Really Special People

I just had the most wonderful opportunity to spend 3 days with this year’s winners of the Caltech Resnick Sustainability Institute Resonate Award.  These are people who have developed very innovative solutions to some of the biggest problems in sustainability.  If you want to read about the work of this year’s winners, check out the web site. 

I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist (fortunately) to know that these people are very special.  They are among the best in their fields in the world.  However, I had the chance to chat one on one with some of these wonderful scientists and discovered how special they are – beyond finding solutions to some of the world’s critical environmental issues:

At the end of the official several days together, three of us joined up for a hike in the Aspen area.  How fun!  And there is no better way to learn about what people are really like. Keeping us on the right trail without getting lost was Delia Milliron, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.  Delia has (with her team) developed smart windows that can dramatically impact energy use in buildings.  She is tremendously articulate:  she can explain what she is doing at the scientific level, of course; more importantly, she can convey to people like me what she is doing, why it’s important, and its broad potential. Delia combines both the vision of a great innovator and the practical insights of a wonderful entrepreneur (a company has been formed based on these breakthroughs).  Besides that, she loves to hike, play poker, and probably lots of other things.  And mostly, she is a lovely person.

Our other hiking partner was Arshe Said.  Arshe is part of the team lead by Finland’s Aalta University Prof. Mika Järvinen (who is the Resonate Award Recipient) to develop a very significant way to use CO2 waste from industrial processes.  This is an often overlooked problem and the prospect of fixing it is very exciting.  But Arshe’s story goes well beyond working on this contribution.  He is originally from Somalia and arrived in Finland more than twenty years ago.  Recognizing that Somalians all over the world are facing various kinds of challenges, he is working in Finland and elsewhere to try to alleviate them.  Moreover, his goal in the next few years is to also spend time in Somalia and get involved in political movements that are trying to establish democracy in the country.  Arshe is such a nice man, and listening to him about the complexities facing Somalia was fascinating. (Besides, though Arshe is very fit, this was his first hike ever!)

At dinner one evening, I had the chance to spend time with Dr. Joel Dawson, an electrical engineer who until recently was a professor at MIT.  He is now the CTO and founder of ETA Devices.  Joel is terrific dinner company.  He not only explained to me (very patiently in his deep bass voice) what his company is doing, but he has a vision and understanding of business that I haven’t often seen in scientists.  He didn’t drown me with technology, but explained simply and with great examples what his company’s approach could mean to mobile devices, cell networks, and sustainability.  He shared that if Eta Devices’ chips are used in all base stations of around the world, the energy savings could equal the same as if we could take 7 million cars off the roads.  That’s meaningful.  Beyond our “shop talk”, Joel was very comfortable sharing his upbringing, how he found electronics, and where he thinks this all can go. 

Finally, at the beginning of the three days together, I asked Yi Cui, a Stanford professor and multi-time entrepreneur, how he got to where he is today.  The short version of his story is that he came from a small town in China and his parents had the prescience to move the family to a larger town for broader exposure.  He went to one of China’s premier technical universities and then came to the U.S.  These kinds of stories always amaze me.  But what is really amazing about Yi Cui is that, while listening to him, I realized that his is the embodiment of a “fertile” mind; this is a man with so many ideas.  He doesn’t seem to be constrained by uncertainty, doubt, or worry; he actually makes many of them happen.  By all accounts he is a brilliant scientist, but even without needing to discuss the science with me (since I wouldn’t understand most of it), it was clear that this man is changing the world.

The whole experience was so enriching.  These terrific people hold the future in their hands.  That’s a good thing.

(P.S.  The fifth winner is a lovely Japanese man.  Unfortunately, language constraints kept us from meaningful dialog.)

2015 Caltech Resnick Sustainability Institute Resonate Award Winners

  (From Left:  Neil Fromer, Executive Director, Resnick Sustainability Institute, Tsutomu Ioroi , Joel Dawson, Delia Milliron, Prof. Harry Atwater, Caltech, Yi Cui, Mika Järvinen, Arshe Said)

A Sad Day for Progress

Today, a wonderful client of ours, PolyFuel, Inc., announced that it is ceasing operations. This is a refrain we have all heard too often these days and it is certainly tough on the people involved with the company. We are thinking of them.

But, with this news, there is a greater concern to be focused on as well: PolyFuel has been a leader in developing important next generation fuel cell technology. With this shut down, as a result of the poor economy, the research and development that has happened to date will just go fallow.

This is a shocking outcome. While PolyFuel had forces working against it and it didn't get to commercialization soon enough to survive, the most distressing thing is that all of the work it has done will essentially be lost. And we are not talking about a company in the entertainment space or other market where progress may mean more fun but . . .

And, sadly, PolyFuel is not the only company with truly meaningful development that is being shut down as a result of the economy. I have spoken with a number of my friends who invest in life science venture capital and they each have stories to tell about important companies on the road to commercializing life-saving treatments that have had to shut down. This is bad.

I don't really know the solution to this tremendous problem. But it seems somehow we need to find a way to support companies that are just at the wrong stage of the cycle during this economic downturn.

What's good for GM. . .

Let me just be clear. As a former owner of an EV1 electric car that GM subsequently took back and destroyed, I am not a fan of GM. They have made their bed.

That said, GM (along with the other US auto companies) is currently doing some PR that we can all take a lesson from. In short, because they are trying to convince Congress that their futures are worth betting on, the auto companies are currently very proactively showcasing their advanced technology. For the first time, reporters are seeing a lot of auto advancements that are upcoming in ways they have never been allowed to before.

Obviously, these are emergency measures and who knows if these guys will be proactive technology leaders when their lives don't depend on it. But, here's the lesson:

Don't wait till you are fighting for your survival to showcase your breakthroughs and leadership. It should be an integral part of your ongoing positioning strategy and will have broad benefits in the near, medium and long term.

Those of us with a heritage of working with technology start up companies know that technology is often one of the great differentiators for a young company with very tight resources. This means that initially it captures attention of customers, partners, and influencers, over the mid- and long-term it helps you move forward with customers and partners who need to look to tomorrow, and in all cases, when used right, has the potential to lower the cost of capital.

Of course, technology won't get you all the way over the line. You have to show that the technology leads to advantages that customers want. But it's a really powerful tool.

And by the way, I would contend that in this current economic environment it is MORE important today than in the past few years when "the rising tide lifted (almost) all boats".

Could 2008 be the Year to Return to Substance?

I looked around as New Years Day approached and wondered what to say about trends to expect in 2008. It didn't make sense, after all, to list the same 10 things that everyone else has written about. So, though it may be indulging in a little wishful thinking: Could 2008 be the year that we see a return to substance in technology communications?

What could possibly be the case for this return to substance this year:

-The "cleantech" hype curve has peaked: Lots of people -- no longer just us at Roeder-Johnson -- have started talking about the fact that we have now passed the top of the "hype curve" relating to "cleantech". This means that a "cleantech" company can no longer get attention just because of its mere existence. It actually has to have something special (and by the way, the bar is even a bit higher than that). So could this trend demanding substance leak over to other areas of technology?

-"It's the economy, stupid" (please don't take offense, this is just quoting someone else): You don't need us to tell you that the U.S. economy is under pressure. The gleeful exuberance that any new idea can be successful is likely to be brought into question. And new companies and ideas are going to have to prove themselves quickly in this environment.

-"How do you spell relief: GigaOm": In an earlier post, I cited Om Malik's new, added focus on infrastructure, the underpinnings of technology, and their implications. While maybe this is smoking something, Om's decision to do this is also a sign that substance matters as we move into the new year.

There are undoubtedly more arguments in favor of the hope that we are moving toward substance in technology communications.

But when I shared this idea of a return to substance with my partner, he scoffed. Not because of some clear trend in technology or the economy. He simply said: "How can 2008 be a return to substance? It's a Presidential election year."

I fear my partner might be right -- but maybe we can use his point to build the case for a return to substance: as a response to the fluff and puffery of presidential politics, we will see technology demand more substance and not just hype.

Well, we can always hope. . .

Don't Look in a Cookbook to Launch a Start-Up

A friend asked me recently to help him think through the positioning and launch of his alternative energy-related company. He specifically asked how such a launch would be different from a launch of a company in the "IT" space.

I had an immediate reaction to this question: the launch of every company must be based on the specific assets of the company -- not the rules in a cookbook for launches. What does this mean for such a company in the alternative energy space? Like any other significant start up, the ultimate questions that need to be answered for the launch are:

• What are the key sustaining (unique) assets of the company?
  
• What is the long term communications goal of the company?
• What is the right communications architecture for the company to achieve this goal?
• How should the company be positioned?
  
• What is the right starting point, based on today's perceptual environment?

There is an inherent perspective that underlies this view of communications: think about communications as a long-term tool.

What might this mean for my friend's company?

• There's a lot of hype around alternative energy today. While this could be a near-term tactical asset, being engulfed by this hype is not the end in itself (as a matter of fact, we would contend that it's critical not to be too tightly coupled to it: "what goes up must come down").
• A lot of companies in this sector are based on significant scientific breakthroughs. Most likely, a long-term sustainable position will be based on fundamental acceptance by the scientists who may often be called upon (at least in the early days) to vet the breakthrough.
• As in any new market, the odds are good that the company's business model will evolve over time. This means that the long-term communications architecture should be based on a foundation which will survive changes in the business model. That is, why is this company significant, regardless of its current revenue sources.
• We believe that communications is best used to create leadership in the market. What are the activities that will enable this company to lead and define its market -- rather than to follow it?
• All of the tactics of communications should be used to reinforce this leadership. If any "events" go by and they are not leveraged, that's ashame.
• This way of looking at communications can sometimes demand forward-thinking on the part of the management of the company. For example, eschewing short-term hype in favor of long-term leadership can be a hard choice to make.
• The company management needs to commit to helping the entire company and its stakeholders to understand the communications goals and how to support them best.

We are sure there will be lots of customized activities for the launch my friend's alternative energy company; its success will be based on clearly understanding its uniqueness and importance and launching a program that helps the market understand this over time.