Time for the Rochester media to step up

Thousands of high school kids from throughout upstate NY show up for an event featuring science, technology, engineering and math.  It's an event as exciting as the first NASCAR race of the year, or the first baseball thrown out at the beginning of the season for these kids, and their mentors.  In fact, it's filled with even more suspense because unlike those events in this event they'll discover the challenge they're going to try to tackle for the next 6 weeks as they build a FIRST Robotics Challenge robot to compete for glory.
Over the next 6 weeks kids from these teams will be working on their robots as much as 3 evenings a week, plus all day on each weekend day, putting hundreds of hours in - all while maintaining excellent grades in school.  At the end of the 6 weeks they'll be delivering the robots to compete at a regional event, and hopefully an international one.  These regionals are every bit as exciting and engrossing as a great basketball game or football game, featuring both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

In the meantime they'll have learned programming, design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, physics, math, science, embedded systems, how to run a lathe and a drill press, how to work as a team and collaborate, as well as leadership, public relations, marketing, and team spirit. After a 4 year experience in FIRST 85% and more of graduates go on to college, and 70% of them go into much needed engineering fields.  FIRST Robotics offers millions in scholarships to FIRST Robotics Alumni at major technical colleges all over the US.

Doesn't this sound like something that our community and culture should be promoting at every opportunity?  Doesn't it sound important enough to warrant television, newspaper and online media coverage?  Pictures? Video?  Profiles of the teams and individual superstars on those teams? It does to me.  Apparently not to those who actually run and prioritize media stories however.  They seem to think that it's much more important to post stories about who is the best baseball, football, basketball, - heck even water polo is covered in more detail than FIRST Robotics.  In fact recently the Democrat and Chronicle posted a 36 page special on the best individual athletes in traditional sports - on the same day that they completely failed to cover the event mentioned above.  Apparently "Driver ticketed for 2 car crash" and "Local swimsuit model competes" is more important than "Thousands of High School kids get an opportunity to be professional engineers".

Our culture today promotes sports and our high schools spend millions on sporting equipment, fields, and infrastructure.  Think what a change we could make in our society if we instead spent those dollars and that effort on promoting academic challenges.  Think what a difference it could make for urban kids if all of them had the opportunity to participate in one-on-one mentoring and building a possible career, instead of sports where maybe one or two out of thousands of participants might someday go professional.

I hereby challenge the Rochester Media to step up this year.  Go select a couple of FIRST Robotics teams - Email me if you need some leads - and give them the same coverage you would give a high school sports teams.  Don't just cover the FIRST Regional event in March from the point of view of a "bunch of geeks getting together" - post the scores the next day.  Post the winners.  Tell us who won what awards.  Highlight where they're going and follow them if they move on to Championships or compete in other regionals.  Follow a couple FIRST high school seniors and see where they end up in terms of colleges. Let's make academic challenge just as important as athletic challenges.  We need to in order to survive and compete as a community.  And you don't have to stop with FIRST teams - other great challenges like Science Olympiad and Odyssey of the Mind are also deserving of your coverage, recognition etc.  Those kids deserve to have their success documented like every athlete in your 36 page athletic section do.  This means YOU Rochester Democrat and Chronical, and ALL of you in the news media (WHEC, WHAM, WROC, etc).

Some say that the media should just follow culture - I say that you can have a positive effect on the Rochester region by highlighting not just our athletic successes but our academic ones as well.  Do something good for your community.  And don't just stick us in the back of a local section - do feature stories.  For the good of Rochester.

Microsoft and Kodak - same company, different timeline?

As Rochester, NY residents we wax perhaps a bit more philosophically about our local "founding" company Kodak.  I've been alive long enough to know Kodak in the heyday of photography when nothing seemed to be able to bring the "Big Yellow Box" down, to today's more sobering announcement in the Wall Street Journal that they are relying on a sale of some of their most important digital photography patents (not licensing or enforcing mind you - selling) to prevent bankruptcy.  I predicted their demise into a tiny office selling patents downtown filled with lawyers and brokers from one of the largest and most diverse photographic giants 10 years ago when they started selling off profitable divisions to fund quarterly stock price expectations and a long tradition of paying out unsustainable "profit sharing bonuses" to employees.

If you look back over the timeline for Kodak, one of the key things that jumps out at you are their lost opportunities.  One of the reasons that digital photography patents exist in Kodak's portfolio at all is that for a large part - they invented it.  And yet once invented it was quietly killed by an internal team stuck in the past - looking at chemical sales and the blade/razor effect and refusing to think that someday that might not work for them and digital would make them obsolete.  Love those cool OLED displays?  Also invented at Kodak, but they never made any instead selling the patent to LG Electronics to make some quick cash.  They similarly bet wrong in the videotape arena, refusing to believe it would replace handheld film - getting into it too late to matter and choosing and betting on the wrong platform (Beta not VHS).  Another misstep was the inability to identify the importance of instant photography from competitor Polaroid.  Recently they've entered the consumer printing market, well after it had become commoditized.

So let's look now at Microsoft's recent timeline.  Beholden to inertia they've now missed the boat on at least 3 of the most recent 4 innovation thresholds.  Their windows phone 7 for all it's evolutionary but not revolutionary technological superiority is too little too late in a mobile marketplace now dominated by Android and Apple.  They bet that something better than Windows Mobile (which never held more than 7 or 8% of the market) was all they had to make and that they could roll it out after everyone else - hubris of the worst kind.  Sales of windows 7 phones lag behind usage of their now no longer sold windows 6.5 phones - hardly a promising beginning a year after release. 

Similarly their tablet effort has been derailed by tying it directly to the windows OS - with usable tablets from Microsoft now not due until 2013, they might as well just throw in the towel.  The market will be saturated with cheap Android and high end iPad tablets by that point, and they'll be stepping into a well established commodity market yet again.  If they get 5% of it I'll be surprised.  Similarly the trend away from big hardware and iron and towards the cloud is being only 1/2 well managed by Microsoft.  Though they have a powerful and well managed cloud offering in Office365, competition with the server and desktop divisions within their company has rendered them ineffective at competing with Google, Amazon and other providers, with their offerings significantly more expensive and complex to manage than those of their competitors.  Even partners are getting confused messages about what to sell to whom, and their sales and marketing have been woeful in trying to clarify why Office365 vs other platforms like Gmail, probably due to fear of cannibalizing their currently fat server and office divisions that run the rest of the company financially.

Microsoft could learn a thing or two from Kodak's fate:  if you let the line of business guys decide what to market and be innovative with you are doomed to fail.  Disruptive technologies like the iPad are DESIGNED from scratch to be disruptive.  Did you see Apple's laptop division try to kill the iPad - no you did not.  The reason is that they would rather create an innovative and competitive new product than retain the tail end of a laptop sales era they could see disappearing in the future.  They looked at more than next quarter.  Similarly Zune, though they have a superior service to Apple came in too little, too late to compete with the iPod juggernaut.  Even the Android crowd hasn't yet figured out how to break that barrier.  The only real success Microsoft has had is with the Xbox360 and Kinect.  One gaming platform a company doesn't make.  Kinect like devices could completely change the way we interact with all sorts of devices - laptops, tablets, kiosk displays.  But if we leave it to the LOB folks at Microsoft, Apple and Android will have competing camera based products out there eating their lunch by the time they actually get anything in the hands of consumers.

This is really a hard post for me to put up there.  I've been a staunch Microsoft advocate for years, and I despise Apple's rigid control over their platform hardware and sales process - don't even get me started on the whole iTunes thing.  But I gotta say Microsoft - if you stay on this path - in 10-15 years you could find your stock under a $1 and be the host of a bunch of patent lawyers squabbling over who gets your most valuable stuff before you go the way of the Dodo.  Microsoft needs to take a hard look at itself and make some significant changes to the way they think about innovation and being first to market.  Because second to market with a 2-3 year lead time is no longer an option.  If they don't think it can happen to them - look at Kodak 15 years ago.  Then tell me it can't.

A shameless plug - OS-Cubed, and what we do

Just in case there are any questions: OS-Cubed, Inc. develops software, every kind and flavor of application as long as it's based on Microsoft technologies.  We prefer to adapt existing software to building it from scratch but we have the ability to build almost anything you can imagine.  We build content managed websites - large and small for big businesses and small businesses, everything from simple brochure sites, to ecommerce, to multinational b2b marketing systems. 
We also provide technical support for Microsoft (and increasingly Apple and Android) based office and industrial systems, including servers, sharepoint, exchange, etc. 

We provide consulting services to software development departments within large companies, helping them focus on strategic initiatives and building a well rounded team with an awesome culture - like we have. 

We provide cloud based email and services - both self hosted and Microsoft/Gmail.  We host Microsoft/MS-SQL based websites, host our own email and DNS, on our own servers using our own software.  We make the coolest stuff you can imagine, but aren't so proud that we won't work on your mundane Access database or web based report.  We are a great bunch of guys and gals that will work hard.  When the phone rings at the office a human being answers it.  We give you our cell numbers.  We have an online service system so that you can track every single ticket and project right down to the 15 minute increment - nothing hidden.

We need business.  We need projects.  We need referrals.  Please consider hiring us, or referring us to someone who will.

Are you a pig? Or a Chicken? One VCs view....

In this excellent article by Jeff at the "Seeing Both Sides" blog, he talks about what kinds of red flags will make a VC pass.  If you're developing software and looking for funding - here's an excellent list of things to watch out for.  I highly encourage you to read the entire article.

• You should already have "started up" before you look for money.  VCs want to know you have skin in the game and are passionate about your product - so passionate you won't wait for them.
• You should be entirely dedicated to your project before you approach a VC. They see you having a separate job while working on your wonderful idea as not enough dedication and passion - you must believe in what you're asking them to invest in.
• Your team should be geophysically located together.  Working as a team is an important part of forming a good startup.  Even with todays awesome technology - nothing beats face to face.
• They are looking for a hands-on CEO. If that's not you then you better be sure you already have one.  Saying you're going to hire a CEO or COO to run the business for you is a red flag for them.
• You must be willing to exercise your own network to drive revenue, bring in sales etc.   If you won't even try to convince your friends you'll never convince them.

So to flip that over the "pig" entrepreneurs as Jeff calls them must truley dedicate their life to their vision, they must put themselves out there as being behind their idea, so that failure is a public event.  You must be poor.  Seriously.  VCs are looking for hungry enterepreneurs with family obligations and commitments who will work to make their company a success.  If you can just sit back and live high on the hog regardless of how your company does you won't have the proper motivation in their mind 0 the only exception is the "happy and scrappy" lot who just can't settle down - and prove it by being very hands on in venture number 2.  You must be obsessed with your company to the exclusion of all other outside interests other than your family and your health. 

Jeff goes on to state that VCs want not just a Pig in the drivers seat, but an entire team of pigs.  How's your pigsty?  Full of pigs or are there some chickens in there.  Are you one of them?

Why development isn't cheap....

As professional software developers with years of experience, our guys have become pretty good at estimating things.  You can't always be right, but if you have done a good job of choosing and limiting scope, and are developing in an agile environment estimating becomes more of an art and less of a science.  If you're in a business like ours, providing accurate estimates of how long something will take is key to success.  We want to build long term clients who will keep coming back for us for job after job - not one-shot projects where everyone leaves dissatisified.

The conundrum for a company like ours is though - we're too honest.  During the sales process we tell people how much it will really cost to do exactly what they want and the next thing you know they've moved on to others who promise to do it for less.  Do those "others" typically deliver it for less?  No.  We've followed up with some of these potential clients only to discover that they paid as much or more than we originally estimated, or ended up with a product that was less than what they wanted.  That's a sales process though that's doomed to failure - they've already spent more than they wanted to, exhausted their budget, and have soured on the whole "external development" concept.  "I told you so" may feel nice but it doesn't deliver successful products.

Now, with our ongoing clients we typically have an entirely different discussion.  Our clients tend to tell us up front - here is my budget, what can we do for that.  It's a different mindset - we KNOW we have more work than they can afford to do, but we want to get the best bang for the buck we have.

Now I promised in the title to talk about why development isn't cheap so let me give you a few anecdotes:

• For one client we're working with who has an existing codebase that's been worked on with 3 different programmers in the past, we've spent over 20 hours just getting a replica of their production environment working for doing testing.  This cost has to be built into the project even though it doesn't directly result in a product improvement
• For another client they want us to give them an estimate on changing a shopping cart.  But they don't have the source code for the compiled shopping cart module they're now using and can't understand why we can't just tell them how much a simple change will be.  We don't know because we can't see the code, or even tell exactly how the current shopping cart works.  Even if we had the code it would take at least 1/2 day just to digest the workflow and get the source code understandable - if the original programmer did a good job.
• Each of my programmers needs ongoing training, certification updates and time to research new solutions, fix old problems.  None of that is typically directly billable to a client.
• We need to pay for software and infrastructure for each programmer - test servers, source control systems, development licenses, backups, licenses, professional memberships - all paid for out of our pockets.
• Our programmers are salaried workers with benefits - so every hour they are here - and all the hours on vacation, regardless of whether they bill that hour, is a cost to the company.
• Our offices need power, lights, phone, mobile phone, fast internet service, etc.  Again - a cost that is built into the cost of our labor.
• The company pays their unemployment, disability, federal taxes, a portion of their medical coverage, etc.  All these add to the burdened rate
• Tech toys - you might think, why does that programmer need the latest iPhone?  Why do we have to have android, wp7, iphones and blackberries in our mobile phone stable?  Well the answer is - we have to test apps and mobile websites in these platforms to be sure they work.  All costly.

So the moral of the story is - if you're purchasing software development, consider all that you're buying.  Look at the level of experience and the satisfaction of the employees doing the work for you, and when you get several bids, remember - the lowest bid is frequently NOT the best deal when it comes to software development.