FJ Car Computer give-away

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The TMC Internet and Telephony Conference and Expo is giving away a ‘Tricked Out’ FJ Cruiser.  No, it’s not mine but I’d like to compare notes with whoever wins it or to hear from anyone who sees it.  The caption says it is the "ultimate connected car of the future" with Bluetooth, GPS, satellite, WiFi, DVD and more.

Toyota My sister sent me another photo of a Blue FJ that had a dog ramp.  I’d like to credit the photo, but I couldn’t find an online reference to the company.

My FJ remains off-line I’m afraid, but progress is being made and I hope to have it back on-line yet this month with a much faster processor and some new capabilites.

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Great service from MP3Car.com!

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As I reported earlier, the FJ Car Computer died last week – but – I’m excited to say that I just received a call from the CEO of MP3car.com and he’s offered to help get me back in service, perhaps with an even more powerful computer.  I’m impressed that the CEO would call me this late on a Friday night, and I had a great time geeking out talking about car computers.  That’s customer service!

My first published Yodio Card

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Last year I was introduced to David Jennings, the founder of a new startup company.  David and I hit it off, and his company, Yodio, soon became a customer of Gold Systems.  So what’s a Yodio?  Think of it as a photo gallery that you can call from your mobile phone and narrate your own descriptions of your trip, your party, your photograph – whatever you want.

I should say that David hasn’t yet deployed the nice speech recognition system that we built for him to the public, so if you try Yodio out, you are getting the original prototype touch-tone system.  Sorry about that, but I can’t wait to write about it.

Once you’ve recorded a Yodio, you can email it, post it to a blog or post it to their marketplace where someone might even pay you for it.

Here’s my first published Yodio based on a photograph I took this winter.  Click on the "yo" button to view and "hear" my photograph.  (If you are reading this from an RSS reader, just go to my blog to see the photograpy and to play the Yodio Card.)

Yo

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Car computer update

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I’m taking a little vacation and so I’m on a road trip, though I’m staying connected.  Yesterday was a great day of driving.  Before leaving, I used my Zune Pass software on my car computer to download a couple of new albums and so I listened to music most of the way to my first stop.  I had wireless Internet almost continuously, so when I stopped at rest areas I was able to check email and IM people.  (I’ll write more about that later.)

Unfortunately, the car computer died last night.  It’s had a hardware problem for about a month but whatever was ailing it became terminal last night I think.  So . . . no more webcam updates for awhile.  I’m making this post the old-fashioned way – from a laptop at a Starbucks.  I’m hoping the company that I bought the computer from can help me out with my problem.  They’ve been great so far and this problem has not even made me think about going back to a dumb car radio.

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Car computer as a photography platform

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Today I needed to take a quick photograph outside for an email I was sending to a customer.

Syncing_to_the_networkI used my 35mm digital camera and as soon as I was done, I popped the Compact Flash Micro Drive into the media reader in the FJ’s glove compartment.  When I’m not using it as a media reader, it doubles as a glove box light with this nice blue glow radiating from it.

Using my wireless keyboard, I drug the photos into a folder on the FJ’s computer that automatically syncs with my other computers at home and at work via the EVDO/WiFi connection.

(Note:  All of this was done while the FJ was safely parked!)

By the time I got back to my office, the photos were waiting for me on my laptop.  I did a quick resize of the photo to fit it in the email and a few minutes later, it was off to the customer.

Terry_with_big_daddyBen, thanks so much for letting me take a photo of "Big Daddy!"  You’ve done an AMAZING JOB restoring this beautiful Ford!  I won’t reveal what’s under the hood until you’re ready.

Resources for Entrepreneurs

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Tonight is the TechStars reception where a bunch of local entrepreneurs are going to meet a bunch of (for the most part) brand new entrepreneurs.  You can read more at TechStars.org or David Cohen’s description of the organization at Coloradostartups.com.

When Jim and I started Gold Systems, I think we knew approximately Zero entrepreneurs.  I had email and access to Usenet, but there was no web, so information about starting a company came from the library or a kind soul willing to share their hard-earned lessons.  My big break came when I landed on a prospect list for the Young Entrepreneurs Organization.  Brad Feld and Vern Harnish had just moved to Boulder and they wanted to start a Colorado Chapter and lucky for me I opened the door when opportunity knocked.

Vern and Brad both spend a lot of time helping entrepreneurs, but it is mind-boggling how much information is available to this new batch of entrepreneurs just from their web browser.  A reader recently sent me a link to an article he wrote on raising angel money at businessfund.com.  Good stuff, and he has a lot to say about VoIP (Voice over IP) which I found interesting on his other blog, VoIPLowDown.com.

Now the problem is sorting through all the information and figuring out what is good and what isn’t so good.  Another local company, Lijit, has come up with a solution.  I’ve replaced my generic search box on my blog, with a Wijit from Lijit.  It looks like a typical search box, except that it doesn’t just search the entire web, it starts with only the blogs that I subscribe to myself.  If you type in "Raising Angel Money" into my Lijit Wijit like so:

Lijit_box  You’ll first get the results from terrygold.com where I’ve mentioned "Raising Angel Money" but at the bottom of the page, you’ll also have the option of searching other sources that I would recommend (since I read them myself).  In this case it returns four other places to look so you don’t have to wade through all the "get rich quick" ads that a typical search engine might return.  Unfortunately it misses some great sources that don’t have RSS feeds, such as the Kauffman Foundation, BillPayne.com and JimCollins.com.  (Hey Todd, how about it?)  I hope these new entrepreneurs appreciate just how nice it is to have all this information at their fingertips!

UPDATE 1:  Todd Vernon, the CEO of Lijit, just left the comment below less than an hour after I mentioned his company.  I have to ask – do YOU know what people are saying about your company as well as Todd seems to know?  There are great tools that are available today for new entrepreneurs.  Someone should package them up into a "CEO Dashboard" – but don’t sell them to MY competitors please!

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Todd says, "Thanks for the nice writeup. We gotcha covered on the alternate
URL’s to search. First, as you know if they are listed on your site
(like a blog roll) we will find those all by ourselves and include
them.

But in case they are not on there just goto the "My Network" tab
within lijit. The bottom item on the list is "Add URL / RSS / OPML
feed". Add the url to the site and you got it!"

Thanks Todd!  I’ll add a few right now.

 

The gethuman standard

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There are amazing things happening in the world of communications, which is one reason I haven’t had as much time to devote to my blog as I’d like.  Technology is speeding ahead, sometimes to our frustration, but at the same time I can see the cost of communications continuing to drop and the ease and convenience continuing to improve.  Not all of these advances involve technology though.  One initiative is something called the gethuman standard.

The gethuman standard started with a guy named Paul English who was frustrated and feeling like he was often trapped by automated telephone systems.  I’ve been in the business of building those systems for 16 years, and believe me I know they can be frustrating.  I also believe though that with good design they can be great.  What started as one guy trying to make a difference has turned into a much larger effort by individuals and corporations who have a simple belief – if you show to customers that you appreciate their business and you make it easy for them to reach you, they’ll buy more stuff.  (Those are my words by the way.)

I’ve been given permission to reproduce the standard here, but if you want to find out more just go to gethuman.com.  I don’t know of any system that completely implements the standard, but it’s something to strive for.  I doubt if any consumer would argue with any of the points in the standard.  Here it is – feel free to comment.  –terry

The gethuman standards have been designed with simplicity and directness as to eliminate ambiguity and enable testing and certification. There may be more than one way to accomplish each, but the result must be as follows:

  1. The caller must always be able to dial 0 or to say "operator" to queue for a human.
  2. An accurate estimated wait-time, based on call traffic statistics at the time of the call, should always be given when the caller arrives in the queue. A revised update should be provided periodically during hold time.
  3. Callers should never be asked to repeat any information (name, full account number, description of issue, etc.) provided to a human or an automated system during a call.
  4. When a human is not available, callers should be offered the option to be called back. If 24 hour service is not available, the caller should be able to leave a message, including a request for a call back the following business day. Gold Standard: Call back the caller at a time that they have specified.
  5. Speech applications should provide touch-tone (DTMF) fall-back.
  6. Callers should not be forced to listen to long/verbose prompts.
  7. Callers should be able to interrupt prompts (via dial-through for DTMF applications and/or via barge-in for speech applications) whenever doing so will enable the user to complete his task more efficiently.
  8. Do not disconnect for user errors, including when there are no perceived key presses (as the caller might be on a rotary phone); instead queue for a human operator and/or offer the choice for call-back.
  9. Default language should be based on consumer demographics for each organization. Primary language should be assumed with the option for the caller to change language. (i.e. English should generally be assumed for the US, with a specified key for Spanish.) Gold Standard: Remember the caller’s language preference for future calls. Gold Standard: Organizations should ideally support separate toll-free numbers for each individual language.
  10. All operators/representatives of the organization should be able to communicate clearly with the caller (i.e. accents should not hinder communication; representatives should have excellent diction and enunciation.)

A new car computer in the FJ?

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Marshall Harrison, the "Got Speech Guy", emailed me a link to a new car computer, called the HIPE PC that is on the market.  (Is HIPE PC a good name?  Sounds like Hype PC to me, but they have a great website that reminds me of Dell’s)

I have yet to get my Infill T3 working the way I want it to, and this one looks like it could be a better option.  It’s a lot more powerful – 2.33ghz processor, 2GB of memory, and a 200GB hard drive.  Plus it already runs Vista and it is built with more mainstream components than the Infill.  I also like that the computer is separate from the touch screen, so I could mount it in the back of the FJ, next to the Xbox Elite.

Raising Angel Money

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Def:  Angel – a person who invests money in start-up companies.  They may or may not help the entrepreneur ultimately succeed.  They are often seen as a stepping stone to raising money from venture capitalists.

I get a lot of questions from entrepreneurs asking me about whether they should raise angel money and how to do it.  While I’ve done it, I only did it once and I can hardly take credit for how well it went.  One of my angels was Bill Payne (still is in fact) and he has done the entrepreneur community a great service by writing an eBook about raising angel money.  He gave me a copy of the book and it is wonderful.  It’s called "The Definitive Guide to Raising Money from Angel Investors" but it could have the subtitle of "Things you need to know, but don’t even know to ask" or "What no one will tell you about the realities of raising money for your start-up."

I would recommend the eBook even if you don’t think you are going to raise money and that you buy this book because there is a lot in it that applies to any start up regardless of whether you raise money or bootstrap.

Bill was on my board of directors for many years and he invested in my company, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by how honestly he speaks in this book.  He once told me when we were looking for capital, "I know where you can get a million dollars with very little effort and no cost."  I fell for it – "Where?"  "Do a better job of collecting your accounts receivable!"

I can’t think of a question about raising money that I’ve heard that isn’t answered in Bill’s eBook.  Bill has been a very, very successful entrepreneur and angel investor.  You can buy his book for $37 at www.billpayne.com and save yourself a lot of time and energy trying to learn the lessons the hard way.  From now on when I get a question about raising angel money, I’m going to ask, "Have you read Bill Payne’s eBook?"

Disclaimer:  Bill was on my board, he’s still a stock holder in my company and he’s a very good friend.  That said, I wouldn’t recommend his book if I didn’t think it was worth many times the price.  I do not get a commission or anything else other than the satisfaction of knowing that maybe a few entrepreneurs won’t have to learn this stuff the hard way.  Don’t take my word for it though – Brad Feld has also recommended it.