I first met Mark Fishburn at the Convergence Technology Council (CTC) in Calabasas, California. Mark was a director in the organization, and had very strong ideas about networking and Ethernet. Going beyond the standard role we all play at professional networking venues, he distinguished himself from the group by presenting a passion for teaching others, and presenting his ideas in language nearly anybody could easily understand. Mark was always easy to find at CTC meetings, as he was the center of the largest groups of people who wanted to hear what he had to say.
Mark is a true innovator, and generates a lot of inspiration among CTC members with his visions and thought leadership in a variety of technology and business-related topics. I met Mark in Tarzana, California, to learn more about his vision related to Carrier Ethernet, as well as to gather some advice for entrepreneurs.
Pacific-Tier: Mark, tell us a little about yourself. How did you come to the San Fernando Valley, and what do you do?
Mark Fishburn: I worked at US companies for many years when I was in London, and one day I said I could fix a (problem) in the US headquarters, and they said “OK.” So I came across as a corporate officer in a company called Retix. I worked with them for a while, and then started my own company.
So that was my business, a software company, and then back into data communications, and worked for a company called NetCom Systems, which then became a company called Spirent.
Pacific-Tier: You’ve been involved with the Metro Ethernet Forum for quite some time. What interested you about the MEF?
Mark Fishburn: Well it actually goes back some time to my interest in Ethernet, and the world of Ethernet from the very early days. in 1982 I installed my first Ethernet system while working for Xerox, and that was in Paris. it was one of the very first Ethernet installations.
And as a result of that I gathered a great interest in Ethernet. In the old times, working for an Ethernet test-equipment company, we put out on e of the first fiber Ethernet products, and a few years later one of the first copper Gigabit Ethernet products.
And so it went on. I was intimately involved as chairman with the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance, and the Gigabit Ethernet Alliance before that. It became apparent this was all triggered by the definition of fiber Ethernet. It really reached out beyond the boundaries of local area networks to the metro network.
That really paved the way for Ethernet services to be provided by service providers, and not just live inside the LAN. That was really the initial foundation of the Metro Ethernet Forum/MEF.
It was all about, really advancing the adoption of optical-based fiber Ethernet.
Pacific-Tier: I guess that brings us up to your current venture, which is CENX. Can you tell us anything about CENX?
Mark Fishburn: Sure, let me just give you a bit of background, because it is all really very connected.
In the substantiation of the MEF it became clear there were many different technologies that were or could be connected together using the Ethernet as a ghost in the machine.
And thus were born Ethernet services. And in 2004 carrier Ethernet was created and defined by the MEF by providing ubiquitous services worldwide independent of the service providers providing them, and also the equipment it is connected on.
And that really led to development of the need to have global connections between the service providers who are providing these Ethernet carrier services.
Although I say that in a sentence, it actually took about eight years to transpire and it led to a business that in 2009 has become about a $20 million global services revenue.
At this point in time, as these networks have grown, there is a requirement to connect more of them together in a way which preserves the differentiation of the service providers and creates a global (Ethernet) interconnectivity.
That really led to the formation of our company CENX (Carrier Ethernet Neutral Exchange) which was established to created, effectively a service-level interconnect between the service providers worldwide, and negate the enormous cost and pain in making those connections possible.
Pacific-Tier: Excellent. It’s kind of a sketchy economic environment, a tough time for businesses. What drove you to start a new business in this tough economy?
Mark Fishburn: Well, there are some areas that grow in spite of the economic downturn. The areas that grow are those that potentially save cost, or those that are pushing the envelope and generating more revenue.
Carrier Ethernet is such an animal. It (the industry) grew somewhere around 33% last year in America alone. So while the economy is growing people look for significantly more economic ways to effectively use the same old applications, while paving the way for new applications data driving mobile technology.
So, in this economy to do that was both a natural, and almost necessary step to advance this industry. And as such it was pretty natural for those people who realize this to be attracted to our company, to invest in it, and to meet that need.
Just like anything else, if you have a sufficiently difficult problem, and there is a need to solve it, it save money, and helps make money for people, and makes their job easier, then it’s a very compelling case.
Pacific-Tier: You’ve been a director with the Convergence Technology Council of California/CTC here in the San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles) providing thought leadership and help to a lot of people who are members. What advice do you have for people who may be having trouble with their jobs, been laid off, or are young graduates getting ready to enter the workforce – is there hope for entrepreneurs and those getting ready to jump into the technology industry?
Mark Fishburn: I would say absolutely. I think this is a great time to start a new venture. If you look at every great new venture, this has been repeated many times. In all the great companies that were founded – they weren’t founded when the economy was good, they were founded when there were significant problems that gave people an opportunity to really look at the idea that necessity is the mother of invention.
It’s like anything else, there are tremendous opportunities, still driven by technology, or different social climates driving the way people communicate now, rather than the way they did before. So within technology is really an unlimited opportunity for people to look at an issue, or to realize their dream and go for it.
Pacific-Tier: Young people today, they have technology diffused into their education, and into their childhood and youth at a rate that we never had in our middle-aged years. How do you feel about the youth today? Are they going to be able to take this thing that we’ve built and make it better?
Mark Fishburn: I kind of look at it a little differently. I think in a way they are driving it. Because if you look at somebody who is multi-tasking, if you look at the corporate world of maybe a couple years ago, well when you were at work you were at work. When you went home you played.
It’s become so blurred that the distinction between work, collecting information, entertainment, and communications, it is going to happen in a way that is connected 24 hours, and I think that young people today are living in the world of communications – in a way that they communicate with each other, in a way they focus, in a way that they are constantly multi-tasking and moving towards whatever is the next and most convenient way to gather.
So I believe that the youth of today is programmed into this multi-processing environment that they have, and that it’s way (young) people operate, doing multiple things at the same time, is the way of the future, and I believe that people who have been brought up in the world with mobile technology and communications, texting and talking, thinking and playing – all of those at the same time. I think all of those things are the wave of the future.
I think entrepreneurs who connect to that will do well.
Pacific-Tier: That’s very encouring. Thank you today for your counsel, great advice, stories, and great talk!
Mark Fishburn: Sure – can I add one more thing?
Pacific-Tier: Of course!
Mark Fishburn: I would say that one of the things that really led me to doing this was the realization that a lot of people would fear to go into something new like this, or to start a new job. But the alternative is unpalatable. Surviving until you die is no way forward. And I believe that if you are passionate about something that you really have nothing to lose by trying it out.
If you don’t do that, you might regret it forever. So I would say, just go for it.
You can contact Mark at mark@cenx.com
| Mark Fishburn, Vice President of Marketing, has more than 35 years experience in marketing, sales, product marketing, systems engineering, and management in the computer and communications industries. He has been closely associated with Ethernet for most of his career, installing his first system in 1982 while at Xerox, co-authors of the initial Ethernet specification. Industry roles include Chairman of the Board, Metro Ethernet Forum, Chairman of the Board of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance, and board member of the Gigabit Ethernet alliance and he has been instrumental of the creation of the MEF’s Carrier Ethernet and Global Interconnect strategies. Prior to joining CENX Mr. Fishburn was President of strategic marketing company MarketWord, in the Carrier Ethernet market. He spent 10 years as VP Technical Strategy and VP Marketing for network test company Spirent Communications, and UK Managing Director and officer for Retix. He won more than 20 industry awards and studied BSc. Special Mathematics at University of London. |
Check out the entire Pacific-Tier Communications Innovators and Entrepreneur Series
NOTE: Pacific-Tier Communications invites guest bloggers to provide articles that would be of interest, and benefit to our readers. This week we are happy to introduce Mr. Andy Slater, CMO, Presence Networks.
‘‘The ‘Command and Control’ management style enjoyed by many CEOs in the past has gone. Today teamwork and collaboration are the norm. Leadership the accepted management style, people orientated collaboration the culture, people centric technology the facilitator.’’
We stand at a transition point in business. As the global economy starts to work its way out of recession CEO’s and management teams around the world are beginning to plan for growth. But they won’t do that by simply taking back into their businesses the bottom line costs they just spent 18 painful months getting rid of. The enlightened are looking for a new ways of working, how to unlock the people power in their organization in a secure and focused manner, to accelerate speed of decision making, reduce costs, and drive productivity.
Technology has been at the centre of social and industrial change since the printing press. Through history there have been transition points. The invention of the flying shuttle by John Kay heralded the start of the industrial revolution. The spread of democracy around the world can be traced to the invention of the telephone by Graham Bell and its adoption around the world. Suddenly totalitarian states could no longer constrain the flow of people’s ideas, information, and aspirations.
More recently mobile devices and the internet has accelerated the flow of information with images and video, so now international public opinion can be formed and galvanized by what were once isolated events. The video of student Neda Agha-Soltan’s shooting in Iran caught on a mobile phone started an outcry around the world which is still vocal today.
Social networking has become the norm for many who ‘tweet’ their way through the day sharing thoughts on everything, from the mildly interesting to the creative. The need to communicate is infectious and has a profound effect on the way we live – and work. Given a common cause, people power is unstoppable.
The ability of these new people networks has been recognized by business where the more enlightened maintain Online Brand protection programmes, write blogs, tweet, and endeavour to instigate viral campaigns to manipulate networks to their own advantage.
But is this relevant to business ?
A ‘company’ is called that simply because it is made up of people. How many companies say that their most valuable asset is their people? How true it is. Try running a railway without drivers or signal men, or running software development without programmers. People matter and leading managers recognize what’s happening in social networking can be harnessed to drive their businesses – people power, or business collaboration. Indeed, some would say it can’t be stopped – adapt or die.
The nature and culture of management in business has changed already. The ‘Command and Control’ management style enjoyed by many CEOs in the past has gone. Today teamwork and collaboration are the norm. Leadership the accepted management style, people orientated collaboration the culture, people centric technology the facilitator.
IT has to step up to this challenge to enable these new strategies – only if it can deliver business solutions, not just fancy names for the same technology, will it meet the true business need. Collaboration in the business environment is recognised as being one of the key tools CEO’s are looking at to drive productivity for the next decade – particularly if it can be delivered without complexity or capital investment.
To make the successful transition their vision has to be converted into a strategy. A strategy that addresses the three pillars of change – Culture, Technology and Process.
You can’t identify at the start of a shift in business culture all the business aspects that will be impacted, but you can describe the vision; a culture where information travels to the right people, any time, in any place, on any device. Where virtual teams form rapidly to solve business problems then dissolve just as quickly, without management intervention. No more ‘I sent an e-mail’ excuses but effective communication between empowered people.
The process of creating this culture needs to be led by a management that believes and demonstrates it through the way they act and how they communicate. The benefits are business processes that will be changed, new ones invented, and many scrapped. This is long term business development, a journey, not a light-switch change – but a revolution when looked back on from the future.
The technology to achieve this has to be invisible. People centric technology is intuitive, adopted because it engages its users, inspires and opens up new horizons. You know its right when your people can’t function without it.
Cloud Computing, Software-as-a-Service, and Unified Communications are all technical developments which alone do not deliver cultural change (except maybe in the IT department). These will be part of the solution, but are not the ‘end game’.
The application that runs in the world of the users, that gives them a real-time window on their business world, enables them to interact with people based on their availability, skills, interests and knowledge in a secure way, will be the deliverer of cultural change. This will be the application that grows productivity for businesses, for the next decade.
Andy Slater
You can contact Andy at andy.slater@pnglobal.net or visit Presence Network’s website at http://www.presence-networks.net
I first met Matt Hiles while he was director of business development with Looking Glass Networks in Los Angeles. As a customer looking for telecom services, navigating the providers, technologies, and deal structures can be confusing. Matt took the time to explain all aspects of the business, cost structures, and how he would get us a great deal – while still making money for his company. Matt stood out alone from a world of “wheeling and dealing” telecom sales people, unique in providing the customer a level of confidence they were getting the best product, for the best price, with the best service.
Pacific-Tier: Today we have Matt Hiles, managing partner with Mosaic Networx. Hello Matt! So tell us a little about yourself, how did you get into this business?
Matt Hiles: I started in telecommunications right out of college, and I’ve been in the business, in one form or another, since – which is about 20 years. I’ve been in a variety of telecommunications, voice, and service providers. I’ve also spent a period of time in the data center side of the industry as well.
Pacific-Tier: now you are with Mosaic Networx. Can you give a little background on Mosaic. What are you, what do you do, and what type of business problems do you solve?
Matt Hiles: Mosaic Networx is a carrier neutral, data services provider. We provide a supply chain management service primarily for enterprise companies, but secondarily to wholesale providers and telecommunications providers. From a supply chain management perspective we provide a value add in three functional areas which are pricing, procurement, and provisioning.
What we’ve found is that, in the enterprise space, there is a lack, or need in one of those areas. Typically all of those areas. Where enterprise decision-makers and IT managers don’t have the depth and breadth of knowledge of the telecommunications providers and options that are available.
So we price them, then procure them, provision them, and then manage them ongoing on the back end.
Pacific-Tier: Well, that’s pretty cool. So who is your market, who would be your customer?
Matt Hiles: Our customers are small, medium, and we even have several Fortune 500 companies. We have a strong vertical in the financial services market. Specifically we work with the low-latency, high frequency trading guys. We’ve also worked with public wholesale companies who may not have the buying power we have, so we add some pricing value for those types.
Pacific-Tier: I’ve noticed you are based in Long Beach, California. Other people in your company are scattered around the United States, with diverse locations for your primary management team – does that provide you any challenges?
Matt Hiles: I imagine it provides some challenge, although It would be hard to quantify them. We haven’t really seen them. I think where we’ve done an outstanding job in is finding the right people.
We have 18 personnel in the functional areas in the company, whether its finance or operations, or on the sales side as well. So the distributed environment that we have seems to work out just fine.
Would we have a little bit more camaraderie in a common office? Probably.
Pacific-Tier: So it’s rather tough economic time right now. We’ve had kind of a sketchy run over the last year. What motivated you to start up a company in the last year or so and how do you feel about being an entrepreneur in a tough economic environment?
Matt Hiles: So, I suppose that timings everything, right? We didn’t know we would start a company in a tough economic period. But, the economy notwithstanding , I think there is always business. And for innovative entrepreneurs who can go out and create value for customers, provide them an outstanding customer experience, then good or bad times I think you can be successful.
Pacific-Tier: So what advice do you have for other entrepreneurs, graduates who are looking at a tough economy, what advice do you have for other budding visionaries and entrepreneurs?
Matt Hiles: I think you have to have an expertise. It doesn’t make a lot of sense in my mind to venture into an area as an entrepreneur where you don’t have years of background and can consider yourself a subject-matter expert. I think that is (not being a subject-matter expert) a recipe for disappointment.
But somebody who has spent their time in a corporate environment, learning an area, and then able to translate that into, you know, a startup environment, then I’d encourage them to be entrepreneurs, and entrepreneur owners.
Pacific-Tier: That’s great advice. Give a little pitch for you company. Where do we find you?
Matt Hiles: You can find our company at Mosaic Networx, and the domain is mosaicnetworx.com . if you would like to reach us we’d be happy to hear from you.
Pacific-Tier: Thank you very much for the time!
| Matt Hiles is Managing Partner and Executive Vice President of Mosaic NetworX, LLC. Prior to joining Mosaic NetworX, LLC in early 2008, Mr. Hiles was the Director of Business Development at Looking Glass Networks responsible for both Enterprise and Wholesale revenues. He was also instrumental in the creation and development of asset-based, network infrastructure projects around the country. Mr. Hiles has an established record of success within the telecommunications and data center industries spanning nearly 20 years. During his career, he has held executive and leadership positions at Allnet Communications, MFS, WorldCom, Level 3, and DCI Technology Holdings.Matt attended Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, where he earned an ALB degree in Government – US/Soviet Relations. |
It was a clear, very beautiful morning in Sydney. Mike brought the Pitts biplane up to about 4,500ft, and you could literally reach out and touch the mountains from the open cockpit and passenger seat. I came close to better appreciating the words of the classic poem that is understood by pilots, and very few others;
Mike Lagunowitsch, the pilot, a friend, and former colleague at Sprint Australia and Sprint China, is one of the few people I know who can really step away from the job, and escape into complete indulgence in life. Then almost like flipping a switch he returns to being one of the most enthusiastic, aggressive visionairies in the telecommunications industry.
Savageau: Mike, what are you doing these days? Been a long time since we had a chance to catch up.
Mike: I live in Hong Kong and am building Presence Networks in Asia Pacific/India. We provide presence based, secure IM Unified Comms delivered as SaaS for telecommunications carriers and large enterprises.
Savageau: What attracted you into technology and the telecom business?
Mike: At University in the ‘80s I did an Industrial Training year, and was subsequently hired by an early email and network access provider. I was assigned to a network services team, building and troubleshooting X.25 packet switching networks. It was a real apprenticeship in hierarchical peering protocols and the telecoms business. Subsequently I did similar job for a US carrier that operated in the global market. These foundations still serve me well. I also developed relationships that I have kept and which have been incredibly important in my career.
Savageau: What makes technology-related industry more interesting than other careers?
Mike: For me it’s the speed of acquisition, application of knowledge, and the creativity that’s enabled. It’s just unprecedented. And it will only get faster and more innovative. The implications are mind blowing.
Savageau: What are some of your most memorable projects?
Mike: I was based in Jilin province China once for a project where we had to install some very sophisticated Class IV laser DWD Muxes. The venue was very near the North Korean border. Problem was that the data centre was in a remote place several miles from the closest train station. It was February, about nine feet of snow, and a complete mess everywhere. Roads were absolutely unusable by trucks.
To solve our transportation and logistics problem we hired a wooden cart pulled by a massive hairy yak. This modern transportation system ultimately hauled the crated mux to our customer’s site. A few days later after sorting out grounding, power stability and replacing broken windows, we actually got it up and running. Amazing. It was a wonderful international joint effort between Chinese, US and Canadian engineers, with me as the token Brit – all pulling together to get the job done. A real can-do team effort. Lots of smiles and “gwangshi building” beers were consumed after that job.
I also worked with a team of Russian engineers in Moscow. I was amazed that they had laid and lit fibre in the sewers across the city. The network was huge. Later when in Sydney, Australia we were building a dark fibre network in the CBD but couldn’t find the right skills in the local market. So I flew down some of the team of Russian engineers to get the job done. They did the job in half the planned time. They had something to prove, and their level of professional pride and work ethic was incredible. Recently I had the pleasure of meeting their team manager again. He was passing through Hong Kong this past January, and of course meeting him and catching up was really nice for me. We hadn’t seen each other for ten years but had got back in touch via the social networking tool LinkedIn over the last year.
Savageau: You are British, but have chosen to live your life in the international community – any particular reason why?
Mike: Actually I carry dual nationality & passports – British by birth and Australian by choice. I grew up in the UK, but my father was from what is now Belarus. From an early age I was encouraged that the “world was my oyster” to “stand on my own two feet” and “go explore”. I have had some wonderful cultural experiences being in the international telecoms industry. These have helped me understand how to work with other cultures and recognize the limitations of nationalistic and protectionist attitudes. It’s important never to forget your roots and culture of course, but in the current world we live in fostering tolerance and having the ability to cross culturally collaborate is critical. It’s also fun and I love the variety of cuisines.
Savageau: What professional goals are still out there for you to achieve?
Mike: I would love to combine my interests in technology and aviation.
I think we are at the tip of the iceberg with the current generation of computing and service technologies. Ironically I think the current global economic climate will accelerate the rate of technological innovation that drive efficiencies in how we collaborate, force the development of new business models and help eradicate mindless bureaucracy. I so want to be a part of this change.
Savageau: Any emerging technologies or applications that really excite you?
Mike: I’ve been curious about Artificial Intelligence since University days. With today’s early collaborative technologies, increases in computational and storage performance, increasingly sophisticated search engines, and with a permanently wired generational mindset starting to enter the labour pool the opportunities to creatively engage this somewhat fringe technology are very exciting. Of course AI is no match for natural stupidity but maybe the latter can serve as inspiration.
Savageau: Do you have suggestions for young engineers who are looking not only for a great career, but also the chance to bring excitement into their jobs?
Yeah. Don’t be afraid to take risks, especially now. Recognize the limitations of material things and don’t go chase a job for the sake of money. Identify and play to your strengths. Be creative and apply your skills to help solve the really critical issues of today; disease, population growth, extinction of species – animal and plant, government’s and corporation’s exploitation of finite natural resources. Despite the current military conflicts and economic challenges these are the BIG issues of today the ones that will deliver truly exciting returns. Technology alone is not the answer but it can be a critical enabler for rapid positive change that will benefit everyone in society.
Savageau: Final message to the tech community in California?
Mike: Continue to harness technology to create and innovate in all areas. Remain the world leader in these areas. Thwart senseless bureaucracy at all levels. Openly collaborate with all cultures, learn from them to develop technologies/services that benefit everyone. The money will follow.
===
I’ve known Mike for just about 17 years. We’ve walked the streets of Beijing, Sydney, London, HongKong, Tokyo, and Washington DC together, talking about technology, culture, and visions of the future. Hong Kong is lucky to have him. I look forward to getting him to Long Beach some day, and having the chance to catch up on all topics in tech and life.
And he does an awesome reverse negative “G”stall in the Pitts at 10,000 feet.
Pacific-Tier Communications is pleased to present our series highlighting and introducing entrepreneurs providing thought leadership and innovative ideas in technology, communications, and environment-related industries.
Pacific-Tier met up with Chris Ueland at his offices in Studio City, California
Pacific-Tier: Chris, can you tell us a little about yourself? Where did you come from?
Chris Ueland: Sure, absolutely. I am a New York native, and I moved to LA when I was 18. I started on the Internet with an open source project called ML.ORG, when I was a young teenager, and that got me hooked into the Internet.
I started working from my parent’s house on nights and weekends on this open source project, and started ICom.Com, which was funded by my former partner.
Pacific-Tier: Excellent. Now you’re working with NetDNA LLC. Tell us a little about NetDNA LLC, and what you do?
Chris Ueland: NetDNA is a pretty cool company. We’re doing content delivery, and we have 10 data centers around the world, and we are focusing on speeding up content to end users.
Pacific-Tier: Who would be your customer? What kind of company would come to NetDNA?
Chris Ueland: Primarily the Alexa top 5000 sites. Right now our customers are primarily advertising and video sites. We are looking to also get into full site acceleration for some of these large web sites.
Pacific-Tier: And what does that mean? What does full-site acceleration mean?
Chris Ueland: We’re constantly looking for any kind of way to speed up a website. And the latest cutting edge stuff to deliver that website as quickly as possible to the end user.
Pacific-Tier: So you are there to try to make the end-user experience better, as well as facilitate the product your customers have?
Chris Ueland: Absolutely. And making it as easy as possible on our customers, where there’s not a whole lot of infrastructure changes on their end.
Pacific-Tier: So you’ve kind of a serial entrepreneur your whole life. You’ve started several companies, gone on to other projects – what drives you to be an entrepreneur?
Chris Ueland: I think it’s just in my DNA. I’m always looking for ways to do things that are outside the beaten path.
Pacific-Tier: That’s pretty exciting. Is it because the large companies don’t offer you the challenge, or is it because you just have things you want to do that the large companies won’t support?
Chris Ueland: I think it’s the fact that as an entrepreneur you can create your own structure. And you can develop things that work really well with your personality. For me, I really enjoy building things, and the companies that I create allow me to harness those talents and just build things all day. Which I love!
Pacific-Tier: The economy has been kind of sketchy lately, and you have a lot of young guys graduating from university, and thinking about going into the work force, and a lot of guys who are thinking about starting their own companies. What advice would you give to a young entrepreneur or graduate who is getting ready to hit the street?
Chris Ueland: Yeah, the first piece of advice is to start as early as possible. You are going to make a lot of mistakes. Get in there and get your hands dirty.
The second (piece of advice) is to develop a real skill set, where you can take that skill set and bring to anybody, anywhere in the world, and provide value for them.
The third is really to build something. Don’t just shuffle things around, genuinely build something big. I think that is really going to fix and help the economy.
Pacific-Tier: And where do you go to from here?
Chris Ueland: We’re looking at really cutting edge stuff to accelerate web sites and to lower latency and deliver the best possible consumer experience.
Pacific-Tier: Give yourself a plug for NetDNA, how do they find you on the web?
Chris Ueland: www.netdna.com
Pacific-Tier: Any final words for the technology community?
Chris Ueland: Get out there guys and build stuff. That’s what’s going to get us out of this rut that we’re in. I really look at the telecom guys and entrepreneurs as the answer to creating things, and continuing to build this country up.
Pacific-Tier: Great advice – thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure talking with you today.
Chris Ueland: Thank you John!
You can listen to the entire audio interview at Pacific Tier
|
An innovator and an activist, Chris approaches each of his pursuits by asking the question, “how can we help people?” His years as President of Globat LLC, a company he co-founded with friend and business partner Ben Neumann, helped the company net numerous awards and recognitions based on the quality of service the company provided to nearly 100,000 customers around the world. As the Vice President of the Greater Valley Glen Council in the City of Los Angeles, Chris has also worked hard to improve the quality of life for people in the area he represents. Mr. Ueland has enjoyed leadership and ownership roles in successful companies such as Globat LLC, Icom.com, iBoost.com, and DefyingGravity LLC, many of which were ultimately acquired by other companies. |
How attractive is San Diego as a place to start a company compared with the Silicon Valley? Santa Barbara? Los Angeles?
On Thursday evening the “Sweat Equity” series of seminars sponsored by San Diego’s Software Industry Council (SDSIC) brought together a distinguished panel with a venture capitalist and successful entrepreneurs answering questions, drilling into their experiences, as well as exploring perceptions they’ve developed over several years doing business in San Diego. More than 50 interested attendees with the hope and aspiration of either starting their own company, or breaking away from the corporate world with a startup, provided an enthusiastic audience to support the discussion and Q&A.
Panel members included:
- James Adams, Moderator, Fortress Secure Payments
- Russ Mann, Entrepreneur, Covario
- Ted Alexander, Venture Capital, Mission Ventures
- Allen Drennan, Entrepreneur, WiredRed
The panel tried to answer the question, through their experience, of whether or not San Diego is a good place to start a business. Starting with the question “How start up friendly is San Diego?” the panel thought the city rates a “good.” The universities around San Diego are graduating high quality workers, with a small community spirit nurturing fresh ideas and enthusiasm.
However the panel agreed that San Diego has shortfalls in the amount of investment money available less than in the Silicon Valley. Ted (the VC) cited that “last year there was around $7~10 billion in venture capital committed in the Silicon Valley vs. $1~2 billion in Southern California.” However he also added that “if you are a talented individual you can overcome the challenges.”
On the question “Do San Diego-based legal firms provide adequate support for small companies?” the panelists were all generally positive. Russ Mann gives the San Diego legal community “two thumbs up,” but Allen Drennan cautioned that his only bad experiences with San Diego law offices were when he tried to save money with cheaper representation that his company ultimately suffered.
Ted reinforced the need for good legal representation, and closed the topic by adding “San Diego legal firms are busy, but if you are willing to pay they are as good as any in the country.”
Attracting Outside Talent to San Diego
The panel tackled the question “What is the quality of CTO-level game-changers in the San Diego area?” The general consensus of the panel and attendees was that San Diego lacks high powered CTOs, and start up companies generally must go out of the area to attract the talent they need to provide the vision and technical leadership need to get a tech-sector start up off the ground.
“I am much more bullish on CEOs than on CTOs (in the San Diego area)” pointed out Russ. “Risk-taking CTOs do not like Southern California and San Diego, preferring the east coast and Silicon Valley.”
The panel discussed the idea of industry clusters. Those grouping of similar companies that normally follow one successful company in a location, and highly qualified engineers and leaders “gravitate” towards the clusters. Unfortunately San Diego does not have any strong industry clusters at the level of an El Segundo (military/industrial), Silicon Valley, Boston, or similar clusters. This makes some highly qualified people somewhat reluctant to take the risk of moving to San Diego.
Those who do find San Diego a good area to work are at a point in their life where they are interested in a better lifestyle, and the potential of a higher quality of life (as possible in Southern California).
The same opinion passed through into the question of availability skilled technical developers, where the opinion of the panel was low, concerned with both local talent, as well as difficulty attracting high quality developers to the area.
Funding SD Startups
San Diego does not appear to be friendly for funding startup companies. Ted’s company, Mission Ventures, may be the only company that is located in, and focused on the San Diego market. Ted stated “it is very difficult to build a large company in San Diego.” He continued “the reality is not every startup should get VC funding, and angels may give you a better deal or solution.”
The low confidence in getting funding in San Diego continued into 2010, with Allen quoting a San Diego Business Journal article which indicated “there is very little investment money expected in San Diego” over the next year. All members of the panel added stories about VCs and companies they know who are aggressively going after potential investments in other parts of the country, with an emphasis on Silicon Valley – but not in San Diego.
Ted tried to lift the spirit of the panel by ending the topic with “of course the right idea will always find a way to get funded.”
Comparing San Diego with other California Cities
Having visited several areas in California over the past couple of years, including San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and the Silicon Valley, the differences are very clear. Enthusiasm and aggressive threshold for innovation is most visible in Northern California. Returning to the idea of clustering, it is easy to meet clusters of innovators and visionaries by simply going to a “cluster watering hole” (bar) near the tech community, such as the “Fault Line” in Santa Clara. The people you meet are fearless, unconcerned with the economy or other external factors, and just want to talk about their ideas.
Santa Barbara has a very enthusiastic community, but tend to be more interested in the business side of their future rather than working out strategies on how their ideas could be realized, and find a way to change the world.
As a great place to live, it is impossible to beat Southern California. As a place to build a company, the Silicon Valley offers a pool of talent, better access to funding, well-defined technology clusters, and a buzz of excitement that is not easily located in other locations. On a personal note, I have been searching for the buzz in the OC, San Diego, Long Beach, and other areas of LA, but have to finally admit the buzz is much stronger in Northern California.
We can change that, but the process requires a major shift in the local city governments, financial community, and aging business leadership to re-engineer Southern California as a valid competitor to the Silicon Valley. With notable exceptions such as Qualcomm, Boeing, Northrup, and some bio-tech leaders, it is hard to argue the percentages.
Los Angeles and Southern California provide a great environment for manufacturing, logistics, entertainment, and other operations-oriented industries. But for today, the burden is on the south to provide an environment that will spawn the next Google, Cisco, HP, National Semiconductor, or Apple.
John Savageau, Long Beach
“The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Internet Inventions, Bob is a true Silicon Valley entrepreneur, raconteur and original. Bob has combined his technical ingenuity, entrepreneurial ability and team building skills to found successful companies time and again over the past 20 years.” (Silicon Valley Business Television)
Bob Evans always has ideas. Ideas to make his work, and the work of others, more useful and efficient, as well as easier. We first met Bob when he asked if it was “OK” he develop a route server for our young Internet Exchange Point (Any2 Exchange), which would allow the small to medium Internet access and content provider community to find Internet peering easier, and help with introductions within the community that would make Internet interconnections a utility – rather than a high priced value-added service. That little utility now drives one of the largest Internet Exchange Points in the world.
We met Bob this week as he was giving a data center tour and professional advice to a delegation from Ramallah, which came to Bob for mentoring based on his extensive background in all things network and Internet.
For the entire audio interview – click HERE
Pacific-Tier: Bob, please tell us a little about yourself, your background, and how you got into this business.
Bob Evans: Well, it was a long time ago, when there was no world wide web. I ran one of the first Veronica Gopher servers. I was teaching grandmothers how to do email, so they could email their kids in college.
At that time colleges had the first ARP connections, TCP/IP started working right, and that was way back when… That’s how I got started.
I’ve got a high school education, dropped out of college, so generally every time I start a business and build it up, sell it to somebody with lots of money and VCs, they (eventually) ask me to leave because I don’t have a degree. Then they usually do quite well. I’ve been doing this a long time.
But when I started the Fiber Internet Center, what happened was, people kind of thought I was crazy, because I had just had a very successful, one of the first cable modem companies in the US, and by starting the Fiber Internet Center/FIC at a time when the “Dot Bomb” occurred everybody thought, you know, “how are you going to make a living doing that?”
The real key was making the deals. Because all of the (network) providers, and the people with fiber and stuff like that, didn’t really have a lot of customers. So, they were willing to listen to me and cut me some deals. So that’s how I got started with the Fiber Internet Center.
Pacific-Tier: Tell us a little about the FIC. What is the vision, or what is the mission of FIC?
Bob Evans: Well. Its primarily,… like you find colo (colocation) facilities that are “carrier neutral,…” I like to look at us as a network company that is carrier neutral. Although we do sell circuits and services like IP transit (Internet network access), it is kind of a necessary evil, because we only have about 8 or 9 other ISPs (Internet Service Providers) currently serving our market.
So they use our network in the market place to service their customers. So we’ll build a network within our network to service other companies.
Pacific-Tier: So the FIC is present in Northern California, the San Francisco, San Jose, the bay area, as well as Los Angeles. What value does the FIC, or a company like the FIC bring to a market like California that is not available through another carrier like Level 3, an XO Communications, an AT&T, or that scale of carrier?
Bob Evans: Well, most of those companies will go ahead and install their circuit in the basement of a building, or in the MPOE (main point of entry), and then only allow you to use their IP (Internet network access).
For example, Level 3 isn’t about to go ahead and market the fact that I could have VLANs in that building like I would have and connect them to ISPs. That’s the real advantage. A customer could buy a circuit from us, then they can buy Internet transit from us too, then they’ll turn around and say “gee, you are over at the PAIX (Palo Alto Internet Exchange), over at places like Market Post Tower, One Wilshire and everything,…”
Then they’ll say “there’s this other company we’re working with, and we’d like a connection direct to their office. They’re using Cogent bandwidth (or something like that), could you make that come in here on another port?”
And we’ll do it. Most (other) companies will say “no.” But that’s actually part of our business strategy.
Pacific-Tier: Well, that’s a great utility, for both the enterprises and other carriers within your area. Where does the FIC go from here? What is in the future of FIC?
Bob Evans: Lately it’s become one of the discovery that most of these business now feel a critical need to not have their mail server, or other types of critical databases remain on their campus. Or they want to have a backup of it someplace else. So we’re now creating a service in other data centers where you get a circuit from us, then we’ll give you another port that gives you a layer 2 connection back to your rack or your server in those facilities, or one of our facilities.
This gives you the added benefit of having your own private network to the back side of your server, then it gives you the advantage of maybe having your server connected to other Internet providers in one of those other colo facilities, or maybe you could even carry that Internet back to your place and have two Internet providers.
So I think the advantage is, if you get a circuit from us you get the flexibility.
Pacific-Tier: Well that’s great. I think it is a great utility for the community. The final question is, you’re an entrepreneur, in tough economic times, with lots of graduates hitting the street, what advice do you have for people who are considering starting their own companies, or emerging entrepreneurs?
Bob Evans: Well, that’s a very good question.
During bad economic time I always find that not to discourage me, and I wouldn’t let anybody discourage them either. The reason is because in the midst of chaos, there’s usually always opportunity. And as soon as you explain that opportunity to somebody else who’s got money or can help you, or needs a service that you have, it’s actually easier to make business deals.
Pacific-Tier: That’s great advice.
Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to visit the FIC again, and thanks for your time.
Bob Evans: You’re welcome – thank you
I met up with Lynne Gallagher, President of Telecom Telematique, in Milpitas, California, while giving a tour of data centers and information technology vendors in the Silicon Valley to a delegation of IT business people from Ramallah, Palestine.
Telecom Telematique consults in four broad categories of international telecommunications-Infrastructure, including policy and regulation, applications, and business strategy, conducting feasibility studies, technical assistance, education, and training to people in the developing and under-privileged world.
Lynne is one of those unique people who is tireless, preferring to hop on an airplane and go nose-to-nose with international agencies holding up a project, than live the comfortable life of retirement most of us aspire. It is not often we have an opportunity to meet people who are truly dedicated to helping others, with little or no regard to their own comfort.
Lynne is one of those rare people who have dedicated her life to delivering the tools needed to achieve the hopes and dreams of thousands of young people around the world.
Pacific-Tier: Lynne, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us this afternoon. Please tell us a bit about yourself, and how you got into the international telecom business.
Lynne Gallagher: I started about 20 years ago working with colleagues in Latin America as the telecom sectors were beginning to deregulate and privatize in most of the world, including areas of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. My work specialized in policy areas, assisting ministries, governments, and operators as they opened up their networks to the rest of the world.
Pacific-Tier: Tell me, what was your interest, and why did you decide to do developing country work?
Lynne Gallagher: I was first staffed with the Peace Corps back in the early 1960s, and I think I never thought I was leaving my work with the Peace Corps in various other parts of my career. Later, when I was working on various other (international) projects, I began realize that one of the missing things was lack of access to communications and information. So I wanted to apply the IT and technology to developing countries as a tool of development.
This was happening around the same time as wireless technology, such as cellular, was enabling competition in these markets with their (competitive) voice service, in addition to data networks. It’s taken many years, but cellular and data applications have changed the face of many developing countries.
Pacific-Tier: What would be your most memorable project?
Lynne Gallagher: Probably Morocco, where they used the ICT and intellectual property we delivered to help build a stronger economy, and also support further development of their democratic society. We also had a project in Uzbekistan, where we were tasked to build a fiber optic backbone network. That was quite an interesting one. We were in Central Asia, trying to bring in an infrastructure similar to that which was being built in Europe 15 years earlier, was finally being deployed in Central Asia. We were able to build along the railway, connecting the borders and major cities, out of this land-locked country for high performance, modern communications.
Pacific-Tier: Do you have anything that you would call a major success story, where you actually changed the course of a country you worked in?
Lynne Gallagher: I’m not sure we have gone that far in the telecom sector, but perhaps in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria and Romania, at a time where assisted with the education of some young, bright telecom people. We worked with them to better understand how information technology could be a catalyst for change. Many did not think that possible, as they were used to a monopoly phone company, and nothing they did could ever change the system in their countries.
Within a couple years we were pleased to see the same people participate in the development of the mobile and Internet industries. This was an example of really visible change, and while it would no doubt have occurred regardless of our efforts, it was a pleasure to see those people succeed.
Pacific-Tier: Great! What projects are you working on now?
Lynne Gallagher: We’ve recently entered a new area of applications. About ten years ago I wrote a book about eGovernment and eCommerce, and how to use ICT (Information and Communication Technology) to support efforts in those areas. We thought that eGovernment would be a good entry application for countries getting ready to implement modern ICT applications into their economy.
In Ghana we are just completing a project where we designed and delivered an eGovernment system which included not only the application, but also the wide area (national and international) network design, the data center, and developed the entire project plan as a combined public/private partnership. This project is now passed the contract bidding phase, and ready to start physical deployments. We expect to see a positive return on investment for the project within the third year.
Pacific-Tier: I know you are also involved in a project based in Ramallah, where you are supporting ICT and data center development for the Palestinian people. How do you go about getting engaged in this type of international project?
Lynne Gallagher: A couple of ways. We work in various regions, staying in close communication with people in the region’s telecom sector. We also work through various agencies that are promoting these type of developing country projects. For example, with the United States government we work with the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), which is funding the feasibility study for Palestine. We’ve done several USTDA projects in the past, and have a pretty good track record of successful projects with them.
The Ghana project for eGovernment was funded by the World Bank.
Our network of contacts in each region, where we have worked over much of the past twenty years doing a wide variety of diverse projects, also bring us introductions to new potential projects.
At that point we bring in our network or networks, consisting of subject matter experts, into each project as appropriate to meet the needs of the project. We are very excited about the data center project we are supporting for Palestine.
Pacific-Tier: It is exciting. So what is the future, what happens next for TTI?
Lynne Gallagher: We are actively engaged in Africa. We just started working on a project in Niger, looking at a small regional network that would connect many of the land-locked countries in North Africa with submarine (fiber optic cables) and gain high performance telecom access to the rest of the world. We are starting with Niger, and continuing with a link through Mali.
The future is getting these countries access to the submarine cables, building regional networks, and ultimately connecting West Africa with East Africa, and hopefully this will dramatically change the face of Africa.
Pacific-Tier: This is a wonderful story – thanks for the time!
Us “Baby Boomers” tend to believe we have accomplished a lot in the years ranging from our roots of hard rock, to the birth of basic internet technologies in the early 1970s. We started our generation with black and white television, 
experiencing everything from the assassination of President Kennedy to absorbing the wonders of man walking on the moon. We end our generation with 7.6 Terabit submarine cables connecting every continent with high speed many-to-many interactive communications and applications.
Communications for many during the early 1960s consisted of telephone party lines, daily newspapers, telegraph, and radio broadcast. While in high school (Richfield, Minnesota), some of us privileged students in more opulent areas had access to computer classes. This consisted of having a teletype terminal attached via low capacity lines to a central mainframe computer – using a service called “time sharing.” Very cool, and very exotic.
Competition for a place in computer class was aggressive, and only a few of us were able to indulge in the excitement of connecting to a machine someplace outside of our class. We didn’t waste a moment of time learning some rudimentary programming routines, and were considered very strange by a majority of students in school, who either did not make the grade for computer class, or simply did not care.
Generation Z
In an opulent city like Richfield, the only real way to communicate with other students or people outside of our community was through the “exchange student” program. One or two students from a different country, such as Germany or Japan would live with a local family, and attend school in our city. This was to both give those students a chance to expand their experiences, but also to give us a chance to interact with students from a different country or culture.
At that time a child in Mongolia would have still lived under Soviet rule, not allowed to travel beyond his or her local community without specific permission. Many children in the Mongolia countryside never made it out of their Aimag (similar to a province or state), and had no idea of the world beyond their own village.
In 1994 Sprint China was asked to support an Internet project in Mongolia, sponsored by several international agencies. Tough job, and working with visionaries such as Dr. Enkhbat Dangaasuren and the late Narantsetseg Baljin, Magicnet Mongolia started delivering basic internet services to the public, with a whopping 64Kbps satellite connection to Stockton, California.
Today, almost any child, even in remote parts of places such as Mongolia, has nearly the same level of network access a child in Rolling Hills, California enjoys. It is normal for a 7 year old Mongolian child living in Ulaanbaatar to have an online chat with others in Mongolia, Germany, the US, or other country. It is normal for the child to use an application such as Skype to call a friend living in Japan or Canada, and it is expected to be available to them 24 hours a day.
Some governments haven’t had the means or desire to fully embrace educational or social globalization, however even the most restrictive national policies are eroding in favor of enlightening their new generations.
You can hardly find a Generation Z (born after 1990) person who does not have their own PDA or smart phone, and maintaining a Facebook page offers no more challenge than putting a paper book cover on a text book presented a baby Boomer.
Technology Diffusion and the Future
If the generation born between 1945 and 1955 could put a man on the moon, invent Internet, Ethernet, and other digital technologies – with a background that did not include television, mobile phones, digital computers, or anything beyond a slide rule, what might we expect from Gen Z babies?
With Hex-core CPUs ready to find their way into laptop computers, SSDs making storage an anecdote, and ubiquitous network access a utility, what is a mind that grew up as a Gen Z baby capable of accomplishing? If your child has a problem with homework and needs help, and simply states “I’ll just ask my buddy in Nairobi, she is really good at physics,” what does it mean for further socio-economic globalization?
Technology Diffusion in Generation Z
Diffusion is the random movement of atoms, molecules, or ions from one site in a medium to another, resulting in complete mixing (Encarta, 1999).
Diffusion of technology in our context has two separate meanings. The first is through education, and the “absorption” of technology into the mental DNA of young people. The second meaning is the mixing of people, cultures, languages, and ideas into young people’s identities at a rate faster than Chingiss (Genghis) Khan absorbed most of Asia.
Each generation from the start of the industrial age till now has focused their efforts on exploiting natural resources, improving their quality of life, developing really scary weapons, and leading the world to the brink of annihilation – both from war and/or environmental disaster.
It is my belief Generation Z now has made a huge leap in available intellectual tools, well diffused into their intellectual DNA, to start unraveling the damage our generations have done, and start using this powerful supermarket of technology to innovate at a rate far outpacing anything in history. They will innovate, and discover things in our world and universe that is far beyond an old baby boomer’s ability to comprehend.
What baby boomers can comprehend is that during the twilight of our watch, we have an obligation to continue aggressively providing the tools needed by later generations to take our leadership “baton,” and see how fast the younger guys can actually run. Young people scattered around the world, capable of meeting each other online, and collaborating without the burden of geography, cultural, racial, religious, or social barriers.
And then us baby boomers can sit back and watch an old episode of Star Trek.
John Savageau, Long Beach
