tampa tech solutions

In the late January to early February timeframe I was contacted by Lisa Stephens with the Westchase WOW (a local, Westchase-only association magazine) to schedule an interview.  She'd heard of the Westchase Area Business Association recently and wanted to get to know more about me and how I came to create WABA.
 
Well, this article is the result of that interview.  It's really focused on me as much as WABA which was a little unexpected.  I'd like to thank Lisa for taking time and writing an excellent article that I'm proud to post.
 
Click 'read more' to see a legible copy.

  The other day I was browsing TED as I often do and just when I thought I had consumed everything that was consumable, I come across Daniel Pink. His bio, while interesting, didn't really give a hint to the brilliance of what I was going to see. So I click through to his "Surprising Science of Motivation" speech. I mean, who wouldn't be interested to hear any science that can increase my - or anyone's - motivation.
 
For the next almost 19 minutes, I'm marvelling at his striking resemblance to Danny Tanner, but still managing to hang on every word.  Dan is both engaging and funny, but not nearly as engaging nor funny as he is passionate.  You can tell that he has poured over books, articles and every other medium in order to come to the most specific, provable science.  The focus of the speech is Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.  Unfortunately he only has enough time to go through Autonomy, but the evidence he was able to get to in a short speech was convincing and eye-opening.

This week, Google released it's newest application (or is it a feature?) called Buzz. The  Twitter-verse has been all a-buzz (sorry, I can't help it) about #buzz since it was announced.  My initial thoughts can best be summed up by Joshua Topolsky of Engadget fame:
  

I finally have a way to stay connected to my friends and update them on my status!

 I found myself on #phpbb over at irc.freenode.net and was greeted by Leviatan21 who immediately wanted to help me.
 
You see, I'm responsible for a local Poker forum (www.angryjacks.com/forums) and in order to make a cool experience, I decided to use "smilies" that look like playing cards.  This way you can post a hand online and see a graphical representation of the hand instead of just reading "2h" for the 2 of hearts.
 

When the iPad splashed onto the rumor scene, the date was November 18th 2002.  In that month there was an article in eWeek by Matthew Rothenberg that speculated on an Apple tablet.  Of course his leaked info wound up being WAY off compared to what we see today as the iPad.  After that, it seems there wasn't much mention of it but once a year until April 2009.  From then on the rumor was white hot and the rumor mill was working overtime with many claims ... many that wound up being right.
At first, my excitement was hard to contain.  I was glued to the coverage of Apple's latest event, because the rumors had promised some serious excitement.  We were talking about a front facing camera, some multitasking goodness, and other tech geek goodies.  Then the announcement.  Everyone was waiting with baited breath for a Verzon partnership, iPhoneOS 4.0, and a real game changing device.  None of that ever came.
 

There are various articles and surveys out there that point to the primary internet device for a majority of internet users will be their mobile device (whatever shape or size that winds up being).  The reason everything is moving to the handset is that technologies are getting exponentially smaller, faster and more energy efficient.  Today's Google Nexus One phone has a 1Ghz processor.  The 1GHz processor was originally released to the masses by Intel as a Pentium 3 chip.   The year ... 2001.
 

Being a technologist to the bone and a lucky dad of twin girls, I often have "flash forward" moments where I can imagine talking to my kids about technology.  You remember the old "walked to school uphill, both ways" stories we used to get from our parents.  Well, I imagine technology conversations conversations about
 

• "I used to have to do research papers WITHOUT Google."
• "I had to go to the library and look things up in the card catalogue."
• "I had to connect to the internet over landline phone lines" (then explain what a landline was)

 
Thing is, I can imagine Google being here in 10 years, along with a plethora of other companies.  However, I recently had a flash forward that went like this:

Oh mighty keyboard.

Thou hath been with us for some decades.  Ne'er really a change.  Always QWERTY, sometimes slim, sometimes fat.  We love you in all your forms.  The keyboard may be the most basic input peripheral we use daily, but how many people see the importance?
 
EVERYONE seems to make their own keyboard.  HP, Dell, Sony, Gateway ... all are just rebranded pieces of Chinese manufacturing.  They didn't create the keyboard, nor spend much time analyzing it.  It ships with your desktop computer and it's usually mediocre at best.  
 
Enter Logitech.  Now this is a brand I can get behind.  Certainly not all their keyboards are fabulous, but the vast majority are.  They always work, have a nice touch and are available at any store you can purchase computer accessories.
 

 
Ahh technology.  How everyone loves thee.  Let me count the ways ... you can let me down.
Welcome to the latter half of 2009, where everyday computing is normalcy and not having a website is like having the swine flu.  Everyone will have the need for some type of technology project at some point in the near future, more than likely.

The Basics

The basic rule with any project has to do with its three main components.  Timeline, budget and difficulty/quality.  You can only have two of the three components in your control at any time.  
Want a cheap, quality product?  You're going to be waiting a long time. (You know, that guy who promised to build you a website for free? 
How about a really killer website, really quickly?  Expect to pay up to  and over 100% more for speed and quality.

 If you lack a marketing budget, use the following three powerful approaches to instantly increase your site’s traffic.
 
Get exposure on social news sites
 
Social news publications and aggregators enable people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Web. These sites, such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Fark, Yahoo! Buzz and del.icio.us, surface the best content as submitted and voted on by the community. When you submit an article, image, or video, it will immediately be added into the mix where other members can find it, access your site to read it, and vote for it. Once something has earned a critical mass of votes, it becomes worthy of appearing on the site’s homepage, which is the ultimate traffic driver you’re aiming for. Since you’ll have to compete with some of the nation’s leading content providers, you need to be strategic about which pieces of content you select to submit (they need to be unique and memorable) and which are most appropriate for a particular site’s audience (for example, Digg and Fark cater to more males than females).