Erich Stauffer

Blog

  • A Brief History of the Suggets

    Before the Suggett Daily News there was the Succat Downing Street, a daily in London, which was ran by Meawyn Succat, who later moved to France and then to Ireland to convert the Irish to Catholicism in the 5th century. You may know of him better as St. Patrick, which he was later named after being declared a saint. When the Succat family came to Virginia in the 18th century, their name was changed to Suggett and the SDN was renamed the Suggett Daily News.

    John Suggett and Mildred Davis of Virginia had Rev. James Suggett who married Sarah Redding, also of Virginia. James and Sarah moved to Kentucky and had John Pope Suggett. John married Mary Ann O’Rear of Kentucky, moved to Missouri, and had Daniel J. Suggett. Daniel married Elizabeth Boulds of Missouri and had Starling Greene Suggett who together with his second wife, Constance Eleanor Hopkins continued on the tradition of The Suggett Daily News.

    A Tale of Two Constance Hopkins

    Constance Hopkins (May 11, 1606 – October 1677), also sometimes listed as Constanta was probably born in Hursley, Hampshire, England. Constance was the second daughter of Stephen Hopkins, by his first wife, Mary. Some believe she was named in honor of Constance (Marline) Hopkins. Constance, at the age of fourteen, along with her father and his second wife Elizabeth (Fisher), accompanied by brother Giles, half-sister Damaris as well as two servants by the name of Edward Doty and Edward Lester were passengers on the Mayflower on its journey to the New World in 1620. Along the way her half-brother Oceanus was born, the only child born on the Mayflower journey.

    A Brief History of Rev. James Suggett

    In the war of 1812, he accompanied his cousin Colonel Richard Mentor Johnson, (later Vice President of U.S. to Van Buren) who commanded the troops in the battle of Thames, which was decisive battle that helped end the war. Richard was and is the only Vice President to be elected by the United States Senate based on majority vote. He was popular primarily for killing the Indian leader at the battle of Themes.

    One day while James was tending to farming chores in Kentucky he heard a peculiar noise in his stable and upon going out to see what caused it, he found a large buck quietly feeding himself from the horse trough. He hastly slammed the door shut to fasten the deer in but he was not quick enough. The frightened animal plunged against the door and carried it off the hinges, It remained fast on his horns and while he was struggling with it, James laid hold of him, thinking he could hold him down, but the deer proved to be the stronger of the two, and dragged him to the lot fence. Seeing that he was going to jump over, he let go and the deer went over the fence ‘light as a bird’, the door still on his horns. The deer disappeared in the woods and that was the last he saw of the deer–or his stable door.

  • Back to the Future Part IV

    For fun I started writing the screenplay for the fourth installment of the Back to the Future series:

    Doc Brown’s kids are now 18 and 22. We see them acting like typical teenagers, hanging out in their cabin on the train, listening to their iPods and watching their iPads when the girl gets up to grab a snack. The kitchen area is lined with invented ways to make toast or cook hot dogs. Jules grabs a bottle of juice and steps outside nonchalantly. That’s when the camera shows where and when they are.

    Doc Brown, their father, is studying dinosaurs in a dense jungle. “Dad, how long are we going to be here?” Jules exclaims.

    Doc inches closer to the dinosaur and the camera switches to Verne, who is turning up the gain on his amp, which is connected to his 1974 Les Paul. He begins to play his guitar softly and the baby dinosaur who was asleep opens its eyes. Doc Brown inches closer.

    Jules goes in to talk to her mom, who is reading. Vernes music can still be heard in the background. Jules sighs so her mom asks Jules if she feels she missed out on having a normal life in one place.

    Just then the baby dinosaur sees Doc and at the same time the dinosaur squeels, Verne feedbacks his guitar and the song gets heavier and faster. Drum overlay also kicks in and now we see the mother of the baby dinosaur, a full grown T-Rex. Doc begins to run back to the train saying, “I’m getting to old for this!” He radios to his wife, “Prepare to move. I’m on my way.”

    The beat of the T-Rex’s feet match the beat of the bass drum playing along with Verne’s music. His mom moves into the pilots chair and sees the T-Rex approaching with Doc running in front. Jules sits down in the co-pilot seat, looks at her mother, then out the window and screams, “Dad!”

    They start up the train and float it into position just as Doc approaches the door and as Verne’s music reaches a crescendo. Doc jumps in and they all take off into the future, but not before the T-Rex takes a bite at the rear of the train.

    Update:

    So apparently Jules and Verne are both boys so the beginning will need to be a little different. Instead of having a girl and a boy, one son will be more interested in science and the other in girls. We’ll make Verne the geek and Jules the chaser.

    So now that we have these actors who are playing Doc’s sons, the one most like him, Verne, will play a young Doc Brown who in 1940  attended school with Strickland. His brother, Jules will be traveling back to visit them in the future. This is how he will get there.

    The dinosaur damages the train when they are taking off. Docs wife had set an emergency course for 2015, which is their safety year. They know they will be able to find parts during that time. While the train is getting worked on, Jules goes for a walk while Verne stays back to help his dad. That’s when he spots the Delorean. His dad had just had the upgrades made on it. He can’t resist getting in so he sits down…fill in reason to take car here…Jules arrives in 1940 in the Delorean.

  • The Dunning-Kruger Effect: 12 Cups of Goodness

    Dunning wondered whether it was possible to measure one’s self-assessed level of competence against something a little more objective — say, actual competence.  Within weeks, he and his graduate student, Justin Kruger, had organized a program of research.  Their paper, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments,” was published in 1999.

    Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.  Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.” It became known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect — our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence.

  • NFC Phones and Digital Wallets

    NFC Phones are phones enabled with near-field communication chips.

    NFC Digital Wallets

    Companies like Google and Verizon are scrambling to be the first to implement a mobile payments system that allows a cell phone to carry and transmit credit card information. The technology involves using near-field communication (NFC) chips that can transfer small amounts of information over short distances. It allows transfer of credit card information or coupons, for example.

    Digital WalletsVerizon teamed up with Discover to try and implement a new NFC mobile payment system called ISIS, but later decided to create a digital wallet system. Google, in partnership with Vivotech, a NFC terminal provider, is following a similar path, deciding to offer a digital wallet where the credit card information is stored in the NFC chip rather than the SIM card, which is carrier-controlled.

    The winner of the battle between SIM and NFC storage of data will determine who controls the transaction and could shape the mobile payments industry for years to come. Currently retailers pay a fee to process a credit card transaction, but digital wallets have the opportunity to turn that on its head by offering retailers a part of the transaction back for accepting the NFC payment as an incentive to do so.

    It’s unclear at this time how exactly Google or anyone else would make money on the payment processing, but by putting themselves at the gateway, they have a huge advantage in influencing that in the future. Apple knows this and is why they created a mobile payments system that will work with the iPhone and iTunes.

    Credit card companies and the banks who back them make millions of dollars each year by taking a percentage of each transaction in exchange for the convenience of processing that transaction. Retailers have long looked for a way to reduce these fees and with innovations like NFC and the near ubiquitous cell phone and the credit card make the digital wallet a almost certain reality.

    What Is a Digital Wallet?

    A digital wallet stores your information in the same way a physical wallet would, but it allows users to make transactions quickly and securely because its electronic. There are two major forms of digital wallets: services that store your payment information online and electronic devices such as a smartphone that can store and transmit your payment information.

    Internet Payment Services

    An online payment service functions much like a physical wallet, allowing internet users with a convenient way to store and use online shopping information. Examples of digital wallet payment services include Paypal, Google Checkout, and Amazon.com’s 1-Click Ordering. This term is also known as “Internet payment services”.

    Electronic Devices

    NFC TransactionAn individual’s bank account and/or credit card information is usually linked to a digital wallet stored on a mobile device such as a smartphone that stores an individual’s credentials and utilize wireless technologies such as near field communication (NFC) to carry out financial transactions. They might also have their driver’s license, health card, loyalty card(s) and other ID documents stored on the phone. The credentials can be passed to a merchant’s terminal wirelessly via NFC. Certain sources are speculating that these smartphone “digital wallets” will eventually replace physical wallets. The system has already gained popularity in Japan, where digital wallets are known as Osaifu-Keitai or “wallet mobiles” and both Visa and Master Card (with Google) are working on their own systems in the United States.

    Although NFC-enabled phones will more than likely become the standard, any electronic device that allows an individual to make electronic commerce transactions can be considered a digital wallet. This can include purchasing items on-line with a computer or using a smartphone to purchase something at a store (via NFC technology or with an app like Starbuck’s Card Mobile App). Increasingly, digital wallets are being used to authenticate the holder’s credentials in the same way that a physical wallet would. For example, a digital-wallet could potentially verify the age of the buyer to the store while purchasing alcohol or cigarettes.

    Are Digital Wallets Secure?

    Digital wallets use encryption software that provides security during electronic commerce transactions. The consumer and merchants benefit because his or her information is protected against fraud. Most digital wallets reside in individuals’ online accounts or on their electronic devices, but they can also be stored on the credit card issuer’s server in what is called “thin” wallets, which is supported by most modern browsers. Both are meant to add a layer of security that some say trumps that of physically possessing a card.

  • How the Bible Influenced Star Wars

    Since today is Palm Sunday and we are entering into Passion Week leading up to Good Friday and Easter, I wanted to share a small snippet of that story, which may have influenced Star Wars. But even if you don’t care about Star Wars, it’s still a really cool story that shows God’s power.

    The “Jedi Force Push”

    In this story, Jesus has triumphantly entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, met with his 12 Disciples for the Passover, and is now about to be betrayed by Judas, on of his disciples. He has just spent the night praying and is really stressed about what is about to happen next.

    So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I Am He.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, “I Am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground. -John 18:3-6 ESV

    Jedi Force Push

    Although not exactly a Jedi Force Push, it does seem as if the very act of Jesus saying, “I AM” forced the “band of soldiers and some officers” to fall to the ground. To give you a little back story, a long time ago Moses met with God on a mountain in Exodus 3 and in verses 13-14 Moses asks God his name.

    Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

    God’s name is divine and has power. When Jesus, the Son of Man, said “I Am He,” there was power in that and the group of men fell down. This could have influenced George Lucas in the development of the Force and it’s capabilities.

    The “The Rebels”

    Immediately after this scene, Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples tries to defend Jesus with a sword by cutting off the ear of the high priest’s slave. To fully understand the significance of this action, you have to understand that part of Jesus’ plan during his time on Earth was to fulfill prophecy. One of the most blatant preparations for this happens in Luke 22 where Jesus makes sure his disciples have a sword to fulfill prophesy from Isaiah 53:12.

    He said to them, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.” And they said, “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” And he said to them, “It is enough.” -Luke 22:36-38 ESV

    Isaiah 53:11-12 (NET) says, “Having suffered, he will reflect on his work, he will be satisfied when he understands what he has done. ‘My servant will acquit many, for he carried their sins. So I will assign him a portion with the multitudes, he will divide the spoils of victory with the powerful, because he willingly submitted to death and was numbered with the rebels, when he lifted up the sin of many and intervened on behalf of the rebels.” And in Luke 22:52, “Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders, who had come out against him, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”

    Could this use of the term “rebels” have influenced George Lucas when he was writing Star Wars? Could the reference to the “power of darkness” have influenced Star Wars’ “dark side of the Force”?

    The “Hero’s Journey”

    George Lucas, the writer and director of Star Wars, is known to have been influenced by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which identifies the “Hero’s Journey”, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world’s mythic traditions. While I believe the Bible to be true, much of Campbell’s “mythic traditions” are taken from the Bible. According to Wikipedia, “George Lucas was the first Hollywood filmmaker to credit Campbell’s influence. Lucas stated following the release of the first Star Wars film in 1977 that its story was shaped, in part, by ideas described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces and other works of Campbell’s…Lucas discusses this influence at great length in the authorized biography of Joseph Campbell, A Fire in the Mind:

    I [Lucas] came to the conclusion after American Graffiti that what’s valuable for me is to set standards, not to show people the world the way it is…around the period of this realization…it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology…The Western was possibly the last generically American fairy tale, telling us about our values. And once the Western disappeared, nothing has ever taken its place. In literature we were going off into science fiction…so that’s when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore, and mythology, and I started reading Joe’s books. Before that I hadn’t read any of Joe’s books…It was very eerie because in reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classic motifs…so I modified my next draft [of Star Wars] according to what I’d been learning about classical motifs and made it a little bit more consistent…I went on to read ‘The Masks of God’ and many other books.

    Wikipedia continues, “It was not until after the completion of the original Star Wars trilogy in 1983, however, that Lucas met Campbell or heard any of his lectures. The 1988 documentary The Power of Myth was filmed at Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch. During his interviews with Bill Moyers, Campbell discusses the way in which Lucas used The Hero’s Journey in the Star Wars films (IV, V, and VI) to re-invent the mythology for the contemporary viewer. Moyers and Lucas filmed an interview 12 years later in 1999 called the Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas & Bill Moyers to further discuss the impact of Campbell’s work on Lucas’ films.”

    The Easter Story

    Jesus was the ultimate hero because, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” -John 3:16 KJV. But have you heard the good news? Jesus has risen. He overcame death. I don’t know anyone else who has ever done that. It’s pretty unique. And people were so shaken by it that they spent the rest of their lives telling other people about it and even gave up their own lives to continue telling the story. It’s easy to get caught up in the “fun” stories in the Bible about Jedi-like pushes and prophecy being fulfilled, but Paul warns in Collosians 2:18-19 to focus on “the Head” (Jesus), “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.”

    How to watch Star Wars in Telnet

    Star Wars Telnet1. Click on the start button (lower left-hand corner of the screen)
    2. Click on to Run, type “Telnet”, then click OK
    3. In the command prompt that comes up type “o” (without the quotes), then press enter
    4. You should get another prompt that says <to>, then type “towel.blinkenlights.nl” (again, without the quotes), the press enter

    There will be a couple screens of text that load and then a movie will start: the entire Star Wars: A New Hope in special text characters.

    Someone has way too much time on their hands but it*s amazing to see what they’ve done.

  • 10 Ways to Make Money from 3D Printing

    I recently identified 3D printing as one of the 13 Trends That Are Changing the World and compiled 3D Printing Resources for Beginners, but this being a blog about the business of technology, I wanted to create a list of 10 possible businesses that could be created around the 3D printing industry. You can use the STAIR process to figure out which one best suits your past skills, experience, and equipment:

    10 Ways to Make Money from 3D Printing

    • Sell raw materials to 3D printer suppliers – 3D printing materials include many types of plastics to higher-end filament like metals, paper, and ceramics. Stainless steel, for example, comes in powder form and can be infused with bronze. Likewise, silver can be mixed with wax. Any business with access to these raw materials stands to benefit from an increase in 3D printing production.
    • Sell 3D printer supplies to 3D printers – Right now most 3D printers use plastic PLA, ABS, or PVA filaments. There are already a large host of printing material suppliers, but it’s still not something you can pick up at your local Wal-Mart…yet. It’s too late to have a first-mover advantage, but you might not want that anyway. Remember, Apple wasn’t the first one to make MP3 players.
    • Make and sell your own 3D printer – Did you know that the Makerbot is open source? At least it was. With the help of some well-laid plans and an Arduino board, you can build your own 3D printer. Make it your own and you can start your own line of 3D printers. Here’s a guide on how to build a 3D printer, but it’s one thing to build them. You’ll also have to learn how to sell them.
    • 3D print objects as a service – 3D printing services like Sculpteo, Shapeways, and Ponoko are showing us all how this is done, but that’s only three and there’s a 99% chance that none of them are local to where you live. While the Internet is great for many things, there is value to having a local printer to print everything from trophies to customized cup lids for restaurants.
    • Scan 3D objects as a service – If you can afford a $230 Kinect for Windows you can start a 3D scanning business. This is what Reconstruct.me does.  In November of 2012 Microsoft announced Kinect for Windows. In that article there is a link to Skanect, which is “3D scanning made easy”. I’m not talking about writing software here, I’m talking about buying a device and using software as a service.
    • Create a marketplace/trading system for 3D printable objects – I thought I was the first to think of this, but of course I was wrong. That’s exactly what Thingiverse is and it’s part of what Shapeways does. If your’e interested in this business model, think niche – “the riches are in the niches” and the sooner you can drive deep down into a niche and setup shop, the more likely you are to succeed.
    • Sell 3D printer technology to oil companies and/or NASA – This is a process of taking an existing product and finding new markets for it. I did this when I suggested that Pebble Watches could be sold to Dentists. By identifying a market segment who could use a product, you’re going vertical and this is similar to driving down into a niche. In this case, the market is remote workers with big pocketbooks.
    • Consult with 3D printer companies on technology and logistics – Not every egghead who comes up with a new 3D printer is going to know how to run a 3D printer business. That’s where consultants and service companies that choose to go niche and vertical with 3D printing companies have a chance to succeed and grow. By serving the needs of a growing industry, your business can benefit too. Everybody wins.
    • Help guide and craft new copyright laws; give legal counsel – While you’re probably going to have to be or know a lawyer or lobbyist, there is definitely a growing need for legal counsel in this newly developing industry. Questions about what is and isn’t able to be licensed and what is or isn’t copyrighted is going to come to a head when people want to expand trademarked product‘s [fan fiction] universes.
    • Help market 3D printers or 3D printable objects – In the same way business professionals can help 3D printing companies manage customer development, build an e-commerce website, and develop organizational habits, they are going to need help learning how to advertise, how to market a product, and how to get more customers. They are going to need to learn SEO, content marketing, and how to build a platform.

    Money Multiplier

    Erich Stauffer on 3D PrintingIn monetary economics, a money multiplier is a ratio, which is generally believed to be 10 to 1 meaning that any dollar produced, produces 10 more dollars. A similar effect is true for business processes and opportunities. This due to a combination of the adjacent possible of new technologies and from the network effects that happen whenever a new business, process, or industry is born. The implications from this entirely new industry are enormous especially because it is mostly additive. 3D printing doesn’t replace or displace traditional manufacturing, it simply broadens it. Things that could have been created before were not because it didn’t make economic sense, but once people are given the opportunity and resources these new things will be created. It’s similar to how pictures of your food and friends weren’t important enough to carry a camera around for before, but now that your camera and sharing ability is on your phone, companies like Instagram exist and get bought by a billion dollars.

  • Content Marketing

    5 Ways to Create Great Content Marketing:

    • Write What Matters to the Customer – Write from your customer’s point of view. Take the time to figure out what they care about – not just the features of your product. In other words, think like a salesman and do your homework. Go where your customers are hanging out online and see what issues they are having with your product or products like it. Write the answers to these problems. Be the answer to there problems.
    • Be Human – Computers have evolved. They can now write articles (1,2, 3), but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about bleeding on the page. Share your mistakes along with your triumphs – like how I wrote over a year ago that my new focus was on content marketing yet I’m just now writing this post. I’m human and I run a small business. This means I am not a machine and can adapt on the fly and relate to humans.
    • Provide Evidence – While you wouldn’t know it from reading this article, pictures and video are the best evidence and it’s what people look for most when they are shopping for a new product or service. If you can’t throw up a gallery or make a short video then at least offer some case studies to show that your product works and some real, believable testimonials from clients who have used your products or services.
    • Tell Stories – Ever notice how great speakers start off by telling a story? It pulls you in and causes you to listen in for the rest of the presentation. Stories are how our brains remember things. That’s probably why Jesus used parables to answer questions. He knew that if he simply answered the questions the answers wouldn’t have had the same effect. Stories stick and to learn more, read Made to Stick by the Heath brothers.
    • Do Something Worth Sharing – This is one of the hardest and most profound steps to content marketing. Why? Because it means you have to actually be good at something, which requires work. Or you have to get out of your chair, go out into the world, and do something worth writing about. That’s not easy to do. That’s because it’s rare – and rare things are valuable. That’s why when people find them they want to share.

    Developing a Content/Market Fit

    Last year I adapted the customer development process for content marketing and developed a way to create content that achieves what I called content/market fit. This content development process allowed our content to be the answer to other people’s problems. When someone would search for the problem they’re having, my client’s solutions are displayed as the answer. This is how I am able to work in sync with Google’s goal of wanting to deliver the most relevant content to users seeking out answers to their problems.

    Content marketing is about writing solutions for your customer’s problems instead of just writing about your products. In 2012 I wrote, “It’s not enough to write content, you have to write what matters to people. Be impactful or risk irrelevance.” Today that’s more true than ever before. Even though I recently wrote on Twitter that content marketing hasn’t worked for this blog, I still believe that content marketing is the best way to attract customers when marketing online.

    Blog Posts about Content Marketing

    In 12 Ways to Make Money Online I wrote about how good content helps attract good ads, adds value to affiliate marketing posts, helps with direct sales, and can even be converted into a book, magazine, or television show. In Write What Matters to Your Customer I wrote about how content is more important than SEO. “Don’t get me wrong, SEO is not useless,” it’s just that good content will beat SEO hands-down every time. This is because Google wants to deliver the best results to it’s customers every time. In my 2012 trends report I wrote about how, “It’s not enough to be creating great content, you also have to temper when you share it.” In other words, don’t be noisy.

    When I wrote about how I started my web design business I wrote, “what mattered more [than SEO] was the creation of content…My business shifted away from SEO and web marketing (although still very important) and into content marketing, management, and analysis. Google is constantly changing it’s algorithm, but content will always remain king. The problem is that as content grows, it starts to need managed.” Later I wrote, “Managing larger back archives of web data used in content marketing. Over the course of time, things you might have wanted to happen in the past to every web post in WordPress may not always apply in the present or the future.”

    Indianapolis-Area Content Marketing

    I help business owners in the Indianapolis area write content for their websites, blogs, or email marketing newsletters that answers their customer’s problems leading to more organic traffic and less customer service issues. By spending more time finding out what problems your customers are having, you’ll spend less time in the customer creation process and more time making money in the company building process. How can I help you build your company? Contact me for a free one-hour consultation or business strategy session. I’ll even type up all of your ideas and send them to you in an email so you have them for posterity. Sound like fun?

  • Pebble Watch Applications for Dentists

    Pebble Watch has Hands-Free Applications for Dentists and Doctors

    While the Pebble Kickstarter campaign ended with much fanfare on May 18, 2012, as of March 18, 2013 you still can’t get a Pebble watch. But that’s not why I’m writing. I know the Pebble watch will eventually come out by either Pebble or some other company so I’m writing to explain how this watch could be helpful to doctors.

    Pebble Watch Notification AlertsAccording to their website, Pebble watches have “notifications, messages and alerts,” for:

    • Incoming Caller ID
    • Email (Gmail or any IMAP email account)
    • SMS on both Android and iPhones
    • iMessage (iOS only)
    • Calendar Alerts
    • Facebook Messages
    • Twitter
    • Weather Alerts
    • Silent vibrating alarm and timer

    It’s not just for active individuals or sly students, this is perfect for doctors and dentists who can’t stop to scrub off again after checking their phone or pager. This is similar to the reason Bluetooth technology was developed for Windows authentication – doctors no longer have to press CTRL+ALT+DEL and enter their username and password every time they walk up to a computer. As long as they have their Bluetooth-enabled device, the computer automatically logs them on. It uses a Bluetooth protocol for wireless sensor authentication that is HIPAA-compliant.

    Would Pebble watches be HIPAA-compliant? Possibly. A company called MyCareText is already counting on delivering their text messages to doctors wearing Pebble watches and Pebble seems to like their idea. I have to give credit to a dental assistant named Brandon Kollar who works for one of my clients, a local Indianapolis dentist. He wanted to invent a watch that would allow him to get his text messages and Caller ID notifications on a watch via Bluetooth. I didn’t realize this had already been done until I re-watched the video on 3D printing. When I sent him the link, he didn’t reply. He’s always coming up with new ideas so maybe one day he’ll hit on one he can run with – or maybe he can write an app for it.

    Pebble Watch SDK

    According to Mashable, the Pebble Watch software development kit (SDK) is coming out in April, 2013. A (SDK) is a set of software development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a certain software package or hardware platform. Mashable writes, “In this initial release, the SDK will be fairly limited; developers won’t yet have access to the accelerometer or communication between watchfaces and smartphones.” Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky said in a Kickstarter post, “I know we have communicated very poorly to developers up until this point, but we hope that you’ll understand how important it was for us and for Pebble as a platform to have the initial release of the hardware go well.” More than 40,000 Pebble watches have been built for it’s initial 70,000 backers and of those, approximately 30,000 have shipped leaving backers waiting over 6 months to get their watches. As one commenter on Hacker News (HN) stated, “From a startup perspective, Pebble is an example of how to ruin an opportunity to build a community around a product offer.” Pebble may have inadvertently created both a new market and an opportunity for Apple to strike.

    Apple Smart Watches

    Another HN post commenter writes, “One thing the Pebble has convinced me of is that smart watches will be a popular product category in the near future. There’s just too much potential, and even my very basic, very early-stage Pebble has already become one of my favorite gadgets.” In case you missed it, Pebble raised over 10 million dollars for a watch that didn’t even exist yet. Pebble wasn’t the first company to develop a smart watch. Sony has the MN2SW SmartWatch and the Ericsson LiveView and Motorola has the MOTOACTV Sports Watch. All three deliver text messages to your watch via Bluetooth from your smart phone, but let’s think for a second. Who is the 800-pound gorilla in the room of mobile devices? When the sleeping giant wakes up to a new revenue source to further tie their dominant platform of iPods, iPhones, and iPads together with a new iWatch, people will be saying “Pebble who?” Apparently this has already happened and Apple will be releasing a smart watch this year (2013). It looks like it will be more like a band with a flexible touchscreen display, but only time will tell.

  • Intermedia Office in the Cloud vs. Office 365

    A local Indianapolis dental office has decided not to update their local Exchange software and asked me to review hosted Exchange providers and online office productivity suites from Intermedia and Microsoft. They both are cloud-based and use Microsoft Office products, but each has slightly different features and benefits.

    • Intermedia’s “Office in the Cloud” boasts migration support and has less limitations than Office 365, but no productivity software – it’s only a communications platform
    • Office 365 has a plan that includes email, all of the communications offered by Intermedia (except hosted PBX), and offers cloud and desktop versions of Office software

    In order to help the dentist choose a possible plan, I needed to go over some of the features of Sharepoint (Microsoft’s Intranet software) and Lync (Microsoft’s chat software) to see how many bells and whistles he wanted. I boiled all the various choices down to these two plans, which really depended on whether or not he wanted the productivity software or just communications software:

    • Office 365’s E3 plan comes with email, Sharepoint, and desktop versions of Office 2010 for $20 per user per month. The only thing it doesn’t have is the Lync phone services.
    • Intermedia’s Professional plan which comes with migration support, hosted email, and Sharepoint, but no Office applications (online or off) for $12 per user per month.

    Here is a diagram I made up to help explain visually the differences between Intermedia Office in the Cloud™ and Office 365™:

    Intermedia vs Office 365

    Why Microsoft? Why Not Google?

    Most of my local Indianapolis clients use Google Apps for their email (Gmail) and Intranet sites (Google Sites), but this particular dental office is a Microsoft shop. It’s what they understand and they didn’t want the learning curve of learning something new or having to pay someone everytime they had a question. While it is true that you can use Outlook with Google Apps, that’s not for everybody. Outlook with Exchange offers many more things you can do with Outlook than Outlook with Google Apps. One example is email directory integration.

    Why the Cloud? Why Not Install Locally?

    Essentially the business owner is choosing to outsource all of their hardware costs, all of the hardware maintenance, and some of the software support to a managed service provider on the Internet. Instead of paying a large upfront cost for a new server, new software licenses, and the IT installation costs, the business owner is choosing to pay one low, predictable cost per month for a predictable service as a product. Even Dentrix has jumped on the cloud with their newest, Dentrix Ascend software, which runs in Chrome. If you’re considering a jump to cloud apps, consider reading 5 Ways to Compute Cloud Computing ROI.

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