Gold Systems

The Internet of Things, and my new thing

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My last blog post was November, 2013.  A lot has happened since then, and that’s a major understatement.  Since then we shut down Gold Systems – I’m not ready to tell that story, or even to say how hard it was to write that just now.  That’s for another time when I’m ready to tell the story.  But rather than just be quiet until then, let me tell you what’s going on right now.

My good friend Steve gave me a Raspberry Pi in December, and with the help of my other good friend Marty, I got lost in connecting my little computer to the world and learning to write code again.  It was thrilling to be back to my roots, working with Linux and actually learning how to connect sensors of all types to my little computer.  It was refreshing to not be working in a Microsoft world, and I formatted the disk of my last PC and loaded Redhat Linux on it.  (My wife just pointed out that she helped.  She knows Linux better than I ever will and I'm grateful to have in-house tech support.)  I had been making the move to Apple for some time, but for development I’m really enjoying playing with Linux.  And it hasn’t crashed once.

In March I had a chance to go to Adelaide and Sydney Australia to be a mentor at the ANZ Innovyz START technology accelerator.  This was my second trip to work with Janna Mathews and the great group of people in Australia, and it was just what I needed to get me thinking about what’s next for me.

While there I spent time with entrepreneurs who are working on 3D printing applications, Internet of Things projects, a game studio and several working to help educate people in entrepreneurship, technology and more.  Between the Raspberry Pi, what I learned in Australia, and my fascination with computers that connect, sense and interact with the world, I realized that my next thing would be very different than what I was doing at Gold Systems.

6kites-logo-web

The Boulder entrepreneur community is a wonderful group of careing individuals and many have contacted me and spent time with me.  I am very grateful to you all, and I realize I am just getting started on reconnecting.  In particular, Herb Morreale, an old friend and the CEO of 6kites, spent time with me and we had many great conversations about entrepreneurship and what opportunities exist today.  We realized we both believed that what’s being called “The Internet of Things” could in fact be “The Next Big Thing.”  Herb invited me to spend time at 6kites and to help set up the 6kites Labs, so that I could research and experiment with new technologies while keeping an eye open for how this could be a new market for 6kites.  I am having a great time looking at the technology and opportunites, and I'll be doing regular blog posts now about what I'm finding.  If you are an entrepreneur involved with IoT, I'd love to hear from you.  

I just got back to Boulder from a trip back to Kentucky where I attended a board meeting for the International Bluegrass Music Museum.  We’re building a new museum as we’ve outgrown the old one, and I’m helping the board to look at new ways to display the artifacts and engage people with the music, and that even ties in a bit with the work I’m doing with Herb and 6kites.  Museums have moved beyond static displays and the experience is changing rapidly.  It’s an exciting and busy time for me even though I don’t really have “a job” at the moment.  I’m looking forward to seeing where the 6kites project goes and figuring out what I want to do next.  Perhaps something that ties together my love of music, technology, the Internet of Things and flying . . .

 Stay tuned, there's more to come . . .

 

Interviewed on W3W3.com

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“W3W3

Last week Larry Nelson, co-founder of W3W3.com made the trip up to Boulder to catch up and do a podcast interview with me.  If you are in the entrepreneural community in Colorado, you've probably met Larry and his co-founder Pat.  Larry is the guy in the sharp looking suit at every event taking photos of everyone.  His joke is that the photos go up on the website for free, but you have to pay to get them removed.

I'm fascinated by the work that Larry and Pat have done, because he has documented so many companies in Colorado and beyond.  I keep telling him someone needs to interview him so he can tell his story, and while he was here, I created the world's shortest podcast. 

Larry Nelson Short Podcast

To listen to the interview that Larry did with me where we talked about Gold Systems' new Vonetix 7 Voice product, click here.  Be sure and check out http://www.w3w3.com including the Entrepreneurs, Software and Venture Capital Channels.  If you would like to get your company name in front of business leaders from Colorado and beyond, ask Larry about sponsoring on of these channels.

 

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Photo 5 Wow.  Twenty years ago today, Jim Fudge and I received the incorporation papers for Gold Systems.  But that's not quite the beginning of the story . . .

The summer before, Jim and I spent the day together at the Boulder Kinectics Race.  I tell you that because that was actually the day we decided to start the company.  We spent the day in the hot sun, eating junk food, and watching crazy people have fun.  That evening we talked about why we weren't having more fun.  The reason was that we had to go back to work on Monday at a big company, and Jim uttered the words that changed everything – "Let's start a company."

We started getting together after work to talk about it.  For me, I realized it was really going to happen when I told Jim that I had found a used AT&T 3B2 computer for sale on Netnews that we could use as our development machine.  He whipped out his check book, signed a blank check and handed it to me saying, "do it."  I was blown away, and it was the first of many selfless acts by Jim and many, many other people who helped to get Gold Systems to this anniversary.  (We didn't buy that machine, and I still have that blank check . . .)

This anniversary is about Gold Systems, and the people who've helped make it work.  Thank you all, I am truly grateful to have been a small part of this.

 Photo 1

The original founders, left to right:  David Appell, Terry Gold, Jim Fudge, Kevin Obenchain.  Not pictured, but also there from the early days was Kathy Bishop.  Thank you all for helping us get started!  Update:  Check out David's blog post.  Thank you David!

Photo 2 

Jim drew up the first business card design.  Note the email address.  The "at sign" had not been invented when we started Gold Systems.  The phone number was my home phone number at the time, which we still have as Gold Systems' main number. 

Photo 3 

At our open house, Vince Fresquez surprised us by having the company name put on the door.  Thank you Vince!

There are many more stories to tell, and many more people to thank.  Until then, please know that I appreciate everyone who has helped us to get to this day!

Terry

Lync User Summit 2011

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Gold Systems will be exhibiting at the 2011 Lync User Summit June 9th and 10th at the Westin Denver in Westminster, Colorado.  This is the second year of the summit and it is the place to be to learn more about Microsoft Lync.

The first summit in 2010 was focused on Office Communications Server and the talk then was all about the upcoming release of the next version of the software.  That software of course was Microsoft Lync and it is changing how we communicate.  Gold Systems has deployed Lync for many customers and our newest product, Vonetix 7 Voice, is one of the first new products to work with Lync by UC enabling IVR applications for both Microsoft Tellme in the cloud and Lync on the premises.

For more information, click here.

Also check out the Lync User Forum at http://lyncuserforum.com

Customer Satisfaction Software

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I took a vacation day Friday because after a very busy couple of months at work, I just needed some free time outside to clear my head, think, and to not do the day-to-day stuff.  I went for an easy run in the morning, took my wife out to lunch and then played music, worked on a few projects and just relaxed.  It was a very satisfying day.

The reason I've been so busy lately is that at Gold Systems our newest product, Vonetix 7, is starting to get a LOT of attention, both from customers and partners.  I've been traveling and doing demos, working with sales people on new opportunities, and spending a lot of time at my white-board-wall sketching out how all the pieces fit together.   The product is already deployed at some very, very large enterprises and is continuing to evolve.  It's different from anything in use today, though it is replacing old systems and architectures that have been in place for a long time.  My challenge has been to describe what the product is as simply as possible.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 6:00 AM, wide awake, with the words "Customer Satisfaction Software" rolling around in my head.   I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I got up and decided to write it down.

My career has been about helping people communicate, and generally it has been about helping large companies or government organizations communicate with their customers.  In the beginning it was people calling companies on the telephone, and I remember when "improving customer service" meant eliminating busy signals and answering calls twenty-four hours a day.  It meant reducing the amount of  time a customer had to spend listing to bad music while being told over and over again how important they were. 

Call Centers became Contact Centers as they started handling emails and then web chats.  TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms)  were everywhere – ACD, IVR, CRM, SEO, PBX, TXT, ICR.  Some of the technology worked together, but most didn't, and what started out as a customer service initiative became an exercise in customer annoyance. 

As I woke up this morning the thought was running through my head that we DON'T need more customer contact software, or worse, customer management software, we need customer SATISFACTION software.  Even that's not quite right, because we are always going to need people in the equation, but it's a start.  Vonetix 7 is customer satisfaction software.  I like it!

Gold Systems Vonetix Interview on Microsoft Channel 9

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A few weeks ago I was in Redmond and did an interview with Larry Larsen at Microsoft's Channel 9. It was a lot of fun, and Larry and Kai made it so easy. Larry was interested in how Gold Systems had used Microsoft developer tools and the Microsoft Lync platform to build our new Vonetix 7 Voice product, and he did a great job of capturing the kinds of applications we can build, as well as the tool and platform underneath the applications.

I'm amazed to see that as I write this, the interview has had over 12,000 views and it just went up on four days ago! Wow, thank you Larry, Kai, Albert and everyone else at Microsoft for giving me this opportunity to talk about Gold Systems and our newest product!

For more information on Microsoft Lync, go to http://www.microsoft.com/lync

Lync in real life

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There are a lot of case studies about how people might use Microsoft Lync, but here is a real story of how it made my life easier just this morning.

I was working on a demo this morning and needed some help from IT.  Normally I would open a ticket by sending an email to our help desk, but in this case I knew that Ned was the guy who could help me.  I could see by his status in Lync that he was available, so I IM'd him.

Available 

The following IM conversation occurred:

——————-

Terry Gold [10:25 AM]:

Hi Ned – I'm starting to work on a new demo, similar to the Personal Attendant, but this time it will be a tech support line demo.  Is it OK if I add it to the web server on gsi-sc?

Ned [10:25 AM]:

Sure, no problem

Terry Gold [10:26 AM]:

OK, thanks.  Hopefully this will be easy.  🙂

Terry Gold [10:58 AM]:

Hi Ned, we'll I'm stuck adding the application to the IIS server.  Do you have a minute to point me in the right direction?

Ned  [10:58 AM]:

Sure

Terry Gold [10:58 AM]:

want to go to voice?

Ned  [10:59 AM]:

Sure

——————-

At the beginning of the IM above, I told Ned that I was working on a new demo and I got his permission to add the new application to the server.  Thirty-two minutes later I ran into trouble.  At 10:58, I went back to the same IM window and asked if he could help.  Ned had been off doing something else, but he had the context of our earlier conversation in front of him.  It turns out that Ned was working from home today, but it didn't matter, we connected as if he was just down the hall.

I thought it would be easier to tell Ned what I had tried rather than typing it into the IM window, so I asked him if he wanted to go to voice.  He said yes, and I clicked the Call button, highlighted in yellow in this clip of the Lync communicator.

Call 

A moment later we were talking, all without looking up or dialing any numbers.  Lync just found him and connected our conversation and it was much better than cell phone quality.  Ned didn't have to tell me his home phone number or even say that he wasn't in the office.  It just worked.

I told Ned what I had tried, and what wasn't working for me with the demo, and he decided he wanted to see what I was seeing so he asked if I could share my desktop.  I clicked the Share button, and gave him a view of my first screen (I have two – I could have also just allowed him to see a single application or both screens.)

Share 

Ned could see my desktop, but I wanted him to be able to control it, so I offered him control and he accepted with two button clicks.  Then I sat back and watched him explore what I had done.  He quickly found the problem, fixed it and we disconnected.

Connected 
You can see that we connected at 10:59 and disconnected at 11:13.  It really didn't even take 14 minutes to connect, give him control and then have him fix the problem, because we spent some time talking about the weekend and how cool it was that Lync made this so painless.  Ned told me this scenario happens about five times a day where someone IMs him, he goes to voice, and then they share their desktop and he solves their problem.

Here's the point of Unified Communications – I could have IM'd him with any IM client.  Then I could have picked up the phone and called his home number.  Then we could have used some desktop sharing application.  But with Lync, it is all right there and it works with just a couple of clicks.  THAT is Unified Communications.

We're a small company, so multiply this scenario about 100 or 1,000 and the savings really add up for a large enterprise.  And that's just what you get when you install the basic infrastructure.  At Gold Systems we're starting to build applications on top of Lync that are really cool.  And I'll show that to you as soon as I get my demo done. 

 

 

I’m hiring a VP of Engineering

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(2/22/2010 – we've hired our new VP of Engineering and he started this morning.  Thanks to everyone who emailed or helped in the search.  I do appreciate it!  — Terry)

How would you like to start the new year with a new job?  I'm looking for a VP of Engineering to join us at Gold Systems. Our expectations are high, because we don't trust our people to just anyone who walks through the door.  It really does start with people – we have a great group of people and the new VP has to understand that we have to treat them right if we expect them to treat our customers right.  Customers expect us to deliver the very best technology and software that always works and is easy to use.  (And when it doesn't work, they expect us to fix it fast, whether it ends up being our bug or theirs.)  They also expect us to deliver on time and to fit in to their way of building critical applications. 

I'm looking for someone who has written code and met deadlines, and who understands that software is some part art and some part science.  You should be comfortable sitting down with a couple of smart engineers and brainstorming with them about how to solve a problem.  And you have to be humble enough to understand you probably aren't the best coder in the group, but that it's your job to look out for and then find more of the best engineers.  You'll have some customer contact too, so you've got to be able to switch from low-level techie talk to high-level overviews that reassures the customer that they are in good hands.  (Many of our customers are very, very technical, so you can't be too quick to assume who knows what.)

Having a bit of the entrepreneur in you wouldn't hurt either, because everyone at Gold Systems is involved in the business and everyone on the leadership team is a part of making it work.  It's OK if you don't understand how to read an income statement, we can teach you that, but you do have to want to understand the entire system at some level, not just the software development piece.

Gold Systems is known in the industry for IVR and speech recognition applications, but our market is expanding as we do more Unified Communications.  The last time I looked we had 11 of the Fortune 20 as customers.  We were one of the first companies to partner with Microsoft on UC deployments and now we're one of the first to build UC applications.  One of your jobs will be to think about the kinds of applications we can create for customers and to help the engineering team expand their capabilities.  You're probably going to need a white board wall in your office – and yes, everyone at Gold Systems still gets their own office.  No cube farms here.

If you think you have the right mix of engineering abilities and leadership skills, and you believe that a company can have a good culture and still do well as a business, then email me your resume.  If you do email me, mention this blog post and I'll respond and let you know that I received it.  Thanks!

Terry (tgold@goldsys.com)

(For everyone who knows Matt, he's decided to step back into a pure technical role.  He's done a great job of leading the team through some tough economic times and he's ready to let someone else take it on.)

Interview with W3W3 about Conference Server

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Last week Larry Nelson from w3w3 dropped by the office to interview me about Gold Systems' new Conference Server product that's based on the Microsoft Office Communications Server.  We talked about the new product, but I tried to not turn it into a commercial and spent a fair amount of time talking about what we're doing to make it easier for companies to say "yes" to new purchases.  Now more than ever as entrepreneurs we've got to take the risk out of purchases.  In the interview I listed a few specific things to do and talked about how the new product was designed to be "easy to buy."

I can't seem to find a permalink at w3w3.com, but the interview is on the page for August 2009 and shouldn't be too hard to find.  There is a picture of me in front of my bookcase and speech-enabled crank phone.  By the way, has anyone ever seen Larry without a camera?  He likes to joke that one source of revenue for w3w3 is people paying to have their pictures removed, but I'd have to say he's a pretty good photographer.

You can also read the w3w3 blog at http://w3w3.blogs.com/

Thanks Larry, it's always fun to talk to you!

Hiring sales managers and Channel manager

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Gold Systems is looking hire a couple of Regional Sales Managers and a Channel Manager.

The first Regional Sales Manager position will be on the West Coast – we're flexible about exactly where you live, but you have to be a great hunter-sales person AND fit our values and culture.  One or the other isn't enough, but if you are the right person I think we have a good opportunity for you.  Check out the Gold Systems website at www.goldsys.com to get an idea of what we do, and this link http://www.goldsys.com/about/careers/ to read about the jobs. 

The Regional Sales Manager job description is posted now, and the Channel Manager position should be posted next week.  The Channel Manager position is heavy on customer/partner relations and technical ability, and is NOT a pure sales position.  This position will be in the Redmond, Washington area. 

Email me directly and tell me you read about this on my blog and I'll send your email and resume right to our VP of Sales.  No recruiters, please.  Thanks!  — Terry

Update #1

Here is a link to a page about Gold Systems, and here is the link to the Channel Manager position and the Regional Sales Manager position.

Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 Virtual Launch event today

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OCS 2007 Virtual Launch Microsoft is officially launching Office Communications Server 2007 R2 today.  If you want to attend the virtual launch, go here and register.  Be sure and stop by the Gold Systems booth.  We won't be able to give you the chocolate gold coins that we usually have at trade shows, but hey, you didn't have to fly half-way across the country either, right?  With travel budgets being slashed, I'm really curious to see how a virtual launch works for people.  While I was writing this, the launch officially opened.

A big part of the OCS experience is in communicating better with people when you can't just sit down face to face.  I'm getting more done with less hassles, and the company is saving money.

I wrote about the savings that we're actually experiencing with the new release on the Gold Systems blog - it's over $3,000 a month, and I expect that to go to maybe $6,000 a month once we disconnect our old voice T1s and POTs lines.  And we're a small company – our customers will save a lot more.

I see the press releases are starting to hit – our good partner Polycom just mentioned us in one of their press releases.

Update #1:  I just heard that Gold Systems was mentioned in the keynote address.  Like most trade shows, I was unable to attend the keynote, but with this show, I'll be able to go back and watch it later.

Update #2:  Here's the link to the post I wrote on the Gold Systems blog about our actual cost savings.

Update #3:  Here's our own press release in the wild.

Update #4:  Mitchell Ashley just did an update post on his Network World blog about the R2 release and what this means for the enterprise.