business looking to purchase a point of sale system needs to consider Square as a potential option. It’ll be interesting to track their progress.

Stay tuned for more Techspotting videos. Feel free to send in your comments and suggestions for future editions. We love to hear what you think.

There have been previous pitch competitions before but none that was a pitch in and of itself. Road to IPO says it all. The competition was open to any Hawaii company willing to go through the arduous evaluation and critical review process with the team from NASDAQ OMX. Of the 40 or so companies that initially applied, 10 were selected as semi-finalists. These were: Kuehnle AgroSystems, Inc., GreenCar Hawaii, Actilytics, Inc., TruTag Technologies, LLC, CBI Polymers, LLC, Eyegenix, LLC, MobiRez, LLC, Ocean Network TV, Labels That Talk and PromoStream Inc. On Wed. Feb. 16th, after another round of presentations, this list was paired down to three finalists. They are: TruTag Technologies, LLC, Labels That Talk and PromoStream Inc.

I learned recently that PromoStream is like surf cams for cities. They develop digital content for travel destinations and provide this content for destinations, counties and properties. In addition to the installation of webcam systems, the business model includes ad insertions into the video streams to monetize viewership.

We got to visit TruTag on a Bytemarks Lunch outing back in Sept 2009. This technology is a novel approach to tagging medicine, food, consumer goods and industrial products. The micro tag is made of purified silica and can be place in pills to ward against counterfeiting. The micro tag is inert and can be ingested.

Ken Berkun’s website for Labels That Talk reveals little about his product but we did have the benefit of a demonstration at a Manoa Geeks gathering in July 2008. Labels That Talk aka SoundPaper can be thought of as a barcode with sound. You can record a short audio and the SoundPaper printer prints a strip that looks like a 3 inch QR code. This code is then read by a mobile device like an iPhone (which by the way wasn’t around in 2008) and plays back the audio.

These three companies compete on Wed. February 23rd and the winner will get an all expense paid week of networking and VC introductions in Silicon Valley. The event on the 23rd is open to the public and you can register online to attend. It’ll be well worth the admission to see how these companies present and to track their journey on the Road to IPO.

ICx Transportation, the company who built the website is quite experienced at providing this integrated information resource which brings together doppler radar sensor data and up to the minute camera shots of the major intersections. Areas like the San Francisco Bay Area and New Jersey also have systems installed like the one in Honolulu. Each site references the number 511 which you can dial for the latest traffic information. Something we do not have here in Hawaii. It is also clear that the highway systems in both the Bay Area and New Jersey area are much more extensive than here requiring an ICx system that scales to include orders of magnitude more sensors and camera. I did notice a mobile version of the 511.org site which hopefully will be available soon for GoAkamai. Of note, ICx Technologies is also involved with the City and County of Honolulu and State of Hawaii’s Dept of Transportation’s Joint Traffic Management Center that just broke ground on the Alapai Transit Center. It will be interesting to monitor what new features get added to the GoAkamai site as the JTMC and rail projects get underway.

We will get a chance to talk to Glen Fromm from ICx this Wed 8/18 at 5:00pm on Bytemarks Cafe KIPO-89.3FM, Hawaii Public Radio. He’ll join us as a news guest to share some insights into the building of GoAkamai.org.

Over the past two weeks, Verizon Wireless loaned me a demo HTC Incredible to play around with. I will admit, I am a staunch iPhone fanboy but am a little infatuated with the Android operating system. Its Google app (Voice, Goggles, Maps, Gmail) integration and open architecture are enticing. And now, with HTC’s streamline design I am about to come out of the closet. The HTC Incredible does not have a hardware keyboard making it a very light unit. Lighter in fact than the iPhone. Anybody used to typing on the screen will easily adapt to the Incredible. The 480×800 touch screen is very sharp. Some of my geek friends complaint about HTC Sense, the overlay UI (user interface) that connects you to Android, but I found it quite responsive. The power/lock button on the top of the unit is slight to the touch (compared to the iPhone) and I found myself putting the device in sleep mode inadvertently.

I love the 8 megapixel camera that comes equipped with a flash. The addition of an FM tuner was also a nice treat. What I did not like about the HTC Incredible was the lack of Mac support for syncing. I connected the USB cable to my Mac Mini and the unit indicated it was recharging. Outside of that there, was no recognition by my Mac of the device. Others on the HTC Forums seem to have similar problems. One person suggested a third party application for syncing to the Mac but paying for an app that I think should be a basic feature with the phone goes against everything I believe in. All in all a nice job engineering the HTC Incredible in to a compact package but still lacking elements that make it ready for prime time. If HTC/Google fixes the syncing problem I might reconsider, but for now I am sticking with my iPhone.

Update: 6/1/10 – I got a chance to talk to Verizon Wireless today and found a way to connect to the phone’s disk drive. Forget what they say in the Quick Tips Guide. To get to the drive you need to plug the USB in and watch the top menu bar on the phone. You can drag that bar down to reveal additional options. One option is “Disk Drive”. Once selected you can see the unit in Finder and it also automatically launchs iPhoto for picture downloads. Not too intuitive but it does work. My appreciation for this phone just went up a notch.

Benny Ron on Finding a Way for Aquaculture in Hawaii from Jay Fidell.

During Bytemarks Cafe last week (Apr. 14, 2010) we covered the story about FWW’s report and asked Bill Spencer, CEO of Hawaii Oceanic Technologies Inc. to weigh in on the report. He wrote:

A highly funded, Washington, DC lobby organization, Food and Water Watch (FWW), is mounting a frontal attack on Hawaii State policy that supports open ocean mariculture. They have rallied a motley crew of rag tag environmental groups, paid many of them to attack a growing sector of our economy that is on the verge of showing the world a way to produce seafood that is environmentally responsible. This group of activists are disseminating miss-leading information that paints a picture of Hawaii’s small ocean farming businesses as harbingers of huge factory fish farms that pollute our ocean with horrible chemicals, antibiotics and fish poop. Food and Water Watch purports a host of problems with mariculture even though the industry is in its infancy in Hawaii, and none of their claims can be proven, only imagined by creative writers and spin doctors. The opportunity for a company to grow fish in Hawaiian territorial waters has been a matter of law for ten years. It has been seen as a potential economic engine that could put fishermen back to work, create thousands of jobs and even new businesses in support of the effort.

Federal policy is also being crafted that will affect the aquaculture industry and NOAA is touring the country soliciting public feedback on the issue. They were here this week and Ben Markus from Hawaii Public Radio did this piece. Jay Fidell also wrote this article that ran in Sunday’s Honolulu Advertiser.

Hawaii could potentially offer a lot to Hawaii’s food security and the diet of fish eating public with a viable aquaculture industry. The reality is, the oceans are being fished out and novel ways need to be established to sustain this food source. Why not aquaculture and why not here in Hawaii. The steps we take at this formative stage of the industry could mean the difference between success and failure.

During the short program, Pat Sullivan talked about being disruptive and finding new ways to use technology to make a difference. But it’s not only about being smart with technology but it is also about being smart with the connections that will get you there. Obviously Hawaii is a big Department of Defense location and the right Federal connections are important in making the equation work out. Each of the Hawaii delegation to Washington DC were on hand to talk about tech in Hawaii and Oceanit in particular. US Rep. Mazie Hirono, Sen. Daniel Akaka and Sen. Daniel Inouye each spoke. Sen Inouye brought attention to earmarks which he has been publicly criticized for. If you listen to his talk, about 30 minutes into the video, he is no where near giving up on this tool for Federal funding of special projects. All in all a delightful, thought provoking evening about what it takes to survive and thrive in Hawaii’s technology industry.

My main take away from the first panel called “Transformation of the News”, with Will Moss from Beijing, Mark Platte from the Honolulu Advertiser and Chris Archer from HawaiiNewsNow was that Mark Platte was lamenting the eventual demise of one of the dailies and the possible consolidation of staffs to form the one paper: Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Chris Archer on the other hand, already well into merged operations of the KGMB, KFVE and KHNL newsrooms has resigned himself to accept reality and fully embraced the new HawaiiNewsNow. Archer said it was inevitable that one or two stations were going to shut down. This way at least all three are still delivering the news, albeit the same.

What perked me up during the second panel was Sarah Lacy. As much as I love listening to Olin Lagon (Kanu Hawaii), Dan Leuck (TechHui) and Kyle Tanouye (Talisman), it was Sarah that turned the crowd on its head. (Her part starts about 1:45 hr into the webcast.) She came right out and said she saw the death of newspapers 10 years ago, which got some cheers of acknowledgment from the crowd. She also said it wasn’t the fault of the journalist, but the papers themselves for not seeing it coming. She obviously had no sympathy for the papers. She also make the astute observation that if this conference was held in Silicon Valley everyone would have their laptop open. Out of the 200 or so people in attendance, I think I only saw 2 and one of them was Sarah’s. The point of her observation did not become evident until a little later in the session, right after John Temple concluded his presentation on Peer News. No sooner than when he started taking questions from the audience did Sara post her blog entry about Peer News to Techcrunch. Sarah singlehandedly scooped all the Hawaii journalist in the room and got her story out first. By the time the sessions were over her post had well over 300 retweets on Twitter. That’s the power of new media, the power of a strong brand (Techcrunch) and the power of someone who gets it. More later on Peer News…

Information Technology Recommendations
(1) Establish a new senior position reporting to the Comptroller to be the State’s Chief Information Officer.
Currently, the head of the Department of Accounting and General Services (DAGS) serves as both the Comptroller and Chief Information Officer (CIO). The Task Force recommends that the two roles be separated into two job positions. The new CIO position should be budgeted at market compensation. The CIO’s responsibilities would include:

• (a) Supervision of the Information and Communications Services Division (ICSD).
• (b) Developing and implementing a three-year statewide Strategic Information Technology Plan (SITP) that would include the consolidation into ICSD of all hardware, operating software, related positions, and budgets for all IT and communications within the Executive Branch of state government and provide service level agreements (SLAs) to those departments.
• (c) Reporting, at least annually, to the Legislature on the SITP’s progress, and submission of a consolidated IT capital budget for the Executive Branch, as well as a report on the performance under all SLAs.
• (d) Formulating a charter and chairing a monthly governance committee, to include all state senior IT CIOs (including Department of Education, University of Hawaii, the Judiciary, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and state hospitals), and providing the Legislature with an annual executive summary of projected and achieved budgetary savings, operational synergies, customer service enhancements, state productivity gains, and security improvements generated from the joint collaboration. This governance committee would also be responsible for the development of an annual master state IT budget and vision, as well as standards for IT job classifications; staff training, development, and certification; career path and staff retention goals; customer service and productivity targets; SLA performance targets; customer service survey results; and data management warehousing and disaster recovery planning.

(2) Request that the Legislature explore establishing a dedicated funding source for the CIO position.
Given the monumental task of consolidating all of the State’s separate ICSDs and their associated hardware and operating software and of converting all departmental local area networks (LANs)-so that they can communicate and share data, it is imperative that the State be committed to maintaining the CIO position through a dedicated funding source. A dedicated funding source will ensure the continuation of the position and thereby increase the likelihood of achieving program goals and concomitantly ensuring long-term benefits and cost savings to the
State.

Several articles have appeared about the report. A Business Week article at the end of January was the first to be published. In February this article was written in the Government Technology website. Both referencing the report, speaking to the need for a consolidated approach to information technology in the State system of departments. Each of these were written from a news wire perspective.

Not so in this recent post by John Savageau in his blog Technology Innovation Topics which was also picked up by WebSphere Journal. In it, Savageau brings his own keen eye for technical detail and the experience that comes with building and supporting data centers around the world. I know him from the work he did with Level 3, Pihana (now DR Fortress) and One Wilshire in Los Angeles. The article is a great read and brings attention to the dire need for our State to get serious about Information Technology. We’ve got the bandwidth (although we could always use more). We’ve got the brain power. I see the kind of excellent IT work that goes on in corporations like the one I work at and I am convinced we have the talent here in Hawaii. We just need the vision and commitment to to see this through.

The jury is still out on whether the report will create any real substantive change but it is interesting to watch bills like SB2548 move through the legislature. I will be very interested to see this position get created but more so with who would ultimately fill the role. Hawaii is at a point of critical change. Will we be positioned (in the middle of the Pacific) to have the right infrastructure, like IT and broadband, to compete with the rest of the world? Stay tuned.

That may still be a ways off. Hybrids extend the life of gasoline as a portable fuel source. Cars like the Toyota Prius recharge their batteries through regenerative braking and the gasoline engine. They never need to be plugged in. The major auto manufacturers have put so much development into the gasoline powered car it will be some time before they transition completely away from that fuel source. Honda has hinted about a 100% electric vehicle (EV) to be available in 2015. So perhaps by mid-decade we will start to see a sea change of EV automobiles on road.

Nevertheless, this charging station at GEO is a significant first step in the right direction. Hats off to the pioneers like Mike Leone and Frank Rogers who are bold enough to make their vision real.

• WELCOME – JAY FIDELL
• STATE OF TECH: JOBS AND SO MUCH MORE – BILL SPENCER (5 minutes)
• HAWAII’S FUTURE IN TECHNOLOGY – KEIKI-PUA DANCIL (5 minutes)
• THE COALITION WORKGROUP – CAROL FUKUNAGA & ANGUS MCKELVEY (5 minutes)
• RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COALITION WORKGROUP (40 minutes)
GENERAL FINANCE – DAVID WATUMULL & KARL FOOKS
ENABLING ENVIRONMENT – MARK GILBERT & YUKA NAGASHIMA
R&D CREDIT – JOHN CHOCK & IAN KITAJIMA
RENEWABLE TECHNOLOGY – DARREN KIMURA & TED PECK
CREATIVE MEDIA – RIC GALINDEZ & NANCY GREKIN
• Q & A FROM LEGISLATORS AND INDUSTRY – BOB TOYOFUKU (20 minutes)
• CLOSING REMARKS – JAY FIDELL & BILL SPENCER (10 minutes)
• 5:30 p.m. LIBATION AND BONDING
• 6:30 p.m. PAU

The event is free but you need to RSVP by calling the Hawaii Venture Capital Assoc. at 808-262-7329 or ThinkTech at 808-524-0544. You can also email Bill Spencer or Jay Fidell.

In related news Lisa Gibson is stepping down from her post at the Hawaii Science and Technology Council as President/CEO. Keiki-Pua Dancil is replacing Gibson as the new President/CEO. Dancil will be presenting at Crucible 2010 and talk about Hawaii’s Future in Technology. I spoke briefly with Gibson who told me “it’s time for a change.” She wasn’t clear what she would be doing now but whatever it is it will be dynamic. We all wish Lisa the best in her future endeavors.

For those interested in a primer on the legislative process you might want to check out the Legislative 101 Workshop on Jan. 28th. The program will feature experts from the legislature’s Public Access Room, elected officials, and experienced advocates who will explain the legislative process and share insights on how to participate effectively. Speakers include Sen. Les Ihara, Jr., Rep. Maile Shimabukuro, Jeff Mikulina (Blue Planet Foundation), and Kapua Sproat. The program is free of charge and a good way to understand how to engage in a process that might otherwise look quite daunting. Reserve your seat here.