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Innovation at Hand

10-nintendo-3ds-xlAn on-the-go society demands on-the-go technology, and the array of smartphones, tablets, wristband health sensors, and portable game systems only continues to expand as the major players compete for their share of a growing pie. In its annual look at some of the hottest tech items available, BusinessWest focuses on those mobile devices, which are connecting more Americans than ever, 24/7, to bottomless online resources and, sometimes, to each other.

If it seems like everyone’s on their smartphone these days, well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.

But not by much.

According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted last November, 77% of Americans (77%) now own a smartphone, with lower-income Americans and those ages 50 and older exhibiting a sharp uptick in ownership over the previous year. Among younger adults, ages 18 to 29, the figure soars to 92%.

The 2017 results won’t be available until later this year, though the percentage is expected to rise even higher, because, well, it’s been on an upward trend since 2011, when Pew first started conducting these surveys. That year, just 35% of Americans reported they owned a smartphone of some kind.

These numbers don’t include plain old cellphones (remember when they seemed like the pinnacle of communications technology?). If those devices are included, 95% of Americans can reach in their pocket to make a call.

But BusinessWest’s annual rundown of the hottest technology — which, this year, focuses on mobile devices — isn’t interested in what was hot a decade ago. Following are some the most buzzworthy new smartphones, tablets, wearable fitness devices, and handheld game consoles, according to tech media.

Smarter — and Bigger

We’ll start, as many lists do this season, with the Samsung Galaxy S8 ($749), which Gareth Beavis at Techradar calls “the best phone in the world for a few reasons, but none more so than the display: it makes every other handset on the market look positively antiquated.

The camera and screen quality are both excellent, he continues, and while the phone is pricey, it’s worth the cost. “With the screen, Samsung has managed to find some impressive innovation at a time when there’s very little to be found in smartphones.”

Eric Walters at Paste added that, while the Galaxy S8 isn’t perfect, it’s the best Samsung has ever made, and an easy frontrunner for phone of the year. “It not only pushes the company’s portfolio forward, but the entire industry with its elegant and futuristic design that prioritizes the display without bloating the size. It’s an impressive achievement of design and engineering, but the quality isn’t surface deep. The entire experience of using the S8 is a rich one.”

One of the hottest trends of the past few years has been a shift to ‘phablets,’ smartphones that boast a much larger screen size than their predecessors. The Google Pixel 2 XL ($849) “improves on the first in lots of ways, but mostly it just looks a whole heap better,” writes Max Parker at Trusted Reviews, praising the device’s modern display and large size in a package that fits the hand well.

“But it’s the software that really wins here,” he adds. “Google’s approach to Android is fantastic, and the Assistant is an AI that’s already better than Apple’s Siri. The camera is stunning, too. It’s a 12-megapixel sensor that takes stunning photos in all conditions, and it’s packed with portrait mode tricks, too.”

Apple continues to be a key player in this realm, too, of course, and while the iPhone 8 Plus ($799) isn’t a big change over last year’s model, it boasts some substantial advantages, notes Mark Spoonauer at Tom’s Guide, and may turn out to be the equal of the iPhone X, to be released in early November.

“The new iPhone supports wireless charging, and its dual rear cameras are dramatically improved,” he adds. “Coupled with Apple’s new crazy-powerful A11 Bionic chipset, those lenses deliver portrait lighting — a new mode that lets you manipulate the light in a scene before and after the fact. The iPhone 8 Plus also delivers excellent battery life, lasting more than 11 hours in our testing.”

For those who prefer full-size tablets, competition continues to be fierce in that realm, with Apple again drawing headlines with the iPad Pro ($599).

“With Apple’s fastest-ever mobile processor, the 10.5-inch iPad Pro is easily the best tablet out there right now,” says Lindsay Leedham in Lifewire, who praised its camera, speakers, 256 GB storage, and True Tone display. “The iPad Pro uses sensors to detect the light in whatever room it’s in to adjust the color temperature of the display to the ambient light. The effect makes the screen look more like paper, and is most noticeable when it’s turned off and the screen switches to a bright bluish light.”

Meanwhile, for those on a budget, the Amazon Fire HD 8 ($79) is the best sub-$100 tablet available, according to Sascha Regan at PC Magazine.

“While you shouldn’t expect to compete against the iPad at this price point, the Fire HD 8 fits the bill for media consumption and light gaming,” she writes, calling its battery life adequare but praising its dual-band wi-fi. “In several tests at different distances from our Netgear router, we often got almost double the speed on the HD 8 than on the Fire 7. That made a real difference when doing things like downloading comics.”

Health and Leisure

Wearable technology, which focuses on tracking health and wellness habits, continues to be popular, although Fitbit, far and away the dominant player in this market, may be reaching saturation in the U.S., while smaller competitors eat away at its global market share, according to International Data Corp.

Still, its new products continue to wow reviewers. “Guess what: Fitbit’s newest tracker is its best one yet,” raves CNET’s Dan Graziano about the Fitbit Alta HR ($149). “For me, it’s all about design. I’ve been wearing the Alta HR for almost a month and plan to continue wearing it even after this review. It’s comfortable to wear and doesn’t sacrifice any features, but what sold me was the seven-day battery life.”

For those looking to spend more, the Fitbit Surge ($249) is a satisfyingly sophisticated piece of machinery,” writes Jill Duffy at PC Magazine. “It not only tracks your steps and sleep, but also alerts you to incoming phone calls and text messages, keeps tabs on your heart rate with a built-in optical heart rate monitor, uses GPS to track outdoor activity, and has much more functionality, especially for runners.”

Looking over the rest of the field, Marko Maslakovic at Gadgets & Wearables finds plenty to like about the Garmin Vivosport ($199), which is waterproof, comes with built-in GPS and all-day stress tracking, and counts reps and sets in the gym.

Though it’s slim and fits snugly on the wrist, “Vivosport has some pretty decent specs under the hood,” he adds. “You’ll get everything you could possibly hope for 24/7 activity tracking, including detailed info on steps, calories, distance, heart rate, activity, floors, and sleep. The GPS makes for more precise distance, time, and pace tracking, along with route mapping for your runs. It will track your swims in the pool, too. This is probably Garmin’s best fitness band yet.”

For technology enthusiasts whose tastes favor gaming on the run over, well, running, the portable-console market continues to thrive, with the longtime market leader making some new waves this year with the Nintendo Switch ($299).

“You can use it as a stationary console with your TV or transform it into a portable gaming device in literally seconds. You will keep all the data and can continue your game on the go,” Slant notes. “Nintendo Switch is light and feels comfortable in hand. It doesn’t cause any wrist strain. It also has a kickstand that folds out from the back of the console, so you can put it on the table.”

The publication also praises its graphics and controllers, but notes that it can be hard to find, lacks long battery life, plays poorly in direct sunlight due to screen glare, and doesn’t boast a wide variety of popular games — yet.

Game variety is no issue for the Nintendo 3DS XL ($199), which boasts two large screens, glasses-free 3D, and some of the best video games available on a mobile console, according to Top Ten Reviews. On the downside, battery life is not ideal.

Still, “thanks to its backwards compatibility with DS games and its huge selection of classic and new games in the Nintendo eShop, the 3DS XL is the best handheld game console available,” the site continues. “The 3DS family has the best games on a mobile category, and the Nintendo 3DS XL is the best handheld console available.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

Human Touch

NetLogix President Marco Liquori

NetLogix President Marco Liquori

Information-technology solutions providers can easily get lost in a maze of technical jargon, but that’s the last thing Marco Liquori wants to throw at customers. Instead, the technicians at his 13-year-old company, NetLogix, are trained to communicate clearly with clients about their network needs — and then meet those needs, in the background, so businesses can focus on growth, not computer issues. A recent customer-satisfaction report suggests the Westfield-based firm is doing something right.

When Marco Liquori talks about how his IT company, NetLogix, sets itself apart, he doesn’t go right into technical jargon. In fact, he tries to avoid it.

“We have some business savvy; we’re a small business ourselves,” he told BusinessWest. “We take that knowledge to our clients, and, when we do talk to them, it’s not geek-speak, but business recommendations in plain English.”

That’s actually one of the points on a list he’s prepared called “10 Things We Do Better.” Some of them — delving into areas like network security, budgeting for IT services, and the difference between proactive maintenance and reactive response — get into the nitty-gritty of NetLogix’s services, but many are common-sense goals that wouldn’t be out of place in companies in myriad industries.

Take phone calls, for instance. “We answer our phones live and respond quickly,” he said, noting that callers will always get a human being, not a recording or voice mail, and those calls are followed up by a technician within the hour — actually, the average is 12 minutes.

Those touches are part of the reason why a third-party monitoring system, SmileBack, which tracks customer satisfaction for companies, reported that NetLogix scored a 99.4% favorable rating from clients in 2016 — the highest customer-satisfaction score it recorded last year.

netlogixbuilding

“That’s unheard-of in our industry; our competitors are unable to say that,” Liquori said. But it’s not a surprise, he added; it’s a goal the company works toward. “Our techs are incentivized to get high satisfaction scores; they’re compensated not on billable hours, but on efficiency and customer satisfaction.”

Of course, part of achieving high satisfaction scores is actually getting the job done, and this is where a shift in the company’s strategy several years ago has paid dividends and grown the Westfield-based firm — which Liquori describes as a network-management, cloud, and systems-technology integrator providing end-to-end solutions for clients — to a 12-employee operation, and why his plans to keep expanding the company look promising indeed.

Entrepreneurial Itch

Liquori had worked for several other computer and IT companies — “value-added resellers was what we called them back in the day” — but business wasn’t great in the years following the dot-com bust. In 2004, the firm he was working for decided to take his business in a different direction, focusing more on application development. In the transition, Liquori decided to set out on his own — even in that tough economic climate.

“I was on my own for a year, but we grew, slowly and steadily, and we’ve been growing ever since,” he told BusinessWest. “We were originally a break-fix service — when people had issues, they would call us, and we’d go out and fix them.”

During that time, he was developing a book of business focusing on a handful of industries in which NetLogix still specializes today, including insurance agencies, law firms, medical and dental practices, and professional services like accounting firms. But the business model needed tweaking.

We try to understand each client’s business need for technology and address it. We help them overcome challenges they may have with some new technology or new processes.”

“It was a more reactive model. As an issue occurred, we’d go out and fix the problem, and we’d bill for the time we worked,” he explained. “Over the past few years, we transitioned to a managed-services model that’s more proactive in nature. We’re constantly monitoring every system out there for our clients.”

That encompases everything from preventing cyberattacks and monitoring for malicious activity to installing Windows and third-party application updates to managing firewalls and developing disaster-recovery strategies.

“We try to understand each client’s business need for technology and address it,” he said. “We help them overcome challenges they may have with some new technology or new processes.”

Under the old system, the more hours NetLogix’s technicians worked, the more money the company made. But a managed-services model is a win-win for both sides on multiple levels, he explained. “With this, the overall objective is to make IT spending predictable for the client, which helps them them budget accurately. They pay a fee for unlimited support.”

That’s an advantage over many companies that hold fast to a more reactive model, he said, adding that clients like knowing exactly what they’ll be spending — no surprises — and can focus their energies outside the IT realm, on growing the core functions of their business.

defendingagainstcyberattacks

In fact, the fixed price, all-inclusive support plan includes a commitment to resolve any issues that arise in an expeditious manner. Since everything is included in one price, Liquori explained, NetLogix is highly motivated to use its time wisely and bring each situation to a successful completion — and clients aren’t nickel-and-dimed just at the time they need the most help.

“Our goal is to resolve issues as quickly as possible, and make sure their computers are back up fully and functioning normally as soon as possible,” he said.

But he kept coming back to the firm’s security-first approach. NetLogix’s first task is to evaluate a client’s network and explain any potential risks and exposures, and recommend adjustments to protect the network and client data — which is of massive importance for companies that store patient records or financial information, for example.

“With our full suite of multi-layered security in place, none of our clients were affected by the WannaCry ransomware attack — or any other ransomware,” Liquori said, referring to last month’s worldwide attack targeting computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, encrypting data and demanding ransom payments to free it. Within a day of the attack, more than 230,000 computers in 150 countries were affected.

“We keep all our engineers constantly trained in the latest technology that’s out there, and constantly go to security seminars and network-security training events,” he went on. “Security is the biggest thing, and we stay on top of it.”

Growth Pattern

At the heart of NetLogix’s services, though, is its strategic IT planning. Liquori said he considers himself a strategic partner with clients, listening first and offering solutions second.

“I really enjoy a challenging technical issue and being able to provide a solution that meets a business objective and saves the customer money by improving efficiencies and improving security,” he told BusinessWest. “Customers may be losing sleep over these things. I enjoy the fact that we can take that burden off them so they can focus on their business.”

Liquori said he’s certainly looking to grow beyond 12 employees, and geography isn’t the barrier it used to be in the IT world. “Most of what we do is remote, so we can work in almost any geographic area,” he explained, adding that the firm covers most of the Northeast. But face time is important, too.

“For our managed-services clients, we will engage with them proactively — quarterly or semiannually, depending on the size of the organization. We will sit with the business owner or office manager for strategic IT planning. We’ll talk about areas where they’re weak or vulnerable, get those adjusted and up to speed. It may be making sure they have a backup recovery solution, or a computer may be out of date, so we plan together for updating their computers to help them stay atop the curve.”

And sleep better at night.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

Banking on Breakthroughs

 

Three UMass Amherst campus research initiatives are among nine projects across the five-campus system that are sharing $735,000 in grants from the President’s Science & Technology (S&T) Initiatives Fund.

Announced by UMass President Marty Meehan, the projects showcase a range of cutting-edge faculty research being conducted across the UMass system, from enhancing clean-energy technologies to developing materials that can autonomously release drugs and precisely target tumors.

The Amherst campus projects include:

• The Center for Autonomous Chemistry, an initiative with UMass Lowell and UMass Medical School, and led by chemistry professor S. Thayumanvanan. The project will develop the molecular design fundamentals for autonomous chemical systems, inspired by the immune system. Fully developed, this will form the basis to develop materials that can autonomously release drugs in response to a specific trigger and precisely target tumors. The grant of $140,000 will be used to facilitate one or more proposed projects to federal research agencies.

• The UMass Unmanned Aerial System Research and Education Collaborative (UASREC), led by Michael Knodler of the UMass Transportation Center. A collaboration with UMass Dartmouth, UASREC is established to advance unmanned aerial systems, also known as drones, to advance interdisciplinary and collaborative research and education. With research already funded through the state Department of Transportation, $100,000 in S&T funds will help position UASREC to become the New England Transportation Center and develop other proposals to federal funding agencies.

• The Center for Smart and Connected Society (CS2), a project with UMass Medical School, is being led by Prashant Shenoy in Computer Science at UMass Amherst and David McManus in Cardiovascular Medicine at UMass Medical Center. The project, as part of the creation of the new interdisciplinary CS2, will focus on the advancement and application of smart and connected technologies. The smart-application domains include smart health and smart living, smart buildings and energy, smart and autonomous vehicles, and smart agriculture. The one-year, $25,000 S&T grant will advance the planning for CS2 and coordination with the medical school’s Center for Data Driven Discovery and HealthCare, which also received an S&T award.

Amherst campus researchers are also involved in another of the funded projects, the UMass MOVEment Research Center, which will explore the mechanics of movement and muscle function. Led by Matthew Gage of the UMass Lowell Chemistry department, the researchers will use the $25,000 grant to plan for a UMass system-wide research center for movement mechanics, focused on understanding movement in the aging population. Faculty from Lowell, Amherst, and the medical school will explore how to combine existing research strengths at all three campuses into a comprehensive program designed to approach research questions in the biomechanics of aging from a molecular to an organismal level.

“These funds empower our faculty, strengthen our research enterprise, and spur breakthroughs that boost the economy and improve lives,” Meehan said. “I’m proud to support our faculty while advancing our critical mission as a world-class public research university.”

Now in its 14th year, the S&T fund accelerates research activity across all five campuses, drives partnerships with state industry, and positions researchers to attract larger investments from external sources to expand the scope of their projects.

Since 2004, the fund has awarded nearly $12 million to faculty, helping to generate additional funding of more than $240 million in areas such as medical devices, nano-manufacturing, clinical and translational science, bio-manufacturing, data science, robotics, and personalized cancer therapy.

S&T awards have also helped to establish important research and development centers across the state, including the Center for Hierarchical Nanomanufacturing at UMass Amherst, the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy at UMass Boston, the Center for Scientific Computing and Data Visualization Research at UMass Dartmouth, the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center and New England Robotics and Validation & Experimentation Center at UMass Lowell, and the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science at UMass Medical Center.

“Since 2004, these grants have generated a tremendous return on investment to our campuses and to the Commonwealth, strengthening our engagement in key areas, including the life sciences, data science, climate science, and advanced manufacturing,” Meehan said. “This program underscores how critical a strong public research university is to the future of the state.”

The President’s Science and Technology Initiatives Fund is one of three sources of support that help advance the work of faculty members, along with the Creative Economy Initiatives Fund and the Technology Development Fund. u

Sections Technology

View to the Future

By Janet Lathrop

With a new cluster of specialized graphics processing units (GPUs) now installed, UMass Amherst is poised to attract the nation’s next crop of top Ph.D. students and researchers in such fields as artificial intelligence, computer vision, and natural-language processing, said Associate Professor Erik Learned-Miller of the College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS).

“GPUs are critical for modern computer-science research because they have such enormous computational power,” Learned-Miller said. “They can address extreme computational needs, sol­­ving problems 10 times faster than conventional processors, in days rather than months. They can run neural network algorithms that are prohibitively slow on lesser machines. Our new network of 400 GPUs is unusually large for an academic cluster.”

UMass Amherst’s new GPU cluster, housed at the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke, is the result of a five-year, $5 million grant to the campus from Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative last year. It represents a one-third match to a $15 million gift supporting data science and cybersecurity research from the MassMutual Foundation of Springfield.

Deep-learning research uses neural network algorithms to make sense of large data sets. The approach teaches computers through trial and error to categorize data, much as human brains do.

“Deep learning is a revolutionary approach to some of the hardest problems in machine reasoning, and is the ‘magic under the hood’ of many commercial products and services,” said Learned-Miller. “Google Translate, for example, produced more accurate and natural translations thanks to a novel deep-learning approach.”

Andrew McCallum, professor and founder of the Center for Data Science at UMass Amherst, added that “this is a transformational expansion of opportunity and represents a whole new era for the center and our college. Access to multi-GPU clusters of this scale and speed strengthens our position as a destination for deep-learning research and sets us apart among universities nationally.”

He noted that the campus currently has research projects that apply deep-learning techniques to computational ecology, face recognition, graphics, natural-language processing, and many other areas.

The state funds must be used for computing hardware at UMass Amherst, its Springfield Center for Cybersecurity and for terminals at Mount Holyoke College and the UMass Center in Boston, the researchers noted.

Learned-Miller says he and colleagues are now in the first year of the grant, during which about $2 million has been spent on two clusters: the GPU cluster dubbed ‘Gypsum’ and a smaller cluster of traditional CPU machines dubbed ‘Swarm II.’ Gypsum consists of 400 GPUs installed on 100 computer nodes, along with a storage system and a backup system. It is configured with a leading software package for deploying, monitoring, and managing such clusters.

Not only do the researchers hope the GPUs will accelerate deep-learning research and train a new generation of experts, but an important overall goal is to foster collaborations between UMass Amherst and industry. For example, if MassMutual data scientists design a practical problem with high computational needs, they can collaborate with sponsored UMass faculty and graduate students to solve it on the Gypsum cluster.

Janet Lathrop is associate news editor and science writer for the UMass Amherst Office of News & Media Relations.

Sections Technology

The Best Defense

By Sean Hogan

Hogan Technology recently announced it is educating small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) on password-protection policies to help safeguard their businesses from a variety of threats.

Sean Hogan

Sean Hogan

Password management has become increasingly important, with daily attacks from hackers specifically targeting SMBs. For example, some 6 million LinkedIn account passwords were compromised just few years ago, and the list of breaches has grown dramatically since. Anyone who has been using major social-media sites, like LinkedIn, may have received a notification forcing them to reset their passwords. This is the result of colossal breaches in Internet security, and Hogan Technology has been advising businesses on how to protect themselves.

As the Internet continues to expand in complexity, so do its vulnerabilities. In order for business owners to protect their organizations, they need to utilize best practices in password security. Here are some steps that business owners can take immediately.

1. Never use the same password twice. One of the most effective ways to prevent breaches is also the simplest: never use the same password for multiple accounts. Strong, unique passwords, with symbols, numbers, and capital letters are usually far more effective than anything else.

2. Enable two-step authentication and verification. This is one of the other simple ways a business can instantly upgrade the security of its entire network by simply passing a company policy. Two-step password authentication essentially means that, when a user logs into their account, they’ll be required to confirm that log-in attempt by replying to a text message or phone call. This best practice makes it much harder for hackers to impersonate the true account owner because it requires them to have access to multiple accounts before their hacking attempts can be effective.

3. Stay vigilant against phishing. Hackers have long relied on phishing, a common strategy in which a hacker attempts to defraud an online account holder of financial information by posing as a legitimate company. For example, a hacker will gain access to your account information by purchasing your e-mail and password on the black market, and then they will log into your e-mail and send a desperate note to one of your contacts, posing as you, something like, “John! My transmission just blew, and I’m stranded out here. My phone is about to die. Can you send me $2,000 to this account? I’ll pay you back as soon as I get into town.”

Users need to constantly remain vigilant against attacks like this because they are prevalent and have proven effective over the years. While these are a few proactive steps a company can take in the right direction, they are only a mere shadow of what is possible if they work with a true managed IT services provider. Hogan Technology partners with SMBs that need to secure a competitive advantage with advanced technology and want to remain focused on growing their business, instead of keeping up on the latest in online security.

Sean Hogan is president of Easthampton-based Hogan Technology, a business-technology company that specializes in increasing customer profitability and efficiency through the use of technology; (800) 929-5201; teamhogan.com

Sections Technology

Virtual Breakthrough

Dr. Glen Brooks

Dr. Glen Brooks demonstrates how patients can adjust specifications on a screen before viewing themselves with virtual-reality goggles.

Dr. Glen Brooks, who runs a cosmetic-surgery practice in Longmeadow, says he was initially “awed” by a virtual-reality device that allows breast-surgery patients, using 3D goggles, to view their own post-surgery bodies — before the actual surgery — in a virtual-reality space. He says Crixalix, as the technology is known, has helped ease patients’ anxieties, while assuring him they’re getting exactly what they want.

Dr. Glen Brooks understands that preparing for cosmetic surgery can be an anxious time, especially for women unsure of what the end result will look like. Take breast augmentation, for example.

“The biggest fear of the patient is that she’s going too big. But the biggest fear of the doctor is that I have to reoperate because she’s gone too small,” Brooks said, explaining that, while the fear of choosing too large an implant is a common concern, the patient typically discovers she had nothing to worry about.

Still, he added, “I don’t want to do a revision, and the patient wants to get it right the first time. A revision costs someone money, takes time, and has risks. If we can avoid a revision, that’s an excellent outcome.”

If only there were a way for a woman to see the end result, on her own body, before the surgery.

Now there is.

Five months ago, Brooks, who owns Aesthetic Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, P.C. in Longmeadow, started using Crisalix, a virtual-reality technology developed in Switzerland that allows patients, using 3D goggles, to view their own bodies — not just on a screen, but in a virtual space, as if they were looking down at themselves — exactly how they will look after the breast surgery.

“I was really awed when I watched a demonstration,” Brooks said of his first exposure to the device. “What it allows us to do is create a 3D image of someone’s chest. Then, we can image every single breast manufacturer, any size, any shape implant, and using 3D goggles, the patient can view herself from all angles.”

The result, he said, is a true ‘a-ha moment.’

“The first time they look down and see they have cleavage, they’re like, ‘oh my God.’ It’s an a-ha moment because they’re seeing themselves; it’s a real view of what they look like, not like in a mirror.”

Indeed, Crisalix markets itself as a way for doctors and patients to answer the common question, ‘how might I look after the procedure?’ The goal is to increase patient satisfaction and decrease anxiety, both during the consultation and post surgery.

brooksscreen1art

Crisalix markets itself as a leader in web-based, three-dimensional, virtual-reality simulations for plastic surgery and aesthetic procedures. The company is a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, a fast-growing life-science cluster, and the Institute of Surgical Technology and Biomechanics at the University of Bern.

“It gives the patient a chance to see herself,” Brooks said, “and know precisely what she’s going to look like afterward.”

First Steps

But first, the patient sees herself on a screen. Brooks scans her chest and uploads the image to a tablet, where he can help the woman decide on which implant manufacturer to use and which volume and shape to use. They can test out myriad options on the screen, rotating the image to see the change from multiple perspectives.

When both doctor and patient are comfortable with a particular option, the patient dons goggles and enters a 3D, virtual-reality world where she can view herself with the new breast size and shape, and either approve the specifications or go back to the tablet for something else.

Brooks told BusinessWest that breast augmentation, reduction, and reconstruction — Crisalix is effective on all three — are more science than art, a matter of delivering precisely what the patient is asking for. What the VR technology does is help the patient clearly communicate that decision.

“The patient predetermines beforehand what volume they want to have — ‘this is what I am, and this is what I want to be,’” he noted. “It’s a very different type of technological advance because so much of the surgery is objective, but showing patients their size in advance in this way is more powerful than a verbal discussion.

“Most of the other technological advances in this field tend to be things like lasers and non-surgical devices to either remove fat or tighten skin,” he went on. “This is more on the side of patient awareness of outcomes than the actual outcome. It’s the first device that helps on the awareness side so well. There are other imaging systems out there, but this is the first true VR system, and it’s so simple to use.”

The reasons women ask for augmentations varies greatly, Brooks said, but there are a few common categories: early-20-somethings whose breasts are mismatched in size; women in their late 30s or early 40s who want a “mommy makeover,” feeling they’ve lose some volume and gained some sag after having kids; and women of any age who feel more attractive or confident with a different look, to name a few.

“This gives them a really great education in what I need to correct,” he said, adding that the technology is just as effective with reconstructions, typically after mastectomies with cancer patients, in that it can formulate a completely symmetrical look to the patient’s specifications.

According to data from the American Cancer Society, breast cancer is the most common cancer among U.S. women after skin cancer, representing nearly one in three cases. Furthermore, the ACS notes, seven out of 10 women diagnosed with breast cancer who are candidates for breast reconstruction are not aware of their options. As a result, fewer than one in five American women who undergo a mastectomy go on to have breast reconstruction.

“Many women are able to get an immediate breast reconstruction performed at the same time as the mastectomy, but that option depends on what treatment is necessary after surgery,” Brooks said. “Patients with breast cancer have numerous options to help them restore a breast to near-normal shape, appearance, and size following mastectomy or lumpectomy.”

Seeing the Future

Crisalix is only the latest option to reach that goal, and Brooks said patients have been pleasantly surprised at what the virtual images tell them. The technology to convert 2D images to 3D virtual reality is currently being used on five continents.

Dr. Glen Brooks says he was “awed” the first time he used the Crisalix technology.

Dr. Glen Brooks says he was “awed” the first time he used the Crisalix technology.

“Months ago, they asked whether I would re-up next year for the software license, and I said ‘absolutely,’” he told BusinessWest. “It makes what I do so much more precise, putting together the right outcome by showing exactly what we’ll provide to patient. It’s absolutely a home run.”

And it’s far from the only potential use of VR in the surgical world. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on others, such as GE’s early-stage testing of technology that will allow a doctor wearing a Rift headset to take a virtual tour of a patient’s brain and perhaps determine how surgery might affect various parts of it, and pediatric surgeons at Stanford University Medical Center who have used a virtual-reality platform from EchoPixel, a California startup, to plan surgeries on newborns missing pulmonary arteries. Another promising use of VR may be in medical training, as universities that can’t afford to store cadavers for education may be able to rely on virtual reality instead.

Even in cosmetic surgery, Crisalix isn’t limited to breast surgeries; the company also touts its use for eyelids, faces, and other body parts, though Brooks says the impact on patients’ expectations isn’t as dramatic.

“For breast surgeries, it’s absolutely fantastic,” he said. “It’s a great feeling, seeing the change for themselves.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

Data Delivery

Pioneer Training President Don Lesser

Pioneer Training President Don Lesser

Don Lesser wasn’t planning on a career in computers, but the field found him through a series of opportunities that arose during the 1980s. Those became the basis for Pioneer Training, which, for more than a quarter-century, has helped companies in myriad fields navigate the ever-changing world of technology and make their operations more efficient.

The computer field was an accidental career for many people back in the 1980s, Don Lesser says, because it was so new. He counts himself as one of those who stumbled into it, and he’s grateful he did.

In 1977, Lesser earned a master of fine arts degree in fiction writing. While in the MFA course, he learned word processing, which was a boon to novel writers, who would previously edit their work and then spend two weeks retyping it. An interest in computing soon followed.

In the 1980s, he started doing corporate training and technical writing as part of the Pioneer Valley PC User Group, which he chaired for several years. As part of the group, he started teaching classes on how to use DOS word processors and other equipment. That led him to Valley Data, then a large tech company in the region, which asked him to teach computer classes.

That led to even broader opportunities, which he recognized, creating the company known today as Pioneer Training.

“Other companies weren’t happy about sending people to Valley Data for training, so we broke off and became a separate company,” Lesser said. “Everyone needed training back in those days; it was new to everyone. People didn’t even know not to press ‘enter’ at the end of every line.”

“Throughout the ’80s,” he went on, “I was using word processing, but I also got interested in programming. I asked the fateful question, ‘how does this all work?’ The answer was ‘zeroes and ones.’ But I needed to know more than that.”

In 1990, Lesser forged a partnership with two others and started offering computer classes in the Hampshire Mall in Hadley. In 1995, with a need to expand, the business moved to a suite of offices on Bobala Road in Holyoke. During these years, the company grew to seven employees and 20 consultants, and the outfit was conducting 12 to 16 classes a week.

“Once you do training for somebody, they tend to trust you,” he said, and companies began approaching Pioneer for other services, including database programming and automation. In fact, those areas of the business began to grow until, around 2003, they were outpacing the training aspect of the company. “By 2006, training had really fallen off, and programming had taken off. So we followed the market.”

The company no longer needed the large classroom space in Holyoke, so in 2008, Lesser and a smaller, core group of team members moved to their current, smaller space in Northampton, where they still conduct classes in Microsoft Access, Excel, Google Apps, PowerPoint, Windows 10, Word, and other software — but focus mainly on other services to clients.


List of Computer Network/IT Services in Western Mass.


These days, training is 30% of the business, and the rest is programming, he explained. “To be honest, most public classes don’t run frequently. But we do private classes; for example, a law firm will call us and say, ‘we need some training,’ and either we’ll go down there and set up computers in their conference room, or they’ll send people here.”

Today, Lesser, as company president works with three others — Mannie White, director of training; Graham Ridley, consultant and director of programming; and Deb Napier, consultant and programmer — to meet the ever-changing computer needs of a loyal client base. Although training is still in the name, the company does much more than that.

Breaking It Down

Take programming, for instance. “A lot of programming consists of automating tasks for departments … turning a two-day process into a 20-minute process, most of which is watching the computer work,” Lesser told BusinessWest.

“We’re smaller now, so we don’t need a lot of companies to keep going,” he said. “New clients come in, we figure out what they need, provide it, and add them to the fold. Most of our new opportunities are smaller companies in this area. And a lot of small companies are quite behind what the MassMutuals are doing. We’re bringing them up to speed; that’s where our bread and butter is.”

Some need more help than others, he added — even if they don’t think so. “A couple of companies are still in Word Perfect, and they prefer not to leave Word Perfect, and we have to accommodate them.”

Many small and medium-size companies, he explained, start out by tracking company data on Excel spreadsheets. As they grow and their operations become more complex, working with a web of spreadsheets can become unwieldy and time-consuming. So Pioneer Training helps clients move to Microsoft Access, which is a more robust data-management tool that also saves employees time.

Other services Pioneer provides might include designing a database from scratch that meets a company’s current needs; automating complicated tasks so they can be performed by non-technical users; creating custom forms for inputting data; creating standardized, yet flexible, custom reports for the most effective data display; updating an existing database to meet a company’s changing needs; creating processes for regular data imports and exports; and consolidating data for better data mining.

Clients include companies from a wide range of industries. Pioneer’s database projects, for example, include developing a process-router database for a national metals testing and finishing company, which tracks and organizes processing steps required for complex metal-plating work; and work for a local transport firm to consolidate several processes that manage its day-to-day operations into one Access database.

Meanwhile, examples of Pioneer’s office-automation clients include a regional bank in Western Mass., for which it automated the creation and printing of a certified letter form for bank letters; developed a set of macros to automate printing of letters from the bank to customers; and created a set of 42 separate charts to track loan categories. Meanwhile, for an international bioscience and lab reporting firm, Pioneer developed an automated process to extract data from lab reports, create charts based on the extracted data, and insert charts and data into a Word template for use in court proceedings. It also simplified the company’s billing by analyzing data and producing a number of reports summarizing data in various categories.

The team at Pioneer Training

The team at Pioneer Training, from left: Don Lesser, Deb Napier, Mannie White, and Graham Ridley.

As for its training arm, Pioneer maintains many repeat clients in a number of fields, from colleges to law firms to nonprofits. As one example, Western New England University wanted to offer staff the opportunity to upgrade their Word, Excel, and Outlook skills beyond the basics, so Lesser and his team designed a training program to meet the university’s goals, running a well-attended series of classes in all three applications.

On a national scale, Pioneer also developed online training courses for Pearson Education and reviewed the manuals for Microsoft Office 2000 and 2003, which involved testing every step in the book and flagging errors. “I feel like I’m one of four people in America who has written a formula for every function built into Excel,” Lesser said.

Lesser feels there’s more opportunity out there — “people still need training,” he said, “but fewer companies want to pay for it” — but the volume of work coming in keeps the four team members plenty busy, and he’s happy with the size of the business and the level of trust he has in White, Ridley, and Napier.

“We’ll tell you what works best for your company,” he said. “If people don’t feel like you’re holding them hostage, they’ll call when they need you, and they’ll be happy.”

Looking Back

Lately, Lesser has been producing training materials for Sanderson MacLeod, a brush manufacturer in Palmer.

“I started out doing corporate training, and now it’s coming full circle,” he told BusinessWest. “It’s technical, teaching someone how to use the machines to create the brushes. It’s not computers, not Microsoft Office-based, but they still need the training. I like to think of what I do as a spectrum, with pure training on one end and pure consulting on the other end, and I’m really happy to be anywhere along that line.”

Of the 50 people in that MFA program he took back in 1977, he said, maybe 20 are still writing fiction. Most of the others, like Lesser, wound up in far different fields, although he has continued to write, including a stint as a food columnist for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

“That was the beauty of the computer industry in the ’80s. You didn’t set out to be a computer person,” he said. “I think a lot of artists — musicians, writers — fell into it. There was a lot of overlap. I’ve noticed that programming is a lot like writing. The output is different, but it comes from the same place inside me. I’ll see a problem and envision the solution fully developed. The work is getting the pieces down to make sure they work.”

When they do, that’s his personal reward.

“I think of it as moral work, in that we’re doing good for people, and we’re making their lives easier and better. I don’t want to put down any other occupation, but it’s not a matter of figuring out how to get money from someone who doesn’t want to give it to you; it’s a matter of figuring out how to solve somebody’s problem. It’s satisfying.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

Something for Everyone

Smartphones rule the world — or, at least, their users’ lives — but they wouldn’t be of much use without apps. And those apps are legion, appealing to individuals’ desire to manage everything from finances to fitness, to continually learn new things and find new ways to have fun. Here’s a roundup of some of the most popular and well-reviewed apps available today.

Say you want to more effectively manage your finances. Or get in shape. Or brush up on your math skills. Or just relax and have a good time.

As the old iPhone commercials used to say, there’s an app for that. Many, many more than one, actually. And they’re usually free, and available on both the iOS and Android platforms.

For this year’s roundup of what’s hot in technology, BusinessWest checks in on what the tech press is saying about some of the most popular smartphone apps.

Financial App-raisals

personal-capitalFor starters, smartphones have put a world of personal finance in people’s hands. For example, Personal Capital offers simple charts and graphs of the user’s income, spending, and investment performance so they can easily monitor their finances.

“Track your investments by account, asset class, or individual security, see how your portfolio compares to major indices, and find the exact percentage of each asset class that’s in your portfolio,” Investopedia explains. “A 401(k) fee analyzer and mutual-fund fee calculator show if you’re paying too much in fees. The Investment Checkup feature analyzes your portfolio and shows how much you stand to gain with a few changes.”

mintBusiness Insider reports that Intuit’s Mint gives users a real-time look into all their finances, from bank accounts and credit cards to student loans and 401(k) accounts. “It automatically tracks your spending, categorizes it, and alerts you when/if you approach your budget limit. You can even ask for custom savings tips within the app,” the publication notes. “Everything is shown in simple, intuitive graphs and charts, making it one of the most popular personal-finance apps in the world.”

goodbudgetMeanwhile, Business Insider also recommends GoodBudget, an app that brings the envelope-budgeting method into the smartphone. Users create ‘envelopes’ for each of their budget categories, such as groceries, transportation, and shopping, and pre-determine how much they want to allocate in each envelope. They can then record and track how much they’re spending from each envelope. “It may not be as sophisticated as some of the other apps, but Goodbudget offers a simple way to stick to your budget and keep your spending really disciplined.”

prosper-dailyWhat about financial security? Investopedia recommends Prosper Daily, a personal-finance security service that tracks spending and protects credit cards from fraud and errors. Users can quickly view balances and recurring charges across all their credit and debit cards.

“Prosper Daily creates an alert if a suspicious charge is posted to your account, allows you to report the charge and/or contact the merchant, and will help you get your money back from fraudulent, erroneous, or unfair charges,” the publication notes. “Data-breach alerts let you know when a data breach has occurred at a place where you’ve shopped.”

Healthy App-roach

What if physical wellness tops one’s priority list. No fear — there are countless apps for that, too, teaching users how to shop, all the facts on what they’re eating, how to exercise, and how to stay committed to better habits.

myfitnesspalOne of the most popular nutrition apps is MyFitnessPal, which offers a wealth of tools for tracking what and how much the user eats, and how many calories they burn through activity, explains PC Magazine. “Of all the calorie counters I’ve used, MyFitnessPal is by far the easiest one to manage, and it comes with the largest database of foods and drinks. With the MyFitnessPal app, you can fastidiously watch what you eat 24/7, no matter where you are.”

The app’s database of more than 6 million foods makes it easy to track a diet, or the lack of one, added the online magazine Greatist. “Whether you’re trying to lose weight or put on muscle, the app helps determine the best things to eat and meet your goals.”

nike-training-clubBut nutrition is only part of the story when it comes to fitness — exercise is the other key discipline. But where to start? One possibility is the Nike+ Training Club, which takes the concept to the next level, offering more than 100 workouts to choose from. Users can also opt for a customized, full-body, four-week plan. “A trainer leads you through the routines, plus you get instructional video clips of the moves,” notes Fitness magazine. “Don’t like burpees? The updated app lets you swap drills you hate for ones you love.”

strava-running-and-cycling-gpsFor those who prefer being outdoors to get in shape, Strava Running and Cycling GPS monitors running or cycling routes via GPS, notes Digital Trends. “It also gamifies your cardio workout and pairs with leaderboards, achievements, and challenges, bringing a competitive spirit to your routine.”

jefitFor a more comprehensive training assistant, Men’s Fitness recommends Jefit, which creates personalized workout routines by tracking and analyzing the user’s workout progress and diligently recording weight, reps, and time.

“Its data-heavy approach will appeal to stat nerds and workout obsessives alike. Jefit also packs the most robust library of exercises and maneuvers,” the magazine notes, including how-to videos with more than 1,300 exercises making up scores of workouts. The free version is limited, with some bare-bones workout routines and basic activity logs, while paid options are ad-free and unlock more features.

App-lied Learning

khan-academyCountless popular apps focus on education and learning for all ages. For kids, the Children’s MD blog recommends Khan Academy, which collaborates with the U.S. Department of Education and myriad public and private educational institutions to provide a free, world-class education for anyone.

“It’s incredibly easy to use, there are no ads, and it’s appropriate for any school-aged child that knows how to read,” the blog reports, noting that Khan Academy started as a math-learning site but has expanded to many other subjects, from art history to economics. “My kids will spend hours looking at computer-science projects that other kids have shared and incorporating ideas into their own programs. The Khan platform combines educational videos with practice problems and project assignments.”

photomathMeanwhile, Photomath focuses on, well, math, and does it well, Digital Trends reports. “For high-school students who just need a bit more guidance on how to isolate ‘x’ in their algebra homework, Photomath is essentially your math buddy that can instantly solve and explain every answer. Simply snap a photo of the question (you can also write or type), and the app will break down the solution into separate steps with helpful play-by-play, so that you can apply the same principles to the rest of your homework.”

duolingoFor language learning, Children’s MD recommends Duolingo, which provides interactive foreign-language education in 15 languages so far. It’s appropriate for both kids and adults, and one independent study found that a person with no knowledge of Spanish would need about 34 hours with Duolingo to cover the material in the first college semester of Spanish classes.

“It’s simple, user-friendly, and never boring,” the blog notes. “Install the app on your phone and get your language lessons done while you are on the elevator or waiting in line.”

nasa-appLearning means expanding one’s horizons, of course, and where better to do that than the NASA App, which aggregates a wide range of NASA content. “Space enthusiasts and curious minds will love how it packs a wealth of news stories, features, images, video, and information about the space agency’s activities into this one mobile app,” PC Magazine reports.

App-ealing Entertainment

spotifyLet’s face it, though — smartphone users want apps that are just plain fun as well. For music enthusiasts, it’s hard to go wrong with Spotify. Wired notes that users can access a huge catalog of music for a small monthly fee, creating their own playlists or enjoying the app’s curated stations.

Seven years after its debut, Mashable adds, “Spotify has tons of competition in the online streaming space, but the app continues to be one of the best ways to listen to music and podcasts on demand and on the go.”

espn-score-centerSports fans might dig ESPN Score Center, which allows users to check game progress from more sports than most other apps, PC Magazine reports, including baseball, basketball, football, soccer, ice hockey, cricket, rugby, and more.

big-ovenFor those whose idea of fun is improving their cooking skills, plenty of apps do the job. Digital Trends recommends two. Big Oven features more than 250,000 recipes, and provides grocery lists based on them, lets users add your own, and import recipes from friends. “If you like (or want to like) to cook, start with Big Oven.”

yummlyBut the publication also raves about Yummly, which offers access to thousands of unique recipes. “On top of recipe and grocery-list functionality, Yummly takes user preferences into account to provide recipe recommendations, for when you just can’t decide what to eat.”

action-movie-fxFinally, if the kitchen doesn’t provide enough action and adventure, Mashable recommends downloading Action Movie, the brainchild of Star Wars and Star Trek director J.J. Abrams. The app allows anyone with an iPhone introduce movie-level special effects to their short videos.

“Not only is it incredibly easy to use and completely addictive, it’s a huge crowd pleaser,” the site notes. “Filming a Thanksgiving dinner where a virtual car can unexpectedly crash across the dinner table is guaranteed to inspire roaring laughter. Action Movie is free, but smartly uses in-app purchases to sell you additional effects, all as good as the originals. It’s the rare app that has few competitors and has maintained a high level of quality.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

Won’t Get Fooled Again?

The trouble with a phishing scam, Brendan Monahan says, is that only one person in an organization has to fall for it to put information at risk.

Or, in Baystate Health’s case, five.

“There is constantly a threat to businesses — including ours; we’re no different — from outside phishing attacks,” said Monahan, manager of Public Affairs, in the wake of a phishing attack in August that exposed the personal data of thousands of patients. “They’re often internationally based and geared toward handing over the keys to the kingdom to a hacker who, from what we understand from most experts, is looking for some financial gain out of it.”

That doesn’t seem to have occurred in this case, Baystate officials say, but the incident, which was made public late last month, is serious enough to trigger a re-examination of the system’s security protocols — and to serve as a warning to other employers in the region, both large and small.

Specifially, on Aug. 22, Baystate learned that a phishing e-mail had been sent to numerous Baystate employees that, if opened, allowed hackers to access those employees’ e-mail accounts.

Phishing is an electronic attempt to obtain sensitive information, such as passwords and credit-card information, by masquerading as a trustworthy source. Phishing e-mails may contain links to a site infected with malware, or directly load a program onto a computer that makes it contents accessible to the scammer. The Baystate scam e-mail was designed to look exactly like an internal memo to employees.

eric brown

eric brown

The best defense is to have a written information-security policy in place. Part of that is training in security awareness for employees. That way, employees can’t say, ‘I didn’t know,’ or ‘I don’t understand.’ That’s where the data risk is. It’s not from the outside; it’s from the inside, with mistakes, careless errors made by employees.”

Baystate’s investigation determined that five employees responded to the phishing e-mail, allowing the hackers to gain access to those employees’ e-mail accounts. Some of the e-mails in those accounts included patient information, including names and dates of birth, diagnoses and treatments received, medical record numbers, and, in some instances, health-insurance identification numbers. However, the e-mails did not contain Social Security numbers, credit-card numbers, or other financial information commonly used by scammers and identity thieves to enrich themselves.

“The [phishing] e-mail contained information that would be described as mimicking or mocking an internal Baystate Health HR memo. Five employees clicked on that e-mail, that immediately compromised their Outlook e-mail accounts into the hands of the perpetrator,” Monahan told BusinessWest. “Our computer research firm found exactly what was in the e-mails and what could have been looked at.”

The fact that no financial data was compromised may be small comfort for affected patients, that fact may mean the scammers have no real use for the information, and left it alone when they discovered they couldn’t profit. But that remains to be seen.

“In this case, there was no financial gain to be had from the patient information,” Monahan said. “That’s why we don’t know whether they went through the documents, but they could have.”

Still, he added, “while we have no evidence that any patient information has been taken or misused, we want to assure our patients that we take this incident very seriously.”

Next Steps

Upon discovering the breach, Baystate immediately took steps to secure the e-mail accounts and began an investigation, and also reported the incident to law enforcement.

But finding out what happened and trying to identify the perpetrators is only one step in the process of responding to the incident, Monahan said. Topping that list is ensuring — or at least trying to ensure — that such an incident won’t be repeated, and that begins with employee education and training regarding phishing e-mails and other scams.

“That was already going on beforehand, and I would say it’s being ramped up,” he explained, noting that employees can click a button at the top of any e-mail if they suspect it comes from a suspicious source, and someone from Baystate’s IT staff will come and determine if it’s dangerous or not. “We try and help them, to train them not to click on a suspicious e-mail, what a phishing attack looks like, and how to recognize it when it comes about.”

Frank Vincentelli

frank vincentelli

Unfortunately, they’re always a step ahead, and for those of us in the security industry, to prevent their success, we have to figure out what they’re doing. But if you present a soft, open belly, they’re going to dive right in.”

 

Frank Vincentelli, chief technology officer at Integrated IT Solutions in Westfield, and Eric Brown, the company’s vice president of Security Services, recently spoke about data security in the business world at the Western Mass. Business Expo, and discussed at length the critical role each employee plays in keeping a company safe.

“The best defense is to have a written information-security policy in place,” Brown said. “Part of that is training in security awareness for employees. That way, employees can’t say, ‘I didn’t know,’ or ‘I don’t understand.’ That’s where the data risk is. It’s not from the outside; it’s from the inside, with mistakes, careless errors made by employees.”

Vincentelli noted that a computer without access to the Internet or e-mail is generally safe, but not particularly useful, so businesses must strike a balance between safety and usability. “The very fact that you have access to these resources is giving the attackers a way into your system and your information.”

The entire security chain, in other words, is only as strong as its weakest link.

“Each individual user is an active part in the overall security strategy of the company,” he went on. “I’m sure all of us can think of a person in we work with who’s not necessarily technologically sophisticated, a person who usually gets a virus or is hit with CryptoLocker three or four times a year. That person is the best level of protection your organization has.”

Training every employee then, is critical, but companies must still maintain a robust firewall infrastructure, complete with early-detection capabilities to identify breaches when they occur. Still, Vincentelli said, “the most important component is the individual user.”

On Guard

Phishing scams are, unfortunately, more common in the healthcare realm than some might suspect. In recent years alone, according to data-risk consulting firm IDT911, a server operating under contract for DeKalb Health Medical Group in Indiana experienced a cyberattack that compromised more than 1,300 patient-information records; Baylor Regional Medical Center in Texas was hacked after doctors responded to phishing e-mails, exposing the patient information contained in their inboxes, including names, addresses, dates of birth, and even Social Security numbers; and Franciscan Health System in Washington was hacked in a phishing scheme that affected potentially 12,000 patients.

Norton, the developer of Internet security software, recommends several steps to avoid becoming the victim of phishing at work, including being wary of e-mails asking for confidential information; watching out for generic-looking requests for information, as fraudulent phishing e-mails are usually not personalized; and avoiding using links in an e-mail to connect to a website, instead opening a new browser window and typing the URL directly into the address bar.

“This is constantly a threat that we have to be wary of as employees, in part because we have a confidentiality policy and handle health information and other protected information,” Monahan told BusinessWest. “We have to be good stewards of that. There needs to be a sense of vigilance, and we have to enforce it. With almost 13,000 people who work here, there’s no one piece of software that will block this particular type of attack. It comes down to workforce training.”

The attacks can be subtle, and often play on human psychology — including people’s natural curiosity. Brown asked his audience at the Expo what they would do if they found a USB stick on the ground before answering his own question.

“Obviously, if you find a USB stick and don’t know who the owner is, you don’t want to touch it,” he said. “That is one way people get malware infections. If I wanted to infect a company, I’d take 30 USB sticks, put a virus on them, and toss them in a parking lot. I guarantee a half-dozen people would pick them up and stick them in their computers.”

Vincentelli called cybersecurity a cat-and-mouse affair, adding that “I’m not sure who’s who.” But it’s clear that hackers are constantly honing techniques to exploit security weaknesses, and when the target develops a defense, the hackers create a better weapon.

“Unfortunately, they’re always a step ahead, and for those of us in the security industry, to prevent their success, we have to figure out what they’re doing,” he said. “But if you present a soft, open belly, they’re going to dive right in.”

Baystate mailed letters to people who may have been affected on Oct. 21, who were directed to call a phone number staffed by an outside contractor hired by Baystate to walk patients through the process of learning if they had been victimized, Monahan said. In the meantime, the health system vowed to raise their level of awareness of threats that continue to evolve in sophistication.

“There are a million cyberthreats out there in the world, and this is one of them,” he said. “We are constantly working to train our workforce to recognize these threats and stay ahead of them — because the threat is always changing.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

Code Talkers

Blair Winans, president of Rhyme Digital

Blair Winans, president of Rhyme Digital

Blair Winans had forged a successful small business in website development when a larger company from across the state came calling. The acquisition that ensued brought more frustration than growth, and lasted just over a year. But it did generate lessons for Winans and his team, who regrouped in Easthampton, rebranded as Rhyme Digital, and refocused their efforts on not just designing websites, but helping clients understand how to get the biggest marketing bang for their money and time.

Blair Winans’ professional journey has weathered a few bumps. But those bumps have been valuable, he said, by teaching him what he and his Easthampton-based company, Rhyme Digital, do best.

When he launched his website-design firm in 2005, it was known as Winans Creative, and over the next several years, he built up a cadre of loyal clients and a small staff. Things were on the right track — he assumed.

That all changed three years ago, however, when Winans was approached by HB Agency, a much larger marketing firm in Boston, about a possible acquisition. The company lacked digital capabilities and wanted to offer such services to its clients, and they thought the expertise of Winans Creative would fit nicely into their business model. Winans agreed.

“We were excited about it, and a bit nervous,” he said, but he took the leap, acting as vice president of digital marketing in what was essentially HB’s Western Mass. satellite office. “But it brought all sorts of challenges. As a satellite office, it’s tough to merge cultures, which was a tough stumbling block. It also turned out that a lot of our existing clients didn’t fit in with this new company’s business model, and those clients were let go in favor of bigger ones. A lot of us were upset about it; that wasn’t part of the expectation.”

After a year, it was clear that the acquisition wasn’t bearing fruit for either side, and Winans was given the opportunity to take his firm back. And he did, in February 2015, bringing his five employees with him.

“It’s not a scenario where everyone looks back and says, ‘that was a fantastic time,’” he told BusinessWest. “But, in retrospect, we learned who we are and what we’re good at — and what we don’t want to be, which I think was a really helpful part of that process. Thankfully, we came out of it with all the same team; that’s one of the things that really helped us become stronger.”


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Taking the company back was also a chance to reassess the company’s direction, he went on. He and his employees wanted to stress the team aspect of the operation, hence the name change to Rhyme Digital. They also sensed increasing opportunity in not only building websites for companies, but teaching them how to turn their online presence into an effective marketing tool with measurable results.

“We were great at building and designing websites, and a lot of times clients think a website is the end-all, be-all,” Winans said. “But a lot of what we do revolves around helping people market themselves and build an online brand presence and sustain that over the long term. That’s where we shifted the focus — not just building these tools, but helping people understand the different pieces to it.”

That’s an issue today, he said, for companies that have websites and receive reports back from digital marketing firms that don’t really tell them anything. Rhyme’s goal is to track and clearly communicate not just a website’s hit count, but where the traffic is coming from, which campaigns potential customers are responding to, and what they’re doing on the website once they’ve arrived.

“We’ve had clients come to us saying, ‘I signed up for this digital marketing package, and I get reports of how many clicks are coming through my website, but not much more than that. Can you help me?’ We sit down and show them what’s happening once people come through. Once you make the connection, you can really put a dollar amount on the traffic coming onto your site.”

In other words, there’s a technical component to setting up a website and its features, but the end result has to bring return on investment, and ways to effectively measure it. “The question a client needs to ask,” he said, “is not ‘can you build me a website,’ but ‘I need my website to do x, y, and z.’ Or, ‘I need my website to be a lead-generating tool.’ We’re going to give you all the data to help your company continually improve what it’s doing online and in all its marketing.”

Come Back Home

After the failed acquisition, Winans said he was gratified — but perhaps not totally surprised — when Rhyme reached out to the clients it been forced to drop and was met warmly.

“The response was fantastic,” he told BusinessWest. “We’re really thankful we have a loyal client base; we’ve been working with some of them for more than 10 years. They see us as a partner and a resource. That always makes us feel good.”

The most successful relationships between Rhyme and its clients are the ones that have grown over time to the point where Winans and his team understand everything about the client and its marketing goals — both in online and traditional advertising.

Blair Winans

Blair Winans says constant advances in website coding, graphic design, and marketing strategy lends his work variety and keeps it fun.

Rhyme’s clients run the gamut from manufacturing to retail (both brick and mortar and purely online); from outdoor adventure sports (Zoar Outdoor is one of its longest-running clients) to publishing and nonprofits.

“We end up treating each client as its own specific case. We’re never going to be a one-size-fits-all solution,” Winans explained. “We do a bit of e-commerce development, and no e-commerce store does things the same way another one does; they have very specific differences and needs.”

Rhyme helps its clients consider the many possible facets of an online campaign — banner ads, search-engine optimization, Google AdWords, and, especially, landing pages with optimized content that gets visitors to take action, not just click on through. Then there are newer, cutting-edge tools such as radio-frequency identification and geofencing, which are used to target potential customers by location.

“The possibilities are enormous right now, better than they ever have been before, and we help clients set up these types of campaigns,” Winans said, noting that, for one of his clients, a publisher targeting first-year law students, he used geolocation to focus mobile pitches around college campuses. “One of the best things about digital marketing is that fluidity, and the ability to pivot based on the data that comes in.”

It’s also more cost-effective to test multiple messages digitally before deciding on the best one and launching it through larger, traditional-media campaigns, he went on. “We’re helping people make the most of their budgets, looking at how technology plays a role, and helping them figure out where they should be spending money.”

Websites weren’t Winans’ first career path, or even his second. He enrolled in college looking to be a lawyer, but then switched gears and transferred to the Boston University College of Communication to study advertising, marketing, and public relations. It was a field where he could put his graphic-art skills to good use, doing branding and design for a number of companies.

This was the late ’90s, a time when websites were first coming online, and he had a chance to play around with early marketing models, including working with Dunkin’ Donuts on its first website. “It’s kind of the equivalent to what’s happening now, with all these different technologies, seeing which ones are panning out,” he said. “I learned a lot of different stuff very early on; actually, I taught myself how to do it.”

In addition to leading a team that now numbers seven, Winans characterizes his day-to-day work at Rhyme as half coding, half design, and appreciates the variety offered by both — and the challenge of keeping abreast of the latest developments in the world of dynamic websites.

“For my development team, every week there’s a new platform or technology or script or language they need to be aware of,” he told BusinessWest. “We don’t just want to sell our clients a bunch of tools, but the right set for what they’re trying to do. It puts a lot on our shoulders — but it’s fun. We love learning about different types of technologies and seeing what these capabilities are. It’s an ongoing process.”

What makes it work here is, we’re all interested in the same thing: to make our work the best it can be and push each other — and in the process have fun. In our business, you never know what kind of work you’ll get on any given day. You could be coding something one day, working on the checkout process for an e-commerce site another day.”

But one, he said, made easier by the closeness and longevity of his team. “Everyone here is excited about coming to work every day, excited about who they’re working with and what they’re doing for clients. We’ve been through some ups and downs as a team as part of the whole process, but we’ve built something we feel is more than just a business. That’s important.”

There’s the Rub

That’s not to say website design and marketing it’s sometimes stressful, Winans added, but the team at Rhyme — based out of an airy space in the Eastworks complex — has created an environment where everyone encourages each other and helps each other out, and nobody is afraid to step up and ask for help.

“What makes it work here is, we’re all interested in the same thing: to make our work the best it can be and push each other — and in the process have fun,” he said. “In our business, you never know what kind of work you’ll get on any given day. You could be coding something one day, working on the checkout process for an e-commerce site another day.”

The reward, he went on, is seeing the sites go live.

“There’s a pretty big sense of excitement when we look at all the projects we’ve done and hear the way our clients talk about them, when they come back and tell us, ‘we get nothing but praise for our site now.’ A couple of clients go back 10 years, and they’re on the fourth iteration of their website, and you see the transformation. We have archives of sites we’ve done, and it’s fun to see the progressions in them. When we can help businesses utilize their sites to their fullest capacity, that’s what really makes what we do worthwhile.”

In other words, Rhyme Digital is certainly not going to the dogs — unless you count Winans’ two furry friends, a yellow lab named Butters and a pug named Flora, who join him at work every day. The other employees are encouraged to bring their dogs occasionally as well.

“They provide some comic relief,” he said. “When things get stressful or we’re under a heavy deadline, and Butters is upside-down on the floor, wagging his tail hard, you realize we’re not doing brain surgery. Sure, you’re dealing with deadlines, but there’s always time for a belly rub.”

For someone who’s been coding websites going on two decades and still finds excitement in the details, it’s a healthy perspective.

“You get to learn something new every day here,” he said. “It’s a good spot to be in.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

Small Businesses: Embrace Big Data

By John Costello

John Costello

John Costello

The term ‘big data’ is wearing out its welcome.

From Silicon Valley to Madison Avenue, big data has been in the collective conscious of the business community for the better part of the new millennium. At this point, it has been relegated to buzzword status in the minds of many eye-rolling small-business owners. The inability to see how big data can actually make an impact on the bottom line has led many to dismiss it rather than embrace it.

However, big data isn’t a term that deserves the disdain associated with hollow boardroom jargon. It’s time for big data to earn back the reverence it deserves.

Whether by texting our friends, posting a video to Facebook, or buying a product online, we’re all creating tons of data. IBM has noted that 90% of the world’s data was created in just the past two years. IDC predicted that, by 2020, there will be more than 44 zetabytes of data in existence. That number falls into a category alongside ‘infinity’ and other quantities that are large beyond human comprehension.

This data is driving more innovation and ingenuity than at any point in history. Researchers are poised to use big data to enable monumental scientific and technological breakthroughs that will uncover details about pre-human existence and explore the possibilities of artificial intelligence. Projects that have their roots in the scientific community are using an unfathomable amount of data to fundamentally alter the course of humanity and science. Small-business leaders need to take note of the science community’s devotion to big data.

The first and only non-human Jeopardy! contestant exemplifies big data’s crossover from scientific research to truly impactful business application. IBM Watson is a technology platform that uses artificial intelligence to reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data. Most people think of data in the binary sense, but 80% of all data today is in the form of things like text, sounds, photos, and videos which computers could never easily read. IBM is using Watson to solve that problem and give researchers and businesses the ability to quickly extract insights, patterns, and relationships from this data. Its database consists of more than 200 million pages of documents taking up four terabytes of disk space. At one point, its database was home to a copy of Wikipedia in its entirety.

Watson has mastered big data and the necessary management of that data to search millions of documents to find thousands of possible answers, and redefine our understanding of the possibilities of artificial intelligence. Even if it yielded a couple of goofy incorrect responses on Jeopardy!

One key differentiator between the commercial and scientific approach to big data is that the scientific community has mastered the management of these unfathomably huge databases. But you don’t need to be an enormous enterprise with high-powered server farms and a staff full of STEM PhDs to make data work for you in the digital age. In fact, if you’re a small-business owner, you’ve probably already used the one tool that will help you embrace big data. You probably used it several times today.

Mary Shea, vice president of digital strategy at Springfield marketing agency GCAi, puts it simply: “the most powerful tool available to marketers is right at their fingertips: Google.” All that data that everyone is creating through their online habits is logged, categorized, and made accessible by Google. While it can’t tell you exactly who searched for what, it can aggregate data into highly targeted personas that can give marketers insight into what a specific segment of users tends to search for.

Google allows marketers to reach users based on their inferred interests and demographics. This is helping small businesses refine customer-acquisition strategies, pivot to new product offerings, and gain valuable competitive intelligence. Google even lets marketers advertise directly in its search platform. With all the data it has available, it enables a level of targeting and personalization that no billboard or 30-second TV spot could ever achieve.

It lets marketers and small businesses shift from a ‘spray and pray’ model of traditional advertising to reaching a precise buyer persona in a non-interruptive way that increases the likelihood of them making a purchasing decision. Google uses behavior and search history to categorize users as pet lovers, running enthusiasts, foodies, beach-bound travelers, political junkies, and more. Marketers are then able to use the platform to put the right ads in front of the right audience at the right time.

“While users browse websites, like JCPenney or Porter Airlines, Google stores an advertising cookie on the user’s browser to understand the types of pages that user is visiting,” Shea said. “For example, if a user views a lot of recipe pages or watches cooking videos, Google may put them in the foodie category and show them a more food-related ad.”

Terms like big data are used regularly in the media and in boardrooms, but small-business owners may not have realized how accessible data is and how much value they can extract from it. As more organizations learn to use data, it will be the most valuable currency in the coming years. Big data is truly one of the most significant and dynamic forces shaping the course of science, business, and humanity.

There’s no doubt that overexposure has caused the business world to grow numb to the idea of big data. But make no mistake, while big data as a descriptor is overused, big data as a practice is still vastly underrated by small-business owners and marketers — in other words, those who can benefit from it the most.

As an experienced public-relations professional working with global tech companies, John Costello has helped major brands and ambitious high-growth startups break into new markets worldwide with international launches, local market intelligence, and integrated marketing campaigns. In his current position as account executive at Boston-based Corporate Ink, he drives marketing and PR initiatives for B2B clients in enterprise IT, marketing automation, financial services, and supply-chain management; [email protected]

Sections Technology

Doing More with Less

By Steve Shaw

Steve Shaw

Steve Shaw

Now that we’ve begun the process of normalizing relations with our neighbors to the south, those of us in the IT world could learn a few things by talking with a Cuban auto mechanic.

Take a walk in Havana, and you’ll find dozens of pre-1960 automobiles looking shiny and new, but held together with duct tape and a tailpipe fashioned from a Cold War-era Soviet tank. For decades, Cuban mechanics have been forced by necessity to do more with less, compromising on features while focusing on efficient use of resources.

So what’s the tie to IT?

It’s no secret in just about every industry that seatbelts are being tightened. Increased government regulations, automation, the ‘Internet of things,’ and the ever-increasing threat posed by cybercriminals are putting downward pressure on IT departments to ‘make it work,’ but for less. IT budgets are leaking oil, and CIOs are finding it harder and harder to find the mechanic and the manual to fix it. The bottom line is that everyone is being asked to find ways to do more with less.

Here are a few ideas that may help.

“IT departments are inherently inefficient,” said Mike Feld, interim CTO at Baystate Health and CEO of consulting firm VertitechIT. “But if we simply looked at standardizing the tools we use, we could save time, money, and resources that would make even the most jaded bean counter sit up and take notice.”

Most large and mid-size businesses have literally hundreds of applications sitting on servers in data centers and cloud environments across their infrastructure.

The collection has grown organically over the years as software developers play the never-ending game of ‘can you top this?’ And while all may have their own unique qualities, many applications can perform many of the same functions (while we continue to use just a fraction of the features built into them). The result is more expense, more manpower needed to service them, and capital dependence to keep things current.

You may need to compromise on features, but reducing the number of vendors and making broader use of a smaller number of products can have a dramatic bottom-line impact. Feld suggests you “ask yourself if 95% of what I want from these 12 areas work with a couple of products, rather having a dozen different products fulfilling 95% of my needs.”

The standardization and weeding-out process can also have a trickle-down effect on personnel resources. More efficient programs and processes free up people to be redeployed to work on projects that have been neglected for lack of available time and manpower.

On the architecture side, standardizing computing, network, and storage on commodity hardware using software-defined methodologies will also offer up significant savings. Hyper-convergence makes your network more efficient (cutting storage costs in half by using virtual instead of traditional storage methods) and allowing for the elimination of personnel silos as teams of people dedicated to each area now work as one.  It also makes them more effective, reducing service provisioning and delivery time from days and weeks to, in some cases, just hours.

In Cuba, doing more with less is a way of life. There’s an IT lesson in there somewhere.

Steve Shaw, vice president of marketing & communications at Vertitech IT, has spent more than three decades in the marketing and communications industries; [email protected]

Sections Technology

Hard Data

BankingITdpLayersARTYoung people studying information technology in college, or IT professionals seeking a career change, don’t always think about the opportunities afforded by the banking industry. But perhaps they should — banks are increasingly clamoring for top IT talent to support their digital platforms, maintain network servers, and tackle thorny cybersecurity threats. The challenge is wooing these individuals to a career path they may never have considered.

Steven Lowell occasionally visits high-school career days and speaks with students, so he knows how young people perceive banking jobs.

Steven Lowell

Steven Lowell

“Everyone thinks of the bank as either the teller or the loan officer,” said Lowell, president of Monson Savings Bank. Which is why students with an aptitude for information technology (IT) typically don’t think of the financial world as a viable career choice.

But they should, he said.

“Technology has come to the forefront and is a huge part of banking,” he told BusinessWest. “There’s definitely a lot of potential there for people who might be interested in a career.”

Indeed, opportunities have risen for IT talent in the era of online and mobile platforms — both to build and grow those platforms and in the broad realm of cybersecurity and data protection, for starters.

“From a cybersecurity perspective, there’s really a big push right now to make sure we have that talent on staff. It’s critical,” said Joseph Zazzaro, senior vice president and chief information officer at PeoplesBank. “People want their banking data as safe as possible. That’s what we strive to do. We all want that convenience, but it comes with a challenge from a security perspective. We’re always concerned with how to make things safer, always monitoring things, and you need the right people on staff to do it.”

The question, then, is how to attract those ‘right people’ to a field that doesn’t necessarily have cachet with young IT talent.

Joseph Zazzaro

Joseph Zazzaro says bank mergers often pose opportunities to hire another bank’s IT talent if their role is being phased out.

“If you have a technical hotshot and there is an option of going to a more traditional financial services bank or to Google, that’s a pretty hard sell for a financial-services company,” Judy Pennington, director of human capital in the financial-services industry for Deloitte Consulting LLP, told Payment Source.

Meanwhile, Bruce Livesay, chief information officer at First Horizon National Corp., told American Banker that “the banking industry has gotten so much negative publicity through the past several years, it has made it more difficult to recruit people. We’re seeing fewer people feeling motivated to get into banking.”

Financial IT leaders offer plenty of reasons why they should change that way of thinking, however, starting with the fact that banks don’t start and end with the teller and loan officer.

Multiple Paths

Gary Urkevich, executive vice president, Information Technology & Project Management and Berkshire Bank, ticked off a number of areas where banks need strong IT talent, with those roles including project managers, business analysts, program managers, systems analysts, developers, report writers, infrastructure engineers, help-desk support technicians, desktop support technicians, and information-security analysts.

Gary Urkevich

Gary Urkevich

Business analysts are a good case study, he said, in the way some finance professionals span the IT and business worlds.

“Typically, BAs are fairly technical, but, more importantly, they have a keen understanding of the line of business that they support,” he explained. “So a BA that supports mortgage lending would be expected to be well-versed in mortgage lending originations, operations, and compliance. This would be similar for BAs supporting insurance, finance, or deposit operations. Many successful BAs have transitioned to IT from long careers on the banking-operations side.”

Meanwhile, Urkevich went on, program managers own the IT oversight of a particular line of business, such as retail lending. Infrastructure engineers ensure that the e-mail, network servers, circuits, and phone systems are properly sized and working properly. Help-desk support technicians handle calls from users who have questions or issues accessing the banking systems. And information-security analysts work to ensure that the bank’s network, customer data, and company data are protected from malicious intrusion.

In short, that’s a long list of roles with widely varied responsibilities, but they all require some level of IT expertise at a time when computer technology is more critical to the industry than ever before.

To hear Lowell tell it, the recent technological evolution in banking is a direct response to what customers crave: convenience.

“Everyone wants to their bank to be more convenient, and the way to do that is through technology,” he said. “We’ve got people accessing us through all kinds of devices and through all kinds of different networks. We need to be able to serve all those needs.”


 Click HERE for a chart of Computer Network IT Services in Western Mass.


Banks access IT talent to develop applications that are easy to use, and also to offer live support to customers who have issues accessing them, he noted. On the commercial side, they help businesses interact with the bank’s systems efficiently.

Of course, the more robust the digital platform, the greater the need for security, Lowell noted. “That has become such a huge issue. You cannot afford to have a breach in your financial system, so that’s getting a lot of emphasis right now. We’re constantly testing out the network to make sure we don’t have any openings, so people can’t get in and steal information. Cybersecurity issues are huge now.”

Urkevich agreed. “Cybersecurity has become a critical area of focus across many industries, including banking,” he told BusinessWest. “We are routinely investing in staff and systems to ensure that our network is protected.

Zazzaro said one key to attracting and retaining customers is offering competitive, easy-to-use products, and to maintain those products, IT staff are critical.

“We need to have the right personnel in place, supporting the infrastructure for customers on many channels, from digital channels to voice service, the call center. People want convenience, but they want to be able to talk to someone.”

At a time when digital channels are only expanding, though, banks often struggle to make their case to career seekers with a techie bent. One factor is that people see banks constantly merging and fear their career won’t be a secure one. Millennials are also known for seeking employers they believe in on a philosophical level, and banks don’t tend to occupy that ground in their psyche.

Which is why banks often wind up drawing talent from other banks.

“Most of us network to an unbelievable degree, so there’s a great opportunity for us when a merger occurs,” Zazzaro said. “I network with people all over New England, and I’ve seen employment positions filled by a person who lost their job, or their position changed, or they were able to find another great opportunity in the banking arena.”

Lowell agreed. “It’s difficult to find good people. We have a very experienced IT person who worked at another bank, and we were able to hire him because he lives in Monson, and it was a great move for him.”

In most cases, he added, strong tech skills are more important in a potential hire than financial experience, because banks are willing to provide plenty of internal training in their specific processes. “It’s very specific, so we know they’re not always going to come in with that knowledge, but it is something they can learn, and we provide opportunities to do that.”

By All Accounts

Considering the opportunities for skilled IT talent in banks, and the fact that continuous training is a given, Zazzaro asked simply, why not seek a job in banking?

“It’s cutting-edge,” he said. “A lot of things go on with banking, whether in house to support greater efficiencies or what’s happening in the back office; whether it’s customer-facing, bricks and mortar, or on the mobile side. All these things are extremely critical. If a young person is coming out of school, a bank can be a great opportunity to further their career and gain additional training — not just for greater efficiency for the bank, but to help build their careers, too.

In the end, Lowell said, IT talent ranks right up there with regulatory-compliance experts as critical 21st-century needs for financial institutions of all sizes.

“If someone was looking at a career,” he concluded, “I think they’d be well-advised to consider a bank.” u

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

Model Business

3DprintingDPart

3D printing is hardly a new development, but its applications have rapidly expanded over the past decade as companies use it to produce both inexpensive design prototypes and large runs of manufactured parts. Connecticut-based ACT Group has been at the forefront of this revolution regionally, selling and servicing 3D-printing equipment for a wide range of clients in myriad industries. Its success mirrors that of a technology that, clearly, is no longer flying under the radar.

 

When it comes to the capabilities and applications of 3D printing, Nick Gondek said, “the sky’s the limit.” Which is why he’s glad his company, ACT Group, has established a strong presence in that field.

Specifically, the firm — based in Cromwell, Conn. and formerly known as Advanced Copy Technologies — sells and services 3D printing equipment to a wide range of clients in fields as diverse as aerospace, medicine, and shoe manufacturing.

The company’s bread and butter, said Gondek, the company’s director of Additive Manufacturing and applications engineer, is a process called rapid prototyping, by which manufacturers can produce individual 3D models of potential products much more quickly and cost-effectively than previously possible.

Take, for example, ACT’s clients in shoe manufacturing, which include Timberland, New Balance, and Puma. Rapid prototyping using 3D printing — also known as additive manufacturing — can produce full-scale models of new designs, which can be easily modified numerous times at little cost, compared to making changes after manufacturing a large run.

Nick Gondek

Nick Gondek

“The technology has been around for some time, but flew under the radar,” said Gondek, whose parents, Greg and Cindi Gondek, purchased the company in 1999, when it focused solely on office-equipment supply. “Now it’s got everyone’s attention.”

They rebranded as ACT Group a couple of years ago to reflect a broadening in scope, including the company’s rise to prominence in the 3D-printing world.

“Five or six years ago, my father was traveling in Europe and was introduced to 3D printing,” Nick Gondek said. “After doing some research to better understand the clientele, he saw opportunity in this industry, on the service side of things.”

3D-printing technology allows users to create three-dimensional, solid objects using a computer-aided design (CAD) program. With a 3D printer, companies can now print a single part, or even complete product, in a matter of hours, when it used to take months. The technology can be used to create both precise, durable prototypes and final products for businesses of all sizes.

“We have a good customer base,” said Gondek, noting that ACT also services clients of 3D Systems, one of the nation’s premier 3D-printing companies, in the Northeast region.

The testimonials and success stories, as shared by Gondek with BusinessWest, are numerous. Daniel Copley, research and development manager at Parker Hannifin, which engineers products for industrial, hydraulic, and aerospace applications, said the company’s in-house 3D-printing capabilities reduced lead time for its prototypes as well as the number of iterations needed, and are saving some $250,000 a year in the cost of prototype parts.

Other clients have similar stories of efficiency and cost savings. Powermate, USA, a provider of power-supply-converting solutions, reports that prototype models of its products can be created in a half-day, with a 65% cost reduction over traditional production.

Meanwhile, John Reed, master prototype specialist at Black & Decker, noted that, “while a design may look good on the computer screen, there is really no substitute for actually holding something in your hand.”

Toby Ringdahl, computer aided design manager for Timberland, cited a dramatic reduction in prototype costs and turnaround time, resulting in more prototyping, better designs, and increased revenue, noting that 3D printing has succeeded in “compressing our design cycles, lowering our costs, and helping us produce better products for our customers.”

Expanding Scope

The 3D-printing process begins with a concept, which is digitally modeled using CAD software — in effect, creating a virtual blueprint of the object to be printed. The program then divides the object into digital cross-sections so the printer is able to build it layer by layer.

The manufacturer then chooses a material, which is sprayed, squeezed, or otherwise transferred onto a platform. The 3D printer makes passes over the platform, much like an inkjet printer, depositing very thin layers of material (each about one-tenth of a millimeter) atop each other to create the finished product.

ACT Group

ACT Group was formerly known as Advanced Copy Technologies, which focused solely on office equipment before expanding its scope, including its recent success with sales and service of 3D-printing equipment.

ACT first specialized in servicing this equipment for its client companies, but, not long after, saw opportunity in the sales of 3D printers, incorporating that end of the business as well.

Increasing numbers of manufacturers are turning to 3D printing, not only for prototyping, but for design, tooling, and delivery of parts and products. Cindi Gondek told Forbes that jewelers can use it to create new pieces, while museums can use it to reproduce rare items for study or display, just to name two applications that might not seem obvious at first.

3D printers can produce precision parts with impressive accuracy in a variety of materials, Nick Gondek said, including plastics, ceramics, wax, and metals.

Invisalign braces, manufactured by Align Technology, are a good example of a rapid-prototyping application most people have heard of, he went on. They are built using CT scanners and 3D printing techniques to fabricate a product that’s different for each user — to the tune of 17 million sets per year.

“Invisalign has a very unique production capacity. They have mastered customized production; every person’s braces are specific to that patient. They 3D print all the models and basically build a retainer over the custom-made molds,” he noted. Without the rapid prototyping allowed by 3D-printing technology, this process — and product — would be much more expensive and labor-intensive.

In fact, the broad field of medicine provides fertile soil for 3D printing, Gondek said, starting with the education and training of future doctors and other medical professionals.

“We have technologies that mimic the properties of human bone for pre-surgical practice, with students cutting bones, drilling bones … and we now have technology to mimic tissue as well, so we can cover them,” he explained.

The technology is also used for designing patient-specific braces and implants to mend broken bones and aid in surgery, Gondek added. “In the news, there’s a lot of talk about printing human tissue. No machine can print organs today, but that’s something that might become a possibility in five or 10 years.”

One ACT client is Maimonides Bone and Joint Center, which produces a 3D color bone model quickly and accurately from a CT scan. This 50% scale model helps doctors discuss medical issues with patients and assists with surgery practice sessions. “I found the 3D model invaluable in patient education, surgical planning, and physician training,” said the company’s Dr. Howard Goodman.

Meanwhile, Battelle Center for Mathematical Medicine developed a full-color 3D model of the F protein, which aided in the development of new perspectives on how respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) works, which promises to aid in vaccine research. “Even with prior access to stereo-3D monitors and professional graphics cards, nothing compares to a full-color, physical 3D model,” said Dr. William Ray, principal investigator and faculty member.

From the Ground Up

Additive manufacturing is also revolutionizing the architecture, engineering, and construction world, Gondek said, producing scale models of buildings faster and at lower cost than before, and allowing designers to make earlier decisions and reduce time to market.

Andrew Chary of Andrew Chary Architect PLLC, another ACT Group client, characterizes 3D printing as a natural outgrowth of building information modeling (BIM), which generates digital representations of buildings in the design phase. “BIM doesn’t reach its full persuasive potential on a computer screen,” he said. “The model comes to life when you hold a 3D print in your hands.”

The dominant material for prototyping is a liquid plastic that turns into a solid when exposed to UV light, Gondek explained. A ceramic material is typically used to mimic human bone, and any number of metals may be used when manufacturing industrial parts.

The move into 3D printing required some major shifts at ACT. The equipment involved in that realm is so different from the traditional office products the company sells that a dedicated team was established for 3D sales, service, and support. They were sent to MIT for professional education in the latest processes. “We couldn’t have their traditional 2D salespeople sell this equipment,” he explained. “The applications are too diverse.”

Thus, ACT Group continues to keep up with the latest 3D printing technology — a rapidly expanding field.

“We do our homework to a high extent so the customer fully understands the capacities as well as the limitations. We can’t be everything to everyone,” Gondek said. “But this is pushing the boundaries of what is possible.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

Easy Access

By JAMES DZIOBEK III and RYAN MARLING

 

Patients are looking for convenient ways to access healthcare services when they are unable to be physically present for a traditional office exam. Over the past couple of years, some physician practices across the country have started using telemedicine technologies in innovative ways to increase patients’ access to services.

A successfully implemented telemedicine service can increase access to care, and may also improve the operational efficiency of the practice and patient experience. Several factors are contributing to the spread of telemedicine, including a greater demand for convenient healthcare, improved technology to facilitate virtual visits, and the need for a focus on care coordination in many emerging payment models. Telemedicine may serve as a mechanism to help bridge the gap between patient demand and managing population health by providing improved access and convenient care.

While many interesting use cases exist, there have been a number of concerns raised about telemedicine. These include reimbursement, identifying appropriate patients for telemedicine visits, the ease of use of the technology, maintaining continuity of care, and concerns about providing care for patients across state lines. If you are thinking about implementing telemedicine in your practice, here are a few key considerations and best practices:

• Target your patient populations. Consider which patients in your practice may be candidates for use of the technology. Consider the clinical and demographic factors that may make video visits a practical solution.

• Be sure to designate a virtual visit champion. Having a clinical and administrative champion is important in developing your practice’s strategy for telemedicine. Champions would strategize and monitor the processes both administratively and clinically to ensure the healthcare needs of participating patients and physicians are met.

• Ensure a smooth virtual visit. Consider what the process and responsible person will be to ensure that requisite logistics are set up and a test run is completed prior to the virtual visit. Make sure that the patient is able to use the technology and that all systems are working properly in advance.

• Determine how virtual visits are incorporated into physician schedules. Will virtual visits be scheduled during a virtual-visit block, or will they be handled at certain points during the day? Advance consideration in this area may help with enhanced efficiencies for both virtual and in-person encounters.

Although it might not be perfect for all patients, telemedicine could help boost patient satisfaction and allow patients to be seen sooner during some routine follow-up visits. Telemedicine may also help physicians connect to patients in new ways outside of traditional care settings.

James Dziobek III is a research and data analyst at the Mass. Medical Society (MMS). Ryan Marling is an intern, Practice Solutions & Policy Research at the MMS. This article first appeared at massmed.org.

Sections Technology

Class Act

Andrew Anderlonis

Andrew Anderlonis says Rediker Software’s products are designed to require as little time or fuss as possible from their users.

As a chemistry teacher in the late ’70s, Rich Rediker was simply seeking a way to generate tardy notices more efficiently, using a computer which, by today’s standards, seems impossibly inadequate for … well, anything. But that humble machine became the foundation of what has evolved into an international leader in school administrative software, doing business in every state and 115 countries. Through four decades of innovation and growth, one goal has remained constant: to make life easier for teachers and administrators, so they, in turn, can spend more time with the kids.

 

The Commodore PET was a late-’70s computer with a tiny, calculator-like keyboard and a whopping 4K of RAM.

It was also the foundation on which Rich Rediker built a software company that today employs 125 people at its Hampden headquarters and around the world, and has grown to become an international leader in what’s known as administrative software for schools, with a presence in all 50 states and 115 countries.

“The company started before the Internet existed, before Windows, even before DOS,” said Andrew Anderlonis, Rediker’s son-in-law and the firm’s second-generation president. What did exist, though, back in 1980, was a need.

Specifically, as a chemistry teacher at Longmeadow High School, Rediker needed an easier way to track student tardies and generate notices. So, using the PET he had scraped up enough money to buy, he designed a program to do just that — and also helped the school’s secretary produce a daily bulletin faster than before.

“He kept working on it, tinkering with it, and it became useful to the school,” Anderlonis explained, to the point where he offered to sell his program to other schools, beginning with St. Mary’s High School in Westfield in 1981. After a couple of years dividing his time between teaching and broadening his tiny software business, he left LHS and dedicated himself full-time to what is now known as Rediker Software.

Two generations of Rediker leadership

Two generations of Rediker leadership: Rich and Gail Rediker (right) and Andrew and Amy Anderlonis.

At first, Rediker ran his business from the basement of a house in Hampden — a story with echoes of the way giants like Amazon and Microsoft were birthed. As he developed more sophisticated programs to run other administrative tasks, sales took off, and in 1998, he moved into the building at the center of Hampden that still houses the enterprise today — that is, after a needed expansion in 2006.

“As the software evolved, he converted it for DOS, converted it to Windows … now we’re tackling mobile-type things. It’s amazing,” Anderlonis said. “Not many technology companies have been around four decades.”

Because of that long history, he added, “we’re convinced that we were the first student-information system on a PC. There were mainframe systems, but not on a PC.”

Covering the Bases

Today, the company serves public, private, charter, and religious schools with administrative software. That’s a broad category Anderlonis said, one best explained by some of the company’s key products, including:

• Administrator’s Plus, which manages data on students and staff. Schools can use the system to track attendance, create report cards, manage discipline, and build student schedules. Teachers can use the integrated web gradebook, TeacherPlus, to calculate and enter grades. School administrators can create digital portfolios for each student and staff member, and use them to electronically store documents and class projects. The system allows schools to batch e-mail report cards and other documents to parents, eliminating the need for paper and postage. Families can log into the system from home to see their children’s grades as well as other important school information. Finally, teachers can maintain web pages for their classes as a learning resource;

• Admissions Plus Pro, an enrollment-management software program that streamlines the admissions and enrollment process, while reducing extra work and duplicate data entry. The system can help private schools increase the number of applications they receive by allowing parents to submit them online;

• Teacher Evaluator, a web-based application available as an app for iPad but also accessible with any web browser. The application helps schools schedule and complete teacher evaluations; and

• School Office Suite, a product that complements Administrator’s Plus and folds in other areas of school functions, including cafeteria, library, and school-nursing services, in addition to basics like applications, admissions, and academics.

Rich Rediker (center) with his staff

Rich Rediker (center) with his staff in Hampden, just some of the 125 employees based across the U.S.

“Our products cover anything that has to do with student data — attendance, report cards, grades, discipline, general demographic information, billing information, and more,” Anderlonis said. “The admissions product allows schools to customize the admissions process. Our goal is really to provide a complete product suite. When kids apply and enroll, they’re brought into the system, and their information can be shared with parents.”

The goal, he went on, is user convenience — specifically, as much automation, and as little time spent fussing with data, as possible.

“The end goal is for schools not to have to spend a lot of time managing data,” he told BusinessWest. “We’re building systems that are easy to use and easy to understand, and part of that hinges on great customer support.”

It’s an element Rediker has invested in, with an in-house call center in Hampden. In fact, 75% of the company is built around customer support and product development; half the firm’s employees are developers, tasked with creating new products and improving existing ones.

One sign of progress is the way the software has evolved beyond something only administrators used, to products that teachers and students interact with directly. “We’re approaching nearly 2 million students using portals, and close to 100,000 teachers; we’ve seen really substantial growth in the adoption and use of our portals.”

Since his arrival at the company four years ago — Anderlonis’ wife, Amy, is Rediker’s daughter and the firm’s public-relations manager, while Rich Rediker continues to act as CEO — he has made an effort to expand the ways in which Rediker interacts with customers, including delivering software through the cloud; partnering with Microsoft, Apple, and Google to open up new channels for its products; and finding new uses for its expertise.

“We’ve moved into products for mass notification, allowing schools to mix text, call, and e-mail notifications across the system,” he noted as one example. Another is a deeper commitment to designing school websites, an effort for which Rediker has partnered with Wild Apple Design Group in Wilbraham.

The bottom line, Anderlonis said, is that schools always have room for improvement in the way they incorporate technology. “Schools in general typically lag a little behind on the tech highway. They’re obviously constrained by what’s in the budget. But most schools are going to spend on classroom technology; we’re trying to provide software tools that enable them to be more constructive.”

The last two years have been an especially fruitful time, he added, when it comes to developing next-generation technology at Rediker. “We’ve looked at where we’ve had success and how we can continue that success and continue to grow. We have a very tight-knit family atmosphere here — we promote family and a great workplace culture — and make sure that, as a family business, we take care of our employees because, in the end, they take care of our schools.”

Next Generation

In short, Anderlonis said, he simply wants to make sure Rediker stays ahead of the technology curve and carry on an impressive record of growth.

“Rich has done an amazing job ensuring the company is profitable every year since the company was founded, and we continue to do that through product innovation,” he said. “My goal is really to set the company up for the next generation of management and success with these products, and to create a strategic vision going forward. With the products were introducing to the market, we’re focused on providing even more robust, powerful, and flexible tools for schools to utilize. We really feel we’re one of the top vendors in the U.S. with student-information systems, and we consider ourselves the market leader.”

As a preferred vendor for Massachusetts schools, Rediker software is employed in more than 80 districts and charter schools, but it has also forged a solid reputation in Catholic schools, recently winning a contract with the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C, one of many large dioceses the company boasts among its clients.

Public or private, Anderlonis said, “we want  our customers to feel comfortable choosing to partner with Rediker. We want schools to call us when they need help. Schools call us all the time, and we’re there to talk to them.”

In addition, the company hosts three week-long workshops annually, each one drawing up to 100 educators from across the U.S. and around the world. “They interact with staff, train on the software, and get to network with other administrators. There’s a really tight-knit community around our products, both domestically and internationally. It’s pretty neat.”

As part of an effort to stay on top of advancing technology — while helping to cultivate the next generation of software developers — Anderlonis launched a summer internship program that brings a handful of promising high-school and college students on board to work on real-world projects.

“They experience the full life cycle — they’ll develop a product all the way from an idea on the whiteboard to possible customer interaction,” he explained, drawing from the skills they’ve been learning in school. “It’s not just a superficial internship; there’s a lot of depth. We give them a lot of autonomy. We’re essentially giving students in the local community an opportunity to use their abilities on real-world applications, but at the same time, they’re helping us.”

The company also connects to the community through a program called Rediker Cares, a volunteer program that allows employees to volunteer at local organizations and events during company time. As a result, employees have made significant contributions to local organizations, particularly Link to Libraries, the regional literacy initiative that was given workspace at Rediker free of charge; Anderlonis sits on the nonprofit’s board.

“Our company is a primary sponsor of Link to Libraries; they’re a great organization,” he said. “That’s another way we can give back — by helping promote literacy. Our employees have a chance to volunteer there and other ways in the community as well.”

That commitment echoes, in a different way, Rediker’s mantra of giving teachers more time with students, and developing software that allows them to have that.

“Technology is such a foundation for everything today, including education,” Anderlonis told BusinessWest. “Walk into any classroom nowadays, and you’ll see incredible technology — computers, tablets, smartboard projects. That’s the hardware, but what’s behind it? Our goal is to be part of the software that can help schools run more efficiently and effectively.”

Still, he added, as the company continues to branch out and diversify, it will do so at a measured pace, as not to lose the personal touch Rich Rediker has emphasized from his Commodore days.

“We’re not the biggest company, and we’re not the most aggressive,” Anderlonis said, “but we’re passionate about what we do, and we take care of our customers.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

A Critical Skills Gap

CyberSecurityAmerican employers have realized the vital importance of cybersecurity — but that realization has created a near-term shortage of workers that may require long-term solutions.

Cybersecurity was once the province of defense contractors and government agencies, but in the third edition of its annual cybersecurity job-market analysis, Burning Glass found that hiring has boomed in industries like finance, healthcare, and retail.

A glance at the headlines is enough to explain why. In addition to the federal Office of Personnel Management, recent cyber breaches have hit major consumer companies like Chase and Target. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 2015 State of U.S. Cybercrime Survey, a record 79% of survey respondents said they detected a security incident in the past 12 months. Many incidents go undetected, however, so the real tally is probably much higher.

Yet, we are also seeing multiple signs that demand for these workers is outstripping supply. Job postings for cybersecurity openings have grown three times as fast as openings for IT jobs overall, and it takes companies longer to fill cybersecurity positions than other IT jobs. That’s bad for employers, but good news for cybersecurity workers, who can command an average salary premium of nearly $6,500 per year, or 9% more than other IT workers.

Or, put another way, there were nearly 50,000 postings for workers with a CISSP certification in 2014, the primary credential in cybersecurity work. That amounts to three-quarters of all the people who hold that certification in the U.S. — and presumably most of them already have jobs.

This is a gap that will take time to fill. The skills for some IT positions can be acquired with relatively little training, but cybersecurity isn’t one of them. For example, five years of experience are required to even apply for a CISSP certification. That doesn’t even consider the rising demand for experience in a specific industry, like finance or healthcare. This suggests that the shortage of cybersecurity workers is likely to persist, at least until the education and training system catches up.

Among the key trends in cybersecurity jobs:

• These jobs are in demand and growing across the economy. The professional-services, finance, and manufacturing/defense sectors have the highest demand for cybersecurity jobs. The fastest increases in demand for cybersecurity workers are in industries managing increasing volumes of consumer data, such as finance (+137% over the last five years), healthcare (+121%), and retail trade (+89%).

• Positions calling for financial skills or a security clearance are even harder to fill than other cybersecurity jobs. The hardest-to-fill cybersecurity jobs call for financial skills, such as accounting or knowledge of regulations associated with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, alongside traditional networking and IT security skills. Because finance and IT skills are rarely trained for together, there is a skills gap for workers who meet the requirements of the ‘hybrid jobs.’ Meanwhile, more than 10% of cybersecurity job postings advertise a security-clearance requirement. These jobs, on average, take 10% longer to fill than cybersecurity jobs without a security clearance.

• Cybersecurity positions are more likely to require certifications than other IT jobs. About one-third (35%) of cybersecurity jobs call for an industry certification, compared to 23% of IT jobs overall.

• Cybersecurity employers demand a highly educated, highly experienced workforce. Some 84% of cybersecurity postings specify at least a bachelor’s degree, and 83% require at least three years of experience. Because of the high education and experience requirements for these roles, skills gaps cannot easily be resolved though short-term solutions. Employers and training providers must work together to cultivate a talent pipeline for these critical roles.

• Geographically, cybersecurity jobs are concentrated in government and defense hubs, but are growing most quickly in secondary markets. On a per capita basis, the leading states are Washington D.C., Virginia, Maryland, and Colorado; all have high concentrations of jobs in the federal government and related contractors.

Burning Glass is a Boston-based firm that delivers job-market analytics that help employers, workers, and educators make data-driven decisions. Its full report on cybersecurity jobs is available online at burning-glass.com/research/cybersecurity.

Sections Technology

Growing Concerns

EpiCenter President Jeff Glaze

EpiCenter President Jeff Glaze

Jeff Glaze was happy running a successful family business, a manufacturing company that, at its peak, employed 120 people. But when the climate changed in that industry — at a time when he was becoming heavily involved in a business-consulting model known as enterprise resource planning (ERP) — Glaze decided to transition into that latter business full-time. He called his new enterprise EpiCenter, and, almost five years later, once again finds himself at the forefront of his field.

 

Jeff Glaze thought the second-generation manufacturing company he led in Westfield would survive a lot longer than it did, “but the rules changed.”

It’s a story with a happy ending, however — not that it’s anywhere close to ending. Instead, EpiCenter, the business-consulting company that emerged four years ago from his previous enterprise, is growing by some 20% per year, boasting a national and international reach.

“We were a contract manufacturer of metal nameplates, labels, and signs; 80% of our business was making nameplates for companies,” Glaze said of a family business called Decorated Products that his father launched in the 1950s and peaked in the 1990s with 120 employees at the Westfield plant.

“Frequently, our niche was items that had to be UL-approved, giving safety information. They weren’t just pretty; they had to be functional also, carrying a serial number and critical information about how to operate the equipment safely,” he explained, with national clients including Black & Decker, Singer, Craftsman, and Tappan Appliances.

“In 2007, we won the Pioneer Valley Business Excellence Award, modeled on the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award,” he went on. “We wanted to be the very best we could, to set the highest standards so our customers would be happy with us and know we were providing the best-quality products.”

But by then, the writing was already on the wall.

The turning point came in 1994, when President Clinton granted most-favored-nation status to China, opening up the Chinese market for American companies, which started moving to China and building factories and paying workers 5 cents an hour instead of $15, Glaze recalled.

“I’ll never forget the day Black & Decker called,” he said, noting that Decorated Products manufactured a stainless-steel gauge for a radial arm saw. “For 10 years, we were shipping 4,500 parts a week. In 2001, the Black & Decker guy called during lunchtime and said, ‘well, Mr. Glaze, it’s $4.15 from you, $2 from China. So, how much inventory do you have?’ And that was that. We were losing customers.”

However, a parallel story was emerging. Decorated had been working with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) provider that went out of business during the late 1990s. “Any large manufacturing facility has this type of system; it’s a necessity if you’re going to be efficient and meet customer requirements,” Glaze said.

An ERP system — essentially a suite of business-management software and consulting services that helps clients manage business functions ranging from IT to accounting to human resources —  is so critical, in fact, that Glaze and several of the failing provider’s other clients hired one of its employees to keep those functions afloat.

Eventually, Glaze became involved with Epicor, an international leader in ERP. “They had a great product and had grown over the years, and I wanted to make sure we partnered with someone who’d last a long time; I didn’t want the same thing to happen again.”

The EpiCenter team

The EpiCenter team includes about 25 local employees and dozens more scattered across the country.

Soon, he got involved in a local Epicor user group, a group of committed users who provide suggestions and feedback on service changes and enhancements. Later, he became president of Epicor’s New England user group, started attending national conferences, and ascended to president of a global user group in 2005, representing 20,000 users of the software around the globe.

Consulting for Epicor had become a major part of his business — so much that, in 2006, Glaze told BusinessWest, “the president of Epicor said, ‘why don’t you become a partner? We’ll give you some training, and you can do the same things you’re doing now, helping customers use the software, but we’ll pay you to do it.’”

A few years later, Decorated Products was no more, and EpiCenter was born.

Avoiding Disaster

There was, of course, the issue of all the employees that had worked at Decorated — for a long time, in many cases. The manufacturing business didn’t seem viable anymore, a sentiment Glaze’s children seconded and thirded.

“They said, ‘realistically, it’s not a great business model; we’re not really interested in continuing it.’”

Still, “nothing is more hurtful than laying people off,” he continued. “Fortunately, I had a friendly competitor in Stafford Springs, called Willington Nameplate. I said, ‘why don’t you buy my manufacturing company so my remaining employees have a place to go?’”

Willington agreed, and the vast majority of Glaze’s workers joined the Willington team, and EpiCenter emerged as a full-time ERP business — and a successful one, with about 60 employees scattered across the U.S; of 140 Epicor partners worldwide and 100 in the U.S., it ranks in the top five in overall size.

“A company might buy software from Epicor or someone else and ask us to implement it for them. We can sell to them as well and implement our expertise in all facets of running their business — accounting people, tech people, operations,” Glaze explained. “We try to become an ongoing resource for our customers, too. We’re their outside ERP firm.”

Enterprise resource planning is used by organizations to collect, store, manage, and interpret data from many business activities, including product planning, costs, service delivery, marketing and sales, inventory management, shipping … the list goes on, and ERP systems are highly adaptable to each client.

EpiCenter has some financial-services clients, but 80% of its customers are in manufacturing and distribution. “We have expertise in capacity planning and scheduling, job costing, and much more,” Glaze saide. “This is very important to all kinds of manufacturing companies.”

While some companies might opt to handle those functions internally with Quickbooks and other software, he continued, they often wind up with a hoghepodge of systems that don’t talk to each other, and they require human capital to enter information from one system to another.

An effective ERP solution, on the other hand, can cut overhead by 30% to 50% in certain cases, he went on. “Nobody has to re-enter information three or four times. As a result, you have better communication, reduce inventory, improve scheduling, improve profitability, keep overhead down … it really is a necessity. When you have a company that’s doing $10 or $20 million in sales, especially in the manufacturing world, it’s pretty hard to operate without that.”

Because the software is scalable, Glaze said, some startups will become partners, and the ERP expands as they do. “Those are the fun ones. It’s really great to see those success stories in Massachusetts. A lot of biotech companies we have as customers have certainly followed that model.”

Most EpiCenter clients are small to medium-sized businesses. Large, Fortune 500 companies may opt instead for platforms like Oracle and SAP. “Those systems are much larger and require a large, technical staff to keep them going. They do a great job, but they’re not appropriate for smaller companies.”

About 25 of EpiCenter’s employees work in Westfield, while the rest are spread out across the country, either in satellite offices in New Jersey, New Mexico, and Minnesota, or working from their homes, ready to travel where clients are.

“The limit on growth, for us, is finding qualified people. We need people with all these different backgrounds,” Glaze said. “We recruit nationally; it’s a very rigorous screening process and very vigorous training process. Basically, I need to add one or two consultants a month.

“Customers don’t want to train us in how to run their business, so the qualifications to be a consultant with us are pretty stringent,” he went on. “We have, in a few cases, hired people right out of school and brought them along with lower-level support work until they get enough experience to do consulting, but they’re much better off with a degree in business or engineering and five to 10 years experience using the EPR system, so they can hit the ground running. If we can’t find those people, we’ll certainly train.”

More Than Customers

Glaze was quick to stress that EpiCenter clients are more than customers. He told of one Worcester company whose IT official needed to donate a kidney to his son, so EpiCenter sent one of its own people there to do his job until he returned to work. “That’s the level of support we give. We feel very strongly that our customers are like our family, and we want to treat them right.”

That said, he concedes that, for a company doing $500 million annually in sales, EpiCenter is a bit of a secret in Western Mass.

“We work nationally and go where people ask us to go,” he told BusinessWest. “But we’re a great option for companies in Western Massachusetts.

“We’ve been in a tough economy, and while there are some bright spots, this region has lost a tremendous amount of manufacturing,” Glaze went on. “But there are some niche areas that are doing well, and that’s great; we’re serving those industries that are doing well — and we can make them that much more successful.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology

An IT Diet for 2016

By TERRY GROGAN

Terry Grogan

Terry Grogan

How come New Year’s resolutions always seem to center around dieting and getting in shape?

You spend your holiday dinner enjoying all of the spoils of the season and then try to talk yourself into a ‘lifestyle change’ once the ball drops.

It’s a lot like that around the old IT department, too. We’re all being asked to do more with less, economize personnel resources, and limit capital expenses. To put it another way, senior management is telling us to lose some weight without investing in an entirely new wardrobe.

But how did we get so fat?

Remember that tome on business success called Good to Great by Jim Collins? It’s a book that I try to make my bible, though I don’t always live up to it as well as I should. (Yes, it’s my annual New Year’s resolution!) The book suggests that a central theme of all truly great businesses and individuals is the ability to create annual goals and objectives. But in order to do that, I think you also have to take a look back at what you might want to change.

When I walk into companies for the first time, usually as part of an IT gap assessment, and ask, “when was the last time you looked at the things you should stop doing?” I’m often faced with blank stares and puzzled looks.

Any IT organization that’s been around for a while has accumulated, shall we say, a little tire around the midsection. The telltale signs are the processes and procedures “we’ve been doing for years,” especially if the IT staff has also been with the company for a while.

These processes and procedures were put in place (no one quite remembers when) because someone wanted a new type of report, a filter to keep out that ‘virus of the day,’ or a custom workflow to make it easier to put a new server online. However, once that new process, procedure, or deliverable was in place, most IT departments rarely looked back, moving on to the next task or crisis at hand.

The old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” became a rule to live by, and as the years went by, the old processes and procedures were carried forward. As a result, companies generate the same reports, build servers the same way, and approve or disapprove access or technology for the same reasons, even if doing so requires a large amount of work, major upgrades, or more money to support.

No one goes back and examines these things until a high-threshold pain point or sentinel event occurs (e.g. the process is no longer supported by a major upgrade of a product, a merger causes re-evaluation of a technology, etc.). When this happens, we’re often surprised to find that what we may have been doing for the last few years is either no longer necessary, is very inefficient, or isn’t useful to anyone.

We shouldn’t need a sentinel event to move us to action, but since ’tis the season, let’s resolve to review old processes and procedures the same way we review (or should review) policies: vowing to do it every year. You probably won’t hit all of them, but pick a few every 12 months and examine them.

Ask your staff for their opinions. It’s amazing the answers you get when you ask everyone to “tell me the three things in your job you’d stop doing or do differently, if you were able to make the rules.”

Experience suggests that the first few times you undertake this exercise, you’ll actually find things that you and your staff are doing that are of no value at all. Stopping them frees up resources and/or makes forward progress easier (look at Microsoft’s abandonment of Active X in the new Edge browser).

But even after you hit the low-hanging fruit, continuing to create a ‘stop-doing’ list annually will help you look at those new tasks, processes, and projects that maybe aren’t as important as others. It will help create a focus on the things you really should be doing and create a literal lifestyle change when it comes to adopting processes in the future.

In short, you start thinking about new things with a critical eye, asking, “should we even begin this?”

So, as you begin making your list and checking it twice, consider simply taking stock of what you already have in place. Shedding those extra data-storage pounds or slimming down your infrastructure may be as easy as just asking a few questions.

Happy new year.

Terry Grogan is a 17-year veteran of the business and healthcare IT industries and is chief information officer of Holyoke-based VertitechIT, one of the fastest-growing business and healthcare IT networking and consulting firms in the country; [email protected]

Sections Technology

Always Connected

Apple Watch OS2

Apple Watch OS2

An on-the-go society demands on-the-go technology, and the array of smartphones, wristband health sensors, and tablets only continues to expand as the major players compete for their share of a growing pie. In its annual look at some of the hottest tech items available, BusinessWest focuses this year on those mobile devices, which are connecting more Americans than ever, 24/7, to all the data they could possibly want.

In an increasingly connected world, mobile technology continues to advance in ways both predictable and surprising, with the final market potential still unclear.

Take the newest iteration, the ‘wearable tech.’ A recent Forbes study reported that 71% of 16- to 24-year-olds either use or want wearable tech, which includes the Apple Watch, the Fitbit, and the Microsoft Band. Those products are where BusinessWest begins its annual look at the most popular and best-reviewed technology available, with a focus this year on mobile devices.

Apple is banking on continuing demand by improving its Apple Watch OS2 ($339), which Digital Trends calls “a piece of wearable tech that feels friendly and has a little bit of quirky character about it. It’s not without its issues, but they’re not too bad. The effort to learn the interface feels worth it to us.”

CNET calls the product, which packs the apps of a smartphone into a small package that fits on the wrist, “a beautifully constructed, compact smartwatch. It’s feature-packed, with solid fitness software, hundreds of apps, and the ability to send and receive calls via an iPhone.” However, it continues, the battery doesn’t last much more than a day, and the interface can be confusing.

Still, Digital Trends notes, “the world of wearable tech has been crying out for a product that engages people — something that operates as a companion device to our phone, but also goes a step further. For Apple, that step was using it to connect people in unusual, fun ways.”


Go HERE for a chart of area telecom/voice/data providers


As Apple Insider explains, initial response to the Apple Watch has promoted competition in the marketplace from upstarts like Pebble, which is offering a new model starting at $250 — almost $100 cheaper than the Apple Watch — in addition to models above and below that price point.

Many consumers love wrist-worn devices for their health-tracking capabilities, a category currently dominated by Fitbit. “I think back to when fitness wearables first emerged — devices like the Fitbit — and wonder, what made them so great? Why did people get so excited?” CNET’s Scott Stein asks. “Was it really the fitness, or was it the idea of turning fitness-based into something fun?”

He noted that the devices counted steps like their pedometer predecessors, but made a game of it — hit a goal, get a reward; share progress with friends and compete. “Gamification, a catchphrase a few years ago, is exactly what these [devices] provided: they’re carrots on a stick to motivate exercise.”

Fitbit Charge HR

Fitbit Charge HR

That said, he likes what he sees in the Fitbit Charge HR ($139), which adds heart-rate tracking to the mix and syncs all data to the user’s smartphone. “The more expensive $250 Fitbit Surge does practically the same things, but adds a larger watch display and can track runs via standalone GPS.”

But, while $150 for the Fitbit Charge HR is a good price for a full-featured device, Stein adds, “in practice, something about the Charge HR feels a step short of exciting. It’s how Fitbit handles heart rate. It’s how it feels to wear. And, it’s how useful — or not — I found the addition of heart rate to be in my daily routine. It’s one of the best wrist-worn heart-rate trackers out there, but it’s not the complete slam-dunk fitness band I expected it to be. It is, however, the best Fitbit band currently available.”

Microsoft Band 2

Microsoft Band 2

Microsoft is a player in this field as well, and Yahoo’s David Pogue calls the just-released Microsoft Band 2 ($250) “a smartwatch with more sensors and fitness-monitoring capabilities than anything else you can buy,” from original features like a GPS antenna to track runs or bike rides, a heart-rate monitor, UV light detectors, and a skin-temperature sensor, to new additions including a barometer for measuring elevation (a bonus for hikers and climbers) — 11 sensors in all, in fact.

It’s not for everyone, however; Pogue declares the Band the winner for serious exercisers, but says the Fitbit Charge HR is better for the all others — those who aren’t hardcore about exercise but could benefit from gentle reminders and motivators.

Smartphones Everywhere

Of course, smartphones remain the go-to mobile device for most Americans, with 64% of all adults and a whopping 85% of the 18-29 age group among their users, according to the Pew Research Center.

PC Advisor notes that fierce competition in the smartphone market means there’s a quality device for everyone at just about every price point — and consumers are typically happiest with the operating systems they are comfortable with.

“Although there are others around, it’s best to stick with the big names, including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and potentially BlackBerry. If you’re already using one, then it might be best to stay in that camp — especially if you’ve invested time and money in its apps. However, it’s not difficult to switch, so you should consider them all.”

Design will come down to personal taste, the site adds, and most of the top smartphones now have a very thin and light chassis. “The best smartphones typically use premium materials like glass, aluminum, or even steel, and on this front you’re best off trying a phone out in the flesh to see whether it feels good for the size of your hand.”

Despite the greater competition, most of the tech press still places Apple’s iPhone and Samsung Galaxy atop their lists of best phones.

Samsung Galaxy S6

Samsung Galaxy S6

For example, TechRadar calls the Samsung Galaxy S6 ($499) “a brilliant phone that shows Samsung still has what it takes.” An improvement from the Galaxy S5, the latest edition boasts improved camera performance and audio quality, and the sharpest video display on the market.

In addition, “the design is finally something we’re pleased to hold in our hand, rather than the plastic cheapness of last year,” TechRadar notes, and “it’s actually extended its lead at the top thanks to some amazing price drops — so you can now get the best phone on the market for an incredibly low price these days. A no-brainer.”

PC Advisor piles on the praise as well, calling the Galaxy S6 the best Android phone of 2015. “It’s fast, it’s well built, it has a gorgeous screen, and the software isn’t overly intrusive. The fingerprint scanner is vastly improved, the heart-rate scanner a potential draw for some users, and the wireless- and fast charging welcome inclusions.”

But Apple’s iPhone 6S Plus ($499) tops many rankings as well. CNET praises the latest version’s improved speed, better camera, always-on Siri, pressure-sensitive display, longer battery life, and bigger, higher-resolution screen — all improvements over the 2014 model. In fact, the screen size has grown so much that some people might consider it too bulky. “The iPhone 6S Plus has a few key advantages that give it an edge for serious iPhone users, but its big body may not fit for a lot of people.”

iPhone 6S Plus

iPhone 6S Plus

Meanwhile, Phone Arena says it’s not surprising that the iPhone 6 is the world’s bestselling smartphone, citing the 3D Touch display and Live Photos as desireable improvements, as well as an improved system chip and better battery life.

“Put in simple words, the new iPhone has a much faster processor and memory. It also comes with a new, 12-megapixel camera that now is able to capture a more detailed images than before and records video in the trendy 4K resolution, plus it supports new slo-mo options. Add to this the rich iOS ecosystem that continues to secure the best apps and games first, and one starts to understand the huge appeal of the iPhone 6s.”

Still, Apple and Samsung have some competition in the market. PC Advisor offers praise for Sony’s Xperia Z5 ($349), which comes with an aesthetically improved rear cover and adds a fingerprint scanner, but keeps much of its previous design.

“Once again, the camera is great, but it’s tough competition out there, and arriving late in 2015 means rivals are now available for a decent chunk less,” the site explains. “Once the price drops, which it will, this will be a great option for those of you looking for a waterproof flagship with a Micro-SD card slot.”

A Bigger Canvas

Smartphones are far from the only tech battlefield, however. The tablet market continues to be hotly contested as well. According to TechRadar, Apple still tops the game with its iPad Air 2 ($599) — a remarkable improvement over even the “remarkable achievement” that was the original iPad Air.

iPad Air 2

iPad Air 2

“It’s even thinner and lighter than last time around, and to a noticeable extent. The screen is better, with more vibrant colors, it’s more powerful thanks to its A8X processor, and the battery life holds up just as well. It even benefits from Touch ID and Apple Pay, and while these features aren’t as exciting here as they are on phones, they’re still nice to have. In short, the iPad Air 2 really is the complete package, and while you can always find things to niggle about, there are no significant flaws.”

As always, however, Apple has competition. PC Magazine touts the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 ($399), calling it an improvement over its predecessor in every way, including a thin and light design, upgraded performance, and better-quality camera.

“Do tablets matter anymore?” the site asks? “Samsung would like you to think so. Despite releasing some very large phones recently, the company still believes there’s a home for tablets in a market crowded with enormous phablets. And Samsung’s latest offering, the Galaxy Tab S2, definitely makes the case that, yes, tablets are still very much relevant.”

It’s the same story told in many different ways — Apple continues to set the pace, but its main competitors keep closing the gap. That’s healthy for consumers, no matter which device they prefer to take on the go.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at  [email protected]

Sections Technology

How Come the Message So Often Gets Lost in Translation?

By STEVE SHAW

 

Steve Shaw

Steve Shaw

Most companies and organizations do an admirable job when it comes to communicating with employees. That rumored merger, those pending layoffs, a change in leadership, or implementation  of a new health plan are the classic reasons for reaching out and touching someone in the cubicle down the hall.

So, how come the message from the IT department often gets lost in translation?

Technology can be a scary thing, and oftentimes, it’s treated that way. The IT department is happy to be left alone to its bits and bytes, while the communications department says, “just let us know when we’re going to be down for maintenance or need to teach people how to use that new software.”

That way of thinking is no longer valid in today’s technology-driven economy.

According to the global professional services company Towers Watson, companies with highly effective internal communications had 47% higher total returns to shareholders versus companies with the least effective internal communications programs over the last five years.

A Gallup poll says 70% of U.S. employees are not engaged and that disengaged employees cost our economy $450 to $550 billion a year in lost productivity. The Work Foundation, a U.K.-based, nonprofit think tank, says organizations that increase practices related to engagement by just 10% increase profits by an average of $2,400 per employee per year. Do I have your attention now?

One of our healthcare clients, a mid-sized hospital system with 12,000 employees, is implementing a new hyper-converged infrastructure, totally revamping its approach to networking, data storage, and computing. This two-year effort comes at a time when hospitals, mandated by the federal government to adopt expensive electronic health record (EHR) systems, are asked to do more with fewer resources.

The new infrastructure will do that, cutting datacenter construction costs by millions and allowing the IT department to become faster and more efficient. They’ll even be able to monetize their new technology investments by offering services to the outside world. But that’s what’s in it for IT. What about the doctors, nurses, and administrators who just want to be able to access their work data from any device, anytime, from anywhere?

We recommend beginning the communications process by putting yourself in your customer’s head. They want the software they depend on to do their jobs to be available whenever they need it. They have little sympathy for outages, maintenance windows, and the availability of a technician to fix an issue when it arises. In most cases, they have little concern for operating systems, storage hardware and software, or data-center design.


Go HERE for a chart of area telecom/voice/data providers


In that case, IT communications to an organization should come down to answering three basic questions.

• What are you doing and why? Use metaphors and real-life examples to put the answer into an easily relatable context. Try something like this: “why are we implementing a new network infrastructure? Think about how much data we all produce, share, and store each year. If you printed it all out, the paper alone would fill an 80,000-seat football stadium. Now, think about the secure network needed to handle that information, the machines needed to store it safely, and the system needed to protect it all in the event of a natural disaster. That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

• How does the technology directly benefit the ability of people to do their jobs? Eliminate the jargon. The people who know the difference between ESX and Hyper-V will seek you out if they want to get technical. Your message? “Our new network will practically eliminate outages, support service times will improve dramatically, maintenance windows will go away, and if a piece of hardware fails, our backup kicks in immediately with virtually no interruption.” People generally don’t need to know how it works. They just want to know how it affects them. Resist the temptation to explain further.

• What do I need to do now? Be specific, but be reassuring. People customize their desktops and develop their own unique way of working. They also feel that, just when they finally get the handle on how to access the ‘E’ drive and navigate to where their data is stored, someone in IT decides to perform an upgrade that has them throwing a shoe at their computer screen. Sympathize. Produce easy-to-read checklists, develop logical implementation schedules, and communicate on a regular basis when things change. A single e-mail won’t do the trick.

The bottom line when it comes to communicating IT initiatives is this: you’re asking people to change (sometimes in a big way). There’s natural resistance to it, and it takes time. Don’t just tell them what, when, and why. How it will make their life easier is most important. Don’t be afraid to ask for input. You know what you want people to do. You just want to get them to think it was their idea.

You can’t communicate too much if the message is relevant and substantial. You can communicate too much if it’s overly technical and isn’t easy to internalize. Finally, choose your vehicle wisely. A one-time e-mail or fancy newsletter may find its way to the “I’ll read it later” file. Be creative. A mixture of written communication, live events, and interactive forums are critical for long-term buy-in.

Remember, IT is highly technical, but it’s not rocket science. Don’t confuse communicating the end result with a need to tell people how you got there.

Steve Shaw has spent more than three decades in the marketing and communications industries as a television reporter, production agency founder, and multi-media network executive. He is the vice president of Marketing and Communications for Holyoke-based VertitechIT, a business and healthcare IT networking and consulting firm; [email protected]

Sections Technology

Capturing Attention

Amy Scott, Eric Belliveau, and Rory Hurlburt

Amy Scott, Eric Belliveau, and Rory Hurlburt offer a next-generation model of marketing, expressed in their tagline, “Marketing Agency, Evolved.”

Amy Scott and her team at Wild Apple Design Group say technical expertise is a must when designing websites that engage customers, but so is an element of “surprise and delight.” The goal, she insists, is to create relationships with clients that are transformational, not transactional — and fun to boot.

The little critters are called Worry Eaters.

Their names are Betti, Bill, Flamm, Polli, Enno, Saggo and Schnulli, and more than 2.5 million of the plush characters, with zippered mouths that allegedly ‘eat’ a child’s worries when they are written down and fed to them, have already been sold in Europe.

“Let us carry your worries so you don’t have to,” they shout on their newly developed website, which includes a video in which a worry eater banishes a little girl’s fear that a monster is lurking under her bed.

The website launched earlier this summer, and purchases can be made on an e-commerce shopping cart, thanks to Wild Apple Design Group in Wilbraham, which was hired earlier this year to introduce the toy to the North American market by the Haywire Group, a Springfield-based game designer and manufacturer.

The result is not only endearing, it earned the company marketing awards from the Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts. Wild Apple was recently feted as a Silver winner for consumer-product website design in the Summit Creative Award competition for its work on the Worry Eaters microsite, and received a Summit Creative Bronze for website redesign for its work for Kino West Media, a cinematic videography company in Palmer. In addition, that website redesign earned Wild Apple a Silver Creative Award.

Overall, the firm is known for its unusual creativity, and founder Amy Scott says that, although clients don’t expect it, there is always an element of “surprise and delight” in their finished product.

“Our major goal is to create a relationship with our clients that is transformational, rather than transactional,” said the director of project management and business development. “We want to listen to them, learn about their goals, then surprise and delight them by exceeding their expectations.”

This stems from work done by Rory Hurlburt, Scott’s brother and the company’s creative lead, art developer, and senior designer.

“Clients usually have no idea that we will do something fun,” Hurlburt said. “But we’re a modern marketing agency, and these things make someone want to watch a video or talk about what they have seen.”

However, the lure of an attractive site has to be backed by technical expertise, and that’s where Eric Belliveau enters the picture.

“There are many considerations and elements that go into a website and digital marketing; for example, it requires science, analytics, and technology to get someone to add something to an e-commerce shopping cart, then complete the sale,” said Wild Apple’s director of operations, technology, and Internet marketing, who explained that Worry Eaters are sold at a number of retailers, and creating the e-store was an important piece of the development process.

“It had to be responsive, which means it was built so the different characters could be viewed on smartphones,” he told BusinessWest. “But this all takes place behind the scenes, and the user is completely unaware that the intersection of more than one technology is required.”

Amy Scott

Amy Scott says her company was one of the first in the area to design responsive websites, which work on multiple platforms.

A new site for LEAP Bookkeeping in West Springfield and Greenfield was just launched, and although it contains all the pertinent and necessary information potential clients need to know, there are also unexpected — nee, delightful — surprises: Bakers showing off rising dough, a panting dog, two people raising their fists and giving each other a high five, and a woman wearing a cape with the LEAP logo on it, who is standing on the edge of a building that overlooks a city skyline, which seems to suggest she could easily leap into those buildings to help them solve their bookkeeping problems.

Hurlburt says creating such a finished product is neither quick nor easy, and it requires not only technical acumen, but a complete understanding of the clients and their needs.

“I live, eat, and breathe the project I’m working on at any moment in time,” he noted. “I want to understand as many facets of the business or organization as I can, and also seek to learn who the client is, and how that personality can shine through the company or organization.

“But technology is behind everything we do; we’re experts at leveraging it and provide outstanding designs with a ‘wow’ factor,” he went on, adding that data is brought together into a visual design that represents the brand they are working on.

Scott said that’s important. “Almost every company has a website. But they often have an unfulfilled dream to convey their business digitally in a way that draws more prospects and tells their story.”

Talent Merger

Scott says she cut her teeth in marketing during a stint in the garment-manufacturing industry.

“I was the buyer, not the provider, but always felt there was so much room for improvement in leveraging the multitude of services required to drive successful marketing campaigns,” she said. “I was driven to create them.”

That drive compelled her to embark on a career change, and in time, her vision, energy, and success in graphic-design artistry inspired her to open Wild Apple Design in 2000, focusing on print marketing.

However, Scott occasionally collaborated with Belliveau. He began working in the field of web development in 2000, shortly after the dot-com crash, and eventually opened his own web-design and development company, which included consulting services.

Scott also called on her brother for help with a number of projects. Hurlburt was working as a freelancer and started his career with the idea of pursuing comic-book illustration, but soon found he enjoyed layout and design. “I spent 15 years designing for everything from web to print, which taught me that being well-equipped with information and strategy increases the value and viability of any well-designed art,” he said.

Although the trio had worked together on an occasional basis, their collaboration morphed into something much larger in 2009, after it became clear that the combination of their honed talents and expertise made them a unique team.

At the time, ABC decided to film an episode of the popular show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in Suffield, Conn.  Scott was hired to do the publicity, and after being told she needed to create a website, she contacted Hurlburt. Coincidentally, Belliveau got in touch with her and asked her to create a logo, explaining that he had a few clients serving as vendors for Extreme Makeover.

The trio ended up working together for ABC, and after overcoming a multitude of challenges, they decided to do another project together.

Eric Belliveau

Eric Belliveau says it requires science, analytics, and technology to get someone to add something to an e-commerce shopping cart, then complete the sale.

That happened in 2011 after Scott was awarded a contract by Rockville Bank to build a website for the institution. Although the project turned out to be larger than they expected, their success resulted in a major decision to work together on a permanent basis under Scott’s umbrella.

She rented space in Post Office Park in Wilbraham and was joined by Hurlburt and Belliveau, who left his business, then religiously began evaluating every available technology.

Today, he focuses on digital marketing and the complex mechanics involved with setting up and maintaining websites. Meanwhile, Hurlburt is responsible for the creative-design work, and Scott focuses on marketing.

It’s all come together nicely, but when they first joined forces, their new, combined venture was a gamble.

“We felt we could do better and more business together, but it was an investment that involved blood, sweat, and tears; when we moved into this building, we were not sure if it would pay off,” Hurlburt said. “At the time, our goal was simply to survive.”

Fast-forward to 2015, and the company has not only survived, it is thriving. Rows of awards line the walls, and a year ago, Wild Apple created the tagline “Marketing Agency — Evolved,” which is indicative not only of its success and the wide range of services it offers, but the risks it has taken, which includes a foray into the world of responsive websites.

“We were one of the first to adopt the technology. When mobile traffic started to increase, it only involved an avenue or two and was an innovative area,” Belliveau recalled, explaining that, four years ago, sites were built either for desktops or mobile devices and typically didn’t function for both.

“But today, it’s becoming standard; all sites need to be responsive and function on tablets, smartphones, desktop computers, Kindles, and tablets,” he said, noting that the smartphone is usually the first point of contact.

“Roughly 40% of a website’s traffic will be on a mobile or handheld device; it’s also the place where most people access their e-mail,” Belliveau continued, adding that responsive websites need to be tactile, which means they can be manipulated by swiping or touching the screen, then clicking on an option.

The firm’s entry into this arena resulted in a world of experience, and today Wild Apple is able to deal with the entire ecosystem of marketing, which can include a responsive website; e-mail; social media; print, TV, and radio advertising; and a logo, branding, and identity design.

Detailed Process

When the firm gets a new client, Scott conducts an in-depth interview to unearth its specific goals, needs, and vision for its products and services.

Once she has gathered all the information she needs, Hurlburt puts pencil to paper and begins sketching, and typically comes up with three or four ideas.

Rory Hurlburt

Rory Hurlburt takes pride in the creativity he brings to websites developed by Wild Apple Design Group.

“What he creates has to align with the client’s goals, have a ‘cool’ factor, and yield results, which means grabbing someone’s attention,” Scott explained. “First impressions are important, as the general rule is that you have between eight and 10 seconds to get someone’s attention.”

Since about 35% of their clients are schools, creating surprise and delight can mean showcasing their colors, mascot, or “whatever their pride and joy is, in a unique way,” Scott continued.

For example, she discovered that the mascot for Cross Schools in South Carolina was a stingray, but they weren’t using an image of one. So Hurlburt took that information and created a happy little sea creature which has been imprinted on the students’ uniforms as well as the school’s signs, website, and marketing materials.

However, Belliveau’s expertise is also critical to the development process. “I’m in the forefront of emerging technologies such as responsive mobile website design and deploying the next generation in content-management systems,” he said. “I keep the team up to speed with the latest and greatest technologies so they can articulate what’s new or, in some cases, what’s changed in the ever-evolving landscape of web-based software.”

This work is ongoing for many clients as well as those who come to Wild Apple for an initial visit. “They want our critical eye on their brand. It’s about how it will hold up in a mobile environment, which involves more than aesthetics,” Hurlburt said. “And that’s what makes us different: we have design, marketing, and technology well in hand.”

Thanks to that winning combination, the company’s clients are unlikely to need to unzip the mouth of a Worry Eater and feed it to banish their marketing fears.

Sections Technology

Data-center Migration

By GERRY GOSSELIN

Gerry Gosselin

Gerry Gosselin

“OK, twist to your left. No, your other left! … wait, sorry, you were right the first time. Now I’ll go higher. Stop, stop! Put her down for a moment.” And so it went until the couch finally squeezed through the front door.

This is how my team and I felt maneuvering a 500-pound UPS package off a short pickup truck, onto a loading dock, in the rain. “Next time we’ll check for a height difference — have someone with a big umbrella,” I noted.

Planning a data-center migration is one of the most time-consuming and underappreciated aspects of the job, and as those of us who have performed dozens of these exercises over the years know all too well, the planning can’t just wait until the last minute.

The Packet Pushers podcast (packetpushers.net) recently ran a wonderful 90-minute show on data-center migration. Guest Chris Church contributed an outstanding outline to the podcast’s show notes that brought so many of those simple but integral tasks into focus. Here is a collection of his (and our) 10 overlooked items that you might want to add to your data-center-migration checklist.

1. I can do this, right? Don’t let the inspector test the big red button after you’ve gone live in production. If you just built your own datacenter, get your permits and inspections scheduled far ahead of time. Municipal inspectors operate at 56k-modem speed.

2. Put your print on it. If you’re moving into a high-tech, collocated facility, make sure everyone has proper access to the data center. This may be as simple as the correct name on a list, or as advanced as biometrics. Packet Pushers even relayed a story of their moving truck breaking down and the new truck not being allowed up to the data center’s loading dock because it didn’t match the original make and model.

3. Don’t touch that.  Single-phase, 3-phase, 220, 110. The right time to learn what that means is before you hear a pop (ask me how I know). Make sure you humbly chat with facilities folks about power.

4. More inter-tubes. If you can, order new circuits for your new data center and pay the extra cost (rather than cutting over from your old data center to the new during the move). This gives you an opportunity to test and configure well in advance. As a veteran in the ISP space, trust me when I say that you do not want to get in touch with your ISP’s provisioning department at 3 a.m. Saturday morning.

5. We’re live in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Remember to adjust your external DNS TTLs a week in advance. The lower you can set your TTLs, the faster the world will find your new data center. You simply can’t do this on a moment’s notice.

6. Fifteen minutes could save you 1,500%. If you are moving gear yourself, ask your company if it has adequate insurance. Are you legally able to move gear yourself? Some equipment leases can be moved only by the vendor.

7. Anyone have a camera? Simple snapshots of the monitoring systems before the move assure that, afterward, all the proper services are back in the same state they were before you started. Your team doesn’t need to be troubleshooting an application that was broken eight months before the migration even took place.

8. Where’s the boss? Stakeholders should be available after the migration to test all of their systems and give the thumbs up before your team leaves the site.

9. Snacks, sleeping bags, and essentials. This will be a long, tiring night or weekend. Everyone will perform best when they’re well-fed, have a place to grab a quick power nap, and thoroughly know their tasks, how to validate when their task is complete, and who to check in with along the way.

10. Go team! Data-center migration is a team sport. It’s best to ensure some non-technical folks are on your team who can objectively deal with timelines, coordination, and communication with the executives who may be waiting at home for an update. Your team should also include folks outside of your organization (vendors, consultants, or VARs). You may do this type of migration only once every decade, but your consultant does it several times a year. Pick up the phone.

With every data-center migration, there will be a couch-twisting-in-the-doorway moment. Time spent working on a great plan can facilitate a smooth migration and keep your door jambs intact.

Gerry Gosselin is director of Technical Operations for VertitechIT, a rapidly growing healthcare and business IT consultancy. He is a nationally known expert in systems programming, automated network monitoring and management, as well as network engineering and administration; (413) 268-1621; [email protected]

Sections Technology
IT Industry Confronts a Perplexing Shortage of Workers

Dave DelVecchio

Dave DelVecchio says technical skill is important in a prospective employee, but so is a willingness and desire to learn new things.


Around the turn of the millennium, when dot-com startups were riding high, computer science was an attractive career option for college students choosing majors. Ironically, however, although technology has become even more pervasive in daily life over the past 15 years, the number of people entering the IT field has plummeted, slowing growth at high-tech companies that would be expanding faster if they could only find the talent. The key, industry leaders say, is working together to reignite interest in what remains a well-paying, in-demand, often exciting field.

As a mechanical-engineering major in college, Joel Mollison didn’t expect to one day own a successful computer-services business. But then he taught himself computer repair, which — along with his growing distaste for his chosen major — led him to change direction, and eventually launch what’s now known as Northeast IT in West Springfield.

That means he’s always looking for people like him, who at some point discover a love for computers and information technology and are skilled at it. But finding those people has not been easy.

“Technology encompasses such a vast range of jobs,” he told BusinessWest. “Programmers and coders are a completely separate thing from people who do what we do, providing managed services, managing people’s networks … and that’s totally different from, say, web design.”

By all accounts, opportunities in those fields and many others in the IT realm are only growing. Yet, at the same time, the number of young people graduating from college with the necessary skills to succeed in IT is falling.

Indeed, according to Code.org, a national nonprofit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science, by 2020, the U.S. will have 1.4 million computing jobs available, but only 400,000 computer-science graduates available to fill them.

That’s a reflection of two colliding trends, the organization notes. As computers increasingly run virtually every facet of our lives, fewer college students are choosing to major in computer science. Specifically, 60% of all jobs in the broad realm of math and science have a computing element, but only 2.4% of all college students majoring in a math or science field are choosing computer science.

“We’ve absolutely been dealing with this for the last five years, and the problem will only get worse before it gets better. In general, we need a lot more folks than there are out there,” Mollison said. “There are a lot of different facets to IT, and each requires its own unique skill set, although there is some overlap. To be a professional in any of these sectors, you need to possess a vast range of knowledge.”

Dave DelVecchio, president of Innovative Business Systems in Easthampton, has experienced the same struggle.

“The pool of qualified talent is not deep enough to provide the exact mix of talent we need,” he said. “Typically, we somebody to come to the table and demonstrate they have the ability to learn — someone with good, broad-based knowledge to draw from, but also a desire and willingness to learn new things.”

Delcie Bean IV, president of Paragus Strategic IT in Hadley, understands the scope of the national problem, but also how it affects his firm, one of the country’s fastest-growing IT companies, on a daily basis.

“Being a top-paying career and the second-fastest-growing career, it’s absolutely the right career to be in, but fewer people are graduating today than 10 years ago; interest is actually shrinking,” he said. “And when we talk about where women and people of color fit in, it’s abysmal.”

He cited statistics from Code.org noting that women, who claim 57% of all bachelor’s degrees, earn just 12% of all computer-science degrees. Meanwhile, at the high-school level, 3.6 million students take the advanced-placement computer-science exam, but only 3,000 of those seats are occupied by African-American and Hispanic students.

Combined, all these numbers tell Bean there’s plenty of untapped potential to draw students of all demographics into an IT field that desperately needs them.

“Paragus, at any given time, has four to eight open positions,” he noted. “Every open position represents an opportunity lost, because every employee has ROI and generates profit. If a position isn’t filled, that’s profit we’re not capturing.”

The net effect is that a company that has been growing at 25% to 30% per year could be growing at 45% to 50% if the talent gap wasn’t an issue and Paragus could hire whenever it wanted to.

For this issue and its focus on technology, BusinessWest examines some of the reasons behind a drought of IT workers that could become critical in the next decade — and what both public- and private-sector entities are doing about it.

Digital World

It’s ironic, Mollison said, that the more people rely on high-tech devices to run their lives, fewer young people are interested in computer science as a career.

“Everything runs on computers now,” he noted. “Because of that, there’s a wide array of services, a wide array of products out there. Career opportunities are growing exponentially, and there are not enough people out there with the experience to fill those gaps.”

Thinking back to his college days 15 years ago, Mollison recalled there were a lot of people entering the IT field drawn by the promise of making a lot of money in an exciting, fast-growing field. It’s a different time, though, and Millennials are known for following their passions, not necessarily just a paycheck.

“If you don’t have a true passion for IT, if you’re not exposed to it at a young age, and if the desire isn’t there to begin with, I think a lot of people may be overwhelmed by the time they reach high school and college, and are figuring out what they want to do with the rest of their lives,” he said. “The tech field can be a bit overwhelming if you’re not absolutely sure that’s where you want to be.”

With the goal of increasing exposure to computer science at an early age, Bean serves on the advisory board of the Massachusetts Computing Attainment Network, or MassCAN, which has developed a set of standards, now being considered by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, for making computer science part of the K-12 curriculum.

Joel Mollison

Joel Mollison says young people often don’t grasp the sheer breadth of career opportunities available in IT.

“We really thought about what kindergartners should learn, what eighth-graders should know, what high-school graduates in the Commonwealth should be able to do in computer science,” he explained. “It’s as much a way of thinking as anything else. We’re not just talking about specific technology skills; what’s needed is critical thinking, troubleshooting, problem resolution, abstraction — traits that are of value in whatever industry you go into. If someone is an amazing critical thinker, I can teach them IT.”

The standards would likely be recommendations to start, Bean said, “but if they were to make it mandatory, it would put Massachusetts ahead of the curve in graduating some of the best talent from the K-12 system. And we’re already known for our higher-education system.”

Training young people in computer science is something Bean takes seriously, which is why he launched Tech Foundry last year. The Springfield-based nonprofit, which trains promising students to enter well-paying IT jobs right out of high school, recently graduated its first class of 24 participants.

DelVecchio sees, in the promise of Tech Foundry, echoes of Javanet back in the mid-’90s. A locally based Internet service provider, that company was later acquired by RCN, a large, regional player, which created large numbers of entry-level positions in its call center and support services, providing opportunities to work in the IT field when interest in such careers was peaking.

Then, “when RCN decided to move its call center to Pennsylvania, all those folks scattered to the wind — but many of them ended up pursuing a career in IT,” DelVecchio said. “We’ve got four people who have RCN on their résumé.”

In fact, he went on, many local IT companies were seeded with those former RCN workers, who have moved up to management-level positions. A decade or so down the road, DelVecchio hopes a vibrant IT industry in the Valley will be similarly peppered with Tech Foundry graduates. “You might not see the impact this year, but it will benefit the region 15 years from now.”

Bean certainly hopes his brainchild has such an impact, because it’s not just small computer firms that crave IT talent, but some of the region’s largest employers.

“It’s a huge problem with a national impact. Look at MassMutual. Look at Baystate. If they don’t have good tech employees, that’s a problem for them — and a problem for everyone.” Many companies, he added, have experimented with outsourced or even offshore IT services, but find that in-house talent is more efficient and produces better return on investment.

But the talent lag has everyone struggling to meet those needs.

“All we’re doing is shifting people from one company to the next,” Bean said. “There’s a lot of poaching going on — giving someone a raise to be your employee. We all have to do a little bit of that to survive, because the talent pool isn’t wide enough. But it’s not good for the region.”

High-tech, High-touch

When Bean and others talk about IT skills, however, they’re not thinking only about the inner workings of computer hardware and software, but also about ‘soft skills’ — in particular, communication skills — so critical to today’s IT world.

“That’s one of the really big challenges facing a lot of companies like ours,” Mollison said. “We have a lot of people who have to face the public, and you can have great technical people, but if they’re unable to communicate, if they don’t have those soft skills, they’re not as great an employee as they could be; it’s difficult to send them out into the world.”

Some of this reflects one particular type of person who embraces technology early in life, he added.

“A lot of folks are introverted and love computers — it’s a way for people to escape into another world; that’s how they get into it,” he explained. “But as they grow in that facet, and become technically mature, they can lose those soft skills, not being a part of day-to-day life.

“Personally,” he added, “I’ve seen some people who have been sheltered, not been outgoing, who have been turned around. But they need to be exposed to a group of tech people who are more outgoing, who can help break them out of their shell and be more personable, so they can work in a job where they deal with people on a regular basis.”

It doesn’t help, DelVecchio said, that too many IT graduates of the region’s highly regarded colleges and universities take their skills to the Boston area or out of state completely. This talent drain is one of the top-priority issues of the Hampshire County Regional Chamber, of which he’s a founding member.

“This region has vast assets we bring to the table,” he told BusinessWest. “We hear stories of people who moved away for job opportunities, then moved back because this is a place they want to raise a family. We need to be louder about the fact that they don’t have to move away; they can start a career, they can thrive here, and raise a family in the Pioneer Valley. That’s true not just for IT careers, but for many industries.”

Bean hopes the network of entities actively working on the IT talent problem — from state departments to regional workforce-development agencies; from community colleges to initiatives like Tech Foundry — will start to make a dent by not only cultivating young people’s interest in IT, but helping them attain both computer expertise and the soft skills necessary to work with a public that, again, is becoming ever-more reliant on technology.

“I think it’s about exposure,” he concluded. “Typically, people choose their career path based on what they’re exposed to in school — and computer science has really dropped off the radar.”

He noted that CSI: Cyber, the latest iteration of CBS’ popular criminal-forensics TV franchise, is one media entity showing an attractive and exciting side to IT work.

“I’m interested to see its impact; I think that will do more for computer science than anything else. Four years ago, there was a huge increase in students wanting to be physicists, and they traced it back to The Big Bang Theory. I think we underestimate how much exposure pop culture has to do with career paths.”

Meanwhile, his work — and that of others — to promote the computer-science industry locally continues.

“If we can get people more exposure to IT jobs, how exciting this field is, how much it pays, how fast it’s growing,” Bean said, “we can really start to move the needle.”


Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology
Effective Planning Can Turn an Obstacle into an Opportunity

By GREG PELLERIN

Greg Pellerin

Greg Pellerin

“The budget evolved from a management tool into an obstacle to management.”

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci was talking about government spending when he made this comment, but he may as well have been referring to those days leading up to the start of a new business budget year. It’s that time when executives go scrambling to either spend what’s going to be lost or, more than likely, find more money to fund an important project.

There is no shortage of priorities for most IT departments. Strategic initiatives, the need for infrastructure upgrades, and software-licensing mandates are a constant challenge. Yet, hiring freezes and the redirection of funding within an organization often make implementation difficult. In my opinion, the answer to those once-a-year budget woes can often be found in four areas: prioritization, funding, implementation, and monetization.

 

Prioritization

It seems simple, but you’d be surprised by how many times the cart is put before the horse.

Virtualizing desktops and networks is a major investment with a cost-saving upside, but unless a company has clearly defined its ‘bring-your-own-device’ policy, a VDI plan shouldn’t even be considered.

Moving the data center to accommodate growth? Carefully and objectively reviewing hyper-convergence and public cloud potential is critical, because the best time to implement any or part of this solution is during a data-center migration/upgrade.

Perhaps it’s time to get rid of that old PBX phone system and institute a truly unified communications approach. By their very nature, VoIP solutions are software-based and are meant to evolve as business priorities change. A new, unified communications platform with the latest videoconferencing, instant messaging, and speech-enablement capabilities may be overkill and a real budget buster (you can always add capabilities later on).

Prioritizing actual versus perceived needs is the better course of action.

 

Funding

Critical IT investments can often be made by simply finding creative ways to reduce or redeploy existing budgets. A telecom-expense-management audit (often funded by the savings it incurs) takes a look at existing wireline and wireless contracts and often reveals thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands, in unnecessary broadband spending. One of our clients was being charged $10,000 a month for a high-speed connection to an office they had closed years before!

Sometimes you can save big time by simply getting your suppliers to pay. Companies like Microsoft set aside millions of dollars each year to supplement new technology assessments and investments. All you have to do is ask.

Implementation

Oftentimes, the high cost of implementing IT solutions can be borne by outsourcing or staff augmentation.

Can’t handle incremental project workload with existing staff? New technology requiring specific expertise, and spikes in workload as a result of short-term projects, can be handled less expensively — and, in many cases, more efficiently — by temporary personnel.

You don’t need to outsource the entire project, but management may be the most logical place to start. A project manager can attend and lead facilities and departmental meetings, coordinate and manage critical milestones, and, most importantly, train your staff to take over the role once he or she is gone.

By focusing internal resources on core business functions, training time is reduced without adding permanent overhead.

 

Monetization

Everyone want to make money off of their investments, yet IT departments often find this difficult to accomplish.

Do you have an internal engineering-services department that handles maintenance and repairs to critical technologies? Does your data center have excess capacity?  These are just two areas where organizations can find monetization opportunities, but unfortunately, they are two areas that often fail miserably.

Before launching any effort to monetize internal resources, be sure that senior management establishes priority protocols that allow those resources to respond to external client needs with the same level of urgency as internal requests. This will ensure the success of most monetization efforts and a way to fund other IT initiatives without breaking the budget.

The budget process has become a necessary evil in today’s competitive business  climate. Creative planning approaches can turn it from an obstacle into an opportunity.


Greg Pellerin is a 15-year veteran of the telecommunications and IT industries and a co-founder of VertitechIT, one of the fastest-growing business and healthcare IT networking and consulting firms in the country; (413) 268-1605; [email protected].

Cover Story Sections Technology
Video Specialist Chris Thibault is Focused on Growth

Teebo-DPartChris Thibault was asked to pinpoint why he believes his work — everything from television commercials to instructional videos on deck screws — stands out in a field crowded with competitors.

He kept coming back to the word ‘edgier,’ as in “some people think my style’s a little edgier than what you would get from a corporate video-production company. When they’re looking for something to connect and be sharable and be cool, for lack of a better word, people come to me.”

When pressed for more specific definitions of what amount to technical terms — ‘edgier’ and ‘cool’ — Thibault, founder and president of Chris Teebo Films (he says that spelling makes his name easier to pronounce and his company easier to find), struggled somewhat, as might be expected, because of the subjective nature of those words.

“Anyone can make a pretty picture,” he told BusinessWest before a lengthy pause as he searched for more words. “I just try to bring my own style into it and not base anything off a template.”

With that, he decided that the best way to get his points across was to play a shorter version of what eventually became a promotional video and television commercial he produced a few years ago for something called the Great Bull Run — a series of events that, as the name suggests, brings the Spanish tradition of running with the bulls to this country.

“I like to take risks — that’s what they teach you in art school starting on day one, to take risks when you can,” he said as he rolled the footage, which showed close, detailed shots of individuals running alongside 1,500-pound bulls, an effect created with several cameras, including one strapped to one of the runners (christeebo.com/portfolio/the-great-bull-run). “You can cover this like a news story, and there’s nothing wrong with news, but we wanted to get right into the mix and capture what this is about. People who run with bulls, or might run with bulls … they want something edgier.”

Teebo’s ability to create that intangible has helped him grow his now-Springfield-based company dramatically in recent years, with a 60% increase in revenues in 2014 alone, and add to his portfolio of work.

For example, it now includes several Big Y commercials featuring New England Patriots nose tackle Vince Wilfork, a promotional video for the Spirit of Springfield’s Bright Nights lighting display (produced for its 20th anniversary), television commercials for political candidates such as recently elected state Sen. Eric Lesser, and much more.

Some of these works are edgier than others — political office seekers, not to mention Big Y, tend to be fairly conservative, while the Bright Nights video was shot from the perspective of a young child and is thus quite compelling — but together, they have helped Thibault meet the ongoing challenges of gaining word-of-mouth referrals and generating business from that marketing tool known as the Internet.

And he hopes an upcoming project — a promotional video of Springfield being financed by its Economic Development Department with the goal of showcasing current initiatives and inspiring more of them — will create more momentum in efforts to build his brand and get involved in Springfield’s comeback.

“I’m really excited about this project,” he said. “I’m going to knock it out of the park with that one.”

Looking ahead, Thibault, as he said, wants to not only help promote Springfield through that video now in the planning stages, but be part of the city’s turnaround. He recently relocated to a office in 1350 Main St., and is conceptualizing plans to develop what he called “shared creative space” in the city.

Such a facility, a large studio, would become workspace for a host of creative professionals, including photographers, videographers, audio engineers, and even musicians, he explained, adding that there are models for such a development in New York and Boston that he hopes to emulate.

In the meantime, his more immediate goals are to expand the portfolio with more ‘edgy’ work, add additional employees, and grow Chris Teebo Films into a regional force within this industry.

For this issue and its emphasis on technology, BusinessWest talked at length with a young business owner focused (there’s another industry term) on creating images that get results, no matter how the client chooses to measure them.

Setting the Stage

Like most individuals in this business, Thibault can trace his interest back to his high-school years. In this case, it was a 10th-grade class in video production at Springfield’s Sci Tech that got him hooked.

“I thought this was the coolest thing ever,” he noted. “It combined all the aspects that I loved. I was always an artistic kid — I would always draw, mess around with music and sound — and I thought video combined all that, so I fell in love with it.”

image from a video

This image from a video produced for the Great Bull Run displays what Chris Thibault calls an “edgier” style that defines much of his work.

Finding ways to express this affection became more difficult when his family moved to West Springfield. The city’s high school didn’t have video production classes, so he created some.

He bought a Sony handycam, began filming the school’s sports teams, and created seasonal highlight videos that garnered both revenue and acclaim.

“They would play them at the year-end banquet, and the video would get a standing ovation,” he recalled. “These weren’t huge events, but everyone would stand up and clap, and that was a great feeling.”

Thibault was accepted at the prestigious School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City, starting classes there just a few days before 9/11 — an event, like many others, that produced learning experiences far outside the classroom that have stayed with him to this day.

“New York City is a school unto itself,” he told BusinessWest, adding that, while attending SVA, he lived in Brooklyn Heights, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, and watched tens of thousands of people stream over than span from lower Manhattan on the morning of the terrorist attacks, most all of them covered in a gray dust.

He didn’t know exactly what was going on, but his artistic tendencies compelled him to buy a small disposable camera and grab a seat on the only operating subway line still bringing people into Manhattan.

“I was probably 15 blocks from the towers,” he recalled, adding that when the American Express building, also known as Three World Trade Center, fell, the ground shook, and he knew something serious was going on. Perhaps the most unforgettable moment, though, involved a news reporter he remembered seeing on television.

“There was a woman coming back with a baby covered in soot, she was walking up the street,” he recalled. “This newswoman started yelling to the cameraman, ‘get her!’ She kicked over a trashcan, the cameraman got on top, filmed her, then jumped off, and the newswoman got the lady on camera to do a story.

“It was just a New York mentality — ‘let’s do it.’ There was no fear,” he went on, adding that this philosophy manifests itself in some of his current work.

But it would be awhile before Thibault could really start expressing himself artistically.

Indeed, he would soon leave SVA, in part for financial reasons — “New York is great, the school was great, but it’s very expensive out there” — but also because he felt a need, and desire, to get working.

That work, however, involved mostly wedding and event videography while he also drove a truck for his father.

“I did cheerleading events, dance competitions, anything like that; anything that had to do with video, I would take the job,” he said, adding that he did so to pay off the camera he purchased and build a name for himself.

“At the end of the day, my heart wasn’t really in it — filming weddings is not my passion,” he went on, adding that, as his skills improved and his reputation grew, he eventually started doing work for commercial clients and never looked back. “It’s tough to break into commercial video when you’re doing events, and at one point, I just said, ‘I’m finished with this,’ and stopped taking down payments for weddings, even though it was tough to do so, because I was trying to build a business.”

Thibault said his big break, if one could call it that, came when he pitched an idea to the owners of the Springfield Armor, the NBA Developmental League team that came to the city in 2009, to do a promotional video and build excitement for the team before it actually arrived in the City of Homes.

“I felt a buzz around Springfield when they were coming in, and I just wanted to do something great for the city as well as the team,” he recalled as he played that video, which showed people of all ages and persuasions playing hoops, a young man dribbling a basketball over the Memorial Bridge, the unveiling of the Armor name and logo, and other scenes designed to build interest in the Armor and the sport. “It was a commercial about the team, but without the team — they weren’t here yet — and it was cool.”

The spot was originally designed for the web, but it was so well-received, it started airing on area TV stations, said Thibault, adding that he was later approached by a marketing firm representing a Developmental League team in Texas to do something similar.

On-the-spot Analysis

With the Armor video and other works now in his portfolio, Thibault had more to show marketing firms and prospective clients, and work started to come his way, as both director and producer of content through Chris Teebo Films and as a freelance director of photography.

Indeed, as the latter, he’s been involved with projects ranging from promotional shoots for office supplies giant Staples and motor oil maker Castrol to part of an episode for TLC network’s Sex Sent Me to the ER, a show that has actors re-enacting real-life accidents that occurred during sex.

“It’s a terrible show … but there was a couple in Connecticut, and they were looking for a studio closer than New York, and the producers out in L.A. hired me for that segment,” said Thibault, adding that it was shot in his studio in the cavernous Cabotville Industrial park in Chicopee.

He rarely does freelance work these days, primarily because Chris Teebo Films has secured enough work to keep him quite busy. And it comes from several sources.

For starters, there’s the commercials he’s shot for Big Y featuring Wilfork, the Springfield-based grocery chain’s main spokesperson. He’s now done five spots spotlighting the 350-pound lineman as pitchman for pizza and sandwiches, including one that aired during the recent Super Bowl.

Chris Thibault

Chris Thibault, seen here on location for a Big Y commercial featuring Vince Wilfork, has gained a number of new clients in recent years.

Thibault has also added a number of other commercial clients in recent years, including political candidates such as Lesser, who captured his seat last fall, and Mike Bissonnette, who served several terms as Chicopee’s mayor, as well as regional companies and nonprofits ranging from Doctor’s Express (a new client) to Spirit of Springfield; from United Way of Pioneer Valley to FastenMaster, a subsidiary of Agawam-based OMG Inc. that specializes in deck and trim screws and other products.

One wouldn’t expect deck screws to be the subject of video productions defined with the word ‘edgier,’ but Thibault said he’s managed to do just that.

To demonstrate, he went back to his computer and called up a video featuring Gary Daley, owner of America’s DeckBuilder, LLC, using FastenMaster products, one of several spots Teebo has produced in a series that has taken him all over the country.

“They’re showcasing pros that use their products, and it’s become a very effective way of promoting the brand,” he said, adding that he also creates “tips and tricks” videos for the company. “I think FastenMaster is brilliant in doing this; they’re creating content for this industry that doesn’t exist, and they’re giving people something to watch and something to aspire to.”

Overall, Thibault said his goal is to produce videos that, like the one for the Great Bull Run, get not only shares and likes on Facebook and YouTube (although those are important), but also results for the client.

In the case of the Great Bull Run, for example, his video was used by organizers of the event when they appeared on Shark Tank, and, Thibault believes, it helped them secure $1.75 million in funding from shark investor Mark Cuban.

“Barbara Corcoran [one of the show’s ‘sharks’] actually said, ‘what a great video’ right on the air, which is cool,” said Thibault, adding that he plans to put that footage and commentary on his revamped website.

To get results, Thibault says he has to trust his instincts, take risks when they’re appropriate (there are many times when they are not), and work with the client without being limited by its imagination.

“I try to create whatever I see in my mind without letting even a client hold me back,” he told BusinessWest. “Because, while I value clients’ opinions — they help me do my job better — sometimes they don’t know exactly what they want, and they’re using some kind of template as a model.”

That’s a Wrap

Looking ahead, Thibault said this industry moves too quickly and unpredictably for five-year plans, so he’s moving in much shorter increments.

His immediate goals are to continue building the portfolio, hiring additional staff (there is currently one full-time employee with others hired on a freelance basis), and advance those aforementioned plans for shared creative space.

“There’s some great creative talent in Western Mass., but people initially think they have to leave and go to New York or Boston to pursue a career,” he said. “My goal is to help keep some of that talent here.”

While doing that, he plans to go on taking risks, producing video with an edge to it, and focusing on the big picture, figuratively and quite literally.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology
The Best Way to Contain Costs Is to Spend More Money

By GREG PELLERIN

A little boy sits down at the table next to his father and says, “hey, Dad, would you like to save some money?” Dad replies, “sure, what do you have in mind?” The little boy replies, “why not buy me a bike? Then I won’t have to wear my shoes out so fast!”

I told that joke to a CFO recently, and he offered me a rather reluctant smile. With all seriousness, I told him there may be more truth to that story than he might want to admit. I asked him to join me as we walked around the office, going from department to department, watching people toiling away at their computers. All he saw was too many people. All I saw was too much old technology.

Greg Pellerin

Greg Pellerin

There was a time, not too long ago, when you could get away with keeping the same hardware and software for five years or longer. It might take a licking, but as long as it was still ticking, there was no use in replacing it. As it aged, new technology and people were brought in to address cutting-edge applications, but because the old systems were deemed too important to the company’s core operation, they (and the people being paid to operate and maintain them) were left alone.  Things don’t work that way anymore, or at least they shouldn’t.

Today, older technologies are nothing but a drain on the operating budget because, from an OpEx perspective, they are fully depreciated. Headcount can’t be reduced because trained people are needed for operation of those old but critical systems.

The best way to break this endless IT cycle is to establish a regularly scheduled information-technology assessment and refresh process. As tough as it may be for your CFO to accept, spending money on new IT resources at regular intervals (as well as assessing the people needed to run them) eliminates the even more expensive and disruptive result of trying to fix everything at once.

It comes down to three basic areas: IT operations, network design, and equipment. Here’s a look at what a comprehensive IT-assessment process should entail to create an effective technology refresh plan.

• IT operations. Start by looking at the people and procedures you have in place to meet current and future business goals. Identify whether your network is fast enough and efficient enough to accomplish those objectives.  Interviews with key business and IT stakeholders are key elements of the process.
• Network design. Are your current network switching, routing, and security designs stable, safe, and secure? Are connectivity and controls in place to meet current needs, let alone future growth?
• Equipment. Conduct a complete cataloguing of organizational hardware (PC, server, and user-device inventory). Assess condition, expandability, life expectancy, and replacement cost. Identify technology gaps and ask if day-to-day operations are limited by your current infrastructure (for example, a printer that can only print 10 pages a minute and what implications 20-page-per-minute capability would have on productivity).

In the end, the goal is to provide a road map for leveraging IT as a competitive advantage. Establish a technology-refresh schedule, then stick to it.

Donald Trump once said that “sometimes the best investments are the ones you don’t make.” But when it comes to the regular assessment of your IT infrastructure, you might want to tell Donald, “you’re fired!”


Greg Pellerin is a 15-year veteran of the telecommunications and IT industries and a co-founder of VertitechIT, one of the fastest-growing business and healthcare IT networking and consulting firms in the country; (413) 268-1605; [email protected]

Sections Technology
Whalley Computer Associates Enjoys Rapid Growth

Paul Whalley (right, with Warehouse Manager Charlie Shaw)

Paul Whalley (right, with Warehouse Manager Charlie Shaw) says WCA can configure and deliver devices for any size client, from small companies to Fortune 500 firms.

When gauging his company’s place in the tech world, Paul Whalley says a little perspective is in order.

“I haven’t been to a Red Sox game where they chanted, ‘we’re number 200,’ but they don’t have 200,000 competitors,” said Whalley, vice president of Whalley Computer Associates (WCA) in Southwick, which has indeed grown from its humble origins to become the 200th-largest computer reseller in the country, placing it in the top one-tenth of 1% among approximately 200,000 players.

“I don’t think anyone pictured what this could come to,” he told BusinessWest, “but we’re very excited about where we’re going.”

Like virtually all other high-tech success stories, WCA’s beginnings were much more humble. As a part-time programming consultant in the Agawam school system in the 1970’s, math teacher John Whalley — Paul’s brother — purchased a small software-consulting firm. Working after school and during the summer from his Southwick basement, he built a small customer base.

Then, in 1979, incorporating his experience teaching his students programming on the school’s new computer, he started Whalley Computer Associates. He moved to new quarters in Southwick twice, all the while trying to convince his brother to come on board.

“My brother was a high-school math teacher, and he started this part-time,” Paul Whalley said. “I started helping him part-time, and he kept encouraging me to quit my job and go in full-time. I kept telling him, ‘I’ll quit my job when you quit yours.’”

In 1985, they did just that, with John (still the company’s president) leaving his teaching job and Paul resigning from his position as a programmer at MassMutual, in the process becoming WCA’s fourth employee. But the acquisition of customers such as Northeast Utilities, United Technologies, General Electric, and Cigna helped fund the company’s rapid growth, and WCA was on its way.

Today, Whalley boasts more than 3,000 clients, including 250 K-12 school systems, 50 colleges and universities, two dozen state agencies, more than 100 municipalities, and about 2,600 private companies — most of them small and medium-sized businesses, but also a number of major national firms.

Working out of its fourth Southwick location, a 62,500-square-foot facility on Whalley Way — as well as a 50,000-square-foot warehouse and configuration center in Westfield and an office in Milford serving Eastern Mass. and Rhode Island — WCA has recently broadened its reach across all of New England and Upstate New York, and shows no signs of slowing down.

“We want to grow in these new states exponentially, but also hold on to the valued clients we have,” Paul Whalley said. “We have so many clients who have stayed with us for 35 years.”

Rapid Growth

At a time when the economy was struggling to shake off the Great Recession, WCA thrived, posting sales growth of 50% in 2010, 38% in 2011, 50% in 2012, and 10% in 2013, and, boosted by recent expansion into New York, is on track to grow by at least 25% this year.

“Obviously, we think the model is working,” Whalley said. “We know the economy has not done well the last few years, but we’re growing.”

That growth has come on the heels of a significant evolution in what WCA does. What started as a software-consulting firm now manufactures computers and other devices for major brands. In so doing, WCA is the largest reseller of Lenovo products in the U.S. and has been the top reseller for Dell in the Northeast in five of the past 10 years.

WhalleySouthwick

Top: WCA’s 62,500-square-foot headquarters in Southwick. Bottom: the company’s Milford office, serving Eastern Mass. and Rhode Island.

Top: WCA’s 62,500-square-foot headquarters in Southwick. Bottom: the company’s Milford office, serving Eastern Mass. and Rhode Island.

“Fifteen years ago, we were primarily known as a a desktop deployment company. If a school needed 200 desktops or a business needed 10 or 25 or 500 desktops, we’d get them all prepared, imaged, configured, and delivered. But for the past 10 years, we’ve built up a very good engineering team and a strong professional-services group,” Whalley explained. “We were like everyone else 15 years ago; now we’re one of the leaders when it comes to designing, implementing, and then maintaining data centers.”

The expansion of WCA was boosted significantly when one of its Milford-based sales representatives, Peter Aldrich, began selling products to EMC Corp., which became, and remains, Whalley’s largest client.

In addition, “we have 12 Fortune 500 companies and a lot of very large businesses. Friendly’s has been a client for 25 years; we’re proud to have them as a client, and, I think, they’re proud they do business locally. We do business with one of the largest apparel retailers in North America; we’re a supplier to one of the largest pharmacy organizations in the U.S., one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S., several retail organizations; we’re vendors to one of the largest technology companies in the world. There are probably 35 to 40 clients that we could name that everyone would recognize.”

The rest are the smaller type of business characteristic of the Pioneer Valley, which see value in WCA’s size and market position.

“We think our success really comes from focusing on providing tremendous value,” Whalley said, comparing WCA to the handful of what are known as direct marketing resellers, or DMRs, like CDW and TigerDirect.

“Although we’re smaller than them, we can match their pricing, and unlike them, we’re not mainly a telemarketing organization. It’s a different model, and I’m not knocking their model; they’re doing billions. But what our customers like about us versus them is that we can provide equal or even better pricing, but we’re a much more fast-moving, flexible, entrepreneurial company instead of a mega-corporation with lots of layers of management.”

The average computer reseller in the U.S. boasts 12 people and posts about $1 million in sales, Whalley noted, and WCA is in an enviable middle ground between them and the DMRs.

“We find ourselves in the sweet spot — there are maybe 50 like us in the country, in the middle, not small but not huge. I think that’s a perfect spot to be, where we have a combination of more resources than the small guys, but all the flexibility to move fast and customize with customers who are looking for that. Those mega-companies have their place, but we’ve found a very nice niche, and obviously, we’re in a good spot.”

Service First

WCA currently boasts 140 employees — 30 in sales and 100 focused on engineering, installation, maintenance, and support.

“I don’t know of anyone who has a service group of 110 people in New England or New York,” Whalley said. “We’re incredibly blessed with a very talented group of professionals, most of whom have been here more than 10 years. So, now that we’re moving into new states, we have a nice blend of seniority and people just getting into the industry.

“We’re a family company,” he added, “but we consider as family the long-time employees who’ve stuck with us.”

Those include a business-development team that makes outbound calls all day, “which the DMRs do, but not many people in our category do that. It’s a three-person team calling out all day, looking for business and appointments for our salespeople.”

Another way Whalley stays focused on growth is through some 30 training events a year intended to help its employees stay apprised of the latest technology.

“We consider ourselves customer-centric but vendor-agnostic,” he told BusinessWest. “We sell nearly all the major brands of the major products. We go in, listen to what the client needs and what their preferences are, and produce what we feel is the best solution. They may take the suggestion or buy something else; it’s their choice.”

WCA’s broad reach allows it to price competitively without being beholden to one brand, he explained. “I think people appreciate the fact that we’re not coming in telling them to buy this one thing. Frankly, if they want something and our product selection doesn’t match up, then we’ll tell them that. Ultimately, if we keep doing the right things for the client, we’ll succeed.”

He also recited a four-part creed posted over a set of warehouse doors on Whalley Way: “One: if in doubt, do what’s best for the customer. Two: if in doubt, do what’s right for the whole company. Three: if in doubt, do what’s best for your department. Four: if in doubt, do what’s best for you. Basically, the customer comes first. If you think of the customer first always, we’re going to do just fine.”

From the earliest days of working for his brother’s tiny company, Whalley has understood how important customer service is in the technology field.

“If your laptop breaks, you can probably use someone else’s for a day or so, or call and get it fixed. What really matters is that the network doesn’t go down. Take the cost of someone not working and multiply that by the size of your workforce, and it can cost a tremendous amount of money,” he said. “We have a top engineering team designing rock-solid data centers, and when there’s trouble, they can respond very quickly. It makes us a strategic partner with our clients; they buy things from us, but when problems occur, it’s on us to take care of them.”

Looking forward, Whalley said the company doesn’t want to rest on its laurels, but aims to move forward from a recent reorganization and several years of impressive growth to become an even more widely recognized name.

“On the engineering side, we’ve made huge strides, and we have one of the best engineering programs in the region,” he told BusinessWest. “We want to be one of the top two or three in New England and the Northeast. I think we’re headed that way, but there’s more work to be done.”

At the end of the day, however, it’s not about size, but service.

“We have to provide our clients with the best possible products at the best possible price with the best possible follow-up,” he said, “because, if we don’t, there are 200,000 others who would love to do it. We remind ourselves of that every day.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology
This Is the Kind of Gift That Keeps on Giving

By GREG PELLERIN

Santa’s IT department is working overtime this Christmas, and the deals may look too good to pass up.  Walmart is selling a tablet for just $99, while the average selling price for a Windows PC is down more than 10% in the last year.

But before you go on that IT holiday spending spree, you may want to take a step back and take a look at your entire network. Cheap PCs may make for immediate gratification, but virtual desktop infrastructure, or VDI, could be the gift that keeps on giving.

Greg Pellerin

Greg Pellerin

Virtualizing company servers has become commonplace in today’s business IT world. In server virtualization, software is used to divide the physical server into multiple virtual environments so one machine can run multiple operating systems, cutting down on hardware, maintenance, and energy costs, and, in the end, allowing for more efficient data-center operations.

But the cost savings associated with virtualizing desktops may be even more dramatic. With VDI, PCs could be replaced by a simple keyboard, mouse, and screen because the virtualized desktop is stored on a ‘virtual machine,’ located on a centralized or remote server in the back room. That means the desktop image, the operating system, and all of an individual’s data are stored remotely, allowing an employee to use virtually any device, anywhere and at any time, to access their ‘computer.’

Employees are happier and more productive, and that smile on your CFO’s face is a result of not having to buy a new PC every time a new person joins the company. Talk about sugar plums dancing in your head.

Nowhere is the impact of VDI more evident than in the healthcare world.  Desktop virtualization has become essential for today’s demanding electronic health records (EHR) systems where the geographic distribution of clinical operations and new client devices like iPads and other mobile devices are bringing an end to the need for traditional PCs. Doctors and nurses are constantly on the move, and VDI allows them to access the same information, the same way, whether they’re in their office, in the ER, or even catching up on paperwork at home over the weekend.

New integrated capabilities like dictation and unified communications have eroded many of the initial gains offered by simple application streaming. Whether it’s doctors in a hospital or executives in a more traditional work setting, they all demand a highly personalized experience that supports all of their unique requirements. VDI makes it personal.

Then, there’s compliance. Business software systems are increasingly interlinked and must be kept current. Software updates must be applied promptly to stay compliant, and files must remain protected. Virtual desktops hosted on data-center servers provide greater control, availability, and manageability than distributed PCs while also ensuring there is no data saved on individual tablets or other devices that can be compromised or stolen.

PC sales are up nearly 20% over this time last year, and that’s good news for the industry. But as you hang out your stocking and evaluate that new round of technology purchases this holiday season, you may want to first take a look at VDI, and the ghost of Christmas yet to come.


Greg Pellerin is a 15-year veteran of the telecommunications and IT industries and a co-founder of VertitechIT, one of the fastest-growing business and healthcare IT networking and consulting firms in the country; [email protected]

Sections Technology
High-tech Gadgets Battle for Market Supremacy

TechDPartAs religious wars go, this one’s fairly bloodless.

“Cellphones are deeply personal,” David Pogue writes at Yahoo Tech. “When you buy a phone, you’re making an expensive bet. You can’t easily switch between the Google and Apple worlds; you’ve invested a lot in accessories, you’ve bought apps, you’ve learned that company’s software conventions. And you never want to think your phone is inferior, because then you might feel inferior. So you wind up taking a side in this phone duopoly. You join a very silly — and unwinnable — religious war.”

That may rank among the more intriguing analogies to the decision Americans make between iPhone and Android culture, but it may not be too much of a stretch; smartphones have become an omnipresent part of our lives, and the war between the industry leaders is increasingly heated with each new release. So that’s where we’ll begin this year’s overview of what’s new, hot, and well-reviewed in the world of technology and gadgets.

The iPhone 6 ($199 with a two-year contract) has received mostly rave notices from the tech press, and made waves because of a jump in size from the iPhone 5. (The iPhone 6+, released around the same time, is even larger.)

1iPhone6“There is explosive demand for bigger smartphones. A 4-inch smartphone feels small now; somewhere around 5 inches is the new normal,” notes David Pierce at The Verge. “Yet, too many large-screen phones are cumbersome, awkward, and often just plain bad. And Apple has a long history of taking good ideas with obviously huge markets and being the first manufacturer to really nail the execution.”

The result is impressive, the site notes, but not revolutionary. “There’s nothing truly ambitious here, no grand vision of the future or of a new way of living in the present. Apple doesn’t have better ideas about how to make use of more display real estate, or how to help users navigate a bigger device.”

Still, “for a variety of reasons, from the camera to the app ecosystem to the hardware itself, the iPhone 6 is one of the best smartphones on the market. Maybe even the best. But it’s still an iPhone. The same thing Apple’s been making for seven years. A fantastically good iPhone, but an iPhone through and through.”

Ewan Spence at Forbes is slightly more critical, noting that the phone gets the job done, but it feels more like a necessary step to keep Apple’s marketing machine moving than a purposeful step forward.

“The iPhone 6 does not feel ‘magical’ to me. It does not feel like ‘something only Apple could do.’ It feels like Apple has done the bare minimum to update the handset for late 2014, but has not committed to any major changes,” he writes. “That said, the iPhone 6 is still one of the easiest smartphones to use.”

Meanwhile, Samsung’s Galaxy S5 ($199), its 2014 upgrade for the Android crowd, features a bright, striking display, a very fast processor, and an excellent camera experience, writes Jessica Dolcourt at CNET.

2SamsungGalaxys5“Here’s why the Samsung Galaxy S5 should grab your attention: it looks good, it performs very well, and it has everything you need to become a fixture in nearly every aspect of your life. But, like a candidate running for re-election, the GS5 gets where it is today based on experience and wisdom, not on flashy features or massive innovation,” she notes. “The S5 is more of a Galaxy S4 Plus than it is a slam-the-brakes, next-generation device; it makes everything just a little smoother and faster.”

So, in all, there were no truly game-changing advances among the top two names in smartphones. But adherents of both don’t seem to mind.

“Celebrate the iPhone’s excellence, even if you’re not in the Apple fold. And celebrate the best work of Samsung, HTC, and LG, even if you’re not part of the Android family,” Pogue writes. “Because, in the end, competition is what will make your phone better this time next year, or the year after that. The perpetual refinement of ideas, and the necessity to think up new ones, will benefit you — no matter which army you march with.”

Tablets, Laptops, and Printers

3KindleFireHDX8.9Smartphones are far from the only tech battlefield, however. Tablets are becoming more sophisticated and hotly contested as well. Engadget considers Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 ($379) the current best choice, buoyed by a crisp screen, considerably bumped-up processing power, a rear-facing camera, slimmer hardware, and strong tech support. “It’s a pretty big splurge for a holiday gift,” reviewer Brian Heater notes, “but it’s a reasonable sum to ask for a tablet that hardly cuts any corners.”

Apple is deeply invested in the tablet game as well, of course, and the iPad Air 2 ($499) gets an improved processor, better rear and front-facing cameras, an even thinner and lighter design, an anti-reflective screen, a Touch ID fingerprint sensor, and more built-in storage at higher configurations than last year’s model, according to CNET’s Scott Stein.

4AppleiPadAir2The Bad The Air 2 isn’t a big change from last year’s iPad in terms of overall function; battery life remains the same, although its battery life is already pretty good. Audio playback via speakers makes the thin metal body resonate more than before

“The iPad Air 2 is a nice refinement and finesse of last year’s model, with a bevy of tweaks, enhancements, a much faster processor, and the welcome addition of Touch ID. Simply put, it’s still the gold standard for tablets.”

5ToshibaChromebook2Today’s laptop computers — sleek, lightweight, and powerful — are constantly advancing as well. Laptop Magazine give its highest marks this year to the Toshiba Chromebook 2 ($329), praising its “stunning” display, “boisterous” sound, and compact design, while conceding that its graphics could be better.

“If you want a lightweight, stylish laptop that’s easy to use and tote around, this is a solid choice,” reviewer Valentina Palladino notes. “The Toshiba Chromebook 2 refreshes the original with a slimmer design, a gorgeous 1080p IPS display, and powerful speaker.”

6DellXPS13UltrabookTouchIn the windows category, PC World has plenty of praise for the Dell XPS 13. “It’s a bit pricey at $1,299 as configured, but that buys a sharp, nimble, and durable laptop with a fourth-generation Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of memory, an SSD, and a 13.3-inch touchscreen display,” Bryan Hastings notes, while offering a demerit for its dearth of slots and ports, and battery life that leaves him looking for a wall outlet more often than he’d like. “But on the whole, it’s a terrific little machine.”

If laptops are available in a wide range of prices, the same is true of printers. PC Magazine gives top honors this year to the Dell B3465dnf Multifunction Laser Printer (now there’s a mouthful), which, at $970, is meant for a small to medium-size offices or workgroups.

7DellLaserPrinter“That said, if you have any doubts about its suitability for heavy-duty use, the rated maximum monthly duty cycle for printing, at 150,000 pages with a recommended maximum of up to 15,000 pages, should tell you everything you need to know,” writes reviewer David Stone. “Add in the fast speed on our tests, the reasonably high quality output, the 7-inch color touch-screen control panel, and the low cost per page, and it’s a compelling pick.”

For something less pricey, CNET is sticking with the HP Officejet 8600 Plus ($179), which has been around for two years but still tops the site’s ratings. “It prints professional-quality photos and documents quickly with versatile connectivity options and robust features like an auto-duplexer, cloud printing, and a legal-size scanning bay,” Justin Yu notes. “If you can find a desk to accommodate its large size, the … printer serves up top-shelf output quality at rapid print speeds, suitable for offices, home users, and photo enthusiasts hunting for an upgrade.”

Sights and Sounds

Whether for work or play, most Americans own a digital camera of some sort, but which to choose from the myriad options on the market?

8OlympusToughTG3PC Magazine especially praises the Olympus Tough TG-3 ($349), a mid-priced model it calls the best recreational camera it has tested, praising its wide-aperture lens, microscope macro mode, quick focus, burst shooting, waterproof capability, and more. Despite demerits for battery charging and audible zoom and focus on the soundtrack of videos, Jim Fisher writes, “the TG-3 is a worthy successor to its predecessor, and follows it as our editors’ choice for rugged compact cameras.”

9SonyCyberShotFor those with a significantly higher budget, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III ($799) is hard to beat, Fisher says, praising its high-ISO performance, a large image sensor, sharp wide-aperture lens, burst shooting, customizable controls, and large, tilting LCD.

“Sony’s RX series of compact cameras have wowed us with their small size and excellent image quality since the introduction of the original RX100. But that type of quality doesn’t come cheap, especially in a pocketable form,” he notes. “If you’re not quite willing to pay $800 for a pocket camera, the RX100 and RX100 II remain in the lineup and deliver similar image quality at a lower price.”

Finally, how about a personal soundrack for that photo shoot? News has been fairly quiet on the MP3-player front in 2014, although Apple is getting ready to unveil the sixth-generation iPod Touch in the coming months. Until then, the fifth-generation Touch remains a solid option, writes Tim Stevens at Engadget.
10iPodTouch
“The iPod touch is a comprehensively better package than the previous-gen unit, but at $299 to start, it certainly doesn’t come cheap,” he notes. “If you’re reasonably content with your fourth-gen, this is probably not worth the upgrade, but if you have an older iPod that’s ready for retirement, or are indeed just jumping on the iOS bandwagon for the first time and are happy with your current phone, this is a great place to start.”

For more reviews, just look them up on your smartphone. And give peace a chance.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology
Negotiating a Telecom Contract Is a High-stakes Poker Game

By GREG PELLERIN

Greg Pellerin

Greg Pellerin

The IT department at Company A signs a new three-year contract renewal for local, long-distance, and data-network services, providing for a 25% discount off published rates. The contract is expected to save hundreds of thousands of dollars over the current agreement, and the chief technology officer is commended for his hard-nosed, take-no-prisoners approach to negotiations.

Fast-forward six months. Company A’s CFO is having dinner with his counterpart at Company B. The subject of rising technology costs comes up in discussion, and Company A’s CFO is shocked to learn that Company B has just contracted to pay thousands of dollars less on its monthly telecom bill for essentially the same services, with the same provider.  

A call is placed to the telecom company, and the conversation goes something like this.  

“You told us if we signed this contract, we’d save 25%, but you didn’t tell us other companies were getting even bigger discounts, even though they spend less than we do.”

(Long pause)

“Uh…. yeah.  Well, you have two and a half years left on your contract, and we’ll see what we can do at that point.”

Company A will end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Company B for the same services even though they are a larger client.

Scenarios like this are playing out for businesses of all sizes across the country as skilled, in-house salespeople for the nation’s major telecommunications companies are front-loading renegotiated offers in an effort to lock businesses into new, long-term deals.  

“The carriers do this for a living, day in and day out,” says technology expert Darren DeMartino. “It’s a high-stakes poker game, and they’re dealing the cards. IT executives negotiate new telecom agreements only once every two or three years. It’s unrealistic to expect they’ll be as effective as someone who does it day in and day out. Carrier representatives are trained to maintain as much margin as possible and directed by a compensation plan that penalizes them for lowering prices.”  

The typical telecom contract covers three years, and much can change over the course of that term. If the past few years are any indication, pricing will continue to go down as new technology, features, and functionality become mainstream. DeMartino offers the following tips for approaching any telecom renegotiation process.

• Insist on eliminating auto-renewal language. Most telecom contracts (as well as some other agreements) have an auto-renewal clause that will lock you into another term period unless you notify the carrier within a predetermined window of time. Push for a month-to-month extension (guaranteed at the same rate), or accept removal of this language altogether.

• Look for agreements that provide significant revenue-commitment flexibility. If guaranteeing more than 70% of your current spend, you could be locking yourself into a situation that the carriers will take advantage of down the road.

• Shop around. The big boys (Verizon, Comcast, ATT) are not the only games in town, and, in fact, there are literally hundreds of telecom providers in the U.S. Universally, telecom costs have been decreasing more than 20% a year. The compounding effect over the course of a three-year agreement is significant, yet many businesses re-up at the first offer they get from their incumbent provider, leaving significant savings on the table.

• Negotiate co-terminous agreements wherever possible. It’s always to a company’s advantage to have the various types of service agreements terminate at the same time. Be leery of subcommitments (i.e. an overall commitment, and then a smaller commitment for each different service type). Failure to fulfill a small commitment in one category could result in significant penalties overall.

• When in doubt, hire an expert to handle negotiations. Bring them in from the start of negotiations or after you’ve done the heavy lifting. In most instances, they can evaluate an offer within 48 to 72 hours and ensure the absolute best deal is on the table.

You don’t have to wait until your contract is up in order to renegotiate better terms. The telecom world is more competitive than ever, and it may be easier to strike a deal well before a contract expires. It’s always easier for a provider to keep a current customer than find a new one. Use that knowledge to your advantage.

On the old Let’s Make a Deal show, contestants were always hesitant to take Monty Hall’s first offer for fear of getting ‘zonked.’ In today’s complex telecom environment, that fear is well-founded indeed.

Greg Pellerin is a 15-year veteran of the telecommunications and IT industries and a co-founder of VertitechIT, a Holyoke-based business and healthcare IT networking and consulting firm; (413) 268-1605; [email protected]

Sections Technology
Hogan Technology Is in the Business of IT Solutions

Sean, left, and Andrew Hogan

Sean, left, and Andrew Hogan have been in business since 1986 and keep pace with innovative technology that helps their clients.

Many companies experience frustration and setbacks when a problem occurs with their computer, Internet, or telephone system. And if all three stop working simultaneously, as many did during the freak October snowstorm of 2011, company officials often don’t know which provider to call first.

Sean and Andrew Hogan, who co-own Hogan Technology in Easthampton, have solved that problem. Their company’s motto is, “why call three companies when you can call one?”

In fact, they have flipped the way the typical repair model operates. Rather than waiting for a problem to occur, then responding to it, Hogan employees constantly monitor clients’ Internet-technology systems, which allows them to identify problems and resolve them before the client is even aware they exist.

“Technology is imperfect, and it is inevitable that things will go wrong,” Sean said. “If they didn’t, there would be no need for our company. But we understand that, if a business’ computer or phone system goes down, they are out of business until the problem is fixed, so our emphasis is on managed service. What makes us different from other companies is that we provide a comprehensive, bundled solution.”

That requires expertise in many areas. “There are a lot of parts and pieces to technological systems, and it can be very confusing,” said Sean. “So we become a company’s management team, which relieves a lot of duties for office managers or people assigned to the job.”

He added that this is especially important for small firms that do not have a full-time Internet-technology expert. “One person in the office usually gets assigned to support its IT system because that person enjoys working with computers. But the Internet is vast and has so many specialties, one person alone cannot have enough knowledge to fix every problem,” he told BusinessWest.

It can also be difficult for employees who don’t know the language used by computer experts to talk to a software representative, especially since so many companies run specialized software related to their industry.

But Hogan Technology has a bevy of experts who handle these issues.

“We monitor everything related to a company’s systems,” said Sean. “Our team receives an alert on potential outages, so we address them before they become a problem. By being proactive, we are partnering with our clients. And if we keep their business up and running, they are happy.”

He added that this approach saves time and money. “Our model has really evolved; the old way of doing things was to have a company call when something broke, then run out to fix it. But the hourly cost of doing that can be very expensive. A company could go several months with very small bills, then have a major failure. And since businesses can’t live without technology, they have to pay to fix the problem.”

To eliminate that issue, Hogan Technology charges a monthly fee, which helps clients avoid unexpected charges.

The company also has a full-time employee dedicated to customer support who spends her time calling clients to check how their systems are running. “She’s an advocate for them,” Sean said.

Another unusual service is free: lifetime employee training. “Whenever there is a turnover in staff or a new person is hired, we send in a trainer. The people who use our equipment should be our biggest fans,” said Andrew, noting that, if individuals find the training easy to understand, they become proponents of Hogan Technology, which can translate into word-of-mouth advertising.

“We implemented lifetime training because we heard so many customers complain about technology they had been using in the past,” he went on. “They told us they didn’t know how to use it or keep it up to date.”

Keeping Pace

Hogan Technology was founded in 1986 as Hogan Associates by John Hogan and his sons, Sean and Andrew.

The idea for the family business was born after John gave Sean an article to read about the ethernet, which was the newest technology at the time. He was in college, saw it as an opportunity to create a business dedicated to the professional installation of communications systems, and said the trio’s skills fit well with the vision.

At the time, John was retired after 35 years in the communications industry, and he and Sean were working part-time doing computer networking for a local firm, while Andrew was in sales.

“No one had ethernet networking, but everyone needed it, so we were able to get a lot of work,” Sean recalled, adding that, prior to that development, there was no industry standard for cables and wiring, so communication systems could not be linked.

The company quickly became profitable. “In the early years, we had no competition — we all wore tool belts and were laborers,” Sean said, recalling how personal computers replaced terminal servers and high-speed cables were required to support developing technology.

Since its humble beginnings, the company has kept pace with change and gone above and beyond for its clients. For example, years ago, it was not uncommon for Sean and Andrew to drive the company’s bucket truck several hours to fix a problem for a customer on a weekend.

“We take our business very seriously,” Sean told BusinessWest, reiterating that they realize it’s essential for businesses to stay operational at all times.

In time, the name Hogan Associates was changed to Hogan Communications, then changed again to Hogan Technology to reflect the work they were doing.

The company has won a number of awards, and today its ideal client is a business owner who allows Hogan to manage and support all of the company’s technology. The brothers are proud of the service they provide, and in 27 years, they have never had a year in which they lost money.

Part of this success is due to their dedication to maintaining seamless service, which can include overseeing technology needs that change due to a move or expansion. “We specialize in helping customers move. It’s a stressful time for them,” Sean said.

Before the physical move takes place, Andrew examines drawings of the new space and makes recommendations about the cabling the client will need to handle its audiovisual and conference needs. He also checks the wi-fi capability of the building and provides a design for security infrastructure.

“We look at everything that plays into their computer network and consult with them about what they need,” Sean said.

They also deal with their Internet service. “We sell and support every Internet provider, and because we are a master agent, we are able to customize solutions. After all that is complete, we coordinate the physical move of the technology and connect it so the customer has very little or no down time,” Sean said.

For example, the firm was hired to partner with Benchmark Carbide in Springfield when the company moved to a new location. “They needed someone who could handle all aspects of their technology,” Sean explained, adding that this included their phone system, computer networking, and computer installation.

Continued Support

The company currently has 21 employees and about 700 clients. In the past, it limited its customer base to businesses within a three-hour drive, but today Hogan has clients across the nation and handles their international phone systems.

“For example, we have a customer in Agawam with offices in Europe,” Sean explained. “We set up a voice-over-IP system that connects their phones through one network.”

The company’s resources are further enhanced by membership in the Technology Assurance Group, comprised of 105 communication companies in North America who work together. “We are like a brotherhood and provide support to each other,” said Sean.

Andrew agreed. “We attend owners meetings, which allow us to find out what is working well in the industry and what is not working. A lot of things come and go, and we approach every item we sell with the belief that there needs to be a return on investment for our clients.

“If we can prove the equipment we offer them will make their company more productive, efficient, and drive profits, we truly are partners with them,” he added, noting that the affiliation “also gives us buying power so we can compete with larger companies.”

Hogan Technology strives to develop long-term relationships and has clients who have been with them for 20 years. “We meet with every customer quarterly to see what their pain points are and help them forecast what they will need to keep active and productive,” Andrew said. “Then we develop a plan based on their budget and needs. They might not be able to get everything at once, but we come up with a solution and implement it so they can add things as their budget allows.”

Autumn Leshinski

Autumn Leshinski works full-time as a customer advocate and calls clients to make sure their systems are running smoothly.

Sean said this is important because many companies have had buyer’s remorse after purchasing technology that became outdated quickly. “We become a trusted advisor to them because technology is our business,” he explained.

They also hold frequent educational seminars to keep clients abreast of major changes, such as cloud-based voice services. “During the October 2011 snowstorm, many services were down, but the cloud was never down. And the beauty of having this service is that, if an event like that occurs, we can redirect all of a company’s phone lines to their cell phones or to a temporary office; it’s part of a disaster plan we set up for each client,” Sean said.

Their own back-up plan includes an office in South Carolina as well as a virtual server in the cloud.

Master Plan

Although Hogan Technology cannot control everything that happens to a client’s information-technology system, Sean said, it can resolve any problems related to it.

“In order for a company to stay up and running, it needs a partner in technology — someone who is committed to the relationship and has the resources to support them,” he said. And when that company is Hogan Technology, he said, assurances that all is well are sure to be met.

Sections Technology
When It Comes to IT, Responsibility Is Reaching to the Top

By GREG PELLERIN

Greg Pellerin

Greg Pellerin

When it comes to your company’s IT infrastructure, whose job is it, anyway? Who takes the blame (or maybe even the fall) if something goes wrong? More and more, responsibility for an IT failure is reaching all the way to the executive suite.

In May, Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel resigned after a major data-security breach. Some said it wasn’t his fault, but the company’s board disagreed, saying it was a result of underinvestment in Target’s IT systems. The Associated Press quoted Daniel Ives, analyst for FBR Capital Markets, who said, “ultimately, it’s the CIO and the IT managers that are really more in the weeds, but just like the head coach of a football or basketball team that doesn’t make the playoffs, the CEO is ultimately responsible.”

And consider the case of James Thaw, president and CEO of Athens Regional Health System in Georgia. Thaw’s organization, like almost every hospital in America, had invested millions in implementation of an electronic health record (EHR) system. Whether there was pressure on the IT department to roll out the new software before it was fully tested is unclear, but according to the Athens Banner-Herald, the result was near-chaos.

Physicians sent a formal letter of complaint to the hospital’s administration claiming the implementation process was too aggressive and resulted in “medication errors, orders being lost or overlooked, emergency-department patients leaving after long waits, and an inpatient who wasn’t seen by a physician for five days.”

The letter was published less than two weeks after the hospital’s PR department proudly touted the new, integrated system as “the most meaningful and largest-scale information-technology system in its 95 year history.”

Thaw and Chief Information Officer Gretchen Tegethoff have since resigned.  Whether they were responsible for pressing the ‘go live’ button prematurely is unknown. Most hospitals contract with a team of external consultants who sit alongside representatives of the institution’s medical and administrative staff to oversee implementation over a one- to four-year timeframe. The fate of those consultants and team members is unknown.

So, what’s an executive to do? Most CEOs got to where they are because of their strategic abilities, not necessarily their technical strengths. What questions should they be asking their staff regarding major IT decisions?

“It comes down to two words: integration and communication,” said Michael Feld, president of VertitechIT, a nationally renowned expert consultant in IT management, and the acting chief technology officer at Lancaster General Hospital.  “IT is the engine that keeps an organization running, but oftentimes, CEOs will treat the department as a necessary evil.  Your IT people need to know where the company is going and how technology will play a role in that growth. When they don’t, you’ve got problems.”

Feld offers up three areas of advice on how to avoid an IT disaster that could have implications in the C-suite and the entire company:

• You wouldn’t think of launching a new sales or product initiative without announcing and getting buy-in from the sales and marketing departments. Integrate your IT department in the same way. Make sure everyone, from your chief information officer to front-line system engineers, understand issues that affect the life of the company.  Everyone should understand IT’s role in achieving those goals.

• Plan an off-site retreat with your CIO. He or she is, after all, no different than the CEO, one level down. Senior company executives need to know what your network can do, not necessarily how it’s done. Place the focus on understanding risks, benefits, costs, and the relationships all of them have to each other.

• Put your personal biases on the shelf. That new company initiative may have been born in your office, but it’s easy to fool yourself into believing that IT can just make it happen. Keep asking questions and challenge whether your internal systems and people are ready to press ‘go.’ Is there a fail-safe, redundant backup plan in place when something goes wrong? Are your internal people trained and fluent in its operation, and are there outside resources lined up for those special situations? If the answer is no, find out why.

No one wants to just throw money at a problem, hoping it will go away. But you can’t fight a fire without a long enough hose, and that new fire truck will be useless if there’s not enough water coming from the hydrant. In the end, it’s the chief that will take responsibility if things spin out of control. To paraphrase Smokey the Bear, ultimately, you can prevent forest fires. n


Greg Pellerin is a 15-year veteran of the telecommunications and IT industries and a co-founder of VertitechIT, one of the fastest-growing business and healthcare IT networking and consulting firms in the country; (413) 268-1605; [email protected]

Sections Technology
Anzovin Studio Stays on the Cutting Edge of Animation Technology

By KEVIN FLANDERS

Raf Anzovin, left, and David Boutilier

Raf Anzovin, left, and David Boutilier, with an image they created for an American Canoe Assoc. public service announcement.

Raf Anzovin, president of Northampton-based Anzovin Studio, has discovered that success in the animation industry comes to those who push their businesses to the edge — the cutting edge of technology.

Dedicated to supplying an array of services to clients while regularly improving the tools with which they create their products, the Anzovin Studio staff has mastered an ingenious two-pronged approach. Even when business is thriving, the company challenges itself to refine its practices and streamline its productivity, which serves to benefit both artists and clients.

“It’s amazing to look back and see how far animation has come in the last 15 years,” said Anzovin, who opened the studio in 2000 with his father, Steven Anzovin. “When you compare movies like the first Toy Story to current movies, you’ll see a huge difference in the quality of the characters and the exactness in the way they move. The industry has progressed in leaps and bounds in terms of the quality you’re expected to create. Something that would have been considered good in the ’90s would be viewed as well below average today.”

With that truth constantly in mind, Anzovin and his staff strive each year to develop new software that not only benefits Anzovin Studio artists but also draws the interest of clients. One of the studio’s latest and most successful software products, Anzovin Rig Tools, is expected to provide major advances in the area of character rigging. Because Anzovin’s software programmers and artists work in close collaboration, each new plug-in tool and application serves a specific need, with the ultimate goal of making computer-animated characters as seamless and believable as possible.

“We’re very excited about it — this particular area of animation hasn’t had significant upgrades since the ’90s,” Anzovin said of the new product, which has not yet been brought to market.

If the success of the studio’s previous products is any indication, then Anzovin Rig Tools will be utilized by some of the most prominent players in the industry. In past years, companies like Dreamworks, Disney, and Sony have bought Anzovin’s products, while the studio has consulted with clients like Microsoft, EA, and Hasbro.

“There are certain areas like character rigging where we are really pushing the technology,” added Anzovin, who takes pride in spearheading technological advances.

In short, he told BusinessWest, companies that fail to keep up with the breakneck speed of invention in this industry find it doesn’t take long to fall behind.

Products on All Platforms

In addition to its software-design work, Anzovin Studio produces educational and entertainment content through several media each year. Its art can be seen in everything from commercials to public-service announcements to video games, depending on the client and the request.

Last year, the studio supplied animation for a PSA run by the American Canoe Assoc., a piece that employed cartoon-like characters to convey water-safety tips in a unique manner.

“A lot of times, clients come to us looking to create PSAs that get the point across but also have entertainment value,” said Jake Mazonson, an artist and producer at the studio. “Animation is a good tool to communicate information in a fun, engaging way.”

Anzovin said the studio usually produces art for a handful of TV commercials each year, but that number might rise in future years, because the amount of content featuring animation is expected to increase. With the popularity of video sharing and downloading, the Internet is also a source of boundless potential for animators, especially when distributed across social-media platforms.

Meanwhile, video games have generated solid business as well, with the studio providing cut-scene animations for such games as Halo II, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Da Vinci Code, The Sims Medieval, and Mercenaries II, among others.

“One of the great things about animation is that it can be used as a communication tool but also for entertainment — we often bring those two aspects together in our projects,” Anzovin said.

But the staff’s emphasis isn’t always on fun and entertainment when it comes to video games. The studio frequently contributes animations for instructional games and programs designed for individuals preparing to deal with hazardous law-enforcement and military situations. A recently released training program for the Department of Defense, for example, included art created by Anzovin’s staff to help simulate civilian populations in various locations. The tool will help soldiers learn how to defuse potentially dangerous encounters in highly populated areas.

“It’s really nice when we can help solve problems and serve social purposes,” added Mazonson, who is excited to be working on a new project with the American Canoe Assoc. — an animated memoir of individuals recounting their stories from the water. The project will be funded by a grant allocated by the U.S. Coast Guard.

How It Works

The concepts and methods that drive computer animation can be a little tricky to understand — if not downright mind-boggling at times — but Mazonson described the complexities of creating character-rigging products in remarkably simple terms.

“It’s a lot like making a puppet, with the strings and all of the different parts,” he told BusinessWest. “You have to figure out how to arrange everything in such a way that others will be able to use it.”

Anzovin believes one of the major keys to successful animation is to become a master of movement. Many movie animators have perfected the art to such a degree that, from a distance, animated characters can often be mistaken for actors. Their movements are swift and natural, seemingly enhanced with each movie.

“The goal is to present movement in a believable way,” Anzovin said. “One of the things that movies like Frozen and Tangled do well is combine the subtleties that are possible in computer animation with the graphic quality of movement. At times, you’re trying to create something that is more lifelike and exciting than life itself.”

So how long does it take to create such vivid animations? In terms of average project length — from the initial design stages to completion — a variety of factors come into play. Sometimes a project can be finished in just a few weeks, while other endeavors can last up to two years.

“It depends on the scope of the project and what the client is asking for,” said David Boutilier, vice president of Anzovin Studio. “Every project has a different script and style, and each client has a different level of experience. Some people are experts, while others only have a little experience in animation. All of those things affect how long it takes.”

ACAmasterComp00172

Above, imagery created by Anzovin Studio for the American Canoe Assoc. Below, animation created for client Squelch Inc.

Above, imagery created by Anzovin Studio for the American Canoe Assoc. Below, animation created for client Squelch Inc.

Raf Anzovin never spent a day in a college classroom, but he wound up teaching collegiate courses. He didn’t attend high school, either. Homeschooled and self-taught in the world of computer animation, he found this industry to be an open road for an 18-year-old going into business with his father. The possibilities offered in this new, exciting, undeveloped terrain were limitless, the perfect career choice for technologically inclined artists like Anzovin whose passion and ambition are matched only by their creativity.

“Everything was just starting up back then — a wild west,” he recalls. “Even if you had basic abilities in animation, you could make a name for yourself. Everything has come a long way since then.”

After exploring various institutions, Anzovin decided not to attend college because there weren’t many computer-animation programs available. Instead, he went to work with his father, starting off in Amherst and eventually moving into the studio’s current Nonotuck Mill office in 2009. Now, five years after calling the Florence section of Northampton home, the business has become an industry leader in technological innovation, with major companies routinely turning to Anzovin and his staff for consultation.

“The tools you have determine how quickly you can produce things, which is one of the reasons why we create our own products,” Anzovin said. “Animation is a very time-consuming process, but the way we approach it, by developing our own tools, certainly gives us an advantage.”

Added Mazonson, “technology and art are constantly interacting with everything we do.”

Branching Out

Over the next few years, Anzovin hopes to continue consulting with his studio’s partners and also to build new relationships, preferably with local businesses. As one of the only companies in the region focusing heavily on character animation, most of its clients are based outside Massachusetts, many of them in different time zones.

“I think one of the reasons [for the low number of local clients] is a lack of exposure,” Mazonson said. “A lot of people don’t know there’s an animation studio right here in Western Mass.”

One project that might help raise the studio’s profile  will take place in the coming year — a collaboration with representatives from Google. Though Anzovin couldn’t get into much detail about the project, he said it will likely involve mobile devices and the creation of tools.

Judging by how far animation has progressed in the last decade, in addition to Anzovin Studio’s commitment to innovation, the company will likely be redefining industry standards for years to come.

Sections Technology
Web Design Is Only Part of the Game at Gravity Switch

Christine Mark

Christine Mark, co-founder, graphic designer, and budding ukulele player at Gravity Switch.

Gravity Switch may be known for websites, Christine Mark said, but clients are often surprised to discover where conversations about those sites lead.

“Yes, we’re working on the public face of a company or organization, but we always want to talk about what their business challenges are, what they’re trying to do, what are their metrics of success. The work we do needs to help drive those things forward in some way. If it’s not, it doesn’t make sense to pursue it,” said Mark, who started Gravity Switch in 1996 with her husband, Jason (the company’s creative lead and a BusinessWest 40 Under Forty winner in 2011) and one of his high-school friends.

“We were three kids out of college, not unlike how a lot of startups begin, a bootstraps operation with wires hanging from the ceiling,” she told BusinessWest. “But our core ideals and why we’re here haven’t changed, even though the landscape around us has changed tremendously. We’ve matured as a company as we approach our double-decade milestone, but we still follow those ideals of doing work that we love, that’s meaningful, for people and organizations that we believe in and care about.”

And they draw on their own business experience to approach web design and a range of other high-tech services from a broad perspective.

“The end product might be a website, or it might be a website plus a mobile version of the site, or responsive design where the display and content are dynamically reformatted depending on whether it’s on a desktop, tablet, smartphone, whatever the case may be,” she said. “Or we might develop print pieces to accompany a web launch, or user testing and a usability study with a findings report, where we can leverage what we learn in that process. There might be a social-media strategy; we can offer a lot to clients in terms of how to approach their social media.”

All these elements — design, branding, messaging, technology — are spokes on the same wheel, and at the center is a company’s goals.

“The clients we work with feel really excited and energized to articulate who they are and what makes them great,” Mark told BusinessWest. “I’ve heard clients say to us, ‘we thought coming to you would help us with this marketing and technology issue, but then you helped us figure out how to position our products differently.’”

For this issue’s focus on technology, BusinessWest visits a Northampton-based company known for its cutting-edge work, its civic conscience, and — did she just break out a ukulele? — sense of fun.

Evolving World

At the start, Gravity Switch wasn’t as broad in its goals; in fact, it didn’t even focus on websites, its eventual bread and butter. In its first year, about 95% of the company’s work was graphics, animation, and video for CD-ROM and other platforms.

“My, how that’s flip-flopped,” said Mark. “In 1996 or 1997, if you told someone you were doing websites, a lot of people didn’t understand what that meant. You had to do a lot of explaining.”

She recalled someone who called that first year, struggling to articulate his question before asking, “do you have the Internet there?”

The Internet has, obviously, become much more pervasive since then, but Gravity Switch has evolved in some key ways as well.

“Now, I can say to someone, ‘we do websites,’ and stop there, but it wouldn’t do justice to it,” she said. “What we do is build web and mobile and digital experiences — and we’ve really moved over to print as well — that are rooted in business marketing, branding, and messaging strategy. To pull it off right, it’s not just websites.”

The Marks and their 10-person team focus on three key sectors: higher education — they’ve done website work for Yale, Dartmouth, UMass, Smith, Asuntuck Community College, and many other institutions — nonprofitsm, and businesses, ranging from local entrepreneurs to large corporations.

“We’re a good match for people who are forward-thinking, energetic, and like to get things done, because that describes us,” she said. “We’re not afraid of hard work, and we bring a lot of energy and expertise to the mix.”

For the most part, Mark explained, Gravity Switch doesn’t build first websites for companies, unless the client is a startup. Instead, they tackle the challenge of redesign, of making a site powerful, visible, and adaptable in a more complex Internet landscape.

“Between 2000 and 2005, we were doing first websites; companies came to us, wanting to embark on the web, and there was a lot of education to convey — why it’s important, why it matters, and what things don’t matter.

“It’s a much savvier client base today,” she continued. “I can say ‘CMS,’ and most of our points of contact — directors of marketing, directors of IT, presidents and CEOs — they’ll understand that CMS means content-management system. We used to have to define what that meant even five years ago. Now, they know what that means and maybe have some experience working with them.”

A CMS is essentially a program that allows users to publish content on the web, and even do-it-yourself programs have become more sophisticated, she said, citing Squarespace as a good example.

“There are design constraints imposed by Squarespace templates, but it’s a pretty powerful tool. What it doesn’t bring, though — and what you always need a human for — is the strategic part, the thinking, the messaging. No technology is able to hear what the client is saying and listen between the lines. No technology can replace that and add good copywriting and photography.”

Two basic questions Gravity Switch asks clients is what they want people to know, in terms of data and facts, and what they want people to feel — what impressions they want to convey ­— when users access their site.

“When you start conversations with these questions, some really interesting, powerful things come out of it, versus coming out of it thinking, ‘I need a website, and I want it to be blue.’ We don’t pick blue; we pick ‘businesslike’ or ‘conservative’ or ‘edgy’ or other things,” she said, adding that it’s important to test design ideas with different audiences before going live. “It’s the mantra of ‘fail early and fail often’ when it’s not that expensive to fail and it’s pretty inexpensive to correct course.”

All aspects of design and testing have become more complicated in the new mobile world, where consumers are constantly accessing the Internet on the go. Mark said Gravity Switch designs apps for mobile devices, but because their budget isn’t always matched by an immediate return on investment — after all, most apps are offered for free — they are not always an attractive option.

More important, she noted, is a mobile-friendly or mobile-streamlined website, which might include anything from minimizing form entry to streamlining screen real estate, to making sure the company’s phone number is findable and tappable. “The dexterity available in the mobile environment is more limited, and that needs to be taken into consideration.”

Clients need to ask themselves what their mobile audience is — the difference between 1% and 20% can change the way they prioritize a mobile-streamlined site — but it’s becoming at least a consideration for almost everyone.

“Maybe four years ago, the question was, ‘do we think we need mobile?’ Now it’s ‘what do we need to do about mobile?’” she said. “It’s part of the landscape, and it’s an opportunity to be leveraged or missed.”

Fun with a Purpose

Mark repeatedly came back to her company’s philosophy, which has remained steady over 18 years of otherwise dynamic industry change. “We work with organizations we care about and believe in. When it comes down to it, we like working with organizations we think are making a good impact on the world. Nonprofits are exciting for us, education is exciting, and we work with businesses we like. We’re very passionate about the work we do.”

She added that she and Jason have built their own team in a similar way, choosing talented individuals who bring with them a passion for their work.

“In terms of how we hire and the expectations we have for our team members, the people at Gravity Switch are in the roles where they get to do what they do best every single day,” she said. “That’s really a core part of our hiring philosophy and career-development philosophy.”

In addition to 10 full-time employees and a few part-timers — what she referred to as a “good, strong team of designers, developers, lead strategists, people who do content, and project managers” — the firm also works with a number of outside contractors, including videographers, photographers, additional content writers, and designers, to regulate the workload.

While Gravity Switch — which was named, whimsically, after a Shel Silverstein poem — has become a well-known name in Northampton and beyond, it seeks to be part of the community in ways that go beyond business.

“We contribute to the world around us through group volunteer work — a couple of times, we’ve helped Habitat for Humanity build houses — and we donate 15% of our corporate profits every year to charity; our employees help direct the funds,” Mark said, adding that the Make-A-Wish Foundation has benefited recently as well, with Gravity Switch paying for three of the 50 wishes granted last year by the local chapter.

Taking a page out of Alan Robinson’s book Ideas Are Free, the company has also formalized a process for generating ideas to help people. Every other week, the staff gathers to pitch ideas for making people’s lives better, doing things more efficiently, helping clients save money, or just have fun — with the caveat that all ideas must cost under $30 and take less than 30 minutes to implement, the concept being that more complicated, expensive plans are less likely to be put into action. “It’s another piece of sharing the work we’re doing with each other,” Mark said.

In other words, it’s a fun, open, and progressive place to work, she said, one where she feels free to break out her ukulele to jog her creativity.

“We’re all avid learners with different areas of interests. It’s part of our culture, that energy we bring. I’m grateful for our people, this team, and our culture. Jason and I are the business owners, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say it’s the people who create that culture. It’s a fun group — a hard-working group, but we like to laugh and enjoy work, too.”


Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Sections Technology
Understand the Pros and Cons of Technology Investments

By GREG PELLERIN

Greg Pellerin

Greg Pellerin

Bill Gates and the president of General Motors were having lunch. Gates boasted of the innovations his company had made. “If GM had kept up with technology the way Microsoft has, we’d all be driving $25 cars that get 1,000 miles per gallon.”

“I suppose that’s true,” the GM exec agreed. “But would you really want your car to crash twice a day?”

I think of this story whenever we’re asked by a client to justify the return on their technology investment. The latest and greatest may be better, but is it right for you, and how will it show up on the bottom line?

Take the healthcare industry, for example. Institutions are spending hundreds of millions — and, in some cases, billions — of dollars to meet new federal electronic healthcare (EHR) guidelines. Taxpayer dollars are in part funding the transition so that doctors can talk to the emergency room, radiology can talk to oncology, nurses can talk to the pharmacy, and everybody can talk to the accounting department.

Linking all systems together will invariably help improve patient care and no doubt provide accountability when it comes to paying for it all. That should help Washington’s bottom line as well as those of the insurance industry. But what about the hospitals? Hundreds of millions of dollars in up-front expense and tens of millions of dollars in annual system maintenance costs later, will it all be worth it?

A discussion on the subject took place recently on a LinkedIn forum, and the arguments for and against, can, quite frankly, be made for any business, inside or outside the healthcare world.

The Pros

• Technology reduces fraud, waste, and abuse;

• When used correctly, inter-department communication will drastically improve, making for a more efficient organization and happy customers (patients); and

• New-data analysis can identify strengths and weaknesses, driving process improvement and lowering costs.

The Cons

• The cost of installing and integrating software that, in the case of EHR, runs $250 million. An additional $30 million a year will need to be spent to keep it all running. That can only be recouped, some say, through massive cutbacks in personnel (either that, or as one online-forum participant suggested, “reduce the average physician’s salary by $100,000 a year!” That’s not going to happen).

• The system is broken. Hospitals, like many businesses, are being asked to improve quality even though they will need to spend more to operate and be paid less to do it.

Ask the Right Questions

So how do you judge ROI when it comes to a technology investment for your business? Start by doing a thorough LEAN analysis of your organization and industry. Begin by asking yourself two simple questions:

Why am I doing this? It may be something thrust upon you by the state or federal government, an industry group, the age and/or performance of your existing infrastructure, or security concerns.

How will it make my business better? Technology is often touted as making an organization more efficient, augmenting existing or opening up new capabilities, or allowing for increased capacity.

If you’re satisfied with the answers, make sure you then have a solid understanding of your existing network, because that needs to be the benchmark for your comparison. You don’t have to join the local ‘geek squad,’ but you should be asking the bits-and-bytes experts for a reasonable overview of your current systems, processes, and personnel. If you can’t understand it, tell them to go back to the drawing board. Throw out the acronyms and have them make their pitch again. You want an understanding of all the hardware and software you’re using today. You want assurances that all processes are documented and reviewed for optimal performance. And, finally, you want to know that you have the right team in place to run what you have now and handle the changes ahead.

With all of these answers in hand, you can now weigh the capital expense of the hardware or software against the resulting increases in operating expense and determine if the spending is appropriate for your business size and complexity.

Return on investment is not a simple ‘A + B’ calculation. But if you follow the process, you just may keep your ROI from turning into an IOU


Greg Pellerin is a 15-year veteran of the telecommunications and IT industries and a co-founder of VertitechIT, one of the fastest-growing business and healthcare IT networking and consulting firms in the country; (413) 268-1605; [email protected]