Measuring Service Experiences with Richard Hanks at Mindshare
As a former EVP and Corporate Officer at Marriott, where he led the marketing strategy, sales, distribution, and revenue management efforts for Marriott’s 13 lodging brands and $18 billion in sales, Richard Hanks knows a thing or two about service. Today Hanks is the President of Mindshare Technologies, which is all about measuring and reporting on service experiences.
From mystery shopping to restaurant to call centers to retail to hospitality to travel, Mindshare Technologies provides an easy to deploy and customize ASP service measurement solution where executive teams can monitor and determine individual customer experiences. In addition to survey tools, Mindshare also provides alerts and triggers that notify management and action teams so they can take care of a poor experience quickly, before it becomes a problem for the organization.
Chris Johnson on Imaging’s Future in Medicine and Science
Chris R. Johnson directs the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute (SCI) at the University of Utah. Johnson was greatly influenced by several people responsible, in large part, for creating computer graphics as we know it today. Names like David Evans and Ivan Sutherland (Evans and Sutherland Computing), John Warnock (Adobe), Jim Kajiya (Microsoft), Ed Catmull (Pixar), and Nolan Bushnell (Atari) are all individuals with links to the University of Utah computer science programs.
Johnson talks about how imaging is transforming the medical and scientific industries, particularly to understand perhaps the most complex organism today: human life. With the hardware, software algorithms, and communications today, we’re entering what Johnson calls the Golden Age of medical and bioscience research. What is possible today, was only dreamed about just a few years ago. Through teamwork from computer scientists with medical experts, the result is breakthroughs in the way computers are being used to diagnosis conditions and apply medical treatments.
Mattress Science from MyComfort’s Tony Pearce
Tony Pearce, President and co-founder of MyComfort, talks with Kip Mecham about MyComfort’s path from startup to leader in the market for innovation-driven cushioning and mattress technology. As an inventor, engineer, researcher and entrepreneur, Pearce took his knowledge and experience from the aerospace industry and focused on the bed, the place where we all spend a full third of our lifetime.
MyComfort was founded in 2006 by Tony and Terry Pearce, partners in EdiZONE, a leading research and development firm for cushioning and other sleep products. EdiZONE has developed and patented many of the sleep technologies available at MyComfort including Intelli-Gel, FLOAM, and Multi-Cell. Their technologies are licensed by companies including Dr. Scholls, JanSport, and Nike, and can be found in products worldwide in such things as medical beds for critical care patients, consumer beds, pillows, wheelchair cushions, shoes, shoulder straps, toys, and much more.
ZigBee’s Benefits for Home Automation
Adding a home automation system to an existing home used to require tearing out drywall, installing thousands of feet of wire and surviving the battle of the mess and endless dust. John Yoon, VP of Marketing, and Wally Barnum, a technical lead at Control4, educate Brad Baldwin on the reasons ZigBee provides the right wireless standard for home automation. Aimed primarily at monitoring and control rather than data transfer, ZigBee filled an important role to interface wirelessly to lighting, climate, and other systems. Just like WiFi became a popular consumer brand to represent the IEEE 802.11 standard, ZigBee is the moniker for IEEE 802.15.4.
Home Automation Must Support Media PCs and Future Systems
It’s more common than ever to use purpose-built hardware and software solutions, (Xbox, Firewalls and VPN appliances, Google Search appliance, etc.). John Yoon, VP of Marketing, and Bill Harper, Director of Development at Control4, discuss the advantages to a home automation controller and accompanying lighting, climate, and media solutions. The PC is certainly an important component to the digital home. Including Media Center PCs, iPods, and Apple TVs and future systems through standards-based integration allows the home owner to deploy the best solution today and still support future components and digital accessories in the home tomorrow.
Changing a Service to a Product Company, Mark Andersen at RubberBall
RubberBall Productions is one of the longest-running independent stock photography studios. Mark Andersen, one of the founders, tells Brad Baldwin the story of moving from a an advertising photography service to a product company. While the Internet helped create new demand for still images, Andersen describes how the world demand for professional images is flattening. He also sees a big opportuny for professional video now that broadband offers a more interactive and richer user experience.
The Impact of Smart Lighting in a Home
Smart lighting makes that “old” light switch cool again. It also saves you money as you conserve power.
Ed Ryan and Scott Moulton at Control4 talk about how little everyday tasks can become conveniences with Smart Lighting. With Control4 “scenes,” you can wake-up to lights that come up gradually, have shades open to let in the sun, and have favorite wake-up music grow in volume. Keep kid’s from turning on lights in the middle of the day. High-tech switches easily integrate into your walls and support more commands. Plus the same remote you use to turn on your TV can also control your lights. Finally, you can even turn lights on or off with a web browser from a remote location.
Have you ever jumped in bed and then realized that an outside light is on but the switch is all the way downstairs? Or have you ever wanted to wow your friends in your home theater by having the lights dim gradually over a 10 second period? Find out how.
v100 Show: What’s missing in sales organizations at startups?
Mentor Associates founder Jack Carroll speaks with vSpring’s Dennis Wood about startup sales organizations. He answers questions such as:
- What is missing in most startup sales organizations?
- What to look for when hiring a sales executive?
- What are the most critical steps in the sales process?
Jack Carroll is the founder and principal of Mentor Associates, Inc. He brings more than 25 years of strategic sales planning and management experience to client assignments. The last eighteen of those years have been dedicated to technology and business-to-business (B2B) selling. He is a dynamic strategist, teacher, and motivator who has directly mentored over 5,000 people during his career. Since 1987, under the banner of Mentor Associates, Mr. Carroll and his staff have served more than 65 companies.
Robert Scoble on Living in a Google World
For those who braved the crazy weather drive, the Robert Scoble keynote at SlopeCast was a real treat. Living in a Google World is something we all must do in today’s world. Technology is picking up the pace and information flow isn’t slowing down.
Robert walked us through how he starts his day and how he keeps abreast of the news and the buzz of the blogosphere. He makes recommendations to those business who have not engaged in social media. He answers questions about how to get started and what to do next.
Great Time at SlopeCast with Robert Scoble
Great day today at the SlopeCast with Robert Scoble, the Scobleizer. Robert gave a good preso on Living in a Google world. It was cool to see how he starts his day and determines where the hot news is coming from. He also discussed how Social Media and blogs are changing the way customers interact with their customers and prospects. Today the social media network provides a huge number of brand impressions (good or bad) for a company.
Robert reinforced how important it is to “listen” to the community. He suggested subscribing to a Google Alert for your company or product and add “blog” to the search so information comes to you and you see what people are saying. Google’s new Blog search (focused search inside the blogosphere), Technorati, and Digg were highlighted.
RSS and RSS News Readers like Google Reader were highlighted as a way to get focused information in a simple view (also with ability to post to your blog). More importantaly, Robert talked about how RSS feeds can provide a stream of content to your customers or interested parties. Services like Feedburner offer distribution, tracking, and reporting services and help you get started quickly.
Great turn out, especially considering commuting this morning was a real pain with a big snow fall from 6:00 - 9:00 AM.
Cafe Trio food was great too.
Thanks Robert!
Special thanks to two sponsors who provided cool give-aways.
Rick Alden and Jay Dutton from Skullcandy offered three groovy pairs of headphones with their iLink technology and camo print. Congrats to Jay Burke from Solitude Mtn Resort and Barbara Dorris from Trustworks.
Phillip Chipping and Robert Pedersen from ShieldZone offered two InvisibleShields to product a favorite gadget without adding the bulk and UGLY factor. Congrats to Alex Koritz from Sprout Marketing and Russ Wilding from Footnote.com.
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