In the previous issue of the Viodi View, the topic of discovery through travel was explored. In this issue, we look at a present day discovery that emulates those entrepreneurs who made Silicon Valley what it is.
Home Energy Management as Content
“The furnace and the air conditioner in the average home accounts for almost 50% of energy use, so, it’s a big-ticket item about a $1,000 a year in the average home,” according to John Steinberg, EVP of Business Development and Co-Founder of EcoFactor. EcoFactor provides an energy management service with an initial focus on heating and cooling, as these are the items that have a big impact on the average consumer’s utility bill. This interview was filmed just after EcoFactor’s announcement that they are providing the underlying software solution for Comcast’s home energy management application. Click here to view.
Demystifying Home Energy Technology at Retail
Just down the road from EcoFactor’s Redwood City, CA headquarters is Best Buy’s San Carlos, CA store, which provides a glimpse of how retailers will market and sell home energy management. Kristen Bowring Senior Director, Platform Lead, Home and Energy Management at Best Buy, explains the motivation behind this effort when he states that, “Our job is to demystify the technology.” To hear the entire interview with Bowring and get an idea of his keynote at next week’s Parks Associates Connections Conference, click here.
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Highlights of TiECon2012 Mobile Sessions-Part 1: mobile operators, emerging trends, applications and opportunities by Alan Weissberger
One of the highlights of TiECon2012 (The Indus Entrepreneurs annual conference – May 18-19th in Santa Clara, CA) was the Mobile Track. All important aspects of the mobile ecosystem, its present status and future directions were explored in-depth during three TiECon mobile track panel sessions:
- What are the emerging trends, applications and opportunities in mobile?
- Considerations for deploying mobile in the enterprise and vertical industry apps.
- How to distribute and monetize your mobile app
Click here to read the entire post, as well as comments from the moderator/organizer.
Stimulating and Driving the Broadband Bus
Skin in the game differentiated Farmers Mutual Telephone Company from other providers and was a key to their partnership with their local county, so says Kevin Beyer, General Manager of Farmers Mutual Telephone. For years, Farmers Mutual Telephone Company served residences in one-half of rural Lac qui Parle County. He explains the process for how they applied for and won stimulus funding in partnership with the county and Minnesota’s Blandin Foundation to bring broadband to the other half of the county.
Click here to watch this video, where Beyer explains some of the challenges Farmers Mutual Telephone Company faces as they bring this project from idea to light.
Blair Levin, lead author of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, discusses his latest venture with 37 research universities in this video interview filmed at the 2012 Broadband Communities Summit. He hints at the May 23rd announcement of Gig.U partnering with Gigabit Squared to provide $200M of capital to support 6 Gig.U member-sponsored communities. Inspired by the Google Fiber Initiative, selections will be announced in November 2012 and March 2013. Click here to view.
Some Tweets and Short Thoughts:
- The comments made to the FCC by Accipiter Communications, a smallish, FTTH-based CLEC north of Phoenix, do a good job of summarizing the uncertainty that operators face with the FCC’s Order on USF and Intercarrier Compensation and the concerns about the FCC’s methodology. The comments reflect what was said in this interview (Ensuring a Level Playing Field) by former RUS Administrator Hilda Legg regarding predictability of cashflow and how the Order is inadvertently retroactive with regards to a borrower’s contractual agreement with the RUS (page 10).
- I got distracted from what I was doing, but Matt’s post is a must-read in this brave new culture of distraction.
- Retweet of jamadots.com – Street Light of the Future would provide Wi-Fi, cell coverage and more.
The Korner – Discovery and Learning in Silicon Valley
“Learning is the process of discovering and exploring,” says former student and ClassConnect founder, Eric Simons. Simons talks about the importance of putting rich (e.g. video, audio, interactivity) content into the hands of students to engage them in the learning process. His company, ClassConnect, has content curation and creation tools that fit into a teacher’s workflow, bringing content from multiple sources into the learning environment.
Like the many Silicon Valley trailblazers he follows, some famous, like Hewlett and Packard and, some not so famous, he is placing the execution of his vision ahead of personal comfort and doing some creative things to turn his idea into reality (think living in an office building to avoid rent). His drive and his story, as told so well in the front-page article of the San José Mercury, is what continues to make Silicon Valley a unique place of discovery and excitement.
Click here to read more and to view Eric Simons’ presentation given at the 2012 Media Innovation Summit.
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